Le raccolte epistolari di Felice Feliciano (1433-1479?) sono affidate a quattro manoscritti, di cui tre autografi e uno apografo; il corpus totale delle lettere ammonta a 189 pezzi, di cui 76 a testimoniale plurimo. Questo lavoro punta per la prima volta a ricostruire il quadro critico di questa complessa tradizione e a definire i prolegomena a una futura edizione degli epistolari. Il primo capitolo traccia il profilo biografico dell’autore e ne inquadra la produzione nel panorama dell’epistolografia quattrocentesca, mentre il secondo è dedicato alla descrizione codicologica e paleografica degli esemplari. Il terzo capitolo restituisce ogni epistolario a un contesto d’allestimento verosimile in una circostanza spazio-temporale precisa, sulla base dei dati interni a ciascun testimone. Il quarto capitolo contiene la trattazione complessiva e non più individuale degli epistolari, allo scopo di individuare una ratio organizzativa nell’assetto delle varie raccolte, tramite il riconoscimento di un’ossatura portante costituita da nuclei di lettere a testimoniale plurimo. Il quinto capitolo offre uno specimen editoriale, ovvero l’edizione critica commentata del nucleo individuato come il più antico, composto da 29 lettere e tramandato da tre mss. su quattro. L’elaborato termina con un’appendice nella quale, attraverso i regesti delle lettere, si propone il modello da seguire per la costruzione dell’edizione integrale degli epistolari felicianei. / The epistolary collections of Felice Feliciano (1433-1479?) are entrusted to four manuscripts, three autographs and one apograph; the total corpus of letters amounts to 189 pieces, 76 of which are in multiple attestation. This work aims for the first time to reconstruct the critical picture of this complex tradition and to fix the prolegomena for a future edition of the epistles. The first chapter traces the author’s biographical profile and sets his production against the panorama of 15th-century epistolography, while the second chapter is dedicated to the codicological and palaeographical description of the manuscripts. The third chapter restores each collection to a plausible setting in a precise space-time situation, on the basis of its internal features. The fourth chapter deals with the four books as a whole and no longer individually, with the aim of identifying a rational organisation in the arrangement of the various collections, through the recognition of a bearing framework made up of groups of letters in multiple attestation. The fifth chapter offers an editorial specimen, that is the critical commented edition of the group identified as the oldest, consisting of 29 letters and handed down by three out of four manuscripts. The thesis ends with an appendix in which, by means of the epistles’ registers, the model to be followed for the construction of the complete edition of Feliciano’s letters is proposed.

Précieuse source d’informations sur l’auteur des Vies des meilleurs peintres, sculpteurs et architectes, la correspondance de Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) est bien connue des historiens de l’art depuis son édition par Karl Frey (1923-1930). La conservation rigoureuse de ses nombreuses lettres ainsi que la remarquable qualité stylistique d’une grande partie d’entre elles, invitent à s’interroger sur la valeur que Vasari lui-même pouvait attribuer à son écriture épistolaire. Voyait-il ses lettres comme une partie fondamentale de son legs culturel ? On peut se demander s’il avait pu caresser le projet de les publier sous forme de recueil, conformément à une pratique très diffusée chez les hommes doctes du XVIe siècle. C’est justement un recueil qui se distingue tout particulièrement au sein du riche carteggio vasarien : le manuscrit Riccardiano 2354, de la Bibliothèque Riccardiana de Florence. Datant de la fin du XVIe siècle, ce petit codex contient quarante-huit missives copiées par le neveu et principal hériter de l’artiste arétin, Giorgio Vasari le Jeune (1562-1625), fonctionnaire médicéen versé dans différents savoirs techniques et scientifiques. Cette étude analyse les opérations de sélection, de transcription et de possible transformation menées par Vasari le Jeune à partir des sources épistolaires originales de son oncle, aujourd’hui introuvables. Des indices matériels et textuels laissent penser que le volume de la Riccardiana pourrait avoir été conçu comme un « livre de lettres » destiné à la publication, mais finalement jamais paru. Une initiative éditoriale avortée donc, visant la célébration posthume de la vie et de l’œuvre de Vasari à travers la valorisation de son héritage épistolaire. La lecture croisée des textes du recueil et d’autres missives qui y furent exclues, permet de reconnaître, en amont de l’entreprise de Giorgio le