Carsughi, Ranieri:

Ars Bene Scribendi / Studiosis Rhetoricae / Adolescentibus / Proposita olim in Collegio Romano / ... Carmen Didascalicum. Adduntur praeterea nonnulla eiusdem Epigrammata.

- Romae, 1709. Ex typographia Antonii de Rubeis. - 106, [1] p.; 8
Signatur: Sch 070/027 Notation: L 332 D 029

Father Rainier Carsughi's Ars Bene Scribendi / Studiosis Rhetoricae / Adolescentibus / Proposita olim in Collegio Romano / ... Carmen Didascalicum was published in Rome in 1709. Carsughi (1647-1709) taught the rhetoric class at the Roman College of the Society of Jesus for seven years, before ascending the Jesuit hierarchy to the level of provincial of Rome.⁽¹⁾ At the prompting of friends, Carsughi set about polishing his didactic poem for publication, but was overtaken by illness and death. At the end of the first book we learn that the Ars bene scribendi was read in the Collegio Romano to celebrate the peace between Louis XIV of France and Charles II of Spain, and in honour of the marriage of the Spanish king to Louise of Bourbon (p. 22). That said, the structure and contents of the poem suggest that it was initially designed for classroom use. The Ars bene scribendi thus differs from many contemporary Jesuit didactic poems, in which professors sought less to instruct their students than to impress their colleagues.⁽²⁾

The poem is divided into four books treating the following topics: the art of reading approved writers and taking notes; the method of writing; imitation; the virtues and vices of style.⁽³⁾ Each book is broken down into numbered paragraphs, with marginal headings providing easy points of reference for the reader/ user. Like Vida's De arte poetica, Carsughi's Ars bene scribendi is much more of a practical poem on composition than their common ancient model, Horace's Ars poetica. Where Horace seems to have felt that there were already too many hacks in Rome, Vida and Carsughi believe that style can, to some extent, be taught. Vida's poem, however, is less of a targeted textbook than Carsughi's; Vida's advice is directed not only to young poets, but to their parents, and beyond them, to a wider humanist audience. Moreover, the De arte poetica teaches by illustration as much as by prescription, and has always been appreciated as an accomplished Neo-Latin poem in its own right.⁽⁴⁾ But if the Ars bene scribendi was never to achieve the modern classic status of the De arte poetica, Carsughi is not without literary pretensions, and achieves a smoothly sententious style perhaps more consciously Horatian than Vida's. On the other hand, Carsughi's poem exhibits some of those broadly Virgilian features common in Jesuit didactic poetry of all varieties.⁽⁵⁾Like Vida, and also in accordance with established Jesuit preference, Carsughi holds Virgil up as the supreme model for imitation in poetry (pp. 15-16).⁽⁶⁾ The influence of Vida's poem on Carsughi's is also immediately apparent. The first section, on fostering a pure style by careful reading of the classics, is ultimately Quintilian. To illustrate the principle, however, Carsughi elaborates a metaphor of plunder borrowed from Vida.⁽⁷⁾

While many of Carsughi's precepts are 'classical', the poem is also an index of Jesuit humanist pedagogy in action at the turn of the eighteenth century. Carsughi enjoins us to put every fragment of time, no matter how insignificant, to good use. He adduces the example of Pliny, who did not leave his books behind in the city when he went fishing, and Alexander, who slept with a copy of Homer under his head (p. 18).⁽⁸⁾ On the other hand, the Jesuit teacher is no slave-driver, and recognises the importance of breaks, at least at two hour intervals (pp. 18-19).⁽⁹⁾ A necessary complement to reading is note-taking, as an aid to the memory.⁽¹⁰⁾ Carsughi's advice on this subject, derived from Sacchini, is eminently practical: keep two notebooks, one for jotting down interesting passages as they occur to you, another in which this material is disposed and rubricated for easy reference. Or, if your hand grows weary from writing everything out twice, let the margin serve instead of a second book, and create an index (pp. 21-2).⁽¹¹⁾

In Carsughi's second book, the voice of the schoolteacher may be heard in: 'Why do you approach the censor so late? Why do you bring me something to read late in the evening, when you are going to recite it the following morning? Perhaps you are seeking a flatterer, not a judge?' (p. 33). The Jesuit poet devotes some of his most heated rhetoric to the moral dangers of lewd literature. In book four, he warns his boys to abstain from reading Italian writers, who are especially corrupting.⁽¹²⁾ He encourages them to write about sacred subjects (pp. 56-8).⁽¹³⁾ But like all good teachers, Carsughi has a sense of humour. In a section on recitation at the end of the second book he warns: 'I know how much the untutored voice or gesture can hinder the public speaker. Everything you say falls flat, every detail becomes banal. The weary listener stares up at the ceiling, betraying his boredom with a gloomy face. I am he, I admit it, I have been there. I will say no more' (pp. 35-6).⁽¹⁴⁾

The poet's sense of humour reveals itself again - albeit grimly! - in the closing epyllion of the fourth book. The Horatian theme is the desirability of concision. When Theodosius is punishing the rebel Thessalonicans, a father pleads with a soldier for the lives of his two sons. The father must choose between them. He prevaricates - for over fifty verses! - and the impatient soldier slaughters both boys. The moral?: 'Do you hear? While the father was trying to save both, he handed both over to death. Our compositions are the darlings of our minds, the children of our hearts. If someone wants to keep everything, omitting nothing for the sake of brevity, he will retain nothing, and he says less when he says much. Lose something unless you want to lose everything' (p. 63). On this effective and pithy note, Carsughi wisely lays down his own pen.

Dr Yasmin Haskell, Newnham College, Cambridge
British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow