Tra «infiammate stille» e «lacci cari»: la Cecilia di Margherita Costa (1644)

Cecilia Martire was printed in 1644 and dedicated to Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Costa, in search of a new protector, tried her hand, for the first time, at a sacred poem. This essay focuses on Costa’s most virtuosic moments and on the erotic line that characterises Cecilia’s almost mystic path.  From the slight passio of Cecilia, Costa creates a poem divided into four cantos that follows the stages of the martyrdom of the young woman, selecting the most dramatic images in a grand literary ekphrasis that also positions itself in relation to the restoration work at the Basilica of Santa Cecilia in the Trastevere, erected on the supposed site of the martyr’s house. The scenes draw life from the growth of Cecilia’s heroism, intensified by the hellish environment created around the young woman, which the writer skilfully models on Dante’s Inferno and on the works of Tasso and Marino, but also on contemporary scientific works such as those related to the disastrous eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 1631. In closing, Tasso’s character Sofronia was certainly a point of reference for Costa in constructing her Cecilia and her relationship with Valerian, the eroticism of which borders on the profane in the octaves removed from the printed version but still visible in the manuscript Vat. Barb. Lat. 4069, passages of which this essay offers a focused reading.