images generously made available by the bodleian libraries, oxford.) essays and dialogues of giacomo leopardi. _translated_ by charles edwardes. _with biographical sketch._ london: trübner & co., ludgate hill. 1882. contents. biographical sketch history of the human race dialogue between hercules and atlas dialogue between fashion and death prize competition of the academy of sillographs dialogue between a goblin and a gnome dialogue between malambruno and farfarello dialogue between nature and a soul dialogue between the earth and the moon the wager of prometheus dialogue between a natural philosopher and a metaphysician dialogue between tasso and his familiar spirit dialogue between nature and an icelander parini on glory dialogue between ruysch and his mummies remarkable sayings of philip ottonieri dialogue between columbus and gutierrez panegyric of birds the song of the wild cock dialogue between timandro and eleandro copernicus dialogue between an almanac seller and a passer-by dialogue between plotinus and porphyrius comparison of the last words of brutus and theophrastus dialogue between tristano and a friend biographical sketch. "manure with despair, but let it be genuine, and you will have a noble harvest."--rahel. the name of giacomo leopardi is not yet a household word in the mouths of englishmen. few of us have heard of him; still fewer have read any of his writings. if known at all, he is probably coupled, in a semi-contemptuous manner, with other foreign representatives of a phase of poetic thought, the influence of which has passed its zenith. as a contemporary of byron, leopardi is perhaps credited with a certain amount of psychological plagiarism, and possibly disregarded as a mere satellite of the greater planet. but if this be so, it is unjust. his fame is his own, and time makes his isolation and grand individuality more and more prominent. what byron and shelley, millevoye, baudelaire and gautier, heine and platen, pouchkine and lermontoff, are to england, france, germany, and russia respectively, leopardi is, in a measure, to italy. but he is more than this. the jewel of his renown is triple-faceted. philology, poetry, and philosophy were each in turn cultivated by him, and he was of too brilliant an intellect not to excel in them all. as a philologist he astonished niebuhr and delighted creuzer; as a poet he has been compared with dante; as a philosopher he takes high rank among the greatest and most original men of modern times. one of his biographers (dovari: "studio di g. leopardi," ancona, 1877) has termed him "the greatest philosopher, poet, and prose-writer of the nineteenth century." though such eulogy may be, and doubtless is, excessive, the fact that it has been given testifies to the extraordinary nature of the man who is its subject. in germany and france, leopardi is perhaps as well known and highly appreciated as in italy. his poems have been translated into the languages of those countries; and in france, within the last year, two more or less complete versions of his prose writings have appeared. biographies, reviews, and lighter notices of the celebrated italian are of repeated and increasing occurrence on the continent. england, however, knows little of him, and hitherto none of his writings have been made accessible to the english reading public. the following brief outline of his life may in part help to explain the peculiarly sombre philosophical views which he held, and of which his works are chiefly an elaboration. giacomo leopardi was born at recanati, a small town about fifteen miles from ancona, on the 29th june 1798. he was of noble birth, equally on the side of his father and mother. provided with a tutor at an early age, he soon left him far behind in knowledge; and when only eight years old, he discarded the greek grammar he had hitherto used, and deliberately set himself the task of reading in chronological order the greek authors of his father's library. it was due to his own industry, and his father's care, that later he acquired a perfect acquaintance with classical literature. in 1810 he received his first tonsure, in token of his dedication to the church; but this early promise was not destined to be fulfilled. before he was eighteen years of age leopardi had attained recognised distinction for the amount and matter of his erudition. the mere catalogue of his writings--chiefly philological--by that time is of sufficient length to excite wonder, and their nature is still more surprising. latin commentaries and classical annotations were apparently child's play to him. writing in 1815 to the roman scholar cancellieri, who had noticed one of these classical productions, leopardi says: "i see myself secured to posterity in your writings.... commerce with the learned is not only useful, but necessary for me." he was only seventeen when he completed a task which represented the sum of all his early study. this was an "essay on the popular errors of the ancients," of considerable length (first published posthumously), in the course of which he cites more than four hundred authors, ancient and modern. a single extract will suffice to show that his youthful powers of expression were as precocious as his learning, though his judgment was doubtless at fault. he thus reviews the wisdom of the greeks: "the philosophy of the ancients was the science of differences; and their academies were the seats of confusion and disorder. aristotle condemned what plato had taught. socrates mocked antisthenes; and zeno scandalised epicurus. pythagoreans, platonians, peripatetics, stoics, cynics, epicureans, sceptics, cyrenaics, megarics, eclectics scuffled with and ridiculed one another; while the truly wise laughed at them all. the people, left to themselves during this hubbub, were not idle, but laboured silently to increase the vast mound of human errors." he ends this essay with a eulogy of the christian religion: "to live in the true church is the only way to combat superstition." shortly afterwards, increasing knowledge, which goethe has called "the antipodes of faith," enabled him to perceive that roman catholicism, the antidote which he then prescribed for superstition, was itself full charged with the poison he sought to destroy. in 1817 leopardi made acquaintance by letter with pietro giordani, one of the leading literary men of the day, and a man of varied experience and knowledge. in his first letter leopardi opens his heart to his new friend: "i have very greatly, perhaps immoderately, yearned for glory ... i burn with love for italy, and thank heaven that i am an italian. if i live, i will live for literature; for aught else, i would not live if i could." (21st march 1817.) a month later, from the same source we are able to discern traces of that characteristic of leopardi's temperament which by certain critics is thought to explain his philosophy. writing to giordani, he expatiates on the discomforts of recanati and its climate; and proceeds:- "added to all this is the obstinate, black, and barbarous melancholy which devours and destroys me, which is nourished by study, and yet increases when i forego study. i have in past times had much experience of that sweet sadness which generates fine sentiments, and which, better than joy, may be said to resemble the twilight; but my condition now is like an eternal and horrible night. a poison saps my powers of body and mind."-in the same letter he gives his opinion on the relative nature of prose and poetry. "poetry requires infinite study and application, and its art is so profound, that the more you advance in proficiency, so much the further does perfection seem to recede.... to be a good prose writer first, and a poet later, seems to me to be contrary to nature, which first creates the poet, and then by the cooling operation of age concedes the maturity and tranquillity necessary for prose." (30th april 1817.) the correspondence between leopardi and giordani lasted for five years, and it is from their published letters that we are able to form the best possible estimate of leopardi's character and aspirations. his own letters serve as the index of his physical and mental state. in them we trace the gradual failure of his health, the growth of sombreness in his disposition, and the change which his religious convictions underwent. during his twentieth year he suffered severely in mind and body. forced to lay aside his studies, he was constantly a prey to ennui, with all its attendant discomforts. he thus writes to giordani of his condition, in august 1817: "my ill-health makes me unhappy, because i am not a philosopher who is careless of life, and because i am compelled to stand aloof from my beloved studies.... another thing that makes me unhappy, is thought. i believe you know, but i hope you have not experienced, how thought can crucify and martyrise any one who thinks somewhat differently from others. i have for a long time suffered such torments, simply because thought has always had me entirely in its power; and it will kill me unless i change my condition. solitude is not made for those who burn and are consumed in themselves." (1st august 1817.) his mental activity was numbed by his physical incapacity; the two combined reduced him to a state of despair. there is a noble fortitude in the following words of another letter addressed to giordani:- "i have for a long time firmly believed that i must die within two or three years, because i have so ruined myself by seven years of immoderate and incessant study.... i am conscious that my life cannot be other than unhappy, yet i am not frightened; and if i could in any way be useful, i would endeavour to bear my condition without losing heart. i have passed years so full of bitterness, that it seems impossible for worse to succeed them; nevertheless i will not despair even if my sufferings do increase ... i am born for endurance." (2d march 1818.) leopardi was now of age, and at the time of life when mans aspirations are keenest. he had repeatedly tried to induce his father to let him go forth into the world, and take his place in the school of intellect; but all his endeavours were in vain. though seconded by giordani, who some months before had become personally acquainted with his young correspondent during a visit of a few days to casa leopardi, the count was resolute in refusing to grant his son permission to leave recanati. giacomo, driven to desperation, conceived a plan by which he hoped to fulfil his desire in spite of the paternal prohibition. the following extract from the count's diary furnishes the gist of the matter, and also gives us some small insight into his own character:- "giacomo, wishing to leave the country, and seeing that i was opposed to his doing so, thought to obtain my consent by a trick. he requested count broglio to procure a passport for milan, so that i might be alarmed on hearing of it, and thus let him go. i knew about it, because solari wrote unwittingly to antici, wishing giacomo a pleasant journey. i immediately asked broglio to send me the passport, which he did with an accompanying letter. i showed all to my son, and deposited the passport in an open cupboard, telling him he could take it at his leisure. so all ended." thus the plot failed, and giacomo was constrained to resign himself, as best he could, to a continuance of the "life worse than death" which he lived in recanati. two letters written in anticipation of the success of his scheme, one to his father, and the other to carlo, his brother, are of most painful interest. they suggest unfilial conduct on his part, and unfatherly treatment of his son on the part of count monaldo. "i am weary of prudence," he writes in the letter to carlo, "which serves only as a clog to the enjoyment of youth ... how thankful i should be if the step i am taking might act as a warning to our parents, as far as you and our brothers are concerned! i heartily trust you will be less unhappy than myself. i care little for the opinion of the world; nevertheless, exonerate me if you have any opportunity of doing so.... what am i? a mere good-for-nothing creature. i realise this most intensely, and the knowledge of it has determined me to take this step, to escape the self-contemplation which so disgusts me. so long as i possessed self-esteem i was prudent; but now that i despise myself, i can only find relief by casting myself on fortune, and seeking dangers, worthless thing that i am.... it were better (humanly speaking) for my parents and myself that i had never been born, or had died ere now. farewell, dear brother." the letter to his father is in a different key. it is stern and severe, and contains reproofs, direct and inferential, for his apparent indifference to his sons' future prospects. giacomo upbraids him with intentional blindness to the necessities of his position as a youth of generally acknowledged ability, for whom recanati could offer no scope, or chance of renown. he goes on to say: "now that the law has made me my own master, i have determined to delay no longer in taking my destiny on my own shoulders. i know that man's felicity consists in contentment, and that i shall therefore have more chance of happiness in begging my bread than through whatever bodily comforts i may enjoy here.... i know that i shall be deemed mad; and i also know that all great men have been so regarded. and because the career of almost every great genius has begun with despair, i am not disheartened at the same commencement in mine. i would rather be unhappy than insignificant, and suffer than endure tedium.... fathers usually have a better opinion of their sons than other people; but you, on the contrary, judge no one so unfavourably, and therefore never imagined we might be born for greatness.... it has pleased heaven, as a punishment, to ordain that the only youths of this town with somewhat loftier aspirations than the recanatese should belong to you, as a trial of patience, and that the only father who would regard such sons as a misfortune should be ours." the relationship between giacomo and his parents has been a vexed question with all his biographers, who, for the most part, are of the opinion that they had little sympathy with him in the mental sufferings he underwent. the count has been called "despota sistematico" in the administration of his household; and the most favourably disposed writers have agreed to regard him as somewhat of a roman father. but there does not seem to be sufficient evidence to support the theory that he was intentionally harsh and repressive to the extent of cruelty in his treatment of his children. he was an italian of the old school, and as such his conduct was probably different from that of more modern italian fathers; but that was all. in 1819, when his whole being was in a turmoil of disquiet, leopardi made his début as a poet, with two odes--the one addressed to italy, and the other on the monument to dante, then recently erected in florence. the following literal translation of the first stanza of the ode to italy gives but a faint echo of the original verse:- "o my country, i see the walls and arches, the columns, the statues, and the deserted towers of our ancestors; but their glory i see not, nor do i see the laurel and the iron which girt our forefathers. to-day, unarmed, thou showest a naked brow and naked breast. alas! how thou art wounded! how pale thou art, and bleeding! that i should see thee thus! o queen of beauty! i call on heaven and earth, and ask who thus has humbled thee. and as a crowning ill, her arms are weighed with chains; her hair dishevelled and unveiled; and on the ground she sits disconsolate and neglected, her face hid in her knees, and weeping. weep, italia mine, for thou hast cause, since thou wert born to conquer 'neath fortune's smiles and frowns. o patria mia, vedo le mura e gli archi e le colonne e i simulacri e l' erme torri degli avi nostri, ma la gloria non vedo, non vedo il lauro e il ferro ond' eran carchi i nostri padri antichi. or fatta inerme, nuda la fronte e nudo il petto mostri. oimè quante ferite, che lividor, che sangue! oh qual ti veggio, formosissima donna! io chiedo al cielo, e al mondo: dite, dite: chi la ridusse a tale? e questo è peggio, che di catene ha carene ambe le braccia. si che sparte le chiome e senza velo siede in terra negletta e sconsolata, nascondendo la faccia tra le ginocchia, e piange. piangi, che ben hai donde, italia mia, le genti a vincer nata et nella fausta sorte e nella ria." these odes, which represent the first fruits of his muse, ring with enthusiasm. they are the expression of a soul fired with its own flame, which serves to illumine and vivify a theme then only too real in his country's experience, the sufferings of italy. patriotism pervades his earliest verse; sadness and hopelessness that of later times. for these two odes giordani bestowed unsparing eulogy on his young protégé. before their appearance he had begun to regard leopardi as the rising genius of italy, and had not hesitated to say to him, "inveni hominem!" now, however, his admiration was unbounded; he thus apostrophised him: "o nobilissima, e altissima, e fortissima anima!" he referred to the reception of his poems at piacenza in these terms: "they speak of you as a god." in 1822 leopardi first left home. repeatedly, year after year, he had besought his father to permit him to see something of the world. he longed to associate with the men who represented the intellect of his country. with his own fellow-townsmen he had little sympathy, and they on their part regarded him as a phenomenon, eccentric rather than remarkable. they gave him the titles of "little pedant," "philosopher," "hermit," &c., in half ironical appreciation of his learning. as he was naturally very sensitive, these petty vexations became intensified to him, and were doubtless one of the chief reasons of his unfailing dislike for his native place. in one of his essays, that of "parini on glory," we discover a reference to leopardi's life at recanati, which place is really identical with the bosisio of the essay. yet the prophet who is not a prophet in his own country when living, seldom fails of recognition after death. a statue is now raised to leopardi in the place that refused to honour him in life. the appreciative recognition he failed to attract in recanati, he hoped to obtain at rome. but count monaldo, his father, long maintained his resistance to his son's wishes. himself of a comparatively unaspiring mind, content with the fame he could acquire in his own province, he saw no necessity why his son should be more ambitious. probably also his paternal love made him fearful of the dangers of the world, to which his son would be exposed. of these hazards he knew nothing from experience; and they were doubtless magnified to him by his imagination. yet, though naturally a man rather deficient in character than otherwise, count monaldo was, as we have seen, in his own household, a stern not to say unreasonable disciplinarian. only after repeated solicitations from his son, and remonstrances from his friends, did he give giacomo the desired permission, chiefly in the hope that at rome he might be induced to enter the church, towards which he had latterly manifested some signs of repugnance. the five months spent by leopardi in rome sufficed to disenchant him of his ideas of the world of life. a day or two after his arrival he writes to carlo his brother: "i do not derive the least pleasure from the great things i see, because i know that they are wonderful, without feeling that they are so. i assure you their multitude and grandeur wearied me the first day." (25th november 1822.) again, to paulina his sister: "the world is not beautiful; rather it is insupportable, unless seen from a distance." ever prone to regard the real through the medium of the ideal, he was bitterly disappointed with his first experience of men. the scholar, whom he was prepared to revere, proved on acquaintance to be- "a blockhead, a torrent of small talk, the most wearisome and afflicting man on earth. he talks about the merest trifles with the deepest interest, of the greatest things with an infinite imperturbability. he drowns you in compliments and exaggerated praises, and does both in so freezing a manner, and with such nonchalance, that to hear him one would think an extraordinary man the most ordinary thing in the world." (25th november 1822.) the stupidest recanatese he termed wiser and more sensible than the wisest roman. again, to his father he complains of the superficiality of the so-called scholars of rome. "they all strive to reach immortality in a coach, as bad christians would fain enter paradise. according to them, the sum of human wisdom, indeed the only true science of man, is antiquity. hitherto i have not encountered a lettered eoman who understands the term literature as meaning anything except archæology. philosophy, ethics, politics, eloquence, poetry, philology, are unknown things in rome, and are regarded as childish playthings compared to the discovery of some bit of copper or stone of the time of mark antony or agrippa. the best of it is that one cannot find a single eoman who really knows latin or greek; without a perfect acquaintance with which languages, it is clear that antiquity cannot be studied." (9th december 1822.) he was disheartened by the depraved condition of roman literature. everywhere he saw merit disregarded or trodden under foot. the city was full of professional poets and poetesses, and literary cliques formed for the purpose of the self-laudation of their members. illustrious names of the past were insulted by the pseudo-great men of the day, whose fame was founded on writings of the most contemptible nature. these circumstances made leopardi confess, in a letter to his brother, that had he not "the harbour of posterity, and the conviction that in time all would take its proper place (illusory hope, but the only, and most necessary one for the true scholar)," (16th december 1822.) he would abandon literature once for all. but it was only during moments of depression that such words as these escaped him. he loved study for its own sake; fame was, after all, but a secondary consideration. nor were men of genuine worth entirely wanting in rome. niebuhr, then prussian ambassador at the papal court, reinhold, the dutch ambassador, mai, subsequently a cardinal, were noble exceptions to the general inferiority. by them leopardi was highly esteemed. niebuhr especially was profoundly struck with his genius. "i have at last seen a modern italian worthy of the old italians and the ancient romans," was his remark to de bunsen after his first interview with the young scholar. both he and de bunsen became firm friends with leopardi. they endeavoured their utmost to procure for him some official appointment from cardinal consalvi, then secretary of state, and his successor; but owing to the intrigues, prejudices, and disturbances of the papal court they were unable to effect anything on his behalf. it was an unfulfilled intention of de bunsen's, later in life, to write a memoir of leopardi, for whom he always felt the highest esteem and admiration. count monaldo's wish that his son should become an ecclesiastic was never realised. leopardi was of too honest a nature to profess what was not in accordance with his convictions. the secular employment that he sought, he could not obtain, so perforce he seems to have turned his mind towards literary work--the drudgery of letters as distinct from the free, untrammelled pursuit of literature. he obtained the charge of cataloguing the greek manuscripts of the barberine library, and his spirits rose in anticipation of some discovery he hoped to make which might render him famous. "in due time we will astonish the world," he writes to his father. he was indeed successful in finding a fragment of libanius hitherto unpublished; but the glory seems to have been stolen from him, since the manuscript was ushered forth to the world by alien hands. poor leopardi! all his hopes seemed destined to be proved illusive. it was time for him to leave a place that could furnish him with no other pleasure than that of tears. "i visited tasso's grave, and wept there. this is the first and only pleasure i have experienced in rome" (letter to carlo, february 15, 1823). already he had begun to steel himself to the shocks of fortune; suffering and misfortune he could bear; mental agony and despair were too strong for him. in a long letter to his sister paulina, he tries to impart to her a little of the philosophy of stoicism which he had taken to himself. she was distressed about the rupture of a matrimonial arrangement contracted by the count between her and a certain roman gentleman of position and fortune. leopardi thus consoles her: "hope is a very wild passion, because it necessarily carries with it very great fear.... i assure you, i paolina mia,' that unless we can acquire a little indifference towards ourselves, life is scarcely possible, much less can it be happy. you must resign yourself to fortune, and not hope too deeply.... i recommend this philosophy to you, because i think you resemble me in mind and disposition." (19th april 1823.) four years later leopardi confesses the insufficiency of his own remedies. writing to dr. puccinotti in 1827, he says: "i am weary of life, and weary of the philosophy of indifference which is the only cure for misfortune and ennui, but which at length becomes an ennui itself. i look and hope for nothing but death." (16th august 1827.) in may 1823, he left rome, and returned to recanati. the succeeding ten years of leopardi's life were, during his intervals of health, devoted to poetry and literature. he had passed the rubicon of his hopes; henceforth he studied to expound to the world the uselessness of its own anticipations, and its essential unhappiness. his bodily infirmities increased with years. his frame, naturally weak, suffered from the effects of early over-application; his eyes and nerves were a constant trouble to him. to obtain what relief was possible from change of air, and to remove himself from recanati, which he detested increasingly, leopardi went to bologna, florence, milan, and pisa, wintering now at one place, now at another. from family reasons, his father was unable to supply him with sufficient money to secure his independence. consequently he was obliged to turn to literature for a livelihood. the publisher stella, of milan, willingly engaged his services, and for several years leopardi was in receipt of a small but regular payment for his literary labours. he compiled chrestomathies of italian prose and poetry, and made numerous fragmentary translations from the classics. a commentary on petrarch, to which he devoted much time and care, is, in the words of sainte-beuve, "the best possible guide through such a charming labyrinth." as he said of himself, "mediocrity is not for me," so in all that he undertook the mark of his genius appeared. at florence leopardi was honoured by the representatives of italian literature and culture, who there formed a brilliant coterie. colletta was desirous of his co-operation in the "history of naples," with which he was occupying the last years of his life. the "antologia" and "nuove ricoglitore" reviews were open to contributions from his pen. giordani, niccolini, capponi, and gioberti, amongst others, welcomed him with open arms. to these his tuscan friends he dedicated his "canti" in 1830, with the following touching letter:- "my dear friends,--accept the dedication of this book. herein i have striven, as is often done in poetry, to hallow my sufferings. this is my farewell (i cannot but weep in saying it) to literature and studies. once i hoped these dear resources would have been the support of my old age: pleasures of childhood and youth might vanish, i thought, and their loss would be supportable if i were thus cherished and strengthened. but ere i was twenty years of age, my physical infirmities deprived me of half my powers; my life was taken, yet death was not bestowed on me. eight years later i became totally incapacitated; this, it seems, will be my future state. even to read these letters you know that i make use of other eyes than mine. dear friends, my sufferings are incapable of increase; already my misfortune is too great for tears. i have lost everything, and am but a trunk that feels and suffers." ... it is scarcely wonderful that, under such circumstances, his philosophy should fail him. a code of ethics, however admirable intrinsically, has but cold consolation to offer to one whose life is prolonged pain. leopardi at one time allowed the idea of suicide to rest, and almost take root, in his mind. he describes the incident: "a great desire comes into my mind to terminate once for all these wretched years of mine, and to make myself more completely motionless." but he was of a nature noble and strong enough to resist such temptation. he left recanati for the last time in 1830. the next two years were passed in florence, rome, and pisa. whilst in rome, leopardi received substantial proof of his fame in being elected an academician of the crusca. at length the doctors recommended him to try naples, from the mild air and general salubrity of which place they anticipated much improvement in his condition. thither he went in company with a young friend, antonio ranieri, whose acquaintance he had made in florence. in the house of ranieri he stayed from 1833 until his death in 1837, tended by him and his sister paulina (his _second_ paulina, as he used to call her) with a devotedness and affection as rare as it was noble. posterity will couple together the names of ranieri and leopardi as naturally as we associate together those of severn and keats. all that could be done for the unfortunate poet, ranieri did. his condition was a singular one. before he left florence for naples, the doctor said of him that his frame did not possess sufficient vitality to generate a mortal illness; yet he was seldom, if ever, free from suffering. he died on the 14th june 1837, as he and his friend were on the point of setting out from naples to a little villa that ranieri possessed on one of the slopes of vesuvius. on the night of the 15th he was buried, in the church of st. vitale, near the reputed grave of virgil. his tomb is marked by a stone erected at the expense of ranieri, bearing the signs of the cross, and the owl of minerva, together with an inscription from the pen of giordani. the few following lines from his own verse would form a suitable epitaph for one whose life was spent in bodily and mental disquietude:- "o weary heart, for ever shalt thou rest henceforth. perished is the great delusion that i thought would ne'er have left me. perished! nought now is left of all those dear deceits; desire is dead, and not a hope remains. rest then for ever. thou hast throbbed enough; nothing here is worth such palpitations. our life is valueless, for it consists of nought but ennui, bitterness, and pain. this world of clay deserveth not a sigh. now calm thyself; conceive thy last despair, and wait for death, the only gift of fate." (poem "a se stesso.") these words might have been an echo of çâkyamuni's utterance beneath the sacred fig-tree of bôdhimanda, when, according to the legend, he was in process of transformation from man to buddha: the resemblance is at any rate a remarkable one. in 1846, the jesuits made an impudent attempt to convince the public that leopardi died repenting of his philosophical views, and that he had previously expressed a desire to enter the society of jesus. a long letter from a certain francesco scarpa to his superior, giving a number of pretended details of leopardi's history, conversion, and death, appeared in a neapolitan publication, entitled "science and faith." ranieri came forward to show the entire falsity of these statements; and to give a more authoritative denial to them, he engaged the willing help of vicenzo gioberti. the latter in his "modern jesuit" contested their truth in every respect. he said: "the story put forward in this letter is a tissue of lies and deliberate inventions; it is sheer romance from beginning to end." it is thought by some people that leopardi's father was concerned in this jesuit manifesto. but, although the count was doubtless shocked beyond measure that his son did not hold the same beliefs as himself, it is scarcely credible that he should concoct a series of such absurdities as were contained in scarpa's letter. leopardi anticipated that posterity, and even his contemporaries, would endeavour to explain the pessimism of his philosophy by his personal misfortunes and sufferings. accordingly, in a letter to the philologist sinner, he entered a protest against such a supposition: "however great my sufferings may have been, i do not seek to diminish them by comforting myself with vain hopes, and thoughts of a future and unknown happiness. this same courage of my convictions has led me to a philosophy of despair, which i do not hesitate to accept. it is the cowardice of men, who would fain regard existence as something very valuable, that instigates them to consider my philosophical opinions as the result of my sufferings, and that makes them persist in charging to my material circumstances that which is due to nothing but my understanding. before i die, i wish to make protest against this imputation of weakness and trifling; and i would beg of my readers to burn my writings rather than attribute them to my sufferings." (24th may 1832.) ranieri thus describes leopardi's personal appearance: "he was of middle height, inclined to stoop, and fragile; his complexion was pale; his head was large, and his brow expansive; his eyes were blue and languid; his nose was well formed (slightly aquiline), and his other features were very delicately chiselled; his voice was soft and rather weak; and he had an ineffable and almost celestial smile." his friend here scarcely even suggests what others have perhaps unduly emphasised, that is, leopardi's deformity. he was slightly humpbacked; doubtless the consequence of those studies which simultaneously ruined him and made him famous. it were an omission not to refer to the influence which love exerted over leopardi's life. so strong was this, in the opinion of one of his critics, that he even ascribes his philosophy to an "infelicissimo amore." another writer says of him that "his ideal was a woman." ranieri asserts that he died unmarried, after having twice felt the passion of love as violently as it was ever realised by any man. his poems also testify how omnipotent at one time was this bitter-sweet sensation. "i recall to mind the day when love first assaulted me; when i said, alas! if this be love, how it pains me!" (the first love.) again: "it was morning, the time when a light and sweeter sleep presses our rested lids. the sun's first grey light began to gleam across the balcony, through the closed windows into my still darkened chamber. then it was that i saw close by, regarding me with fixed eyes, the phantom form of her who first taught me to love, and left me weeping." (the dream.) his poem to aspasia is a frank confession of love, and the humiliation he suffered in its rejection. it is a noble, yet a terrible poem. opening with a description of the scene that met his eye as he entered the room where his charmer sat, "robed in the hue of the melancholy violet, and surrounded by a wondrous luxury," pressing "tender and burning kisses on the round lipsé" of her children, and displaying "her snowy neck," he saw as it were "a new heaven, and a new earth, and the lustre of a celestial light." "like a divine ray, o woman, thy beauty dazzled my thought. beauty is like such music as seems to open out to us an unknown elysium. he who loves is filled with the ecstasy of the phantom love conceived by his imagination. in the woman of his love he seeks to discover the beauties of his inspired vision; in his words and actions he tries to recognise the personality of his dreams. thus when he strains her to his bosom, it is not the woman, but the phantom of his dream that he embraces." then comes the awakening. he vituperates the reality for not attaining to the standard of his ideal. "rarely the woman's nature is comparable with that of the dream image. no thought like ours can dwell beneath those narrow brows. vain is the hope that man forges in the fire of those sparkling eyes. he errs in seeking profound and lofty thoughts in one who is by nature inferior to man in all things. as her members are frailer and softer, so is her mind more feeble and confined." he betrays his position, and gives the key to his unjust censure of woman's powers. "now, boast thyself, for thou canst do so. tell how thou art the only one of thy sex to whom i have bent my proud head, and offered my invincible heart. tell how thou hast seen me with beseeching brows, timid and trembling before thee (i burn with indignation and shame in the avowal), watching thy every sign and gesture, beside myself in adoration of thee, and changing expression and colour at the slightest of thy looks. the charm is broken; my yoke is on the ground, sundered at a single blow." (aspasia.) who were the real objects of leopardi's affection, is not at all clear. certain village girls of recanati, immortalised in his verse as nerina and silvia, were the inspirers of his first love; but his brother carlo bears witness to the superficial nature of his affection in their cases. they merely served as the awakeners of the sensation; his own mind and imagination magnified it into a passion. true it is that his nature was one that yearned and craved for love in no ordinary degree. when at rome, isolated from his family, he wrote to carlo: "love me, for god's sake. i need love, love, love, fire, enthusiasm, life." he addressed similar demands to giordani and others with whom he was on the most intimate terms. indeed we are tempted to conjectures as to what might have been the fruit of leopardi's life had he found a helpmate and a consoler in his troubles. a brief consideration of the general nature of leopardi's poetry and prose may not be out of place in this short summary. his poems are masterpieces of conception and execution. their matter may be open to criticism; but their manner is beyond praise. his odes are of the nobler kind. full of fire and vigour, they reach the sublime where he stimulates his fellow-countrymen to action, and urges them to aspire to a freedom, happily now obtained. his elegies breathe out an inspired sorrow. they are the pro-duct of a mind filled with the sense of the misery that abounds on earth, and unable, though desirous, to discern a single ray of light in the gloom of existence. his lyrical pieces are the most beautiful and emotional of his poems. the following, entitled "the setting of the moon," though pervaded with the spirit of sadness that is so predominant a characteristic of leopardi's verse, contains some charming imagery:- "as in the lonely night, over the silvered fields and the waters where the zephyrs play, where the far-off shades take a thousand vague appearances and deceitful forms, amid the tranquil waves, the foliage and the hedges, the hill-slopes and the villages, the moon arrived at heaven's boundary descends behind the alps and apennines into the infinite bosom of the tyrrhenian sea; whilst the world grows pale, and the shadows disappear, and a mantle of darkness shrouds the valley and the hills; night alone remains, and the carter singing on his way salutes with a sad melody the last reflection of that fleeing light which hitherto had led his steps: so vanishes our youth, and leaves us solitary with life. so flee away the shadows which veiled illusive joys; and so die too the distant hopes on which our mortal nature rested. life is left desolate and dark, and the traveller, trying to pierce the gloom, looks here and there, but seeks in vain to know the way, or what the journey yet before him; he sees that all on earth is strange, and he a stranger dwelling there.... you little hills and strands, when falls the light which silvers in the west the veil of night, shall not for long be orphaned. on the other side of heaven the first grey light of dawn shall soon be followed by the sun, whose fiery rays shall flood you and the ethereal fields with a luminous stream. but mortal life, when cherished youth has gone, has no new dawn, nor ever gains new light; widowed to the end it stays, and on life's other shore, made dark by night, the gods have set the tomb's dark seal." in his interpretation of nature he is literal, but withal truly poetic: he worships her in the concrete, but vituperates her in the abstract, as representative to him of omnipresent deity, creative, but also destructive. the two or three poems that may be termed satirical, are at the same time half elegiac. in them he ridicules and censures the folly of his contemporaries, and mourns over the mystery of things. to these, however, there is one exception, the longest of all his poems. this is known as the "continuation of the battle of the frogs and mice," it consists of eight cantos, comprising about three thousand lines, and was first published posthumously. the abruptness of its ending gives the idea, erroneous or not, of incompleteness. leopardi had, several years before, translated and versified homer's "batrachomyomachia," and this satire takes up the story where homer ends. it is exclusively a ridicule of the times, with especial reference to his own country and her national enemy, austria. in style and treatment it has been compared with byron's "don juan," from which, however, it totally differs in its intrinsic character. it abounds in beauties of description, sentiment, and expression, and well deserves to be considered his _chef d'oeuvre_. leopardi thus describes his method of poetic composition:- "i compose only when under an inspiration, yielding to which, in two minutes, i have designed and organised the poem. this done, i wait for a recurrence of such inspiration, which seldom happens until several weeks have elapsed. then i set to work at composition, bub so slowly that i cannot complete a poem, however short, in less than two or three weeks. such is my method; without inspiration it were easier to draw water from a stone than a single verse from my brain." leopardi's reputation was firmly established by the appearance of his "operette morali," as his prose writings were termed. monti classed them as the best italian prose compositions of the century. gioberti compared them to the writing of machiavelli. giordani, with his usual tendency to extravagance, gives his friend the following pompous panegyric:--"his style possesses the conciseness of speroni, the grandiloquence of tasso, the smoothness of paruta, the purity of gelli, the wit of firenzuola, the solidity and magnificence of pallavicino, the imagination of plato, and the elegance of cicero." leopardi has been aptly termed an aristocrat in his writing. too much of a reasoner to be very popular with the masses, who do not care for the exertion of sustained thought, his logic is strikingly clear to the intelligent. his periods are occasionally as long as those of machiavelli or guicciardini, but their continuity and signification are never obscure. ranieri bears witness to the fact that his prose was the fruit of very great labour. the subject and tendency of leopardi's writings will be evident to the reader of the following dialogues. framed on the model of lucian, they will compare favourably with the writings of the greek satirist in subtlety and wit, in spite of their sombre tone. they cannot be said to possess much originality, save in treatment. the subjects discussed, and even the arguments introduced, are mostly old. every acute moraliser since the world began has, in more or less degree commensurate with his ability, debated within himself the problems here considered. facts, beliefs, opinions, theories, may be marshalled to produce an infinite number of diverse harmonies; but no one such combination formed by the mind of man may be put forward as the true and ultimate explanation of the mystery of life. leibnitz, with his harmony of universal good, is as fallible as leopardi or schopenhauer with their harmonies of evil. in either case the real is sacrificed to the ideal, whether of good or evil. either from temperament or circumstances, these philosophers were predisposed to give judgment on life, favourably or adversely, without duly considering the attributes of existence. as m. dapples, in his french version of leopardi, has remarked, he early withdrew from actual life, _i.e._, life with all those manifold sensations which he himself defines to be the only constituents of pleasure in existence. his body proved little else than the sensation of suffering. all his vitality was concentrated in his mind; so that he was scarcely a competent and impartial judge of the ordinary pleasures and ills of life. he could not be otherwise than prejudiced by his own experiences, or rather lack of experiences. yet, though leopardi was physically incapable of many of life's pleasures, he none the less passionately yearned for them. strength and desire struggled within him, and the former only too frequently proved weaker than the latter. thus he was innately adapted for pessimism. we consider leopardi to have been a man of the grandest intellectual powers, capable originally of almost anything to which the human mind could attain; but that his reason, later in life, became somewhat perverted by his sufferings. were human life as absolutely miserable a thing as he represents it to be, it would be insupportable. that he should so regard it does not seem remarkable when we consider his circumstances; he was poor, seldom free from pain, and unsupported by a creed. for the sufferings of his life, he could see no shadow of atonement or compensation: a future state was incomprehensible to him. he bestows much gratuitous pity on the human race, which we, though revering his genius, may return to him as more deserving of it than ourselves. his heart was naturally full of the most lively affection; but he could never sufficiently satisfy the yearnings of his nature. like ottonieri, whose portrait is his own to a great extent, his instincts were noble; like him also he died without effecting much in proportion to his powers. the conclusions of leopardi's philosophy may be thus summed up. the universe is an enigma, totally insoluble. the sufferings of mankind exceed all good that men experience, estimating the latter in compensation for the former. progress, or, as we call it, civilisation, instead of lightening man's sufferings, increases them; since it enlarges his capacity for suffering, without proportionately augmenting his means of enjoyment. how far are these conclusions refutable? it may be regarded as indubitable that the first two cannot be refuted without the aid of revelation. science is incompetent to explain the "why" and the "wherefore" of the universe; it is yet groping to discover the "how." still less can any satisfactory explanation be given of the purpose for which suffering exists, unless we rely on revelation. religion, which modern philosophers somewhat contemptuously designate as "popular metaphysics," can alone afford an explanation of these problems. çâkyamuni, nearly 2500 years ago, asked, "what is the cause of all the miseries and sufferings with which man is afflicted?" he himself gave what he considered to be the correct answer: "existence;" and then he traced existence to the passions and desires innate in man. these last were to be conquered in the condition of insensibility to all material things called "nirvana," truly his remedy was a radical one, and had he succeeded in procuring universal acceptance for his doctrines, the human race would have become extinct a few generations later than his own time. but "nirvana" is unnatural if it be nothing else; unnatural in itself and in the steps that lead up to it. and although it is due to schopenhauer, and his more or less heterodox disciples, that this buddhistic dogma is regarded theoretically by some people with a certain amount of favour, we think the instincts of life are strong enough within them all to resist any decided inclination on their part to carry it into effect. as for the third conclusion, it must be admitted that man's susceptibilities of suffering are enlarged with increasing culture. leopardi has shown us that the more vividly we realise the evils that surround and affect us, so much the more keenly do they arouse in us sensations of pain. knowledge of them makes us suffer from them. the bliss of ignorance is rudely dispelled by the cold hand of science. but must this necessarily continue? may not the same progress which exposes the wound find the salve to heal it? we trust and think so, in spite of all assertions to the contrary. there is nothing in the near future of humanity that need alarm us: men will not work less because they think more; nor is there any sufficient reason to show that increasing knowledge must represent increasing sorrow. as johnson has said: "the cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical but palliative." for the material means of palliation we look to science. we hope and think that there is good to be gained from these writings of leopardi, in spite of the tone of despair that rings throughout them. his theory of the "infelicità" of things, cheerless though it be, often suggests ideas, sublime in themselves and noble in their effect; and the very essence of his philosophy resolves itself into a recommendation to act, rather than by contemplation to lose the power of action; for, as he says, "a life must be active and vigorous, else it is not true life, and death is preferable to it." a brief reference to the most recent publications on leopardi may be interesting as tending to throw light on his domestic relationships, and as giving us an idea of his own habits in private life. antonio ranieri (now in his seventy-sixth year) in a book[1] published at naples in 1880 gives many interesting details of the poet's life. he first met him at florence, and was touched with compassion for his unfortunate state. ill and helpless, he was incapable of doing anything but weep in despair at the thought of being obliged to return to his native place. "recanati and death are to me one and the same thing," he exclaimed through his tears. ranieri in a generous moment replied: "leopardi, you shall not return to recanati. the little that i possess is enough for two. as a benefit to me, not to yourself, we will henceforth live together." this was the beginning of what ranieri calls his "vita nuova." he conducted leopardi from florence to rome; thence back to florence; and finally from florence to naples. the doctors everywhere shrugged their shoulders at his case, and suggested, as delicately as possible, the mortal nature of his maladies. at naples ranieri and his sister paulina did all they could for leopardi, and from 1833 to his death in 1837 supplied all his wants. he could seldom see to read or write. "we used to read to him constantly and regularly, and were fortunately conversant with the languages he knew," says ranieri. occasionally he was able to go to the theatre, and enjoyed it greatly. in his habits he seems to have tried his friend's temper and patience considerably. he was wont to turn night into day, and day into night. ranieri and his sister often did the same in order to read, work, and talk with him. he breakfasted between three and five o'clock in the afternoon, and dined about midnight. like schopenhauer, he delighted in after-dinner conversation, which he termed "one of the greatest pleasures of life." he was very obstinate in personal matters, disobeying the doctors in his diet and everything else. his fondness for his old clothes was remarkable; he loved them for their associations. ranieri mentions "a certain very ancient overcoat which for seven years" had tormented him, and which he used to entreat leopardi to lay aside, but which he clung to with an incredible affection, preferring it to a new one that he allowed the moths to destroy. the mere names of wind, cold, and snow were enough to pale him. he could not bear fire, and formerly used to pass the winters three parts submerged in a sack of feathers, reading and writing thus the greater part of the day. he was very terrified when the cholera appeared at naples, to avoid which he and ranieri went to a country house of the latter's on one of the slopes of vesuvius. here leopardi wrote his poem "la ginestra," inspired by the desolate scenes at the foot of the mountain. he died suddenly at naples, as he and ranieri's household were about to set off again for the country. the neapolitan journal "il progresso," in an article on lis death, remarked of him that "such brilliancy is not allowed to illumine the earth for long." "notes biographiques sur leopardi et sa famille" (paris, 1881). this is a book of considerable value. written by the widow of count carlo leopardi, giacomo's younger brother, and his "other self," it is most valuable as delineating the characters of leopardi's father and mother. a softer light is shed on the character of leopardi's mother. we learn that she was not passionless, hard, and unsympathetic, as we had previously supposed her to be. on the contrary, she was a good woman, of deep affection, who made it the aim of her married life to work for the welfare of the family of which she became a member. weighted with debt almost to the point of exhaustion, the estates of casa leopardi needed a skilful and vigorous administrator, if they were to continue in the hands of their old owners. count monaldo leopardi was not such an administrator. he was a man devoted "tout entier à science," and occupying himself more with bibliology and archæology than with the finances of his estate. the jews of perousa, milan, and the march towns would, sooner or later, have tightened their hold on the leopardi patrimony to such a degree that the ancient family could only have continued to exist as proprietors on sufferance. but, in the words of the authoress of this book, providence watched over the house "en lui envoyant dans la jeune marquise adelaide antici l'ange qui devait la sauver." the young bride accepted her position with an entire knowledge of the responsibilities that would accompany it. she took the reins of the neglected administration, and set herself the task of restoring the fortunes of casa leopardi. by her exertions the pope was made acquainted with their difficulties, and by his intervention an arrangement was made between the creditors and the leopardi family, whereby the former were restrained from demanding the amount of their debt for forty years, receiving thereon in the mean time interest at 8 per cent, per annum. this was the life-work of countess leopardi. during forty years she administered the finances of casa leopardi, and by the end of that time succeeded in freeing the family from the burden with which it had been long encumbered. she died in 1857, ten years after her husband, and twenty years later than her eldest son, giacomo. st. mark's place, wolverhampton, _december_, 1881. [footnote 1: _sette anni di sodalizio con giacomo leopardi._] the following works, amongst others, have been made use of in the preparation of this volume:- opere leopardi. 6 vols. firenze, 1845. opere inedite leopardi. cugnoni: halle, 1878. studio di leopardi. a. baragiola: strasburg, 1876. traduction complète de leopardi. f. a. aulard: paris, 1880. opuscules et pensées de leopardi. a. dapples: paris, 1880. g. leopardi: sa vie et ses oeuvres. bouché leclercq: paris, 1874. le pessimisme. e. caro: paris, 1878. pessimism. jas. sully: london, 1877. la philosophie de schopenhauer. th. ribot: paris, 1874. il buddha, confucio, e lao-tse. c. puini: firenze, 1878. artide in quarterly review on leopardi. 1850. artide in fraser's magazine, leopardi and his father: a study, by l. villari. november 1881. _history of the human race._ it is said that the first inhabitants of the earth were everywhere created simultaneously. whilst children they were fed by bees, goats, and doves, as the poets say the infant jove was nourished. the earth was much smaller than it is at present, and devoid of mountains and hills. the sky was starless. there was no sea; and the world as a whole was far less varied and beautiful than it now is. yet men were never weary of looking at the sky and the earth, which excited within them feelings of wonder and admiration. they considered them both to be of infinite extent, majesty, and magnificence. their souls were filled with joyous hopes, and every sensation of life gave them inexpressible pleasure. their contentment daily increased, so that they at length thought themselves supremely happy. in this peaceful state of mind they passed their infancy and youth. arrived at a mature age, their feelings began to experience some alteration. as their early hopes, to which they had perseveringly adhered, failed of realisation, they no longer put faith in them. but, on the other hand, present happiness isolated from anticipation of the future, did not suffice them; especially seeing that, either from habit or because the charm of a first acquaintanceship had worn off, nature and all the incidents of life gave them much less pleasure than at first. they travelled over the earth, and visited the most distant lands. this they could easily do, because there were neither seas, mountains, nor obstacles of any kind to oppose them. after a few years, most men had proved the finite nature of the earth, the boundaries of which were by no means so remote as to be unattainable. they found too, that all countries of the world, and all men, with but slight differences, were alike. these discoveries i so greatly increased their discontent, that a weariness of life became prevalent among men even before they had passed the threshold of manhood. and as men grew older, this feeling gradually transformed itself into a hatred of existence, so that at length, seized by despair, they in one way or another hesitated not to abandon the light and life once so beloved. it seemed to the gods a shocking thing that living creatures should prefer death to life, and should destroy themselves for no other reason than that they were weary of existence. it also amazed them beyond measure to find their gifts held in such contempt, and so unequivocally rejected by men. they thought the world had been endowed with sufficient beauty, goodness, and harmony to make it not merely a bearable, but even a highly enjoyable place of residence for every living thing, and especially for man, whom they had fabricated with peculiar care, and a marvellous perfection. at the same time, touched with a deep feeling of compassion for the distress men exhibited, they began to fear lest the renewal and increase of these deplorable actions might not soon result in the extinction of the human race, contrary to destiny, and they would thus lose the most perfect work of their creation, and be deprived of the honours they received from men. jove determined therefore to improve the condition of men, since it seemed necessary, and to increase the means whereby they might obtain happiness. they complained of the deceitfulness of things; which were neither as great, beautiful, perfect, nor varied as they at first imagined them to be; but were, on the contrary, small, imperfect, and monotonous. they derived no pleasure from their youth; still less were they satisfied with the times of maturity, and old age. their infancy alone gave them pleasure, and yearning for the sweetness of their early days, they besought jove to make their condition one of perpetual childhood. but the god could not satisfy them in this matter; for it was contrary to the laws of nature, and the divine decrees and intentions. neither could he communicate his own infinity to mortal creatures, nor the world itself, any more than he could bestow infinite happiness and perfection on men and things. it seemed best to him to extend the limits of creation, at the same time increasing the world's diversity and beauty. in fulfilment of this intention, he enlarged the earth on all sides; and made the sea to flow as a separation between inhabited places, so that it might vary the aspect of things, and by severing their roads, prevent men from easily discovering the confines of the world. he also designed the sea to serve as a vivid representation of the infinity which they desired. then it was that the waters covered the island atlantis, as well as many other vast tracts of country; but the remembrance of this island alone has survived the multitude of centuries that have passed since that time. jove formed valleys by lowering certain places; and by exalting others he created hills and mountains. he bespread the night with stars; purified the atmosphere; increased the brilliancy and light of day; intensified the colours of the sky and the country, and gave them more variety. he also mixed the generations of men, so that the aged of one generation were contemporaneous with the children of another. above all, jove determined to multiply resemblances of that infinity for which men so eagerly craved. he could not really satisfy them, but wishing to soothe and appease their imagination, which he knew had been the chief source of their happiness in childhood, he employed many expedients like that of the sea. he created the echo, and hid it in valleys and caverns, and gave to the forests a dull deep whispering, conjoined with a mysterious undulation of their tree-tops. he created also the gorgeous land of dreams, and gave men power to visit it in their sleep. there they could experience such perfect happiness as could not in reality be accorded to them. this served as a substitute for the vague unrealisable conception of felicity formed by men within themselves, and to which jove himself could not have given any real expression, had he desired to do so. by these means the god infused new strength and vigour into the minds of men, and endeared life to them again, so that they were full of admiration for the beauty and immensity of nature. this happy state lasted longer than the previous one. its duration was chiefly due to the diversity of ages among men, whereby those who were chilled and wearied with their experience of the world, were comforted by the society of others full of the ardency and hopefulness of youth. but in process of time this novelty wore off, and men again became discontented and wearied with life. so despondent did they become, that then is said to have originated the custom attributed by history to certain ancient nations; the birth of a child was celebrated with tears, and the death of a parent was the occasion of rejoicing for his deliverance.[1] at length wickedness became universal. this was either because men thought that jove disregarded them, or because it is the nature of misfortune to debase even the noblest minds. it is a popular error to imagine that man's misfortunes are the result of his impiety and iniquity. on the contrary, his wickedness is the consequence of his misfortunes. the gods avenged themselves for their injuries, and punished mortals for their renewed perverseness, by the deluge of deucalion. there were only two survivors of this shipwreck of the human race, deucalion and pyrrha. these unhappy ones were filled with the sense of their wretchedness, and far from regretting the loss of all their fellows, themselves loudly invoked death from the summit of a rock. but jove commanded them to remedy the depopulation of the earth, and seeing that they had not the heart to beget a new generation, directed them to take stones from the hill-sides, and cast them over their shoulders. from these stones men were created, and the earth was again peopled. the history of the past had enlightened jove as to the nature of men, and had shown him that it is not sufficient for them, as for other animals, merely to live in a state of freedom from sorrow and physical discomfort. he knew that whatever their condition of life, they would seek the impossible, and if unpossessed of genuine evils, would torment themselves with imaginary ones. the god resolved therefore to employ new means for the preservation of the miserable race. for this purpose he used two especial artifices. in the first place, he strewed life with veritable evils; and secondly, instituted a thousand kinds of business and labour, to distract men as much as possible from self-contemplation, and their desires for an unknown and imaginary happiness. he began by sending a multitude of diseases, and an infinite number of other calamities among them, with the intention of varying the conditions of life so as to obviate the feeling of satiety which had resulted before, and to induce men to esteem the good things they possessed so much the more by contrast with these new evils. the god hoped that men would be better able to bear the absence of the happiness they longed for, when occupied and under the discipline of suffering. he also determined by means of these physical infirmities and exertions, to reduce the vigour of men's minds, to humble their pride, to make them bow the head to necessity, and be more contented with their lot. he knew that disease and misfortune would operate as a preventive to the committal of those acts of suicide which had formerly been rife; for they would not only make men cowardly and weak, but would help to attach them to life by the hope of an existence free from such sufferings. for it is a characteristic of the unfortunate that they imagine happiness will wait on them as soon as the immediate cause of their present misfortune is removed. jove then created the winds and the rain-clouds, prepared the thunder and lightning, gave the trident to neptune, launched comets, and arranged eclipses. by means of these and other terrible signs, he resolved to frighten mortals from time to time, knowing that fear and actual danger would temporarily reconcile to life, not only the unhappy, but even those who most detested and were most disposed to put an end to their existence. as a cure for the idleness of the past, jove gave to men a taste and desire for new foods and drinks, unprocurable, however, without the greatest exertions. previous to the deluge men had lived on water, herbs, and such fruits as were yielded by the earth and the trees, just as certain people of california and other places live even in the present day. he assigned different climates to different countries, and appointed the seasons of the year. hitherto there had been no diversity of temperature in any place, but the atmosphere was uniformly so equable and mild that men were ignorant of the use of clothing. now, however, they were obliged to exert themselves industriously to remedy the inclemency and changeability of the weather. jove gave mercury command to lay the foundations of the first cities, and to divide men into different races, nations, and languages, separated by feelings of rivalry and discord. he was also commissioned to teach them music and those other arts, which, owing to their nature and origin, are still called divine. jove himself distributed laws and constitutions to the new nations. finally, as a supreme gift, he sent among men certain sublime and superhuman phantoms, to whom he committed very great influence and control over the people of the earth. they were called justice, virtue, glory, patriotism, &c. among these phantoms was one named love, which then first entered the world. for previous to the introduction of clothes, the sexes were drawn towards one another by merely a brute instinct, far different from love. the feeling was comparable to that which we experience towards articles of food and such things, that we desire, but do not love. by these divine decrees the condition of man was infinitely ameliorated, and rendered easier and pleasanter than before; in spite of the fatigues, sufferings, and terrors which were now inseparable from humanity. and this result was chiefly due to the wonderful chimeras, whom some men regarded as genii, others as gods, and whom they followed with an intense veneration and enthusiasm for a very long time. to such a pitch was their ardour excited by the poets and artists of the times, that numbers of men did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives to one or other of these phantoms. far from displeasing jove, this fact gratified him exceedingly, for he judged that if men esteemed their life a gift worthy of sacrifice to these fine and glorious illusions, they would be less likely to repudiate it as before. this happy state of affairs was of longer duration than the preceding ages. and even when after the lapse of many centuries, a tendency to decline became apparent, existence, thanks to these bright illusions, was still easy and bearable enough, up to a time not very far distant from the present. this decline was chiefly due to the facility with which men were able to satisfy their wants and desires; the growing inequality between men in their social and other conditions, as they receded farther and farther from the republican models founded by jove; the reappearance of vanity and idleness as a consequence of this retrocession; the diminishing interest with which the variety of life's incidents inspired them; and many other well-known and important causes. again men were filled with the old feeling of disgust for their existence, and again their minds clamoured for an unknown happiness, inconsistent with the order of nature. but the total revolution of the fortunes of men, and the end of that epoch which we nowadays designate as the "old world," was due to one especial influence. it was this. among the phantoms so appreciated by the ancients was a certain one called wisdom. this phantom had duly contributed to the prosperity of the times, and like the others received high honour from men, a number of whom consecrated themselves to her service. she had frequently promised her disciples to show them her mistress, the truth, a superior spirit who associated with the gods in heaven, whence she had never yet descended. the phantom assured them that she would bring truth among men, and that this spirit would exercise so marvellous an influence over their life, that in knowledge, perfection, and happiness they would almost rival the gods themselves. but how could a shadow fulfil any promise, much less induce the truth to descend to earth? so after a long confiding expectancy, men perceived the falseness of wisdom. at the same time, greedy of novelty because of the idleness of their life, and stimulated partly by ambition of equalling the gods, and partly by the intensity of their yearning for the happiness they imagined would ensue from the possession of truth, they presumptuously requested jove to lend them this noble spirit for a time, and reproached him for having so long jealously withheld from men the great advantages that would follow from the presence of truth. they with one accord expressed dissatisfaction with their lot, and renewed their former hateful whinings about the meanness and misery of human things. the phantoms, once so dear to them, were now almost entirely abandoned, not that men had discerned the unreality of their nature, but because they were so debased in mind and manners as to have no sympathy with even the appearance of goodness. thus they wickedly rejected the greatest gift of gods to men, and excused themselves by saying that none but inferior genii had been sent on earth, the nobler ones, whom they would willingly have worshipped, being retained in heaven. many things long before this had contributed to lessen the goodwill of jove towards men, especially the magnitude and number of their vices and crimes, which were far in advance of those punished by the deluge. he was out of patience with the human race, the restless and unreasonable nature of which exasperated him. he recognised the futility of all effort on his part to make men happy and contented. had he not enlarged the world, multiplied its pleasures, and increased its diversity? yet all things were soon regarded by men (desirous and at the same time incapable of infinity) as equally restricted and valueless. jove determined therefore to make a perpetual example of the human race. he resolved to punish men unsparingly, and reduce them to a state of misery far surpassing their former condition. towards the attainment of this end, he purposed sending truth among men, not for a time only as they desired, but for eternity, and giving her supreme control and dominion over the human race, instead of the phantoms that were now so greatly despised. the other gods marvelled at this decision of jove, as likely to exalt the human race to a degree prejudicial to their own dignity. but he explained to them that all genii are not beneficial, and that apart from this, it was not of the nature of truth to produce the same results among men as with the gods. for whereas to the gods she unveiled the eternity of their joy, to mortals she would expose the immensity of their unhappiness, representing it to them not as a matter of chance, but as an inevitable and perpetual necessity. and since human evils are great in proportion as they are believed to be so by their victims, it may be imagined how acute an affliction truth will prove to men. the vanity of all earthly things will be apparent to them; they will find that nothing is genuine save their own unhappiness. above all, they will lose hope, hitherto the greatest solace and support of life. deprived of hope, they will have nothing to stimulate them to any exertions; consequently work, industry, and all mental culture will languish, and the life of the living will partake of the inertness of the grave. yet in spite of their despair and inactivity, men will still be tormented by their old longing for happiness intensified and quickened, because they will be less distracted by cares, and the stir of action. they will also be deprived of the power of imagination, which in itself could mysteriously transport them into a state of happiness comparable to the felicity for which they long. "and," said jove, "all those representations of infinity which i designedly placed in the world to deceive and satisfy men, and all the vague thoughts suggestive of happiness, which i infused into their minds, will yield to the doctrines of truth. the earth, which formerly displeased them for its insignificance, will do so increasedly when its true dimensions are known, and when all the secrets of nature are made manifest to them. and finally, with the disappearance of those phantoms that alone gave brightness to existence, human life will become aimless and valueless. nations and countries will lose even their names, for with patriotism will vanish all incentive to national identities. men will unite and form one nation and one people (as they will say), and will profess a universal love for the race. but in reality there will be the least possible union amongst them; they will be divided into as many peoples as there are individuals. for having no special country to love, and no foreigners to hate, every man will hate his neighbour, and love only himself. the evil consequences of this are incalculable. nevertheless, men will not put an end to their unhappiness by depriving themselves of life, because under the sway of truth they will become as cowardly as miserable. truth will increase the bitterness of their existence, and at the same time bereave them of sufficient courage to reject it." these words of jove moved the gods to compassion for the human race. it seemed to them that so great inflictions were inconsistent with the divine attribute of mercy. but jove continued: "there will remain to humanity a certain consolation proceeding from the phantom love, which alone i purpose leaving among men. and even truth, in spite of her almost omnipotence, will never quite prevail over love, nor succeed in chasing this phantom from the earth, though the struggle between them will be perpetual. thus the life of man, divided betwixt the worship of truth and love, will consist of two epochs, during which these influences will respectively control his mind and actions. to the aged, instead of the solace of love, will be granted a state of contentment with their existence, similar to that of other animals. they will love life for its own sake, not for any pleasure or profit they derive from it." accordingly, jove removed the phantoms from earth, save only love, the least noble of all, and sent truth among men to exercise over them perpetual rule. the consequences foreseen by the god were not long in making themselves manifest. and strange to say, whereas the spirit before her descent on earth, and when she had no real authority over men, was honoured by a multitude of temples and sacrifices, her presence had the effect of cooling their enthusiasm on her behalf. with the other gods this was not so; the more they made themselves manifest, the more they were honoured; but truth saddened men, and ultimately inspired them with such hatred that they refused to worship her, and only by constraint rendered her obedience. and whereas formerly, men who were under the especial influence of any one of the ancient phantoms, used to love and revere that phantom above the others, truth was detested and cursed by those over whom she gained supreme control. so, unable to resist her tyranny, men lived from that time in the complete state of misery, which is their fate in the present day, and to which they are eternally doomed. but not long ago, pity, which is never exhausted in the minds of the gods, moved jove to compassionate the wretchedness of mortals. he noticed especially the affliction of certain men, remarkable for their high intellect, and nobility, and purity of life, who were extraordinarily oppressed by the sway of truth. now in former times, when justice, virtue, and the other phantoms directed humanity, the gods had been accustomed at times to visit the earth, and sojourn with men for awhile, always on such occasions benefiting the race, or particular individuals, in some especial manner. but since men had become so debased, and sunk in wickedness, they had not deigned to associate with them. jove therefore, pitying our condition, asked the immortals whether any one of them would visit the earth as of old, and console men under their calamities, especially such as seemed undeserving of the universal affliction. all the gods were silent. at length love, the son of celestial venus, bearing the same name as the phantom love, but very different in nature and power, and the most compassionate of the immortals, offered himself for the mission proposed by jove. this deity was so beloved by the other gods, that hitherto they had never allowed him to quit their presence, even for a moment. the ancients indeed imagined that the god had appeared to them from time to time; but it was not so. they were deceived by the subterfuges and transformations of the phantom love. the deity of the same name first visited mankind after they were placed under the empire of truth. since that time the god has rarely and briefly descended, because of the general unworthiness of humanity, and the impatience with which the celestials await his return. when he comes on earth he chooses the tender and noble hearts of the most generous and magnanimous persons. here he rests for a short time, diffusing in them so strange and wondrous a sweetness, and inspiring them with affections so lofty and vigorous, that they then experience what is entirely new to mankind, the substance rather than the semblance of happiness. sometimes, though very rarely, he brings about the union of two hearts, abiding in them both simultaneously, and exciting within them a reciprocal warmth and desire. all within whom he dwells beseech him to effect this union; but jove forbids him to yield to their entreaties, save in very few instances, because the happiness of such mutual love approaches too nearly to the felicity of the immortals. the man in whom love abides is the happiest of mortals. and not only is he blessed by the presence of the deity, but he is also charmed by the old mysterious phantoms, which, though removed from the lot of men, by jove's permission follow in the train of love, in spite of the great opposition of truth, their supreme enemy. but truth, like all the other genii, is powerless to resist the will of the gods. and, since destiny has granted to love a state of eternal youth, the god can partially give effect to that first desire of men, that they might return to the happiness of their childhood. in the souls he inhabits, love awakens and vivifies, so long as ha stays there, the boundless hopes, and the sweet and fine illusions of early life. many persons, ignorant and incapable of appreciating love, vituperate and affront the god, even to his face. but he disregards these insults, and exacts no vengeance for them, so noble and compassionate is his nature. nor do the other gods any longer trouble themselves about the crimes of men, being satisfied with the vengeance they have already wrought on the human race, and the incurable misery which is its portion. consequently, wicked and blasphemous men suffer no punishment for their offences, except that they are absolutely excluded from being partakers of the divine favours. [footnote 1: see herodotus, strabo, &c.] _dialogue between hercules and atlas._ _hercules_. father atlas, jove's compliments, and in case you should be weary of your burden, i was to relieve you for a few hours, as i did i don't know how many centuries ago, so that you may take breath, and rest a little. _atlas_. thanks, dear hercules, and i am very much obliged to jove. but the world has become so light, that this cloak which i wear as a protection against the snow, incommodes me more. indeed, were it not jove's will that i should continue to stand here, supporting this ball on my back, i would put it under my arm, or in my pocket, or suspend it from a hair of my beard, and go about my own affairs. _hercules_. how has it become so light? i can easily see it has changed shape, and has become a sort of roll, instead of being round as when i studied cosmography in preparation for that wonderful voyage with the argonauts. but still i cannot see why its weight should have diminished. _atlas_. i am as ignorant of the reason as you are. but take the thing for a moment in your hand, and satisfy yourself of the truth of my assertion. _hercules_. upon my word, without this test, i would not have believed it. but what is this other novelty that i discover? the last time i bore it, i felt a strong pulsation on my back, like the beat of an animal's heart; and i heard a continuous buzzing like a wasp's nest. but now, it throbs more like a watch with a broken spring, and as for the buzzing, i don't hear a sound of it. _atlas_. i know nothing of this either, except that long ago, the world ceased making any motion, or sensible noise. i even had very great suspicions that it was dead, and expecting daily to be troubled by its corruption, i considered how and where i should bury it, and what epitaph i should place on its tomb. but when i saw that it did not decompose, i came to the conclusion that it had changed from an animal into a plant, like daphne and others; and this explained its silence and immobility. i began to fear lest it should soon wind its roots round my shoulders, or bury them in my body. _hercules_. i am rather inclined to think it is asleep, and that its repose is like that of epimenides,[1] which lasted more than half a century. or perhaps it is like hermotimus,[2] whose soul used to leave his body when it pleased, and stay away many years, disporting itself in foreign lands. to put an end to this game, the friends of hermotimus burned the body; so that the spirit returning, found its home destroyed, and was obliged to seek shelter in another body, or an inn. so, to prevent the world from sleeping for ever, or lest some friend, thinking it were dead, should set it on fire, let us try to arouse it. _atlas_. i am willing. but how shall we do it? _hercules_. i would give it a good blow with this club, if i were not afraid of smashing it, and were i not sure that it would crack under the stroke like an egg. besides, i fear lest the men, who in my time used to wrestle with lions, but are now only a match for fleas, should faint from so sudden a shock. suppose i lay aside my club, and you your cloak, and we have a game at ball with the poor little sphere. i wish i had brought the rackets that mercury and i use in the celestial courts, but we can do without them. _atlas_. a likely thing indeed! so that your father seeing our game, may make a third, and with his thunderbolt precipitate us both i do not know where, as he did phaeton into the po! _hercules_. that might be, if, like phaeton, i were the son of a poet, and not his own son; and if there were not this difference between us, that whereas poets formerly peopled cities by the melody of their art, i could depopulate heaven and earth by the power of my club. and as for jove's bolt, i would kick it hence to the farthest quarter of the empyrean. be assured that even if i wished to appropriate five or six stars for the sake of a game, or to make a sling of a comet, taking it by the tail, or even to play at ball with the sun, my father would make no objection. besides, our intention is to do good to the world, whereas phaeton simply wished to show off his fleetness before the hours, who held the steps for him when he mounted his chariot. he also wanted to gain reputation as a skilful coach-man, in the eyes of andromeda, callisto, and the other beautiful constellations, to whom, it is said, he threw, in passing, lustre bonbons, and comfits of light; and to make a fine parade of himself before the celestial gods during his journey that day, which chanced to be a festival. in short, don't give a thought to the possibility of my father's wrath. in any case, i will bear all the blame; so throw off your cloak, and send me the ball. _atlas_. willingly or not, i must do as you wish; since you are strong and armed, whereas i am old and defenceless. but do take care lest it fall, in which case it will have fresh swellings, or some new fracture, like that which separated sicily from italy, and africa from spain. and if it should get chipped in any way, there might be a war about what men would call the detachment of a province or kingdom. _hercules_. rely on me. _atlas_. then here goes. see how it quivers on account of its altered shape! _hercules_. hit a little harder; your strokes scarcely reach me. _atlas_. it is the fault of the ball. the south-west wind catches it, because of its lightness. _hercules_. it is its old failing to go with the wind. _atlas_. suppose we were to inflate the ball, since it has no more notion of a bounce than a melon. _hercules_. a new shortcoming! formerly it used to leap and dance like a young goat. _atlas_. look out! run quickly after that. for jove's sake, take care lest it fall! alas! it was an evil hour when you came here. _hercules_. you sent me such a bad stroke that i could not possibly have caught it in time, even at the risk of breaking my neck. alas, poor little one!... how are you? do you feel bad anywhere? i don't hear a sigh, nor does a soul move. they are all still asleep. _atlas_. give it back to me, by all the horns of the styx, and let me settle it again on my shoulders. and you, take your club, and hasten to heaven to excuse me with jove for this accident, which is entirely owing to you. _hercules_. i will do so. for many centuries there has been in my father's house a certain poet, named horace. he was made court poet at the suggestion of augustus, who has been deified by jove for his augmentation of the eoman power. in one of his songs, this poet says that the just man would stir not, though the world fell. since the world has now fallen, and no one has moved, it follows that all men are just. _atlas_. who doubts the justice of men? but do not lose time; run and exculpate me with your father, else i shall momentarily expect a thunderbolt to transform me from atlas into etna. [footnote 1: see pliny, diogenes laertius, apollonius, varrò, &c.] [footnote 2: see apollonius, pliny, tertullian, &c.] _dialogue between fashion and death._ _fashion_. madam death, madam death! _death_. wait until your time comes, and then i will appear without being called by you. _fashion_. madam death! _death_. go to the devil. i will come when you least expect me. _fashion_. as if i were not immortal! _death_. immortal? "already has passed the thousandth year," since the age of immortals ended. _fashion_. madam is as much a petrarchist as if she were an italian poet of the fifteenth or eighteenth century. _death_. i like petrarch because he composed my triumph, and because he refers so often to me. but i must be moving. _fashion_. stay! for the love you bear to the seven cardinal sins, stop a moment and look at me. _death_. well. i am looking. _fashion_. do you not recognise me? _death_. you must know that i have bad sight, and am without spectacles. the english make none to suit me; and if they did, i should not know where to put them. _fashion_. i am fashion, your sister. _death_. my sister? _fashion_. yes. do you not remember we are both born of decay? _death_. as if i, who am the chief enemy of memory, should recollect it! _fashion_. but i do. i know also that we both equally profit by the incessant change and destruction of things here below, although you do so in one way, and i in another. _death_. unless you are speaking to yourself, or to some one inside your throat, raise your voice, and pronounce your words more distinctly. if you go mumbling between your teeth with that thin spider-voice of yours, i shall never understand you; because you ought to know that my hearing serves me no better than my sight. _fashion_. although it be contrary to custom, for in france they do not speak to be heard, yet, since we are sisters, i will speak as you wish, for we can dispense with ceremony between ourselves. i say then that our common nature and custom is to incessantly renew the world. you attack the life of man, and overthrow all people and nations from beginning to end; whereas i content myself for the most part with influencing beards, head-dresses, costumes, furniture, houses, and the like. it is true, i do some things comparable to your supreme action. i pierce ears, lips, and noses, and cause them to be torn by the ornaments i suspend from them. i impress men's skin with hot iron stamps, under the pretence of adornment. i compress the heads of children with tight bandages and other contrivances; and make it customary for all men of a country to have heads of the same shape, as in parts of america and asia. i torture and cripple people with small shoes. i stifle women with stays so tight, that their eyes start from their heads; and i play a thousand similar pranks. i also frequently persuade and force men of refinement to bear daily numberless fatigues and discomforts, and often real sufferings; and some even die gloriously for love of me. i will say nothing of the headaches, colds, inflammations of all kinds, fevers--daily, tertian, and quartan--which men gain by their obedience to me. they are content to shiver with cold, or melt with heat, simply because it is my will that they cover their shoulders with wool, and their breasts with cotton. in fact, they do everything in my way, regardless of their own injury. _death_. in truth, i believe you are my sister; the testimony of a birth certificate could scarcely make me surer of it. but standing still paralyses me, so if you can, let us run; only you must not creep, because i go at a great pace. as we proceed you can tell me what you want. if you cannot keep up with me, on account of our relationship i promise when i die to bequeath you all my clothes and effects as a new year's gift. _fashion_. if we ran a race together, i hardly know which of us would win. for if you run, i gallop, and standing still, which paralyses you, is death to me. so let us run, and we will chat as we go along. _death_. so be it then. since your mother was mine, you ought to serve me in some way, and assist me in my business. _fashion_. i have already done so--more than you,--imagine. above all, i, who annul and transform other customs unceasingly, have nowhere changed the custom of death; for this reason it has prevailed from the beginning of the world until now. _death_. a great miracle forsooth, that you have never done what you could not do! _fashion_. why cannot i do it? you show how ignorant you are of the power of fashion. _death_. well, well: time enough to talk of this when you introduce the custom of not dying. but at present, i want you, like a good sister, to aid me in rendering my task more easy and expeditious than it has hitherto been. _fashion_. i have already mentioned some of my labours which are a source of profit to you. but they are trifling in comparison with those of which i will now tell you. little by little, and especially in modern times, i have brought into disuse and discredit those exertions and exercises which promote bodily health; and have substituted numberless others which enfeeble the body in a thousand ways, and shorten life. besides, i have introduced customs and manners, which render existence a thing more dead than alive, whether regarded from a physical or mental point of view; so that this century may be aptly termed the century of death. and whereas formerly you had no other possessions except graves and vaults, where you sowed bones and dust, which are but a barren seed, now you have fine landed properties, and people who are a sort of freehold possession of yours as soon as they are born, though not then claimed by you. and more, you, who used formerly to be hated and vituperated, are in the present day, thanks to me, valued and lauded by all men of genius. such an one prefers you to life itself, and holds you in such high esteem that he invokes you, and looks to you as his greatest hope. but this is not all. i perceived that men had some vague idea of an after-life, which they called immortality. they imagined they lived in the memory of their fellows, and this remembrance they sought after eagerly. of course this was in reality mere fancy, since what could it matter to them when dead, that they lived in the minds of men? as well might they dread contamination in the grave! yet, fearing lest this chimera might be prejudicial to you, in seeming to diminish your honour and reputation, i have abolished the fashion of seeking immortality, and its concession, even when merited. so that now, whoever dies may assure himself that he is dead altogether, and that every bit of him goes into the ground, just as a little fish is swallowed, bones and all. these important things my love for you has prompted me to effect. i have also succeeded in my endeavour to increase your power on earth. i am more than ever desirous of continuing this work. indeed, my object in seeking you to-day was to make a proposal that for the future we should not separate, but jointly might scheme and execute for the furtherance of our respective designs. _death_. you speak reasonably, and i am willing to do as you propose. _prize competition announced by the academy of sillographs._ the academy of sillographs, ardently desiring to advance the common welfare, and esteeming nothing more conformable to this end than the promotion of the progress "of the happy century in which we live," as says an illustrious poet, has taken in hand the careful consideration of the nature and tendency of our time. after long and mature consultation, the academy has resolved to call our era the age of machines; not only because the men of to-day live and move perhaps more mechanically than in past times, but also on account of the numerous machines now invented and utilised for so many different purposes. to such an extent indeed is this carried, that machines and not men may be said to manage human affairs, and conduct the business of life. this circumstance greatly pleases the said academy, not so much because of the manifest convenience of the arrangement, as for two reasons, which it thinks very important, although ordinarily they are not so regarded. the one is the possibility that in process of time the influence and usefulness of machines may extend to spiritual as well as material things. and as by virtue of these machines and inventions, we are already protected from lightning, storms, and other such evils and terrors; similarly there may be discovered some cure for envy, calumny, perfidy, and trickery; some safety-cord or other invention to deliver us from egotism, from the prevalence of mediocrity, from prosperous fools, bad and debased persons, from the universal spirit of indifference, from the wretchedness peculiar to the wise, the cultivated, the noble-minded, and from other discomforts which for many centuries have been more invincible than either lightning or tempests. the other and chief reason concerns the unhappy condition of the human race. most philosophers despair of its improvement, or the cure of its defects, which probably equal or exceed in number its virtues. they believe it would be easier to entirely re-create the race in another way, or to substitute a different "genus" altogether, than to amend it. the academy of sinographs is therefore of opinion that it is very expedient for men to withdraw from the business of life as much as possible, and gradually to resign in favour of machines. and being resolved to support with all its might the progress of this new order of things, it now begs to offer three prizes for the inventors of the three following machines. the aim of the first machine must be to represent a friend warranted not to abuse or ridicule his absent friend; nor forsake his friend when he hears him made the subject of jest; nor to seek the reputation of acuteness, sarcasm, and the power of exciting men's laughter at his friend's expense; nor to divulge or boast of secrets confided to him; nor to take advantage of his friend's intimacy and confidence in order to supplant and surpass him; nor to envy his friend's good fortune. but it must be solicitous for his friend's welfare, join issue with him against his misfortunes, and assist him in deeds as well as words. reference to the treatises of cicero and the marquise of lambert on "friendship" may be advantageously made for further suggestions as to the manufacture of this automaton. the academy thinks the invention of this machine ought not to be regarded as either impossible, or even very difficult, seeing that besides the automata of regiomontano, vaucanson, and others, and the one in london which drew figures and portraits, and wrote from dictation, there are machines that can even play chess unassisted. now in the opinion of many "savants," human life is a game, and some assert it to be a thing even more frivolous. they say that the game of chess is a more rationally conceived thing, and its hazards are less uncertain than those of life. besides, pindar has called life a thing of no more substance than the dream of a shadow; in which case it ought not to be beyond the capacity of a vigilant automaton. as to speech, there is no reason why men should not be able to communicate this to machines of their manufacture. for amongst examples of manufactures so endowed, we may number the statue of memnon, and the head formed by albertus magnus; this latter was so loquacious that st. thomas aquinas, irritated at its incessant tittle-tattle, broke it in pieces. and if the parrot of nevers (though certainly this was an animal, however small a one) could converse, how much more credible that a machine, conceived by the mind of man, and constructed by his hands, should be able to acquire such attainments? the machine ought not to be so talkative as the parrot of nevers, and other similar ones, which we see and hear everywhere; nor as the head made by albertus magnus; for it must not weary its friend, thereby inciting him to its destruction. the inventor of this machine shall receive a reward of a gold medal weighing four hundred sequins, which on the one side shall have a representation of the figures of pylades and orestes, and on the other side the name of the person rewarded, together with the inscription, "first verifier of the ancient fables." the second machine must be an artificial man worked by steam, adapted and constructed for virtuous and magnanimous actions. the academy is of opinion that since no other method appears to exist, steam ought to be capable of directing an animated automaton in the paths of virtue and glory. candidates for this competition are referred to books of poems and romances for suggestions as to the qualities and powers with which to endow the figure. the reward to be a gold medal weighing four hundred and fifty sequins, stamped on the one side with some fanciful design significative of the age of gold, and on its reverse the name of the inventor of the machine, together with this inscription from the fourth eclogue of virgil: "quo ferrea primum desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo." the third machine should be empowered to act as a woman, realising the conception formed partly by count baldassar castiglione, who describes his idea in the book of the "cortegiano," and partly by others, easily discoverable in various writings which must be consulted and combined with those of the count. nor ought the invention of this machine to appear impossible to men of our times, when it be remembered that pygmalion long ago, in an age far from scientific, was able to fabricate a spouse with his own hands, who was considered to be the best woman that had ever existed. to the originator of this machine a gold medal weighing five hundred sequins is assigned, on the one side of which shall be represented the arabian phoenix of metastasio, perched on a tree of some european species, and on the other side shall be written the name of the recipient, with the inscription, "inventor of faithful women, and conjugal happiness." the academy decrees that the cost of these prizes must be defrayed with what was discovered in the satchel of diogenes, late secretary of this academy, or by means of one of the three golden asses that belonged to three sillographic academicians, apuleius, firenzuola, and macchiavelli; all which property passed to the sillographists by will of the deceased, as may be read in the chronicles of the academy. _dialogue between a goblin and a gnome._ _goblin_. you here, son of beelzebub! where are you going? _gnome_. my father has sent me to find out what these rascals of men are doing. he is inclined to suspect something, because it is so long since they gave us any trouble, and in all his realms there is not a single one to be seen. he wonders whether any great change has taken place, and thinks perhaps they have returned to the primitive system of barter, whereby they use sheep instead of gold and silver; or the civilised people have become dissatisfied with paper notes for money, as they have often been, or have taken to cowrie shells such as savages use; or the laws of lycurgus have been re-established. the last possibility seems to him the least likely. _goblin_. "you seek them in vain, for they are all dead," as said the survivors in a tragedy where the principal personages died in the last act. _gnome_. what do you mean? _goblin_. i mean that men are all dead, and the race is lost. _gnome_. my word! what news for the papers! but how is it they have not already mentioned it? _goblin_. stupid. do you not see that if there are no men there will be no more newspapers? _gnome_. yes, that is true. but how shall we know in future the news of the world? _goblin_. news! what news? that the sun rises and sets? that it is hot or cold? that here or there it has rained or snowed, or been windy? since men disappeared, fortune has unbandaged her eyes, put on spectacles, and attached her wheel to a pivot. she sits with arms crossed, watching the world go round without troubling herself in the least as to its affairs. there are no more kingdoms nor empires to swell themselves, and burst like bubbles, for they have all vanished. there is no more war; and the years are as like one another as two peas. _gnome_. no one will know the day of the month, since there will be no more calendars printed! _goblin_. what a misfortune! nevertheless, the moon will continue her course. _gnome_. and the days of the week will be nameless! _goblin_. what does it matter? do you think they will not come unless you call them? or, that once passed, they will return if you call out their names? _gnome_. and no one will take any count of the years! _goblin_. we shall be able to say we are young when we are old; and we shall forget our cares when we cannot fix their anniversary. besides, when we are very old, we shall not know it, nor be expecting death daily. _gnome_. but how is it these rogues have disappeared? _goblin_. some killed themselves with fighting; others were drowned in the sea. some ate each other. not a few committed suicide. some died of ennui in idleness; and some turned their brains with study. debauch, and a thousand other excesses, put an end to many more. in short, they have arrived at their end, by endeavouring, as long as they lived, to violate the laws of nature, and to go contrary to their welfare. _gnome_. still, i do not understand how an entire race of animals can become extinct without leaving any trace behind it. _goblin_. you who are a specialist in geology ought to know that the circumstance is not a new one, and that many kinds of animals lived anciently, which to-day are nowhere to be found except in the remains of a few petrified bones. moreover, these poor creatures employed none of the means used by men for their destruction. _gnome_. it may be so. i should dearly like to resuscitate one or two of the rascals, just to know what they would think when they saw all going on as before, in spite of the disappearance of the human race. would they then imagine that everything was made and maintained solely for them? _goblin_. they would not like to realise that the world exists solely for the use of the goblins. _gnome_. you are joking, my friend, if you mean what you say. _goblin_. why? of course i do. _gnome_. go along with you, buffoon! who does not know that the world is made for the gnomes? _goblin_. for the gnomes, who live underground! that is one of the best jokes i have ever heard. what good are the sun, moon, air, sea, and country to the gnomes? _gnome_. and pray of what use to the goblins are the mines of gold and silver, and the whole body of earth, except the outer skin? _goblin_. well, well: suppose we abandon the discussion. it is unimportant after all. for i imagine even the lizards and gnats think the whole world was created for their exclusive service. let each of us believe what we please, for nothing will make us change our opinion. but, between ourselves, if i had not been born a goblin, i should be in despair. _gnome_. and i, had i not been born a gnome. but i should like to know what men would say of their impertinence in former times, when, besides other misdeeds, they sank thousands of underground shafts, and stole our goods from us by force, asserting that they belonged to the human race. nature, they said, concealed and buried the things down below, as a sort of game at hide and seek, just to see if they could discover and abstract them. _goblin_. i do not wonder at that, since they not only imagined the things of the world were at their service, but they also regarded them as a mere trifle compared to the human race. they called their own vicissitudes "revolutions of the world;" and histories of their nations, "histories of the world;" although the earth contained about as many different species of animals as living individual human beings. yet these animals, though made expressly for the use of men, were never conscious of the so-called revolutions of the world! _gnome_. then even the fleas and gnats were made for the service of men? _goblin_. just so. to exercise their patience, men said. _gnome_. as if, apart from fleas, man's patience were not tried sufficiently! _goblin_. and a certain man named chrysippus termed pigs pieces of meat expressly prepared by nature for man's table. their souls, he said, served the purpose of salt, in preserving them from decay. _gnome_. in my opinion, if chrysippus had had a little sense (salt) in his brain, instead of imagination (soul), he would never have conceived such an idea. _goblin_. here is another amusing circumstance. an infinite number of species of animals were never seen, nor heard of by men their masters, either because they lived where man never set foot, or because they were too small to be observed. many others were only discovered during the last days of the human race. the same may be said of plants, minerals, &c. similarly, from time to time, by means of their telescopes, they perceived some star or planet, of the existence of which hitherto, during thousands and thousands of years, they had been ignorant. they then immediately entered it on the catalogue of their possessions; for they regarded the stars and planets as so many candles placed up above to give light to their dominions, because they were wont to transact much business in the night. _gnome_. and in summer, when they saw those little meteor flames that rush through the air at night, they imagined them to be sprites employed in snuffing the candles for the good of mankind. _goblin_. yet now that they are all gone, the earth is none the worse off. the rivers still flow, and the sea, although no longer used for navigation and traffic, is not dried up. _gnome_. the stars and planets still rise and set; nor have they gone into mourning. _goblin_. neither has the sun put on sackcloth and ashes, as it did, according to virgil, when cæsar died; about whom i imagine it concerned itself as little as pompey's pillar. _dialogue between malambruno and farfarello._ _malambruno_. spirits of the deep, farfarello, ciriatto, raconero, astarotte, alichino, or whatever else you are called, i adjure you in the name of beelzebub, and command you by virtue of my art, which can unhinge the moon, and nail the sun in the midst of the heavens, come one of you with your prince's permission, to put all the powers of hell at my disposal. _farfarello_. here i am. _mal_. who are you? _far_. farfarello, at thy service. _mal_. have you the mandate of beelzebub? _far_. i have; and can thus do for thee all that the king himself could do, and more than lies in the power of all other creatures together. _mal_. it is well. i wish to be satisfied in but one desire. _far_. thou shalt be obeyed. what is it? dost thou wish for majesty surpassing that of the atrides? _mal_. no. _far_. more wealth than shall be found in el dorado, when it is discovered? _mal_. no. _far_. an empire as large as that of which charles v. dreamt one night? _mal_. no. _far_. a mistress chaster than penelope? _mal_. no: methinks the devil's aid were superfluous for that. _far_. honours and success, however wicked thou mayst be? _mal_. i should rather more need the devil, if i wished the contrary, under such circumstances. _far_. then what dost thou want? _mal_. make me happy for a moment. _far_. i cannot. _mal_. why? _far_. i give you my word of honour--i cannot do it. _mal_. the word of honour of a good demon? _far_. yes, to be sure. thou shouldest know that there are good devils as well as good men. _mal_. and you must know that i will hang you by the tail to one of these beams if you do not instantly obey me without more words. _far_. it were easier for you to kill me, than for me to satisfy your demands. _mal_. then return with my malediction, and let beelzebub come himself. _far_. beelzebub and the whole army of hell would be equally powerless to render you or any of your race happy. _mal_. not even for a single moment? _far_. as impossible for a moment, half a moment, or the thousandth part of a moment, as for a lifetime. _mal_. well, since you cannot make me happy in any way, at least free me from unhappiness. _far_. on condition that you no longer love yourself above everything else. _mal_. i shall only cease doing that when i die. _far_. but as long as you live you will be unable to do it. your nature would tolerate anything rather than that. _mal_. so it is. _far_. consequently, loving yourself above everything, you desire your own happiness more than anything. but because this is unattainable, you must necessarily be unhappy. _mal_. even when engaged in pleasure; since no gratification can make me happy, or satisfy me. _far_. truly none. _mal_. and because pleasure cannot satisfy my soul's innate desire for happiness, it is not true pleasure, and during its continuance i shall still be unhappy. _far_. as you say: because in men and other living beings, the deprivation of happiness, even though pain and misfortune be wanting, implies express unhappiness. this, too, during the continuance of so-called pleasures. _mal_. so that from birth to death our unhappiness never ceases for an instant. _far_. yes, it ceases whenever you sleep dreamlessly, or when, from one cause or another, you are deprived of your senses. _mal_. but never, so long as we are sensible that we live. _far_. never. _mal_. so that in fact it were better not to live than to live. _far_. if the absence of unhappiness be better than unhappiness itself. _mal_. then? _far_. then if you would like to give me your soul before its time, i am ready to carry it away with me. _dialogue between nature and a soul._ _nature_. go, my beloved child. you shall be regarded as my favoured one for very many centuries. live: be great and unhappy. _soul_. what evil have i done before beginning to live, that you condemn me to this misery? _nature_. what misery, my child? _soul_. do you not ordain that i am to be unhappy? _nature_. yes; but only so far as to enable you to be great, which you cannot become without unhappiness. besides, you are destined to animate a human body, and all men are of necessity unhappy from their birth. _soul_. it were more reasonable that you made happiness a necessity; or this being impossible, it were better not to bring men into the world. _nature_. i can do neither the one thing nor the other, because i am subordinate to destiny, who decrees the contrary. the reason of this is as much a mystery to myself as to you. now that you are created and designed to animate a human being, no power in the world can save you from the unhappiness common to men. moreover, your infelicity will be especially great, owing to the perfection with which i have fashioned you. _soul_. i know nothing yet, because i have only just begun to live. doubtless this is why i do not understand you. but tell me, is greatness the same thing as extreme unhappiness? if, however, they are different, why could not the one be separated from the other? _nature_. in the souls of men, and proportionately in those of all animals, they are inseparable, because excellence of soul implies great capacity for knowledge, which in exposing to men the unhappiness of humanity may be termed unhappiness itself. similarly, a life of greater intensity involves a greater love of self, manifested in different ways. an increased desire for happiness is a consequence of this self-love and increased unhappiness, because of the impossibility of satisfying this desire, and as the unfortunate condition of humanity becomes realised. all this is decreed from the beginning of creation, and is unalterable by me. moreover, the keenness of your intellect and the strength of your imagination will lessen considerably your power of self-control. brute animals readily adapt all their faculties and powers to the attainment of their ends; but men rarely do so, being usually prevented by their reason and imagination, which give birth to a thousand doubts in deliberation, and a thousand hindrances in execution. the less men are inclined or accustomed to deliberate, the more prompt are they in decision, and the more vigorous in action. but such souls as yours, self-contained, and proudly conscious of their greatness, are really powerless for self-rule, and often succumb to irresolution both in thought and action. this temperament is one of the greatest curses of human life. added to this, although by your noble talents you will easily and quickly excel most men in profound knowledge and works of the greatest difficulty, you will yet find it almost impossible to learn, or put in practice, a host of things, trivial enough, but very essential, for your intercourse with others. at the same time, you; will see your inferiors, and even men of scarcely any intelligence, perfectly at home with these things. such difficulties and miseries as these occupy and surround great souls; but they are amply atoned for by fame, praise, and honours paid to their greatness, and by the lasting memory they leave behind them. _soul_. whence will come these praises and honours,--from heaven, from you, or from whom? _nature_. from men, who alone can dispense them. _soul_. but i thought my ignorance of those things necessary for the intercourse of life, which intellects inferior to mine so easily comprehend, would cause me to be despised and shunned, not praised by men. i thought too that i should surely live unknown to most of them, because of my unfitness for their society. _nature_. i have not the power to foresee the future, so i cannot say exactly how men will behave to you whilst you are on earth. but judging from past experience, i think they will probably be jealous of you. this is another misfortune to which great minds are peculiarly liable. perhaps too, they will despise you, and treat you with indifference. fortune herself, and even circumstances, are usually unfriendly to such as you. but directly after your death, as happened to one named camoens, or a few years later, like milton, you will be eulogised and lauded to the skies, if not by every one, at any rate by the few men of noble minds. perhaps the ashes of your body will be deposited in a magnificent tomb, and your likeness reproduced in many different forms, and passed about from hand to hand. men will also study your life and writings, and at length the world will ring with your name. always provided you are not hindered by evil fortune, or even by the very excess of your genius, from leaving undoubted testimonies of your merit; instances are not wanting of such unfortunates, known only to myself and destiny. _soul_. o mother, i care not if i be deprived of all knowledge, so long as i obtain what i most desire, happiness. and as for glory, i know not whether it be a good or evil thing, but i do know that i shall only value it in so far as it procures me happiness, directly or indirectly. now, on your own showing, the excellence with which you have endowed me, though it may be fruitful of glory, is also productive of the greatest unhappiness. yet even this paltry glory i may not gain until i am dead, when i fail to see how i shall benefit by it. and besides, there is the probability that this phantom glory, the price of so much suffering, may be obtained neither in life nor after death. in short, from what you yourself have said, i conclude that far from loving me with peculiar affection, as you affirmed, you bear me greater malice than that of which i can be the victim, either at the hands of men or destiny. why else should you have endowed me with this disastrous excellence, about which you boast so much, and which will be the chief stumbling-block in the road to happiness, the only thing for which i care? _nature_. my child, all men are destined to be unhappy, as i have said, without any fault of mine. but in the midst of this universal misery, and amid the infinite vanity of all their pleasures and joys, glory is by most men considered to be the greatest good of life, and the worthiest object of ambition and fatigue. therefore, not hatred but a feeling of especial kindliness, has prompted me to assist you as far as i could in your attainment of this glory. _soul_. tell me: among the animals you mentioned, are there any of less vitality and sensibility than men? _nature_. all are so, in more or less degree, beginning with plants. man, being the most perfect of them all, has greater life and power of thought than all other living beings. _soul_. then if you love me, place me in the most imperfect thing existing, or that being impossible, at least deprive me of this terrible excellence, and make me like the most stupid and senseless soul you have ever created! _nature_. i can satisfy your second request, and will do so, since you reject the immortality i would have given you. _soul_. and instead of the immortality, i beseech you to hasten my death as much as possible. _nature_. i will consult destiny about that. _dialogue between the earth and the moon_ _earth_. dear moon, i know that you can speak and answer questions like a human being, for i have heard so from many of the poets. besides, our children say you have really a mouth, nose, and eyes like every one else, and that they see them with their own eyes, which at their time of life ought to be very sharp. as for me, no doubt you know that i am a person; indeed, when i was young, i had a number of children; so you will not be surprised to hear me speak. and the reason, my fine moon, why i have never uttered a word to you before, although i have been your neighbour for i don't know how many centuries, is that i have been so occupied as to have no time for gossip. but now my business is so trifling that it can look after itself. i don't know what to do, and am ready to die of ennui. so in future, i hope we may often have some talk together; and i should like to know all about your affairs, if it does not inconvenience you to recount them to me. _moon_. be easy on that score. may the fates never trouble me more than you are likely to! talk as much as you please, and although, as i believe you know, i am partial to silence, i will willingly listen and reply, to oblige you. _earth_. do you hear the delightful sound made by the heavenly bodies in motion? _moon_. to tell you the truth, i hear nothing. _earth_. nor do i; save only the whistling of the wind, which blows from my poles to the equator, and from the equator to the poles, and which is far from musical. but pythagoras asserts that the celestial spheres make an incredibly sweet harmony, and that you take part in the concert, and are the eighth chord of this universal lyre. as for me, i am so deafened by my own noise that i hear nothing. _moon_. i also am doubtless deafened, since i hear no more than you. but it is news to me that i am a chord. _earth_. now let us change the subject. tell me; are you really inhabited, as thousands of ancient and modern philosophers affirm--from orpheus to de lalande? in spite of all my efforts to prolong these horns of mine, which men call mountains and hills, and from the summits of which i look at you in silence, i have failed to discern a single one of your inhabitants. yet i am told that a certain david fabricius, whose eyes were keener than those of lynceus, at one time observed your people extending their linen to be dried by the sun. _moon_. i know nothing about your horns. i will admit that i am inhabited. _earth_. what colour are your men? _moon_. what men? _earth_. those that you contain. did you not say you were inhabited? _moon_. yes, what then? _earth_. does it not follow that all your inhabitants are animals? _moon_. neither animals nor men, though i am really in ignorance as to the nature of either the one or the other. as for the men you speak of, i have not an idea what you mean. _earth_. then what sort of creatures are yours? _moon_. they are of very many different kinds, as unknown to you, as yours are to me. _earth_. this is so strange that if you yourself had not informed me of it, i would never have believed it. were you ever conquered by any of your inhabitants? _moon_. not that i know of. but how? and for what reason? _earth_. through ambition and jealousy; by means of diplomacy and arms. _moon_. i do not know what you mean by arms, ambition, and diplomacy. indeed, i understand nothing of what you say. _earth_. but surely if you do not understand the meaning of arms, you know something of war; because, not long ago, a certain doctor discovered through a telescope, which is an instrument for seeing a long distance, that you possessed a fine fortress with proper bastions. now this is certain proof that your races are at any rate accustomed to sieges and mural battles. _moon_. pardon me, mother earth, if i reply to you a little more at length than would be expected from one so subjugated as it seems i am. but in truth, you appear to me more than vain to imagine that everything in the world is conformable to your things; as if nature had no other intention than to copy you exactly in each of her creations. i tell you i am inhabited, and you jump to the conclusion that my inhabitants are men. i assert that they are not, and whilst admitting that they may be another race of beings, you endow them with qualities and customs similar to those of your people. you also speak to me about the telescope of a certain doctor. but it seems to me the sight of these telescopes is about as good as that of your children, who discover that i have eyes, a mouth, and a nose, all of which i am ignorant of possessing. _earth_. then it is not true that your provinces are intersected by fine long roads, and that you are cultivated; which things are clearly discernible with a telescope from germany.[1] _moon_. i do not know whether i am cultivated, and i have never observed my roads. _earth_. dear moon, you must know that i am of a coarse composition, and very simple-minded. no wonder therefore that men easily deceive me. but i can assure you that if your own inhabitants do not care to conquer you, you are by no means free from such danger; for at different times many people down here have thought of subduing you, and have even made great preparations for doing so. some have tried to reach you by going to my highest places, standing on tiptoe, and stretching out their arms. besides, they have made a careful study of your surface, and drawn out maps of your countries. they also know the heights of your mountains, and even their names. i warn you of these things out of pure goodwill, so that you may be prepared for any emergency. now, permit me to ask you another question or two. are you much disturbed by the dogs that bay at you? what do you think of those people who show you another moon in a well? are you masculine or feminine[2]--because anciently there was a difference of opinion. is it true that the arcadians came into the world before you?[3] are your women, or whatever i should call them, oviparous, and did one of their eggs fall down to us, once upon a time?[4] are you perforated like a bead, as a modern philosopher believes?[5] are you made of green cheese, as some english say? is it true that mahomet one fine night cut you in two like a water melon, and that a good piece of your body fell into his cloak? why do you like to stay on the tops of minarets? what do you think of the feast of bairam? _moon_. you may as well go on. i need not answer such questions, nor depart from my accustomed habit of silence. if you wish to be so frivolous, and can find nothing else to talk to me about except matters incomprehensible to me, your people had better construct another planet to rotate round them, which they can design and populate as they please. you seem unable to talk of anything but men, and dogs, and such things, of which i know as much as of that one great being round which i am told our sun turns. _earth_. truly the more i determine not to touch on personal matters, the less i succeed in my resolution. but for the future i will be more careful. tell me; do you amuse yourself by drawing up my sea-water, and then letting it fall again? _moon_. it may be. but if i have done this, or other such things, i am unaware of it. and you, it seems to me, do not consider what you effect here, which is of so much the more importance as your size and strength are greater than mine. _earth_. i know nothing of these effects, except that from time to time i deprive you of the sun's light, and myself of yours, and that i illumine you during your nights, as is sometimes evident to me. but i am forgetting one thing, which is the most important of all. i should like to know if ariosto is correct in saying that everything man loses, such as youth, beauty, health, the vigour and money spent in the pursuit of glory, in the instruction of children, and founding or promoting useful institutions, flies to you; so that you possess all things pertaining to man, except folly, which has never left mankind. if this be true, i reckon you ought to be so full as to have scarcely any space unoccupied, especially since men have recently lost a great many things (such as patriotism, virtue, magnanimity, righteousness), not merely in part, or singly, as in former times, but completely, and without exception. and certainly if you have not got these things, i do not know where else they can be. but supposing you have them, i wish we could come to an agreement whereby you might soon return the lost things to me; for i imagine you must be greatly encumbered, especially with common sense, which i understand crowds you very much. in return for this, i will see that men pay you annually a good sum of money. _moon_. men again! though folly, as you say, has not left your domains, you wish nevertheless to make an utter fool of me, by depriving me of what reason i possess, to supply the deficiency in your people. but i do not know where this reason of yours is, nor whether it can be found in the universe. i know well that it is not here, any more than the other things you mention. _earth_. at least, you can tell me if your inhabitants are acquainted with vices, misdeeds, misfortunes, suffering, and old age; in short, evils? do you understand these names? _moon_. yes, i understand these well enough, and not only the names. i am full of them, instead of the other things. _earth_. which are the more numerous among your people, virtues or vices? _moon_. vices, by a long way. _earth_. does pleasure or pain predominate? _moon_. pain is infinitely more prevalent. _earth_. and your inhabitants, are they mostly happy or unhappy? _moon_. so unhappy that i would not exchange my lot with the happiest of them. _earth_. it is the same here. i wonder why we differ so much in other things, yet agree in this. _moon_. i am also like you in shape, i rotate like you, and am illumined by the same sun. it is no more wonderful that we should resemble each other in these things, than that we should possess common failings; because evil is as common to all the planets of the universe, or at least of the solar system, as rotundity, movement, and light. and if you could speak loud enough for uranus or saturn, or any other planet, to hear you, and were to ask them if they contained unhappiness, and whether pleasure or pain predominated, each would answer as i have done. i speak from experience, for i have already questioned venus and mercury, to whom i am now and then nearer than you. i have also asked certain comets which have passed by me; they all replied to the same effect. i firmly believe even the sun and every star would make the same response. _earth_. still i am very hopeful. in future i trust men will permit me to experience much happiness. _moon_. hope as much as you please. i will answer for it you may hope for ever. _earth_. ha! did you hear that? these men and animals of mine are making an uproar. it is night on the side from which i am speaking to you, and at first they were all asleep. but, thanks to our conversation, they are now wide awake, and very frightened. _moon_. and here, on the other side, you see it is day. _earth_. yes. now i do not wish to terrify my people, or interrupt their sleep, which is the best thing they possess; so let us postpone conversation until another opportunity. adieu, and good-day to you. _moon_. adieu. good-night. [footnote 1: see german newspapers of march 1824, for particulars of the discoveries attributed to gruithuisen.] [footnote 2: see macrobius, _saturnal_: lib. 3. cap. 8; tertullian, _apolog_., cap. 15. the moon was also honoured as the god moon. in the german language moon is masculine.] [footnote 3: see menander, lib. 1. cap. 15, _in rhetor_, graec. veter.] [footnote 4: athen: lib. 2. _ed. casaub_. p. 57.] [footnote 5: antonio di ulloa. see carli, _lettere americane_, par. 4. lett. 7. milan, 1784.] _the wager of prometheus._ in the year 833,265 of the reign of jove, the college of the muses caused certain notices to be printed and affixed in the public places of the city and suburbs of hypernephelus. these notices contained an invitation to all the gods, great and small, and the other inhabitants of the city, who had recently or anciently originated some praiseworthy invention, to make representation thereof, either actually, or by model or description, to certain judges nominated by this college. and, regretting that its well-known poverty prevented it from displaying the liberality it would have liked to show, the college promised to reward the one whose invention should be judged the finest or most useful, with a crown of laurel. in addition to the prize itself, the college would give the victor permission to wear the crown, day and night, in public and private life, and both in the city and outside it; he might also be painted, sculptured, or modelled in any manner or material whatever, with the emblem of victory on his brow. not a few of the gods contested the prize, simply to kill time, a thing as necessary for the citizens of hypernephelus, as for the people of other towns. they had no wish for the crown, which was about as valuable as a cotton night-cap; and as for the glory, if even men despise it as soon as they become philosophers, it may be imagined in what esteem the phantom was held by the gods, who are so much wiser than the wisest of men, if indeed they are not the sole possessors of wisdom, as pythagoras and plato affirm. the prize was awarded with an unanimity hitherto unheard of in cases of reward bestowed on the most meritorious. neither were there any unfair influences exercised, such as favouritism, underhand promises, or artifice. three competitors were chosen: bacchus, for the invention of wine; minerva, for that of oil, with which the gods were daily wont to be anointed after the bath; and vulcan, for having made a copper pot of an economical design, by which cooking could be expeditiously conducted with but little fire. it was necessary to divide the prize into three parts, so there only remained a little sprig of laurel for each of the victors. but they all three declined the prize, whether in part or the whole. vulcan said, that since he was obliged to stand the greater part of his time at the forge fire, perspiring and considerably exerting himself, the encumbrance on his brow would be a great annoyance to him; added to which, the laurel would run risk of being scorched or burnt, if some spark by chance were to fall on its dry leaves and set it on fire. minerva excused herself on the ground of having to wear a helmet large enough, as homer says, to cover the united armies of a hundred cities; consequently any increase of this weight would be very inconvenient, and out of the question. bacchus did not wish to change his mitre and chaplet of vine leaves for the laurel, which, however, he would willingly have accepted, had he been allowed to put it up as a sign outside his tavern; but the muses declined to grant it for that purpose. finally, the wreath remained in the common treasury of the college. none of the competitors for the prize envied the three successful gods; nor did they express vexation at the award, nor dispute the verdict--with one exception, prometheus. this god brought to the contest the clay model he had used in the formation of the first man. attached to the model was some writing which explained the qualities and office of the human race, his invention. the chagrin displayed by prometheus in this matter caused no little astonishment; since all the other gods, whether victors or vanquished, had regarded the whole affair as a joke. but on further inquiry it transpired that what he especially desired, was not the honour, but rather the privilege accompanying success. some thought he meant to use the laurel as a protection for his head against storms; as it is said of tiberius that whenever he heard thunder, he donned his crown, esteeming the laurel proof against thunderbolts. but this suggestion was negatived by the fact that the city of hypernephelus never experienced either thunder or lightning. others, more rationally, affirmed that prometheus, owing to age, had begun to lose his hair, and being greatly troubled at this misadventure, as are many mortals in similar circumstances (and either not having read synesius' eulogy on baldness, or being unconvinced by it), wished, like julius cæsar, to hide the nakedness of his head beneath the leafy diadem. but to turn to facts. one day prometheus, talking with momus, bitterly complained of the preference given to the wine, oil, and copper-pot, in comparison with the human race, which he said was the finest achievement of the immortals that the universe had ever seen. and not being able sufficiently to convince momus, who gave various reasons against this assertion, they made a wager on the subject. prometheus proposed that they should descend together to the earth, and alighting by chance in the first place they should discover inhabited by man in each of the five parts of the world, they might find out whether or not there were in all or most of these parts conclusive evidence that man is the most perfect creature of the universe. momus accepted the wager; and having settled the amount, they began without delay to descend towards the earth. first of all they directed themselves to the new world, which, from its name, and the fact that as yet none of the immortals had set foot in it, greatly excited their curiosity. they touched ground towards the north of popuyan, not far from the river cauca, in a place which showed many signs of human habitation. there were traces of cultivation, level roads broken and impassable in places, trees cut and strewn about, appearances of what might be graves, and here and there human bones were scattered. but the celestials could neither hear the voice, nor see the shadow of a living man, though they listened acutely, and looked all around them. they proceeded, walking and flying, for the distance of many miles, passing mountains and rivers, and finding everywhere the same traces of human habitation, and the same solitude. "how is it these countries are now deserted," said momus to prometheus, "though they were evidently once inhabited?" prometheus mentioned the inundations of the sea, earthquakes, storms, and heavy rains, which he knew were ordinary occurrences in the tropics. indeed, as if in confirmation of his words, they could distinctly hear in the neighbouring forests the incessant patter of rain-drops falling from the branches of trees agitated by the wind. but momus was unable to understand how that locality could be affected by inundations of the sea, which was so distant as not to be visible on any side. still less could he comprehend why the earthquakes, storms, and rains should have destroyed the human beings of the country, sparing however, the jaguars, apes, ants, eagles, parrots, and a hundred other kinds of animals and birds which surrounded them. at length, descending into an immense valley, they discovered a little cluster of houses, or wooden cabins, covered with palm leaves, and environed on all sides by a fence like a stockade. before one of these cabins, many persons, some standing, some sitting, were gathered round an earthen pot suspended over a large fire. the two celestials, having taken human form, drew near, and prometheus, courteously saluting them all, turned to the one who seemed to be their chief, and asked him what they were doing. _savage_. eating, as you see. _prom_. what savoury food have you got? _savage_. only a little bit of meat. _prom_. of a domestic, or wild animal? _savage_. domestic, in truth, since it is my own son. _prom_. what! had you then, like pasiphaë, a calf for your son? _savage_. not a calf, but a child like every one else. _prom_. do you mean what you say? is it your own flesh and blood that you are eating? _savage_. my own? no. but certainly that of my son. why else did i bring him into the world, and nourish him? _prom_. what! to eat him? _savage_. why not? and i will also eat his mother when she can have no more children. _momus_. as one eats the hen after her eggs. _savage_. and i will likewise eat my other women, when they can no longer have children. and why also should i keep these slaves of mine alive, if it were not that from time to time they give me children to eat? but when they are old, i will eat them all one after the other, if i live.[1] _prom_. tell me, do these slaves belong to your tribe or to another? _savage_. another. _prom_. far from here? _savage_. a very long way. a river divides their huts from ours. and pointing with his finger to a hillock, he added: they used to live there, but our people have destroyed their dwellings. by this time it seemed to prometheus that many of the savages were standing looking at him with the sort of appreciative gaze that a cat gives to a mouse. so, to avoid being eaten by his own manufactures, he rose suddenly on the wing, and momus followed his example. and such was their fright that in setting out they unconsciously behaved as did the harpies towards the trojans when at meat. but the cannibals, more hungry, or less dainty, than the companions of æneas, continued their horrid repast. prometheus, very dissatisfied with the new world, turned immediately towards asia, the older one. having traversed almost in an instant the space which lies between the east and west indies, they both descended near agra, in a field where they saw a number of people. these were all gathered round a funeral pyre of wood, by which men with torches were standing, ready to set it on fire; and on a platform was a young woman very sumptuously attired, and wearing a variety of barbaric adornments, who, dancing and shouting, displayed signs of the liveliest joy. prometheus, seeing her, imagined that a second lucretia or virginia, or some imitator of the children of erectheus, of iphigenia, codrus, menecius, curtius, or decius, was about to sacrifice herself voluntarily on behalf of her country, in obedience to the decree of some oracle. learning however that the woman was about to die because her husband was dead, he supposed that, like alcestis, she wished at the cost of her own life to reanimate her husband. but, when they informed him that she was only induced to burn herself because it was customary for widows of her caste to do so, and that she had always hated her husband, that she was drunk, and that the dead man, instead of being resuscitated, was to be burnt in the same fire, he abruptly turned his back on the spectacle, and set out for europe. on their way thither, prometheus and his companion held the following conversation. _momus_. did you think, when at so great a hazard you stole fire from heaven to give to men, that some of them would make use of it to cook one another in pots, and others voluntarily to burn themselves? _prom_. no, indeed! but consider, dear momus, that the men we have hitherto seen are barbarians; and one must not judge of human nature from barbarians, but rather from civilised people, to whom we are now going. i have a strong conviction that among these latter we shall see things, and hear words, which will astonish as much as delight you. _momus_. i for my part do not see, if men are the most perfect race of the universe, why they need be civilised in order not to burn themselves, or eat their own children. other animals are all uncivilised, and yet none of them deliberately burn themselves, except the phoenix, which is fabulous; rarely they eat their own kind; and much more rarely make food of their own offspring by any chance whatever; neither do they specially give birth to them for that purpose. i also understand that of the five divisions of the world, only the smallest possesses even incompletely the civilisation that you praise. to this may be added minute portions of other parts of the world. and you yourself will not venture to assert that the civilisation of the present day is such that the men of paris or philadelphia have reached the highest possible state of perfection. yet, to enable them to attain to their present imperfect state of civilisation, how much time has had to elapse? even as many years as the world can number from its origin to the existing age. again, almost all the inventions which have been of greatest use or importance in the advancement of civilisation have originated rather fortuitously than rationally. hence, human civilisation is a work of chance rather than nature, and where opportunity has been lacking, the people are still barbarians, though on the same level of age as civilised people. consequently i make the following deductions: that man in the savage state is many degrees inferior to every other animal; that civilisation as compared with barbarism is only possessed even in the present day by a small portion of the human race; that these privileged people have only reached their existing state of culture after the lapse of many ages, and more by chance than anything else; and finally, that the present state of civilisation is imperfect. consider, therefore, whether your opinion about the human race would not be better expressed in saying, that it is chief among races, but supreme rather in imperfection than perfection. it does not affect the case that men themselves, in talking and reasoning, continually confuse perfection and imperfection, arguing as they do from certain preconceived notions, which they take for palpable truths. it is certain that the other races of creatures were each from the very beginning in a state of perfection. and, since it is clear that man in a savage state compares unfavourably with other animals, i do not understand how beings, naturally the most imperfect among the races, as it seems men are, come to be esteemed superior to all others. added to which, human civilisation, so difficult to acquire, and almost impossible to perfect, is not so immutable that it cannot relapse. in fact, we find it has done so several times, among people who once possessed a high degree of culture. in conclusion, i think your brother epimetheus would have gained the prize before you, had he brought to the judges his model of the first ass, or first frog. i will, however, quite agree with you as to the perfection of man, if you on your part will admit that his excellence is of the kind attributed to the world by plotinus. this philosopher says the world in itself is supremely perfect, but containing as it does every conceivable evil, it is in reality as bad as can be. from the same point of view, i might perhaps agree with leibnitz, that the present world is the best of all possible worlds. there can be no doubt that prometheus had prepared a concise and crushing reply to all this reasoning; but it is very certain he did not give it expression, for just then they found themselves over the city of london. the gods descended, and seeing a great many people rushing to the door of a private house, they mixed with the crowd, and entered the building. within, they found a dead man, who had been shot in the breast, laid out on a bed. he had a pistol clenched in his right hand, and by his side lay two children, also dead. there were several people of the house in the room, who were being questioned by magistrates, while an official wrote down their replies. _prom_. who are these unfortunate beings? _servant_. my master and his children. _prom_. who has killed them? _servant_. my master himself. _prom_. what! do you mean to say he killed his children and himself? _servant_. yes. _prom_. alas! why did he do that? surely some great misfortune must have befallen him. _servant_. none that i know of. _prom_. perhaps he was poor, or despised by every one, unfortunate in love, or in disgrace at court. _servant_. on the contrary, he was very rich, and i believe universally esteemed. he cared nothing about love, and was in high favour at court. _prom_. then why has he done this thing? _servant_. he was weary of life,--so he says in the writing he has left. _prom_. what are these judges doing? _servant_. taking evidence as to whether my master was out of his mind or not. unless he is proved to have been insane, his goods fall to the crown by law; and really there is nothing to prevent their so doing. _prom_. but had he no friend or relative to whom he could entrust his children instead of killing them? _servant_. yes, he had; and especially one friend, to whom he has commended his dog.[2] momus was about to congratulate prometheus on the good effects of civilisation, and the happiness that seemed to be inseparable from human life. he wished also to remind him that no animal except man voluntarily killed itself, or was impelled by feelings of despair to take the life of its own offspring. but prometheus anticipated him, and paid the bet at once, without visiting the two remaining parts of the world. [footnote 1: see robertson's _hist. of america_, book vi.] [footnote 2: a fact.] _dialogue between a natural philosopher and a metaphysician_ _natural philosopher_. eureka! eureka! _metaphysician_. what is it? what have you found? _nat. phil._ the art of long life.[1] _met_. and the book that you carry? _nat. phil_. explains my theory. this invention of mine will give me eternal life. others may live long, but i shall live for ever. i mean that i shall acquire immortal fame. _met_. follow my advice. get a leaden casket; enclose therein your book; bury it; and leave in your will directions where it may be found, with instructions to your heirs not to exhume the book until they shall have discovered the art of living a happy life. _nat. phil_. and meanwhile? _met_. meanwhile your invention will be good for nothing. it were far better if it taught the art of living briefly. _nat. phil_. that has already been known a long time. the discovery was not a difficult one. _met_. at any rate i prefer it to yours. _nat phil_. why? _met_. because if life be not happy, as hitherto it has not been, it were better to endure a short term of it than a long one. _nat. phil_. no, no. i differ from you. life is a good in itself, and is naturally desired and loved by every one. _met_. so men think. but they are deceived. similarly people deceive themselves in thinking that colours are attributes of the objects coloured; whereas really they are not qualities of objects, but of light. i assert that man loves and desires nothing but his own happiness. he therefore loves his life only inasmuch as he esteems it the instrument or subject of his happiness. hence it is happiness that he always loves, and not life; although he very often attributes to the one the affection he has for the other. it is true that this illusion and that relating to colours are both natural. but as a proof that the love of life in men is unnatural, or rather unnecessary, think of the many people that in olden times preferred to die rather than live. in our own time too many people often wish for death, and some kill themselves. now such things could not occur if man naturally loved life itself. the love of happiness, on the contrary, is innate in every living being; indeed the world would perish before they ceased loving and seeking it in every possible form. and as for your assertion that life in itself is a good thing, i challenge you to prove your words by any arguments you please, whether of physics or metaphysics. personally i am of opinion that a happy life is undoubtedly a good thing. but this is because of the happiness, not the life. an unhappy life is therefore an evil. and since it is ordained that human life should be inseparable from unhappiness, i leave you to draw your own conclusions. _nat. phil_. let us drop the subject, if you please; it is too melancholy. answer me one question candidly, and without such subtleties. if man had the power to live for ever, i mean in this life and not after death, do you think he would be happy? _met_. allow me to answer you by a fable. moreover, as i have never tasted immortality, i cannot reply to you from experience. besides, i have never by any chance met an immortal, the very existence of whom is a mere matter of legend. if cagliostro were alive, he could perhaps enlighten you, since he was said to have lived for several centuries. but he is now dead, like his contemporaries. to return to the fable. the wise chiro, who was a god, in time became so wearied of his life, that he asked permission from jove to die. this was granted to him; so he died.[2] if immortality wrought such an effect on the gods, how would it be with men? the hyperboreans, an unknown but famous people, whose country is inaccessible by sea or land, were, it is said, rich in all manner of things, and possessed a race of asses of peculiar beauty, which they used to offer as sacrifices. they had the power, unless i am mistaken, of living for ever, and knew nothing of fatigues, cares, wars, discords, or crimes. yet we learn that after several thousand years of life, they all killed themselves by jumping from a certain rock into the sea, where they were drowned.[3] here is another legend. the brothers biton and cleobus, at a festival, when the mules were not ready, attached themselves to the chariot of their mother, who was a priestess of juno, and drew her to the temple. touched by their devotion, the priestess asked juno to reward her sons for their piety by the greatest gift possible for men to receive. the goddess caused them both to die peacefully within an hour, instead of giving them immortality, as they had expected. the same happened to agamede and trophonius. when these two men had finished the temple of delphi, they begged apollo to reward them. the god asked them to wait seven days, at the end of which time he would do so. on the seventh night he sent them a sweet sleep from which they have never awakened. they are so satisfied with their recompense that they have asked nothing more. on the subject of legends, here is one which introduces a question i would have you answer. i know that by you and your colleagues human life is generally considered to be, as a rule, of an uniformly average duration: this in all countries and under all climates. but pliny relates that the men of some parts of india and ethiopia do not exceed the age of forty years. they who die at this age are considered very old. their children marry at seven years of age: and this statement is verified by the custom in guinea, the deccan, and elsewhere in the torrid zone. now, regarding it as true that these people do not live more than forty years (and this as a natural limit, and not due to artificial circumstances), i ask you whether you imagine their lot ought to be considered more or less happy than that of others? _nat. phil_. undoubtedly, more miserable, since they die so soon. _met_. i am of the contrary opinion for the very same reason. but that does not matter. give me your attention for a moment. i deny that life itself, _i.e._, the mere sensation of existence, has anything pleasurable or desirable in its nature. but we all wish for the other thing, also called life; i mean strength, and numerous sensations. thus, all activity, and every strong and lively passion, provided it be neither disagreeable nor painful, pleases us simply because it is strong and lively, although it possess no other pleasurable attributes. now these men, whose life normally lasts only forty years, that is, half the time granted by nature to other men, would experience every moment an intensity of life, twice as strong as ours, because their growth, maturity, and decline are accomplished twice as rapidly as with us. their energy of life therefore ought to be twice as intense as ours at every moment of their existence. and to this greater intensity there must correspond a more lively activity of the will, more vivacity and animation. thus they experience in less time the same quantity of life as we have. and the fewer years that these favoured people spend on the earth are so well filled that there is no sensible vacuum; whereas this same quantity of life is insufficient to vivify a term twice as long. their actions and sensations, diffused over so limited a space, can duly occupy all their existence; but our longer life is constantly divided by protracted intervals devoid of all activity and lively passion. and since existence itself is in no sense desirable, but only in so far as it is happy; and since good or evil fortune is not measurable by the number of our days; i conclude that the life of these people, though shorter than ours, is much the richer in pleasures, or what are so called. their life must then be preferable to ours, or even to that of the earliest kings of assyria, egypt, china, india, and other countries, who are said to have lived thousands of years. so that, far from being desirous of immortality, i am content to leave it to fishes, which are by leeuwenhoek believed to be immortal, provided they are neither eaten by us nor their fellows. instead of delaying the development of the body, in order to lengthen life, as maupertuis[4] proposed, i would rather accelerate it until the duration of our life was as short as that of the insects called ephemerals; which insects, although the most aged does not live beyond a single day, nevertheless preside over three generations before they die. if it were so, then there would at least be no time for ennui. what do you think of my reasoning? _nat. phil_. it does not persuade me. i know that you love metaphysics, whereas i for my part hold to physics. to your subtleties, i oppose simple common sense, which is sufficient for me. thus, i venture to assert, without appealing to the microscope, that life is better than death. judging between the two, i would give the apple to the former, without troubling them to strip for the contest. _met_. and i would do the same. but when i call to mind the custom of those barbarians, who, for every unhappy day of their lives, used to throw a black stone into a quiver, and for every happy day a white one, i cannot help thinking how few white stones compared to the black ones would be found therein on the death of the proprietor of the quiver. personally, i should like to have now all the stones representing the days of life yet remaining to me, and permission to separate them, throwing away all-the black ones and retaining only those that were white; even though the number of the latter was exceedingly small, and their colour a doubtful white. _nat. phil_. many people, on the contrary, would be glad to increase the number of their black stones, even though they were blacker than they naturally would be; because they always, in their minds, dread the last as the blackest of all. and such people, of whom i am one, will really be able to add many stones to their normal quantity, if they follow out the instructions contained in my book. _met_. every one thinks and works in his own way. death also will not fail to do the same. but if you wish, in prolonging man's life; really to be of service to him, discover an art to increase the number and strength of sensations, and their effects. this would be a genuine augmentation of human life, for it would fill up those long intervals of time, during which we vegetate rather than live. you could then boast of having truly prolonged human life; and without having sought after the impossible, or used violence to natural laws; rather, by having strengthened them. for does it not seem as though the ancients were more full of life than we are, in spite of the many and great dangers by which they were surrounded, and which generally shortened their existence? you will thus render a real service to man, whose life is, i will not say more happy, but certainly less unhappy, when it is better occupied and more violently agitated, without pain or discomfort. when, on the other hand, existence is so full of idleness and ennui as to be justly termed empty, the saying of pyrrhus, "there is no difference between life and death," is literally realised. were this saying true, i should be in no slight terror of death. but finally, unless life be active and vigorous, it is not true life, and death is far preferable to it. [footnote 1: see _instruction in the art of long life_, by hufeland.] [footnote 2: see lucian, dial. menip. and chiro.] [footnote 3: see pindar, strabo, and pliny.] [footnote 4: see _lettres philosophiques_: let. 11.] _dialogue between tasso and his familiar spirit_[1] _spirit_. ah, torquato. how are you? _tasso_. as well as it is possible to be, when in prison, and up to the neck in misfortunes. _spirit_. courage! after supper is not the time to be sorrowful. cheer up, and let us laugh at your griefs. _tasso_. i am little inclined for that. but somehow your presence and conversation always do me good. come and sit down by me. _spirit_. how can i sit? such a thing is not easy for a spirit. but what does it matter? consider that i am seated. _tasso_. oh, that i could see my leonora again! whenever i think of her, i feel a thrill of joy that reaches from the crown of my head to the extremity of my feet, and all my nerves and veins are pervaded with it. my mind, too, becomes inflamed with certain imaginings and longings that seem for the time to transform me. i cannot think that i am the torquato who has experienced so much misfortune, and i often mourn for myself as though i were dead. truly, it would seem that worldly friction and suffering are wont to overwhelm and lethargise our first nature within each of us. this from time to time awakens for a brief space, but less frequently as we grow older, when it always withdraws, and falls into an increasingly sound sleep. finally, it dies, although our life still continues. in short, i marvel how the thought of a woman should have sufficient power to rejuvenate the mind, and make it forget so many troubles. had i not lost all hope of seeing leonora again, i could almost believe i might still succeed in being happy. _spirit_. which do you consider the more delightful, to see the dear woman, or to think of her? _tasso_. i do not know. it is true when near me she seemed only a woman; at a distance, however, she was like a goddess. _spirit_. these goddesses are so amiable that when one approaches you, she instantaneously puts off her divinity, and pockets her halo of greatness for fear of dazzling the mortal to whom she appears. _tasso_. there is only too much truth in what you say. but do you not think it is a great failing in women that they prove really to be so very different from what we imagine? _spirit_. i scarcely think it is their fault that they are, like us, made of flesh and blood, instead of ambrosia and nectar. what in the world has a thousandth part of the perfection with which your fancy endows women? it surprises me that you are not astonished to find that men are men, that is, creatures of little merit and amiability, since you cannot understand why women are not really angels. _tasso_. in spite of all this, i am dying to see her again. _spirit_. compose yourself. this very night you shall dream of her. i will lead her to you, beautiful as youth, and so kindly disposed that you will be encouraged to speak to her much more freely and readily than in former times. you will be induced at length to take her by the hand, and she, looking intently at you, will surfeit your soul with sweetness. and to-morrow, whenever you think of the dream, your heart will overflow with affection. _tasso_. what a consolation! a dream instead of the truth. _spirit_. what is truth? _tasso_. i am as ignorant on the subject as pilate was. _spirit_. well, i will tell you. between truth or reality, and a dream there is this difference--the latter is much the finer thing of the two. _tasso_. what! the pleasure of a dream worth more than a real pleasure? _spirit_. it is. as an instance, i know a man who studiously avoids meeting his sweetheart the following day after she has appeared to him in a dream. he knows full well that he would not find in her all the charms with which she was endowed in the dream, and that reality, dispelling the illusion, would deprive him of the pleasure he felt. the ancients too, who were much more diligent and skilful in their search after all the enjoyments possible for man to have, did wisely in endeavouring by various means to realise the sweetness and pleasure of dreams. pythagoras also was right when he forbad the eating of beans for supper; these vegetables producing a dreamless or troubled sleep.[2] i could also find excuse for those superstitious people who were wont, before going to bed, to invoke the aid of mercury, the president of dreams. they offered sacrifice to him that he might grant them happy dreams, and used to keep an image of the god at the foot of their bed. thus it was that being unable to procure any happiness during the day, people sought it in the night-time. i am of opinion that they were in a measure successful, and that mercury paid more attention to their prayers than was the custom of the other gods. _tasso_. but, since men live for nothing but pleasure, whether of mind or body, if this pleasure can only be found when we dream, it follows that we live for no other purpose but to dream. now i really cannot admit that. _spirit_. you already admit it, inasmuch as you live, and are willing to live. but what is pleasure? _tasso_. my acquaintance with it is too slight to enable me to answer you. _spirit_. no one has any real acquaintance with it, because pleasure is not a reality, but a conception. it is a desire, not a fact. a sentiment, imagined not experienced; or, better, it is a conception, and not a sentiment at all. do you not perceive that even in the very moment of enjoyment, however ardently it may have been longed for or painfully acquired, your mind, not deriving complete satisfaction from the happiness, anticipates at some future time a greater and more complete enjoyment? it is expectation that constitutes pleasure. thus, you never weary of placing reliance on some pleasure of the future, which melts away just when you expect to enjoy it. the truth is, you possess nothing but the hope of a more complete enjoyment at some other time; and the satisfaction of imagining that you have had some enjoyment, and of talking about it to others, less because you are vain than to persuade yourself that the illusion is a reality. hence, everyone that consents to live makes this fugitive dream his aim in life. he believes in the reality of past and future enjoyment, both of which beliefs are false and fanciful. _tasso_. then is it impossible for a man to believe that he is actually happy? _spirit_. if such a belief were possible, his happiness would be genuine. but tell me: do you ever remember having been able at any moment in your life to say sincerely, "i am happy"? doubtless you have daily been able to say, and have said in all sincerity, "i shall be happy;" and often too, though less sincerely, "i have been happy." thus, pleasure is always either a thing of the past, or the future, never the present. _tasso_. you may as well say it is non-existent. _spirit_. so it seems. _tasso_. even in dreams? _spirit_. even in dreams, considering pleasure in its true sense. _tasso_. and yet pleasure is the sole object and aim of life! by the term pleasure i mean the happiness which ought to be a consequence of pleasure. _spirit_. assuredly. _tasso_. then our life, being deprived of its real aim, must always be imperfect, and existence itself unnatural. _spirit_. perhaps. _tasso_. there is no perhaps in the matter. but why is it that we live? i mean, why do we consent to live? _spirit_. how should i know? you yourselves ought to know better than i. _tasso_. i assure you i do not know. _spirit_. ask some one wiser than yourself. perhaps he may be able to satisfy you. _tasso_. i will do so. but certainly, the life that i lead is an unnatural state, because apart from my sufferings, ennui alone murders me. _spirit_. what is ennui? _tasso_. as to this, i can answer from experience. ennui seems to me of the nature of atmosphere, which fills up the spaces between material bodies, and also the voids in the bodies themselves. whenever a body disappears, and is not replaced by another, air fills up the gap immediately. so too, in human life, the intervals between pleasures and pains are occupied by ennui. and since in the material world, according to the peripatetics, there can be no vacuum, so also in our life there is none, save when for some cause or other the mind loses its power of thought. at all other times the mind, considered as a separate identity from the body, is occupied with some sentiment. if void of pleasure or pain, it is full of ennui; for this last is also a sentiment like pleasure and pain. _spirit_. and, since all your pleasures are like cobwebs, exceedingly fragile, thin and transparent, ennui penetrates their tissue, and saturates them, just as air penetrates the webs. i believe ennui is really nothing but the desire of happiness, without the illusion of pleasure and the suffering of pain. this desire, we have said, is never completely satisfied, since true pleasure does not exist. so that human life may be said to be interwoven with pain and ennui, and one of these sentiments disappears only to give place to the other. this is the fate of all men, and not of yourself alone. _tasso_. what remedy is there for ennui? _spirit_. sleep, opium, and pain. the last is the best of the three, because he who suffers never experiences ennui. _tasso_. i would rather submit to ennui for the rest of my life, than take such medicine. but its force and strength may be diminished by action, work, and even other sentiments; though these do not entirely free us from ennui, since they are unable to give us real pleasure. here in prison however, deprived of human society, without even the means of writing, reduced for an amusement to counting the ticks of the clock, looking at the beams, cracks, and nails of the ceiling, thinking about the pavement stones, and watching the gnats and flies which flit across my cell, i have nothing to relieve for a moment my burden of ennui. _spirit_. how long have you been reduced to this kind of life? _tasso_. for many weeks, as you know. _spirit_. have you felt no variation in the ennui which oppresses you, from the first day until now? _tasso_. yes. i felt it more at first. gradually my mind is becoming accustomed to its own society; i derive more and more pleasure from my solitude, and by practice i am acquiring so great a readiness in conversation, or rather chattering to myself, that i seem to have in my head a company of talkative people, and the most trifling object is now sufficient to give rise to endless discourse. _spirit_. this habit will grow on you daily to such an extent, that when you are free, you will feel more idle in society than in solitude. custom has made you bear patiently your kind of life, and the same influence works not only in people who meditate like you, but in everyone. besides, the very fact that you are separated from men, and even, it may be said, from life itself, will be of some advantage to you. disgusted and wearied with human affairs, as you are from your sad experience, you will in time begin to look on them, from a distance, with an appreciative eye. in your solitude they will appear to you more beautiful, and worthy of affection. you will forget their vanity and misery, and will take upon yourself to re-create the world as you would have it. consequently, you will value, desire, and love life. and, provided there be the possibility or certainty of your return to human society some day, your new aspect of life will fill and gladden your mind with a joy like that of childhood. solitude does indeed sometimes act like a second youth. it rejuvenates the soul, revives the imagination, and renews in an experienced man those impressions of early innocence that you so ardently desire. but your eyes seem heavy with sleep: i will now therefore leave you to prepare the fine dream i promised you. thus between dreams and fancies, your life shall pass without other gain than the fact of its passing, which is the sole benefit of life. to hasten it should be the one aim of your existence. you are often obliged to cling to life, as it were with your teeth; happy will be the day when death releases you from the struggle. but after all, time passes as tediously with your persecutor in his palace and gardens, as with you in your prison chamber. adieu. _tasso_. adieu, yet stay a moment. your conversation always enlivens me. it does not draw me from my sadness, but my mind, which is generally comparable to a dark night, moonless and starless, changes when you are near to a condition like that of a grey dawn, pleasurable rather than otherwise. now tell me how i can find you in case i want you at some future time. _spirit_. do you not yet know?--in any generous liquor. [footnote 1: tasso, during his mental hallucinations, used to fancy, like socrates, that he was visited by a friendly spirit, with which he would hold long conversations. manso, in his life of tasso, mentions this, and states that he was once present during such a colloquy or soliloquy between tasso and his imagined companion.] [footnote 2: apollonius, _hist. comment_., cap. 46, &c.] _dialogue between nature and an icelander._ an icelander who had travelled over most of the earth, and had lived in very many different lands, found himself one day in the heart of africa. as he crossed the equator in a place never before penetrated by man, he had an adventure like that which happened to vasco di gama, who, when passing the cape of good hope, was opposed by two giants, the guardians of the southern seas, that tried to prevent his entrance into the new waters.[1] the icelander saw in the distance a huge bust, in appearance like the colossal hermes he had formerly seen in the isle of pasqua. at first he thought it was made of stone, but as he drew near to it he saw that the head belonged to an enormous woman, who was seated on the ground, resting her back against a mountain. the figure was alive, and had a countenance both magnificent and terrible, and eyes and hair of a jet black colour. she looked fixedly at him for a long time in silence. at length she said: _nature_. who art thou? what doest thou here, where thy race is unknown? _icelander_. i am a poor icelander, fleeing from nature. i have fled from her ever since i was a child, through a hundred different parts of the world, and i am fleeing from her now. _nature_. so flees the squirrel from the rattlesnake, and runs in its haste deliberately into the mouth of its tormentor. i am that from which thou fleest. _icelander_. nature? _nature_. even so. _icelander_. i am smitten with anguish, for i consider no worse misfortune could befall me. _nature_. thou mightest well have imagined that i was to be found in countries where my power is supremest. but why dost thou shun me? _icelander_. you must know that from my earliest youth, experience convinced me of the vanity of life, and the folly of men. i saw these latter ceaselessly struggling for pleasures that please not, and possessions that do not satisfy. i saw them inflict on themselves, and voluntarily suffer, infinite pains, which, unlike the pleasures, were only too genuine. in short, the more ardently they sought happiness, the further they seemed removed from it. these things made me determine to abandon every design, to live a life of peace and obscurity, harming no one, striving in nought to better my condition, and contesting nothing with anyone. i despaired of happiness, which i regarded as a thing withheld from our race, and my only aim was to shield myself from suffering. not that i had the least intention of abstaining from work, or bodily labour; for there is as great a difference between mere fatigue and pain,[2] as between a peaceful and an idle life. but when i began to carry out my project, i learnt from experience how fallacious it is to think that one can live inoffensively amongst men without offending them. though i always gave them precedence, and took the smallest part of everything, i found neither rest nor happiness among them. however, this i soon remedied. by avoiding men i freed myself from their persecutions. i took refuge in solitude--easily obtainable in my native island. having done this, i lived without a shadow of enjoyment; yet i found i had not escaped all suffering. the intense cold of the long winter, and the extreme heat of summer, characteristic of the country, allowed me no cessation from pain. and when, to warm myself, i passed much time by the fire, i was scorched by the flames, and blinded by the smoke. i suffered continuously, whether in the open air, or in the shelter of my cabin. in short, i failed to obtain that life of peace which was my one desire. terrible storms, hecla's menaces and rumblings, and the constant fires which occur among the wooden houses of my country, combined to keep me in a state of perpetual disquietude. such annoyances as these, trivial though they be when the mind is distracted by the thoughts and actions of social and civil life, are intensified by solitude. i endured them all, together with the hopeless monotony of my existence, solely in order to obtain the tranquillity i desired. i perceived that the more i isolated myself from men, and confined me to my own little sphere, the less i succeeded in protecting myself from the discomforts and sufferings of the outer world. then i determined to try other climates and countries, to see if anywhere i could live in peace, harming no one, and exist without suffering, if also without pleasure. i was urged to this by the thought that perhaps you had destined for the human race a certain part of the earth (as you have for many animals and plants), where alone they could live in comfort. in which case it was our own fault if we suffered inconvenience from having exceeded our natural boundaries. i have therefore been over the whole earth, testing every country, and always fulfilling my intention of troubling others in the least possible degree, and seeking nothing for myself but a life of tranquillity. but in vain. the tropical sun burnt me; the arctic cold froze me; in temperate regions the changeability of the weather troubled me; and everywhere i have experienced the fury of the elements. i have been in places where not a day passes without a storm, and where you, o nature, are incessantly at war with simple people who have never done you any harm. in other places cloudless skies are compensated for by frequent earthquakes, active volcanoes, and subterranean commotions. elsewhere hurricanes and whirlwinds take the place of other scourges. sometimes i have heard the roof over my head groan with the burden of snow that it supported; at other times the earth, saturated with rain, has broken away beneath my feet. rivers have burst their banks, and pursued me, fleeing at full speed, as though i were an enemy. wild beasts tried to devour me, without the least provocation on my part. serpents have sought to poison or crush me; and i have been nearly killed by insects. i make no mention of the daily hazards by which man is surrounded. these last are so numerous that an ancient philosopher[3] laid down a rule, that to resist the constant influence of fear, it were well to fear everything. again, sickness has not failed to torment me, though invariably temperate, and even abstemious, in all bodily pleasures. in truth, our natural constitution is an admirably arranged affair! you inspire us with a strong and incessant yearning for pleasure, deprived of which our life is imperfect; and on the other hand you ordain that nothing should be more opposed to physical health and strength, more calamitous in its effects, and more incompatible with the duration of life itself, than this same pleasure. but although i indulged in no pleasures, numerous diseases attacked me, some of which endangered my life, and others the use of my limbs, thus threatening me with even an access of misery. all, during many days or months, caused me to experience a thousand bodily and mental pangs. and, whereas in sickness we endure new and extraordinary sufferings, as though our ordinary life were not sufficiently unhappy; you do not compensate for this by giving us equally exceptional periods of health and strength, and consequent enjoyment. in regions where the snow never melts, i lost my sight; this is an ordinary occurrence among the laplanders in their cold country. the sun and air, things necessary for life, and therefore unavoidable, trouble us continually; the latter by its dampness or severity, the former by its heat, and even its light; and to neither of them can man remain exposed without suffering more or less inconvenience or harm. in short, i cannot recollect a single day during which i have not suffered in some way; whereas, on the other hand, the days that have gone by without a shadow of enjoyment are countless. i conclude therefore that we are destined to suffer much in proportion as we enjoy little, and that it is as impossible to live peacefully as happily. i also naturally come to the conclusion that you are the avowed enemy of men, and all other creatures of your creation. sometimes alluring, at other times menacing; now attacking, now striking, now pursuing, now destroying; you are always engaged in tormenting us. either by habit or necessity you are the enemy of your own family, and the executioner of your own flesh and blood. as for me, i have lost all hope. experience has proved to me that though it be possible to escape from men and their persecutions, it is impossible to evade you, who will never cease tormenting us until you have trodden us under foot. old age, with all its bitterness, and sorrows, and accumulation of troubles, is already near to me. this worst of evils you have destined for us and all created beings, from the time of infancy. from the fifth lustre of life, decline makes itself manifest; its progress we are powerless to stay. scarce a third of life is spent in the bloom of youth; but few moments are claimed by maturity; all the rest is one gradual decay, with its attendant evils. _nature_. thinkest thou then that the world was made for thee? it is time thou knewest that in my designs, operations, and decrees, i never gave a thought to the happiness or unhappiness of man. if i cause you to suffer, i am unaware of the fact; nor do i perceive that i can in any way give you pleasure. what i do is in no sense done for your enjoyment or benefit, as you seem to think. finally, if i by chance exterminated your species, i should not know it. _icelander_. suppose a stranger invited me to his house in a most pressing manner, and i, to oblige him, accepted his invitation. on my arrival he took me to a damp and unhealthy place, and lodged me in a chamber open to the air, and so ruinous that it threatened momentarily to collapse and crush me. far from endeavouring to amuse me, and make me comfortable, he neglected to provide me with even the necessaries of life. and more than this. suppose my host caused me to be insulted, ridiculed, threatened, and beaten by his sons and household. and on my complaining to him of such ill-treatment, he replied: "dost thou think i made this house for thee? do i keep these my children and servants for thy service? i assure thee i have other things to occupy me, than that i should amuse thee, or give thee welcome." to which i answered: "well, my friend, though you may not have built your house especially for me, at least you might have forborne to ask me hither. and, since i owe it to you that i am here, ought i not to rely on you to assure me, if possible, a life free from trouble and danger?" thus i reply to you. i am well aware you did not make the world for the service of men. it were easier to believe that you made it expressly as a place of torment for them. but tell me: why am i here at all? did i ask to come into the world? or am i here unnaturally, contrary to your will? if however, you yourself have placed me here, without giving me the power of acceptance or refusal of this gift of life, ought you not as far as possible to try and make me happy, or at least preserve me from the evils and dangers, which render my sojourn a painful one? and what i say of myself, i say of the whole human race, and of every living creature. _nature_. thou forgettest that the life of the world is a perpetual cycle of production and destruction, so combined that the one works for the good of the other. by their joint operation the universe is preserved. if either ceased, the world would dissolve. therefore, if suffering were removed from the earth, its own existence would be endangered. _icelander_. so say all the philosophers. but since that which is destroyed suffers, and that which is born from its destruction also suffers in due course, and finally is in its turn destroyed, would you enlighten me on one point, about which hitherto no philosopher has satisfied me? for whose pleasure and service is this wretched life of the world maintained, by the suffering and death of all the beings which compose it? whilst they discussed these and similar questions, two lions are said to have suddenly appeared. the beasts were so enfeebled and emaciated with hunger that they were scarcely able to devour the icelander. they accomplished the feat however, and thus gained sufficient strength to live to the end of the day. but certain people dispute this fact. they affirm that a violent wind having arisen, the unfortunate icelander was blown to the ground, and soon overwhelmed beneath a magnificent mausoleum of sand. here his corpse was remarkably preserved, and in process of time he was transformed into a fine mummy. subsequently, some travellers discovered the body, and carried it off as a specimen, ultimately depositing it in one of the museums of europe. [footnote 1: camoens' _lusiad_, canto 5.] [footnote 2: cicero says: "labour and pain are not identical. labour is a toil-some function of body or mind--pain an unpleasant disturbance in the body. when they cut marius' veins, it was pain; when he marched at the head of the troops in a great heat, it was labour."