EINE BITTODE AUS VIERZEILIGEN STROPHEN MIT JE DREI VERSMAẞEN VON FRANCISCUS NIGER, DOKTOR AUS VENEDIG, AN DEN GÖTTLICHEN JOHANNES FUCHSMAGEN, DEN UNENDLICH WEISEN VERWALTER DES KÖNIGSHOFS

The poet addresses his patron, who is the only one who can give him financial support and relief. By developing a common literary topos, the poet compares himself and his struggles to a ship sailing through fearsom and dangerous seas.

With regard to the metre, it should be noted that in this poem Negri has created a new stanza which is based on Aeolic verses used by Horace but does not occur in this form in ancient literature. He presents two Lesser Asclepiads followed by a Glyconic and a Pherecratean (Horace’s so-called “Third Asclepiad” has the last two elements in inverted order). Creative recombinations of ancient metres were not uncommon in the early modern period.

In Milan, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS C 12 sup, fol. 148v-150r (hereafter A), a miscellany dating back to the late XV century (the subscription, written by Antonio Olgiati, reads as follows: Felicibus auspiciis ill/ustrissi/mi card/inalis Federici Borrh/omei/Olgiatus vidit anno 1603. Cod/ex/anni 1491), we find some poems by Nigro, including two of those contained in O. Surprisingly, the dedicatees of the verses are different: the one corresponding to C. 64 is dedicated to Nicola Maria of Este, bishop of Adria, and that corresponding to C. 65 addresses Beltramo Costabile, a Ferrara clergyman (see Perić 1984, 143–147). Given a similar case (C. 76), we may argue that both the poems from the Innsbruck manuscript are the result of a process of text recycling. In other words, the compilers of O or Negri himself took some of his previous poems and adapted them to a new dedicatee, Johannes Fuchsmagen.