La «pax» concessa da Angelo Ingegneri al genovese Andronico Garbarino nel 1581

Abstract

In 1581 the Venetian poet Angelo Ingegneri and the Genoese law doctor Andronico Garbarino went to the Parma notary Giovanni Maria Amitta to sign a ‘peace’ and thus avoid the duel. Sometime before Garbarino had insulted and slapped Ingegneri for reasons that are not reported in the document. If Garbarino was accustomed to violence, so much so that he fled Genoa after killing a man in the context of the violent competition between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ factions, Ingegneri seems to have been more peaceful, even if in that same year 1581 he took the liberty of publishing Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata in Parma without the authorization of the author, who was imprisoned in Ferrara at the time, and without granting him any financial satisfaction. The study offers the opportunity for some reflection on the ancient code of honor expressed by Ariosto and Tasso, the treatises on dueling published in the Italian states in the modern era and on the efforts of the Roman Congregations of the Index of the Holy Office to limit the practice of dueling. In the appendices the treatises on dueling printed in Italy between the 16th and 18th centuries are listed and the notarial deed of ‘peace’ is transcribed.