Abstract

This essay examines the poem ‘Rupibus ex dextris’, 13 hexameters describing the course of the Arno from the Apennines to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The verses usually circulate with ‘De montibus’ by Boccaccio, who is traditionally reckoned to be their author. A survey of studies of the poem is offered, from the 19th-century work of Attilio Hortis to recent contributions by Michael Papio and Valentina Rovere. The text is edited on the basis of the 20 surviving witnesses; some difficult passages are discussed and the MS tradition is surveyed. The attribution to Petrarch proposed by Aldo Rossi, who in fact raised the question of authorship, is considered and rejected, on the basis of the ‘usus scribendi’. The traditional attribution to Boccaccio is maintained. Finally, for the prose passage of the entry ‘Arnus’ in ‘De montibus’ a passage in the ‘Cronica’ of Giovanni Villani is suggested as the model.