The text in eight chapter-length books circulated widely in manuscript before its first printing, in Padua, in 1473. It was a late contribution to the "Matter of France"[4] that appealed to aristocratic audiences and their emulators among the upper bourgeoisie.[5] In a departure from Andrea's other known romances, there are no discernible French or Franco-Venetian sources for this narrative, which unfolds instead in the manner of atravel account. It draws for its details on a variety of predecessors, such as, for the oracularTrees of the Sun and the Moon, theAlexander romances, and—outside the romance tradition—onDante'sDivine Comedy, on the "natural history" found in medievalbestiaries, and on thelegend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick and the cosmology ofPtolemy.[6] Thequest involved is the rootless Guerrino's search for his lost parents. There is an undercutting element of deconstruction ofchivalrous ideals apparent from the very title:Guerrino derives fromguerra "war", butmeschino means, "shabby, paltry, ignoble";[7] the hero, cast away as a babe sold by pirates and rebaptized by his foster fatherMeschino, the "unlucky", rises through his heroic efforts to his proper status asGuerr[i]ero, "warrior". At the end of his adventures Guerrino discovers that he is the son of Milone, Duke of Durazzo, who was himself the son of aDuke of Burgundy, so that Guerrino is of royal blood.[8]
Guerrino is the soleprotagonist; other characters exist only insofar as they encounter him.
The far-ranging episodes create a fictional geography as seen from the Mediterranean world.[9] Guerrin's enchanted sojourn in thecave of the Sibyl bears parallels with the Germanic traditions ofTannhäuser.Prester John plays a role, offering Guerrin thesignoria over half of allIndia, following a battle. Most of the challenges Guerrin faces, however, are moral rather than military, even where the supernatural character of the site is explicitly non-Christian, such as the sanctuary of the Trees of the Sun and Moon. LikeDante, he was granted a view ofPurgatory, thePurgatorio di San Patrizio.
The work has had a checkered career under the scrutiny of the Church. Many modern editions reprint thebowdlerized Venetian edition of 1785,pubblicata con licenza dei superiori, which suppressed all mention of theSibilla Apenninica sited in agrotto onMonte Sibilla in theApennines,[10] substituting various Italian circumlocutions: Fata, Fatalcina, Ammaliatrice, Incantatrice, etc. An entire chapter, Book V, in which the Apennine Sibyl describes the otherclassical Sibyls, was completely suppressed. Astronomical references were also deleted by the censor. A critical text, based on FlorentineQuattrocento manuscripts, was edited by Paola Moreno, and published in 2005.[11]
The work was so popular that it was translated for a Spanish audience by Alonso Hernández Alemán, asGuarino Mezquino; by the time it was printed inCastilian in 1512 it had received 21 printings in Italian.[12] It had staying power, too: the literary Venetian courtesanTullia d'Aragona rendered it in epic verse, now "most chaste, all pure, all Christian," asIl Meschino, altramente detto il Guerrino (Venice 1560, 2nd ed. 1594), though the source she acknowledged to the reader was the perhaps more respectableAmadis de Gaula.[13] Mozart's librettistLorenzo da Ponte was inspired byIl Guerrin Meschino as an adolescent.[14] In the 19th and 20th centuries, episodes fromIl Guerrin Meschino have been adapted for the Italian stage, and even for children.[15]
Le Meravigliose avventure di Guerrin Meschino is a 1951 Italian film that takes its general tenor from the romance. Guerrin was adapted twice for the Italiancomic books calledfumetti, once in 1959 in 17 installments under the titleGuerino detto il Meschino and again running in theCorriere dei Piccoli.[16]Guerin Sportivo, an Italian sport and satirical weekly magazine founded in 1912 in Turin, takes its title from the protagonist.
^"He consciously eliminated most magical and fantastic elements from his narrations", notes Gloria Allaire, "Portrayal of Muslims in Andrea da Barberino'sGuerrino il Meschino", in John Victor Tolan, ed.,Medieval Christian perceptions of Islam, 2000:243f; "where giants, exotic beasts or even otherworldly journeys occur, he couches them in naturalistic descriptions with real-world textures and dimensions"; the episode in theSibyl's cave provides a notable exception.