--_tusc. quæst._] [footnote 3: seneca, _natural. question_: lib. 6, cap. 2.] _parini on glory._ giuseppe parini[1] was in our opinion one of the very few italians who to literary excellence joined depth of thought, and acquaintance with contemporary philosophy. these latter attributes are now so essential to the cultivation of the _belles lettres_, that their absence would be inconceivable, did we not find an infinite number of italian _littérateurs_ of the present day, in whom they are wanting. he was remarkable for his simplicity, his compassion for the unfortunate and his own country, his fidelity, high-mindedness, and the courage with which he bore the adversities of nature and fortune, which tormented him during the whole course of his miserable and lowly life. death however drew him from obscurity. he had several disciples, whom he taught, first of all, to gain experience of men and things, and then to amuse themselves with eloquence and poetry. among his followers was a youth, lately come to him, of wonderful genius and industry, and of very great promise. to him one day parini spoke as follows: "you seek, my son, the only avenue to glory which is open to people who lead a private life, such glory as is sometimes the reward of wisdom, and literary and other studies. now you are not unaware that this glory, though far from being despised, was by our greatest ancestors held in less esteem than that derivable from other things. cicero, for instance, though a most ardent and successful follower of glory, frequently and emphatically makes apology for the time and labour he had spent in its pursuit. on one occasion he states that his literary and philosophical studies were secondary to his public life; on another, that being constrained by the wickedness of the age to abandon more important business, he hoped to spend his leisure profitably amid these studies. he invariably rated the glory of his writings at a lower value than that acquired from his consulship and his labours on behalf of the republic. "indeed, if human life be the principal subject of literature, and to rule our actions the first lesson of philosophy; there can be no doubt that action itself is as much more important and noble than thoughts and writing, as the end is nobler than the means, or as things and subjects in comparison with words and reasoning. for no man, however clever he be, is naturally created for study, nor born to write. action alone is natural to him. and we see the majority of fine writers, and especially illustrious poets in the present age (vittorio alfieri, for instance), impelled to action in an extraordinary degree. then, if by chance the deeds of these men prove unacceptable, either from the nature of the times or their own ill-fortune, they take up the pen and write grand things. nor can people write who have neither the disposition nor power to act. from this you will easily understand why so few italians gain immortal fame by their writings; it is that they are by nature unfit for noble actions. antiquity, especially that of the early greeks or romans, is, i think, comparable to the design of the statue of telesilla, who was a poetess, a warrior, and the saviour of her country. she is represented holding her helmet, at which she looks intently and longingly, as though she desired to place it on her head; at her feet lie some books almost disregarded, as forming but an insignificant part of her glory.[2] "but men of modern times are differently situated to the ancients. glory is less open to them. they who make studies their vocation in life show the greatest possible magnanimity; nor need they, like cicero, apologise to their country for the profession they have chosen. i therefore applaud the nobility of your decision. but since a life of letters, being unnatural, cannot be lived without injury to the body, nor without increasing in many ways the natural infelicity of your mind, i regard it as my duty to explain to you the various difficulties attendant on the pursuit of that glory towards which you aspire, and the results that will follow success should you attain it. you will then be able to estimate, on the one hand, the importance and value of the goal, and your chance of reaching it; and, on the other, the sufferings, exertions, and discomforts inseparable from the pursuit. thus, you may be better able to decide whether it be expedient to continue as you have begun, or to seek glory by some other road." [footnote 1: parini lived 1729-1799. as a philosopher and satirist he seems to have exercised no slight influence over the mind of leopardi.] [footnote 2: pausanias, lib. 2, cap. 20.] chapter ii. "i might first of all say a great deal about the rivalries, envy, bitter censures, libels, injustices, schemes and plots against your character, both in public and private, and the many other difficulties which the wickedness of men will induce them to oppose to you in the path you have chosen. these obstacles, always very hard to overcome and often insuperable, exercise a further influence. it is owing to them that more than one author, not only in life, but even when dead, is robbed of the honour that is due to him. such an one, not having been famous when alive, because of the hatred or envy with which he was regarded by others, when dead remains in obscurity, because he is forgotten; for it rarely happens that a man obtains glory after he has ceased writing, when there is no one to excite an interest in him. "i do not intend to refer to the hindrances which arise from matters personal to the writer, and other more trivial things. yet it is often owing to these latter that writings worthy of the highest praise, and the fruit of infinite exertions, are for ever excluded from fame, or having been before the world for a short time, fall into oblivion, and disappear entirely from the memory of men. for the same causes other writings, either inferior to or no better than these, become highly honoured. i will merely expose to you the difficulties and troubles which, apart from the malice of men, will stubbornly contest the prize of glory. these embarrassments are of ordinary, not exceptional occurrence, and have been experienced by most great writers. "you are aware that no one can be called a great writer, nor obtains true and lasting glory, except by means of excellent and perfect works, or such as approach perfection. the following very true utterance of castiglione is worthy of being engraved on your mind:--it is very seldom that a person unaccustomed to write, however learned he be, can adequately recognise the skill and industry of writers; or appreciate the delicacy and excellence of styles, and those subtle and hidden significations which abound in the writings of the ancients.' "in the first place, consider how very few people practise or learn the art of composition; and think from how small a number of men, whether in the present or the future, you can in any case look for the magnificent estimation which you hope will be the reward of your life. consider, too, how much influence style has in securing appreciation for writings. on this, and their degree of perfection, depends the subsequent fate of all works that come under the heading of 'light literature,' so great is the influence of style, that a book presumably celebrated for its matter often proves valueless when deprived of its manner. now, language is so interwoven with style that the one can hardly be considered apart from the other. men frequently confuse the two together, and are often unable to express the distinction between them, if even they are aware of it in the first place. and as for the thousand merits and defects of language and style, with difficulty, if at all, can they be discerned and assigned to their respective properties. but it is certain, to quote the words of castiglione, that no foreigner is 'accustomed to write' with elegance in your language. it follows therefore that style, which is so great and important a necessity in composition, and a thing of such unaccountable difficulty and labour, both in acquirement and usage, can only properly be judged and appreciated by the persons who in one single nation are accustomed to write. for all other people the boundless exertions attached to the formation of style will be almost useless, and as if entirely wasted. i will not refer to the infinite diversities of opinion, and the various tendencies of readers; owing to which the number of persons adapted to perceive the good qualities of this or that book is still more reduced. "you must regard it as an undoubted fact that, in order to distinctly recognise the value of a perfect or nearly perfect work, deserving of immortality, it is not enough merely to be accustomed to write. you yourself must be able to accomplish the work in question almost as perfectly as the writer himself. and as experience gradually teaches you what qualities constitute a perfect writer, and what an infinity of difficulties must be surmounted before these can be obtained, you will learn how to overcome the latter, and acquire the former; so that in time knowledge and power will prove to be one and the same thing. hence a man cannot discern nor fully appreciate the excellence of perfect writers until he is able to give expression to it in his own writings; because such perfection can only be appreciated by what may be termed a transference of it into oneself. until this be done, a man cannot really understand what constitutes perfection in writing, and will therefore be unable to duly admire the best writers. "now most literary men, because they write easily, think they write well; they therefore regard good writing as a facile accomplishment, even though they assert the contrary. think, then, how the number will be reduced of those who might appreciate and laud you when, after inconceivable exertions and care, you succeed in producing a noble and perfect work. in the present day there are scarcely two or three men in italy who have acquired the art of perfect writing; and although this number may appear to you excessively small, at no time nor place has it ever been much greater. "i often wonder to myself how virgil, as a supreme example of literary perfection, ever acquired the high reputation in which he is now held. for i am certain that most of his readers and eulogisers do not discover in his poems more than one beauty for every ten or twenty revealed to me by continuous study and meditation. not that i imagine i have succeeded in estimating him at his proper value, nor have derived every possible enjoyment from his writings. in truth, the esteem and admiration professed for the greatest writers is ordinarily the result of a blind predisposition in their favour, rather than the outcome of an impartial judgment, or the consequence of a due appreciation of their merits. "when i was young i remember first reading virgil, being on the one hand unbiassed in my judgment, and careless of the opinion of others (a very rare thing, by the by); and, on the other hand, as ignorant as most boys of my age, though perhaps not more so than is the unchanging condition of many readers. i refused to admit that virgil's reputation was merited, since i failed to discover in him much more than is to be found in very ordinary poets. indeed, it surprises me that virgil's fame should excel that of lucan. for we see the mass of readers, at all times, equally when the literature of the day is of a debasing or an elevating tendency, much prefer gross and unmistakable beauties to those that are delicate and half-concealed. they also prefer fervour to modesty; often indeed even the apparent to the real; and usually mediocrity to perfection. "in reading the letters of a certain prince, exceptionally intelligent, whose writing was remarkable for its wit, pleasantry, smoothness, and acuteness, i clearly discerned that in his heart he preferred the henriad to the æneid; although the fear of shocking men's sensibilities might deter him from confessing such a preference. "i am astonished that the judgment of a few, correct though it be, should have succeeded in controlling that of numbers, and should have established the custom of an esteem no less blind than just. this, however, does not always occur, and i imagine that the fame gained by the best writers is rather a matter of chance than merit. my opinion may be confirmed by what i say as we proceed." chapter iii. "we have seen how very few people will be able to appreciate you when you succeed in becoming a perfect writer. now, i wish to indicate some of the hindrances that will prevent even these few from rightly estimating your worth, although they see the signs of it. "in the first place, there can be no doubt that all writings of eloquence or poetry are judged, not so much on their merits, as by the effect they produce in the mind of the reader. so that the reader may be said to consider them rather in himself than in themselves. consequently men who are naturally devoid of imagination and enthusiasm, though gifted with much intelligence, discernment, and no little learning, are almost quite incapable of forming a correct judgment of fanciful writings. they cannot in the least immerse their minds in the mind of the writer, and usually have within themselves a feeling of contempt for his compositions, because unable to discover in what their so great fame consists. such reading awakens no emotion within them, nor does it arouse their imagination, or create in them any especial sensation of pleasure. and even people who are naturally disposed and inclined to receive the impression of whatever image or fancy a writer has properly signified, very often experience a feeling of coldness, indifference, languor, or dulness; so that for the time they resemble the persons just mentioned. this change is due to divers causes, internal and external, physical and mental, and is either temporary or lasting. at such times no one, even though himself an excellent writer, is a good judge of writings intended to excite the affections or the imagination. again, there is the danger of satiety due to previous reading of similar writings. certain passions too, of more or less strength, from time to time invest the mind, leaving no room for the emotions which ought to be excited by the reading. and it often happens that places; spectacles, natural or artificial, music; and a hundred such things, which would ordinarily excite us, are now incapable of arousing or delighting us in the least, although no less attractive than formerly. "but, though a man, for one or other of these reasons, may be ill disposed to appreciate the effects of eloquence or poetry, he does not for that reason defer judgment of books on both these subjects which he then happens to read for the first time. i myself sometimes take up homer, cicero, or petrarch, and read without feeling the least emotion. yet, as i am quite aware of the merits of these writers, both because of their reputation, and my own frequent appreciation of their charms, i do not for a moment think them undeservedly praised simply because i am at present too dull to do them justice. but it is different with books read for the first time, which are too new to have acquired a reputation. there is nothing in such cases to prevent the reader forming a low opinion of the author and the merits of his book, if his mind be indisposed to do justice to the sentiments and imagery contained in the work. nor would it be easy to induce him to alter his judgment by subsequent study of the same book under better auspices; for probably the disgust inspired by his first reading will deter him from a second; and in any case the strength of first impressions will be almost invincible. "on the other hand, the mind is sometimes, for one reason or another, in such a state of sensibility, vivacity, vigour, and fervour, that it follows even the least suggestion of the reading; it feels keenly the slightest touch, and as it reads is able to create within itself a thousand emotions and fancies, sometimes losing itself in a sort of sweet delirium, when it is almost transported out of itself. as a natural result of this, the mind, reviewing the pleasures enjoyed in the reading, and not distinguishing between its own predisposition and the actual merits of the book, experiences a feeling of so great admiration, and forms so high a conception of it, as even to rank the book above others of much greater merit, read under less felicitous circumstances. see therefore to what uncertainty is subject even the truth and justice of opinions from the same persons, as to the writings and genius of others, quite apart from any sentiment of malice or favour. so great is this uncertainty that a man varies considerably in his estimation of works of equal value, and even the same work, at different times of life, under different circumstances, and even at different hours of the day." chapter iv. "perhaps you may think that these difficulties, due to mental indisposition on the part of readers, are of rare occurrence. consider, then, how frequently a man, as he grows old, becomes incapable of appreciating the charms of eloquence and poetry, no less than those of the other imitative arts, and everything beautiful in the world. this intellectual decay is a necessity of our nature. in the present day it is so much greater than formerly, begins so much earlier, and progresses so much more rapidly, especially in the studious, as our experience is enlarged in more or less degree by the knowledge begotten of the speculations of so many past centuries. for which reason, and owing to the present condition of civilised life, the phantoms of childhood soon vanish from the imagination of men; with them go the hopes of the mind, and with the hopes most of the desires, passions, and energy of life and its faculties. whence i often wonder that men of mature age, especially the learned and those inclined to meditate about human affairs, should yet be subject to the influence of poetry and eloquence, which are, however, unable to produce any real effect on them. "it may be regarded as a fact that, in order to be greatly moved by imagination of the grand and beautiful, one must believe that there is something really grand and beautiful in human life, and that poetry is not mere fable. the young always believe such things, even when they know their fallacy, until personal experience forces them to accept the truth. but it is difficult to put faith in them after the sad discipline of practical life; especially when experience is combined with habits of study and speculation. "from this it would seem that the young are generally better judges of writings intended to arouse the affections and the imagination, than men of mature and advanced age. but, on the other hand, the young are novices in literature. they exact from books a superhuman, boundless, and impossible pleasure, and where they fail to experience this they despise the writer. illiterate people have the same idea of the functions of literature. and youths addicted to reading prefer, both in their own writings and those of others, extravagance to moderation, magnificence or attractiveness of style and ornamentation, to the simple and natural, and sham beauties to real ones. this is partly due to their limited experience, and partly to the impetuosity of their time of life. consequently, although the young are doubtless more inclined than their elders to applaud what seems good to them, since they are more truthful and candid, they are seldom capable of appreciating the excellences of literary works. as we grow older, the influence exercised over us by art increases, as that of nature diminishes. nevertheless both nature and art are necessary to produce effect. "dwellers in large towns are compelled to sacrifice the beautiful to the useful. even though of warm and sensitive natures and lively imagination, they cannot experience as an effect of the charms either of nature or literature any tender or noble sentiment, any sublime or delightful fancy; unless indeed, like you, they spend most of their time in solitude. eor few things are so opposed to the state of mind necessary to appreciate such delights, as the conversation of these men, the riot of these places, and the sight of the tinselled splendour, the falseness, the miserable troubles, and still more miserable idleness which abound there. i also think that the _littérateurs_ of large towns are, as a rule, less qualified to judge books than those of small towns; because, like everything else, the literature of large towns is ordinarily false and pretentious, or superficial. "and whereas the ancients used to regard literature and the sciences as a pleasing change from more serious business, in the present day the majority of men who in large towns profess to be students regard literature and writing as merely an agreeable variation of their other amusements. "i think that works of art, whether painting, sculpture, or architecture, would be much more appreciated if they were disseminated throughout a country in different-sized towns, instead of being, as at present, accumulated in the chief cities. for in the latter places men are so full of thoughts, so occupied with pleasurable pursuits and vain and frivolous excitements, that they are very rarely capable of the profound pleasures of the intellect. besides, a multitude of fine things gathered together have a distracting influence; the mind bestows but little attention on individual things, and is sensible of no especial gratification; or else it becomes satiated, and regards them all as indifferently as though they were objects of the commonest kind. "i say the same of music, which is nowhere so elaborate, or brought to such perfection, as in large towns, where men have less appreciation for the wonderful emotions of the art, and are indeed less musical than elsewhere. "nevertheless, large towns are a useful home for the fostering and perfecting of the arts; although their inhabitants are less under the influence of their charms than the people of other places. it may be said that artists, who work in solitude and silence, strive laboriously and industriously to please men, who, because accustomed to the bustle and noise of cities, are almost totally incapable of appreciating the fruit of their exertions. "the fate of writers may in a measure be compared to that of artists." chapter v. "we will now return to the consideration of authors. "it is a characteristic of writings approaching perfection that they usually please more when read a second time, than they pleased at first. the contrary effect is produced by many books written carefully and skilfully, but which really possess few merits. these when read a second time are less esteemed than at first. but both kinds of books, when read only once, often deceive even the learned and experienced, so that indifferent books are preferred to excellent ones. in the present day, however, even students by profession can rarely be induced to read new books a second time, especially such as come under the heading of light literature. this was not so in olden times, because then but few books were in existence. now, it is very different. we possess the literary bequests of all past times. every nation has its literature, and produces its host of books daily. there are writings in all languages, ancient and modern, relating to every branch of science and learning, and so closely connected and allied that the student must study them all as far as possible. you may therefore easily imagine that a book does not obtain full consideration on a first reading, and that a second reading is out of the question. yet the first opinion that we form of a new book is seldom changed. "for the same reasons, even in the first reading of books, especially those of light literature, very rarely sufficient attention and study is given to discover the laborious perfection, the subtle art, and the hidden and unpretentious virtues of the writings. thus, in the present day the condition of excellent books is really worse than that of indifferent ones. for the charms and qualifications of most of the latter, whether true or false, are so exposed to the eye, that, however trivial they may be, they are easily discernible at first sight. we may therefore say with truth, that the exertion necessary to produce perfect writing is almost useless for fame. but, on the other hand, books composed, like most modern ones, rapidly and without any great degree of excellence, though perhaps celebrated for a time, cannot fail to be soon forgotten. and many works of recognised value are also lost in the immense stream of new books which pours forth daily, before they have had time to establish their celebrity. they perish for no intrinsic fault of their own, and give place to other books, good and bad, which each in turn live their short spell of life. so that whereas the ancients could acquire glory in a thousand ways, we can only attain it by one single avenue, after much more exertion than formerly. "the books of the ancients alone survive this universal shipwreck of all later writings. their fame is established and confirmed; they are diligently and repeatedly read, and are made the subject of careful study. and it is noteworthy that a modern book, if intrinsically equal to any of the ancient writings, would rarely, if ever, give its readers as much pleasure as the ancient work. this for two reasons. in the first place, it would not be read with the care and attention that we bestow on celebrated writings; very few people would read it twice; and no one would study it (for none but scientific books are studied until made venerable by age). in the second place, the world-wide and permanent reputation of writings, whether or not due to their internal excellence, adds to their value, and proportionately increases the pleasure they give; often, indeed, most of the charm of such literature is simply due to its celebrity. "this reminds me of some remarkable words of montesquieu about the origin of human pleasures. he says: 'the mind often creates within itself many sources of pleasure, which are intimately dependent on each other. thus, a thing that has once pleased us, pleases us again simply because it did so before; we couple together imagination of the present and remembrance of the past. for example, an actress who pleased us on the stage, will probably please us in private life: her voice; her manner; the recollection of the applause she excited; perhaps, too, her _rôle_ of princess joined to her real character,--all combine and form a mixture of influences producing a general feeling of pleasure. our minds are always full of ideas subordinate to one or more primary ideas. a woman famous for one cause or another, and possessed of some slight inherent defect, is often able to attract by means of this very defect. and women are ordinarily loved less because they inspire affection than because they are well born, rich, or highly esteemed by others.'[1].... "often indeed a woman's reputation for beauty and grace, whether well or ill founded, or even the mere fact that others have been under the influence of her charms, suffices to inspire a man with affection for her. and who does not know that most pleasures are due to the imagination rather than to the inherent qualities of the things that please us? "these remarks refer to writings no less than to all other things. indeed i will venture to say that were a poem to be published equal or superior to the iliad, and carefully read by an excellent judge of poetry, it would give less satisfaction and appear less charming than the greek masterpiece, much less would its fame be comparable with that of the iliad; for its real merits would not be aided by twenty-seven centuries of admiration, nor the thousand reminiscences and other associations that connect themselves with homer's poem. similarly i affirm that if any one were to read carefully either the 'jerusalem' or the 'furioso,' without knowing anything of their celebrity, he would be much less pleased than others who were aware of their fame. "in short, it may be accepted as a general rule that the first readers of every remarkable work which in after ages becomes famous, and the contemporaries of the writer, derive less enjoyment from such reading than all other people. "this fact cannot but be very disadvantageous to the interest of writers." [footnote 1: ex: fragment _sur le goût_, &c.] chapter vi. "such are a few of the obstacles that may prevent you from acquiring glory from the studious, or even from those who excel in knowledge and the art of writing. "now there are many people who, though educated sufficiently for the purposes of daily life, are neither writers nor students to any very great extent. they read simply for amusement, and, as you know, are only capable of appreciating certain qualities in literature. the chief reason of this has been already partly explained. there is, however, another cause. it is that they only seek momentary pleasure in what they read. but the present in itself is trivial and joyless to all men. even the sweetest things, as says homer, 'love, sleep, song, and the dance,' soon weary us, if to the present there be not joined the hope of some pleasure or future satisfaction, dependent on them. for it is contrary to human nature to be greatly pleased with that of which hope does not form a constituent part. and so great is the power of hope that it enlivens and sweetens many exertions, painful and laborious in themselves; whereas, on the other hand, things innately charming, when unaccompanied by hope, are scarce sufficiently attractive to be welcomed. "we see studious people never tired of reading, often even of the driest kind; and they experience a constant delight in their studies, carried on perhaps throughout the greater part of the day. the reason of this is that they have the future ever before their eyes; they hope in some way, and at some time, to reap the benefit of their labours. such people always have their interests at heart. they do not take up a book, either to pass time or for amusement, without also distilling from it more or less definite instruction. others, on the contrary, who seek to learn nothing from books, are satisfied when they have read their first few pages, or those that have the most attractive appearance. they wander wearily from book to book, and marvel to themselves how any one can find prolonged pleasure in prolonged reading. "it is clear that any skill or industry displayed by the writer is almost entirely wasted on such people, who nevertheless compose the mass of readers. and even men of studious inclinations, having later in life changed the nature of their studies, almost feel a repugnance for books which would formerly have given them intense delight; and though still able to discern their value, are wearied rather than pleased by their merits, because instruction is not at all what they desire." chapter vii. "hitherto we have considered writings in general, and certain things relating to light literature in particular, towards which i see you are more especially attracted. let us now turn to philosophy, though it must not be supposed that this science is separable from the study of letters. "perhaps you will think that because philosophy is derived from reason, which among civilised people is usually a stronger power than the imagination or the affections, the value of philosophical works ought to be more universally recognised than that of poems, and other writings which treat of the pleasurable and the beautiful. it is, however, my opinion that poetry is better understood and appreciated than philosophy. in the first place, it is certain that a subtle intelligence and great power of reasoning are not sufficient to ensure much progress in philosophy. considerable imaginative power is also requisite. indeed, judged from the nature of their intellects, descartes, galileo, leibnitz, newton, and vico would have made excellent poets; and, on the other hand, homer, dante, and shakespeare might have been great philosophers. this subject would require much elaboration; i will therefore merely affirm that none but philosophers can perfectly appreciate the value and realise the charm of philosophical books. of course, i refer to their substance, and not to whatever superficial merit they may have, whether of language, style, or anything else. and, just as men are by nature unpoetical, and consequently rarely catch the spirit of a poem or discern its imagery, although they may follow the meaning of its words; similarly, people unaccustomed to meditate and philosophise within themselves, or who are incapable of deep sustained thought, cannot comprehend the truths that a philosopher expounds, however clear and logical his deductions, arguments, and conclusions may be, although they understand the words that he uses and their signification. because, being unable or unused to analyse the essence of things by means of thought, or to separate their own ideas into divisions, or to join and bind together a number of these ideas, or simultaneously to grasp with the mind many particulars so as to deduce a single general rule from them, or to follow unweariedly with the mind's eye a long series of truths mutually connected, or to discover the subtle and hidden connection between each truth and a hundred others; they can with difficulty, if at all, grasp and follow his working, or experience the impressions proved by the philosopher. therefore, they can neither understand nor estimate rightly all the influences that led him to this or that opinion, and made him affirm or deny this or that thing, and doubt such and such another. possibly they may understand his ideas, but they neither recognise their truth nor probability; because they are unable to test either the one or the other. they are like those cold and passionless men who are incapable of appreciating the fancies and imagery of the poets. and you know it is common to the poet and the philosopher to penetrate into the depths of the minds of men, and thence to bring into light all their hidden emotions, profundities, and secret working, with their respective causes and effects; thus, men who are incapable of sympathy with the poet and his thoughts, are also incapable of entering into the thoughts of the philosopher. "this is why we see daily many meritorious works, clear and intelligible to all, interpreted by some people as containing a thousand undoubted truths, and, by others, a thousand patent errors. they are attacked in public and private, not only from motives of malice, interest, and other similar causes, but also because of the incapacity of the readers, and their inability to comprehend the certainty of the principles, the correctness of the deductions and conclusions, and the general fitness, sufficiency, and truth of the reasoning put forward. it often happens that philosophical writings of the most sublime nature are accused of obscurity, not necessarily because they are obscure, but either because their vein of thought is of too profound or novel a nature to be easily intelligible, or because the reader himself is too dense to be a competent judge of such works. think, then, how difficult it must be to gain praise for philosophical writings, however meritorious they may be. for there can be no doubt that the number of really profound philosophers, who alone can appreciate one another, is in the present day very small, although philosophy is more cultivated than in past times. "i will not refer to the various sects into which those who profess philosophy are divided. each sect ordinarily refuses to allow that there is aught estimable in the others; this is not only from unwillingness, but also because it occupies itself with different principles of philosophy." chapter viii. "if, as the result of your learning and meditation, you chanced to discover some important truth, not only formerly unknown, but quite unlooked for, and even antagonistic to the opinions of the day, you must not anticipate in your lifetime any peculiar commendation for this discovery. you will gain no esteem, even from the wise (except perhaps from a very few), until by frequent and varied reiteration of these truths the ears of men have become accustomed to their sound; then only, after a long time, the intellect begins to receive them. "for no truth contrary to current opinion, even though demonstrable with almost geometrical certitude, can ever, unless capable of material proof, be suddenly established. time, custom, and example alone are able to give it a solid foundation. men accustom themselves to belief, as to everything else; indeed they generally believe from habit, and not from any sentiment of conviction within their minds. at length it happens that the once-questioned truth is taught to children, and is universally accepted. people are then astonished that it was ever unknown to them, and they ridicule their ancestors and contemporaries for the ignorance and obstinacy they manifested in opposing it. the greater and more important the new truths, so much the greater will be the difficulty of procuring acceptance for them; since they will overthrow a proportionately large number of opinions hitherto rooted in the minds of men. for even acute and practised intellects do not easily enter into the spirit of reasonings which demonstrate new truths that exceed the limits of their own knowledge; especially when these are opposed to beliefs long established within them. descartes, in his geometrical discoveries, was understood by but very few of his contemporaries. it was the same with newton. indeed, the condition of men pre-eminent in knowledge is somewhat similar to that of literary men, and 'savants' who live in places innocent of learning. the latter are not deservedly esteemed by their neighbours; the former fail to be duly appreciated by their contemporaries. both are often despised for their difference in manner of life and opinions from other men, who neither do justice to their ability nor to the writings they put forth in proof of it. "there is no doubt that the human race makes continual progress in knowledge. as a body, its march is slow and measured; but it includes certain great and remarkable minds which, having devoted themselves to speculation about the sensible or intelligible phenomena of the universe, and the pursuit of truths, travel, nay sometimes flash, to their conclusions in an immeasurably short space of time. and the rapid progress of these intellects stimulates other men, who hasten their foot-steps so as to reach, later on, the place where these superior beings rested. but not until the lapse of a century or more do they attain to the knowledge possessed by an extraordinary intellect of this kind. "it is ordinarily believed that human knowledge owes most of its progress to these supreme intellects, which arise from time to time, like miracles of nature.[1] i, on the contrary, think that it owes more to men of common powers than to those who are exceptionally endowed. suppose a case, in which one of the latter, having rivalled his contemporaries in knowledge, advances independently, and takes a lead of, say ten paces. most other men, far from feeling disposed to follow him, regard his progress in silence, or else ridicule it. meanwhile, a number of moderately clever men, partly aided perhaps by the ideas and discoveries of the genius, but principally through their own endeavours, conjointly advance one step. the masses unhesitatingly follow them, being attracted by the not inordinate novelty, and also by the number of those who are its authors. in process of time, thanks to the exertions of these men, the tenth step is accomplished; and thus the opinions of the genius are universally received throughout the civilised world. but their originator, dead long ago, only acquires a late and unseasonable reputation. this is due partly to the fact that he is forgotten, or to the low esteem in which he was held when living; added to which men are conscious that they do not owe their knowledge to him, and that they are already his equals in erudition, and will soon surpass him, if they have not done so already. they are also his superiors, in that time has enabled them to demonstrate and affirm truths that he only imagined, to prove his conjectures, and give better form and order to his inventions, almost, as it were, maturing them. perchance, after a time, some student engaged in historical research may justly appraise the influence of this genius, and may announce him to his countrymen with great _éclat_; but the fame that may ensue from this will soon give way to renewed oblivion. "the progress of human knowledge, like a falling weight, increases momentarily in its speed; none the less very rarely men of a generation change their beliefs or recognise their errors, so as to believe at one time the opposite of what they previously believed. each generation prepares the way for its successor to know and believe many things contrary to its own knowledge and belief. but most men are as little conscious of the increasing development of their knowledge, and the inevitable mutation of their beliefs, as they are sensible of the perpetual motion of the earth. and a man never alters his opinions so as to be conscious of the alteration. but were he suddenly to embrace an opinion totally discordant with his old beliefs, he could not fail to perceive the change. it may therefore be said, that ordinarily no truths, except such as are determinable by the senses, will be believed by the contemporaries of their discoverer." [footnote 1: it is in the order of providence that the inventive, generative, constitutive mind should come first; and then that the patient and collective mind should follow, and elaborate the pregnant queries and illumining guesses of the former,--s. t. coleridge, _table talk_, oct. 8, 1830.] chapter ix. "now let us suppose that every difficulty be overcome, and that aided by fortune you have actually in your lifetime acquired not only celebrity, but glory. what will be the fruit of this? in the first place, men will wish to see you, and make your acquaintance; they will indicate you as a distinguished man, and will honour you in every possible way. such are the best results of literary glory. it would seem more natural to look for such demonstrations in small than in large towns; for these latter are subject to the distracting influence of wealth and power, and all the arts which serve to amuse and enliven the inactive hours of men's lives. but because small towns are ordinarily wanting in things necessary to stimulate literary excellence, they are rarely the abode of men devoted to literature and study. the people of such places esteem learning and wisdom, and even the fame men seek by these means, at a very low value; neither the one nor the other are objects of envy to them. and if a man who is a distinguished scholar take up his residence in a small town, his notability is of no advantage to him. rather the contrary. for though his fame would secure him high honour in towns not far distant, he is there regarded as the most forlorn and obscure individual in the place. just as a man who possessed nothing but an abundance of silver and gold would be even poorer than other men in a place where these metals were valueless; similarly a wise and studious man who makes his abode in a place where learning and genius are unknown, far from being considered superior to other men, will be despised and scornfully treated unless he happen to have some more material possessions. yet such a man is often given credit for possessing much greater knowledge than he really has, though this reputation does not procure him any especial honour from these people. "when i was a young man, i used occasionally to return to bosisio, my native place. every one there knew that i spent my time in study and writing. the peasants gave me credit for being poet, philosopher, doctor, mathematician, lawyer, theologian, and sufficiently a linguist to know all the languages in the world. they used to question me indiscriminately on any subject, or about any trifle that chanced to enter their minds. yet they did not hold me in much esteem, and thought me less instructed than the learned people of all other places. but whenever i gave them reason to think my learning was not as extensive as they supposed, i fell vastly in their estimation, and in the end they used to persuade themselves that after all my knowledge was no greater than theirs. "we have already noticed the difficulties to be overcome in large towns before glory can be acquired, or the fruit of it enjoyed. i will now add that although no fame is more difficult to merit than that of being an excellent poet, writer, or philosopher, nothing is less lucrative to the possessor. you know that the misery and poverty of the greatest poets, both in ancient and modern times, is proverbial. homer, like his poetry, is involved in mystery; his country, life, and history are an impenetrable secret to men. but, amid this uncertainty and ignorance, there is an unshaken tradition that homer was poor and unhappy. it is as if time wished to bear witness that the fate of other noble poets was shared by the prince of poetry. "but, passing over the other benefits of glory, we will simply consider what is called honour. no part of fame is usually less honourable and more useless than this. it may be that so many people obtain it undeservedly, or even because of the extreme difficulty of meriting it at all; certain it is that such reputation is scarce esteemed, if regarded as trustworthy. or perhaps it is due to the fact that most clever half-cultured men imagine they either are, or could easily become, as proficient in literature and philosophy as those who are successful in these studies, and whom they accordingly treat as on an intellectual equality. possibly both causes combine in their influence. it is certain, however, that the man who is an ordinary mathematician, natural philosopher, philologist, antiquary, artist, sculptor, musician, or who has only a moderate acquaintance with a single ancient or foreign language, is usually more respected, even in large towns, than a really remarkable philosopher, poet, or writer. consequently, poetry and philosophy, the noblest, grandest, and most arduous of things pertaining to humanity, and the supreme efforts of art and science, are in the present day the most neglected faculties in the world, even in their professed followers. manual arts rank higher than these noble things; for no one would pretend to a knowledge of them unless he really possessed it, nor could this knowledge be acquired without study and exertion. in short, the poet and the philosopher derive no benefit in life from their genius and studies, except perhaps the glory rendered to them by a very few people. poetry and philosophy resemble each other in that they are both as unproductive and barren of esteem and honour, as of all other advantages." chapter x. "from men you will scarcely derive any advantage whatever from your glory. you will therefore look within you for consolation, and in your solitude will nerve yourself for fresh exertions, and lay the foundation of new hopes. for like all other human benefits, literary glory is more pleasing in anticipation than in reality, if indeed it can ever be said to be realised. you will therefore at length console yourself with the thought of that last hope and refuge of noble minds, posterity. even cicero, richly renowned as he was in life, turned his mind yearningly towards the future, in saying: 'thinkest thou i should have undertaken so many labours, during day and night, in peace and war, had i imagined my glory was limited to this life? far better were a life of idleness and peace, devoid of cares and fatigue. no. my soul, in some inexplicable way, used ever to fix its hopes on posterity, and looked for the dawn of its true life from the hour of death.'[1] cicero here refers to the idea of immortality innate in the minds of men. but the true explanation lies in the fact that all earthly benefits are no sooner acquired than their insignificance becomes apparent; they are unworthy of the fatigues they have cost. glory is, above all, an example of this; it is a dear purchase, and of little use to the purchaser. but, as simonides says, i sweet hope cheers us with its phantom beauties, and with its vain prospect stimulates us to work. some men await the friendly dawn, others the advance of age, and others more auspicious seasons. every mortal cherishes within him hopes of coming good from pluto and the other gods,' thus, as we experience the vanity of glory, hope, driven and hunted from place to place, finding at length no spot in the whole of life whereon to rest, passes beyond the grave and alights on posterity. for man ever turns instinctively from the present to the future, about which he hopes much in proportion as he knows little. hence, they who are desirous of glory in life, chiefly nourish themselves on that which they hope to gain after death. for the lack of enjoyment in the present, man consoles himself with hopes of future happiness, as vain as that of the present." [footnote 1: de senectute.] chapter xi. "but what, after all, is this appeal that we make to posterity? the human imagination is such that it forms a more exalted conception of posterity than of the men of past or present times, simply because we are totally ignorant of the people who are yet to be. but, reasonably, and not imaginatively, do we really think our successors will be better than ourselves? i am of a contrary opinion, and for my part put faith in the proverb that says 'the world grows worse as it ages,' it were better for men of genius if they could appeal to their wise ancestors, who, according to cicero, were not inferior in point of numbers, and far superior in excellence to their successors. but, though such appeal would be sure of a truer judgment, it is certain that the greatest men of our day would be held in little esteem by the ancients. "it may be allowed that the men of the future, being free from any spirit of rivalry, envy, love, or hatred, not indeed amongst themselves, but towards us, ought to be better qualified than ourselves to pass impartial judgment on our writings. for other reasons, too, they may be better judges. posterity will perhaps have fewer excellent writers, noble poets, and subtle philosophers. in which case the few followers of these sublime influences will honour us the more. it is also probable that their control over the minds of the people will be still less than that exercised by us. again, will the affections, imagination, and intellect of men be, as a rule, more powerful than they are at present? if not, we shall gain by the comparison. "literature is peculiarly exposed to the influence of custom. in times of debased literature, we see how firmly this or that barbarism is retained and upheld, as though it alone were reasonable and natural. at such times the best and greatest writers are forgotten or ridiculed. where, then, is the certainty that posterity will always esteem the kind of writing that we praise? besides, it is a question whether or not we ourselves esteem what is really praiseworthy. for men have different opinions about what constitutes good writing, and these vary according to the times, the nature of places and people, customs, usages, and individuals. yet it is to this variety and variability of influences that the glory of writers is subjected. "philosophy is even more diverse and changeable than other sciences.[1] at first sight the contrary of this would seem to be true; for whereas the 'belles lettres' are concerned with the study of the beautiful, which is chiefly a matter of custom and opinion, sciences seek the truth, which is fixed and unchangeable. but this truth is hid from mortals, though, as centuries go by, some little of it is revealed. consequently, on the one hand, in their endeavours to discover it, and their conjectures as to its nature, men are led to embrace this or that resemblance of truth; thereupon opinions and sects multiply. and, on the other hand, it is due to the ever-increasing number of fresh discoveries, and new aspects of truth obtained daily, that even these divisions become subdivided; and opinions which at one time were regarded almost as certainties change shape and substance momentarily. it is owing to the changeability of sciences and philosophy that they are so unproductive of glory, either at the hands of contemporaries or posterity. for when new discoveries, or new ideas and conjectures, greatly alter the condition of this or that science from its present state, how will the writings and thoughts of men now celebrated in these sciences be regarded? who, for instance, now reads galileo's works? yet in his time they were most wonderful; nor could better and nobler books, full of greater discoveries and grander conceptions, be then written on such subjects. but now every tyro in physics or mathematics surpasses galileo in his knowledge. again, how many people in the present day read the writings of francis bacon? who troubles himself about malebranche? and how much time will soon be bestowed on the works of locke, if the science almost founded by him progresses in future as rapidly as it gives promise of doing? "truly the very intellectual force, industry, and labour, which philosophers and scientists expend in the pursuit of their glory, are in time the cause of its extinction or obscurément. for by their own great exertions they open out a path for the still further advancement of the science, which in time progresses so rapidly that their writings and names fall gradually into oblivion. and it is certainly difficult for most men to esteem others for a knowledge greatly inferior to their own. who can doubt that the twentieth century will discover error in what the wisest of us regard as unquestionable truths, and will surpass us greatly in their knowledge of the truth?" [footnote 1: compare the following from h. rogers' _essay on leibnitz_: "the condition of great philosophers is far less enviable than that of great poets. the former can never possess so large a circle of readers under any circumstances; but that number is still further abridged by the fact that even the truths the philosopher has taught or discovered form but stepping-stones in the progress of science, and are afterwards digested, systematised, and better expounded in other works composed by inferior men."] chapter xii. "finally, you would perhaps like to know my opinion, and decided advice to you, about your intended profession. the question is one as to the advisability of your pursuing or abandoning this path to glory, a thing so poor in usefulness, and so hard and uncertain both to secure and retain, that it may be compared to a shadow which you can neither feel when you hold, nor yet keep from fleeing away. i will tell you then briefly my true opinion. i consider your wonderful genius, noble disposition, and prolific imagination to be the most fatal and lamentable qualities distributed by fortune to humanity. but since you possess them, you will scarcely be able to avoid their harmful influence. in the present day there is but one possible benefit to be gained from such endowments as yours; viz., the glory that sometimes rewards industry in literature and study. you know those miserable men, who having accidentally lost or injured a limb, try to make as much profit as possible from their misfortune, which they ostentatiously display to excite the pity and consequent liberality of passers-by. in the same way i advise you to endeavour to procure by means of your endowments the only possible advantage, trifling and uncertain though it be. such qualities as yours are usually regarded as great natural gifts, and are often envied by those who do not possess them. but this feeling is opposed to common sense; as well may the sound man envy those wretched fellows their bodily calamities, or wish to mutilate himself in the same way, for the sake of the miserable profit he might gain. most men work as long as they can, and enjoy themselves as much as their nature will permit. but great writers are naturally, and by their manner of life, incapable of many human pleasures: voluntarily deprived of many others; often despised by their fellow-men, save perhaps a very few who pursue the same studies; they are destined to lead a life like unto death, and to live only beyond the grave, if even that be granted them. "but destiny must be obeyed; duty commands us to follow it courageously and nobly whithersoever it may lead us. such resignation is especially necessary for you, and those who resemble you." _dialogue between frederic ruysch and his mummies._ _chorus of the dead in ruysch's laboratory._ o death, thou one eternal thing, that takest all within thine arms, in thee our coarser nature rests in peace, set free from life's alarms: joyless and painless is our state. our spirits now no more are torn by racking thought, or earthly fears; hope and desire are now unknown, nor know we aught of sorrow's tears. time flows in one unbroken stream, as void of ennui as a dream. the troubles we on earth endured have vanished; yet we sometimes see their phantom shapes, as in a mist of mingled thought and memory: they now can vex our souls no more. what is that life we lived on earth? a mystery now it seems to be, profound as is the thought of death, to wearers of mortality. and as from death the living flee, so from the vital flame flee we. our portion now is peaceful rest, joyless, painless. we are not blest with happiness; that is forbid both to the living and the dead. _ruysch (outside his laboratory, looking through the keyhole)._ diamine! who has been teaching these dead folks music, that they thus sing like cocks, at midnight? verily i am in a cold sweat, and nearly as dead as themselves. i little thought when i preserved them from decay, that they would come to life again. so it is however, and with all my philosophy i tremble from head to foot. it was an evil spirit that induced me to take these gentry in. i do not know what to do. if i leave them shut in here, they may break open the door, or pass through the keyhole, and come to me in bed. yet i do not like to show that i am afraid of the dead by calling for help. i will be brave. let us see if i cannot make them afraid in their turn. (_entering_.)--children, children, what game are you playing at? do you not remember that you are dead? what does all this uproar mean? are you so puffed up because of the czar's visit,[1] that you imagine yourselves no longer subject to the laws of nature? i am presuming this commotion is simply a piece of pleasantry on your part, and that there is nothing serious about it. if, however, you are truly resuscitated, i congratulate you, although i must tell you that i cannot afford to keep you living as well as dead, and in that case you must leave my house at once. or if what they say about vampires be true, and you are some of them, be good enough to seek other blood to drink, for i am not disposed to let you suck mine, with which i have already liberally filled your veins. in short, if you will continue to be quiet and silent as before, we shall get on very well together, and you shall want for nothing in my house. otherwise, i warn you that i will take hold of this iron bar, and kill you, one and all. _a mummy_. do not put yourself about. i promise you we will all be dead again without your killing us. _ruysch_. then what is the meaning of this singing freak? _mummy_. a moment ago, precisely at midnight, was completed for the first time that great mathematical epoch referred to so often by the ancients. to-night also the dead have spoken for the first time. and all the dead in every cemetery and sepulchre, in the depths of the sea, beneath the snow and the sand, under the open sky, and wherever they are to be found, have like us chanted the song you have just heard. _ruysch_. and how long will your singing or speaking last?' _mummy_. the song is already finished. we are allowed to speak for a quarter of an hour. then we are silent again until the completion of the second great year. _ruysch_. if this be true, i do not think you will disturb my sleep a second time. so talk away to your hearts' content, and i will stand here on one side, and, from curiosity, gladly listen without interrupting you. _mummy_. we can only speak in response to some living person. the dead that are not interrogated by the living, when they have finished their song, are quiet again. _ruysch_. i am greatly disappointed, for i was curious to know what you would talk about if you could converse with each other. _mummy_. even if we could do so, you would hear nothing, because we should have nothing to say to one another. _ruysch_. a thousand questions to ask you come into my mind. but the time is short, so tell me briefly what feelings you experienced in body and soul when at the point of death. _mummy_. i do not remember the exact moment of death. _the other mummies_. nor do we. _ruysch_. why not? _mummy_. for the same reason that you cannot perceive the moment when you fall asleep, however much you try to do so. _ruysch_. but sleep is a natural thing. _mummy_. and does not death seem natural to you? show me a man, beast, or plant that shall not die. _ruysch_. i am no longer surprised that you sing and talk, if you do not remember your death. "a fatal blow deprived him of his breath; still fought he on, unconscious of his death "-as says an italian poet. i thought that on the subject of death you fellows would at least know something more than the living. now tell me, did you feel any pain at the point of death? _mummy_. how can there be pain at a time of unconsciousness? _ruysch_. at any rate, every one believes the moment of departure from this life to be a very painful one. _mummy_. as if death were a sensation, and not rather the contrary. _ruysch_. most people who hold the views of the epicureans as to the nature of the soul, as well as those who cling to the popular opinion, agree in supposing that death is essentially a pain of the most acute kind. _mummy_. well, you shall put the question to either of them from us. if man be unaware of the exact point of time when his vital functions are suspended in more or less degree by sleep, lethargy, syncope, or any other cause, why should he perceive the moment-when these same functions cease entirely; and not merely for a time, but for ever? besides, how could there be an acute sensation at the time of death? is death itself a sensation? when the faculty of sense is not only weakened and restricted, but so minimised that it may be termed non-existent, how could any one experience a lively sensation? perhaps you think this very extinction of sensibility ought also to be an acute sensation? but it is not so. for you may notice that even sick people who die of very painful diseases compose themselves shortly before death, and rest in tranquillity; they are too enfeebled to suffer, and lose all sense of pain before they die. you may say this from us to whoever imagines it will be a painful effort to breathe his last. _ruysch_. such reasoning would perhaps satisfy the epicureans, but not those people who regard the soul as essentially different from the body. i have hitherto been one of the latter, and now that i have heard the dead speak and sing i am more than ever disinclined to change my opinions. we consider death to be a separation of the soul and body, and to us it is incomprehensible how these two substances, so joined and agglutinated as to form one being, can be divided without great force and an inconceivable pang. _mummy_. tell me: is the spirit joined to the body by some nerve, muscle, or membrane which must be broken to enable it to escape? or is it a member which has to be severed or violently wrenched away? do you not see that the soul necessarily leaves the body when the latter becomes uninhabitable, and not because of any internal violence? tell me also: were you sensible of the moment when the soul entered you, and was joined, or as you say agglutinated, to your body? if not, why should you expect to feel any violent sensation at its departure? take my word for it, the departure of the soul is as quiet and imperceptible as its entrance. _ruysch_. then what is death, if it be not pain? _mummy_. it is rather pleasure than anything else. you must know that death, like sleep, is not accomplished in a moment, but gradually. it is true the transition is more or less rapid according to the disease or manner of death. but ultimately death comes like sleep, without either sense of pain or pleasure. just before death pain is impossible, for it is too acute a thing to be experienced by the enfeebled senses of a dying person. it were more rational to regard it as a pleasure; because most human joys, far from being of a lively nature, are made up of a sort of languor, in which pain has no part. consequently, man's senses, even when approaching extinction, are capable of pleasure; since languor is often pleasurable, especially when it succeeds a state of suffering. hence the languor of death ought to be pleasing in proportion to the intensity of pain from which it frees the sufferer. as for myself, if i cannot recall the circumstances of my death, it may be because the doctors forbade me to exert my brain. i remember, however, that the sensation i experienced differed little from the feeling of satisfaction that steals over a man, as the languor of sleep pervades him. _the other mummies_. we felt the same sensation. _ruysch_. it may be as you say, although every one with whom i have conversed on this subject is of a very different opinion. it is true, however, they have not spoken from experience. now tell me, did you at the time of death, whilst experiencing this sensation of pleasure, realise that you were dying, and that this feeling was a prelude to death, or what did you think? _mummy_. until i was dead i believed i should recover, and as long as i had the faculty of thought i hoped i should still live an hour or two. i imagine most people think the same. _the other mummies_. it was the same with us. _ruysch_. cicero says[2] that, however old and broken-down a man may be, he always anticipates at least another year of life. but how did you perceive at length that your soul had left the body? say, how did you know you were dead?... you do not answer. children, do you not hear?... ah, the quarter of an hour has expired. let me examine them a little. yes, they are quite dead again. there is no fear that they will give me such another shock. i will go to bed. note.--frederic ruysch (1638-1731) was one of the cleverest anatomists holland has ever produced. for sixty years he held a professorship of anatomy at amsterdam, during which time he devoted himself to his art. he obtained from swammerdam his secret of preserving corpses by means of an injection of coloured wax. ruysch, it is said, also made use of his own blood for this purpose. his subjects, when prepared, looked like living beings, and showed no signs of corruption. czar peter visited holland in 1698, and was amazed at what he saw in ruysch's studio. in 1717 the czar again visited holland, and succeeded in inducing ruysch to dispose of his collection of animals, mummies, &c. these were all transported to st. petersburg. ruysch formed a second collection as valuable as the first, which after his death was publicly sold. [footnote 1: see note.] [footnote 2: de senectute.] _remarkable sayings of philip ottonieri._[1] chapter i. philip ottonieri, a few of whose remarkable sayings i am about to recount, partly heard from his own mouth and partly related to me by others, was born at nubiana in the province of valdivento. there he lived most of his life, and died a short time ago, leaving behind him the reputation of having never injured any one either by word or deed. he was detested by the majority of his fellow-citizens, because he took so little interest in the many things that gave them pleasure; although he did nothing to show that he despised those who differed from himself in this respect. he is believed to have been, not only in theory, but also in practice, what so many of his contemporaries professed to be, that is, a philosopher. for this reason other men thought him peculiar, though really he never affected singularity in anything. indeed, he once said that a man who nowadays practised the greatest possible singularity in dress, manners, or actions, would be far less singular than were those ancients who obtained a reputation for singularity; and that the difference between such a person and his contemporaries would by the ancients have been regarded as scarcely worthy of notice. and, comparing j. j. rousseau's singularity, which seemed very striking to the people of his generation, with that of democritus and the first cynic philosophers, he said that whoever nowadays lived as differently from his contemporaries as these greeks lived from theirs, would not merely be regarded as singular, but would be treated as outside the pale of human society. he thought, too, that the degree of civilisation reached by any country might be estimated from observation of the degree of singularity possible in the inhabitants of that country. though very temperate in his habits of life, he professed epicureanism, perhaps lightly rather than from conviction. but he condemned epicurus, affirming that in his time and nation there was much more pleasure to be obtained from the pursuit of glory and virtue, than from idleness, indifference, and sensuality, which things were considered by that philosopher to represent the greatest good of life. he said also that the epicureanism of modern times has nothing in common with the epicureanism of the ancients. in philosophy, he liked to call himself socratic. like socrates, too, he often spent great part of the day reasoning philosophically with any chance acquaintance, and especially with certain of his friends, on any impromptu subject. but unlike socrates, he did not frequent the shops of the shoemakers, carpenters, and blacksmiths; for he was of opinion that, though the artisans of athens may have had time to spend in philosophising, those of nubiana would starve were they to follow such an example. nor did he, like socrates, explain his conclusions by means of endless interrogation and argument; for, he said, although men in the present day may have more patience than their ancestors, they would never consent to reply to a thousand consecutive questions, still less to hear their answers answered. in fact, he only resembled socrates in his manner of speaking, sometimes ironical, sometimes equivocal. he analysed the famous socratic irony in the following way:-"socrates was naturally very tender-hearted, and of a most lovable disposition. but he was physically so unattractive that it is probable he despaired from his youth of ever inspiring others with a warmer feeling than that of friendship, far insufficient to satisfy his sensitive and ardent nature, which often felt towards others a much more lively affection. he was courageous in all matters of the intellect, but seems to have been wanting in natural courage, and those other qualities that would have enabled him to hold his own in public life, amid the tumult of wars, the sedition, and the license of all kinds, then characteristic of athenian affairs. in addition to this, his ridiculous and insignificant figure must have been no slight prejudice to him among people who made little distinction between the good and the beautiful, and who were also much addicted to banter. thus it happened that in a free city, full of wealth and the bustle and amusements of life, socrates, poor, rejected by love, incapable of a public career, yet gifted with very great intelligence which doubtless intensified the consciousness of his defects, resigned himself to a life of philosophising on the actions, manners, and thoughts of his fellow-citizens. the irony he used was natural to a man who found himself as it were excluded from participation in the existence of others. but it was due to his inherent nobility and affableness, and perhaps also to the celebrity he gained by his reasonings, and which flattered his self-esteem, that this irony, instead of being bitter and contemptuous, was pleasing, and expressed in a friendly manner. "then it was that philosophy, as cicero has well said, made her first descent from heaven, and was led by socrates into the towns and houses of men. hitherto occupied with speculations as to the nature of hidden things, she now studied the manners and lives of men, and discussed virtues and vices, things good and useful, and the contrary. but socrates did not primarily think of introducing this novel feature into philosophy, nor did he propose to teach anything, nor even aspire to the name of philosopher, which then only belonged to those who made physics or metaphysics the study of their lives. he openly proclaimed his ignorance of all things, and in his conversation with others simply discussed the affairs of his neighbours, and the topics of the day. he preferred this amusement to the real study of philosophy, or any other science or art; and being naturally more inclined to act than speculate, he only adopted this manner of life, because shut out from a more congenial employment. he was always more willing to converse with young and handsome persons than with others; in this way he hoped to gain at least esteem, where he would far rather have had love." and since all the schools of greek philosophy are traceable directly or indirectly to the socratic school, ottonieri asserted that the flat nose and satyr-like visage of a highly intellectual and warm-hearted man were the origin of all greek philosophy, and, consequently, the philosophy of modern times. he also said that in the writings of his followers, the individuality of socrates is comparable to those theatrical masks of the ancients, which always retained their name, character, and identity, but the _rôle_ of which varied in each distinct performance. he left behind him no philosophical or other writings for public benefit. being asked one day why he did not give written as well as verbal expression to his philosophical views, he replied: "reading is a conversation held with the writer. now, as in fêtes and public entertainments, they who take no active part in the spectacle or performance soon become tired, similarly in conversation men prefer to speak rather than listen. and books necessarily resemble those people who take all the speaking to themselves, and never listen to others. consequently, to atone for their monopoly of talking, they ought to say many fine and excellent things, expressing them in a remarkable manner. every book that does not do this inspires the same feeling of aversion as an insatiable chatterer." [footnote 1: a fictitious personage.] chapter ii. ottonieri made no distinction between business and pleasure. however serious his occupation, he called it pastime. only once, having been idle temporarily, he confessed he had then experienced no amusement. he said that our truest pleasures are due to the imagination. thus, children construct a world out of nothing, whereas men find nothing in the world. he compared those pleasures termed real to an artichoke, all the leaves of which must be masticated in order to reach the pith. he added that such artichokes as these are very rare; and that many others resemble them in exterior, but within are void of kernel. he for his part, finding the leaves unpalatable, determined to abstain from both leaves and kernel. being asked what was the worst moment of life, he said: "except those of pain or fear, the worst moments are, in my opinion, those spent in pleasure. for the anticipation and recollection of these last, which fill up the remainder of life, are better and more delightful than the pleasures themselves." he also made a comparison between pleasures and odours. the latter he considered usually leave behind a desire to experience them again, proportioned to their agreeableness; and he regarded the sense of smell as the most difficult to satisfy of all our senses. again, he compared odours to anticipations of good things; and said that odoriferous foods are generally more pleasing to the nose than the palate, for their scent originates savoury expectations which are seldom sufficiently realised. he explained why sometimes he was so impatient about the delay of a pleasure sure to occur sooner or later, by saying that he feared the enjoyment he should derive from it would be of diminished force, on account of the exaggerated anticipation conceived by his mind. for this reason he endeavoured in the meantime to forget the coming good, as though it were an impending misfortune. he said that each of us in entering the world resembles a man on a hard and uncomfortable bed. as soon as the man lies down, he feels restless and begins to toss from side to side and change his position momentarily, in the hope of inducing sleep to close his eyes. thus he spends the whole night, and though sometimes he believes himself on the point of falling asleep, he never actually succeeds in doing so. at length dawn comes, and he rises unrefreshed. watching some bees at work one day in company with certain acquaintances, he remarked: "blessed are ye, if ye know not your unhappiness." he considered the miseries of mortals to be incalculable, and that no single one of them could be adequately deplored. in answer to horace's question, "why is no one content with his lot?" he said: "because no one's lot is happy. subjects equally with princes, the weak and the strong, were they happy, would be contented, and would envy no one. for men are no more incapable of being satisfied than other animals. but since happiness alone can satisfy them, they are necessarily dissatisfied, because essentially unhappy." "if a man could be found," he said, "who had attained to the summit of human happiness, that man would be the most miserable of mortals. for even the oldest of us have hopes and schemes for the improvement of our condition." he recalled a passage in zenophon, where a purchaser of land is advised to buy badly cultivated fields, because such as do not in the future bring forth more abundantly than at the time of purchase, give less satisfaction than if they were to increase in productiveness. similarly, all things in which we can observe improvement please us more than others in which improvement is impossible. on the other hand, he observed that no condition is so bad that it cannot be worse; and that however unhappy a man may be, he cannot console or boast himself that his misfortunes are incapable of increase. though hope is unbounded, the good things of life are limited. thus, were we to consider a single day in the life of a rich or poor man, master or servant, bearing in mind all the circumstances and needs of their respective positions, we should generally find an equality of good throughout. but nature has not limited our misfortunes; nor can the mind scarcely conceive a cause of suffering which is non-existent, or which at some time was not to be found among humanity. thus, whereas most men vainly hope for an increase of the good things they possess, they never want for genuine objects of fear; and if fortune sometimes obstinately refuses to benefit us in the least degree, she never fails to afflict us with new torments of such a nature as to crush within us even the courage of despair. he often used to laugh at those philosophers who think that a man is able to free himself from the tyranny of fortune, by having a contempt for good and evil things which are entirely beyond his control; as if happiness and the contrary were absolutely in his own power to accept or refuse. on the same subject he also said, amongst other things, that however much a man may act as a philosopher in his relations with others, he is never a philosopher to himself. again, he said that it is as impossible to take more interest in the affairs of others than in our own, as to regard their affairs as though they were our own. but, supposing this philosophical disposition of mind were possible, winch it is not, and possessed by one of us, how would it stand the test of a thousand trials? would it not be evident that the happiness or unhappiness of such a person is nevertheless a matter of fortune? would not the very disposition they boast of be dependent on circumstances? is not man's reason daily governed by accidents of all kinds? do not the numberless bodily disturbances due to stupidity, excitement, madness, rage, dullness, and a hundred other species of folly, temporary or continuous, trouble, weaken, distract, and even extinguish it? does not memory, wisdom's ally, lose strength as we advance in age? how many of us fall into a second childhood! and we almost all decrease in mental vigour as we grow old; or when our mind remains unimpaired, time, by means of some bodily disease, enfeebles our courage and firmness, and not infrequently deprives us of both attributes altogether. in short, it is utter folly to confess that physically we are subject to many things over which we have no control, and at the same time to assert that the mind, which is so greatly dependent on the body, is not similarly controlled by external influences. he summed up by saying that man as a whole is absolutely in the power of fortune. being asked for what purpose he thought men were born, he laughingly replied: "to realise how much better it were not to be born." chapter iii. on the occasion of a certain misfortune, ottonieri said: "it is less hard to lose a much-loved person suddenly, or after a short illness, than to see him waste away gradually, so that before his death he is transformed in body and mind into quite another being from what he formerly was. this latter is a cruel thing; for the beloved one, instead of leaving to us the tender recollections of his real identity, remains with us a changed being, in whose presence our old affection slowly but surely fades away. at length he dies; but the remembrance of him as he was at the last destroys the sweeter and earlier image within us. thus he is lost entirely, and our imagination, instead of comforting, saddens us. such misfortunes as these are inconsolable." one day he heard a man lamenting and saying, "if only i were freed from this trouble, all my other troubles would be easy to bear." he replied: "not so; for then those that are now light would be heavy." another person said to him: "had this pain continued, i could not have borne it." ottonieri answered: "on the contrary, habit would have made it more bearable." touching many things as to human nature, he held opinions not in accordance with those of the multitude, and often different from those of learned men. for instance, he thought it unwise to address a petition to any one when the person addressed is in a state of extraordinary hilarity. "and," he said, "when the petition is such that it cannot be granted at once, i consider occasions of joy and sorrow as equally inopportune to its success. for both sentiments make a man too selfish to trouble himself with the affairs of others. in sorrow our misfortune, in joy our good fortune, monopolises our mind, and erects, as it were, a barrier between us and matters external to ourselves. both are also peculiarly unsuitable for exciting compassion: when sorrowful, we reserve all pity for ourselves; when joyful, we colour all things with our joy, and are inclined to regard the troubles and misfortunes of others as entirely imaginative, or else we refuse to think of them, as too discordant with the mind's present condition. the best time to ask a favour, or some beneficial promise for others, is when the person petitioned is in a state of quiet, happy good humour, unaccompanied by any excessive joyfulness; or better still, when under the influence of that keen but indefinite pleasure which results from a reverie of thought, and consists of a peaceful agitation of the spirit. at such times men are most open to pity and entreaty, and are often glad to please others, and give expression to the vague gratifying activity of their thoughts by some good action." he also denied that an afflicted person ordinarily receives more pity from fellow-sufferers than from other people. for a man's companions in misfortune are always inclined to give their own troubles precedence over his, as being more serious and compassionable. and often, when a man in recounting his sufferings thinks he has excited the sympathy of his auditors, he is interrupted by one of them who expatiates in turn on his misfortunes, and ends by trying to show that he is the more afflicted of the two. he said that in such cases it generally happens as occurred to achilles when priam prostrated himself at his feet, with entreaties and lamentations. the tears of priam excited the tears of achilles, who began to groan and weep like the trojan king. this he did, not from sympathy, but because of his own misfortunes, and the thoughts of his dead father and friend. "we compassionate others," he said, "when they suffer from evils we have experienced; but not so when we and they suffer simultaneously." he said that from carelessness and thoughtlessness we do many cruel or wicked things, which very often have the appearance of genuine cruelty and maliciousness. for example, he mentioned the case of a man who spending his time away from home left his servants in a dwelling scarcely weather proof, not designedly, but simply from thoughtlessness or disregard of their comfort. he considered malice, inhumanity, and the like to be far less common among men than mere thoughtlessness, to which he attributed very many things called by harder names. he once said that it were better to be completely ungrateful towards a benefactor than to make some trifling return for his great kindness. for in the latter case the benefactor must consider the obligation as cancelled, whatever may have been the motive that inspired the donor, and however small the return. he is thus despoiled of the bare satisfaction of gratitude, on which he probably reckoned; and yet he cannot regard himself as treated ungratefully, though he is so in reality. i have heard the following saying attributed to him:--"we are inclined and accustomed to give our acquaintances credit for being able to discern our true merits, or what we imagine them to be, and to recognise the virtue of our words and actions. we also suppose that they ponder over these virtues and merits of ours, and never let them escape their memory. but, on the other hand, we do not discern similar qualities in them, or else are unwilling to acknowledge the fact." chapter iv. ottonieri observed that irresolute men sometimes persevere in their undertakings in the face of the greatest opposition. this is even a consequence of their irresolution; for were they to abandon their design, it would be evidence that they had for once fulfilled a determination. sometimes they skilfully and speedily carry out a resolution. to this they are urged by fear lest they should be compelled to cease their task, when they would return to the state of perplexity and uncertainty in which they were formerly. thus they strenuously hasten the execution of their design, stimulated rather by anxiety and uncertainty as to whether they will conquer themselves, than by the goal or the difficulties to be overcome before it can be reached. at another time he said, with a smile, that people accustomed to give expression to their every thought and feeling in conversation with others, cry out when alone if a fly bite them, or if they chance to upset a glass of water; and, on the other hand, they who live solitary lives become so reserved that even the presentiment of apoplexy would not induce them to speak in the presence of others. he was of opinion that most men reputed great in ancient and modern times have obtained their reputation through a preponderance of one quality over the rest in their character. and a man possessed of the most brilliant but evenly proportioned endowments, would fail to acquire celebrity either with his contemporaries or posterity. he divided the men of civilised nations into three classes. the first class are they whose individual nature, and partly also their natural human constitution, become transformed under the influence of the arts and customs of urban life. among these he included all men who are skilful in business, whether private or public, who appreciate society, and make themselves universally agreeable to their fellows. generally speaking, such men alone inspire esteem and respect. the second class are they who preserve their primitive nature in a greater degree, either from lack of culture or because they are naturally incapable of being influenced by the arts, manners, and customs of others. this is the most numerous of the three classes, and is held in general contempt. it embraces those who are known as the common people, or who deserve to be included with them, be their station in life what it may. the third class, incomparably the smallest in numbers, and often even more despised than the second, consists of those men in whom nature is strong enough to resist and often repulse the civilising influence of the times. they are seldom apt in business, or self-governed in society; nor do they shine in conversation, nor succeed in making themselves agreeable to their fellow-men. this class is subdivided into two varieties. the one includes those strong and courageous natures that despise the contempt they excite, and often indeed esteem it more than honour. they differ from other men, not only by nature, but also by choice and preference. having nothing in common with the hopes and pleasures of society, solitary in a crowd, they avoid other men as much as they themselves are avoided. specimens of this class are rarely met with. the other variety consists of persons whose nature is a compound of strength, weakness, and timidity, and who are therefore in a constant state of agitation. they are as a rule desirous of associating with their fellows, and wishing to emulate the men of the cultivated class, they feel acutely the contempt in which they are held by their inferiors. these men are never successful in life; they fail in ever becoming practical, and in society are neither tolerable to themselves nor others. not a few of our most gifted men of modern times have belonged to this division in more or less degree. j. j. rousseau is a famous example, and with him may be bracketed one of the ancients, virgil. of the latter it is said, on the authority of melissus, that he was very slow of speech, and apparently a most ordinary endowed man. and this, together with the probability that owing to his great talents virgil was little at ease in society, seems likely enough, both from the laboured subtlety of his style, and the nature of his poetry; it is also confirmed by what we read towards the end of the second book of the georgics. there the poet expresses a wish for a quiet and solitary life, as though he regarded it as a remedy and refuge more than an advantage in itself. now, seeing that with rare exceptions men of these two species are never esteemed until they are dead, and are of little power in the world; he asserted as a general rule, that the only way to gain esteem during life is to live unnaturally. and since the first class, which is the mean of the two extremes, represents the civilisation of our times; he concluded from this and other circumstances that the conduct of human affairs is entirely in the hands of mediocrity. he distinguished also three conditions of old age, compared with the other ages of man. when nature and manners were first instituted, men were just and virtuous at all ages. experience and knowledge of the world did not make men less honest and upright. old age was then the most venerable time of life; for besides having all the good qualities common to other men, the aged were naturally possessed of greater prudence and judgment than their juniors. but in process of time, the conduct of men changed; their manners became debased and corrupt. then were the aged the vilest of the vile; for they had served a longer apprenticeship to vice, had been longer under the influence of the wickedness of their neighbours, and were besides possessed of the spirit of cold indifference natural to their time of life. under such conditions they were powerless to act, save by calumny, fraud, perfidy, cunning, dissimulation, and other such despicable means. the corruption of men at length exceeded all bounds. they despised virtue and well-doing before they knew anything of the world, and its sad truth. in their youth they drained the cup of evil and dissipation. old age was then not indeed venerable, for few things thence-forward could be so called, but the most bearable time of life. eor whereas the mental ardour and bodily strength which formerly stimulated the imagination and the conception of noble thoughts, had often given rise to virtuous habits, sentiments, and actions; the same causes latterly increased man's wickedness by enlarging his capacity for evil, to which it lent an additional attractiveness. but this ardour diminished with age, bodily decrepitude, and the coldness incident to age, things ordinarily more dangerous to virtue than vice. in addition to this, excessive knowledge of the world became so dissatisfactory and wearisome a thing, that instead of conducting men from good to evil, as formerly, it gave them strength to resist wickedness, and sometimes even to hate it. so that, comparing old age with the other periods of life, it may be said to have been as better to good in the earliest times; as worse to bad in the corrupt times; and subsequently as bad to worse. chapter v. ottonieri often talked of the quality of self-love, nowadays called egotism. i will narrate some of his remarks on this subject. he said that "if you hear a person speak well or ill of another with whom he has had dealings, and term him honest or the contrary; value his opinion not a whit. he speaks well or ill of the man simply as his relationship with him has proved satisfactory or the reverse." he said that no one can love without a rival. being asked to explain, he replied: "because the person beloved is a very close rival of the lover." "suppose a case," he said, "in which you asked a favour from a friend, who could not grant it without incurring the hatred of a third person. suppose, too, that the three interested people are in the same condition of life. i affirm that your request would have little chance of success, even though your gratitude to the granter might exceed the hatred he would incur from the other person. the reason of this is as follows: we fear men's anger and hatred more than we value their love and gratitude. and rightly so. for do we not oftener see the former productive of results than the latter? besides, hatred or vengeance is a personal satisfaction; whereas gratitude is merely a service pleasing to the recipient." he said that respect and services rendered to others in expectation of some profitable return, are rarely successful; because men, especially nowadays when they are more knowing than formerly, are less inclined to give than receive. nevertheless, such services as the young render to the old who are rich or powerful, attain their end more often than not. the following remarks about modern customs i remember hearing from his own mouth:-"nothing makes a man of the world so ashamed as the feeling that he is ashamed, if by chance he ever realises it. "marvellous is the power of fashion! for we see nations and men, so conservative in everything else, and so careful of tradition, act blindly in this respect, often indeed unreasonably, and against their own interests. fashion is despotic. she constrains men to lay aside, change, or assume manners, customs, and ideas, just when she pleases; even though the things changed be rational, useful, or beautiful, and the substitutes the contrary.[1] "there are an infinite number of things in public and private life which, though truly ridiculous, seldom excite laughter. if by chance a man does laugh in such a case, he laughs alone, and is soon silent. on the other hand, we laugh daily at a thousand very serious and natural things; and such laughter is quickly contagious. thus, most things which excite laughter are in reality anything but ridiculous; and we often laugh simply because there is nothing to laugh at, or nothing worthy of laughter. "we frequently hear and say such things as, 'the good ancients,' 'our good ancestors,' &c. again, 'a man worthy of the ancients,' by which we mean a trustworthy and honest man. every generation believes, on the one hand, that its ancestors were better than its contemporaries; and on the other hand, that the human race progresses as it leaves the primitive state, to return to which would be a movement for the worse, further and further behind. wonderful contradiction! "the true is not necessarily the beautiful. yet, though beauty be preferable to truth, where the former is wanting, the latter is the next best thing. now in large towns the beautiful is not to be found, because it no longer has a place in the excitement of human life. the true is equally non-existent; for all things there are false or frivolous. consequently, in large towns one sees, feels, hears, and breathes nothing but falsity, which in time, custom renders even pleasurable. to sensitive minds, what misery can exceed this? "people who need not work for their bread, and who accordingly leave the care of it to others, have usually great difficulty in providing themselves with one of the chief necessities of life, occupation. this may indeed be called the greatest necessity of life, for it includes all others. it is greater even than the necessity of living; for life itself, apart from happiness, is not a good thing. and possessing life, as we do, our one endeavour should be to endure as little unhappiness as possible. now, on the one hand, an idle and empty life is very unhappy; and on the other hand, the best way to pass our time is to spend it in providing for our wants." he said that the custom of buying and selling human beings has proved useful to the race. in confirmation of this, he mentioned the practice of inoculating for small-pox, which originated in circassia; from constantinople it passed to england, and thence became disseminated throughout europe. its office was to mitigate the destructiveness wrought by true small-pox, which besides endangering the life and comeliness of the circassian children and youths, was especially disastrous in its effects on the sale of their maidens. he narrated of himself that on leaving school to enter the world of life, he mentally resolved, inexperienced, and devoted to truth as he was, to praise no person or thing that did not seem really deserving of praise. he kept his determination for a whole year, during which time he did not utter a single word of praise. then he broke his vow, fearing lest, from want of practice, he should forget all the eulogistic phraseology he had learnt shortly before, at the school of rhetoric. from that time he absolutely renounced his intention. [footnote 1: see "dialogue between fashion and death," p. 19.] chapter vi. ottonieri was accustomed to read out passages from books taken at hazard, especially those of ancient writers. he would often interrupt himself by uttering some remark or comment on this or that passage. one day he read from laertius' "lives of the philosophers," the passage where chilo, being asked how the learned differed from the ignorant, is said to have replied, that the former possess 'hopes,' ottonieri said: "now all is changed. the ignorant hope, but the learned do not." again, as he read in the same book how socrates affirmed that the world contains but one benefit, knowledge, and but one evil, ignorance, he said: "i know nothing about the knowledge and ignorance of the ancients; but in the present day i should reverse this saying." commenting on this maxim of hegesias, also from the book of laertius, "the wise man attends to his own interests in everything," he said: "if all men who carry out this principle be philosophers, plato may come and establish his republic throughout the civilised world." he greatly praised the following saying of bion borysthenes, mentioned by laertius: "they who seek the greatest happiness, suffer most." to this he added: "and they on the other hand are happiest who are contented with least, and who are accustomed to enjoy their happiness over again in memory." from plutarch he read how stratocles excited the anger of the athenians by inducing them on a certain occasion to sacrifice as though they were victors; and how he then replied by demanding why they blamed him that he had made them happy and joyful for the space of three days. ottonieri added: "nature might make the same response to those who complain that she endeavours to conceal the truth beneath a multitude of vain but beautiful and pleasing appearances. how have i injured you, in making you happy for three or four days?" on another occasion he remarked that tasso's saying about a child induced to take his medicine under a false belief, "he is nourished on deception," is equally applicable to all our race, in relation to the errors in which man puts faith. beading the following from cicero's "paradoxes"--"do pleasures make a person better or more estimable? is there any one who boasts of the pleasures he enjoys?" he said: "beloved cicero, i cannot say that pleasures make men in the present day either more estimable or better; but undoubtedly they cause them to be more esteemed. for in the present day most young men seek esteem by no other way than pleasure. and not only do they boast of these pleasures when they obtain them, but they din the intelligence of their enjoyment into the ears of friends and strangers, willing or unwilling. there are also many pleasures which are eagerly desired and sought after, not as pleasures, but for the sake of the renown, reputation, and self-satisfaction that they bring; and very often these latter things are appropriated when the pleasures have neither been obtained, nor sought, or else have been entirely imaginary." he noted from arrian's history of the wars of alexander the great, that at the battle of issus, darius placed his greek mercenaries in the van of his army, and alexander his greeks at the wings. he thought that this fact alone was sufficient to determine the result of the battle. he never blamed authors for writing much about themselves. on the contrary, he applauded them for so doing, and said that on such occasions they are nearly always eloquent, and their style, though perhaps unusual and even singular, is ordinarily good and fluent. and this is not surprising; for writers treating of themselves have their heart and soul in the work. they are at no loss what to say; their subject and the interest they take in it are jointly productive of original thought. they confine themselves to themselves, and do not drink at strange fountains; nor need they be commonplace and trite. there is nothing to induce them to garnish their writing with artificial ornamentation, or to affect an unnatural style. and it is an egregious error to suppose that readers are ordinarily little interested in a writer's confessions. for in the first place, whenever a man relates his own experiences and thoughts simply and pleasingly, he succeeds in commanding attention. secondly, because in no way can we discuss and represent the affairs of others more truthfully and effectively than by treating of our own affairs; seeing that all men have something in common, either naturally or by force of circumstances, and that we are better able to illustrate human nature in ourselves than in others. in confirmation of these opinions, he instanced demosthenes' oration for the crown, in which the speaker, continually referring to himself, is surpassingly eloquent. and cicero, when he touches on his own affairs, is equally successful; peculiarly so in his oration for milo, admirable throughout, but above all praise towards the end, where he himself is introduced. bossuet also is supremely excellent in his panegyric of the prince de condé, where he mentions his own extreme age and approaching death. again, the emperor julian, whose writings are all else trifling, and often unbearable, is at his best in the "misopogony" (speech against the beard), in which he replies to the ridicule and malice of the people of antioch. he is here scarcely inferior to lucian in wit, vigour, and acuteness; whereas his work on the cæsars, professedly an imitation of lucian, is pointless, dull, feeble, and almost stupid. in italian literature, which is almost devoid of eloquent writings, the apology of lorenzo de medici is a specimen of eloquence, grand and perfect in every way. tasso also is often eloquent where he speaks much of himself, and is nearly always excessively so in his letters, which are almost occupied with his own affairs. chapter vii. many other famous sayings of ottonieri are recorded. amongst them is a reply he gave to a clever, well-read young man, who knew little of the world. this youth said that he learned daily one hundred pages of the art of self-government in society. "but," remarked ottonieri, "the book has five million pages." another youth, whose thoughtless and impetuous behaviour constantly got him into trouble, used to excuse himself by saying that life is a comedy. "may be," replied ottonieri, "but even then it is better for the actor to gain applause than rebuke; often, too, the ill-trained or clumsy comedian ends by dying of starvation." one day he saw a murderer, who was lame, and could not therefore escape, being carried off by the police. "see, friends," he said, "justice, lame though she be, can bring the doer of evil to account, if he also be lame." during a journey through italy he met a courtier, who, desirous of acting the critic to ottonieri, began: "i will speak candidly, if you will allow me." "i will listen attentively," said the other, "for, as a traveller, i appreciate uncommon things." being in need of money, he once asked a loan from a certain man, who, excusing himself on the plea of poverty, added that were he rich, the necessities of his friends would be his first thought. "i should be truly sorry were you to bestow on us such a valuable moment," replied ottonieri: "god grant you may never become rich!" when young, he wrote some verses, using certain obsolete expressions. at the request of an old lady he recited them to her. she professed ignorance of their meaning, and said that in her day such words were not in use. ottonieri replied: "i thought they might have been, simply because they are very ancient." of a certain very rich miser who had been robbed of a little money, he said: "this man behaved in a miserly manner even to thieves." he said of a man who had a mania for calculating on every possible occasion: "other men make things; this fellow counts them." being asked his opinion about a certain old terra-cotta figure of jove, over which some antiquaries were disputing, he said: "do you not see that it is a cretan jove?" of a foolish fellow, who imagined himself to be an admirable reasoner, yet was illogical whenever he spoke two words, he said: "this person exemplifies the greek definition of man, as a 'logical animal.'" when on his deathbed, he composed this epitaph, which was subsequently engraved on his tomb: here lie the bones of philip ottonieri. born for virtue and glory, he lived idle and useless, and died in obscurity; not without a knowledge of nature and his own destiny. _dialogue between christopher columbus and pietro gutierrez._ _columbus_. a fine night, friend. _gutierrez_. fine indeed; but a sight of land would be much finer. _col_. decidedly. so even you are tired of a life at sea. _gut_. not so. but i am rather weary of this voyage, which turns out to be so much longer than i expected. do not, however, think that i blame you, like the others. rather, consider that i will, as hitherto, do all i can to help you in anything relating to the voyage. but just for the sake of some talk i wish you would tell me candidly and explicitly, whether you are as confident as at first about finding land in this part of the world; or if, after spending so much time to no purpose, you begin at all to doubt. _col_. speaking frankly as to a friend who will not betray me, i confess i am a little dubious; especially because certain evidences during the voyage, which filled me with hope, have turned out deceitful; for instance, the birds which dew over us from the west, soon after we left gomera, and which i considered a sure sign of land not far distant. similarly, more than one conjecture and anticipation, made before setting out, regarding different things that were to have taken place during the voyage, have failed of realisation. so that at length i cannot but say to myself, "since these predictions in which i put the utmost faith have not been verified, why may not also my chief conjecture, that of finding land beyond the ocean, be also unfounded?" it is true this belief of mine is so logical, that if it be false, on the one hand it would seem as if no human judgment could be reliable, except such as concern things actually seen, and touched; and on the other hand, i remember how seldom reality agrees with expectation. i ask myself, "what ground have you for believing that both hemispheres resemble each other, so that the western, like the eastern, is part land and part water? why may it not be one immense sea? or instead of land and water, may it not contain some other element? and, supposing it to have land and water like the other, why may it not be uninhabited? or even uninhabitable? if it be peopled as numerously as our hemisphere, what proof have you that rational beings are to be found there, as in ours? and if so, why not some other intelligent animals instead of men? supposing they be men, why not of a kind very different from those you are acquainted with; for instance, with much larger bodies, stronger, more skilful, naturally gifted with much more genius and intelligence, more civilised, and richer in sciences and arts?" these thoughts occur to me. and in truth, we see nature endowed with such power, so diverse and manifold in her effects, that we not only are unable to form a certain opinion about her works in distant and unknown parts of the world, but we may even doubt whether we do not deceive ourselves in drawing conclusions from the known world, and applying them to the unknown. nor would it be contrary to probability to imagine that the things of the unknown world, in whole or part, were strange and extraordinary to us. for do we not see with our own eyes that the needle in these seas falls away from the pole star not a little towards the west? such a thing is perfectly novel, and hitherto unheard of by all navigators; and even after much thought i can arrive at no satisfactory explanation of it. i do not infer that the fables of the ancients regarding the wonders of the undiscovered world and this ocean are at all credible. annonus, for instance, said of these parts, that the nights were illumined by flames, and the glow of fiery torrents, which emptied themselves into the sea. we observe also, how foolish hitherto have been all the fears of miraculous and terrible novelties felt by our fellow-sailors during the voyage; as when, on coming to that stretch of seaweed, which made as it were a meadow in the sea, and impeded us so greatly, they imagined we had reached the verge of navigable waters. i say this simply because i wish you to see that although this idea of mine about undiscovered land may be founded on very reasonable suppositions, in which many excellent geographers, astronomers, and navigators, with whom i conversed on the subject in spain, italy, and portugal, agree with me, it might yet be fallacious. in short, we often see many admirably drawn conclusions prove erroneous, especially in matters about which we have very little knowledge. _gut_. so that in fact you have risked your own life, and the lives of your companions, on behalf of a mere possibility. _col_. i cannot deny it. but, apart from the fact that men daily endanger their lives for much frailer reasons, and far more trifling things, or even without thinking at all, pray consider a moment. if you, and i, and all of us were not now here in this ship, in the middle of this ocean, in this strange solitude, uncertain and hazardous though it be, what should we be doing? how should we be occupied? how should we be spending our time? more joyfully perhaps? more probably, in greater trouble and difficulty; or worse, in a state of ennui? for what is implied in a state of life free from uncertainty and danger? if contentment and happiness, it is preferable to all others; if weariness and misery, i know nothing so undesirable. i do not wish to mention the glory and useful intelligence that we shall take back with us, if our enterprise succeed, as we hope. if the voyage be of no other use to us, it is very advantageous, inasmuch as it for a time frees us from ennui, endears life to us, and enhances the value of many things that we should not otherwise esteem. you remember perhaps what the ancients say about unfortunate lovers. these used to throw themselves from the rock of st. maur (then called leucadia) into the sea; being rescued therefrom, they found themselves, thanks to apollo, delivered from their love passion. whether or not this be credible, i am quite sure that the lovers, having escaped their danger, for a short time even without apollo's assistance, loved the life they previously hated; or loved and valued it increasedly. every voyage is, in my opinion, comparable to the leap from the leucadian rock, producing the same useful results, though these are of a more durable kind. it is ordinarily believed that sailors and soldiers, because incessantly in danger of their lives, value existence more lightly than other people. eor the same reason, i come to a contrary conclusion, and imagine few persons hold life in such high estimation as soldiers and sailors. just as we care nothing for many benefits as soon as we possess them; so sailors cherish and value, very greatly, numerous things that are far from being good, simply because they are deprived of them. who would think of including a little earth in the catalogue of human benefits? none but navigators; and especially such as ourselves, who, owing to the uncertain nature of our voyage, desire nothing so much as the sight of a tiny piece of land. this is our first thought on awaking, and our last before we fall asleep. and if at some future time we chance to see in the distance the peak of a mountain, the tops of a forest, or some such evidence of land, we shall scarcely be able to contain ourselves for joy. once on _terra firma_, the mere consciousness of being free to go where we please will suffice to make us happy for several days. _gut_. that is all very true; and if your conjecture only prove to be as reasonable as your justification of it, we shall not fail to enjoy this happiness sooner or later. _col_. personally, i think we shall soon do so; though i dare not actually promise such a thing. you know we have for several days been able to fathom; and the quality of the matter brought up by the lead seems to me auspicious. the clouds about the sun towards evening are of a different form and colour to what they were a few days ago. the atmosphere, as you can feel, is warmer and softer than it was. the wind no longer blows with the same force, nor in so straightforward and unwavering a manner; it is inclined to be hesitating and changeable, as though broken by some impediment. to these signs add that of the piece of cane we discovered floating in the sea, which bore marks of having been recently severed; and the little branch of a tree with fresh red berries on it; besides, the swarms of birds that pass over us, though they have deceived me before, are now so frequent and immense, that i think there must be some special reason for their appearance, particularly because we see amongst them some which do not resemble sea birds. in short, all these omens together make me very hopeful and expectant, however diffident i may pretend to be. _gut_. god grant your surmises may be true. _panegyric of birds._ amelio, a lonely philosopher, was seated, reading, one spring morning in the shade of his country house. being distracted by the songs of the birds in the fields, he gradually resigned himself to listening and thinking. at length he threw his book aside, and taking up a pen wrote as follows:-birds are naturally the most joyful creatures in the world. i do not say this because of the cheerful influence they always exercise over us; i mean that they themselves are more light-hearted and joyful than any other animal. for we see other animals ordinarily stolid and grave, and many even seem melancholy. they rarely give signs of joy, and when they do, these are but slight and of brief duration. in most of their enjoyments and pleasures they do not express any gratification. the green fields, extensive and charming landscapes, noble planets, pure and sweet atmosphere, if even a cause of pleasure to them, do not excite in them any joyful demonstrations; save that on the authority of zenophon, hares are said to skip and frolic with delight when the moon's radiance is at its brightest. birds, on the other hand, show extreme joy, both in motion and appearance; and it is the sight of this evident disposition for enjoyment on their part that gladdens us as we watch them. and this appearance must not be regarded as unreal and deceptive. they sing to express the happiness they feel, and the happier they are, the more vigorously do they sing. and if, as it is said, they sing louder and more sweetly when in love than at other times, it is equally certain that other pleasures besides love incite them to sing. for we may notice they warble more on a quiet and peaceful day, than when the day is dark and uncertain. and in stormy weather, or when frightened, they are silent; but the storm passed, they reappear, singing and frolicking with one another. again, they sing in the morning when they awake; being partly incited to this by a feeling of joy for the new day, and partly by the pleasure generally felt by every animal when refreshed and restored by sleep. they also delight in gay foliage, rich valleys, pure and sparkling water, and beautiful country.... it is said that birds' voices are softer and sweeter, and their songs more refined, with us than among wild and uncivilised people. this being so, it would seem that birds are subject to the influence of the civilisation with which they associate. whether or not this be true, it is a remarkable instance of the providence of nature that they should have capacity for flight, as well as the gift of song, so that their voices might from a lofty situation reach a greater number of auditors. it is also providential that the air, which is the natural element of sound, should be inhabited by vocal and musical creatures. truly the singing of birds is a great solace and pleasure to us, and all other animals. this fact is not, i believe, so much due to the sweetness of the sounds, nor to their variety and harmony, as to the joyful signification of songs generally, and those of birds in particular. birds laugh, as it were, to show their contentment and happiness. it may therefore be said that they partake in a degree of man's privilege of laughter, unpossessed by other animals. now some people think that man may as well be termed a laughing animal, as an animal possessed of mind and reason; for laughter seems to them quite as much peculiar to man as reason. and it is certainly wonderful that man, the most wretched and miserable of all creatures, should have the faculty of laughter, which is wanting in other animals. marvellous also is the use we make of this faculty! we see people suffering from some terrible calamity or mental distress, others who have lost all love of life, and regard every human thing as full of vanity, who are almost incapable of joy, and deprived of hope, laugh nevertheless. indeed, the more such men realise the vanity of hope, and the misery of life, the fewer their expectations and pleasures, so much the more do they feel inclined to laugh. now it is scarcely possible to explain or analyse the nature of laughter in general, and its connection with the human mind. perhaps it may aptly be termed a species of momentary folly or delirium. for men can have no reasonable and just cause for laughter, because nothing really satisfies nor truly pleases them. it would be curious to discover and trace out the history of this faculty. there is no doubt that in man's primitive and wild state, it was expressed by a peculiar gravity of countenance, as in other animals, who show it even to the extent of melancholy. for this reason i imagine that laughter not only came into the world after tears, which cannot be questioned, but that a long time passed before it appeared. during that time, neither the mother greeted her child with a smile, nor did the child smilingly recognise her, as virgil says. and the reason why, in the present day, among civilised people, children smile as soon as they are born, is explainable by virtue of example: they see others smile, therefore they also smile. it is probable that laughter originated in drunkenness,[1] another peculiarity of the human race. this vice is far from being confined to civilised nations, for we know that scarcely any people can be found that do not possess an intoxicating liquor of some kind, which they indulge in to excess. and this cannot be wondered at, when we remember that men, the most unhappy of all animals, are above all pleased with anything that easily alienates their minds, such as self-forgetfulness, or a suspension of their usual life; from which interruption and temporary diminution of the sense and knowledge of their peculiar evils they receive no slight benefit. and whereas savages have ordinarily a sad and grave countenance, yet, when in a state of drunkenness, they laugh immoderately, and talk and sing incessantly, contrary to their custom. but i will discuss this matter more in detail in a history of laughter which i think of composing. having discovered its origin, i will trace its history and fortune to the present day, when it is more valued than at any previous time. it occupies among civilised nations a place, and fills an office somewhat similar to the parts formerly played by virtue, justice, honour, and the like, often indeed frightening and deterring men from the committal of evil. but to return to the birds. from the effect their singing produces in me, i conclude that the sight and recognition of joy in others, of which we are not envious, gratifies and rejoices us. we may therefore be grateful to nature for having ordained that the songs of birds, which are a demonstration of joy and a species of laughter, should be in public, differing from the private nature of the singing and laughter of men, who represent the rest of the world. and it is wisely decreed that the earth and air should be enlivened by creatures that seem to applaud universal life with the joyful harmony of their sweet voices, and thus incite other living beings to joy, by their continual, though false, testimony to the happiness of things. it is reasonable that birds should be, and show themselves, more joyful than other creatures. tor, as i have said, they are naturally better adapted for joy and happiness. in the first place, apparently, they are not subject to ennui. they change their position momentarily, and pass from country to country, however distant, and from the lowest regions of the air to the highest, quickly and with wonderful ease. life to them is made up of an infinite variety of sights and experiences. their bodies are in a continuous state of activity, and they themselves are full of vital power. all other animals, their wants being satisfied, love quietude and laziness; none, except fishes and certain flying insects, keep long in motion simply for amusement. the savage, for instance, except to supply his daily wants, which demand little and brief exertion, or when unable to hunt, scarcely stirs a step. he loves idleness and tranquillity above everything, and passes nearly the whole day sitting in silence and indolence within his rude cabin, or at its opening, or in some rocky cave or place of shelter. birds, on the contrary, very rarely stay long in one place. they fly backwards and forwards without any necessity, simply as a pastime, and often having gone several hundred miles away from the country they usually frequent, they return thither the same evening. and even for the short time they are in one place, their bodies are never still. ever turning here and there, they are always either flocking together, pecking, or shaking themselves, or hopping about in their extraordinarily vivacious and active maimer. in short, from the time a bird bursts its shell until it dies, save intervals of sleep, it is never still for a moment. from these considerations it may reasonably be affirmed that whereas the normal state of animals, including even man, is quietude, that of birds is motion. we find also that birds are so endowed that their natural qualities harmonise with the exterior qualities and conditions of their life; this again makes them better adapted for happiness than other animals. they have remarkably acute powers of hearing, and a faculty of vision almost inconceivably perfect. owing to this last they can discern simultaneously a vast extent of country, and are daily charmed by spectacles the most immense and varied. from these things it may be inferred that birds ought to possess an imagination, vivid and powerful in the highest degree,. not the ardent and stormy imagination of dante or tasso; for this is a disastrous endowment, and the cause of endless anxieties and sufferings. but a fertile, light, and childish fancy, such as is productive of joyful thoughts, sweet unrealities, and manifold pleasures. this is the noblest gift of nature to living creatures. and birds have this faculty in a great; measure for their own delight and benefit, without experiencing any of its hurtful and painful consequences. for their prolific imagination, as with children, combines, with their bodily vigour, to render them happy and contented, instead of being injurious, and productive of misery, as with most men. thus, birds may be said to resemble children equally in' their vivacity and restlessness, and the other attributes of their nature. if the advantages of childhood were common to other ages, and its evils not exceeded later in life, man might perhaps be better able to bear patiently the burden of existence. to me it seems that the nature of birds, considered aright, is manifestly more perfect than that of other animals. for, in the first place, birds are superior to other animals in sight and hearing, which are the principal senses of life. in the second place, birds naturally prefer motion to rest, whereas other creatures have the contrary preference. and since activity is a more living thing than repose, birds may be said to have more life than other animals. it follows therefore that birds are physically, and in the exercise of their faculties, superior to other creatures. now, if life be better than its contrary, the fuller and more perfect the life, as with birds, the greater is the superiority of creatures possessing it, over less endowed animals. we must not forget also that birds are adapted to bear great atmospheric changes. often they rise instantaneously from the ground far up into the air, where the cold is extreme; and others in their travels fly through many different climates. in short, just as anacreon wished to be changed into a mirror that he might be continually regarded by the mistress of his heart, or into a robe that he might cover her, or balm to anoint her, or water to wash her, or bands that she might draw him to her bosom, or a pearl to be worn on her neck, or shoes that she might at least press him with her feet; so i should like temporarily to be transformed into a bird, in order to experience their contentment and joyfulness of life. [footnote 1: compare shakespeare's henry iv., part 2, act 4, sc. 3. _falstaff:_ " ... nor a man cannot make him laugh;--but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine."] _the song of the wild cock._ certain hebrew _savants_ and writers affirm, that between heaven and earth, or rather, partly in one and partly on the other, lives a wild cock which stands with its feet resting on the earth, and touching the sky with its crest and beak. this gigantic cock, besides possessing other peculiarities mentioned by these writers, has the use of reason; or else, like a parrot, it has been taught, i know not by whom, to express itself in human fashion. in proof of this, an old parchment manuscript has been discovered, containing a canticle written in hebrew characters, and in a language compounded of chaldean, targumic, rabbinical, cabalistic and talmudic, entitled "morning song of the wild cock." (scir detarnegòl bara letzafra.) this, not without great exertion, and the interrogation of more than one rabbi, cabalist, theologian, jurist, and hebrew philosopher, has been interpreted and translated as follows. i have not yet been able to ascertain whether this song is still uttered by the cock on certain occasions, or every morning, or whether it was sung but once, or who is said to have heard it, or if this language be the proper tongue of the cock, or whether the canticle was translated from some other language. in the following translation i have used prose rather than verse, although it is a poem, in order to ensure as literal a rendering as possible. the broken style and occasional bombast must not be imputed to me, for it is a reproduction of the original; and in this respect the composition partakes of the characteristics of oriental languages, and especially of oriental poems. "mortals, awake! the day breaks; truth returns to the earth and vain fancies flee away. arise; take up again the burden of life; forsake the false world for the true. "now is the time when each one takes again to his mind all the thoughts of his real life. he recalls to memory his intentions, aims, and labours; and thinks of the pleasures and cares that must occur during the new day. and every one at this time eagerly seeks to discover in his mind joyful hopes and sweet thoughts. few, however, are satisfied in this desire; for all men it is a misfortune to awake. the miserable man is no sooner aroused than he falls again into the clutches of his unhappiness. very sweet a thing is that sleep induced by joy or hope. these preserve themselves in their entirety until the following morning, when they either vanish or decrease in force. "if the sleep of mortals were continuous and identical with life; if under the star of day all living beings languished on the earth in utter rest, and no work was wrought; if the oxen ceased bellowing in the meadows, the beasts roaring in the forests, the birds singing in the air, the bees buzzing, and the butterflies skimming over the fields; if no voice nor motion except-that of the waters, winds, and tempests anywhere existed, the universe would indeed be useless; but would there be less happiness or more misery than there is to-day? "i ask of thee, o sun, author of day, and guardian of eve; in the course of the centuries measured out and consummated by thee, thus rising and setting, hast thou ever at any time seen one living being possessed of happiness? of the numberless works of mortals which hitherto thou hast seen, thinkest thou that a single one was successful in its aim of procuring satisfaction, durable or temporary, for its originator? and seest thou, or hast thou ever seen, happiness within the boundaries of the world? where does it dwell? in what country, forest, mountain, or valley; in what land, inhabited or uninhabited; in which planet of the many that thy flames illumine and cherish? does it perchance hide from thee in the bowels of the earth, or the depths of the sea? what living being, what plant, or other thing animated by thee, what vegetable or animal participates in it? and thou thyself, like an indefatigable giant, traversing swiftly, day and night, sleepless and restless, the vast course prescribed to thee; art thou content or happy? "mortals, arouse yourselves! not yet are you free from life. the time will come when no eternal force, no internal agitation, shall awaken you from the repose of sleep, in which you shall ever and insatiably rest. for the present, death is not granted to you; only from time to time you are permitted to taste briefly its resemblance, because life would fail were it not often suspended. too long abstention from this short and fleeting sleep is a fatal evil, and causes eternal sleep. such thing is life, that to secure its continuance it must from time to time be laid aside; man then in sleep refreshes himself with a taste, and, as it were, a fragment of death. "it seems as though death were the essential aim of all things. that which has no existence cannot die; yet all that exists has proceeded from nothing. the final cause of existence is not happiness, for nothing is happy. it is true, living creatures seek this end in all their works, but none obtain it; and during all their life, ever deceiving, tormenting, and exerting themselves, they suffer indeed for no other purpose than to die. "the earliest part of the day is ordinarily the most bearable for living beings. few, when they awake, find again in their minds delightful and joyful thoughts, but almost all people give birth to them for the time being. for then the minds of men, being free from any special concentration, are predisposed to joy fulness, and inclined to bear evils more patiently than at other times. thus a man who falls asleep in the anguish of despair is filled anew with hope when he awakes, though it can profit him nothing, many misfortunes and peculiar hardships, many causes of fear and distress, then seem less formidable than they appeared the previous evening. often, also, the pangs of yesterday are remembered with contempt, and are ridiculed as follies and vain fancies. "the evening is comparable to old age; and on the other hand, the dawn of the morning resembles youth; the one full of comfort and hope, and then sad evening with its discouragement and tendencies to look on the dark side of things. but, just as the time of youth in life is very short and fleeting, so is the infancy of each new day, which quickly ages towards its evening. "youth, if indeed it be the best of life, is a very wretched thing. yet even this poor benefit is so soon over, that when by many signs man is led to perceive the decline of his existence, he has scarcely experienced its perfection, or fully realised its peculiar strength, which, once diminished, the best part of life is gone with every race of mortals. thus, in all her works, nature turns and points towards death: for old age reigns universally. every part of the world hastens untiringly; with diligence and wonderful celerity, towards death. the world itself alone seems exempt from decay; for although in autumn and winter it appears as it were sick and aged, nevertheless in the spring it ever rejuvenates. but just as mortals in the first part of each day regain some portion of their youth, yet grow old as the day progresses, and are at length extinguished in sleep; so although in the beginning of the year the world becomes young again, none the less it perpetually ages. the time will come when this world, and nature herself, shall die. and as at the present day there remains no trace nor record of many very great kingdoms and empires, so in the whole world there shall not he left a vestige of the infinite changes and catastrophes of created things. a naked silence and an utter calm shall fill the vast space. thus, this wonderful and fearful mystery of universal existence shall be unloosed, and shall melt away before it be made manifest or be comprehended."[1] [footnote 1: this is a poetical not philosophical conclusion. speaking philosophically, existence, which has had no beginning, will have no ending.] _dialogue between timandro and eleandro._ _timandro_. i am very anxious to have some conversation with you. it is about the matter and tendency of your writings and words, which seem to me most blamable. _meandro_. so long as you find no fault with my actions, i confess i do not much care; because words and writings are of little consequence. _tim_. there is nothing in your actions, as far as i can see, for which i need blame you. i am aware that you benefit no one because you cannot do so, and i observe that you injure no one because you are unwilling to do so. but i consider your speech and writings very reprehensible, and i do not agree with you that they are of little importance. our life may almost be said to consist of nothing else. for the present we will disregard the words, and simply consider the writings. in the first place, the incessant vituperation and continuous satire that you bestow on the human race are out of fashion. _mean_. my brain also is out of fashion. it is quite natural for a child to resemble its father. _tim_. then you must not be surprised if your books, like everything contrary to the custom of the day, are ill received. _mean_. that is a small misfortune. they were not written for the purpose of begging a little bread at the doors of the rich. _? tim_. forty or fifty years ago, philosophers used to say hard things about the human race, but now they do just the contrary. _mean_. do you believe that forty or fifty years ago the philosophers were right or wrong in their statements? _tim_. more often right than wrong. _mean_. do you think that in these forty or fifty years the human race has changed to the opposite of what it then was? _tim_. not at all. but that has nothing to do with the question. _elean_. why not? has humanity progressed in strength and perfection, that the writers of to-day should be constrained to flatter, and compelled to reverence it? _tim_. what have such pleasantries to do with so grave a matter? _elean_. then seriously. i am not unaware that the people of this century, although continuing to ill-treat their fellow-men as their ancestors did, have yet a very high opinion of themselves, such as men of the past century did not possess. but i, who ill-treat no one, do not see that i am obliged to speak well of others against my conscience. _tim_. you must, however, like all men, endeavour to serve your race. _elean_. if my race, on the contrary, does its best to injure me, i do not see that this obligation holds, as you say. but supposing you are right, what ought i to do, if i cannot be useful to my race? _tim_. by actions, perhaps, you may be unable to be of much use. such power is in the hands of but few people. but by your writings you can, and indeed ought to serve it. and the race is not benefited by books which snarl incessantly at men in general. such behaviour is, on the contrary, extremely injurious. _elean_. i admit that it does no good, but i also imagine it does no harm. do you, however, think books are able to help the human race? _tim_. not i only, but all the world think so. _elean_. what kind of books? _tim_. many kinds; but especially books treating of morals. _elean_. all the world does not think so, because i, amongst others, do not, as a woman once said to socrates. if books of morals could be useful to men, i should place poetry above all others. i use the word poetry in its widest sense, as including all writings, the aim of which is to excite the imagination, whether in prose or verse. now i hold in little esteem that sort of poetry which, when read and meditated over, does not leave in the mind of the reader a sufficiently elevating sentiment to deter him for half an hour from giving way to a single base thought or unworthy action. if, however, the reader commits, for example, a breach of faith towards his best friend an hour after such reading, i do not condemn the poetry for that, because then the finest, most stirring, and noblest poetry the world possesses would come under condemnation. exceptions to this influence are readers who live in great cities. these people, however great their concentration, cannot forget themselves for even half an hour, nor are they much pleased, or moved, by any sort of poetry. _tim_. you speak, as usual, maliciously, and so as to leave an impression that you are habitually ill-treated by others. this, in most instances, is the true cause of the ill-humour and contempt exhibited by certain people towards their race. _elean_. indeed, i cannot say that men have treated, or do treat me very well. if i could say so, i imagine i should be unique in my experience. but neither have they done me any serious harm, because in demanding nothing from men, and having nothing in common with them, i scarcely give them a chance of offending me. i must confess, however, that recognising clearly, as i do, how ignorant i am of the simplest means of making myself agreeable to others, both in conversation and the daily intercourse of life, whether from a natural defect or fault of my own, i should esteem men less if they treated me better. _tim_. then you are so much the more to blame. for, had you even a mistaken ground of complaint, your hatred and desire for revenge against men would be in a measure justifiable. but your hatred, from what you say, is based on nothing in particular, except perhaps an extraordinary and wretched ambition of becoming famous as a misanthrope like timon--a desire abominable in itself, and especially out of place in a century like the present, so peculiarly devoted to philanthropy. _elean_. i need not reply to your remark about ambition, because i have already said that i want nothing from men. does that seem incredible to you? you will at least grant that it is not ambition which urges me to write books, such as on your own showing are more likely to bring me reproaches than glory. besides, i am so far from hating the human race, that i neither can nor wish to hate even those who particularly offend me. indeed, the fact that hatred is so completely foreign to me, goes far to explain my inability to do as other men do. but i cannot change this, because i always think that whenever a man displeases or injures another, he does so in the hope of procuring some pleasure or advantage for himself. his aim is not to injure others (which can never be the motive of any action, nor the object of any thought), but to benefit himself,--a natural desire, and undeserving of odium. again, whenever i notice a particular vice or fault in my neighbour, i carefully examine myself, and as far as circumstances will allow, i put myself in his place. thereupon i invariably find that i should have done the same as he, and been guilty of the same faults. consequently my mind loses what irritation it previously felt. i reserve my wrath for occasions when i might see some wickedness of which my nature is incapable; but so far i have never met with such a case. finally, the thought of the vanity of human things is so constantly in my mind that i am unable to excite myself about any one of them. hatred and anger seem to me great and strong passions, out of harmony with the insignificance of life. thus you see there is a great difference between timon and myself. timon hated and shunned all men except alcibiades, for whom he reserved all his affection, because he saw in him the initiator of innumerable evils for their common country. i, on the other hand, without hating alcibiades, would have especially avoided him. i would have warned my fellow-citizens of their danger, exhorting them at the same time to take the requisite steps to preserve themselves from it. some say that timon did not hate men, but beasts in the likeness of men. as for me, i neither hate men nor beasts. _tim_. nor do you love any one. _mean_. listen, my friend. i am born to love. i have loved; and perhaps with as deep a passion as is possible for human soul to feel. to-day, although, as you see, i am not sufficiently old to be naturally devoid of passion, nor even of a lukewarm age, i am not ashamed to say that i love no one except myself, by the necessity of nature, and that as little as possible. nevertheless, i would always rather bear suffering myself than be the cause of it to others. i believe you can bear witness to the truth of this, little as you know about my habits. _tim_. i do not deny it. _mean_. i try to procure for men, even at my own expense, that greatest possible good, which alone i seek for myself, viz., a state of freedom from suffering. _tim_. but do you distinctly confess that you do not love the human race in general? _elean_. yes, absolutely. but in such a way that if it depended on me, i would punish those who deserved punishment, without hating them, as also i would benefit my race to the utmost, although i do not love it. _tim_. well, it may be so. but then, if you are not incited by injuries received, nor by hatred, nor ambition, why do you write in such a manner? _mean_. for many reasons. first, because i cannot tolerate deceit and dissimulation. i may sometimes have to give way to these in conversation, but never in my writings; because i am often obliged to speak unwillingly, but i never write unless i please. i should derive no satisfaction from puzzling my brains, and expressing the result on paper, unless i could write what i really think. all sensible people laugh at those who now-a-days write latin, because no one speaks, and few understand, the language. i think it is equally absurd to take for granted, whether in conversation or writing, the reality of certain human qualities no longer extant, and the existence of certain rational beings, formerly considered as divinities, but now really regarded as non-existent equally by those who mention them, and those who hear them mentioned. i could understand men using masks and disguises in order to deceive other men, or to avoid being recognised. but it seems childish for them all to conceal themselves behind the same kind of mask, and use the same disguise, whereby they deceive no one, but recognise each other perfectly, in spite of it. let them lay aside their masks, and retain merely their clothes. the effect will be precisely the same, and they will be more at ease. besides, this perpetual simulation, though useless, and this eternal acting of a part between which and oneself there is nothing in common, cannot be carried on without fatigue and weariness. if men had passed suddenly, instead of gradually, from the savage condition to their present state of civilisation, would the names of the things just mentioned be found in general usage, with the custom of deducing from them a thousand philosophical conclusions? in truth, this custom seems to me like one of those ceremonies and ancient practices so incompatible with our present habits, which nevertheless continue to exist by force of usage. i for my part cannot submit to these ceremonies; and i write in the language of modern times, not that of the trojan era. in the second place, i do not so much, in my writings, find fault with the human race, as grieve over its destiny. there is nothing i think more clear and palpable than the necessary unhappiness of all living beings. if this unhappiness be not a fact, then all my arguments are wrong, and we may abandon the discussion. if it be true, why may i not lament openly and freely, and say that i suffer? doubtless, if i did nothing but weep incessantly (this is the third cause which moves me), i should become a nuisance to others as well as myself, without profiting any one. but in laughing at our misfortunes, we do much to remedy them. i endeavour therefore to persuade others to profit in this way, as i have done. whether i succeed or not, i feel assured that such laughter is the only solace and remedy that can be found. the poets say that despair has always a smile on its lips. but you must not think that i am devoid of compassion for the unhappiness of humanity. its condition is incurable by art, industry, or anything else, therefore i consider it far more manly and consistent with a magnanimous despair to laugh at our common woes, than to sigh, weep, and moan with others, thereby encouraging them in their lamentations. lastly, permit me to say that i desire as much as you, or any one else, the welfare of my race in general, but i am hopeless of its attainment; nor can i, like so many philosophers of this century, nourish and soothe my mind with anticipations of good. my despair is absolute, unchangeable, and so based on firm judgment and conviction, that i cannot imagine such a thing as a joyous future, nor can i undertake anything with the hope of bringing it to completion. and you are well aware that man is never inclined to attempt what he knows or thinks cannot succeed; or if he does, he acts feebly and without confidence. similarly a writer, who expresses himself contrary to his real opinion, though this be erroneous, utters nothing worthy of consideration. _tim_. but when his judgment is, like yours, a false one, he should rectify it. _elean_. my judgment is of myself alone, and i am quite sure i do not err in announcing my unhappiness. if other men are happy, i congratulate them with all my heart. i know also that death alone can deliver me from my misfortune. if others are more hopeful, i rejoice once again. _tim_. we are all unhappy, and have always been so. i scarcely think you can take credit for the novelty of your idea. but man's present condition, superior as it is to his past, will be greatly improved in the future. you forget, or seem to disregard the fact, that man is perfectible. _elean_. perfectible he may be. but that he is capable of perfection, which is of more importance, i know not who can convince me. _tim_. he has not yet had time to reach perfection. ultimately he will no doubt attain to it. _elean_. i do not doubt it. the few years that have passed since the world began are, i agree with you, quite insufficient to complete our education. we cannot judge from what seem to us the nature and capabilities of man. besides, humanity hitherto has been too occupied with other business to give itself up to the task of attaining perfection. but in future all its endeavours will be towards this one aim. _tim_. yes, the whole civilised world is working zealously towards this end. and, taking into consideration the number and sufficiency of the means employed, which have indeed recently increased in an astounding manner, we have every reason to think that the goal will be reached, sooner or later. this conviction itself is by no means one of the least stimulants to progress, because it gives birth to a host of undertakings and labours useful for the common welfare. if, then, at any time it was fatal and blâmable to manifest despair like yours, and to teach men such doctrines as the absolute necessity of their wretchedness, the vanity of life, the insignificance of their race, and the evil of their nature, much more is it so in the present day. such conduct can only result in depriving us of courage, and that feeling of self-esteem which is the foundation of an honest, useful, and glorious life; it will also divert us from the path of our own welfare. _elean_. kindly say distinctly, whether or not you regard as true what i have said about the unhappiness of mankind. _tim_. you return to your old argument. well, supposing i admit the truth of what you say, how does that alter the matter? i would remind you that it is not always well to preach truth simply because it is truth. _elean_. answer me another question. are these truths, which i merely express, without any pretence of preaching, of primary or secondary importance in philosophy? _tim_. in my opinion they are the very essence of all philosophy. _elean_. in that case, they greatly deceive themselves who affirm that man's perfection consists in complete knowledge of the truth; that his misfortunes are the consequence of his ignorance and prejudices; and that the human race will be happy when men have discovered the truth, and conform their lives to its teaching. yet such doctrines are taught by most philosophers, ancient and modern. but you are of opinion that these truths, though confessedly the substance of all philosophy, ought to be concealed from the majority of men. you would rather that they were unknown or disregarded by all men, because of the baneful influence they exercise over the mind. and this is equivalent to an admission that philosophy ought to be banished from the earth. i grant you, however, that the final conclusion to be drawn from true and perfect philosophy is that it were better to dispense with philosophy. it would therefore seem that, first of all, philosophy is superfluous, since its conclusions are attainable without its assistance; secondly, it is extremely injurious, because its conclusion is a very painful one to be accepted, and when accepted is useless: nor is it in man's power to disregard truths once recognised. besides, the habit of philosophising is one of the most difficult habits to throw off. thus, philosophy which at first inspires hope as a possible remedy for the ills of humanity, ends by seeking in vain a cure for itself. and now i would ask you why you imagine we are nearer perfection than our ancestors were? is it that we are better acquainted with the truth? this cannot be, since we have seen that such knowledge is extremely prejudicial to man's happiness. perhaps, however, it is because some few men in the present day have learnt that the truest philosopher is he who abstains from philosophy? but in what then are we superior to the men of primitive times, who were perfectly unacquainted with philosophy? and even in the present day savages abstain from philosophy, without feeling the least inconvenience. in what, therefore, are we more advanced than our ancestors; and what means of attaining perfection do we possess, which they had not? _tim_. we have many of great importance. to explain them would be a work of considerable time. _elean_. put them aside for the moment, and reconsider my theory. i say that if, on the one hand, i express in my writings certain hard and bitter truths, whether to relieve my mind, or console myself in laughing at them, i do not fail at the same time to deplore and disadvise the search after that cold and miserable truth, acquaintance with which reduces us to a state of either indifference and hypocrisy, or baseness of soul, moral corruption, and depravity. and, on the other hand, i praise and exalt those noble, if false ideas, which give birth to high-minded and vigorous actions and thoughts, such as further the welfare of mankind, or individuals; those glorious illusions, vain though they be, which give value to life, and which are natural to the soul; in short, the superstitions of antiquity, distinct from the errors of barbarism. these latter should be rooted out, but the former respected. civilisation and philosophy having exceeded their natural bounds, as is usual with all things pertaining to humanity, have drawn us from one state of barbarism only to precipitate us into another, no better than the first. this new barbarism, born of reason and science instead of ignorance, manifests itself more in the mind than the body. yet i imagine, that though these superstitions become daily more necessary for the well-being of civilised nations, the possibility of their re-introduction diminishes daily. and as for man's perfection, i assure you if i had perceived any signs of it, i would have written a volume in praise of the human race. but since i have not yet seen it, and as it is improbable i ever shall see it, i think of leaving in my will a certain sum of money for the purpose of procuring an annual panegyric of the human race, to be publicly recited from the time of its perfection, and to pay for the erection of a temple, statue, or monument, as may be judged best, to commemorate the event. _copernicus:_ _a dialogue in four scenes._ _scene_ i.--_the first hour and the sun._ _first hour_. good day, excellency. _sun_. thanks; good-night as well. _first hour_. the horses are waiting, your excellency. _sun_. very well. _first hour_. and the morning star has been up some time. _sun_. all right. let it rise and set, just as it pleases. _first hour_. what do i hear your excellency say? _sun_. i wish you would leave me alone. _first hour_. but, excellency, the night has already lasted so long, that it can last no longer; and if we delay, imagine, excellency, the confusion that will ensue. _sun_. i don't mean to stir, whatever happens. _first hour_.0 excellency! what is this? does your excellency feel ill? _sun_. no, no; i feel nothing, except that i don't wish to move. so you can go and attend to your own affairs. _first hour_. how can i go unless your excellency comes? i am the first hour of the day, and how can the day exist, if your excellency does not deign to go forth as usual? _sun_. if you will not be of the day, you shall be of the night; or better, the hours of the night shall do double duty, and you and your companions shall be idle. for you must know i am tired of this eternal going round to give light to a race of little animals that live far away in a ball of clay, so small that i, who have good sight, cannot see it. during the night i have decided not to trouble myself any more in this fashion. if men want light, let them make their own fires for the purpose, or provide it in some other way. _first hour_. but, excellency, how can the little fellows manage that? it will be a very great expense for them to keep lanterns or candles burning all day long. if only they could now discover a certain atmosphere to warm and illumine their streets, rooms, shops, taverns, and everything else at little expense, then they would not be so badly off. but men will have to wait some three hundred years, more or less, before they discover this; and meanwhile, all the oil, wax, pitch, and tallow of the earth will be exhausted, and they will have nothing more to burn. _sun_. let them hunt the will-o-the-wisp, and catch those shining things called glow-worms. _first hour_. and how will they protect themselves against the cold? for without the assistance of your excellency, all the forests together will not make a fire large enough to warm them. besides, they will also die of hunger, since the earth will no longer bring forth its fruits. and so, after a few years, the seed of the poor little folk will be lost. they will go groping about the earth, seeking food and warmth, until having consumed every possible thing, and used up the last flicker of fire, they will all die in the darkness, frozen like pieces of rock-crystal. _sun_. what is this to do with me? am i the nurse of the human race; or the cook, that i should look after the preparation of their food? and why need i care if a few invisible little creatures, millions of miles away from me, are unable to see, or bear the cold, when deprived of my light and warmth? besides, even supposing, as you say, that i ought to act the part of stove or fireplace to this human family, surely it is more reasonable, if men want to warm themselves, that they should come to the stove, than that the stove should go whirling round them. therefore, if the earth requires me, let it come hither to satisfy its needs. i want nothing from the earth, that i should thus trouble myself to rotate round it. _first hour_. your excellency means, if i understand rightly, that henceforth the earth must do for itself that which hitherto you have done on its behalf. _sun_. yes: now and for the future. _first hour_. well, your excellency knows best what is right, and can do as it pleases you. but nevertheless, will your excellency deign to think what a number of beautiful and useful things will be destroyed by this new decree. the day will be deprived of its handsome gilded chariot, and beautiful horses, which bathe themselves in the sea. amongst other changes, we poor hours must suffer; we shall no longer have a place in heaven, but shall have to descend from our position as celestial children to that of terrestrials, unless, as is more probable, we dissolve into thin air instead. but be that as it may, the difficulty will be to persuade the earth to go round, necessarily a hard thing, because it is unaccustomed to do so; and the experience of rotating and exerting itself incessantly will be all the more strange, seeing that hitherto it has never stirred from its present position. if, then, your excellency now begins to think of idleness, i fear the earth will be as little desirous of bestirring itself as ever it was. _sun_. in that case, it must be pricked, and made to bestir itself as much as is necessary. but the quickest and surest way is to find a poet, or, better, a philosopher, who will persuade the earth to move itself, or persuasion being unsuccessful, will use force. eor philosophers and poets ordinarily manage these affairs. when i was younger i used to have a great esteem for the poets, though they rather caricatured me in representing me racing madly, great and stout as i am, round and round a grain of sand, simply for the sake of amusement or exercise. but now that i am older, i am more partial to philosophy. i study to discern the utility, not the beauty of things, and poetry seems to me either absurd or wearisome. i wish, also, to have good substantial reasons for whatever i do. now, i see no reason why i should value a life of activity more than a life of ease and idleness. i have determined, therefore, in future, to leave the fatigues and discomforts to others, and for my own part to live quietly at home, without undertaking business of any kind. this change in me is partly due to my age, but has chiefly been brought about by the philosophers, a race of people whose power and influence increase daily. consequently, to induce the earth to rotate in my place, a poet would intrinsically be better than a philosopher: because the poets are accustomed to give a fictitious value to things by exaggerating the truth, beauty, and utility of subjects about which they treat, and because by raising a thousand pleasurable hopes, they often incite people to fatigues they would else have avoided; whereas philosophers weary them. but, now that the power of philosophers is so predominant, i doubt whether a poet would be of much use, if even the earth gave him a hearing. therefore, we had better have recourse to a philosopher. it is true, philosophers are usually little suited, and still less inclined, to stimulate other people to exertions; but possibly in so extreme a case, they may be induced to act contrary to custom. the earth has, however, one alternative; it has the option of declining to undertake all this hard labour. its destruction will then ensue, and i am far from sure that this would not be the best thing for it. but enough of this: we shall see what will take place. now, either you or one of your companions had better go at once to the earth. if there you discover any one of these philosophers in the open air, regarding the heavens, and wondering about the cause of this protracted night, as well he may, take charge of him, and bring him hither on your back. do you clearly understand? _first hour_. yes, excellency. you shall be obeyed. _scene ii.--copernicus pacing the terrace of his house, with his eyes anxiously directed towards the eastern horizon. a roll of paper in his hand, which ever and anon he uses as a telescope._ this is a marvellous thing. either the clocks are all wrong, or else the sun should have risen more than an hour ago. yet not a gleam of light is to be seen in the east, though the sky is as bright and clear as a mirror. all the stars shine as if it were midnight. i must go and consult the almagest and sacrobosco, and see what they say about this event. i have often heard talk of the night jove passed with the wife of amphitryon, and i also remember reading a little while ago, in a modern spanish book, that the peruvians record a very long night, at the end of which the sun proceeded forth from a certain lake called titicaca. hitherto i have regarded these as mere tales, and have never wavered in my belief. now, however, that i perceive reason and science to be absolutely useless, i am determined to believe the truth of these, and similar things. i will also visit the lakes and puddles in the neighbourhood, and see if i can fish out the sun. ha! what is this that i hear? it is like the flapping of the wings of some huge bird. _scene_ iii.--_the last hour and copernicus._ _last hour_. copernicus, i am the last hour. _copernicus_. the last hour! well, i suppose i must be resigned. but i beg of you, if possible, to give me enough time to make my will, and put my things in order, before i die. _last hour_. die! what do you mean? i am not the last hour of your life. _copernicus_. oh, then, what are you? the last hour of the office of the breviary? _last hour_. i can quite imagine you prefer that one to the others, when you are in your stall. _copernicus_. but how do you know i am a canon? and how is it you know my name? _last hour_. i procured my information about you, from certain people in the street. i am, in fact, the last hour of day. _copernicus_. ah! now i understand. the first hour is unwell; and that is why day is not yet visible. _last hour_. i have news for you. there will never be any more daylight unless you provide it yourself. _copernicus_. you would throw on me the responsibility of making daylight? a fine thing, indeed! _last hour_. i will tell you how. but first of all, you must come with me at once to the house of the sun, my father. you shall hear more when we set out. his excellency will explain everything when we arrive. _copernicus_. i trust it is all right. but the journey, unless i am mistaken, must be a very long one. and how can i take enough food to prevent my dying of hunger a few years before reaching the sun? besides, i doubt if his excellency's lands produce the where-withal to supply me with even a single meal. _last hour_. do not trouble yourself with these doubts. you will not stay long in my father's house, and the journey will be completed in a moment. for you must know that i am a spirit. _copernicus_. maybe. but i am a body. _last hour_. well, well: you are not a metaphysician that you need excite yourself about these matters. come now, mount on my shoulders, and leave all the rest to me. _copernicus_. courage. there, it is done! i will pursue this novelty to its issue. _scene_ iv.--_copernicus and the sion._ copernicus_. most noble lord. _sun_. forgive me, copernicus, if i do not offer you a chair: one does not use such things here. but we will soon despatch our business. my servant has already explained the matter to you; and from what the child tells me, i imagine you will do very well for our purpose. _copernicus_. my lord, i discern great difficulties in the matter. _sun_. difficulties ought not to frighten such a man as yourself. they are even said to make the brave man still more courageous. but tell me briefly of what these difficulties consist. _copernicus_. in the first place, although philosophy is a great power, i doubt whether it can persuade the earth to change its comfortable sitting posture for a state of restless activity; especially in these times, which are not heroic. _sun_. and if persuasion be ineffectual, you must try force. _copernicus_. willingly, illustrious, if i were a hercules, or even an orlando, instead of a mere canon of varmia. _sun_. what has that to do with it? did not one of your ancient mathematicians say, that if he had standing room given him outside the world, he would undertake to move heaven and earth? now, you are not required to move heaven, and behold, you are already in a place outside the earth. therefore, unless you are not so clever as that ancient, you will no doubt be able to move the earth, whether it be willing, or not. _copernicus_. my lord, such a thing might be possible. but a lever would be necessary, of such dimensions that neither i nor even your illustrious lordship could pay half the cost of its materials and manufacture. there are, however, other and far more serious difficulties, which i will now mention. you know the earth has hitherto occupied the principal position in the universe, that is the centre. motionless, it has had nothing to do but regard all the other spheres, great and small, brilliant and obscure, continuously gyrating around and on all sides of it with a marvellous regularity and speed. all things seem to be occupied in its service; so that the universe may be likened to a court, in the midst of which the earth sits as on a throne, surrounded by attendant globes, like courtiers, guards, and servants, each of which fulfils its respective office. consequently, the earth has always regarded itself as empress of the universe. so far, indeed, little fault can be found with its control, and i do not think your design an improvement on the old state of affairs. but what shall i say to you about men? we esteem ourselves (and shall always do so) to be in the same relation to the rest of created beings as the earth is to the universe. and more than this. supreme among terrestrial creatures, we all, including the ragged beggar who dines on a morsel of black bread, have a most exalted idea of ourselves. we are each of us emperors, and our empire is only bounded by the universe, for it includes all the stars and planets, visible and invisible. man is, in his own > estimation, the final cause of all things, including even your illustrious lordship. now, if we remove the earth from its place in the centre, and make it whirl round and round unremittingly, what will be the consequence? simply, that it will act like all the other globes, and be enrolled in the number of the planets. then all its terrestrial majesty will vanish, and the earth will have to abdicate its imperial throne. men, too, will lose their human majesty, and be deprived of their supremacy; they will be left alone with their rags, and miseries, which are not insignificant. _sun_. in short, don nicolas, what do you wish to prove by this discourse? is it that you have scruples of conscience lest the deed should be treasonable? _copernicus_. no, it is not that, illustrious. for, to the best of my knowledge neither the codes, nor the digest, nor the books of public, imperial, international, or natural law, make any mention of such treason. what i wanted to show was, that this action, subverting our planetary relationships, will not only work alteration in the order of nature; for it will change the position of things _inter se_, and the ends for which created beings now exist; it will also necessarily make a great revolution in the science of metaphysics, and everything connected with the speculative part of knowledge. the result will be that men, even if they are able and willing to critically examine into the why and wherefore of life, will discover themselves and their aims to be very different from what they are now, or from what they imagine them to be. _sun_. my dear child, the thought of these things does not disturb me much; so little respect have i for metaphysics, or physics, or even alchemy, necromancy, or any such things. besides, men will in time become content with their position; or, if they do not like it, they may argue the matter to their hearts' content, and will doubtless succeed in believing just what they please. in this way they may still deceive themselves under the names of barons, dukes, emperors, or anything else. if, however, they are inconsolable, i confess it will not give me much uneasiness. _copernicus_. well, then, apart from men and the earth, consider, illustrious, what may reasonably be expected to happen in regard to the other planets. these, when they see the earth reduced to their condition, and doing precisely what they do, just like one of themselves, will be jealous of its apparent superiority. they will be dissatisfied with their own naked simplicity and sad loneliness, and will desire to have their rivers, mountains, seas, plants, animals, and men; for they will see no reason why they should be in the smallest degree less endowed than the earth. thereupon will ensue another great revolution in the universe: an infinite number of new races and people will instantaneously proceed from their soil, like mushrooms. _sun_. well, let them come, and the more the merrier. my light and heat will suffice for them all without any extra expense. the universe shall have food, clothes, and lodging amply provided gratis. _copernicus_. but, if your illustrious lordship will reflect a moment, yet another objection may be discerned. the stars, having rivalled the earth, will turn their attentions to you. they will notice your fine throne, noble court, and numerous planetary satellites. consequently, they also will wish for thrones. and more, they will desire to rule, as you do, over inferior planets, each of which must of course be peopled and ornamented like the earth. it is needless to mention the increased unhappiness of the human race. their insignificance will be greater than ever. they will burst out in all these millions of new worlds, so that even the tiniest star of the milky way will be provided with its own race of mortals. now, looking at this, solely as affecting your interests, i affirm that it will be very prejudicial. hitherto you have been, if not the first, certainly the second in the universe; that is, after the earth; nor have the stars aspired to rival you in dignity. in this new state, however, you will have as many equals as stars, each with their respective stars. beware then lest this change be ruinous to your supremacy. _sun_. you remember cæsar's remark, when, crossing the alps, he happened to pass a certain miserable little barbarian village. he said that he would rather be the first in that village, than the second in rome. similarly i would rather be first in this my own world than second in the universe. but you must not think it is ambition that makes me desirous of changing the present state of things; it is solely my love of peace, or, more candidly, idleness. therefore it is a small matter to me whether i am first or last in the universe: unlike cicero, i care more for ease than dignity. _copernicus_. i also, illustrious, have striven my utmost to obtain this ease. but, supposing your lordship is successful in your endeavour, i doubt whether it will be of long duration. for, in the first place, i feel almost sure that before many years have elapsed you will be impelled to go winding round and round like a windlass, or a wheel, without however varying your locality. then, after a time, you will probably be desirous of rotating round something--the earth for instance. ah! well, be that as it may; if you persist in your determination, i will try to serve you, in spite of the great difficulties necessarily to be overcome. if i fail, you must attribute the failure to my inability, not unwillingness. _sun_. that is well, my copernicus. do your best. _copernicus_. there is however yet another obstacle. _sun_. what is it? _copernicus_. i fear lest i should be burnt alive for my pains. in which case, it would be improbable that i, like the phoenix, should rise from my ashes. i should therefore never see your lordship's face again. _sun_. listen, copernicus. you know that once upon a time i was a prophet, when poetry ruled the world, and philosophy was scarcely hatched. i will now utter my last prophecy. put faith in me on the strength of my former power. this is what i say. it may be that those who come after you, and confirm your deeds, shall be burnt, or killed in some other way; but you shall be safe, nor shall you suffer at all on account of this undertaking. and to make your safety certain, dedicate to the pope the book[1] you will write on the subject. if you do this, i promise that you will not even lose your canonry. [footnote 1: copernicus did in effect dedicate his book on the "revolution of the celestial bodies," the printing of which was only completed a few days before his death, to pope paul iii. the system expounded therein was condemned by a decree of paul v. in 1616. this condemnation remained in force until 1821, when it was revoked by pius vii. the sun is supposed to be in the centre, and motionless; the earth and the rest of the planets move round it in elliptical orbits. the heavens and stars are supposed to be stationary, and their apparent diurnal motion from east to west is imputed to the earth's motion from west to east.] _dialogue between an almanac seller and a passer-by._ _almanac seller_. almanacs! new almanacs! new calendars! who wants new almanacs? _passer-by_. almanacs for the new year? _alm. seller_. yes, sir. _passer_. do you think this new year will be a happy one? _alm. seller_. yes, to be sure, sir. _passer_. as happy as last year? _alm. seller_. much more so. _passer_. as the year before? _alm. seller_. still more, sir. _passer_. why? should you not like the new year to resemble one of the past years? _alm. seller_. no, sir, i should not. _passer_. how many years have gone by since you began to sell almanacs? _alm. seller_. about twenty years, sir. _passer_. which of the twenty should you wish the new year to be like? _alm. seller_. i do not know. _passer_. do you not remember any particular year which you thought a happy one? _alm. seller_. indeed i do not, sir. _passer_. and yet life is a fine thing, is it not? _alm. seller_. so they say. _passer_. would you not like to live these twenty years, and even all your, past life from your birth, over again? _alm. seller_. ah, dear sir, would to god i could! _passer_. but if you had to live over again the life you have already lived, with all its pleasures and sufferings? _alm. seller_. i should not like that. _passer_. then what other life would you like to live? mine, or that of the prince, or whose? do you not think that i, or the prince, or any one else, would reply exactly as you have done; and that no one would wish to repeat the same life over again? _alm. seller_. i do believe that. _passer_. then would you recommence it on this condition, if none other were offered you? _alm. seller_. no, sir, indeed i would not. _passer_. then what life would you like? _alm. seller_. such an one as god would give me without any conditions. _passer_. a life at hap-hazard, and of which you would know nothing beforehand, as you know nothing about the new year? _alm. seller_. exactly. _passer_. it is what i should wish, had i to live my life over again, and so would every one. but this proves that fate has treated us all badly. and it is clear that each person is of opinion that the evil he has experienced exceeds the good, if no one would wish to be re-born on condition of living his own life over again from the beginning, with just its same proportion of good and evil. this life, which is such a fine thing, is not the life we are acquainted with, but that of which we know nothing; it is not the past life, but the future. with the new year fate will commence treating you, and me, and every one well, and the happy life will begin. am i not right? _alm. seller_. let us hope so. _passer_. show me the best almanac you have. _alm. seller_. here it is, sir. this is worth thirty soldi. _passer_. here are thirty soldi. _alm. seller_. thank you, sir. good day, sir.