Huck wrote: 08 Jul 2025, 10:06
Trump 8 - Patientia (Patience)
Italian text
Patientia hebbe Psiche ai casi soi,
E perho fu soccorsa nelli affanni,
E fatta Dea nel fin, che è exemplo a noi.
English translation
Psyche was patient in what happened to her,
And because of that she found help in her troubles,
And in the end she was made a Goddess, so that she can be an example for us.
Notes to Content Centered Person: Psyche from Amor and Psyche Ovid's Metamorphoses (5.28)
After Rainier’s article on Boiardo’s card game, there is another article by Carlo Tincani about Boiardo’s translations, incluing that of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, which Boiardo made in the 1470s at the request of Ercole d'Este, and based upon Giovanni Andrea Bussi’s 1469 edition.*
In brief Tincani says that Boiardo didn’t try to make a faithful translation. Instead, he retold the story in his own way, cutting and changing parts. He especially changed the ending. In Apuleius’s book, the main character Lucius becomes human again thanks to the goddess Isis. Boiardo removes this religious ending and replaces it with another ending from a version by Lucian, where there is no divine help or moral lesson.
Tincani explains that, unlike Agnolo Firenzuola, who also retold The Golden Ass but kept its spiritual meaning, Boiardo’s version is just a comic story. Lucius doesn’t learn or grow; he just goes back to his old ways.
This change, says Tincani, makes the story weaker. It leaves questions (like why Lucius isn’t scared to eat the rose again) and removes the deeper meaning of the transformation. Apuleius had made the story about personal change and religion. Boiardo's version undoes that.
Tincani lists the early printed editions:
"The first was completed:
in the noble city of Venice, on the 10th of September, 1508, by Nicolò d'Aristotele da Ferrara and Vincenzo de Polo da Venice, my companion, under the reign of the illustrious Prince Loredano.
"It is a small but very error-ridden volume of 198 pages (including the title page), dedicated by the printer, better known by the nickname Zoppino, to Don Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara. It is illustrated with thirty-one figures that accompany the text, and at the end features an image of Saint Nicholas."
A second edition was printed in 1534 by the same printer (Zoppino), titled Apulegio volgare diviso in undici libri, with added passages and more illustrations (64 woodcuts).
Another edition appeared in 1544, which was used as a basis for Daelli’s 1863 edition of Firenzuola's version.
Tincani says both early printings are full of errors, even worse than Boiardo’s other bad translations, like Herodotus.
Tincani questions Camerini’s praise of Boiardo’s translation for its fidelity and charm, arguing that when compared to Apuleius, those qualities quickly fade. The translation contains many dialectal words, which might seem like printing errors but are actually part of Boiardo's original style.
He gives an example from the start of the book. The narrator talks about being from Athens and learning Latin, but Boiardo misunderstands the Latin phrases and leaves out important details. Key expressions and metaphors are dropped, perhaps because Boiardo didn’t understand them, or because he found them impolite or overly detailed (such as anatomical or bodily references regarding the donkey’s exhaustion).
Despite this, some later passages retain a certain grace or liveliness, even if they lack fidelity and clarity.
His version of Psyche's tale (Books IV–VI), is also abbreviated, seemingly "just to get through it faster." Tincani finds this unfortunate because Apuleius’s lingering, ornamental style perfectly suits the story’s fairy-tale tone and the beauty of Psyche. While Boiardo has his own gentle charm in places, sometimes better than more polished later translations, he voluntarily omits many of the most beautiful and meaningful elements. Tincani acknowledging Boiardo’s unique voice, but regrets his many omissions.
*As well as depending heavily on Giovanni Andrea Bussi’s 1469 edition, Boiardo also drew upon Boccaccio.
What Tincani is possibly failing to take into account is that Boiardo knew his audience, and what omissions & changes he made was perhaps at least as much down to his ability to cater to their tastes, than to his linguistic short-comings. His translation was very popular at the Ferrara court, in a letter to Federico Gonzaga in 1481, Ercole d'Este wrote that he consulted it every day, and thus would only be able to send him a copy, and not the original. His translation was the source and inspiration for his cousin Niccolo' da Corregio's poem
Fabula Psiches et Cupidinis, dedicated to Isabella Gonzaga.