^Tommaso Di Carpegna Falconieri, William McCuaig,The man who believed he was king of France: a true medieval tale (2008), p. 152: "...Andrea da Barberino'sIl Guerrin Meschino. This chivalric romance narrates the myriad adventures of young Guerrino as he wanders through West and East to discover who he is, living through incredible events and searching out oracles, sibyls and prophecies."
^Fiorella Giacalone,Il corpo e la roccia: storie e simboli nel culto di Santa Rita (1996), p. 148: "Il “Guerrin Meschino” di Andrea da Barberino (1410) testimonia della popolarità della leggenda nursina..."
^Guerrin is lightly tied to theCarolingian court through his lineage.
^Records of ownership in manuscripts have been traced among prestigious Florentine families, the Visdomini, Salviati, Viviani, Davanzati, Galli, Benci, Doni, Bardi, Nasi and Orlandini by Allaire2000:244.
^TheDiccionario de la Real Academia Española derivesmezquino from hispano-arabicmiskin: "falto de nobleza y espiritu. Desdichado, desgraciado e inféliz".
^F. Cardini, "Orizzonti geografici e orizzonti matici nel Guerrin Meschino"Temas medievales,7 (1997:11-36); for Andrea's geography based in readings ofPtolemy: Heinrich Hawickhorst, "Über die Geographie bei Andrea de' Magnabotti",Romanische Forschungen13 (1902:689-784)
^For her history: L. Paolucci,La Sibilla appenninica (Florence: Olschki) 1967.
^Paola Moreno,Il Guerrin Meschino. Edizione critica secondo l’antica vulgata fiorentina (Ed. Mauro Cursietti. Rome: Antenore, 2005).
^Nieves Baranda, ed.La Corónica del noble Cavallero Guarino Mezquino (Madrid, 1992); Nieves Baranda, "ElGuarino Mazquino [1527]",Edad de oro21 (Madrid, 2002); the Seville 1527 edition has received a reader's guide by Karla P. Amozurrutia Nava,Guarino Mezquino: guía de lectura (2008: "Origen y estructua", 7).
^Valeria Finucci, "Fonte and women's chivalric romances", in (Moderata Fonte) Finucci, ed.Floridoro: A Chivalric Romance, 2006:20f; the changes, significant of cultural drift towardspost-Tridentine reserve and correctness in the intervening century and a half, are examined in John C. McLucas, "Renaissance Carolingian: Tullia d'Aragona's Il Meschino, altramente detto il Guerrino",Olifant25.1 - 2 ( 2006:313 - 320)
^Da Ponte describes his voracious reading in the family library at Ceneda, in hisMemoirs. (Arthur Livingston, tr.)Memoirs of Lorenzo da Ponte, Part 1 (2000:7).
^In Rome, "a novelty for me was the children's theater, that Teatro dei Piccoli where day after day all winter at five the marionettes entertain an audience of little people with such delightful performances as "Guerin Meschino,"... noted Elizabeth Hazelton Haight,Italy Old and New, 1922:20.
^G. C. Sansoni, ed.,Studi di filologia Italiana, vol. 36 (Accademia della Crusca, 1978), p. 207: "...dalla rubrica iniziale ilGuerrin Meschino di Andrea da Barberino... nell'edizione di Padova, Bartholomaeus de Valdezoccho e Martinus de Septem Arboribus, 21 aprile 1473, GW 1643."
^Mauro Cursietti, ed.,Il Guerrin Meschino: edizione critica secondo l'antica vulgata fiorentina (Padua: Antenore, 2005), p. 599: "...le prime due edizioni a stampa di Bartholomeo Valdezochio e Baldassarre Azzoguidi videro luce rispettivamente proprio a Padova e a Bologna."
^Cursietti, p. 597: "La seconda edizione, quella bolognese di Baldassarre Azzoguidi, presenta invece la divisione tradizionale in otto libri e l'articolazione in 282 capitoli."
