Il “Rogo funebre” del «gran Torquato»: Fabio Orsini, «Poteo Morte rapir quel ch’in nascendo». Lettura e edizione annotata

Proceeding with the investigation of «Versi cinquecenteschi in lode ed in morte di Torquato Tasso» («Atti e Memorie dell’Arcadia», 5, 2016, pp. 107-143), this article focuses on the annotated edition of the carme «Poteo Morte rapir quel ch’in nascendo», conserved in Pesaro, Biblioteca Oliveriana, ms. 885, fasc. IX, ff. [1]r-[9]r. The «inscriptio» indicates both the authorship and the patron: «By the Most Illustrious Mons.r Fabio Orsino | At the request of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Cardinal S. Giorgio», that is Cinzio Aldobrandini. The poem consists of 306 blank hendecasyllabes which illustrate both the features of the nascent Tasso mythography and the poetics of one of the most interesting exponents of the Roman milieu in the late 16th century. The edition of Orsini’s carme is accompanied by notes intended to elucidate the compositional mesh, especially the allusive aspects, and to bring forth its nature of «tumulus loquens» through erudite research.