Introduction
This translation is nearly as central a work in DGR's corpus as
“The Blessed
Damozel”
. The iconograph of “The Rossetti
Woman” is fully articulated in this text, but even more important
is the ambiguity—enforced in the title DGR supplied for
his poem—about the reference of the word “Portrait”. In one sense
the portrait is the canzone; in another the canzone references a pictorial object:
either a literal painting (like DGR's own related picture
<hi rend="i">Fazio's Mistress</hi>
),
or the lady herself metaphorically imagined as an image. That way of
thinking about his art, pictorial as well as textual, as well as his art's relation
to the “donne” it represents, is foundational and provides the
structure supporting all of DGR's “double works”.
DGR took his source text for this celebrated canzone
from Fraticelli's
edition of Dante's
<hi rend="i">Opere
Minori</hi>
. Fraticelli's
notes
state that the poem, while often included in Dante's corpus, is
probably by Fazio degli Uberti, which is in fact the case.
Fazio was born at Pisa early in the fourtenth-century and died at Verona around 1367. DGR's
commentary
on Fazio supplies further useful information about this well-known figure and his work. He
remarks, quite justly, that the “contested Canzone is well worth fighting for”
given its great power and beauty.
DGR's translation is a remarkable work in its own right, and
a technical tour de force in its nearly perfect adherence to Fazio's
complex rhyme scheme. Only in the sirima does DGR make a departure, and
in that case he introduces a rhyme where Fazio has none.