--almanacs! new almanacs! new calendars! _dialogue between plotinus and porphyrius._ "one day when i, porphyrius, was meditating about taking my own life, plotinus guessed my intention. he interrupted me, and said that such a design could not proceed from a healthy mind, but was due to some melancholy indisposition, and that i must have change of air" (ex. _life of plotinus_, by porphyrius). the same incident is recounted in the life of plotinus by eunapius, who adds that plotinus recorded in a book the conversation he then held with porphyrius on the subject. _plotinus_. you know, porphyrius, how sincerely i am your friend. you will not wonder therefore that i am unquiet about you. for some time i have noticed how sad and thoughtful you are; your expression of countenance is unusual, and you have let fall certain words which make me anxious. in short, i fear that you contemplate some evil design. _porphyrius_. how! what do you mean? _plotinus_. i think you intend to do yourself some injury; it were a bad omen to give the deed its name. listen to me, dear porphyrius, and do not conceal the truth. do not wrong the friendship that has so long existed between us. i know my words will cause you displeasure, and i can easily understand that you would rather have kept your design hid. but i could not be silent in such a matter, and you ought not to refuse to confide in one who loves you as much as himself. let us then talk calmly, weighing our words. open your heart to me. tell me your troubles, and let me be auditor of your lamentations. i have deserved your confidence. i promise, on my part, not to oppose the carrying out of your resolution, if we agree that it is useful and reasonable. _porphyrius_. i have never denied a request of yours, dear plotinus. i will therefore confess to you what i would rather have kept to myself; nothing in the world would induce me to tell it to anyone else. you are right in your interpretation of my thoughts. if you wish to discuss the subject, i will not refuse, in spite of my dislike to do so; for on such occasions the mind prefers to encompass itself with a lofty silence, and to meditate in solitude, giving itself up for the time to a state of complete self-absorption. nevertheless, i am willing to do as you please. in the first place, i may say that my design is not the consequence of any special misfortune. it is simply the result of an utter weariness of life, and a continuous ennui which has long possessed me like a pain. to this may be added a feeling of the vanity and nothingness of all things, which pervades me in body and soul. do not say that this disposition of mind is unreasonable, though i will allow that it may in part proceed from physical causes. it is in itself perfectly reasonable, and therein differs from all our other dispositions; for everything which makes us attach some value to life and human things, proves on analysis to be contrary to reason, and to proceed from some illusion or falsity. nothing is more rational than ennui.[1] pleasures are all unreal. pain itself, at least mental pain, is equally false, because on examination it is seen to have scarcely any foundation, or none at all. the same may be said of fear and hope. ennui alone, which is born from the vanity of things, is genuine, and never deceives. if, then, all else be vain, the reality of life is summed up in ennui. _plotinus_. it may be so. i will not contradict you as to that. but we must now consider the nature of your project. you know plato refused to allow that man is at liberty to escape, like a fugitive slave, from the captivity in which he is placed by the will of the gods, in depriving himself of life. _porphyrius_. i beg you, dear plotinus, to leave plate alone now, with his doctrines and dreams. it is one thing to praise, explain, and champion certain theories in the schools and in books, but quite another to practically exemplify them. school-teaching and boots constrain us to admire plato, and conform to him, because such is the custom in the present day. bat in real life, far from being admired, he is even detested. it is true plato is said to have spread abroad by his writings the notion of a future life, thus leaving men in doubt as to their fate after death, and serving a good purpose in deterring men from evil in this life, through fear of punishment in the next. if i imagined plato to have been the inventor of these ideas and beliefs, i would speak thus to him:-"you observe, o plato, how inimical to our race the power which governs the world has always been, whether known as nature, destiny, or fate. many reasons contradict the supposition that man has that high rank in the order of creation which we are pleased to imagine; but by no reason can he be deprived of the characteristic attributed to him by homer--that of suffering. nature, however, has given us a remedy for all evils. it is death, little feared by those who are not fully intelligent, and by all others desired. "but you have deprived us of this dearest consolation of our life, full of suffering that it is. the doubts raised by you have torn this comfort from our minds, and made the thought of death the bitterest of all thoughts. thanks to you, unhappy mortals now fear the storm less than the port. driven from their one place of repose, and robbed of the only remedy they could look for, they resign themselves to the sufferings and troubles of life. thus, you have been more cruel towards us than destiny, nature, or fate. and since this doubt, once conceived, can never be got rid of, to you is it due that your fellow-men regard death as something more terrible than life. you are to blame that rest and peace are for ever banished from the last moments of man, whereas all other animals die in perfect fearlessness. this one thing, o plato, was wanting to complete the sum of human misery. "true, your intention was good. but it has failed in its purpose. violence and injustice are not arrested, for evil-doers only realise the terrors of death in their last moments, when quite powerless to do more harm. your doubts trouble only the good, who are more disposed to benefit than injure their fellow-men, and the weak and timid, who are neither inclined by nature nor disposition to oppress anyone. bold and strong men, who have scarcely any power of imagination, and those who require some other restraint than mere law, regard these fears as chimerical, and are undeterred from evil doing. we see daily instances of this, and the experience of all the centuries, from your time down to the present, confirms it. good laws, still more, good education, and mental and social culture,--these are the things that preserve justice and mildness amongst men. civilisation, and the use of reflection and reason, make men almost always hate to war with each other and shed one another's blood, and render them disinclined to quarrel, and endanger their lives by lawlessness. but such good results are never due to threatening fancies, and bitter expectation of terrible chastisement; these, like the multitude and cruelty of the punishments used in certain states, only serve to increase the baseness and ferocity of men, and are therefore opposed to the well-being of human society. "perhaps, however, you will reply that you have promised a reward in the future for the good. what then is this reward? a state of life which seems full of ennui, even less tolerable than our present existence! the bitterness of your punishments is unmistakable; but the sweetness of your rewards is hidden and secret, incomprehensible to our minds. how then can order and virtue be said to be encouraged by your doctrine? i will venture to say that if but few men have been deterred from evil by the fear of your terrible tartarus, no good man has been led to perform a single praiseworthy action by desire of your elysium. such a paradise does not attract us in the least. but, apart from the fact that your heaven is scarcely an inviting place, who among the best of us can hope to merit it? what man can satisfy your inexorable judges, minos, eacus, and rhadamanthus, who will not overlook one single fault, however trivial? besides, who can say that he has reached your standard of purity? in short, we cannot look for happiness in the world to come; and however clear a man's conscience may be, or however upright his life, in his last hour he will dread the future with its terrible incertitude. it is due to your teaching that fear is a much stronger influence than hope, and may be said to dominate mankind. "this then is the result of your doctrines. man, whose life on earth is wretched in the extreme, anticipates death, not as an end to all his miseries, but as the beginning of a condition more wretched still. thus, you surpass in cruelty, not only nature and destiny, but the most merciless tyrant and bloodthirsty executioner the world has ever known. "but what cruelty can exceed that of your law, forbidding man to put an end to his sufferings and troubles by voluntarily depriving himself of life, thereby triumphing over the horrors of death? other animals do not desire to put an end to their life, because their unhappiness is less than ours; nor would they even have sufficient courage to face a voluntary death. but if they did wish to die, what should deter them from fulfilling their desire? they are affected by no prohibition, nor fear of the future. here again you make us inferior to brute beasts. the liberty they possess, they do not use; the liberty granted also to us by nature, so miserly in her gifts, you take away. thus, the only creatures capable of desiring death, have the right to die refused them. nature, destiny, and fortune overwhelm us with cruel blows, that cause us to suffer fearfully; you add to our sufferings by tying our arms and enchaining our feet, so that we can neither defend ourselves, nor escape from our persecutors. "truly, when i think over the great wretchedness of humanity, it seems to me that your doctrines, above all things, o plato, are guilty of it, and that men may well complain of you more than of nature. for the latter, in decreeing for us an existence full of unhappiness, has left us the means of escaping from it when we please. indeed, unhappiness cannot be called extreme, when we have in our hands the power to shorten it at will. besides, the mere thought of being able to quit life at pleasure, and withdraw from the miseries of the world, is so great an alleviation of our lot, that in itself it suffices to render existence supportable. consequently, there can be no doubt that our chief unhappiness proceeds from the fear, that in abbreviating our life we might be plunged into a state of greater misery than the present. and not only will our misery be greater in the future, but it will be so full of the refinement of cruelty, that a comparison of these unexperienced tortures with the known sufferings of this life, reduces the latter almost to insignificance. "you have easily, o plato, raised this question of immortality; but the human species will become extinct before it is settled. your genius is the most fatal thing that has ever afflicted humanity, and nothing can ever exist more disastrous in its effects." that is what i would say to plato, had he invented the doctrine we are discussing; but i am well aware he did not originate it. however, enough has been said. let us drop the subject, if you please. _plotinus_. porphyrius, you know how i revere plato; yet in talking to you on such an occasion as this, i will give you my own opinion, and will disregard his authority. the few words of his that i spoke were rather as an introduction than anything else. returning to my first argument, i affirm that not only plato and every other philosopher, but nature herself, teaches us that it is improper to take away our own life. i will not say much on this point, because if you reflect a little, i am sure you will agree with me that suicide is unnatural. it is indeed an action the most contrary possible to nature. the whole order of things would be subverted if the beings of the world destroyed themselves. and it is repugnant and absurd to suppose that life is given only to be taken away by its possessor, and that beings should exist only to become non-existent. the law of self-preservation is the strictest law of nature. its maintenance is enjoined in every possible way on man and all creatures of the universe. and, apart from anything else, do we not instinctively fear, hate, and shun death, even in spite of ourselves? therefore, since suicide is so utterly contrary to our nature, i cannot think that it is permissible. _porphyrius_. i have already meditated on the subject from all points of view; for the mind could not design such a step without due consideration. it seems to me that all your reasoning is answerable with just as much counter reasoning. but i will be brief. you doubt whether it be permissible to die without necessity. i ask you if it be permissible to be unhappy? nature, you say, forbids suicide. it is a strange thing that since she is either unable or unwilling to make me happy, or free me from unhappiness, she should have the power to force me to live. if nature has given us a love of life, and a hatred of death, she has also given us a love of happiness, and a hatred of suffering; and the latter instincts are much more powerful than the former, because happiness is the supreme aim of all our actions and sentiments of love or hatred. for to what end do we shun death, or desire life, save to promote our well-being, and for fear of the contrary? how then can it be unnatural to escape from suffering in the only way open to man, that is, by dying; since in life it can never be avoided? how, too, can it be true, that nature forbids me to devote myself to death, which is undoubtedly a good thing, and to reject life, which is undoubtedly an evil and injurious thing, since it is a source of nothing but suffering to me? _plotinus_. these things do not persuade me that suicide is not unnatural. have we not a strong instinctive horror of death? besides, we never see brute beasts, which invariably follow the instincts of their nature (when not contrarily trained by man), either commit suicide, or regard death as anything but a condition to be struggled against, even in their moments of greatest suffering. in short, all men who commit this desperate act, will be found to have lived out of conformity to nature. they, on the contrary, who live naturally, would without exception reject suicide, if even the thought proposed itself to them. _porphyrius_. well, if you like, i will admit that the action is contrary to nature. but what has that to do with it, if we ourselves do not conform to nature; that is, are no longer savages? compare ourselves, for instance, with the inhabitants of india or ethiopia, who are said to have retained their primitive manners and wild habits. you would scarcely think that these people were even of the same species as ourselves. this transformation of life, and change of manners and customs by civilisation, has been accompanied, in my opinion, by an immeasurable increase of suffering. savages never wish to commit suicide, nor does their imagination ever induce them to regard death as a desirable thing; whereas we who are civilised wish for it, and sometimes voluntarily seek it. now, if man be permitted to live unnaturally, and be consequently unhappy, why may he not also die unnaturally? for death is indeed the only way by which he can deliver himself from the unhappiness that results from civilisation. or, why not return to our primitive condition, and state of nature? ah, we should find it almost impossible as far as mere external circumstances are concerned, and in the more important matters of the mind, quite impossible. what is less natural than medicine? by this i mean surgery, and the use of drugs. they are both ordinarily used expressly to combat nature, and are quite unknown to brute beasts and savages. yet, since the diseases they remedy are unnatural, and only occur in civilised countries, where people have fallen from their natural condition, these arts, being also unnatural, are highly esteemed and even indispensable. similarly, suicide, which is a radical cure for the disease of despair, one of the outcomes of civilisation, must not be blamed because it is unnatural; for unnatural evils require unnatural remedies. it would indeed be hard and unjust that reason, which increases our misery by forcing us to go contrary to nature, should in this matter join hands with nature, and take from us our only remaining hope and refuge, and the only resource consistent with itself, and should force us to continue in our wretchedness. the truth is this, plotinus. our primitive nature has departed from us for ever. habit and reason have given us a new nature in place of the old one, to which we shall never return. formerly, it was unnatural for men to commit suicide, or desire death. in the present day, both are natural. they conform to our new nature, which however, like the old one, still impels us to seek our happiness. and since death is our greatest good, is it remarkable that men should voluntarily seek it? for our reason tells us that death is not an evil, but, as the remedy for all evils, is the most desirable of things. now tell me: are all other actions of civilised men regulated by the standard of their primitive nature? if so, give me a single instance. no, it is our present, and not our primitive nature, that interprets our actions; in other words, it is our reason. why then should suicide alone be judged unreasonably, and from the aspect of our primitive nature? why should this latter, which has no influence over our life, control our death? why should not the same reason govern our death which rules our life? it is a fact, whether due to reason or our unhappiness, that in many people, especially those who are unfortunate and afflicted, the primitive hatred of death is extinguished, and even changed into desire and love, as i have said. such love, though incompatible with our early nature, is a reality in the present day. we are also necessarily unhappy because we live unnaturally. it were therefore manifestly unreasonable to assert that the prohibition which forbade suicide in the primitive state should now hold good. this seems to me sufficient justification of the deed. it remains to be proved whether or not it be useful. _plotinus_. never mind that side of the question, my dear porphyrius, because if the deed be permissible, i have no doubt of its extreme utility. but i will never admit that a forbidden and improper action can be useful. the matter really resolves itself into this: which is the better, to suffer, or not to suffer? it is certain that most men would prefer suffering mixed with enjoyment, to a state devoid of both suffering and enjoyment, so ardently do we desire and thirst after joy. but this is beside the question, because enjoyment and pleasure, properly speaking, are as impossible as suffering is inevitable. i mean a suffering as continuous as our never satisfied desire for pleasure and happiness, and quite apart from the peculiar and accidental sufferings which must infallibly be experienced by even the happiest of men. in truth, were we certain that in continuing to live, we should continue thus to suffer, we should have sufficient reason to prefer death to life; because existence does not contain a single genuine pleasure to compensate for such suffering, even if that were possible. _porphyrius_. it seems to me that ennui alone, and the fact that we cannot hope for an improved existence, are sufficiently cogent reasons to induce a desire for death, even though our condition be one of prosperity. and it is often a matter of surprise to me that we have no record of princes having committed suicide through ennui and weariness of their grandeur, like other men in lower stations of life. we read how hegesias, the cyrenaic, used to reason so eloquently about the miseries of life, that his auditors straightway went and committed suicide; for which reason he was called the "death persuader," and was at length forbidden by ptolemy to hold further discourse on the subject. certain princes, it is true, have been suicides, amongst others mithridates, cleopatra, and otho. but these all put an end to themselves to escape some peculiar evils, or from dread of an increase of misfortune. princes are, i imagine, more liable than other men to feel a hatred of their condition, and to think favourably of suicide. for have they not reached the summit of what is called human happiness? they have nothing to hope for, because they have everything that forms a part of the so-called good things of this life. they cannot anticipate greater pleasure to-morrow than they have enjoyed to-day. thus they are more unfortunately situated than all less exalted people. for the present is always sad and unsatisfactory; the future alone is a source of pleasure. but be that as it may. we see then that there is nothing to prevent men voluntarily quitting life, and preferring death, save the fear of another world. all other reasons are palpably ill-founded. they are due to a wrong estimate, in comparing the advantages and evils of existence; and whoever at any time feels a strong attachment to life, or lives in a state of contentment, does so under a mistake, either of judgment, will, or even fact. _plotinus_. that is true, dear porphyrius. but nevertheless, let me advise, nay implore, you to listen to the counsels of nature rather than reason. follow the instincts of that primitive nature, mother of us all, who, though she has manifested no affection for us in creating us for unhappiness, is a less bitter and cruel foe than our own reason, with its boundless curiosity, speculation, chattering, dreams, ideas, and miserable learning. besides, nature has sought to diminish our unhappiness by concealing or disguising it from us as much as possible. and although we are greatly changed, and the power of nature within us is much lessened, we are not so altered but that much of our former manhood remains, and our primitive nature is not quite stifled within us. in spite of all our folly, it will never be otherwise. so, too, the mistaken view of life that you mention, although i admit that it is in reality palpably erroneous, will continue to prevail. it is held not only by idiots and the half-witted, but by clever, wise, and learned men, and always will be, unless the nature that made us--and not man nor his reason--herself puts an end to it. and i assure you that neither disgust of life, nor despair, nor the sense of the nullity of things, the vanity of all anxiety, and the insignificance of man, nor hatred of the world and oneself, are of long duration; although such dispositions of mind are perfectly reasonable, and the contrary unreasonable. for our physical condition changes momentarily in more or less degree; and often without any especial cause life endears itself to us again, and new hopes give brightness to human things, which once more seem worthy of some attention, not indeed from our understanding, but from what may be termed the higher senses of the intellect. this is why each of us, though perfectly aware of the truth, continues to live in spite of reason, and conforms to the behaviour of others; for our life is controlled by these senses, and not by the understanding. whether suicide be reasonable, or our compromise with life unreasonable, the former is certainly a horrible and inhuman action. it were better to follow nature, and remain man, than act like a monster in following reason. besides, ought we not to give some thought to the friends, relatives, acquaintance, and people with whom we have been accustomed to live, and from whom we should thus separate for ever? and if the thought of such separation be nothing to us, ought we not to consider their feelings? they lose one whom they loved and respected; and the atrocity of his death enhances their grief. i know that the wise man is not easily moved, nor yields to pity and lamentation to a disquieting extent; he does not abase himself to the ground, shed tears immoderately, nor do other similar things unworthy of one who clearly understands the condition of humanity. but such fortitude of soul should be reserved for grievous circumstances that arise from nature, or are unavoidable; it is an abuse of fortitude to deprive ourselves for ever of the society and conversation of those who are dear to us. he is a barbarian, and not a wise man, who takes no account of the grief experienced by his friends, relations, and acquaintances. he who scarcely troubles himself about the grief his death would cause to his friends and family is selfish; he cares little for others, and all for himself. and truly, the suicide thinks only of himself. he desires nought but his personal welfare, and throws away all thought of the rest of the world. in short, suicide is an action of the most unqualified and sordid egotism, and is certainly the least attractive form of self-love that exists in the world. finally, my dear porphyrius, the troubles and evils of life, although many and inevitable, when, as in your case, unaccompanied by grievous calamity or bodily infirmity, are after all easy to be borne, especially by a wise and strong man like yourself. and indeed, life itself is of so little importance, that man ought not to trouble himself much either to retain or abandon it; and, without thinking greatly about it, we ought to give the former instinct precedence over the latter. if a friend begged you to do this, why should you not gratify him? now i earnestly entreat you, dear porphyrius, by the memory of our long friendship, put away this idea. do not grieve your friends, who love you with such warm affection, and your plotinus,[2] who has no dearer nor better friend in the world. help us to bear the burden of life, instead of leaving us without a thought. let us live, dear porphyrius,[3] and console each other. let us not refuse our share of the sufferings of humanity, apportioned to us by destiny. let us cling to each other with mutual encouragement, and hand in hand strengthen one another better to bear the troubles of life. our time after all will be short; and when death comes, we will not complain. in the last hour, our friends and companions will comfort us, and we shall be gladdened by the thought that after death we shall still live in their memory, and be loved by them. [footnote 1: "ennui is a state only experienced by the intelligent. the greater the mind, the more constant, painful, and terrible is the ennui it suffers. ennui is in some respects the sublimest of human sentiments" (_leopardi's "pensieri_" nos. lxvii. and lxviii.)] [footnote 2: _plotinus_ was born 204 a.d. he began teaching philosophy in rome, and was highly esteemed at court. eunapius says of him, "the heavenly elevation of his mind, and his perplexed style, made him very tiresome and unpleasant." he was ascetic in his habits; disparaged patriotism; depreciated material things; purposely forgot his birthday; and acted altogether rather as a spectator of other men's lives than as a living man himself.] [footnote 3: _porphyrius_ was born 233 a.d. he was a pupil of plotinus, and like him established a school of philosophy at rome. from study of the writings of plotinus he fell into a state of disgust with life, and retiring from rome, lived alone in a solitary and wild part of sicily. here he determined to put an end to his life by starvation. he was found by plotinus, who had followed him from rome, in a state of extreme weakness, and was, by his wise counsels, dissuaded from completing his intention.] _comparison of the last words of marcus brutus and theophrastus._ i think, in all ancient history there can be found no words more lamentable and terrifying, yet withal, speaking humanly, more true, than those uttered by marcus brutus shortly before death, in disparagement of virtue. this is what, according to dionysius cassius, he is reported to have said:-"o miserable virtue! thou art but a mere phrase, and i have followed thee, as though thou wert a reality. fate is stronger than thee." plutarch, in his life of brutus, makes no mention of this, which has induced pier vettori to conclude that cassius has here taken licence in prose often accorded to poetry. but its truth is confirmed by the witness of florus, who states that brutus, when at the point of death, exclaimed, that virtue was "an expression, and not a reality." many people are shocked at those words of brutus, and blame him for uttering them. they infer from their meaning, either that virtue is a sealed book to them, or else that they have never experienced ill-fortune. the former inference alone is credible. in any case, it is certain they but slightly understand, and still less realise the unhappiness of human affairs, or else they stupidly wonder why the doctrines of christianity were not in force before the time of christ. other people interpret these words as demonstrating that brutus was not after all the noble and pious man he was supposed to have been. they imagine that just before death he threw off the mask. but they are wrong; and if they give brutus credit for sincerity in uttering these words in repudiation of virtue, let them consider how it were possible for him to abandon what he never possessed, or to disassociate himself from that with which he never had any association. if they think he was insincere, and spoke designedly and with ostentation, let them explain what object he could have in speaking vain and fallacious words, and immediately afterwards acting in accordance with them? are facts deniable, simply because they are not in harmony with words? brutus was a man overwhelmed by a great and unavoidable catastrophe. he was disheartened, and wearied with life and fortune, and having abandoned all desires and hopes, the deceitfulness of which he had experienced, he determined to take his destiny into his own hands, and to put an end to his unhappiness. why should he, at the very moment of eternal separation from his fellows, trouble to hunt the phantom of glory, and study to give forth words and thoughts to deceive those around him, and to gain human esteem, when he was about to leave humanity for ever? what was it to him that he might gain a reputation on that earth which appeared so hateful and contemptible to him? these words of brutus are well known to most of us. the following utterance of theophrastus at the point of death is, i believe, less known, though very worthy of consideration. it forms a parallel with that of brutus, both as to its substance and time of delivery. diogenes laertius mentions it, not, in my opinion, as original to himself, but as an extract from some more ancient and important work. he says that theophrastus, just before death, being asked by his disciples whether he would leave them any token or words of advice, replied: "none, except that man despises and rejects many pleasures for the sake of glory. but no sooner does he begin to live than death overtakes him. hence the love of glory is as fatal a thing as possible. strive to live happily: abandon studies, which are a weariness; or cultivate them only so that they may bring you fame. life is more vain than useful. as for me, i have no time to think more about it; you must study what is most expedient." so saying, he died. other sayings of theophrastus on this occasion are mentioned by cicero and st. jerome. these are better known, but have nothing to do with our subject. it would seem that theophrastus lived to the age of more than a hundred, having devoted all his lifetime to study and writing, and having been an unwearied pursuer of glory. suidas says that his death was due to the excess of his studies, and that he died surrounded by about two thousand of his disciples and followers, reverenced for his wisdom throughout the whole of greece, regretting his pursuit of glory, just as brutus repented of virtue. these two words, glory and virtue, were by the ancients regarded as almost synonymous in meaning, though it is not so in the present day. theophrastus did not indeed say that glory is more frequently a matter of fortune than merit, which is oftener true now than in former times; but had he said so, there would have been no difference between his idea and that of brutus. such abjurations, or rather apostasies, of those noble errors which beautify, nay compose our very life, are of daily occurrence. they are due to the fact that the human intelligence in process of time discovers, not only the nakedness, but even the skeleton of things: wisdom also, which was regarded by the ancients as the consolation and chief cure for our unhappiness, has been obliged to impeach our condition, and almost requires a consolation for itself, since had not men followed it, they would not have known the greatness of their misfortune, or at least would have been able to remedy it with hope. but the ancients used to believe, according to the teaching of nature, that things were things, and not appearances, and that human life was destined to partake of happiness as well as unhappiness. consequently, such apostasies as these were very rare, and were the result not of passions and vices, but of a sentiment and realisation of the truth of things. therefore they deserve careful and philosophical consideration. the words of theophrastus are the more surprising when we think of the circumstances in which he died. he was prosperous and successful; and it would seem as though he could not have a single cause for regret. his chief aim, glory, he had succeeded in acquiring long ago. the utterance of brutus, on the other hand, was one of those inspirations of misfortune which sometimes open out a new world to our minds, and persuade us of truths that require a long time for the mere intelligence to discover. misfortune may indeed be compared in its effect to the frenzy of lyric poets, who at a glance, as if situated in a lofty place, take in as much of the domain of human knowledge as requires many centuries before it be discerned by philosophers. in almost all ancient writings (whether philosophical, poetical, historical, or aught else), we meet with many very sorrowful expressions, common enough to us nowadays, but strange to the people of those times. these sentences, however, were mostly due to the innate or accidental misfortune of the writer, or the persons who spoke them, whether imaginary or real. and rarely we find on the monuments of the ancients any expression of the sadness or ennui which they felt because of the unreality of happiness, or their misfortunes, whether natural, or due to force of circumstances. for when they suffered, they lamented their sufferings as the only hindrance to their happiness, which they not only considered it possible to obtain, but even man's right, although fate proved sometimes too strong. now, let us seek what could have placed in the mind of theophrastus this sentiment about the vanity of glory and life, which, considering his epoch and nation, is an extraordinary one. in the first place, we find that the studies of this philosopher were not limited to one or two branches of science. the record of his writings, which are mostly lost, informs us that his knowledge included little less than everything then knowable. and this universal science was not like that of plato, subordinated to his imagination, but conformed to the teaching of aristotle in being the result of experience and reason; its aim, too, was not the discovery of the beautiful, but that which is its especial contrary, the useful. this being so, it is not wonderful that theophrastus should attain to the height of human wisdom,--that is, a knowledge of the vanity of life, and wisdom itself. for it is a fact that the numerous discoveries made recently by philosophers about the nature of men and things, are chiefly the result of a comparison and synthesis of the different sciences and studies, whereby the mutual connection between the most distant parts of nature is demonstrated. besides, from his book of "characters" we learn how clearly theophrastus discerned the qualities and manners of men; indeed, with the exception of the poets, very few ancient writers equal him in this respect. and this faculty is the sure sign of a mind capable of numerous, diverse, and powerful sensations. for, to produce a keen representation of the moral qualities and passions of men, the writer relies less on what actual facts he may have collected, or observations made, about the manners of others, than on his own mind, even though his personal habits be very different from those of his subjects. massillon was asked one day what enabled him to describe so naturally the habits and feelings of men, who, like himself, lived more in solitude than society. he replied: "i contemplate myself." dramatists and other poets do the same thing. now a many-sided mind, subtle in discernment, cannot but feel the nakedness and absolute unhappiness of life; it acquires a tendency to sadness after meditation excited by numerous studies, especially such as are concerned with the very essence of things, like the speculative sciences. it is certain that theophrastus, who loved study and glory above everything, and was master or rather founder of a very numerous school, knew and formally announced the uselessness of human exertions, including his own teaching and that of others; the little affinity existing between virtue and happiness of life; and the superior power of fortune to merit in the acquirement of happiness, equally among the wise and others. in this respect, perhaps, he was superior to all the greek philosophers, especially those preceding epicurus, from whom both in manners and thought he was essentially different. this is owing partly to circumstances already mentioned, and is also due to other things referred to by ancient writers on the subject of his teaching it would seem as though his own fate has proved the truth of his doctrine. for he is not esteemed by modern philosophers as he ought to be, since all his moral writings are lost, with the exception of his "characters." his writings, too, on the subjects of politics and laws, and almost all those relating to metaphysics, are also missing. besides, the ancient philosophers were little inclined to give him credit for keener perception than they possessed; on the contrary, many of them, especially such as were shallow and conceited, blamed and ill-treated him. these men taught that the wise man is essentially happy, and that virtue and wisdom suffice to procure happiness; although they were only too well aware of the contrary, even supposing they had any real knowledge of either the one or the other. philosophers will never be cured of this idea. even the philosophy of the present day teaches the same thing; whereas, correctly speaking, it can only say that everything beautiful, delightful, and great, is mere falsity and nothingness. but to return to theophrastus. most of the ancients were incapable of the profound and sorrowful sentiment that inspired him. "theophrastus is roughly handled by all the philosophers in their writings and schools for having praised this saying of callisthenes: 'fortune, not wisdom, is the mistress of life.' they consider that no philosopher ever gave expression to a weaker sentiment." so says cicero, who in another place remarks that theophrastus in his book about "the happy life," attributed much influence to fortune, which he considered a most important factor of happiness. again, he adds, "let us make much use of theophrastus; but give virtue more reality and value than he gave to it." perhaps it may be imagined from these remarks that theophrastus had little sympathy with the weaknesses of human nature, and that he waged war against their influence in public and private life, both by his writings and actions. it might also be thought that he would restrict the empire of the imagination in favour of that of reason. as a matter of fact, he did just the contrary. concerning his actions, we read in plutarch's book against colotes that our philosopher twice freed his country from a tyranny. as for his teachings, cicero says that theophrastus in a writing on the subject of "wealth," dilated at considerable length on the advantages of magnificence and pomp at the shows and national festivals; indeed he considered the chief usefulness of riches to lie in the consequent power of expenditure that accompanied them. this idea is blamed and ridiculed by cicero, with whom, however, i will not discuss the question, for his superficial knowledge of philosophy might have easily led him to a wrong conclusion. i imagine cicero to have been a man rich in civil and domestic virtues, but ignorant of the greatest stimulants and bulwarks of virtue that the world possesses, namely, those things that are peculiarly adapted to excite and arouse the mind, and exercise the powers of the imagination. i will merely say that those men among, the ancients and moderns who knew best and realised most strongly and deeply the nullity of everything, and the force of truth, have not only refrained from endeavouring to lead others to their condition, but have even laboured hard to conceal and disguise it from themselves. they acted like men who had learnt from experience the wretchedness that resulted from wisdom and knowledge. many celebrated examples of this are furnished, especially in recent times. truly, if our philosophers fully understood what they endeavour to teach, and realised in their own persons the consequences of their philosophy, instead of welcoming their knowledge, they would hate and abhor it. they would strive to forget what they know, and to shut' their eyes to that which they see. they would take refuge, as their best resource, in those sweet unrealities, which nature herself has placed in all our minds; nor would they think it well to enforce on others the doctrine of the nothingness of all things. if, however, desire of glory should incite them to do this last, they will admit that in this part of the universe we can only live by putting faith in things that are non-existent. there is another considerable difference between the circumstances of theophrastus and brutus, that of time. when theophrastus lived, the influence of those fictions and phantoms which ruled the thoughts and actions of the ancients, had not departed. the epoch of brutus, on the other hand, may be termed the last age of the imagination. knowledge and experience of the truth prevailed amongst the people. had it not been so, brutus need not have fled from life as he did, and the roman republic would not have died with him. and not only the republic, but also the whole of antiquity, that is, the old customs and characteristics of the civilised world, were at the point of death, together with the opinions which gave birth to, and supported them. life had already lost its value, and wise men sought to console themselves not so much for their fate as for existence itself; because they regarded it as incredible that man should be born essentially and solely for misery. thus they arrived at the conception of another life, which might explain the reason of virtue and noble actions. such explanation had hitherto been found in life itself, but was so no longer, nor was it ever again to be found there. to these ideas of futurity are due the noble sentiments often expressed by cicero, especially in his oration for archias. _dialogue between tristano and a friend._ _friend_. i have read your book. it is as melancholy as usual. _tristano_. yes, as usual. _friend_. melancholy, disconsolate, hopeless. it is clear that this life appears to you an abominable thing. _tristano_. how can i excuse myself? i was then so firmly convinced of the truth of my notion about the unhappiness of life. _friend_. unhappy it may be. but even then, what good ... _tristano_. no, no; on the contrary, it is very happy. i have changed my opinion now. but when i wrote this book i had that folly in my head, as i tell you. and i was so full of it, that i should have expected anything rather than to doubt the truth of what i wrote on the subject. for i thought the conscience of every reader would assuredly bear witness to the truth of my statements. i imagined there might be differences of opinion as to the use or harm of my writings, but none as to their truth. i also believed that my lamentations, since they were aroused by misfortunes common to all, would be echoed in the heart of every one who heard them. and when i afterwards felt impelled to deny, not merely some particular observation, but the whole fabric of my book, and to say that life is not unhappy, and that if it seemed so to me, it must have been the effect of illness, or some other misfortune peculiar to myself, i was at first amazed, astonished, petrified, and for several days as though transported into another world. then i began to think, and was a little irritated with myself. finally i laughed, and said to myself that the human race possesses a characteristic common to husbands. for a married man who wishes to live a quiet life, relies on the fidelity of his wife, even when half the world knows she is faithless. similarly, when a man takes up his abode in any country, he makes up his mind to regard it as one of the best countries in the world, and he does so. for the same reason, men, desiring to live, agree to consider life a delightful and valuable thing; they therefore believe it to be so, and are angry with whoever is of the contrary opinion. hence it follows, that in reality people always believe, not the truth, but what is, or appears to be, best for them. the human race, which has believed, and will continue to put faith in so many absurdities, will never acknowledge that it knows nothing, that it is nothing, and that it has nothing to hope. no philosopher teaching any one of these three things would be successful, nor would he have followers, and the populace especially would refuse to believe in him. for, apart from the fact that all three doctrines have little to recommend them to any one who wishes to live, the two first offend man's pride, and they all require courage and strength of mind in him who accepts them. now, men are cowards, of ignoble and narrow minds, and always anticipating good, because always ready to vary their ideas of good according to the necessities of life. they are very willing, as petrarch says, to surrender to fortune; very eager and determined to console themselves in any misfortune; and to accept any compensation in exchange for what is denied them, or for that which they have lost; and to accommodate themselves to any condition of life, however wicked and barbarous. when deprived of any desirable thing, they nourish themselves on illusions, from which they derive as much satisfaction as if their conceptions were the most genuine and real things in the world. as for me, i cannot refrain from laughing at the human race, enamoured of life, just as the people in the south of europe laugh at husbands enamoured of faithless wives. i consider men show very little courage in thus allowing themselves to be deceived and deluded like fools; they are not only content to bear the greatest sufferings, but also are willing to be as it were puppets of nature and destiny. i here refer to the deceptions of the intellect, not the imagination. whether these sentiments of mine are the result of illness, i do not know; but i do know that, well or ill, i despise men's cowardice, i reject every childish consolation and illusive comfort, and am courageous enough to bear the deprivation of every hope, to look steadily on the desert of life, to hide no part of our unhappiness, and to accept all the consequences of a philosophy, sorrowful but true. this philosophy, if of no other use, gives the courageous man the proud satisfaction of being able to rend asunder the cloak that conceals the hidden and mysterious cruelty of human destiny. this i said to myself, almost as though i were the inventor of this bitter philosophy, which i saw rejected by every one as a new and unheard-of thing. but, on reflection, i found that it dated from the time of solomon, homer, and the most ancient poets and philosophers, who abound with fables and sayings which express the unhappiness of human life. one says that "man is the most miserable of the animals." another that, "it were better not to be born, or, being born, to die in the cradle." again, "whom the gods love, die young;" besides numberless other similar sayings. and i also remembered that from then even until now, all poets, philosophers, and writers, great and small, have in one way or another echoed and confirmed the same doctrines. then i began to think again, and spent a long time in a state of wonder, contempt, and laughter. at length i turned to study the matter more deeply, and came to the conclusion that man's unhappiness is one of the innate errors of the mind, and that the refutation of this idea, through the demonstration of the happiness of life, is one of the greatest discoveries of the nineteenth century. now, therefore, i am at peace, and confess i was wrong to hold the views i previously held. _friend_. then have you changed your opinion? _tristano_. of course. do you imagine i should oppose the discoveries of the nineteenth century? _friend_. do you believe all the century believes? _tristano_. certainly. why not? _friend_. you believe then in the infinite perfectibility of the human race, do you not? _tristano_. undoubtedly. _friend_. do you also believe that the human race actually progresses daily? _tristano_. assuredly. it is true that sometimes i think one of the ancients was physically worth four of us. and the body is the man; because (apart from all else) high-mindedness, courage, the passions, capacity for action and enjoyment, and all that ennobles and vivifies life, depend on the vigour of the body, without which they cannot exist. the weak man is not a man, but a child, and less than a child, because it is his fate to stand aside and see others live. all he can do is to chatter. life is not for him. hence in olden times, and even in more enlightened ages, weakness of body was regarded as ignominious. but with us, it is very long since education deigned to think of such a base and abject thing as the body. the mind is its sole care. yet, in its endeavours to cultivate the mind, it destroys the body without perceiving that the former is also necessarily destroyed. and even if it were possible to remedy this false system of education, it would be impossible to discover, without a radical change in the state of modern society, any cure for the other inconveniences of life, whether public or private. everything that formerly tended to preserve and perfect the body, seems to-day to be in conspiracy for its destruction. the consequence is, that, compared with the ancients, we are little better than children, and they in comparison with us may indeed be termed perfect men. i refer equally to individuals in comparison with individuals, as to the masses (to use this most expressive modern term) compared to the masses. i will add also that the superior vigour of the ancients is manifested in their moral and metaphysical systems. but i do not allow myself to be influenced by such trifling objections, and i firmly believe that the human race is perpetually in a state of progression. _friend_. you believe also, if i rightly understand you, that knowledge, or, as, it is called, enlightenment, continually increases. _tristano_. assuredly. although i observe that the desire of knowledge grows in proportion as the appreciation for study diminishes. and, astonishing to say, if you count up the number of truly learned men who lived contemporaneously a hundred and fifty years ago, or even later, you will find them incomparably more numerous than at present. it may perhaps be said that learned people are rare nowadays because knowledge is more universally disseminated, instead of being confined to the heads of a few; and that the multitude of educated people compensate for the rarity of learned people. but knowledge is not like riches, which whether divided or accumulated, always make the same total. in a country where every one knows a little, the total knowledge is small; because knowledge begets knowledge, but will not bear dispersion. for superficial instruction cannot indeed be divided amongst many, though it may be common to many unlearned men. genuine knowledge belongs only to the learned, and depth in knowledge to the few that are very learned. and, with rare exceptions, only the man who is very learned, and possessed of an immense fund of knowledge, is able to add materially to the sum of human science. now, in the present time, it is daily more difficult to discover a really learned man, save perhaps in germany, where science is not yet dethroned. i utter these reflections simply for the sake of a little talk and philosophising, not because i doubt for a single moment the truth of what you say. indeed, were i to see the world quite full of ignorant impostors on the one hand, and presumptuous fools on the other, i should still hold to my present belief that knowledge and enlightenment are on the increase. _friend_. of course, then, you believe that this century is superior to all the preceding ones? _tristano_. decidedly. all the centuries have had this opinion of themselves; even those of the most barbarous ages. the present century thinks so, and i agree with it. but if you asked me in what it is superior to the others, and whether in things pertaining to the body or the mind, i should refer you to what i said just now on the subject of progress. _friend_. in short, to sum it up in two words, do you agree with what the journals say about nature, and human destiny? we are not now talking of literature or politics, on which subjects their opinion is indisputable. _tristano_. precisely. i bow before the profound philosophy of the journals, which will in time supersede every other branch of literature, and every serious and exacting study. the journals are the guides and lights of the present age. is it not so? _friend_. very true. unless you are speaking ironically, you have become one of us. _tristano_. yes. certainly i have. _friend_. then what shall you do with your book? will you allow it to go down to posterity, conveying doctrines so contrary to the opinions you now hold? _tristano_. to posterity? permit me to laugh, since you are no doubt joking; if i thought otherwise, i should laugh all the more. for it is not a personal matter, but one relating to the individuals and individual things of the nineteenth century; about whom and which there is no fear of the judgment of posterity, since they will know no more about the matter than their ancestors knew. "individuals are eclipsed in the crowd," as our modern thinkers elegantly say; which means, that the individual need not put himself to any inconvenience, because, whatever his merit, he can neither hope for the miserable reward of glory, in reality, nor in his dreams. leave therefore the masses to themselves; although i would ask the wiseacres who illumine the world in the present day, to explain how the masses can do anything without the help of the individuals that compose them. but to return to my book, and posterity. books now are generally written in less time than is necessary for reading them. their worth is proportioned to their cost, and their longevity to their value. it is my opinion that the twentieth century will make a very clean sweep of the immense bibliography of the nineteenth. perhaps however it will say something to this effect: "we have here whole libraries of books which have cost some twenty, some thirty years of labour, and some less, but all have required very great exertion; let us read these first, because it is probable there is much to be learnt from them. these at an end, we will pass to lighter literature." my friend, this is a puerile age, and the few men remaining are obliged to hide themselves for very shame, resembling, as they do, a well-formed man in a land of cripples. and these good youths of the century are desirous of doing all that their ancestors did. like children they wish to act on the spur of the moment, without any laborious preparation. they would like the progress of the age to be such as to exempt them and their successors from all fatiguing study and application in the acquirement of knowledge. for instance, a commercial friend of mine told me the other day that even mediocrity has become very rare. scarcely any one is fit to fulfil properly the duty which devolves upon him, either by necessity or choice. this seems to me to mark the true distinction between this century and the preceding ones. at all times greatness has been rare; but in former centuries mediocrity prevailed, whereas in our century nullity prevails. all people wish to be everything. hence, there is such confusion and riot, that no attention is paid to the few great men who are still to be found, and who are unable to force a way through the vast multitude of rivals. thus, whilst the lowest people believe themselves illustrious, obscurity and success in nothing is the common fate both of the highest and lowest. but, long live statistics! long live the sciences, economical, moral, and political; the pocket encyclopædias; the manuals of everything; and all the other fine creations of our age! and may the nineteenth century live for ever! for though poor in results, it is yet very rich and great in promise, which' is well known to be the best of signs. let us therefore console ourselves that for sixty-six[1] more years this admirable century will have the talking to itself, and will be able to utter its own opinions. _friend_. you speak, it seems, somewhat ironically. but you ought at least to remember that this is a century of transition. _tristano_. what do you infer from that? all centuries have been, and will be, more or less transitional; because human society is never stationary, and will never at any time attain to a fixed condition. it follows therefore that this fine word is either no excuse for the nineteenth century, or is one common to all the centuries. it remains to be seen whether the transition now in progress is from good to better, or from bad to worse. but perhaps you mean to say that the present age is especially transitional, inasmuch as it is a rapid passage from one state of civilisation to another, absolutely different. in which case i would ask your permission to laugh at this rapidity. every transition requires a certain amount of time, and when too rapidly accomplished, invariably relapses, and the progress has to recommence from the very beginning. thus it has always been. for nature does not advance by leaps; and when forced, no durable result is obtained. in short, precipitous transitions are only apparent transitions, and do not represent genuine progress. _friend_. i advise you not to talk in this fashion with every one, because if you do you will gain many enemies. _tristano_. what does it matter? henceforth, neither enemies nor friends can do me much harm. _friend_. very probably you will be despised as one incapable of comprehending the spirit of modern philosophy, and who cares little for the progress of civilisation and the sciences. _tristano_. i should be very sorry for that; but what can i do? if i am despised, i will endeavour to console myself. _friend_. but have you, or have you not, changed your opinions? and what is to be done about your book? _tristano_. it would be best to burn it. if it be not burnt, it may be preserved as a book full of poetic dreams, inventions, and melancholy caprices; or better, as an expression of the unhappiness of the writer. because, i will tell you in confidence, my dear friend, that i believe you and every one else to be happy. as for myself, however, with your permission, and that of the century, i am very unhappy, and all the journals of both worlds cannot persuade me to the contrary. _friend_. i do not know the cause of this unhappiness of which you speak. but a man is the best judge of his own happiness or unhappiness, and his opinion cannot be wrong. _tristano_. very true. and more, i tell you frankly that i do not submit to my unhappiness, nor bow the head, and come to terms with destiny, like other men. i ardently wish for death above everything, with such warmth and sincerity as i firmly believe few have desired it. i would not speak to you thus, if i were not sure that when the time came i should not belie my words. i may add that although i do not yet foresee the end of my life, i have an inward feeling that almost assures me the hour of which i speak is not far distant. i am more than ripe for death, and it seems to me too absurd and improbable, that being dead spiritually, as i am, and the tale of my life being told in every part, i should linger out the forty or fifty years with which nature threatens me. i am terrified at the mere thought of such a thing. but, like all evils that exceed the power of imagination, this seems to me a dream and illusion, devoid of truth. so that if any one speaks to me about the distant future, as though i were to have a part in it, i cannot help smiling to myself, so sure am i that i have not long to live. this thought, i may say, alone supports me. books and studies, which i often wonder i ever loved, great designs, and hopes of glory and immortality, are things now undeserving of even a smile. nor do i now laugh at the projects and hopes of this century. i cordially wish them every possible success, and i praise, admire, and sincerely honour their good intentions. but i do not envy posterity, nor those who have still a long life before them. formerly i used to envy fools, imbeciles, and people with a high opinion of themselves, and i would willingly have changed my lot with any one of them. now, i envy neither fools, nor the wise, the great, the small, the weak, the powerful. i envy the dead, and with them alone would i exchange my lot. every pleasurable fancy, every thought of the future that comes to me in my solitude, and with which i pass away the time, is allied with the thought of death, from which it is inseparable. and in this longing, neither the remembrance of my childish dreams, nor the thought of having lived in vain, disturbs me any more as formerly. when death comes to me, i shall die as peacefully and contentedly as if it were the only thing for which i had ever wished in the world. this is the sole prospect that reconciles me to destiny. if, on the one hand, i were offered the fortune and fame of cæsar or alexander, free from the least stain; and, on the other hand, death to-day, i should unhesitatingly choose to die to-day. [footnote 1: written in 1834.] the end. idling in italy idling in italy studies of literature and of life by joseph collins author of "my italian year" _i loaf and invite my soul_ new york charles scribner's sons 1920 copyright, 1920, by charles scribner's sons published september, 1920 [illustration] to m. k. c. ... io vengo di lontana parte, dov'era lo tuo cuor. preface nothing obstacled my pleasure so much when i first went to italy as unfamiliarity with its literature. every one who would add to his spiritual stature and his emotional equanimity by tarry in italy should have some intimacy with the bible, with mythology, and with italian writers, especially the poets. i sought books about books but was not very successful in finding them. interpretative articles on men and books which are so common in british and american literature are exceptional in italy. one who is ambitious to get even a bowing acquaintance with them must make the introduction himself. in 1918 an enterprising italian, signor a. t. formiggini, attempted to supply such introduction by the publication of a literary review called _l'italia che scrive_, a monthly supplement to all the periodicals. he has had gratifying success. my purpose in publishing the essays on fictional literature in this volume is in the hope of awakening a larger interest in america in italian letters and to aid in creating a demand for their translation into english. i shall be glad if they serve to orient any one who is bewildered by his first glance into the maze of italian modern, improvisional literature. americans go to italy by the thousands, but very few of them take the trouble to acquaint themselves with her history or with her ideals and accomplishments. this is to be regretted, for proportionately as they did that their pleasure would be enhanced and their profit increased. moreover, it would contribute to better mutual understanding of americans and italians. the remaining chapters are the outgrowth of experiences and emotions in italy during and after the war. some of these essays originally appeared in _the bookman_, _scribner's magazine_, and _the north american review_, and i thank the editors of those journals for permission to make use of them. contents chapter page i. literary italy 1 ii. literary italy (continued) 25 iii. gabriele d'annunzio--poet, pilot, and pirate 44 iv. the futurist school of italian writers 70 v. giovanni papini and the futuristic literary movement in italy 88 vi. two noisy italian schoolmasters 107 vii. improvisional italian literature of to-day and yesterday 121 viii. fictional biography and autobiography 148 ix. the literary mausoleum of samuel butler 159 x. saints and sinners 173 xi. woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink together 185 xii. postbellum vagaries 198 xiii. world convalescence 214 xiv. banquets and personalities 236 xv. sentimentality and the male 251 xvi. the play instinct in children 263 xvii. "if a man walketh in the night, he stumbleth; but if he walketh in the day he seeth the light of this world" 277 xviii. the american eagle changes his perch 293 idling in italy idling in italy chapter i literary italy there is something about the word italy that causes an emotional glow in the hearts of most americans. for them italy is the cradle of modern civilization and of the christian religion; the land where modern literature and science took their faltering first steps; the garden where the flowers of art first bloomed, then reached a magnificence that has never been equalled; the land that after having so long agonized under the tyrant finally rose in its might and delivered her children, carrying the principles of personal liberty to a new and noble elevation. we have an admiration and affection for her that one has for a beautiful mother whose charm and redolency of accomplishment has increased with time. in recent days there have been countless numbers on this western continent who feel that italy has not had recognition from the world of her decision, her valor, and her accomplishment in shaping the world war to a successful end. their interest in her has been quickened and their pride enhanced. they look forward with confidence to the time when she will again have a measure of that supremacy in the field of art and literature which once made her the cynosure of all eyes, the loadstone of all hearts. they hope to see her on a pedestal of political, social, and religious liberty worthy of the dreams of mazzini, which shall be exposed to the admiring gaze of the whole world. already there are indications that she is making great strides in literature and a generation of young writers is forging ahead, heralding the coming of a new order. it can scarcely be expected that italy will achieve the position she had in the sixteenth century when ariosto and tasso, machiavelli and guicciardini, bandello and aretino, cellini and castiglione gave to literature an unrivalled supremacy. but it may be legitimately hoped that italy will give up the servile admiration and imitation of foreign literature, and particularly of the french, which has been so evident during the past one hundred years, and at the same time while taking pride in her cinquecento accomplishments, even in the glories of her romantic period, realize that the vista which appeals to the children of men to-day is that obtained from looking forward and not backward. i shall take a cursory glance over the literature of the nineteenth century preparatory to a survey of that of the twentieth, and note some trends and their significance: the dislocation of habitual ways of looking at things, of modes of thought, and of peeps into the future caused by the french revolution; the outlook for the italian people which seemed to be conditioned by the napoleonic occupation; the imminence of a change in the way in which the world was likely to be ordered and administered suggested by the fall of thrones and governments. such events could not fail to be reflected in the literature, particularly in imaginative literature as parallel conditions to-day are being reflected in literature, practically all of which is burdened with one topic: destruction of privilege and liberation from archaic convention that freedom and liberty shall have a larger significance--in brief, making a new estimate of human rights. with the powerful political and religious reaction that was manifest in all europe after the french revolution there developed a kind of contempt, indeed abhorrence, of antique art and literature because it was pagan and republican. the deeds of men, their longings, their aspirations, their loves, their hatreds, their melancholies; the beauties of nature, their potencies to influence the emotional state of man and particularly to contribute to his happiness; the liberation of mankind from galling tyranny and the universal happiness that would flow from further liberation were the themes of writers. these coupled with neglect and disdain of the heroes of antiquity, mythological and actual, caused a romantic literature which moved over europe like an avalanche. italy contested every inch of the threatened encroachment upon its soil, and one of her poets, vittorio alfieri (1749-1803), who was most potent in resisting it, stood out to the end for the classic ideal. the period of his greatest mental activity and creativeness antedated the french revolution, and although he was in paris when it was at its height, its significance in so far as it is reflected in his writings was lost upon him. the same is true of giuseppe parini (1729-1799), who, during the last fifty years of the eighteenth century, had great vogue in italy because of a poem called "il giorno" ("the day"), in which "the morning," "the noon," "the evening," and "the night" of a lombard gentleman was depicted to life and satirized. the writings of ugo foscolo (1776-1827), which were given far higher rating by contemporaries than by posterity, foreshadowed the yielding of the classic traditions. but it was not until cesarotti published a translation of macpherson's "ossian" that the floodgates of romance were opened for italian literature. it was published at padua (1763-1770). from that date imaginative and lyric literature of italy began to devote itself to celebrating italy's glorious past, to anticipating its future glories, to recounting and satirizing contemporaries, to pillorying the crimes of the tyrants who had fastened themselves upon italy, and to exposing the corruptions of its governments. its promoters were obsessed with the idea that they must get away from the classic traditions. they sought to avoid the stern realities of life, its sufferings and its tragedies, and instead to depict beauty, pleasure, and happiness. they exalted the comedy and suppressed the tragedy of daily life. it has often been said that italian romantic literature had its origin in the società del caffè founded in milan in 1746. but like many other dogmatic statements, it should not be accepted literally. "il caffè," published by the accademia dei pugni, was not romantic. its iconoclastic attitude alone toward literary tradition may entitle it to a certain influence as a remote precursor of the romantic movement. the publication which fought the battle for romanticism was the _conciliatore_ (1818-1819). around it was constituted the romantic school which produced grossi and the others. most of its followers in the beginning were lombardians, therefore under the espionage of the austrian government. they were particularly tommaso grossi, the author of a romance of the fourteenth century entitled "marco visconti," of "ildegonda," and "i lombardi" (the best seller of its day), and giovanni berchet, who, though of french descent, was the most italian of italians, and spent a large part of his life in exile in switzerland and england. soon the romanticists were given a political complexion--they were resigned to their fate of being slaves to austria--at least they were accused of this by the classicists. in truth they were digging the trenches in which were later implanted the bombs whose explosion put the austrians to flight. the predominant figure of the romantic period was alessandro manzoni (1785-1873). it is no exaggeration to say that he carried fame of italian letters to greater numbers of people the world over than any writer save dante. in 1827 he published a novel, "i promessi sposi" ("the betrothed ones"), which walter scott said was the best ever written, and this opinion was seconded by goethe. he had shown his emancipation from classicism in two earlier plays, "carmagnola" and "adelchi," but it was not until the romance above mentioned and which earned his immortality that the romantic triumph can be said to have occurred in italy. the men who carried the movement forward were pellico, niccolini, grossi, d'azeglio, giordani, leopardi, giusti, and many others. among these the two who have been most favored by posterity are silvio pellico (1789-1854), principally because of the book in which he described his experiences in austrian dungeons, "le mie prigioni" ("my prisons"), and leopardi, the intellectual giant of an arid epoch. the immortality of the former is founded in sentiment, of the latter in merit. the poet who had greatest popularity in italy at this time was giuseppe giusti (1809-1850), a satirist who chose verse as his medium. although posterity has not given him a very high rating, his "versi" are still widely read in italy. his most appealing possession was ability to express in scannable, rememberable, singable verse what may be called every-day sentiment, to depict simple characters whose virtues every one would like to have, and to interlace political satires with the most panoplied, pathetic, patriotic sentiments. there is no safer way to sense to-day the sentiment of the first half of the nineteenth century of italy than to read giusti's poems. his "all'amica lontana" ("to the friend far away"), "gli umanitari" ("the humanitarians"), and his poems of spleen and of dream have a sprightliness and freshness as if they were of yesterday. dario niccodemi has recently borrowed the title "prete pero" from one of giusti's poems for a comedy in which is depicted the conduct of a simple, honest, pious priest confronted with the conflict of ecclesiastical instructions and war problems. giusti's brief life was a strange mixture of potential joy and actual suffering. in the vigor of his manhood he was seized by a painful disease, and to his sufferings was added the mental agony caused by fear of hydrophobia. giuseppina guacci nobile (1808-1848), of naples, a contemporary of giusti, had great popularity as a poetess of sentiment. she sang of love of country, of art, of husband, of children, of heaven, and when the sadness of the times was so profound that she needs must sing of hate she died. three poets of northern italy must also be mentioned. francesco dall'ongaro, who, though born in the friuli, went to venice when he was ten years old and lived for the rest of his life in the northern provinces, had a tremendous popularity in the revolutionary period of 1848 because of a little collection of lyrics called "stornelli"; giovanni prati, of dasindo, trent, whose permanent reputation as a poet depends upon his ballads, became widely known through his poem "edmenegarda"; and aleardo aleardi, born at verona in the early years of the nineteenth century, whose best-known book, "le prime storie," was extensively read. the pillars of the romantic movement were soon erected in central italy by the writings of leopardi, niccolini, and giusti. giacomo leopardi (1798-1837) had a personality that has fastened itself upon italy, even unto the present day, in a most extraordinary--one might even say, inexplicable--way. he was laconic, silent, morose, introspective, solitary, celibate. his filial love was readily overdrawn; he loathed his ancestral home and environment; he contended with ill health from infancy; he was denied the understanding friend, save one, whose behavior toward leopardi has been criticised severely. he wandered solitarily about central italy wrapped in the mantle of introspection and veiled in melancholy until 1833, when he settled at naples, and there he remained four years, until he had attained his thirty-ninth year, when he died under most distressing circumstances. ranieri, in his "sette anni di sodalizio con giacomo leopardi," gives this description of leopardi's appearance: he was of moderate height, bent and thin, with a fair complexion that inclined to pallor, a large head, a square, broad forehead, languid blue eyes, a short nose, and very delicate features; his voice was modest and rather weak; his smile ineffable and almost unearthly. it is not easy for a foreigner to understand the exalted estimation in which the poetry of leopardi is held in italy to-day. to do so one must needs sense the spirit of the times when he lived. the "whatever is is right" day of pope had been succeeded by a day of tragedy the like of which the world had perhaps never known, and things would never be again as they were. leopardi sung this change. he was the poet of pain and of despair, the versifier of schopenhauer's philosophy. he sang of melancholy, but he was never reconciled to supine resignation. though classical in form, his poems are steeped with the romantic spirit. although a supporter of the romantic school, he scarcely can be called an exponent or upholder of it. a familiarity with his writings is an integral part of the education of all cultured italians, and nearly every schoolboy can recite parts of the poems "to italy" or "the quiet after the storm." leopardi considered it was harder to write good prose than good verse. greek thoughts were clearer and more vivid to him than latin or italian. it is a pitiable picture that ranieri draws of him in naples, suffering from consumption and from dropsy, unable to read, turning night into day, having dinner at midnight to the discomfiture of the household, having to be nursed and entertained, disliking the country, and living in abject terror of the cholera which then raged in naples. de musset praised his work. sainte-beuve did homage to him, and at an early date made his name familiar to french readers. the judgment of posterity is the one that counts and not the judgment of individuals, and leopardi is italy's greatest modern poet. de sanctis said of him: "his songs are the most profound and occult verses of that laborious transition called the nineteenth century." his death marked the close of the first romantic period in italy. gian battista niccolini (1785-1861) wrote tragedies, historical romances, and poetry, the best known of which is "arnaldo da brescia." the florentines have erected a noble monument to his memory in their westminster abbey--the church of santa croce. massimo d'azeglio (1798-1866), diplomat, statesman, and man of letters, played a very conspicuous part in the political and social life of his day, and left an extraordinarily interesting account of it and of his period in "i miei ricordi" ("my recollections"), which no one desirous of acquainting himself with the social life of the risorgimento period fails to read. a literary production of this period which must be mentioned, not because of its merits but because it is a sign of the times, was that of cesare cantù (1804-1895), a universal history in thirty-five volumes, which went through forty editions. it displays lucidity of statement, sequential narrative, and finished literary technic. it was highly partisan and not based on critical study of documentary evidence. he saw in all italian writers, beginning with dante, enemies of the church and of god. all had something false in their art which it pleased him to reveal. italian writers were all anti-catholic, and classic literature was all pagan; he excepted manzoni, however, and himself. two noteworthy historic writers were v. gioberti (1801-1852) and pasquale galluppi (1770-1846), though the latter confined himself chiefly to philosophy. no review of the literature of this period should fail to mention francesco de sanctis (1817-1883), one of the most versatile and soundest literary critics, who was assiduous in calling the attention of his countrymen to the writings of foreigners and in keenly analyzing and evaluating home productions, and pasquale villari, the historian of savonarola and macchiavelli. there were two great literary figures in the romantic triumph of italy of the nineteenth century, manzoni and leopardi, and after their death no figure of any importance came upon the stage for upward of a generation. during this period--from 1830 to 1860, let us say--the rocks from which were to gush forth the waters of liberalism were being drilled. the times were too tense to facilitate imaginative literature, and mere record of events was more startling and absorbing than fiction. it was not until giosuè carducci (1836-1907) entered the arena and dealt romanticism a blow, and at the same time restored classicism, that leopardi had a worthy successor. to-day there is a carducci cult in italy. there are individuals and groups who have the same kind of reverence for him that they or others have for leonardo. there is no praise for him that is too fulsome, no adulation too great. admirers like panzini, panzacchi, and papini ransack dictionaries and archives to find words that will convey their devotion to him. he was a man who incited the admiration and affection of those who came personally in contact with him. his was a sturdy personality, which inspired confidence, generated respect, and mediated an easy belief in his inspiration. the son of a country doctor, he was born in a little village in tuscany in 1836. thus his childhood and early youth coincided with those years in which king, pope, and emperor seemed to vie with one another in crushing independent thought in italy; those years in which men dared not write, fearing their words might be misconstrued, or, writing, were obliged to publish clandestinely. during these years carducci's thirst for liberty and freedom, political, social, and religious, developed, and for a third of a century after he had reached the age of man he externalized it in moving, majestic, musical verse, which made known italy's rights and aspirations, and encouraged her loyal sons to continue their struggles. after teaching a few years in the high schools of san miniato and pistoia, during which time he published a selection of religious, moral, and patriotic juvenile poems entitled "juvenilia," he went to bologna. in 1860 he was called to the chair of italian literature in the university of bologna and soon published "giambi ed epodi" ("iambs and epodes"). in this he preached republican doctrines so openly that he gave offense to the crown and was suspended from his position, which, however, he soon regained. soon after this he published, under the pseudonym of "enotrio romano," an irreligious or materialistic poem entitled "inno a satana" ("a hymn to satan"), which gave him great popularity. it is an invective against the church, which through its mysticism and asceticism seeks to suppress natural impulses and which through its intellectual censorship aims to stifle scientific investigation. it breathed a spirit of revolt against tyranny and privilege, especially clerical privilege, which had made such profound growth in italy. it inveighed against the efforts of suppression of human rights and bespoke the culture of human reason. it is quite impossible to read understandingly the "hymn to satan" without a knowledge of mythology and greek history. indeed, one of the most characteristic features of his poem is the wealth of classic allusion. agramiania, adonis, astarte, venus, anadyomene, cyprus, heloise, maro, flaccus, lycoris, glycera are some of the names that are encountered. it was not until the publication of his "odi barbare" ("barbaric odes") that his stride as an original poet began to be recognized. they called forth the most vicious criticism and at first sight it would seem that they must sink beneath the avalanche of disapproval, but in reality italy was ready to listen to a message couched in new form. conventional rhymes, easily read, easily remembered, were now to give way to rough, sonorous lines in which rhythm took the place of rhyme and straight-from-the-shoulder blows took the place of feints and passes. carducci met his critics with the "ça ira." it is the apology of the french revolution and especially of the _convention_. the title of the sonnets comes from the famous revolutionary song of the reign of terror. within a brief time, namely, from 1883 to 1887, when his books entitled "new barbaric odes" and "new rhymes" were published, there were few competent to express an opinion who did not realize that he was italy's most learned poet, potent in the art of appreciation, felicitous in conveying noble sentiments and inspiring thoughts, human in his sympathies with the simple and the oppressed, a tower of strength, a pillar of fire. from that period until to-day carducci's fame as a poet has steadily gained ground in italy, so that it is no exaggeration to say that many accord him the crown worn by petrarch and tasso. those who fulsomely praise his memory see in him not only a poet but a learned man who was able to strain classic erudition through his understanding mind to such effect that the average individual could avail himself of it to satisfaction and to advantage. they also see in him the noblest work of god, an honest man. his students idolized him. when they left the university and returned to their various spheres of activity they carried his image in their hearts and sounded his praises with tongue or pen. they made propaganda con amore. no one is ever approved of universally in any country, probably least of any in italy. when carducci published his "alla regina d'italia" ("ode to the queen of italy"), one of his best--simple, musical, redolent of reverence and affection--he aroused the fury of the republicans, who called him traitor, and the scorn of the envious, who called him snob. in 1891, when he accepted a senatorship of the realm, the students of the university of bologna howled and jeered at him, and many of the former students plucked or tore his image from their hearts. they had apotheosized the great commoner, and they saw in this truckling to royalty and honors weakness and vanity which they could not believe that he possessed. yet in 1896, when he completed thirty-five years of service at the university, the event was celebrated for three successive days, and the outpouring of expressions of admiration and gratitude from colleagues and students, and from heads crowned with laurel and gold, has scarcely ever been paralleled. in an autobiographical sketch in the volume of "poesie," of 1871, he relates with great detail the way in which he broke from his early parental teachings and acquired his new literary, political, and religious feelings. following his hellenic instincts, the religious trend in him was toward the paganism of the ancient latin forefathers rather than toward the spirituality that had come in with the infusion of foreign blood. he rebelled against the passive dependence on the fame of her great writers, in which italy had lived in the apathy of a long-abandoned hope of political independence and achievement. the livery of the slave and the mask of the courtesan disgusted him. his was the hope and joy of a nation waking to a new life. he was the poet of the national mood. carducci is little known as a poet in this country. there are many reasons why his fame has not made headway in anglo-saxon countries. in the first place, he has not been extensively translated, and in the second place, although the subject of his song was so often liberty, his lines are so replete with erudite classic illusions that even though he could be translated he would be found to be hard reading. but more than all there is probably no poet whose matter loses so much of its music and its fire by translation as carducci. such exquisite verses as the "idylls of the lowlands," "the ox," "the hymn to the seasons," "to the fountains of clitumnus" are translatable. it would require a longfellow to do it so that they should not be emasculated. in 1906 he was awarded the nobel prize for literature and the entire literary world approved of the reward. two years previously he had resigned his professorship, and parliament voted him a pension of twelve thousand lire a year for life, but it was of short duration, for he died in 1907. mario rapisardi, to whom a monument has been erected in his native town of catania, and who is known best for his tragedy "manfredi" and his philosophic poem, "la palingenesi," and "poesie religiose," was a ferocious critic of carducci. in his poem entitled "lucifer" there are many disparaging allusions to him. rapisardi was a teacher and a poet, but a spiritual chameleon: a devout believer, he became a radicalist; a monarchist, he became a socialist; a romanticist, he became a classicist. he is one of the best specimens of the old order of poets. his "falling stars" and "the impenitent" have a genuine lyric quality, and such poems as "to a fire-fly" have movement, rhythm, and luminosity that are impressive. the only poet that approximated carducci's stature was giovanni pascoli (1855-1912). though he was a few years younger, the period of his literary activity was contemporaneous. when carducci died, pascoli succeeded him for a few years in the university of bologna. his personal story appealed tremendously to italians, and he was of the masses in appearance and sentiment. after the assassination of his father by an unknown hand the family suffered great poverty, and as a boy the support of two younger sisters fell upon him, and like so many of the talented young men of italy he accomplished it by teaching school. he was teaching in the high school of leghorn in 1892 when he published "myricae," upon which to-day his fame rests most securely. his verses gave him an immediate celebrity, and he was soon made professor of latin and greek in the university of messina. from there he went to pisa and soon afterward to bologna. pascoli has been called the greatest latin poet after virgil. some of the titles of his volumes are "poemetti" ("little poems"), "poemi conviviali" ("convivial poems"), "odi e inni" ("odes and hymns"), "canti di castelvecchio" ("songs of castelvecchio"), "nuovi poemetti" ("new little poems"), "poemetti italici" ("little poems of italy"), "le canzoni di re enzio" ("the songs of king enzio"), and an interpretative volume of dante entitled "sotto il velame" ("beneath the veil"). despite the fact that he was an advanced political thinker, he taught his students to respect the law. he was the poetical evangelist of the humble, of the unfortunate, and of the physically venturesome. he sang of the cravings of the soul, of the problems of existence, of christian acceptation, of the glory of italy and the accomplishments of her sons. posterity, however, is whispering that the name most worthy to be bracketed with carducci is gabriele d'annunzio. i shall consider him in another chapter. there is a name in the literary annals of this period that is steadily gaining claim to immortality. it is giovanni verga, the chief exponent of the veristic school, who was born at catania in 1840 and is still living. although it is the opinion of those who are competent to judge that his fame as a novelist is greater than that of fogazzaro, it may truthfully be said that he is scarcely known beyond the confines of italy, and even there his romances have not had the reception that they deserve. a few years ago when i asked for a copy of "mastro-don gesualdo" in the leading bookshop of palermo and was not successful in obtaining it, the young man with whom i talked assured me that zuccoli would prove to be a satisfactory substitute for verga. if he is known at all in this country, it is as the author of the play entitled "cavalleria rusticana," upon which was composed the popular opera. he has not been a very prolific writer--eight romances, half a dozen volumes of short stories, and a few plays. he got the material for many of his short stories in central and northern italy, but most of his romances are of his native sicily, and the pictures of life in the little villages and towns in the houses of the passionate peasants, in the huts of the poverty-stricken shepherds, in the hovels of the adventurous fishermen, and the crumbling palaces of the decayed nobles are so realistic, so true to life, so almost photographically depicted, that the reader feels that they are mediated by his own senses. verga has the supreme faculty of creating men and women that the reader has met or would like to meet. if realism consists in depicting people as they are and particularly people who are battling with the stern realities of life--poverty, illness, passions--then verga is a great realist. the best of his romances, though not the most popular, are "i malavoglia" and "mastro-don gesualdo." "tigre reale" had the greatest popularity, and the "storia di una capinera" ("the story of a black-hood novice"), the most ardently romantic of all romantic stories, and "il marito di elena" ("the husband of helen") were widely read. "i malavoglia" and "mastro-don gesualdo" were to have been succeeded by a third volume which would complete the story of the characters unfolded in them, but it never appeared. when we recall that only eight thousand copies of the former have been sold in forty years, we readily understand the artist's discouragement. posterity is likely to link verga's name with leopardi and manzoni. the great romance-writer of italy during the days of her resurrection was manzoni. during the first and second generations of italy's unity the mantle of his greatness was worn gracefully and becomingly by antonio fogazzaro (1842-1911). born at vicenza, he had the bringing-up and education of a gentleman. his best-known books are "daniele cortis," "piccolo moderno mondo" ("the little modern world"), "piccolo mondo antico" ("the little antique world"), and "il santo" ("the saint"). "daniele cortis" is generally believed to reveal fogazzaro's moral, religious, and political convictions. it is a series of interesting pictures of intimate life in the upper circles and reveals the mental development of a man of high principles, the skeleton in whose closet is a mother who, having side-stepped the paths of morality in her youth, and who was lost to her son for several years, thrusts herself upon him the very day when he has his feet securely set on the ladder whose apex is a brilliant political career. his struggles between duty to his mother and obligations to his country, his desire not to offend convention or outrage morality, his love for his cousin eleana, tame for him but consuming to her, unhappily married to a sicilian roué brute and baron, are narrated in a way that seduces even the casual reader. indeed it is wonderfully done, and attention is sustained to the end, virtue being finally rewarded. "the saint" is a psychological study of abnormal religious development. it presented forcibly the necessity for reform of the vatican and ecclesiastical customs and beliefs. when it was put on the index it caused its illustrious author, a fervent believer and an exemplary communicant, much pain and remorse. "leila" continued the history of the leading character of "the saint." it is said that the author hoped it would make amends for the offense that the latter had given, but it was also put on the index. he wrote a volume of poetry, and many of his verses are redolent of music and charm, such as "ultima rosa" ("the last rose") and "amorum." he has been more widely read in this country than any italian writer of fiction save d'annunzio. he raised one slab to his memory which will resist more than granite--"piccolo mondo antico." it will be preserved by time, and cherished for the same reason that one keeps and lauds a marvellous picture of wife or mother, brother or sweetheart, because it is a bit of perfection and because the owner loves it. an extraordinary figure in italian literature of yesterday and of the period under discussion, was olindo guerrini (1845-1916), for many years director of the university library at bologna. in 1878 he published a volume entitled "postuma" which purported to be the work of one lorenzo stecchetti which caused prudish italy to shiver, prurient italy to shake, and literary italy to be enormously diverted. the "postuma" went through thirty-two editions in forty years, but one should not inquire too closely the reason for this. when critics discovered that the author was alive they assailed his immodest verses, and his responses "nova polemica" added to his literary reputation. but it was not until he published his prose writings that he displayed his real literary stature. "postuma" is still read, that the reader may find something recent to compare with the conduct of messalina rather than for its literary qualities. "rime," which has no panoplied display of the author's libido but many charming idyls, reminiscences, and vignettes is much read to-day. such poems as "il guado" ("the ford") and "nell' aria" are as redolent of sentiment and ingenuous experiences that lead to thrills as a rose is redolent of perfume. every schoolgirl can quote the last two lines of the latter: "ed io che intesi quel che non dicevi m'innamorai di te perchè tacevi." other poems such as "congedo" ("leave-taking") and "wienerblut," after the waltz of johann strauss, had great popularity at the time and were praised by his contemporaries, but to-day it is difficult to find great merit in them. were one called upon to make specific comment upon his poetry, he would have to point out the very obvious influence of byron, de musset, and heine, and to say that guerrini in no way is comparable with any of them. much has been written about him as the index of the revolt against the corrupt romanticism of the third romantic period in italy. he was the uncompromising foe of cant and hypocrisy in literature and the stanch defender of realism. giuseppe lipparini, an eminently fair critic, gives him a higher rating as a writer of prose than of poetry. these include "vita di giulio cesare croce" ("life of julius cæsar croce"), a monograph on francesco patuzio, and "bibliografia per ridere" ("the laugher's library"). although there were countless poets of this period, two or three should be mentioned, more because of the effect they had upon the public taste, perhaps one might say public education, than for the intrinsic merit of their writings; and of these may be mentioned vittorio betteloni (1840-1910), the son of a romantic poet. his writings may be said to have popularized the public protest against the romanticism of the third romantic period. he also made known to many of his countrymen the poetry of byron and of goethe in faithful poetic translations. brief mention is here made of two literary men of affairs in italy, the purpose being more to call attention to a type of individual who is more often found in italy than in any other country--the versatile, many-sided, cultivated man of affairs who has also distinctive literary talent. enrico panzacchi (1841-1904) published a volume of lyrics, fluid, harmonious, transparent, treating of homely, every-day subjects which appealed very much to the public. he first became known as a writer of seductive romances, then as an accomplished musician, afterward as a lyric poet, then as a critic of literature, æsthetics, and philosophy. he taught the philosophy and history of art; he was the secretary of the academy of belle arti at bologna, for many years a deputy in parliament, and at one time undersecretary of state and an orator of great renown. his reputation as a poet depends largely upon "cor sincerum," published in 1902. in his versatility he reminds of remy de gourmont, although his literary productions were incomparably less numerous, but in temper of mind, literary equipment, æsthetic appetite, and general virtuosity they are brothers. the other is ferdinando martini, a governor of one of italy's colonies, a minister of public instruction, a deputy of long service, a poet, an essayist, a biographer, and a traveller, the italian admirable crichton. he was born in monsummano in 1841, and for forty-five years was without interruption in the chamber of deputies. he went under in the last election. he has published many books and articles, amongst which may be mentioned "nell' africa italiana" ("in african italy"), but the casual reader will get most pleasurable contact with him from "pagine raccolte." he is an excellent example of the cultured man in public life in italy. his prose integrates the aroma of the classics, while at the same time his sympathies and interests bring his subjects up to the minute. his writings have a pragmatic as well as an æsthetic quality. none of them has the air of preachings. he knows how to be profound without being heavy and learned without being pedantic. for him literature has not been an æsthetic exercise or a statement of human rights and human needs. prospective admirers should not study too closely his political career. death has claimed nearly all of the conspicuous figures of literature in the period of the risorgimento. one who had a strange tenacity of life, which he but recently yielded, was salvatore farina, whose first romances, "un segreto" ("a secret") and "due amori" ("two loves"), were published more than fifty years ago. he was, perhaps, the truly representative writer of the piccolo borghese in the generation that followed italy's unity. in the fifty or more volumes that he published (the last of which appeared in 1912 and was called the "second book of the lovers") he portrayed a variety of romanticism which was the outgrowth of the struggle between the drab and commonplace realities of life and the fantastic dreams of simple-minded persons who thought that life would be ideal if it could be fashioned after their own plans. he was the novelist of sickly sentiment, the most slavish disciple that samuel richardson ever had. students of italian literature will read his two reminiscent volumes called "la mia giornata," the first published in 1910, the second in 1913, to get a picture of the literary doings of one of the grayest and most uncertain periods of modern italian literature. he is mentioned here merely to note the tremendous popularity which his writings had, and to call attention to the fact that they left no impression upon the times and that the type of novel which they represent has practically now disappeared the world over. chapter ii literary italy (continued) among the interesting literary figures of the old school still living is renato fucini, whose pen-name is neri tanfucio. he is now nearly eighty years old, and for some years has been living in a small town not far from florence, writing his recollections. in college he studied civil engineering, but he soon forsook it and secured employment in the office of the municipal art direction in florence. later he taught italian in the technical school at pistoia and after that was several years an inspector of rural schools. it was during these years of wandering through tuscany that he got the intimate knowledge of its simple, industrial, pleasure-loving people, peasant and poacher, landlord and inspector, teacher and pupil, that he has embodied in his stories and in his burlesque, tragic, and sentimental verses. his fame rests on his dialect poetry ("poesie"), chiefly in sonnet form, in which he depicts the virtues and vices, the licenses and inhibitions, the hopes and the despairs, of his fellow tuscans, at the same time embodying delightful descriptions of their charming, romantic land; and a few small volumes of prose, all little masterpieces--"napoli a occhio nudo" ("naples to the naked eye," letters written to a friend about that enchanting city two generations ago when it was still plunged in the misery of its protracted predatory misrule and the majority of its inhabitants were reduced to a deplorable state); "all' aria aperta" ("in the open air"), scenes and incidents of life among the common people of tuscany; and "le veglie di neri" ("fireside evenings of neri"), which showed him a man of heart and of mind supremely capable of transforming the messages of the former by the latter in such a way as to make great appeal to his fellow beings. his books can be read to-day with the same pleasure that they were read half a century ago, and the pictures which are painted, particularly in the former, are as vivid as the day they were first put on the canvas. fucini is a type that is indigenous to central italy, by nature a lover of the fields, the forest, the brooks, he was compelled from earliest infancy to earn his living, and he seemed to be content with a bare sustenance, getting pleasure from his wanderings and from books. he did on foot and more intimately what signore panzini has done on a bicycle or on way trains. as an inspector of country schools he was obliged to visit countless villages and hamlets, and there he found in the habits, customs, and conduct of their inhabitants material for comment and reflections such as most people find in new countries and large cities. his descriptions of them found sympathetic response in the hearts of many who see in the lives of these simple yet sophisticated people the romance of bygone days. fucini has not cut a great figure in italian letters, but any one who would get a familiarity with the literature of the early days of italian unity, or who is in search of diversion and delight should not neglect him. he is a sympathetic figure, whether wandering through tuscany, bending over a table in the riccardi library, or awaiting his cue at empoli. a writer of this period to whom posterity is likely to give a high rating is alfredo oriani, who died in 1907. his fame will finally rest on his fiction rather than on his historical contributions. though "la lotta politica in italia" ("the political struggle in italy"), from 486 to 1877 in three volumes, is a creditable performance, it is not based on personal research. malignant-minded critics have occupied themselves with proving him a pilferer, but the work is done with such consummate literary skill that he has put the reading world under obligations to him. his first books, "memorie inutili" ("useless memories"), "sullo scoglio" ("on the reefs"), and "al di la, no" ("the next world, no"), revealed such unbridled license of morbid tendencies that even italians could not stomach them. he appeared to them a romanticist after the manner of guerrazzi, addicted to the macabre, subject to satanic inspiration, bombastic, and rhetorical. when oriani took up a second phase of his writing in the period from 1880 to 1890 the reading public still continued to mistrust him. although he brought his spirit to a more stable equilibrium, he carried upon himself the stigma that clung to him in consequence of his previous books, and such productions as "il nemico" ("the enemy"), "incenso e mirra" ("incense and myrrh"), "fino a dogali" ("up to dogal"), "matrimonio e divorzio" ("marriage and divorce"), did not absolve him from previous sins. his turgid style was more objected to than his taints and his themes, and his aggressiveness and political arrogances found greater opposition than his early decadent manner and his late negations in religious matters. he was accused of being a plagiarist. his greatest work "lotta politica" was characterized by a critic, l. ambrosina, to be wholly devoid of originality. his "momo" was called an imitation of turgénieff's "a neighbor's bread." his "l'invincibile" was derived from "andrea cornelis" of paul bourget, and the "ultimi barbari" ("the last barbarians") from verga's "pagliacci" and the "cavalleria rusticana." thus beset, oriani, despairing of recognition, gathered his strength for a final flight and strove to reach heights never reached before, and he wrote "the political struggle," "holocaust," and "ideal revolts." "the holocaust" is a study of mother and daughter. the mother has, from leading a wayward life, been able to keep body and soul together until middle age has effaced her charms. reduced to hunger and rags, she decides to sacrifice her fifteen-year-old daughter and offers her to the first stranger whom she encounters walking beside the arno one evening; she takes him to her contemptible rooms where the emaciated and ragged child awaits, in ignorance of her mission, the mother. the young man of the self-made and aggressive type primed with animal spirits hesitates to be the instrument of the mother's monstrous designs, and hurls himself from the house when he realizes the situation, leaving the contents of his purse with the crushed little flower. the inhuman mother and a friend even more saturated in iniquity spend the money in an improvised banquet and plan how they shall take the child to the home of a well-known procuress. their object is realized when this is accomplished and the mother receives a small sum of money, but the child, not having been cut out for the life, soon escapes. a narrative of her experiences, a picture of her suffering, the conflict between filial love and justifiable resentment, is set forth in page after page of psychological analysis. from the violence of the encounter flow simultaneously mortal disease and pregnancy. the former gives the author an opportunity to depict the child mind in rebellion against both bodily and spiritual salvation. the ministrations of the church are done with great finesse, kindliness, and skill, and give much satisfaction to believers. this may be the author's votive offering to the church, or it may reflect a new illumination of his soul. when the heroine dies the mother realizes her sin in having borne the child and in having betrayed her. it would be difficult to imagine anything more disagreeable than the story. the only thing that can be said is that it is well told, but what does it advantage one to read it? as henry james said, no one is compelled to admire any particular sort of writing, but surely there must be compulsion to make one write them. and as flaubert, whom oriani probably called master, wrote: "such books are false; nature is not like that." oriani lived a singularly isolated life, having little contact with his fellow workers and little recognition. but he was a thinker and idealist, and it is unfortunate that he did not choose more attractive media to present his thought and project his aspirations. only after his death did he begin to get any measure of appreciation. the four wars against austria, the final charge against the alps, foreseen and invoked by oriani, were the conditions of his recognition by the italian people. the most widely read of all italian writers of this period was edmondo de amicis (1846-1908). his books, "bozzetti militari" ("military life"), which appeared shortly after his period of service in the army, and the book for boys entitled "cuore" ("heart"), had a tremendous sale and still have. they were also widely read outside of italy. he wrote many books of travel, some poetry, literary portraits, and short stories. however, he made no particular impression upon the literary period of his time. guido mazzoni, born in 1859, was, and perhaps still is, professor at the university of florence. he has been for many years secretary of the crusca and senator of the realm. his critical work is "l'ottocento." his poetry is of the familiar variety. "sewing-machine" is one of them. he is an excellent example of the culture of the italians, but he has made no lasting impression upon italian letters. he is best known in this country from papini's gibes at him and at the crusca. his recent contributions, "the lament of achilles" and "con gli alpini" ("with the alpini"), are of the eminently respectable, commendable, poet-laureate variety, called forth by valorous deeds of italy's soldier sons. nothing shows the flight from romanticism to realism that took place at the end of the nineteenth century so clearly as its stage literature. the dominating figure of that period was giuseppe giacosa. he was not alone the most prolific contributor to the literature of the theatre, but a man who early excited and kept the admiration and affection of fellow artists. he can truthfully be called the literary mirror of that period in italy. the lamp of enthusiasm was flickering when he first put secure steps upon the literary road, but it lighted him to a great success in "una partita a scacchi" ("a game of chess"). then the car of realism came along with a rush, as if it would carry everything in its wake, and he threw a great bouquet into the tonneau in the shape of "surrender at discretion." but his ear was always to the ground, and, when he sensed the advent of a new literary period and learned of the existence of readers that did not know just what they wanted but thought they would like to have the truth, the naked truth of life as depicted in fiction, he wrote "sad loves." but the veristic period did not last long, and giacosa took leave of it without a tear. pascoli and d'annunzio had not only entered idealistic realism in the literary race, but they were shouting in the most vociferous way for the latter especially to win. when giacosa became fully cognizant of the favorite colors he was quick to make his entry with "as the leaves" and "il più forte" ("the stronger"). the play to which he owed his first success, "a game of chess," had a remarkable career in italy, and it still makes leading appeal to extravagant youth and romantic maturity, who see, in the lovely iolande or in the dashing fernando, prototypes who solve perplexing problems of life with an ease and readiness that is soul-satisfying. they also see in their experiences the smouldering or dying embers of their own passions, whose articulate breathings cause them to glow consumingly and pleasantly. its success turned the author from law, which he despised, to literature, which he adored. his next play, "il trionfe d'amore" ("the triumph of love"), was along the same lines: life without sorrow or strife save such as make pleasure--which bulks large in life--sweeter. within a few years giacosa began to depict life as it really was, is, or should be, and the first indication of it was "il conte rosso" ("the red count"), and for a decade he gave himself to the production of historical plays none of which can be used to-day as a wreath on the monument to his memory. it was not until he wrote "resa a discrezione" ("surrender at discretion"), that he came into the field which he finally tilled so profitably, holding up to the contemptuous, scornful gaze of the people the useless, iniquitous, pernicious existences of a certain class, the noble. in this he did the same thing that he had done in his masterpiece, "as the leaves." but here he portrayed flesh and blood confronted with problems conditioned by life, called chance. instead of desperation and whetted appetite for sensuous appeasement, we see latent character budding and flowering under the stimulus of adversity; virtue which does not lose its aroma from enforced tarry in putrid milieu; the deadly sins, rooted in ancestral emotions and nurtured by environment displayed in the conduct of human beings of our acquaintance and our intimacy; we see the exaltation and the deprecation of viciousness just as we see it and accomplish it in real life. the literary features of the lines, the crispness and naturalness of the dialogue, the fidelity with which he reflected the handling of problems likely to confront any one show the finished artist. giacosa was a conspicuous literary figure of yesterday's italy, friend of poets and philosopher, journalist, essayist, lecturer, man of the world, mirror of one side of its mental and emotional activity. next to verga the verists found their chief exponent in luigi capuana, a sicilian born in 1839 and still living. he wrote romances, short stories, plays, and criticisms, none of which save the latter had great vogue, though one of his plays, "malia" ("enchantment"), gave such offense to mrs. grundy that it had great popularity. like verga he knows his countrymen and women, particularly their emotional reactions and the conduct conditioned by it, by their inheritancy, and by their environment. many of his short stories are gems of construction and of narrative. for instance, "passa l'amore," in "il buon pastore" ("the good pastor"), is a masterly delineation of the struggle between what is usually called good and evil in the person of a saintly old priest. love had been an abstract conception for the good pastor until he essayed to reclaim a lamb who had been driven from the fold by the efforts of a cruel father intensively to prepare her for sacrifice at the hands of cavalier ferro. perhaps if capuana had not been content with merely interesting and diverting the public, as he counselled bracco to be, and had tried to teach them and lead them he would have greater renown. as it is he is one of the best short-story writers of italy, a discerning, trustworthy critic, who has written an interesting volume of studies in contemporary literature, and several plays, the last of which, "il paraninfo" ("the best-man"), has recently been published. nevertheless he must be considered a writer whose potentialities were but partially realized. two realistic writers of the end of the nineteenth century must be mentioned, though their work scarcely merits discussion and to do so may be unjust to others. they are gerolamo rovetta and marco praga. although the former wrote criticisms, interpretations, and romances, some of which had much success, the contributions by which he is best known are his plays. rovetta studied contemporary life and depicted it for the stage. his first success, the one upon which his reputation as a man of letters most solidly rests, "la trilogia di dorina" ("dorina's trilogy"), presents the public pie, upper and lower crust and middle, quite as zola might have made it. his favorite theme was that man is but a reaction to his environment, expounded particularly in "i disonesti" ("dishonest men"), though his greatest popular success was "romanticismo" ("romanticism"), which was a contribution to "idealistic reaction" which would turn us from ugly verities of life. it has been said by competent authorities to be a faithful presentation of public and private sentiment existing in northern italy previous to her deliverance from tyrannical austria. marco praga is the son of emilio praga, who was the best-known bohemian poet of italy in his day (1839-1875), but who abandoned writing to teach dramatic literature in the conservatory of music in milan. he professes to be the dramatic mirror held up to life and to tell the truth as he sees it, that he cannot be persuaded to camouflage it, and that when it is depicted on the stage it shall amuse rather than distress. that is what makes his most successful plays, such as "le vergini" ("the virgins") and "la moglie ideale" ("the ideal wife"), depressing reading. such conduct as they depict and such exchange of thought and sentiment as they report undoubtedly exist, but the less one knows of it and comes in contact with it the happier he or she is likely to be. if adultery could only be made a virtue for a few years, it would lose its attractiveness and many writers would have to earn their living. at the end of the nineteenth century italy had three women poets of much distinction, one of whom, ada negri, had and still has great popularity. her last book of poems, "il libro di mara" ("the book of mara"), has shown that she still has the capacity to put into verse dramatically and lyrically the most delicate and the most dominant notes of love as she or as those she has loved has experienced it. she was born in a little village of lombardy in 1870. her mother worked in a factory, and she herself was for some years a teacher in the elementary schools; so she had first-hand knowledge of the shut-in life of those whose repressions and aspirations she sung and published in _l'illustrazione popolare_ of milan. in these she set forth with great sincerity and with stirring lyric quality the sordid sufferings and sorrows of the toiling masses. these poems and others were published under the titles of "fatality" and "the tempest" in 1892 and 1894. two years later a radical change in her social and spiritual environment was brought about by her marriage to signor garlanda, and soon she sang of it in a volume called "maternity," which does for that state what her previous volumes had done for human pain and human poverty. "dal profondo" ("from the depths") was but a continuation of these sentiments, tinctured with philosophical and socialistic knowledge that had been displayed for other purpose in "the tempest." after this came a volume entitled "esilio" ("exile"), which reflected the same thoughts and sentiments in swiss light. she has written two prose works, a series of short stories entitled "le solitarie" and "orazioni" ("orisons"). she glorifies purity, idealizes it, and sings its adoration. in the closing years of the century there was published in milan a volume of lyrics by one annie vivanti, which was praised intemperately by carducci and by the _nuova antologia_. she had some fiction to her credit which dealt chiefly with the life of the stage, but her advent into the world of letters was like a shooting star; nothing was known of her origin save that she was said to have been born in london, and there was some mystery about her career. in her poetry there was a true lyric wail, especially in "destino" ("destiny"), "non sarà mai" ("it can never be"), that appealed tremendously to the public mind. had she been productive she might have been compared to ella wheeler wilcox. after her marriage to mr. chartres, a london journalist, she became better known as the mother of a child-wonder violinist. amongst her romances the one which had greatest popularity was entitled "i divoratori" ("the devourers"). it is obviously the story of her life and of her daughter's career, the record of filial shortcomings steeped in wormwood. the third of these interesting writers, half armenian, half italian, was vittoria aganoor, who was born in padua in 1855. in 1900 she published a volume called "leggenda eterna" ("eternal legend"), which showed her to be a sincere, impassioned artist with a pronounced leaning toward the sentimental. she died in london in the spring of 1910, after a surgical operation, and a few hours later her husband, guido pompili, killed himself. her best-known poems are "il canto dell' ironia" ("the song of irony"), "la vecchia anima sogna ... " ("the old soul dreams"), "mamà, sei tu?" ("mother, is it thou?"). a complete volume of her poetry was published in 1912. italians are astonished when women make a great stir in the world. they have had no jeanne d'arc or florence nightingale. their historic women have been mostly mystics who would punish the flesh that they might become spiritually pure, but the generation that is now passing has had five women, four at least of whom will have to be discussed by any historian of the intellectual movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century. they are matilde serao, grazia deledda, maria montessori, eusapia palladino, and eleanora duse, and most space will be given to duse. matilde serao is the marie corelli of italy with one important qualification. she has not been obliged to subscribe to the rigors of convention. she has spoken with great frankness about whole sides of life which miss corelli knows, but about which she has been compelled to be silent. not that the romances of matilde serao are in any sense pornographic, but she has painted her subjects so vividly and registered her sensations and impressions so sumptuously that they are considered very improper by mrs. grundy. she was in turn school-teacher, telegraphist, journalist, publisher, author, but throughout her writings she has kept the note of the journalist who has made a careful study of zola and of flaubert. her thought is spontaneous, her expression facile, as she depicts the emotions and "feelings" of her neapolitan characters, clad in rags or royal raiment, living in hovel or in palace. her most successful books were "la storia di un monaco," "il ventre di napoli" ("the belly of naples"), "il paese della cuccagna" ("the land of the cockaigne"), and "terno secco" in which the social, economic, and political world of naples is revealed. with the third of those enumerated she tried to do for lottery-gambling in naples what charles dickens did for the private schools of england. regrettably her efforts did not have a similar result. in her neapolitan stories the local color is not a mere background, but the very marrow of their being, with the result that it is almost impossible to reproduce it adequately in translation. her later books were always pictures of the professional lover in different environments. he loves with fury and usually for a short time only. his amatory conduct has no ancillæ of anglo-saxon love-making. it is taurine and satyric. he does not always kill after the embrace, but one gathers from his conduct that he would like to do so. time has tempered matilde serao's erotic literary coefficient and her last books are cool, more serene, and less interesting. one of her last books, "ella non rispose," has recently been translated into english under the title of "souls divided." grazia deledda has done for her native island of sardinia that which signora serao did for naples, but to a great extent she kept lubricity out of her writings. in her "il vecchio della montagna" ("the old man of the mountain"), "la via del male" ("road to evil"), "cenere" ("ashes"), "nostalgia," "l'incendio nell' uliveto" ("the burning in the olive grove"), and many others, she depicted with wondrous accuracy the life, feelings, struggles, ambitions, infirmities of the sardinians, and painted their sordid surroundings and glorious scenery. she did for that wonderful island, so strangely neglected by the mother country, what mary wilkins did for new england. her imagination was never so vivid nor was her eye so penetrating as that of her neapolitan sister, nor has she known the voluptuous side of life, seamy or embroidered, but she has known how to put down in a way that engrosses the reader's attention the pitiable and pathetic plights that circumstance and passion force upon the people with whom she lives. the display of their passions and sorrows are apparently as familiar to her as the landscapes. unfortunately, however, she does for them that which she does for the latter. she idealizes them or, better said, she strains them through her imagination. in other words, instead of recording them as they are she records them as they should be. her novels give the impression of being photographic until you read verga. not that the breath of insincerity which croce said was the curse of italy's modern writers comes from her. she is most sincere, but her characters are sandman manikins into whose nostrils she has breathed the breath of life. she makes her characters do what she might do if she were one of them. whether she is tugging at the end of her intellectual tether or not remains to be seen, but her recent work has not the spontaneity and imaginativeness of her earlier books and she is almost obsessed with describing landscapes, the advent and departure of the sun, and stage-settings generally. her last story, "the burning in the olive grove," is a conflict between the present and the past, and turns upon a marriage of convention. it gives the author the opportunity to depict the imperious eighty-three-year-old grandmother, her useless brother, the farm lassie whose worldly success in marrying into a family above her station she owes to her beauty, and a pillar of feminine virtue who would live her own life in her own way despite the schemings of the grandmother of feudalistic behavior. the scene is filled with character studies which she likes so well: the old soldier of garibaldi's legion, his lame son whom the heroine loves, and virtuous heroic peasantry. several of grazia deledda's novels have been translated into english, but they have not had great success. she is one of the last of the realistic idealizers. the most her admirers can hope that the future will do for her is that it will suggest to those in search of sardinian color that they should consult her writings. neither the psychologist nor the literary craftsman will disturb her literary remains. the most promising successor of these women novelists is clarice tartufari, whose "rete d'acciaio" ("nets of steel") is a powerful though painful study of the sicilian brand of jealousy. arturo graf (1848-1918), for many years a professor in the university of turin, was a materialistic poet whose productions during his lifetime were received with some favor and are now being given high rating. fifteen years ago a very flattering review of his dramatic poems, especially "medusa," appeared in the _nuova antologia_, and recently signor vittorio gian has published in _gazetta di torino_ an analysis of his mental processes and an estimate of the merit and significance of his poetical productions which, should they find general acceptance, may give graf the most important position in the poetic field since pascoli. neither his intellectual reactions nor his point of view, however, is italian. they show both his teutonic origin and inclinations. his last verses, "nuove rime della selva" ("new rhymes of the forest"), are full of delightful imagery, delicate fantasy, and gentle sentiment and they do not display the materialism, pessimism, or the figurative symbolism of his early works. in 1900 he published a psychological romance entitled "riscatto" ("redemption"), admittedly a spiritual autobiography which heralded and prepared his after-faith, which was thus also a battle for a faith against materialistic pessimism, against arid positivism which had seduced him and against which he reacted. "he who seeks god laboriously may become more religious than he who coddles him in the firm belief of having found him." his book of poems published in 1895 is the poet's voicings of his struggle to this end. his fame is greater as a dramatist and litterateur than as a poet. nevertheless some of his poetical writings show a rare imagery, a facile capacity for description and versification, though a pessimistic psychology. his best-known poems are entitled "venezie" ("venices"), "le rose sono sfiorite" ("faded roses"), "silenzio" ("silence"), "anelito" ("longings"). gian says of him: "he did not attain in his career as teacher, writer, and poet that outward recognition that fame and fortune usually bestow on their favorites," but as a recompense "he was honored with such hatreds as are never the lot of mediocrities and which for this very reason are the sanction and almost the guaranty of true worth." much of the interesting literature of the past generation has appeared in dialect, especially the poetic literature. salvatore di giacomo must be put at the head of all dialectical poets of italy. he is very little known to english readers, because he has been so little translated, save into german. he is the librarian of the national library of the naples museum. the subjects of his poems are drawn from naples and its people, its beauty and their ardency; the realism of his verse is sober, its sentiments are healthy and true to human nature but to the human nature of a voluptuous, passionate people. he writes of love in all its aspects, and of death, physical, emotional, and mental. he knows the hopes, aspirations, sympathies, longings, customs of his fellow neapolitans; he knows them when they are ill, when they are happy, and when they are depressed, when they are fortunate and when they are seeped in misfortune, and he puts them into lyrics that they understand and that poetasters praise. his lyrics have been collected into one volume called "poesie." he has been called the robert burns of italy, and it is likely that he deserves it. it is to be regretted that no one has attempted to render him in english. an italian poet neglected and almost unknown during his lifetime (1872-1919), whose literary output was very small, is slowly coming to his estate and it is not unlikely that the coming generation will hail ceccardo roccatagliata-ceccardi as one of italy's greatest modern poets. "sonetti e poemi" contains practically all of his verse save a small collection published when he was twenty. chapter iii gabriele d'annunzio--poet, pilot, and pirate the most conspicuous name in the annals of italian literature of the generation now passing is that assumed by a child or a youth when the voice first whispered to him that he had been chosen to announce the coming of a new era, to blaze the way for a new social and national life: gabriele d'annunzio. he was born at pescara in the regno, march 13, 1863, the son of francescopaolo d'annunzio and of his wife, luisa de benedictis of ortona. a studied effort has been made to envelop his birth and parentage in a mantle of mystery, but it has been thwarted. one day of his infancy, in ferravilla-on-the-sea, suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. from that moment the little annunciator was filled with the gift of verbal expression. he enhanced the endowment by diligent study in the high school at prato, in tuscany, where he spent his boyhood. thus did he acquire an unparalleled mastery of the italian language. the gods of mythology, the hellenic heroes and philosophers, the emperors and courtesans of pagan rome were the loves of his infancy. after carducci's "odi barbari" exploded his poetic magazine he looked about to find a god and a greek upon whom to model his conduct. he recalled dionysus going through the world with priapus ostentatiously displaying the phallus, and the die was cast. but he must have a philosophy as well. he who taught that eternal flux and change is the only actuality; that all phenomena are in a state of continuous transition from non-existence to existence and vice versa; that everything is and is not; all things are and nothing remains; that all things must be reduced by way of quasi-condensation to the primary matter from which they originated, in brief--heraclitus, whose name signified "he who rails at the people," was the one that he selected. the process of quasi-reduction was to be preceded by purification through pleasure, and pleasure was to be obtained by stimulation of the senses. the more they were stimulated the greater became their potency for purification. when he looked about the world he found others had been seduced by heraclitus. nietzsche, whose activity preceded d'annunzio's by a few years, was the most conspicuous exponent of the eternal recurrence. he too taught a master morality, a morality which says yea to life and nay to morals, rules, and conventions. christianity is the moral code of slaves. instinct is the true wisdom. the genesic instinct is the basis of all other instincts. therefore cultivate it, for in that way one becomes a superman and begets a race of supermen. if we must have a statue of apollo, as socrates and christ taught, let us make it a feminine figure and place it beside dionysus, first erected by animal men, and around them let us dance a frenzied tarantella while we intoxicate ourselves with foaming wine, the product of sensuous fermentation. no attempt will be made here to put an estimate upon d'annunzio's conduct or his accomplishments of the past five years, save to say that they have been in keeping with his previous life. literary criticism is concerned with the genius of the writer and the way in which he makes that genius manifest. it is not concerned with the morals or immorality of his writing, and yet it has to take some cognizance of them, especially if they are at variance with that which is considered moral or approximately moral. no one who is a public figure or whose activities are concerned with the welfare of the public, whether it be with their diversion, instruction, or protection, can comport himself in a way that is flagrantly offensive to the public without showing the effect of it in his writings. for instance, a writer produces a masterpiece of literature, one that has qualities of conception and construction that evoke universal admiration. it has been written for one of three reasons, or all of them. first, because the artist has it in him and he must externalize it, a creative craving that must be satisfied; second, he has a purpose in doing it--he wants to amuse, amaze, or instruct people; third, he wants to gain fame or money. if he is utterly oblivious to the two last, his writings may be as immoral or unrighteous as he wishes to make them. if the public does not wish to read them it need not, and if it considers them injurious to others whose mental capacity does not enable them to judge whether they are proper or injurious they can be suppressed. if, however, the writer is animated to production by either of the latter two motives, he must be reconciled to having an estimate made of his work not only from the point of view of literary criticism, but also from the point of view of the fitness of his works for literary consumption. that is, he must be reconciled to attempts at estimating whether or not the world would not have been better off without his writings. there are few writers to whom these remarks apply with greater force than gabriele d'annunzio. it is generally admitted that he is the most consummate master of italian verse now living. though his prose writings show that he is not a literary craftsman of the first order, he has understood that art rises out of our primal nature and that it is instinctive. he has sung the praises of sensualism as they never have been sung in modern times, and he has panoplied the preliminaries to love's embrace with garlands made of flowers of forced blooming, artificially perfumed and colored so that the average human being does not recognize them as products of nature. he has preached and practised a moral code the antithesis of christianity, and yet no one has sought seriously to save his soul. in truth, d'annunzio had tired the world of him. the people of it were tired of him as they might have been of a radiantly beautiful woman who had become a gorgeously decorated strumpet constantly walking up and down in the world seeking praise and admiration. when he went to paris the world seemed to be satisfied that he should disappear in that maelstrom, as it was willing that a contemporary sensuous egocentrist should disappear when he left reading gaol, but d'annunzio must enter upon the final stage of his mission from the gods, and the great war gave him the opportunity. although so long a conspicuous figure in the public eye, he has managed to wrap certain layers of the mantle of mystery about him so closely that little is known of his origin or of the forces that contributed to the making and development of his extraordinary career. it is confidently stated by those who pretend to know him that he is a jew, but he is not claimed by hebrew writers, who are proud of enrolling bergson and brandes, spinoza and strauss in their list. vainly offering his life for italy, he is not somatically, mentally, or emotionally an italian. knowing her history, her traditions, and her reactions as few of her sons have known them, until the war he had not sung her virtues or mirrored her wondrous accomplishments of nation-building. his face has steadily been turned not toward the east, where the sun of her glory is arising, but toward the west, where he has revelled in the resurrected glows of sunsets of pagan and renaissance days. he has treated his friends disdainfully when it suited his whim; he has meted out contumely to his adulators when it pleased his fancy; he has disdained those who have accused him; he has passed unnoticed those who have sought to belittle him; and he has gone among his superiors as if he were their king. he has been called everything save philistine and fool. he has been called the greatest literary figure of modern italy and it is likely that he merits it. he is a poet, novelist, dramatist, journalist, politician, critic, propagandist, prophet, aviator, hero, dictator, and self-constituted arbiter of italy's destinies. neither his peer nor his superior has ever denied him a rare imagination, an artistic intelligence of extraordinary range, depth and exquisiteness, a stupendous versatility and productiveness, a tireless energy, a fearless daring and a supreme contempt for the feelings, beliefs, and accomplishments of others. there are two ways of approaching an estimate of d'annunzio. one is to analyze him--to set him up as a god or a monster and to dissect him and study the elements of his complex mechanism, then put them together patiently and laboriously as one puts together a jigsaw picture-puzzle. it is the tempting way, but it risks injuring the sensibilities of his admirers and the judicially minded who are so constituted that they cannot pass judgment unless they are in possession of all the facts concerning him and his career: what he did and the circumstances attending the doing of them, that is, the environment in which they were done--both that which he created and that which was thrust upon him. finally they want to view him in rest and in action. then they are ready to render a verdict in much the same way as a jury renders a verdict with or without the analysis and summing up of the testimony and evidence by proponent or opponent advocate. the way of synthesis would be the way to approach an interpretation of d'annunzio if the man were under discussion, but here only an estimate of his literary career is attempted. there is no dearth of evidence to show that he was a precocious child and a youth of prodigious intellectual acumen and prehensility, of boundless self-confidence and fathomless egocentrism. his first collection of verse, "primo vere" ("first beginnings"), was published when he was fifteen years old, and two years later he published a second edition "corrected with pen and fire and augmented." from the beginning it was pointed out by critic and commentator that he plagiarized line and verse from poets of italy, such as giambattista marino, niccolo tommaseo, and giosuè carducci, and of other countries; but if the accusations made any impression upon him it was not evident in his future conduct, for later he took from verga and capuana, from nietzsche and tolstoy, from maeterlinck and flaubert, from ibsen and dostoievsky, and from countless others that which it pleased him to take. his fame in italy as a poet was heralded by the poet giuseppe chiarini, who published an article which did for him what octave mirabeau's article in the _figaro_ of august 24, 1890, did for maeterlinck. before he had reached his maturity he was hailed as the coming poet, whose originality was admirable, whose sensuality was shocking but acceptable, whose versatility was marvellous. there is nothing morbid, decadent, or blatant in his early poems. in the "canto novo," published in 1882, he displayed the torridity of his temperament, the splendor of his imagination, the ardency of his loves, and the implacability of his hatreds. it swept like a fire over italy. it was a lyric of the joy of life, "the immense joy of living, of being strong, of being young, of biting with eager teeth the fruits of the earth, of looking with flaming eyes upon the divine face of the world, as a lover looks upon his mistress." it was followed in quick succession by "terra vergine," "intermezzo di rime," and "il libro delle vergini" ("the book of the virgins"), which enhanced his reputation and caused the italians to hail him intemperately. he then went to rome and began work as a journalist, but this did not interfere with his output of poetry, and by 1892, when he began publishing romances, he had established, by the publication of "isaotta guttadauro," the "elegie romane" and the "odi navali," a reputation with the reading public of being the most appealing, most satisfying poet in italy, and the critics were not at all sure he would not surpass carducci, who was then considered italy's greatest poet and whose fame has steadily increased. his fame as a poet being established to his own satisfaction he turned to the field of romance, and in the next five years (1893-1898) there flowed from the printing-presses a series of romances that veritably flooded literary italy: "l'innocente," "il piacere," "giovanni episcopo," "trionfo della morte," "le vergini delle rocce," "forse che si forse che no," and the "novelle della pescara." they had a quality that is not easily characterized by word or brief description. they were "sensuous," "decadent," "daring," "shocking," "brilliant." they were modelled on flaubert, prevost, huysmans; they were saturated with the philosophy of nietzsche, the psychology of ibsen, the mysticism of maeterlinck, the morality of petronius; they reek of the bestialities of wilde and verlaine; they are the glorification of pagan ethics; they are the apotheosis of lust. but they were read, discussed, admired, praised, not only in italy but the world over. i doubt that praise was ever given so lavishly, so widely, and so unjustifiably as was given to this series of romances, which to-day, a generation after their publication, are as constant a reminder of a wayward step which italian literature took at the end of the nineteenth century as the linea alba on the torso of a woman whose reputation for virtue is established and admitted reminds her of a faux pas of her youth. in these volumes the author showed that he had a marvellous capacity to depict states of exalted sensibility; that he had an extraordinary, almost superhuman sensitiveness to beauty as it is revealed in nature and in art; that he had a clairvoyant knowledge of the activity of the unconscious mind of human beings and how it conditions their behavior under circumstances and environments fortuitous or chosen--in other words, until it is revealed to them behavioristically; that he had a comprehensive familiarity with plastic and pictorial art; an intimacy with ancient history and modern literature that was stupendous, and withal a capacity to externalize his visions, his emotional elaboration, and his mental content in words so linked together that the very juxtaposition of them is a pleasure to the eye and a satisfaction to the soul. but that which he knew best of all was the history of eroticism. not only was he familiar with its ancestry to the remotest time, but he had guarded its infant days with such solicitude that he knew every impression that worldly contact made upon its plastic consciousness, and when it got its growth he set to work to ornament it so that contact with it would be the apogee of all beauty, intimacy with it the purpose of all ambition, union with it the object of all strife. there are features of his romances that cannot be adequately praised; there are features that cannot be sufficiently condemned. a poem that contains no particular thought may excite our profoundest admiration, just as does a _papier-mâché_ triumphal arch or monument; but a romance or novel depicts some phase or aspect of life, reveals man's aspirations or accomplishments, his behaviors and reactions under certain conditions, reflects his nobilities, depicts his frailties, and extols his ambitions and what he would like to do, experience, or accomplish. in a general way, it is expected that it shall be tuned to an ethical pitch that will not give offense to the man of average christian or pagan morality, or outrage universally accepted and acceptable convention. the most successful horticulturist in the world would find no market for his roses, even though they were more exquisite than those of all other florists, should he impregnate them with a scent obtained from the mustelidæ. this is what d'annunzio did. it would be very difficult to find a religion, a form of government, a code of ethics, a type of beauty, a map of life, a canon of morals, a custom, habit, or a convention that something could not be said in praise of it. bolshevism has its attractive facet, even though the present-day proponents of it have got it so deeply submerged in the mire of ambition and power, and so defaced with lust for revenge that it cannot be recognized. there is scarcely any form of those various indulgences and commissions which are labelled "vice" that have not some commendable and praiseworthy feature, but there is one aberration of human conduct that has never had a champion in the open. it is incest, and gabriele d'annunzio is its champion. concealed or openly, it goes through his writings with the same constancy that streams flow through plains that go out from glacier mountains. in the english translations of his romances elaborate descriptions of other forms of perversion of the genesic instinct have been largely expurgated, but it is impossible to purge them entirely of the incest theme, for in many of his writings it is beyond the verbal description. it is the atmosphere of the book. take, for instance, the novel "l'innocente." on the face of it, it is the narration of the conduct of a man who, having wedded a superior woman of great intellectual charm and bodily attractions, yields to the temptations of the life of dissipation in which he had distinguished himself previous to an ideal matrimony and a contented paternity. he realizes that his digressions are scandalous, and that their frequent deliberate repetitions justify his wife in living apart from him, though her love, being beyond control, still continues. they agree to live with each other as brother and sister. the moment he succeeds in placing her in his soul as his sister an irresistible impulse seizes him to have carnal possession of her, and the burden of the book is a description of his seduction of his own wife, who in the new covenant is his sister. meanwhile with consummate art he has described in the first chapter as the only true love that which exists between brother and sister, his apostrophe of it having been called forth by recalling the sister whom death had fortunately removed. before he has accomplished the seduction of his wife-sister he has precipitated her into a vulgar adventure with his own brother, a pattern of all the virtues. it is a part of his consummate art to create circumstantial evidence that will tend to put the paternity of her child upon a fellow author who in other days had been civil and courteous to his wife, and had sent her a copy of his latest book with an enigmatical inscription on the fly-leaf, but in reality he succeeds in creating an atmosphere from which one senses with readiness that the real father is his brother. the book, in so far as it is concerned with the nobility of giuliana, the sweetness of life in the country, the lovability of her mother and her children, the way in which giuliana's emotions and thought after the advent of the child are shaped that she may grow to hate it as he hates it, as well as the mental elaborations that justify him in seeking to destroy it, and the accomplishment of it, are done in a way that shows the author to be not only intimately familiar with the workings of the normal human mind but with the depraved human mind. from the beginning of his literary career d'annunzio was at no pains to conceal that he was the model from which he painted his heroes. the reader who identifies him with tullio hermil is the perspicacious reader, in the eyes of the author; the reader who considers the conduct of tullio, infracting as it does the canons of law, of morality, and of decency, as the conduct of a superman, is, in the judgment of the author, the sapient reader. he who sees in tullio and his conduct a beast abnormally freighted with lubricity, lacking in inhibitory qualities of a man unguided and uninfluenced by any obligation to god or man, and knowing no other obligation than the pursuit of his own pleasures and desires, is a fool, a weakling, an inanimate mass of protoplasm moulded in the form of a human being unworthy of consideration. d'annunzio conceived himself a superman long before he began to write romances, and i am not one of those who believe that he got his conception from nietzsche. he got it from the same indescribable source that that unbalanced monster of materialism got his. its roots if they could be traced back to the days of the hebrew prophets would be found to have their germinal sprouts in some descendant of samuel or david. d'annunzio's romances are a mixture of materialism, sensualism, and pessimism reduced in a pagan mortar to a homogeneous consistency, and then skilfully admixed with honey so that it is acceptable to the christian palate, but, once it has got beyond the taste-buds of the tongue, once it is taken into the system, its poisonous, corroding, and destructive qualities become operative. i doubt if d'annunzio ever wrote a word or line in his plays or romances that any one was the better for having read or heard, and by better i mean that he added to his spiritual possessions, to his inherent nobility, or to his aspirations for a moral perfection, one iota. i doubt if any normal human being, normal physically, mentally, and spiritually, can read "il piacere" without feeling ill and humiliated, not because of the picture that the author draws of himself in the guise of andrea sperelli, this finished expert in the employments of love, nor of donna maria, nor of the woman more infernally expert in those matters, nor the score of other characters which he paints with a master-hand, but because of the way in which he draws his bow across the overtaut strings of sensuousness until they scream and wail in frenzied fashion and then finally burst asunder. the way in which he makes an appeal to his perverted sensuality through vicarious overstimulation of the senses with which he was endowed for self-conservation and self-preservation, the senses of smell and sight and touch and hearing, is in itself a perversion. he stimulates them until they shriek for mercy or for immersion in some benumbing balm. the true pervert is he who puts out of proportion and out of perspective the sources of æsthetic emanation, and who concentrates them upon the percipient apparatus of one or other of the senses so that it may be excited to a frenzied activity. the description of andrea's room, in which he awaits donna maria, with its perfumes, lights, and colors, and the description of his toilet articles and his bedroom is one of the most nauseating things in all literature. like nietzsche, d'annunzio looks upon women as creatures of an inferior race, instruments of pleasure and procreation who were created to serve. when they no longer are amusing, useful, or serviceable they are to be brushed aside and with the same _sang froid_ as one would put aside an automobile that had broken down, worn out, or because it's "corpo non è più giovane," as he kept saying of foscarina in "il fuoco," who belonged to him, "like the thing one holds in his fist, like the ring on one's finger, like a glove, like a garment, like a word that may be spoken or not, like a draft that may be drunk or poured on the ground." in "vergini delle rocce" he expounds the theory that inequality is the essence of the state, and in this book as well as in "il trionfo della morte" we find all the passion of language and of sentiment that one finds in nietzsche. it is no longer to be doubted that he had kept his word "noi tendiamo l'orecchio alla voce del magnanimo zarathustra e prepariamo nell' arte con sicura fede l'avvento del uebermensch del superuomo"--we listen to the voicing of the magnanimous zarathustra and we prepare with unfaltering faith for the coming of the superman to the arts. in his life of cola di rienzo d'annunzio again took occasion to lampoon and traduce the common people, describing them as the great beast which must be crushed and annihilated. "il trionfo della morte" is the very essence of heraclitan philosophy and dionysan ethics. the hero, who is a paragon of knowledge which he displays for the reader's edification, meets the young and pretty wife of a business man who bores her. he is successful finally in permitting her to pass a few weeks with him in his villa by the sea. during these weeks they run the gamut of every conceivable sensation and the reader gets a description of them and of the gradual hatred that develops in him for his subjection of her. "every human soul carries in it for love a definite quality of sensitive force. this quality is used up with time and when it is used up no effort can prevent love from ceasing." but, unlike the animal when his concupiscence is satiated and he is still urged to greater display, the hero is not content with driving her from him; he must needs mete out the same fate to her that he did to the infant in "il piacere," so he lures her to the edge of a sea cliff and hurls her into space. "she would in death become for me matter of thought, pure ideality; from a precarious and imperfect existence she would enter into an existence complete and definite, forsaking forever the infirmities of her weak, luxurious flesh. destroy to possess. there is no other way for him who seeks the absolute in love." the reader yields to the enchantment of his style, to the seductiveness of his lyrism, to the intoxications of his descriptions of beauty; and the critic and fellow writer to his mastery of technic and consummate mastery of behavioristic psychology. from the critics' point of view "the triumph of death" and "the fire" are the high-water marks of d'annunzio as a stylist, and they mark his completest moral dissolution. in "il fuoco" we get the same ethics, philosophy, æsthetics, and glorification of sensuousness that we get in all his other books. here the two leading characters are exact replicas of himself and of the world's greatest actress of her day portrayed in an environment, venice, that is redolent of beauty in decay, like a cracked grecian vase overfilled with withered rose leaves which fall from it at every puff of wind. this environment makes an ideal palette upon which he blends the colors whose pigments he has been selecting and experimenting with for a quarter of a century. the publication of it promoted his voluntary exile from italy. his fellow countrymen could not condone the monstrous offense of depicting therein as the pliant mediator of his perverted sensuousness their beloved actress. and they have not yet forgiven him, nor are they likely to forgive him. after d'annunzio had established a reputation as a neoromanticist with a classical tendency he turned to drama, and the year 1897 marked his advent into that field. his first efforts, three one-act parables--"the foolish virgins and the wise virgins," "the rich man and poor lazarus," and "the prodigal son"--were published in the _mattino_ of naples, a newspaper controlled by the husband of his friend and fellow writer, matilde serao. they are noteworthy merely to show the way in which a sensuous pagan can transform simple characters into decadent, perverted proselyters of pleasure. it was not until he wrote "the dream of a spring morning" and "the dream of an autumn sunset" that he displayed the same measure of lascivious imagery and capacity for description of the perverse manifestations of eroticism that he revealed in his romances. these were revealed in lines that truly may be said to be masterpieces of lyric beauty, and when the mad woman of the first and the messalina of the second were interpreted by eleanora duse the musical sound of the words and the emotional force of the sentiment gained a quality of importance and grandeur which enhanced their inherent qualities. in "la città morta," his most successful drama, he returned to his favorite topic, incest. though his purpose in writing it, the most successful of all his dramas, was to revive in form, structure, and unity the greek drama, it gave him an opportunity to display his knowledge of the classics and archæology. the philosophy and mysticism of the play he got from maeterlinck. its theme is lust and crime. lust is portrayed in almost every conceivable form of perversion, in poetic thoughts and graceful diction, especially in the delineation of leonardo, the explorer, who lusts for his sister. the dreamy, meditative languor of the dramatis personæ, their insensitiveness to every form of ethical conformation, their perversion of every form of moral relationship, constitute an atmosphere that the northerner does not breath pleasurably. it was thoroughly purged before it was put on the boards in this country. his next play, "la gioconda," is an exposition of the exemption which d'annunzio thinks the artist of his own superman caliber should have from conforming to the laws of estate or custom. the contention is a simple one. he should do anything that he pleases--which means give himself over to the pleasure of the senses and the appetites until the indulgence is followed by satiety and thus his progress toward perfection through gratification of desires will be accomplished. after satiety comes disgust, and then a period of dementia, but this is merely the prelude to another fling of erotic fury in his conformation to the doctrine of purification through pleasure. the hero is a psychopathic individual, sensitive, aboulic, distractible, impressionable, impulsive, vacillating, and suicidal. he is married to a woman who apparently has every beauty of soul and body that a woman can have. but, alas, she is virtuous! she has not the key to the jewel-casket of his genius. that is possessed by his model gioconda dianti, the source of all his inspirations. one quiver of her eyelid causes his soul to dissolve like sugar in water, while two make him feel that he is lord of the universe. the tragedy of the play is the permanent mutilation of the wife's hands, the only somatic feature that has "appealed" to the artist. she attempts to save his masterpiece which the model pushes over in temper on being told falsely that she is to be banished. her mutilated hands serve to remind her the rest of her life that virtue is its own reward. the two dramas of d'annunzio which are best known to the english-speaking public are "la figlia d'jorio" and "francesca di rimini." "the daughter of jorio" is a tragedy laid in the mountains of abruzzi. d'annunzio knows the customs, habits, and traditions of the shepherds and mountaineers, their superstitions and emotions, as he knows art, archæology, and eroticism. the first act is a description of the betrothal of the son of a brutal shepherd to a simple girl with whom he is not particularly in love. at the ceremony of betrothal the daughter of jorio, who is suspected to have evil powers, claims protection from certain shepherds who had designs upon her. the first impulse of the joyous party was to cast her out, but when the betrothed young man was about to do so he saw behind her his lustful desire presented to his eyes in the guise of an angel, which made him hesitate, and the daughter of jorio was allowed to remain. in the next act he is seen as her lover. he quarrels about her with his father and kills him. the parricide's punishment is to be sewed into a sack with a dog, a cock, a viper, and a monkey and cast into the sea. the daughter of jorio comes to the rescue and convinces the people that she is the real criminal. eros is unconquerable. in "francesca di rimini," a historical play filled with erudite archæological details, he displays a knowledge of the thirteenth century and of the customs of the time which has never been excelled save by historical writers. it is a picture of war and bloodshed, of treachery and accusation. the central theme is the love of francesca and paolo. they may be taken as the typical human beings of the thirteenth-century italy, fond of luxury and beautiful things but savage in their reactions. perhaps francesca is one of the best feminine figures that d'annunzio has ever drawn. in 1904 there appeared two volumes entitled "praises of the sky, the sea, the earth and of heroes." after that period his tragedies, "the light under the bushel," "the ship," "fedra," and "the mystery of san sebastian" appeared in french, and soon he adopted france as his home, having previously published a spiritual autobiography of eight thousand four hundred lines entitled "laus vitæ," in which he summarizes the motives of his past and lays the basis of his new inspiration. d'annunzio's war poems have all been inspired with the belief that italy's future lies on the sea. it is much to be regretted that they have not yet been collected into a single volume. when it is done he will not unlikely be recognized as the most legitimate of pindar's descendants. undoubtedly he will want them to be the conspicuous, permanent wreath on his tomb. the libyan war inspired him to the production of his noblest war poetry, "canzoni della gesta d'oltremare" ("songs of achievements across the sea"). in the "canzoni di mario bianco" he foresaw the beginning of a new era for italy, and he forecast the aspirations and promises of the third italy. his "canzone del quarnaro" describes the raid of the three italian torpedo-boats on the buccari, a few miles to the southeast of fiume. it is short and forceful. the introductory "beffa" describes the raid in detail. d'annunzio is inordinately fond of using christian imagery, and he reverts to it here in the distribution of his little tricolor flags, which has a mystic import. "it is a true eucharistic sacrament, the closest and most complete communion of the spirit with beautiful italy. there is no need of consecrating words; the tricolor wafer was converted through our faith into the living beauty of our country. we are purified, we are sundered from the shore and from our daily habits, separated from the land and all vulgar cares, from our homes and from all useless idleness, from profane love and all base desires; we are immune from the thought of return." the "cantico per l'ottava della vittoria" is a wish fulfilment for him. as the boat enters the quarnaro and runs up the coast of istria it is, for d'annunzio, the guarantor of the treaty of london, and he sees all the cities and islands of this coast restored to italy, and these cities and all the places hallowed by the war join in the pæan of triumph. in "songs of achievements across the sea" d'annunzio established an incontestable claim to be the great inspiring poet, even the prophet, of his generation in italy, and he produced work which has not been surpassed, but he was still the poet only, singer of the deeds of others, in which he had no share himself. the contrast between his pretensions and his achievements made the affectations of his early years appear ridiculous to many people, and tended to obscure the true value of his work. he was still seeking and the years that followed in paris showed that he had discovered no new world to explore, but when italy joined the allies he suddenly found himself. all the brooding sense of incomplete achievement of other days vanished in a moment. the speeches and addresses that he delivered between may 4 and 25, 1915, showed that he had been preparing for what he knew would be "the day" for him. it was widely believed in italy in 1917 and 1918 that on the evening of may 4, 1915, when d'annunzio addressed a meeting at quarto to commemorate an anniversary of garibaldi's departure with his faithful thousand to deliver sicily and naples from the bourbon yoke, and a few days later when he addressed them in the costanzi theatre in rome and then went with the enormous crowd to ring the bell of the campidoglio, the signal was given for the declaration of war against austria and germany. the last books of d'annunzio, illustrating his new attitude toward life, are "la leda senza-cigno" ("leda without the swan"), "per la più grande italia" ("for greater italy"), "la beffa di buccari" ("buccari's joke"), "la riscossa" ("the rescue"), "bestetti e tuminelli" ("italy and death"), "contro uno e contro tutti" ("against one and against all"), and a series of volumes under the title of "the archives of icarius," which are all concerned with incidents in the great war. it is too soon to attempt to guess the pedestal that posterity will allot gabriele d'annunzio in the gallery of fame. the committee that will do it will estimate his qualifications of lyric poet and hellenic dramatist--perhaps as warrior. d'annunzio is a poet who abounds in lyrical ecstacies. his style is the most remarkable thing about him. he describes armor, architecture, archæology like an expert. he knows the dynamic point of view. he knows how to depict dramatic situations. his personages are all living personages. he is concerned with the neurotic, decadent, hectic, temperamental type of human beings. all his characters have a love of beauty. he is the true decadent of the nineteenth-century literature, to whom the decadent french symbolists cannot hold a candle. after he had sucked the luscious orange of italy dry and eaten of its pomegranates to satiety; after he had exhausted sensation in the search for sensation and he could no longer hope for stimulation from vision, from image, from sound, from color; when the nets of eros were so lacerated and worn from having been dragged upon the rocks and crags of life; when italian food, though appetizingly spiced and washed down with rare vintage of the castelli romani, would no longer nourish him, he abandoned his native land and went to france. his writings while in france were like those of a man who is dominated by a dementia following a protracted delirium, and as he emerged from this dementia he published a pietistic piece called "the contemplation of death." it seems to have been suggested to him by the death of the poet pascoli, for whom he professed an admiration, but more particularly by adolfo bermond, whom he had met after he went to france and who apparently had been able to depict the beauties of humility so that they were recognizable to d'annunzio. in his fatigued, emotional, and enfeebled mental state he asked himself whether humility was not more desirable than pride, love not stronger than hate, spiritual aristocracy more ennobling than aristocracy of blood, of money, of brain, of privilege. in this state of mock humility he wrote: "i always feel above me the presence of the sacrifice of christ. i see now that the glory of my life is not in the beauty of my possessions. i have never felt so miserable and at the same time so powerful. never since i lived have i had within me an instinct, a need so deep and so storming. i am aware that a part of my being, maybe the best part, is deeply asleep within me." but soon this spiritual awakening was throttled by the influence of nietzsche. "what will become of me if i surrender wholly to the saviour? surely i want the world to know if in my life, filled with base instincts, there comes the moment of changing. even if my glory be destroyed i will not be a prisoner to the worse that speaks within me." it was from that hour that he decided to be the garibaldi of the third italy. he would then be another gabriel standing in the presence of god and sent to speak to them and show them glad tidings. it was a strange awakement that d'annunzio had when he went to rome in the early '90's. perhaps it was before that time that he encountered "l'ornement des noces spirituelles de ruysbroeck l'admirable," and later "la sagesse et la destinée," and he absorbed some of its æsthetic mysticism. he realized that it was another variety of search for wisdom because it is happiness, and he began to portray it in his poetry and tragedies. from the day he began to write he accustomed himself to take as it pleased him from others' writings, and not only lines and paragraphs but subjects, movements, cadences, thoughts, and images which determined the character and decided the nature of the production. italian critics have taken the trouble to return to the original creators the borrowed constituents of some of his productions, "l'asiatico," for instance; and that which then remained was the caressing modulation of the verses. when his romances appeared in french many of the passages taken bodily from dostoievsky, tolstoy, de maupassant, pêladan, de goncourt, huysmans, and many others were prudently suppressed. but no one can fail to recognize that he read these authors with a keen eye, a note-book by his side. but he has known how to use what he borrowed. the day came when the conduct of a corrupt people in a decadent fictitious world no longer sufficed to divert him; having drunk from the poisoned springs of lust not only to satiety but to disgust, he, like his prototype of huysmans's creation, "des esseintes," the thebaide raffinée of "a rebours," must hide himself away far from the world, in some retreat where he might deaden the discordant sounds of the rumblings of inflexible life, as one deadens the street with straw where an important or beloved one is sick. this retreat was paris and there we must leave him making scenic plays and erudite verse for a russian ballerina, and working out his destiny in contemplation of death and in planning the selection of warriors for valhalla. we are not concerned with his conduct or with his morals. we are concerned with his activities to divert and instruct us, and the influence that his efforts had upon the people of his time. he wrote artistically perfect novels; his poetry is the highest form of lyric expression; he made his dramas the revivification of the elements of greek tragedy; and he strove to prove that eros was unconquerable by priest, sage, or warrior. now, with the world in ferment, they are the only earnest for our acceptation of his assurance that he can shape the fate of italy more acceptably than its statesmen. before the great war he had practically passed from the stage of letters. that epochal occurrence resurrected him. we can wait to hear what posterity will say of him. chapter iv the futurist school of italian writers the italians are a people of great emotional complexity, displaying a strange mixture of idealism and realism. they are at present engaged in constructing an edifice which shall be the admiration of the world for all time, to wit, a third italy. naturally the designers, the architects, the builders and the prospective inhabitants hope that it will be more ideal, more commodious, more adapted to its purposes than its predecessors. to the sympathetic observer, however, they appear to limit themselves narrowly to old building material. there is nothing which mirrors the individual and composite mind of a country so illuminatingly as its literature. the man craving for power prefers the allegiance of a country's song-writers to that of its lawgivers. that a tremendous change has taken place to-day, not only in the songs of italy but in all her literature, must be admitted. this change has been in process for a generation and is going on with increasing rapidity. italian literature is now going through a phase quite as distinct as that which characterized the romanticism initiated by manzoni and which ended with the advent of carducci. it would be difficult to find a word which would adequately express the spirit of it--perhaps the most descriptive one is _protest_. the new writers protest against the social, political, and religious acceptances of the past fifty years. they object to the acceptance of alleged facts substantiated only by tradition; they refuse adherence to teachings, doctrines, modes of thought and expression merely because they are old; they reject dogma originating in self-constituted authority, no matter how long or by whom it has been sanctioned and privileged, no matter how securely rooted. they will have none of the conventionalism which is out of harmony with the present conditions of life and with the present yearning for liberty. they stand against the teaching that the flesh must be punished in order that the soul may be purified, as they do against all slavish stereotypy, moss-covered convention, and archaic laws. they claim instead that the best of life is to be found in purposeful action; that life should be speeded up, and that every one should be encouraged to live fully for the advantage that may come to himself, to those to whom he is beholden, and to the world. they advocate the strenuous life and invite the new and unforeseen, while urging exploration of untrodden fields and especially determination of things called inaccessible and unrealizable. they advocate equal life for men and women, and seek to give to such words as "patriotism" and "idealism" a fuller significance, so that the former shall not mean the heroic idealization of commercial, industrial, and artistic solidarity of a people but a love of liberty and a knowledge, recognition, and appreciation of what other people and other countries are attempting and accomplishing; and that the latter may be applied to the affairs of life and not to the affairs of the imagination. this movement, in italy, was begun by a group of men who called themselves futurists and, if that name can be dissociated from the connotation that is given to it when applied to art, i see no objection to it. it has been influenced by the french symbolists of the preceding generation, baudelaire, de goncourt, villiers de l'isle-adam, mallarmé, verlaine, huysmans, rimbaud, whose work so profoundly influenced the course of french literature. like this school the self-styled futuristic writers of italy revolt against rhetoric and against tradition. therefore they reject equally the ardent classicism of carducci and d'annunzio's decadent blend of idealism and realism, the crass, slavish gallicism of brocchi, the scandinavian genuflections of bracco and the shavian imitations of pirandello. in protest against all these they seek the full liberty of the written word, as the evangel of socialism seeks the liberty of the individual. not from other writers but from reality itself, or from the depths of their own imaginations, they have received a vision and this vision they demand the right to evoke in others, by what words or what images they will. the art of expression should be speeded up, abbreviated, and epitomized, while the love of profound essentials is cultivated. to borrow from england's singer of materialistic grandeur and promise, they " ... want the world much more the world; men to men and women to women--all adventure, courage, instinct, passion, power." and in addition, as true futurists, they want us to have constantly in mind what happened to lot's wife when she looked back to see how high the flames rose over sodom and gomorrah. the leaders of the futuristic movement in italy were guillaume apollinaire, then editor of _les soirées de paris_, and f. t. marinetti of milan. one thing can be said of signor marinetti, the pope of futurism, which no one, i fancy, will deny. he is the most amusing writer in italy. his idea of beauty is a massive building of concrete in course of construction with the scaffoldings lovingly embracing it. his idea of ugliness is a curve of any kind--save in the feminine body. "parole in libertà," words free from syntactical shackles are the words with which we shall fight the battle of the future. they are the dynamite which will blow asunder literary monte testaccio, in which are buried the useless literary labors of his forebears but which shall also prepare the soil for a fertility that it has never possessed. dynamism is the master-key. no artificer of the past or wizard of the future can construct a lock that it will not readily open, and as for political manacles they are as fragile as rubber bands when confronted with the doctrines of his new book, "democrazia futurista." signor marinetti has no delusions of grandeur; he only pretends that he has. nor is he the victim of a mental disorder which is characterized by loss of insight and megalomania. it is gratifying to be able to make this diagnosis of one of italy's literary leaders. it offsets the diagnosis of general paresis made of woodrow wilson by one of mr. marinetti's fellow citizens and published with such elaborate attempts of substantiation in the _giornale di italia_. he merely overestimates his intellectual and emotional possessions, but he says many clever things and makes some prophecies that are likely to come through. the last european ruler who talked and acted as signor marinetti does got a bad spill, as is now fairly widely known. in reality, marinetti is a bolshevik who amuses himself behind a mask, but not all the principles of bolshevism are bad by any means, nor even are they new. the most telling way of making a statement is to overstate it. the most successful way of getting a bad smell out of a house is to burn the house; then, if you have a good plan and plenty of time, money, and building material, you can construct yourself a house free from bad odors. however, there are other ways of making it a very livable and beautiful house, but why one should object to mr. marinetti's building his own house his own way is difficult to understand, unless in so doing it he makes himself such a nuisance to his neighbors that they cannot tolerate him. so far he has not done that, but when he joins force with signor bruno corra, as he has in "l'isola dei baci" ("the island of kisses"), he comes perilously near it. apollinaire, a pole whose real name was kostrowitski, was born in rome and lived in italy until late childhood, when he went to france, where he remained until his death in 1919. he had a tremendous influence upon many of the young symbolist writers of italy, comparable to that exercised by stéphane mallarmé on the young writers in the '80's and '90's. one of them wrote at the time of his death: "hero of thought and of art, idealist, philosopher, genuine poet, prophetic theorist and critic, sublime soul, comrade, joyous, generous, he was also in the last years of his life a hero of humanity." the most important figure of the school has been giovanni papini, who has gathered about him in florence a coterie which includes ardengo soffici, the painter, critic, and novelist; aldo palazzeschi, poet; alberto savinio, wanderer, musician, and litterateur; and a long list of names more or less ancillary to marinetti, some of which i shall mention later. papini, who is considered at length in another chapter, does not admit that he is a futurist. as he puts it, he did not marry futurism; it was for him one of many intellectual adventures, a mistress that left an indelible impression on him. he simply passed through futurism's influence and at the same time gave momentum to the best of that school, to palazzeschi, govoni, boccioni, folgore. then he proceeded alone, after having become persuaded that it had become too popular and consequently less refined and select, and after the hazardous and aristocratic little group had become a species of low, bigoted democracy into which any one could enter who dangled a rosary of incomprehensible words. he left it in company with soffici and palazzeschi and soon carrà and others followed his example. thus, on the death of boccioni, the first generation of futuristic writers reformed or disappeared. then there are many young men carrying the banner of literature in italy to-day who do not call themselves futurist, and whose writings contain less of the grotesque, which has been made familiar to italian readers by marinetti's "zang tumb tumb." they are men of the stamp of antonio beltramelli, mario mariani, luigi morselli, gino rocca, salvator gotta, lorenzo montano, vincenzo cardarelli, raffale calzini, enrico cavacchioli, alfredo grilli, and a score of others who not alone have ideas but who keenly sense the composite world-thought, who believe that the era of big business will reach its apogee when it weds big justice, and who know how to express their ideas with explosive rhythmic eloquence and with distinction of form. it would be presumptuous on my part to attempt to select the winners entered in the great sweepstakes of literary fame in italy, with no qualification for prophecy or judgment than a love of literature and a lifelong ardent consumption of it. i shall, therefore, content myself with brief discussion of the work of some of these younger writers with the particular end in view of suggesting to others the pleasure and profit that may result from more intimate acquaintance with them. about ten years ago there began to appear in the florentine publication, _la voce_, a series of articles critical and interpretative of french art. it is difficult now to believe that cézanne, courbet, renoir, picasso, henri rousseau, gauguin, van gogh, and the school of impressionists and neo-impressionists was so little known in italy as they were at the time of the appearance of these articles from the pen of ardengo soffici, a painter by training and profession enrolled in the futuristic movement. he was, in reality, the first to speak in italy with appreciation and intelligence of the tendencies in french art shown in the last half-century which have to-day had such a stamp of profound approval put upon them. these criticisms attracted much attention from the first, and they have since been republished under the title of "scoperte e massacri" ("discoveries and massacres"), and to-day they constitute a trustworthy guide to the schools mentioned both in presentation and in description. they were quite unlike previous criticisms, more particularly in a note of challenge, of insolence, and of prophecy. his judgments were stated with a firmness and tranquillity that savored of the dogmatic, and, although time has shown him to have been mistaken in his estimate of some of the artists discussed--gauguin, for instance--it has corroborated most of them with remarkable accuracy. in a small way he did for italian readers what mr. maccoll did for english readers in his "nineteenth century art," for, like that writer, he is an artist with a fastidious temperament who knows how to write. since that time signor soffici has published nearly a score of books--romances, criticisms, fragments which show him to be a clear thinker with a pungent style, writing what he thinks and not what he cribs from others, and not continually advertising himself as the last cry of intelligence or the most perfect type of superman. his first book was called "ignoto toscano" ("an unknown tuscan"), and appeared in 1909, but it was not until the publication of "lemmonio boreo" two years later that it was realized that there had appeared a writer with a definite message: a protest against the utter triviality and purposelessness of italian middle-class life. the hero, an artist, who would reform many customs of the land, went about the countryside accompanied by two aids, one chosen for physical strength, the other for his "promoter" type of mind. their encounters with the predatory innkeeper, with the peculating clerk, with the industrious stone-breaker of the roads, with the pilferer of the farm or the barn, and with the pulchritudinous peasant sitting picturesquely in her cart or gossiping in the village constitute the substance of the book. it was planned to have it run into several volumes, but it stopped after the first one, without accomplishing any of the reforms that the hero had essayed. then the writer reverted to art again and published a book on cubism and one on cubism and futurism. soon he published giornale di bordo, a diary of sentiment and philosophy--thoughts engendered by various environments, by reading, and by reflection. in the most casual way the author reveals his impressionable and poetic nature. they are not profound or epoch-making thoughts. they are merely the thoughts of a sane, healthy, artistic mind bathing and refreshing itself in the beauties of nature and contrasting them with the ugliness of most of man's handiwork. then came two books about the outgrowth of the military life. "kubilek" is named after a hill on the bainsizza tableland where the author fought and was wounded. it gives a picture of the italian as a soul which will be recognized as true to life by every one who has had to do with him. no one can read it without feeling an admiration and an affection for that extraordinarily loyal being the italian soldier who tolerates hardship with equanimity and without complaint and who is so appreciative of anything done for his comfort or welfare. "la ritirata del friuli" ("the retreat from friuli") is not up to the author's standard. the next book, a very small one, "la giostra dei sensi" ("the joust of the senses"), is a portrayal of the capacity shown by a "lost soul" for radiating unselfish love upon an individual who comes to her for meretricious contact but who stays to add to his spiritual stature. the scene is laid in naples and the author utilizes the sheer beauty of the place and picturesqueness of the people to give an artistic setting for the description of the jousts. it could not possibly be published in england unless the publisher aspired to "languish" in prison. of the many questions i have asked in italy none has been so unsatisfactorily answered as "do you let your young folk read that book and what effect does it have?" no one could think of calling soffici a pornographic writer. indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that he is one of the most respected and admired of all the young school of italian writers, and yet there are passages in the book now under discussion coarser and more vulgar than any in the "satyricon." despite this it is not a circumstance to the recent book of a seventeen-year-old girl of rome, margherita emplosi gherardi, entitled "il nudo nelle anime." it is dedicated to all those who deny that the youthful mind has not the capacity, discernment, liberty, and daring to envisage and interpret the painful mysteries of the human soul. there are few things more disgusting in literature, "gamiana" excluded, than the sketch entitled "the impure hour," for women only. his remaining books, "statue e fantocci" ("statues and dolls"), are made up chiefly of critical reviews, many of which have appeared in journals. they show that the writer has a mastery of literary technic and an understanding of modern art and literature creditable to himself and to his country. he can be satirical, caustic, sarcastic, but he is never brutal. he can be an ardent admirer, a valorous champion, a sympathetic interpreter, a critical friend, and a prejudiced judge, but he is never an implacable, insensate enemy, nor a literary fiend. moreover, one does not gather from his writings that he is what is called the "whole thing" from the literary standpoint. signor soffici has got some bad habits from papini. among these are: saying old things as if they never had been said before; taking on an air of complacency after the delivery of a sentiment or a conviction in no wise epoch-making; believing that all his geese are swans and the geese of others decoys; that his every thought is a jewel which people are frenzied to possess unless they are too stupid; and saying trivial things with the subtly conveyed insinuation that the reader should, if he is perspicacious and cultured, find a deep significance in them. he is yet a long way from his full stature, but he is growing. aldo palazzeschi (1885-) is one of the youngest of the futuristic group who has gained enduring fame as a poet. his first volume of verses, "cavalli bianchi" ("white horses"), which was published when he was twenty years old, showed him to be a youth of sensibility and originality, with capacity for tuneful verse and for dainty sentiment daintily expressed. the publication of a second volume, entitled "lanterna" ("the lantern"), two years later, fully justified the expectations of those who were attracted by the little gems of his early verse. but it was not until 1909, on the publication of a volume entitled "the poems of aldo palazzeschi," that it was realized that there had come upon the scene a poet who might quite easily get a fame equal to that of carducci or pascoli. his poems not only showed the influence of apollinaire and marinetti, but also of whitman, of mallarmé, of rimbaud, of laforgue, and of other french writers. the dyed-in-the-wool critics saw in much of his work clownishness and infantilism, especially in such productions as "e lasciatemi divertire." they thought it should be construed: "and let me divert myself with insane-asylum poetry." they were quite right from their standpoint, but a fellow poet whose emotional mechanism is not so equilibrated as that of the sort of man called normal, would be likely to see in it something of beauty and of merit which the latter could not see, and ask: "why should not the poet divert himself?" it is to him what exercise is to the average man, and he speaks of it, in fact is proud of it, just as the average man is proud of his golf score when he gets it in that elysian field, "under ninety." those who do not see in palazzeschi's poetry an adhesion to a certain school of philosophy, an advocacy of certain ethical systems, a restatement of others' thoughts and teachings, miss the very essence of his contribution. this is his capacity to present the world around us in colors which, if not new, at least have been recognized only since the advent of the impressionistic painter. so illuminated, it presents facets of beauty that make appeal to that which within us mediates and interprets pleasure. in addition to this, he has an extraordinary sense of the fantastic, the grotesque, the panoplied. his eye is microscopic and his mind is telescopic, and his soul waves tend to a rhythm which is akin to that of genius when he reveals them and describes them to others, as he does, for instance, in the "villa celeste" ("the celestial house"); the average man (who is attuned to interpret some poetic waves) realizes that the soul of this young man is the generating station of genuine poetical energy. he puts a reflector before his soul and it reflects the waves in our direction. "io metto una lente dinanzi al mio cuore, per farlo vedere alla gente." among the youngest of the italian litterateurs who are giving great promise is alberto savinio, who is not only an interesting writer but an accomplished musician, composer, and performer. of sicilian origin, he was born in tuscany and has lived in various parts of central europe. he first came to conspicuous notice through his articles in _les soirées de paris_. to the average reader he is known as a traveller and a narrator of his observations and experiences in the form of comments and short stories. latterly, however, he has published a queer book entitled "hermaphrodito," which is difficult briefly to characterize without doing it injustice. it is a book that a clever man might write in the early stages of delirium tremens, providing he returned to it after recovery and added the chapters "isabella hasson" and "la partenza dell' argonauti." in the latter especially he shows himself capable of writing temperate, vivacious, robust prose, of making inviting descriptions of places, and of revealing man's conduct and his motives. when the war broke out he returned to italy and his contributions soon began to appear in different journals, more particularly in the _voce_ of florence and the _brigati_ of bologna. since then he has received even greater praise than was meted out to him in paris, and he gives promise, should his development continue, of getting a place amongst the modern writers. another young writer of the same kidney, though by no means of such promise, is mario venditti. he is a type of juvenile writer in italy who excites a curiosity to know how he succeeds in getting some of his writings published. he appears to have a writing formula: take of substantives whose meaning is known to few save dictionary experts, archaic or uncommon adjectives, adverbs, or adverbial phrases taken from other languages, excerpts from scientific writings, especially philosophy and medicine, and string them together so that when they are read aloud there will be a certain sonorous, musical effect, and at the same time suggest a color accompaniment. he reminds of a properly brought-up and well-educated boy who, when he reaches the age of puberty, insists upon wearing what are called "outlandish" clothes, a combination of the apparel of the clown and that of the fashion-plate, to which he attaches ornate trimmings and incongruous decoration. in such costume he struts about with a nonchalance and swagger of self-appreciation which is more irritating even than his sartorial affectations. many modern literary youths seem to have to go through a period of this kind, just as the children of "first families," unfortunately, must have mumps and measles. like the victims of those diseases the majority of them go through unscathed, but every now and then one of them is intellectually enfeebled and genetically sterilized. signor venditti has not assured us by the publication of "il burattino e la pialla" that he is not a victim. when is a futurist not a futurist? a very difficult question that, for readers answer it one way and writers another. some writers are futuristic on alternate days, or every seventh day. one of these is enrico cavacchioli, a sicilian living in milan, the dramatic critic of the _secolo_ and the director of _il mondo_ and of the publishing-house of vitagliano. his reputation as a man of letters stands in no relation to his futurist poems. it does, however, to his compositions for the theatre, and especially to his great success, "uccello del paradiso" ("bird of paradise"). his last contribution, "quella che t'assomiglia" ("that which resembles you"), which he calls a vision in three acts, is a satire on the present-day interest in the occult and supernatural. when the promising and brilliant young writer of the florentine group, renato serra, was killed in the war, italy lost one of its most gifted critics since de sanctis. despite his youth he had, when he was called to the colors, already won a conspicuous position as a man of letters. alfredo panzini dedicated his "madonna di mamà" to him, and made touching allusions to his qualities of soul and potential greatness. in 1914 he published a survey of contemporary italian literature ("le lettere"), and the five years which have elapsed since then have shown that his estimates and judgments were unusually sound. his was neither the academic idealistic criticism of the old school nor the historic philosophic criticism of croce. he attempted to interpret writers, plans, and performances and to contrast them with ideals he had himself conceived or worked out from study of the masters. his last work, "scritti critici" ("critical writings"), was published in 1919. they show a subtle and profound analysis, an original point of view, and equilibrium in expression and in form. his style is simple, his statements clear, his presentations convincing. another young writer of this group, a man of great promise, was scipio slattaper. he gave his life for his country in the early days of the war. corrado govoni has, for the past decade, been considered by some to be italy's most promising poet. there is definite infantilism in his work, a distractibility, a discursiveness, that has stood in the way of meriting such estimate. although still a young man (thirty-five), he has eight volumes of poetry that bear his name. papini was his impresario but he no longer treats him as one of his favored family. his first volume was called "le fiale" ("the honeycomb"), the next "armonia in grigio ed in silenzio" ("harmony in gray and in silence"). they were truly juvenile. the third volume, "fuochi d'artifizio" ("fireworks"), showed the influence of rodenbach, of james, and of the modern french school. in 1907 he published "aborti," which showed his mental growth and which is one of his best even to the present time. in 1911 he issued a volume entitled "electric poetry" ("poesie elettriche"), whose futurist cover was the only futuristic feature it had. there is no humming, puffing, whirring to convey that steam-and-gasoline-engine modernity which it should have in order to justify the name. its lines are too refined, too pussy-foot, too pathetic, too tender-minded for that. were it not for the perfect equality of the sexes to-day we would be tempted to say they had a feminine quality. daintiness does not express it; neither does unvirile. there is none of this quality in his next production--the "hymn on the death of sergio." "neve" ("the snow") appeared in 1914; "rarefazione" ("rarefactions") in 1915. the latter is a weird collection of childish figures designed by the poet and commented upon by him to such effect as to demonstrate a state of latent infantilism. in the same year he published a volume entitled "the inauguration of the spring" ("l'inaugurazione della primavera"), which contains most of govoni's best work in poems. his last book, a series of short stories, "la santa verde" ("the ardent saint"), adds nothing to his fame. most of them are insignificant, colorless, reliefless, purposeless. an attempt has been made by champions of corrado govoni to show that "base rivals, who true wit and merit hate" are forming a cabal to prevent his getting his deserts. fiumi, his last champion, does not materially advance his claim. such, in all their diversity, are the futurists. there is no common formula which describes them. they have a programme which, like that of the socialists, must from its very nature lack specificity. they are not very definitely organized and many who enrolled under their banner in the enthusiasm of youth soon deserted the cause. but meanwhile they got sufficient inspiration and impetus to throw off the shackles of tradition and to taste the pleasure of exploration. more often they get purged of a kind of literary preciosity which makes for their well-being and usefulness. the programme of the futurist is of little importance in itself, but it is of great importance as a symptom of tendencies now agitating the minds of the younger generation in italy. it may be that their efforts will constitute the small end of the wedge by which romanticism and verism shall be burst asunder like the dragon of bel's temple. chapter v giovanni papini and the futuristic literary movement in italy in one of his "appreciations"--depreciations would be the more fitting word--signor papini says he seems to have read or to have said that in every man there are at least four men: the real man, the man he would like to be, the man he thinks he is, and the man others think he is. he is sure to have read it, for he has read widely. undoubtedly he has also said it, for he has made a specialty of saying things that have been said before--even that he has said before. as for the man he thinks he is, he has written a long autobiography with plentiful data, from which it may be deduced that he is a man with great possibilities and a great mission, to wit, to precipitate in italy a spiritual revolution, to bring to his countrymen the gospel that it is time to be up and doing and that intoxication with past successes will not condone present inertness. he has been chosen to teach men that the best of life is to be found in purposeful action regardless of inconsistencies, contradictions, and imperfections; that the ego should be guided peripherally not centrically; that introspection is the stepping-stone to mental involution. in reality, he is but one of many who are proclaiming those tidings in italy. the distinction between what he would like to be and what he thinks he is, is not so marked as in more timid and less articulate souls. substantially, it is this same calling of prophecy which is his aim. as for the man he is, time and his own accomplishments alone will show. now, at the zenith of his creative power, he is still a man of promise, a carrier-pigeon freighted with an important message who, instead of delivering it, exhausts himself beating his wings in a luminous void. in giovanni papini these four aspects stand out very distinctly. let us take them up in inverse order, since what others think of a man is soon stated and what he really is is a vague goal, to be approached only distantly, even at the end of this paper. mr. reginald turner says: "papini is by far the most interesting and most important living writer of italy. 