This rich and stimulating new volume on the ever-fascinating notaio and Franciscan mystical poet Iacopone da Todi (c. 1230–1306) brings together the work of a range of scholars at different stages of their careers, working in different disciplines and with differing, at times contradictory, perspectives. In their introduction, Matteo Leonardi and Alessandro Vettori note that interest in Iacopone outside Italy has deepened in the last 40 years, leading to translations into English, Dutch, French, Romanian, German, and Polish (3). It is fitting then that the editors have assembled scholars from Canada, France, Italy, Romania, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America: their “polyphonic exegesis” (4) offers a rich variety of interpretations of this mystic poet. The volume’s intent, as its editors state, is to open up Iacopone studies even further through a characterization of the poet as “an exquisitely Umbrian, uniquely Italian, and profoundly European intellectual” (3). Indeed, it is tempting to see this endeavor as reflective of the broader social and political currents in which Europeans swim in the early twenty-first century, as the post-Brexit, second-term Trump presidency political order unfolds crisis by crisis. (I note that I write as an Australian, resident in a colonized country that floats somehow both within and outside these currents, which no doubt impacts this reading.)

Editors of a volume bringing together a diverse range of disciplines confront the challenge of finding a meaningful structure that highlights themes without constraining the reading of each essay. In this, Leonardi and Vettori are successful, using four sections to group like papers while also foregrounding the scholarly disciplines interested in Iacopone’s work: Part 1: Style, Rhetoric, Music, and the Construction of Poetic Identity; Part 2: Translation, Transformation, Adaptation; Part 3: The Language of Mysticism, Asceticism, and Marian Devotion; and Part 4: The Many Forms of Franciscanism. While creating necessary signposts for the volume’s reader, each section also reveals significant differences between the scholars’ interpretations of central aspects of Iacopone’s oeuvre. For example, in the first section, questions for the reader arise thick and fast about the composition, intent, and performance of the laude. Were the laude characterized by spontaneity, as Federica Franzé argues (61), or carefully composed prayers akin to formal poetry, as Erminia Ardissino and Nicolò Crisafi’s essays present them? Were the laude read, as Estelle Zunino suggests (81–82), or sung and performed with dancing, as Franzé posits (63)? Leonardi and Vettori address this in their introduction, suggesting that Iacopone’s life and work can be described in a binary between “a popular, seemingly anti-intellectual vocation and the imprint of his profound theological meditation, which is rich in sophisticated allusions” (2). Whether or not one accepts this binary as meaningful or accurate (it has the hallmark of a similar tradition in studies of the figure of St Francis of Assisi, and therefore more than the hint of a Franciscan topos), the editors convincingly posit that the “multiplicity of opinions that is necessary to unfold the complexity of his thought and the intricate dynamic of his poetry generate the provocative hypothesis that perhaps it is exactly thanks to this plurality of exegetical analyses in disagreement with one another that criticism can do justice to the poet’s spirit which is – it too – in constant tension and conflict with itself” (4). This acceptance of the polyvalent nature of all human individuals calls to mind another poet, Walt Whitman: “Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself/(I am large, I contain multitudes).” (Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, ‘Song of Myself’, 51, 1855).

A difficulty the volume presents for the reader is the lack of a solid foundation from which to explore Iacopone’s multitudes. It is not until Alexander J.B. Hampton’s excellent essay on the “relationship between mystical praxis and poetic form” (185) in part 3 that anyone offers a life of the poet (189). References to important aspects of his biography appear in almost every essay, such as Ardissino’s mention (in a footnote) that Iacopone used legal terminology in his laude, an observation that deserves closer examination (p. 16, note 19). Inclusion of a life of the poet in the introduction, and perhaps also an introduction to the form of the laude, would better equip the reader for the journey ahead and allow the individual essays to avoid repetition. Similarly, it could have been fruitful to situate Alvaro Cacciotti’s biographical and historiographical essay in part 4 on “Francis of Assisi and Franciscanism in the Laudario of Iacopone da Todi” much earlier in the volume (317–344).

Minor frustrations for the reader include inconsistency in the spelling and italicization of key terms and the formatting of translations, along with typographical errors (for example, “7th” in place of “700th,” p. 3, “fait” for “fair,” p. 171, and more puzzlingly “forod,” perhaps “for God,” p. 172). While individually insignificant, they add to the reader’s burden in the context of an already complex volume.

The enriching foray into the experience of contemporary translators in essays by Magdalena Maria Kubas and Oana Sălişteanu suggested to this reader that essays exploring questions of materiality would have been useful, investigating the codicological history of the words being scrutinized. Read as a whole, these collected essays move between two modes that Hamilton identifies – literary studies of form and reception, and studies of the mystical, spiritual content of Iacopone’s poetry (185). This is demanding for the reader, but then again, it is the nature of a collection that individual readers may not read every contribution. Though not suitable as an entry point for those new to the field, Leonardi and Vettori’s lively volume is a welcome and compelling addition to the evolving study of Iacopone da Todi’s life, language, and mysticism and his reception in our own time.