Modelli di demarcazione della metà verso nel metro rinascimentale romanzo

The present paper discusses two types of mid-line marking attested in Romance traditions instantiations of Renaissance metre and outlines an explanation for their structural differences. On the one hand, some poetic traditions, namely, French and Catalan, preserved the caesura of the source form. On the other hand, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese poetry developed a kind of mid-line marking which is based on the obligatory prominence of a metrical position in the middle of the line. A further distinction can be made when considering that French and Catalan caesurae are not exactly the same: in French, this plays the role of the only metrical element smaller than the line; ln Catalan, instead, a prominent position line-medially is also dividing the line in two hemistiches. Catalan caesura constitutes a hybrid form between a proper caesura, in the French way, and a prominence mid-line marking system.