'l'uomo finito' has become a classic in italy; it is written in the most distinguished italian; it can be read again and again with increasing profit and interest ... its italian is impeccable and clear. mr. j. s. barnes calls him the most notable personality on the stage of italian letters to-day," and signor g. prezzolini writes: "his mind is so vast, so human, that it will win its way into the intellectual patrimony of europe." i cannot go all the way with these adherents of signor papini. i have talked with scores of cultured italians about his writings and i have heard it said, "he has acquired an enviable mastery of the italian language," but i have never once heard praise of his "impeccable and clear italian"; nor do i hold with mr. barnes that he is unquestionably the most notable personality save d'annunzio on the stage of italian letters to-day. we would scarcely call mr. shaw the most notable personality on the stage of english letters to-day. surely it would be an injustice to mr. kipling, mr. wells, and mr. conrad. it might be unjust to mr. swinnerton. signor papini is an interesting literary figure, particularly as a sign of the times. during the past generation there has been in italy a profound revolt against what may be called satisfaction with and reverence for past performances and against slavish subscription to french, german, and russian realism. it is to a group of writers who call themselves futurists and who see in the designation praise rather than opprobrium that this salutary, beneficial, and praiseworthy movement is due. signor papini has publicly read himself out of the party, but apostasy of one kind or another is almost as necessary to him as food, and most people still regard him as a futurist, though he refuses to subscribe to the clause in the constitution of the literary futurists of italy bearing on love, published by their monarch signor marinetti in that classic of futuristic literature "zang tumb tumb" and in "democrazia futurista." it is now twenty years since there appeared unheralded in florence a literary journal called the _leonardo_, whose purpose in the main seemed to be to overthrow certain philosophic and socialistic doctrines, positivism and tolstoian ethics. the particularly noteworthy articles were signed gian falco. it soon became known that the writer was one giovanni papini, a contentious, self-confident youth of peculiarly inquisitive turn of mind, and of sensitiveness bordering on the pathological, an omnivorous reader, an aggressive debater. he was hailed by a group of youthful literary enthusiastics as a man of promise. in the twenty years that have elapsed since then he has written more than a score of books, short stories, essays, criticisms, poetry, polemics, some of which, such as "l'uomo finito" ("the played-out man"), "venti quattro cervelli" ("twenty-four minds"), and "cento pagine di poesia" ("one hundred pages of poetry"), have been widely read in italy and have known several editions. save for a few short stories, he has not appeared in english, though there seems to be propaganda in his behalf directed by himself and by his friends of his publishing-house in florence to make him known to foreigners. like other italian propaganda it has not been very successful and this is to be regretted. it is due in part to the fact his advocates have claimed too much for him. signor papini is like mr. arnold bennett in that they both know the reading public are personally interested in authors. from the beginning he and his friends have capitalized his poverty of pulchritude and his pulchritudinous poverty. signor giuseppe prezzolini, in a book entitled "discorso su giovanni papini" has devoted several pages to his person, which, he writes, "is like those pears, coarse to the touch but sweet to the palate," yet i am moved to say that the eye long habituated to resting lovingly upon somatic beauty does not blink nor is it pained when it rests upon giovanni papini. in one of his latest books--it is never safe to say which is really his last, unless you stand outside the door of the bindery of _la voce_--in one of his latest books, entitled "testimonials," the third series of "twenty-four brains," he reverts to this, and says that his person is "so repugnant that mirabeau, world-famed for his ugliness, was compared with him an apollo." he does not get the same exquisite pleasure from deriding his qualities of soul, but, as the face is the mirror of the soul, no one is astonished to learn that "this same papini is the gangster of literature, the tough of journalism, the barabbas of art, the dwarf of philosophy, the straddler of politics, and the apache of culture and learning." nevertheless, no prudent, sensitive man should permit himself to say this or anything approximating it in papini's hearing, for not only has he a card index of substantives that convey derogation, but he has perhaps the fullest arsenal of adjectives in italy, and has habituated himself to the use of them, both with and without provocation. i have been told by his schoolmates and by those whom he later essayed to teach that as a youth he was inquisitive about the nature of things and objects susceptible to physical and chemical explanation. his writings indicate that his real seduction was conditioned by philosophic questions. early in life he displayed a symptom which is common to many psychopaths--an uncontrollable desire to read philosophical writers beyond their comprehension. in the twenty years that he has been publishing books he has constantly returned to this practice, as shown by his "twilight of the philosophers," "the other half," and "pragmatism." his first articles in the _leonardo_, which now make up the volume known as "il tragico quotidiano e il pilota cieco" ("the tragedy of every day and the blind pilot"), are sketches and fantasies of a personal kind, some of them fanciful and charming, some with a touch of inspired extravagance that recall baudelaire and poe, and faintly echo oscar wilde's "bells and pomegranates," dostoievsky's "poor people," and leonida andreieff's "little angel." some of the stories have a weird touch. others are founded in obsession that form the ancillæ of psychopathy. take, for instance, the man with a feeling of unreality who did not really exist in flesh and blood but was only a figure in the dream of some one else, and who felt that he would be vivified if only he could find the sleeper and arouse him. this idea is not of infrequent occurrence in that strange disorder, dementia precox; take again the man who found his life dull and who covenanted with a novelist to do his bidding in exchange for being made an interesting character; and the two men who changed souls; and the talks with the devil interpreting scripture. all these awaken an echo in the reader's mind of either having been heard before or they bring the hope that they never will be heard again. although his early writings had an arresting quality, it was not until he undertook to edit some italian classics published under the title of "i nostri scrittori" ("our writers") that they began to take on the features that have since become characteristic and which have been described by his admirers as "rugged, vigorous, virile, rich, neologistic," and everything else the antithesis of pussy-foot. this feature, if feature it can be called, showed itself first in "l'uomo finito," a book which is admitted to be an autobiography. it introduces us to an ugly, sensitive, introspective, mentally prehensile child of shut-in personality who is not only egocentric at seven but who loves and exalts himself and despises and disparages others. this unlovable child with an insatiate appetite for information found his way to a public library and determined to write an encyclopædia of all knowledge. his juvenile frenzy came its first cropper when he reached the letter "b," and he was submerged with the bible and with god. the task was too big, he had to admit, but his ambition to accomplish some great and thorough piece of work was undaunted. he began a compendium of religions, then of literature, and last of the romance languages. these successive attempts at completeness are typical of papini's far-reaching ambitions. "the played-out man" is a record of his plunge into one absorption after another. he discovered evil, and planned not only individual suicide but suicide of the people _en masse_. next came the desire for love. his instincts were of a sort not to be satisfied by the conventional sweetness of "i promessi sposi," but from poe, walt whitman, baudelaire, flaubert, dostoievsky, and anatole france he got a vicarious appeasement of the sentiment he craved. then he encountered "dear julian." "we never kissed each other and we never cried together," but he could not forgive julian for allowing his friend to learn of his matrimony only through the _corriere della sera_. the brief emotional episode past, papini's life interest swung back to philosophy. he discovered monism, and believed it like a religion. then kant became his ideal, then berkeley, mill, plato, locke, culminating in the glorified egotism of max stirner. after stirner philosophy has no more to say. down with it all! it is necessary to liberate the world from the yoke of these mumblers, just as papini has liberated himself. but how to do it! ah, yes! found a journal that will purge the world of its sins, as the great revolution purged france of royalty. thus papini's literary work had its beginning. it takes several tempestuous chapters of the autobiography to describe the launching of the _leonardo_ by himself and a few congenial souls. nine numbers marked the limit of its really vigorous life, but it ran, with papini as its chief source of material, for five years. ultimately, with the dissipation of the author's youthful energy, this child of his bosom had to be interred. but papini still goes to its grave. the tumultuous, introspective life of the author continued. he went through a period of self-pity and neurasthenia, then one of intense hero-worship directed toward all radicals, including william james, whom he had once seen washing his neck. then came an immense desire for action, hindered, however, by the fact that the author could not decide whether to found a school of philosophy, become the prophet of a religion, or go into politics. his only inherent conviction concerns the stupidity of the world and his own calling to rise above it. this long, internal history ends with a period of sweeping depression, out of which the author at last emerges with the intense conviction that he is not, after all, played out, that there is still matter in him to give the world. he feels welling up within him a stream of arrogance and self-confidence that is not to be dammed. he has not yet delivered his message; people have not yet understood him. "they cannot grasp it, cannot bear to listen. the thing i have to tell, unthought before, demands another language." so he goes back to the market-place of florence, shouting: "i have not finished. i am not played out. you shall see." and it is at this stage that signor papini's work now stands. we wait to see. the "l'uomo finito" is signor papini's g. p. no. 2. it is not fiction in the ordinary use of the term; any more than "undying fire" of mr. wells is. in a measure it is fiction like "the way with all flesh" of samuel butler. but in point of interest and workmanship it is far inferior to the former and in purposefulness, character delineation, orientation, resurrection, and reform it is not to be compared with the latter. although it is the book by which signor papini is best known, it is not his love-child. "the twilight of the philosophers" is. he is proud to call it his intellectual biography, but it would be much truer to call it an index of his emotional equation. "this is not a book of good faith. it is a book of passion, therefore of injustice, an unequal book, partisan, without scruples, violent, contradictory, unsolid, like all books of those who love and hate and are not ashamed of their love or their hatred." this is the introductory paragraph of the original preface. in reality it is a cross between a philosophic treatise and a popular polemic, with the technical abstruseness of the one and the passion of the other, and its purpose is to show that all philosophy is vain and should make way for action. although it indicates wide and attentive reading and a certain erudition, the only indication of constructive thought that it reveals is a rudimentary attempt to adjust the philosophic system of each man to the temperamental bias of the author. others, santayana for instance, have done this so much better that there is scarcely justification for his pride. he could have carried his point quite as successfully by stating it as by laboring it through a whole volume devoted largely to railing both at philosophers and at their philosophy. from the point of view of the philosopher this book is "popular." from the standpoint of the people it is "philosophical." it is really a testimonial to the author's breathless state of emotional unrest. he is like a bird in a cage and he feels that he must beat down the barriers in order to accomplish freedom, but when they are fractured and he is apparently free there is no sense of liberation. he is in a far more secure prison than he was before, and to make matters worse he cannot now distinguish the barriers that obstacle his freedom. the wonder is not that a man of the temperament and intellectual endowment of signor papini has this feeling, but that he can convince himself that any one else should be interested in his discovery. he that hath knowledge spareth his words, and the mistake is to consider words linked up as subject, predicate, and object, especially if the substantives are qualified by lurid adjectives, the equivalent of knowledge. he knows the "ars scrivendi" as aspasia knew the "ars amandi"; papini knows the value of symbolic, eye-arresting, suggestive titles. he realizes the importance of overstatement and of exaggerated emphasis; he is cognizant of the insatiateness of the average human being for gossip and particularly gossip about the great; he recognizes that there is no more successful way of flattering the mediocre than by pointing out to him the shortcomings of the gods, for thus does he identify their possessions with his own and convince himself that he also is a god. papini's sensitive soul whispers to him that the majority of people will think him brave, courageous, valorous, resolute, virtuous, and firm if he will adopt a certain pose, a certain manner, a certain swagger that will convey his grim determination to carry his mission to the world though it takes his last breath, the last glow of his mortal soul. "they wished me to be a poet; here, therefore, is a little poetry," is the opening line of his book called "cento pagine di poesia," and this, though not in verse, is characterized by such imaginative beauty, more in language, however, than in thought, that it is worthy to be called a poem. more than any other of his books it reveals the real papini. here he is less truculent, less nietzschian, less self-conscious of understudying and attempting to act the parts of jove. he is more like the papini that he is by nature, and therefore more human, more kind and gentle--would i could add modest--more potent and convincing, than in any of his other books. it is especially in the third part, under the general title of "precipitations," that the author gives the freest rein to his fantasy and is not always endeavoring to explain or tell the reason why, but abandons himself to the production of words which will present rhythmically the emotions that are springing up within him. it is difficult to believe that the same hand penned these poems and the open letter to anatole france beginning: "in these days anatole france is in rome, and perhaps returning he will stop in florence, but i beg him fervently not to seek me out. i could not receive him." that quality of delusion of grandeur i have seen heretofore only in victims of a terrible disease. signor papini is never so transparent as he is in his "stroncatura" and in his excursions into the realm of philosophy. his attack on nietzsche is most illuminating. in fact, giovanni papini is frederick nietzsche viewed through an inverted telescope. "nietzsche's volubility (indication of easy fatigue) makes him prefer the fragmentary and aphoristic style of expression; his incapacity to select from all that which he has thought and written leads him to publish a quantity of useless and repeated thought; his reluctance to synthetize, to construct, to organize, which gives to his books an air of oriental stuff, a mixture of old rags and of precious drapery, jumbled up without order, are the best arguments for imputing to him a deficiency of imperial mentality, a reflex of the general weakness of philosophy. but the most unexpected proof of this weakness consists in his incapacity to be truly and authentically original. the highest and most difficult forms of originality are certainly these two: to find new interpretation and solution of old problems, to pose new problems and to open streets absolutely unknown." no one can examine closely the writings of signor papini without recognizing that he has shown himself incapable of selecting from that which he has written and thought and of setting it forth as a statement of his philosophy or as an apologia pro sua vita. constant republication of the same statements and the same ideas dressed up with different synonyms is a charge that can be brought with justice. it can be substantiated not only by his books but by _la vraie italie_, an organ of intellectual liaison between italy and other countries directed by signor papini, which had a brief existence in 1919, a considerable portion of which was taken up with republication of the old writings of the director. even the most intemperate of his admirers would scarcely contend that he merits being called original, judged by his own standards. at one time in his life nietzsche was undoubtedly his idol, and i can think of the juvenile papini no. 3 suggesting that he model himself after the teutonic descendant of pasiphae and the bull of poseidon. thus did he appease his morbid sensitiveness and soothe his pathological erethism by enveloping himself in an armor made up of rude and uncouth words, of sentiment and of disparagement; of raillery against piety, reverence, and faith; of contempt for tradition. in fact, he seemed equipped with a special apparatus for pulling roots founded in the tender emotions. he would pretend that he is superior to the ordinary mortal to whom love in its various display, sentiment in its manifold presentations, dependence upon others in its countless aspects are as essential to happiness as the breath of the nostrils is essential to life. in secret, however, he is not only dependent upon it, he is beholden to it. when he assumes his most callous and indifferent air, when he is least cognizant of the sensitiveness of others, when in brief he is speaking of his fellow countrymen, signore d'annunzio, mazzoni, bertacchi, croce, and up until recently when he speaks of god or religion, he reminds me of that extraordinary and inexplicable type of individual whom we have had "in our midst" since time immemorial, but who had greater vogue in the time of petronius than he has to-day. although the majority of these persons are _au fond_ proud of their endowment, the world at large scoffs at them; and in primitive countries such as our own it kicks at them; therefore they are quick to see the advantage of assuming an air of crass indifference and, with the swagger of the social corsair, to express a brutal insensitiveness to the æsthetic and the hedonistic to which in reality they vibrate. they never deceive themselves, and signor papini does not deceive himself. he knows his limitations, and the greatest of them are that he is timid, lacking in imagination, in sense of humor, and in originality. he is as dependent upon love as a baby is upon its bottle. when writing about himself he hopes the reader will identify him only with the characters whose thoughts and actions are flattering, but the real man is to be identified with some of the characters whom he desires his public to think fictitious. in one of his short stories he narrates a visit to a world-famed literary man. he describes his trip to the remote city that he may lay the modest wreath plated from the pride of his mind and his heart at the feet of his idol. he finds him a commonplace, almost undifferentiated lump of clay with a more commonplace, slatternly wife and even more hopelessly commonplace children. his repute is dependent wholly upon the skill with which he manipulates a card index and pigeon-holes. papini fled to escape contemplation of himself and the fragments of the sacred vessel. signor papini has been an omnivorous reader along certain lines; he has been a tireless writer, and he is notorious for his neologistic logorrhea, but the possession which stands in closest relation to his literary reputation is his indexed collection of words, phrases, and sentences. this, plus knowing by heart the poetry of carducci, and his envy of benedetto croce for having obtained the repute of being one of the most fertile philosophic minds of his age, and his advocacy of the gospel of strenuousness, is the framework upon which he has ensheathed his house of letters. no study of the man or of his work can neglect one aspect of his career--his constant change of position. he knocks with breathless anxiety at the door of some new world, and no sooner does he secure entrance and see the pleasant valley of hinnom than he feels the lure of black gehenna and is seized with an uncontrollable desire to explore it. when he returns he hastens to the public forum and announces his discoveries, preferring to tell of the gewgaws which he discovered than to expatiate on the few jewels which he gathered. his last production augurs well for him, because it indicates that finally he will bathe in the pool of the five porches at jerusalem, the world war having troubled its water instead of an angel. november 30, 1919, he published in the most widely circulated and influential newspaper of central italy, the _resto del carlino_, an article entitled "amore e morte" ("love and death"), which sets forth that he has had that experience which the christian calls "seeing a great light, knowing a spiritual reincarnation," and which those whom papini has been supposed to represent call a pitiable defalcation, a spiritual bankruptcy. on february 21, 1913, he proclaimed in the costanzi theatre of rome that "in order to reach his power man must throw off religious faith, not only christianity or catholicism, but all mystic, spiritualistic, theosophic faiths and beliefs." now he has discovered jesus. in his literary ruminations he has come upon the gospels of matthew, mark, luke, and john, which set forth the purpose and teachings of our lord and which have convinced countless living and dead of his divinity. we must forswear egocentrism; we must stop making obeisance to materialism; we must cease striving for success, comfort, or power. such efforts led to the massacre of yesterday, to the agony of to-day, and are conditioning our eternal perdition. salvation is within ourselves, the kingdom of heaven is within our hearts, he who seeks it without is a blind man led by a blind guide. the road over which we must travel is bordered on either side by seductive pastures from which gush life-giving springs, topped with luxurious trees of soul-satisfying color that protect from the blazing sun or the congealing wind, and on either side are pathways so softly cushioned that even the most tender feet may tread them without fear of wound or blister. the sign-posts to this road are the four little volumes written two thousand years ago. no one unfamiliar with that strange disorder of the mind called the manic depressive psychosis can fully understand signor papini. there is no one more sane and businesslike than the former futurist, yet the reactions of his supersensitive nature have some similarity with this mental condition present, in embryo, in many people. in that mysterious malady there is a period of emotional, physical, and intellectual activity that surmounts every obstacle, brushes aside every barrier, leaps over every hurdle. during its dominancy the victim respects neither law not convention; the goal is his only object. he doesn't always know where he is going and he isn't concerned with it; he is concerned only with going. when the spectator sees the road over which he has travelled on his winged horse he finds it littered with the débris that pegasus has trampled upon and crushed. this period of hyperactivity is invariably followed by a time of depression, of inadequacy, of emotional barrenness, of intellectual sterility, of physical impotency, of spiritual frigidity. the sun from which the body and the soul have had their warmth and their glow falls below the horizon of the unfortunate's existence and he senses the terrors of the dark and the rigidity of beginning congelation. then, when hope and warmth have all but gone and only life, mere life without color or emotion remains, and the necessity of living forever in a world perpetually enshrouded in darkness with no differentiation in the débris remaining after the tornado, then the sun gradually peeps up, illuminates, warms, revives, fructifies the earth, and the sufferer becomes normal--normal save in the moments or hours of fear when he contemplates having again to brave the hurricane or to breast the deluge. but once the wind begins to blow with a velocity that bespeaks the readvent of the tornado, he throws off inhibition and goes out in the open, holds up the torch that shall light the whole world, and with his megaphone from the top of helicon shouts: "this way to the revolution." in a relative sense, this is the mode of signor papini. he is fascinated by the beauty and perfections of an individual or of a school and he will enroll himself a member, but before he gets thoroughly initiated he gets word of another individual or another school which must be investigated. in the intoxication he defames and often slays his previous mistress. thus his whole life has been given to the task of discovering a new philosophy, a new poetry, a new romance, a new prophecy, and their makers. in the ecstasy of discovery he cannot resist smashing the idol of yesterday that his pedestal may be free for the more worthy one of to-day, and he cannot inhibit the impulse to rush off to the composing-rooms of _la voce_ to register his emotions in print. in his desire to be famous he reminds one of those individuals who would be liked by every one, and who will do anything save cease making the effort. pretending that he loves to have people hate him, he does not, but he would rather have hate and disparagement than indifference or neglect. he desires power, that unattainable he will be satisfied with notoriety. he does not agree with a fellow poet that "on stepping stones we reach to higher dreams, and ever high and higher must we climb, casting aside our burdens as we go, till we have reached the mountain-tops sublime, where purged from care and dross the free winds flow." were he a genius and at the same time had the industry that he has displayed, he would be the equal of h. g. wells, possibly the peer of bernard shaw, but he is neither. he is simply a clever, industrious, versatile, sensitive, emotional man of forty, whose mental juvenility tends to cling to him. he has so long habituated himself to overestimation and his admiring friends have been so injudicious in praising his productions for qualities which they do not possess and neglecting praiseworthy qualities which they do possess, that he is like an object under a magnifying-glass out of focus. but, as papini himself says, he has not finished. he is still comparatively a young man and the world awaits his accomplishment. if the function he has chosen is that of agitation rather than construction, of preparation rather than of building, he cannot be totally condemned for that. his environment is in a condition where much destruction is necessary before anything real can be evolved. and as the apostle of this destruction papini must be accepted. he stands as a prophet, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'prepare ye the way--'"; and the generations will show whether it is indeed a highway he has opened. chapter vi two noisy italian schoolmasters the most diverting and conspicuous figures in the literary world of italy to-day are two old school-teachers, alfredo panzini, humanist, and luigi pirandello, satirist. both of them have earned a permanent fame and their fecundity seems to be increasing with age. alfredo panzini, a pedagogue by profession, is a writer by dint of long training. born in senigaglia, a small town in the province of ancona, in 1863, he called carducci master. after serving a long literary apprenticeship compiling grammars, readers, dictionaries, anthologies, his name began to appear in journals and magazines, and gradually he has forged his way to the front rank as an episodist, an interpreter of the feelings and sentiments of the average man and woman and their spokesman, and as a master of prose. in appearance he is a typical lower middle-class italian, short, stout, and ruddy, a kindly, benevolent face, with contented eyes that look at you uninquiringly from behind gold-rimmed spectacles. one might gather from looking at him that he had asked but little from the world and got more than he asked. his writings display an intimate familiarity with a few classic writers, especially of greece and italy, which he reveals by frequent and appropriate quotations and references, contrasting the sayings and doings of the venerated ancients with those of the not always deprecated modern. he knows the emotional desires and reactions of the average man; he senses his aspirations and his appeasements; he has keen understanding of his virtues and his infirmities. he knows his potential and actual pleasures, and he reveals this understanding of his fellows to us in a diverting and instructive way and at the same time shows us idealistic vistas of life and conduct that are most refreshing. it is to be regretted that he is not equally enlightened about women. if he knows their aspirations he denies the legitimacy of them; if he discerns their future he refuses to forecast it; if he knows feminine psychology his writings do not reveal it. he is the traveller ascending from the plains whose pleasure is in looking backward to survey the paths over which he has travelled, to describe the beauty of the country and its associations, and to moralize about them. elevations in front of him from which one may legitimately anticipate more comprehensive vistas he refuses to consider, or, if constrained to do so, denies that what shall be seen from them will compare with what he sees and has seen. his two most successful and commendable books are "la lanterna di diogene" ("diogenes' lantern") and "xantippe." the first is a narrative of sentimental wandering in which he describes the commonplace world and the homely conflict of those whom he encounters, and in which he displays not only tolerance, but love of his fellow men. he is sometimes playful, more often ironical, but never disparaging or vituperative, and his prose is clear, limpid--sometimes, indeed, sparkling. his "xantippe" does not deal particularly with the virtues or infirmities of that renowned shrew. it recounts many incidents in the life, trial, and incarceration of socrates which, while still redounding to his fame, are made to show by contrasting them with man's conduct and customs to-day the weaknesses, inconsistencies, and fallacies of many conventions of the twentieth century. "il viaggio di un povero letterato" ("the wanderings of a poor writer") shows the same simple-minded, charming vagabondage as "diogenes' lantern." it was published in 1912, when many readers did not share his distrust of germany or hold with him in his forecasts. many of his statements are to-day prophecies fulfilled. it is not an imaginary man of letters who starts on a trip in obedience to a doctor's orders. it is alfredo panzini, exhausted from many labors. he goes wherever his fancy takes him, to vicenza, bologna, pisa, venice, and it is with the literary memories of these places that he is chiefly concerned. at pisa it is leopardi, shelley, and byron; at vicenza, fogazzaro; but at bologna the memories become more personal. here he sat at the feet of carducci and learned to love and respect him; here his budding fancies first showed indications of blooming; here he first essayed amatory flights. he chances upon an old flame of his student days leading the old life in the old home, except that she had taken to writing poems and insists on having his opinion of them. his account of how he succeeded in meeting her wishes and still maintained his self-respect is a masterpiece of ingenuousness. the least thing suffices to start a train of thought and reflection or to decide his next tarrying-place. the volume ends with an interesting account of a visit to the birthplace of pascoli, the socialist and idealist poet of the romagna. in his "piccole storie del mondo grande" he describes a pilgrimage to the country of leopardi, and to umbria. it is filled with little anecdotes of literary immortals who wandered there, and of references that are more significant to italians than to foreigners, and through it all there is a strange, melancholy humor which is quite characteristic of panzini. the two novels which he has written show that he has the art of the story-teller in narration, sequence, and constructiveness, but they lack what the dramatists call action. "io cerco moglie" ("i seek a wife") is his best work. ginetto sconer, who oozes prosperity and self-satisfaction, proceeds in a businesslike way to select a wife. he consults a pastry-cook and a doctor, to the great glee of the reader. he sees women in three categories: those who presume to disturb the dreams of anchorites and are still men's pleasure and despair; the aristocratic blue-stocking; and the domestic paragon. he had not contemplated marrying a blue-stocking or even aspiring to blue blood, but when he meets countess ghiselda he realizes that ambition expands with amatory awakement. her freedom is handicapped by the attentions of a futuristic poet whose intellectual productions and antics are amusing to every one save cavaliere sconer. he has peeps into spiritual and emotional vistas, but he yields finally to the flesh-box and woos the daughter of the woman who places a caramel in the mouth of her husband every morning before he goes to his office. signor panzini knows the present-day borghese, their thoughts, their virtues, their absurdities, and their charm, and he has depicted them in this book in the most interesting way. signor panzini is not what is called a feminist fan, and he utilizes ginetto sconer, who is seeking the ideal mate, as a mouthpiece for his own convictions and sentiments concerning women. italy is likely to be one of the last countries that will yield woman the freedom for emotional and intellectual development to which she is entitled, and when it comes, as it is bound to do, it will be despite the kindly and sentimental protests and ironies of such oppositionists as signor panzini. "la madonna di mamà" ("the madonna of mamma") is, in addition to a splendid character study, a revelation of the disturbance caused in a gentle and meditative soul, his own, by the war. for, in reality, like so many italian writers, panzini is autobiographical in everything that he writes. in this book he has shown more insight of feminine psychology than in any of his other writings, though he is more successful with donna barberina, who represents modern italian emotional repressions, than with the english governess, miss edith, who forecasts in a timid way what her countrywomen have obtained. nevertheless, the strength of the story is the evolution of the moral and intellectual nature of aquilino, to whom the reader is partial from the first page, and count hypolyte, who is "too good to be true." aquilino is what alfredo panzini would have been had he encountered conte ippolito in his early youth. the reader who makes his acquaintance identifies him with the future glory of italy, the type of youth who has no facilitation to success save ideals and integrity. many of his short stories--such as "novelle d'ambo i sessi" ("stories of both sexes"), "le chicche di noretta" ("the gewgaws of little nora")--have elicited great praise. to-day panzini has the reputation of being one of the most gifted writers of italy. he has come to his patrimony very slowly. without being in the smallest way like george meredith or henry james, his writings have experienced a reception similar to theirs in so far as it has been said of them that they are hard to understand. it is difficult for a foreigner to give weight to this accusation. the reader who once gets a familiarity with them becomes an enthusiast. to him panzini is one of the most readable of all italian writers. to be sure, if one reads "xantippe" it is to be expected that more or less will be said about socrates and about the customs and habits of athens of that day. the same is true of diogenes and his lantern. it is also likely that when a man of literary training and taste wanders about the country, writing of his encounters, he will be likely to write of people and things, which, when others read them, will presuppose a certain culture, but the reader who has the misfortune to lack it need not hesitate to read the books of signor panzini. he will have a certain degree of it after he has read them and he will get possessed of it without effort. it is not at all unlikely that signor panzini writes his stories and novels in much the same way as he writes his dictionaries, namely, laboriously. his later writings have some indication of having been thrown off in a white heat of creative passion without preparation or conscious premeditation, but most of his books bear the hallmarks of careful planning, methodical execution, painstaking revision, and careful survey after completion that the writer may be sure that his creation exposed to the gaze and criticism of his fellow beings shall be as perfect as he can make it both from his own knowledge and from the knowledge of others assimilated and integrated by him. the position which panzini holds in the italian world of letters to-day is the index of the protest against the writings of d'annunzio. panzini is sane, normal, human, gentle, kindly. he sees the facts of life as they are; he fears the ascendancy of materialism; his hopes are that man's evolutionary progress shall be spiritual, and he does not anticipate the advent of a few supermen who shall administer the affairs of the planet. alfredo panzini may finally get a place in italian letters comparable to that of pascoli, and should his call to permanent happiness be delayed until he has achieved the days allotted by the psalmist he is likely to have the position in italian letters which joseph conrad has in english letters to-day. this statement is not tantamount to an admission that it is to writers like panzini that we are to look for new developments in imaginative literature. they will be found rather amongst a group of writers who are the very antithesis of him--the futurists. the successor to the literary fame of giacosa is luigi pirandello, another schoolmaster. his earlier writings were cast as romances, but latterly he has confined himself largely to stage-pieces which reflect our moralities, satirize our conventions, and lampoon our hypocrisies. his diction is idiomatic and telling. it reminds of de maupassant and of bernard shaw. either he inherited an unusual capacity for verbal expression or he has cultivated it assiduously. he is panzini's junior by three years, having been born in girgenti, june 28, 1867. his father was an exporter of sulphur, and his early life was spent amongst the simple, passionate, emotional, tradition-loving people of southern sicily. unlike his fellow sicilians, verga and capuana, he has not utilized them to any considerable degree as the mouthpiece of his satiric comments and reflections on social life. he has taken the more sophisticated if less appealing people of northern and central italy, and puts them in situations from which they extricate themselves or get themselves more hopelessly entangled for the reader's amusement or edification. in his last comedy, "l'uomo, la bestia, e la virtu" ("man, beast, and virtue"), the scene is laid "in a city on the sea, it doesn't matter where," yet the characters are typically sicilian. after graduating from the university of rome, pirandello studied at bonn and made some translations of goethe's "roman elegies." soon after he returned to rome he published a book of verse and a book of short stories which made no particular stir. it was not until he published "il fu mattia pascal" ("the late mattias pascal") that he obtained any real success. critics consider it still his best effort in the field of romance. from the standpoint of construction it deserves the commendation that it has received, but both the luck and the plans of the hero are too successful to be veristic, and the eventuations of his daily existence so far transcend ordinary experience that the reader feels the profound improbability of it all and loses interest. one pursues a novel that he may see the revelations of his own experiences or what he might wish his experiences to be under certain circumstances. when these circumstances get out of hand or when the events that transpire are so improbable, or so antipathic, that the reader cannot from his experience or imagination consider them likely or probable, then the novel does not interest him. moreover, the anglo-saxon reader, unless he has lived in italy, finds the flavor of many passages "too high"--certain experiences are related in unnecessary detail. like a cubist picture the charm and the beauty disappear in proportion with the nearness with which it is viewed and the closeness with which it is examined. in reality, pirandello did not get his stride until he began to concern himself with social and domestic problems, such as those depicted under the title of "maschere nude" ("naked masks"). in the play "il piacere dell' onestà" ("the pleasure of honesty"), he pictures a new type of ménage à trois: the "unhappy" husband in love with the mature daughter of an aristocratic philistine mother, who, when she must needs have a husband for conventional satisfaction, appeals to a facile male cousin who finds in a ne'er-do-well disciple of descartes one who is willing to act the part vicariously, the apparent quid pro quo being the payment of his gambling debts. the hypocritical, bombastic lover; the sentimental mother with a "family complex"; the anguishing, passionate daughter; the suave, aristocratic male procurer, and finally he who was to be the victim of the machinations of these experienced persons, but who proves to be the victor because he plays the game in a way new to them--that is, straight--each in turn delivers herself or himself of sentiments and convictions that reveal the social hypocrisies and conventional lies which form the scaffolding and supports of what is called "every-day life," and give pirandello an opportunity to display his irony, his sarcasm, and his humor. the art of pirandello is a subtle play of paradoxes and analyses of motives which are second nature to persons called complex, the result of inherited and acquired artificialities. to get the full effect of these paradoxes and analyses the closest attention of the reader and of the auditor is required, and as a matter of fact pirandello's comedies read much better than they play. those who know maintain that he has little capacity for stage technic, that he knows nothing of the art of the stage. hence his comedies have not had the success of giacosa and of bracco. as human documents they depend upon their humor and veiled irony more than upon any other qualities. the humor, which seems to be obtained by simple means, is nearly always the result of an analysis so fine, so subtle, that sometimes one loses track of the premises on which it is founded. he compels the attention of his reader and he makes him think. without such attention and thought the subtleties of pirandello often escape the reader. sometimes he labors a point almost to a tiresome degree, for instance, in the play "così è se vi pare" ("it's so if you think it's so"). the central point is the identity of a woman, which would seem, to the average individual, could be established readily beyond peradventure, but the point is--is there anything that can be established beyond peradventure? is there any such thing as literal truth? is not truth in reality synonymous with belief, individual or collective, or both? discussion of questions of this sort may become very tiresome, but pirandello has the art of mixing them up with human weaknesses and human virtues which makes the mixture not only palatable but appetizing. in his last comedies--"il giuoco delle parti" ("each one plays his own rôle") and "ma non è una cosa seria" ("but it isn't a serious matter")--he reverts to matrimonial tangles and attempts at disentanglement, depicting in the former the "temperamental" woman who gets what she wants, but who finds when she gets it she does not want it, and the long-suffering husband who is discerning enough to know how to handle her by conceding what she demands that he may get what he should have. the man who usurps the conjugal privileges of the husband must also discharge his obligations. so it transpires when his temperamental wife has been insulted by some intoxicated gilded youths who by their conduct in her house provoke a scandal in the neighborhood, it is necessary for the _de facto_ husband to challenge the most aggressive of them to a duel. during the excitement of the preparation the happy thought comes to him to have the vicarious husband fight the duel. he does so and is killed. the cause of all the trouble, the lady, is quite ignorant of this arrangement and thinks the _de facto_ husband is battling with the most invincible sword of the city and that he will get killed, which is her desire. on returning to her house she finds her husband lunching as if nothing unusual had happened. the dramatic climax soon comes when she scornfully taunts him with having some one fight a duel for him and he replies: "not for me but for you." the play gives pirandello the opportunity to display his knowledge of the sentiments and passions of the modern "high life" individual. although they talk and act and express familiar sentiment in a way that makes one think they are real people, in reality they are unreal. they are taken from the author's imagination rather than from real life. the second comedy in this volume is much more meritorious than the first. the author portrays characters who well might have existed in the flesh. gasparina, who has put twenty-seven years of continency behind her and had achieved the direction of a second-class boarding-house, is derided and maltreated by her "guests." the most swagger of her boarders, who has been miraculously saved in a duel which followed a broken engagement, has an original idea. he will make a mock marriage with her and thus establish freedom from further love, annoyance, and duels. she sees in the proposal escape from the boarding-house. in the little villa of the country to which he sends her, under promise that she is not to make herself evident and where he is not to visit her, she blooms like a flower. in due course of time he falls in love again, and in order that he may accomplish matrimony he must free himself from gasparina. this could be accomplished, as it never was consummated, but the messenger, an old aspirant to her favor, is on the point of having his aspirations realized when the husband in name only sees in gasparina the woman he really loves. the curtain falls at an opportune moment before any hearts are broken or any blood is shed. it is one of the plays of pirandello that has had considerable success on the stage. he is in reality a finished workman, an accomplished stylist, a happy colorist, and fecund withal. his most important of the stories are "erma bifronte" ("deceitful hermes"), "la vita nuda" ("naked life"), "la trappola" ("the snare"), "e domani ... lunedi" ("and to-morrow--monday"), "un cavallo nella luna" ("a horse in the moon"), "quand ero matto" ("when i was crazy"), "bianche e nere" ("blacks and whites"); his romances, in addition to the ones already mentioned, are "i vecchi e i giovani" ("the old and the young"), and "si gira" ("one turns"), the most recent and poorest of them. it would be a mistake to convey the impression that pirandello is universally admired in italy. his stories and romances have an adventuresome quality that transcend ordinary experience, and his plays attempt to dispense with theatricalness and to substitute for it a subtle analysis of life with corrosive comment, both of which are very much resented. it is strange that the freudians have never explained the popularity of plays and novels concerned wholly or largely with sexual relations that infract convention and law as dominancy of the unconscious mind, a "wish fulfilment" of the waking state. it may be assumed that three-fourths of those who see and read them never have, and never contemplate (with their conscious minds) having, similar experiences. they would be scandalized were any one to assume that they approved such conduct. perhaps the explanation of the hold such literature has upon the public is the same as the interest we have in the accounts of criminals seeking to evade apprehension. it is not that we sympathize in any way with the malefactor. we are lawmaking, law-abiding, law-upholding citizens, and we know he ought not to escape, and, naturally, we hope he will be caught. however, we cannot help thinking what we would do confronted with his predicament. we feel that in his place we could circumvent the sleuths and overcome what would be to the ordinary person insuperable obstacles. thus we divert ourselves imagining what we would do if we were adulterous husbands, lecherous wives, lubricitous wooers, vicarious spouses, while assuring ourselves we are not and could never be, and plume ourselves that we could conduct ourselves even in nefariousness in such a way as to escape detection or, if detected, to disarm criticism. meanwhile we enjoy being virtue-rewarded and vice-punished, for it is only upon the stage or in books that it happens, save in exceptional instances. chapter vii improvisional italian literature of to-day and yesterday i never fully appreciated how hazardous it is to speak of the literature of a foreign country until i read an article in the _tribuna_ of rome, signed mario vinciguerra, on michaud's "mystiques et realistes anglo-saxons," which seeks to disparage the originality of some of our transcendentalists, particularly emerson, and to trace tendencies in our literature. i hope that i may be more successful in reviewing some of italy's recent literature and in making an estimate of the merit of those who are responsible for it than signor vinciguerra, who says the two most potent romancers of living american writers are jack london and upton sinclair. at least i shall not say that guido da verona and salvator gotta are the most potent romancers of italy, and even i shall not go so far as to say that luciano zuccoli is. any writer who would maintain that "before the breaking out of the war the books that made the greatest stir in the united states were upton sinclair's 'a captain of industry,' 'the jungle,' 'the metropolis,' and jack london's 'the iron heel,'" would not write himself so hopelessly ignorant of american literature as he would were he to claim that harold bell wright and rex beach were our leading novelists. such contention would show either unfamiliarity with our literature or dearth of understanding. previous to the war there was no such pouring out of literature in italy as there was in england, and there were few writers of fiction whose output or content could be compared with that of mr. h. g. wells, mr. arnold bennett, mr. hugh walpole, mr. gilbert cannan, mr. compton mackenzie, mr. d. h. lawrence, and others. d'annunzio had long since ceased to write romances. matilda serao was in the twilight of her years and literary career. grazia deledda was displaying stereotypy and zuccoli reploughed the familiar acre. french fiction was the favorite pabulum of the italian who would kill time, dispel ennui, and combat dearth. since then, however, there has been a great change and there is every indication that italians will provide literature for their countrymen which will at least obviate the necessity of importation. that it has not yet been accomplished, however, must be admitted in the beginning. the young writers are like birds trying their wings, aerial pilots striving for altitude tests. from their performances one is justified in hoping, indeed believing, that they will go far and soar high, but up to date verga dominates the field of italian fiction just as hardy dominates the field of english fiction. no reference to the literature of to-day should fail to take note of the fact that much of the most important and suggestive fiction does not appear in book form, or at least not for a long time, but in periodicals such as the monthlies and quarterlies, and also in such publications as _novella_ and _comoedia_. no one can gain a familiarity with the hundred or more active writers of fiction in italy who does not see and read such publications. they lend themselves readily to brevity and to that speeding up which the futurists urge, and they tend to do away with the long-drawn-out descriptions which are the despair of the average reader. another feature of the newer literature which augurs well for it is that its theme is not wholly portrayal of the genesic instinct and the multiform perversions to which it has been subject by culture and which christianity has been unable materially to influence. we realize how large the subject has bulked in the literature of every nation, but it is probably not beyond the truth to say that it has bulked larger in the modern literature of italy even than of france. it is natural that recent literature has begun to occupy itself with the conditions of the people and to display awareness of the new significance that they are giving to the words liberty and equality, and an attempt is being made to reconcile preaching and practising in their bearings on life here and hereafter. the acceptable fiction of to-day will reflect in some measure the world thought, or it will soothe man's cravings for assurance of future life and strengthen his belief in it. it is idle to deny that the pitch of man's thought to-day is materialistic, though his unconscious mind is steeped in the mystic. could we but teach future generations the pleasure-potency of the imagination, we should give them an asset that would enhance the usefulness and efficiency of their lives comparable to health. but for some years at least there has been a mistaken notion that the chief sources of pleasure are responding to the call of the instincts, the fortuitous offerings of chance, and awaiting the day when the vital sap will return from the branches of that universal tree upon which we are the leaves to the trunk, that the spirit may be restored to the infinite. "poor vaunt of life, indeed, were man but formed to feed on joy, to solely seek and find and feast." pedagogy has never concerned itself with our imaginative life. that is left to endowment and to chance, which sometimes shows itself in the shape of a literary critic. fortunate, indeed, is the people or nation that breeds competent critics, it matters not what field of activity they cultivate, letters, science, or theology. italy has had many such, but there is a greater dearth of them now than ever before. with the exception of benedetto croce there is perhaps no one of more than national reputation. it is, perhaps, unwise to select from the considerable number of present-day literary critics the names of a few, but i hazard it. emilio cecchi, of the rome _tribuna_, is a versatile, scholarly writer, a thoughtful, judicious estimator of his fellow writers' works, and a critic who is not obsessed with the impulse that is supposed to dominate a certain type of irishman, namely, to hit a head whenever he sees it. giuseppe prezzolini, who has been very intimate with the florentine group headed by papini and who has written a critical estimate of his writings and made a glowing statement of his personal charms, has a sympathy and admiration for the writers of what may be called the new school. that does not prevent him from being a keen observer, a logical thinker with a judicious capacity to weigh the evidence presented by his fellow writers in their claim for popularity and fame. he is a type of literary man new to italy, a keen critic, a clear thinker, a master of literary expression who devotes much of his energy to his publishing-house and to _la voce_. his writings are chiefly political and critical, "il sarto spirituale" ("the spiritual tailor"), "l'arte di persuadere" ("the art of persuading"), "cos' è il modernismo?" ("what is modernism?"). he has done more to introduce and bring forward the potent group of young writers than any one in italy. lionello fiumi, a young poet and critic, has published contributions that are noteworthy, but he has given no real capacity to analyze evidence, to sum it up, or to interpret it judiciously. his last effort to prove that corrado giovi is the poetic sun of italy to-day was anæmic and feeble. the antithesis of him is gherardo marone, who thinks that futurism and anarchism are synonymous, but the agnostic in religion sees no choice between catholicism and presbyterianism. he also maintains the extraordinary position that a great poet must needs be a great thinker. he is a very young man and his "difesa di dulcinea" ("defense of dulcinea") gives promise that when he gets in his stride he will go near the winning post. vincenzo cardarelli is a literary critic whose writings are characterized by erudition, sympathy, understanding, and a sense of responsibility. he has published a volume of poems entitled "prologhi" in line with the symbolist school of france, and especially stephane mallarmé. another critic who senses the trend of italian literature and puts correct interpretation upon it is g. a. borghese. two of the popular writers of fiction of to-day, alfredo panzini and luigi pirandello, i have discussed in a separate chapter. luciano zuccoli is the most conspicuous and successful exponent in italy of the type of fiction which was thrown upon the world for the first time now nearly two hundred years ago by samuel richardson, father of the novel of sentimental analysis. though zuccoli has a score of novels and romances to his credit, he would seem to be now at the height of his fecundity. the literary school in italy which is the outgrowth of the futuristic movement points the contemptuous finger at him and scoffs at his productions, but he has, nevertheless, a large following and is a writer of much skill. his success depends largely upon taking characters of the borghesia and exposing them to the ordinary incidents of life, such as love, matrimony, war, politics, and then depicting what comes "naturally" to some of the victims: disillusionment tugging at the leash until it snaps the illicit splicing of it to another snapped leash (for there is no divorce in italy); conflict between patriotism and pacifism, and between sentiment and idealism from a political, social, and personal point of view. he has got far away from the simpler delineations of his earlier books, such as "la freccia nel fianco" ("the arrow in the flank"), in which the love of a sentimental girl of eighteen for a boy of eight, the son of a most dissolute noble who tends to follow in his father's footsteps, is featured, and the meticulous discussion of the daily life of male and female sybarites, who have chosen the smooth and easy road to destruction as it travels through italy's wickedest city, milan, as in "fortunato in amore" and have come to keep what might be called better company, the company of those whose infraction of convention is conditioned more by environment than by determination. "l'amore non c'è più" ("there is no more love") and "il maleficio occulto" ("witchcraft") are other popular romances. virgilio brocchi is a similar writer, though his writings have never had similar popularity. his most meritorious books have been "mite" and "le aquile." his later books, such as "isola sonante," show the author's progress in literary craftsmanship. his last book, "secondo il cuor mio" ("according to my heart"), shows that he has had his ear to the ground and has noticed that the chariot labelled "public taste in letters" is being driven on a new road. there is a note of idealism in the conduct of gigi leoni, the artist passionately devoted to his art, in love with merine dialli, proud and rich; he refuses to accept her suggestion that he relinquish his art and do something that will lead to material success. after she has made a failure in matrimony with an army officer and returns to the artist, zuccoli succeeds in drawing with masterly strokes the portrait of a real hero, who, when he perishes later on the field of battle, excites unreservedly the admiration of his readers. in reality it is a book in which passion, of life or of the senses, as it sways an attractive man full of nobility and of dreams, is depicted in the traditional idealistic manner. the harold bell wright of italian fiction is guido da verona, and this does mr. wright an injustice, for he has never written pornographically and signor da verona has rarely written otherwise. but he is italy's best-seller. it is depressing to think that really great romances, like the "i malavoglia" of verga, stories such as capuana's "passa l'amore," or renato fucini's, or even panzini's "la madonna di mamà," should have a sale of only a few thousand copies, while books of the character of "mimi bluette," the flower of signor da verona's garden, should go up toward the hundred-thousand mark. it is an index of the salaciousness of the average person, whoever he may be. any review of italy's recent literature must mention "the woman who invented love," "life begins to-morrow," if for no other purpose than to show that there is a kind of literature in every country which has a great popularity. in belgium its clientele is found in the prurient of other countries; in france the "best people" do not read it or say they do not; in england the public censor prohibits it; and we have mr. comstock and his successors. "madeline," which has recently cost its guiltless publisher a fine, is "soft stuff" compared with "mimi bluette," and i doubt if mr. george moore could revoke any memories of his dead life that could hold a candle to some of signor da verona's actual life. there is little to be said in favor of his books that could not be said for narcotic-taking, gambling-hells, and underworld tango palaces. they have a glamour about them and an aroma that appeals to the feeble-minded, the inherently decadent, and the ennuyed idle. it is a realism whose reality exists only in a mind made lubricitous by cupidity. marino moretti is one of the young writers whose short stories and romances have found much favor. there is an atmosphere of triviality, of lightness, of inconsequentiality about his writings which is an important part of his art. in reality he is a finished technician and an artist with a wonderful mastery of perspective and of color, and a commendable capacity for expression. his particular charm is that he creates an atmosphere or a situation, but does not insist upon giving a chemical analysis or physical description of either. when he takes you to a drawing-room or to the bathing-beach at the fashionable hour he does not insist on presenting you to every one or giving you a detailed history of their lives and particularly of their amatory tidal waves. although he seems to give his clientele soft food, he does not insist on spoon-feeding them. in the guise of pap he gives them often thought-making pabulum. some of his popular books are "il sole del sabato" ("saturday's sun"), "guenda," "la voce di dio" ("the voice of god"), and "adamo ed eva." antonio beltramelli is another writer who has studied literary form to great purpose and with it he combines imaginative gifts of an exceptional order. his earlier books, short stories entitled "anna perena" and "i primogeniti" ("first-born sons"), were well received. he has recently come back to similar presentations in "la vigna vendemmiata" ("the harvested vineyard"), which while not revealing the spiritual growth which his admirers expected from him, shows him, nevertheless, to be a man of parts. his chief defect is his ignorance of behavioristic psychology which is nowhere better shown than in this collection of short stories, "la madre," for instance. moreover, it is an ambitious writer who makes a story of these unromantic facts; a stupid man with some of the characteristics of the ox and the rat is married to a gross, slovenly creature who deceives him. a friendly neighbor opens his eyes and he finds her and her paramour in the brake and cane around the vineyard. on his way thence he encounters the parish priest and asks him if one would be justified in meting out personal punishment to such transgressors. "perhaps yes, perhaps no" is the reply. when he comes upon the guilty couple he kills the man with the blow of a stick, then falls back upon the priest's words for justification. "gli uomini rossi" ("the red men") is his best-known romance. he has read and still reads cervantes and rabelais. had he the gift of artistic presentation he might become a great novelist, but until now he has confounded embellishment with natural beauty. among the fiction that has appeared in italy during the past year a few books call for mention, not because of their intrinsic merit but because it is indicative of the change that is going on in the minds of the common people which reflects particularly the thought now being given to social and psychological questions. the american reader of italian fiction cannot fail to be impressed with the poverty of subject-matter which it displays. this is explained partly by the fact that it is sometimes biographical and very often autobiographical--moreover, the family and social and religious customs of italy do not make for novelty or variety in individual life. the zone in which all the details of existence is predetermined by convention extends much farther with them both up and down the social scale than with us. if man is independent of it to some extent woman is not, and since there is no object in chronicling the obvious, popular italian fiction is apt to deal with excursions of man beyond his own circle and class. another thing that has to be kept in mind is the position of women. the important woman in the life of the majority of italians is the mother, not the wife. she is on terms of equality with her son and she retains much of the authority of the roman matron in her children's married life. this it need scarcely be said is changing with the eternal flux of things. italy of to-day is a very new country. whenever we as a nation do something which the italians consider gauche or raw, and they are obliged to dislocate an inherent politeness by mention of it, they excuse us because we are so young. so one excuses an infant for some verbal or conductual infraction. in reality we are about a century older than italy of to-day, and we have spent that time developing a "manner" that reflects our protracted habituation to freedom. that it is sometimes masked by arrogance and self-satisfaction is to be regretted. hence our indifference to convention which is often painful to the foreigner. it is a mistake to think that it is only the upper classes of italy who are beholden to unwritten convention and customs. in truth, subscription to them is more mandatory amongst the borghesia and il popolo. with the gradual dissemination and acceptation of the doctrines of socialism, the equal rights of women, and the widening sphere of culture through universal education, many of the shackling conventions of to-day will disappear. the younger workers are blazing the way. of those who herald this change mario mariani must be heeded. in "la casa dell' uomo" ("the house of man"), he makes a satiric onslaught against the amorous, avid of money and of pleasure, who are ready to sacrifice every basic virtue in order to obtain them. after presenting a picture of the present-day cages of human beings he tells his story through the mouth and diary of the janitress of a modern apartment-house, who being deprived by time of her pulchritude and sensuous appeal, has been obliged to forego her chosen profession, that of mrs. warren, and to gain her livelihood in the sweat of her brow. she has visions of a day when she can no longer even do that, and yet must needs have food, raiment, and shelter; so she keeps a diary which sets forth the flagrancies of the tenants, men, women, and children. she does not admit that the entries are the wythes of blackmail. she salves such conscience as has survived her life of sin by assuring herself that the entries in the book are to assuage literary growing pains. when signor mariani obtained the documents by fabrication or by stealth he found himself in possession of the "characters" of many individuals, young and old, who present a strange similarity to those we encounter in daily life. he has seen fit to publish them without saying whether it was art or bread that was the incentive, and they constitute a serious charge against society. the wonder is that if such things exist the social fabric conserves the appearance of well-being. in truth, life is not a mask behind which the wearer laughs, if this diary is to be believed. it is in reality a tragedy made up of a tissue of hypocrisies, banalities, sordid commonplaces, inimical to joy, subversive of pleasure, and destructive of happiness. it is obvious that de maupassant is the author's model. despite a certain vivacity of form, his tales are in substance very old-fashioned and his characters are so sordid and sensual that their actions and their fate from an artistic point of view fail to interest. in "smorfia dell' anima" ("grimaces of the soul"), the central theme is that all people who defy accepted morals are much more honest and happy than those who hypocritically accept convention but do not conform to the moral laws which underlie them. there is a certain amount of truth in this view, but it will not stand too much insistence. though signor mariani's books are not entitled to laudation, they, with his commentual writing, encourage us to await the advent of his full powers with a sincere belief that he will arrive in italian letters. gino rocca is a young milanese writer who has returned from the war with ideas and capacity to express them. his novel "l'uragano" is what is popularly called powerful. it is the same old theme, love and adultery, but it introduces what may be called new reactions. it is a story of a young man who, "temperamentally unfit" to live in the refined and shut-in atmosphere of his parental home, goes to milan and does successfully newspaper work while giving himself copiously to what is called a life of sin. the picture of this life is one with which readers of modern french fiction are familiar. through the mediation of a sympathetic aunt he encounters a lady burdened with an unworthy husband, who makes such appeal to him that he abandons the gaming-table and the underworld, but in such a way as to leave the impression that it would have been only temporary had not the call to arms put them beyond his reach. in the army and in the hospital, while idealizing his innamorata he has experiences which show him the perfidy of the feminine human heart. when he returns to milan he realizes that even with his enriched experience he is not yet the man who understands women, for he has yet to learn of the inconstancy of her to whom he attributed all the virtues. this discovery gives the writer an opportunity to depict a profound emotional storm from which the novel gets its name and from which the hero emerges a better man. there is nothing noteworthy in the book except its character delineation. it is a novel in so far as it is an exact and complete reproduction of social surroundings or environment, but photographs are often spoiled by being colored. it shows the writer to have a mastery of literary technic and an unusual capacity for expression. another writer who has shown himself a master of verbal structure and adept in the delineation of character, a student of psychological reactions and facile artist of the environment in which they are displayed, is raffaele calzini. his first short stories, "la vedova scaltra" ("the wary widow"), published seven or eight years ago, were hailed by some critics as the work of a writer of potential distinction. they are coloristic or impressionistic stories. although he has not yet given proof that he will earn enduring fame, he is nevertheless one of the most promising of the younger writers, and, although he is not prolific, each succeeding publication has added to his fame. his last contribution is a comedy entitled "le fedeltà" ("fidelity"). i could not have better illustrations of the rôle played by autobiography in modern fiction than two recent novels--one by michele sapanaro, "peccato" or "six months of rustic life"; the other by frederigo tozzi, "con gli occhi chiusi" ("with closed eyes"). the first is a fresh, ingenuous book with a vein of romanticism which does not run into great effusion or great amativeness, in which is depicted the atmosphere, environment, and inhabitants of a small community in southern italy, whither the writer has gone to visit his peasant brother and to recover from some of the wounds inflicted upon him in transformation from peasant to "gentleman." it is undoubtedly an elaborated, embellished chapter of the author's life. that "with closed eyes," a novel of provincial and peasant life in tuscany, is wholly autobiographical, we have the testimony of a fellow tuscan who says of signor tozzi that he first met him when he was a waiter in his father's tavern. lazy, slothful, unkempt, and of coarse appearance, he had a passion for reading angiolieri and verlaine. he was radical, socially and politically. after a colorless, misspent youth beyond authority, parental or communal, he began newspaper work, the stepping-stones of so many italian writers of to-day. the discipline of military life and the environment of rome effected a change in his outward appearance, and the composition of his book, "bestie" ("beasts"), which the church put on the index, helped him spiritually. "with closed eyes" is a narrative of his life, sordid, ugly, commonplace, revealing, however, a gradual spiritual uplift and refinement. it was not until the publication of "tre croci" that he was much discussed. competent critics such as signor borghese think that italy's most promising literary light was extinguished when frederigo tozzi died in rome, in march, 1920. his literary output was not great for a man who had lived thirty-eight years, but it can truthfully be said that each succeeding volume from his pen showed that he was likely one day to be verga's successor in the literary primacy of italy. his last romance, "il podere," ("the farm,") has not yet appeared in book form. one cannot always judge from first performances the potentialities of a writer. a few years ago rosso di san secondo, a young sicilian, published "io commemoro loletta" ("i commemorate loletta"), a series of short stories which in substance and in workmanship showed not only no talent but no promise of talent. in reality they seemed to show an absence of artistic capacity, architectural ability, and literary taste. a year later "la bella addormentata" ("the sleeping beauty"), a coloristic, mystic drama, a strange mixture of plotinus and dionysius, revealed real talent. the sleeping beauty, of infantile mind and facial pulchritude, formerly a servant, yielded to the advances of a notary, the nephew of a senile, implacable shrew, whose miserly savings he and his sister hoped to inherit. after a few secure trips on the sliding-board of sensual indulgence, the sleeping beauty shot to the bottom of the pit and became the travelling harlot of a caravan which went from one country fair to another. the more frequently she yielded the body the greater became her spiritual detachment, until finally she lived in a world of unreality. becoming pregnant, the spiritual flame gradually lighted up in her, and finally blazed under the ardent fanning of a new type of lothario, nero of the sulphur mines, half knight, half jail-bird, but withal a romantic and seductive figure. his flair for her was wholly spiritual. not only did he encourage her to renounce her life, but he insisted that she return to the house of the notary. they go there and she charges him with her interesting condition, even though three years have elapsed. water doesn't flow in the brook of the valley if there is no spring higher up. the aunt who has sought in vain the opportunity to crush the cringing hypocrite whose outward life had seemingly been one of virtue and rigorous conventionalism, sees it now. she compels him to marry the sleeping beauty. he becomes the butt of the taunts and derisions of the community, juvenile and adult, especially after the child is born. the strain is too much for him and he hangs himself when he realizes that the dying aunt has left her money to the child of another and to the church. from the moment the sleeping beauty felt a new life within her a spiritual torch was lit in her soul, which illuminated the abyss into which she had fallen to such purpose that she found her way out, with the helping hand which nero held out to her. continuing to burn during her gestation and delivery, it conditioned her spiritual resurrection and the moral rehabilitation of nero. the impression left in the mind of the reader is that they live together happily forever after, the summum bonum of earthly existence, because of the happiness that flows from it and because it insures eternal repose in paradise. although the play was received with groans and howls and shrieks of depreciation when it was first given in rome, nevertheless some of the eternal verities are accentuated and carried home by nero of the mines and by the sleeping beauty. i find greater difficulty in writing of recent italian poetry than of fiction. in the first place, i have not read it so extensively, and, in the second, nearly every writer of fiction writes poetry as well. some of the young poets are discussed in the chapter on futurists in literature. here i shall mention one or two others. guido gozzano, who recently died, in his twenty-eighth year, was a prolific writer of verse. it is confidently claimed by some critics that he earned the distinction of being called italy's most representative poet, the only one since pascoli and d'annunzio who made a new vibration to the poetic lyre and stamped verse with an individual conception which poetasters have more or less accepted. but he suffered from hyperfecundity, and many of his intellectual children are anæmic and rachitic. even though they are endowed with some feature of beauty their vitality is so slight that no one wants to adopt them, and their parent being busy with the creation of others, neglects them after having given them one passably decent suit of clothes in the shape of book-form publications, so they die. guido gozzano was a melancholy figure. from life he appeared to have got only sadness. at twenty-five years it had deluged his soul. his true infelicity was then of not being able even to be sad. scarcely had he entered youth before he felt old. he had no companions, he was often ill; nothing appealed to him, not even poetry. literary life resembled death. he forsook the city for the country, and the novelty of it for a while diverted him. but it was not for long. he vacillated between doing nothing and dreaming, between contemplating the emptiness of a grotesque reality and the nostalgia of an unreal life, felt but not seen. he was never emotional, never exalted, never blasphemous. nevertheless, he would seem to have written incessantly. "verso la cuna del mondo" ("toward the cradle of the world") consists of the impressions of a voyage in india made in 1912 and 1913. "i colloqui" is a book of fables for children. in the "l'altare del passato" ("the altars of the past") gozzano takes as a rhythm the cry for the things that were; the past arises anew in the intimacy of his feelings to tempt him and to inspire him. it is the generous wine that he hopes will intoxicate him and fill him with joy. its effects are transitory. his last book, "l'ultima traccia" ("the last traces"), did not materially enhance his reputation as a story-teller. the story called "the eyes of the soul" is undoubtedly the best. a beautiful girl has to live her betrothed days alone; her fiancé goes to the war. she contracts smallpox, which disfigures her. when she is called to his bedside in the hospital where he is lying wounded, perhaps dying, she is concerned what his feelings will be when he sees her face. when she gets there he is not mortally injured, he is blind. francesco chiesa has already differentiated himself from the writing herd and his "viali d'oro" has had great popularity with the younger generation of his country. his style, imagery, and masterful synthesis is best seen in the volume entitled "istorie e favole," a collection of short stories. another young italian writer who is likely to come to the fore is piero jahier. he wrote the best war story, "con mi e con gli alpini." "ragazzo," a recent publication, shows him in an entirely different light. alfredo bacceli was a young man of great promise in letters. his "verso la morte" ("toward death"), showed clear vision, deep feeling, and mastery of form. some of the most conspicuous of the present-day poets of italy are marradi, pastonchi, rapisardi, siciliani, and sindici. the first two are lyric poets, the last two masters of form in addition. luigi siciliani, who became a member of parliament in the last elections, is the one of this group who is most likely to be remembered. his "canti perfetti," translations from the greek, latin, portuguese, and english, published in 1910, showed him to be not only a student but a writer possessed of exquisite literary craftsmanship. he has written novels, criticisms, anthologies, but the volume by which he is best known is "poesie per ridere," published in 1909. francesco meriano, one of the group of young literary italians that are known through the _brigata_ of bologna, and who published some years ago a volume of futuristic poetry entitled "equatore notturno," is the author of a volume containing his lyric compositions of the past four years, entitled "croci di legno" ("wooden crosses"), which has been very well received by the critics. in marino moretti's "poesie" we encounter things which make us think of the great poets--little perfections that much recent poetry almost no longer knows, lucidity, subtle vision and modesty. if poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity some of these verses are real poetry. alfredo de bosis, translator of shelley's cenci and advocate of walt whitman, is the author of many lyrical poems, some of which have been highly praised. the three most prolific writers for the stage of yesterday in italy are roberto bracco, sem benelli, and dario niccodemi. they have all had much success outside of their own country, and their names are well known to readers and theatre-goers of our own country. they are now in the fulness of their mature years, but with the exception of the latter none has given evidence in recent productions of having sensed the change that has taken place in the likings of the theatre-going public in italy. signor bracco, a neapolitan approaching sixty years of age, has for the past twenty years worn gracefully the mantle of giacosa. his works have been published in ten fat volumes averaging three plays to a volume, mostly comedies. of these the most important are "l'infedele" ("the unfaithful woman"), and "il trionfo" ("the triumph"), both published in 1895. the best of his dramas are "tragedie dell' anima" ("the tragedies of the soul") and "la piccola fonte" ("the little spring"), which becomes the fount of life in inspiration for those with whom the heroine comes in contact. the best of his tragedies is "sperduti nel buio" ("lost in the darkness"). this brief enumeration gives no idea of the versatility of signor bracco, who in reality has depicted in his twoscore plays the ravages of carnal love in peasant and prince, in maid and in mistress, in priest and professor, in the underworld and in the overworld, in the cradle and in the grave. had the display of love and the passions that flow from it any confines, they would encompass signor bracco's imagination. although denied what is called a scholastic education, he has studied science and philosophy, literature and art, but always with one object in view: to learn what human beings think and do when swayed by sexual passion. not that anything that he has written can be construed as exalting it or as licensing it. on the contrary, the moral of the majority of his plays is that continence, like virtue, is its own reward. although signor bracco would be the last to admit that he has not had an uplift motive in his writings, it is difficult to discover it. nor does he point the way that will lead to avoidance of the suffering that flows, apparently with so much directness, from social convention, from privilege, and from the almost mediæval position of women in certain parts of italy to-day. he is a realist of realists in fiction, but he is like a physician who is content to diagnose disease and leave to others its prevention and its cure. a writer who dyes his products in bracco's vat, then for contrast colors them with sardou and dumas, which, exposed for sale in the market-place, find avid purchasers and bring high prices, is dario niccodemi, whose comedies, especially "scampolo" ("the remnant") and "l'ombra" ("the shadow"), have had great success. in his last two books, "il titano" ("the titan") and "prete pero" ("priest pero"), he gives evidence that he is keenly discerning of the new social consciousness that has developed in italy apparently as the result of the war. "prete pero," while depicting the subterfuges of the church to accomplish its ends and the arguments that it uses to convince that the ends justify the means, portrays one of those simple, faithful, honest, transparent souls, in the shape of father bragio, who have been the pillars of the roman church which no samson has ever been able to tear down. "i wrote 'prete pero,'" he says, "as a journalist writes a series of articles or as a speaker makes a series of conferences--for a general idea; but i have had two, the first æsthetic, to sustain the principle that in italy, as in france and in england, and, indeed, in every country agonized by this terrible war, one might make and make acceptably war comedies; second, moral, to prove that it is permitted to say from the stage in verse or in prose that which in the past four years has been said in journals, in speeches, in conferences, in parliament and in committees, which is: in the disorder of the social organization produced by the phenomena of war there have been sublime heroes and brazen-faced cheats and swindlers." "prete pero" showed that signor niccodemi has a nose for the favorite perfume of the modern reader, just as his "l'ombra" showed it when he afflicted his heroine with hysterical paralysis and then cured her by the method which freud originally called the cathartic method. dario niccodemi has not added materially to the dignity of italian letters, but he has amused and diverted his countrymen and ourselves, and for that we are grateful. sem benelli, who has recently had political life thrust upon him is, in common with many literary jews in italy, inclined to give himself a certain mystery of origin by concealing his antecedents. in reality he was born in 1877. not only is he well known in italy but in this country, where one of his early plays, "la cena delle beffe" ("the supper of the jests"), has had great success. he began his literary career as a journalist on a florentine review, _marzocco_. his first play was published when he was twenty-five years old. although "la tignola" ("the moth") showed unusual quality of construction and contrasted with great force the artistic temperament with the world of the big business, it was not until "la cena delle beffe" that he arrived. his great forte is to be able to put melodrama of the most lurid kind into verse, while depicting the lives and customs of the aristocracy of the renaissance, whose standard of morals and canons of conduct were so unlike those of to-day. his heroes are always in search of revenge, his women of adventure. in his "le nozze dei centauri" ("the marriage of the centaurs") he widens the field of his activity to display the conflict of christian and barbarian, but again it is the same thing, adventure and revenge. he does not trouble to be historically exact. it does not matter to him whether his characters are true to life so long as they are true to his conception of revengefulness. to accomplish his purpose he often strikes a note that reminds of his ancestors of the old testament. the leader of all the younger italian writers in drama and tragedy is luigi ercole morselli, born at pesaro in 1883. the commission nominated by the ministry of instruction to decide the most meritorious dramatic production of 1918 awarded the prize of six thousand lire to him. as a youth he studied medicine and later letters in florence, but he soon deserted them and wandered in america and africa. his first success, a pagan theme entitled "orione," was recognized by competent critics to have originality and unusual dramatic qualities, but he was by way of being forgotten when nearly ten years later, 1919, a mystic drama based upon mythology, entitled "glauco," appeared. it was produced in rome and was greeted with every manifestation of approval. in reality it had an astonishing but merited success. glauco, the amorous fisherman, in order to obtain his scilla, braves the sea and seeks renown and riches. but, alas for human frailties, he falls under the enchantment of calypso. when he returns to his native shore to claim his best-beloved he learns of the heart-breaking events that have transpired during his absence. neither he nor scilla can tolerate constant reminder of them and they disappear in the deep waves after one of the most remarkable farewells in modern literature. morselli does not follow either the mythological stories or their recent reconstruction very closely. on the contrary he makes the events of the legends harmonize with or conform to the laws that govern modern amatoriousness. his heroes react in their love and hate, ambition, realizations, in the same way as the people of to-day. his world is a mythological world, but it is scenery in which we live or visit, and it is peopled by men and women who love, hate, envy, portray, succor, and defend, quite like the modern world. he has recently published two new dramas entitled "belfagor" and "dafni e cloe." his fiction is a volume of fanciful tales called "favole per i re d'oggi" ("fables for the kings of to-day"), and short stories which have appeared in magazines and journals. another young writer for the stage is nino berrini. the success of "il beffardo" ("the jester") was so great that one may confidently look forward to his career without fear of disappointment. other successes in the theatrical world of 1919 in italy were "la vena d'oro" ("the vein of gold"), of zorzi, and in much lesser degree "la nostra ricchezza" of gotta. the author of the latter is a man of thirty-three years who returned from the war with new ideas regarding the rights of the people, liberty, or whatever one calls that which underlies the present social unrest. he has written many short stories, several romances, of which "ragnatele" ("cobwebs"), "il figlio inquieto" ("the restless son") and "la più bella donna del mondo" ("the most beautiful woman in the world") are the most important. not only is he a man of ideas, but he has disciplined himself to a chaste and virile way of expressing them. in "our riches" he has given an admirable picture of the honest, high-principled aristocrat-farmer of his native territory ivrea, who has the same feeling for his acres that the ideal patriot has for his country: reverence and love, and a paternal interest in the welfare of those who gain their livelihood in serving him. in contrast with him is his grandson, who has the same reverence and affection for the ancestral home and acres but who sees life, its entailments and its privileges, in an entirely different light, who is a socialist in the correct sense of the term. then he draws with great distinctness the daughter of the former and the mother of the latter, who is confronted with the conflict of choosing between her son, father, and husband, the latter a profiteering shark in the world of affairs. the weakness of the play is the author's failure or unwillingness to define his own state of mind concerning property rights and property distribution, or to define the relationship that should exist between product and producer, capital and labor. were i obliged to characterize the fictional output of italy during the past few years, i should say that it was imaginatively sterile and emotionally fecund. whereas much of it displays technical efficiency in form, construction, and finish, it lacks originality and does not reveal comprehensive imaginativeness, which the renowned fiction of every country has always had and must continue to have. it must be said, however, that it portrays human nature: that is, thoughts and emotional reactions incited and elicited by new conditions and new aspirations in such a way as to pique the reader's curiosity and sustain his interest. the italian novelists of to-day are not story-tellers; they are incident-relaters, narrators of personal experiences, observers armed with cameras. chapter viii fictional biography and autobiography often i find myself thinking of the justification of autobiographical writing in fiction. the modern italian writer is devoted to it. d'annunzio set the example a generation ago and carried it to such a point that he outraged all sense of decency. so long as he confined himself to revelation of his own alleged amatory potency and mastery of the arts of love, even though he trampled upon sacred ideals, the public tolerated it. when he strained the sensualities of well-known and beloved notabilities through the percolators of his perverse imagination they sickened of him and denounced him. it is an exquisite form of self-appreciation--the belief that the commonplace events, deliberate thoughts, and vagrant fancies of an individual who has in no way distinguished himself will divert and instruct others, and that they are worthy of record. the fact that such writings are bought is the justification they allege. but the public is like the editor of a magazine. he has to read reams of trash to find one worthy and acceptable contribution. the purpose of fiction may be manifold, but it is read chiefly for distraction and diversion. the critic and interpreter read it to get the temper of the public mind and the trend of its projection, but the purchaser of it reads it to get surcease of the woes of life, whether they be the ruts worn by operating the daily treadmill or the despondencies thrust upon him by circumstances more inexorable than the tigers of hyrcania. it is not likely that the occurrences in the life of another commonplace individual even though they are pieced with fiction will suffice to provide this. therefore those who turn to the narration of the lives of others in which there have been stirring events, picturesque phases, and romantic incidents are likely to have greater success. whether it is a legitimate procedure is another question. it is a matter of taste. it was as justifiable for mr. somerset maugham to portray paul gauguin in "the moon and sixpence" as it was for mr. morley roberts to describe george gissing in "the private life of henry maitland," and even more so, for the latter had revealed himself adequately in his books. nothing was to be gained by raking up a past that led through prison any more than the prison days of o. henry is an asset of immortality. sometimes such writings have a meritoriousness apart from their literary qualities. the "green carnation" did much to inform britishers how prevalent and pernicious was the vice which its prototype was afterward locked in reading gaol for practising and apotheosizing. to take a man whose fame has mounted steadily since his death and make a monster of him is a hazardous and, many will think, an iniquitous thing to do, even though the individual during his lifetime was unmoral and immoral. this is what mr. somerset maugham has done for paul gauguin, master of the pont aven school of painting; dislocater of impressionism and neo-impressionism; liberator of art from stereotyped, slavish copyists of nature; apostle of intellectualism and emotionalism versus æstheticism, and from it he has created charles strickland, victim of a strange disease resulting in dissociation of personality. the critics tell us "the moon and sixpence" is a "great" book. from the standpoint of literary construction it may be entitled to such designation. from the standpoint of one who desires in fiction some verisimilitude of life as it is, or as it should be if it were ideal, it is disgusting and nauseous, atavistic in implication, primitive in delineation, bestial in its suggestion, and it tends to undermine faith in the fundamental goodness of human nature. it is radicalism in realism carried to the _n_th degree. a middle-class englishman of unknown antecedents, of commonplace somatic and intellectual possessions, of emotional barrenness and shut-in personality, marries, procreates, and serves--on the london stock exchange, after the manner of his kind, until he is forty. if artistic impulses had peeped from his unconscious mind to his conscious he had not betrayed them. then, when constructive incubal activity had passed its height, he becomes big with the idea that his unsightly hulk harbors the soul of an artist. he forsakes his family without warning and without making the smallest provision for their maintenance or welfare, goes to paris to study art, to scorn convention and decency, and to treat mankind with contumely. he knows no french, and gradually his english vocabulary shrinks to "you are a damn fool" when a man makes proffer of service or supper, and "tell her to go to hell" if the offer of self or succor comes from a woman. when he writes, however, his mental elaborations encompass the degree that permits him to pen this chaste message: "god damn my wife. she is an excellent woman. i wish she was in hell." like all victims of dementia præcox, when the disorder conditions bizarre conduct for the first time in mid-maturity, he becomes profoundly egocentric, neglectful of his appearance and of his person, and callously insensitive to the feelings and rights of others. as the components of personality dissociate the god disappears, the beast remains, puissant and uncontrollable when under the dominion of primeval appetites or instincts. he has no pride to swallow when he feeds from the hand that still stings from slapping him, no more than does the lion who devours the meat thrust into his cage on the prong that a moment before prodded and wounded him. "haven't you been in love since you came to paris?" is mr. maugham's euphemistic question, in his effort to find out for mrs. strickland if her husband has been faithful to his marriage vows. after noting strickland's "slow smile starting and sometimes ending in the eyes, which was very sensual, neither cruel nor kindly, but suggested rather the inhuman glee of the satyr," he got this answer: "i haven't got time for that sort of nonsense. life isn't long enough for love and art." this is not what michaelangelo said to vittoria colonna. it is what tom cat says when not in the throes of concupiscency. then mr. maugham gives a new verbal dress to the devil, who was sure when ill he would like to be a monk, but who in good health didn't fancy monastic life. "you know that all the time your feet have been walking in the mud. and you want to roll yourself in it, and you find some woman, coarse and low and vulgar, some beastly creature in whom all the horror of sex is blatant, and you fall upon her like a wild animal. you drink till you're blind with rage." poor strickland, in the throes of mental dissolution, obsessed, enmeshed in stereotypy, is still capable of sufficient mental reaction to realize that "you are a damn fool" or "go to hell" was not an appropriate rejoinder or comment to such a speech, so "he stared at me without the slightest movement. i held his eyes with mine. i spoke very closely." "when it's over you feel so extraordinarily pure; you feel like a disembodied spirit, immaterial, and you seem to be able to touch beauty as though it were a palpable thing; and you feel an intimate communion with the breeze, and with the trees breaking into leaf, and with the iridescence of the river. you feel like god." the antivivisectionists should get after doctor maugham. it is cruelty to humans to hold unfortunate strickland with hypnotic eye, and then thrust a record of experience so obviously personal upon him--or was it only a recollection of some published experiences of george sand and alfred de musset--garnered from those days when he "idled on the quays, fingering a second-hand book that i never meant to buy," after he settled down in paris and began to write a play? every johnson has his boswell, though he may be mute, unrecording, and sterile, and every sadist has his masochist. the young dutchman, vincent van gogh, a constitutional psychopath, whose mental aberrations took him into spiritual exhortation, social reformation, and finally "art," often tried to kill gauguin. when the latter showed himself versed in mayhem van gogh made his bed, lit his pipe, wrapped himself in serenity and shot himself in the abdomen, as lunatics often do. not so dick stroeve, strickland's fidus achates. he worshipped strickland, who reviled him, kicked him, spat upon him; stroeve, who naïvely asks, "have i ever been mistaken?" in his estimate of artists, knew that strickland was a great artist, greater than manet or corot, more puissant than el greco or cézanne, and that he had been sent to complete the cycle which delacroix and turner ushered in. stroeve, a passive, asexual creature, had married a temperamental english governess in rome, where he had earned the soubriquet of "le maître de la boîte à chocolats" after she had had a disastrous experience with the son of an italian prince whose children she had been hired to instruct. when strickland falls desperately ill from the combined effects of insufficient food, touting for prurient anglicans, and translating the advertisements of french patent medicines that "restore" doctor maugham's countrymen to such a degree that they may go to paris with pleasurable anticipation, stroeve takes him to his house, despite the strenuous opposition and pathetic protests of mrs. stroeve, whose previous fleeting contacts with strickland echoed the call of the wild in her and presaged disaster. from the moment he arrived the fat was in the fire. no affinities are so difficult to keep from blending as sex affinities, facetiously called soul affinities by the newspapers. strickland's spark was fanned lovingly into glow by stroeve, and when it flamed he threw stroeve out of his house, possessed complaisant mrs. stroeve violently, and then put her on canvas, nude, "one arm beneath her head and the other along her body, one knee raised, the other leg stretched out." after nature's cataclysm had spent itself, mrs. stroeve committed suicide in approved feminine fashion by taking a corroding acid, without condoning her husband's offense--that of being virtuous. when she died stroeve, a true masochist, looked up strickland, forgave him, invited him to go with him to holland, because "we both loved blanche. there would have been room for him in my mother's house. the company of poor, simple people would have done his soul a great good." but strickland, becoming for the moment verbally more expansive, replied: "i have other fish to fry." when mr. maugham spoke to him about stroeve's visit he said: "i thought it damned silly and sentimental." the author doesn't attempt a synopsis of the mental process that took strickland to tahiti, via marseilles, though he depicts experiences that parallel those of gauguin. instead he animadverts on love and the sexual appetite to such purpose as to reveal that he is not expert in biology, psychology, or art. "for men love is an episode which takes its place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid upon it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life." but what about the emphasis laid upon it by countless thousands who find in it a quality of that ennobling spiritual peace called faith, and which will be their reward when they repose in abraham's bosom and live forever with god in paradise? "as lovers the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times." and the difference between male and female animals is that the female of the species permits contact at certain definite times, while the males are all barkises. "art is a manifestation of the sexual impulse. it is the same emotion which is excited in the human heart by the sight of a lovely woman, the bay of naples under the yellow moon, and the 'entombment' of titian." after the author delivered himself of a statement so pregnant of platitude he must have experienced a sense of lightening, and a conviction that he would not have to consult the drei abhandlungen zur sexualtheorie at least until he wrote his next book. that art has a definite purpose to perpetuate the creative will and that god endowed his image with a genesic instinct that he might create and thus reproduce his kind every one knows, but to contend that one is a manifestation of the other is puerile, unenlightened, and harks back to barbarism. one might think that there is no such thing as the psychology of art or the science of æsthetics. art has an intellectual significance as well as, or more than, an emotional significance, and the unfortunate, unhappy, disequilibrated man who is parodied in this book contributed his substantial mite in the twentieth century to make us see it. any one who reads the "lettres de paul gauguin," which are prefaced by a brief survey of his life by victor segalen, or his life by jean de rotonchamps, which was published at weimar at the expense of count von kessler, will see how closely maugham described gauguin's life in the polynesian cannibal islands. strickland marries the native girl ata, who had a "beguin" for him, but gauguin had tioka in his maison de joie without benefit of clergy. doctor coutras, who gives mr. maugham so much valuable information (via rotonchamps and segalen) is m. paul vernié, who attended gauguin and wrote an account of his last days. despite the fact that in july, 1914, the london _times_ lifted the veil of secrecy from the face of the most prevalent disease in the world, and thus announced that the name of the disease which fracastorius, the poet-physician of verona, borrowed from the shepherd syphlus should be no longer taboo by "nice people," the prevalence of the disease and the efforts to combat it have been widely discussed, though they are not topics of conversation at dinner-parties or at "welfare meetings" in churches, as tuberculosis is. it is for this reason, perhaps, that the author prefers to kill his "hero" with leprosy. but doctor maugham has been devoting so much of his time in latter years to novels and dramas that he finds the differentiation between them difficult, and, too, gauguin's disease has been diagnosticated leprosy, elephantiasis, syphilis. "la dernière de ces avaries est exacte, mais ne doit pas être imputées au pays: c'était une pure vérole parisienne." "the moon and sixpence" is interesting. there is scarcely any diversion more engrossing than reading about others' infirmities unless it be relating one's own. hence the continued popularity of pepys, amiel, rousseau, marie bashkirsteff, and other garrulous sufferers. but it is a book that no one can be the better or happier for reading, and it does gauguin's memory an injury because it parodies it. his life as it has been revealed to us was bizarre and irregular enough. we could wish that he had been less like rimbaud and more like rodin, but, distressing as his behavior was, seen in conventional light, we should like not to have seen it featured in fiction. mr. maugham wrote a novel, "out of human bondage," which is a far more meritorious piece of work than "the moon and sixpence," in which some of his professional colleagues--he is a physician--recognized portraitures. perhaps it was his success with them that encouraged him to try a larger canvas. the author's admitted cleverness was never more evident than in the depiction of mrs. strickland's character and characteristics--a smug philistine, who runs the gamut of preciosity, jealousy, martyrdom, autorighteousness, and autosanctification. she is pleased and proud as she views the veneer of sanctimoniousness which her son, in holy orders, gives the dearly beloved husband of mrs. charles strickland, who wrote his father's biography "to remove certain misconceptions which had gained currency," viz., that doctor maugham is masquerading as a psychiatrist and publishing his experiences with the insane, meanwhile throwing off "punk" about art and traducing normal, though admittedly "immoral," man. "there is in my nature a strain of asceticism, and i have subjected my flesh each week to a severe mortification. i have never failed to read the literary supplement of the _times_." so says mr. somerset maugham. the first part of the statement is difficult to believe after reading "the moon and sixpence." the latter part may be true, but it can't be truer than the statement that any one, possessed of ordinary decency and sensibility, and belief that love, sentiment, kindliness, generosity, altruism, forgiveness, and faith are the seven lamps that illumine our path on our way to immortality, will subject his flesh to severe mortification, while being interested and sometimes even amused by reading mr. maugham's new book. chapter ix the literary mausoleum of samuel butler "those two fat volumes with which it is our custom to commemorate the dead--who does not know them, with their ill-digested masses of material, their slipshod style, their love of tedious panegyric, their lamentable lack of selection, of detachment, of design?" _--lytton strachey._ samuel butler's "note-books" and "the authoress of the odyssey" added to the delights of the spring of 1915, which i spent in sicily. the former, which is the quintessence of his wisdom and his impudence, gave revealing peeps into the mental and emotional make-up of the man who in "erewhon" forecast the advent of the supremacy of machines and anticipated mrs. eddy in considering disease a sin and a crime, and the latter gave a quickened interest to trapani, segesta, and many other places, some of which have since become shrines in my memory. from these "note-books" and from "the way with all flesh," which gave a remarkable vista of his own unconscious mind as well as those of his ancestors, i made a vivid picture of the author. it has been blurred, and in some respects quite erased by the two massive biographic volumes recently given to the world by mr. henry festing jones,[a] and which depicts him in all the nakedness of his virtues and his infirmities, revealing an unloving and unlovable character. some day it will be explained to us why we cannot be left in possession of the cherished delusions that add to our happiness, increase our good-will toward our fellow men, and in no wise impair the reputations of those to whom they are directed. [a] "samuel butler, author of 'erewhon,'" a memoir by henry festing jones, macmillan & co., london, 1919. one of the things that is most difficult to forgive a biographer is the wealth of sordid details they give us about our gods. who can forgive ranieri, for instance, for having told us with so much particularity that leopardi hated to change his shirt or to take a bath, that he had a passion for cheap sweets, that he insisted upon keeping the servants of the household where he was a guest up until midnight in order that he might have his principal meal, that he was morbidly susceptible to adulation? it does not advantage any one to know such things, even if they are true, and if it serves any laudable purpose i am not aware that it has been set forth. mr. jones's biography is painfully candid and distressingly frank and confidential. samuel butler's life was one of rebellion and resignation, of contention and strife, of unhappiness and unyieldingness, of disappointment and suspicion, of wrongheartedness and rightmindedness, of rude energy and crude revery. he had a vanity of his intellectual capacity that transcends all understanding and a passion for what he called doing things thoroughly. he believed in the music of handel, in the art of giovanni bellini, and his credo was the thirteenth chapter of st. paul's first epistle to the corinthians, which apotheosizes charity and humility. samuel butler may have had charity and humility on his lips, but i fail to find from reading his biography that they ever got as far as his heart. he had an unhappy childhood, a perturbed adolescence, a lonely and isolated early manhood, an obsessed maturity, and an emotionally sterile old age. he hated his father, he pitied his mother, he barely tolerated his sisters, and he suspected the integrity and motives of his illustrious contemporaries who, though polite to him, personally ignored him controversially. indeed, part of the time he must have felt himself a modern, though tame ishmael, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him. although he had a few forgiving, appreciative friends, a constant and ardent mistress, and a devoted servant who mothered and domineered him, engrossing interests and boundless energy, still he was chronically unhappy, the sweetness of his soul being embittered by contempt of his fellow men. the offspring of a narrow-minded, obstinate, inflexible, selfish father and a gentle, reverential, yielding, and kindly mother, it was taken for granted that he would follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and become a clergyman. he found when he began to take thought that he could not accept the christian miracles or believe in a personal, anthropomorphic god. so he went to new zealand and became a successful sheep-grazer, and within five years he had more than doubled the four thousand pounds which he had been able to screw from his father. his life during these years is interesting in so much as it shows how a man of education and breeding lived in the bush while developing intellectually. the devil often tempted him there, but not always with success, though he became terribly fussed over the death and resurrection of christ. he thought and wrote about it, but he was not successfully delivered from his dilemma until the idea of "erewhon" took possession of him. this idea was that machines were about to supplant the human race and be developed into a higher kind of life. when the conception first seized him he wrote to charles darwin, whom he started by admiring and ended by despising, that he developed it "for mere fun and because it amused him and without a particle of serious meaning." he had butler's "analogy" in his head as the book at which it should be aimed, but when "erewhon" appeared most readers thought he had "the origin of species" in mind. from this time one begins to see how extraordinarily laborious were all of butler's writings. "erewhon" was not published until eight years later, during which time he had written and rewritten, corrected and re-corrected, pruned, elaborated, and incorporated sentences from letters, records of experiences which he had while prospecting for and developing his sheeprun, and innumerable notes from a commonplace book which he early acquired the art of keeping. ten years after its publication he wrote to an indiscriminating, ardent admirer: "i don't like 'erewhon'; still it is good for me." the next book he wrote, "the fair haven," he liked very much, but few others did. when he was a very young man he had written a pamphlet on the resurrection. he was disappointed that it made little or no impression. finally he decided it had been written too seriously. it then occurred to him to treat the subject as he had treated the analogy of crime and disease in "erewhon." the book purports to be written by the son of a clergyman, the antithesis of butler's father, insane before the manuscript was completed, and of a mother, the replica of his own mother. a brother gives the book to the world, prefixing a memoir of the author modelled after butler. the book fell flat. the few who resented it were the sensitive orthodox whose feelings were outraged. butler could not understand why he was unable to induce people to reconsider the gospel accounts of the crucifixion and the resurrection. the second distinctive characteristic of butler's make-up was his spirit of god-i-thank-thee-that-i-am-not-as-other-men. when butler left new zealand he had eight thousand pounds, partly in his pocket and partly invested in the country that had been so bountiful to him; he decided to return to england and devote himself to painting, which he felt convinced was the field of activity in which he gave real promise. it was then from the exceeding high mountain that he saw charles payne pauli, of winchester, and pembroke college, oxford, who had gone out to the colony and found employment on a newspaper. one evening pauli called upon butler and stayed talking until midnight. "i suddenly became aware that i had become intimate with a personality quite different from that of any one whom i had ever known." within a few months there was established a strange intimacy, "one of those one-sided friendships when a diffident, poetical shy man becomes devoted to the confident, showy, real man as a dog to his master." he loaned pauli one hundred pounds that he might return with him to england; he maintained him in london until pauli was called to the bar; then he put him on an allowance which he continued for many years and which used up one-half of his savings and earnings. when pauli began to earn a comfortable income at the bar he treated butler with scorn, though accepting money and food from him. when he died none of the nine thousand pounds which he had accumulated was left to butler. indeed, the latter did not know of his death until he saw a notice of it in the london _times_. however, his love for pauli, which surpassed understanding, surmounted all obstacles and he wrote a long, detailed account of the relation between himself and pauli which, his biographer says, if ever printed in full, will be "very painful reading." some time before he broke with pauli he started a friendship with another man which fortunately did not test his indulgence and his generosity to a similar extent, but it was no less remarkable. indeed, it was more so, for butler was now fifty-six, and he poured the depleted vessels of his affection upon hans rudolf faesch in such a way as practically to submerge this young man. i doubt if there is anything in literature of men's friendships which for intensity of passion and affection surpasses the letters which butler addressed to the young swiss. the poem, "out in the night," addressed to faesch on his departure for singapore, is a genuine, impassioned expression of grief coming straight from the heart. and the letters to faesch are truly remarkable documents. in fact, the letter written to hans faesch after he had started for singapore, when butler was fifty-nine years old, might well have been written by pericles to aspasia or by a sentimental youth to his dulcina. "i should be ashamed of myself for having felt so keenly and spoken with as little reserve as i have if it were any one but you; but i feel no shame at any length to which grief can take me when it is about you." and yet we speak of anglo-saxon frigidity and aloofness! butler would seem never to have been in love in the ordinary usual way. we are justified in concluding that he had only a tenderness for "madame," who "during the twenty years of intimacy with butler had no rivals." certainly he never was in love with elizabeth mary ann savage, an extraordinary woman whose mentality is reflected in all of butler's books. from 1871, when he was writing "erewhon," until her death, in 1885, butler submitted to miss savage everything he wrote, and remodelled in accordance with her criticisms and suggestions. not only did he submit the drafts of his books to her, but the suggestions of many of them originated with her. if ever the soul and spirit of one person operated through another, the soul and spirit of this brilliant woman operated through the apparent mental elaborations of samuel butler. she understood him as no one else understood him; she loved him as no other woman loved him. her devotion to him, her appreciation of his talent, her unrequited love, her unfailing humor and mirth, her incomparable courage when confronted with serious disease and with death, and her apparent willingness that her talent should shine through him is one of the most extraordinary things in literature. i am at a loss to understand why neither his biographers nor the critics of butler's writings have given the subject adequate consideration. some years ago a youthful austrian psychopath, weininger, wrote a book, "geschlecht und charakter," which had great popularity. it was widely read in the original and in translations. amongst other things that he discussed was the sex endowment of man. the hundred per cent male is very uncommon, and he is rarely encountered amongst creative artists. the feminine percentage in them is considerable, often more than fifty per cent. samuel butler had many feminine traits. he was vain, gossipy, vindictive, swayed by his emotions, and he allowed himself to be wooed by a woman. he took from elizabeth mary ann savage without giving a quid pro quo or even acknowledgment. he did not have the courage to say to her in the flesh what he said of her in the grave. he sold to the public as of his own manufacture the warp and woof of her intellectual weavings. her letters, which form such a large part of the first volume of these memoirs and which butler wrote to her father "the like of which i have never elsewhere seen," testify the public debt to her contracted in the name of samuel butler. the wit, humor, irony, and sarcasm of these letters all combine to reveal a remarkable soul and rare personality. for twenty years she was a true, steadfast, resourceful, sympathetic helpmate to samuel butler. he accepted her amatory homage and her literary co-operation, and she might legitimately have inferred from his letters that she was somatically as well as spiritually sympathetic. many women have convinced themselves that their passion was reciprocated by men who gave less tangible evidence of it than samuel butler gave miss savage. that she loved him there can be no doubt, but her unæsthetic appearance appalled him, her halting stride annoyed him, and her loving attentions bored him. some years after her death he composed two sonnets to her memory, the first exquisitely vulgar, the second painfully pathetic. "she was too kind, wooed too persistently, wrote moving letters to me day by day; the more she wrote, the more unmoved was i, the more she gave, the less could i repay, therefore i grieve not that i was not loved but that, being loved, i could not love again. i liked; but like and love are far removed; hard though i tried to love i tried in vain. for she was plain and lame and fat and short, forty and over-kind. hence it befell that, though i loved her in a certain sort, yet did i love too wisely but not well. ah! had she been more beauteous or less kind she might have found me of another mind. "and now, though twenty years are come and gone, that little lame lady's face is with me still; never a day but what, on every one, she dwells with me as dwell she ever will. she said she wished i knew not wrong from right; it was not that; i knew, and would have chosen wrong if i could, but, in my own despite, power to choose wrong in my chilled veins was frozen. 'tis said that if a woman woo, no man should leave her till she have prevailed; and, true, a man will yield for pity if he can, but if the flesh rebels what can he do? i could not; hence i grieve my whole life long the wrong i did in that i did no wrong." her memory deserves a better fate than interment in mr. jones's huge mausoleum. the third of samuel butler's distinguishing characteristics was that he was incapable of falling in love with any one but himself. he labored prodigiously to become a painter, and during his life he succeeded in having five pictures hung in the royal academy exposition. however, he never got out of class c as a painter, and when he was forty-one he forsook the brush for the pen. meanwhile he had (according to his father) killed his mother by the publication of "erewhon," launched "the fair haven," got thoroughly enmeshed in the teachings of darwin and the contentions of mivart, lamarck, and others, plunged into hellenic literature to give it specificity of origin and display, and was otherwise very busy pushing over statues of heroes which he mistook for tin soldiers. early in life he began keeping notes. his principle was that if you wanted to record a thought you had to shoot it on the wing. when he thought of or said anything especially illuminating or amusing, or heard any one else say anything of the sort, down it went. he was his own boswell with all of that immortal's colloquiality and ingenuousness. he did not hesitate to make frank comments on the people he met, and photographic descriptions of such individuals, of his family and friends, and their letters went to make up the novel (if novel a narrative of fact can be called) through which he was made known to the general public, and by which he will probably be longest remembered, namely, "the way of all flesh." it was begun when he was thirty-one and finished fifteen years later. because it is autobiographical, and biographical of his family and friends, he found the necessity of frequently rewriting it, as time, event, and god changed them. this is not the place to discuss the merits and demerits of that book. it had an artificial popularity--mr. g. bernard shaw being the artificer. there was one thing about it concerning which every one agreed: to pillory your parents in public is the equivalent of beating them up in private. the fourth of samuel butler's characteristics was insensitiveness to what is generally called refinement or finer feeling. though an artist he had little æsthetic awareness. if he knew the canons of good taste he did not subscribe to them. what he called his little jokes, which mr. jones relates with great gustfulness, is the ample proof of this accusation. "what is more subversive of a sultan's dignity than pinching his leg? pinching his sultana's leg." "we shall not get infanticide, permission of suicide, cheap and easy divorce, and other social arrangements till jesus christ's ghost has been laid." cheap and vulgar prostitution of intellectual possession a gentleman would call it. mr. jones and alfred, clerk, valet, and general attendant, "a live young thing about the place, and a cheerful addition to 15 clifford's inn," became very intimate with butler. mr. jones had been a barrister, but had abandoned the law and was under a modest retainer of two hundred a year from butler to give him boswellian service. they found butler companionable, and there are such indications as letters from casual acquaintances, particularly in italy, to show that he was agreeable and sympathetic to some persons. aside from these there is very little in these two massive volumes to testify to the kindness, gentleness, simpleness, and humility of samuel butler. apparently he disliked every one with whom he had to do or with whom he came in contact, save mr. pauli, mr. faesch, lord beaconsfield, and richard garnett. still he was pleased with mr. garnett's discomfiture on hearing his lecture on "the humor of homer." searching mr. jones's plethoric volumes carefully, it is difficult to find kind or appreciative words for contemporary or forebear. "how many years was it before i learned to dislike thackeray or tennyson as much as i do now?" "middlemarch is a long-winded piece of studied brag." "what a wretch carlyle must be to run goethe as he has done!" "we talked about charlotte brontë; butler did not like her." "i do not like mr. w. j. stillman at all." "i do not remember that edwin lear told us anything particularly amusing." "all i remember about john morley is that i disliked and distrusted him." "i dislike rossetti's face and his manner and his work, and i hate his poetry and his friends." "no, i do not like lamb; you see canon anger writes about him, and canon anger goes to tea with my sisters." "blake was no good because he learned italian at over sixty in order to read dante, and we know dante was no good because he was so fond of virgil, and virgil was no good because tennyson ran him, and as for tennyson, well, tennyson goes without saying." "i said i was glad stanley was dead." "i never read a line of marcus aurelius that left me wiser than i was before." speaking of maeterlinck, who was then coming to his estate, "now a true genius cannot so soon be recognized. if a man of thirty-five can get such admiration he is probably a very good man, but he is not one of those who will redeem israel." though butler was fascinated by g. bellini, he surely had heard of raphael. darwin, wallace, ray lankester, most of the scientists of his time who did not fully agree with him; novelists, philosophers, artists, poets--all excited his disapproval. when he was fifty-three he made a note to remind himself to call tennyson the darwin of poetry and darwin the tennyson of science. thus would he empty the vials of his wrath and contempt. he acided his system, as the italians say, with hatred and envy of his fellow man who had achieved fame or who was upon the road to it. it is difficult to rid one's mind of the thought that the motive that prompted him to literary work was that he might show how contemptibly inadequate the masters were or had been, all of them save handel and g. bellini. samuel butler took himself with great solemnity. he believed what he wanted to believe and he believed he knew about many things far better than experts and empiricists. when they did not agree with him he took great umbrage and wrote disagreeable letters to them or made disparaging references to them in his notes. "he never could form an opinion on a subject until he had established his volatile thoughts and caged them in a note. this enabled him to make up his mind." thus he made up his mind, aided by miss savage, that "the odyssey" was written by a female, or, to use his felicitous expression, "any woman save mrs. barrett browning." samuel butler's most deforming characteristic was lack of reverence. he was endowed with an orderly mind. it was his passion and pastime to train and develop it. he never let anything stand in the way of accomplishing that purpose. his greatest literary gift was his capacity for presenting evidence. his chief weakness was his incapacity to gather evidence. he assumed certain things and then proceeded to prove to the reader that they were facts. this is a procedure that has never had favor in the courts or in the laboratories. neither has it been accepted as a legitimate procedure in what might be called constructive literature, critical or creative. the only place where it has ever been received with favor is the pulpit, and samuel butler was the true son of the cloth which he did so much to deride and from which he believed he had divested himself. we should never have known what a pathetic figure he was if mr. jones had not seen fit in his affection and his obsession to reveal him to us. we can forgive mr. jones for this, however, because of his belief that samuel butler is immortal. would that we could also forgive him for publishing a portrait of mr. butler standing before the hearth in the sitting-room of his home--in his shirt-sleeves! we could not have been more shocked had we found that he wore garters around his arms to regulate the length of his shirt-sleeves. england indeed is changed. this life of butler gives the lie to britishers' reputation for stolidity and formality. chapter x saints and sinners many a pia mater has been stretched to aching in the past few years by thoughts of death and its harvest of human flower in first, fresh bloom. mystics have tried to give death a symbolic significance; they would have us believe that it has or will have a repercussion in some occult way beneficent to the world and those who are allowed to tarry here. "what is this grave which the world was coming in its heart and in its daily practices to treat as final? may it not be that the answer of the whole world, which is busy with the question, will bring into being a new adaptation of living to dying--a new death?" is the way one of them expresses herself. were we concerned herein with death, either new or old, we might deny her premise any foundation, and reason therefore that any conclusion she might incline to draw must be false and misleading. the world has in its heart to-day a yearning for promise and proof of immortality such as its composite heart has never had. that christianity as practised fails to satisfy that yearning, does not justify the allegation that the thinkers of the world have become materialists. historians and critics who view the question from a biologic angle profess to see in war a contribution to our evolutionary progress: it kills many of the most virile, but it kills also the weaklings, actual and potential. the virile who remain push the weaklings to the wall, particularly in the procreative contest. it puts a premium on prowess and valor, and makes the race franker and braver, more resolute and more efficient; it uproots decadency; it sacrifices the grain to get rid of the tare; it plucks the flower that the thistle may be eradicated. the philosopher accepts it as a part of god's programme: some he allows to succumb to bullets, others to germs. the latter is the wise man, for he accepts things as they are, and at the same time tries to shape their course in a way that will give him and those he loves, which is all mankind, the greatest safety. we get accustomed to and become tolerant of everything save pain. even in such upheaval as the world war it was beyond belief how little the mechanism of daily life was disjointed. fifteen millions of men and more were engaged in a life-and-death struggle, and yet the ordinary events of daily life were very little disturbed. people seemed to have time for work, for play, for relaxation, for contemplation. i was always reminded of this by reading the papers and observing people in theatres, concert-halls, stadia, churches, restaurants, and public places generally. i realize full well that one cannot sit still and nurse either his griefs or his hopes; that man is so constituted that he must display activity in some form. but i never fully realized that man is chronically happy. and yet it must be so, for how otherwise could he come out from prisons rotund and well-nourished, or from dark filthy tenements with a smile on his face? how else could we be so pleasure-seeking and pleasure-displaying as we were in those agonal days of the war? the war put many things out of joint, but it did not divorce man from felicity save in individual instances or for short periods of time. the thing that the war dislocated most was further tolerance of the paradoxes of the christian religion, the irreconcilability between preached and practised christianity. every one admits that the fundamental principles of christianity are perfect and beautiful--that is, they are as perfect and as beautiful as the finite mind can grasp. but nothing can be more imperfect and uglier than the way in which the professional pietist practises it. there isn't a tenet, as formulated by its founder, or such perfect disciples as st. francis of assisi, to which the professing or professional christian conforms even approximately; and because his fellow man, prostituting it in some similar way to conform with his personal bias, does not agree with him, he proceeds to point the finger of scorn at him and to hail him as infidel and unbeliever. i have no intention of prophesying whether the church will weather the storm in which it is now floundering or not. i think very likely it will. one reason for so thinking is that it has weathered all previous storms; one of them five hundred years ago was of severity that will never be forgotten. since then education and enlightenment have lifted man from the supine obedience and resignation of the domestic animal, and he has demanded, and in a measure obtained, his worldly rights. this encourages me to believe that he may soon demand his spiritual rights: liberation from the tyranny imposed upon his mind by the junkers of the church, freedom to look upon god as the fountainhead of wisdom, mercy, and love who mediates succor to the poor, the mourning, and the meek more willingly than to the rich, the joyous, and the arrogant; liberty to live according to the mandates of christ and to die in confidence that his pledges will be redeemed. another reason is that man must have a religion. individual man can live without it, but collective man cannot, and there is not the slightest sign of the second coming of christ. religion was never so openly repudiated as during the great war, and it never wielded as little influence on the determinations of man's conduct as it does to-day. those who convince themselves otherwise make themselves immune to the teachings of experience. the paucity of men who have the capacity for constructive statesmanship is pitiable, but how trifling is such a capacity compared with that required to formulate the tenets of a livable new religion! the practices of the church to-day are not those of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when it was steeped in every conceivable kind of depravity, licentiousness, simony, wealth, power, arrogance, avarice, and flattery; when it betrayed its mission to protect the weak; when it fornicated with the princes of the world; when it crucified jesus in the name of egoism. but in what way has it espoused the sacred cause of the lowly, the best-beloved of him who died that eternal happiness might be vouchsafed us? if christ's vicar could remain silent without being called to account as was the case a few years ago when we were offering our fathers on the sacrificial altar for the liberation from slavery of god's ebony image, it is not likely that he will be called on to explain a similar silence during the great war. i do not profess to say, not even to know, the attitude of the hierarchy which governed the roman catholic church toward the war. if it was germanophile or austrophile, it was more wicked than the harlot of babylon. i should say the same had it been anglophile or francophile. the man who can believe that the temporal head of the church is the infallible spiritual guide of her adherents cannot believe that it should take sides against any of her own people. "the house divided against itself must fall." what i should like from the church is a definition of her attitude toward war. she teaches her children what their conduct should be about indulging their genesic extent, about the property and person of their fellow men, about intemperance of language and of appetite. why not about war? what troubles me with the church is not so much the determination to keep her children in ignorance, nor that she has her back to the door which opens upon a vista of the world's progress and advance, hoping that she may keep it closed in the face of the divine forces of evolutionary progress which are seeking to push it open. that might be tolerated, but not her arrogation of self-sufficiency, her assumption of self-satisfaction, her boasted immutability, her sanctimonious semblance of resignation, her mumblings of archaic sayings in a language that neither its votaries nor one-half its priests understand, her profession to protect the weak and aid the poor while at the same time she bends the knee to the rich and traffics with emperors. though i lived nearly two years in the city where the church's mediæval gorgeousness is more striking than in any other city of the world, and where its chief stronghold is, it was rarely that its practices or its preachings disturbed my spiritual equanimity, my belief in god, or my fathomless faith. nearly every day my duties took me through the piazza of st. peter and along the vatican gardens, and my thought was more often of his mediæval predecessors than of the voluntary "prisoner" who, while occupying the sumptuous palace, eats out his heart because he is not allowed to be a temporal sovereign--in other words, to be the antithesis of him whose vicar he claims to be. one morning, after i read the communiqués and had that glow of satisfaction in the accomplishments of my fellow men, that feeling of pride which every ally had during the last weeks of the war, i turned the paper and saw the arresting headline, "translation of the bones of st. petronius," and i read: "this morning at eight o'clock the holy father, accompanied by the pontifical court, repaired to the sistine chapel, where were gathered the residents of bologna who had come to rome for the occasion. the pope, clad in sacred vestments, celebrated the mass and gave communion to those present. after the mass cardinal gusmimi, archbishop of bologna, gave a brief discourse, while the pope sat on the throne. the pope then responded, recalling the religious glory of bologna and the life of the sainted bishop petronius. he then covered himself with other sacred vestments appropriate for the occasion and assisted the archbishop of bologna in taking from the provisory urn the bones of that saintly man who had yielded this life for a place in the heavenly hierarchy many years ago, and placed them in the urn offered by the bolognese; having done this, he placed the urn on the altar. the ceremony lasted upward of two hours." in my fancy i saw a lot of able-bodied men thus engaged while those whose spiritual destinies they had elected to shape were being slaughtered on battlefields, struggling with wounds and disease in hospitals, contending with cold, thirst, hunger, and indescribable discomfort. what was the purpose of it, what benefit did it mediate, what enlightenment flowed from it? if petronius was a good man, if he loved his fellow men, and if he did all that was within his power to do to make them better men, more capacious for a full life here and more worthy of eternal life, why should they not allow him to enjoy his reward in the bosom of the lord? how can they enhance his happiness, what does mankind gain by taking the semblance of that which once formed a framework for his spirit and transferring it from one vessel to another while mumbling or chanting over it? what deep symbolism attaches itself to this attempt to stay nature in gathering the ashes of petronius to their ultimate destiny? would not these men give a better account of their stewardship to their master were they to devote their time and their strength and their minds to the betterment of the physical and spiritual lot of those poor, desolate, forsaken unfortunates with whom i spent the afternoon--a trainload of men who had been imprisoned in an enemy country and who were returning to italy to die of the dreadful disease that had been thrust upon them by those insatiate monsters of cruelty, the austrians? i have rarely spent two hours more steeped in misery than i did that afternoon at forte tiburtino, where i went to visit the enormous hospital constructed around that old fort. it was intended to be used for temporary concentration of the sick and wounded soldiers sent from the front, until their disorders and diseases could be interpreted sufficiently to indicate where they should be sent for most speedy restoration to health. the protracted inactivity on the battlefronts of italy had allowed the hospital to remain for many months unutilized. when austria decided to send back to italy a number of the men captured in the caporetto disaster, upon whom she had thrust tuberculosis through starvation and every conceivable deprivation, it was decided to use this hospital for their shelter until they should die or be sufficiently nurtured to be sent to parts of the country whose climate is favorable to recovery from that disease. two or three times a week a trainload of two hundred or more of these pitiful creatures arrived, many of them in a dying state. as a rule, they had been _en route_ for a week, and, though the swiss red cross and the italian red cross both attempted to make some provision that would contribute to their comfort, very little evidence of their efforts was to be seen. forte tiburtino is three miles beyond rome on the road to tivoli. the train is switched at the portonaccio station to the rails of the tramway and goes directly to the gates of the hospital. it was the first day of autumn, the wind was blowing a gale, whereby the unfortunates arrived in a cloud of dust which must have added to their suffering. but that was as nothing, i fancy, compared with the pain and ignominy put upon them by the antics of one of my countrywomen clad in the uniform of an american relief organization, an affable amazon who, approaching her physiological rubicon, had begun to display somatically and emotionally the results of disturbance and inadequacy of those wondrous internal secretions that give elasticity to the skin, lustre to the hair, sparkle to the eye, and appearance of health to the _tout ensemble_. she but heightened her painful plainness by a stereotyped smile which, while displaying a row of long teeth, set at an obtuse angle, accentuated the aquilinity of her nose and the prognathousness of her jaw. everywhere i looked she was there. every place i went i heard her: "bentornato," "benvenuto," "aspetti un memento, farò la sua fotografia." the ways of the lord are obscure. otherwise one could explain why he did not let these poor devils die without having thrust upon them this presence, voice, and affected cheer. i saw them, weak and prostrated as they were, shrink from her as one might shrink from a famished alligator. they opened the side doors of the cars and put steps against them; the white-clad orderlies came down first, and then began the procession of the weak, the emaciated, the forlorn, the desolate. some were able to descend unaided, others had to be helped, one on either side, and still others dropped inert and corpse-like, across the strong back of an orderly who carried them the few feet to a stretcher. now and then one would step out with an air of attempted jauntiness and a feeble smile, but for the most part it was a procession of those who had lost hope, who had abandoned faith in every one and everything, and who read over the portal, "_lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate_." it is some such procession that dante must have encountered frequently in his passage through the infernal regions. "_nulla speranza gli comforta mai nonchè di posa, ma di minor pena._" not only did their faces reveal absolute despair but their bodies were reduced to such a state of emaciation that they were scarcely recognizable as human beings. major pohlmanti afterward told me that the majority of them had lost upward of forty per cent in weight, some of them, indeed, as much as sixty per cent. many of them were so scantily clad that their chests and legs and arms were bare. some were without socks, and their bony feet, thrust into cloth shoes with wooden soles, gave the finishing touch to what seemed to be animated skeletons covered with dirty brown paper which had been soaked in putrid oil. after those who were able to get on their feet had passed out came those who were practically in the throes of death, and those whose minds had been dethroned by suffering and privation. one was able to keep the sob in his throat until _they_ appeared, and then the effort to suppress it was impotent. indeed, they had a rendezvous with death when spring brings back blue days and fair, and they are reconciled that he shall take their hands and lead them into his dark land, as alan seeger said in those precious lines which will ornament his memory for many a day. the procession slowly wound its way within the gates, and i supposed that they would be conducted and helped lovingly and tenderly to the pavilions ready to receive them; that they would be undressed and given hot, stimulating nourishment by nurses and orderlies recruited, perhaps, from those who had come before and whom nature had been kind enough partially to restore. but immediately they were confronted with a species of italian bureaucracy which hindered their progress toward this haven of rest and of solace toward which they had been looking forward for many days, perhaps months. they were segregated in a large, barnlike structure a few yards within the gate, permitted to sit on rude, unbacked, uncomfortable benches, and compelled to await their turn until their names and their histories and an enumeration of their possessions could be recorded. i felt that god would have been kind if he had stamped across their brows the letter v to stand for virtue and valor, as he stamped the letter a upon the breast of arthur dimmesdale to testify to the people of new england the frailty of that puritan parson, which was revealed to his parishioners when they gathered together to listen to the confession of his sins and to decide his punishment. there they sat, inanimate, inert, resigned, awaiting what the italian government might have in store for them with the same indifference as they awaited that which nature had in store for them. never again shall i believe that the victim of tuberculosis is optimistic and hopeful. it may be that their obvious and striking forlornness was the expression of starvation and not of disease. only about thirty per cent of them, i am told, showed signs of active tuberculosis after the ravages of inadequate and unsuitable food have been overcome. i saw and talked with many of their predecessors, and especially those who had been there a number of weeks, sufficiently long for them to have gained in weight and in strength, but even they were still branded with that expression which hopelessness comes nearest to describing. it occurred to me that perhaps these were the men who sat down on the sides of the road and in the fields before that great disaster in the friuli and were resigned to being taken captive, and that the resignation which they then displayed had been stamped on them gradually day after day since then, until now it had become indelible. life had had no joy or poetry for them. neither the present nor the future had been tinctured with pleasure nor flavored with hope, and since that day they had been silently awaiting that which now seemed imminent--translation. i could not but contrast the event of the morning with that of the evening. probably every one of these boys and men had been brought up in the faith which the holy father claims is the only true one. they had been taught that god is justice. they had been imbued since earliest infancy with the belief that, next to loyalty to god, their most sacred duty was to their country. in their own way they had done their best for both, and this was their reward. their expressions of despair, their manifestations of hopelessness, their silent portrayal of their abandonment needed no explanation. the saint in the vatican was having his reward on earth, and the sinners in forte tiburtino looked for theirs only in heaven. "ahi giustizia di dio! tante chi stipa nuove travaglie e pene, quanto io viddi? e perchè nostra colpa si ne scipa?" "ah, justice divine! who shall tell in few the many fresh pains and travails that i saw? and why does guilt of ours thus waste us?" chapter xi woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink together ... "but i would have you know that the head of every man is christ: and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of christ is god ... but the woman is the glory of the man. for the man is not of the woman but the woman of the man. neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." woman's position in the world, socially, politically, and economically was profoundly altered by the great war. every contact with the affairs of the world, save uxorially, was changed and i believe that one of the aftermaths of the war will be further to change that relationship, to extend her liberty, to enhance her privileges until every semblance of the cage that has confined her since time immemorial is destroyed. eye-witnesses of the political and social emancipation of women do not realize how extensively concerned with it the historian of the future will be. even less do they realize how directly certain social and economic changes of the beginning of the twentieth century will be traced to the entrance of women into the political arena. the individual who would attempt to forecast the eventual effects of national prohibition upon a people would have no respect whatsoever for his reputation as a prophet. i assume there is little doubt that women initiated and in large measure accomplished that legislation. small wonder they did. they had to bear the brunt and the pernicious effects of alcohol consumption. man drank it, but women paid; paid in privation, in suffering, in disease, in ignominy--they and their children. there are many habits, conventions, laws that deal with women differently than they do with men. we may confidently anticipate that woman in full possession of political privileges will soon turn her attention to legislation whose purpose will be to change this, to effect a like relationship of all human beings but especially of men and women. the most ardent and pious christian must admit that the practice of its principles is inimical to woman's welfare or woman's full development, using the terms welfare and development in the conventional sense of to-day. there are undoubtedly many intelligent, honest, serious women who subscribe to st. paul's teachings of woman's duties and privileges and who take no umbrage at his pronouncements. these were in a word that she should be man's aid, his servant, and his ornament; that she should minister unto his corporeal needs, and that she should be the instrument through which god permitted man to reproduce his image and perpetuate mankind. the christian religion came gradually to be considered figurative in its practicability, an ethical system strict conformation to which would cause the individual to be looked upon as a victim of mental aberration, but ideally quite perfect. with this conception the restrictions put upon woman's activity gradually began to disappear, and those that remained, such as, for instance, being obliged to cover her head in church, were not only willingly accepted but were considered a prerogative in so far as they facilitated personal adornment and thus contributed to the realization of a fundamental, inherent ambition--to be attractive. opponents of feminism have busied themselves with extraordinary industry and tireless assiduity to point out the differences between man and woman, always to the disadvantage of the latter. their mental endowment is inferior to man; their physical strength is less; their moral caliber more attenuated; their emotional nature shallower. why should any one take the trouble to deny any of these? he who maintains that every specimen of the human species endowed with average reasoning power should live in the enjoyment of freedom and liberty should not allow himself the trouble of denying them. he should admit it with the same readiness that he admits that there are anatomical and physical differences between the sexes. but the opponents of "rights of women," to use the phrase that has now come to have a sinister meaning, are not satisfied with such admission. they want to have us admit that, in so far as these qualities are at variance with those of man, so in proportion is woman inferior. this no well-balanced, thoughtful, unprejudiced man who has had much to do with men and women for a sufficient period to entitle him to pass judgment upon the matter can possibly admit. one may say dogmatically that woman has not the potential or actual capacity of man in the field of politics and statecraft, in the field of art and literature, in the field of science and investigation, in the field of peace and strife. he may say it, but he can furnish very little substantiation of his statement. neither will he be able to say it convincingly very much longer. it is not and will not be fair or just that any one should make ex cathedra statements upon such subjects until women have had the same freedom in fields of activity that men have had for countless centuries. no weight or credence need be given to statements that women are possessed of intellectual and moral qualities that militate against their fitness to occupy or adorn the important positions of life's constructive activities. possessions or infirmities which many of their ill-wishers maintain unfit them for such places may disappear when they have had opportunity to indulge their freedom. these alleged infirmities may be merely reactionary to the restrictions of their environments since time immemorial, since it is notorious that the place often develops the man. no bird can tell how far it can fly until it tries its wings. the american people are less astonished than any other nation to find that women have invaded every field of human activity save that of active warfare. they have long since thrown down the barriers that kept women from entering such fields of activity, and welcomed their entrance into them. they were encouraged to believe that they would give an earnest of their activities and they have accomplished it without loss of their sex