Jeune, un dessein de reconstitution biographique qui privilégie certains aspects de la figure de Vasari, en omet d’autres et, parfois, plie l’héritage culturel de l’artiste aux exigences d’affirmation personnelle du neveu dans le contexte médicéen de son temps. La résultante principale de cette recherche est une réflexion sur les dynamiques propres à l’écriture épistolaire de Vasari, sur les fonctions diverses qu’elle pouvait endosser dans les différentes phases de sa carrière d’artiste et d’écrivain. Car la pratique épistolaire fut pour Vasari un outil privilégié pour la mise en représentation de soi vis-à-vis de son réseau de correspondants, pour l’apprentissage de la parole littéraire et pour l’élaboration des procédés de l’ekphrasis, plus largement développés dans les Vies. / A valuable source of information on the author of The Lives of the Artists, the correspondence of Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) is well known to art historians, mainly since its almost complete edition published by Karl Frey (1923-1930). If we consider the fact that Vasari zealously kept his numerous letters during his whole life, as well as the remarkable stylistic quality of many of these texts, we realise the importance of inquiring into how significant his epistolary writing could have been to him. Did Vasari see his missives as an essential part of his cultural legacy? In this case, it has to be questioned whether the artist could have ever conceived the project of publishing a selection of his letters, in accordance with a widespread practice among literates in the Fifteenth century. A collection of Vasari’s letters was actually gathered and still stands out from the large number of documents of his vast carteggio: it’s the manuscript Riccardiano 2354, held by the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence. Dating from the late Fifteenth century, this small codex contains forty-eight letters posthumously copied by the artist’s nephew and principal heir of his estate, Giorgio Vasari the Younger (1562-1625), an official of the Medicean Court deeply versed in several scientific and technical disciplines. This study investigates the process of selection, transcription and possible manipulation conducted by Vasari the Younger on his uncle’s original epistolary sources, which are nowadays still missing. Several material or textual hints can suggest that the Riccardiana’s volume might have been a “libro di lettere”, a book of letters designed for publication, but finally never printed. The chief aim of this editorial effort would have been a posthumous celebration of Vasari’s life and artistic achievements, through the highlighting of his missives. The comparison between the texts included in the Riccardiana’s manuscript and other excluded letters, allows us to recognise, as the essential mainstay in Giorgio the Younger’s work, the design of a biographical depiction of Vasari’s figure, focusing on specific traits and omitting others. The artist’s epistolary legacy seems to be occasionally subject to his nephew’s personal career requirements in the Medicean context of his time. The result of this research is a series of considerations on the dynamics inherent in Vasari’s epistolary writing, such as the various functions that it could assume according to the different phases of the artist’s career. Epistolarity has been Vasari’s main tool for self-fashioning towards his correspondents; as well as for literary learning and for the conception of the device of ekphrasis, developed on a larger scale in the Lives.

The study of early cross-linguistic diplomatic epistolography was first introduced in Brownlees' (2012) comparative study of Italian and English personal newsletters. Given the field’s young age and the strong need for both further research and the retrieving of new, untranscribed and unanalysed data, the present study set out to help move this field forward by examining, at both a textual superstructure and semantic macrostructural level, two sets of unchartered diplomatic newsletters which representatives at foreign courts despatched back to their respective home countries. The first set of original manuscripts comprises periodical newsletters which Baron Christer Bonde, the Swedish ambassador-extraordinary to England, wrote to Charles X, King of Sweden, between 1655-6, whereas the second set consists of letters sent in 1680 by John Robinson, England’s chargé d’affaires in Sweden, to Sir Leoline Jenkins, Secretary of State for the Northern Department of England. The analysis has shown that whereas the textual superstructures of the two diplomats’ correspondences remain similarly robust, the instantiating semantic macrostructures display not only stylistic and compositional, but also narrative, variation.