The new English translation of Aragona’s epic poem finally provides Anglophone readers with the means to directly experience the author’s talent, ambitions, and perspective on the political and religious climate of her time[1].

Published posthumously by Giovanbattista and Melchior Sessa in Venice, Aragona’s Il Meschino is composed of 36 canti. In the prologue, Aragona states her intention to add an important element that was missing in the work from which she took her inspiration, Andrea da Barberino’s Guerrin Meschino (likely written in the 1420s and first published in 1473). Specifically, she wanted to add “la vaghezza del verso” [the beauty of the ottava rima]. In fact, Aragona rearranges Barberino’s entire Guerrin into octaves. Although she claimed to have found a “bellissimo libro in lingua Spagnuola” [a beautiful book written in the Spanish language], critics agree that the author worked and transposed from the Tuscan version. While several discrepancies between the two works were already noted by scholars during the sixteenth century (such as the names of locations and various descriptions of monsters encountered by the hero), the similarities in their plot are far more numerous.

The storyline narrates the life of Guerrino, raised in Constantinople as a slave, ignorant of his roots as the prince of Taranto and son of Milone, Duke of Taranto and one of Charlemagne’s knights. While his father and mother are captured and imprisoned by Muslims in Durazzo, Guerrino is taken to safety by servants as a baby, only to be kidnapped by pirates. Sold to a Byzantine merchant, Guerrino is given the nickname Meschino [the Wretched One]. Unaware of his real name, Guerrino will eventually become a servant at the emperor’s court, and finally a formidable swordsman thanks to his best friend Alessandro, son of the emperor.

Guerrino falls in love with the emperor’s daughter, who dismisses him because of his modest status. But when the hero’s talents as a warrior are leveraged in the war against the Turks, where he successfully defends the empire, he is ultimately recognized and celebrated as a hero in his own right. His most difficult quest, however, lies ahead: the search for his family history and his real name.

Following the tradition of works such as Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and Pulci’s Morgante, among others, the author seems to present the traditional chivalric epic hero, but she also spends substantially more time stressing the physical characteristics and moral worth of Guerrino. Aragona’s Guerrino is, in fact, a paragon of both physical and spiritual beauty.

Guerrino’s beauty is so striking that even Pacifero, the king of Persia, “di sua beltà si meraviglia” [is staggered by his beauty] (X, X, 5). Aragona’s epic hero, however, does not present the virile, masculine aura reminiscent of Orlando, Ruggiero, or Achilles, but has rather an androgenous beauty. Indeed, Pacifero is unsettled at the sight of Guerrino and “non sa se maschio, o femmina gli pare / e da le guide sel fé dichiarare” [he does not understand if Guerrino is man or woman / he asks his guards to confirm what they see] (X, IX, 7-8). The desire to know Guerrino possesses him, and, grabbing his hand “con atto inquieto / lo sfrenato desir gli fe’ palese” [in a restless act / he makes clear his uncontrollable desire] (X, XI, 6-7).

An irrational desire to seize or possess Guerrino is the reaction of many characters in Aragona’s epic poem. In fact, other characters fall victim to Guerrino’s unusual beauty and valiance, such as Rampilla, the sister of one of Guerrino’s chief adversaries. The maiden falls in love with Guerrino simply by hearing of his valor. She plots against and successfully kills her brother in the hope of marrying Guerrino (XXXIII, 35). Her malevolence is punished, however, as she ends up in the Inferno where Guerrino will meet her again during his journey through the underworld in canto XXVIII. Another female character, Sibilla, the prophetess who promised to tell Guerrino everything about his family history, also tries multiple times to seduce him, but she is repeatedly rejected despite her enchanting beauty (canto XVI).

Eventually, Antinisca, a Persian princess for whom Guerrino subjugates almost all of Turkey (Canto XVI), will conquer his heart. While Antinisca’s intentions are purer than Guerrino’s other would-be suitors, Guerrino himself seems indifferent to all such attention because he has other priorities. The reader discovers that Guerrino—unlike other heroic knights described in similar chivalric poems—will never give in to earthly temptations. Aragona’s choice as an author is not to deny love to Guerrino, but to reveal that the knight had a far more important and noble goal: “la salute universal / e quel popol ridurre a salvamento / sotto la santa croce trionfale [universal wellbeing / and the salvation of that population / under Christianity] ”(XVI, III, 2-5).

Although Aragona replicates Barberino’s depiction of the hero’s moral fortitude, she is harsher in condemning the temptations Guerrino encounters along his journey. She elevates Guerrino’s moral and physical beauty above all else, perhaps influenced by the climate of the Counter Reformation, or perhaps by her life as a courtesan. Both admired and severely criticized, Tullia d’Aragona, known as the honest courtesan, used a moral tone of condemnation in her epic work to speak out against the desires of the flesh.

While this attitude might seem contradictory for a courtesan, it was perhaps her own way of distancing herself from the harsh realities of her life and from what a courtesan represented during her lifetime: an immoral presence in the papal and aristocratic courts of Rome and Florence. Tullia d’Aragona clearly wanted to be recognized and celebrated as a female author with a unique talent for transposing prose into verse within the restrictive climate of the Counterreformation.

[1] Tullia d’Aragona, The Wretch, Otherwise Known as Guerrino: A Bilingual Edition, edited by Julia L. Hairston, translated by John C. McLucas, annotated by Julia L. Hairston and John C. McLucas, with a critical introduction by Julia L Hairston (New York: Iter Press, 2023).