attractiveness. the matter, however, is quite different in the countries of europe. there only the women of the lower classes have earned their bread in the sweat of their brow, and particularly in the fields, in the mills, and in the shops. but to-day all that is changed. they drive tram-cars, load and unload ships, they till the soil and work the mines, they make and deliver munitions; they have replaced the porter and the ticket-taker at the stations; they are the letter-carriers, cab-drivers, guardians of the peace; they direct and administer great mercantile houses; and they are forcing their way into every profession. they have not yet been in any of these activities a sufficient length of time to enable any one to say whether or not they can successfully compete with man. the prophets of old were stoned, and he would be a daring one who would venture the statement that man will successfully dislodge woman from all the positions she so satisfactorily filled during the war. in some countries she will have gained, before the end of the great social and economic adjustment which we are now attempting, the political privileges which more than anything else will put her on an equality with man, namely, the franchise. from such vantage-point she will most successfully hold what she has gained. it is too much to expect that woman will emancipate herself and come into the arena of man's activities with her handicaps and lack of training and not make mistakes prejudicial to her welfare. to expect it would be as illegitimate as to expect that a strong man who had never trained for a prize fight could enter the ring and successfully contend against a man equally strong or stronger who had been training for the contest for a long time. no one was so fatuous as to believe in 1914 that the central powers, after having devoted a quarter of a century to the most assiduous training and preparation for the war that they thrust upon the civilized world, would not jeopardize the liberty of the world. the allied nations had been content apparently to risk their fate without such preparation merely because they had right on their side. they made many mistakes and some of them were so flagrant and enormous as nearly to have cost them their existence. women likewise have right on their side in the struggle which they have waged against the mandates of christianity and the usurpation of man. but right alone is not sufficient in such a contest. they must combine might with it and might these days spells organization. without it nothing worth while can be accomplished. i venture to prophesy that the striking legislation of our country of the next generation will be accomplished largely by the influence of organized women. this war has given them opportunity to display their might and examples of what organization can accomplish. unless i misconstrue all signs, they will never again be deprived of the privileges which they have at the present day. on the contrary, such privileges will become larger and more comprehensive until they are upon an absolute equality in every walk of life with man. in the world of politics, society, economics, education, and religion the question of rights of woman may not be given the constructive attention to which it is entitled. in our country it is possible that women are sufficiently organized to present their claims and insist upon their being heard, and not only demand their rights, which are liberty and equality, but they will get them. in england i am not so confident of the result. in france and italy i am still less confident; in fact, their cause in these countries as things are at present seems to me almost a hopeless struggle. the only thing that consoles me is history. when one recalls that all that which we now speak of as democracy flowed from one master mind in cromwell's little army; that the laocoön hold which the church had upon the people in the middle ages was broken by luther and a few similar masters whose spirits successfully carried the idea of liberty; that all that which is now spoken of as industrial ascendancy flowed from the activities of one or two supermen in the mill districts of northern england only three or four generations ago; then one is lifted above his depression. liberty and tolerance have taken on a new significance. this is not due entirely to the war. the war minted the meanings, but the gold was ready for the stamp. liberty has come to mean that woman and man are not only equal before god but that they are equal before man. and, now that this admission has been wrung from unwilling man and imposed upon governments one after the other, what kind of a life do we wish? what are our visions? what are our sane and legitimate aspirations? are we willing to yield supinely to the tyranny of state or of money? are we content further to tolerate the infirmities and impotency of present-day education? shall we continue to close our eyes to the hypocrisies of the church? shall we be willing to submit to the restrictions that are put upon us by law and covenant concerning marriage and its entailments? shall we bow down to autocratic governments whose rulers claim, and apparently have their claims allowed, to have divine guidance? shall we be content with the concentration of property or of private capitalistic enterprise? shall we be callous enough to see countless thousands of god's own, the poor, deprived of the advantages of food and clothing, education and the gifts of hygiene--in brief, of everything that makes life worth living? i firmly believe that the rank and file of educated, thinking, serious-minded persons who are not immediately concerned with the possession or administration of any of these, will not tolerate them, and in so expressing my belief i do not feel that i label myself socialist. i feel that i enroll myself in the legion marching forward under the banner of liberty and the belief that enlightenment is followed by progress as unerringly as night is followed by day. these things may be brought about by revolution, just as democracy was brought about in france after the teachings of voltaire, rousseau, and the french encyclopædists had blazed the way and the aftermath of the american revolution had reached that country; but i am firmly convinced that one of the things that the world war will accomplish is that this social reformation and reconstruction will be brought about without violence and without revolution. once a satisfactory integration of a large number of individual lives is brought about, then integration of the community and of the state is bound to follow. no one is so fatuous or so blind as to hope that integration of individual life can come to him whose creative impulses in any field are hampered or stultified, but when these creative impulses, whatever they be, are encouraged, nurtured, developed, facilitated, then the genus homo will reach its full estate and we may confidently look forward to community and state integration upon which lasting reform can be carried out socially and politically. there is not the slightest advantage to be gained by what is called political and economic reform unless at the same time there is a reformation of the creative forces of life--education, sex relations, and religion. any scheme of life that concerns itself only with life is bound to be a failure. man is so constituted that he must have a philosophy from which he can form a creed that facilitates his craving for immortality. it is this belief in immortality, as fundamental a demand as life itself, which is the final conditioning impulse of all that is best in man and which gives him an inexhaustible strength and a lasting peace. how any intelligent person can believe that the teachings of christ as practised to-day, and i emphasize the word "practised," furnish such a philosophy or a system of ethics, transcends my understanding. the chief branch of the christian religion stands for dogma to-day just as firmly as it did before the renaissance, and it pretends the humility of christ while maintaining the imperiousness of cæsar. there is scarcely a minister of the protestant church who is not selling his birthright for a mess of pottage by not daring to get up in his pulpit and tell his flock that they must live up to the basic principles of christ's teachings. these ministers are just as cognizant as i am that their branch of the christian church has lost its hold upon the people except in so far as its alleged teachings are reconcilable with their pleasurable conduct in private and in public affairs. i do not mean to say that there are not many wholly sincere and devout believers in these churches who feel the inspiration of the teachings of christ. but because they are paid workers in the vineyard of the lord they dare not jeopardize their existence and take no heed for the morrow, and they dare not insist that those to whom they minister should conform their conduct to christ's commandments, because it would hazard their very existence and provoke the starvation of their children. do the meek inherit the earth? have they inherited it? does any one rejoice and be exceeding glad when men revile him and persecute him and say all manner of evil against him falsely? is there any clergyman to-day who is teaching and insisting that if any one shall break any one of these least commandments and shall teach men to do so he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven? suppose we grant that the sermon on the mount is not to be taken literally, but symbolically, of what are these mandates symbolical? "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee." why does one not give the same heed to these commands as he does to "thou shalt not kill; thou shall not commit adultery"? the reason is that he who kills or commits adultery is liable to be punished by the law, and he is deterred by the fear of such punishment or of the social ostracism to which he would be subject. christ referred to the fact that "it hath been said that whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement, but i say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, save for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery." but the present-day mandates of christianity are in no way in keeping with this. as a matter of fact, every one must admit that the only conformation which christians make to the commands and counsel of the sermon on the mount is a repetition of the verses following on "after this manner therefore pray ye," and those commands which are at variance to-day with statutory and conventional laws. i am not railing against christianity. i am of those who firmly believe that if we were to conform our lives to the tenets of the ethical and moral teaching of christ we should not have the need of social reconstruction which we have to-day. i am contending against the hypocrisy of those who proclaim themselves christians from the housetops and who persecute others who do not conform to those trivial doctrinal modifications which one sect maintains are the only true interpretations of christ's teachings. i am clamoring against the flimsy hypocrisy under which half the people of the civilized world live in regard to marriage, and who pretend to shudder and feel ill when you profess that you cannot look upon marriage as a sacrament. i am railing against those who believe that there should be one code of so-called morality for men and an entirely different one for women. if the code that is practically universally accepted to-day is proper for men, it is likewise proper for women, and i want to live to see the day when women will have as much freedom in their conduct in every walk of life as men have. the idea that woman's life centres in motherhood and that all her instincts and desires are directed, consciously or unconsciously, to that end is buncombe. it would be just as legitimate to contend that all man's instincts and desires centre in fatherhood and that his frenzied passion to accumulate fortune, or his uncontrollable ambition to obtain fame, or his insatiate appetite for power, or his insuppressible feeling to externalize his thoughts in music, in art, in poetry, in invention, were all secondary characteristics. the reproductive faculty of woman is incidental to her existence. if any one desires to claim it was the purpose of god in creating her, i shall not deny it, but as a student of human nature, and as a physician whose life has been spent with women--most of them, fortunately for me, honest and intelligent--i maintain that civilized, cultivated, thinking women do not find that motherhood satisfies their demands, their yearnings, their aspirations--in brief, their personal development. the creative will has other yearnings; not so imperative always in their demands for satisfaction, but nevertheless insistent on being satisfied if the possessor is to be spiritually content. there are other reasons for the decline in the birthrate of the educated and civilized people of every country than the fact that motherhood does not completely satisfy the physical and mental demands of women--financial reasons, social reasons, and reasons that partake of both of them, yet not entirely of them, such as the occupation of women and the celibacy which comes of enforcement or from choice. these must be taken into consideration in our social renaissance when we shall erect our ideals of justice and liberty. the time will never come again when woman shall be man's willing or unwilling slave. the time has gone by when society shall require that the wife be faithful while the husband is faithless. never again will the saintly, self-sacrificing woman who never questions her husband's authority but who yields supinely to his will be our ideal. woman may not be so strong as man. she may not be so truthful. she may be more impressionable to sinister influences. she may be less capable of erecting ideals and conforming her conduct to them. she may be less steadfast in the pursuit of any plan of life, or less capable of adhering to the ideal canons of conduct. she may or may not have any or all of the sins of omission or commission of which she is accused by man, but she is a human being made in god's image, of whom he may be more proud than he is of man. she has been rocked in the cradle of liberty and of freedom for the past five years, and to such purpose that at the present moment she is not only able to walk but to stride. in the future it will require the best effort of man to outdistance her, even though he has the benefit of ages of experience and the advantage of a start of forty thousand years. we shall soon see whether socrates was right when he said: "woman once made equal to man becometh his superior." chapter xii postbellum vagaries it seems incredible that we who have chanted "peace on earth, good-will to men" for upward of two thousand years, professing the christian religion and enjoying its benefits, should have in the year 1914 proceeded to discredit our professions and our protestations. it is interesting to have lived in those times, for it brought into one's thoughts and imagination sentient recognition of qualities or characteristics of individuals and of peoples which, until the advent of the war, one didn't know existed. students of events curious to know and to understand the factors and forces that had shaped the world, geographically, politically, socially, religiously, were obliged until 1914 to rely upon the written records of the past. after that they had but to observe daily events or read of them in the public press to become apprised of what is meant by world progress. it has been a universal belief that greater reform, politically and socially, flowed from the french revolution than from any premeditated, organized violence that the world has ever seen. in the years preceding that momentous event the peoples of europe, and more especially those of france, were living in a state of intellectual and physical oppression which is almost impossible for the individual of average intelligence and education to appreciate. although republican forms of government had frequently existed and had been conducted in many instances with much success, there was no indication that any of them had left the smallest trace of democracy in europe, and the idea of social equality on a physical, intellectual, moral basis did not exist. i fancy there is scarcely an observer of the events which transpired during the great war, or a person who gives any concrete thought to the matter, who will not admit--indeed, who will not maintain--that the results which have issued and which shall issue from that conflict and particularly those that have to do with men's relationship to each other in every walk of life, whether it be governmental or individual, conductual or spiritual, will be so radically changed that the issues of the french revolution will seem trivial compared with them. it was vouchsafed me to be in a position during the last year of the war to see at short range and sometimes from a vantage-point the workings of the minds of a people who have had liberty, unity, and nationality on their tongues and in their hearts for half a century and more. the italians were in the lime-light from the day germany threw a brand laden with explosives and poison gases into the different christian countries of europe. her conduct as a whole since that time has been one of dignity, honesty, responsibility, and the exponent of the highest ideals of nationality. whether or not she succeeded at any time in gaining the complete and absolute confidence of her allies, it would be difficult to say. to get the confidence of an individual or a country you must trust them, and the more implicitly you trust the greater will be the confidence and the finer the quality. every one knows that italy's alliance with austria was an unnatural one and the majority of her people have always believed that the issue of it would be disastrous. even the most shallow student of history knows that austria stood menacingly over italy during the entire period of the unholy alliance, but never more insultingly so than in 1912, when she veritably defended turkey, while italy was at war with that country. when italy decided to throw her lot in with the allies, there is no doubt whatsoever that it was with the hearty approbation of the vast majority of her people. the treaty which her minister of foreign affairs, sonnino, made with the allies, and which is known as the treaty of london, and which sets forth what italy was to have when victory was hers, although not known to the people, was satisfactory to the government, and one who reads it now can readily understand why it was so. the question was--would it be satisfactory to other governments? was it an instrument consistent with the new liberty? was it not at variance with what was going to be considered a fundamental right of the people, the principle of self-determination? italy's conduct during the first two years of the war drew forth the approbation, the praise, and the admiration of the whole world. the quality of approbation was undoubtedly merited. whether the quantity was merited is another question. then came their colossal disaster of caporetto, the explanations of which have been many--some partially satisfactory, others not at all. one of the undeniable results of it was that upward of a half-million of her vigorous fighting men were marched into austrian detention-camps and prisons. the results of this defalcation upon italy and upon her internal resistance everybody knows. it was a greater shock to italy and far more sinister in its effect than it was upon the allies. following it, she gave an example of capacity to put her house in order, and to present a solid front, the like of which has rarely been given by any country of the world. she cleaned her house to good purpose. how thoroughly she cleaned it no one can possibly know who was not permitted to enter it. the account which she gave of her courage and her strength when the enemy attempted to cross the piave, in june of 1918, and which she gave in maintaining her lines in the mountains against an enemy infinitely superior in numbers, was the earnest of her honesty and determination. there were, however, some things that awaited, and still await, satisfactory explanation. when the war began italy had a population of about thirty-six millions, austria-hungary about fifty-four millions. italy had an army of upward of four millions of men. it was currently estimated that austria-hungary had an army of between six and seven millions. it is believed by the italians that the greater part of the dual monarchy's army was on the italian front, and italy convinced herself that she was standing out practically alone against an army of greatly superior numerical strength and larger military reserves. she admitted that a few allied divisions were with her, but she maintained that she was giving far more to the western front than she received from all the allies. there is no doubt that there were a hundred thousand italians in france, both in the lines and behind them, and there is likewise no doubt that there was no such number of allied soldiers in italy. she had called to the colors boys born in 1899 and 1900. indeed, youths of the 1899 class were sent to the front after the military reverses of october, 1917. italy looked upon this in the light of a sacrifice which she was obliged to make in order to resist the forces of the empire which was at her throat. she believed that the italian front was of signal importance to the alliance as a whole, and she made no secret of the fact that she was counting on the immediate assistance of american divisions. her government frequently said that very nearly a tenth of her entire population was in the united states, and that america had always been her most trustworthy friend, and that two hundred thousand american soldiers would not only be a great moral force, but would impart fresh vigor to the national resistance. no one denied the truth of these statements, but cogitating on them one is led to certain reflections, and they are: with an army of four millions of men, why is it they were able to put only a million and a half on the front? i understand that men were needed for munition factories, for the essential industries that provide for war consumption, and for the maintenance of the civil population; that fields must be tilled, mines must be worked, water power must be guarded, and railways must be manned. these things have to be done in every country, but soldiers do not do them. other countries have militarized workmen, but they do not count them when they are enumerating the man strength of their army. in reality italy had called to the colors all her healthy men between eighteen and forty-five in order that she might more easily manage them, govern them, discipline them. the outsider who sees italy through the veil of her statesmen's oratory and polemics knows her only pleasantly masked. one is led to think sometimes that they are more concerned with the appearance than the substance. it often looks as if they were banking too much upon her great and glorious past, and not looking to the furthering of conditions that make for the happiness and efficiency of their people. the conditions produced by the war have reminded the politicians in control that the people love their government in proportion to the benefits they derive from it, and i fancy it has at times felt that the people were not giving it that strong support which is rooted in love and consideration. "four-fifths of the italians have always lived on the war footing," said prime minister orlando in one of his speeches to parliament. he meant to convey that the italians, being accustomed to hardships and sacrifices, could stand war better than others. he claimed to see in this a source of strength. yet he must have known that the soldiers lying down by the roadside in the days of caporetto, awaiting with mohammedan indifference the coming of the austrians, were replying to the officers who were urging them to retreat to some place of reorganization: "we have always lived on polenta, and we shall always have it, and it will always taste the same even if the austrians win." though not responsible for the sins of the past, it seems incredible that the authorities were not aware of this wide-spread feeling among the people. it is in the hour of great trial that our conscience shows us, as in a mirror, all our past shortcomings, and it admonishes us that we reap what we have sown. reviewing the past, the italian government must have known that it could not have the unswerving loyalty of a people who for fifty years had been fed on promises, big words, and magniloquent speeches covering illiterateness, oppressive taxation, obstacles to activity, and necessity of emigration. it is not with words alone that one gives happiness to a nation and receives love and support. emigration and bolshevism are the two symptoms of the disease that threatens the nation. nearly a million italians emigrated in 1913, and socialism has a firmer footing in italy than in any other country. surely these facts have far-reaching significance. the conclusion is that there can be little doubt that men had to be called to the colors so as to manage them better with martial discipline. possibly it was a wise measure and a necessary prologue to the rigid censorship and to sacchi's decree, which was a kind of _lettre de cachet_. i have often asked myself, what is the italian's most dominant characteristic? what is his most conspicuous idiosyncrasy? one day i answer it in one way, another in another. but on mature reflection i think it is that he believes what he wants to believe and that he does not trust any one implicitly. he trusts his own fellow citizen least of all. he says he trusts him, but when he puts him in a position of trust he puts somebody in to watch him and to report on him. the italian has not that confidence in his fellow human beings that a normal man has in his honest wife, that a normal mother has in her dutiful child, that a normal lover has in his trusted _innamorata_. i am so prejudiced in the italian's favor that i must defend even his infirmities. for centuries italy was divided and weak, and countless times she has been the tool of the ambitious, the insatiate, and the predatory. she has been used over and over by more powerful nations as tongs to get their chestnuts out of the fire. for every favor she has received she has had to pay dearly, and she has learned by sad experience that promises are usually made of fragile material. leaving out the treatment she received from france and england in the nineteenth century, more particularly during the years when she was big with nationality and unity, and during the period when she gave birth to these beloved terms, the treatment she received from these nations in 1911 and 1912, while she was waging the libyan war, still rankles in her bosom. despite salisbury's promises and his parable of the stag, they recall england's disparagement of her initiative and of her conduct of her righteous war. they recall the sinister frenzy that france displayed when they took the s. s. _carthage_ into one of their ports because they believed she was carrying aeroplanes to the turks, and the s. s. _manouba_ because she had turkish passengers camouflaged as doctors and nurses. she recalls also that when the hague tribunal practically decided in her favor, neither france nor england displayed the slightest graciousness. despite these stabs of yesterday, italy must purge herself of distrust, which is the ferment and leaven of weakness. she must make good her alleged trust of france, her professed confidence in england, her hail of the united states as her deliverer. it is difficult for me to believe that often she has not had one language on her lips and another in her heart. the time has come when she must make the words of her heart and her tongue one. the moment has arrived when she must put her cards upon the table and say: "that is my hand and i play the cards face upward." if she can be made to realize it, italy is big with the prospect of a glorious future and her delivery will not be long delayed. nothing impressed me so much in italy during the momentous last months of the war as her ideas of nationality, the ideas that found dissemination, if not birth, in the prophetic soul of mazzini and which began to germinate nearly a century ago. "great ideas make peoples great, and ideas are not great for the peoples unless they go beyond their boundaries. a people to be great must fulfil a great and holy mission in the world. internal organization represents the sum of means and forces accumulated for the performance of a preordained mission without. national life is the instrument; international life the goal. the prosperity, the glory, the future of a nation are in proportion to its approximation to the assigned goal." these words were written by mazzini several years after his ideas had made italy great, and during the war they were on the tongue and in the pen of every constructive statesman who was satisfied to live only under liberty's banner. for fifty years or more, but particularly since that fateful day, the 20th of september, 1870, when italian union became a reality, she had professed the profoundest sympathy for the oppressed nations of her hereditary and actual enemy, austria-hungary. since the beginning of the world war the proud spirits of these oppressed nations, now commonly spoken of as the czecho-slovaks, had been active in devising plans that would liberate them and their peoples from the jaws of the monster. the whole civilized world who love liberty were in sympathy with them. no one denies that they accomplished results that were almost miraculous. those who had real knowledge of what was going on in the world knew that in a measure we owed to them the secrets of germany's diabolic machinations in our own country when we were on terms of amity with the central powers. it was not denied that italy's success on the piave in june, 1918, was in some measure at least due to the information that the czecho-slovaks were able to give the italians. in april, 1918, there was a congress of czecho-slovaks in rome, which was warmly received by the italian people and by some representatives of the italian government. this congress formulated the principles upon which it was waging war against austria-hungary. it set forth in language that even a child could understand its ideas of nationality. it put before the democratic nations of the world the ideas that they represented and proposed to represent. their claims received the approbation of the prime minister of italy, but for some inexplicable reason the stamp of approval of italy's minister of foreign affairs, the only one who was in a position to represent the government authoritatively, was withheld from them. it was necessary, apparently, to bring the country to the brink of dissolution of its government by a public agitation of the question initiated by the _corriere della sera_ before sonnino's official approval of their aims could be secured. despite the fact that france, england, the united states, japan had in turn accorded to the czecho-slovaks the right of nationality, and despite the fact that it was well known that that organization called into being by italy's noble, loyal sons known as the fascio was warmly and industriously championing the cause of these oppressed people, yet the governmental hand had to be forced before she would put it on the table and play her cards face upward. when the _corriere della sera_ was able to throw off the manacles of the censorship and bring the subject of discussion into the public arena, the influential journals that represent the standpatters in the government, such as the _giornale d'italia_, the _epoca_, and even the _messaggero_, denied that there was any dissension or shadow of dissension between the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs, and they continued to deny it in the most determined and deliberate way up until the very last moment. sonnino's champions maintained that the position he took was necessary that austria-hungary's intrigues be rooted up and killed. the fear was expressed that the new policy favorable to the jugoslavs might circumvent the stipulations of the treaty of london, which were favorable to italy, and sacrifice them to the exaggerated claims of the jugoslav ideas of nationality. the _corriere della sera_ pointed out the futility of too great adherence to the treaty of london and asked: "can we expect wilson to feel bound by the i. o. u. given to us in london if he did not sign it?" it insisted that the maintenance of the london treaty in full force was incompatible with a policy favorable to czecho-slav aspirations. this embittered those holding the opposite view. the _tempo_ rejoined: "an attempt is made to make italians believe that there is a conflict between rome and washington due to our 'imperialistic ambitions,' which are looked upon with distrust by washington. it is for this reason, they tell us, that the united states is loath to give us the help of their forces on our front. the nation rebels against this and will not allow anybody to put a noose around her neck and blackmail her by any such dilemma: either we must have a change of policy, with consequent revision of the london stipulations, or abandonment on the part of the allies. we are not defending sonnino, but what is much nearer our heart--the interests of italy. we defend the pact of london as the only guarantee of our interests. you can't tell us that an effort is not being made to diminish those stipulations: it is not true...." (here the censor intervened.) "we entertain no prejudice against the czecho-slavs provided they do not insist stubbornly on crossing our path, and prove that they can do what is necessary in their own interests instead of expecting sacrifices from us. let them meet us halfway by implicitly recognizing the integrity of the rights guaranteed to us by the treaty of london, which are the reasons for our having entered into this war." in the same paper, august 20, 1918, appeared this editorial statement: "either this war will make us secure in the adriatic or it will be a complete failure as far as we are concerned. in politics there are no friends. there are interests only. the friends of to-day may be the enemies of to-morrow. it doesn't profit us to take away the control of the adriatic from austria to give it to those who up to yesterday have been the bitter enemies of our race and who now, because it is convenient to them, pose as our friends. we are not surprised that this is of no concern to mr. steed (the english pro-jugoslav journalist, for many years correspondent of the london _times_ in italy and now its editor). were we english instead of italian we also would not mind to see the czecho-slavs inherit the vantage position of the adriatic held to-day by the central empires. this may be sufficient for those who only see in this war an anglo-german conflict, but it is not sufficient for those who look only at italian interests. it is easily conceivable that others may be interested in perpetuating our weakness in the adriatic which will prevent our further development, but it is absurd that italians should blindly follow such foreigners. ask our navy officers, defenders of italy, what they think of those who advise us to give up our just claims to the dalmatian coast and islands, which is not only a pistol aimed at italy's head, but a series of machine guns. the treaty of london covers also our rights on the ægean islands, eastern mediterranean, and colonies. if we establish the precedent that this treaty can be abrogated or diminished, we do not know where this may lead us--all our interests protected by it may be questioned sooner or later. this fact has surely not been grasped by those who intoxicate themselves with demagogic magniloquence, who believe that after the war men will go to play the bagpipe in the shade of ilex-trees, and that the kingdom of saturn will be restored. it can be understood only by men still in possession of their full mental powers, who know that this is a conflict of political and economic interests, after which men will continue to forge weapons for the great competitions in the vast world, resuming the struggle for the control of colonial markets and supremacy of the seas. only such men understand the necessity of defending _unguibus et rostris_, even against our allies, the juridical ground we have conquered. the london treaty must not be discussed, as it is the only justification for our war, conceived as a war, for national development and balance of power among the nations which will constitute the new world which will be born out of this conflict. whosoever thinks differently is a traitor to his country." this is what may properly be called "tall talk." after this climax of virulence, a tendency developed in the press tending to mitigate the effect of such rancor. an attempt was made to show that the variance of opinions was more formal than substantial, and that it was for parliament to decide. even the _idea nazionale_ expressed this opinion, though for years it conducted a campaign to undermine the authority and prestige of parliamentary institutions in italy. the _tempo_, however, did not back down, but asked: "is it true or not that during the meeting of the oppressed czecho-slavs in rome no territorial agreement could be arrived at because the czecho-slav representatives did not want to accept the adriatic limitations involved by the treaty of london?" it also sarcastically remarked that the treaty of london is now being called the "pact of london," that somebody has already started to call it a "memorandum," and that it is to be expected that soon it will be called a "laundry list." and it continued: "is it true or not that our requests, contained in that document, are an indispensable minimum to insure our safety in the adriatic such as will justify the enormous sacrifices we have made in this war? are we not right, then, to distrust this policy favorable to the czecho-slavs which tends to postpone the solution of geographic points without first recognizing the italian claims as being fundamental? let the czecho-slavs first recognize our right to safety and let them dispel our legitimate diffidence. all this discussion seems to have been the pleasant outcome of those who entertain the jolly notion that we are waging a poetic war instead of trying to solve in our favor vital military and political problems, and that we should be perfectly unconcerned about knowing whether on the other shore of the adriatic there will be either germans or slavs, republicans, catholics, orthodox, conservatives, democrats, musicians, or poets." gradually the thunder-clouds began to disperse and a conciliatory element was introduced into the discussion. "rastignac," who drives an authoritative quill, and who is one of the leading and much-listened-to journalists and lawyers of italy, wrote in the _tribuna_, the newspaper identified with giolitti: "would it not be better to keep silent instead of creating currents of ideas hostile to italy, all on account of the pact of rome between an italy which is still invaded by austria and a jugoslavia which still exists in dreamland? is this new pact, born through the efforts of the anglo-french friends of the czecho-slavs, capable of diminishing the treaty of london, which is fundamental for our interests? poor italy, if this should prove to be the case. we are quarrelling as if the war had ended, austria had been conquered and dismembered, and as if we were already seated before the green table for the signature of that treaty which will assign to this or the other power the shreds of austria. meanwhile we forget that there are seventy-two austrian divisions on our soil, and that the war is continuing without the possibility of foreseeing when it will end. i am well aware that our friends of england and france, prompted by their great love for jugoslavia, seem quite ready to sacrifice the treaty of london to the new pact of rome. these friends are strongly inclined to be very generous, at our expense unfortunately. we are being lulled into the belief of a sure dismemberment of austria, on which dismemberment is based this new creation of our allies, _i. e._, jugoslavia. it is strange, however, that there are in france some political parties who reproach clemenceau for having ruined the rich possibilities of which the letter to 'dear sixtus' was full.... it is no mystery that tradition is not easily uprooted in england and that one of the deepest-rooted of them has always been that of friendship with austria. there are roots much older and stronger than the new ones of the "society of nations." ... let's not base our policy entirely on a hope which will last we do not know how long, _i. e._, the destruction of austria. do not forget, please, that this, the greatest conflict of history, is nothing but a conflict of interests ill-concealed under the rosy cloak of the highest and noblest idealism. its true essence remains a struggle for political and commercial supremacy. it is no time now to read the 'fioretti of st. francis.' we shall have time later on for this." the _corriere della sera_ stuck to its guns. it was neither blinded by the rhetorical dust which the pro-sonnino organs kicked up, nor was it asphyxiated by their noxious gases, and sonnino had to line himself with england, france, the united states, and japan in according the czecho-slovaks nationality and rights of allies. italy's trials, ill fortune, and good fortune since then are much better understood if they are contemplated in light of that discussion and of her momentous election of the autumn of 1919. chapter xiii world convalescence we had become so habituated to war and its machinery, its incidents and horrors, its demands and entailments, that when we were thrust suddenly into a new world with whose conduct and ordering we were unfamiliar we had the sensation of one who comes from long tenancy of a dark room into the glare of sunlight, the feeling of unreality of one who emerges from a delirium. the abdication of emperors, their flight and their fate distracted us for a moment; the abyss into which the central empires of europe had been hurled arose before our eyes; the needs of the unfortunates in the devastated districts and of those struggling to get back to their native land made appeal to us; thoughts of future work and play occurred to us, but none of them engrossed us. though saturated with the joy of deliverance no one gave himself over to revelling in it. groping in darkness as we have been for so long, we blinked and gasped, trying to accustom ourselves to the divine light of the new day that had dawned, and to discern and define beauties which the new world would present. we were like a person who had suddenly been liberated from a danger that not only threatened his life but made existence insupportable. utterance could not give such thoughts relief. only appreciative silence could express his gratitude. in the lull or convalescence that came after the world's injury and long illness, peace terms were formulated, indemnities exacted, the map of europe remade, and compacts formulated and signed to prevent another holocaust. thus the greatest venture the world ever embarked upon will end. then will come the great task--reconstruction of the world's institutions. the question that has fatigued the human mind since time immemorial, "what shall man do that he may live again?" is for the hour replaced by another more likely to be answered, "what kind of a world will the one just wrought be in which to live, and when will it be habitable?" the old world has been delivered of a promising offspring. its travail was terrible and sanious. the accoucheur had to call to her aid the counsel and service of many nations, but the new-born world gives promise of great tidings. grief for the old world that yielded its existence in the agony of deliverance is engulfed by the joy that has come in contemplation of the beauty, purity, and immaculateness of the new world, in which liberty shall be as free as the air in which it is suspended. what will this new world that is arisen from the destruction of empires and from the ashes of tyrannical institutions be like? in what way will it be better and more satisfying than the one that existed previous to the war? what are the benefits that will flow from the sacrifices that have been made? what are the rewards that will follow the labor and effort expended to win the war? what are the mercies that will be vouchsafed us for our deeds of commission and of omission? how shall things be ordered that man, mere man, without other possession than intelligence, without other aspiration than to be permitted to display his dominant instincts,--love and constructiveness,--without other ambition than to enjoy life and make others enjoy it, may be worthy of his mission and deserving of its reward? these are the questions that are occupying the mind of every thinking person in the whole world to-day. before any one of them can be answered the fate of the former central empires must be settled, because the allies must know with whom they are dealing and how much they are deserving of confidence and trust, and how much they can be relied upon to carry out the terms of any agreement. we may be absolutely certain that recent advantageous treaties will be abrogated and that territories appropriated in the last half-century will be restored. that which we cannot feel reasonable assurance of is what form of government the former central empires will have, or whether that which they bring forth will not be, in reality, a resurrected trojan horse, the teuton's contribution to political camouflage. the spokesmen of these newly formed governments say they will be democracies. but who are the spokesmen? are they not of them who until yesterday were fighting for the preservation of the country and government which had been selected by god and by themselves to thrust "kultur" upon the world, and which had been wantonly attacked by its neighbors on the north, the south, the east, and the west? did they admit until that fateful yesterday that their government was not perfect, or at least possessed of only such trifling imperfections that they, the socialists of one kind or another, could readily remove them? nothing has transpired in germany since the abdication of the kaiser, so far as we have been informed, that permits us to say with anything like assurance what form of government germany hopes to have. all that we really know is that the government has fallen into the hands of the german socialists, the deeply dyed-in-the-wool socialists and the socialistic democrats. so far as one can predicate judgment on the reported sayings of the spokesmen of either of these two parties, the purpose of the present government is to save as much as it can of the previous régime and to continue it, minus the kaiser and the war lords. in none of the addresses or communications of any of these spokesmen is there any real admission of defeat, any intimation of humility, any indication of having been lessoned, nor, indeed, of anything that can be interpreted as recognition of the fact that germany has been the victim of _grossenwahn_, megalomania, which prompted and compelled her to a line of conduct which conditioned her destruction. on the contrary, everything that has been said has a note of determination to rehabilitate herself in order that she may take the leading position, morally, intellectually, commercially, in the world. at the very moment when admission that she had lost the war was forced from her, and while she was prostrate on the field of battle and in a state of collapse in every acre of her territory, instead of silence and of resignation, instead of an indication of that humility which tauts the heart-strings of the conqueror, there was clamor of exultation setting forth the virtues of the people and their ineradicable potentialities. having been denied victory on the field of battle, if that _gott_ who was their _feste burg_ does not desert them, they will now win a greater victory--they will show the world that they can conquer themselves and convert defeat into victory. they are without shame and without modesty. they ask for succor from the nation which less than eighteen months ago was a negligible quantity and which four years ago was made up of drivelling idiots and men mad with lust for wealth. "you will not let countless thousands of women and children die of starvation." no, we shall not let them starve, but we shall have adequate care that never again will it be within your power to thrust the mailed fist of one extremity upon the honest, god-fearing people of the world while with the other you snatch the food from the mouths of those unable, because of age or infirmity, to provide for themselves. one does not fail to detect the ring of exultation with which they say that they will win the greatest of all victories--that of showing that, though defeated in arms, they can be masters of themselves. they have no recognition whatsoever that the destruction of mediæval imperialism and the unfurling of the flag of liberty have been due to valor and sacrifice of the peoples of the whole world, who have accomplished it without other motive than to make the world a fit place in which an honest man can live. in short, they are endeavoring to make it seem that their defeat in the material control of the world by the german sword is to be an opportunity for a great german triumph. at this distance it is impossible to distinguish between the arrogance of the german kaiser and his supporters and the arrogance of the german socialists. they have every appearance of being born of the same monstrous mother made big of satan. that which the latter are now stating they can do is the same as the kaiser and his cohorts of authority, founded in divine rights, thought they could do and set out to do a quarter of a century ago. the germans are as intoxicated with their own vanity, their own self-sufficiency, their own divine mission and potentialities to-day as they have been at any time in the twentieth century. no one denies that germany defeated may make any attempt at government which she chooses. at the same time no one can abrogate the right of the conquerors to see to it that the form of government which she institutes and which she attempts to carry into operation shall not be one that militates against the success of the ideals for which the allies have striven, not for themselves alone but for the whole world. it needs no prophetic vision to discern in the expressions of dictatorial arrogance of those who have taken the government in hand in germany the same assumption of superiority which led to their defeat, the greatest the world has ever seen. in brief, as we see it to-day, the effort in germany at the present time is to substitute one kind of class interests for another which was admitted by the world's best judges to be not only pernicious but destructive of liberty. if the former was of such a nature, why does not the latter partake of it? if there were any indications of sincere desire to establish an honest form of democratic government in germany, there is no doubt that its originators and the whole german people would soon realize that they were dealing with a magnanimous conqueror, but in view of the fact that the wild beast has now in its agonal days the same snarl, the same venom, and the same sharp teeth that it had when it was lusty and well-nourished, it is necessary that the conquerors should harden their hearts and judiciously guard the springs and cisterns of their generosity. promises of germans should no longer be adequate. we should demand deeds, and not only that but that they should be backed by the sentiment and determination of the whole people and not of those who in maintaining that they speak for them speak only for themselves and their malignant ambitions. teutonic tradition and authority must be replaced by jeffersonian, mazzinian, wilsonian liberty and justice. it would be well for the whole world to realize that we are on the threshold of the most fundamental transformation that the human mind can conceive. we have been so long accustomed to the institutions and conventions that constitute authority and privilege that it is almost impossible for any one to realize that they are about to cease to exist. not only has the death-knell of such class privileges been rung, but likewise that of institutions which have stultified intellectual growth and moral supremacy, and amongst them none has more importance than organized religion, that is, religion which claims to be authoritative in so much as its directors or trustees--call them what you may--formulate a dogma to the teaching of which all others must conform in order that they may have life everlasting. people's religion must be left to the free choice of the people. few of us realize that the curtain rung down on the 11th of november, 1918, was the closing of the second act in that great drama of which the first act was the french revolution and of which the third and closing act will be devoted to social and political reconstruction. the majority have some ill-defined notion or thought that we shall go back to the kind of world that existed previous to august, 1914. there isn't the smallest chance of it. i doubt whether even those who have had a vision of the impending transformation realize, however, how great or far-reaching the change will be. the time has come when the people are going to rule the world. they are going to administer its affairs in such a way that every man and woman capable of taking thought will have opportunity to be heard and will be privileged to live without authority, whose purpose it is to make the masses conform to a line of conduct that will make for the advantage of the few, favored by birth or fortune which may have been their birthright or their acquisition. for years the word socialism and that for which it stands have been redolent of bad odor. this war has purged it of its disagreeable connotation, and to-day that which is meant by socialism is equivalent to the rights of man. in the minds of many socialism and anarchy are synonymous, but in reality the socialism which the war just finished has nurtured to a lusty youth is much freer from anarchy and from the potentialities of destruction than the reign of autocracy, of capital and of bosses, which it supplanted. i realize that it is difficult to defend this position in view of what is happening in russia. to-day the bugaboo to the world's children is bolshevism; that is what will "get us if we don't look out." when a riot breaks out anywhere nowadays it is bolshevism. it has become a shibboleth, a name to conjure with, this social and political experiment in organized and carefully planned violence that has been carried out by the jews in russia since the conclusion of the peace of brest-litovsk. the word has suddenly come into wide-spread use and it is being given the connotation of socialism. in truth it is the socialism of the young russia. its theory is a perverted marxism and its practice is an envenomed hindenburgism. the etymology of the word bolshevism as a name for a pseudopolitical party finds its origin in the programme of the party itself, that is, in the ultraradical tendencies of "maximilist extremists" professed by the party leaders, lenine, trotzky, and sinowjew. the leader lenine said of the bolsheviks in a moment of frankness: "for every genuine bolshevik of my party there are sixty idiots and thirty-nine rascals," and no one can doubt his fitness to judge. we should not forget that the russian public that looks on lenine as its idol is honeycombed with deserters, ruffians, and at least three hundred thousand common criminals who were liberated from the prisons and from exile in siberia by the revolution. the bolsheviks are neither a party nor are they the expression of democratic and revolutionary russia, as a great many persist in believing. they are a mob drunk with ultraradical doctrines, who from exceptional circumstances have become able to seize the power, dominating with methods ferociously reactionary a hundred and twenty million individuals. and the world is witnessing in astonishment the spectacle offered by these bandits who, illegally holding the state power, arbitrarily decide the fortunes of a whole people after having allured them with fallacious promises, betraying them before the enemy. the absolute unpreparedness of the russian people--eighty per cent is illiterate--to pass into a régime of democracy and social autonomy has facilitated the successes of the bolsheviks, whose "ideas" or conceptions, as expressed in the programmes of lenine, trotzky, et al., consist in carrying "persuasion" to the majority of the ignorant masses. such "ideas" are first of all that the "proletariat has not and must not have a country." "the issue of the world war is of interest to the proletariat only from the point of view of the possibility for them to take advantage of the general situation, doing everything in order to turn the war of the states into a war of classes." the bastard bolshevism of present-day russia professes, furthermore, the conception formerly considered as purely anarchic that "the property of others does not exist"; theft and violence are the normal means of exchange; liberty of speech is non-existent; neither press liberty nor a free literary production exists, because the bolsheviks are exercising a censorship more tyrannical than the ill-famed imperial censorship. their methods of coercion are to bring about financial exhaustion by means of fines and indemnities; physical exhaustion by means of enforced labor and confiscation of food supplies, and moral exhaustion by removing the foundations upon which individual life is integrated, removing all dominant objects, such as desire for scientific or artistic creation, religious principle, or strong and lasting affections. it is not only the dictatorship of proletariat which the bolsheviks are trying to establish but a dictatorship of tyranny, and they use every conceivable means, showing themselves especially rabid against the well-to-do classes, against the intellectuals, against capitalism and militarism. the application of all this "programme" carries with it, as a first consequence, the complete dissolution of every state form, in the political sense as well as in the economic sense. the disorganization is complete; hunger, by which the masses see themselves threatened, increases the spread of every form of criminality and violence. the destruction of every sentiment of individual responsibility and the abolition of religious faith contribute to take away from the class of those who are better fitted to resist morally every obstacle and restraint in the choice of their actions. it is the "universal destruction," it is the madness of the _après nous le déluge_! the position of the jews, radically changed after the revolution of the spring of 1917, which gave them equal rights with the rest of the population of russian origin and religion, has had its triumph in the recent manifestations of bolshevism. in fact, besides trotzky, whose real name is braunstein, there is a high percentage of jews among the mob leaders and dictators of the "soviet" (councils) by which every city is administered, forming in this way an infinite number of "small social republics" in every part of the vast russian territory. the words of one of the most profound connoisseurs of the russian soul, dostoievsky, words which, alas, are prophetic not only of the concrete facts, but also of the general dangers which threaten his country, portray the condition that has come to pass. "our people, in the immense majority, adapt themselves cheerfully to the hardest discipline, and it is the easiest thing in the world to drag them toward the most noble deeds or toward the most ignoble crimes. i tremble to think of what these good people are capable of doing if they are left, even for a moment, without discipline. alas, side by side with them there are always some evil spirits, full of envy, thirsty of power, with their soul filled with selfish passions and bad instincts; it is they who always exercise a mysterious and nefarious influence on the russian mobs. i had a striking example of this when the whole population of a prison, about four thousand persons, was supinely submitting to the will of one of these demons who took advantage of them. nobody dared to murmur. the russian needs an idol; he feels the need of bending, of being guided, of obeying. free the russian people of a leading power which they willingly followed and they will immediately create for themselves another dominator more obnoxious and nefarious. let god preserve us when the crowd of the weak ones will follow under the power of the wicked ones. what a horrible spectacle we shall witness then! what atrocities! what useless slaughter! we shall see the country and religion betrayed; we shall see russia fall the prey to external enemies; we shall see material servitude, the loss of all our acquisitions, the oblivion of all the affections. let god save me from seeing this turning-point in russian history!" god saved him, but this mercy was not extended to us. we shall have to be witness of russia groaning under the system of bloodless terror, but it will not be for long. in theory the bolsheviks desire the same thing as the socialists; in practice they want it plus revenge, that which has been the motivating characteristic of the jew since time immemorial. their power is founded in resources which i suspect are largely in america, and their agents have been granted citizenship and protection in practically every country of the world. so soon as the motives of their supporters then shall be widely known, and so soon as their monstrous practices shall be revealed to the whole world, this malignant exuberance that has developed upon the healthy growth of liberalism and socialism will be removed by a giant cautery wielded in a hand more powerful than that of hercules. a decree recently issued by the bolsheviks of vladimir, published in that official soviet organ _izvestija_, and now beginning to be widely published by european papers, will be relished by many in the u. s. a., where unquestionably the bolsheviks have largely been financed. "every girl who has reached her eighteenth year is guaranteed by the local commissary of surveillance the full inviolability of her person. "any offender against an eighteen-year-old girl by using insulting language or attempting to ravish her is subject to the full rigors of the revolutionary tribunal. "any one who has ravished a girl who has not reached her eighteenth year is considered a state criminal, and is liable to a sentence of twenty years' hard labor unless he marries the injured one. "the injured, dishonored girl is given the right not to marry the ravisher if she does not so desire. "a girl having reached her eighteenth year is to be announced as the property of the state. "any girl having reached her eighteenth year and not married is obliged, subject to the most severe penalty, to register at the bureau of free love in the commissariat of surveillance. "having registered at the bureau of free love, she has the right to choose from among men between the ages of nineteen and fifty a cohabitant-husband. "remarks: (1) the consent of the man in the said choice is unnecessary; (2) the man on whom such a choice falls has no right to make any protest whatsoever against the infringement. "the right to choose from a number of girls who have reached their eighteenth year is given also to men. "the opportunity to choose a husband or a wife is to be presented once a month. "the bureau of love is autonomous. "men between the ages of nineteen and fifty have the right to choose from among the registered women, even without the consent of the latter, in the interests of the state. "children who are the issue of these unions are to become the property of the state." the "decree" states further that it has been based on the excellent "example" of similar decrees already issued at luga, kolpin, and elsewhere. a similar "project of provisional rights in connection with the socialization of women in the city of hvolinsk and vicinity" was published in the _local gazette_ of the workers' and soldiers' deputies. i am not sure that this lurid conduct of the bolsheviks will do the cause of social reconstruction harm. i recall the conduct of the promoters of woman-suffrage in england in the few years preceding 1914. their campaign seemed to be founded in insanity, and yet something of the kind was necessary to concentrate the world's attention on their rights, and the bolsheviks have got the world's attention and thought to-day--and will have them to-morrow. socialism is adverse to imperialism and capitalism. imperialism has been conquered, but capitalism has not yet been throttled. one will be able more safely to prophesy how much it has been weakened, potentially and actually, after labor has had its next chance at the bat in great britain. this war was not undertaken to overcome capitalism. it was undertaken to overcome imperialism and the tyranny of foreign domination, but its success has been dependent upon the people, who will now assert their rights, and the most fundamental of their rights is that they shall not be oppressed by money. it is not sufficient that the principles of nationality defined by mazzini shall be upheld--that is, that the peoples of one nationality shall not be dominated by the peoples of another. it is necessary, if such peoples are going to live in freedom, that they must not be dominated or enslaved by any mastodonic power which is protected from attack, such as capital. had it not been for the determination of the people to have the right to live in freedom, the miracle that transpired in the closing months of 1918 in europe would not have been wrought. the factors that sustained the peoples of the conquering nations in these long, dark months of tragedy and of carnage, the thing that made them go on stubbornly and steadfastly with the war when the odds seemed to be all against them, may be summarized in one sentence: "their determination to have their inalienable right, the right to live in freedom." one may perhaps say that in different countries of the world they have had such right, but the person who says this would have great difficulty in naming the country. any one who contended that in republics such as ours capital has not been privileged and arbitrary, that it has not been the dominant factor in making and adopting the laws to which the people are beholden, would be laughed at by any sane man. and now that the people who have lived and died, toiled and wrought, suffered and supplicated through fifty-two months of agony have won, there will arise from those who have survived a dominant chorus which will insist upon the fulfilment of the promises that were made them to incite them to victory. their hopes and desires and aspirations must be satisfied. i am one of those who believe that they will make their demands orderly and insistently, and not by means of revolution or serious disturbance of order. they will work out their salvation by mutual co-operation, not only amongst themselves but with those who are the leaders of the world's thought, many of whom have been heretofore of the privileged classes, but they will insist upon certain fundamental things which i have previously enumerated, and the foremost of which is the dispersion of great wealth, particularly hereditary wealth. the revolutionary socialist sees an easy solution of the matter in the giving of the wealth to the masses and of recognizing no other source of wealth except labor, but that is not the kind of socialist who will have to do with the reordering of the world that is now being born. it is the socialist who is to-day frequently called the individualist, who believes that the dissipation of individual property and initiative will spell a greater ruin for the masses than for the individual and who believes in harmonizing the principles of individual liberty with those of solidarity, who will be the socialist of the new era. the future state will be arbitrary only in so far as it is the expression of the collected, united force of its citizens. they will really make its laws, not have them made for them by capital or privileged interests; they will enforce them impartially, and it is devoutly to be hoped the external force of such peoples will be conventionized in such a way with other peoples that armies and navies will practically cease to exist. the basis of such hope is in the league of nations, for then we shall have a world-state which shall make international law or convention subject to law and enforcement. once the fear of invasion of a country is overcome and once the principles of nationality can be established and put into operation, there will be no reason for the existence of armies and navies. the beneficences subsumed under the name liberty that must flow from the sacrifices that we have made for the welfare of the people must assure their health, contribute to their happiness, and promote their efficiency. disease must be prevented, not by personal effort as on the part of physicians who do it for gain or fame, but by the state, which shall devote adequate sums for research, investigation, propaganda, and enforcement of the principles of sanitation. it shall likewise devote adequate sums for the education of all the people and thrust such education upon them in order that they may make use, not only for themselves but for the state, of the talents with which they have been endowed, so that liberty and personal initiative may be made running mates, and no closely knit organization as the church shall be permitted to stand in the way of such education. it shall permit them to worship god as they, educated, see fit and proper, and it shall not attempt, or tolerate the attempt of others, to thrust a religion founded in authority upon them, non-conformation to which is followed by punishment, often in condign form, such as social ostracism, refusal of the ministration of paid priests, refusal of burial in consecrated grounds, or threat of punishment. it shall not enforce upon them a conduct at variance with the laws of nature in sex relations; therefore, it shall solve the marriage and population questions, or at least make an attempt to do so. it shall give the same freedom to woman as it does to man and not have one written or unwritten law for the former and another for the latter. it shall replace our present economic system by a better one; in other words, money must be given a new valuation. when everything has been said, the state is the thing. what constitutes a state or a nation? we know what has constituted it in the past, but when we read history we realize that it has never been stable, always has been in transformation. some have been more stable than others--england more than italy, france more than austria, the united states more than france. when a nation does not change it is dead like spain, strangled by the parasite, arbitrary authority, the church. a new order of state-formation is about to be instituted--that of nationalism. comparatively few people appreciate what is meant by nationalism. until the wide-spread discussion of the aspirations of the czecho-slovaks in america, i doubt whether any one, except students of history and statesmen, gave any attention to it whatsoever. and yet, despite this, no one has elaborated the fundamental facts of nationality as clearly as has president wilson. nearly a third of all the peoples of europe have been obliged to submit to governments to which they were antipathic by birth, sympathy, or tradition. in other words, italians living beyond a certain arbitrary geographic line have been obliged to subscribe to the laws of austria; french living beyond a certain geographic line have been obliged to subscribe to the laws of germany; slavs to those of hungary. patriotism, that indefinable quality made up of primitive instincts, intellectual convictions, and religious feeling, which is supposed to be the greatest of all the virtues, has been an artifice for a third of all the peoples of the european continent. if they were really patriotic, their hearts and minds were with their mother countries, and therefore their conduct toward the ruler to which they bowed the knee must have been that of the hypocrite. one of the things on which all the allied nations are agreed is that in the remaking of the map of europe every man shall be free to elect his nationality and that no one shall be coerced to be a citizen of another nation. he may elect to be a citizen of another nation, but that is his concern. it is more than probable that there will be very great difficulty in rearranging the map of europe satisfactorily in order that this principle of nationality may be fulfilled, and nowhere will it be so difficult as in italy. the agreement of italy with the allies previous to her entering the war, and which is known as the pact of london, gave her, in event of victory, large sections of the dalmatian coast of which she has great need in order to facilitate the development of her commerce and to provide her with certain essentials which her territory does not furnish. this dalmatian coast and the territory contiguous to it to the east--istria, croatia, bosnia, and herzegovina--are not populated by italians to any considerable extent. as a matter of fact, the vast majority of the people are slavs, and it is this country which many people believe and hope will eventually become jugoslavia. there is no doubt whatsoever that italy will get all her unredeemed territory, but whether or not she will get much more than that on the continent of europe is doubtful in the minds of many, including her well-wishers. the question of nationality is not going to be an easy one for austria-hungary to settle. in reality, german-austria constitutes an important hinge upon which all the problems that are connected with the reconstruction of central europe swing. aside from the czecho-slovak nation, which is bohemia and the territories that were lopped off from it previous to the time when it was absorbed by austria-germany, the smaller nations that have come to the surface and have been differentiated in this waterspout that has disturbed the waters of the austro-hungarian empire will have to wait a long time for their rights and differentiation, but the status of german austria will have to be settled very promptly. it has been said repeatedly in the newspapers that these people have expressed a desire to unite themselves with a german confederation, probably bavaria. a great many people see in this accession to germany of ten or twelve millions of people a potential menace in so far as this added number might make for a disturbance of the equilibrium of power. but one cannot say whether or not this fear is groundless until we see what form of government prussia and bavaria and the other states of germany are eventually going to have. if the principles of nationality are not going to be invalidated by any future settlements, the germans of austria would have only two choices--to constitute an independent government of their own or to link themselves with one of the prussian states. as a matter of fact, it is most unlikely that the allies will attempt to give them any advice in this matter, which means they will not attempt to direct or coerce them. france may not have an easy time with alsace-lorraine. in the two generations that have elapsed since germany took them, it is not at all unlikely that many of their people have become a part of the national consciousness of that country. the just way would be to let the adults of alsace-lorraine decide at the end of another forty-eight years, during which time it is united to france, by universal vote of its adults, men and women, whether they want to have french or german nationality. i should think france would be taking no risks in such a plebiscite. england will have ireland to deal with after the war even more than before the war. there is only one way that she can do it successfully and that is on the principles of nationality. the irish are no more like the english than the czechs are like the austrians; in fact, they are less so. they are different emotionally, intellectually, morally, and physically, and england will not much longer be allowed to coerce them. her one privilege in ireland is to force universal education upon her people. if this had been done before, england would have long ere this brought about that instinctive liking and common purpose which is the basis of all sound union, whether it be between individuals or between components of a nation. italy's chief difficulty is going to be with the jugoslavs, as the southern slavs are called, and already these difficulties have begun. the southern slavs have not, so far as i can learn, formulated a definite programme, and they were never recognized as belligerent allies by the entente. italy had a hesitating recognition of southern slav aspirations forced from her, but there is no trust or confidence reposed in the slavs by the italians. the croatians, the bosnians, the montenegrins, the albanians do not know what they want, save change, and that they have wanted since time immemorial. they have no specific programme and there is no definite interlacement of their desires with serbia. so far as their plans can be gleaned, realization of them, even in the most fundamental one of establishing a plebiscitary area, would find itself in violent conflict with italy's pre-bellum agreement with the allies known as the treaty of london. all things come to him who waits. if while waiting things do not come to us that make life forever after unlivable, we shall be fortunate, and forever grateful. november, 1918. chapter xiv banquets and personalities i marvel how men in public life stand banquets, especially italians, who take to them like babes to mothers' milk. i fancy they often long for a succulent chop and a baked potato, with a tray for mahogany and a book for company! but the _banchetto_ gives them an alluring arena for oratory, and my deliberate conviction is that the italian has more pleasure in speaking than in any other voluntary act. not only does he like to talk, but he likes to be talked to. the italian language lends itself to sonorous oratory, and one can become more impassioned while delivering himself of simple thought and plain sentiment in it than in any other tongue. rome has always been the city of pilgrims. formerly they came in pursuit of the salvation of their souls; now they come to help make the world safe for liberty. missions, delegations, committees, distinguished personages with their trains come nearly every day from all parts of the world, and to each is given a banquet, to some many banquets. a diverting one was a luncheon given to a delegation of the japanese red cross headed by prince tokugawa. there were many distinguished personages present, including the premier orlando, the minister of war, the minister of the navy, duke torlonia, the directors-general of public health and of military health, and other exalted or celebrated personages "too numerous to mention." it was a pleasant party. the japs interested me very much. they looked less oriental, if that means anything, than their fellows with whom i have come in contact. i fancy this is due partly to the fact that they were in uniform not unlike that of american officers, and also they seemed bigger, that is--of greater stature--and more deliberate and suave than many that i had previously met. i talked to the prince and found him intelligent and communicative, without sign or display of royal prerogative. professor seigami sawamura, who sat on my left at lunch, is a lawyer who seemed to have about the same point of view on ordinary topics that a well-educated, cultured man of his profession in america might have. the man on my right was----, who spoke english perfectly, and whom i discovered, after a small attempt to draw him out on the political situation, to be an adherent of sonnino, minister of foreign affairs, and of his entourage. he seemed to be as devoid of capacity for constructive thought as any educated italian of thirty-five or forty in political life that i have ever met, or perhaps it was that he had a wonderful facility for concealing it. his small talk, however, was quite perfect, and i can imagine that he might have radiated considerable luminosity in a properly selected salon. the speeches of the visitors and of the japanese ambassador to italy were most diverting. i have never been so entertained and instructed by oratory of which i didn't understand a word. after the speeches were delivered they were put into excellent italian by a young attaché of the italian embassy who must have spent many years away from his native sunny italy in order to get the mastery of the oriental language that he displayed. banquet speeches are, as a rule, a series of platitudes in ornate dress, interspersed with sentiment and expressions of appreciation and praise phrased diplomatically. these speeches had those qualities--all save that of the japanese ambassador. his remarks had been carefully prepared and were read. undoubtedly they had been submitted to the mikado or his advisers before they were put before us, for they stated the position of his government relative to the war, narrated their reason for participation in its activities, and made statement of their determination to have the efforts of the allies crowned with success. the italian premier, orlando, replied. he is a real orator. even below the stature of the average italian of the south, the large, shapely, and well-poised head, surmounted with thick, closely cropped gray hair brushed pompadour, the sparkling eyes, ruddy face, and genial expression give you at once the feeling that you are in the presence of a man of power, of resourcefulness, and of facility. no one could mistake that he is a man of the people. there is no trace of arrogance or of self-exaltation, and when he speaks you feel that his words are fountained from sincerity. his remarks gave evidence of research and careful preparation. after having pointed out the pleasant relations that had always existed between italy and japan and the present intimate solidarity, he cited some historic instances which bind the nations in amity. it was a forebear of the prince tokugawa, the shogun yasu tokugawa, who in 1613 permitted a western ship to land in japan, and who facilitated the advent of the first japanese ambassador to rome. the visitors were apparently very much pleased with his remarks, as he intended they should be. there was nothing said that seemed to indicate that there was any general adhesion to the belief that if the allies won the war england would become the vassal of america, or of the yellow people of the extreme orient, such as the _frankfurter zeitung_ has recently said would probably be the case. all of the visitors with whom i spoke were loud, and seemingly sincere, in praise of the treatment they had had at the hands of the americans during their visit there, and i gathered that there exists at the present time between america and japan a more generalized sentiment of trustfulness than existed before the war. at least, it may be said that the jap loses no opportunity to say "nice things" of our country. a benefit that flows from such a gathering is the opportunity it gives to see, in their hour of semi-relaxation and at short range, some of those who are helping to make history in this country and whose names one sees every day in the newspapers. the first impression that one gets is that they are substantial, serious, intelligent, earnest, alert in their appearance, manner, and conduct, sincere in their efforts, and unalterable in their determination. i fancy that they compare favorably with a similar group of any nationality. though perhaps you are disappointed in finding that none of them bears any particular outward manifestations of genius, if there be such thing, yet you have no misgivings that they are individuals capable of constructive thought and mature deliberation, self-reliant, and confident. the next day i went to a midday banquet tendered by melville e. stone, the general manager of the associated press, by the newspaper men of rome. it was a very different gathering. newspaper men have a make-up, a physiognomy, a general appearance, more or less founded in what may be called personal neglect, that is, an insensitiveness to personal æsthetics, which is quite characteristic. one can't pick a newspaper man from a crowd with the same readiness and accuracy that he picks a monk or an actor, but the majority of journalists become hall-marked after they have plied their vocation for any considerable length of time. i was impressed with the appearance of intelligence and seriousness of the men of the italian press. few of them bore the somatic signs of intimacy with mr. barleycorn. the company had a fair sprinkling of ministers, including nitti and gallenga, deputies, and ex-ministers, but as far as i could see there were no dukes or princes. the latter are ornamental and not infrequently pleasing to look upon, but a gathering of newspaper men is redolent of democracy, which is antipathic to princely presence. we lunched at the restaurant in the borghese gardens. it was a much simpler affair than the banquet tendered the japs at the grand hotel, but it was an ample, edible lunch, and you had the feeling that we had foregathered to honor one who was deserving. when one attempts to describe mr. stone he is tempted at once to say he is a typical american. but what is a typical american? there are so many types. william jennings bryan is a typical american. so is henry cabot lodge. benjamin franklin was a typical american, yet he fraternized with dukes and flirted with duchesses, the sheer embodiment of _suaviter in modo_ and _fortiter in re_. while successfully putting america on the map and advancing the humanities generally, he immortalized himself and affectioned the french people. abraham lincoln, we like to think, was a typical american, but were one to encounter him incog. in ceremonial circles, political or social, in europe to-day, ninety-nine americans out of a hundred would deny him. uncle sam is supposed to depict the somatic make-up of the typical yankee, and at the same time to convey the idea that he is a man to be reckoned with emotionally and intellectually at all times, in his moments of relaxation and in his hours of activity. nevertheless the average person has something fairly specific in mind when he says, "he is a typical american." he means a man who displays and who often can't conceal a determination to put through that which he has planned; who is self-confident, opinionated, a stranger to ceremony and oftentimes unfamiliar with ordinary social amenities; who is fully appreciative of the accomplishments and potentialities of his country and its institutions, and who doesn't hesitate to contrast them with those of other countries, often to their disparagement; who speaks only one language, american, and that not always either grammatically or elegantly; who is often a stranger to culture and the last person in the world to find it out; whose dress is that of a farmer or a fashion-plate, and who has bizarre tastes for food and drink--cocktails and ice-water bulk large in his necessities, and he despises continental breakfasts; who is attracted by the treasures of art and moved by the beauties of nature, but the immediate result of the emotion is to enhance the value of something similar in his own country, yet when he treads his native heath he is often a disparager of it, its possessions, and its institutions. melville e. stone is not that sort of typical american. his record is not unlike that of thousands of his countrymen. he is temperamentally and emotionally an irishman, and intellectually and physically an american. the son of an itinerant methodist preacher who forsook the cloth for commerce during the civil war, and was thus able to provide for the maintenance and education of his children, he gives you the impression of a man who has made his way in the world, and made his own way. although he is now past the age allotted to man by the psalmist, he has the appearance and conduct of a man easily ten years younger. i had opportunity of observing him at short range for three or four days, for he was our guest, and as all the other members of our household were away i saw more of him than i otherwise might. he is a man of vast information, which he is not averse to sharing with others, and, unlike many who have such possessions, his information is accurate. this, in a measure, is due to the fact that it is largely personal. as the general manager and general motivator of the greatest news-collecting bureau in the world, he is constantly coming in contact with men who are making history, and his personality is so ingratiating that they allow him a personal contact which in many instances apparently reaches intimacy. although he is a man who talks freely, my impression is that he is not indiscreet. in addition to this, he has been a studious reader. it was interesting to find that he is a bed reader, for my belief is that the man who reads attentively in bed has an impression of what he reads made upon the memory cells of his brain cortex which sleep then stamps with permanency. i gather mr. stone had very little schooling; that is, he did not go to college. as a boy he went to school in the winter and worked in the summer and during other vacations, and apparently the work that he did most willingly was newspaper work. he became editor of the chicago _daily news_ while still a very young man, and continued in that important post for a quarter of a century. he acquired the art of going easily and successfully to men in political life and other avenues of constructive activity while in chicago, washington, and the capitals of europe. the thing that has made him a man of culture, however, is an inherent desire for knowledge, which, he early realized, is the only means that man can successfully employ to add to his stature. he is a true celt, emotional, sensitive, tenacious of his opinions, reliant in his judgments, a hater of his enemies, and an admirer of his friends. if i were asked to enumerate his most distinctive possession, after a short intimacy with him i should say it was a quality which we speak of as justice. when he brings a question up to the threshold of his consciousness for solution, or a problem for decision, the first thing that he considers is "is it just?" after that its feasibility and advisability are discussed. the representative gathering of italians which greeted him at lunch were prejudiced in his favor. in addition to that, they were saturated with the belief that america was the young lochinvar who came out of the west to deliver them from threatened bondage. i doubt very much whether any one in america to-day realizes the feeling that italians had for america, and it is one of great interest. until the advent of america into the war italians practically knew nothing of the united states of america, save that it was a place to which large numbers of their poorest and most ignorant inhabitants emigrated, and where they made money which enabled them to return to their native land, or to maintain their families or dependents during their exile. of the history of america, of the men who made that history and who are making it, of its institutions, its traditions, its accomplishments, its potentialities they knew practically nothing. undoubtedly there are many who would not accept this statement as true, but i am convinced that it is. naturally there are men of culture, men of studious habits, men with inclination for historic reading who are exceptions to this blanket accusation. i was very much amused last winter, when dining with an admiral of the navy on duty at spezia, by the inquiry whether i came from north america or from south america. there are many italians who claim to be educated who make very little differentiation between the two continents, and i have never yet met an italian, unless he was a bookish man, who knew anything about our literature. in my own profession i doubt that there are a half-dozen men in america whose fame has reached italy, and those whose names are familiar are known because of some eponymic association. i could cite many examples to show not only the indifference which italians have to the history and literature of our country but also the absence of any desire to know about them. then, their conceptions or ideas of americans are quite extraordinary. they got them from tourists whom they saw overrunning their country en prince or en cook, and made up their minds that they were a type of uncivilized croesus or of unæsthetic barbarian. they saw the effete, the effeminate and decadent, or the semi-invalided business man surrounded by a bevy of overdressed females whose chief interest seemed to be their luggage and the sights; and they saw the weary and wearisome gapers constituting the "personally conducted." then again, the italian is no great traveller. he likes his country, he is content with it, and, although he rails against his government, he would feel that a large part of the pleasure of life was taken from him if he were not permitted to discuss critically, and often disparagingly, what are commonly called politics. i don't mean to say that the italian "fancies" himself, but neither the spirit of admiration nor of emulation distinguishes him. he is like the roman in miniature. the roman still thinks he is the last cry of god's handiwork in the human line. when america declared war on germany, and particularly when she declared war on austria, italians quickly got interested in america; and when they learned that america came so generously to italy's aid, first, in supplying the money for the conduct of the war, and then in supplying the material needs of her people, italians manifested a tremendous interest in us and in our country, and they began to look upon us as their guide and their savior. i never heard a disparaging word of our country or of him who was directing our ship of state until after the peace conference. they looked upon woodrow wilson as a man inspired. there were times during the war when they would have been very glad if america had acquiesced more readily and more whole-heartedly in their requests, such as in july, 1918, when they believed that it was imperative to have large numbers of american troops in italy. but at the same time, when their wishes were not met and their requests not granted, they did not sit in adverse judgment upon him who made the decision. in fact, they believed he could not err. it is natural that they should have been concerned about the situation that existed in the early summer of 1918. there were two millions of american troops in europe, with more constantly coming, and there were only a very small number in italy. the italians saw themselves pitted more or less alone against a country, austria-hungary, which had an army nearly twice as large as theirs and which was more rapacious than a hungry wolf goaded into renewed ferocity by recent defeat. they sincerely believed that if they had received help at that time they could have overcome their hereditary and acquired enemy promptly, and it is likely that they could. that might have been a reason for sending american troops to italy, but it was not an adequate reason. the one task in hand was to win the war, to win it expeditiously and to win it in such a manner that would put germany, as she was constituted and as she had been constituted for the past twenty-five years, out of existence; that is, to exterminate the war lords, to destroy them and their influence. the man or men who were permitted to look at the question from all angles were far better able to plan how this should be done than the councillors of one nation who naturally saw the question only from one side, that is, their own point of view. it is likely also that the italians constantly reminded themselves that if they had received help from the allies early in 1916 the war might have been ended. i have heard many an italian say that they were in a position then to overcome the austrian army had they received such help and that with the simultaneous activity of the russians on the eastern front they would have carried the allied arms into vienna. but you do not grind your grist more satisfactorily by regretting that the waters that have gone over the mill were not used more efficaciously. i have wandered far afield from the testimonial lunch to mr. stone, but my reflections are apropos of the remarks which the honorable nitti, a wizard with figures and a magician with men, made. many of his countrymen profess to distrust him and to say that giolitti made him and still controls him. nothing could be more absurd. nitti is the type of man who is made by his endowment and by his environment. it would be easier to think of any other public man in italy as the tool of a dictator, dethroned or enthroned, than it would be of nitti. the son of poor parents who sacrificed everything for his education, he has been journalist, author, teacher, economist, professor, advocate, and statesman. when he first went in the house he sat on the extreme left, and gradually he moved up toward the centre, although he is always inscribed in the radical party. he is unquestionably of formidable brain and combines a will of iron with an audacity that has the appearance at least of transcending all temerity. in appearance he is the typical middle-class south italian, short, rotund, with thick neck and massive face adorned with a smile that rarely comes off. he is a polished orator and his political papers read like literary documents. he is reputed to be a master of political stage-setting. realizing that the most potent factor in shaping men's judgment is the press, and realizing that the man who has his fingers on the keyboard of the organ that makes the music was the honored guest of the occasion, he embraced the opportunity to put before mr. stone and his colleagues his convictions of the needs of italy and his hopes that they might be gratified. i am sure that he did not say publicly anything that mr. stone had not already heard in private audience, for the doors leading to the council chambers of the men of influence in this country swing open welcomingly to mr. stone, but to say them in his presence to the representative press of italy convinced us that his hopes and aspirations in this matter were the expression of the government, and he was willing and wished to communicate them to the public. the other speakers were entertaining but scarcely instructive. one doesn't expect inspired sentiment or statement at testimonial banquets, but i felt that the speakers missed an opportunity to herald the democratization of the world through education and enlightenment via the press. many nice things were said about mr. stone, but i confess frankly that i was disappointed that no one took it upon himself to interpret his accomplishments or to dwell upon and elaborate his activities and accomplishments symbolically. if they would stop telling us germany's motives in precipitating the great war and give us instead a credo for the present and the future, it would be a relief. i am firmly convinced that germany thrust the war upon the world because she couldn't inhibit her latent and active cruelty which possesses and has possessed her for generations, as lust possesses the satyric man who, when he becomes intoxicated or unbalanced, throws prudence, precedent, precept, and principles to the wind and gives himself and his possessions to the orgy. the central powers will have to pay the full penalty for their crimes, even though they deny their guilt, just as the wilful murderer is electrocuted, even though he goes to the chair protesting his innocence. the guest's speech was felicitous. he dwelt briefly on italy's justification for entering the war when she did; he justly evaluated her work and he paid a deserving tribute to her resourcefulness in having extricated herself from the horns of the bull after the caporetto disaster. he brought columbus, mazzini, and garibaldi, our debt to them and their inspiration for us, into his remarks in such a way as to convince his auditors that they constitute for us a revered italian trinity, and he adequately depicted the tenderness and affection that his countrymen have for italy. it takes a big man, using that word in one of its conventional senses, to conduct a successful publicity campaign. in the first place, he has to understand the people with whom he works, and the first successful step in understanding them is to want to understand them. if he has preconceived ideas not founded in reliable information or experience, if he is biassed and hypercritical, if he doesn't know how to elicit testimony and evaluate evidence, if he hasn't habituated himself to look at events, heralded or transpired, from different points of view, if he isn't animated by the spirit of service--that is, to do his work for the good of the cause--he is doomed to failure, or at least he can be only partially successful. then again, he must be a man who worthily represents his government and his people. he should know his way about. he should be familiar with ordinary social amenities, so that he may go easily amongst his superiors and excite their approbation, and he must have the capacity to bear true witness while constantly keeping the burnished side of his shield before the people he is aiming to succor and orient. there are few ways in which one can be of more service to his country than by making proper propaganda in an allied country. the narrow-minded, biassed, obsessed man has the worst possible equipment for such position. propaganda is the priceless privilege of the press. chapter xv sentimentality and the male it is a long time now that the belief has been generally accepted that god made man, and, contemplating his work, realized that it was a failure for the purpose for which man was created. he then made woman. the way in which this was accomplished is full of interest to the artificer, but it does not concern me, whose lifelong study has been of the finished species; nor does the object of the creation of man, alluring as it is, tempt me to digress from the subject of his sentimental endowment. soon after his organism was endowed with sentient possession, man was made aware that he had imperious desires which not only demanded satisfaction but which insisted upon being satisfied. it pleased the christian church to enshroud the most vital of these god-given desires in the mantle of sin, save when its appeasement was done in conformity with the restrictions laid upon it by the church. it may quite well be that such restrictions were founded in wisdom. for a long time england maintained that it was right to restrict the franchise to owners of property of a certain value, and for many centuries the world accepted slavery without a thought that it was wrong. ruskin spoke truly when he said: "the basest thought about man is that he has no spiritual nature, and the foolishest that he has no animal nature." the facts around which these remarks are spun are first: god reproduced his image, and, finding that the image was incomplete and useless for the purposes for which he was created, he made him whole, as it were, by creating the female; and second: that he endowed man and woman with mental and emotional qualities which were to aid them in living their lives happily for themselves, usefully for others, and acceptably to him. the moment this endowment was made known to them the fat was in the fire. "she tempted me and i fell" has been the subject of picture and poem, story and sermon, excuse or extenuation, since time immemorial. learned tomes and ponderous volumes have set forth specifically the difference of the sexes, more or less uselessly too, for no one needs to be convinced that there are anatomical and physiological differences. the obvious is never interesting; the pleasurable quest is pursuit of the elusive, the intangible. there are differences between the sexes that defy specific designation, for i do not admit that specificity is given to these distinctions by saying that men differ from women emotionally, morally, spiritually, ethically, or that they react differently to the same stimulus under the same circumstances, or that there are soul differences of kind and degree. we do not have to decide whether these distinctions are inherent or acquired. we have only to admit that they exist. the plain fact is that tradition and experience teach us that both the male and the female of the _genus homo_ have certain spiritual endowments, both on the emotional and the intellectual side, which have come to be looked upon as characteristic. courage, valor, secrecy are universally considered to be characteristics of the male. on the other hand, patience, sentiment, vanity, and fickleness have become traditionally linked up with the opposite sex. women are often braver than men, more continent, less vain, but to admit this does not diminish the acceptability of the general proposition. no one is likely to contend that either sex has a monopoly of any of these qualities, but i fancy it will readily be admitted that sentimentality, in its most flagrant display, is a more characteristic ancilla of woman than of man. bulwer lytton was a shrewd observer when he wrote: "there is sentiment in all women and sentiment gives delicacy to thought and tact to manner." but sentiment with men is generally acquired, an offspring of the intellectual quality, not as with the other sex, of the moral. a man considers it a term of reproach to be called sentimental; on the other hand, such designation in no way detracts from a woman's estimate of herself, nor does it derogate her in the esteem of others so long as she confines it within certain limits and so long as it does not condition her conduct. many a man on reviewing his past recognizes that his ship of celibacy foundered upon the sandy shoals called "tender-minded." the tender-minded girl is one with a mind somewhat underdeveloped, saturated in sentimentality usually associated with a streak of obstinacy which is beyond parental influence. with nubility there comes to every girl a wealth of emotional endowment which is often most bewildering--indeed, it upsets some unstable organizations, while to others it is merely an intoxication. it disturbs their equilibrium, it tends to break down their inhibitions and to befog the perspectives that have been so carefully developed for them, and it not infrequently roils the water of life in which they have been floating and swimming without effort to such a degree that they constitute a problem for parent and teacher. the average girl gradually throws off these disequilibrilizing effects; and the moonlight walks in the garden, or the romantic plans to spend an idyllic life in a tiny cottage covered by a rambler rose-bush far from the madding crowd, companioned by an adonis and the poetry of tennyson, her extravagant protestations of love for another girl, her exuberant interest in some mystic or fantastic cult, and other concomitants of this period, are given proper valuation. she emerges into womanhood with a "head" for the intoxicating libation that wells up in her tissues, and is poured through her soul as sap wells up in a tree, even to the smallest branches preparatory to its bloom and fructification. the knowledge is borne in upon her that she can manage the new possession conformably to the canons of church, state, and society, and that the total of what has come to her at this period may be split up into qualities or possessions to which are given specific names, such as sentiment. soon she realizes that these qualities become important assets in her display of the _ars amoris_ and they prepare the road that leads pleasantly and propitiously to the goal which shall be the fulfilment of her physiological destiny, namely, maternity via matrimony. when that gratifying stage has been reached and fulfilled she understands that sentimentality, modestly displayed, contributes largely to her success, not only in her family but in the world. how different with the opposite sex! he likewise feels the obscuring mists of sex potency and of sentimentality settling over him as puberty approaches. he is also bewildered, but it is early made clear to him by his fellows who have gone through the experience that the slightest manifestation of it will be the signal for loosing on him the floodgates of their contempt and for opening for him the sluiceways of their scorn. to be called a mollycoddle is worse than being called a sneak, a cad, or a liar, and he is made to appreciate that if he merits such designation his companions will give him the kind of reception the wedding guests gave the ancient mariner. it is borne in upon him that display of sentiment in any form whatsoever is not "manly"; so he not only suppresses sentimentality, but in order to conceal it he goes much farther and no longer treats his sisters with the same kindness and consideration as before; he withdraws his intimacies and his confidences from his mother, professes a contempt for the society of girls, and embraces every opportunity to display a furious antagonism toward sentimentality. this period is oftentimes a trying one for the parent, and, as every one knows, it is fraught with danger to the individual, particularly if he is a weak character, because it is during these times that sinister associations and injurious habits are formed which are prejudicial to physical development and mental evolution. this is the period of life which has furnished the fertile soil in which the modern english novelist successfully sows his seed. the average boy emerges from this period with a vision so adjusted to his immediate environment and the world that he senses things as they really are. he begins to get some idea of the purposes and value of life, its obligations and its privileges, and as the result of intuition or tuition, that happiness and usefulness, the chief aims and objects of life, stand in direct and measurable relationship to the possession and display of certain qualities which are commonly spoken of as virtues. as his mind unfolds and he is able to give relativity to these qualities, he becomes aware that sentiment in a man is not a deforming but a meritorious possession, which, when used properly, is a great asset, but that it is one of the qualities of his make-up that should not be displayed to the vulgar gaze, and is a possession which he should rarely use save to blend with other qualities to give them savor. he appreciates that sentiment gives momentum to his designs and tone to his accomplishments, while furnishing appropriate and fitting setting for their display, and with discernment he is able to distinguish clearly between sentiment and sentimentality and knows that the word sentiment is used synonymously with feeling or conviction. sentiment is a composite of many of the virtues and is a subjective possession which, when revealed in words, action, or conduct may become sentimentality, providing the origin of these words, acts, and deeds is founded in sentiment. the possession of sentiment, that is, of feeling, is a most desirable one so long as it does not warp the judgment, interfere with the mission, or prevent a man from doing his duty. the man or woman who is devoid of feeling is a species of monster, but the man or woman whose plan of life is based upon sentiment and whose conduct conforms to sentiment is mentally and morally unhealthy. as lowell says: "every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action." decisions, plans of action, conduct conditioned by or founded in sentiment can be followed safely only if they are submitted to the acid test of reason before acceptation or subscription. sentiment as a possession may be compared to a ferocious dog. he may be invaluable as a watch-dog, which adequately chained gives you a feeling of security, and at appropriate times can be unleashed to signal advantage, and accomplishes under guidance that which merits full approval; but let loose at all times he is an intolerable nuisance and may get you into one trouble after another. the sentimentalist is a person who, in decisions, judgments, plans of action, and conduct of them, point of view in dealing with persons individually and collectively, has his conduct so colored by sentiment that his plan of action and ability and methods of its execution seem illogical and incapable of being subjected to the test of reason. carlyle put it tersely when he said: "the barrenest of mortals is the sentimentalist." the agonal struggle of the great war was not necessary to convince us that very little is to be accomplished in the world single-handed. the individual can give birth to the idea, the plan, or possess the initiative which may revolutionize some phase of the activities of the world, but to carry out the idea he must have the co-operation of many. it is in securing such co-operation that he has a great opportunity to make a proper use of sentiment. there is nothing that an organizer or an administrator finds out earlier or surer than that loyalty is the cement that keeps his organization together, and the more it sets the more firm and invulnerable becomes his organization. how to engender such loyalty is a problem that each person confronted with it must solve for himself. some do it by meriting the respect and admiration of their coworkers and subordinates by display of such qualities as kindliness, justice, generosity, consideration of the welfare of their fellows, while others encompass it by the whole-hearted and unselfish way in which they give themselves to the work. some do it quite impersonally and may possibly not be on terms of intimacy with any member of their organization. this does not necessarily mean that they hold themselves aloof from those with whom they come in contact; on the contrary, there may exist a genial comradeship from which mutual respect, admiration, and possibly even affection are developed. some few develop loyalty from personal contact on the basis of sentimentality. they proceed upon the plan that if they cannot secure the personal admiration and affection of those associated with them, impelling them to do their best because of this relationship rather than for the good of the cause, they have not been completely successful in their accomplishment. to this end they not infrequently resort to a display of sentimentality which is distressing to the impartial onlooker. that great dissector of the morals and motives of men, thackeray, said: "one tires of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes or your own." they lavish praise upon those who have not merited it, substituting adulation for admonition; they profess a confidence that is not justified by results; they claim to see only virtues in every individual who is drawn into the sacred circle of their employment or association. should they have suspicions that some in their circle are not deserving of confidence or do not have the qualities from which loyal, useful associates can be made, they delude themselves with the belief that they can engender a sufficient desire in the inadequate one to compel him to be loyal and efficient in order that the confidence and admiration of the chief may be requited. people who work together should respect each other, and by it employer and employee should be linked together. if a more intimate relation flows naturally from this respect, well and good, but there should not be the slightest attempt made to engender it on a sentimental basis. the rugged mind of carlyle eschewed the sentimental. he stated: "the sentimental by and by will have to give place to the practical." most men if they strive sufficiently to make others like them can succeed in their endeavor, but a man should be liked for the inherent virtues or laudable qualities that he possesses and not for the semblance of them which he assumes for a special purpose. we like a man because he is trustworthy, loyal, efficient, reliable, truthful, co-operative, sympathetic, understanding, but we do not necessarily like him because some one else tells us that we ought to like him, particularly if we have found that he does not possess any of the qualities we desire and which would have made him acceptable. the sentimentalist is often guided in his decisions and in his conduct relative to others by the fear that, if he apprises the individual of the reason why he no longer wishes to keep up business or professional relations with him, the individual thus treated will devote some time afterward to tarnishing the lustre of his halo. the sentimentalist fears especially the criticism, disparagement, and possibly one might say the malignity of those from whom he chooses to separate after they have been weighed and found wanting. it is not that he fears that injury will be done him, because not infrequently his career is so successful that it can withstand an enormous amount of disparagement and criticism without detrimental impression. the disparagement of such individuals can do him no harm save in the humiliation to his pride when it is brought home to him that he has not been able to make the leopard change his spots. self-interest is the subconscious motive that often leads to a display of sentimentality. the sentimentalist realizes that allegations of merit and of capacity are "things that are graceful in a friend's mouth but blushing in a man's own," and as such praise is the breath of his nostrils he will go to great lengths to achieve its accomplishment. but, though he may be deceived by flattery, there are others who know that "on ne trouve jamais l'expression d'un sentiment qui l'on n'a pas; l'esprit grimace et le style aussi." he is the easy prey for those who appeal to his vanity or to his susceptibility to flattery, to advance their own or others' projects and interests, and he may be led into doing things which his sober judgment tells him are not desirable, because he feels that he must not run the risk of lowering himself in the estimate of the individual from whom he has accepted adulation, reverence, or adoration. when the male sentimentalist habituates himself to this worshipful attitude from the other sex he becomes covered with points which achilles had only immediately above the heel. the sex which has long been popularly known as the weaker has an inherited or acquired code of morality which permits them to make demands of the sentimental man which a mere man, unless base, would scorn, and now that the sex has been emancipated we begin to feel that they should come out in the open and play fair. if they want to rely for their successes upon the weapons that have been vouchsafed them heretofore, they should not have the privileges which they are asking for and receiving to-day. heaven knows no one is more desirous that they should have what they ask for in that direction than i am, but they should not use their sex quality to take an unfair advantage. thus oftentimes one who merits the designation of "pillar of strength and tower of fire" becomes a reed in the emotional wind that blows from the designing woman. she may not be designing in a malignant sense; she may merely enjoy the display of power. it is remarkable what a sentimentalist will put up with in the shape of indignity and inefficiency rather than run the risk of being impaired in the esteem of one who has this kind of influence over him. emerson, one of our deepest thinkers, said: "man is the will and woman is the sentiment. in this ship of humanity will is the rudder and sentiment the sail; when woman affects to steer, the rudder is only the masked sail." there is nothing more jove-like than virility and continency, but a man saturated with sentimentality produces a sensation akin to that which the child experiences when she finds her doll is stuffed with sawdust. sentiment in a man is like scent in a rose. it is the finishing touch to perfection; when it is deficient it thrills one no more than the painted flower; when it is excessive the heaviness of its enervating odor is oppressive. chapter xvi the play instinct in children italy's greatest recent patriot is cesare battisti, who suffered martyrdom for love of his native land. he was an austrian subject, professor of biology and geography in the university of trent and a deputy in the austrian house of parliament. in the beginning of the war he returned to italy to fight against the country of his adoption and to favor the fortunes of his native land, and his efforts were crowned with great success. he entered the italian army as a lieutenant of the alpini, and in 1916 fell into the hands of the austrians, who quickly and cruelly despatched him by the most barbarous methods that they could conceive. streets and piazzas have been named for him, hospitals and monuments have been raised in his honor, and his name is known to every man, woman, and child in the kingdom. but it is not of battisti that i would write, but to record a train of thought that was initiated by the sight of the orphans who were occupying the building which italy's most distinguished physician, ettore marchiafava, aided by generous friends of the sick poor, has taken over for a tuberculosis hospital, and which will be called after cesare battisti. there were about two hundred girls, ranging in age from six to fourteen, in the charge of an order of nuns. the building is situated on a hill in the outskirts of rome known as monte verde, which is the southern continuation of the janiculum. in former days it was a palatial villa belonging to some dignitary of the church and latterly church property. it commands a magnificent view of rome, of the tiber, of the campagna, the castelli romani, and the alban hills. when i arrived the children were in the grounds about the house and more or less segregated in a broad walk or alley lined by trees which led from the street to the villa. they were walking up and down in twos or threes or singly, apparently without other objective or display of desire than to walk. they looked like children of many nationalities, healthy and clean; but, more than that, they looked happy, contented, satisfied. as i passed amongst them, nearly every one greeted me with a smile and "_buon giorno_." there was no show of embarrassment, shyness, bashfulness, or artificiality. i looked over the grounds of the place, several acres, and saw not the slightest sign of games, swings, playgrounds, sand-piles, or other feature with which children divert themselves or are diverted in other lands. i went through the house from cellar to garret, and rarely have i seen an inhabited building with fewer signs of habitation. the dormitories contained long rows of beds with no sign of tables, chairs, stands, comfort-bags--nothing save the beds. the refectory was equally barren. the schoolroom was desolation itself--benches, long desks, and a solitary blackboard. the only indication that anything was taught save that which could be imparted by word of mouth was a typewriting machine. examine as carefully as i might, i wasn't able to detect the smallest object for the diversion, entertainment, distraction, occupation of the little ones that the place was utilized to harbor, to nurture, to develop, and to instruct. when i returned to _terra firma_, there they were, walking up and down the alley as they were when i went in. a gentle-eyed sister was among the groups of the smaller ones, but they seemed not to need care. they were self-sufficient. for the first time i felt the sensation of oppression in the presence of a crowd of joyous children. i felt they were in a prison-house narrower and more restricting than that which closes in upon the budding man, and i went away without thought of cesare battisti, but big with solicitude for these lusty young beings whose best and most potential quality, the play instinct, was being stultified, or at least not cultivated. i marvelled that the country which made the most constructive contribution to child pedagogy of the nineteenth century fails to see or to realize that the most potent, directly god-sent possession of a child is its imagery or fancy, which externalizes itself in every child in the desire to play--to play parent, construction, warfare, games, or ape the activities of their elders. the explanation cannot be that italy is ignorant of the cultivation of the child's instinct for play in other countries or of the immense provision that is made to enhance it both in public and in private life. i can readily understand that there might be wilful opposition to it in church institutions, as its elaborate display is considered inimical to that humility which is the essence of the christian religion. punish the flesh, have a contempt and a disdain for any of its clamorings, treat it as if it were a vessel unworthy of its sacred cargo the soul, scourge it and humiliate it, and you will find favor in his sight. it is extraordinary and inexplicable that man should feel himself free to suggest to himself and to others that a suppression, even abnegation, of god-given instincts which are as much an integral part of the _genus homo_ as his speech capacity, is necessary in order that the individual should find favor in god's eyes and be worthy of reward when he is called to join him. it seems so much more consistent with reason that the species were provided with instincts that they might be utilized, and therefore that the duty of the teacher and the guide is to foster these instincts, to develop them, and to direct them toward the channels where they may be utilized to the advantage of the individual, the community, and the state. if it were only the church that displayed an opposition to the development of the play instinct in children i should not concern myself particularly with it, as i am not inclined to take issue with the church, either in its propaganda or in its teachings. i consider that it takes an unfair advantage of infants and children, but i solace my indignation with the thought that when the child comes to man's estate mentally he is free to liberate himself from its enthralments and inhibitions. it may be said that it has shaped his mental processes, activities, and inclinations to such purpose that he does not see straight, and that accusation is true, providing they have sterilized his mind to such a degree that he is no longer capable of constructive thought. there is no doubt that they often bring about such mental eunuchoidismus, but it is probable that the great majority of those thus sterilized would have been dead-wood in the stream of evolutionary progress had they been left intact. but insensitiveness to the child's needs is not confined to parochial schools and other church institutions where children are harbored and taught. in italy it is displayed in nearly every public and private institution where the young are segregated for purposes of instruction and maintenance. i would not be understood to say that there are not playgrounds of any kind connected with italian schools, but the few that exist are scarcely worthy of the name. the plain truth of the matter is that the play instinct has been thwarted so long in the italian that it doesn't seem to exist any more. one of the things that strikes the stranger who penetrates far enough into family life to permit him the opportunity of observation is that the parent doesn't play with his children as does the anglo-saxon, and children do not play with each other. i cannot conceive that the child, left to itself, does not "hold unconscious intercourse with beauty old as creation," and give evidence of it and of the activity of its developing mind which reveals itself constructively in that which we call play. but the observation and experience of children in italy lead me to believe that when they grow up and recall "those recollected hours that have the charm of visionary things, those lovely forms and sweet sensations that throw back their life, and almost make remotest infancy a visible scene, on which the sun is shining," they do not expose a treasure-house in which are stored the recollections of the most envied times of their lives. the little _villino_ that i occupy is cared for by a couple whose only child is a little girl of eight. from my window i survey her activities and i have never yet seen her in play, "seen no little plan of chart or fragment from her beam of human life shaped by herself with newly learned art." when i look out in the morning she is likely to be sitting outside the gate as if awaiting something to transpire that would be worthy of observation, attention, or participation. when i return in the middle of the day and again in the evening and when sundays or other times i am in my rooms for a protracted period, i see her ever busily engaged in doing nothing. the only imaginative or emotional activity that i have ever witnessed her display is that sometimes i find her humming and she always smiles and greets me most affably. at times i see other children make a visit to her, but it is obviously a ceremonious one, for there are no shrieks or yells, no tumbling or rolling, no scampering or chattering, none of that display of physical vitality and joy of living that lambs or colts or calves or even puppies or kittens make. they are like a miniature group of giacondas, older than the rocks upon which they sit, who have tasted all the joys to satiety. the doll that i gave her has apparently been put away, not at all unlikely with a scapular or holy beads. at least, i have never seen her with it in her arms since the day she received it. there is no sign of miniature wheelbarrow or shovel or sandpile, no little wooden geegee, no bicycle or miniature locomotive, no blocks or other material from which to construct a castle or a kitchen, no indication whatsoever that she attempts to portray any of the vagrant thoughts or fleeting fancies that arise in her budding mind. when i go on a sunday to the little villages in the campagna or in the castelli romani to which the proletariat repair with their families in _villeggiatura_, i see hundreds of children, but never once have i seen any of them playing, nor are they noisy and boisterous. if they are clamorous and restless, it is for food or for appeasement of some other physical need. even the little boys do not play in the streets. their one source of amusement is for a number of them to gather around a pile of small stones used for repair of the road and to divert themselves by hurling them at one another when a carriage or an automobile is not passing, at which time they concentrate their efforts on attempts to slay the occupants of these vehicles with the deadly missiles at hand. on the janiculum where i live there is a paradise for children, a little park with the roaring, splashing fountain of st. paolo at one end of it and the entrance to the broad, shaded driveway that traverses the janiculum to st. onofrio at the other. on either side of this drive are broad lawns interspersed with flowerbeds and shaded with most seductive trees, amongst which is tasso's oak, now fallen into such a state of decrepitude that it has to have artificial support and braces. the place is often alive with children, painfully decorous and silent. they often remind me of millet's "man with the hoe," bowed down with the weight of ages. not infrequently i meet in the morning and in the evening whole troops of children going and returning from the accessible fields of monte verde, always lined up like soldiers, two abreast, and the only manifestation of externalized emotion i have ever seen in them is that occasionally their keepers--priest, nun, or sour-visaged guardian--permit them to break into song--patriotic anthem or lyric wail. it is notorious that games play no such part in the diversion of the adult italian as they do in the countries peopled by our own race. golf, tennis, football, cricket, baseball are practically unknown except as they have been established by foreigners for their own use. naturally they have attracted some italians, but there is no general interest in them. contests of endurance, such as bicycle races and rowing, they have, and horse-racing has a certain vogue, but chiefly because it facilitates taking chances on the winner. this is the more remarkable, for when they do go in for games they often excel, showing aptitude, endurance, and daring. there is no nationality that compares with them in their riding, for instance. it is not true to say that they do not play games. the spanish game of ball known as _pelota_ is played in some centres where the _jeunesse dorée_ segregate, and another game of ball called _pallone_ is played a little, but with no enthusiasm, and it arouses no considerable interest. in fact, nothing included under the head of sport plays a great rôle in italy. fortunately it is being encouraged, and within a generation we may confidently anticipate a decided change. it would, of course, be ridiculous to say that they do not shoot and fish. you often encounter in tramping through the country a man with a gun on his shoulder, but usually he is a pot-hunter, and now and then your rambles bring you face to face with a nimrod, but in nine cases out of ten he likewise is animated by the desire for succulent food. on superficial examination it seems extraordinary that this state of affairs should exist in a country which for many centuries seemed to have had its chief enjoyment in murder, sense-gratification, games, and contests of courage, strength, and endurance. no one can read the history of the days of roman supremacy without being struck with the fact that the chief amusement of the populace of those days was play, display of strength, skill, dexterity, and inventiveness. archæologists and others interested in unearthing and interpreting archaic remains tell us that the aphorism that there is nothing new under the sun is true so far as games are concerned, and i expect any day to hear that they have disinterred a golf course at ostia, a diamond or a football field at salerno. however, after reflection, it occurs to me that there are many reasons why the italians, young and old, do not play spontaneously and intentionally, or as naturally and pleasurably as those of other nations. it is easy enough to understand why all play ceased in those days of intellectual apathy, artistic sterility, and emotional decay which, beginning with the fourth century a.d., continued for nearly a thousand years. i have never looked into the matter with sufficient care to be able to say whether or not there was a renaissance of the play instinct or any elaborate and wide-spread manifestation of it beginning with the fourteenth century, but my impression is that there was. we have records of tournaments and jousts and games of various kinds in certain cities of italy, such as salerno; there still exist the physical features or foundations of such play. any one who has read italian history until the successful movement of nationality of 1870 will not be astonished that play in any form did not have a great vogue during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. the people were too busy devising plans to outwit their neighbors and to get possession of their lands and their treasures to have time for play. the italian nature or temperament is not favorable to development of the play instinct. the italian likes to act, or to display histrionic possession, more than anything else; it has often been remarked that they are born actors, and not only do they produce more great actors and actresses than any other country but you see more finished and artistic acting in italy than in any other country of the world. they are devoted to mimicry, adepts in pantomime, and their "marionettes" have reached a high degree of artistic development. as for the cinema, they go to it with the ardor of a lover to his mistress. the theatre and gambling is the italian idea of diversion, relaxation, and amusement. the display and satisfaction of the play instinct spell work, oftentimes most laborious work carefully planned and elaborately carried out. the successful pursuit of games of all sorts requires not only work but oftentimes protracted physical training and profound physical effort. the italians do not take kindly to them. in the south of italy there are six months of the year and often more when no one is keenly disposed to active physical effort and at no time in the year is there that atmospheric incitation to physical activity that exists in england or in our own country. it may well be that children of the south do not take kindly to play because of the great and protracted heat, during which they are taught to remain within doors several hours in the middle of the day, and children of the lower classes are often obliged to work during the cool hours. italian children mature very early, and the emotional disequilibrium that comes with the supremacy of a new internal secretion makes them self-conscious, bashful, retiring, and inimical to play. i am not inclined to lay much stress on any of these occurrences as an explanation for the apathy for play shown by italian children. jewish children, who live in countries quite as hot as italy, and who certainly mature as early as italian children, are naturally playful, and not only playful but inventive of games. if one reads the biographies of some of the literary hebrews of america who have set forth in print their renunciations and their successes, it will be seen that despite their most unfavorable surroundings the play instinct in childhood--which, after all, is the imaginative faculty--is often very strong. another thing that is very curious in italy is that children of both sexes do not play together. it is true that no particular effort is made to keep them apart when they are very young, but there is no more unusual sight in italy than a boy from ten to fourteen with a girl of the same age, unless it is to see a young man with a young woman who is not his wife. there is no open and fraternizing relationship between the sexes. if you say in italy that a young woman is the _amica_ or friend of a man, you mean what is signified in french by _chère amie_. in certain parts of italy, and particularly in the south, the position of women in society and in relationship to men savors very much of the oriental. every one is agreed that play does two things for the young child--it promotes its physical welfare and it facilitates its budding imagination. more than this, it contributes materially to its education and, particularly, it develops its constructive faculties. it teaches older children and youths who participate in games of skill and control the principles of give and take, bear and forbear, and it shows them how to be victors without arrogance and losers without venom. it instils principles of honesty, favors frankness and directness, and generally paves the way for successful dealing with their fellows socially, commercially, and politically in mature life. when one considers the pains and money that are expended in our own country and in england to teach young people how to play, it is astonishing how apathetic the italians have been toward the matter. my belief is that italy is awakening to the fact that play is one of the most important factors in the development of the people, and if this war had not come on i should most likely not have had occasion to make these observations and to draw conclusions from them. i am told that a few years ago they began to have mixed schools, that is, schools where children of both sexes are assembled during school hours, and in many cities there were stadia where sports of all sorts were encouraged and fostered. there are many factors that have tended to impede the development of play in this country and the recognition of its importance, but aside from that there is something in the italian temperament or nature that is antipathic to the play instinct and inimical to sports. pedagogy has recognized its importance but it has not succeeded in promoting and developing it. i have often wondered whether the suppression of the play instinct practically to the point of abnegation is not manifest in the energies and success of a people. aside from the field of mechanical application as represented by that in the profession of engineering, i do not know of any realm in which the italian of the past three or four generations has signally distinguished himself. there have been poets, artists, architects, physicians, priests, statesmen, philosophers, explorers, or interpreters of life and events whose names have taken permanent places in the world. i mean to say that in this period there have been many italians who have attained eminence and earned immortality, but there has been no one from whom an epoch dates: no pasteur, no deisler, no thompson, no devries, no stanley, no edison, no langley, no wright, no morgan, no eddy--to enumerate only a few of those that are legitimately put in the class of supermen. this paucity of genius may be no more than a coincidence, but it strikes me, nevertheless, as extraordinary that a country which has enjoyed freedom as this country has for the past fifty years, has not manifested the fruits of its liberation from tyranny and oppression such as were manifested in france after the french revolution, when once its devastation had been cured. if the child is father to the man, it stands to reason that indulgence and training during childhood will manifest their effect during maturity, and success in any activity of human life stands in direct relation to imagination or vision and industry. it likewise follows that if we neglect to facilitate the development of the former and to develop the appetite for and form the habit of the latter during the early years of life, it is too much to expect the display of them in later years. it is quite possible, it seems to me, that the reputation for lack of directness in their dealings with the peoples of other nationalities, their circuitousness in the business affairs of life, their secrecy or lack of frankness and candor, their ceremoniousness, their failure to cement a solid friendship with other nations of europe, may, in some measure at least, be linked up with the suppression of the play instinct in childhood and the subservient place which they have given to women. chapter xvii "if a man walketh in the night, he stumbleth but if he walketh in the day he seeth the light of this world" my morning walks take me the length of the janiculum. in the early light of these autumn days rome and its settings take on an expression of seductive resignation due largely to the clouds which rob it of that glare which is the most trying feature of summer in rome. the clouds permit streams of light to filter through, as if from a monstrous search-light, especially over the castelli romani and the alban hills. ordinarily monte cavo is on the horizon line, but to-day, after the sun had been nearly an hour on its diurnal way, hundreds of parallel bundles of light were directed perpendicularly upon it, so that another chain of mountains came into view beyond, and the decaying villa surmounting it seemed to be in a valley atop of a mountain peak backed by other peaks. the way from my _villino_ to st. peter's is past the garibaldi monument, and i am well acquainted with the countenances of his generals and his guard, whose life-size busts in marble flank the monument in long, parallel rows, constituting an alley leading up to it. if their effigies do them justice, they were fine-looking, intelligent, and resolute. it takes me also past the hideous lighthouse which argentina thrust upon the italians, and which has been erected upon a spot from which one has perhaps the most commanding view of rome, its near and distant environment. this morning i determined that i would spend a half-hour in the church of s. onofrio and refresh my recollections of the frescoes of baldassare peruzzi and of pinturicchio, and pay a tribute to the memory of the greatest poet of the late renaissance, torquato tasso. on the side of the steps that lead down to the shoulder of the hill surmounting st. peter's is an oak-tree, long since dead, but securely banded and spliced and propped by indestructible metal. here, it is said, tasso sat and contemplated, too forlorn and ill further to poetize, during those months of 1594 while he was awaiting his call to the capitol to be crowned poet laureate. when the illness to which he succumbed increased to such extent as to incapacitate him he repaired to s. onofrio "to begin my conversation in heaven in this elevated place, and in the society of these holy fathers." it is strange enough that tasso is a very real and living force in italy to-day. not only are many of his poems, and selections from them, read in the schools, but "jerusalem delivered" on the screen has recently had a remarkable success in rome and in other cities of italy. the convent of s. onofrio is now scarcely more than a reminder of what it was in its golden days. long before the italian government had abolished the right of monasteries to hold property, and therefore delivered the death-blow to the parasitical grasp which they had upon this country, the ospedale bambini gesu had taken possession of a large part of it and converted it into a work of mercy and of salvation which finds, i fancy, more favor in the eyes of people to-day than does conventual life. the church, rather impressive from without and particularly when approached from below, is small and dainty and has distinctly a spiritual atmosphere. it is what the italians call _molto carina_. when i entered the church there was one solitary female prostrate before an image. i fancied that she had had a troubled night and had repaired to this sacrosanct environment early in the morning to purge herself of her sins and to ask forgiveness. for a long time she remained in an attitude of profound contrition, and i was curious to see if, on arising, she displayed in feature or in form any evidences or manifestations of indulgence in those transgressions which we are taught are so offensive to the lord. my vigil was rewarded by the sight of age, deprivation, and poverty. had pulchritude or passion ever been a part of her, all sign of them had passed; had sins of commission ever brought to her riches or the semblance of riches, she had long since forfeited them; had her transgressions been translated into fugitive pleasures, no signs of them remained. like tasso, she had repaired there to begin the conversation she hoped to continue in heaven. it is much more likely, however, that she had gone to church without definite antecedent thought or determination. it seems to be as much an act of nature for women in italy when they reach a certain age to haunt the churches as it is for their hair to turn gray. they do it quite as mechanically as they do their housework. i often doubt that there is any spiritual or emotional feeling accompanying it whatsoever. i am certain that the recitation of prayers which were learned in infancy, and which have been repeated thousands of times without the smallest attention to the significance of the words, as children recite them, is not associated with any spiritual alteration, neither humility nor exaltation. it is part of the meagre, barren daily life of these old women, and they get from it something which for them constitutes pleasure and satisfaction. as i sat in contemplation of the frescoes surrounding the high altar, and which set forth the coronation of the virgin, the nativity, the flight into egypt, a middle-aged monk or priest came forward and volunteered to draw the curtain that more light might fall upon them. he was incredibly dirty and dishevelled, and he had lost an eye, but he was gentle and simple and friendly. he told me what he knew about the frescoes; he bemoaned the evil days upon which the world had fallen, and he expressed the hope that peace and tranquillity would soon again be ours; but when i attempted to talk to him about the significance of the war and the universal awakement to man's rights that would flow from it, i found that his comments were ejaculatory and that his reflections had no root in thought or reason. it is incredible that a person so naïve and so lacking in every display of intelligence, culture, and perspicacity can be a spiritual teacher or guide. perhaps it is that faith alone is necessary that one shall satisfactorily fulfil his duties as priest. he called my attention to an oil graphite on the side walls of the chapel which had been uncovered in recent times. in early days its artistic merit or value was not appreciated and it had been covered over with other pastels or paintings thought to be more appropriate or more fitting. the composition is a figure standing in what seems to be a square box and on either side a number of closely massed masculine figures, each one having a different facial expression, one of astonishment, another of incredulity, another of humility and satisfaction. it depicted the resurrection of christ, my little friend thought, but when he saw a figure outside the box that resembled christ, he thought it must be the resurrection of lazarus, and then in the most childlike way he remarked that the figure in the box seemed to be a female one, and as that didn't seem to fit in with the resurrection of lazarus he gave it up. i fancy that he had never read that when martha and mary made their successful appeal lazarus had been dead four days, and that after jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "father, i thank thee that thou hast heard me," lazarus came forth bound hand and foot with grave-clothes and his face was bound about with a napkin. these accoutrements of the grave would successfully conceal sex, even from the eyes of a sacerdotal sherlock holmes. i persuaded him to take me into the convent that i might see leonardo's lovely fresco of the virgin and the child, and standing before it he spoke of the sweetness of the mother's expression and of the dignity and nobility of her pose and carriage in a way that made me forget his ignorance and his unattractive exterior. in the northwest chapel of the little church is the grave and monument of tasso. there is nothing particularly meritorious about the monument, and there is nothing even suggestive of poetry. the effigy represents the poet in the costume of a spanish cavalier as he appeared at the age of his greatest activity. the chapel opposite is a jungle of frescoes depicting scenes in the life of s. onofrio, who lived like an animal in the desert for more than half a century, and who, for thus outraging nature's laws, was brought to rome to teach others how to live acceptably in god's eyes. after he had gone to his final reward, which we trust was the opposite of a desert, the church in its wisdom made him a saint. i did not attempt to visualize the desert-dweller or his activities as i descended the steps that lead from this lovely hill to the tiber, for i was soon lost in contemplation of a view with which i was very familiar but which now presents itself at a different angle, for i had never been down this well-worn stone staircase. the little street led first past the fine old salviati palace, a vast, massive structure built apparently to provide a sumptuous _piano nobile_ and a great impressive court. it has, i suppose, a definite architectural beauty, but to me it looks merely massive, cumbersome, and overgrown. it reminds of nothing so much as of a lady whose figure, once worthy of admiration, had become altered by the adipose that is fatal to beauty. from here it is but a few steps to the villa farnesina, with its priceless possessions from raphael's hand, but my way leads me across the rickety iron suspension bridge immediately in front of the salviati palace, to cross which one must pay a penny. from the middle of this bridge one gets a stunning view of the castle of s. angelo and the holy ghost hospital. the latter, an enormous renaissance structure, accommodates upward of five thousand patients. it looks to-day much as illustrations of it show that it looked five hundred years ago. in those days it was the last cry in hospitals, but it is far from that to-day. in fact, as a hospital it leaves much to be desired. i go there sometimes to visit the library, which has one of the largest collections of incunabuli in the world. as you look over it from the end of the ponte ferro, the dome of st. peter's seems as if it were suspended from the heaven and its marvellous symmetry is most impressive. when you look at the dome of st. peter's and the church together, there is something a little incongruous. i do not attempt to define it, but it is the same thing that you get when you look at a man whose hat doesn't fit. after crossing the tiber i strike into the heart of the densely populated city through a succession of narrow streets without sidewalks, and flanked on either side with never-ending little shops, now and then crossing a piazza which gives space and light to some massive mediæval palace. but none of them solicits me to stop until the palazzo braschi comes into view. i have seen its wondrous staircase, with its many columns of oriental granite, so often that i would pass it by without a thought were it not for the brutally hideous figure of pasquino, who greets me from his pedestal like an old acquaintance. i realize quite well that he has been called one of the most beautiful remains of antique sculpture, and that the expert eye, guided by a knowledge of hellenic art supremity, may see charm and wondrousness in it, but i have bid him good-morning and good-day many times, and, like some old acquaintances, he does not get nearer my heart as i learn to know him better. there have been innumerable conjectures as to what the figure represents. the one most generally accepted is that it represents menelaus supporting the dead body of patroclus after the vile trojan had stabbed him in the back while hector was engaging his attention. you have such a feeling of pride in patroclus and the wonderful things that he did with his myrmidons that your heart goes out to him. when the trojan war was going badly, he was persuaded to take up the direction of the forces against the enemy, and one cannot help feeling grateful to menelaus for having played the good samaritan to him at the end. but if this old king of sparta had made helen behave better when paris came to visit them, she might never have eloped with that hazardous youth after he had made the memorable decision on mount ida, spurning power promised by juno, and glory and renown tendered by minerva, in order that he might have the fairest woman in the world for wife. but one should not be too hard on the old king. there is no telling just how far helen acted on her own initiative and how far venus was responsible for the flight. still, were it not for this little irregularity in the conduct of the royal household, we would have been denied a knowledge of the greatness of greece and a record of its accomplishments in one of the greatest poems, which has been a solace and a stimulation to countless lovers of literature the past two thousand years. though i bring no trained eye or accurate information to the discussion of pasquino's identity, i am convinced, since seeing the bronze statue of a boxer which lanciani unearthed in excavating the baths of constantine in 1885, that this statue is no other than an early marble setting forth the same subject. to me it is the effigy of a fighting brute. whatever his name or his profession may have been, he has become known the world over as pasquino, and satires and sarcasms similar to those which he is supposed to have uttered to the amusement and edification of the romans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have become known as pasquinades all over the world. italians like to write stories concerning historic incidents and to embellish them with a veneer of verisimilitude. they like particularly to give them a personal note, deprecatory or laudatory. when the egyptian obelisk was being forced to a perpendicular position in the piazza of st. peter's, the crowd had been admonished under penalty of death to be silent. the stillness of the piazza, broken only by the creaking of the ropes, was suddenly torn asunder by a shout of "wet the ropes." thus the famous obelisk was preserved intact, and the man whose discernment had accomplished it, instead of having his head cut off, was allowed to furnish the palms for st. peter's every palm sunday. incidentally he was ennobled, and since that time his reward has been the family's chief asset. in the same way, one of the river gods of the fountain set up in the middle of the piazza navona seems to be drawing a mantle up over his head while the others, those of the danube, the ganges, and the rio della plata, are looking straight ahead. bernini, who built the fountain, says that nile was so shocked by the façade which borromini, a contemporary architect, added to the church of st. agnes, which is immediately in front of it, that he had to veil his face. the story of pasquino is that he asked questions concerning the conduct of the reigning power, which, of course, in those days was the pope, and made reflections which marforio, the river god which stood between the horse-tamers in the piazza della quirinale, answered. pasquino, in short, became the organ of public opinion, and it was not subject to the censor, for the authors prudently kept out of sight. his most poisonous venom and destructive wrath were directed against popes and cardinals. if he said the things that he is alleged to have said about alexander vi and innocent xi (the holy man who started the inquisition), it is easy to understand that one of their successors wished to throw him into the bottom of the tiber, the resting-place of countless priceless objects of art for many centuries. as a matter of fact, however, the stories about pasquino to be found in every guide-book are, like many other stories when run to earth, largely fiction. thirty years ago there was published in the _nuova antologia_ an article by domenico gnoli which sets forth the real history of pasquino. when cardinal carraffa went to live in the braschi palace he had the statue set up at one of the corners, and there it has since remained. in those days religious processions were as common as automobiles and bicycles are to-day. the priests in them often rested at this corner, and it became the custom to make up the statue to represent different personages, and the man who was intrusted with this task happened to be a professor in the adjacent university. he encouraged his boys to write epilogues, elegies, and epigrams which they pasted or stuck on the statue. at first these were purely literary efforts, juvenile flights to parnassus, but later they took on a political and social flavor, while still later they became concerned with the doings of the curia. these pasquinades have been collected in book form, and some of the volumes exist at the present time. the majority, however, have been lost--perished in flames, destroyed as having no value, or disappeared in other ways. thus the statue was initiated as a news-bearer or organ of public opinion. immediately across the road from the statue there was a tailor or barber shop, and the name of the chief operator was pasquino. it was in this shop that the messages stuck on the statue were collected, deciphered, and discussed, and when the witty tailor died they gave his name to the statue and thus immortality was thrust upon him. in reality, after the cessation of the publications, "carmina quæ ad pasquillum fuerunt posita in anno," and the murder of the professor who had encouraged his students to put forth their youthful efforts, men groaning under the oppression of their rulers, men big with ideas of what we now call liberty, men in whom the germs of freedom and equality had been implanted, saw a fairly safe way of getting their sentiments before the public, and they utilized pasquino as a forum from which they could radiate their ideas and their sentiments. during the entire sixteenth century these men conveyed to the borgias and to julius ii and paul iii and innocent x and innocent xi and pius vi an expression of their feeling and conviction concerning their conduct, individually and collectively. whether these contributions had anything to do with shaping public opinion and leading up to the great reformation, it is impossible to say. whatever pasquino accomplished or didn't accomplish seems not to concern him, for there he sits tranquilly upon six blocks of volcanic stone, indifferent to the passing show and to the transpirations of the world. a few paces beyond the palazzo braschi i suddenly come upon one of the most attractive and alluring piazzas in rome, the piazza navona, or, as it is sometimes called, the circo agonale. by its oblong form, its seductive symmetry, its elaborate decorations--three beautiful fountains, the central one surmounted by an egyptian obelisk which once stood in the circus of maxentius; by its boundaries, which include the palazzo pamfili, the church of s. agnese, and the church of s. giacomo of the spaniards, and innumerable small and large houses--it succeeds in conveying to the observer, who is susceptible to æsthetic impressions, sensations which are as purely pleasurable as anything can possibly be. were it not for the distinctively italian architecture one might easily imagine that he was in the centre of some provincial large city of france. it has, more than any other public square that i have ever been in, that quality which we speak of as foreign. no two buildings are alike, and, mean though many of them are, and especially toward the northern end, they blend in such a way as to produce a perfect harmony of color and architectural effect. in olden times they held races here, and i can imagine how marvellous a sight it must have been with the palaces and houses gayly decked with flags and drapery, rich rugs hanging from the window-sills, on which leaned beautiful ladies, frail and strong, attended solicitously, perhaps watchfully, by cavaliers and admirers, and the square below filled with the pleasure-loving crowd whose conduct betrayed nothing else save a desire to be amused and diverted. during the summer i often sat for a half-hour on my way home in this square, and, while watching the countless children from the surrounding tenements in those simple indulgences which they call play, tried to fancy some of the events that had taken place in the square and in the palaces and churches bordering it. it was in the pamfili palace, built by innocent x in 1650 for his predatory and dissolute sister-in-law, olympia malacchimi, that the fortunes of the pamfili family began. here she sold bishoprics and beneficences, and here she externalized that conduct which brought infamy on her name. what a story an account of the intimate doings of that family would make! their palace in the corso is one of the most beautiful renaissance residences in the world, and their villa on the janiculum is an approximation to a rural paradise. all that is left of the family is a faded, sad, suggestible, middle-aged princess, whose english appearance and manner betray a lifelong habit of emotional suppression, and one son who is eking out his miserable days in the mountains of switzerland. immediately adjacent to the palace is the church of st. agnes, built about the same time and on the spot where the girl whose name it commemorates was supposed to have had miraculous delivery from humiliations and outrages similar to those to which the belgian nuns were subjected by the germans. i say "germans" advisedly, for i am unable to understand why any one should think for a moment that the term "hun," so widely applied to them, carries with it any such obloquy or opprobrium as the simple name "german." i venture to say that in years to come, when any one wishes to describe abominations, cruelties, savageries for which no name is adequate, he will use the term "germanic." then even the most inexperienced in crime and sin will get a glimmering of what is meant. it is related that when agnes was about fourteen years old she was taken to a lupanalia and there, bereft of all her clothing, became the target of the word and the conduct of a group of lubricitous monsters. overwhelmed with shame, her head fell upon her chest and she prayed. immediately her hair took on such miraculous growth that it concealed her nakedness. but there were other more startling experiences in store for her. for her rebelliousness and general contumacy she was condemned to be burned alive. when the flames were about to devour her they suddenly became possessed of a dual quality, one radiating refreshment upon her, the other destruction upon her executioners. the lady had many other experiences which have long since been denied her sex, but it is popularly believed that she devotes much attention in her heavenly home to seeing that maidens who request her in a proper frame of mind and body, which for the latter is twenty-four hours' abstinence from everything but pure spring water, are provided with husbands. it would be trivial of me to add that she probably is overworked these days when so many prospective husbands are at the front, but i have no real information on the matter, and i sincerely hope that the nubile italians have no serious difficulty in finding spouses. from here my route is to the corso, which at this early hour is nearly deserted. there are many streets that i may take: one that leads to the pantheon; another that goes past the palazzo madama and other interesting public and private buildings. as a rule i take the latter, for it leads me to the via condotti, which ends in the piazza di spagna. before the war this piazza was the rendezvous of american tourists. the vendors of objects of art and of roman pearls, the antiquarian who had his wares fabricated around the corner or in the trastevere, the dealer in genuine raphaels and tintorettos, the rapacious dealers in old books are all there, but most of them are on their knees in their shops with half-closed shutters, praying for the war to end so that the gullible rich americans may come again. their prayers are heard and their supplications will soon be answered. meanwhile i cast a glance at the wretched monument erected a half-century ago to commemorate the promulgation of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, look lovingly at the semi-sunken boat-shaped fountain just in front of the steps, and begin slowly to mount the most impressive steps in rome, which seem to lead up like heavenly stairs to the massive, double-belfried church of trinità dei monti, with the graceful egyptian obelisk in front of it. nowadays the steps are not so picturesque as i have often seen them in peace time, when lovely artists' models, picturesque loafers and the exponents of the _dolce far niente_ collected on the steps and made, in conjunction with the flowers and plants that were exhibited there for sale, an almost unique picture. it is now deserted save for some hazardous greek or italian who attempts to eke out a living by disposing of flowers that have been camouflaged to look fresh. nevertheless the staircase and its environment make an appeal which repeated visits serve only to increase. from the top of it, in the little square in front of the church, one gets an attractive, though limited, view of the city and of monte mario, but it is a view that convinces him that he is in a city quite unlike any other in the world. a picturesque old woman who sells papers at the bottom of the stairs has made a regular customer out of me, and i scan the morning news as i ascend the steps, and by the time i have reached the top i find thoughts of beauty and of the good old days are being replaced by thoughts of work and of the war. as i walk across the pincian hill i am conscious that i am big with joy at what the past twenty-four hours have accomplished at the battle-front, and throbbing with anticipation of what the following day will bring forth. that it will soon bring victory, complete and absolute, even the professional warrior is now forced to admit, and soon we shall bask again in the light of a livable world. chapter xviii the american eagle changes his perch the shrieks of the american eagle have been joyous sounds to american ears since 1776, when we discovered his capacity to render our hymn of freedom. heretofore our national bird has been in best voice on his native soil. when brought to europe by statesman or hero, by citizen or delegate, it was found that certain conditions there impaired his vocality and the flap of his wings. suddenly in 1918 all this changed. conditions were not only favorable--they were ideal. perched upon a parapet of guildhall, sitting majestically on the eiffel tower, alight on the campanile that crowns the capitoline hill, his shrieks conveyed a message to the people of europe whose ears have awaited it longingly for centuries, and the flapping of his wings created a current that stimulated and energized them. floating majestically through the empyrean, he was to those human beings, weary of war, of tyranny, and of privilege, what the dove was to the occupants of the ark--the emblem of salvation. nothing could then convince the peoples of italy that this harbinger of hope had not been liberated by woodrow wilson. i cannot believe that the american eagle has permanently forsaken the united states of america. i anticipate hearing there again the familiar scream. one tolerates him better at home than in europe, but i must accord the bird great sapiency in having selected the autumn of 1918 to give the european people the opportunity to judge of the quality and quantity of his vocal production. it is a platitude to say that no prophet or potentate, no king or conqueror was ever greeted with such spontaneous, whole-hearted, genuine enthusiasm as president wilson was greeted in italy, and, if i may judge from newspaper accounts, the reception which was offered him there was not unlike that which he received in england and france. he went to italy when its people were incensed by the conduct of the newly fledged jugoslavs, and when the press was in the throes of inflammatory polemics over the fate of the treaty of london. it was widely known in italy that president wilson was not in sympathy with the sonninian alleged imperialistic policies and that he was fully in sympathy with the jugoslav aspirations. nevertheless, the italians, from royalty to peasant, welcomed him with a spontaneity and warmth, an enthusiasm and whole-heartedness, a genuineness and devotion that was as moving as anything i ever witnessed. the hour of his arrival in rome was not definitely known until shortly before he arrived. but despite this hundreds of people remained in the street all night, and thousands of them gathered there before sunrise in order that they might not miss the opportunity of looking upon him whom they firmly believed to be the apostle of liberty and freedom, the herald of light and brotherly love. it was not curiosity alone that prompted them to this effort and sacrifice of comfort. curiosity undoubtedly entered into it, but the potent reason for the outpouring that took place that memorable january was that their presence might convey to our president an expression of their esteem and an earnest of their appreciation of his efforts. no american, though he had the heart of a frog and the emotional caliber of a lizard, could suppress the succession of thrills that mounted from his bowels to his brain on seeing with what dignity, suavity, and self-respecting composure their chief magistrate comported himself as he was transported through the via nazionale, seated beside the most democratic and beloved king in the world. though the american spectator had spent his time impregnating with venom darts which he believed he would gladly drive into the president, he had to admit that there was a man who more than satisfied all of kipling's "ifs." when he encountered him later in the palazzo del drago acting as host at the table of his country's charming ambassadress, or at montecitorio, where he told the solons of italy of his country's hopes, ideals, aspirations, and willingness, or in less solemn moments on the capitoline, when he received the honorary citizenship of rome, he knew that his first impressions were founded in verity and he lent a willing ear to the screech of the american eagle which revealed itself throughout the entire italian press. every city of italy clamored for a visit, and though he spent but a few minutes in genoa and a few hours in milan, the outpouring of the people to welcome him was no less remarkable than it was in rome. the tribute which europe gave mr. wilson seemed to depress many of his countrymen on the other side of the atlantic. it is an extraordinary thing that while europe rocked with his fame america reeked with his infamy. after having lived two years in italy i found many things about the italians difficult to understand. after having lived fifty years in the united states of america i find some things about the americans beyond comprehension. nothing is so enigmatic as their attitude toward woodrow wilson, the man who was accorded higher esteem in europe than was ever vouchsafed mortal man, and who gave and has since given earnest of such accord. from the day he decided to represent our country in the peace conference the papers and magazines began to contain the material from which could readily be formulated a new hymn of hate. what was the genesis of this display? what was the cause of this distrust? from whence did this venom emanate? how could a man whose life was a mirror of integrity, whose ideals were of the loftiest, and who attempted to conform his conduct to them excite such contempt? why should the only statesman who had revealed the ability to formulate a plan which, put in operation, led to cessation of hostilities, who was the leader in formulating the terms of peace, and who insisted, and had his insistence allowed, that it should incorporate a covenant whose enforcement would make for perpetual peace, be hated and distrusted, vilified and traduced, thwarted and misrepresented by so many of his countrymen? what had he done, by commission or omission, that such treatment should be accorded him? i propose to attempt to answer these questions and thus to suggest why he has been a failure as president. i know the replies usually given to these questions by his depreciators and defamers. "his nature is so imperious and his temper so tyrannical that he cannot co-operate with others; he neither solicits advice nor heeds counsel; he selects his coadjutors, aides, and advisers from those whom he knows he can dominate; the passport to his favor is flattery, and intimacy with him is maintained only by the cement of agreement; he neither made preparation for war when there was ample time for doing so nor did he wage war until months after repeated _casus belli_; he is hypocritical in having sought and accomplished election under the slogan 'he kept us out of war,' and immediately on being elected he 'thrust' the country into war; he was 'too proud to fight' in 1916, but keen to fight in 1917; he has hebrewphilia and popophobia; he is a socialist masquerading as a liberal; he is a bolshevik beneath the mask of a radical. in brief, he is temperamentally unfit to be president of the united states; intellectually and morally unfit to represent its people; and withal so completely under the dominion of an insatiate ambition to be the greatest man the world has ever known that every kindly human feeling has been crowded from him." intelligent, educated men who have never seen him, who know little of his career save that he was president of princeton university and governor of the state of new jersey and twice president of the united states, elected by the democratic party, hate him as if he were a bitter personal enemy, malign him as if he had injured their reputation for honesty and probity, calumniate him as though he were a man without character, depreciate him as though his career were barren of signal accomplishment, and distrust his motives and procedures as though he had once, or many times, betrayed them. men who are unable to give the smallest specificity to their dislike of him feel that they add to their stature by detracting from his accomplishments and defaming him. not one of them with whom i have talked has been able to state the facts of his disagreement and rupture with the trustees of princeton university. my understanding was that he insisted that the university should submit to certain reforms that would make it democratic in reality as well as in name, and that would enhance its pedagogical usefulness, and that there should not be a privileged class in the university, viz., members of exclusive clubs whose portals were opened by money. he maintained that his training as an educator, his experience as an administrator, his accomplishment as a student of history and as an interpreter of events, his experience with men, entitled him to a judgment concerning the needs of such an institution that should be given a hearing, and he contended that his recommendations, rather than those of trustees whose training had been largely in the world of affairs, be put in operation and at least be given a trial. he had the courage to jeopardize his very bread and butter, and that of his family, at a time in his life when his physical forces had reached their zenith rather than sacrifice what he believed to be a principle. the men who were permitted to take woodrow wilson's measure in that contest had no more idea of his stature than if they were blind. they would have laughed to scorn the idea that five years later the people of the united states would select him for their president. it was in this episode that his repute not to be able to do team-work with his equals and his inferiors originated. time has shown that it isn't only a question of being able to do team-work, he cannot do his best work in an atmosphere of friction and dissent. it is as impossible for him to yield a position which he has taken, and which we will assume he believes to be right, as it is impossible for the magnet to yield the needle that it has attracted; therefore he adopts the only course for him--he doesn't enter contests, save golf with his physician. his cabinet meetings are a farce, so say they who have never attended one and who have never even spoken to a cabinet member. he selects pygmies for his cabinet and for his aides in order that they may proffer him no advice, resent no contradiction or protest indignities to their offices. this in face of the fact that he and his cabinet and his aides have conditioned the only miracle of modern times, namely, throwing a whole country, millions of whose people were adverse to war, into a bellicose state which was never before witnessed; conditioning and transporting the men and material resources of that country across the atlantic and into the fighting lines at a crucial moment, at a time when the backs of the allies were against the wall, according to the statements of their own authorized spokesmen; who succeeded in engendering in the composite mind of the american people a determination to win the war that was more potent than men or weapons; who impregnated the composite soul of the allies with a faith that the world would be an acceptable abode for the common people once the enemy was crushed, that transcended in its intensity the faith of the christian martyrs; who filled the heart of every statesman of the allied nations with a hope and belief that there was within him the masterful mind that would conduct their legions to victory and salvation. if he and his pygmies accomplished this, i am one who maintains they are myrmidons and giants. but they didn't do it, his detractors say. the rejoinder to which is: "i know, a little bird did it!" if we had entered the war after the sinking of the _lusitania_, when the wise men of the west say we should have gone in, countless lives and inestimable expenditures would have been spared. where is the man in the united states of america to-day who has revealed the jove-like mind that entitles him to make such sentient statement? when he is found, how can he possibly know? what delivery of thought, idea, conception, execution has he ever made that entitles him to be heard, not to say believed? how can any one possibly know what would have been the result of our entrance into the war at that time? if any one thing is responsible for america's efficiency in the war, it is that it had the american people fused into one man with one mind, determined to win the war. i am sure that i encountered nothing in the united states in my travel from the atlantic to the pacific and back again in the spring of 1916 that made me believe that the people of our country wanted war, or that there could be developed in them at that time a sentiment which would make for such internal resistance of the people as they displayed in the spring of 1917 and continued to display until november 11, 1918. i cannot speak from personal knowledge, for i was not in the united states during the year of its war efficiency, but i am told that there was never a whisper of disloyalty or a syllable of disparagement of the president personally during that time. but many of those who were silent then are strident now. their enforced silence has enhanced the carry-power of their voices, and their clamor prevents the harmony that the world is seeking. they not only defame wilson, but they contend that the part we played in the war has been overestimated. it has been, but not by us. it has been evaluated by those whom it was our most sacred privilege to aid. they neither minimize our efforts not underestimate our accomplishment. the british know that they were steadfast; the french realize that they were resolute; the italians appreciate that they were brave. we know it, but that does not prevent us from realizing the magnitude of the rôle we played, and the man who was responsible for it is the man to whom the world, save a political party in the united states, gives thanks