ATTILA THE HOUND
ARMINESI, Rocco degli.
Attila flagelum Dei, tradotto dalla vera cronica per Rocco degli Arminesi padovano. Ove si narra come detto Attila fu generato da un cane, e di molte distruzioni fatte da lui nell’Italia.
Venice, Omobon Bettanino, [mid-eighteenth century].
8vo, pp. 40; woodcut portrait of Attila to title, title within typographic borders, typographic ornaments; slightly soiled, a few stains and ink doodling to title, marginal wormhole to first 3 leaves; pamphlet-stitched; twentieth-century ink stamp ‘Collezione Isabella Meoni Ferrara’ to final page.
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Attila flagelum Dei, tradotto dalla vera cronica per Rocco degli Arminesi padovano. Ove si narra come detto Attila fu generato da un cane, e di molte distruzioni fatte da lui nell’Italia.
Very rare eighteenth-century edition of a popular and best-selling poem on Attila the Hun.
Rocco degli Arminesi purportedly lived in Padua during the fifteenth century. He is exclusively known as the author of this popular epic poem in ottava rima, which, according to the title, is a poetic adaptation of a ‘true chronicle’. The earliest vernacular work on Attila is a fourteenth-century poem in Franco-Italian by Niccolò da Casola; this was adapted into Italian prose by Giovanni Maria Barbieri in the sixteenth century, with partial publication in 1568. It is plausible that the Attila flagelum Dei was influenced by Niccolò’s work, given its earliest known edition was published at Venice by the heirs of Luigi Valvassore and Giovan Domenico Micheli in 1583. Over four centuries, the poem enjoyed numerous reissues, with the present edition published in Venice by Omobon Bettanino (fl. 1738–1766).
The poem consists of three canti, each prefaced by an argomento. It opens with the tale of Attila’s mother, who was said to have been impregnated by a dog, resulting in her son bearing canine features such as dog’s ears (as depicted in the woodcut portrait on the title-page). Attila, having assumed the throne of Hungary, descended into Italy at the head of a formidable army, aiming to eradicate Christianity. Following a string of conquests and the destruction of several cities, he faced defeat in Rimini at the hands of King Giano, who killed Attila and decimated most of his army. The poem concludes with King Giano’s death and ‘the Christian people initiating the construction of the beautiful and illustrious city of Venice’ (p. 34, trans.).
Very rare, not recorded on OPAC SBN. OCLC traces only one copy (Hungarian Academy of Sciences).
See D’Ancona, Poemetti popolari italiani (1889), pp. 277–284.
