Brutality, Materialism, and Pastoral Wisdom in Luca Pulci’s Polifemo innamorato

Abstract

Luca Pulci’s Pistole al Magnifico Lorenzo de’ Medici, composed in the mid-1460s, comprise eighteen metrical epistles in terza rima, imagined as being sent by figures from myth and ancient history. Pistol viii, addressed by Polyphemus to Galatea, offers a comic reinterpretation of their story, contaminating classical models with forms of medieval vernacular poetry, in an organic multi-stylistic mix. But Pulci’s parody is far from an end in itself: through the depiction of a Cyclops whose love is unrequited, but also the spokesperson for a materialistic worldview and an ethical-pastoral model alternative to the greed of the civilized world, it serves to stimulate reflection on themes such as religion, morality, and the laws of nature.