and expresses appreciation. his name is woodrow wilson. americans do not boast of the part they played in winning the war, but they do encourage that which is far worse than boasting--lying about it, particularly when the motive for such perversion of truth is deprecation of their chief executive. he is an idealist and theorist. he is the kind of idealist who destroyed the democratic machine in the state of new jersey, which had been the synonym for corruption in politics for a generation; the kind of idealist who put through the underwood tariff bill, which at one stroke did more to strangle the unnatural mother of privilege than any measure in the past twenty years; the kind of idealist who, when the transport system of the entire country threatened to be hopelessly paralyzed by reason of the determination of the railway magnates to refuse the demands of locomotive engineers that their working-day should consist of eight hours, sent for representatives of the plutocrats and the proletariats and told what they were to do and when they were to do it, and the whole civilized world approved. he is the idealist who has done more to make our government a republican government representative of the people and not of party bosses than any one in the memory of man. he is the idealist who is a scholar, a thinker, a statesman, a creator, an administrator, and a man of vision. more than that, he is an efficiency expert in the realm of world-ordering. it is to our inestimable misfortune that his personality has successfully obstacled his projects. his secretary of war is a failure; his secretary of state is a figurehead; his secretary of finance is his family, and so on _ad nauseam_. i am not a competent judge whether mr. baker has been a good secretary of war or not, but i am sure that he is not so unfit as simon cameron was. no one has said of him: "cameron is utterly ignorant and regardless of the course of things and probable result. selfish and openly discourteous to the president. obnoxious to the country. incapable either of organizing details or conceiving and executing general plans" (nicolay). president wilson has never had to say of any of his cabinet what lincoln said of seward: "the point and pith of the senators' complaint was that they charged him, seward, if not with infidelity, with indifference, with want of earnestness in the war, with want of sympathy with the country, and especially with a too great ascendancy and control of the president and measures of administration. while they seemed to believe in my honesty, they also appeared to think that when i had in me any good purpose or intention seward tried to suck it out of me unperceived." so far as i know, no one has characterized president wilson's mentality as "painful imbecility," as stanton characterized lincoln a few months before the latter appointed him secretary of war. he has been accused of not surrounding himself with the ablest men of his party or of the country, in the conduct of the affairs of the nation during the period when the country was emerging from the position of aloofness from world politics which it had maintained from the time washington warned of the danger of "entangling foreign alliances." but it does not convince me that a man is not competent to do the job that the president has given him because his training has been as a stockbroker and his activities on the bear side of the market. that is not the kind of training that one would give his son whom he wished to see become a statesman, but it occurs to me that the task entrusted to him may be one which a statesman is not best fitted to handle. it may be a job that a man with the mentality and training and moral possessions that he selected could do better than any one else. what earnest of superior constructive, intellectual powers has any public man in the united states displayed that justifies self-constituted critics in saying that the men selected by president wilson are not their peers? it is universally admitted that president wilson has a more masterful and comprehensive grasp of politics in america, using that word in its conventional, every-day sense and meaning, particularly a familiarity with bosses and the "machine," than any president ever had. no one denies his statesmanship. he is, therefore, a competent judge of who was best fitted to do the work which it was necessary to do in order that the programme which he formulated for the benefit of humanity might be executed, and particularly that the yoke might be lifted from the necks of the oppressed nations and that another world calamity in the shape of war might be avoided. his choice of aides and representatives was not acceptable to men who put party interests before public interests, who are willing to sacrifice world weal for worldly advancement, and who lash themselves into a frenzied state by repetition of the admonitions of washington or monroe. it does not detract from the glory of the father of his country, or from the lustre of great interpreters of national law, to say that the principles that they enunciated and the practices that they initiated centuries ago are not necessarily those that should guide us now. it would be just as legitimate to say that physicians should follow the teachings of hippocrates or galen, because the one was the father of medicine and the other its greatest expositor, as it would to say that we must follow slavishly the teachings of washington and monroe. that the american peace commission did not contain men of the mental caliber of mr. root or mr. lodge, that the reservoirs of expert knowledge were not drained and taken to paris, that our commission as a whole was less sophisticated, less perceptive and apperceptive, than that of great britain, let us say, is to be regretted, just as we regret the effects of some fallacious judgment or specious decision of our youth. there were ways of offsetting them, however, and in this particular instance congress was the way. the president did not go beyond his prerogative in selecting the peace commission. the public elected him to make these selections, as well as to do other things. if the people do not want that such selection should be his privilege and power, they have only to say it at the polls. the eighteenth amendment was not difficult of accomplishment. perhaps time will show that mr. wilson "guessed right" oftener in the selection of his cabinet than any predecessor. mr. josephus daniels was the target of scorn and the butt of ridicule from the time he went into the cabinet until he began to make preparations for war, but the rumor has reached me that his efforts were fairly satisfactory to the hypercritical american public. the president's critics are jealous of the prodigious powers which an unauthorized representative of the government has in the affairs of the country, and they do not understand why, if he is the paragon of virtue that his position seems to indicate he is, the president did not put him on the commission. but again i say the president knows his limitations and the public has only recently discovered them. he may short-circuit some of them by means of colonel house. he may find him "great in counsel and mighty in work," or he may have habituated himself to buy only gold that he has tried in the fire himself. it is his privilege and no one can gainsay it. he is silent and ungetatable. silence has been considered a sign of strength in man since the days of hammurabi, and the greater the man the more solitary he is. if mr. wilson were twice as great, even mr. tumulty would not be allowed to see him! wilson has been accused of pilfering his idea of the league of nations from the duc de sully and from the abbé of saint pierre. enemies animated by malice and fired by envy have striven to show that the famous fourteen statements or principles were his only by the right of possession or enunciation; that he resurrected the doctrines of mazzini, dressed them up and paraded them as his own. it would be difficult to be patient with such critics if one did not know the history of epoch-making events in the world's progress. in truth, the public is resentful that it was not consulted. it is umbraged that it was not allowed to make suggestions. it is spiteful because it was treated with contempt. the public manifested the same quality of spleen toward lincoln, only the quantity was greater. in brief, the public professes not to have any confidence in mr. wilson's wisdom, and this in face of the fact that up to date he has displayed more wisdom than all the solons in america combined, and i can say this the more unprejudicedly as a republican than i could if i were a member of the party that elected mr. wilson. mr. wilson is disliked for emotional, not intellectual, reasons. although he has probably done more to engrave the graving upon the stone that will remove the iniquity of the land than any man who has ever lived, "we don't like" him. there must be some good reason for this other than envy, jealousy, and resentment, and i propose to inquire for these reasons in mr. wilson's emotional make-up. whether i "like" mr. wilson or not does not enter into it. i never knew pascal or voltaire or benjamin franklin, and still i am sure i could make a statement of their qualities and possessions that would elicit commendation from one who had known them. as a matter of fact, personal contact with men from whose activities the world dates epochs is not conducive to personal liking. i cannot fancy liking rousseau. i am sure i should not have liked voltaire. i can even understand why lincoln was despised and scoffed at by his contemporaries. i am one of those who believe mr. wilson is a great man, but i am not concerned to convince others of it. i am concerned alone to explain why he is not beloved of the people. the esteem or disesteem in which mr. wilson is held in this country is due to his personality, and this does not seem to me to be enigmatic. he has the mind of a jove but the heart of a batrachian. it is to the former that he owed his rise, it is the latter that conditioned his fall. if we were not satisfied to have such a man sail our ship of state in smooth as well as in turbulent seas, in calm and in tornado, we had opportunity to drop him from the bridge gracefully in 1916. although his possessions and deficits were not so universally known then as now, still they were generally recognized and widely discussed. instead of dropping our pilot we re-elected him. this could only be construed by him as approval of his conduct. when he continued to display his inherent qualities he excited our ire. we called him names and neither forgave nor wished to forgive him. perhaps no one has ever had the opportunity to fix his position so indestructibly at the apogee of human accomplishment by permitting himself kindly indulgences or what is commonly called human feelings as woodrow wilson had. if when roosevelt sought to raise a regiment or division to take to france the president had been sympathetic to the project and had wiped out with a stroke of the pen the obvious difficulties that stood in the way of such project, it would have thrilled the people of this country of every color, or every complexion, political and somatic, as nothing else could possibly do. it would not have taken from his prestige as commander-in-chief of the army one jot or tittle, nor would it have interfered in the smallest way with the disciplinary unity which is the vital spark of the army. if he had said of general leonard wood, "father, forgive him, for he kneweth not that which he did," and had the emotional exaltation which every one has when he forgives an enemy, and given him a command to which his past performances entitled him, a few soreheads and soulless pygmies wearing the uniform of the united states army and their congressional wire-pullers might have resented it, but the people by and large would have said: "our president is a big man: he is magnanimous, he is a man who walks in the pathway of the lord, he forgives his enemies." general wood would have received the recompense for having prepared the way for the selective draft that he deserved, for even though he did it in a tactless and tasteless way, he made a contribution of incalculable value to the victory of our arms. had he sent for the chairman of the committee on foreign affairs and conferred with him on the selection of the peace conference personnel, had he shown some signs of deference to that committee, had he discussed with them his peace plan proposals and taken note of their suggestions, modifying his proposals in accordance with their convictions when to do so did not yield a fundamental point, we should not have been on the horns of the dilemma we were for a year following the president's last return from paris, and the world would have been spared discomfiture--yea, even agony. mr. wilson knows the rules of the game, but he does not know how to play fair. he knows that contests and strife elicit his most deforming qualities--intolerance, arrogance, and emotional sterility; hence he hedges himself about in every possible way to avoid them. he knows that the sure way for him is to play the game alone. woodrow wilson does not love his fellow men. he loves them in the abstract, but not in the flesh. he is concerned with their fate, their destiny, their travail en masse, but the predicaments, perplexities, and prostrations of the individual or groups of individuals make no appeal to him. he does not refresh his soul by bathing it daily in the milk of human kindness. he says with his lips that he loves his fellow men, but there is no accompanying emotional glow, none of the somatic or spiritual accompaniments which are the normal ancillæ of love's display. hence he does not respect their convictions when they are opposed to his own, he does not value their counsels. his determination to put things through in the way he has convinced himself they should be put through is not susceptible to change from influences that originate without his own mind. he has made many false steps, but none of them so conditioned the fall from the exalted position the world had given to him as his determination to go to paris and represent this country at the peace conference. if one may judge what the verdict of all the voters in this country would have been, had the question of his going been submitted to them, from the expressions of opinion of those one encounters in his daily life, it would be no exaggeration to say that three-fourths of the voters would say he should not have gone. i think i may say truthfully that i never encountered a person who approved his decision. it is possible that his entourage or cabinet and counsellors did not contain a daring soul who volunteered such advice, but it is incredible that both they and the president did not sense the judgment of their countrymen as it was reflected in the newspapers. however, it is likely that he would have gone had he known that the majority of the voters of this country were opposed to it. in contact with people he gives himself the air of listening with deference and indeed of being beholden to judgment and opinion, but in reality it is an artifice which he puts off when he returns to the dispensing centre of the word and of the law just as he puts off his gloves and his hat. nothing is so illustrative of this unwillingness to heed counsel emanating from authority and given wholly for his benefit as his conduct toward his physician during the trip around the country in september, 1919. the newspaper representatives who accompanied him say that he had often severe and protracted headache, was frequently nervous and irritable, sometimes dizzy, and always looked ill. these symptoms, conjoined with the fact that for a long time he had high blood pressure, were danger signals which no physician would dare neglect. it is legitimate to infer that his physician apprised him and counselled him accordingly. despite it mr. wilson persisted, until nature exacted the penalty and by so doing he jeopardized his own life and seriously disordered the equilibrium of affairs of the country. indeed, obstinacy is one of his most maiming characteristics. the president attempts to mask with facial urbanity and a smile in verbal contact with people, and with the subjunctive mood in written contact, his third most deforming defect of character, namely, his inability to enter into a contest of any sort in which there is strife without revealing his obsession to win, his emotional frigidity, his lack of love for his fellow men. these explain why he did not win out to a larger degree in paris, and why he did not win out with congress. when he attempts to play such game his artificed civility, cordiality, amiability are so discordant with the real man that they become as offensive as affectations of manner or speech always are, and instead of placating the individual toward whom they are manifest, or facilitating a modus vivendi, they offend and make rapport with him impossible. probably nothing would strike mr. wilson's intimates as so wholly untrue as the statement that he is cruel, yet, nevertheless, i feel convinced that there is much latent cruelty in his make-up, and that every now and then he is powerless to inhibit it. he was undoubtedly wholly within his rights in dismissing mr. lansing from his cabinet, but the way in which he did it constitutes refinement of cruelty. he may have had a contempt for him because he had not insisted on playing first fiddle in mr. wilson's orchestra, the part for which he was engaged, but that did not justify mr. wilson in flaying him publicly because he attempted to keep the orchestra together and tuned up as it were during mr. wilson's illness. selfishness is another conspicuous deforming trait of the president. he is more selfish than cruel. undoubtedly his friends can point to many acts of generosity that deny the allegation. some of the most selfish people in the world give freely of their counsel, money, and time. selfishness and miserliness are not interchangeable terms. he is the summation of selfishness because he puts his decisions and determinations above those of any or all others. it matters not who the others may be. until some one comes forward to show that he has ever been known to yield his judgments and positions to those of others i must hold to this view. he is ungenerous of sentiment and unfair by implication. nothing better exemplifies his ungenerosity than his refusal to appear before the senate or a committee of them previous to his return to paris after his visit here and say to them that he had determined to incorporate all their suggestions in the treaty and in the covenant. he did incorporate them, but he did not give the senate the satisfaction of telling them that he was going to do so or that the instrument would be improved by so doing. it has been said of him that he is the shrewdest politician who has been in the presidential chair in the memory of man. that is a euphemistic way of saying he knows mob psychology and individual weakness, but his reputation in this respect has been injured by his failure to be generous and gracious to congress. the receptive side of his nature is neither sensitive nor intuitive, nor is his reactive side productive or creative. he is merely ratiocinative and constructive, consciously excogitative and inventive. in other words, he has talent, not genius. genius does what it must, talent what it can. the man of genius does that which no one else can do. his work is the essential and unique expression of himself. he does it without being aware how he does it. it is as much an integral part of him as the pitch of his voice and his unconscious manner. he is conscious only of the throes of productive travail; of the antecedents of his creation he is ignorant. many artists essay to paint their own portraits and many succeed in portraying themselves spiritually and somatically as no one else can. mr. wilson did with words for himself in describing jefferson davis what artists do with pigments. "what he did lack was wisdom in dealing with men, willingness to take the judgment of others in critical matters of business, the instinct which recognizes ability in others and trusts it to the utmost to play its independent part. he too much loved to rule, had too overweening confidence in himself, and took leave to act as if he understood much better than those who were in actual command what should be done in the field. he let prejudice and his own wilful judgment dictate to him.... he sought to control too many things with too feminine a jealousy of any rivalry in authority." true, too true; but not nearly so true of jefferson davis as of woodrow wilson. posterity profited by the limitations of the former, and we are paying and mankind will continue to pay for those of the latter. mr. wilson is a brilliant, calculating, and vindictive man: brilliant in conception, calculating in motive, and vindictive in execution. from the time of his youth he instructed himself to great purpose. he has made a careful review and digest of the world's history and he has attempted to survey the tractless forests and untrodden deserts of the future. from the activities in the former fields he has evolved a plan which he believes will make the latter a favorable place for the human race to display its activities, and he has striven to put that plan into practice. he concedes that others have looked backward with as comprehensive an eye as his own; he grants that others have had visions of the future that are even more penetrating than his own; but _he_ has the opportunity to try out his plan, and _they_ have not, and he is unwilling to take them into partnership in the development of the claim that he has staked out. he cannot do it. it is one of his emotional limitations. were he generous, kindly, and humble it would be difficult to find his like in the flesh or in history. he must be reconciled to the frowns of his contemporaries, the disparagements of his fellows, and the scorn of those who have been scorned by him. the world has always made the possessor of limitations pay the penalty. in his hour of hurt, if sensitiveness adequate to feel is still vouchsafed him, he may assuage the pain with the knowledge that posterity will judge him by his intellectual possessions, not by his emotional deficit. if we are not satisfied with his conduct as chief magistrate we must do one of two things. we must either curtail the powers of future presidents, or we must select presidents for their qualities of heart as well as mind. perhaps future candidates for the presidency should be submitted to psychological tests to determine their intellectual and emotional coefficients. those who do not measure up to a certain standard shall be eliminated. one of the most unsurmountable obstacles to advancement of an officer in the army or navy is an annotation of his record by a superior officer as "temperamentally unfit." from the day that appears underneath his pedigree there is scarcely any power that can advance him. it may be that woodrow wilson has been "temperamentally unfit" to be president of the united states, but for any one to say that he has been intellectually unfit for that office is to utter an absurdity and an untruth. had he been baptized in the waters of humility, had his parents or his pedagogues inoculated him with the vaccine of modesty, had he during the years of his spiritual growth come under the leavening influence of love of humanity, had he by taking thought been able to develop what are considered "human qualities,"--kindliness, sympathy, and reverence for others,--had he included in his matutinal prayers, "let me accomplish, not by might, nor by power, but by spirit," had he had lincoln's heart and his own brain, he would be, not one of the greatest men that america has produced, he might be the greatest. as it is, his emotional limitations have thwarted his career and dwarfed his spiritual stature. the american people speak of this as his fault. it is in reality his misfortune. we laugh at the child who cries when she finds that her doll, with outward appearance of pulchritude, is filled with sawdust, but we wail when we find our gods are only human, and we resent it when our humans err. woodrow wilson is better liked by the people of the world to-day than any prophet or reformer the world has ever had. he has fewer enemies and fewer detractors. he should consider himself particularly fortunate, for he owes his life to it, that he lives in the twentieth century. it is only a century or two ago, in reality, that they gave up burning at the stake prophets and reformers, and it is only a few decades ago that they allowed them to remain in their native land or even to visit it. critics and self-constituted judges of his conduct will continue to pour their vials of wrath upon his head and purge themselves of their contempt for him, but these are the fertilizers of his intellectual stature. woodrow wilson has had meted out to him more considerate and respectful consideration than any man who originated stirring impulse that has led to world renovation. there is a choice between calumniation and crucifixion. transcriber's note _underscores_ have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. minor printers errors have been corrected without comment. the following words have been added where they seemed to be missing. added "about" to: then came two books about the outgrowth of the military life. added "by" to: the next day i went to a midday banquet tendered by melville e. stone, the general manager of the associated press, by the newspaper men of rome. [transcriber's note: obvious printer errors have been corrected without note.] renaissance in italy _italian literature_ in two parts by john addington symonds _author of "studies of the greek poets," "sketches in italy and greece," etc._ "questa provincia pare nata per risuscitare le cose morte, come si è visto della poesia, della pittura e della scultura." mach.: _arte della guerra_ part i new york henry holt and company 1888 preface. this work on the renaissance in italy, of which i now give the last two volumes to the public, was designed and executed on the plan of an essay or analytical inquiry, rather than on that which is appropriate to a continuous history. each of its four parts--the _age of the despots_, the _revival of learning_, the _fine arts_, and _italian literature_--stood in my mind for a section; each chapter for a paragraph; each paragraph for a sentence. at the same time, it was intended to make the first three parts subsidiary and introductory to the fourth, for which accordingly a wider space and a more minute method of treatment were reserved. the first volume was meant to explain the social and political conditions of italy; the second to relate the exploration of the classical past which those conditions necessitated, and which determined the intellectual activity of the italians; the third to exhibit the bias of this people toward figurative art, and briefly to touch upon its various manifestations; in order that, finally, a correct point of view might be obtained for judging of their national literature in its strength and limitations. literature must always prove the surest guide to the investigator of a people's character at some decisive epoch. to literature, therefore, i felt that the plan of my book allowed me to devote two volumes. the subject of my inquiry rendered the method i have described, not only natural but necessary. yet there are special disadvantages, to which progressive history is not liable, in publishing a book of this sort by installments. readers of the earlier parts cannot form a just conception of the scope and object of the whole. they cannot perceive the relation of its several sections to each other, or give the author credit for his exercise of judgment in the marshaling and development of topics. they criticise each portion independently, and desire a comprehensiveness in parts which would have been injurious to the total scheme. furthermore, this kind of book sorely needs an index, and its plan renders a general index, such as will be found at the end of the last volume, more valuable than one made separately for each part. of these disadvantages i have been rendered sensible during the progress of publication through the last six years. yet i have gained some compensation in the fact that the demand for a second edition of the first volume has enabled me to make that portion of the work more adequate. with regard to authorities consulted in these two concluding volumes, i have special pleasure in recording none--with only insignificant exceptions--but italian names. the italians have lately made vigorous strides in the direction of sound historical research and scientific literary criticism. it is not too much to say that the labors of this generation are rapidly creating a radical change in the views hitherto accepted concerning the origins and the development of italian literature. theories based on rational investigation and philosophical study are displacing the academical opinions of the last century. the italians are forming for themselves a just conception of their past, at the same time that they are consolidating their newly-gained political unity. to dwell upon the works of francesco de sanctis and pasquale villari is hardly necessary here. the former is perhaps less illustrious by official dignity than by his eloquent _storia della letteratura italiana_. the latter has gained european reputation as the biographer of savonarola and machiavelli, the historian of florence at their epoch. but english readers are probably not so familiar with acute and accurate criticism of giosuè carducci; with the erudition of alessandro d'ancona, and the voluminous history of the veteran cesare cantù; with the intelligence and facile pen of adolfo bartoli; with the philological researches of napoleone caix, and francesco fiorentino's philosophical studies; with rajna's patient labors in one branch of literary history, and monaci's discoveries in another; with the miscellaneous contributions to scholarship and learning made by men like comparetti, guasti, d'ovidio, rubieri, milanesi, campori, passano, biagi, pitré, tigri, vigo, giudici, fracassetti, fanfani, bonghi, grion, mussafia, morsolin, del lungo, virgili. while alluding thus briefly to students and writers, i should be sorry to omit the names of those publishers--the florentine lemonnier, barbèra, sansoni; the neapolitan morano; the palermitan lauriel; the pisan vico and nistri; the bolognese romagnoli and zanichelli--through whose spirited energy so many works of erudition have seen the light. i have mentioned names almost at random, passing over (not through forgetfulness, but because space compels me) many writers to whom i owe weighty obligations. the notes and references in these volumes will, i trust, contain acknowledgment sufficient to atone for omissions in this place. not a few of these distinguished men hold professorial appointments; and it is clear that they are forming students in the great italian cities, to continue and complete their labors. very much remains to be explored in the field of italian literary history. the future promises a harvest of discovery scarcely less rich than that of the last half-century. on many moot points we can at present express but partial or provisional judgments. the historian of the renaissance must feel that his work, when soundest, may be doomed to be superseded, and when freshest, will ere long seem antiquated. so rapid is the intellectual movement now taking place in italy. in conclusion, it remains for me to add that certain passages in chapter ii. have been reproduced from an article by me in the _quarterly review_, while some translations from poliziano and boiardo, together with portions of the critical remarks upon those poets, were first published, a few years since, in the _fortnightly review_. from the _fortnightly review_, again, i have extracted the translation of ten sonnets by folgore da san gemignano. in quoting from italian writers, in the course of this literary history, i have found it best to follow no uniform plan; but, as each occasion demanded, i have given the italian text, or else an english version, or in some cases both the original and a translation. to explain the motives for my decision in every particular, would involve too much expenditure of space. i may, however, add that the verse-translations in these volumes are all from my pen, and have been made at various times for the special purpose of this work. davos: _march, 1881._ contents of the first part. chapter i. the origins. the period from 1300 to 1530--its division into three sub-periods--tardy development of the italian language--latin and roman memories--political struggles and legal studies--conditions of latin culture in italy during the middle ages--want of national legends--the literatures of langue d'oc and langue d'oïl cultivated by italians--franco-italian hybrid--provençal lyrics--french chansons de geste--carolingian and arthurian romances--formation of italian dialects--sicilian school of court poets--frederick ii.--problem of the _lingua aulica_--forms of poetry and meters fixed--general character of the sicilian style--rustic latin and modern italian--superiority of tuscan--the _de eloquio_--plebeian literature--moral works in rhyme--emergence of prose in the thirteenth century--political songs--popular lyrics--religious hymns--process of tuscanization--transference of the literary center from sicily to tuscany--guittone of arezzo--bolognese school--guido guinicelli--king enzio's envoy to tuscany--florentine companies of pleasure--folgore de san gemignano--the guelf city 1 chapter ii. the triumvirate. chivalrous poetry--ideal of chivalrous love--bolognese erudition--new meaning given to the ideal--metaphysics of the florentine school of lyrists--guido cavalcanti--philosophical poems--popular songs--cino of pistoja--dante's _vita nuova_--beatrice in the _convito_ and the _paradiso_--the preparation for the _divine comedy_ in literature--allegory--the _divine comedy_--petrarch's position in life--his conception of humanism--conception of italy--his treatment of chivalrous love--beatrice and laura--the _canzoniere_--boccaccio, the florentine bourgeois--his point of view--his abandonment of the chivalrous standpoint--his devotion to art--anticipates the renaissance--the _decameron_--_commedia umana_--precursors of boccaccio--novels--_carmina vagorum_--plan of the book--its moral character--the _visione amorosa_--boccaccio's descriptions--the _teseide_--the _rime_--the _filocopo_--the _filostrato_--the _ameto_, _fiammetta_, _ninfale_, _corbaccio_--prose before boccaccio--_fioretti di san francesco_ and _decameron_ compared--influence of boccaccio over the prose style of the renaissance--his death--close of the fourteenth century--sacchetti's lament 59 chapter iii. the transition. the church, chivalry, the nation--the national element in italian literature--florence--italy between 1373 and 1490--renascent nationality--absorption in scholarship--vernacular literature follows an obscure course--final junction of the humanistic and popular currents--renascence of italian--the italian temperament--importance of the quattrocento--sacchetti's novels--ser giovanni's _pecorone_--sacchetti's and ser giovanni's poetry--lyrics of the villa and the piazza--nicolò soldanieri--alesso donati--his realistic poems--followers of dante and petrarch--political poetry of the guelfs and ghibellines--fazio degli uberti--saviozzo da siena--elegies on dante--sacchetti's guelf poems--advent of the _bourgeoisie_--discouragement of the age--fazio's _dittamondo_--rome and alvernia--frezzi's _quadriregio_--dantesque imitation--blending of classical and medieval motives--matteo palmieri's _città di vita_--the fate of _terza rima_--catherine of siena--her letters--s. bernardino's sermons--salutati's letters--alessandra degli strozzi--florentine's annalists--giov. cavalcanti--corio's _history of milan_--matarazzo's _chronicle of perugia_--masuccio and his _novellino_--his style and genius--alberti--born in exile--his feeling for italian--enthusiasm for the roman past--the treatise on the family--its plan--digression on the problem of its authorship--pandolfini or alberti--the _deiciarchia_--_tranquillità dell'animo_--_teogenio_--alberti's religion--dedication of the treatise on painting--minor works in prose on love--_ecatomfila_, _amiria_, _deifiria_, etc.--misogynism--novel of _ippolito and leonora_--alberti's poetry--review of alberti's character and his relation to the age--francesco colonna--the _hypnerotomachia poliphili_--its style--its importance as a work of the transition--a romance of art, love, humanism--the allegory--polia--antiquity--relation of this book to boccaccio and valla--it foreshadows the renaissance 139 chapter iv. popular secular poetry. separation between cultivated persons and the people--italian despised by the learned--contempt for vernacular literature--the _certamen coronarium_--literature of instruction for the proletariate--growth of italian prose--abundance of popular poetry--the people in the quattrocento take the lead--qualities of italian genius--arthurian and carolingian romances--_i reali di francia_--andrea of berberino and his works--numerous romances in prose and verse--positive spirit--versified tales from boccaccio--popular legends--ginevra degli almieri--novel of _il grasso_--histories in verse--_lamenti_--the poets of the people--_cantatori in banca_--antonio pucci--his _sermintesi_--political songs--satires--burchiello--his life and writings--dance-songs--derived from cultivated literature, or produced by the people--poliziano--love-songs--_rispetti_ and _stornelli_--the special meaning of _strambotti_--diffusion of this poetry over italy--its permanence--question of its original home--intercommunication and exchange of dialects--_incatenature_ and _rappresaglie_--traveling in medieval italy--the subject-matter of this poetry--deficiency in ballad elements--canti monferrini--the ballad of _l'avvelenato_ and lord ronald 234 chapter v. popular religious poetry. the thirteenth century--outburst of flagellant fanaticism--the _battuti_, _bianchi_, _disciplinati_--acquire the name of _laudesi_--jacopone da todi--his life--his hymns--the _corrotto_--franciscan poetry--tresatti's collection--grades of spiritual ecstasy--lauds of the confraternities--benivieni--feo belcari and the florentine hymn-writers--relation to secular dance-songs--origins of the theater--italy had hardly any true miracle plays--umbrian _divozioni_--the laud becomes dramatic--passion plays--medieval properties--the stage in church or in the oratory--the _sacra rappresentazione_--a florentine species--fraternities for boys--names of the _festa_--theory of its origin--shows in medieval italy--pageants of s. john's day at florence--their machinery--florentine _ingegnieri_--forty-three plays in d'ancona's collection--their authors--the prodigal son--elements of farce--interludes and music--three classes of _sacre rappresentazioni_--biblical subjects--legends of saints--popular _novelle_--conversion of the magdalen--analysis of plays 279 chapter vi. lorenzo de' medici and poliziano. period from 1470 to 1530--methods of treating it--by chronology--by places--by subjects--renascence of italian--at florence, ferrara, naples--the new italy--forty years of peace--lorenzo de' medici--his admiration for and judgment of italian poetry--his privileges as a patron--his _rime_--the death of simonetta--lucrezia donati--lorenzo's descriptive power--the _selve_--the _ambra_--_la nencia_--_i beoni_--his sacred poems--carnival and dance songs--carri and trionfi--savonarola--the mask of penitence--leo x. in florence, 1513--pageant of the golden age--angelo poliziano--his place in italian literature--_le stanze_--treatment of the octave stanza--court poetry--mechanism and adornment--the _orfeo_--orpheus, the ideal of the cinque cento--its dramatic qualities--chorus of mænads--poliziano's love poems--_rispetti_--florentine love--la bella simonetta--study and country life 359 chapter vii. pulci and boiardo. the romantic epic--its plebeian origin--the popular poet's standpoint--the pulci family--the carolingian cycle--turpin--_chanson de roland_--historical basis--growth of the myth of roland--causes of its popularity in italy--burlesque elements--the _morgante maggiore_--adventures in paynimry--roncesvalles--episodes introduced by the poet--sources in older poems--the treason of gano--pulci's characters--his artistic purpose--his levity and humor--margutte--astarotte--pulci's _bourgeois_ spirit--boiardo--his life--feudalism in italy--boiardo's humor--his enthusiasm for knighthood--his relation to renaissance art--plot of the _orlando innamorato_--angelica--mechanism of the poem--creation of characters--orlando and rinaldo--ruggiero--lesser heroes--the women--love--friendship--courtesy--orlando and agricane at albracca--natural delineation of passions--speed of narration--style of versification--classical and medieval legends--the punishment of rinaldo--the tale of narcissus--treatment of mythology--treatment of magic--fate of the _orlando innamorato_ 425 chapter viii. ariosto. ancestry and birth of ariosto--his education--his father's death--life at reggio--enters ippolito d'este's service--character of the cardinal--court life--composition and publication of the _furioso_--quiet life at ferrara--comedies--governorship of garfagnana--his son virginio--last eight years--death--character and habits--the satires--latin elegies and lyrics--analysis of the satires--ippolito's service--choice of a wife--life at court and place-hunting--miseries at garfagnana--virginio's education--autobiographical and satirical elements--ariosto's philosophy of life--minor poems--alessandra benucci--ovidian elegies--madrigals and sonnets--ariosto's conception of love 493 * * * * * appendices. no. i.--note on italian heroic verse 523 no. ii.--ten sonnets translated from folgore da san gemignano 526 no. iii.--translations from alesso donati 531 no. iv.--jacopone's "presepio," "corrotto," and "cantico dell'amore superardente," translated into english verse 532 no. v.--passages translated from the "morgante maggiore" of pulci 543 no. vi.--translations of elegiac verses by girolamo benivieni and michelangelo buonarroti 561 renaissance in italy. chapter i. the origins. the period from 1300 to 1530--its division into three sub-periods--tardy development of the italian language--latin and roman memories--political struggles and legal studies--conditions of latin culture in italy during the middle ages--want of national legends--the literatures of langue d'oc and langue d'oïl cultivated by italians--franco-italian hybrid--provençal lyrics--french chansons de geste--carolingian and arthurian romances--formation of italian dialects--sicilian school of court poets--frederick ii.--problem of the _lingua aulica_--forms of poetry and meters fixed--general character of the sicilian style--rustic latin and modern italian--superiority of tuscan--the _de eloquio_--plebeian literature--moral works in rhyme--emergence of prose in the thirteenth century--political songs--popular lyrics--religious hymns--process of tuscanization--transference of the literary center from sicily to tuscany--guittone of arezzo--bolognese school--guido guinicelli--king enzio's envoy to tuscany--florentine companies of pleasure--folgore da san gemignano--the guelf city. between 1300, the date of dante's vision, and 1530, the date of the fall of florence, the greatest work of the italians in art and literature was accomplished. these two hundred and thirty years may be divided into three nearly equal periods. the first ends with boccaccio's death in 1375. the second lasts until the birth of lorenzo de' medici in 1448. the third embraces the golden age of the renaissance. in the first period italian literature was formed. in the second intervened the studies of the humanists. in the third, these studies were carried over to the profit of the mother tongue. the first period extends over seventy-five years; the second over seventy-three; the third over eighty-two. with the first date, 1300, we may connect the jubilee of boniface and the translation of the papal see to avignon (1304); with the second, 1375, the formation of the albizzi oligarchy in florence (1381); with the third, 1448, the capture of constantinople (1453); and with the fourth, 1530, the death of ariosto (1533) and the new direction given to the papal policy by the sack of rome (1527). the chronological limits assigned to the italian renaissance in the first volume of this work would confine the history of literature to about eighty years between 1453 and 1527; and it will be seen by reference to the foregoing paragraph that it would not be impossible to isolate that span of time. in dealing with renaissance literature, it so happens that strict boundaries can be better observed than in the case of politics, fine arts, or learning. yet to adhere to this section of literary history without adverting to the antecedent periods, would be to break the chain of national development, which in the evolution of italian language is even more important than in any other branch of culture. if the renascence of the arts must be traced from cimabue and pisano, the spirit of the race, as it expressed itself in modern speech, demands a still more retrogressive survey, in order to render the account of its ultimate results intelligible. the first and most brilliant age of italian literature ended with boccaccio, who traced the lines on which the future labors of the nation were conducted. it was succeeded by nearly a century of greek and latin scholarship. to study the masterpieces of dante and petrarch, or to practice their language, was thought beneath the dignity of men like valla, poggio, or pontano. but toward the close of the fifteenth century, chiefly through the influence of lorenzo de' medici and his courtiers, a strong interest in the mother-tongue revived. therefore the vernacular literature of the renaissance, as compared with that of the expiring middle ages, was itself a renascence or revival. it reverted to the models furnished by dante, petrarch, and boccaccio, and combined them with the classics, which had for so long a while eclipsed their fame. before proceeding to trace the course of the revival, which forms the special subject of these volumes, it will be needful to review the literature of the fourteenth century, and to show under what forms that literature survived among the people during the classical enthusiasm of the fifteenth century. only by this antecedent investigation can the new direction taken by the genius of the combined italian nation, after the decline of scholarship, be understood. thus the three sub-periods of the two hundred and thirty years above described may be severally named the medieval, the humanistic, and the renascent. to demonstrate their connection and final explication is my purpose in this last section of my work on the renaissance. in the development of a modern language italy showed less precocity than other european nations. the causes of this tardiness are not far to seek. latin, the universal tongue of medieval culture, lay closer to the dialects of the peninsula than to the native speech of celtic and teutonic races, for whom the official language of the empire and the church always exhibited a foreign character. in italy the ancient speech of culture was at home: and nothing had happened to weaken its supremacy. the literary needs of the italians were satisfied with latin; nor did the genius of the new people make a vigorous effort to fashion for itself a vehicle of utterance. traditions of roman education lingered in the lombard cities, which boasted of secular schools, where grammarians and rhetoricians taught their art according to antique method, long after the culture of the north had passed into the hands of ecclesiastics.[1] when charlemagne sought to resuscitate learning, he had recourse to these italian teachers; and the importance of the distinction between italians and franks or germans, in this respect, was felt so late as the eleventh century. some verses in the panegyric addressed by wippo to the emperor henry iii. brings the case so vividly before us that it may be worth while to transcribe them here[2]: tunc fac edictum per terram teutonicorum, quilibet ut dives sibi natos instruat omnes. litterulis, legemque suam persuadeat illis, ut, cum principibus placitandi venerit usus, quisque suis libris exemplum proferat illis. moribus his dudum vivebat roma decenter: his studiis tantos potuit vincire tyrannos. hoc servant itali post prima crepundia cuncti; et sudare scholis mandatur tota juventus. solis teutonicis vacuum vel turpe videtur, ut doceant aliquem nisi clericus accipiatur. while the italians thus continued the rhetorical and legal studies of the ancients, they did not forget that they were representatives and descendants of the romans. the republic and the empire were for them the two most glorious epochs of their own history; and any attempt which they made to revive either literature or art, was imitative of the past. they were not in the position to take a new departure. no popular epic, like the niebelungen of the teuton, the arthurian legend of the celt, the song of roland of the frank, or the spanish cid, could have sprung up on italian soil. the material was wanting to a race that knew its own antiquity. even when an italian undertook a digest of the tale of troy or of the life of alexander, he converted the metrical romances of the middle ages into prose, obeying an instinct which led him to regard the classical past as part of his own history.[3] in like manner, the recollection of a previous municipal organization in the communes, together with the growing ideal of a roman empire, which should restore italy to her place of sovereignty among the nations, proved serious obstacles to the unification of the people. we have already seen that this reversion of the popular imagination to rome may be reckoned among the reasons why the victory of legnano and the peace of constance were comparatively fruitless.[4] politically, socially, and intellectually, the italians persisted in a dream of their latin destiny, long after the feasibility of realizing that vision had been destroyed, and when the modern era had already formed itself upon a new type in the federation of the younger races. of hardly less importance, as negative influences, were the failure of feudalism to take firm hold upon italian soil, and the defect of its ideal, chivalry. the literature of trouvères, troubadours, and minnesingers grew up and flourished in the castles of the north; nor was it until the italians, under the sway of the hohenstauffen princes, possessed something analogous to a provençal court, that the right conditions for the development of literary art in the vernacular were attained. from this point of view dante's phrase of _lingua aulica_, to express the dialect of culture, is both scientific and significant. it will further appear in the course of this chapter that the earliest dawn of italian literature can be traced to those minor courts of piedmont and the trevisian marches, where the people borrowed the forms of feudal society more sympathetically than elsewhere in italy. it must moreover be remembered that during the eleventh and twelfth centuries the force of the italian people was concentrated upon two great political struggles, the contest of the church with the empire, and the war of lombard independence. in the prosecution of these quarrels, the italians lost sight of letters, art, theology. they became a race of statesmen and jurists. their greatest divines and metaphysicians wandered northward into france and england. their most favored university, that of bologna, acquired a world-famed reputation as a school of jurisprudence. legal studies and political activity occupied the attention of their ablest men. it would be difficult to overrate the magnitude of the work done during these two centuries. in the course of them, the italians gave final form to the organism of the papacy, which must be regarded as a product of their constructive genius. they developed republican governments of differing types in each of their great cities, and made, for the first time since the foundation of the empire, the name of _people_ sovereign. they resuscitated roman law, and reorganized the commerce of the mediterranean. remaining loyal to the empire as an idea, they shook off the yoke of the german cæsars; and while the papacy was their own handiwork, they, alone of european nations, viewed it politically rather than religiously, and so weakened it as to prepare the way for the babylonian captivity at avignon. thus, through the people's familiarity with latin; through the survival of roman grammar schools and the memory of roman local institutions; through a paramount and all-pervading enthusiasm for the roman past; through the lack of new legendary and epical material; through the failure of feudalism, and through the political ferment attending on the wars of investment and independence, the italians were slow to produce a modern language and a literature of modern type. they came late into the field; and when they took their place at last, their language presented a striking parallel to their political condition. as they failed to acquire a solid nationality, but remained split up into petty states, united by a pan-italic sentiment; so they failed to form a common speech. the written italian of the future was used in its integrity by no one province; each district clinging to its dialect with obstinate pride.[5] yet, though the race was tardy in literary development, and though the tongue of ariosto has never become so thoroughly italian as that of shakspere is english or that of molière is french; still, on their first appearance, the italian masters proved themselves at once capable of work maturer and more monumental than any which had been produced in modern europe. their education during two centuries of strife was not without effect. the conditions of burghership in their free communes, the stirring of their political energies, the liberty of their _popolo_, and the keen sense of reality developed by their legal studies, prepared men like dante and guido cavalcanti for solving the problems of art in a resolute, mature and manly spirit, fully conscious of the aim before them, and self-possessed in the assurance of adult faculties. in the first, or, as it may be termed, the latin period of medieval culture, there was not much to distinguish the italians from the rest of europe. those lombard schools, of which mention has already been made, did indeed maintain the traditions of decadent classical education more alive than among the peoples of the north. better latin, and particularly more fluent latin verse, was written during the dark ages in italy than elsewhere.[6] still it does not appear that the whole credit of medieval latin hymnology, and of its curious counterpart, the songs of the wandering students, should be attributed to the italians. while we can refer the _dies iræ_, _lauda sion_, _pange lingua_ and _stabat mater_ with tolerable certainty to italian poets; while there is abundant internal evidence to prove that some of the best _carmina burana_ were composed in italy and under italian influences; yet paris, the focus of theological and ecclesiastical learning, as bologna was the center of legal studies, must be regarded as the headquarters of that literary movement which gave the rhyming hexameters of bernard of morlas and the lyrics of the goliardi to europe.[7] it seems clear that we cannot ascribe to the italians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries any superiority in the use of latin over the school of france. their previous vantage-ground had been lost in the political distractions of their country. at the same time, they were the first jurists and the hardiest, if not the most philosophical, freethinkers of europe. this is a point which demands at least a passing notice. their practical studies, and the example of an emperor at war with christendom, helped to form a sect of epicureans in italy, for whom nothing sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority was sacred. to these pioneers of modern incredulity dante assigned not the least striking cantos of the _inferno_. their appearance in the thirteenth century, during the ascendancy of latin culture, before the people had acquired a language, is one of the first manifestations of a national bias toward positive modes of thought and feeling, which we recognize alike in boccaccio and ariosto, machiavelli and guicciardini, pomponazzi and the speculators of the south italian school. it was the quality, in fact, which fitted the italians for their work in the renaissance. as metaphysicians, in the stricter sense of that word, they have been surpassed by northern races. their religious sense has never been so vivid, nor their opposition to established creeds so earnest. but throughout modern history their great men have manifested a practical and negative good sense, worldly in its moral tone, impervious to pietistic influences, antagonistic to mysticism, contented with concrete reality, which has distinguished them from the more fervent, boyish, sanguine, and imaginative enthusiasts of northern europe. we are tempted to speculate whether, as they were the heirs of ancient civility and grew up among the ruins of roman greatness so they were born spiritually old and disillusioned. another point which distinguished the italians in this latin period of their literature, was the absence of the legendary or myth-making faculty. it is not merely that they formed no epic, and gave birth to no great saga; but they accepted the fabulous matter, transmitted to them from other nations, in a prosaic and positive spirit. this does not imply that they exercised a critical faculty, or passed judgment on the products of the medieval fancy. on the contrary, they took legend for fact, and treated it as the material of history. hector, alexander, and attila were stripped of their romantic environments, and presented in the cold prose of a digest, as persons whose acts could be sententiously narrated. this attitude of the italians toward the saga is by no means insignificant. when their poets came to treat arthurian or carolingian fables in the epics of orlando, they apprehended them in the same positive spirit, adding elements of irony and satire. for the rest, the italians shared with other nations the common stock of medieval literature--chronicles, encyclopædias, epitomes, moralizations, histories in verse, rhetorical summaries, and prose abstracts of universal history--the meager _débris_ and detritus of the huge moraines carried down by extinct classic glaciers. it is not needful to dwell upon this aspect of the national culture, since it presents no specific features. what is most to our purpose, is to note the affectionate remembrance of rome and roman worthies, which endured in each great town. the people, as distinguished from the feudal nobility, were and ever felt themselves to be the heirs of the old roman population. therefore the soldiers on guard against the huns at modena in 924, sang in their barbarous latin verse of hector and the capitol[8]: dum hector vigil exstitit in troïa, non eam cepit fraudulenta græcia: prima quiete dormiente troïa, laxavit sinon fallax claustra perfida ... vigili voce avis anser candida fugavit gallos ex arce romulea pro qua virtute facta est argentea, et a romanis adorata ut dea. the tuscan women told tales of troy and catiline and julius cæsar[9]: l'altra, traendo alla rocca la chioma, favoleggiava con la sua famiglia de' troiani e di fiesole e di roma. a rhyming chronicler of pisa compared the battles of the burghers against the saracens with the punic wars. the tomb of virgil at naples was an object for pilgrimage, and one of the few spots round which a group of local legends clustered. the memory of livy added luster to padua, and mussato boasted that her walls, like those of troy, her mother-city, were sacrosanct. the memory of the plinies ennobled como, that of ovid gave glory to sulmona, that of tully to arpino. florence clung to the mutilated statue of mars upon her bridge with almost superstitious reverence, as proof of roman origin; while siena adopted for her ensign the she-wolf and the roman twins. pagan customs survived, and were jealously maintained in the central and southern provinces; and the name of the republic sufficed to stir arnold's revolution in rome, long before the days of rienzi. to the mighty german potentate, king frederick barbarossa, attended with his northern chivalry, a handful of romans dared to say: "thou wast a stranger; i, the city, gave thee civic rights. thou camest from transalpine regions; i have conferred on thee the principality."[10] it would be easy to multiply these instances. enough, however, has been said to show that through the gloom of medieval history, before humanism had begun to dawn, and while the other nations were creating legends and popular epics, italy maintained a dim but tenacious sense of her roman past. this consciousness has here to be insisted on, not merely because it stood in the way of mythopoeic activity, but because it found full and proper satisfaction in that revival of learning which decided the renaissance. while the italians were fighting the wars of investiture and independence, two literatures had arisen in the country which we now call france. two languages, the _langue d'oc_ and the _langue d'oïl_, gave birth to two separate species of poetry. the master-product of the latter was the song of roland, which, together with the after-birth of arthurian romance, flooded europe with narratives, embodying in a more or less epical form the ideals, enthusiasms, and social creed of chivalry. the former, cultivated in the southern provinces that border on the mediterranean, yielded a refined and courtly fashion of lyrical verse, which took the form of love-songs, battle-songs, and satires, and which is now known as provençal literature. the influence of feudal culture, communicated through these two distinct but closely connected channels, was soon felt in italy. the second phase of italian development has been called lombard, because it was chiefly in the north of the peninsula that the motive force derived from france was active. yet if we regard the matter of this new literature, rather than its geographical distribution, we shall more correctly designate it by the title franco-italian. in the first or latin period, the italians used an ancient language. they now adopted not only the forms but also the speech of the people from whom they received their literary impulse. it is probable that the lombard dialects were still too rough to be accommodated to the new french style. the cultivated classes were familiar with latin, and had felt no need of raising the vernacular above the bare necessities of intercourse. but the superior social development of the french courts and castles must be reckoned the main reason why their language was acclimatized in italy together with their literature. just as the germans before the age of herder adopted polite culture, together with the french tongue, ready-made from france, so now the lombard nobles, bordering by the riviera upon provence, borrowed poetry, together with its diction, from the valley of the rhone. passing along the genoese coast, crossing the cottian alps, and following the valley of the po, the languages of france and provence diffused themselves throughout the north of italy. with the _langue d'oïl_ came the chansons de geste of the carolingian cycle and the romances of the arthurian legend. with the _langue d'oc_ came the various forms of troubadour lyric. without displacing the local dialects, these imported languages were used and spoken purely by the nobles; while a hybrid, known as _franco-italian_, sprang up for the common people who listened to the tales of roland and rinaldo on the market-place. the district in which the whole mass of this foreign literature seems to have flourished most at first, was the trevisan march, stretching from the adige, along the po, beyond the brenta and past venice, to the base of the friulian alps. the marches of treviso were long known as _la marca amorosa_ or _gioiosa_, epithets which strongly recall the provençal phrases of _joie_ and _gai saber_, and which are familiar to english readers of sir thomas mallory in the name of lancelot's castle, _joyous gard_. exactly to define the period of trevisan culture would be difficult. it is probable that it began to flourish about the end of the twelfth, and declined in the middle of the thirteenth century. dante alludes to it in a famous passage of the _purgatory_[11]: in sul paese ch'adige e po riga, solea valore e cortesia trovarsi prima che federigo avesse briga. there are many traces of advanced french civilization in this district, among which may be mentioned the exhibition of miracle plays upon the french type at civitale in the years 1298 and 1304, and the _castello d'amore_ at treviso described by rolandini in the year 1214. yet, though the trevisan marches were the nucleus of this gallicizing fashion, the use of french and provençal spread widely through the north and down into the center of italy. numerous manuscripts in the _langue d'oïl_ attest the popularity of the arthurian romances throughout lombardy, and we know that in umbria s. francis first composed poetry in french.[12] it was in french, again, that brunetto latini wrote his _tesoro_. so late as the middle of the fourteenth century this habit had not died out. dante in the _convito_ thought it necessary to stigmatize "those men of perverse mind in italy who commend the vulgar tongue of foreigners and depreciate their own." we have seen that the language and the matter of this imported literature were twofold; and we can distinguish two distinct currents, after its reception into italy. the provençal lyric, as was natural, attracted the attention of the nobles; and since feudalism had a stronger hold upon the valley of the po than on any other district, lombardy became the chief home of this poetry. not to mention the numerous provençal singers who sought fortune and adventure in northern italy, about twenty-five italians, using the _langue d'oc_, may be numbered between the marchese alberto malaspina, who held lunigiana about 1204, and the maestro ferrara, who lived at the court of azzo vii. of este.[13] these were for the most part courtiers and imperial feudatories; and only two were tuscans. the person of one of them, sordello, is familiar to every reader of the _purgatory_. the second tide of influence passed from northern france together with the epics of chivalry. but its operation was not so simple as that of the provençal lyric. we can trace for instance a marked difference between the effect produced by the _chansons de geste_ and that of the arthurian tales. the latter seem to have been appropriated by the nobles, while the former found acceptance with the people. nor was this unnatural. at the opening of the twelfth century the carolingian cycle had begun to lose its vogue among the polished aristocracy of france. that uncompromising history of warfare hardly suited a society which had developed the courtesy and the romance of chivalry. it represented the manners of an antecedent age of feudalism. therefore the tales of the round table arose to satisfy the needs of knights and ladies, whose thoughts were turned to love, the chase, the tournament, and errantry. the arthurian myth idealized their newer and more refined type of feudal civility. it was upon the material of this romantic epic that the nobles of north italy fastened with the greatest eagerness. no one has forgotten how the tragedy of lancelot and guinevere proved, in a later day, the ruin of francesca and her lover.[14] the people, on the other hand, took livelier interest in the songs of roland and charlemagne. the chansons de geste formed the stock in trade of those _cantatores francigenarum_, who crowded the streets and squares of lombard cities.[15] the exchange of courtesies and refined sentiments between a tristram and iseult or a lancelot and guinevere must naturally have been less attractive to a rude populace than narratives of battle with the infidel, and roland's horn, and gano's treason, and rinaldo's quarrels with his liege. in the arthurian cycle names and places alike--avalon, camelot, winchester, gawain, galahaut--were distant and ill-adapted to italian ears.[16] the whole tissue of the romance, moreover, was imaginative. the carolingian cycle, on the contrary, introduced personages with a good right to be considered historical, and dwelt upon familiar names and traditional ideas. we are not, therefore, surprised to find that this epic took a strong hold on the popular imagination, and so penetrated the italian race as to assume a new form on italian soil, while the arthurian romance survived as a pastime of the upper classes, and underwent no important metamorphosis at their hands. in the course of this volume, i shall have to show how, when italian literature emerged again from the people after nearly a century of neglect, it was the transformed tale of charlemagne and roland which supplied the italian nation with its master-works of epic poetry--the _morgante_ and the two _orlandos_. the lombard, or rather the franco-italian period is marked by the adoption of a foreign language and foreign fashions. literature at this stage was exotic and artificial; but the legacy transmitted to the future was of vast importance. on the one side, the courtly rhymers who versified in the provençal dialect, bequeathed to sicily and tuscany the chivalrous lyric of love, which was destined to take its final and fairest form from dante and petrarch. on the other hand, the populace who listened to the song of roland on the market-place, prepared the necessary conditions for a specific and eminently characteristic product of italian genius. without a national epic, the italians were forced to borrow from the french. but what they borrowed, they transmuted--not merely adding new material, like the tale of gano's treason and the fiction of orlando's birth at sutri, but importing their own spirit, positive, ironical and incredulous, into the substance of the legend. in the course of italianizing the tale of roland, the native dialects made their first effort to assume a literary form. we possess sufficient ms. evidence to prove that the franco-italian language of the songs recited to the lombard townsfolk, was composed by the adaptation of local modes of speech to french originals. the process was not one of pure translation. the dialects were not fit for such performance. it may rather be described as the attempt of the dialects to acquire capacity for studied expression. with french poems before them, the popular rhapsodes introduced dialectical phrases, substituted words, and, where this was possible, modified the style in favor of the dialect they wished to use. french still predominated. but the hybrid was of such a nature that a transition from this mixed jargon to the dialect, presented in a literary shape, was imminent. there is sufficient ground for presuming that the italian dialects triumphed simultaneously in all parts of the peninsula about the middle of the thirteenth century.[17] this presumption is founded partly on the quotations from dialectical poetry furnished by dante in the _de eloquio_, which prove a wide-spread literary activity; partly on fragments recovered from sources which can be referred to the second half of the century. the peculiar problems offered by the conditions of poetry at frederick ii.'s court, though these are open to many contradictory solutions, render the presumption more than probable. it is difficult to understand the third or sicilian period of literature without hypothesizing an antecedent stage of vulgar poetry produced in local dialects. but, owing to the scarcity of documents, no positive facts regarding the date and mode of their emergence can be adduced. we have on this point to deal with matters of delicate conjecture and minute inference; and though it might seem logical to introduce at once a discussion on the growth of the italian language, and its relation to the dialects which were undoubtedly spoken before they were committed to writing, special reasons induce me to defer this topic for the present. while the north of italy was deriving the literature both of its cultivated classes and of the people from france, a new and still more important phase of evolution was preparing in the south. both dante and petrarch recognize the sicilian poets as the first to cultivate the vulgar tongue with any measure of success, and to raise it to the dignity of a literary language. in this opinion they not only uttered the tradition of their age, but were also without doubt historically correct. whatever view may be adopted concerning the formation of the _lingua illustre_, or polished italian, from the dialectical elements already employed in local kinds of poetry, there is no disputing the importance of the sicilian epoch. we cannot fix precise dates for its duration. yet, roughly speaking, it may be said to have begun in 1166, when troubadours of some distinction gathered round the person of the norman king, william ii., at palermo, and to have ended in 1266, when manfred was killed at the battle of benevento. it culminated during the reign of the emperor frederick ii. (1210-1250), who was himself skilled in latin and the vulgar tongues of france and italy, and who drew to his court men distinguished for their abilities in science and literature. dante called frederick, _cherico grande_. the author of the _cento novelle_ described him as _veramente specchio del mondo in parlare et in costumi_, and spoke of his capital as the resort of _la gente ch'avea bontade ... sonatori, trovatori, e belli favellatori, uomini d'arti, giostratori, schermitori, d'ogni maniera gente_.[18] the portrait drawn of him by salimbene in his contemporary chronicle, though highly unfavorable to the schismatic enemy of holy church, proves that his repute was great in italy as a patron of letters and himself a poet of no mean pretensions.[19] it is impossible in these pages to inquire into the views of this great ruler for the resuscitation of culture in italy, which, had he not been thwarted in his policy by the church, might have anticipated the renaissance by two centuries. yet the opinion may be hazarded that the cultivation of italian as a literary language was due in no small measure to the forethought and deliberate intention of an emperor, who preferred his southern to his northern provinces. unlike the lombard nobles, frederick, while adopting provençal literature, gave it italian utterance. this seems to indicate both purpose and prevision on his part. wishing to found an italian dynasty, and to acclimatize the civilization of provence in his southern capitals, he was careful to promote purely italian studies. there can at any rate be no doubt that during his reign and under his influence very considerable progress was made towards fixing the diction and the forms of poetry. he found dialects, not merely spoken, but already adapted to poetical expression, in more than one district of italy. from these districts the most eminent artists flocked to his court. it was there that a common type of speech was formed, which, when the burghers of central italy began to emulate the versifiers of palermo, furnished them with an established style. how the _lingua aulica_ came into being admits of much debate. but we may, i think, maintain that the fundamental dialect from which it sprang was sicilian, purified by comparison with provençal and latin, and largely modified by apulian elements. the difficulty of understanding the problem is in part removed when we remember the variety of representatives from noble towns of italy who met in frederick's circle, the tendencies of a dialect to refine itself when it assumes a literary form, and the continuous influences of court-life in common. italians gathered round the person of the sovereign at palermo from their native cities, must in ordinary courtesy have abandoned the crudities of their respective idioms. this sacrifice could not but have been reciprocal; and since provençal was not spoken to the exclusion of the mother-tongue, a generic italian had here the best chance of development. that this generic or court italian was at root sicilian, we have substantial reasons to believe; but that it exactly resembled the sicilian of to-day, which does not greatly differ from extant documents of thirteenth and fourteenth century sicilian dialect, seems too crude a supposition.[20] unfortunately, our evidence upon this point is singularly scanty. few poems of the sicilian period, as will appear in the sequel, have descended to us in their primitive form. not only was a common language instituted in the court of frederick; but the metrical forms of subsequent italian poetry were either fixed or suggested by the practice of these early versifiers. few subjects are involved in darker obscurity than the history of meters--the creation of rhythmical structures whereby one national literature distinguishes itself from another.[21] just as each writer who can claim an individual style seems to possess his own rhythm, his peculiar tune, to which his sentences are cadenced, so each nation appropriates and adheres to its own meter. the italian hendecasyllabic, the french alexandrian, the english heroic iambic, are obvious examples. this selection of a characteristic meter, and the essays through which the race arrives at its perfection, seem to imply some instinct, planted within the deeps of national personality, whereof the laws have not been formulated. when we speak of the genius of a language, we do but personify this instinct, which appears to exercise itself at an early period of national development, leaving for subsequent centuries the task of refining and completing what had been projected at the outset. therefore, nothing very distinct can be asserted about the origin of the hendecasyllable iambic line, which marks italian poetry.[22] yet it certainly appears among the early specimens of the sicilian period. the rhyming system of the octave stanza may possibly be traced in ciullo d'alcamo's _tenzone_ between the lover and his mistress; though it still needed a century of elaboration at the hands of popular _rispetti_-writers, to present it in completed form to boccaccio's muse.[23] this poem is alexandrine in rhythm. _terza rima_ seems to be suggested by the sonnet of the _sparviere_; while a perfect sonnet, differing very little either in structure or in diction from the type of petrarch's, is supplied in piero delle vigne's _perocchè amore_. at the same time the highwrought structure of the _canzone_, destined to play so triumphant a part during the whole period of the _trecento_, receives its essential outlines from the rhymers of this age, especially from jacopo da lentino and guido delle colonne. though the forms and language of sicilian poetry decided the destinies of italian, the substance of this literature was far from being national. under its italian garb, it was no less an exotic than the provençal and french compositions of the lombard period. after running a brilliant course in provence, the poetry of chivalrous love was now declining to its decadence. it had ceased to be the spontaneous expression of a dominant ideal, and had degenerated into a pastime for _dilettanti_. its style had become conventional; its phrases fixed. the visionary science upon which it was based, had to be studied in codes of doctrine and repeated with pedantic precision. frederick and his courtiers received it at the point of its extinction. they adhered as closely as possible to traditional forms, imitated time-honored models, and confined their efforts to the reproduction of the old art in a new vehicle of language. therefore, vernacular italian poetry in this first stage of its existence presents the curious spectacle of literature decrepit in the cradle, hampered with the euphuism of an exhausted manner before it could move freely, and taught to frame conceits and cold antitheses before it learned to lisp. such, in general, may be said to have been the character of the sicilian or italo-provençal style. yet a careful student of these canzoni, serventesi, and tenzoni, will discover much that is both natural and graceful, much that is elevated in thought, much again that belongs to the crude sensuousness of southern temperament. there is an unmistakable blending of the provençal tradition with indigenous realism, especially in such compositions as the lament of odo delle colonne, the lament of ruggieri pugliese, and the _tenzone_ of ciullo d'alcamo.[24] we can trace a double current of inspiration: the one passing downward from the learned writers of the court, the judges, notaries, and men of state, who followed provençal tradition; the other upward from the people, who rhymed as nature taught them: both mingling in the compositions of those more genial poets, who were able to infuse reality into the labored form of their adoption. what might have been the destiny of italian literature, if the suabian house had maintained its hold on the two sicilies, and this process of fusion had been completed at naples or palermo, cannot even be surmised. our knowledge of the earliest italo-provençal poetry is vague, owing to lack of genuine sicilian monuments. we can only trace faint indications of a progress toward greater freedom and more spontaneous inspiration, as the "courtly makers" yielded to the singers of the people. the battle of benevento extinguished at one blow both the hopes of the suabian dynasty and the development of sicilian poetry. when manfred's body had been borne naked on a donkey from the battle-field to his nameless grave, amid the cries of _chi compra manfredi?_ a foreign troubadour, amerigo di peguilhan, composed his lament, bidding the _serventese_ pass through all lands and over every sea to find the man who knew where arthur dwelt and when he would return. arthur was dead, and would never come again. chivalry and feudalism had held their brief and feeble sway in italy, and that was over. neither in lombardy among the castles, nor in sicily within the court, throbbed the real life of the italian nation. that life was in the communes. it beat in the heart of the people--especially of that people who had made nobility a crime beside the arno, and had outlawed the _scioperati_ from their city of the flower. what the suabian princes gave to italy was the beginning of a common language. it remained for tuscany to stamp that language with her image and superscription, to fix it in its integrity for all future ages, and to render it the vehicle of stateliest science and consummate art. the question of the origin of the italian language pertains rather to philology than to the history of culture.[25] yet i cannot pass it wholly by in silence, since it was raised at an early period by the founders of italian literature, who occupied themselves with singular sagacity concerning the relations of the literary to the dialectical forms of speech. dante's _de eloquio_, though based on unscientific principles of analysis, opened a discussion which exercised the acutest intellects of the sixteenth century. during the whole roman period, it is certain that literary latin differed in important respects from the vulgar, rustic or domestic, language. thus while a roman gentleman would have said _habeo pulchrum equum_, his groom probably expressed the same thought in words like these: _ego habeo unum bellum caballum_. between a _graffito_ scribbled on the wall of some old roman building--_alexander unum animal est_, for instance--and one now chalked in the same district, _alessandro è un animale_, there is hardly as much difference as between a literary latin sentence and either of these rustic epigrams; while the use of such intensitives as _multum_ and _bene_, to express the superlative degree, indicate in vulgar latin the presence of a principle alien to literary latin but sympathetic to modern speech. the vulgar or rustic latin continued, side by side with its literary counterpart, throughout the middle ages, forming in the first centuries of imperial decline the common speech of the romance peoples, and gradually assuming those specific forms which determined the french, spanish, and italian types. there is little doubt that, could we possess ourselves of sufficient documents, we should be able to trace the stages in this process. both literary and vulgar latin suffered transformation--the former declining in purity, variety, and vigor; the latter diverging dialectically into the constituents of the three grand families of modern latin. but the metamorphosis was not of the same nature in both cases. while the literary language had been fixed, arrested, and delivered over to death, the vulgar tongue retained a vivid and assimilative life, capable of biological transmutation. french, spanish, and italian are modes of its existence continued under laws of organic variety and change. it would be unscientific to suppose that rustic latin, even in the most flourishing period of the roman empire, was identical in all provinces. from the first it must have held within itself the principles of differentiation. and when we consider the varying conditions of soil, climate, ethnological admixture and political development in the several regions of the roman world, together with the divers influences of contiguous or invasive races, we shall form some notion of the process by which the three languages in question branched off from the common stock of rustic latin. the same laws of differentiation hold good with regard to the dialects in each of these new languages. it is improbable that absolutely the same vulgar latin was at any epoch spoken in two remote districts of the same province--on the tuscan sea-coast, for example, and on the banks of padus. even when the roman empire used one language, intelligible from the ægean to the german ocean, the italic districts must have differed in their local vernacular. again, the same conditions (climatic, ethnological, political, and so forth) which helped to determine the generic distinctions of french, spanish, and italian, determined also the specific distinctions of one italian dialect from another. those of the north-west, for instance, inclined to gallic, and those of the north-east to illyrian idiom. those of lombardy in general exhibit a mixture of german words. those of sicily and the south approximate more to a spanish type, and share the effects of greek and arab occupation. the dialects of the center, especially the tuscan, show marked superiority both in grammatical form and phonetic purity over the more disintegrated and corrupted idioms of north and south. it might be suggested that tuscan, being less modified by foreign contact, continued the natural life of the old rustic latin according to laws of unimpeded self-development. but, however we may attempt to explain this problem, the fact remains that, while the italian dialects present affinities which show them to be of one linguistic family, it is tuscan that completes and interprets them collectively. tuscan stands to italian in the same relation as castilian to spanish, or the speech of the ile de france to french. it is a dialect, but a dialect that realized the bent and striving of the language. we find it difficult to feel, far more to state, what qualities in a dialect and in the people of the district who use it, render one idiom more adapted to literary usage, more characteristic of the language it helps to constitute, more plastic and expressive of national peculiarities, than those around it. but the fact is certain that this superiority in tuscan was early recognized;[26] and that too without any political advantages in favor of its triumph. boniface viii. unconsciously expressed, perhaps, the truth, when he called the florentines _il quinto elemento_. it was something spiritually quintessential, something complementary to the sister dialects, which caused the success of tuscan. thus, while literary latin, though dying and almost dead, was taught in the grammar schools and used by learned men, the rustic latin in the thirteenth century had disappeared. but this disappearance was not death. it was transformation. the group of dialects which represented the new phase in its existence, shared such common qualities as proved them to have had original affinity; and fitted them for being recognized as a single family. the position, therefore, of the italians at the close of the thirteenth century with regard to language, was this. they possessed the classic latin authors in a bad state of preservation, and studied a few of them with some minuteness, basing their own learned style upon the imitation of virgil and ovid, cicero, boethius, and the rhetoricians of the lower empire. but at home, in their families, upon the market-place, and in the prosecution of business, they talked the local dialects, each of which was more or less remotely representative of the ancient vulgar latin. however these dialects might differ, they formed in combination a new language, distinct from the parent stock of rustic latin, and equally distinct from french and spanish.[27] whatever difficulty an italian of calabria or friuli might have felt in understanding the _divine comedy_, he would have recognized an element in its diction which defined it from french or spanish, and marked it out as proper to his mother-tongue. if this was true of the refined type of tuscan used by a great master, it was no less true of dialectical compositions selected for the express purpose of exhibiting their rudeness. dante clearly expected contemporary readers not only to interpret, but to appreciate the shades of greater and lesser nicety in the examples he culled from roman, apulian, florentine and other vernacular literatures. this expectation proves that he felt himself to be dealing with a group of dialects which, taken collectively, formed a common idiom. in these circumstances it was the problem of writers, at the close of the thirteenth century, to construct the ideal vulgar tongue, to discover its capacities for noble utterance, to refine it for artistic usage by the omission of cruder elements existing in each dialect, and to select from those store-houses of living speech the phrases which appeared well suited to graceful utterance. the desideratum, to use dante's words, was "that illustrious, cardinal, courtly, curial mother-tongue, proper to each italian state, special to none, whereby the local idioms of every city are to be measured, weighed, and compared."[28] dante saw that this selection of a literary language from the fresh shoots sent up by the antique vulgar latin stock could best be accomplished in a capital or court, the meeting-place of learned people and polished intelligences. but such a metropolis of culture, corresponding to elizabeth's london or the paris of louis xiv., was ever wanting in italy. "we have no court," he says: "and yet the members that should compose a court are not absent."[29] he refers to men of education and good manners, upon whom, in the absence of a local center of refinement, fell the duty of reforming the vernacular. the peculiar conditions of italy, as he described them, were destined to subsist throughout the next two centuries and a half, when men of learning, taking tuscan as their standard, sought by practice and example to form a national language. the self-consciousness of the italians front to front with this problem, as revealed to us in the pages of the _de eloquio_, and the decision with which the great authors of the fourteenth century fixed a certain type of diction, accurately spoken nowhere, though nearer to the tuscan than to any other idiom, may be reckoned among the most interesting phenomena in the history of literature. tuscan predominated; but that the masterpieces of the _trecento_ were not composed in any one of the unadulterated tuscan dialects is clear, not merely from the contemporary testimony of dante himself, but also from the obstinate discussions raised upon this subject by bembo at a later period. a guiding and controlling principle of taste determined the instinctive method of selection whereby tuscan was adapted to the common needs of italy. while treating of the latin, the lombard or franco-italian, and the sicilian or italo-provençal periods of national development, i have hitherto neglected that plebeian literature which, although its monuments have almost perished, must have been diffused in dialects through italy after the opening of the thirteenth century. written for and by the people, the relics of this prose and poetry are valuable, not merely for the light they throw on the formation of language, but also for their indications of national tendencies. in the northern dialects we meet with treatises of religious, ethical and gnomic import, among which the _gerusalemme celeste_ and _babilonia infernale_ of fra giacomino of verona, the bible history of pietro bescapè of milan, the contention between satan and the virgin of bonvesin da riva, and two other dialogues by the same author, one between the soul and body, the other between a son and his father in hell, deserve mention. to this class again belongs bonvesin's _cinquanta cortesie da tavola_, a book of etiquette adapted to the needs of the small _bourgeoisie_ upon their entrance into social life. it is impossible to fix even an approximate date for the emergence of italian prose. law documents, deeds of settlement, contracts, and public acts, which can be referred with certainty to the first half of the thirteenth century, display a pressure of the vulgar speech upon the formal latin of official verbiage. the effort to obtain precision in designating some particular locality or some important person, forces the scribe back upon his common speech; and these evidences of difficulty in wielding the latin which had now become a dying language, prove that, long before it was written, italian was spoken. from the year 1231 we possess accounts of domestic expenditure written by one mattasalà di spinello dei lambertini in the sienese dialect. then follow lucchese documents and letters of sienese citizens, which, though they have no literary value, show that people who could write had begun to express their thoughts in spoken idiom. the first essays in italian composition for a lettered public were translations from works already written by italians in _langue d'oïl_. among these a prominent place must be assigned to the version of marco polo's travels, which rusticiano of pisa first published in french, having possibly received them in venetian from the traveler's own lips. the _tesoro_ of brunetto latini and egidio's _de regimine principum_ were italianized in this way; while numerous digests of frankish romances, including the collection known as _conti di antichi cavalieri_, appeared to meet the same popular demand. religious history and ethics furnished another library in the vernacular. the _dodici conti morali_, the _introduzione alle virtù_, the _giardino della consolazione_, and the _libra di cato_ supplied the people with specimens from works already famous. after a like manner, books of rhetoric and grammar in vogue among the medieval students were popularized in abstracts for italian readers. we may cite a version of orosius, and a _fiore di retorica_ based upon the _ad herennium_ and cicero. of scientific compilations, the _composizione del mondo_ by ristoro of arezzo, embracing astronomical and geographical information, takes rank with the ethical and rhetorical works already mentioned. the note of all these compositions is that they are professedly epitomes of learning, already possessed in more authentic sources by scholars. as such, they prove that there existed a class of readers eager for instruction, to whom books written in latin or in french were not accessible. in a word, they indicate the advent of the modern tongue, with all its exigencies and with all its capabilities. to deal with the chronicles of this period is no easy matter; for those which are professedly the oldest--matteo spinelli's ricordano malespini's, and _lu ribellamentu di sicilia_--have been proved in some sense fabrications. on the other hand, it is clear from the _cento novelle_ that the more dramatic episodes of history and myth were being submitted to the same epitomizing treatment. finally we have to mention guittone of arezzo's epistles as the first serious attempt to treat the vulgar tongue rhetorically, for a distinct literary purpose. from the dry records of incipient prose it is refreshing to turn to another species of popular poetry; for poetry in the period of origins is always more adult than prose. numerous fragments of political songs have been disinterred from chronicles, which can be referred to the thirteenth century. thus an anonymous genoese rhymster celebrated the victories of laiazzo (1294) and curzola (1298), while giovanni villani preserved six lines upon the siege of messina (1282).[30] verses in the vulgar tongue commemorating the apostasy of fra elia, general of the franciscans, in 1240, and the coming of the florentine lambertesco dei lamberteschi as podestà to reggio in 1243, with scraps of song relating to pisan and florentine history, may be read in carducci's monumental work upon this period of literature.[31] these relics, though precious, are singularly scanty; nor can a northern student pass them by without remarking the absence of that semi-historical, semi-mythical poetry, which is so familiar to us under the name of ballad. more important, because of greater extent, are the laments and amorous or comic poems, which can be attributed to the same century. the lament of the paduan woman for her husband, who has journeyed to holy land in the crusade preached by urban iv., may be compared with rinaldo d'aquino's farewell.[32] both of these compositions were written under provençal influence, though the former at least is strictly dialectical and popular. passing to satirical poems, i may mention two pieces extracted from a bolognese ms. of 1272 which paint with vivid force of humor the manners of women.[33] one represents a drinking-party of more than aristophanic freedom; the other, a wrangling match between two sisters-in-law--the _cognate_. each displays facility of composition and a literary style already formed. they are not without french parallels; but the mode of presentation is italian, and the phrases have been transplanted without change from vulgar dialogue. two romantic lyrics extracted from the same ms. prove that the fashionable style of provence had descended from the nobles to the common folk and taken a new tincture of realism.[34] the complaint of an unwedded maiden to her mother is a not uncommon motive in this early literature, turning either to pathos or suggesting a covert coarseness in the climax.[35] to the same class may be referred some graceful lyrics and dance-songs, combining the artlessness of popular inspiration with reminiscences of french originals.[36] of these the nightingale and the song of love in dreams might be selected for their close sympathy with the _rispetti_ made in italian country districts at the present day. lastly, i have to mention two obscene poems of great popularity, _il nicchio_ and _l'ugellino_.[37] these were known to boccaccio, for he refers to them by name at the close of the fifth day in the decameron. each of the ditties bears a thoroughly italian stamp, and anticipates by its peculiar style of _double entendre_ a whole department of national poetry--the florentine carnival songs and the capitoli of the roman academies being distinctly foreshadowed in their humorous and allusive treatment of a vulgar topic. hence we may take occasion to observe that those who accuse lorenzo de' medici and his contemporaries of debasing popular taste by the deliberate introduction of licentiousness into art, exceed the limits of just censure. what is called the paganism of the renaissance, was indigenous in italy. we find it inherent in vulgar literature before the date of boccaccio; and if, with the advance of social luxury, it assumed, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a more objectionable prominence, this should not be exclusively ascribed to the influence of humanistic studies or to the example of far-sighted despots. indeed, it can be asserted that the specific quality of the popular italian genius--its sensuous realism, qualified with irony--emerges unmistakably in five most important relics of the thirteenth century, the _cognate_, the _comadri_, the tenzone of the maiden and her mother (_mamma lo temp'è venuto_), the _nicchio_, and the _ugellino_.[38] they yield the common stuff of that magnificent art which shall afterwards be developed into the _decameron_ and the _novelle_, out of which shall proceed the comedies and bernesque lyrics of the _cinque cento_, and which is destined to penetrate the golden cantos of the _orlando furioso_. to an unprejudiced student of italian arts and letters nothing seems more clearly proved than the fact that a certain powerful objective quality--call it realism, call it sensuousness--determines their most genuine productions, sinking to grossness, ascending to sublimity, combining with religious feeling in the fine arts, blending with the definiteness of classic style, but never absent. it is this objectivity, realism, sensuousness, which constitutes the strength of the italians, and assigns the limitations of their faculty. in quite a different region, but of no less importance for the future of italian literature, must be reckoned the religious hymns, which, during the thirteenth century, began to be composed in the vernacular. the earliest known specimen is s. francis' famous _cantico del sole_, which, even as it is preserved to us, after undergoing the process of modernization, retains the purity and freshness of a bird's note in spring. after s. francis, but at the distance of half a century, followed jacopone da todi, with his passionate and dithyrambic odes, which seem to vibrate tongues of fire. to this religious lyric the flagellant frenzy (1260) and the subsequent formation of companies of laudesi gave decisive impulse. i shall have in a future chapter to discuss the relation between the umbrian lauds and the origins of the drama. it is enough here to notice the part played in the evolution of the language by so early a transition from the latin hymns of the church to hymns written in the modern speech for private confraternities and domestic gatherings. we learn from this meager review of ancient popular poetry that during the thirteenth century the dialects of each district had begun to seek literary expression. there are many indications that the products of one province speedily became the property of the rest. spontaneous motives were mingled with french and provençal recollections; and already we can trace the unconscious effort to form a common language in the process known as _toscaneggiamento_, or the translation of local songs into tuscan idiom.[39] it would, therefore, be incorrect to imagine either that the sicilian poets were blank imitators of provençal models, or that the italian language started into being at palermo. what really happened was, that frederick's court became the center of a widespread literary movement. the sicilian dialect predominating at palermo over the rest, the poets of different provinces who assembled round the emperor were subsequently known as sicilian. their songs, passing upward through the peninsula, bore that name, even when they had, as at florence, been converted, by dialectical modifications, to the use of tuscan folk.[40] the aristocratic tone of the court made provençal literature fashionable; and a refined diction, softening the crudities of more than one competing dialect, was formed to express the subtleties of the provençal style. we must bear in mind that the poets of this court were men of learned education--judges, notaries, officials. dante makes _dottori_ nearly synonymous with _trovatori_. at the same time, one of the earliest specimens of sicilian poetry, ciullo d'alcamo's _tenzone_, is popular, free from provençal affectation, inclining to comedy in some of its marked motives and to coarseness at its close. this proves that in the island, side by side with "courtly makers" and _dottori_, there flourished an original and vulgar manner of poetry. the process of tuscanization referred to in the preceding paragraph is too important in its bearings on the problems of italian language and literature, to be passed over without further discussion. nearly all the poetry of the sicilian epoch has been transmitted to us in florentine mss., after undergoing _toscaneggiamento_. we possess but a few stanzas in a pure condition. there is, therefore, reason to believe that when dante treated of the courtly sicilian poets in his essay _de vulgari eloquio_, he knew their writings in a form already tuscanized.[41] in commending the curial and illustrious vernacular, as something distinct from the dialects, he was in truth praising the dialect of his own province, refined by the practice of polite versifiers. at the date of the composition of that essay, the suabian house had been extinguished; the literary society of the south was broken up; and to florence had already fallen the heritage of art. what is even more remarkable, the bolognese poets, who preceded dante and his peers by one generation, had abandoned their own dialect in favor of the purified tuscan. consequently the new italian literature was already tuscan either by origin, or by adoption, or by a process of transformation, before the florentines assumed the dictatorship of letters. it seems paradoxical to hint that dante should not have perceived what has been here stated as more than a mere possibility. how came it that he included florentine among the peccant idioms, and maintained that the true literary speech was still to seek? these doubts may in part at least be removed, when we remember the peculiar conditions under which the courtly poetry he praised had been produced; and the indirect channels by which it had reached him. in the first place, we have seen that it was composed in avowed imitation of provençal models, by men of taste and learning drawn from several provinces. they culled, for literary purposes, a vocabulary of colorless and neutral words, which clothed the same conventional ideas with elegant and artificial monotony. when these compositions underwent the further process of tuscanization (which was easy, owing to certain dialectical affinities between sicilian and tuscan), they lost to a large extent what still remained to them of local character, without acquiring the true stamp of florentine. even a contemporary could not have recognized in the verse of jacopo da lentino, thus treated, either a genuine sicilian or a genuine tuscan flavor. his language presented the appearance of being, as indeed it was, different from both idioms. the artifice of style made it pass for superior; and, in purely literary quality, it was in truth superior to the products of plebeian inspiration. we may prefer the racy stanzas of the _cognate_ to those frigid and exhausted euphuisms. but the critical taste of so great a master as even dante was not tuned to any such preference. though he recognized the defects of the sicilian poets, as is manifest from his dialogue with guido in the _purgatory_, he gave them all credit for elevating verse above the vulgar level. their insipid diction seemed to him the first germ of a noble _lingua aulica_. its colorlessness and strangeness hid the fact that it had already, at the close of the thirteenth century, assumed the tuscan habit, and that from the well-springs of tuscan idiom the italian of the future would have to draw its aliment. the downfall of the hohenstauffens and the dispersion of their court-poets proved a circumstance of decisive benefit to italian literature, by removing it from a false atmosphere into conditions where it freely flourished and expanded its originality. feudalism formed no vital part of the italian social system, and chivalry had never been more than an exotic, cultivated in the hotbed of the aristocracy. the impulse given to poetry in the south, under influences in no true sense of the phrase national--a norman-german dynasty attempting to acclimatize provençal forms upon italian soil--could hardly have produced a vigorous type of literature. it is from the people, in centers of popular activity, or where the spirit of the people finds full play in representative society, that characteristic art must be developed. when we say this, we think inevitably of periclean athens, elizabeth's london, the paris of louis xiv. if the chances of our drama had been confined to court-patronage or sidney's areopagus, instead of being extended to the nation by free competition in the wooden theaters where marlowe and shakspere appealed to popular taste, there is little doubt but that england would only have boasted of a mediocre and academical stage. when italian poetry deserted palermo for the banks of the arno, it exchanged the court for the people; the subtleties of decadent chivalry for the genuine impulses of a free community; the pettiness of culture for the humanities of a public conscious of high destinies and educated in a masculine political arena. here the grand qualities of the italian genius found an open field. literature, abandoning imitative elegance, expressed the feelings, thoughts, and aspirations of a breed second to none in europe for acuteness of intellect, intensity of emotion, and greatness of purpose. at palermo the princes and their courtiers had been reciprocally auditors and poets. at florence the people listened; and the poets, sprung from them, were speakers. except at athens in the golden age of hellas, no populace has equaled that of florence both for the production of original genius, and also for the sensitiveness to beauty, diffused throughout all classes, which brings the artist and his audience into right accord. two stages in the transition from sicily to florence need to be described. guittone of arezzo (1230-1294) strikes the historian of literature as the man who first attempted to nationalize the polished poetry of the sicilian court, and to strip the new style of its feudal pedantry.[42] it was his aim, apparently, dismissing chivalrous conventions, to use the diction and the forms of literary art in an immediate appeal to the italian people. he wrote, however, roughly. though he practiced vernacular prose, and assumed in verse the declamatory tone which petrarch afterwards employed with such effect in his addresses to the consciousness of italy, yet dante could speak of him with cold contempt[43]; nor can we claim for him a higher place than that of precursor. he attempted more than he was able to fulfill. but his attempt, when judged by the conditions of his epoch, deserves to rank among achievements. with a poet of bologna the case is different. placed midway between lombardy and tuscany, bologna shared the instincts of the two noblest italian populations--the communes who wrested liberty from frederick barbarossa, and the communes who were to give arts and letters to the nation. bologna, moreover, was proud of her legal university, and had already won her title of "the learned." here guido guinicelli solved the problem of rendering the sicilian style at once national in spirit and elevated in style.[44] he did so by making it scientific. receiving from his italo-provençal predecessors the material of chivalrous love, and obeying the genius of his native city, guido rhymed of love no longer as a fashionable pastime, but as the medium of philosophic truth. learning was the mother of the national italian poetry. from guido started a school of transcendental singers, who used the ancient form and subject-matter of exotic poetry for the utterance of metaphysical thought. the italians, born, as it were, old, were destined thus to pass from imitation, through speculation, to the final freedom of their sensuous art. of this new lyric style--logical, allegorical, mystical--the first masterpiece was guido's canzone of the gentle heart. the code was afterwards formulated in dante's _convito_. the life it covered and interpreted was painted in the _vita nuova_. its apocalypse was the _paradiso_. if guido guinicelli did not succeed in writing from the heart, if he was more of an analyst than a lover, it is yet clear that the euphuisms of the italo-provençal imitators have yielded in his verse to genuine emotion, while, speaking technically, the complex structure of the true italian canzone now appears in all its harmony of grace and grandeur. guido's language is tuscan; not the tuscan of the people, but the tuscan of the toscaneggiamenti. herein, again, we note the importance of this poet in the history of literature. working outside florence, but obeying florentine precedent, he stamps italian with a tuscan seal, and helps to conceal from tuscans themselves the high destinies of their idiom. dante puts us at the right point of view for estimating guido's service. though he recognized the sicilians as the first masters of poetic style in italy, dante saluted the poet of bologna as his father[45]: quando i' udi' nomar sè stesso il padre mio, e degli altri miei miglior, che mai rime d'amor usâr dolci e leggiadre. on the authority of this sentence we hail in guido the founder of the new and specifically national literature of the italians. if not the master, he was the prophet of that _dolce stil nuovo_, which freed them from dependence on foreign traditions, and led, by transmutation, to the miracles of their renaissance art. he divined that sincere source of inspiration, whereof dante speaks[46]: io mi son un che quando amore spira, noto; ed a quel modo ch'ei detta dentro, vo significando. the happy instinct which led him to use tuscan, has secured his place upon the roll of poets who may still be read with pleasure. and of this, too, dante prophesied[47]: li dolci detti vostri, che, quanto durerà l'uso moderno, faranno cari ancora i loro inchiostri. bologna could boast of many minor bards--of the excellent onesto, of fabrizio and ghislieri, _qui doctores fuerunt illustres et vulgarium discretione repleti_.[48] her erudition was further illustrated by the work of one guidotto, who composed a treatise on the new vernacular, which he dedicated to king manfred. thus both by example and precept, by the testimony of dante and the fair fame of her own writers, this city makes for us a link between sicilian and tuscan literature. manfred was slain at benevento in 1266, and with him expired the prospects of sicilian poetry. dante, destined to inaugurate the great age, was born at florence in 1265. guido guinicelli died in 1277, when dante had completed his twelfth year. from 1249 until 1271, during the whole childhood of dante, enzo, king of sardinia, manfred's half-brother and frederick ii.'s son, remained a prisoner in the public palace of bologna. in one of those years of preparation and transition, while the learned stanzas of guido guinicelli were preluding the "new sweet style" of tuscany, this yellow-haired scion of the suabian princes, the progenitor of the bentivogli, sent a song forth from his dungeon's _loggie_ to greet the provinces of italy:- va, canzonetta mia, e saluta messere, dilli lo mal ch'i' aggio. quella che m'ha in balia si distretto mi tene, ch'eo viver non poraggio. salutami toscana, quella ched è sovrana, in cui regna tutta cortesia; e vanne in puglia piana, la magna capitana, là dove è lo mio core notte e dia. these lines sound a farewell to the old age and a salutation to the new. enzo's heart is in the lowlands of apulia and the great capitanate, where his father built castles and fought mighty wars. he belongs, like his verses, like his race, like the chivalrous sentiments he had imbibed in youth, to the past; and now he is dreaming life away, a captive with the burghers of bologna. yet it is tuscany for which he reserves the epithet of sovereign--tuscany where all courtesy holds sway. the situation is pathetic. the poem is a prophecy. raimond of tours, one of the earlier french minnesingers, bade his friend seek hospitality "in the noble city of the florentines, named florence; for it is there that joy and song and love are perfected with beauty crowned."[49] the delicate living and graceful pastimes of valdarno were famous throughout europe. in the old french romance of "cléomadés," for example, we read a rhymed description of the games and banquets with which florence welcomed may and june[50]:- pour may et gayn honorer; le may pour sa jolivité, et le gayn pour la planté. villani, writing of the year 1283, when the guelfs had triumphed and the nobles had been quelled, speaks thus of those festivities[51]:--"in this happy and fair state of ease and peaceful quiet so wealth-giving to merchants and artificers, and specially to the guelfs, who ruled the land, there was formed in the quarter of s. felicità beyond the arno, where the family de' rossi took the lead, together with their neighborhood, a company or band of one thousand men and upwards, all attired in white, with a lord named the lord of love. this band had no other purpose than to pass the time in games and solace, and in dances of ladies, knights and other people of the city, roaming the town with trumpets and divers instruments of music, in joy and gladness, and abiding together in banquets at mid-day and eventide." from another chronicle it appears that this company was called the _brigata bianca_, or _brigata amorosa_.[52] "there," says a rhymer who had seen the sports, "might one behold the rich attire of silk and gold, of samite, white and blue and violet, with fair velvets; and trappings of all colors i beheld that day. the young men mid the women went with gaze fixed upon those eyes angelical, that turn the midnight into noon. over their blonde tresses the maidens wore gems and precious garlands; lilies, violets and roses were their charming faces. you would not have said: 'yon are mortal beings.' they rather seemed a thousand paradises."[53] the amusements lasted two months, from may 1 until the end of the midsummer feast of s. john, patron of florence. later on, we read of two companies, the one dressed in yellow, the other in white, each led by their king, who filled the city with the sound of music, and wore garlands on their heads, and spent their time in dances and banquets.[54] again, when the nobles, after the battle of campaldino, had been finally suppressed, villani once more returns to the subject of these companies, describing the booths of wood adorned with silken curtains, which were ranged along the streets and squares, for the accommodation of guests.[55] it will be observed that villani connects the gladness of this season with the successive triumphs of the guelf party and the suppression of the nobles by the popolo. not only was florence freed from grave anxieties and heavy expenses, caused by the intramural quarrels between counts and burghers, but the city felt the advent of her own prosperity, the realization of her true type, in their victorious close. then the new noble class, the _popolani grassi_, assumed the gentle manners of chivalry, accommodating its customs to their own rich jovial ideal. feudalism was extinguished; but society retained such portions of feudal customs as shed beauty upon common life. tranquillity succeeded to strife, and the medieval city presented a spectacle similar to that which an old greek lyrist has described among the gifts of peace: to mortal men peace giveth these good things: wealth, and the flowers of honey-throated song; the flame that springs on carven altars from fat sheep and kine, slain to the gods in heaven; and, all day long, games for glad youths, and flutes, and wreaths, and circling wine. then in the steely shield swart spiders weave their web and dusky woof: rust to the pointed spear and sword doth cleave; the brazen trump sounds no alarms; nor is sleep harried from our eyes aloof, but with sweet rest my bosom warms: the streets are thronged with beauteous men and young, and hymns in praise of love like flames to heaven are flung. goro di stagio dati, writing at the end of the fourteenth century, has preserved for us an animated picture of florence in may.[56] "when the season of spring appears to gladden all the world, every man bethinks him how to make fair the day of s. john, which follows at midsummer, and there is none but provides himself betimes with clothes and ornaments and jewels. marriages and other joyous occasions are deferred until that time, to do the festival honor; and two months before the date, they begin to furnish forth the decorations of the races--dresses of varlets, banners, clarions, draperies, and candles, and whatsoever other offerings should be made. the whole city is in a bustle for the preparation of the festa; and the hearts of young men and women, who take part therein, are set on naught but dancing, playing, singing, banqueting, jousting, and other fair amusements as though naught else were to be done in those weeks before the coming of s. john's eve." the minute account of the ceremonies observed on s. john's day which follows, need not be transcribed. yet it may be well to call attention to a _quattrocento_ picture in the florentine academy, which illustrates the customs of that festival. it is a long panel representing the marriage of an adimari with a daughter of the ricasoli. the baptistery appears in the background; and on the piazza are ladies and young men, clad in damask and rich stuffs, with jewels and fantastic head-dresses, joining hands as though in act of dancing. under the loggia del bigallo sit the trumpeters of the signory, blowing clarions adorned with pennons. the lily of florence is on these trappings. serving men carry vases and basins toward the adimari palace, in preparation for the wedding feast. a large portion of the square is covered in with a white and red awning. if the chroniclers and painters enable us to form some conception of florentine festivity, we are introduced to the persons and pastimes of these jovial companies by the poet folgore da san gemignano.[57] two sets of his sonnets have been preserved, the one upon the months, addressed to the leader of a noble sienese company; the other on the days, to a member of a similar florentine society. if we are right in reckoning folgore among the poets of the thirteenth century, the facility and raciness of his style, its disengagement from provençalizing pedantry, and the irony of his luxurious hedonism, prove to what extent the tuscans had already left the middle age behind them.[58] folgore, in spite of his spring fragrance and auroral freshness, anticipates the spirit of the renaissance. he is a thirteenth-century boccaccio, without boccaccio's enthusiasm for humane studies. ideal love, asceticism, religion, the virtues of the christian and the knight, are not for him. his soul is set on the enjoyment of the hour. but this materialism is presented in a form of art so temperate, with colors so refined and outlines so delicately drawn, that there is nothing repulsive in it. his selfishness and sensuality are related to aretino's as the miniatures of a missal to giulio romano's modes of venus.[59] in his sonnets on the months, folgore addresses the brigata as "valiant and courteous above lancelot, ready, if need were, with lance in rest, to spur along the lists of camelot." in january he gives them good fires and warm chambers, silken coverlids for their beds, and fur cloaks, and sometimes in the day to sally forth and snow-ball girls upon the square: uscir di fora alcuna volta il giorno, gittando della neve bella e bianca a le donzelle, che staran dattorno. february brings the pleasures of the chase. march is good for fishing, with merry friends at night, and never a friar to be seen: lasciate predicar i frati pazzi, ch'hanno troppe bugie e poco vero. in april the "gentle country all abloom with fair fresh grass" invites the young men forth. ladies shall go with them, to ride, display french dresses, dance provençal figures, or touch new instruments from germany, or roam through spacious parks. may brings in tournaments and showers of blossoms--garlands and oranges flung from balcony and window--girls and youths saluting with kisses on cheeks and lips: e pulzellette, giovene, e garzoni basciarsi nella bocca e nelle guance; d'amore e di goder vi si ragioni. in june the company of youths and maidens quit the city for the villa, passing their time in shady gardens, where the fountains flow and freshen the fine grass, and all the folk shall be love's servants. july finds them in town again, avoiding the sun's heat and wearing silken raiment in cool chambers where they feast. in august they are off to the hills, riding at morn and eve from castle to castle, through upland valleys where streams flow. september is the month of hawking; october of fowling and midnight balls. with november and december winter comes again, and brings the fireside pleasures of the town. on the whole, there is too much said of eating and drinking in these sonnets; and the series concludes with a piece of inhumane advice: e beffe far dei tristi cattivelli, e miseri cattivi sciagurati avari: non vogliate usar con elli. the sonnets on the days breathe the same quaint medieval hedonism.[60] monday is the day of songs and love; our young man must be up betimes, to make his mistress happy: levati su, donzello, e non dormire; chè l'amoroso giorno ti conforta, e vuol che vadi tua donna a fruire. tuesday is the day of battles and pitched fields; but these are described in mock-heroics, which show what the poet really felt about the pleasure of them. wednesday is the day of banquets, when ladies and girls are waited on by young men wearing amorous wreaths: e donzelletti gioveni garzoni servir, portando amorose ghirlande. thursday is the day of jousts and tourneys; friday of hounds and horses; saturday, of hawks and fowling-nets; sunday, of "dances and feats of arms in florence": danzar donzelli, armeggiar cavalieri, cercar fiorenza per ogni contrada, per piazze, per giardini, e per verzieri. such then was the joyous living, painted with colors of the fancy by a tuscan poet, and realized in florence at the close of that eventful century which placed the city under guelf rule, in the plenitude of peace, equality, and wealth by sea and land. distinctions of class had been obliterated. the whole population enjoyed equal rights and equal laws. no man was idle; and though the simplicity of the past, praised by dante and villani, was yielding to luxury, still the pleasure-seekers were controlled by that fine taste which made the florentines a race of artists.[61] this halcyon season was the boyhood of dante and giotto, the prime of arnolfo and cimabue. the buildings whereby the city of the flower is still made beautiful above all cities of italian soil, were rising. the people abode in industry and order beneath the sway of their elected leaders. supreme in tuscany, fearing no internal feuds, strong in their militia of thirty thousand burghers to repel a rival state, the florentines had reached the climax of political prosperity. not as yet had arisen that little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, above pistoja, which was destined to plunge them into the strife of blacks and whites. during that interval of windless calm, in that fair city, where the viol and the lute were never silent through spring-tide and summer, the star of italian poetry, that "crowning glory of unblemished wealth," went up and filled the heavens with light. footnotes: [1] see giesebrecht, _de litterarum studiis apud italos primis medii ævi sæculis_, berolini, 1845, p. 15. [2] see giesebrecht, _op. cit._ p. 19. wippo recommends the emperor to compel his subjects to educate their sons in letters and law. it was by such studies that ancient rome acquired her greatness. in italy at the present time, he says, all boys pass from the games of childhood into schools. it is only the teutons who think it idle or disgraceful for a man to study unless he be intended for a clerical career. [3] see adolfo bartoli, _storia della letteratura italiana_, vol. i. pp. 142-158, and p. 167, on guido delle colonne and qualichino da spoleto. [4] see above, vol. i. _age of the despots_, 2nd ed. chap. 2. [5] the italians did not even begin to reflect upon their _lingua volgare_ until the special characters and temperaments of their chief states had been fixed and formed. in other words, their social and political development far anticipated their literary evolution. there remained no center from which the vulgar tongue could radiate, absorbing local dialects. each state was itself a center, perpetuating dialect. [6] see du méril, _poésies populaires latines antérieures au douzième siècle_, paris, 1843. [7] regarding the authorship of latin hymns see the notes in mone's _hymni latini medii ævi_, friburgi brisgoviæ, 1853, 3 vols. for the french origin of _carmina burana_ see _die lateinischen vagantenlieder der mittelalters_, von oscar hubatsch, görlitz, 1870. [8] du méril, _op. cit._ p. 268. [9] dante, _paradiso_, xv. [10] see _age of the despots_, p. 65. [11] xvi. 115. [12] see d'ancona, _poesia popolare_, p. 11, note. [13] see carducci, _dello svolgimento della letteratura nazionale_, p. 29. [14] romagnoli has reprinted some specimens of the _illustre et famosa historia di lancillotto del lago_, bologna, 1862. [15] muratori in _antiq. ital. diss._ xxx. p. 351, quotes a decree of the bolognese commune, dated 1288, to the effect that _cantatores francigenarum in plateis communis omnino morari non possint_. they had become a public nuisance and impeded traffic. [16] in the _cento novelle_ there are several arthurian stories. the rubrics of one or two will suffice to show how the names were italianized. _qui conta come la damigella di scalot morì per amore di lanciallotto de lac._ nov. lxxxii. _qui conta della reina isotta e di m. tristano di leonis._ nov. lxv. in the _historia di lancillotto_, cited above, sir kay becomes _keux_; gawain is _gauuan_. in the _tavola ritonda_, _morderette_ stands for mordred, _bando di benoiche_ for ban of benwick, _lotto d'organia_ for lot of orkeney. [17] see adolfo bartoli, _storia della letteratura italiana_, vol. ii. chapters iii., iv., v., vi., for a minute inquiry into this early dialectical literature. [18] _cento novelle_, milano, 1825, nov. ii. and xxi. [19] _chronica fr. salimbene parmensis, ord. min._, parmæ, 1857, p. 166. [20] see the _cronache siciliane_, bologna, romagnoli, 1865, the first of which bears upon its opening paragraph the date 1358. sicilian, it may be said in passing, presents close dialectical resemblance to tuscan. even the superficial alteration of the sicilian _u_ and _i_ into the tuscan _o_ and _e_ (_e.g._ _secundu_ and _putiri_ into _secondo_ and _potere_) effaces the most obvious differences. [21] the italians wavered long between several metrical systems, before they finally adopted the hendecasyllabic line, which became the consecrated rhythm of serious poetry. carducci, in his treatise _intorno ad alcune rime_ (imola, galeati, 1876), pp. 81-89, may be profitably consulted with regard to early italian alexandrines. he points out that ciullo's _tenzone_: rosa fresc' aulentissima--c'appar' in ver' l'estate: and the ballata of the comari: pur bi' del vin, comadr'--e no lo temperare: together with numerous compositions of the northern lombard school (milan and verona), are written in alexandrines. in the lombardo-sicilian age of italian literature, before bologna acted as an intermediate to florence, this meter bid fair to become acclimatized. but the tuscan genius determined decisively for the hendecasyllabic. [22] see the appendix to this chapter on italian hendecasyllables. [23] see carducci, _cantilene_, etc. (pisa, 1871), pp. 58-60, for thirteenth-century _rispetti_ illustrating the sicilian form of the octave stanza and its transformation to the tuscan type. [24] the poetry of this period will be found in trucchi, _poesie inedite_, prato, 1846; _poeti del primo secolo_, firenze, 1816; _raccolta di rime antiche toscane_, palermo, assenzio, 1817; and in a critical edition of the _codex vaticanus_ 3793, _le antiche rime volgari_, per cura di a. d'ancona e d. comparetti, bologna, romagnoli, 1875. [25] the most important modern works upon this subject are three essays by napoleone caix, _saggio sulla storia della lingua e dei dialetti d'italia_, parma, 1872; _studi di etimologia italiana e romanza_, firenze, 1878; _le origini della lingua poetica italiana_, firenze, 1880. d'ovidio's essay on the _de eloquio_ in his _saggi critici_, napoli, 1878, may also be consulted with advantage. [26] "lingua tusca magis apta est ad literam sive literaturam quam aliæ linguæ, et ideo magis est communis et intelligibilis." antonio da tempo, born about 1275, says this in his treatise on italian poetry, recently printed by giusto grion, bologna, romagnoli, 1869. see p. 17 of that work. [27] this fact was recognized by dante. he speaks of the languages of si, oil, and oc, meaning italian, french, and spanish. _de eloquio_, lib. i. cap. 8. dante points out their differences, but does not neglect their community of origin. [28] _de vulg. eloq._ i. 16. [29] _ibid._ i. 18. [30] see _archivio glottologico italiano_, vol. ii. villani, lib. vii. cap. 68. [31] _cantilene e ballate, strambotti e madrigali nei secoli xiii. e xiv._ a cura di giosuè carducci (pisa, 1871), pp. 29-32. [32] _ibid._ pp. 18, 22. [33] _ibid._ pp. 39, 42. [34] _ibid._ pp. 43, 45. [35] see _ibid._ p. 45, the stanza which begins, _matre tant ò_. [36] _ibid._ pp. 47-60. [37] _ibid._ pp. 62-66. [38] the practical and realistic common sense of the italians, rejecting chivalrous and ecclesiastical idealism as so much nonsense, is illustrated by the occasional poems of two florentine painters--giotto's canzone on _poverty_, and orcagna's sonnet on _love_. orcagna, in the latter, criticises the conventional blind and winged cupid, and winds up with: l'amore è un trastullo: non è composto di legno nè di osso; e a molte gente fa rompere il dosso. [39] see carducci, _op. cit._ pp. 52-60, for early examples of tuscanized sicilian poems of the people. [40] the tuscanized sicilian poems in carducci's collection referred to above, are extracted from a florentine ms. called _napolitana_, and a tenzone between man and woman (_ib._ p. 52), which has clearly undergone a like process, is called _ciciliana_. [41] see francesco d'ovidio, _sul trattato de vulgari eloquentia_. it is reprinted in his volume of _saggi critici_, napoli, 1879. the subject is fully discussed from a point of view at variance with my text by adolf gaspary, _die sicilianische dichterschule_, berlin, 1878. [42] _rime di fra guittone d'arezzo_, firenze, morandi, 1828, 2 vols. [43] _de vulg. eloq._ ii. 6; ii. 1; i. 13, and _purg._ xxvi. 124. [44] his poems will be found in the collections above mentioned, p. 26, note. [45] _purg._ xxvi. [46] _purg._ xxiv. [47] _purg._ xxvi. [48] _de vulg. eloq._ i. 15. [49] fauriel, _dante et les origines_, etc. (paris, 1854), i. 269. [50] d'ancona, _la poesia popolare italiana_ (livorno 1878), p. 36, note. [51] giov. vill. vii. 89. [52] stefani, quoted by d'ancona, _op. cit._ p. 36. [53] _ibid._ p. 37, note. [54] giov. vill. x. 216. [55] giov. vill. vii. 132. [56] _storia di firenze di goro dati_ (firenze, 1735), p. 84. [57] the date commonly assigned to folgore is 1260, and the niccolò he addresses in his series on the months has been identified with that nicolò, che la costuma ricca del garofano prima discoperse, so ungently handled by dante in the _inferno_, canto xxix. i am aware that grave doubts, based upon historical allusions in folgore's miscellaneous sonnets, have been raised as to whether we can assign so early a date to folgore, and whether his brigata was really the _brigata godereccia, spendereccia_, of siena alluded to by dante. see bartoli, _storia della letteratura italiana_, vol. ii. cap. ii, for a discussion of these points. see also giulio navone's edition of folgore's and cene's _rime_, bologna, romagnoli, 1880. this editor argues forcibly for a later date--not earlier at all events than from 1300 to 1320. but, whether we choose the earlier date 1260 or the later 1315, folgore may legitimately be used for my present purpose of illustration. [58] this is equally true of cene dalla chitarra's satirical parodies of the months, in which, using the same rhymes as folgore, he turns each of his motives to ridicule. cene was a poet of arezzo. his series and folgore's will both be found in the _poeti del primo secolo_, vol. ii., and in navone's edition cited above. [59] these remarks have to be qualified by reference to an unfinished set of five sonnets (navone's edition, pp. 45-49), which are composed in a somewhat different key. they describe the arming of a young knight, and his reception by valor, humility, discretion, and gladness. yet the knight, so armed and accepted, is no galahad, far less the grim horseman of dürer's allegory. like the members of the _brigata godereccia_, he is rather a gawain or astolfo, all love, fine clothes, and courtship. each of these five sonnets is a precious little miniature of italian carpet-chivalry. the quaintest is the second, which begins: ecco prodezza che tosto lo spoglia, e dice: amico e' convien che tu mudi, per ciò ch'i' vo' veder li uomini nudi, e vo' che sappi non abbo altra voglia. this exordium makes one regret that the painter of the young knight in our national gallery (giorgione?) had not essayed a companion picture. valor disrobing him and taking him into her arms and crying _queste carni m'ai offerte_ would have made a fine pictorial allegory. [60] if i were writing the history of early tuscan poetry, i should wish here to compare the rarely beautiful poem of lapo gianni, _amor eo chero_, with folgore, and the masterly sonnets of cecco angiolieri of siena, especially the one beginning _s'io fossi fuoco_, with cene dalla chitarra, in order to prove the fullness of sensuous and satirical inspiration in the age preceding dante. lapo wishes he had the beauty of absalom, the strength of samson; that the arno would run balm for him, her walls be turned to silver and her paving-stones to crystal; that he might abide in eternal summer gardens among thousands of the loveliest women, listening to the songs of birds and instruments of music. the voluptuousness of folgore is here heightened to ecstasy. cecco desires to be fire, wind, sea, god, that he might ruin the world; the emperor, that he might decapitate its population; death, that he might seek out his father and mother; life, that he might fly from both; being cecco, he would fain take all fair women, and leave the foul to his neighbors. the spite of cene is deepened to insanity. [61] see _paradiso_, xv.; giov. vill. vi. 69. chapter ii. the triumvirate. chivalrous poetry--ideal of chivalrous love--bolognese erudition--new meaning given to the ideal--metaphysics of the florentine school of lyrists--guido cavalcanti--philosophical poems--popular songs--cino of pistoja--dante's _vita nuova_--beatrice in the _convito_ and the _paradiso_--the preparation for the _divine comedy_ in literature--allegory--the _divine comedy_--petrarch's position in life--his conception of humanism--conception of italy--his treatment of chivalrous love--beatrice and laura--the _canzoniere_--boccaccio, the florentine bourgeois--his point of view--his abandonment of the chivalrous standpoint--his devotion to art--anticipates the renaissance--the _decameron_--_commedia umana_--precursors of boccaccio--novels--_carmina vagorum_--plan of the book--its moral character--the _visione amorosa_--boccaccio's descriptions--the _teseide_--the _rime_--the _filocopo_--the _filostrato_--the _ameto_, _fiammetta_, _ninfale_, _corbaccio_--prose before boccaccio--_fioretti di san francesco_ and _decameron_ compared--influence of boccaccio over the prose style of the renaissance--his death--close of the fourteenth century--sacchetti's lament. the sicilians followed closely in the track of the provençal poets. after, or contemporaneously with them, the same italo-provençal literature was cultivated in the cities of central italy. the subject-matter of this imitative poetry was love--but love that bore a peculiar relation to ordinary human feeling. woman was regarded as an ideal being, to be approached with worship bordering on adoration. the lover derived personal force, virtue, elevation, energy, from his enthusiastic passion. honor, justice, courage, self-sacrifice, contempt of worldly goods, flowed from that one sentiment; and love united two wills in a single ecstasy. love was the consummation of spiritual felicity, which surpassed all other modes of happiness in its beatitude. thus bernard de ventadour and jacopo da lentino were ready to forego paradise unless they might behold their lady's face before the throne of god. for a certain period in modern history, this mysticism of the amorous emotion was no affectation. it formulated a genuine impulse of manly hearts, inflamed by beauty, and touched with the sense of moral superiority in woman, perfected through weakness and demanding physical protection. by bringing the cruder passions into accord with gentle manners and unselfish aspirations, it served to temper the rudeness of primitive society; and no little of its attraction was due to the conviction that only refined natures could experience it. this new aspect of love was due to chivalry, to christianity, to the teutonic reverence for women, in which religious awe seems to have blended with the service of the weaker by the stronger. sincere and beautiful as the ideal of chivalrous love may have been, it speedily degenerated. chivalry, though a vital element of feudalism, existed, even among the nations of its origin, more as an aspiration than a reality. in italy it never penetrated the life or subdued the imagination of the people. for the italo-provençal poets that code of love was almost wholly formal. they found it ready made. they used it because the culture of a court, in sympathy with feudal europe, left them no other choice. not arthur, but the virgilian æneas, was still the italian hero; and instead of s. louis, the nations of the south could only boast of a crusading frederick ii. frederick the troubadour was a no less anomalous being than frederick the crusader. he conformed to contemporary fashion, but his spirit ran counter to the age. curiosity, incipient humanism, audacious doubt, the toleration which inclined him to fraternize with saracens and seek the learning of the arabs, placed him outside the sphere of thirteenth century conceptions. his expedition to the east appears a mere parade excursion, hypocritical, political, ironical. in like manner his love-poetry and that of his courtiers rings hollow in our ears. it harmonized with the italian genius, when guido guinicelli treated chivalrous love from the standpoint of bolognese learning. he altered none of the forms; he used the conventional phraseology. but he infused a new spirit into the subject-matter. his poetry ceased to be formal; the phrases were no longer verbiage. the epicureanism of frederick's life clashed with the mystic exaltation of knighthood. there was no discord between guido's scientific habit of mind and his expression of a philosophical idea conveyed in terms of amorous enthusiasm. upon his lips the words: al cor gentil ripara sempre amore, come l'augello in selva alla verdura; nè fe' amore anti che gentil core, nè gentil cor anti che amor, natura: acquire reality--not the reality of passion, but of sincere thought. they do not convey the spontaneity of feeling, but a philosopher's contemplation of love and beauty in their influence on human character. guido's mood might be compared with that of the greek sage, when he exclaimed that neither the morning nor the evening star is so wonderful as justice, or when he thus apostrophized virtue: virtue, to men thou bringest care and toil; yet art thou life's best, fairest spoil! o virgin goddess, for thy beauty's sake to die is delicate in this our greece, or to endure of pain the stern, strong ache. for the chivalrous races, love had been an enthusiastic ideal. for the italo-provençal euphuists it supplied an artificial inspiration. at bologna it became the form of transcendental science; and here the italian intellect touched, by accident or instinct, the same note that had been struck by plato in the "phædrus" and "symposium." a public trained in legal and scholastic studies, whose mental furniture was drawn from s. thomas and accursius, hailed their poet in guido guinicelli. for them it was natural that poetry should veil philosophy with verse; that love should be confounded with the movement of the soul toward truth; that beauty should be treated as the manifestation of a spiritual good. dante in his canzone, _donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore_, appeals, not to emotion, but to intelligence. he tells us that _understanding_ was the ancient name of _love_, and describes the effect of passion in a young man's heart as a revelation raising him above the level of common experience. thus the transmutation of the simpler elements of the chivalrous code into philosophical doctrine, where the form of the worshiped lady transcends the sphere of sense, and her spirit is identified with the lover's deepest thought and loftiest aspiration, was sincere in medieval florence. the tuscan intellect was too virile and sternly strung to be satisfied with amorous rhymes. the contemporary theory of æsthetics demanded allegory, and imposed upon the poet erudition; nor was it easy for the singer of that epoch to command his own immediate emotions, or to use them for the purposes of a direct and plastic art. enjoying neither the freedom of the greek nor the disengagement of the modern spirit, he found it more proper to clothe a scientific content with the veil of passion, than to paint the personality of the woman he loved with natural precision. between the mysticism of a sublime but visionary adoration on the one side, and the sensualities of vulgar appetite or the decencies of married life on the other, there lay for him no intermediate artistic region. he understood the love of the imagination and the love of the senses; but the love of the heart, familiar to the northern races, hardly existed for him. and here it may be parenthetically noticed that the italians, in the middle ages, created no feminine ideal analogous to gudrun or chriemhild, iseult or guinevere. when they left the high region of symbolism, they descended almost without modulation to the prose of common life. thus the selvaggia of cino, the beatrice of dante, the laura of petrarch, made way for the fiammetta of boccaccio and the women of the decameron, when that ecstasy of earlier enthusiasm exhausted. for a while, however, the florentines were well prepared to give an intellectual significance, and with it a new life, to the outworn conventions of the italo-provençal lyrists. nor must it be thought that the emotions thus philosophized were unreal. dante loved beatrice, though she became for him an allegory. the splendid vision of her beauty and goodness attended him through life, assuming the guidance of his soul in all its stages. difficult as it may be to comprehend this blending of the real and transcendental, we must grasp it if we desire to penetrate the spirit of the fourteenth century in italy. the human heart remains unchanged. no metaphysical sophistication, no allegory, no scholastic mysticism, can destroy the spontaneity of instinct in a man who loves, or cloud a poet's vision. love does not cease to be love because it is sublimed to the quintessence of a self-denying passion. it still retains its life in feeling, and its root in sense. beauty does not cease to be beautiful because it has been moralized and identified with the attraction that lifts men upward to the sphere of the eternal truths. nor is poetry extinguished because the singer deems it his vocation to utter genuine thought, and scorns the rhyming pastimes of the simple amorist. the florentine school presents us with a poetry which aimed at being philosophical, but which at the same time vibrated with life and delineated moods of delicate emotion. to effect a flawless fusion between these two strains in the new style, was infinitely difficult; nor were the poets of that epoch equally successful. guido cavalcanti, the leader of the group which culminates in dante, won his fame by verse that savors more of the dialectician than the singer. ranking science above poetry, he is said to have disdained even virgil. his odes are dryly scholastic--especially that famous _donna mi priega_, which contemporaries studied clause by clause, and which, after two centuries, served dino del garbo for the text of a metaphysical discourse.[62] at the same time, certain lyrics, composed in a lighter mood by the same poet, have in them the essence of spontaneous and natural inspiration. his ballate were probably regarded by himself and his friends as playthings, thrown off in idle moments to distract a mind engaged in thorny speculations. yet we find here the first full blossom of genuine italian verse. their beauty is that of popular song, starting flowerlike from the soil, and fragrant in its first expansion beneath the sun of courtesy and culture. nothing remained, in this kind, for boccaccio and poliziano, but to echo the ballata of the country maidens, and to complete the welcome to the may.[63] two currents of verse, the one rising from the senses, the other from the brain, the one deriving force and fullness from the people, the other nourished by the schools, flowed apart in guido cavalcanti's poetry. they were combined into a single stream by cino da pistoja.[64] cino was a jurist of encyclopædic erudition, as well as a sweet and fluent singer.[65] his verses have the polish and something of the chill of marble. his selvaggia deserves a place with beatrice and laura. from cino petrarch derived his mastery of limpid diction. in cino the artistic sense of the italians awoke. he produced something distinct both from the scientific style of guido guinicelli, and also from the wilding song which guido cavalcanti's ballate echoed. he seems to have applied himself to the main object of polishing poetical diction, and rendering expression at once musical and lucid.[66] though his hold upon ideas was not so firm as cavalcanti's, nor his passion so intense, he achieved a fusion of thought and feeling in an artistic whole of sympathetic suavity. we instinctively compare his work with that of mino da fiesole in bass-relief. dante was five years older than cino. to him belongs the glory of having effected the same fusion in a lyric poetry at once more comprehensive and more lofty. dante yields no point as a dialectician and subtle thinker to guido cavalcanti. he surpasses cino da pistoja as an artist. his passion and imagination are more fiery than guido's. his tenderness is deeper and more touching than cino's. even in those minor works with which he preluded the divine comedy, dante soars above all competition, taking rank among the few poets born to represent an age and be the everlasting teachers of the human soul. yet even dante, though knowing that he was destined to eclipse both the guidi, though claiming love alone for his inspirer, was not wholly free from the scholasticism of his century. in the earlier lyrics of the _vita nuova_ and in the canzoni of the _convito_, he allows his feeling to be over-weighted by the scientific content. between his emotion and our sympathy there rises, now and again, the mist of metaphysic. while giving them intenser meaning, he still plays upon the commonplaces of his predecessors. thus in the sonnet _amor e 'l cor gentil son una cosa_ he rehandles guinicelli's theme; while the following stanza repeats the well-worn doctrine that love should be the union of beauty and of excellence[67]: che la beltà che amore in voi consente, a virtù solamente formata fu dal suo decreto antico, contro lo qual fallate. io dico a voi che siete innamorate, che se beltate a voi fu data, e virtù a noi, ed a costui di due potere un fare, voi non dovreste amare, ma coprir quanto di beltà vi è dato, poichè non è virtù, ch'era suo segno. dante's concessions to the mannerism of the school weigh as nothing in the scales against the beauty and the truth of that most spiritual of romances, to which the _vita nuova_ gives melodic utterance. within the compass of one little book is bound up all that florence in the thirteenth century contributed to the refinement of medieval manners, together with all that the new school of poets had imagined of highest in their philosophical conception. the harmony of life and science attains completion in the real but idealized experience, which transcends and combines both motives in a personality uniquely constituted for this blending. it is enough for the young dante to meet beatrice, to pass her among her maidens in the city-ways, to receive her salute, to admire her moving through the many-colored crowd, to meditate upon her apparition, as of one of god's angels, in the solitude of his chamber. she is a dream, a vision. but it is the dream of his existence, the vision that unfolds for him the universe--more actual, more steeped in emotion, more stimulative of sublime aspiration and virile purpose than many loves which find fruition in long years of intercourse. we feel that the man's true self has been revealed to him; that he has given his life-blood to the ideal which, without this nourishment, would have ranked among phantoms, but is now reality. students who have not followed the stages through which the doctrine of chivalrous love reached dante, and the process whereby it was transmuted into science for the guidance of the soul, will regard the records of the _vita nuova_ as shadowy or sentimental. or if they only dwell upon the philosophical aspect of dante's work, if they do not make allowance for the natural stirring of a heart that throbbed with liveliest feeling, they will fail to comprehend this book, at once so complex and so simple. the point lies exactly in the fusion of two elements--in the truth of the passion, the truth of the idealization, and the spontaneity of the artistic form combining them. what is most intelligible, because most common to all phases of profound emotion, in the _vita nuova_, is its grief--the poet's sympathy with beatrice in the house of mourning for her father's death, the vision of her own passage from earth to heaven, and the apostrophe to the pilgrims who thread the city clothed with mourning for her loss.[68] no one, reading these poems, will doubt that, though beatrice did but cross the path of dante's life and shed her brightness on it for a season from afar, the thought of her had penetrated heart and fiber, making him a man new-born through love, and striking in his soul a note that should resound through all his years, through all the centuries which grow to understand him. dante was born in 1265 of poor but noble parents, who reconciled themselves to the guelf party. he first saw beatrice in his ninth year; and, when a man, he well remembered how her beauty dawned upon him.[69] "her dress, on that day, was of a most noble color, a subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in such sort as best suited with her very tender age. at that moment, i say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith; and in trembling it said these words: _ecce deus fortior me qui veniens dominabitur mihi_." beatrice died in 1290, and dante closed the _vita nuova_ with these words[70]: "it was given unto me to behold a very wonderful vision; wherein i saw things which determined me that i would say nothing further of this most blessed one, until such time as i could discourse more worthily concerning her. and to this end i labor all i can; as she well knoweth. wherefore if it be his pleasure through whom is the life of all things, that my life continue with me a few years, it is my hope that i shall yet write concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman. after the which, may it seem good unto him who is the master of grace, that my spirit should go hence to behold the glory of its lady: to wit, of that blessed beatrice who now gazeth continually on his countenance _qui est per omnia sæcula, benedictus. laus deo_." this passage was written possibly in dante's twenty-eighth year. the consecration of his younger manhood was the love of beatrice. she made him a poet. through her came to him the "sweet new style," which shone with purest luster in his verse; and the songs he made of beatrice were known through all the city of the flower. yet love had not absorbed his energies. he studied under brunetto latini, and qualified himself for the career of a florentine citizen by entering the guild of speziali. after beatrice's death a great and numbing sorrow fell upon him. from this eclipse he recovered by the help of reading, and also by the distractions of public life. he fought in the battle of campaldino, and married his wife gemma donati. he went as ambassador to san gemignano in 1299; and in the year 1300, when florence was divided by the parties of cerchi and donati, he fulfilled the functions of the priorate. these ten years between beatrice's death and dante's election as prior were a period of hesitation and transition. he was no longer the poet of divine love, inspired by spontaneous emotion, mastering and glorifying the form which tradition imposed on verse. he had become a student of philosophy; and this change makes itself felt in the more abstruse and abstract odes of the _convito_. yet he was still attended, through those years of study, civic engagements and domestic duties, by the vision of beatrice. this is how he speaks of science in the second part of the _convito_: "after some time my mind, which strove to regain strength, bethought itself (since neither my own consolations nor those of friends availed me aught) of having recourse to the method which had helped to comfort other spirits in distress. i took to reading the book, not known to many students, of boethius, wherewith, unhappy and in exile, he had comforted himself. and hearing also that tully had written another book in which, while treating of friendship, he had used words of consolation to lælius in the death of his friend scipio, i read that also, and as it happens that a man goes seeking silver, and far from his design finds gold, which hidden causes yield him, not perchance without god's guidance, so i who sought for consolation found not only comfort for my tears, but also words of authors and of sciences and of books, weighing the which, i judged well that philosophy, the lady of these authors, of these sciences and of these books, was a thing supreme. and i imagined her in fashion like a gentle lady, nor could i fancy her otherwise than piteous; wherefore so truly did i gaze upon her with adoring eyes that scarcely could i turn myself away. and having thus imagined her i began to go where she displayed her very self, that is, in the schools of the religious, and the disputations of philosophers; so that in short time, about thirty months, i began so much to feel her sweetness that her love chased away and destroyed all other thought in me." beatrice, who in her lifetime had been the revelation of beauty and all good, lifting her lover above the region of sordid thoughts, and opening a sphere of spiritual intelligence, now accompanied him through the labyrinths of speculation. she was still the form, the essence, of all he learned; and the vow which closes the _vita nuova_ had not been forgotten. through the transition period, marked by the _convito_, we are led to the third stage of dante's life--those twenty-one years, during which he roamed in exile over italy, and wrote the poem of medieval christianity. the studies of which the _convito_ forms a fragment, and the political career which ended in the embassy to boniface, were both necessary for the _divine comedy_. had it not been for dante's exile, the modern world might have lacked its first and greatest epic; beatrice might have missed her promised apotheosis. as her hand had guided him through the paths of love and the labyrinths of science, so now the brightness of her glorified face lifted him from sphere to sphere of paradise. by gazing on her eyes, he rose through heaven, and stood with her before the splendor of the beatific vision. to identify beatrice with theology in this last stage of dante's spiritual life is a facile but inadequate expedient of criticism. from the earliest she had been for him the light and guidance of his soul; and at the last he ascribed to her the best and the sublimest of his inspirations. since its origin italian poetry had pursued one line of evolution, first following and then transmuting the traditions of provence. in the _divine comedy_ it took a new direction. chivalry, insufficient for the nation and ill-adapted to its temper, yielded to a motive force derived from the religious sentiment. the bible history, the lives of the saints, and the doctrine of the church concerning the future of mankind, together with the emotions of piety, had hitherto received but partial exposition at the hands of a few poets of the people. s. francis struck the keynote of popular italian poetry in his _cantico del sole_, which can be accepted as the first specimen of composition in the vulgar tongue. guittone of arezzo, already mentioned as the earliest learned poet who attempted to nationalize his style, acquired fame as the writer of one sublime sonnet to madonna and two canzoni to the mother and her son.[71] but the most decisive impulse toward religious poetry was given by the flagellants, who, starting from the umbrian highlands in 1290, diffused their peculiar devotion over italy. i shall have occasion to return in a future chapter to the history of this movement and to trace its influence over popular italian literature. it is enough, at present, to have mentioned it among the forces tending toward religious poetry upon the close of the thirteenth century. the spirit of the epoch inclined to allegory and vision. when we remember the prestige of virgil in the middle ages, both as a philosopher and also as the precursor of christianity, it will be understood how his descent into hades fascinated the imagination, and prepared the mind to accept the vision as a proper form for conveying theological doctrine.[72] the journey of s. brandan, the purgatory of s. patrick, and the visions of tundalus and alberic pretended to communicate information concerning the soul's state after death, the places of punishment, and the method of salvation. in course of time the vision was used for political or ecclesiastical purposes by preachers who averred that they had seen the souls of eminent sinners in torment. it became an engine of terrorism, assumed satiric tone, and finally fell into the hands of didactic or merely fanciful poets.[73] the chief preoccupation of the medieval mind was with the future destiny of man. this life came to be regarded as a preparation for eternity. like a foreground, the actual world served to relieve the picture of the world beyond the grave. therefore popular literature abounded in manuals of devotion and discipline, some of which set forth the history of the soul in allegorical form. among other examples may be cited three stories of the spiritual life, corresponding to its three stages of nature, purification, and restoration, conveyed under the titles of _umano_, _spoglia_, _rinuova_. many prelusions of this class were combined in one religious drama called _commedia dell'anima_, the substance of which is certainly old, though the form yields evidence of sixteenth-century _rifacimento_.[74] the object of the foregoing paragraphs has been to show that the popular intellect was well prepared for religious poetry, and had appropriated the forms of allegory and vision. not in order to depreciate the originality of dante, but to prove in how vital a relation he stood toward his age, i have here insisted on those formless preludes to his work of art. in the epistle to can grande he thus explains the theme of the _commedia_: "the subject of the whole work, taken literally, is the state of souls after death, regarded as fact; for the action deals with this, and is about this. but if the work be taken allegorically, its subject is man, in so far as by merit or demerit in the exercise of free will he is exposed to the rewards or punishments of justice." attending to the letter, we find in the _commedia_ a vision of that life beyond the tomb, in relation to which alone our life on earth has value. it presents a picture of the everlasting destiny of souls, so firmly apprehended and vividly imagined by the medieval fancy. but since this picture has to set forth mysteries seen and heard by none, the revelation itself, like s. john's apocalypse, is conveyed in symbols fashioned to adumbrate the truths perceived by faith. the same symbols portray another reality, not apprehended merely by faith, but brought home to the heart by experience. attending to the allegory, we find in the _commedia_ a history of the soul in this life--an ethical analysis of sin, purgation and salvation through grace. the poem is a narrative of dante's journey through the region into which all pass after death; but at the same time it describes the hell and heaven and the transition through repentance from sin to grace, which are the actual conditions of the soul in this life. the _inferno_ depicts unmitigated evil. the _paradiso_ exhibits goodness, absolute and free from stain. in the one there is no relief, in the other no alloy; the one is darkness, the other light. the intermediate region of the _purgatorio_ is a realm of expectation and conversion, where sin is no longer possible, but where the fruition of goodness is delayed by the necessity of purification. here then are the natural alternations of day and night, the relative twilight of a world where all is yet transition rather than fulfillment. it may be observed that purgatory belongs to the order of things which by their nature pass away; while hell and heaven are both eternal. therefore the _commedia_, considered as an apocalypse of the undying soul, reveals absolute damnation and absolute salvation, both states being destined to endure so long as god's justice and love exist; but it also reveals a state of purifying pain, which ceases when the men who need it have been numbered. considered as an allegory of the spiritual life on earth, it describes the process of escape from eternal condemnation through grace into eternal happiness. a theme so vast and all-embracing enabled dante to inform the whole knowledge of his epoch. the _commedia_ is the poem of that scholastic theology which absorbed every branch of science and brought the world within the scope of one thought, god. as the _summa_ of s. thomas combined philosophy and revelation, so dante included both the pagan and christian dispensations in his scheme. he starts from the wood of terror, where men are assailed by the wild beasts of their passions; and two guides lead him, by the light of knowledge, up to god. the one is virgil, the other beatrice--virgil, who stands for human reason, science, the four cardinal virtues; beatrice, who symbolizes divine grace, faith formulated in theology, the virtues bestowed on man through christ for his salvation. virgil cannot lead the poet beyond purgatory; because thus far only is human knowledge of avail to elevate and guide the soul. beatrice lifts him through the spheres of paradise by contemplation; because the highest summit attained by reason and natural virtue is but the starting point of the true christian's journey. the _commedia_ is thus the drama or the epos of the soul. it condenses all that man has thought or done, can think or do; all that he knows about the universe around him, all that he hopes or fears from the future; his intuition of an incorruptible and ideal order, underlying and controlling the phenomenal world. god, the world and man are brought into one focus; and the interest of the poem is the relation of the individual soul to them, the participation of each human personality in the dramatic action. it need hardly be observed that dante's solutions of the problems which arise in the development of this theme, are medieval. his physical science has been superseded. his theology is far from approving itself to the general consciousness of christians in our age. yet while all must recognize this obvious truth, the essence of the _commedia_ is indestructible because of its humanity, because of the personality which animates it. men change far less than the hypotheses of religion and philosophy, which take form from experience as shadows fly before the sun. however these may alter, man remains substantially the same; and dante penetrated human nature as few have done--was such a man as few have been. the unity and permanence of his poem are in himself. never was a plan so vast and various permeated so completely with a single self. at once creator and spectator of his vision, neophyte and hierophant, arraigned and judge, he has not only seen hell as the local prison-house of pain, but has felt it as the state of sin within his heart. he has passed through purifying fires; and the songs of paradise have sounded by anticipation in his ears. dante is both the singer and the hero of his epic. in him the universal idea of mankind becomes concrete. the continuous experience of this living person who is at one and the same time a figure of each and every soul that ever breathed, and also the real dante alighieri, exile from florence without blame, sustains as on one thread the medley of successive motives which else might lack poetic unity, gives life to a scheme which else might be too abstract. expanding to embrace the universe, contracting to a point within one breast, the _commedia_ combines the general and the particular in an individual commensurate with man. it may be conjectured that dante, obeying the scholastic impulse of his age, started from the abstract or universal. therein lay the reality of things, not in the particular. what has been already quoted from the letter to can grande justifies this supposition. he meant to lay bare the scheme of the universe, as understood by medieval christianity, and viewed from the standpoint of the human agent. that scheme presented itself in a series of propositions, a logic or a metaphysic apprehended as truth. each portion of the poem was mapped out with rigorous accuracy. each section illustrated a thought, an argument, a position. the whole might be surveyed as a structure of connected syllogisms. to this scientific articulation of its leading motives corresponds the architectural symmetry, the simple outlines and severe masses of the _commedia_. the plan, however minute in detail, is comprehended at a glance. the harmonies of the design are as geometrical as some colossal church imagined by bramante. but dante had no intention of re-writing the _summa_ in verse. he meant to be a poet, using the vulgar speech of "that low italy" in the production of an epic which should rank on equal terms with the _æneid_, and be for modern christendom what that had been for sacred rome. furthermore he had it in his heart to yield such honor to virgil, "leader, lord, and master," as none had ever paid, and to write concerning beatrice "what had not before been written of any woman." his poem was to be the storehouse of his personal experience. his love and hatred, his admiration of greatness and his scorn for cowardice, his resentment of injury, his gratitude for service rendered, his political creed and critical opinions, the joy he had of nature, and the pain he suffered when he walked with men: all this was to find expression at right seasons and in seemly order. upon the severe framework of abstract truth, which forms the skeleton of the _commedia_ and is the final end of its existence, dante felt free to superimpose materials of inexhaustible variety. following the metaphor of building more exactly, we may say that he employed these materials as the stones whereby he brought his architectural design to view. the abstract thought of the _commedia_, tyrannous and all-controlling as it is, could not lay claim to reality but for the dramatic episodes which present it to the intellect through the imagination. some such clothing of abstractions with concrete images was intended in the medieval theory of allegory. the church proscribed the poets of antiquity; and it had become an axiom that poetry was the art of lies.[75] poetry was hardly suffered to exist except as a veil to cloak some hidden doctrine; and allegory presented a middle way of escape, whereby the pleasure of art could be enjoyed with a safe conscience. virgil, whom the middle ages would not have relinquished, though a general council had condemned him, received the absolution of allegorical interpretation. dante, who defined poetry as the art "which publishes the truth concealed beneath a veil of fable," frequently interrupts the story to bid his readers note the meaning underneath the figures of his verse. in composing the _commedia_, he had moral edification and scientific truth for his end. the dramatic, narrative, descriptive, and lyrical beauties of his poem served to bring into relief or to shroud in appropriate mystery--since allegory both elucidates and obscures the matter it conveys--the doctrines he designed to inculcate. still dante stood, as a poet, at a height so far above his age and his own theories, that the cold and numbing touch of symbolism rarely mars the interest of his work. we may, perhaps, feel a certain confusion between the personalities of virgil and beatrice and the thoughts they represent, which chills our sympathy, raising a feeling of indignation when virgil returns unwept to hell, and removing beatrice into a world of intangible ideas. we may find the pageant at the close of the "purgatory" unattractive; nor will the sublimity of the "paradiso" save the figures by which spiritual meanings are here suggested, from occasional grotesqueness. thus much can be conceded. dante, though born to be the poet of all time, was still a scion of his epoch. he could not altogether escape the influences of a misleading conception. but, apart from allegory, apart from didactic purpose, the _commedia_ takes highest rank for the episodes, the action, the personal interest which never flags. no poet ever had a finer sense of reality, and none commanded the means of expressing it in all its forms more fully. dante's own theory of symbolism offered an illimitable sphere for the exercise of his imagination, since it led him to give visible and palpable shape to the thoughts of his brain. and here it may be noted that the allegorical heresy proved less pernicious than another form of false opinion based upon an ideal of classical purity might have been. since the poem was to present truth under a cloak of metaphor, it did not signify what figures were used. the purpose they served, justified them. therefore dante found himself at liberty to mingle satire with the hymns of angels; to seek illustrations from vulgar life no less than from nature in her sublimest moods; to delineate the horrible, the painful, the grotesque, and the improbable with the same sincerity as the beautiful, the charming, and the familiar. his dramatic faculty was exercised on themes so varied that to classify them is impossible--on the pathos of francesca and the terror of ugolino; the skirmish of the fiends in malebolge and the meeting of statius with virgil; the pride of farinata and the penitence of manfred; the agonies of adamo da brescia and the calm delights of piccarda dei donati. he tells the stories of ulysses and s. francis, describes the flight of the roman eagle and cacciaguida's manhood, with equal energy of brief but ineffaceably impressive narration. this license inherent in the use of allegory justified his classing the fameless folk of his own days with the heroes of biblical and classical antiquity, and permitted him to mingle ancient history with his censure of contemporary politics. all times, ages, countries, races of men are alike before the tribunal of god's justice. accordingly, the poet who had taken man's moral nature for his theme, and was bound by his theory to present this theme symbolically, could bring to view a multitude of concrete persons, arranged (whatever else may issue from their converse with the protagonist) according to gradations of merit or demerit. thus the _divine comedy_, though written with a didactic object and under the influence of allegory, surpasses every other epic in the distinctness of its motives and the realism of their presentation. the brief and pregnant style which scorns rhetorical adornment, the accurate picture-painting which aims at vivid delineation of the thing to be discerned, harmonize with its inflexible ethics, its uncompromising sincerity, its intense human feeling. the _commedia_ is too widely commensurate with its theme, the human soul, to be described or classified. the men of its era called it the _divine_; and this title it has preserved, in spite of the fierce censures of the church which it contains. they called it _la divina_ because of its material doubtless, but also, we may dare to think, because of its unfathomable depth and height and breadth of thought. in course of time chairs were established at florence, padua, and in other cities, for its explanation; and the labor of the commentator was applied to it. that labor has been continued from boccaccio's down to our own day; yet the dark places of the _commedia_ have not been illuminated, nor is learning likely to solve some problems which perplex a careful student of its cantos. that matters, indeed, but little; for the main scope and purpose of the poem are plain, and its spirit is such that none who read can fail to recognize it. before dante the christian world had no poet, and italy had no voice. the gift of dante to europe was an epic on the one subject which united the modern nations in community of interest. the gift of dante to his country was a masterpiece which placed her on a par with homer's hellas and with virgil's rome. if the first century of italian literature could have produced three men of the caliber of dante, italy would have run her future course, as she began, abreast with ancient greece. that was not, however, destined to be. the very conditions of the mission she had to fulfill in the fourteenth and two following centuries, rendered the emergence of a race of heroes impossible. italy was about to recover the past. her energies could not be concentrated on the evolution of herself in a new literature. to dante succeeded petrarch and boccaccio. petrarch was born at arezzo in the year 1304, when his father, like dante, and in the same cause, had been expelled from florence. his youth, passed partly in tuscany and partly at avignon, coincided with the years spent by dante in the composition of the _commedia_. he was a student at montpellier, neglecting his law-books for cicero and virgil, when dante died at ravenna in 1321. during those seventeen years of dante's exile and petrarch's boyhood, a change had passed over the political scene. the papacy was transferred from rome to france. the last attempts of the german emperors to vindicate their authority below the alps had failed. the communes were yielding to anarchy and party feuds, or fast becoming the prey of despots. a new age had begun; and of this new age petrarch was the representative, as dante had been the poet of the ages which had passed away. petrarch's inauguration of the classical revival has been already described in this work; nor is it necessary to repeat the services he rendered to the cause of humanism.