Nel bianco della carta. Retorica affettiva e memoria letteraria nel carteggio Savorgnan-Bembo

Abstract

« Nel bianco della carta ». Affective Rhetoric and Literary Memory in the Savorgnan-Bembo Correspondence · The love correspondence between Maria Savorgnan and Pietro Bembo that unfolds in the early years of the sixteenth century is examined in this article through the lenses of affective materiality and affective rhetoric, by analysing the reifications of lyrical (especially Petrarchan) metaphors and the emotional value attributed to objects based on their function as metonymies of the beloved. The essay also provides insights into how objects featured in paradigmatic literary texts (such as in the Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta) are charged with symbolic and emotional weight in Savorgnan’s relationship with Bembo. Finally, the focus of this study shifts to the emotional value embedded in the acts of writing and reading, as well as to the material and immaterial features of the Savorgnan-Bembo correspondence. In their clandestine relationship, letters, literary memory and objects are surrogates and substitutions that the two lovers resort to using to bridge the distance between them. Keywords · Maria Savorgnan, Pietro Bembo, Affect, History of Emotions, Letter Writing, Women’s Writing, Sixteenth-Century Italy, Petrarch, Metonymy, Rhetoric.