California Italian Studies

Departing from Roland Barthes’ observations in his renown article “Death of the Author” (1968), the author of this essay goes back to the historical origins of the modern author in the late Middle Ages to argue that we should speak of a prolonged “crisis,” rather than “death” of author-ship in modernity. The direct relationship between author-ship and individuality was conceptualized by Dante in a famous passage of the Convivio on the etymology of auctor. During the Renaissance, however, this vertical relation was transformed in horizontal fashion by the twin revolutions of humanism and the printing press. In particular, the critical and philological method contributed to detach authors from their texts as testified by the examples of Poliziano’s Orfeo, Il libro del pergrino by Iacopo Caviceo, Sannazzaro’s Arcadia, and the writings of Leonardo Da Vinci. The essay focuses in particular on the latter, because of Leonardo’s repeated claim to be an ‘omo senza lettere’ (non-literary man), and his prolonged war against the principle of author-ship. Leonardo, who did not publish any of his writings, elaborated a form of infinite writing in which the Author is never separated from his Opus.