[76] in a volume dealing with italian literature the poet of the _canzoniere_ must engage attention rather than the resuscitator of antique learning. it is petrarch's peculiar glory to have held two equally illustrious places in the history of modern civilization, as the final lyrist of chivalrous love and as the founder of the renaissance. yet this double attitude, when we compare him with dante, constitutes the chief cause of his manifest inferiority. the differences between dante's and petrarch's education were marked, and tended to accentuate the divergence of their intellectual and moral qualities. dante, who lived until maturity within sight of his _bel san giovanni_, grew up a florentine in core and fiber. in his earliest work, the _vita nuova_, there is a home-bred purity of style, as of something which could only have been perfected in florence; a beauty akin to that of giotto's tower; a perfume as of some flower peculiar to a district whence it will not bear transplanting. in his latest, the _paradiso_, he devotes one golden canto to the past prosperity of florence, another to her decadence through the corruption of her citizens. while wandering like "the world's rejected guest" away from that fair city of his birth, the unrest of his pilgrimage, contrasted with the peace of earlier manhood, only strengthened the florentine within him. though he traversed italy in length and breadth, though the _commedia_ furnishes an epitome of her landscapes and her local customs, describes her cities and resumes her history, the thought of national unity was not present to his mind. italy remained for him the garden of the empire, the unruly colt whom cæsar should bestride and curb. elsewhere than in florence dante felt himself an alien. he refused the poet's crown unless it could be taken by the font of baptism upon the square of florence. he chose banishment with honor and the stars of heaven, rather than ignominious entrance through the gates he loved so well; and yet from the highest sphere of paradise he turned his eyes down to florence and her erring folk: io, ched era al divino dall'umano, ed all'eterno dal tempo venuto, e di fiorenza in popol giusto e sano. petrarch, called to perform another mission, had a different training. brought up from earliest infancy in exile, transferred from tuscany to france, deprived of civic rights and disengaged from the duties of a burgher in those troublous times, he surveyed the world from his study and judged its affairs with the impartiality of a philosopher. without a city, without a home, without a family, consecrated to the priesthood and absorbed in literary interests, he spent his life in musings at vaucluse or in the splendid hospitalities of the lombard courts. through all his wanderings he was a visitor, the citizen of no republic, but the freeman of the city of the spirit. without exaggeration he might have chosen for his motto the phrase of marcus aurelius: "i will not say dear city of cecrops but dear city of god!" avignon, where his intellect was formed in youth, had become through the residence of the popes the capital of christendom, the only center of political and ecclesiastical activity where an ideal of universal culture could arise. itself in exile, the papacy still united the modern nations by a common bond; but its banishment from rome was the sign of a new epoch, when the hegemony of civilization should be transferred from the church to secular control. in this way petrarch was enabled to shape a conception of humanism which left the middle age behind; and when his mind dwelt on italy at a distance, he could think of her as the great italic land, inheritor of rome, mother of a people destined to be one, born to rule, or if not rule, at least to regenerate the world through wisdom. from his lips we hear of florence nothing; but for the first time the passionate cry of _italia mia_ the appeal of an italian who recognized his race, yet had no local habitation on the sacred soil, vibrates in his oratorical _canzoni_. petrarch's dreams of a united italy and a resuscitated roman republic were hardly less visionary than dante's ideal of universal monarchy with rome for the seat of empire. yet in his lyrics the true conception of italy, one intellectually in spite of political discord and foreign oppression, the real and indestructible unity of the nation in a spirit destined to control the future of the human race, came suddenly to consciousness. there was an out-cry in their passion-laden strophes which gathered volume as the years rolled over italy, until at last, in her final prostration beneath spanish austria, they seemed less poems than authentic prophecies. thus while dante remained a florentine, petrarch was the first italian. nor is it insignificant that whereas dante refused the poet's crown unless he could place the laurels on his head in florence, petrarch ascended the capitol among the plaudits of the romans, and, in the absence of pope and emperor, received his wreath from the senator romanus. dante's renunciation and petrarch's acceptance of this honor were equally appropriate. dante, as was fitting for a man of his era, looked still to the commune. petrarch's coronation on the capitol was the outward sign that the age of the communes was over, that culture was destined to be cosmopolitan, and that the eternal city, symbolizing the imperishable empire of the intellect, was now the proper throne of men marked out to sway the world by thoughts and written words. in petrarch the particular is superseded by the universal. the citizen is sunk in the man. the political prejudices of the partisan are conspicuous by absence. his language has lost all trace of dialect. he writes italian, special to no district, though tuscan in its source; and his verse fixes the standard of poetic diction for all time in italy. these changes mark an important stage in literature emerging from its origins, and account for petrarch's unequaled authority during the next three centuries. dante's epic is classical because of its vivid humanity and indestructible material; but its spirit is medieval and its details are strictly localized. petrarch's outlook over the world and life is, in form at least, less confined to the limitations of his age. consequently the students of a period passing rapidly beyond the medieval cycle of ideas, found no bar between his nature and their sympathies. in his treatment of chivalrous love we may notice this tendency to generalization. the material transmitted from the troubadours, handled with affectation by the sicilians, philosophized by the florentines, loses transient and specific quality in the _canzoniere_. it takes rank at last among simply human emotions; and, though it has not lost a certain medieval tincture, the _canzoniere_ rather than the _vita nuova_, the work of distinguished rather than of supreme genius, has on this account been understood and appropriated by all lovers in all ages and in every land. petrarch's verses, to use shelley's words, "are as spells, which unseal the inmost enchanted fountains of the delight which is the grief of love." and while we admit that "dante understood the secrets of love even more than petrarch," there is no doubt that the _canzoniere_ strikes a note which vibrates more universally than the _vita nuova_. the majority of men cannot but prefer the comprehensive to the intense expression of personal emotion. death rendered beatrice's apotheosis conceivable; and dante may be said to have rediscovered the platonic mystery, whereby love is an initiation into the secrets of the spiritual world. it was the intuition of a sublime nature into the essence of pure impersonal enthusiasm. it was an exaltation of womanhood similar to that attempted less adequately by shelley in _epipsychidion_. it was a real instinct like that which pervades the poetry of michelangelo, and which sustains some men even in our prosaic age. still there remained an ineradicable unsubstantiality in dante's point of view, when tested by the common facts of feeling. his idealism was too far removed from ordinary experience to take firm hold upon the modern mind. in proportion as beatrice personified abstractions, she ceased to be a woman even for her lover; nor was it possible, except by diminishing her individuality, to regard her as a symbol of the universal. she passed from the sphere of the human into the divine; and though her face was still beautiful, it was the face of science rather than of one we love. there was even too little alloy of earth in dante's passion for beatrice. petrarch's love for laura was of a different type. the unrest of earthly desire, for ever thwarted but recurring with imperious persistence, and the rebellion of the conscience against emotions which the lover recognized as lawless, broke his peace. it is true that, using the language of the earlier poets and obeying a sanguine mood of his own mind, he from time to time spoke of laura as of one who led his soul to god. but his sincerest utterances reveal the discord of a heart divided between duty and inclination, the melancholy of a man who knows himself the prey of warring powers. his love for laura seemed an error and a sin because it clashed with an ascetic impulse which had never been completely blunted. in his hymn to the virgin he referred to this passion as the medusa that had turned his better self to stone: medusa e l'error mio m'han fatto un sasso d'umor van stillante. there is a passage in the _de remediis utriusque fortunæ_, where the lyrist of chivalrous love pours such contempt on women as his friend boccaccio might have envied. in the _secretum_, again, he describes his own emotion as a torment from which he had vainly striven to emancipate himself by solitude, by journeys, by distractions, and by obstinate studies. in truth, he rarely alludes to the great passion of his life without a strange blending of tenderness and sore regret. herein he proved himself not only a true child of his age, but also the precursor of the modern world. while he was still bound by the traditions of medieval asceticism, a christian no less devout and only less firm than dante, his senses and his imagination, stirred possibly by contact with classic literature, rebelled against the mysticism of the florentine school. this rebellion, but dimly apprehended by the poet himself, and complicated with the yearnings of a deeply religious nature after purity of thought and deed, gave its supreme strength and beauty to his verse. the _canzoniere_ is not merely the poetry of love but the poetry of conflict also. the men of the renaissance overleaped the conflict, and satisfied themselves with empty idealizations of sensual desire. but modern men have returned to petrarch's point of view and found an echo of their own divided spirit in his poetry. he marks the transition from a medieval to a modern mood, the passage from cino and guido to werther and rousseau. that laura was a real woman, and that petrarch's worship of her was unfeigned; that he adored her with the senses and the heart as well as with the head; but that this love was at the same time more a mood of the imagination, a delicate disease, a cherished wound, to which he constantly recurred as the most sensitive and lively wellspring of poetic fancy, than a downright and impulsive passion, may be clearly seen in the whole series of his poems and his autobiographical confessions. laura appears to have treated him with the courtesy of a somewhat distant acquaintance, who was aware of his homage and was flattered by it. but her lover enjoyed no privileges of intimacy, and it may be questioned whether, if petrarch could by any accident have made her his own, the fruition of her love would not have been a serious interruption to the happiness of his life. he first saw her in the church of s. claire, at avignon, on april 6, 1327. she passed from this world on april 6, 1348. these two dates are the two turning-points of petrarch's life. the interval of twenty-one years, when laura trod the earth, and her lover in all his wanderings paid his orisons to her at morning, evening, and noonday, and passed his nights in dreams of that fair form which never might be his, was the storm and stress period of his checkered career. there is an old greek proverb that "to desire the impossible is a malady of the soul." with this malady in its most incurable form the poet was stricken; and, instead of seeking cure, he nursed his sickness and delighted in the discord of his spirit. from that discord he wrought the harmonies of his sonnets and _canzoni_. that malady made him the poet of all men who have found in their emotions a dreamland more wonderful and pregnant with delight than in the world which we call real. after laura's death his love was tranquilized to a sublimer music. the element of discord had passed out of it; and just because its object was now physically unattainable, it grew in purity and power. the sensual alloy which, however spiritualized, had never ceased to disturb his soul, was purged from his still vivid passion. laura in heaven looked down upon him from her station mid the saints; and her poet could indulge the dream that now at last she pitied him, that she was waiting for him with angelic eyes of love, and telling him to lose no time, but set his feet upon the stairs that led to god and her. the romance finds its ultimate apotheosis in that transcendent passage of the _trionfo della morte_ which describes her death and his own vision. throughout the whole course of this labyrinthine love-lament, sustained for forty years on those few notes so subtly modulated, from the first sonnet on his _primo giovenile errore_ to the last line of her farewell, _tu starai in terra senza me gran tempo_, laura grows in vividness before us. she only becomes a real woman in death, because she was for petrarch always an ideal, and in the ideal world beyond the tomb he is more sure of her than when "the fair veil" of flesh was drawn between her and his yearning. petrarch succeeded in bringing the old theme of chivalrous love back from the philosophizing mysticism of the florentines to simple experience. he forms a link between their transcendental science and the positive romance of the decameron, between the spirit of the middle ages and the spirit of the renaissance. guided by his master, cino da pistoja, the least metaphysical and clearest of his immediate predecessors, petrarch found the right artistic _via media_; and perhaps we may attribute something to that double education which placed him between the influences of the tuscan lyrists and the troubadours of his adopted country. at any rate he returned from the allegories of the florentine poets to the directness of chivalrous emotion; but he treated the original motive with a greater richness and a more idealizing delicacy than his provençal predecessors. the marvelous instruments of the italian sonnet and canzone were in his hands, and he knew how to draw from them a purer if not a grander melody than either guido or dante. the best work of the florentines required a commentary; and the structure of their verse, like its content, was scientific rather than artistic. petrarch could publish his _canzoniere_ without explanatory notes. he laid his heart bare to the world, and every man who had a heart might understand his language. between the subject-matter and the verbal expression there lay no intervening veil of mystic meaning. the form had become correspondingly more clear and perfect, more harmonious in its proportions, more immediate in musical effects. in a word, petrarch was the first to open a region where art might be free, and to find for the heart's language utterance direct and limpid. this was his great achievement. the forms he used were not new. the subject-matter he handled was given to him. but he brought both form and subject closer to the truth, exercising at the same time an art which had hitherto been unconceived in subtlety, and which has never since been equaled. if dante was the first great poet, petrarch was the first true artist of italian literature. it was, however, impossible that petrarch should overleap at one bound all the barriers of the middle ages. his laura has still something of the earlier ideality adhering to her. she stands midway between the beatrice of dante and the women of boccaccio. she is not so much a woman with a character and personality, as woman in the general, _la femme_, personified and made the object of a poet's reveries. though every detail of her physical perfections, with the single and striking exception of her nose, is carefully recorded, it is not easy to form a definite picture even of her face and shape. of her inner nature we hear only the vaguest generalities. she sits like a lovely model in the midst of a beautiful landscape, like one of our burne-jones's women who incarnate a mood of feeling while they lack the fullness of personality. the thought of her pervades the valley of vaucluse; the perfume of her memory is in the air we breathe. but if we met her, we should find it hard to recognize her; and if she spoke, we should not understand that it was laura. petrarch had no strong objective faculty. just as he failed to bring laura vividly before us, until she had by death become a part of his own spiritual substance, so he failed to depict things as he saw them. the pictures etched in three or four lines of the _purgatorio_ may be sought for vainly in his _rime_. that his love of nature was intense, there is no doubt. the solitary of vaucluse, the pilgrim of mont ventoux, had reached a point of sensibility to natural scenery far in advance of his age. but when he came to express this passion for beauty, he was satisfied with giving the most perfect form to the emotion stirred in his own subjectivity. instead of scenes, he delineates the moods suggested by them. he makes the streams and cliffs and meadows of vaucluse his confidants. he does not lose himself in contemplation of the natural object, though we feel that this self found its freest breathing-space, its most delightful company, in the society of hill and vale. he never cares to paint a landscape, but contents himself with such delicate touches and such cunning combinations of words as may suggest a charm in the external world. at this point the humanist, preoccupied with man as his main subject, meets the poet in petrarch. what is lost, too, in the precision of delineation, is gained in universality. the _canzoniere_ reminds us of no single spot; wherever there are clear fresh rills and hanging mountains, the lover walks with petrarch by his side. if the poet's dominant subjectivity weakened his grasp upon external things, it made him supreme in self-portraiture. every mood of passion is caught and fixed precisely in his verse. the most evanescent shades of feeling are firmly set upon the exquisite picture. each string of love's many-chorded lyre is touched with a vigorous hand. the fluctuations of hope, despair, surprise; the "yea and nay twinned in a single breath;" the struggle of conflicting aspirations in a heart drawn now to god and now to earth; the quiet resting-places of content; the recrudescence of the ancient smart; the peace of absence, when longing is luxury; the agony of presence, adding fire to fire--all this is rendered with a force so striking, in a style so monumental, that the _canzoniere_ may still be called the introduction to the book of love. thus, when petrarch's own self was the object, his hand was steady; his art failed not in modeling the image into roundness. dante brought the universe into his poem. but "the soul of man, too, is a universe:" and of this inner microcosm petrarch was the poet. it remained for boccaccio, the third in the triumvirate, to treat of common life with art no less developed. from beatrice through laura to la fiammetta; from the divine comedy through the canzoniere to the decameron; from the world beyond the grave through the world of feeling to the world in which we play our puppet parts; from the mystic _terza rima_, through the stately lyric stanzas, to protean prose--such was the rapid movement of italian art within the brief space of some fifty years. giovanni boccaccio was born in 1313, the eleventh year of dante's exile, the first of petrarch's residence at avignon. his grandfather belonged originally to certaldo; but he removed to florence and received the rights of burghership among those countryfolk whom dante reckoned the corrupters of her ancient commonwealth[77]: ma la cittadinanza, ch'è or mista di campi e di certaldo e di figghine, pura vedeasi nell'ultimo artista. certaldo was a village of valdelsa, famous for its onions. this explains the rebuff which the author of the decameron received from a florentine lady, whom he afterwards satirized in the _corbaccio_: "go back to grub your onion-beds, and leave gentlewomen alone!" boccaccio was neither born in wedlock nor yet of pure italian blood. his mother was a frenchwoman, with whom his father made acquaintance during a residence on business at paris. these facts deserve to be noted, since they bear upon the temper of his mind and on the quality of his production. it has been observed that the three main elements of florentine society--the _popolo vecchio_, or nobles who acquiesced in the revolution of 1282; the _popolo grasso_, or burghers occupying a middle rank in the city, who passed the ordinances of 1293; and the _popolo minuto_, or artisans and _contadini_ admitted to the franchise, who came to the front between 1343 and 1378--are severally represented by dante, petrarch, and boccaccio.[78] so rapid are the political and intellectual mutations in a little state like florence, where the vigor of popular life and the vivacity of genius bear no proportion to the size of the community, that within the short span of fifty years the center of power may be transferred from an aristocracy to the proletariate, and the transition in art and literature from the middle age to the renaissance may not only be accomplished but copiously illustrated in detail.[79] boccaccio was the typical italian _bourgeois_, the representative of a class who finally determined the renaissance. his prose and poetry contain in germ the various species which were perfected during that period. studying him, we study in its immaturity the spirit of the next two centuries. he was the first to substitute a literature of the people for the literature of the learned classes and the aristocracy. he freed the natural instincts from ascetic interdictions and the mysticism of the transcendental school. he exposed the shams of chivalrous romance and the hypocrisies of monkery with ridicule more deadly than satire or invective. he brought realism in art and letters back to honor by delineating the world as he found it--sensual, base, comic, ludicrous, pathetic, tender, cruel--in all its crudities and contradictions. he replaced the abstractions of the allegory by concrete fact. he vindicated the claims of appetite and sensuous enjoyment against ideal aspirations and the scruples of a faith-tormented conscience. he taught his fellow-countrymen that a life of studious indifference was preferable to the strife of factions and the din of battle-fields. boccaccio did not act consciously and with fixed purpose to these ends. he was rather the spokesman of his age and race--the sign in literature that italian society had entered upon a new phase, and that the old order was passing away. if the decameron seemed to shake the basis of morality; if it gained the name of _il principe galeotto_ or the pandar; if it was denounced as the corrupter of the multitude; this meant, not that its author had a sinister intention, but that the medieval fabric was already sapped, and that the people whom boccaccio wrote to please were disillusioned of their previous ideals. the honest easy-going man, giovanni della tranquillità, as he was called, painted what he saw and made himself the mouthpiece of the men around him.[80] for the work he had to do, he was admirably fitted by nature and education. he combined the blood of a florentine tradesman and a parisian _grisette_. he had but little learning in his youth, and was the first great italian writer who had not studied at bologna. his early manhood was passed in commerce at naples, where he gained access to the dissolute court of joan, and made love to her ladies. at his father's request he applied himself for a short while to legal studies; but he does not appear to have practiced as a lawyer in real earnest. literature very early became the passion, the one serious and ennobling enthusiasm of his life. we have already seen him at the tomb of virgil, vowing to devote his powers to the sacred muses; and we know what services he rendered to humanism by his indefatigable energy in the acquisition and diffusion of miscellaneous learning.[81] this is not the place to treat of boccaccio's scholarship. yet it may be said that, just as his philosophy of life was the philosophy of a jovial and sensuous plebeian, so his conception of literature lacked depth and greatness. he repeated current theories about the dependence of poetry on truth, the dignity of allegory, the sacredness of love, the beauty of honor. but his own work showed how little he had appropriated these ideas. as a student, a poet, and a man, he lived upon a lower plane of thought than petrarch; and when he left the concrete for the abstract, his penetrative insight failed him. from this point of view boccaccio's life of dante is instructive. it is crammed with heterogeneous erudition. it bristles with citations and opinions learned by rote. it reveals the heartiest reverence for all things reckoned worthy in the realm of intellect. the admiration for the divine poet expressed in it is sincere and ungrudging. yet this book betrays an astonishing want of sympathy with dante, and transforms the sublime romance of the _vita nuova_ into a commonplace _novella_. dante told the world how he first felt love for beatrice at the age of nine. his biographer is at a loss to understand this miracle. he supposes that the sweet season of may, the good wines and delicate dishes of the portinari banquet, all the sensuous delights of a florentine festival, combined to make the boy prematurely a man.[82] dante called beatrice "youngest of the angels." boccaccio draws a lively picture of an angel in the flesh, as he imagined her; and in his portrait there is far less of the angelic than the carnal nature visible. this he does in perfect good faith, with the heartfelt desire to exalt dante above all poets, and to spread abroad the truth of his illustrious life. but the hero of renaissance literature was incapable of comprehending the real feeling of the man he worshiped. between him and the enthusiasms of the middle ages a nine-fold styx already poured its waves. boccaccio's noblest quality was the recognition of intellectual power. it was this cult of great men, if we may trust filippo villani, which first decided him to follow literature.[83] his devotion to the memory of dante, and his frank confession of inferiority to petrarch, whom he loved and served through twenty years of that exacting poet's life, are equally sincere and beautiful. these feelings inspired some of his finest poems, and penetrated the autobiographical passages of his minor works with a delicacy that endears the man to us.[84] no less candid was his worship of beauty--not beauty of an intellectual or ideal order, but sensuous and real--the beauty which inspired the artists and the poets of the following centuries. nor has any writer of any age been gifted with a stronger faculty for its expression. from this service of the beautiful he derived the major impulse of his activity as an artist. if he lacked moral greatness, if he was deficient in philosophical depth and religious earnestness, his devotion to art was serious, intense, profound, absorbing. he discharged his duties as a citizen with easy acquiescence, but no stern consciousness of patriotic purpose. he conformed to the church, and allowed himself in old age to be frightened into a kind of half-repentance. but the homage he rendered to art was of a very different and more exacting nature. with his best energies he labored to make himself, at least in this sphere, perfect. how amply he succeeded must be acknowledged by all men who have read the decameron, and who have seen that here boccaccio forms the legends of all ages and all lands into one harmonious whole, brings a world of many-sided human interest and varied beauty out of the chaos of medieval materials, finishing every detail with love, inspiring each particle with life, and setting the dædal picture of society in a framework of delicate romance. the conception and the execution of this masterpiece of literature are equally artistic. if the phrase "art for art" can be used in speaking of one who was unconscious of the theory it implies, boccaccio may be selected as the typical artist for art's sake. within the sphere of his craft, he is impassioned, enthusiastic, sincere, profound. his attitude with regard to all else is one of amused or curious indifference, of sensuous enjoyment, of genial ridicule, of playful cynicism. boccaccio was a _bourgeois_ of the fourteenth century; but his character, as stamped on the decameron, was common to italy during the next two hundred years. the whole book glows with the joyousness of a race discarding dreams for realities, scorning the terrors of a bygone creed, reveling in nature's liberty, proclaiming the empire of the senses with a frankness which passes over into license. in boccaccio, the guiding genius of the italian renaissance arrives at consciousness. that blending of moral indifference with artistic seriousness, which we observe in him, marks the coming age. he is not the precursor but the inaugurator of the era. the smile which plays around his mouth became, though changeful in expression, fixed upon the lips of his posterity--genial in ariosto, gracious in poliziano, mischievous in pulci, dubious in lorenzo de' medici, sardonic in aretino, bitter in folengo, toned to tragic irony in machiavelli, impudent in berni, joyous in boiardo, sensual in bandello--assuming every shade of character, protean, indescribable, until at last it fades from tasso's brow, when italy has ceased to laugh except in secret. the decameron has been called the _commedia umana_.[85] this title is appropriate, not merely because the book portrays human life from a comic rather than a serious point of view, but also because it is the antithesis of dante's _commedia divina_. as poet and scene-painter devised for our ancestors of the elizabethan period both mask and anti-mask, so did the genius of italy provide two shows for modern europe--the mask and anti-mask of human nature. dante's comedy represents our life in relation to the life beyond the grave. boccaccio in his comedy depicts the life of this earth only, subtracting whatsoever may suggest a life to come. it would be difficult to determine which of the two dramas is the more truthful, or which of the two poets had a firmer grasp upon reality. but the realities of the divine comedy are spiritual; those of the human comedy are material. the world of the decameron is not an inverted world, like that of aristophanes. it does not antithesize dante's world by turning it upside down. it is simply the same world surveyed from an opposite point of view--unaltered, uninverted, but seen in the superficies, presented in the concrete. it is the prose of life; and this justifies the counterpoise of its form to that of dante's poem. it is the world as world, the flesh as flesh, nature as nature, without intervention of spiritual agencies, without relation to ideal order, regarded as the sphere of humor, fortune, marvelous caprice. it is everything which the church had banned, proscribed, held in abhorrence, without that which the church had inculcated for the exaltation of the soul. this world, actual and unexplained, boccaccio paints with the mastery of an accomplished artist, molding its chaotic elements into a form of beauty which compels attention. dante condemned those "who submit their reason to natural appetite."[86] boccaccio celebrates the apotheosis of natural appetite, of _il talento_, stigmatized as sin by ascetic christianity.[87] his strongest sympathies are reserved for those who suffer by abandoning themselves to impulse, and in this self-abandonment he sees the poetry of life. this is the very core of the antithesis presented by the human to the divine comedy. the decameron is an undesigned revolt against the sum of medieval doctrine. like all vehement reactions, it is not satisfied with opposing the extravagances of the view it combats. instead of negativing asceticism, it affirms license. yet though the divine comedy and the decameron are antithetical, they are both true, and true together, inasmuch as they present the same humanity studied under contradictory conditions. human nature is vast enough to furnish the materials for both, inexplicable enough to render both acceptable to reason, tolerant enough to view with impartial approbation the desolate theology of the _inferno_ and the broad mirth of the decameron.[88] the decameron did not appear unheralded by similar attempts. no literary taste was stronger in the middle ages than the taste for stories. this is proved by the collection known as _gesta romanorum_, and by the _bestiarii_, _lapidarii_, _physiologi_ and _apiarii_, which contain a variety of tales, many of them surprisingly indecent, veiling spiritual doctrine under obscenities which horrify a modern reader.[89] from the hands of ecclesiastical compilers these short stories passed down to popular narrators, who in france made the _fabliaux_ a special branch of vulgar literature. the follies and vices of the clergy, tricks practiced by wives upon their husbands, romantic adventures of lovers, and comic incidents of daily life, formed the staple of their stock in trade. when the _fabliau_ reached italy, together with other literary wares, from france, it was largely cultivated in the south; and the first known collection of italian stories received the name of _il novellino_, or _il fiore del parlar gentile_. the language of this book was immature, and the tales themselves seem rather memoranda for the narrator than finished compositions to be read with pleasure.[90] it may therefore be admitted that the rude form of the decameron was given to boccaccio. not to mention the larger chivalrous romances, _conti di antichi cavalieri_, and translations from french _chansons de geste_, which have no genuine link of connection with the special type of the novella, he found models for his tales both in the libraries of medieval convents and upon the lips of popular _raccontatori_. yet this must not be taken to imply any lack of originality in boccaccio. such comparisons as professor bartoli has instituted between the decameron and some of its supposed sources, prove the insignificance of his debt, the immeasurable inferiority of his predecessors.[91] the spirit of the decameron no less than the form, had been long in preparation. satire, whether superficial, as in the lays of the _jongleurs_, or searching, as in the invectives of dante and petrarch, was familiar to the middle ages; and the popular latin poems of the wandering students are steeped in rage against a corrupt hierarchy, a venal curia.[92] those same _carmina vagorum_ reveal the smoldering embers of unextinguished paganism, which underlay the christian culture of the middle ages. written by men who belonged to the clerical classes, but who were often on bad terms with ecclesiastical authorities, tinctured with the haughty contempt of learning for the laity, yet overflowing with the vigorous life of the proletariate, these extraordinary poems bring to view a bold and candid sensuality, an ineradicable spontaneity of natural appetite, which is strangely at variance with the cardinal conceptions of ascetic christianity.[93] in the sect of the italian epicureans; in the obscure bands of the cathari and paterini; in the joyous companies of provençal court and castle, the same note of irrepressible nature sounded. side by side with the new-built fabric of ecclesiastical idealism, the old temples of unregenerate human deities subsisted. they were indeed discredited, proscribed, consigned to shame. they formed the _mauvais lieux_ of christendom. yet there they stood, even as the venusberg of tannhäuser's legend abode unshaken though cathedrals rose by rhine. all that was needed to restore the worship of these nature-gods was that a great artist should decorate their still substantial temple-walls with the beauty of a new, sincere, and unrepentant style, fitting their abandoned chambers for the habitation of the human spirit, free now to choose the dwelling that it listed. this boccaccio achieved. and here it must again be noticed that the revolution of time was about to bring man's popular and carnal deities once more, if only for a season, to the throne. the murmured songs of a few wandering students were about to be drowned in the pæan of renaissance poetry. the visions of the venusberg were to be realized in italian painting. the coming age was destined to live out boccaccio's human comedy in act and deed. this is the true kernel of his greatness. as poet, he ranked third only, and that at a vast interval, in the triumvirate of the fourteenth century. but the temper of his mind, the sphere of his conceptions, made him the representative genius of the two following centuries. awaiting the age when science should once more co-ordinate the forces of humanity in a coherent theory, men in the renaissance exchanged superfluous restraint for immoderate license. it is not to be wondered at that boccaccio and not dante was their hero. the description of the plague at florence which introduces the decameron, has more than a merely artistic appropriateness. boccaccio may indeed have meant to bring his group of pleasure-seeking men and maidens into strong relief by contrast with the horrors of the stricken city. florence crowded with corpses, echoing to the shrieks of delirium and the hoarse cries of body-buriers, is the background he has chosen for that blooming garden, where the birds sing and the lovers sit by fountains in the shade, laughing or weeping as the spirit of each tale compels them. but independently of this effect of contrast, which might be used to illustrate the author's life-philosophy, the description of the plague has a still deeper significance, whereof boccaccio never dreamed. matteo villani dates a progressive deterioration of manners in the city from the plague of 1348, and justifies us in connecting the ciompi riots of 1378 with the enfeeblement of civic order during those thirty years. the plague was, therefore, the outward sign, if not the efficient cause, of those very ethical and social changes which the decameron immortalized in literature. it was the historical landmark between two ages, dividing the florence of the grandi from the florence of the ciompi. the cynicism, liberated in that time of terror, lawlessness, and sudden death, assumed in boccaccio's romance a beautiful and graceful aspect. it lost its harsh and vulgar outlines, and took the air of genial indulgence which distinguished italian society throughout the years of the renaissance. boccaccio selects seven ladies of ages varying from eighteen to twenty-eight, and three men, the youngest of whom is twenty-five. having formed this company, he transports them to a villa two miles from the city, where he provides them with a train of serving-men and waiting-women, and surrounds them with the delicacies of medieval luxury. he is careful to remind us that, though the three men and three of the ladies were acknowledged lovers, and though their conversation turned on almost nothing else but passion, "no stain defiled the honor of the party." stories are told; and these unblemished maidens listen with laughter and a passing blush to words and things which outrage northern sense of decency. the remorseless but light satire of the decameron spares none of the ideals of the age. all the medieval enthusiasms are reviewed and criticised from the standpoint of the florentine _bottega_ and _piazza_. it is as though the _bourgeois_, not content with having made nobility a crime, were bent upon extinguishing its spirit. the tale of agilulf vulgarizes the chivalrous conception of love ennobling men of low estate, by showing how a groom, whose heart is set upon a queen, avails himself of opportunity. tancredi burlesques the knightly reverence for a stainless scutcheon by the extravagance of his revenge. the sanctity of the thebaid, that ascetic dream of purity and self-renunciation for god's service, is made ridiculous by alibech. ser ciappelletto brings contempt upon the canonization of saints. the confessional, the worship of relics, the priesthood, and the monastic orders are derided with the deadliest persiflage. christ himself is scoffed at in a jest which points the most indecent of these tales.[94] marriage affords a never-failing theme for scorn; and when, by way of contrast, the novelist paints an ideal wife, he runs into such hyperboles that the very patience of griselda is a satire on its dignity. like balzac, boccaccio was unsuccessful in depicting virtuous womanhood. attempting this, he fell, like balzac, into the absurdities of sentiment. his own conception of love was sensual and voluptuous--not uniformly coarse, nay often tender, but frankly carnal. without having recourse to the decameron, this statement might be abundantly substantiated by reference to the _filostrato_, _fiammetta_, _amorosa visione_, _ninfale fiesolano_. boccaccio enjoyed the painting of licentious pleasure, snatched in secret, sometimes half by force, by a lover after moderate resistance from his paramour. he imported into these pictures the plebeian tone which we have already noticed in the popular poetry of the preceding century, and which was destined to pervade the erotic literature of the renaissance. there is, therefore, an ironical contrast between the decencies observed by his _brigata_ and their conversation; a contrast rooted in the survival from chivalrous times of conventional ideals, which have lost reality and been persistently ignored in practice. this effect of irony is enhanced by the fact that many of the motives are such as might have been romantically treated, but here are handled from the _popolano grasso's_ point of view. a skeptical and sensuous imagination plays around the sanctities and sublimities which have for it become illusory. we observe the same kind of unconscious hypocrisy, the same spontaneous sapping of now obsolete ideals, in the _amorosa visione_.[95] here love is still regarded as the apotheosis of mortal experience. it is still said to be the union of intelligence and moral energy in an enthusiasm of the soul. yet the joys of love revealed at the conclusion of the poem are such as a _bayadère_ might offer.[96] the _bourgeois_ effaces the knight; the italian of the renaissance has broken the leading strings of mystical romance. this vision, composed in _terza rima_, was assuredly not meant to travesty dante. still it would be difficult to imagine a more complete inversion of the dantesque point of view, a more deliberate substitution of an earthly paradise for the paradiso of the divine comedy. it is as though boccaccio, the representative of the new age, in all the fullness of his sensuous _naïveté_, appealed to the poets of chivalry, and said: "see here how all your fancies find their end in nature!" it will not do to over-strain the censure implied in the foregoing paragraphs. natural appetite, no less than the ideal, has its elements of poetry; and the sensuality of the decameron accords with plastic beauty in a work of art incomparably lucid. shelley, no lenient critic, wrote these words about the setting of the tales[97]: "what descriptions of nature are those in his little introductions to every new day! it is the morning of life stripped of that mist of familiarity which makes it obscure to us." boccaccio's sense of beauty has already been alluded to; and it so pervades his work that special attention need scarcely be called to it. his prose abounds in passages which are perfect pictures after their own kind, like the following, selected, not from the decameron, but from an earlier work, entitled _filocopo_[98]: con gli orecchi intenti al suono, cominciò ad andare in quella parte ove il sentiva; e giunto presso alla fontana, vide le due giovinette. elle erano nel viso bianchissime, la quale bianchezza quanto si conveniva di rosso colore era mescolata. i loro occhi pareano mattutine stelle, e le picciole bocche di colore di vermiglia rosa, più piacevoli diveniano nel muoverle alle note della loro canzone. i loro capelli come fila d'oro erano biondissimi, i quali alquanto crespi s'avvolgevano infra le verdi frondi delle loro ghirlande. vestite per lo gran caldo, come è detto sopra, le tenere e dilicate carni di sottilissimi vestimenti, i quali dalla cintura in su strettissimi mostravano la forma delle belle mamme, le quali come due ritondi pomi pignevano in fuori il resistente vestimento, e ancora in più luoghi per leggiadre apriture si manifestavano le candide carni. la loro statura era di convenevole grandezza, in ciascun membro bene proporzionata. space and nineteenth-century canons of propriety prevent me from completing the picture made by florio and these maidens. it might be paralleled with a hundred passages of like intention, where the italian artist is revealed to us by touches curiously multiplied.[99] we find in them the sense of color, the scrupulous precision of form, and something of that superfluous minuteness which belongs to painting rather than to literature. the writer has seen a picture, and not felt a poem. in rendering it by words, he trusted to the imagination of his reader for suggesting a highly-finished work of plastic art to the mind.[100] the _fêtes champêtres_ of the venetian masters are here anticipated in the prose of the _trecento_. such descriptions were frequent in italian literature, especially frequent in the works of the best stylists, sannazzaro, poliziano, ariosto, the last of whom has been severely but not unjustly criticised by lessing for overstepping the limits of poetry in his portrait of alcina. it may be pleaded in defense of boccaccio and his followers that they belonged to a nation dedicated to the figurative arts, and that they wrote for a public familiar with painted form. their detailed descriptions were at once translated into color by men habituated to the sight of pictures. during the renaissance, painting dominated the italian genius, and all the sister arts of expression felt that influence, just as at athens sculpture lent something even to the drama. as a poet, boccaccio tried many styles. his epic, the _teseide_, cannot be reckoned a great success. he is not at home upon the battle-field, and knew not how to sound the heroic trumpet.[101] yet the credit of discovery may be awarded to the author of this poem. he introduced to the modern world a tale rich in romantic incidents and capable of still higher treatment than he was himself able to give it. when we remember how chaucer, shakspere, fletcher and dryden handled and rehandled the episode of palamon's rivalry with arcite for the hand of emilia, we dare not withhold from boccaccio the praise which belongs to creative genius.[102] it is no slight achievement to have made a story which bore such noble fruit in literature. the _teseide_, moreover, fulfilled an important mission in italian poetry. it adapted the popular _ottava rima_ to the style of the romantic epic, and fixed it for pulci, poliziano, boiardo, and ariosto. that boccaccio was not the inventor of the stanza, as used to be assumed, may now be considered beyond all question. that he had not learned to handle it with the majestic sweetness of poliziano, or the infinite variety of ariosto, is evident. yet he deserves credit for having discerned its capacity and brought it into cultivated use. though unequal in quality, his sonnets and _ballate_, whether separately published or scattered through his numerous prose works, have a higher merit. the best are those in which, following guido cavalcanti's path, he gives free scope to his incomparable sense of natural beauty. the style is steeped in sweetness, softness and the delicacy of music. from these half-popular poems i might select the ballata _io mi son giovinetta_; the song of the angel from the planet venus, extracted from the _filocopo_; a lament of a woman for her lost youth, _il fior che 'l valor perde_; and the girl's prayer to love, _tu se' nostro signor caro e verace_.[103] it is difficult for the critic to characterize poems so true to simple nature, so spontaneously passionate, and yet so artful in the turns of language, molded like wax beneath the poet's touch. here sensuousness has no vulgarity, and the seductions of the flesh are sublimed by feeling to a beauty which is spiritual in refinement. it may be observed that boccaccio writes his best love-poetry to be sung by girls. he has abandoned the standpoint of the chivalrous lover, though he still uses the phraseology of the italo-provençal school. what arrests his fancy is, not the ideal of womanhood raising man above himself, but woman conscious of her own supreme attractiveness. he delights in making her the mirror of the feelings she inspires. he bids her celebrate in hymns the beauty of her sex, the perfume of the charms that master man. when the metaphysical forms of speech, borrowed from the elder style, are used, they give utterance to a passion which is sensual, or blent at best with tenderness--a physical love-longing, a sentiment born of youth and desire. a girl, for instance, speaks about herself, and says:[104] colui che muove il cielo et ogni stella mi fece a suo diletto vaga leggiadra graziosa e bella, per dar qua giù ad ogni alto intelletto alcun segno di quella biltà che sempre a lui sta nel cospetto. on the lips of him who wrote the tale of alibech, this language savors of profanity. yet we are forced to recognize the poet's sincerity of feeling. it is the same problem as that which meets us in the _amorosa visione_.[105] the god boccaccio worshiped was changed: but this deity was still divine, and deserved, he thought, the honors of mystic adoration. at the same time there is nothing asiatic in his sensuous inspiration. the emotion is controlled and concentrated; the form is pure in all its outlines. the decameron was the masterpiece of boccaccio's maturity. but he did not reach that height of excellence without numerous essays in styles of much diversity. while still a young man, not long after his meeting with fiammetta, he began the _filocopo_ and dedicated it to his new love.[106] this romance was based upon the earlier tale of _floire et blanceflor_.[107] but the youthful poet invested the simple love-story of his florio and biancofiore with a masquerade costume of mythological erudition and wordy rhetoric, which removed it from the middle ages. the gods and goddesses of olympus are introduced as living agents, supplying the machinery of the romance until the very end, when the hero and heroine are converted to christianity, and abjure their old protectors with cold equanimity. we are left to imagine that, for boccaccio at any rate, venus, mars and cupid were as real as christ and the saints, though superseded as objects of pious veneration. this confusion of pagan and christian mythology is increased by his habit of finding classical periphrases for the expression of religious ideas. he calls nuns _sacerdotesse di diana_. god the father is _quell'eccelso e inestimabile principe sommo giove_. satan becomes pluto, and human sin is atropos. the birth of christ is described thus: _la terra come sentì il nuovo incarco della deità del figliuol di giove_. the apostles appear as _nuovi cavalieri entrati contro a plutone in campo_.[108] the style of the _filocopo_ was new; and in spite, or perhaps because of, its euphuism, it had a decided success. this encouraged boccaccio to attempt the _teseide_. the _filostrato_ soon followed; and here for the first time we find the future author of the decameron. under greek names and incidents borrowed from the war of troy, we are in fact studying some episode from the _chroniques galantes_ of the neapolitan court, narrated with the vigor of a perfect master in the art of story telling. nothing could be further removed in sentiment from the heroism of the homeric age or closer to the customs of a corrupt italian city than this poem. in troilo himself a feverish type of character, overmastered by passion which is rather a delirium of the senses than a mood of feeling, has been painted with a force that reminds us of the _fiammetta_, where the same disease of the soul is delineated in a woman. pandaro shows for the first time in modern literature an utterly depraved nature, reveling in seduction, and glutting a licentious imagination with the spectacle of satiated lust. the frenzied appetite of troilo, pandaro's ruffian arts, and the gradual yieldings of griselda to a voluptuous inclination, reveal the master's hand; and though the poem is hurried toward the close (boccaccio being only interested in the portrayal of his hero's love-languors, ecstasies and disappointment), the _filostrato_ must undoubtedly be reckoned the finest of his narratives in verse. the second and third cantos are remarkable for dramatic movement and wealth of sensuous imagination, never rising to sublimity nor refined with such poetry as shakspere found for romeo and juliet, but welling copiously from a genuinely ardent nature. the love described is nakedly and unaffectedly luxurious; it is an overmastering impulse, crowned at last with all the joys of sensual fruition. according to boccaccio the repose conferred by love upon his votaries is the satiety of their desires.[109] between dante's _signore della nobilitade_ and his _sir di tutta pace_ there is indeed a wide gulf fixed.[110] after the _filostrato_, boccaccio next produced the _ameto_, _amorosa visione_, _fiammetta_, _ninfale fiesolano_, and _corbaccio_, between the years 1343 and 1355. the _ameto_ is a tissue of pastoral tales, descriptions, and versified interludes, prolix in style and affected with pedantic erudition. to read it attentively is now almost impossible, in spite of frequent passages where the luxuriant word-painting of the author is conspicuous. in the _amorosa visione_ he attempted the style which petrarch had adopted for his _trionfi_. after reviewing human life under the several aspects of learning, glory, love, fortune, the poet finally resigns himself to a nirvana of sensual beatitude. the poem is unsuccessful, because it adapts an obsolete form of art to requirements beyond its scope. boccaccio tries to pour the new wine of the renaissance into the old bottles of medieval allegory. in the _fiammetta_ boccaccio exhibited all his strength as an anatomist of feeling, describing the effects of passion in a woman's heart, and analyzing its varying emotions with a subtlety which proved his knowledge of a certain type of female character. it is the first attempt in modern literature to portray subjective emotion exterior to the writer. since virgil's dido, or the _heroidum epistolæ_ of ovid, nothing of the sort had been essayed upon an equal scale. taken together with dante's _vita nuova_ and petrarch's _secretum_, each of which is a personal confidence, the _fiammetta_ may be reckoned among those masterpieces of analytic art, which revealed the developed consciousness of the italian race, at a moment when the science of emotion was still for the rest of europe an undiscovered territory. this essay exercised a wide and lasting influence over the descriptive literature of the renaissance. yet when we compare its stationary monologues with the brief but pregnant touches of the decameron, we are forced to assign it the rank of a study rather than a finished picture. the _fiammetta_ is to the decameron what rhetoric is to the drama. this, however, is hardly a deduction from its merit. the delineation of an unholy and unhappy passion, blessed with fruition for one brief moment, cursed through months of illness and despair with all the furies of vain desire and poignant recollection, is executed with incomparable fullness of detail and inexhaustible richness of fancy. the reader rises from a perusal of the _fiammetta_ with impressions similar to those which a work of richardson leaves upon the mind. at the same time it is full of poetry. the vision of venus, the invocation to sleep, and the description of summer on the bay of baiæ relieve a deliberate anatomy of passion, which might otherwise be tedious.[111] the romance is so rich in material that it furnished the motives for a score of tales, and the novelists of the renaissance availed themselves freely of its copious stores.[112] the _corbaccio_ or _laberinto d'amore_ is a satire upon women, animated with the bitterest sense of injury and teeming with vindictive spite. it was written with the avowed purpose of reviling a lady who had rejected boccaccio's advances, and it paints the whole sex in the darkest colors. we could fancy that certain passages had been penned by a disappointed monk. though this work is in tone unworthy of its author, it bore fruits in the literature of the next century. alberti's satires are but rhetorical amplifications of themes suggested by the _corbaccio_. nor is it without value for the student of italian manners. the list of romances read by women in the fourteenth century throws light upon francesca's episode in dante, and proves that the title _principe galeotto_ was not given without precedent to boccaccio's own writings.[113] the discourse on gentle birth in the same treatise should be studied in illustration of the florentine conception of nobility.[114] boccaccio, though he follows so closely in time upon dante, already anticipates the democratic theories of poggio.[115] feudal feeling was extinct in the _bourgeoisie_ of the great towns; nor had the experience of the neapolitan court suppressed in boccaccio's mind the pride of a florentine citizen. at the same time he felt that contempt of the literary classes for the common folk which was destined in the next century to divide the nation and to check the development of its vulgar literature. he apologizes for explaining dante, and for bringing poetry down to the level of the _feccia plebeia_, the _vulgo indegno_, the _ingrati meccanici_, and so forth.[116] it remains to speak of yet another of boccaccio's minor works, the _ninfale fiesolano_. this is a tale in octave stanzas, which, under a veil of mythological romance, relates the loves of a young man and a nun, and their subsequent tragic ending. it owes its interest to the vivid picture of seduction, so glowingly painted as to betray the author's personal enjoyment of the motive. the story is thrown back into a time antecedent to christianity and civil life. the heroine, mensola, is a nymph of diana; the hero, affrico, a shepherd. the scene is laid among the mountains above florence; and when mensola has been changed into a fountain by the virgin goddess, whose rites she violated, the poem concludes with a myth invented to explain the founding of fiesole. civil society succeeds to the savagery of the woodland, and love is treated as the vestibule to culture.[117] the romantic and legendary portions of this tale are ill-connected. the versification is lax; and except in the long episode of mensola's seduction, which might have formed a passage of contemporary novel-writing, the genius of boccaccio shines with clouded luster.[118] yet the _ninfale fiesolano_ occupies a not unimportant place in the history of italian literature. it adapts the pastoral form to that ideal of civility dependent upon culture, which took so strong a hold upon the imagination of the _cinque cento_. its stanzas are a forecast of the _arcadia_ and the _orfeo_. in the minor poems and romances, which have here been passed in review, except perhaps in the _fiammetta_, boccaccio cannot be said to take a place among european writers of the first rank. his style is prolix; his versification, if we omit the _canzoni a ballo_ and some sonnets, is slovenly; nor does he show exceptional ability in the conception and conduct of his stories. he is strongest when he paints a violent passion or describes voluptuous sensations, weakest when he attempts allegory or assumes the airs of a philosopher. we feel, in reading these productions of his earlier manhood, that nearly all were what the germans call _gelegenheits-gedichte_. the private key is lost to some of these works, which were intended for the ears of one among the multitude. on others it is plainly written that they were the outpourings of a personal desire, the self-indulgence of a fancy which reveled in imagined sensuality, using literature as the safety-valve for subjective longings. they lack the calm of perfect art, the full light falling on the object from without, which marks a poem of the highest order. from these romances of his youth, no less than from the latin treatises of his maturity, we return to the decameron when we seek to place boccaccio among the classics. nothing comparable with this human comedy for universal interest had appeared in modern europe, if we except the divine comedy; and it may be questioned whether any work of equal scope was given to the world before the theater of shakspere and the comedies of molière. boccaccio, though he paints the surface of life, paints it in a way to suggest the inner springs of character, and to bring the motives of action vividly before us. _quicquid agunt homines_ is the matter of his book. the recoil from medieval principles of conduct, which gives it a certain air of belonging to a moment rather than all time, was necessary in the evolution of intellectual freedom. in this respect, again, it faithfully reflected the florentine temperament. at no epoch have the italians been sternly and austerely pious. piety with them is a passionate impulse rather than a deeply-reasoned habit based upon conviction. their true nature is critical, susceptible to beauty, quick at seizing the ridiculous and exposing shams, suspicious of mysticism, realistic, pleasure-loving, practical. these qualities, special to the florentines, but shared in large measure by the nation, found artistic expression in the decameron, and asserted their supremacy in the literature of the renaissance. that a sublime ideal, unapprehended by boccaccio, and destined to remain unrepresented in the future, should have been conceived by dante; that petrarch should have modulated by his masterpiece of poetic workmanship from the key of the divine comedy to that of the decameron; that one city should have produced three such men, and that one half-century should have witnessed their successive triumphs, forms the great glory of florence, and is one of the most notable facts in the history of genius. it remains to speak about boccaccio's prose, and the relation of his style to that of other _trecentisti_. if we seek the origins of italian prose, we find them first in the franco-italian romances of the lombard period, which underwent the process of _toscaneggiamento_ at florence, next in books of morality and devotion, and also in the earlier chronicles. among the tuscanized tales of chivalry belonging to the first age of italian literature are the _conti di antichi cavalieri_ and the _tavola ritonda_, both of which bear traces of translation from provençal sources.[119] the _novellino_, of which mention has already been made, betrays the same origin. the style of these works offers a pretty close parallel to the english of sir thomas mallory. at the same time that the literature of france was assuming an italian garb, many versions of roman classics appeared. orosius, vegetius, sallust, with parts of cicero, livy and boethius were adapted to popular reading. but the taste of the time, as we have already seen in the preceding chapter, inclined the authors of these works to make selections with a view to moral edification. their object was, not to present the ancients in a modern garb, but to cull notable examples of conduct and ethical sentences from the works that found most favor with the medieval intellect. passing under the general titles of _fiori_, _giardini_, _tesori_ and _conviti_--_fiori di filosofi e molto savi_, _giardino di consolazione_, _fiore di rettorica_, _fiore del parlar gentile_--these collections supplied the laity with extracts from latin authors, and extended culture to the people. the _libro di cato_ might be chosen as a fair example of their scope.[120] the number of such books, ascribed to bono giamboni, brunetto latini, and guidotto of bologna, proves that an extensive public was eager for instruction of this sort; and it is reasonable to believe that they were studied by the artisans of central italy. the bass-reliefs and frescoes of incipient italian art, the pavement of the sienese cathedral, the palazzo della ragione at padua, bear traces of the percolation through all social strata of this literature. a more important work of style was the _de regimine principum_, of egidio colonna, translated from the french version by an unknown tuscan hand; while giamboni's florentine version of latini's _tesoro_ introduced the erudition of the most learned grammarian of his age to the italians. contemporaneously with this growth of vernacular treatises on rhetorical and ethical subjects, we may assume that memoirs and chronicles began to be written in the vulgar tongue. but so much doubt has recently been thrown upon the earliest monuments of italian historiography that it must here suffice to indicate the change which was undoubtedly taking place in this branch also of composition toward the close of the thirteenth century.[121] literature of all kinds yielded to the first strong impact of the native idiom. epistles, for example, whether of private or of public import, were now occasionally written in italian, as can be proved by reference to the published letters of guittone d'arezzo.[122] the works hitherto mentioned belong to the latter half of the thirteenth century. their style, speaking generally, is dry and tentative. except in the versions of french romances, which borrow grace from their originals, we do not find in them artistic charm of diction. the _fiori_ and _giardini_ are little better than commonplace books, in which the author's personality is lost beneath a mass of extracts and citations. the beginning of the fourteenth century witnessed the growth of a new italian prose. of this second stage, the masterpieces are villani's chronicle, dante's _vita nuova_, the _fioretti di s. francesco_, the _leggende dei santi padri_ of domenico cavalca, and jacopo passavanti's _specchio della vera penitenza_.[123] these writers have no lack of individuality. their mind moves in their style, and gives a personal complexion to their utterance. the chief charm of their manner, so far as it is common to characters so diverse, is its grave and childlike spontaneity. for vividness of description, for natural simplicity of phrase, and for that amiable garrulity which rounds a picture by innumerable details and unconscious touches of graphic force, not one of the books of this period surpasses the _fioretti_. nor are the _leggende_ of cavalca less admirable. modern, especially northern, students may discover too much suavity and unction in the writer's tone--a superfluity of sweetness which fatigues, a caressing tenderness that clogs. after reading a few pages, we lay the book down, and wonder whether it could really have been a grown man, and not a cherub flown from fra angelico's paradise, who composed it. this infantine note belongs to the cloister and the pulpit. it matches the simple credulity of the narrator, and well befits the miracles he loves to record. we seem to hear a good old monk gossiping to a party of rosy-cheeked novices, like those whom sodoma painted in his frescoes of s. benedict at monte oliveto. it need hardly be observed that neither in villani's nor in dante's prose do we find the same puerility. but all the _trecentisti_ have a common character of limpidity, simplicity, and unaffected grace. the difficulties under which even the best italian authors labor while using their own language, incline them to an exaggerated admiration for these pearls of the _trecento_. they look back with envy to an age when men could write exactly as they thought and felt and spoke, without the tyranny of the _vocabolario_ or the fear of an academy before their eyes. we, with whom the literary has always closely followed the spoken language, and who have, practically speaking, no dialects, while we recognize the purity of that incomparably transparent manner, cannot comprehend that it should be held up for imitation in the present age. to paint like giotto would be easier than to write like passavanti. the conditions of life and the modes of thought are so altered that the style of the _trecento_ will not lend itself to modern requirements. among the prosaists of the fourteenth century--cavalca, villani, the author of the _fioretti_, and passavanti--boccaccio meets us with a sudden surprise. they aimed at finding the readiest and most appropriate words to convey their meaning in the simplest, most effective manner. without artistic purpose, without premeditation, without side-glances at the classics, they wrote straightforward from their heart. there is little composition or connection in their work, no molding of paragraphs or rounding of phrases, no oratorical development, no gradation of tone. boccaccio, on the contrary, sought to give the fullness and sonority of latin to the periods of italian prose. he had the ciceronian cadence and the labyrinthine sentences of livy in view. by art of style he was bent on rendering the vulgar language a fit vehicle for learning, rhetoric, and history. in order to make it clear what sorts of changes he introduced, it will be necessary to compare his prose with that of his contemporaries. dante used the following words to describe his first meeting with beatrice[124]: nove fiate già, appresso al mio nascimento, era tornato lo cielo della luce quasi ad un medesimo punto, quanto alla sua propria girazione, quando alli miei occhi apparve prima la gloriosa donna della mia mente, la quale fu chiamata da molti beatrice, i quali non sapeano che si chiamare. ella era già in questa vita stata tanto che nel suo tempo lo cielo stellato era mosso verso la parte d'oriente delle dodici parti l'una d'un grado: sì che quasi dal principio del suo anno nono apparve a me, ed io la vidi quasi alla fine del mio nono anno. boccaccio, relating his first glimpse of fiammetta on april 17, 1341, spins the following cocoon of verbiage:[125] avvenne che un giorno, la cui prima ora saturno avea signoreggiata, essendo già febo co' suoi cavalli al sedecimo grado del celestiale montone pervenuto, e nel quale il glorioso partimento del figliuiolo di giove dagli spogliati regni di plutone si celebrava, io, della presente opera componitore, mi trovai in un grazioso e bel tempio in partenope, nominato da colui che per deificarsi sostenne che fosse fatto di lui sacrificio sopra la grata, e quivi con canto pieno di dolce melodia ascoltava l'uficio che in tale giorno si canta, celebrato da' sacerdoti successori di colui che prima la corda cinse umilmente esaltando la povertade quella seguendo. dante's style is analytic and direct. the sentences follow each other naturally; and though the language is stiff, from scrupulous precision, and in one place intentionally obscure, it is free from affectation. boccaccio aims at a synthetic presentation of all he means to say; and he calls nothing by its right name, if he can devise a periphrasis. the breathless period pants its labored clauses out, and dwindles to a lame conclusion. the _filocopo_ was, however, an immature production. in order to do its author justice, and at the same time to compare his style with a graceful piece of fourteenth-century composition, i will select a passage from the _fioretti di s. francesco_, and place it beside one taken from the first novel of the decameron. this is the episode of s. anthony preaching to the fishes[126]: e detto ch'egli ebbe così, subitamente venne alla riva a lui tanta moltitudine di pesci, grandi, piccoli e mezzani, che mai in quel mare nè in quel fiume non ne fu veduta sì grande moltitudine: e tutti teneano i capi fuori dell'acqua, e tutti stavano attenti verso la faccia di santo antonio, e tutti in grandissima pace e mansuetudine e ordine: imperocchè dinanzi e più presso alla riva stavano i pesciolini minori, e dopo loro stavano i pesci mezzani, poi di dietro, dov'era l'acqua più profonda, stavano i pesci maggiori. essendo dunque in cotale ordine e disposizione allogati i pesci, santo antonio cominciò a predicare solennemente, e disse così: fratelli miei pesci, molto siete tenuti, secondo la vostra possibilitade, di ringraziare il nostro creatore, che v'ha dato così nobile elemento per vostra abitazione; sicchè, come vi piace, avete l'acque dolci e salse; e havvi dati molti rifugii a schifare le tempeste; havvi ancora dato elemento chiaro e transparente, e cibo, per lo quale voi possiate vivere, etc., etc.... a queste e simiglianti parole e ammaestramenti di santo antonio, cominciarono li pesci ad aprire la bocca, inchinaronli i capi, e con questi ed altri segnali di riverenza, secondo li modi a loro possibili, laudarono iddio. this is a portion of the character of ser ciapelletto: era questo ciapelletto di questa vita. egli essendo notajo, avea grandissima vergogna quando uno de' suoi strumenti (come che pochi ne facesse) fosse altro che falso trovato; de' quali tanti avrebbe fatti, di quanti fosse stato richesto, e quelli più volentieri in dono, che alcun altro grandemente salariato. testimonianze false con sommo diletto diceva richesto e non richesto; e dandosi a' que' tempi in francia a' saramenti grandissima fede, non curandosi fargli falsi, tante quistioni malvagiamente vincea, a quante a giurare di dire il vero sopra la sua fede era chiamato. aveva oltre modo piacere, e forte vi studiava, in commettere tra amici e parenti e qualunque altra persona mali et inimicizie e scandali; de' quali quanto maggiori mali vedeva seguire, tanto più d'allegrezza prendea. invitato ad uno omicidio o a qualunque altra rea cosa, senza negarlo mai, volenterosamente v'andava; e più volte a fedire et ad uccidere uomini colle proprie mani si trovò volentieri. these examples will suffice to show how boccaccio distinguished himself from the _trecentisti_ in general. when his style attained perfection in the decameron, it had lost the pedantry of his first manner, and combined the brevity of the best contemporary writers with rhetorical smoothness and intricacy. the artful structure of the period, and the cadences of what afterwards came to be known as "numerous prose," were carried to perfection. still, though he was the earliest writer of a scientific style, boccaccio failed to exercise a paramount influence over the language until the age of the academies.[127] the writers of the fifteenth century, partly no doubt because these were chiefly men of the people, appear to have developed their manner out of the material of the _trecento_ in general, modified by contemporary usage. this is manifest in the _reali di francia_, a work of considerable stylistic power, which cannot probably be dated earlier than the middle of the fifteenth century. the novelist masuccio modeled his diction, so far as he was able, on the type of the decameron, and alberti owed much to the study of such works as the _fiammetta_. yet, speaking broadly, neither the excellences nor the defects of boccaccio found devoted imitators until the epoch when the nation at large turned their attention to the formation of a common italian style. it was then, in the days of bembo and sperone, that boccaccio took rank with petrarch as an infallible authority on points of language. the homage rendered at that period to the decameron decided the destinies of italian prose, and has since been deplored by critics who believe boccaccio to have established a false standard of taste.[128] this is a question which must be left to the italians to decide. one thing, however, is clear; that a nation schooled by humanistic studies of a latin type, divided by their dialects, and removed by the advance of culture beyond the influences of the purer _trecentisti_, found in the rhetorical diction of the decameron a common model better suited to their taste and capacity than the simple style of the villani could have furnished. boccaccio died in 1375, seventeen months after the death at arquà of his master, petrarch. the painter andrea orcagna died about the same period. with these three great artists the genius of medieval florence sank to sleep. a temporary torpor fell upon the people, who during the next half century produced nothing of marked originality in literature and art. the middle age had passed away. the renaissance was still in preparation. when boccaccio breathed his last, men felt that the elder sources of inspiration had failed, and that no more could be expected from the spirit of the previous centuries. heaven and hell, the sanctuaries of the soul, the garden of this earth, had been traversed. the tentative essays and scattered preludings, the dreams and visions, the preparatory efforts of all previous modern literatures, had been completed, harmonized and presented to the world in the master-works of dante, petrarch, and boccaccio. what remained but to make a new start? this step forward or aside was now to be taken in the classical revival. well might sacchetti exclaim in that _canzone_[129] which is at once boccaccio's funeral dirge and also the farewell of florence to the fourteenth century: sonati sono i corni d'ogni parte a ricolta; la stagione è rivolta: se tornerà non so, ma credo tardi. footnotes: [62] _rime di guido cavalcanti, edite ed inedite_, etc., firenze, 1813. see p. 29 for the canzone, and p. 73 for a translation into italian of dino's latin commentary. [63] _op. cit._ pp. 21-27. two in particular, _era in pensier_ and _gli occhi di quella gentil forosetta_, may be singled out. a _pastourelle_, _in un boschetto_, anticipates the manner of sacchetti. as for the may song, its opening lines, _ben venga maggio_, etc., are referred by carducci to guido cavalcanti. [64] see _vita e poesie di messer cino da pistoja_, pisa, capurro, 1813. also barbèra's diamond edition of cino da pistoja and other poets, edited by carducci. [65] the tomb of cino in the duomo at pistoja, with its gothic canopies and the bass-reliefs which represent a doctor of laws lecturing to men of all ranks and ages at their desks beneath his professorial chair, is a fine contemporary monument. the great jurist is here commemorated, not the master of petrarch in the art of song. [66] cp. dante _de vulg. eloq._ i. 17, upon cino's purification of italian from vulgarisms, with lorenzo de' medici, who calls cino "tutto delicato e veramente amoroso, il quale primo, al mio parere, cominciò l'antico rozzore in tutto a schifare." _lettera all'illustr. sig. federigo_, poesie (ed. barbèra, 1858), p. 33. [67] _il canzoniere_ (fraticelli's edition), p. 199. [68] _voi che portate_; _donna pietosa_; _deh peregrini_. [69] see rossetti's translation of the _vita nuova_. [70] rossetti's translation of the _vita nuova_. [71] _donna del cielo_; _o benigna, o dolce_; _o bon gesù_. see _rime di fra guittone d'arezzo_ (firenze, morandi, 1828), vol. ii. pp. 212, 3; vol. i. p. 61. [72] not only the sixth _æneid_, but the _dream of scipio_ also, influenced the medieval imagination. the biblical visions, whether allegorical like those of ezekiel and paul, or apocalyptic, like s. john's, exercised a similar control. [73] see the little book of curious learning by alessandro d'ancona, entitled _i precursori di dante_, firenze, sansoni, 1874. [74] see de sanctis, _storia della letteratura italiana_, vol. i. chap. 5. of the _commedia spirituale dell'anima_ i have seen a sienese copy of the date 1608, a reprint from some earlier florentine edition. the comedy is introduced by two boys, good and bad. the piece itself brings god as the creator, the soul he has made, its guardian angel, the devil, the powers of memory, reason, will, and all the virtues in succession, with corresponding vices, on the scene. it ends with the soul's judgment after death and final marriage to christ. dramatically, it is almost devoid of merit. [75] see _revival of learning_, chapter ii. [76] see above, _revival of learning_, chapter ii. i may also refer to an article by me in the _quarterly review_ for october, 1878, from which i shall have occasion to draw largely in the following pages. [77] _par._ xvi. [78] carducci, "dello svolgimento della letteratura nazionale:" _studi letterari_ (livorno, 1874), p. 60. [79] the _divine comedy_ was probably begun in earnest about 1303, and the _decameron_ was published in 1353. [80] boccaccio was called giovanni della tranquillità partly in scorn. he resented it, as appears from a letter to zanobi della strada (_op. volg._ vol. xvii. p. 101), because it implied a love of court delights and parasitical idleness. in that letter he amply defends himself from such imputations, showing that he led the life of a poor and contented student. yet the nickname was true in a deeper sense, as is proved by the very arguments of his apology, and confirmed by the description of his life at certaldo remote from civic duties (letter to pino de' rossi, _ibid._ p. 35), as well as by the tragi-comic narrative of his discomfort at naples (letter to messer francesco, _ibid._ pp. 37-87). not only in these passages, but in all his works he paints himself a comfort-loving _bourgeois_, whose heart was set on his books, whose ideal of enjoyment was a satisfied passion of a sensual kind. [81] see above, vol. ii. _revival of learning_, chap. ii. pp. 87-98. [82] boccaccio, _opere volgari_ (firenze, 1833), vol. xv. p. 18. [83] _revival of learning_, p. 88. [84] i may specially refer to the passages of the _amorosa visione_ (cap. v. vi.) where he meets with dante, "gloria delle muse mentre visse," "il maestro dal qual'io tengo ogni ben," "il signor d'ogni savere;" also to the sonnets on dante, and that most beautiful sonnet addressed to petrarch after death at peace in heaven with cino and dante. see the _rime_ (_op. volg._ vol. xvi.), sonnets 8, 60, 97, 108. [85] de sanctis, _storia della letteratura italiana_, vol. i. cap. 9. [86] "che la ragion sommettono al talento:" _inferno_ v. compare these phrases: le genti dolorose che hanno perduto il ben dell'intelletto. --_inferno_ iii. and semiramis: che libito fe lecito in sua legge. --_inferno_ v. [87] in all his earlier works, especially in the _fiammetta_, the _filostrato_, the _ninfale fiesolano_, the _amorosa visione_, he sings the hymn of _il talento_, triumphant over medieval discipline. they form the proper prelude to what is sometimes called the paganism of the renaissance, but what is really a resurgence of the natural man. it was this _talento_ which valla philosophized, and beccadelli and pontano sang. [88] one instance will suffice to illustrate the different methods of boccaccio and dante in dealing with the same material. we all know in what murk and filth dante beheld ciacco, the glutton, and what torments awaited filippo argenti, the _fiorentino spirito bizzarro_, upon the marsh of styx (_inferno_ vi. and viii.). these persons play the chief parts in giorn. ix. nov. 8, of the _decameron_. they are still the spendthrift parasite, and the brutally capricious bully. but while dante points the sternest moral by their examples, boccaccio makes their vices serve his end of comic humor. the inexorableness of dante is nowhere more dreadful than in the eighth canto of the _inferno_. the levity of boccaccio is nowhere more superficial than in that novella. [89] see the little work, full of critical learning, by adolfo bartoli, _i precursori del boccaccio_, firenze, sansoni. [90] see _le novelle antiche_ (another name for _il novellino_), per cura di guido biagi, firenze, sansoni, 1880. it is a curious agglomeration of anecdotes drawn from the history of the suabian princes, roman sources, the arthurian legends, the bible, oriental apologues, fables, and a few ancient myths. that of _narcis_, p. 66, is very prettily told. only one tale is decidedly cynical. we find in the book selections made from the _débris_ of a vast and various medieval library. french influence is frequently perceptible in the style. [91] _precursori del boccaccio_, p. 57 to end. [92] see _carmina burana_ (stuttgart, 1847), pp. 1-112; _poems of walter mapes_, by thomas wright (for camden society, 1841), pp. 1-257, for examples of these satiric poems. the _propter syon non tacebo_, _flete sion filiæ_, _utar contra vitia_, should be specially noticed. many other curious satires, notably one against marriage and the female sex, can also be found in du méril's three great collections, _poésies populaires latines antérieures au douzième siècle_, _poésies populaires latines du moyen age_, and _poésies inédites du moyen age_, paris, 1843-1847. those to whom these works are not accessible, may find an excellent selection of the serious and jocular popular latin medieval poetry in a little volume _gaudeamus! carmina vagorum selecta_, lipsiæ, teubner, 1877. the question of their authorship has been fairly well discussed by hubatsch, _die lateinischen vagantenlieder_, görlitz, 1870. [93] the erotic and drinking songs of the vagi deserve to be carefully studied by all who wish to understand the germs of the renaissance in the middle ages. they express a simple naturalism, not of necessity pagan, though much is borrowed from the language of classical mythology. i would call attention in particular to _æstuans interius_, _omittamus studia_, _o admirabile veneris idolum_, _ludo cum cæcilia_, _si puer cum puellula_, and four _pastoralia_, all of which may be found in the little book _gaudeamus_ cited above. in spontaneity and truth of feeling they correspond to the latin hymns. but their spirit is the exact antithesis of that which produced the _dies iræ_ and the _stabat mater_. the absence of erudition and classical imitation separates them from the poems of beccadelli, pontano, poliziano, or bembo. they present the natural material of neo-pagan latin verse without its imitative form. it is youth rejoicing in its strength and lustihood, enjoying the delights of spring, laughing at death, taking the pleasures of the moment, deriding the _rumores senum severiorum_, unmasking hypocrisy in high places, at wanton war with constituted social shams. these songs were written by wandering students of all nations, who traversed germany, france, italy, spain, england, seeking special knowledge at the great centers of learning, following love-adventures, poor and careless, coldly greeted by the feudal nobility and the clergy, attached to the people by their habits but separated from them by their science. in point of faith these poets are orthodox. there is no questioning of ecclesiastical dogma, no anticipation of luther, in their verses. this blending of theological conformity with satire on the church and moral laxity is eminently characteristic of the renaissance in italy. [94] see the last sentence of giorn. iii. nov. 1. [95] _op. volg._ vol. xiv. [96] cap. xlix. [97] letter to leigh hunt, september 8, 1819. [98] _op. volg._ vol. vii. p. 230. i am loth to attempt a translation of this passage, which owes its charm to the melody and rhythm of chosen words:-"with ears intent upon the music, he began to go in the direction whence he heard it; and when he drew nigh to the fountain, he beheld the two maidens. they were of countenance exceeding white, and this whiteness was blent in seemly wise with ruddy hues. their eyes seemed to be stars of morning, and their little mouths, of the color of a vermeil rose, became of pleasanter aspect as they moved them to the music of their song. their tresses, like threads of gold, were very fair, and slightly curled went wandering through the green leaves of their garlands. by reason of the great heat their tender and delicate limbs, as hath been saaid above, were clad in robes of the thinnest texture, the which, made very tight above the waist, revealed the form of their fair bosoms, which like two round apples pushed the opposing raiment outward, and therewith in divers places the white flesh appeared through graceful openings. their stature was of fitting size, and each limb well-proportioned." [99] the description of the nymph lia in the _ameto_ (_op. volg._ xv. 30-33) carries boccaccio's manner into tedious prolixity. [100] boccaccio was a great painter of female beauty and idyllic landscape; but he had not the pictorial faculty in a wider sense. the frescoes of the _amorosa visione_, when compared with poliziano's descriptions in _la giostra_, are but meager notes of form. possibly the progress of the arts from giotto to benozzo gozzoli and botticelli may explain this picturesque inferiority of the elder poet; but in reading boccaccio we feel that the defect lay not so much in his artistic faculty as in the limitation of his sympathy to certain kinds of beauty. [101] dante (_de vulg. eloq._ ii. 2) observed that while there were three subjects of great poetry--war, love, morality--no modern had chosen the first of these themes. boccaccio in the last canto of the _teseide_ seems to allude to this: poichè le muse nude cominciaro nel cospetto degli uomini ad andare, già fur di quelli che le esercitaro con bello stile _in onesto parlare_, ed altri in _amoroso_ le operaro; ma tu, o libro, primo a lor cantare _di marte_ fai gli affanni sostenuti, _nel volgar lazio mai più non veduti_. [102] how far boccaccio actually created the tale can be questioned. in the dedication to fiammetta (_op. volg._ ix. 3), he says he found a very ancient version of his story, and translated it into rhyme and the _latino volgare_ for the first time. again, in the exordium to the first book (_ib._ p. 10), he calls it: una storia antica tanto negli anni riposta e nascosa che latino autor non par ne dica per quel ch'i' senta in libro alcuna cosa. we might perhaps conjecture that he had discovered the legend in a byzantine ms. [103] carducci, "cantilene, etc.," _op. cit._ pp. 168, 170, 171, 173. [104] _op. cit._ p. 160. [105] see above, p. 114. [106] this appears from the conclusion (_op. volg._ viii. 376). fiammetta was the natural daughter of petrarch's friend and patron, king robert. boccaccio first saw her in the church of s. lawrence at naples, april 7, 1341. [107] the history of this widely popular medieval romance has been traced by du méril in his edition of the thirteenth-century french version (paris, 1856). he is of opinion that boccaccio may have derived it from some byzantine source. but this seems hardly probable, since boccaccio gained his knowledge of greek later in life. certain indications in the _filocopo_ point to a spanish original. [108] see _op. volg._ vii. 6-11. compare with these phrases those selected from the humanistic writings of a later date, _revival of learning_, p. 397. [109] this is the climax (parte terza, stanza xxxii.): a cui troilo disse; anima mia, i' te ne prego, sì ch'io t'abbia in braccio ignuda sì come il mio cor disia. ed ella allora: ve' che me ne spaccio; e la camicia sua gittata via, nelle sue braccia si raccolse avvaccio; e stringnendo l'un l'altro con fervore, d'amor sentiron l'ultimo valore. [110] the _amorosa visione_ ends with these words, _sir di tutta pace_; their meaning is explained in previous passages of the same poem. at the end of cap. xlvi. the lady says: io volli ora al presente far quieto il tuo disio con amorosa pace, dandoti l'arra che finirà il fleto. again in cap. l. we read: e quel disio che or più ti tormenta porrò in pace, con quella bellezza che l'alma al cor tuttora ti presenta. the context reveals the nature of the peace to be attained. it is the satisfaction of an orgasm. we may compare the invocation to venus and her promise at the end of the _caccia di diana_, canto xvii. (_op. volg._ xiv.). the time-honored language about "expelling all base thoughts" is here combined with the anticipation of sensual possession. [111] _op. volg._ vi. 21, 89, 91. [112] bonucci in his edition of alberti's works, conscious of that author's debt to boccaccio, advances the wild theory that he wrote the _fiammetta_. see _opere volgari di l.b. alberti_, vol. iii. p. 353. [113] _laberinto d'amore_ (firenze, caselli), p. 153, and p. 127. [114] _ibid._ p. 174. [115] see _age of the despots_, p. 186, note. [116] see sonnets vii. and viii. of the _rime_. [117] the same motive occurs in the _ameto_, where the power of love to refine a rustic nature is treated both in the prose romance and in the interpolated _terza rima_ poems. see especially the song of teogapen (_op. volg._ xv. 34). [118] boccaccio breaks the style and becomes obscenely vulgar at times. see parte quarta, xxxvi. xxxvii., parte quinta, xlv. xlvi. the innuendoes of the _ugellino_ and the _nicchio_ are here repeated in figures which anticipate the novels and _capitoli_ of the _cinque cento_. [119] students may consult the valuable work of vincenzo nannucci, _manuale della letteratura del primo secolo della lingua italiana_, firenze, barbèra, 1874. the second volume contains copious specimens of thirteenth-century prose. [120] nannucci, _op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 95. [121] the journals of matteo spinelli, ascribed to an apulian of the thirteenth century, were long accepted as the earliest vernacular attempt at history in prose. it has lately been suggested, with good show of argument, that they are fabrications of the sixteenth century. with regard to the similar doubts affecting the malespini chronicles and dino compagni, i may refer to my discussion of this question in the first volume of this work, _age of the despots_, pp. 251, 262-273. [122] nannucci, _op. cit._ p. 137. [123] of villani's chronicle i have already spoken sufficiently in the _age of the despots_, chap. 5, and of the _vita nuova_ in this chapter (above, pp. 67-70). [124] _vita nuova_, cap. 2. [125] _filocopo_, _op. volg._ vii. 4. [126] _fioretti di s. francesco_ (venezia, 1853), p. 104. [127] see below, the chapter on the purists. [128] see capponi's _storia della repubblica di firenze_, lib. iii. cap. 9, for a very energetic statement of this view. [129] see _rime di m. cino da pistoja e d'altri del secolo xiv._ (firenze, barbèra, 1862), p. 528. it begins: ora è mancata ogni poësia e vote son le case di parnaso. it contains the famous lines: come deggio sperar che surga dante che già chi il sappia legger non si trova? e giovanni che è morto ne fe scola. not less interesting is sacchetti's funeral ode for petrarch (_ibid._ p. 517). both show a keen sense of the situation with respect to the decline of literature. chapter iii. the transition. the church, chivalry, the nation--the national element in italian literature--florence--italy between 1373 and 1490--renascent nationality--absorption in scholarship--vernacular literature follows an obscure course--final junction of the humanistic and popular currents--renascence of italian--the italian temperament--importance of the quattrocento--sacchetti's novels--ser giovanni's _pecorone_--sacchetti's and ser giovanni's poetry--lyrics of the villa and the piazza--nicolò soldanieri--alesso donati--his realistic poems--followers of dante and petrarch--political poetry of the guelfs and ghibellines--fazio degli uberti--saviozzo da siena--elegies on dante--sacchetti's guelf poems--advent of the _bourgeoisie_--discouragement of the age--fazio's _dittamondo_--rome and alvernia--frezzi's _quadriregio_--dantesque imitation--blending of classical and medieval motives--matteo palmieri's _città di vita_--the fate of _terza rima_--catherine of siena--her letters--s. bernardino's sermons--salutati's letters--alessandra degli strozzi--florentine annalists--giov. cavalcanti--corio's _history of milan_--matarazzo's _chronicle of perugia_--masuccio and his _novellino_--his style and genius--alberti--born in exile--his feeling for italian--enthusiasm for the roman past--the treatise on the family--its plan--digression on the problem of its authorship--pandolfini or alberti--the _deiciarchia_--_tranquillità dell'animo_--_teogenio_--alberti's religion--dedication of the treatise on painting--minor works in prose on love--_ecatomfila_, _amiria_, _deifiria_, etc.--misogynism--novel of _ippolito and leonora_--alberti's poetry--review of alberti's character and his relation to the age--francesco colonna--the _hypnerotomachia poliphili_--its style--its importance as a work of the transition--a romance of art, love, humanism--the allegory--polia--antiquity--relation of this book to boccaccio and valla--it foreshadows the renaissance. the two preceding chapters will have made it clear that the church, chivalry, and the nation contributed their several quotas to the growth of italian literature.[130] the ecclesiastical or religious element, so triumphantly expressed in the divine comedy, was not peculiar to the italians. they held it in common with the whole of christendom; and though the fabric of the roman church took form in italy, though the race gave s. francis, s. thomas, and s. bonaventura to the militia of the medieval faith, still the italians as a nation were not specifically religious. piety, which is quite a different thing from ecclesiastical organization, was never the truest and sincerest accent of their genius. had it been so, the history of latin christianity would have followed another course, and the schism of the sixteenth century might have been avoided. the chivalrous element they shared, at a considerable disadvantage, with the rest of feudal europe. chivalry was not indigenous to italian soil, nor did it ever flourish there. the literature which it produced in france, became italian only when the guidi and dante gave it philosophical significance. petrarch, who represents this motive, as dante represents the ecclesiastical, generalized provençal poetry. his _canzoniere_ cannot be styled a masterpiece of chivalrous art. its spirit is modern and human in a wider and more comprehensive sense. to characterize the national strain in this complex pedigree of culture is no easy task--chiefly because it manifested itself under two apparently antagonistic forms; first in the recovery of the classics by the scholars of the fifteenth century; secondly in the portraiture of italian character and temperament by writers of romance and fiction. the divergence of these two main currents of literary energy upon the close of the middle ages, and their junction in the prime of the renaissance, are the topics of my present volume. we have seen how tenaciously the italians clung to memories of ancient rome, and how their history deprived them of that epical material which started modern literature among the northern races. while the vulgar language was being formed from the dialects into which rustic latin had divided, a new nationality grew into shape by an analogous process out of the remnants of the old italic population, fused with recent immigrants. absorbing greek blood in the south and teutonic in the north, this composite race maintained the ascendancy of the romanized people, in obedience to laws whereby the prevalent and indigenous strain outlives and assimilates ingredients from without. owing to a variety of causes, among which must be reckoned geographical isolation and imperfect lombard occupation, the purest italic stock survived upon the tuscan plains and highlands, between the tyrrhene sea and the apennines, and where the arno and the tiber start together from the mountains of arezzo. this region was the cradle of the new italian language, the stronghold of the new italian nation. its center, political, commercial and intellectual, was florence, which gave birth to the three great poets of the fourteenth century. though florence developed her institutions later than the lombard communes, she maintained a civic independence longer than any state but venice; and her _popolo_ may be regarded as the type of the popular italian element. here the genius of italy became conscious of itself, and here the people found a spokesman in boccaccio. abandoning ecclesiastical and feudal traditions, boccaccio concentrated his force upon the delineation of his fellow-countrymen as he had learned to know them. the italians of the new age start into distinctness in his work, with the specific qualities they were destined to maintain and to mature during the next two centuries. thus boccaccio fully represents one factor of what i have called the national element. at the same time, he occupies a hardly less important place in relation to the other or the humanistic factor. like his master petrarch, he pronounced with ardor and decision for that scholarship which restored the link between the present and the past of the italian race. independently of their achievements in modern literature, we have to regard the humanistic efforts of these two great writers as a sign that the national element had asserted itself in antagonism to the church and chivalry. the recovery of the classics was, in truth, the decisive fact in italian evolution. having attained full consciousness in the florence of dante's age, the people set forth in search of their spiritual patrimony. they found it in the libraries. they became possessed of it through the labors of the scholars. italian literature during the first three quarters of the fifteenth century merged, so far as polite society was concerned, in humanism, the history of which has already been presented to the reader in the second volume of this work.[131] for a hundred years, from the publication of the decameron in 1373 to the publication of poliziano's _stanze_, the genius of italy was engaged in an exploratory pilgrimage, the ultimate end of which was the restoration of the national inheritance in ancient rome. this process of renascent classicism, which was tantamount to ranascent nationality, retarded the growth of the vulgar literature. yet it was imperatively demanded not only by the needs of europe at large, but more particularly and urgently by the italians themselves, who, unlike the other modern races, had no starting-point but ancient rome. the immediate result of the humanistic movement was the separation of the national element into two sections, learned and popular, latin and italian. the common people, who had repeated dante's _canzoni_, and whose life boccaccio had portrayed in the decameron, were now divided from the rising class of scholars and professors. cultivated persons of all ranks despised italian, and spent their time in studies beyond the reach of the laity. like some mountain rivers after emerging from the highlands of their origin, the vernacular literature passed as it were for a season underground, and lost itself in unexplored ravines. absorbed into the masses of the people, it continued an obscure but by no means insignificant course, whence it was destined to reappear at the right moment, when the several constituents of the nation had attained the sense of intellectual unity. this sense of unity was the product of the classical revival; for the activity of the wandering professors and the fanatical enthusiasm for the ancients were needed to create a common consciousness, a common standard of taste and intelligence in the peninsula. it must in this connection be remembered that the vernacular literature of the fourteenth century, though it afterwards became the glory of italy as a whole, was originally florentine. the medium prepared by the scholars was demanded in order that the tuscan classics should be accepted by the nation as their own. toward the close of the fifteenth century, a fusion between the humanistic and the vulgar literatures was made; and this is the renascence of italian--no longer tuscan, but participated by the race at large. the poetry of the people then received a form refined by classic learning; and the two sections of what i have called the national element, joined to produce the genuine italian culture of the golden age. it is necessary, for the sake of clearness, to insist upon this point, which forms the main motive of my present theme. after the death of boccaccio the history of italian literature is the history of that national element which distinguished itself from the ecclesiastical and the chivalrous, and at last in the decameron asserted its superiority over both. but the stream of intellectual energy bifurcates. during the fifteenth century, the latin instincts of the new italic people found vigorous expansion in the humanistic movement, while the vernacular literature carried on a fitful and obscure, but potent, growth among the proletariate. at the end of that century, both currents, the learned and the popular, the classical and the modern, reunited on a broader plane. the nation, educated by scholarship and brought to a sense of its identity, resumed the vulgar tongue; and what had hitherto been tuscan, now became italian. in this renascence neither the religious nor the feudal principle regained firm hold upon the race. their influence is still discernible, however, in the lyrics of the petrarchisti and the epics of orlando; for nothing which has once been absorbed into a people's thought is wholly lost. how they were transmuted by the action of the genuine italic genius, triumphant now upon all quarters of the field, will appear in the sequel of these volumes; while it remains for another work to show in what way, under the influences of the counter-reformation, both the ecclesiastical and the chivalrous elements reasserted themselves for a brief moment in tasso. still even in tasso we recognize the italian courtier rather than the knight or the ascetic. for the rest, it is clear that the spirit of boccaccio--that is, the spirit of the florentine people--refined by humanistic discipline and glorified by the reawakening of italy to a sense of intellectual unity, determined the character of literature during its most brilliant period.[132] many peculiarities of the renaissance in italy, and of the renaissance in general, as communicated through italians to europe, can be explained by this emergence of the national italic temperament. political and positive; keenly sensitive to natural beauty, and gifted with a quick artistic faculty; neither persistently religious nor profoundly speculative; inclined to skepticism, but accepting the existing order with sarcastic acquiescence; ironical and humorous rather than satirical; sensuous in feeling, realistic in art, rhetorical in literature; abhorring mysticism and ill-fashioned for romantic exaltation; worldly, with a broad and genial toleration; refined in taste and social conduct, but violent in the indulgence of personal proclivities; born old in contrast with the youth of the teutonic races; educated by long experience to expect a morrow differing in no essentials from to-day or yesterday; demanding, therefore, from the moment all that it can yield of satisfaction to the passions--the italians, thus constituted, in their vigorous reaction against the middle ages, secularized the papacy, absorbed the paganism of the classics, substituted an æsthetic for an ethical ideal, democratized society, and opened new horizons for pioneering energy in all the fields of knowledge. the growth of their intelligence was precocious and fore-doomed to a sudden check; nor was it to be expected that their solutions of the deepest problems should satisfy races of a different fiber and a posterity educated on the scientific methods of investigation. unexpected factors were added to the general calculation by the german reformation and the political struggles which preceded the french revolution. yet the influence of this italian temperament, in forming and preparing the necessary intellectual medium in modern europe, can hardly be exaggerated. when the italian genius manifested itself in art, in letters and in scholarship, national unity was already an impossibility.[133] the race had been broken up into republics and tyrannies. their political forces were centrifugal rather than centripetal. the first half of the fifteenth century was the period when their division into five great powers, held together by the frail bond of diplomacy, had been accomplished, and when italy was further distracted by the ambition of unprincipled _condottieri_. under these conditions of dismemberment, the renaissance came to perfection, and the ideal unity of the italians was achieved. the space of forty years' tranquillity and equilibrium, which preceded charles viii.'s invasion, marked an epoch of recombination and consolidation, when the two currents of national energy, learned and popular, met to form the culture of the golden age. after being tuscan and neo-latin, the literature which expressed the nation now became italian. such is the importance of the _quattrocento_ in italian history--long denied, late recognized, but now at length acknowledged as necessary and decisive for both italy and europe. in the present chapter i propose to follow the transition from the middle ages effected by writers who, though they used the mother tongue, take rank among cultivated authors. the two succeeding chapters will be devoted to the more obscure branches of vernacular literature which flourished among the people. franco sacchetti, who uttered the funeral dirge of the fourteenth century, was also the last considerable writer of that age.[134] born about the year 1335, of one of the old noble families of florence, he lived until the end of the century, employed in various public duties and assiduous in his pursuit of letters.[135] he was a friend of boccaccio, and felt the highest admiration not only for his novels but also for his learning, though he tells us in the preface to his own three hundred tales that he was himself a man of slender erudition--_uomo discolo e grosso_.[136] from this preface we also learn that enthusiasm for the decameron prompted him to write a set of novels on his own account.[137] though sacchetti loved and worshiped boccaccio, he did not imitate his style. the _novelle_ are composed in the purest vernacular, without literary artifice or rhetorical ornament. they boast no framework of fiction, like that which lends the setting of romance to the decameron; nor do they pretend to be more than short anecdotes with here and there a word of moralizing from the author. yet the student of italian, eager to know what speech was current in the streets of florence during the last half of that century, will value sacchetti's idiomatic language even more highly than boccaccio's artful periods. he tells us what the people thought and felt, in phrases borrowed from their common talk. the majority of the novels treat of florentine life, while some of them bring illustrious florentines--dante and giotto and guido cavalcanti--on the scene. sacchetti's preface vouches for the truth of his stories; but, whether they be strictly accurate or not, we need not doubt their fidelity to contemporary customs, domestic manners, and daily conversation. sacchetti inspires a certain confidence, a certain feeling of friendliness. and yet what a world is revealed in his _novelle_--a world without tenderness, pathos, high principle, passion, or enthusiasm--men and women delighting in coarse humor, in practical jokes of inconceivable vulgarity, in language of undisguised grossness, in cruelty, fraud, violence, incontinence! the point is almost always some clever trick, a _burla_ or a _beffa_, or a piece of subtly-planned retaliation. knaves and fools are the chief actors in this comic theater; and among the former we find many friars, among the latter many husbands. to accept the _novelle_ as adequate in every detail to the facts of florentine society, would be uncritical. they must chiefly be used for showing what passed for fun among the burghers, and what seemed fit and decent topics for discussion. studied from that point of view, and also for the abundant light they throw on customs and fashions, sacchetti's tales are highly valuable. the _bourgeoisie_ of florence lives again in their animated pages. we have in them a literature written to amuse, if not precisely to represent, a civic society closely packed within a narrow area, witty and pleasure-loving, acutely sensitive to the ridiculous, with strongly-denned tastes and a decided preference for pungent flavors. one distinctive florentine quality emerges with great clearness. that is a malicious and jibing humor--the malice dante took with him to the _inferno_; the malice expressed by il lasca and firenzuola, epitomized in florentine nicknames, and condensed in rabelaisian anecdotes which have become classical. it reaches its climax in the cruel but laughter-moving jest played by brunelleschi on the unfortunate cabinet-maker, which has been transmitted to us in the novel of _il grasso, legnaiuolo_. somewhat later than sacchetti's _novelle_, appeared another collection of more or less veracious anecdotes, compiled by a certain ser giovanni.[138] he called it _il pecorone_, which may be interpreted "the simpleton:" ed è per nome il pecoron chiamato, perchè ci ha dentro novi barbagianni; ed io son capo di cotal brigata, e vo belando come pecorone, facendo libri, e non ne so boccata. nothing is known about ser giovanni, except what he tells us in the sonnet just quoted. from it we learn that he began his _novelle_ in the year 1378--the year of the ciompi revolution at florence. as a framework for his stories, he devised a frigid romance which may be briefly told. sister saturnina, the prioress of a convent at forlì, was so wise and beautiful that her fame reached florence, where a handsome and learned youth, named auretto, fell in love with her by hearsay. he took orders, journeyed across the apennines, and contrived to be appointed chaplain to saturnina's nuns. in due course of time she discreetly returned his affection, and, managing their affairs with prudence and decorum, they met for private converse and mutual solace in a parlor of the convent. here they whiled away the hours by telling stories--entertaining, instructive, or romantic. the collection is divided into twenty-five days; and since each lover tells a tale, there are fifty _novelle_, interspersed with songs after the fashion of boccaccio. in the style, no less than in the method of the book, ser giovanni shows himself a closer follower of the decameron than sacchetti. his novels have a wide range of incidents, embracing tragic and pathetic motives no less than what is humorous. they are treated rhetorically, and, instead of being simple anecdotes, aim at the varied movement of a drama. the language, too, is literary, and less idiomatic than sacchetti's. antiquarians will find in some of these discourses an interest separate from what is common to works of fiction. they represent how history was communicated to the people of that day. saturnina, for example, relates the myth of troy and the foundation of fiesole, which, as dante tells us, the tuscan mothers of cacciaguida's age sang to their children. the lives of the countess matilda and frederick barbarossa, the antiquity and wealth of the tuscan cities, the tragedy of corso donati, giano della bella's exile, the angevine conquest of sicily, the origin of guelfs and ghibellines in italy, attila's apocryphal siege of florence, supply materials for narratives in which the true type of the _novella_ disappears. yet ser giovanni mingles more amusing stories with these lectures;[139] and the historical dissertations are managed with such grace, with so golden a simplicity of style, that they are readable. of a truth it is comic to think of the enamored monk and nun meeting in the solitude of their parlor to exchange opinions upon italian history. though he had the good qualities of a _trecentisto_ prosaist, ser giovanni was in this respect but a poor artist. both sacchetti and ser giovanni were poets of no mean ability. as in his prose, so also in his _canzoni a ballo_, the author of the _pecorone_ followed boccaccio, without, however, attaining to that glow and sensuous abandonment which renders the lyrics no less enchanting than the narratives of the decameron. his style is smooth and fluent, suggesting literary culture rather than spontaneous inspiration.[140] yet it is always lucid. through the transparent language we see straight into the hearts of lovers as the novelist of florence understood them. written for the most part in the seven-lined stanza with recurring couplet, which guido cavalcanti first made fashionable, these _ballate_ give lyrical expression to a great variety of tender situations. the emotion of first love, the pains and pleasures of a growing passion, the anguish of betrayal, regrets, quarrels, reconciliations, are successively treated. in short, ser giovanni versified and set to music all the principal motives upon which the _novella_ of feeling turned, and formed an _ars amandi_ adapted to the use of the people. in this sense his poems seem to have been accepted, for we find mss. of the _ballate_ detached from the prose of _il pecorone_.[141] among the most striking may be mentioned the canzonet _tradita sono_, which retrospectively describes the joy of a girl in her first love; another on the fashions of florentine ladies, _quante leggiadre_; and the lamentation of a woman whose lover has abandoned her, and who sees no prospect but the cloister--_oi me lassa_.[142] ser giovanni's lyrics are echoes of the city, where maidens danced their rounds upon the piazza in may evenings, and young men courted the beauty of the hour with songs and visits to her chamber: con quanti dolci suon e con che canti io era visitata tutto 'l giorno! e nella zambra venivan gli amanti, facendo festa e standomi intorno: ed io guardava nel bel viso adorno, che d'allegrezza mi cresceva il core. franco sacchetti carries us to somewhat different scenes. the best of his madrigals and canzonets describe the pleasures of country life. they are not genuinely rustic; nor do they, in theocritean fashion, attempt to render the beauty of the country from the peasant's point of view. on the contrary, they owe their fascination to the contrast between the simplicity of the villa and the unrest of the town, where: mai vi si dice e di ben far vi è caro. they are written for and by the _bourgeois_ who has escaped from shops and squares and gossiping street-corners. the keynote of this poetry, which has always something of the french _école buissonnière_ in its fresh unalloyed enjoyment, is struck in a song describing the return of spring[143]: benedetta sia la state che ci fa sì solazzare! maladetto sia lo verno che a città ci fa tornare! the poet summons his company of careless folk, on pleasure bent: no' siam una compagnia, i' dico di cacciapensieri. he takes them forth into the fields among the farms and olive-gardens, bidding them leave prudence and grave thoughts within the lofty walls of florence town: il senno e la contenenza lasciam dentro all'alte mura della città di fiorenza. this note of gayety and pure enjoyment is sustained throughout his lyrics. in one _ballata_ he describes a country girl, caught by thorns, and unable to avoid her admirer's glance.[144] another gives a pretty picture of a maiden with a wreath of olive-leaves and silver.[145] a third is a little idyll of two girls talking to their lambs, and followed by an envious old woman.[146] a fourth is a biting satire on old women--_di diavol vecchia femmina ha natura_.[147] a fifth is that incomparably graceful canzonet, _o vaghe montanine pasturelle_, the popularity of which is proved by the fact that it was orally transmitted for many generations, and attributed in after days to both lorenzo de' medici and angelo poliziano.[148] indeed, it may be said in passing that poliziano owed much to sacchetti. this can be seen by comparing sacchetti's _ballata_ on the gentle heart, and his pastoral of the thorn-tree with the later poet's lyrics.[149] the unexpressed contrast between the cautious town-life of the burgher poet and his license in the villa, to which i have already called attention, determines the character of many minor lyrics by sachetti.[150] we comprehend the spirit of these curious poems, at once popular and fashionable, when we compare them with medieval french _pastourelles_, or with similar compositions by wandering latin students. in the _carmina burana_ may be found several little poems, describing the fugitive loves of truant scholars with rustic girls, which prove that, long before sacchetti's age, the town had sought spring-solace in the country.[151] men are too apt to fancy that what they consider the refinements of passion and fashion (the finer edge, for example, put upon desire by altering its object from the known and trivial to the untried and exceptional, from venal beauties in the city to shepherd maidens on the village-green) are inventions of their own times. yet it was precisely a refinement of this sort which gave peculiar flavor to sacchetti's songs in the fourteenth century, and which made them sought after. they had great vogue in italy, enjoying the privilege of popularity among the working classes, and helping to diffuse that sort of pastoral part-song which we still know as madrigal.[152] sacchetti was himself a good musician; many of his songs were set to music by himself, and others by his friends. this gives a pleasant old-world homeliness to the latin titles inscribed beneath the rubrics--_franciscus de organis sonum dedit_; _intonatum per francum sacchetti_; _francus sonum dedit_; and so forth. the ballads and madrigals of niccolò soldanieri should be mentioned in connection with sacchetti; though they do not detach themselves in any marked way from the style of love poetry practiced at the close of the fourteenth century.[153] the case is different with alesso donati's lyrics. in them we are struck by a new gust of coarse and powerful realism, which has no parallel among the elder poets except in the savage sonnets of cecco angiolieri. vividly natural situations are here detached from daily life and delineated with intensity of passion, vehement sincerity. sacchetti's gentleness and genial humor have disappeared. in their place we find a dramatic energy and a truth of language that are almost terrible. each of the little scenes, which i propose to quote in illustration of these remarks, might be compared to etchings bitten with aquafortis into copper. here, for example, is a nun, who has resolved to throw aside her veil and follow her lover in a page's dress[154]: la dura corda e 'l vel bruno e la tonica gittar voglio e lo scapolo che mi tien qui rinchiusa e fammi monica; poi teco a guisa d'assetato giovane, non già che si sobarcoli, venir me 'n voglio ove fortuna piovane: e son contenta star per serva e cuoca, chè men mi cocerò ch'ora mi cuoca. here is a dialogue at dawn between a woman and her paramour. the presence of the husband sleeping in the chamber is suggested with a brutal vigor[155]: dè vattene oggimai, ma pianamente, amor; per dio, sì piano che non ti senta il mal vecchio villano. ch'egli sta sentecchioso, e, se pur sente ch'i' die nel letto volta, temendo abbraccia me no gli sie tolta. che tristo faccia iddio chi gli m'à data e chi spera 'n villan buona derrata. scarcely less forcible is the girl's vow against her mother, who keeps her shut at home[156]: in pena vivo qui sola soletta giovin rinchiusa dalla madre mia, la qual mi guarda con gran gelosia. ma io le giuro alla croce di dio che s'ella mi terrà qui più serrata, ch'i' diro--fa' con dio, vecchia arrabiata; e gitterò la rocca, il fuso e l'ago, amor, fuggendo a te di cui m'appago. to translate these madrigals would be both difficult and undesirable. it is enough to have printed the original texts. they prove that aristocratic versifiers at this period were adopting the style of the people, and adding the pungency of brief poetic treatment to episodes suggested by _novelle_.[157] while dealing with the novelle and the semi-popular literature of this transition period, i have hitherto neglected those numerous minor poets who continued the traditions of the earlier _trecento_.[158] there are two main reasons for this preference. in the first place, the _novelle_ was destined to play a most important part in the history of the renaissance, imposing its own laws of composition upon species so remote as the religious drama and romantic epic. in the second place, the dance-songs, canzonets and madrigals of sacchetti's epoch lived upon the lips of the common folk, who during the fifteenth century carried italian literature onward through a subterranean channel.[159] when vernacular poetry reappeared into the light of erudition and the courts, the influences of that popular style, which drew its origin from boccaccio and sacchetti rather than from dante or the trovatori, determined the manner of lorenzo de' medici and poliziano. meanwhile the learned poems of the latest _trecentisti_ were forgotten with the lumber of the middle ages. for the special purpose, therefore, of this volume, which only regards the earlier stages of italian literature in so far as they preceded and conditioned the renaissance, it was necessary to give the post of honor to boccaccio's followers. some mention should, however, here be made of those contemporaries and imitators of petrarch, in whom the traditions of the fourteenth century expired. it is not needful to pass in review the many versifiers who treated the old themes of chivalrous love with meritorious conventional facility. the true life of the italians was not here; and the phase of literature which the sicilian school inaugurated, survived already as an anachronism. the case is different with such poetry as dealt immediately with contemporary politics. in the declamatory compositions of this age, we hear the echoes of the guelf and ghibelline wars. the force of that great struggle was already spent; but the partisans of either faction, passion enough survived to furnish genuine inspiration. fazio degli uberti's _sermintese_ on the cities of italy, for example, was written in the bitter spirit of an exiled ghibelline.[160] his ode to charles iv. is a torrent of vehement medieval abuse, poured forth against an emperor who had shown himself unworthy of his place in italy[161]: sappi ch'i' son italia che ti parlo, di lusimburgo ignominioso carlo! after detailing the woes which have befallen her in consequence of her abandonment by the imperial master, italy addresses herself to god: tu dunque, giove, perchè 'l santo uccello ... da questo carlo quarto imperador non togli e dalle mani degli altri lurchi moderni germani, che d'aquila un allocco n'hanno fatto? the italian ghibellines had, indeed, good reason to complain that german gluttons, cæsars in naught but name, who only thought of making money by their sale of fiefs and honors, had changed the eagle of the empire into an obscene night-flying bird of prey. the same spirit is breathed in fazio's ode on rome.[162] he portrays the former mistress of the world as a lady clad in weeds of mourning, "ancient, august and honorable, but poor and needy as her habit showed, prudent in speech and of great puissance." she bids the poet rouse his fellow-countrymen from their sleep of sloth and drunkenness, to reassert the majesty of the empire owed to italy and rome: o figliuol mio, da quanta crudel guerra tutti insieme verremo a dolce pace, se italia soggiace a un solo re che al mio voler consente! this is the last echo of the _de monarchiâ_. the great imperial idea, so destructive to italian confederation, so dazzling to patriots of dante's fiber, expires amid the wailings of minstrels who cry for the impossible, and haunt the courts of petty lombard princes. in another set of _canzoni_ we listen to guelf and ghibelline recriminations, rising from the burghs of tuscany. the hero of these poems is gian galeazzo visconti, rightly recognized by the guelfs of florence as a venomous and selfish tyrant, foolishly belauded by the ghibellines of siena as the vindicator of imperial principles. the emperors have abandoned italy; the popes are at avignon. the factions which their quarrels generated, agitate their people still, but on a narrower basis. sacchetti slings invectives against the _maladetta serpe, aspro tiranno con amaro fele_, who shall be throttled by the church and florence, leagued to crush the lombard despots.[163] saviozzo da siena addresses the same visconti as _novella monarchia, giusto signore, clemente padre, insigne, virtuoso_. by his means the _dolce vedovella_, rome or italy, shall at last find peace.[164] this duke of milan, it will be remembered, had already ordered the crown of italy from his court-jeweler, and was advancing on his road of conquest, barred only by florence, when the plague cut short his career in 1402. the poet of siena exhorts him to take courage for his task, in lines that are not deficient in a certain fire of inspiration: tu vedi in ciel la fiammeggiante aurora, le stelle tue propizie e rutilanti, e' segni tutti quanti ora disposti alla tua degna spada. in another strophe he refers to the italian crown: ecco qui italia che ti chiama padre, che per te spera omai di trionfare, e di sè incoronare le tue benigne e preziose chiome. an anonymous sonnetteer of the same period uses similar language[165]; roma vi chiama--cesar mio novello, i' son ignuda, e l'anima pur vive; or mi coprite col vostro mantello. the ghibelline poets, whether they dreamed like fazio of roman empire, or flattered the visconti with a crown to be won by triumph over the detested guelfs, made play with dante's memory. some of the most interesting lyrics of the school are elegies upon his death. to this class belong two sonnets by pieraccio tedaldi and mucchio da lucca.[166] nor must boccaccio's noble pair of sonnets, although he was not a political poet, be here forgotten.[167] that dante was diligently studied can be seen, not only in the diction of this epoch, but also in numerous versified commentaries upon the divine comedy--in the _terza rima_ abstracts of boson da gubbio, jacopo alighieri, saviozzo da siena, and boccaccio.[168] tuscan politics are treated from the guelf point of view in sacchetti's odes upon the war with pisa, upon the government of florence after 1378, and against the cowardice of the italians.[169] his conception of a burgher's duties, the ideal of guelf _bourgeoisie_ before florence had become accustomed to tyrants, finds expression in a sonnet--_amar la patria_.[170] we frequently meet with the word _comune_ on his lips: o vuol rè o signore o vuol comune, chè per comune dico ciò ch'io parlo. a like note of municipal independence is sounded in the poems of antonio pucci, and in the admonitory stanzas of matteo frescobaldi.[171] considerable interest attaches to these political compositions for the light they throw on party feeling at the close of the heroic age of italian history. the fury with which those factions raged, prompts the bards of either camp to curses. i may refer to this passage from folgore da san gemignano, when he sees the ghibelline uguccione triumphant over tuscany:[172] eo non ti lodo dio e non ti adoro, e non ti prego e non ti ringrazio, e non ti servo ch'io ne son più sazio che l'aneme de star en purgatoro; perchè tu ai messi i guelfi a tal martoro ch'i ghibellini ne fan beffe e strazio, e se uguccion ti comandasse il dazio, tu 'l pagaresti senza peremptoro! yet neither in the confused idealism of the ghibellines nor in the honest independence of the guelfs lay the true principle of national progress. sinking gradually and inevitably beneath the sway of despots, the italians in the fifteenth century were destined to become a nation of scholars, artists, _litterati_. the age of dante, the uncompromising aristocrat, was over. the age of boccaccio, the easy-going _bourgeois_, had begun. the future glories of italy were to be won in the field of culture; and all the hortatory lyrics i have mentioned, exerted but little influence over the development of a spirit which was growing quietly within the precincts of the people. the italian people at this epoch cared far less for the worn-out factions of the guelfs and ghibellines than for home-comforts and tranquillity in burgher occupations. the keener intellects of the fifteenth century were already so absorbingly occupied with art and classical studies that there was no room left in them for politics of the old revolutionary type. meanwhile the new intrigues of cabinets and courts were left to a class of humanistic diplomatists, created by the conditions of despotic government. scarcely less ineffectual were the moral verses of bambagiuoli and cavalca, or the petrarchistic imitations of marchionne torrigiani, federigo d'arezzo, coluccio salutati, roberto di battifolle, and bonaccorso da montemagno.[173] the former belonged to a phase of medieval culture which was waning. the elegant but lifeless petrarchistic school dragged through the fifteenth century, culminating in the _canzoniere_ of giusto de' conti, a roman, which was called _la bella mano_. the revival of their mannerism, with a fixed artistic motive, by bembo and the purists of the sixteenth century, will form part of my later history of renaissance literature. one note is unmistakable in all the poetry of these last _trecentisti_. it is a note of profound discouragement, mistrust, and disappointment. we have already heard it sounded by sacchetti in his lament for boccaccio. boccaccio had raised it himself in two noble sonnets--_apizio legge_ and _fuggit'è ogni virtù_.[174] it takes the shrillness of a threnody in tedaldi's _il mondo vile_ and in manfredi di boccaccio's _amico il mondo_.[175] the poets of that age were dimly conscious that a new era had opened for their country--an era of money-getting, despotism, and domestic ease. they saw the people used to servitude and sunk in common pleasures--dead to the high aims and imaginative aspirations of the past. the turbulence of the heroic age was gone. the men of the present were all _vigliacci_. and as yet both art and learning were but in their cradle. it was impossible upon the opening of the fifteenth century, in that crepuscular interval between two periods of splendor, to know what glories for italy and for the world at large would be produced by giotto's mighty lineage and petrarch's progeny of scholars. we who possess in history the vision of that future can be content to wait through a transition century. the men of the moment not unnaturally expressed the querulousness of italy, distracted by her struggles of the past and sinking into somnolence. cosimo de' medici, the molder of renaissance florence, was already born in 1389; and men of cosimo's stamp were no heroes for poets who had felt the passions that moved dante. the divine comedy found fewer imitators than the _canzoniere_; for who could bend the bow of ulysses? yet some poets of the transition were hardy enough to attempt the dantesque meter, and to pretend in a prosaic age that they had shared the vision of the prophets. among these should be mentioned fazio degli uberti, a scion of farinata's noble house, who lived and traveled much in exile.[176] taking solinus, the antique geographer, for his guide, fazio produced a topographical poem called the _dicta mundi_ or _dittamondo_.[177] from the prosaic matter of this poem, which resembles a very primitive mappamondo, illustrated with interludes of history and excursions into mythological zoölogy, based upon the text of pliny, and not unworthy of mandeville, two episodes emerge and arrest attention. one is the description of rome--a somber lady in torn raiment, who tells the history of her eventful past, describes her triumphs and her empire, and points to the ruins on her seven crowned hills to show how beautiful she was in youth[178]: ivi una dama scorsi; vecchia era in vista, e trista per costume. gli occhi da lei, andando, mai ton torsi; ma poichè presso le fui giunto tanto ch'io l'avvisava senza nessun forsi, vidi il suo volto, ch'era pien di pianto, vidi la vesta sua rotta e disfatta, e roso e guasto il suo vedovo manto. e con tutto che fosse così fatta, pur nell'abito suo onesto e degno mostrava uscita di gentile schiatta. tanto era grande, e di nobil contegno, ch'io diceva fra me: ben fu costei, e pare ancor da posseder bel regno. fazio addresses the mighty shadow with respectful sympathy. rome answers in language which is noble through its simple dignity: non ti maravigliare s'io ho doglia, non ti maravigliar se trista piango, nè se me vedi in sì misera spoglia; ma fatti maraviglia, ch'io rimango, e non divento qual divenne ecuba quando gittava altrui le pietre e il fango. the second passage of importance, more noticeable for a sense of space and largeness than for its poetical expression, is a description of the prospect seen from alvernia, that high station of the "topless apennines," where s. francis took the stigmata, and where dante sought a home in the destruction of his earthly hopes[179]: noi fummo sopra il sasso dell alverna al faggio ove francesco fue fedito dal serafin quel dì ch'ei più s'interna. molto è quel monte devoto e romito, ed è sì alto che il più di toscana mi disegnò un frate col suo dito. guarda, mi disse, al mare, e vedi piana con altri colli la maremma tutta dilettevole molto e poco sana. ivi è massa, grosseto e la distrutta cività vecchia, ed ivi populonia ch'appena pare, tanto è mal condutta. the whole of tuscany and umbria, their cities, plains, rivers and mountain summits, are unrolled; and the friar concludes with a sentence which well embodies the feeling we have in gazing over an illimitable landscape: io so bene che quanto t'ho mostrato, la vista nol discerna apertamente, per lo spazio ch'è lungo dov'io guato: ma quando l'uom che bene ascolta e sente, ode parlar di cosa che non vede, immagina con l'occhio della mente. such value as the _dittamondo_ may still retain for students, it owes partly to the author's enthusiasm for ancient rome, and partly to the sympathy with nature he had acquired during his wandering as an exile over the sacred soil of italy. another poem of dantesque derivation was the _quadriregio_ of federigo frezzi, bishop of foligno.[180] it is an allegorical account of human life; and the four regions, which give their name to the book, are the realms of love, satan, vice and virtue.[181] to cast the moralizations of the middle ages in a form imitated from dante, after dante had already condensed the ethics and politics, the theology and science of his century in the divine comedy, was little less than a hopeless task. nor need a word be spent upon the _quadriregio_, except by way of illustrating the peculiar conditions of the poetic art, here upon the border-land between the middle age and the renaissance. federigo frezzi was intent on depicting the victories of virtue over vice, and on explaining the advantage offered to the christian by grace. yet he chose a mythological framework for his doctrine. cupid, venus and minerva are confused with satan, enoch and elijah. instead of eden there is the golden age. nymphs of diana, juno, and the like, are used as emblems. pallas discourses about christ, and expounds the christian system of redemption. the earthly paradise contains helicon, with all the antique poets. jupiter is contrasted with satan. it is the same blending of antique with christian motives which we note in the divine comedy; but the tact of the great artist is absent, and the fusion becomes grotesque. after reading through the poem we lay it down with the same feeling as that produced in us by studying some pulpit of the pisan school, where a gothic devil, all horns and hoofs and grinning jaws, squats cheek by jowl with a madonna copied from a roman tomb. the following description of cupid recalls the manner of the sienese _frescanti_[182]: appena questo priego havea io decto quando egli apparve ad me fresco et giocondo, in un giardino ove io stava solecto. di mirto coronato il capo biondo in forma pueril con si bel viso che mai piu bel fu visto in questo mondo. creso haverai che su del paradiso fusse el suo aspecto, tanto era sovrano, se non che quando a lui mirai fiso vidi che haveva uno archo orato in mano col quale achille et hercole percosse. here is the picture of the golden age, transcribed from latin poetry, much as it was destined to control the future of italian fancy[183]: vergine saggia e bella el ciel adorna di cui virgilio poetando scripse, nuova progenie al mondo dal ciel torna, rexe già el mondo et si la gente visse socto lei in pace che la età dell oro et seculo giusto et beato si disse. la terra allora senza alcun lavoro dava li fructi, et non faceva spine, ne ancho al giogo si domava el thoro; non erano divisi per confine anchora i campi, et nesun per guadagno cercava le contrade pelegrine; ognuno era fratello, ognun compagno, et era tanto amor, tanta pietade, che ad un fonte bevea el lupo et l'agno; non eran lancia, non erano spade, non era anchor la pecunia peggiore che 'l guerigiante ferro piu si fiade; la invidia allor vedendo tanto amore di questo bene ad se genero pene e desto gaudio ad se diede dolore. a little while beyond this foretaste of the _cinque cento_, we find charon copied, without addition, but with a fatal loss of poetry, from the _inferno_[184]: vidi caron non molto da lontano con una nave in mezo la tempesta, che conducea con un gran remo in mano: et ciaschuno occhio chelli havea in testa, pareva come di nocte una lumiera, o un falo quando si fa per festa. quando egli fu appresso alla riviera un mezo miglio quasi o poco mancho, scacci sua faccia grande vizza e nera. egli havea el capo di canuti biancho, el manto adosso rapezato et uncto, el volto si crudel non vidi un quancho. last upon the list of dantesque imitators stands matteo palmieri, a learned florentine, who composed his _città di vita_ in the middle of the fifteenth century. this poem won for its author from marsilio ficino the title of _poeta theologicus_.[185] its chief interest at the present time is that the theology expressed in it brought suspicion of heresy on palmieri. he held origen's opinion that the souls of men were rebel angels. how a doctrine of this kind could be rendered in painting is not clear. yet giorgio vasari tells us that a picture executed for matteo palmieri by sandro botticelli, which represented the assumption of the virgin into the celestial hierarchy--powers, princedoms, thrones and dominations ranged around her in concentric circles--fell under the charge of heterodoxy. the altar in s. pietro maggiore where it was placed had to be interdicted, and the picture veiled from sight.[186] the story forms a curious link between this last scion of medieval literature and the painting of the renaissance. after palmieri the meter of the divine comedy was chiefly used for satire and burlesque. lorenzo de' medici adapted its grave rhythms to parody in _i beoni_. berni used it for the capitoli of the _pesche_ and the _peste_. at florence it became the recognized meter for obscene and frivolous compositions, which delighted the academicians of the sixteenth century. the people, meanwhile, continued to employ it in _lamenti_, historical compositions, and personal capitoli.[187] thus cellini wrote his poem called _i carceri_ in _terza rima_, and giovanni santi used it for his precious but unpoetical chronicle of italian affairs. both benivieni and michelangelo buonarroti composed elegies in this meter; and numerous didactic eclogues of the pastoral poets might be cited in which it served for analogue to latin elegiacs. in the _sacre rappresentazioni_ it sometimes interrupted _ottava rima_, on the occasion of a set discourse or sermon.[188] both ariosto and alamanni employed it in their satires. from these brief notices it will be seen that _terza rima_ during the renaissance period was reserved for dissertational, didactic and satiric themes, the capitoli of the burlesque poets being parodies of grave scholastic lucubrations. but no one now attempted an heroic poem in this verse.[189] to give a full account of italian prose during this period of transition from the middle age to the renaissance is not easy. at the close of the fourteenth century, s. catherine of siena sustained the purity and "dove-like simplicity" of the earlier _trecento_ style, with more of fervor and personal power than any subsequent writer. her letters, whether addressed to popes and princes on the politics of italy, or dealing with private topics of religious experience, are models of the purest tuscan diction.[190] they have the garrulity and over-unctuous sweetness of the _fioretti_ and _leggende_. but these qualities, peculiar to medieval piety among italians, are balanced by untutored eloquence which borders on sublimity. without deliberate art or literary aim, the spirit of a noble woman speaks from the heart in catherine's letters. the fervor of her feeling suggests poetic imagery. the justice of her perception dictates weighty sentences. the intensity with which she realizes the unseen world of spiritual emotion, gives dramatic movement to her exhortations, expositions and entreaties. these rare excellences of a style, where spontaneity surpasses artifice, are combined in the famous epistle to her confessor, raimondo da capua, describing the execution of niccolò tuldo.[191] he was a young man of perugia, condemned to death for some act of insubordination. catherine visited him in prison, and induced him to take the sacrament with her for the first time. he besought her to be present with him at the place of execution. accordingly she waited for him there, praying to mary and to catherine, the virgin saint of alexandria, laying her own neck upon the block, and entering into harmony so rapt with those celestial presences that the multitude of men who were around her disappeared from view. what followed, must be told in her own words: poi egli giunse, come uno agnello mansueto: e vedendomi, cominciò a ridere; e volse che io gli facesse il segno della croce. e ricevuto il segno, dissi io: "giuso! alle nozze, fratello mio dolce! chè tosto sarai alla vita durabile." posesi quì con grande mansuetudine; e io gli distesi il collo, e chinàmi giù, e rammentalli il sangue dell'agnello. la bocca sua non diceva se non, gesù, e catarina. e, così dicendo, ricevetti il capo nelle mani mie, fermando l'occhio nella divina bontà e dicendo: "io voglio." allora si vedeva dio-e-uomo, come si vedesse la chiarità del sole; e stava aperto, e riceveva il sangue; nel sangue suo uno fuoco di desiderio santo, dato e nascosto nell'anima sua per grazia; riceveva nel fuoco della divina sua carità. poichè ebbe ricevuto il sangue e il desiderio suo, ed egli ricevette l'anima sua, la quale mise nella bottiga aperta del costato suo, pieno di misericordia; manifestando la prima verità che per sola grazia e misericordia egli il riceveva, e non per veruna altra operazione. o quanto era dolce e inestimable a vedere la bontà di dio! the sudden transition from this narrative of fact to the vision of christ--from the simple style of ordinary speech to ecstasy inebriated with the cross--is managed with a power that truth alone could yield. a dramatist might have conceived it; but only a saint who lived habitually in both worlds of loving service and illumination, could thus have made it natural. this is the noblest and the rarest realism. if we trust the testimony of contemporary chroniclers, s. bernardino of siena in the pulpit shared catherine's power of utterance, at once impressive and simple.[192] no doubt the preachers of the _quattrocento_ were influential in maintaining a tradition of prose rhetoric. but it is not in the nature of sermons, even when ably reported, to preserve their fullness and their force. not less important for the formation of a literary style were the letters and dispatches of embassadors. though at this period all ceremonial orations, briefs, state documents and epistles between courts and commonwealths were composed in latin, still the secret correspondence of envoys with their home governments gave occasion for the use of the vernacular; and even humanists expressed their thoughts occasionally in the mother tongue. coluccio salutati, for example, whose latin letters were regarded as models of epistolary style, employed italian in less formal communications with his office. these early documents of studied tuscan writing are now more precious than his formal ciceronian imitations. private letters may also be mentioned among the best sources for studying the growth of italian prose, although we have not much material to judge by.[193] the correspondence of alessandra degli strozzi, recently edited by signor cesare guasti, is not only valuable for the light it casts upon contemporary manners, but also for the illustration of the florentine idiom as written by a woman of noble birth.[194] of poliziano's, pulci's and lorenzo de' medici's letters i shall have occasion to speak in a somewhat different connection later on. the historiographers of the renaissance thought it below their dignity to use any language but latin.[195] at the same time, vernacular annalists abounded in italy, whose labors were of no small value in forming the prose-style of the _quattrocento_. after the villani, florence could boast a whole chain of writers, beginning with marchionne stefani, including gino capponi, the spirited chronicler of the ciompi rebellion, and extending to goro dati in the middle of the fifteenth century. a little later, giovanni cavalcanti, in his florentine histories, proved how the simple diction of the preceding age was being spoiled by false classicism.[196] this work is doubly valuable--both as a record of the great albizzi oligarchy and their final conquest by the medici, and also as a monument of the fusion which was being made between the popular and humanistic styles. the chronicles of other italian cities--ferrara, cremona, rome, pisa, bologna, and even siena--show less purity of language than the florentine.[197] italian is often mixed with vulgar latin, and phrases borrowed from unpolished local dialects abound. it was not until the close of the century that two great writers of history in the vernacular arose outside the walls of florence. these were corio, the historian of milan, and matarazzo, the annalist of perugia.[198] in corio's somewhat stiff and cumbrous periods we trace the effort of a foreigner to gain by study what the tuscans owed to nature. yet he never suffered this stylistic preoccupation to spoil his qualities as an historian. his voluminous narrative is a mine of accurate information, illustrated with vivid pictures of manners and carefully considered portraits of eminent men. reading it, we cannot but regret that poggio and bruno, navagero and bembo, judged it necessary to tell the tales of florence and of venice in a pseudo-livian latin. the "history of milan" is worth twenty of such humanistic exercises in rhetoric. matarazzo displays excellences of a different, but of a rarer order. unlike corio, he was not anxious to show familiarity with rules of tuscan writing, or to build again the periods of boccaccio's ceremonious style. his language bears the stamp of its perugian origin. it is, at the same time, unaffectedly dramatic and penetrated with the charm of a distinguished personality. no one can read the tragedy of the baglioni in this wonderful romance without acknowledging that he is in the hands of a great writer. the limpidity of the _trecento_ has here survived, and, blending with renaissance enthusiasm for physical beauty and antique heroism, has produced a work of art unrivaled in its kind.[199] having advanced so far as to speak in this chapter of corio and matarazzo, i shall take occasion to notice a book which, appearing for the first time in 1476, may fairly be styled the most important work of italian prose-fiction belonging to the fifteenth century. this is the _novellino_ of masuccio guardato, a nobleman of salerno, secretary to the prince roberto sanseverino, and resident throughout his life at the court of naples.[200] the _novellino_ is a collection of stories, fifty in number, arranged in five parts, which treat respectively of hypocrisy and the monastic vices, jealousy, feminine incontinence, the contrasts of pathos and of humor, and the generosity of princes. each _novella_ is dedicated to a noble man or woman of neapolitan society, and is followed by a reflective discourse, in which the author personally addresses his audience. masuccio declares himself the disciple of boccaccio and juvenal.[201] of the roman poet's spirit he has plenty; he gives the rein to rage in language of the most indignant virulence. of boccaccio's idiom and style, though we can trace the student's emulation, he can boast but little. masuccio never reached the latinistic smoothness of his model; and while he wrote italian, his language was far from being tuscan. phrases culled from southern dialects are frequent; and the structure of the period is often ungrammatical. masuccio was not a member of any humanistic clique. he lived among the nobles of a royal court, and knew the common people intimately. this double experience is reflected in his language and his modes of thought. both are unalloyed by pedantry, and precious for the student of contemporary manners. the interest of the _novellino_ is great when we regard it as the third collection of _novelle_, coming after boccaccio's and sacchetti's, and, from the point of view of art, occupying a middle place between them. the tales of the decameron were originally recited at naples; and though boccaccio was a thorough tuscan, he borrowed something from the south which gave width, warmth and largeness to his writing. masuccio is wholly neapolitan in tone; but he seeks such charm of presentation and variety of matter as shall make his book worthy to take rank in general literature. sacchetti has more of a purely local flavor. he is no less florentine than masuccio is neapolitan; and, unlike masuccio, he has taken little pains to adapt his work to other readers than his fellow-citizens. boccaccio embraces all human life, seen in the light of vivid fancy by a _bourgeois_ who was also a great comic romantic poet. sacchetti describes the _borghi_, _contrade_, and _piazze_ of florence; and his speech is seasoned with rare tuscan salt of wit. masuccio's world is that of the free-living southern noble. he is penetrated with aristocratic feeling, treats willingly of arms and jousts and warfare, telling the tales of knights and ladies to a courtly company.[202] at the same time, the figures of the people move with incomparable vivacity across the stage; and his transcripts from life reveal the careless interpenetration of classes to which he was accustomed in calabria.[203] some of his stories are as simply _bourgeois_ as any of sacchetti's.[204] when we compare masuccio with boccaccio we find many points of divergence, due to differences of temperament, social sympathies and local circumstance. boccaccio is witty and malicious; masuccio humorous and poignant. boccaccio laughs indulgently at vices; masuccio scourges them. boccaccio makes a jest of superstition; masuccio thunders against the hypocrites who bring religion into contempt. boccaccio turns the world round for his recreation, submitting its follies to the subtle play of analytical fancy. masuccio is terribly in earnest; whether sympathetic or vituperative, he makes the voice of his heart heard. boccaccio's pictures are toned with a rare perception of harmony and delicate gradation. masuccio brings what strikes his sense before us by a few firm touches. boccaccio shows far finer literary tact. yet there is something in the unpremeditated passion, pathos, humor, grossness, anger and enjoyment of masuccio--a chord of masculine and native strength, a note of vigorous reality--that arrests attention even more imperiously than the prepared effects of the decameron. one point of undoubted excellence can be claimed for masuccio. he was a great tragic artist in the rough, and his comedy displays an uncouth rabelaisian realism. the lights and shadows cast upon his scene are brusque--like the sunlight and the shadow on a southern city; whereas the painting of boccaccio is distinguished by exquisite blendings of color and chiaroscuro in subordination to the chosen key. masuccio displays his real power in his serious _novelle_, when he gives vent to his furious hatred of a godless clergy, or describes some dreadful incident, like the tragedy of the two lovers in the lazar-house.[205] scarcely less dramatic are his tales of comic sensuality.[206] nor has he a less vivid sense of beauty. some of his occasional pictures--the meeting of youths and maidens in the evening light of naples; the lover who changed his jousting-badge because his lady was untrue; the tournament at rimini; the portrait of eugenia disguised as a _ragazzo de omo d'arme_--break upon us with the freshness of a smile or sunbeam.[207] we might almost detect a vein of spanish imagination in certain of his episodes--in the midnight ride of the living monk after the dead friar strapped upon his palfrey, and in the ghastly murder of the woman and the dwarf.[208] the lowest classes of the people are presented with a salience worthy of velasquez--cobblers, tailors, prostitutes, preaching friars, miracle-workers, relic-mongers, bawds, ruffians, lepers, highway robbers, gondoliers, innkeepers, porters, moorish slaves, the panders to base appetites and every sort of sin.[209] masuccio felt no compunction in portraying vicious people as he knew them; but he reserved language of scathing vituperation for their enormities.[210] from so much that is coarse, dreadful, and revolting, the romance of masuccio's more genial tales detaches itself with charming grace and delicacy. nothing in boccaccio is lovelier than the story of the girl who puts on armor and goes at night to kill her faithless lover; or that of mariotto and giannozza, which is substantially the same as romeo and juliet; or that of virginio baglioni and eugenia, surprised and slain by robbers near brescia; or that of marchetto and lanzilao, the comrades in arms, which has points in common with palamon and arcite; or, lastly, that of the young malem and his education by giudotto gambacorto.[211]. it is the blending of so many elements--the interweaving of tragedy and comedy, satire and pathos, grossness and sentiment, in a style of unadorned sincerity, that places masuccio high among novelists. had his language been as pure as that of the earlier tuscan or the later italian authors, he would probably rank only second to boccaccio in the estimation even of his fellow-countrymen. a foreigner, less sensitive to niceties of idiom, may be excused for recognizing him as at least bandello's equal in the story-teller's art. in moral quality he is superior not only to bandello, but also to boccaccio. the greatest writer of italian prose in the fifteenth century was a man of different stamp from masuccio. gifted with powers short only of the very highest, leo battista alberti exercised an influence over the spirit of his age and race which was second to none but lionardo's.[212] sacchetti, ser giovanni, masuccio, and the ordinary tribe of chroniclers pretended to no humanistic culture.[213] alberti, on the contrary, was educated at bologna, where he acquired the scientific knowledge of his age, together with such complete mastery of latin that a work of his youth, the comedy _philodoxius_, passed for a genuine product of antiquity. this man of many-sided genius came into the world too soon for the perfect exercise of his singular faculties. whether we regard him from the point of of art, of science, or of literature, he occupies in each department the position of precursor, pioneer and indicator. always original and always fertile, he prophesied of lands he was not privileged to enter, leaving the memory of dim and varied greatness rather than any solid monument behind him.[214] of his mechanical discoveries this is not the place to speak; nor can i estimate the value of his labors in the science of perspective.[215] it is as a man of letters that he comes before us in this chapter. the date of alberti's birth is uncertain. but we may fix it probably at about the year 1405. he was born at venice, where his father, exiled with the other members of his noble house by the albizzi, had taken refuge. after cosimo de' medici's triumph over the albizzi in 1434, leo battista returned to florence.[216] it was as a florentine citizen that his influence in restoring the vulgar literature to honor, was destined to be felt. he did not, however, reside continuously in the city of his ancestors, but moved from town to town, with a restlessness that savored somewhat of voluntary exile. it is, indeed, noteworthy how many of the greatest italians--dante, giotto, petrarch, alberti, lionardo, tasso: men who powerfully helped to give the nation intellectual coherence--were wanderers. they sought their home and saw their spiritual _patria_ in no one abiding-place.[217] thus, amid the political distractions of the italian people, rose that ideal of unity to which rome, naples, florence, venice, ferrara contributed, but which owned no metropolis. florence remained to the last the brain of italy. yet florence, by stepmotherly ingratitude, by dante's exile, by the alienation of petrarch, by alberti's homeless boyhood, prepared for the race a new culture, tuscan in origin, national by diffusion and assimilation. alberti died at rome in 1472, just when poliziano, a youth of eighteen, was sounding the first notes of that music which re-awakened the muse of tuscany from her long sleep, and gave new melodies to italy. in his proemium to the third book of the _family_, addressed to francesco degli alberti, leo battista enlarges on the duty of cultivating the mother tongue.[218] after propounding the question whether the loss of the empire acquired by their roman ancestors--_l'antiquo nostro imperio amplissimo_--or the loss of latin as a spoken language--_l'antiqua nostra gentilissima lingua latina_--had been the greater privation to the italian race, he gives it as his opinion that, though the former robbed them of imperial dignity, the latter was the heavier misfortune. to repair that loss is the duty of one who had made literature his study. if he desires to benefit his fellow-countrymen, he will not use a dead language, imperfectly comprehended by a few learned men, but will bend the idiom of the people to the needs of erudition. "i willingly admit," he argues, "that the ancient latin tongue is very copious and of beauty polished to perfection. yet i do not see what our tuscan has in it so hateful that worthy matter, when conveyed thereby, should be displeasing to us." pedants who despise their mother speech, are mostly men incapable of expressing themselves in the latter; "and granted they are right in saying that the ancient tongue has undisputed authority, because so many learned men have employed it, the like honor will certainly be paid our language of to-day, if men of culture take the pains to purify and polish it." he then declares that, meaning to be useful to the members of his house, and to bequeath a record of their ancient dignity to their descendants, he has resolved to choose the tongue in which he will be generally understood. this proemium explains alberti's position in all his italian writings. aiming at the general good, convinced that a living nation cannot use a dead language with dignity and self-respect, he makes the sacrifice of a scholar's pride to public utility, and has the sense to perceive that the day of erudite exclusiveness is over. no one felt more than alberti the greatness of the antique roman race. no one was prouder of his descent from those patricians of the commonwealth, who tamed and ruled the world. the memory of that roman past, which turned the generation after dante into a nation of students, glowed in alberti's breast with more than common fervor.[219] the sonorous introduction to the first book of the _family_ reviews the glories of the empire and the decadence of rome with a pomp of phrase, a passion of eloquence, that stir our spirit like the tramp of legions waking echoes in a ruined roman colonnade.[220] yet in spite of this devotion to the past, alberti, like villani, felt that his italians of the modern age had destinies and auspices apart from those of ancient rome. he was resolved to make the speech of that new nation, heiress of the latin name, equal in dignity to cicero's and livy's. what rome had done, rome's children should do again. but the times were changed, and alberti was a true son of the renaissance. he approached his task in the spirit of a humanist. his style is over-charged with latinisms; his periods are cumbrous; his matter is loaded with citations and scholastic instances drawn from the repertories of erudition.[221] the _vivida vis_ of inspiration fails. his work is full of reminiscences. the golden simplicity of the _trecento_ yields to a studied effort after dignity of diction, culture of amplitude. still the writer's energy is felt in massive paragraphs of powerful declamation. his eloquence does not degenerate into frothy rhetoric; and when he wills, he finds pithy phrases to express the mind of a philosopher and poet. that he was born and reared in exile accounts for a lack of racy tuscan in his prose; and the structure of his sentences proves that he had been accustomed to think in latin before he made italian serve his turn.[222] still, though for these and other reasons his works were not of the kind to animate a nation, they are such as still may be read with profit and with pleasure by men who seek for solid thoughts in noble diction. alberti's principal prose work, the _trattato della famiglia_, was written to instruct the members of his family in the customs of their ancestors, and to perpetuate those virtues of domestic life which he regarded as the sound foundation of a commonwealth. the first three books are said to have been composed within the space of ninety days in rome, and the fourth added at a later period.[223] it is a dialogue, the interlocutors being relatives of the alberti blood. nearly all the illustrative matter is drawn from the biographies of their forefathers. the scene is laid at padua, and the essay contains frequent allusions to their exile.[224] no word of invective against the albizzi who had ruined them, no vituperation of the city which had permitted the expulsion of her sons, escapes the lips of any of the speakers. the grave sadness that tempers the whole dialogue, is marred by neither animosity nor passion. yet though the _family_ was written in exile for exiles, the ideal of domestic life it paints, is florentine.[225] taken in its whole extent, this treatise is the most valuable document which remains to us from the times of the oligarchy, when florence was waging war with the visconti, and before the medici had based their despotism upon popular favor. from its pages a tolerably complete history of a great commercial family might be extracted; and this study would form a valuable commentary on the public annals of the commonwealth during the earlier portion of the fifteenth century.[226] the first book of the _famiglia_ deals with the duties of the elder to the younger members of the household, and the observance owed by sons and daughters to their parents. it is an essay _de officiis_ within the circle of the home, embracing minute particulars of conduct, and suggesting rules for education from the cradle upwards.[227] the second book takes up the question of matrimony. the respective ages at which the sexes ought to marry, the moral and physical qualities of a good wife, the maintenance of harmony between a wedded couple, their separate provinces and common duty to the state in the procreation of children, are discussed with scientific completeness. the third book, modeled on the _oeconomicus_ of xenophon, is devoted to thrift. how to use our personal faculties, our wealth, and our time to best advantage, forms its principal theme. the fourth book treats of friendship--family connections and alliances, the usefulness of friends in good and evil fortune, the mutual benefits enjoyed by men who live honestly together in a social state.[228] it may be seen from this sketch that the architecture of the treatise is complete and symmetrical. the first book establishes the principles of domestic morality on which a family exists and flourishes. the second provides for its propagation through marriage. the third shows how its resources are to be distributed and preserved. the fourth explains its relations to similar communities existing in an organized society. many passages in the essay have undoubtedly the air of truisms; but this impression of commonplaceness is removed by the strong specific character of all the illustrations. alberti's wisdom is common to civilized humanity. his conception of life is such as only suits a florentine, and his examples are drawn from the annals of a single family. i have already dwelt at some length in a former volume on the most celebrated section of this treatise--the _padre di famiglia_ or the _economico_.[229] to repeat those observations here would be superfluous. yet i cannot avoid a digression upon a matter of much obscurity relating to the authorship of that book.[230] until recently, this discourse upon the economy of a florentine household passed under the name of agnolo pandolfini, and was published separately as his undoubted work. the interlocutors in the dialogue, which bore the title of _governo della famiglia_, are various members of the pandolfini family, and all allusions to the alberti and their exile are wanting. the style of the _governo_ differs in many important respects from that of alberti; and yet the arrangement of the material and the substance of each paragraph are so closely similar in both forms of the treatise as to prove that the work is substantially identical. pandolfini's essay, which i shall call _il governo_, passes for one of the choicest monuments of ancient tuscan diction. alberti's _economico_, though it is more idiomatic than the rest of his _famiglia_, betrays the latinisms of a scholar. it is clear from a comparison of the two treatises either that alberti appropriated pandolfini's _governo_, brought its style into harmony with his own, and gave it a place between the second and the fourth books of his essay on the family; or else that this third book of alberti's _famiglia_ was rewritten by an author who commanded a purer italian. in the former case, alberti changed the _dramatis personæ_ by substituting members of his own house for the pandolfini. in the latter case, the anonymous compiler paid a similar compliment to the pandolfini by such alterations as obliterated the alberti, and presented the treatise to the world as part of their own history. that agnolo pandolfini was himself guilty of this plagiarism is rendered improbable by a variety of circumstances. yet the problem does not resolve itself into the simple question whether pandolfini or alberti was the plagiary. supposing alberti to have been the original author, there is no difficulty in believing that the _governo_ was a redaction made from his work by some anonymous hand in honor of the pandolfini family. on the contrary, if we assume agnolo pandolfini to have been the author, then alberti himself was guilty of a gross and open plagiarism.[231] it will be useful to give some account of the mss. upon which the editions of the _governo_ and the _economico_ are based.[232] in the first edition of the _governo_ (tartini e franchi, firenze, 1734) six codices are mentioned. of these the codex pandolfini a, on which the editors chiefly relied, has been removed from italy to paris. the codex pandolfini b was written in 1476 at poggibonsi by a certain giuliano di niccolajo martini. whether the codex pandolfini a professed to be an autograph copy, i do not know; but the editors of 1734, referring to it, state that the senator filippo pandolfini, member of the della crusca, corrected the errors, restored the text, and improved the diction of the treatise by the help of a still more ancient ms. this admission on their part is significant. it opens, for the advocates of alberti's authorship, innumerable suspicions as to the part played by filippo pandolfini in the preparation of the _governo_. nor can it be denied that the lack of an autograph of the _governo_ renders the settlement of the disputed question very difficult. of alberti's _trattato della famiglia_ we have three autograph copies; (i) cod. magl. classe iv. no. 38 in folio; (ii) riccardiana 1220; (iii) riccardiana 176. the first of these is the most important; but it presents some points of singularity. in the first place, the third book, which is the _economico_, has been inserted into the original codex, and shows a different style of writing. in the second place, the first two books contain numerous corrections, additions, erasures and recorrections, obviously made by alberti himself. some of the interpolated passages in the first two books are found to coincide with parts of the _governo_; and signor cortesi, to whose critical study i have already referred, argues with great show of reason that alberti, when he determined to incorporate the _governo_ in his _famiglia_, enriched the earlier books of that essay with fragments which he did not find it convenient to leave in their original place. still it should be remembered that this argument can be reversed; for the anonymous compiler of the _governo_, if he had access to alberti's autograph, may have chosen to appropriate sentences culled from the earlier portions of the _famiglia_. it is noticeable that the _economico_, even though it forms the third book of the treatise on the family, has a separate title and a separate introduction, with a dedication to francesco alberti, and a distinct peroration.[233] it is, in fact, an independent composition, and occurs in more than one ms. of the fifteenth century detached from the rest of the _famiglia_. in style it is far freer and more racy than is usual with alberti's writing. of this its author seems to have been aware; for he expressly tells his friend and kinsman francesco that he has sought to approach the purity and simplicity of xenophon.[234] the anonymous writer of alberti's life says that he composed three books on the family at rome before he was thirty, and a fourth book three years later. if we follow tiraboschi in taking 1414 for the date of his birth, the first three books must have been composed before 1444 and the fourth in 1447. the former of these dates (1444) receives some confirmation from a latin letter written by leonardo dati to alberti, acknowledging the treatise on the family, in june 1443. dati tells him that he finds fault with the essay for being composed "in a more majestic and perhaps a harsher style, especially in the first book, than the florentine language and the judgment of the laity would tolerate." he goes on, however, to observe that "afterwards the language becomes far more sweet and satisfactory to the ear"--a criticism which seems to suit the altered manner of the third book. with reference to the date 1447, in which the _famiglia_ may have been completed, cortesi remarks that pandolfini died in 1446. he suggests that, upon this event, alberti appropriated the _governo_ and rewrote it, and that the _economico_, though it holds the place of the third book in the treatise, is really the fourth book mentioned by the anonymous biographer. the suggestion is ingenious; and if we can once bring ourselves to believe that alberti committed a deliberate act of larceny, immediately after his friend pandolfini's death, then the details which have been already given concerning the autograph of the _famiglia_ and the discrepancies in its style of composition add confirmation to the theory. there are, however, good reasons for assigning alberti's birth to the year 1404 or even 1402.[235] in that case alberti's roman residence would fall into the third decade of the century, and the last book of the _famiglia_ (which i am inclined to believe is the one now called the third) would have been composed before pandolfini's death. that alberti kept his mss. upon the stocks and subjected them to frequent revision is certain; and this may account for one reference occurring in it to an event which happened in 1438. is it rational to adopt the hypothesis of alberti's plagiarism? let us distinctly understand what it implies. in his own preface to the _economico_ alberti states that he has striven to reproduce the simple and intelligible style of xenophon[236]; and there is no doubt that this portion of the _famiglia_, whether we regard it as alberti's or as pandolfini's property, was closely modeled on the _oeconomicus_. cortesi suggests that the reference to xenophon was purposely introduced by alberti in order to put his readers off the scent. nor, if we accept the hypothesis of plagiarism, can we restrict ourselves to this accusation merely. in the essay _della tranquillità dell'animo_ alberti introduces agnolo pandolfini as an interlocutor, and makes him refer to the third book of the _famiglia_ as a genuine production of alberti.[237] in other words, he must not only have appropriated pandolfini's work, and laid claim to it in the preface to his _economico_; but he must also have referred to it as his own composition in a speech ascribed to the real author, which he meant for publication. that is to say, he made the man whose work he stole pronounce its panegyric and refer it to the thief. that pandolfini was dead when he committed these acts of treason would not be sufficient to explain alberti's audacity; for according to the advocates of pandolfini's authorship, the ms. formed a known and valued portion of his sons' inheritance. is it _primâ facie_ probable that alberti, even in those days of looser literary copyright than ours, should have exposed himself to detection in so palpable and gross a fraud? before answering this question in the affirmative, it may be asked what positive grounds there are for crediting pandolfini with the original authorship. at present no autograph of pandolfini is forthcoming. his claim to authorship rests on tradition, and on the pandolfini cast of the dialogue in certain mss. at the same time, the admissions made by the editors of 1734 regarding their most trusted codex have been already shown to be suspicious. it is also noticeable that vespasiano, in his life of agnolo pandolfini, though he professes to have been intimately acquainted with this excellent florentine burgher, does not mention the _governo della famiglia_.[238] the omission is singular, supposing the treatise to have then existed under pandolfini's name, for vespasiano was himself a writer of italian in an age when latin scholarship claimed almost exclusive attention. he would, we should have thought, have been eager to name so distinguished a man among his fellow-authors in the vulgar tongue. granting the force of these considerations, it must still be admitted that there remain grave objections to accepting the _economico_ of alberti as the original of these two treatises. in the first place, the _governo_ is a masterpiece of tuscan; and it is far more reasonable to suppose that the _economico_ was copied from the _governo_ with such alterations as adapted it to the manner of the _famiglia_, than to assume that the _economico_ received a literary rehandling which reduced it from its more rhetorical to a popular form. the passage from simple to complex in literature admits of easier explanation than the reverse process. moreover, if alberti admired a racy tuscan style and could command it for the _economico_, why did he not continue to use it in his subsequent compositions? in the second place, the _governo_, as it stands, is suited to what vespasiano tells us about agnolo pandolfini. he was a scholar trained in the humanities of the earlier renaissance and a statesman who retired from public life, disgusted with the times, to studious leisure at his villa. now, giannozzo alberti, who takes the chief part in the _economico_, proclaims himself a man of business, without learning. those passages of the _governo_ which seem inappropriate to such a character are absent from the _economico_; but some of them appear in alberti's other works, the _teogenio_ and _della tranquillità_. from this circumstance signor cortesi infers that alberti, working with pandolfini's essay before him, made such alterations as brought the drift of the discourse within the scope of giannozzo's acquirements. the advocates of alberti's authorship are bound to reverse this theory, and to assume that the author of the _governo_ suited the _economico_ to pandolfini by infusing a tincture of scholarship into giannozzo's speeches.[239] we have still to ask who could the author of the _governo_, if it was not agnolo pandolfini, have been? the first answer to this question is: alberti himself. the anonymous biographer tells us that he wrote the first three books at rome, and that he afterwards made great efforts to improve his tuscan style and render it more popular. it is not, therefore, impossible that he should himself have fitted that portion of his _famiglia_ with new characters, omitted the alberti, and given the honors of the dialogue to pandolfini. the treatise, as he first planned it (according to this hypothesis), has a passionate digression upon the exile of the alberti, followed by a declamation against public life and politicians. to have circulated these passages in an essay intended for florentine readers, after alberti's recall by cosimo de' medici, would have been unwise. alberti, therefore, may only have retained such portions of them as could rouse no animosity, revive no painful reminiscences, and be appropriately placed upon the lips of pandolfini. as it stands in the _governo_, the invective against statecraft is scarcely in keeping with pandolfini's character. though he retired from public life disgusted and ill at ease, the conclusion that no man should seek to serve the state except from a strict sense of duty, sounds strange when spoken by this veteran politician. taken as the climax to the history of the wrongs inflicted upon the alberti, this passage is dramatically in harmony with giannozzo's experience.[240] with regard to the noticeable improvement of style in the _economico_, we might argue that after alberti had enjoyed facilities at florence of acquiring his native idiom, he remodeled that section of his earlier work which he intended for the people. and the same line of argument would account for the independence of the _economico_ and its occurrence in separate mss. had alberti designed what we now call a plagiarism, what need was there to call attention to it by prefixing an introduction to the third book of a continuous treatise? it is not, however, necessary to defend alberti from the charge of fraud by suggesting that he was himself the author of the _governo_. there existed, as we shall soon see, a class of semi-cultivated scribes at florence, whose business consisted in manufacturing literature for the people. they re-wrote, re-fashioned, condensed, abstracted whatever seemed to furnish entertainment and instruction for their public. their style was close to the vulgar speech and frankly idiomatic. that one of these men should have made the necessary alterations in the third book of the _famiglia_ to remove the recollection of the alberti exile, and to prepare it for popular reading, is by no means impossible. the _governo_ is shorter and more condensed than the _economico_. the rhetorical and dramatic elements are reduced; and the material is communicated in a style of gnomic pregnancy. if it was modeled upon the _economico_ in the way i have suggested, the writer of the abstract was a man of no common ability, with a very keen sense of language and a faculty for investing a work of art and fine literature with the _naïveté_ and grace of popular style. he also understood the necessity of providing his chief interlocutor, agnolo pandolfini, with a character different from that of giannozzo alberti; and he had the tact to realize that character by innumerable touches. great additional support would be given to this hypothesis, if we could trust bonucci's assertion that he had seen and transcribed a ms. of the _governo_ adapted with a set of characters selected from the pazzi family. it would then seem clear that the _governo_ was an essay which every father of a family wished to possess for the instruction of his household, and to connect with the past history of his own race. unluckily, signor bonucci, though he prints this pazzi _rifacimento_, gives no information as to the source of the ms. or any hint whereby its existence can be ascertained.[241] we must, therefore, omit it from our reckoning. as the case at present stands, it is impossible to form a decisive opinion regarding the authorship of this famous treatise. the necessary critical examination of mss. has not yet been made, and the arguments used on either side from internal evidence are not conclusive. my own prepossession is still in favor of alberti. i may, however, observe that after reading signor cortesi's inedited essay, i perceive the case in favor of pandolfini to be far stronger than i had expected.[242] space will not permit a full discussion of alberti's numerous writings; and yet their bearing on the best opinion of his time is so important that some notice of them must be taken. together with the _famiglia_ we may class the _deiciarchia_, or, as it should probably be written, the _de iciarchia_.[243] this, like the majority of his moral treatises, is a dialogue, and its subject is civic virtue. having formed the ideal family, he next considers the functions of householders, born to guide the state. the chief point of the discourse is that no one should be idle, but that all should labor in some calling worthy of the dignity of man.[244] this seems a simple doctrine; but it is so inculcated as to make us remember the guelf laws of florence, whereby _scioperati_ were declared criminals. it must not, however, be supposed that alberti confines himself to the development of this single theme. his _deiciarchia_ is rather to be regarded as a treatise on the personal qualities of men to whom the conduct of a commonwealth has been by accident of birth intrusted. a second class of alberti's dialogues discuss the contemplative life. in the _famiglia_ and the _deiciarchia_ man is regarded as a social and domestic being. in the _tranquillità dell'animo_ and the _teogenio_ the inner life of the student and the sage comes under treatment. the former of these dialogues owes much of its interest to the interlocutors and to the scene where it was laid.[245] leon battista alberti, niccolò di veri dei medici, and agnolo pandolfini meet inside the florentine duomo, which is described in a few words of earnest admiration for its majesty and strength.[246] these friends begin a conversation, which soon turns upon the means of preserving the mind in repose and avoiding perturbations from the passions. the three books are enriched with copious allusions to alberti's works and personal habits--his skill as a musician and a statuary, the gymnastic feats of his youth, and his efforts to benefit the state by intellectual labor. they form a valuable supplement to the anonymous biography. the philosophical material is too immediately borrowed from cicero and seneca to be of much importance. the _teogenio_ is a more attractive, and, as it seems to me, a riper work.[247] of alberti's ethical discourses i am inclined to rate this next to the _famiglia_; nor did the italian renaissance produce any disquisition of the kind more elevated in feeling, finer in temper, or glowing with an eloquence at once so spontaneous and so dignified. we have to return to petrarch to find the same high humanistic passion; and alberti's italian is here more winning than petrarch's latin. had pico condescended to the vulgar tongue, he might have produced work of similar quality; for the essay on the dignity of man is written in the same spirit. the _teogenio_ was sent with a letter of dedication to lionelle d'este not long after his father's death.[248] alberti apologizes for its italian style and assures the prince it had been written merely to console him in his evil fortunes. the speakers are two, teogenio and microtiro.[249] the dialogue opens with a passage on friendship, and a somewhat labored description of the grove where teogenio intends to pass the day. microtiro has come from the city. his friend, the recluse, welcomes him to the country with these words: "ma sediamo, se così ti piace, qui fra questi mirti, in luogo non men delizioso che vostri teatri e tempi amplissimi e sontuosissimi." this strikes the keynote of the treatise, the theme of which is the superiority of study in the country over the distractions of the town. reading it, we see how rightly landino assigned his part to alberti in the camaldolese discussions.[250] that ideal of rural solitude which the italian scholars inherited from their roman forefathers, receives its earliest and finest treatment in this dialogue. it is not communion with nature so much as the companionship of books and the pursuit of study in a tranquil corner of the tuscan hills, that alberti has selected for his panegyric.[251] "the society of the illustrious dead," he says in one of the noblest passages of the essay, "can be enjoyed by me at leisure here; and when i choose to converse with sages, politicians or great poets, i have but to turn to my bookshelves, and my company is better than your palaces with all their crowds of flatterers and clients can afford."[252] after enlarging on the manifold advantages of a student's life, he concludes the book with a magnificent picture of human frailty, leading up to a discourse on death. it is noticeable that alberti, though frequently approaching the subject of religion, never dilates upon it, and in no place declares himself a christian. his creed is that of the roman moralists--a belief in the benignant maker of the universe, an intellectual and unsubstantial theism. we feel this even in that passage of the _famiglia_ when giannozzo and his wife pray in their bed-chamber to god for prosperity in life and happiness in children.[253] there is not a word about spiritual blessings, no allusion to christ or madonna, though a silver statue of the saint with ivory hands and face is standing in his tabernacle over them[254]--nothing, indeed, to indicate that this grave florentine couple, whom we may figure to ourselves like van dyck's merchant and wife in the national gallery, were not performing sacrifice and praying to the _di lares_ of a roman household. the renaissance had latinized even the religious sentiments, and the elder faiths of the middle ages were extinct in the soundest hearts of the epoch.[255] a third group of alberti's prose works consists of his essays on the arts.[256] one of these, the treatise on painting, was either written in italian or translated by alberti soon after its composition in latin.[257] the treatises on perspective, sculpture, architecture and the orders are supposed to have been rendered by their author from the latin; but doubt still rests upon alberti's share in this translation. it is not my present business to inquire into the subject-matter of his artistic essays, but rather to note the fact that alberti should have thought it fitting to use italian for at least the most considerable of them. we have already seen that his chief motive to composition was utility and that he recognized the need of bringing the results of learning within the scope of the unlettered laity. we need not doubt that this consideration weighed with him when he rehandled the matter of vitruvius and pliny for the use of handicraftsmen. nothing is more striking in the whole series than the business-like simplicity of style, the avoidance of rhetoric, and the adaptation of each section to some practical end. we have not here to do with æsthetical criticism, but with the condensed experience of a student and workman. in his exposition of theory alberti corresponds to the practice of florence, where ghirlandajo kept a _bottega_ open to all comers, and michelangelo began his apprenticeship by grinding colors. though the subject of these essays lies beyond the scope of my work, it is impossible to pass over the dedication to filippo brunelleschi, which is prefixed to the italian version of the _pittura_. alberti begins by saying that the wonder and sorrow begotten in him by reflecting on the loss of many noble arts and sciences, had led him to believe that nature, wearied and out-worn, had no force left to generate the giant spirits of her youth. "but when i returned from the long exile in which we of the alberti have grown old, to this our mother-city, which exceeds all others in the beauty of her monuments, i perceived that many living men, but first of all you, filippo, and our dearest friend the sculptor donatello, and lorenzo ghiberti and luca della robbia and masaccio, were not of less account for genius and noble work than any ancient artist of great fame." after some remarks upon industry and the advantages of scientific theory, he proceeds: "who is there so hard and envious of temper as not to praise the architect filippo, when he saw so vast a structure, raised above the heavens, spacious enough to cover with its shadow all the tuscan folks, built without any aid from beams and scaffoldings, a miracle of art, if i judge rightly, which might in this age have been deemed impossible, and which even among the ancients was perhaps unknown, undreamed of?" after this exordium, he commits to brunelleschi's care his little book on painting, _quale a tuo nome feci in lingua toscana_. the interest of this dedication lies not only in the mention of the five chief _quattrocento_ artists by alberti, and in the record of the impression first produced on him by florence, but also in the recognition that, great as were the dead arts of antiquity, the modern arts of italy could rival them. it is an intuition parallel to that which induced alberti to compose the _famiglia_ in italian, and proves that he could endure the blaze of humanism without blindness. in the fourth group of alberti's prose-works we come across a new vein of semi-moral, semi-satirical reflection. these are devoted to love and matrimony, giving rhetorical expression to the misogynistic side of the _novelle_. alberti professes himself a master in the lore of love. he knows its symptoms, diagnoses and describes the stages of the malady, and pretends to intimate acquaintance with the foibles of both sexes. yet we seem to feel that his knowledge is rather literary than real, derived from books and pranked with a scholastic show of borrowed learning. two lectures addressed by women to their own sex on the art of love, take the first place in this series. the one is called _ecatomfila_, or the lady of the hundred loves; the other _amiria_, or the lady of the myriad.[258] the former tells her female audience what kind of lover to choose, neither too young nor too old, not too rich nor yet too handsome; how to keep him, and in what way to make the most of the precious acquisition. she is comparatively modest, and the sort of passion she implies may pass for virtuous. yet her large experience of men proves she has arrived at wisdom after many trials. her virtue is a matter of prudent egoism. amiria takes a different line. heliogabalus might have used her precepts in his _concio ad meretrices_. her discourse turns upon the subsidiary aids to beauty and the arts of coquetry. recipes for hair-dyes, depilatories, eye-lotions, tooth-powders, soaps, lip-salves, ointments, cosmetics, skin-preservers, wart-destroyers, pearl-powders, rouges, are followed up with sound advice about craft, fraud, force, feigned passion, entangling manoeuvres, crocodile tears, and secrecy in self-indulgence. the sustained irony of this address, and the minute acquaintance with the least laudable secrets of an italian lady's toilet it reveals, place it upon the list of literary curiosities. did any human beings ever plaster their faces with such stuff as amiria gravely recommends?[259] the _deifira_ is a dialogue on the cure of a distempered passion, which adds but little to ovid's _remedium amoris_; while two short treatises on marriage only prove that alberti took the old simonidean view of there being at least nine bad women to one good one.[260] his misogyny, whether real or affected, reaches its climax in an epistle to paolo codagnello, which combines the worst things said by boccaccio in the _corbaccio_ with lucian's satire on female uncleanliness in the _amores_.[261] the tirade appears to be as serious as possible, and, indeed, alberti's generalities might be illustrated _ad libitum_ from the _novelle_. it is no wonder that women resented his treatment of them; and one of his most amusing lesser tracts is a dialogue between himself and a lady called sofrona, who took him to task for this very epistle. in answer to her reproaches he is ceremoniously polite. he also gives her the last word in the argument, not without a stroke of humor. "it is all very well of you, men of letters, to take our characters away, so long as we can rule our husbands and make choice of lovers when and how we choose. all you men run after us; and if you do but see a pretty girl, you stand as stock still as a statue."[262] after this fashion runs sofrona's reply. alberti's misogynistic essays remind us how very difficult it is to understand or explain the tone of popular literature in that century with regard to women. that the _novelle_ were written to amuse both sexes seems clear; and we must imagine that the women who read so much vituperation of their manners, regarded it as a conventional play with words. like sofrona, they knew their satirists to be fair husbands, fathers, brothers, and, in the capacity of lovers, ludicrously blind to their defects. the current abuse of women, in which petrarch no less than alberti and boccaccio indulged, seems to have been a scholastic survival of the coarse and ignorant literature of the medieval clergy. cloistered monks indulged their taste for obscenity, and indemnified themselves for self-imposed celibacy, by grossly insulting the mothers who bore them and the institution they administered as a sacrament.[263] their invective tickled the vulgar ear, and passed into popular literature, where it held its own as a commonplace, not credited with too much meaning by folk who knew the world. the pretty story of ippolito and leonora, could we believe it to be alberti's, might pass for a palinode to these misogynistic treatises.[264] it is the tale of two florentine lovers, born in hostile houses, and brought after a series of misadventures, to the fruition of honorable love in marriage. the legend must have been very popular. besides the prose version, in which the lovers are called ippolito de' buondelmonti and leonora de' bardi, we have a poem in _ottava rima_, where the heroine's name becomes dianora. a latin translation of the same novel was produced by paolo cortesi, with the title _hyppolyti et deyaniræ historia_. but since alberti's authorship has not been clearly proved, it is more prudent to class both italian versions among those anonymous products of popular literature which will form the topic of my next chapter. of alberti's poems few survive; and these have no great literary value. out of the three serious sonnets, one beginning _io vidi già seder_ deserves to be studied for a certain rapidity of movement and mystery of emotion.[265] it might be compared to an allegorical engraving by some artist of the sixteenth century--robeta or the master of the caduceus. two burlesque sonnets in reply to burchiello have this interest, that they illustrate a point of literary contact between the people and the cultivated classes. but, on the whole, the sestines and the elegy of agiletta must be reckoned alberti's best performances in verse.[266] here his gnomic wisdom finds expression in pregnant, almost epigrammatic utterances. there are passages in the _agiletta_, weighty with packed sentences, which remind an english reader of bacon's lines on human life.[267] still it is the poetry of a man largely gifted, but not born to be a singer. it may be worth adding to this brief notice of alberti's rhymes, that he essayed latin meters in italian. the following elegiac couplet belongs to him[268]: questa per estremo miserabile epistola mando a te che spregi miseramente noi. it is not worth printing. but it illustrates that endeavor to fuse the forms of ancient with the material of modern art, which underlay alberti's practical experiments in architecture. it may seem that too much attention has already been given to alberti and his works. yet when we consider his peculiar position in the history of the renaissance, when we remember the singular beauty of his character, and reflect that, first among the humanists of mark, he deigned to labor for the public and to cultivate his mother tongue, a certain disproportion in the space allotted him may be excused. what his immediate successors in the field of erudition thought of him, can be gathered from a passage in poliziano's preface to the first edition of his work on architecture.[269] "to praise the author is beyond the narrow limits of a letter, beyond the poor reach of my powers of eloquence. nothing, however abstruse in learning, however remote from the ordinary range of scholarship, was hidden from his genius. one might question whether he was better fitted for oratory or for poetry, whether his speech was the more weighty or the more polished." these great qualities alberti placed freely at the service of the unlettered laity. he is therefore the hero of that age which i have called the period of transition. in alberti, moreover, we study the best type of the italian intellect as it was molded, on emergence from the middle ages, by those double influences of humanism and fine art which determined the renaissance. though his genius was rather artistic than scientific, all problems of nature and of man attracted him; and he dealt freely with them in the spirit of true modern curiosity. his method shows no trace either of mystical theology or of crooked scholasticism. he surveyed the world with a meditative but observant glance, avoiding the deeper questions of ontology, and depicting what he noticed with the realism of a painter. this powerful pictorial faculty made his sketches from contemporary life--the description of the gambler in the _deiciarchia_; the portrait of the sage in the _teogenio_; the domestic colloquies of giannozzo with his wife in the _famiglia_; the interior of a coquette's chamber in the _amiria_--surprising for sincerity and fullness. as a writer, he has the same merit that we recognize in masaccio and ghirlandajo among the fresco-painters of that age. but alberti's touch is more sympathetic, his humanity more loving. he was not eminent as a metaphysician. from plato he only borrowed something of his literary art, and something of ethical elevation, leaving to ficino the mysticism which then passed for platonic science. his ideal of the virtuous man is a florence burgher, honorable but keen in business, open to culture of all kinds, untainted by the cynicism that marred cosimo de' medici, lacking the licentious traits of the _novelle_. alberti's padre di famiglia might have stepped from the walls of the riccardi chapel or the choir of s. maria novella, in his grave red _lucco_, with the cold and powerful features. the life praised above all others by alberti is the life of a meditative student, withdrawn from state affairs, and corresponding with men of a like tranquil nature. this ideal was realized by sannazzaro in his mergellina, by ficino at montevecchio, by pico at querceto. just as his science and his philosophy were æsthetic, so were his religion and his morality. he conformed to the ceremonies of the catholic church. but the religious sentiment had already become in him rational rather than emotional, and less a condition of the conscience than of the artistic sensibility. honor in men, honesty in women, moved his admiration because they are comely. the splendor of the stars, the loveliness of earth, raised him in thought to the supreme source of beauty. whatever the genius of man brings to perfection of grace, he called divine, realizing for the first time the piety that finds god in the human spirit.[270] the harmonious lines and the vast spaces of the florentine duomo thrilled him like music, merging the charm of art in the high worship of a cultivated nature. "this temple," he writes in a passage that might be quoted as the quintessential exposition of his mind,[271] "has in it both grace and majesty, and i delight to notice that union of slender elegance with full and vigorous solidity, which shows that while every member is designed to please, the whole is built for perpetuity. inside these aisles there is the climate of eternal spring--wind, frost, and rime without; a quiet and mild air within--the blaze of summer on the square; delicious coolness here. above all things i delight in feeling the sweetness of those voices busied at the sacrifice, and in the sacred rites our classic ancestors called mysteries. all other modes and kinds of singing weary with reiteration; only religious music never palls. i know not how others are affected; but for myself, those hymns and psalms of the church produce on me the very effect for which they were designed, soothing all disturbance of the soul, and inspiring a certain ineffable languor full of reverence toward god. what heart of man is so rude as not to be softened when he hears the rhythmic rise and fall of those voices, complete and true, in cadences so sweet and flexible? i assure you that i never listen in these mysteries and funeral ceremonies to the greek words which call on god for aid against our human wretchedness, without weeping. then, too, i ponder what power music brings with it to soften us and soothe." it would be difficult with greater spontaneity and truth to delineate the emotions stirred in an artistic nature by the services of a cathedral. it is the language, however, not of a devout christian, but one who, long before goethe, had realized the goethesque ideal of "living with fixed purpose in the whole, the good, the beautiful." alberti both in his width of genius and in his limitations--in his all-embracing curiosity and aptitude for knowledge, his sensitiveness to every charm, his strong practical bias, the realism of his pictures, the objectivity of his style, his indifference to theology and metaphysic, the largeness of his love for all things that have grace, the substitution of æsthetical for moral standards, the purity of his taste, the tranquillity and urbanity of his spirit, his stoic-epicurean acceptance of the world where man may be content to dwell and build himself a home of beauty--was a true representative of his age. what attracts us in the bronze-work of ghiberti, in the bass-reliefs of della robbia, in rossellino's sleeping cardinal di portogallo, in ghirlandajo's portraits and the airy space of masaccio's backgrounds, in the lives of ficino and pomponio leto, in the dome of brunelleschi, in the stanzas of poliziano, arrives at consciousness in alberti, pervades his writing, and finds unique expression in the fragment of his latin biography. yet we must not measure the age of cosimo de' medici and roderigo borgia by the standard of alberti. he presents the spirit of the fifteenth century at its very best. philosophical and artistic sympathy compensate in his religion for that period's lack of pious faith. its political degradation assumes in him the shape of a fastidious retirement from vulgar strife. its lawlessness, caprice, and violence are regulated by the motto "nothing overmuch" which forms the keystone of his ethics. its realism is tempered by his love for man and beast and tree--that love which made him weep when he beheld the summer fields and labors of the husbandman. its sensuality finds no place in his harmonious nature. many defects of the century are visible enough in alberti; but what redeemed italy from corruption and rendered her capable of great and brilliant work amid the chaos of states ruining in infidelity and vice--that free energy of the intellect, open to all influences, inventive of ideas, creative of beauty, which ennobled her renaissance--burned in him with mild and tranquil radiance. this is perhaps the fittest place to notice a remarkable book, which, though it cannot be reckoned among the masterpieces of italian literature, is too important in its bearing on the history of the renaissance to be passed in silence. the _hypnerotomachia poliphili_, or "poliphil's strife of love in a dream," was written by francesco colonna, a dominican monk, at treviso in 1467.[272] there is some reason to conjecture that he composed it first in latin;[273] but when it appeared in print in 1499, it had already assumed the garb of a strange maccaronic style, blending the euphuisms of affected rhetoric with phrases culled from humanistic pedantry. the base of the language professes to be italian; but it is an italian latinized in all its elements, and interlarded with scraps of greek and hebrew. the following description of the dawn, with which the book opens, serve as a specimen of its peculiar dialect[274]: phoebo in quel hora manando, che la fronte di matuta leucothea candidava, fora gia dalle oceane unde, le volubile rote sospese non dimonstrava. ma sedulo cum gli sui volucri caballi, pyroo primo, & eoo al quanto apparendo, ad dipingere le lycophe quadrige della figliola di vermigliante rose, velocissimo inseguentila, non dimorava. et coruscante gia sopra le cerulee & inquiete undule, le sue irradiante come crispulavano. dal quale adventicio in quel puncto occidua davase la non cornuta cynthia, solicitando gli dui caballi del vehiculo suo cum il mulo, lo uno candido & laltro fusco, trahenti ad lultimo horizonta discriminante gli hemisperii pervenuta, & dalla pervia stella ari centare el di, fugata cedeva. in quel tempo quando che gli rhiphaei monti erano placidi, ne cum tanta rigidecia piu lalgente & frigorifico euro cum el laterale flando quassabondo el mandava gli teneri ramuli, & ad inquietare gli mobili scirpi & pontuti iunci & debili cypiri, & advexare gli plichevoli vimini & agitare gli lenti salici, & proclinare la fragile abiete sotto gli corni di tauro lascivianti. quanta n el hyberno tempo spirare solea. similmente el iactabondo orione cessando di persequire lachrymoso, lornato humero taurino delle sete sorore. whether francesco colonna prepared the redaction from which this paragraph is quoted, admits of doubt. a scholar, leonardo crasso of verona, defrayed the cost of the edition. manutius aldus printed the volume and its pages were adorned with precious wood-cuts, the work of more than one anonymous master of the lombardo-venetian school.[275] it was dedicated to duke guidobaldo of urbino. for the student of italian literature in its transition from the middle age to the renaissance, the _hypnerotomachia_ has special and many-sided interest. it shows that outside florence, where the pure italian idiom was too vigorous to be suppressed, humanistic fashion had so far taken possession of the literary fancy as to threaten the very existence of the mother tongue. but, more than this, it represents that epoch of transition in its fourfold intellectual craving after the beauty of antiquity, the treasures of erudition, the multiplied delights of art, and the liberty of nature. these cravings are allegorized in a romance of love, which blends medieval mysticism with modern sensuousness. like the style, the matter of the book is maccaronic, parti-colored and confused; but the passion which controls so many elements is genuine and simple. the spirit of the earlier renaissance reflects itself, as in a mirror, in the dream of poliphil. so essentially is it the product of a transitional moment that when the first enthusiasm for its euphuistic pedantry and æsthetical rapture had subsided, the key to its most obvious meaning was lost. in the preface to the fourth french edition (1600), beroald de verville hinted that the volume held deep alchemistic secrets for those who could discover them. after this distortion the book passed into not altogether unmerited oblivion. it had done its work for the past age. it now remains an invaluable monument for those who would fain reconstruct the century which gave it birth. the _hypnerotomachia_ professes to relate its author's love for polia, a nun, his search after her, and their union, at the close of sundry trials and adventures, in the realm of venus. poliphil dreams that he finds himself in a wild wood, where he is assailed by monstrous beasts, and suffers great distress of mind. he prays to diespiter, and comes forthwith into a pleasant valley, through which he wanders in the hope of finding polia. at the outset of his journey he meets five damsels, aphea, offressia, orassia, achoe, geussia, who conduct him to their queen, eleuterilyda.[276] she understands his quest, and assigns the maidens, logistica and thelemia, to be his guides into the palace of telosia. they journey together and arrive at the abode of dame telosia, which has three gates severally inscribed in hebrew, greek, and latin characters with legends, the meaning whereof is god's glory, mother of love, and worldly glory. poliphil enters the first door, and finds the place within but little to his liking. then he tries the third, and is no better pleased. lastly he gains admittance to the demesne of love's mother, where he is content to stay. lovely and lascivious maidens greet him kindly; and while he surrenders to their invitation, one of his attendants, logistica, takes her flight. he is left with his beloved thelemia to enjoy the pleasures of this enchanting region. thus far the allegory is not hard to read. poliphil, or the lover of polia, escapes from the perils of the forest where his earlier life was passed, by petition to the father of gods and men. he places himself in the hands of the five senses, who conduct him to freewill. freewill appoints for his further guidance reason and inclination, who are to lead him to the final choice of lives. when he arrives at the point where this choice has to be made, he perceives that god, the world, and beauty, who is mother of love, compete for his willing service. he rejects religion and ambition; and no sooner has his preference for love and beauty been avowed, than the reasoning faculty deserts him, and he is abandoned to inclination. while poliphil is dallying with the nymphs of pleasure and his own wanton will, he is suddenly abandoned by these companions, and pursues his journey alone.[277] before long, however, he becomes aware of a maiden, exceedingly fair to look upon, who carries in her hand a lighted torch. with her for guide, he passes through many pleasant places, arriving finally at the temple of venus physizoe. this maiden, though as yet he cannot recognize her, is the polia he seeks, and on their way together he feels the influences of her love-compelling beauty. they enter the chapel of venus, and are graciously received by the prioress who guards that sanctuary. mystical rites of initiation and consecration are performed. polia lays down her torch, and is discovered by her lover. then they are wedded by grace of the abiding goddess; and having undergone the ceremony of spousal, they resume their wanderings together. they pass through a desolate city of tombs and ruins, named polyandrion, where are the sepulchers and epitaphs of lovers. here, too, they witness the pangs of souls tormented for their crimes against the deity of love. afterwards they reach a great water, where cupid's barge comes sailing by, and takes them to the island of cythera. it is a level land of gardens, groves and labyrinths, adorned with theaters and baths, and watered by a mystic font of venus. near the tomb of adonis in this demesne of love, polia and poliphil sit down to rest among the nymphs, and polia relates the story of their early passion. it is here, if anywhere, that we come across reality in this romance. polia tells how the town of treviso was founded, and of what illustrious lineage she came, and how she vowed herself to the service of diana when the plague was raging in the city. in dian's temple poliphil first saw her, and fainted at the sight, and she, made cruel by the memory of her vows, left him upon the temple-floor for dead. but when she returned home, a vision of women punished for their hard heart smote her conscience; and her old nurse, an adept in the ways of love, counseled her to seek the prioress of venus, and confess, and enter into reconcilement with her lover. what the nurse advised, polia did, and in the temple of venus she met poliphil. he, while his body lay entranced upon the floor of dian's church, had visited the heavens in spirit and obtained grace from venus and cupid. therefore, the twain were now of one accord, and ready to be joined in bonds of natural affection. at the end of polia's story, the nymphs leave both lovers to enjoy their new-found happiness. but here the power of sleep is spent, and poliphil, awakened by the song of swallows, starts from dreams with "farewell, my polia!" upon his lips. such is the frail and slender basis of romance, corresponding, in the details of polia's narrative, to an ordinary _novella_, upon which the bulky edifice of the _hypnerotomachia_ is built. this love-story, while it gives form to the book, is clearly not the author's main motive. what really concerns him most deeply is the handling of artistic themes, which, though introduced by way of digressions, occupy by far the larger portion of his work. the _hypnerotomachia_ is an encyclopædia of curious learning, a treasure-house of æsthetical descriptions and discussions, vividly reflecting the two ruling enthusiasms of the earlier renaissance for scholarship and art. minute details of inexhaustible variety, bringing before our imagination the architecture, sculpture, and painting of the fifteenth century, its gardens, palaces and temples, its processions, triumphs and ceremonial shows, its delight in costly jewels, furniture, embroidery and banquets, its profound feeling for the beauty of women, and its admiration for the goodliness of athletic manhood, are massed together with bewildering profusion. not one of the technical arts which flourished in the dawn of the renaissance but finds due celebration here; and the whole is penetrated with that fervent reverence for antiquity which inspired the humanists. yet the _hypnerotomachia_, though sometimes tedious, is never frigid. with the precision of a treatise and the minuteness of an inventory, it combines the ardor of impassioned feeling, the rapture of anticipation, the artist's blending with the lover's ecstasy. it is a dithyramb of the imagination, inflamed by no oriental lust of mere magnificence, but by the fine sense of what is beautiful in form, rare in material, just in proportion, exquisite in workmanship. whether the _hypnerotomachia_ exercised a powerful influence over the productions of the italian genius, can be doubted. but that it presents an epitome or figured abstract of the renaissance in its earlier luxuriance, is unmistakable. reading it, we wander through the collections of paul ii., rich with jewels, _intagli_, cameos and coins; we enter amadeo's chapels, filarete's palaces, bramante's peristyles and _loggie_; we pace the gardens of the brenta and the sforza's deer-parks at pavia; we watch lorenzo's florentine _trionfi_ and pietro riario's festivals in rome; giorgione's _fêtes champêtres_ are set for us in framework of the choicest fruits and flowers; we hear ciriac of ancona discoursing on his epigraphs and broken marbles; before our eyes, as in a gallery, are ranged the bass-reliefs of donatello wrought in bronze, mantegna's triumphs, signorelli's arabesques, the terra-cotta of the lombard and the stucco of the roman schools, the carved-work of alberti's church at rimini, the _tarsiatura_ of fra giovanni da verona's choir-stalls, doorways from milanese and chimneys from urbino palaces, vatican tapestries and trellis-work of beaten iron from prato--all that the renaissance in its bloom produced, is here depicted with the wealth and warmth of fancy doting on anticipated beauties. of the author, francesco colonna, very little is known, except that he was born in 1433 at venice, that he attached himself to ermolao barbaro, spent a portion of his manhood in the dominican cloister of s. niccolò at treviso, and died at venice in 1527. whether the love-tale of the _hypnerotomachia_ had a basis of reality, or whether we ought to regard it wholly from the point of view of allegory, cannot be decided now. it is, however, probable that a substratum of experience underlay the vast mass of superimposed erudition and enthusiastic reverie. the references to polia's name and race; her epitaph appended to the first edition; the details of her narrative, which somewhat break the continuity of style and introduce a biographical element into the romance; the very structure of the allegory which assigns so large a part in life to sensuous instinct--all these points seem to prove that poliphil was moved by memory of what had really happened, no less than by the desire to express a certain mood of feeling and belief. such mingling of actual emotion with ideal passion in a work of imagination, dedicated to a woman who is also an emblem, was consistent with the practice of medieval poets. polia belongs, under altered circumstances, to the same class as beatrice. the hypothesis that, whoever she may have been, she had become for her lover a metaphor of antique beauty, is sufficiently attractive and plausible. if we adopt this theory, we must interpret the dark wood where poliphil first found himself, to mean the anarchy of gothic art; while his emancipation through the senses and thelemia characterizes the spirit in which the italians achieved the revival. the extraordinary care lavished upon details, interrupting the course of the romance and withdrawing our sympathy from polia, meet from this point of view with justification. veiling his enthusiasm for the renascent past beneath the fiction of a novel, francesco colonna invests the lady of his intellectual choice, the handmaid of aphrodite, evoked from the sepulcher where arts and sciences lie buried, with rich renaissance trappings of elaborate device. beneath those exuberant arabesques, within that labyrinth of technically perfect details, suave outlines, delicate contours devoid of content, a real woman would be lost. but if polia be not merely a woman, if she be, as her name [greek: polia] seems to indicate, at the same time the vision of resurgent classic beauty, then the setting which her lover has contrived is adequate to the influences which inspired him. the multiform and labored frame-work of his picture acquires a meaning from the spirit of the goddess whom he worships, and the presiding genius of his age dwells in a shrine, each point of which is brilliant with the splendor which that spirit radiates. it is, therefore, as an allegory of the renaissance, conscious of its destiny and strongest aspirations in the person of an almost nameless monk, that we should read the _hypnerotomachia_. still, even so, the mark of indecision, which rests upon the many twy-formed masterpieces of this century, is here discernible. francesco colonna has one foot in the middle ages, another planted on the firm ground of the modern era. he wavers between the psychological realism of romance and the philosophical idealism of allegory. polia is both too much and too little of a woman. at one time her personality seems as distinct as that of any heroine of fiction; at another we lose sight of her in the mist of symbolism. granting, again, that she is a metaphor, she lends herself to more than one conception. she is both an emblem of passion, sanctified by nature, and liberated from the bondage of asceticism, and also an emblem of ideal beauty, recovered from the past, and worshiped by a scholar-artist. this confusion of motives and uncertainty of aim, while it detracts from the artistic value of the _hypnerotomachia_, enhances its historical importance. in form, the book has to be classed with the visions of the middle ages--the divine comedy, the _amorosa visione_, and the _quadriregio_. but though the form is medieval, the inspiration of this prose-poem is quite other. we have seen already how francesco colonna, traveling in search of polia, prayed to jupiter, and how the senses and freewill guided him to the satisfaction of his deepest self in the service of beauty. it is in the temple of venus physizoe (venus the procreative source of life in nature) that he meets with his love and is wedded to her in the bonds of mutual desire.[278] christianity is wholly, we might say systematically, ignored. the ascetic standpoint of the middle age is abandoned for another, antagonistic to its ruling impulses. a new creed, a new cult, are introduced. polia, whether we regard her as the poet's mistress or as the spirit of antiquity which has enamored him, is won by worship paid to deities of natural appetite. in its essence, then, the _hypnerotomachia_ corresponds to the most fruitful instinct of the renaissance--to that striving after emancipation which restored humanity to its heritage in the realms of sense and reason. old ideals, exhausted and devoid of vital force, are exchanged for fresh and beautiful reality. the spirituality of the past, which has become consumptive and ineffectively lapse of time and long familiarity, yields to vigorous animalism. the cloister is quitted for the world, religious for artistic ecstasy, celestial for earthly paradise, scholasticism for humane studies, the ascetic for the hedonistic rule of conduct. criticised according to its deeper meaning, the _hypnerotomachia_ is the poem of which valla's _de voluptate_ was the argument, of which lorenzo de' medici's life was the realization, and the life of aretino the caricature. if it assumes the form of a vision, reminding us thereby that the author was born upon the confines of the middle ages and the modern era, it deals with the vision in no dantesque spirit, but with the geniality of apuleius. allegory is but a transparent veil, to make the nudity of natural impulse fascinating. as in boccaccio, so here the hymn of _il talento_, simple appetite, is sung; but the fusion of artistic and humanistic enthusiasms with this ground-motive adds peculiar quality, distinctive of the later age which gave it birth. the secret of its charm, which, indeed, it shares with earlier renaissance art in general, is that this yearning after freedom has been felt with rapture, but not fully satisfied. the season of repletion and satiety is distant. venus physizoe appears to francesco colonna radiant above all powers of heaven or earth, because he is a monk and may not serve her. had he his whole will, she might have been for him venus volgivaga, and he the author of another _puttana errante_. nor has she yet assumed the earnest mask of science. this element of unassuaged desire, indulged in longings and outgoings of the fancy, this recognition of man's highest good and happiness in nature by one who has forsworn allegiance to the laws of nature, adds warmth to his emotion and penetrates his pictures with a kind of passion. the arts and scholarship, which divide the empire of his soul with beauty, have no less attraction of romance than love itself. nor are they separated in his mind from nature. nature and antiquity, knowledge and desire, the reverence for abstract beauty and the instincts of a lover are fused in one enthusiasm. thus francesco colonna makes us understand how italy used both art and erudition as instruments in the liberation of human energies. for the thinkers and actors of that period, antiquity and the plastic arts were aids to the recovery of a paradise from which man had been exiled. they could not dissociate the conception of nature from studies which revealed their human dignity and freedom, or from arts whereby they expressed their vivid sense of beauty. the work they thus inaugurated, had afterwards to be continued by the scientific faculties. one word may finally be said about the peculiar delicacy of this book. the _hypnerotomachia_ is no less an apotheosis of natural appetite than the _amorosa visione_. but it is more sentimental and imaginative, because its author had not boccaccio's crude experience. it anticipates the art of the great age--the art of cellini and giulio romano, goldsmith-sculptors and palace-builders; but it is more refined and passionate, because its author enjoyed those beauties of consummate craft in reverie instead of practice. it interprets the enthusiasm of ciriac and poggio, discoverers of manuscripts, decipherers of epigraphs; but it is more _naïf_ and graceful than their work of erudition, because its author dealt freely with his learning and subordinated scholarship to fancy. in short the _hypnerotomachia_ is a foreshadowing of the renaissance in its prime--the spirit of the age foreseen in dreams, embodied in imagination, purged of material alloy, and freed from the encumbrances of actuality. footnotes: [130] i may refer to the _age of the despots_, 2nd edition, pp. 58-65, for a brief review of the circumstances under which the nation defined itself against the church and the empire--the ecclesiastical and feudal or chivalrous principles--during the wars of investiture and independence. in carducci's essay _dello svolgimento delta letteratura nazionale_ will be found an eloquent and succinct exposition of the views i have attempted to express in these paragraphs. [131] _revival of learning._ [132] it is not quite exact, though convenient, to identify dante, petrarch and boccaccio severally with the religious, chivalrous and national principles of which i have been speaking. petrarch stands midway. with dante he shares the chivalrous, with boccaccio the humanistic side of the national element. though boccaccio anticipates in his work the literature of the renaissance, yet petrarch was certainly not less influential as an authority in style. ariosto represents the fusion of both sections of the national element in literature--italian is distinguished from tuscan. [133] see _age of the despots_, chap. 2. [134] see above, p. 138. all that is known about sacchetti's life may be found in the discourse of monsignor giov. bottari, prefixed to silvestri's edition of the _novelle_. [135] for sacchetti's conception of a citizen's duty, proving him a son of italy's heroic age, see the sonnet _amar la patria_, in monsignor bottari's discourse above mentioned. [136] see the sonnet _pien di quell'acqua_ written to boccaccio on his entering the certosa at naples. [137] here too he mentions a translation of the _decameron_ into english. [138] this should also be the place to mention the _novelle_ of giovanni sercambi of lucca. they have lately been re-edited by professor d'ancona, bologna, romagnoli, 1871. they are short tales, historical and moral, drawn from miscellaneous medieval sources, and resembling the _novellino_ in type. two of them (_novelle_ ix. and x., _ed. cit._ pp. 62-74) are interesting as forming part of the legend of dante the poet. [139] for example, the first novel of the fourth day is the story which shakspere dramatized in _the merchant of venice_, and forms, as every one can see, the authentic source of that comedy. [140] it must be remarked that the text of _il pecorone_ underwent domenichi's revision in the sixteenth century, which may account for a certain flatness. [141] see carducci, _cantilene e ballate, strambotti e madrigali nei secoli xiii e xiv_, pisa, nistri, 1871. pp. 176-205 contain a reprint of these lyrics. carducci's work _intorno ad alcune rime_, imola, 1876, may be consulted at pp. 54 _et seq._ for the origin, wide diffusion, and several species of the popular dance-song. [142] _cantilene, etc._ pp. 196, 199, 204. [143] _cantilene, etc._ p. 211. [144] _cantilene, etc._ p. 220. [145] _ibid._ p. 219. compare _passando con pensier_ in the _rime di messer cino e d'altri_ (barbèra), p. 563. [146] _ibid._ p. 233. [147] _ibid._ p. 231. [148] _ibid._ p. 214 and note. the popularity of this dance-poem is further proved by a pious parody written to be sung to the same air with it: "o vaghe di gesù, o verginelle." see _laudi spirituali_ (firenze, molini, 1863), p. 105. [149] _ibid._ pp. 217, 218. [150] see _ibid._ pp. 252-256, 259, 263. [151] it is enough to mention _exit diluculo_, _vere dulci mediante_, _æstivali sub fervore_. [152] i must briefly refer to carducci's essay on "musica e poesia nel mondo elegante italiano del secolo xiv," in his _studi letterari_, livorno, vigo, 1874, and to my own translations from some of the there published madrigals in _sketches and studies in italy_, pp. 214-216. [153] carducci, _cantilene_, pp. 265-296. [154] _op. cit._ p. 298. [155] _op. cit._ p. 301. [156] _op. cit._ p. 300. [157] it may be worth mentioning that soldanieri and donati as well as sacchetti belonged to the old nobility of florence, the grandi celebrated by name in dante's _paradiso_. [158] see trucchi's _poesie inedite_, and the _rime antiche toscane_, cited above, for copious collections of these poets. [159] this can be seen in carducci's _cantilene_, pp. 115, 116, 150, and in his _studi letterari_, pp. 374-446. [160] _o pellegrina italia._ _rime di cino e d'altri_ (barbèra), p. 318. i shall quote from this excellent edition of carducci, as being most accessible to general readers. the _sermintese_ or _serventese_, it may be parenthetically said, was a form of satirical and occasional lyric adapted from the provençal _sirvente_. [161] _cino_, etc. p. 342. [162] _ibid._ p. 334. [163] _cino, etc._ p. 548. [164] _ibid._ p. 586. [165] _cino, etc._ p. 391. [166] _ibid._ pp. 199, 200. [167] _ibid._ pp. 384, 389. [168] _cino, etc._ pp. 202, 211, 573, 390. [169] _ibid._ pp. 504, 535, 498. [170] in the discourse of monsignor giov. bottari, section vi., printed before sacchetti's _novelle_. [171] _cino, etc._ pp. 445-474, 258-263. [172] navone's edition (bologna, romagnoli, 1880), p. 56. the date of this sonnet must be about 1315. we have to choose between placing folgore in that century or assigning the sonnet to some anonymous author. see appendix ii. for translations. [173] _cino, etc._ pp. 174-195, 420-441. [174] _ibid._ p. 418. [175] _ibid._ p. 197, 198. [176] he was the author of the ghibelline _canzoni_ quoted above. [177] it was composed about 1360. i have seen two editions of this poem, _opera di faccio degli uberti fiorentino, chiamato ditta mundi, volgare_. impresso in venetia per christoforo di pensa da mondelo. adi iiii. setembrio mccccci. the second is a version modernized in its orthography: _il dittamondo_, milano, silvestri, 1826. my quotations will be made from the second of these editions, which has the advantage of a more intelligible text. [178] lib. i., cap. 2. cp. fazio's ode on rome, above, p. 160. [179] lib. iii. cap. 9. [180] _libro chiamato quatriregio del decorso de la vita humana in terza rima_, impresso in venetia del mcccccxi a di primo di decembrio. there is, i believe, a last century foligno reprint of the _quadriregio_; but i have not seen it. [181] "regno di dio cupido," "regno di sathan," "regno delli vitii," "regno della dea minerva e di virtù." [182] lib. i. cap. 1. [183] lib. ii. cap. 2. [184] lib. ii. cap. 7. [185] see _ficini epistolæ_, 1495, folio 17. if possible, i will insert some further notice of palmieri's poem in an appendix. [186] see vasari (lemonnier, 1849), vol. v. p. 115, and note. this work by botticelli is now in england. [187] i may refer curious readers to two _lamenti_ of pre agostino, condemned to the cage or _chebba_ at venice for blasphemy. they are given at length by mutinelli, _annali urbani di venezia_, pp. 352-356. [188] for instance, "un miracolo di s.m. maddalena," in d'ancona's _sacre rappr._ vol. i. p. 397. [189] it would be an interesting study to trace the vicissitudes of _terza rima_ from the _paradiso_ of dante, through the _quadriregio_ and _dittamondo_, to lorenzo de' medici's _beoni_ and la casa's _capitolo del forno_. in addition to what i have observed above, it occurs to me to mention the semi-popular _terza rima_ poems in alberti's _accademia coronaria_ (bonucci's edition of alberti, vol. i. pp. clxxv. _et seq._) and boiardo's comedy of _timone_. both illustrate the didactic use of the meter. [190] _le lettere di s. caterina da siena_, firenze, barbèra, 1860. edited and furnished with a copious commentary by niccolò tommaseo. four volumes. [191] _op. cit._ vol. iv. pp. 5-12. [192] see for example, the passages from graziani's _chronicle of perugia_ quoted by me in appendix iv. to _age of the despots_. [193] see _alcune lettere familiari del sec. xiv_, bologna, romagnoli, 1868. this collection contains letters by lemmo balducci (1333-1389), filippo dell'antella (_circa_ 1398), dora del bene, lanfredino lanfredini (born about 1345), coluccio salutati (1330-1406), giorgio scali (died 1381), and marchionne stefani (died 1385). [194] alessandra macinghi negli strozzi, _lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina del secolo xv_, firenze, sansoni, 1877. [195] see _revival of learning_, chap. 4, and _age of the despots_, chap. 5. [196] _istorie fiorentine scritte da giov. cavalcanti_, 2 vols. firenze, 1838. [197] besides muratori's great collection and the _archivio storico_, the chronicles of lombard, umbrian, and tuscan towns have been separately printed too voluminously for mention in a note. [198] _l'historia di milano volgarmente scritta dall'eccellentissimo oratore m. bernardino corio_, in vinegia, per giovan. maria bonelli, mdliiii. "cronaca della città di perugia dal 1492 al 1503 di francesco matarazzo detto maturanzio," _archivio storico italiano_, vol. xvi. par. ii. of corio's history i have made frequent use in the _age of the despots_. it is a book that repays frequent and attentive reperusals. those students who desire to gain familiarity at first hand with renaissance cannot be directed to a purer source. [199] in _studies in italy and greece_, article "perugia," i have dealt more at large with matarazzo's chronicle than space admits of here. [200] _il novellino di masuccio salernitano._ edited by luigi settembrini. napoli, morano, 1874. [201] introduction to part iii. _op. cit._ p. 239. "cognoscerai i lasciati vestigi del vetusto satiro giovenale, e del famoso commendato poeta boccaccio, l'ornatissimo idioma e stile del quale ti hai sempre ingegnato de imitare." [202] for an instance of masuccio's feudal feeling, take this. a knight kills a licentious friar--"alquanto pentito per avere le sue possenti braccia con la morte di un fra minore contaminato" (_op. cit._ p. 13). it emerges in his description of the order of the ermine (_ibid._ p. 240). it is curious to compare this with his strong censure of the point of honor (pp. 388, 389) in a story which has the same blunt sense as ariosto's episode of giocondo. the italian here prevails over the noble. [203] see especially _nov._ xi. and xxxviii. [204] _nov._ ii. iii. v. xi. xviii. xxix. [205] _nov._ xxxi.--masuccio's peculiar animosity against the clergy may be illustrated by comparing his story of the friar who persuaded the nun that she was chosen by the holy ghost (_nov._ ii.) with boccaccio's tale of the angel gabriel. see, too, the scene in the convent (_nov._ vi.), the comedy of s. bernardino's sermon (_nov._ xvi.), the love-adventures of cardinal roderigo borgia. [206] for example, _nov._ vii. xiii. v. [207] _op. cit._ pp. 292, 282, 391, 379. [208] _nov._ i. and xxviii. the second of these stories is dedicated to francesco of aragon, who, born in 1461, could not have been more than fifteen when this frightful tale of lust and blood was sent him. nothing paints the manners of the time better than this fact. [209] see _op. cit._ pp. 28, 68, 89, 141, 256, 273, 275, 380, 341, 343. [210] for specimens of his invective read pp. 517, 273, 84, 275, 55, 65, 534. i have collected some of these passages, bearing on the clergy, in a note to p. 458 of my _age of the despots_, 2nd edition. no wonder that masuccio's book was put upon the index! [211] _nov._ xxvii, xxxiii. xxxv. xxxvii. xlviii. [212] see _revival of learning_, pp. 341-344, for some account of alberti's life and place among the humanists; _fine arts_, p. 74, for his skill as an architect. [213] sacchetti, we have seen, called himself _uomo discolo_; ser giovanni proclaimed himself a _pecorone_; masuccio had the culture of a nobleman; corio and matarazzo, if we are right in identifying the latter with francesco maturanzio, were both men of considerable erudition. [214] the most charming monument of alberti's memory is the life by an anonymous writer, published in muratori and reprinted in bonucci's edition, vol. i. bonucci conjectures, without any substantial reason, that it was composed by alberti himself. [215] for the _camera optica_, _reticolo de' dipintori_, and _bolide albertiana_, see the preface (pp. lxv.-lxix.) to anicio bonucci's edition of the _opere volgari di l.b. alberti_, firenze, 1843, five vols. all references will be made to this comprehensive but uncritical collection. hubert janitschek's edition of the treatises on art should be consulted for its introduction and carefully prepared text--vienna, 1877, in the _quellenschriften für kunstgeschichte_. [216] the sentence of banishment was first removed in 1428; but the rights of burghership were only restored to the alberti in 1434. leo battista finished the treatise on painting at florence, sept. 7, 1435 (see janitschek, _op. cit._ p. iii.), and dedicated it to brunelleschi, july 17, 1436. from that dedication it would seem that he had only recently returned. [217] a passage in the _della tranquillità dell'animo_ (_op. volg._ i. 35), shows how alberti had lived into the conception of cosmopolitan citizenship. it may be compared with another in the _teogenio_ (_op. cit._ iii. 194) wher he argues that love for one's country, even without residence in it, satisfies the definition of a citizen. [218] _op. cit._ ii. 215-221. [219] such phrases as _i nostri maggiori patrizii in roma_ (i. 37), _la quasi dovuta a noi per le nostre virtù da tutte le genti riverenzia e obbedienzia_ (ii. 218), _nostri ottimi passati itali debellarono e sotto averono tutte le genti_ (ii. 9), might be culled in plenty. alberti shows how deep was the latin idealism of the renaissance, and how impossible it would have been for the italians to found their national self-consciousness on aught but a recovery of the past. [220] especially the fine passage beginning, "quello imperio maraviglioso senza termini, quel dominio di tutte le genti acquistato con _nostri latini auspici_, ottenuto colla _nostra industria_, amplificato con _nostre armi latine_" (ii. 8); and the apostrophe, "e tu, italia nobilissima, capo e arce di tutto l'universo mondo" (_ib._ 13). [221] an example of servile submission to classical authority might be chosen from alberti's discourse on friendship (_famiglia_, lib. iv. _op. cit._ ii. 415), where he adduces sylla and mark antony in contradiction to his general doctrine that only upright conversation among friends can lead to mutual profit. [222] alberti's loss of training in the vernacular is noticed by his anonymous biographer (_op. cit._ i. xciv.). it will be observed by students of his writings that he does not speak of _la nostra italiana_ but _la nostra toscana_ (ii. 221). again (iv. 12) _in lingua toscana_ is the phrase used in his dedication of the essay on painting to brunelleschi. [223] the anonymous biographer says: "scripsit præterea et affinium suorum gratia, ut linguæ latinæ ignaris prodesset, patrio sermone annum ante trigesimum ætatis suæ etruscos libros, primum, secundum, ac tertium de familia, quos romæ die nonagesimo quam inchoârat, absolvit; sed inelimatos et asperos neque usquequaquam etruscos ... post annos tres, quam primos ediderat, quartum librum ingratis protulit" (_op. cit._ i. xciv. c.). it appears from a reference in book ii. (_op. cit._ ii. xxviii.) that the treatise was still in process of composition after 1438; and there are strong reasons for believing that book iii., as it is now numbered, was written separately and after the rest of the dialogue. [224] note especially the passage in book iii., _op. cit._ ii. 256, _et seq._ [225] there is, i think, good reason to believe the testimony of the anonymous biographer, who says this treatise was written before alberti's thirtieth year; and if he returned to florence in 1434, we must take the date of his birth about 1404. the scene of the _tranquillità dell'animo_ is laid in the duomo at florence; we may therefore believe it to have been a later work, and its allusions to the _famiglia_ are, in my opinion, trustworthy. [226] the pedigree prefixed to the dialogue in bonucci's edition would help the student in his task. i will here cite the principal passages of importance i have noticed. in volume ii. p. 102, we find a list of the alberti remarkable for literary, scientific, artistic, and ecclesiastical distinctions. on p. 124 we read of their dispersion over the levant, greece, spain, france, england, belgium, germany, and the chief italian towns. their misfortunes in exile are touchingly alluded to with a sobriety of phrase that dignifies the grief it veils, in the noble passage beginning with p. 256. their ancient splendor in the tournaments and games of florence, when the people seemed to have eyes only for men of the alberti blood, is described on p. 228; their palaces and country houses on p. 279. a list of the knights, generals, and great lawyers of the casa alberti is given at p. 346. the honesty of their commercial dealings and their reputation for probity form the themes of a valuable digression, pp. 204-206, where we learn the extent of their trade and the magnitude of their contributions to the state-expenses. on p. 210 there is a statement that this house alone imported from flanders enough wool to supply the cloth-trade, not only of florence, but also of the larger part of tuscany. the losses of a great commercial family are reckoned on p. 357; while p. 400 supplies the story of one vast loan of 80,000 golden florins advanced by ricciardo degli alberti to pope john. the friendship of piero degli alberti contracted with filippo maria visconti and king ladislaus of naples is described in the autobiographical discourse introduced at pp. 386-399. this episode is very precious for explaining the relation between italian princes and the merchants who resided at their courts. their servant buto, p. 375, should not be omitted from the picture; nor should the autobiographical narrative given by giannozzo of his relation to his wife (pp. 320-328) be neglected, since this carries us into the very center of a florentine home. the moral tone, the political feeling, and the domestic habits of the house in general must be studied in the description of the casa, bottega, and villa, the discourses on education, and the discussion of public and domestic duties. the commercial aristocracy of florence lives before us in this treatise. we learn from it to know exactly what the men who sustained the liberties of italy against the tyrants of milan thought and felt, at a period of history when the old fabric of medieval ideas had broken down, but when the new italy of the renaissance had not yet been fully formed. if, in addition to the _trattato della famiglia_, the letters addressed by alessandra macinghi degli strozzi to her children in exile be included in such a study, a vivid picture might be formed of the domestic life of a florentine family.[a] these letters were written from florence to sons of the casa strozzi at naples, bruges, and elsewhere between the years 1447 and 1465. they contain minute information about expenditure, taxation, dress, marriages, friendships, and all the public and personal relations of a noble florentine family. much, moreover, can be gathered from them concerning the footing of the members of the circle in exile. the private _ricordi_ of heads of families, portions of which have been already published from the archives of the medici and strozzi, if more fully investigated, would complete this interesting picture in many of its important details. [a] _lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina_, firenze, sansoni, 1877. [227] notice the discussion of wet-nurses, the physical and moral evils likely to ensue from an improper choice of the nurse (_op. cit._ ii. 52-56). [228] these topics of _amicizia_, as the virtue on which society is based, are further discussed in a separate little dialogue, _la cena di famiglia_ (_op. cit._ vol. i.). [229] _age of the despots_, pp. 239-243. [230] in stating the question, and in all that concerns the ms. authority upon which a judgment must be formed, i am greatly indebted to the kindness of signor virginio cortesi, who has placed at my disposal his unpublished essay on the _governo della famiglia di agnolo pandolfini_. as the title of his work shows, he is a believer in pandolfini's authorship. [231] i use this word according to its present connotation. but such literary plagiarism was both more common and less disgraceful in the fifteenth century. alberti himself incorporated passages of the _fiammetta_ in his _deifira_, and jacopo nardi in his _storia fiorentina_ appropriated the whole of buonaccorsi's diaries (1498-1512) with slight alterations and a singularly brief allusion to their author. [232] such information, as will be seen, is both vague and meager. the mss. of the _governo_ in particular do not seem to have been accurately investigated, and are insufficiently described even by cortesi. yet this problem, like that of the malespini and compagni chronicles, cannot be set at rest without a detailed comparison of all existing codices. [233] the anonymous biographer expressly states that the fourth book was written later than the other three, and dedicated to the one alberti who took any interest in the previous portion of the work. this, together with the isolation and more perfect diction of book iii. is strong presumption in favor of its having been an afterthought. [234] the _oeconomicus_ of xenophon served as common material for the _economico_ and the _governo_, whatever we may think about the authorship of these two essays. many parallel passages in palmieri's _vita civile_ can be referred to the same source. to what extent alberti knew greek is not ascertained; but even in the bad latin translations of that age a flavor so peculiar as that of xenophon's style could not have escaped his fine sense. [235] see _op. volg._ vol. i. pp. lxxxvi.-lxxxviii. [236] _op. volg._ ii. p. 223. [237] _op. volg._ i. 10. [238] it should, however, be added that vespasiano alludes to pandolfini's habits of study and composition after his retirement to signa. yet he does not cite the _governo_. [239] it is clear that all this reasoning upon internal evidence can be turned to the advantage of both sides in the dispute. the question will have finally to be settled on external grounds (comparison of mss.), combined with a wise use of such arguments from style as have already been cited. [240] anyhow, and whatever may have been the source of alberti's _economico_, the whole scene describing exile and winding up with the tirade against a political career, is a very noble piece of writing. if space sufficed, it might be quoted as the finest specimen of alberti's eloquence. see _op. volg._ v. pp. 256-266. [241] see _op. volg._ preface to vol. v. [242] it is greatly to be desired that signor cortesi should print this _studio critico_ and, if possible, append to it an account of the mss. on which pandolfini's claims to be considered the original author rest. [243] _op. volg._ vol. iii. the meaning of the title appears on p. 132, where the word _iciarco_ is defined _supremo uomo e primario principe della famiglia sua_. it is a compound of [greek: oikos] and [greek: archê]. [244] see pp. 24, 28, 88, and the fine humanistic passage on p. 47, which reads like an expansion of dante's _fatti non foste per viver come bruti_ in ulysses' speech to his comrades. [245] _op. volg._ vol. i. [246] he calls it _il nostro tempio massimo_ and speaks of _il culto divino_, pp. 7-9. [247] _op. volg._ vol. iii. [248] _ibid._ p. 160. this enables us to fix the date within certain limits. niccolò iii. of este died 1441. lionello died 1450. alberti speaks of the essay as having been already some time in circulation. it must therefore have been written before 1440. [249] like boccaccio, alberti is fond of bad greek etymologies. perhaps we may translate these names, "the god-born" and "the little pupil." in the same dialogue tichipedio seems to be "the youth of fortune." [250] see _revival of learning_, p. 339. [251] _op. volg._ iii. 179. [252] _ibid._ p. 186. [253] _op. volg._ vol. ii. pp. 320-322. [254] _il santo._ probably s. john. [255] alberti in a letter of condolement to a friend (_op. volg._ v. 357) chooses examples from the bible. yet the tone of that most strictly pious of his writings is rather theistic than christian. [256] _op. volg._ vol. iv. see, too, janitschek's edition cited above. [257] bonucci believes it was composed in italian. janitschek gives reasons for the contrary theory (_op. cit._ p. iii.). [258] _op. volg._ vols. iii. and v. [259] passages in the plays of our own dramatists warn us to be careful how we answer in the negative. but here are some specimens of amiria's recipes (_op. cit._ v. 282). "radice di cocomeri spolverizzata, bollita in orina, usata più dì, lieva dal viso panni e rughe. giovavi sangue di tauro stillato a ogni macula, sterco di colombe in aceto ... insieme a sterco di cervio ... lumache lunghe ... sterco di fanciullo ... sangue d'anguille." all these things are recommended, upon one page, for spots on the skin. i can find nothing parallel in the very curious toilet book called _gli ornamenti delle dame, scritti per m. giov. marinelli_, venetia, valgrisio, 1574. [260] _op. volg._ vol. iii. 367; vol. i. 191, 215. [261] _op. volg._ v. 233. [262] _op. volg._ i. 236. [263] i may refer to the latin song against marriage, _sit deo gloria_ (du méril, _poésies populaires latines du moyen age_, pp. 179-187), for an epitome of clerical virulence and vileness on this topic. [264] _op. volg._ iii. 274. [265] _op. volg._ v. 352. [266] _ibid._ pp. 355-359, 367-372. [267] for example the lines beginning "sospetto e cure." _ibid._ p. 368. [268] _op. volg._ i. lxv. he was not alone in this experiment. barbarous italian sapphics and hexameters are to be found in the _accademia coronaria_ on friendship, of which more in the next chapter. [269] _de re ædificatoria_, florence, 1485. this preface is a letter addressed to lorenzo de' medici. [270] "quicquid ingenio esset hominum cum quâdam effectum elegantiâ, id prope divinum dicebat," says the anonymous biographer. this sentence is the motto of humanism as elaborated by the artistic sense. its discord with the religion of the middle ages is apparent. [271] _op. volg._ i. 8. [272] this we learn from the last words of the first edition, "tarvisii cum decorissimis poliae amore lorulis distineretur misellus poliphilus mcccclvii." the author's name is given in the initial letters to the thirty-eight chapters of the book. [273] for this and other points about the _hypnerotomachia_ see ilg's treatise _ueber der kunsthistorischen werth der hypnerotomachia poliphili_, wien, braunmüller, 1872. [274] it ought, however, to be said that, being the first paragraph of the whole book, its style is not so free and simple as in more level passages. though i do not pretend to understand the meaning clearly, i subjoin a translation.--"phoebus advancing at that moment, when the forehead of matuta leucothea whitened, already free from ocean's waves, had not yet shown his whirling wheels suspense. but bent with his swift chargers, pyrous first and eous just disclosed to view, on painting the pale chariot of his daughter with vermeil roses, in most vehement flight pursuing her, made no delay. and sparkling over the azure and unquiet wavelets, his light-showering tresses flowed in curls. upon whose advent at that point descending to her rest stayed cynthia without horns, urging the two steeds of her carriage with the mule, the one white and the other dark, drawing toward the furthest horizon which divides the hemispheres where she had come, and, routed by the piercing star who lures the day, was yielding. at that time when the riphaean mountains were undisturbed, nor with so cold a gust the rigid and frost-creating east-wind with the side-blast blowing made the tender branches quake, and tossed the mobile stems and spiked reeds and yielding grasses, and vexed the pliant tendrils, and shook the flexible willows, and bent the frail fir-branches 'neath the horns of taurus in their wantonness. as in the winter time that wind was wont to breathe. likewise the boastful orion was at the point of staying to pursue with tears the beauteous taurine shoulder of the seven sisters." [275] when the book was translated into french and republished at paris in the sixteenth century, the blocks were imitated, and at a later epoch it became fashionable to refer them to raphael. the mistake was gross. its only justification is the style adopted by the french imitators in their rehandling of the illustrations to poliphil's soul pleading before venus. these cuts seem to have felt the influence of the farnesina frescoes. [276] here is the description of poliphil's reception by the damsels: "respose una lepidula placidamente dicendo. da mi la mano. hora si tu sospite & il bene venuto. nui al presento siamo cinque sociale comite come il vedi. et io me chiamo aphea. et questa che porta li buxuli & gli bianchissimi liuteamini, e nominata offressia. et questaltra che dil splendente speculo (delitie nostre) e gerula, orassia e il suo nome. costei che tene la sonora lyra, e dicta achoe. questa ultima, che questo vaso di pretiosissimo liquore baiula, ha nome geussia." [277] a portion of the passage describing this dalliance may be extracted as a further specimen of the author's style: "cum lascivi vulti, et gli pecti procaci, ochii blandienti et nella rosea fronte micanti e ludibondi. forme prae-excellente, habiti incentivi, moventie puellare, risguardi mordenti, exornato mundissimo. niuna parte simulata, ma tutto dalla natura perfecto, cum exquisita politione, niente difforme ma tutto harmonia concinnissima, capi flavi cum le trece biondissime e crini insolari tante erano bellissime complicate, cum cordicelle, o vero nextruli di seta e di fili doro intorte, quanto che in tutto la operatione humana excedevano, circa la testa cum egregio componimento invilupate e cum achi crinali detente, e la fronte di cincinni capreoli silvata, cum lascivula inconstantia praependenti." there is an obvious study of boccaccesque phrase, with a no less obvious desire to improve upon its exquisiteness of detail, masking an incapacity to write connectedly. [278] the reiteration of sensuous phrases is significant. these inscriptions, [greek: pantôn tokadi, pan dei poiein kata tên autou phusin, gonos kai euphuia], together with the triumphs of priapus and cupid, accord with the supremacy of venus physizoe. chapter iv. popular secular poetry. separation between cultivated persons and the people--italian despised by the learned--contempt for vernacular literature--the _certamen coronarium_--literature of instruction for the proletariate--growth of italian prose--abundance of popular poetry--the people in the quattrocento take the lead--qualities of italian genius--arthurian and carolingian romances--_i reali di francia_--andrea of barberino and his works--numerous romances in prose and verse--positive spirit--versified tales from boccaccio--popular legends--ginevra degli almieri--novel of _il grasso_--histories in verse--_lamenti_--the poets of the people--_cantatori in banca_--antonio pucci--his _sermintesi_--political songs--satires--burchiello--his life and writings--dance-songs--derived from cultivated literature, or produced by the people--poliziano--love-songs--_rispetti_ and _stornelli_--the special meaning of _strambotti_--diffusion of this poetry over italy--its permanence--question of its original home--intercommunication and exchange of dialects--_incatenature_ and _rappresaglie_--traveling in medieval italy--the subject-matter of this poetry--deficiency in ballad elements--canti monferrini--the ballad of _l'avvelenato_ and lord ronald. during the fifteenth century there was an almost complete separation between the cultivated classes and the people. humanists, intent upon the exploration of the classics, deemed it below their dignity to use the vulgar tongue. they thought and wrote in latin, and had no time to bestow upon the education of the common folk. a polite public was formed, who in the courts of princes and the palaces of noblemen amused themselves with the ephemeral literature of pamphlets, essays, and epistles in the latin tongue. for these well-educated readers poggio and pontano wrote their latin novels. the same learned audience applauded the gladiators of the moment, valla and filelfo, when they descended into the arena and plied each other with pseudo-ciceronian invectives. to quit this refined circle, and address the vulgar crowd, was thought unworthy of a man of erudition. even alberti, as we have seen, felt bound to apologize for sending his _teogenio_ in italian to lionello d'este. only here and there a humanist of the first rank is found who, like bruni, devoted a portion of his industry to the italian lives of dante and petrarch, or like filelfo, lectured on the divine comedy, or again like landino, composed a dantesque commentary in the mother tongue. moreover, dante and petrarch passed for almost classical; and in nearly all such instances of condescension, pecuniary interest swayed the scholar from his wonted orbit. it was want of skill in latin rather than love for his own idiom which induced vespasiano to pen his lives of great men in italian. not spontaneous inspiration, but the whim of a ducal patron forced filelfo to use _terza rima_ for his worthless poem on s. john, and to write a commentary upon petrarch in the vernacular.[279] one of this man's letters reveals the humanist's contempt for the people's language, and his rooted belief in the immortality of latin. it is worth translating.[280] "i will answer you," he says, "not in the vulgar language, as you ask, but in latin and our own true speech; for i have ever had an abhorrence for the talk of grooms and servants, equal to my detestation of their life and manners. you, however, call that dialect vernacular which, when i use the tuscan tongue, i sometimes write. all italians agree in praise of tuscan. yet i only employ it for such matters as i do not choose to transmit to posterity. moreover, even that tuscan idiom is hardly current throughout italy, while latin is far and wide diffused throughout the habitable world." from this interesting epistle we gather that even professional scholars in the middle of the fifteenth century recognized tuscan as a quasi-literary language, superior in polish to the other italian dialects, but not to be compared for dignity and durability with latin. it also proves that the language of boccaccio was for them almost a foreign speech. this attitude of learned writers produced a curious obtuseness of critical insight. niccolò niccoli, though he was a florentine, called dante "a poet for bakers and cobblers." pico della mirandola preferred lorenzo de' medici's verses to petrarch. landino complained, not, indeed, without good reason in that century, that the vulgar language could boast of no great authors. filippo villani, in the proem to his biographies, apologized for his father matteo, who exerted humble faculties and scanty culture to his best ability. lorenzo de' medici defended himself for paying attention to an idiom which men of good judgment blamed for "lowness, incapacity and unworthiness to deal with high themes or grave material." benedetto varchi, who lived to be an excellent though somewhat cumbrous writer of italian prose, gives this account of his early training[281]: "i remember that when i was a lad, the first and strictest rule of a father to his sons, and of a master to his pupils, was that they should on no account and for no object read anything in the vulgar speech (_non legesseno cose volgari, per dirlo barbaramente come loro_); and master guasparre mariscotti da marradi, who was my teacher in grammar, a man of hard and rough but pure and excellent manners, having once heard, i know not how, that schiatta di bernardo bagnesi and i were wont to read petrarch on the sly, gave as a sound rating for it, and nearly expelled us from his school." some of varchi's own stylistic pedantries may be attributed to this latinizing education. even when they wrote their mother tongue, it followed that the men of humanistic culture had a false conception of style. alberti could not abstain from latinistic rhetoric. cristoforo landino went the length of asserting that "he who would fain be a good tuscan writer, must first be a latin scholar." the italian of familiar correspondence was mingled in almost equal quantities with latin phrases. thus poliziano, writing from venice to lorenzo de' medici, employs the following strange maccaronic jargon[282]: visitai stamattina messer zaccheria barbero; e mostrandoli io l'affezione vostra ec., mi rispose sempre lagrimando, et ut visum est, de cuore; risolvendosi in questo, in te uno spem esse. ostendit so nosse quantum tibi debeat; sicchè fate quello ragionaste, ut favens ad majora. quello legato che torna da roma, et qui tecum locutus est florentiæ, non è punto a loro proposito, ut ajunt. poliziano, however, showed by his letters to the ladies of the medicean family, and by some sermons composed for a religious brotherhood of which he was a member, that he had no difficulty in writing tuscan prose of the best quality.[283] it seems to have been a contemptuous fashion among men of learning, when they used the mother tongue for correspondence, to load it with latin--just as a german of the age of frederick proved his superiority by french phrases. the acme of this affectation was reached in the _hypnerotomachia_, where the vice of latinism sought perpetuation through the printing press. meanwhile, the genius of the florentine people was saving italian literature from the extreme consequences to which caricatures of this kind, inspired by humanistic pedantry and sciolism, exposed it. a characteristic incident of the year 1441 brings before us a set of men who, though obscure and devoted to the service of the common folk, exercised no slight influence over the destinies of the italian language. after the reinstatement of the medici, and while alberti was resident in florence, it occurred to him to propose the prize of a silver crown for the best poem upon friendship, in the vulgar tongue. piero de' medici approving of this scheme, it was arranged that the contest for the prize should take place in s. maria del fiore, the competitors reciting their own compositions. the secretaries of pope eugenius iv. consented to be umpires. eight poets entered the lists--michele di noferi del gigante, francesco d'altobianco degli alberti, and six others not less unknown to fame. we still possess their compositions in octave stanzas, _terza rima_, sapphics, hexameters and lyric strophes.[284] the poems were so bad that even the judges of that period refused to award the crown; nor could the most indulgent student of forgotten literature arraign this verdict for severity. yet the men who engaged in alberti's _certamen coronarium_, as it was called, fairly represented a class of literary workers, who occupied a middle place between the learned and the laity, and on whom devolved the task of writing for the people. since that unique moment in the history of tuscan civilization when the lyrics of dante and guido cavalcanti were heard upon the lips of blacksmiths, the artisans of florence had not wholly lost their thirst for culture. style and erudition retired into the schools of the humanists and the studies of the nobles. but this curiosity of the _volgo_, as boccaccio contemptuously called them, was satisfied by the production of a vernacular literature, which brought the ruder elements of knowledge within their reach. mention has already been made of latini's _tesoro_ and _tesoretto_, uberti's _dittamondo_ and similar encyclopædic works of medieval learning. to these may now be added leonardo dati's cosmographical history in octave stanzas, the schiavo da bari's aphorisms on morality, and pucci's _terza rima_ version of villani's chronicle. genealogical poems on popes, emperors and kings; episodes from national italian history; novels, romances and tales of chivalry; pious biographies; the rudiments of education, from the _dottrinale_ of jacopo alighieri down to feo belcari's _a b c_, helped to complete the handicraftsman's library. further to describe this plebeian literature is hardly necessary. the authors advanced no pretensions to artistic elegance or stateliness of style. they sought to render knowledge accessible to unlettered readers, or to please an open-air audience with stirring and romantic narratives. their language broke only at rare intervals into poetry and rhetoric, when the subject-matter forced a note of unaffected feeling from the improvisatore. yet it has always the merit of purity, and, in point of idiom, is superior to the latinistic periods of alberti. by means of the neglected labors of these nameless writers, the style of the fourteenth century, so winning in its infantine grace, was gradually transformed and rendered capable of stronger literary utterance. those who have studied a single prose-work of this period--_i reali di francia_, for instance, or belcari's _vita del beato colombino_, or the _governo della famiglia_ ascribed to pandolfini--will be convinced that a real progress toward grammatical cohesion and massiveness of structure was made during those years of the fifteenth century which are usually counted barren of achievement by literary historians. italian prose had entered on the period of adolescence, leading to the manhood of machiavelli. the popular poetry of the _quattrocento_ is still more interesting than its prose. no period of italian history was probably more fruitful of songs poured forth from the very heart of the people, on the fields and in the city. the music of these lyrics still lingers about the tuscan highlands and the shores of sicily, where much that now passes for original composition is but the echo of most ancient melody stored in the retentive memory of peasants. to investigate the several species of this poetry, together with kindred works of prose fiction, under the several classes of (i) epics and romances, (ii) histories in verse and satires, (iii) love-poems, (iv) religious lyrics, and (v) dramas, will be my object in the present and the following chapters. this survey of popular literature forms a necessary introduction to the renascence which was simultaneously effected for italian at florence, ferrara and naples during the last years of the century. the material prepared by the people was then resumed and artistically elaborated by learned authors. it has been well said that italian poetry exhibits a continual reciprocity of exchange between the cultivated classes and the proletariate. in this respect the literature of the italians corresponds to their fine art. taken together with painting, sculpture, and music, it offers a more complete embodiment of the national spirit than can be shown by any other modern race. dante's francesca and count ugolino, ariosto's golden cantos, and the romantic episodes of the _gerusalemme_ are known by heart throughout the length and breadth of the peninsula. the people have appropriated these masterpieces of finished art. on the other hand, the literary poets have been ever careful to borrow subjects, forms, and motives from the populace. the close _rapport_ which thus connects the tastes and instincts of the proletariate with the culture of the aristocracy, is rooted in peculiar conditions of italian society. traditions of a very ancient civilization, derived without apparent rupture from the roman age, have penetrated and refined the whole nation. from the highest to the lowest, the italians are born with sensibility to beauty. this people and its poets live in sympathy so vital that, though their mutual good understanding may have been suspended for short intervals, it has never been broken. the vibrations of intercourse between the peasant and the learned writer are incessant; and if we notice some intermittency of influence on one side or the other, it is only because at one epoch the destinies of the national genius were committed to the people, at another to the cultivated classes. in the fifteenth century, one of these temporary ruptures occurred. the revival of learning had to be effected by an isolation of the scholars. meanwhile, the people carried on the work of literary transmutation, which was to connect boccaccio with pulci and poliziano. their instinct rejected all elements alien to the national temperament. out of the many models bequeathed by the fourteenth century, only those which suited the sensuous realism of the florentines survived. the traditions of ciullo d'alcamo and jacopone da todi, of rustico di filippo and lapo gianni, of folgore da s. gemignano and cene dalla chitarra, of cecco angiolieri and guido cavalcanti, of boccaccio and sacchetti, of ser giovanni and alesso donati, triumphed over the scholasticism of those learned poets--"half provençal and half latin, half chivalrous, and half _bourgeois_, half monastic and half sensual, half aristocratic and half plebeian"[285]--who had unsuccessfully experimentalized in the dawn of tuscan culture. the artificial chivalry, lifeless mysticism, barren metaphysics, and hypocritical piety of the rhyming doctors were eliminated. common sense expressed itself in a reaction against their conventional philosophy. giotto's blunt critique of franciscan poverty, orcagna's burlesque definition of love, not as a blind boy with wings and arrows, but thus: l'amore è un trastullo; non è composto di legno nè d'osso; e a molta gente fa rompere il dosso: struck the keynote of the new literature.[286] it is true that much was sacrificed. both dante and petrarch seemed to be forgotten. yet this was inevitable. dante represented a bygone age of faith and reason. petrarch's humanity was too exquisitely veiled. the florentine people required expression more simple and direct, movement more brusque, emotion of a coarser fiber. meanwhile the divine comedy and the _canzoniere_ were the inalienable possessions of the nation. they had already taken rank as classics. the italians had no national epic, if we except the _æneid_. we have seen how the romances of charlemagne and arthur were imported with the languages of france and provence into northern italy, and how they passed into the national literature of lombardy and tuscany.[287] both cycles were eminently popular. the _tavola ritonda_ ranks among the earliest monuments of tuscan prose.[288] the _cento novelle_ contain frequent references to merlin, lancelot and tristram. folgore da s. gemignano compares the members of his joyous company to king ban's children. in the _laberinto d'amore_ boccaccio speaks of arthurian tales as the favorite studies of idle women, and sacchetti bids his blacksmith turn from dante to legends of the round table. yet there is no doubt that from a very early period the carolingian cycle gained the preference of the italian people.[289] it is also noticeable that, not the main legend of roland, but the episode of rinaldo, and other offshoots from the history of the frankish peers, furnished plebeian poets with their favorite material.[290] mss. written in venetian and franco-italian dialects before the middle of the fourteenth century attest to the popularity of these subordinate romances, and reveal an independent handling of the borrowed subject. in form they do not diverge widely from french originals. yet there is one prominent characteristic which distinguishes the italian _rifacimenti_. a christian hero falls in love with a pagan heroine on pagan soil. his pursuit of her, their difficulties and adventures, and the evangelization of her people by the knightly lover, furnish a series of incidents which recur with singular persistence.[291] when the romances in question had been translated into tuscan, a destiny of special splendor was reserved for two of them, in no way distinguished by any apparent merit above the rest. these were the tales of buovo d'antona, of which we possess an early version in octave stanzas, and of fioravante, which exists in still older prose. about the beginning of the fifteenth century, the _buovo_ and the _fioravante_, together with other material drawn from the carolingian epic, were combined into the great prose work called _i reali di francia_.[292] since its first appearance to the present day, this romance has never ceased to be the most widely popular of all books written in italian. "there is nothing," says signor rajna, "so assiduously read from the alps to the furthest headlands of sicily. wherever a reader exists, there is it certain to be found in honor."[293] not the earliest but the latest product of a long elaboration of romantic matter by the people, it seems to have assimilated the very essence of the popular imagination. when we inquire into its authorship, we find good reason to ascribe it to andrea dei mangalotti of barberino in the val d'elsa, one of the best and most indefatigable workmen for the literary market of the proletariate.[294] it was he who compiled the _aspromonte_, the _aiolfo_, the seven books of _storie nerbonesi_, the _ugone d'avernia_, and the _guerino il meschino_, reducing these tales from elder poems and prose sources into tuscan of sterling lucidity and vigor, and attempting, it would seem, to embrace the whole carolingian cycle in a series of episodical romances.[295] _guerino il meschino_ rivaled for a while the _reali_ in popularity; but for some unknown reason, which would have to be sought in the instinctive partialities of the people, it was gradually superseded by the latter. the _reali_ alone has descended in its original form through the press to this century.[296] andrea da barberino, if we are right in ascribing the _reali_ to his pen, conferred a benefit on the italians parallel to that which the english owed to sir thomas mallory in his "mort d'arthur." he not only collected and condensed the scattered tales of numerous unknown predecessors, but he also bequeathed to the nation a monument of unaffected prose at a moment when the language was still ingenuous and plastic. it would be not uninteresting to compare the fate of the _reali_ with that of our own "mort d'arthur." the latter was the more artistic performance of the two. it achieved a truer epical unity, and was composed in a richer, more romantic style. the former remained episodical and incomplete; and its language, though solid and efficient, lacked the charm of mallory's all golden prose. yet the _reali_ is still a household classic. it is found in every _contadino's_ cottage, and supplies the peasantry with subjects for their _maggi_. the "mort d'arthur," on the contrary, has become the plaything of medievalizing folk in modern england. read for its unique beauty by students, it is still unknown to the people, and, in the opinion of the dull majority, it is reckoned inferior to tennyson's smooth imitations. when we come to consider the romantic poems of pulci, boiardo, and ariosto, we shall be able to estimate the service rendered by men like andrea da barberino to polite italian literature. the popularity of the cycle to which the _reali_ belonged, decided the choice of the carolingian epic by the poets of florence and ferrara. nor were the above-mentioned romances by any means the only works of their kind produced for a plebeian audience in the _quattrocento_. it is enough to mention _la regina ancroja_, _la spagna_, _trebisonda con la vita e morte di rinaldo_. both in prose and verse an abundant literature of the kind was manufactured. without being positively burlesqued, the heroes of chivalrous story were travestied to suit the taste of artisans and burghers. the element of the marvelous was surcharged; comic and pathetic episodes were multiplied; beneath the armor of the paladins italian characters were substituted with spontaneous malice for the obsolete ideals of feudalism. it only needed a touch of conscious irony to convert the material thus elaborated by the people into the airy fabric of ariosto's art. at the same time the form which the epic of romance was destined to assume, had been determined. the streets and squares of town and village rang with the chants of improvisatori, turning the prose periods of andrea da barberino and his predecessors into wordy octave stanzas, rehandling ancient _chansons de geste_, and adapting the mannerism of chivalrous minstrelsy to the requirements of a subtle-witted tuscan crowd. the old-fashioned invocations of god, madonna, or some saint were preserved at the beginning of each canto, while the audience received their _congé_ from the author at its close. when the poems thus produced were committed to writing, the plebeian author feigned at least the inspiration of a bard. while the traditions of medieval song were thus preserved, the prose-romances followed, as closely as possible, the style of a chronicle, and aimed at the verisimilitude of authentic history. the _reali_, for example, opens with this sentence: "fuvvi in roma un santo pastore della chiesa, che aveva nome papa silvestro." the _fioravante_, recently edited by signor rajna, begins: "nel tempo che gostantino imperadore regiea & mantenea corte in roma grandissima." this parade of historic seriousness, observed by the subsequent romantic poets, contributed in no small measure to the irony at which they aimed. but with the story-tellers of the _quattrocento_ it was no mere affectation. like their predecessors of the fourteenth century, they treated legend from the standpoint of experience. it was due in no small measure to this circumstance that the italian prose-romances are devoid of charm. nowhere do we find in them that magic touch of poetry which makes the forests, seas and castles of the "mort d'arthur" enchanted ground. notwithstanding all their extravagances, they remain positive in spirit, presenting the material of fancy in the sober garb of fact. the italian genius lacked a something of imaginative potency possessed in overflowing measure by the northern nations. it required the stimulus of satire, the infusion of idyllic sentiment, the consciousness of art, to raise the romantic epic to the height it reached in ariosto. then, and not till then, when the matter of the legend had become the sport of the æsthetic sense, were the inexhaustible riches of italian fancy, dealing delicately and humorously with a subject which could no longer be apprehended seriously, revealed to the world in a masterpiece of beauty. but that work of consummate art was what it was, by reason of the master's wise employment of a style transmitted to him through generations of plebeian predecessors. the same positive and workmanly method is discernible in the versified _novelle_ of this period.[297] the popular poets were wont to recast tales from the decameron and other sources in octave stanzas. of such compositions we have excellent specimens in girolamo benivieni's version of the novel of tancredi, and in an anonymous rhymed paraphrase of patient grizzel.[298] the latter is especially interesting when we compare it with the series of panels attributed to pinturicchio in the national gallery, where a painter of the same period has exercised his fancy in illustrating the legend which the poet versified. detached episodes of semi-mythical florentine history were similarly treated. allusion has already been made to the love-tale of ippolito and leonora, attributed on doubtful grounds to alberti.[299] but by far the most beautiful is the story of ginevra degli almieri, told in octave stanzas by agostino velletti.[300] this poem has rare value as a genuine product of the plebeian muse. the heroine ginevra's father was a pork-butcher, says the minstrel, and lived in the marcato vecchio, where he carried on the best business of the sort in florence. it is also important for students of comparative literature, because it clearly illustrates the difference between italian and northern treatment of an all but contemporary incident. the events narrated are supposed to have really happened in the year 1396. on the scotch border they would have furnished materials for a ballad similar to gil morrice or clerk saunders. in florence they take the form of a _novella_, and the _novella_ is expanded in octave stanzas.[301] ginevra had two lovers, antonio de' rondinelli and francesco degli agolanti. antonio loved her the more tenderly; but her parents gave her in marriage to francesco. soon after the ceremony, she sickened and fell into a trance; and since florence was then threatened with the plague, the girl was buried over-hastily in this deep slumber. her weeping parents laid her in a cippus or _avello_ between the two doors of s. reparata, where the workmen, unable to finish their job before sunset, left the lid of her sepulcher unsoldered. in the middle of the night ginevra woke, and discovered to her horror that she had been sent to the grave alive. happily the moon was shining, and a ray of light fell through a chink upon her bier. she arose, wrapped her shroud around her, and struggled from her marble chest into the silent cathedral square. giotto's bell tower rose above her, silvery and beautiful, and slender in the moonlight. like a ghost, sheeted in her grave-clothes, ginevra ran through the streets, and knocked first at francesco's door. he was seated awake by the fireside, sorrowing for his young bride's loss: andonne alla finestra e aprilla un poco: chi è là? chi batte? io son la tua ginevra; non m'odi tu? col suo parlar persevera. her husband doubts not that it is a spirit calling to him, bids her rest till masses shall be said for her repose, and shuts the window. then she turns to her mother's house. the mother, too, is sitting sorrowful by the hearth, when she is startled by ginevra's cry: e spaventata e piena di paura disse: va in pace, anima benedetta, bella figliuola mia, onesta e pura; e riserrò la finestra con fretta. rejected by husband and mother, ginevra next tries her uncle, and calls on him for succor in god's name: fugli risposto; anima benedetta, va che dio ti conservi in santa pace. the poor wretch now feels that there is nothing left for her but to lie down on the pavement and die of cold. but while she is preparing herself for this fate, she bethinks her of antonio. to his house she hurries, cries for aid, and falls exhausted on the doorstep. then comes the finest touch in the poem. antonio knows ginevra's voice; and loving her so tenderly, he hurries with delight to greet her risen from the grave. he alone has no fear and no misgiving; for love in him is stronger than death. at the street door, when he reaches it, he finds no ghost, but his own dear lady yet alive. she is half frozen and unconscious; yet her heart still beats. how he calls the women of his household to attend her, prepares a bed, and feeds her with warm soups and wine, and how she revives, and how antonio claims her for his wife, and wins his cause against her former bridegroom in the bishop's court, may be read at length in the concluding portion of the tale. the intrinsic pathos of this story makes it a real poem; for though the wizard's wand of northern imagination lay beyond the grasp of the italian genius, the _novelle_ are rarely deficient in poetry evoked by sympathy with injured innocence and loyal love. of truly popular _novelle_ belonging to the fifteenth century, none is racier or more characteristic than the anonymous tale of _il grasso, legnaiuolo_.[302] it is written in pure florentine dialect, and might be selected as the finest extant specimen of homespun tuscan humor. we have already seen that the point of sacchetti's stories is nearly always a practical joke, where comedy combines with heartless cruelty in almost equal parts. the theme of _il grasso_ is a superlatively comic _beffa_ of this sort, played by filippo brunelleschi on a friend of his. the incident is dated 1409, and is supposed to have really occurred. manetto ammannatini, a _tarsiatore_ or worker in carved and inlaid wood, was called _il grasso_, because he was a fine stout fellow of twenty-eight years. he had his _bottega_ on the piazza s. giovanni and lived with his brother in a house hard by. among his most intimate associates were filippo di ser brunellesco, donatello, _intagliatore di marmi_, giovanni di messer francesco rucellai, and others, partly gentlemen and partly handicraftsmen; for there was no abrupt division of classes at florence, and this story shows how artisans and men of high condition dwelt together in good fellowship. the practical joke devised by brunelleschi consisted in persuading manetto that he had been changed into a certain matteo. the whole society of friends were in the secret, and the affair was so cunningly conducted that at last they attained the desired object. they caused manetto to be arrested for a debt of matteo, sent matteo's brothers and then the clergyman of the parish to reason with him on his spendthrift habits, and fooled him so that he fairly lost his sense of identity. the whole series of incidents, beginning with manetto's indignant assertion of his proper personality, passing through his doubts, and closing with his mystification, is conducted by fine gradations of irresistibly comic humor. at last the poor man resolves to quit florence and to seek refuge with king mathias corvinus in hungary; which it seems he subsequently did, in company with a certain lo spano. there is no reason to suppose that this practical joke did not actually take place. i have enlarged upon the _novella_ of _il grasso_, because it is typical of the genuinely popular literature, written to delight the folk of florence, appealing to their subtlest as well as broadest sense of fun, and bringing on the scene two famous artists, brunelleschi, whose cupola is "raised above the heavens," and donatello, whose s. george seems stepping from his pedestal to challenge all the evil of the world and conquer it. unfortunately, our published collections are not rich in novels of this date; and next to the anonymous tale of _il grasso, legnaiuolo_ it is difficult to cite one of at all equal value, till we come to luigi pulci's story of messer goro and pius ii. this is really a satire on the sienese, whom pulci represents with florentine malice as almost inconceivably silly. the tuscan style is piquant in the extreme, and the picture of manners very brilliant.[303] from epical and narrative literature to poems written for the people upon contemporary events and public history, is not an unnatural transition. these compositions divide themselves into _storie_ and _lamenti_. we have abundant examples of both kinds in lyric measures and also in octave stanzas and _terza rima_.[304] a few of their titles will suffice to indicate their scope. _il lamento di giuliano de' medici_ relates the tragic ending of the pazzi conspiracy; _il lamento del duca galeazzo maria_ tells how that duke was murdered in the church of s. stefano at milan; _el lamento di otranto_ is an echo of the disaster which shook all italy to her foundations in the year 1480; _el lamento e la discordia de italia universale_ sounds the death-note of italian freedom in the last years of the century. after that period the _pianti_ and _lamenti_, attesting to the sorrows of a nation, increase in frequency until all voices from the people are hushed in the leaden sleep of spanish despotism.[305] the _storie_ in like manner are more abundant between the years 1494 and 1530, when the wars of foreign invaders supplied the bards of the market-place with continual matter for improvisation. among the earliest may be mentioned two poems on the battle of anghiari and the taking of serezana.[306] then the list proceeds with the tale of the borgias, _guerre orrende_, _rotta di ravenna_, _mali deportamenti de franciosi fato in italia_, and so forth, till it ends with _la presa di roma_ and _rotta di ferruccio_. a last echo of these _storie_ and _lamenti_--for alas! in italy of the sixteenth century history and lamentation were all one--still sounds about the hillsides of siena[307]: o piero strozzi, 'ndù sono i tuoi bravoni? al poggio delle donne in que' burroni. o piero strozzi, 'ndù sono i tuoi soldati? al poggio delle donne in quei fossati. o piero strozzi, 'ndù son le tue genti? al poggio delle donne a côr le lenti. it may be well to say how these poems reached the people, before they were committed to writing or the press. there existed a professional class of rhymsters, usually blind men, if we may judge by the frequent affix of _cieco_ to their names, who tuned their guitar in the streets, and when a crowd had gathered round them, broke into some legend of romance, or told a tale of national misfortune. the italian designation of these minstrels is _cantatore in banca_ or _cantore di piazza_. in the high tide of florentine freedom the _cantore di piazza_ exercised a noble calling; for through his verse the voice of the common folk made itself heard beneath the very windows of the signoria. in 1342, when the war with pisa turned against the florentines owing to the incompetence of their generals, antonio pucci, who was the most celebrated _cantatore_ of the day, took his lute and placed himself upon the steps beneath the palazzo, and having invoked the virgin mary, struck up a _sermintese_ on the duty of making peace[308]: signor, pognàm ch'i' sia di vil nascenza, i' pur nacqui nel corpo di firenza, come qual c'è di più sofficienza: onde 'l mi duole di lei, considerando che esser suole tenuta più che madre da figliuole; oggi ogni bestia soggiogar la vuole e occupare. other poems of the same kind by antonio pucci belong to the year 1346, or celebrate the purchase of lucca from mastino della scala, or the victory of messer piero rosso at padua, or the expulsion of the duke of athens from florence in 1348. it must not be supposed that the _cantatori in banca_ of the next century enjoyed so much liberty of censure or had so high a sense of their vocation as antonio pucci. yet the people made their opinions freely heard in rhymes sung even by the children through the streets, as when they angered martin v. in 1420 by crying beneath his very windows[309]: papa martino, signor di piombino, conte de urbino, non vale un quattrino. during the ascendency of savonarola and the party-struggles of the medici the rival cries of _palle_ and _viva cristo rè_ were turned into street songs[310]; but at last, after the siege and the victory of clement, the voice of the people was finally stifled by authority.[311] the element of satire in these ditties of the people leads me to speak of one very prominent poet of the fifteenth century--domenico di giovanni, called il burchiello, the rhyming barber.[312] he was born probably in 1403 at florence, where his father, who was a pisan, had acquired the rights of citizenship and followed the trade of a barber. their shop was situated in calimala, and formed a meeting-place for the wits, who carried burchiello's verses over the town. the boy seems to have studied at pisa, and acquired some slight knowledge of medicine.[313] at the age of four-and-twenty we find him married, with three children and no property.[314] soon after this date, he separated from his wife; or else she left him on account of his irregular and dissolute habits. peering through the obscurity of his somewhat sordid history, we see him getting into trouble with the inquisition on account of profane speech, and then espousing the cause of the albizzi against the medicean faction. on the return of cosimo de' medici in 1434, burchiello was obliged to leave florence. he settled at siena, and opened a shop in the corso di camollia, hoping to attract the florentines whose business brought them to that quarter. here he nearly ruined his health by debauchery, and narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of a certain ser rosello.[315] leaving siena about 1440, burchiello spent the last years of his life in wandering through the cities of italy. we hear of him at venice entertained by one of the alberti family, then at naples, finally in rome, where he died in 1448, poisoned probably by robert, a bastard of pandolfo sigismondo malatesta, at the instigation of his ancient enemy, cosimo de' medici.[316] such long arms and such retentive memory had the merchant despot. burchiello's sonnets were collected some thirty years after his death and published simultaneously at various places.[317] they owed their popularity partly to their political subject-matter, but more to their strange humor. a foreigner can scarcely understand their language, far less appreciate their fun; for not only are they composed in florentine slang of the fifteenth century, but this slang itself consists of detached phrases and burlesque allusions, chipped as it were from current speech, broken into splinters, and then wrought into a grotesque mosaic. that burchiello had the merit of originality, and that he caught the very note of plebeian utterance, is manifest from the numerous editions and imitations of his sonnets.[318] his muse was a _volgivaga venus_ bred among the taverns and low haunts of vulgar company, whose biting wit introduced her to the society of the learned. yet her utterances, at this distance of time, are so obscure and their point has been so blunted that to profess an admiration for burchiello savors of literary affectation.[319] he was a poet of the transition; and the burlesque style which he made popular was destined to be superseded by the more refined and subtle bernesque manner. il lasca, writing in the sixteenth century, expressed himself strongly against those who still ventured to compare burchiello with the author of _le pesche_. "let no one talk to me of burchiello; to rank him with berni is no better than to couple the fiend charon with the angel gabriel."[320] not the least important branch of popular poetry in its bearing on the future of italian literature was the strictly lyrical. in treating of these volkslieder, it will be necessary to consider them under the two aspects of secular and religious--the former destined to supply poliziano and lorenzo de' medici with models for their purest works of literary art, the latter containing the germs of the florentine sacred play within the strophes of a hymn. if we return to the golden days of the fourteenth century, we find that dante's, boccaccio's and sacchetti's _ballate_ descended to the people and were easily adapted to their needs.[321] minute comparison of dante's dance-song of the _ghirlandetta_ with the version in use among the common folk will show what slight alterations were needed in order to render it the property of 'prentice lads and spinning maidens, and at the same time how subtle those changes were.[322] dante's song might be likened to a florin fresh from the mint; the popular ditty to the same coin after it had circulated for a year or two, exchanging something of its sharp lines for the smoothness of currency and usage. the same is true of boccaccio's ballata, _il fior che 'l valor perde_; except that here the transformation has gone deeper, and, if such a criticism may be hazarded, has bettered the original by rendering the sentiment more universal.[323] sacchetti's charming song _o vaghe montanine pasturelle_ underwent the same process of metamorphosis before it assumed the form in which it passed for a composition of poliziano.[324] starting with poems of this quality, the rhymsters of the market-place had noble models, and the use they made of them was adequate. we cannot from the wreck of time recover very many that were absolutely written for the people by the people; but we can judge of their quality by angelo poliziano's imitations.[325] he borrowed so largely from all sources, and his debts can be so accurately traced in his _rispetti_, that it is fair to credit the popular muse with even such delicate work as _la brunettina_, while the disputed authorship of the may-song _ben venga maggio_ and of the ballata _vaghe le montanine e pastorelle_ is sufficient to prove at least their widespread fame.[326] whoever wrote them, they became the heirlooms of the people. if proof were needed of the vast number of such compositions in the fifteenth century--erotic, humorous, and not unfrequently obscene--it might be derived from the rubrics of the _laude_ or hymns, which were almost invariably parodies of popular dance-songs and intended to be sung to the same tunes.[327] every festivity--may-morning tournaments, summer evening dances on the squares of florence, weddings, carnival processions, and vintage-banquets at the villa--had their own lyrics, accompanied with music and the carola. the dance-songs and canzonets, of which we have been speaking, were chiefly of town growth and tuscan. another kind of popular love-poem, common to all the dialects of italy, may be regarded as a special production of the country. much has lately been written concerning these _rispetti_, _strambotti_ and _stornelli_.[328] ample collections have been made to illustrate their local peculiarities. their points of resemblance and dissimilarity have been subjected to critical analysis, and great ingenuity has been expended on the problem of their origin. it will be well to preface what has to be said about them with some explanation of terms. there are, to begin with, two distinct species. the _stornello ritornello_ or _fiore_, called also _ciure_ in sicily, properly consists of two or three verses starting with the name of a flower. thus[329]: fior di granato! bella, lo nome tuo sta scritto in cielo, lo mio sta scritto sull'onda del mare. _rispetto_ and _strambotto_ are two names for the same kind of song, which in the north-eastern provinces is also called _villotta_ and in sicily _canzune_.[330] strictly speaking, the term _strambotto_ should be confined to literary imitations of the popular _rispetto_. in tuscany the lyric in question consists, in its normal form, of four alternately rhyming hendecasyllabic lines, followed by what is technically called the _ripresa_, or repetition, which may be composed of two, four, or even more verses. though not strictly an octave stanza, it sometimes falls into this shape, and has then two pairs of three alternate rhymes, finished up with a couplet. in the following instance the quatrain and the _ripresa_ are well marked[331]: quando sarà quel benedetto giorno, che le tue scale salirò pian piano? i tuoi fratelli mi verranno intorno, ad un ad un gli toccherò la mano. quando sarà quel dì, cara colonna, che la tua mamma chiamerò madonna? quando sarà quel dì, caro amor mio? io sarò vostra, e voi sarete mio! in sicily the _canzune_ exhibits a stanza of eight lines rhyming alternately throughout upon two sounds. certain peculiarities, however, in the structure of the strophe render it probable that it was originally a quatrain followed by a _ripresa_ of the same length. thus[332]: quannu nascisti tu, stidda lucenti, 'n terra calaru tri ancili santi; vinniru li tri re d'orienti, purtannu cosi d'oru e di brillanti; tri aculi vularu prestamenti, dannu la nova a punenti e a livanti; bella, li to' billizzi su' putenti! avi nov'anni chi ti sugnu amanti. in the north-east the _villotta_ consists of a simple quatrain. of this form the following is an example[333]: quanti ghe n'è, che me sente a cantare, e i dise;--custia canta dal bon tempo.- che prego 'l ciel che me possa agiutare; quando che canto, alora me lamento. though these are the leading types of the _rispetto_, _canzune_ and _villotta_, each district exhibits a variety of subordinate and complex forms. the same may be said about the _stornello_, _ritornello_ and _ciure_. the names, too, are very variously applied; nor without pedantry would it be possible to maintain perfect precision in their usage.[334] it is enough to have indicated the two broad classes into which popular poetry of this kind is divided. for the future i shall refer to the one sort as _rispetti_, to the other as _stornelli_. comparative analysis makes it clear that the _rispetti_ and _stornelli_ scattered over all the provinces of italy, constitute a common fund. that is to say, we do not meet with the _rispetti_ of each dialect confined to their own region; but the same original _rispetto_, perhaps now lost to sight, has been adapted and transformed to suit the taste and idiom of the several provinces. to reconstitute the primitive type, to decide with certainty in each case the true source of these lyrics, is probably impossible. all we know for certain is that beneath apparent dialectical divergences the vulgar poetry of the italians presents unmistakable signs of identity.[335] which province was the primitive home of the _rispetti_; whether sicily, where the faculty for reproducing them is still most vivid[336]; or tuscany, where they certainly attain their purest form and highest beauty; or whether all italian country districts have contributed their quota to the general stock; are difficult questions, as yet by no means satisfactorily decided. professor d'ancona advances a theory, which is too plausible to be ignored in silence. _rispetti_, he suggests, were first produced in sicily, whence they traveled through central italy, receiving dialectical transmutation in tuscany, and there also attaining to the perfection of their structure.[337] numerous slight indications lead to the conclusion that their original linguistic type was southern. the imagery also which is common in verses sung to this day by the peasants of the pistoja highlands, including frequent references to the sea with metaphors borrowed from orange-trees and palms, seems to indicate a sicilian birthplace.[338] we have, moreover, the early evidence of six _napolitane_ copied from a magliabecchian ms. of the fourteenth century, which exhibit the transition from southern to tuscan idiom and structure.[339] one of these still exists in several dialects, under the title of _la rondinella importuna_.[340] it is therefore certain that many _rispetti_ are very ancient, dating from the suabian period, when sicilian poetry, as we have seen, underwent the process of _toscaneggiamento_. however, d'ancona's theory is too hypothetical, and it may also be said, too neat, to be accepted without reservation. one point, at any rate, may be considered certain. though the _rispetti_ are still alive upon the lips of _contadini_; though we may hear them echoing from farm and field through all the length and breadth of italy; though the voluminous collections we possess have recently been gathered from _viva voce_ recitation; yet they are perhaps as ancient as the dialects. the proof of this antiquity lies in the fact that whether we take the literary _strambotti_ of poliziano for our standard, or the _pasticci_, _incatenature_ and _intrecciature_ of the sixteenth century for guides, we find the phrases and the style that are familiar to us in the rural lyrics of to-day.[341] bronzino's _serenata_ and the _incatenatura_ of bianchino contain, embedded in their structure, ditties which were universally known in the sixteenth century, and which are being sung still with unimportant alterations by the people. the attention of learned men was directed in the renascence of tuscan literature to the beauty of these lyrics. poliziano, writing to lorenzo de' medici in 1488, and describing his journey with pietro through montepulciano and acquapendente in the month of may, says that he and his companions amused themselves with _rappresaglie_ or adaptations of the songs they heard upon the way.[342] his road took him through what is still one of the best sources of local verse and music; and we may believe that at the close of the fifteenth century, the _contadini_ of that district were singing nearly the same words as now. nor, when we examine the points of similarity and difference in the italian _rispetti_ and _stornelli_, as they now exist, is there anything improbable in this antiquity. nothing but great age can account for their adaptation to the tone, feeling, fancy, habits and language of so many regions. it must have taken more than a century or two to rub down their original angles, to efface the specific stamp of their birthplace, and to make them pass for home productions in venice no less than palermo, in tuscan montalcino and ligurian chiavari. the retentiveness of the popular memory, before it has been spoiled by education, is quite sufficient to account for the preservation of these lyrics through several hundred years. nor need their wide diffusion suggest difficulties. italy in the middle ages offered readier means of intercommunication between the inhabitants of her provinces than she has done since the settlement of the country in 1530. when the liberation of the communes gave a new impulse to intellectual and commercial activity, there began a steady and continually increasing movement from one city to another. commercial enterprise led the burghers of pisa, lucca, florence, venice, genoa, to establish themselves as bankers and middle-men, brokers and manufacturers, in rome and naples. soldiers of adventure flocked from the south, and made the northern towns their temporary home. the sanctuaries of gargano, loretto and assisi drew pilgrims from all quarters. noblemen of romagna acted as _podestà_ beyond the apennines, while lombards opened shops in palermo. churchmen bred upon the riviera wore the miter in the march; natives of the spoletano taught in the schools of bologna and pavia. men of letters, humanists and artists had no fixed dwelling-place, but wandered, like mercenary soldiers, from town to town in search of better pay. students roamed from school to school according as the fame of great professors drew them. party-quarrels in the commonwealths drove whole families, such as the florentine uberti, alberti, albizzi, strozzi, into exile. conquered cities, like pisa, sent forth their burghers by hundreds as emigrants, too proud to bear the yoke of foes they had resisted. nor were the courts of princes without their influence in mingling the natives of different districts. whether, then, we study the _novelle_, or the histories of great houses, or the biographies of eminent italians, or the records of the universities, we shall be led to the conclusion that from the year 1200 to the year 1550 there was a perpetual and lively intercourse by land and sea between the departments of italy. this reciprocity of influence did not cease until the two despotic races, austrian and spaniard, threw each separate province into solitary chains. such being the conditions of social exchange at the epoch when the language was in process of formation, there is nothing strange in finding the rural poetry of the south acclimatized in central and northern italy. but the very facility of communication and the probable antiquity of these lyrics should make us cautious in adopting any rigid hypothesis about their origin. it is reasonable to suppose that such transferable property as love-poems might have been everywhere produced and rapidly diffused, the best from each center surviving by a natural process of selection. lastly, whatever view may be taken of their formation and their age, we have every reason to believe that the fifteenth century was a fruitful period of production and accumulation. toward the close of the _quattrocento_ they attracted the curiosity of lettered poets, who began to imitate them, and in the next hundred years they were committed in large numbers to the press.[343] in addition to the influence exercised by these popular lyrics over polite literature in the golden age of the renaissance, extraordinary interest attaches to them as an indigenous species of verse, dating from remote antiquity and still surviving in all corners of the country. in them we analyze the italian poetic genius at its source and under its most genuine conditions. both from their qualities and their defects inferences may be drawn, which find application and illustration in the solemn works of laureled singers. the one theme of _rispetti_ and _stornelli_ is love; but love in all its phases and with all its retinue of associated emotions--expectation, fruition, disappointment, jealousy, despair, rejection, treachery, desertion, pleading, scorn--the joys of presence, the pangs of absence, the ecstasy of union, the agony of parting--love, natural and unaffected, turbulent or placid, chaste or troubled with desire, imperious or humble, tempestuously passionate or toned to tranquil acquiescence--love varying through all moods and tempers, yet never losing its note of spontaneity, sincerity and truth. the instincts of the people are pure, and their utterances of affection are singularly free from grossness. this at least is almost universally the case with lyrics gathered from the country. approaching town-life, they lose their delicacy; and the products of the city are not unfrequently distinguished by the crudest obscenity.[344] the literary form of many of these masterpieces exhibits the beauty of rhythm, the refinement of outline, which we associate with melodies of the best italian period--with chants of pergolese, songs of salvator rosa. when we compare their subject-matter with that of our northern ballads, we notice a marked deficiency of legend, superstition or grotesque fancy. there are no witches, dragons, demon-lovers, no enchanted forests, no mythical heroes, no noble personages, few ghosts, few dreams and visions, in these songs poured forth among the olive-trees and myrtle-groves of italy. human nature, conscious of pleasure and of pain, finding its primitive emotion an adequate motive for verse subtly modulated through a thousand keys, is here sufficient to itself. the echoes imported from an outer world of passion and romance and action into this charmed region of the lover's heart are rare and feeble. through all their national vicissitudes, the italian peasants followed one sole aim in verse. the _rispetti_ of all times, localities and dialects form one protracted, ever-varying duo between thou and i, the _dama_ and the _damo_, the eternal protagonists in the play of youth and love. this absence of legendary and historical material marks a main difference between italian and teutonic inspiration. among the italic communities the practical historic sense was early developed, and sustained by the tradition of a classic past. it demanded a positive rather than imaginative treatment of contemporary fact and mythus. among the people this requirement was satisfied by _storie_, _lamenti_, and prose chronicles. very few, indeed, are the relics of either romantic or actual history surviving in the lyrics of the rural population. only here and there, in dim allusions to the sicilian vespers and the norman conquest, in the tale of the baronessa di carini, or in the northern legend of rosmunda, under its popular form of _la donna lombarda_, do we find a faint analogy between the italian and teutonic ballads.[345] dramatic, mythical and epical elements are almost wholly wanting in the genuine lyrics of the people. this statement requires some qualification. the four volumes of _fiabe, novelle e racconti_ recently published by signor pitrè, prove that the sicilians in prose at least have a copious literature corresponding to german _märchen_ and norse tales.[346] this literature, however, has not received poetic treatment in any existing southern songs that have been published, excepting in the few already noticed. at the same time, it must be mentioned that the collections of lyrics in north-western dialects--especially the _canti monferrini_, _canzoni comasche_, and _canti leccesi_--exhibit specimens of genuine ballads. it would seem that contact with french and german borderers along the alpine rampart had introduced into piedmont and lombardy a form of lyric which is not essentially italian. had i space sufficient at disposal, i should like to quote the _donna lombarda_, _moglie infedele_, _giuseppina parricida_, _principessa giovanna_, _giuliano della croce bianca_, _cecilia_, _rè carlino_, _morando_, and several others from ferraro's collection.[347] they illustrate, what is exceedingly rare in popular italian poetry, both the subject-matter and the manner peculiar to the northern ballad. let the following verses from _la sposa per forza_ suffice[348]: ra soi madona a r'ha brassaja suvra u so coffu a r'ha minèe; uardèe qui, ra me noiretta, le bele gioje che vi vôi dunèe. mi n'ho csa fè dle vostre gioje; e manc ancur dla vostra cà; cma ca voja dir bel gioje ra me mama m' na mandirà. to comparative mythologists in general, and to english students in particular, the most interesting of these rare italian ballads is undoubtedly one known as _l'avvelenato_.[349] so far as i am aware, it is unique in the italian language; nor had its correspondences with northern ballad-literature been noticed until i pointed them out in 1879.[350] in his work on popular italian poetry, professor d'ancona included the following song, which he had heard upon the lips of a young peasant of the pisan district[351]: dov'eri 'ersera a cena caro mio figlio, savio e gentil? mi fai morire ohimè! dov'eri 'ersera a cena gentile mio cavalier?- ero dalla mia dama; mio core stà male, che male mi stà! ero dalla mia dama; 'l mio core che se ne và.- che ti diènno da cena, caro mio figlio, savio e gentil? mi fai morire, ohimè! che ti diènno da cena, gentile mio cavalier?- un anguilletta arrosto, cara mia madre; mio core stà male, che male mi stà! un anguilletta arrosto, 'l mio core che se ne và. other versions of the same poem occur in the dialects of venice, como and lecco with such variations as prove them all to be the offshoots from some original now lost in great antiquity. that it existed and was famous so far back as the middle of the seventeenth century, is proved by an allusion in the _cicalata in lode della padella e della frittura_, recited before the accademia della crusca by lorenzo panciatichi in 1656.[352] a few lines are also quoted in the _incatenatura_ of the cieco fiorentino, published at verona in 1629.[353] any one who is familiar with our border minstrelsy will perceive at once that this is only an italian version of the ballad of lord donald or lord randal.[354] the identity between the two is rendered still more striking by an analysis of the several lombard versions. in that of como, for example, the young man makes his will; and this is the last verse[355]: cossa lassè alla vostra dama, figliuol mio caro, fiorito e gentil, cossa lassè alla vostra dama? la fôrca da impiccarla, signora mama, mio cor sta mal! la fôrca da impiccarla: ohimè, ch'io moro, ohimè! the same version furnishes the episode of the poisoned hounds[356]: coss'avì fâ dell'altra mezza, figliuol mio caro, fiorito e gentil? cossa avì fâ dell'altra mezza? l'hô dada alla cagnòla: signôra mama, mio core sta mal! l'hô dada alla cagnòla: ohimè, ch'io moro, ohimè! cossa avì fâ della cagnòla, figliuol mio caro, fiorito e gentil? cossa avì fâ della cagnòla? l'è morta drê la strada; signôra mama, mio core sta mal! l'è morta drê la strada: ohimè, ch'io moro, ohimè! it is worth mentioning that the same ballad belongs under slightly different forms to the germans, swedes, and other nations of the teutonic stock; but so far as i have yet been able to discover, it remains the sole instance of that species of popular literature in italy.[357] the phenomenon is singular, and though conjectures may be hazarded in explanation, it is impossible, until further researches for parallel examples have been made, to advance a theory of how this ballad penetrated so far south as tuscany. footnotes: [279] see rosmini, _vita di filelfo_, vol. ii. p. 13, for filelfo's dislike of italian. in the dedication of his commentary to filippo maria visconti he says: "tanto più volentieri ho intrapreso questo comento, quanto dalla tua eccellente signoria non solo invitato sono stato, ma pregato, lusingato et provocato." the first canto opens thus: o philippo maria anglo possente, perchè mi strengi a quel che non poss'io? vuoi tu ch'io sia ludibrio d'ogni gente? [280] dated milan, feb. 1477. rosmini, _op. cit._ p. 282. [281] _ercolano_ (in vinetia, giunti, 1570), p. 185. [282] _prose volgari_, etc., edite da i. del lungo (firenze, barbèra, 1867), p. 80. [283] _prose_, etc., _op. cit._ pp. 45 _et seq._ pp. 3 _et seq._ [284] alberti, _op. volg._ vol. i. pp. clxvii.-ccxxxiii. the quality of these latin meters may be judged from the following hexameters: ma non prima sarà che 'l dato la musa corona invochi, allora subito cantando l'avete, tal qual si gode presso il celeste tonante. of the sapphics the following is a specimen: eccomi, i' son qui dea degli amici, quella qual tutti li omini solete mordere, e falso fugitiva dirli, or la volete. [285] carducci, "della rime di dante alighieri," _studi_, p. 154. [286] for giotto's and orcagna's poems, see trucchi, vol. ii. pp. 8 and 25. [287] see above, pp. 17 _et seq._ [288] the _tavola ritonda_ has been reprinted, 2 vols., bologna, romagnoli, 1864. it corresponds very closely in material to our _mort d'arthur_, beginning with the history of uther pendragon and ending with arthur's wound and departure to the island of morgan le fay. [289] see above, p. 18. the subject of these romances has been ably treated by pio rajna in his works, _i reali di francia_ (bologna, romagnoli, 1872), and _le fonti dell'orlando furioso_ (firenze, sansoni, 1876). [290] the _rinaldino_, a prose romance recently published (bologna, romagnoli, 1865), might be selected as a thoroughly italian _fioritura_ on the ancient carolingian theme. [291] we have here the germ of the _orlando_ and of the first part of the _morgante_. [292] rajna, _i reali_, p. 320, fixes the date of its composition at a little before 1420. [293] _ibid._ p. 3. [294] _i reali_, pp. 311-319. [295] the _storie nerbonesi_ were published in two vols. (bologna, romagnoli, 1877), under the editorship of i.g. isola. the third volume forms a copious philological and critical appendix. [296] _guerino_ was versified in octave stanzas, by a poet of the people called l'altissimo, in the sixteenth century. [297] see _i novellieri italiani in verso_ by giamb. passano (romagnoli, 1868). the whole _decameron_ was turned into octave stanzas by v. brugiantino, and published by marcolini at venice in 1554. among _novelle_ versified for popular reading may be cited, _masetto the gardener_ (_decam._ giorn. iii. 1), _romeo and juliet_ (verona, 1553), _il grasso, legnaiuolo_ (by b. davanzati, florence, 1480), _prasildo and lisbina_ (from the _orlando innamorato_), _oliva, fiorio e biancifiore_ (the tale of the _filocopo_). of classical tales we find _sesto tarquinio et lucretia_, _orpheo_, _perseo_, _piramo_, _giasone e medea_. [298] _tancredi principe di salerno_, bologna, romagnoli, 1863. _il marchese di saluzzo e la griselda_, bologna, romagnoli, 1862. [299] see above, p. 212. the literary hesitations of an age as yet uncertain of its aim might be illustrated from these romances. of _ippolito e leonora_ we have a prose, an _ottava rima_, and a latin version. of _griselda_ we have boccaccio's italian, and petrarch's latin prose, in addition to the anonymous _ottava rima_ version. of the _principe di salerno_ we have boccaccio's italian, and lionardo bruni's latin versions in prose, together with filippo beroaldo's latin elegiacs, francesco di michele accolti's _terza rima_ and benivieni's octave stanzas. lami in his _novelle letterarie_ (bologna, romagnoli, 1859) prints an italian _novella_ on the same story, which he judges anterior to the _decameron_. later on, annibal guasco produced another _ottava rima_ version; and the tale was used by several playwrights in the composition of tragedies. [300] _la storia di ginevra almieri che fu sepolta viva in firenze_ (pisa, nistri, 1863). [301] the same point is illustrated by the tales of the marchese di saluzzo and the principe di salerno, which produced the novels of _griselda_ and _tancredi_. see notes to p. 250, above. [302] _raccolta dei novellieri italiani_, vol. xiii. [303] _op. cit._ vol. xiii. an allusion to masuccio in this novel is interesting, since it proves the influence he had acquired even in florence: "masuccio, grande onore della città di salerno, molto imitatore del nostro messer giovanni boccaccio," _ib._ p. 34. pulci goes on to say that the reading of the _novellino_ had encouraged him to write his tale. [304] see d'ancona, _la poesia popolare italiana_, pp. 64-79. [305] a fine example of these later _lamenti_ has been republished at bologna by romagnoli, 1864. it is the _lamento di fiorenza_ upon the siege and slavery of 1529-30. [306] a medieval specimen of this species of composition is the _ballata_ for the _reali di napoli_ in the defeat of montecatini. see carducci's _cino e altri_, p. 603. [307] d'ancona, _op. cit._ p. 78. [308] _sermintese storico di a. pucci_, livorno, vigo, 1876. it will be remembered that dante in the _vita nuova_ (section vi.) says he composed a _serventese_ on sixty ladies of florence. the name was derived from provence, and altered into _sermintese_ by the florentines. we possess a poem of this sort by a. pucci on the florentine ladies, printed by d'ancona in his edition of the _vita nuova_ (pisa, nistri, p. 71), together with a valuable discourse upon this form of poetry. carducci in his _cino e altri_ prints two _sermintesi_ by pucci on the beauties of women. [309] d'ancona, _poesia popolare italiana_, pp. 47-50, has collected from leonardo bruno and other sources many interesting facts about pope martin's anger at this ditty. he seems to have gone to the length of putting florence under an interdict. [310] d'ancona, _op. cit._ pp. 51-56. [311] one of the last plebeian rhymes on politics comes from siena, where, in the year 1552, the people used to sing this couplet in derision of the cardinal of the mignanelli family sent to rule them: mignanello, mignanello, non ci piace il tuo modello. see benci's _storia di montepulciano_ (fiorenza, massi e landi, 1641), p. 104. an anecdote from busini (_lettere al varchi_, firenze, le monnier, p. 220) is so characteristic of the popular temper under the oppression of spanish tyranny that its indecency may be excused. he says that a law had been passed awarding, "quattro tratti di corda ad uno che, tirando una c---disse: poi che non si può parlare con la bocca, io parlerò col c----." [312] see the work entitled _sulle poesie toscane di domenico il burchiello nel secolo xv_, g. gargani, firenze, tip. cenn. 1877. [313] intendi a me, che già studiai a pisa, e ogni mal conosco senza signo. _sonetti del burchiello, del bellincioni, e d'altri_, 1757, londra, p. 125. see, too, the whole sonnet _son medico in volgar_. [314] gargani, _op. cit._ p. 23, extract from the _catasto_, 1427: "domenicho di giovanni barbiere non ha nulla." [315] the parallel between these passages of burchiello's life and filelfo's at the same period is singular. see _revival of learning_, p. 275. [316] gargani, _op. cit._ p. 90. [317] the best edition bears the date londra, 1757. [318] the edition cited above includes _sonetti alla burchiellesca_ by a variety of writers. the strange book called _pataffio_, which used to be ascribed to brunetto latini, seems born of similar conditions. [319] florentines themselves take this view, as is proved by the following sentence from capponi: "è pure qui obbligo di registrare anche il burchiello, barbiere di nome rimasto famoso, perchè fece d'un certo suo gergo poesia forse arguta ma triviale; oscura oggi, ma popolare nei tempi suoi e che ebbe inclusive imitatori" (_storia della rep. di firenze_, ii. 176). [320] see the sonnet quoted in note 59 to mazzuchelli's life of berni, _scrittori d'italia_, vol. iv. [321] the _ballata_ or _canzone a ballo_, as its name implies, was a poem intended to be sung during the dance. a musician played the lute while young women executed the movements of the carola (so beautifully depicted by benozzo gozzoli in his pisan frescoes), alone or in the company of young men, singing the words of the song. the _ballata_ consisted of lyric stanzas with a recurrent couplet. it is difficult to distinguish the _ballate_ from the _canzonette d'amore_. [322] see carducci, _cantilene e ballate_ (pisa, 1871), pp. 82, 83. [323] _ibid._ pp. 171-173. [324] _ibid._ pp. 214-217. [325] a volume of ancient _canzoni a ballo_ was published at florence in 1562, by sermatelli, and again in 1568. [326] _le rime di messer a. poliziano_, pp. 295, 346. [327] see _laude spirituali di feo belcari e di altri_, firenze, 1863. the hymn _crocifisso a capo chino_, for example, has this heading: "cantasi come--una donna d'amor fino," which was by no means a moral song (_ib._ p. 16). d'ancona in his _poesia pop. it._ pp. 431-436, has extracted the titles of these profane songs, some of which are to be found in the _canzoni a ballo_ (firenze, 1568), and _canti carnascialeschi_ (cosmopoli, 1750), while the majority are lost. [328] the books which i have consulted on this branch of vernacular poetry are (1) tommaseo, _canti popolari toscani, corsi, illirici e greci_, venezia, 1841. (2) tigri, _canti popolari toscani_, firenze, 1869. (3) pitré, _canti popolari siciliani_, and _studi di poesia popolare_, palermo, 1870-1872. (4) d'ancona, _la poesia popolare italiana_, livorno, 1878. (5) rubieri, _storia della poesia popolare italiana_, firenze, 1877. also numerous collections of local songs, of which a good list is furnished in d'ancona's work just cited. bolza's edition of comasque poetry, dal medico's of venetian, ferraro's of _canti monferrini_ (district of montferrat), vigo's of sicilian, together with imbriani's of southern and marcoaldo's of central dialects, deserve to be specially cited. the literature in question is already voluminous, and bids fair to receive considerable additions. [329] i take this example at random from blessig's _römische ritornelle_ (leipzig, 1860), p. 48: flower of pomegranate tree! your name, o my fair one, is written in heaven; my name it is writ on the waves of the sea. [330] the term _villotta_ or _vilota_ is special, i believe, to venice and the friuli. d'ancona identifies it with _rispetto_, rubieri with _stornello_. but it has the character of a quatrain, and seems therefore more properly to belong to the former. [331] tigri, p. 123. translated by me thus: ah, when will dawn that blissful day when i shall softly mount your stair, your brothers meet me on the way, and one by one i greet them there! when comes the day, my staff, my strength, to call your mother mine at length? when will the day come, love of mine, i shall be yours and you be mine! [332] pitrè, vol. i. p. 185. translated by me thus, with an alteration in the last couplet: when thou wert born, o beaming star! three holy angels flew to earth; the three kings from the east afar brought gold and jewels of great worth; three eagles on wings light as air bore the news east and west and north. o jewel fair, o jewel rare, so glad was heaven to greet thy birth. [333] dalmedico, _canti ven._ p. 69: many there are who when they hear me sing, cry: there goes one whose joy runs o'er in song! but i pray god to give me succoring; for when i sing, 'tis then i grieve full strong. [334] for instance, _rispetti_ in the valley of the po are called _romanelle_. in some parts of central italy the _stornello_ becomes _mottetto_ or _raccommandare_. the little southern lyrics known as _arii_ and _ariette_ at naples and in sicily, are elsewhere called _villanelle_ or _napolitane_ and _siciliane_. it is clear that in this matter of nomenclature great exactitude cannot be sought. [335] the proofs adduced by d'ancona in his _poesia popolare_, pp. 177-284, seem to me conclusive on this point. [336] see pitrè, _studi di poesia popolare_ (palermo, lauriel, 1872), two essays on "i poeti del popolo siciliano," and "pietro fullone e le sfide popolari," pp. 81-184. he gives particulars relating to contemporary improvisations. see, too, the essays by l. vigo, _opere_ (catania, 1870-74), vol. ii. [337] _op. cit._ pp. 285, 288-294. [338] i may refer at large to tigri's collection, and to my translations of these _rispetti_ in _sketches in italy and greece_. [339] carducci, _cantilene_, p. 57. [340] see rubieri, _storia della poesia popolare_, pp. 352-356, for a selection of variants. [341] the terms employed above require some illustration. poliziano's canzonet, _la pastorella si leva per tempo_, is a _pasticcio_ composed of fragments from popular songs in vogue at his day. we possess three valuable poems--one by bronzino, published in 1567; one by il cieco bianchino of florence, published at verona in 1629; the third by il cieco britti of venice, published in the same year--which consist of extracts from popular lyrics united together by the rhymster. hence their name _incatenatura_. see rubieri, _op. cit._ pp. 121, 130, 212. see, too, d'ancona, _op. cit._ pp. 100-105, 146-172, for the text and copious illustrations from contemporary sources of bronzino's and il cieco bianchino's poems. [342] _prose volgari, etc., di a.a. poliziano_ (firenze, barbèra, 1867), p. 74. "siamo tutti allegri, e facciamo buona cera, e becchiamo per tutta la via di qualche rappresaglia e canzone di calen di maggio, che mi sono parute più fantastiche qui in acquapendente, alla romanesca, vel nota ipsa vel argumento." [343] see d'ancona, _op. cit._ pp. 354-420, for copious and interesting notices of the popular press in several italian towns. the _avallone_ of naples, _cordella_ of venice, _marescandoli_ of florence, _bertini_ and _baroni_ of lucca, _colomba_ of bologna, all served the special requirements of the proletariate in town and country. g.b. verini of florence made anthologies called _l'ardor d'amore_ and _crudeltà d'amore_ in the sixteenth century, both of which are still reprinted. the same is true of the _olimpia_ and _gloria_ of olimpo degli alessandri of sassoferrato. the subordinate titles commonly used in these popular golden treasuries are, "canzoni di amore," "di gelosia," "di sdegno," "di pace e di partenza." their classification and description appear from the following rubrics: "mattinate," "serenate," "partenze," "strambotti," "sdegni," "sonetti," "villanelle," "lettere," "affetti d'amore," etc. [344] upon this point consult rubieri, _op. cit._ chap. xiv. in sicily the _ciure_, says pitrè, is reckoned unfit for an honest woman's mouth. [345] the south seems richer in this material than the center. see pitrè's _canti pop. sic._ vol. ii., among the _leggende e storie_, especially _la comare_, _minni-spartuti_, _principessa di carini_, _l'innamorata del diavolo_, and some of the bandit songs. [346] palermo, lauriel, 1875. [347] _canti monferrini_ (torino-firenze, loescher, 1870), pp. 1, 6, 14, 26, 28, 34, 42. one of the ballads cited above, _la sisilia_, is found in sicily. [348] _ibid._ p. 48. [349] it does not occur in the _canti monferrini_. [350] see my letter to the _rassegna settimanale_, march 9, 1879, on the subject of this ballad. though i begged italian students for information respecting similar compositions my letter only elicited a tuscan version of the _donna lombarda_. [351] _op. cit._ p. 106. [352] d'ancona, _op. cit._ p. 106. [353] _ibid._ pp. 99, 105. [354] see child's _english and scottish ballads_, vol. ii. pp. 244, _et seq._ [355] bolza, _canz. pop. comasche_, no. 49. here is the scotch version from lord donald: what will ye leave to your true-love, lord donald, my son? what will ye leave to your true-love, my jollie young man? the tow and the halter, for to hang on yon tree, and lat her hang there for the poisoning o' me. [356] this is the scotch version, with the variant of lord randal: what gat ye to your dinner, lord randal, my son? what gat ye to your dinner, my handsome young man? i gat eels boiled in broo; mother, make my bed soon, for i'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down. what became of your bloodhounds, lord randal, my son? what became of your bloodhounds, my handsome young man? o, they swelled and they died; mother, make my bed soon, for i'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down. [357] in passano's _i novellieri italiani in verso_ i find, at p. 20, the notice of a poem, in octave stanzas, which corresponds exactly to the _heir of lynn_. published at venice, 1530, 1531, 1542, it bears this title: "essempio dun giovane ricchissimo; qual consumata la ricchezza: disperato a un trave si sospese. nel qual il padre previsto il suo fatalcorso gia molti anni avanti infinito tesoro posto havea, et quello per il carico fracassato, la occulta moneta scoperse." the young man's name is fenitio. i have not seen this poem, and since it is composed in _ottava rima_ it cannot be classed exactly with the _avvelenato_. passano also catalogues the _historia di tre giovani disperati e di tre fate_, and the _historia di leon bruno_, which seem to contain ballad elements. chapter v. popular religious poetry. the thirteenth century--outburst of flagellant fanaticism--the _battuti_, _bianchi_, _disciplinati_--acquire the name of _laudesi_--jacopone da todi--his life--his hymns--the _corrotto_--franciscan poetry--tresatti's collection--grades of spiritual ecstasy--lauds of the confraternities--benivieni--feo belcari and the florentine hymn-writers--relation to secular dance-songs--origins of the theater--italy had hardly any true miracle plays--umbrian _divozioni_--the laud becomes dramatic--passion plays--medieval properties--the stage in church or in the oratory--the _sacra rappresentazione_--a florentine species--fraternities for boys--names of the _festa_--theory of its origin--shows in medieval italy--pageants of s. john's day at florence--their machinery--florentine _ingegnieri_--forty-three plays in d'ancona's collection--their authors--the prodigal son--elements of farce--interludes and music--three classes of _sacre rappresentazioni_--biblical subjects--legends of saints--popular _novelle_--conversion of the magdalen--analysis of plays. the history of popular religious poetry takes us back to the first age of italian literature and to the discords of the thirteenth century. all italy had been torn asunder by the internecine struggle of frederick ii. with innocent iii. and gregory ix. the people saw the two chiefs of christendom at open warfare, exchanging anathemas, and doing each what in him lay to render peace and amity impossible. milan resounded to the shrieks of _paterini_, burned upon the public square by order of an intolerant pontiff. padua echoed with the groans of ezzelino's victims, doomed to death by hundreds and by thousands in his dungeons, or cast forth maimed and mutilated to perish in the fields. the southern provinces swarmed with saracens, whom an infidel emperor had summoned to his aid against a fanatical pope. it seemed as though the age, which had witnessed the assertion of italian independence and the growth of the free cities, was about to end in a chaos of bloodshed, fire and frantic cruelty. the climax of misery and fury was reached in the crusade launched by alexander iv. against the tyrants of the trevisan marches. when ezzelino died like a dog in 1259, the maddened populace believed that his demon had now been loosed from chains of flesh, and sent forth to the elements to work its will in freedom. the prince of darkness was abroad and menacing. though the monster had perished, the myth of evil that survived him had power to fascinate, and was intolerable. the conscience of the people, crazed by the sight of such iniquity and suffering, bereft of spiritual guidance, abandoned to bad government, made itself suddenly felt in an indescribable movement of religious terror. "in the year 1260," wrote the chronicler of padua,[358] "when italy was defiled by many horrible crimes, a sudden and new perturbation seized at first upon the folk of perugia, next upon the romans, and lastly on the population of all italy, who, stung by the fear of god, went forth processionally, gentle and base-born, old and young, together, through the city streets and squares, naked save for a waist-band round their loins, holding a whip of leather in their hands, with tears and groans, scourging their shoulders till the blood flowed down. not by day alone, but through the night in the intense cold of winter, with lighted torches they roamed by hundreds, by thousands, by tens of thousands, through the churches, and flung themselves down before the altars, led by priests with crosses and banners. the same happened in all villages and hamlets, so that the fields and mountains resounded with the cries of sinners calling upon god. all instruments of music and songs of love were hushed; only the dismal wail of penitents was heard in town and country." it will be noticed that this fanaticism of the flagellants began among the umbrian highlands, the home of s. francis and the center of pietistic art, where the passions of the people have ever been more quickly stirred by pathos than elsewhere in italy. the _battuti_, as they were called, formed no mere sect. populations of whole cities, goaded by an irresistible impulse, which had something of the dionysiac madness in it, went forth as though a migration of the race had been initiated. blind instinct, the intoxication of religious frenzy, urged them restlessly and aimlessly from place to place. they had no holy land, no martyr's shrine, in view. only the ineffable horror of a coming judgment, only the stings of spiritual apprehension, the fierce craving after sympathy in common acts of delirium, the allurements of an exaltation shared by thousands, drove them on, lugubrious herds, like mænads of the wrath of god. this insurgence of all classes, swelling upward from the lowest, gaining the middle regions, and confounding the highest in the flood of one promiscuous multitude, threatened the very fabric of society.[359] repentance and compunction, exhibited upon a scale of such colossal magnitude, attended by incidents of such impassioned frenzy, assumed the aspect of vice and of insanity. florence shut her gates to the half-naked _battuti_. at milan the tyrants of the della torre blood raised 600 gibbets as a warning. manfred drew a military cordon round his southern states to save them from contagion. the revival was diagnosed by cold observers as an epidemic, or as a craving akin to that which sets in motion droves of bisons on a trackless plain. it needed drastic measures of draconian justice to curb a disease which threatened the whole nation. gradually, the first fury of this fanatical enthusiasm subsided. it was but the symptom of moral and intellectual bewilderment, of what the french would call _ahurissement_, in a race of naturally firm and patient fiber. yet, when it passed, durable traces of the agitation remained. lay fraternities were formed, not only in umbria and tuscany, but in almost all provinces of the peninsula, who called themselves _disciplinati di gesù cristo_. these societies aimed at continuing the ascetic practices of the flagellants, and at prolonging their passion of penitence in a more sober spirit. scourging formed an essential part of their observances, but it was used with decency and moderation. their constitution was strictly democratic, within limits sanctioned by the clergy. they existed for the people, supplementing and not superseding the offices of the church. from the date of their foundation they seem to have paid much attention to the recitation of hymns in the vernacular. these hymns were called _laude_. written for and by the people, they were distinguished from the latin hymns of the church by greater spontaneity and rudeness. no limit of taste or literary art was set to the expression of a fervent piety. the lauds dwelt chiefly on the passion of our lord, and were used as a stimulus to compunction. in course of time this part of their system became so prominent that the _battuti_ or _disciplinati_ acquired the milder title of _laudesi_.[360] from the _laudesi_ of the fourteenth century rose one great lyric poet, jacopone da todi, whose hymns embrace the whole gamut of religious passion, from tender emotions of love to somber anticipations of death and thrilling visions of judgment. reading him, we listen to the true lyrical cry of the people's heart in its intolerance of self-restraint, blending the language of erotic ecstasy with sobs and sighs of soul-consuming devotion, aspiring to heaven on wings sped by the energy of human desire. the flight of his inebriated piety transcends and out-soars the strongest pinion of ecclesiastical hymnology. such lines as- fac me plagis vulnerari, cruce hâc inebriari ob amorem filii-do but supply the theme for jacopone's descant. violently discordant notes clash and mingle in his chords, and are resolved in bursts of ardor bordering on delirium. he leaps from the grotesque of plebeian imagery to pictures of sublime pathos, from incoherent gaspings to sentences pregnant with shrewd knowledge of the heart, by sudden and spontaneous transitions, which reveal the religious sentiment in its simplest form, unspoiled by dogma, unstiffened by scholasticism. none, for example, but a true child of the people could have found the following expression of a desire to suffer with christ[361]: o signor per cortesia mandame la malsania a me la freve quartana la contina e la terzana, la doppia cottidiana colla grande ydropesia. a me venga mal de dente mal de capo e mal de ventre, a lo stomaco dolor pungente en canna l'asquinantia. mal de occhi e doglia de fianco e la postema al lato manco tyseco me ionga enalco e omne tempo la frenesia. agia el fegato rescaldato la milza grossa el ventre enfiato, lo polmone sia piagato con gran tossa e parlasia. in order to understand jacopone da todi and to form any true conception of the medium from which his poems sprang, it is necessary to study the legend of his life, which, though a legend, bears upon its face the stamp of truth. it is an offshoot from the saga of s. francis, a vivid utterance of the times which gave it birth.[362] jacopone was born at todi, one of those isolated ancient cities which rear themselves upon their hill-tops between the valleys of the nera and the tiber, on the old post-road from narni to perugia. he belonged to the family of the benedetti, who were reckoned among the noblest of the district. in his youth he followed secular studies, took the degree of doctor of laws, and practiced with a keen eye for gain and with not less, his biographer hints, than the customary legal indifference for justice. he married a beautiful young wife, whom he dressed splendidly and sent among his equals to all places of medieval amusement. she was, however, inwardly religious. the spirit of s. francis had passed over her; and unknown to all the crowd around her, unknown to her husband, she practiced the extremities of ascetic piety. one day she went, at her husband's bidding, to a merry-making of the nobles of todi; and it so happened that "while she was dancing and taking pleasure with the rest, an accident occurred, fit to move the greatest pity. for the platform whereupon the party were assembled, fell in and was broken to pieces, causing grievous injury to those who stood upon it. she was so hurt in the fall that she lost the power of speech, and in a few hours after died. jacopo, who by god's mercy was not there, no sooner heard the sad news of his wife than he ran to the place. he found her on the point of death, and sought, as is usual in those cases, to unlace her; but she, though she could not speak, offered resistance to her husband's unlacing her. however, he used force and overcame her, and unlaced and carried her to his house. there, when she had died, he unclothed her with his own hands, and found that underneath those costly robes and next to her naked flesh she wore a hair-shirt of the roughest texture. jacopone, who up to now had believed his wife, since she was young and beautiful, to be like other women, worldly and luxurious, stood as it were astonished and struck dumb when he beheld a thing so contrary to his opinion. wherefore from that time forward he went among men like to one who is stunned, and appeared no longer to be a reasonable man as theretofore. the cause of this his change to outward view was not a sudden infirmity of health, or extraordinary sorrow for the cruel death of his wife, or any such-like occurrence, but an overwhelming compunction of the heart begotten in him by this ensample, and a new recognition of what he was and of his own wretchedness. wherefore turning back to his own heart, and reckoning with bitterness the many years that had been spent so badly, and seeing the peril in which he had continued up to that time, he set himself to change the manner of his life, and even as he had lived heretofore wholly for the world, so now he resolved to live wholly for christ." jacopone's biographer goes on to tell us how, after this shock, he became an altered man. he sold all his goods and gave away his substance to the poor, retaining nothing for himself, but seeking by every device within his power to render himself vile and ridiculous in the eyes of men. at one time he stripped himself naked, and put upon his back the trappings of an ass, and so appeared among the gentles of his earlier acquaintance. on another occasion he entered a company of merry-making folk in his brother's house without clothes, smeared with turpentine and rolled in feathers like a bird.[363] by these mad pranks he acquired the reputation of one half-witted, and the people called him jacopone instead of messer jacopo de' benedetti. yet there was a keen spirit living in the man, who had determined literally to become a fool for christ's sake. a citizen once bought a fowl and bade jacopone carry it to his house. jacopone took the bird and placed it in the man's family vault, where it was found. to all remonstrances he answered with a solemnity which inspired terror, that _there_ was the citizen's real home. at the end of ten years spent in self-abasement of this sort, jacopone entered the lowest rank of the franciscan brotherhood. the composition of a laud so full of spiritual fire that its inspiration seemed indubitable, won for the apparent madman this grace. there was something noble in his bearing, even though his actions and his utterance proved his brain distempered. no fear of hell nor hope of heaven, says his biographer, but god's infinite goodness and beauty impelled him to embrace the monastic life and to subject himself to the severest discipline. meditating on the divine perfection, he came to regard himself as "entirely hideous, vile and stinking, beyond the most abominable carrion." it was part of his religious exaltation to prove this to himself by ghastly penances, instead of seeking to render his body a fit temple for god's spirit by healthy and clean living. he had a carnal partiality for liver; and in order to mortify this vile affection he procured the liver of a beast and hung it in his cell. it became putrid, swarmed with vermin, and infected the convent with its stench. the friars discovered jacopone rejoicing in the sight and odor of this corruption. with sound good sense they then condemned him to imprisonment in the common privies; but he rejoiced in this punishment, and composed one of his most impassioned odes in that foul place. still, though he was clearly mad, he had the soul of a christian and a poet. his ecstasies were not always repugnant to our sense of delicacy. contemplating the wounds of christ, it entered into his heart to desire all suffering which it could be possible for man to undergo--the pangs of all the souls condemned to purgatory, the torments of all the damned in hell, the infinite anguish of all the devils--if only by this bearing of the pains of others he might be made like christ, and go at length, the last of all the world, to paradise. not only the passion but the love of jesus inflamed him with indescribable raptures. he spent whole days in singing, weeping, groaning, and ejaculation. "he ran," says the biographer, "in a fury of love, and under the impression that he was embracing and clasping jesus christ, would fling his arms about a tree." it is not possible to imagine more potent workings of religious insanity in a distempered and at the same time nobly-gifted character. that obscene antipathy to nature which characterized medieval asceticism, becomes poetic in a lunatic of genius like jacopone. nor was his natural acumen blunted. he discerned how far the papacy diverged from christianity in practice, and assailed boniface viii. with bitterest invectives. among other prophetic sayings ascribed to him, we find this, which corresponds most nearly to the truth of history: "pope boniface, like a fox thou didst enter on the papacy, like a wolf thou reignest, and like a dog shalt thou depart from it." for his free speech boniface had him sent to prison; and in his dungeon, rejoicing, jacopone composed the finest of his canticles. such was the man who struck the key-note of religious popular poetry in italy, and whose lauds may be regarded as the germ of a voluminous literature. passing from his life to his writings, it will suffice to give a few specimens of those hymns which are most characteristic of his temper. we have already seen how he brought together the most repulsive details of disease, in order to express his desire to suffer with christ.[364] here is the beginning of a canticle in praise of the madness he embraced with a similar object[365]: senno me pare e cortesia empazir per lo bel messia. ello me fa sì gran sapere a chi per dio vol empazire en parige non se vidde ancor si gran phylosofia. these words found an echo after many years in benivieni's even more hysterical hymn upon divine madness, which was substituted in savonarola's carnivals for the _trionfi_ of lorenzo de' medici. a trace of the franciscan worship of poverty gives some interest to a hymn on the advantages of pauperism. the theme, however, is supported with solid arguments after the fashion of juvenal's _vacuus viator_[366]: povertate muore en pace, nullo testamento face, lassa el mondo como jace e la gente concordate. non a judice ne notaro a corte non porta salaro, ridese del omo avaro che sta en tanta anxietate. truer to the inebriation of jacopone's piety are the following stanzas, incoherent from excess of passion, which seem to be the ebullition of one of his most frenzied moments[367]: amore amore che si mai ferito altro che amore non posso gridare, amore amore teco so unito altro non posso che te abbracciare, amore amore forte mai rapito lo cor sempre si spande per amore per te voglio pasmare: amor ch'io teco sia amor per cortesia: fammi morir d'amore. amor amor jesu so gionto aporto amor amor jesu tu m'ai menato, amor amor jesu damme conforto amor amor jesu si m'ai enflammato, amor amor jesu pensa lo porto fammete star amor sempre abracciato, con teco trasformato: en vera caritate en somma veritate: de trasformato amore. amor amore grida tuttol mondo amor amore omne cosa clama, amore amore tanto se profondo chi piu t'abraccia sempre piu t'abrama, amor amor tu se' cerchio rotondo con tuttol cor chi c'entra sempre t'ama, che tu se' stame e trama: chi t'ama per vestire cusi dolce sentire: che sempre grida amore. amor amor jesu desideroso amor voglio morire a te abracciando, amor amor jesu dolce mio sposo amor amor la morte l'ademando, amor amor jesu si delectoso tu me t'arendi en te transformando, pensa ch'io vo pasmando: amor non so o me sia jesu speranza mia: abyssame en amore. a still more mysterious depth is sounded in another hymn in praise of self-annihilation--the nirvana of asceticism[368]: non posso esser renato s'io en me non so morto, anichilato en tucto el esser conservare, del nihil glorioso nelom ne gusta fructo, se dio non fal conducto che om non cia que fare, o glorioso stare en nihil quietato, lontellecto posato e laffecto dormire. ciocho veduto e pensato tutto e feccia e bruttura pensando de laltura del virtuoso stato, nel pelago chio veggio non ce so notatura faro somergitura del om che anegato sommece inarenato nonor de smesuranza vincto de labundanza del dolce mio sire. one of jacopone's authentic poems so far detaches itself in character and composition from the rest, and is so important, as will shortly be seen, for the history of italian dramatic art, that it demands separate consideration.[369] it assumes the form of dialogue between mary and christ upon the cross, followed by the lamentation of the virgin over her dead son. a messenger informs the mother that christ has been taken prisoner: donna del paradiso, lo tuo figliolo è priso, jesu cristo beato. accurre, donna, e vide che la gente l'allide; credo che llo s'occide, tanto l'on flagellato. attended by the magdalen, whom she summons to her aid, mary hurries to the judgment-seat of pilate, and begs for mercy: o pilato, non fare 'l figlio mio tormentare, ch'io te posso mostrare como a torto è accusato. but here the voices of the chorus, representing the jewish multitude, are heard: crucifige, crucifige! omo che se fa rege, secondo nostra lege, contradice al senato. christ is removed to the place of suffering, and mary cries: o figlio, figlio, figlio, figlio, amoroso figlio, figlio, chi dà consiglio al cor mio angustiato! figlio, occhi giocondi, figlio, co' non rispondi? figlio, perchè t'ascondi dal petto o' se' lattato? they show her the cross: madonna, ecco la cruce che la gente l'adduce, ove la vera luce de' essere levato. they tell her how jesus is being nailed to it, sparing none of the agonizing details. then she exclaims: e io comencio el corrotto; figliolo, mio deporto, figlio, chi mi t'à morto, figlio mio delicato! meglio averien fatto che 'l cor m'avesser tratto, che nella croce tratto starci desciliato. jesus now breaks silence, and comforts her, pointing out that she must live for his disciples, and naming john. he dies, and she continues the _corrotto_[370]: figlio, l'alma t'è uscita, figlio de la smarrita, figlio de la sparita, figlio [mio] attossicato! figlio bianco e vermiglio, figlio senza simiglio, figlio, a chi m'apiglio, figlio, pur m'hai lassato! figlio bianco e biondo, figlio, volto jocondo, figlio, perchè t'à el mondo, figlio, cusì sprezato! figlio dolce e piacente, figlio de la dolente, figlio, à te la gente malamente trattato! joanne, figlio novello, morto è lo tuo fratello; sentito aggio 'l coltello che fo profetizzato, che morto à figlio e mate, de dura morte afferrate; trovârsi abbracciate mate e figlio a un cruciato. upon this note of anguish the poem closes. it is conducted throughout in dialogue, and is penetrated with dramatic energy. for passion music of a noble and yet flowing type, such as pergolese might have composed, it is still admirably adapted. each strophe of fra jacopone's canticles might be likened to a seed cast into the then fertile soil of the franciscan order, which bore fruit a thousand-fold in its own kind of spiritual poetry. the vast collection of hymns, published by tresatti in the seventeenth century, bears the name of jacopone, and incorporates his genuine compositions.[371] but we must regard the main body of the work as rather belonging to jacopone's school than to the master. taken collectively, these poems bear upon their face the stamp of considerable age, and there is no reason to suppose that their editor doubted of their authenticity. a critical reader of the present time, however, discerns innumerable evidences of collaboration, and detects expansion and dilution of more pregnant themes in the copious outpourings of this cloistral inspiration. what the giotteschi are to giotto, tresatti's collection is to salviano's imprint of jacopone. it forms a complete manual of devotion, framed according to the spirit of s. francis. in its pages we read the progress of the soul from a state of worldliness and vice, through moral virtue, into the outer court of religious conviction. thence we pass to penitence and the profound terror of sin. having traversed the region of purgatory upon earth, we are introduced to the theory of divine love, which is reasoned out and developed upon themes borrowed from each previous step gained by the spirit in its heavenward journey. here ends the soul's novitiate; and we enter on a realm of ecstasy. the poet bathes in an illimitable ocean of intoxicating love, summons the images of sense and makes them adumbrate his rapture of devotion, reproducing in a myriad modes the oriental metaphors of the soul's marriage to christ suggested by the canticle of canticles. a final grade in this ascent to spiritual perfection is attained in the closing odes, which celebrate annihilation--the fusion of the mortal in immortal personality, the bliss of beatific vision, nirvana realized on earth in ecstasy by man. at this final point sense swoons, the tongue stammers, language refuses to perform her office, the reason finds no place, the universe is whirled in spires of flame, we float in waves of metaphor, we drown in floods of contemplation, the whole is closed with an _o altitudo!_ it is not possible to render scantiest justice to this extraordinary monument of the franciscan fervor by any extracts or descriptions. its full force can only be felt by prolonged and, if possible, continuous perusal. s. catherine and s. teresa attend us while we read; and when the book is finished, we feel, perhaps for the first time, the might, the majesty, the overmastering attraction of that sea of faith which swept all europe in the thirteenth century. we understand how _naufragar in questo mar fù dolce_. though the task is ungrateful, it behooves the historian of popular italian poetry to extract some specimens from this immense repertory of anonymous lyrics. omitting the satires, which are composed upon the familiar monastic rubrics of vanity, human misery, the loathsomeness of the flesh, and contempt of the world, i will select one stanza upon chastity from among the moral songs[372]: o castità bel fiore, che ti sostiene amore. o fior di castitate, odorifero giglio, con gran soavitate, sei di color vermiglio, et a la trinitate tu ripresenti odore. chastity in another place is thus described[373]:- la castitate pura, più bella che viola, cotanto ha chiaro viso che par un paradiso. poverty, the cardinal virtues, and the theological virtues receive their full meed of praise in a succession of hymns. then comes a long string of proverbs, which contain much sober wisdom, with passages of poetic feeling like the following[374]: li pesciarelli piccoli scampan la rete in mare; grand'ucel prende l'aquila, non può 'l moscon pigliare; enchinasi la vergola, l'acqua lassa passare; ma fa giù cader l'arbore, che non si può inchinare. among the odes we may first choose this portion of a carol written to be sung before the manger, or _presepe_, which it was usual to set up in churches at christmas[375]: veggiamo il suo bambino gammettare nel fieno, e le braccia scoperte porgere ad ella in seno, ed essa lo ricopre el meglio che può almeno, mettendoli la poppa entro la sua bocchina. cioppava lo bambino con le sue labbruccia; sol la dolciata cioppa volea, non minestruccia; stringeala con la bocca che non avea dentuccia, il figliuolino bello, ne la dolce bocchina. a la sua man manca, cullava lo bambino, e con sante carole nenciava il suo amor fino.... gli angioletti d'intorno se ne gian danzando, facendo dolci versi e d'amor favellando. there is a fresco by giotto behind the altar in the arena chapel at padua, which illustrates part of this hymn. a picture attributed to botticelli in our national gallery illustrates the rest. the spirit of the carol has been reproduced with less sincerity in a jesuit's latin hymn, _dormi, fili, dormi, mater_. close upon the joys of mary follow her sorrows. the following is a popular echo of the _stabat mater_[376]: or si incomincia lo duro pianto che fa la madre di christo tanto; or intendete l'amaro canto, fu crocifisso quel capo santo. ma quando che s'inchiodava, presso al figliuolo la madre stava; quando a la croce gli occhi levava, per troppa doglia ci trangosciava. la madre viddelo incoronato, et ne la croce tutto piagato, per le pene e pel sangue versato sitibondo gridar consummato. many of the odes are devoted to s. francis. one passage recording the miracle of the stigmata deserves to be extracted[377]: la settima a laverna, stando in orazione, ne la parte superna, con gran divozione, mirabil visione seraphin apparuto crucifisso è veduto, con sei ale mostrato: incorporotti stimmate a lato piedi e mano; duro già fora a credere se nol contiam di piano, staendo vivo et sano molti l'han mirate, l'ha morte dichiarate, da molti fu palpato. la sua carne bianchissima pareva puerile; avanti era brunissima per gli freddi nevili; la fe amor si gentile, parea glorificata, da ogni gente ammirata del mirabil ornato. the penitential hymns resound with trumpets of judgment and groans of lost souls. there is one terrible lament of a man who repented _after death_; another of one arising from the grave, _damned_.[378] the day of judgment inspires stanzas heavy with lugubrious chords and a leaden fall[379]: tutta la terra tornerà a niente, le pietre piangeranno duramente, conturbaronsi tutti i monumente, per la sententia di dio onnipotente che tutti sentiranno. * * * * * allora udrai dal ciel trombe sonare, et tutti morti vedrai suscitare, avanti al tribunal di christo andare, e 'l fuoco ardente per l'aria volare con gran velocitate. * * * * * porgine aiuto, alto signor verace, e campane da quel foco penace, e danne penitentia si verace che 'n ciel possiam venir a quella pace dove in eterno regni. this is the _dies iræ_ adapted for the people, and expanded in its motives. the exposition and the expression of divine love occupy a larger space than any other section of the series. mystical psychology, elaborated with scholastic subtlety of argument and fine analysis of all the grades of feeling, culminates in lyric raptures, only less chaotic than the stanzas already quoted from jacopone. the poet breaks out into short ejaculations[380]: o alta nichilitate, dhe mi di dove tu stai! he faints and swoons before the altar in the languors of emotion[381]: languisco per amore di gesù mio amatore. we see before our eyes the trances of s. catherine, so well portrayed with sensuous force by sodoma. then he resumes the song of solomon in stanzas to be counted by the hundred, celebrates the marriage of christ and the soul, or seeks crude carnal metaphors to convey his meaning[382]: del tuo bacio, amore, degnami di baciare. dhe baciami, dolcezza di contrizione, et dolce soavezza di compunzione, o santa allegrezza di devozione, per nulla stagione non m'abandonare. poì che 'l bacio sento, bevo a le mammelle c'hanno odore d'unguento; pur le tue scintille a bever non so lento con le mie maxille, più che volte mille vò me inebriare. let this suffice. with the language of sweetness and monastic love we are soon surfeited. were it not that the _crescendo_ of erotic exaltation ends at last in a jubilee of incomprehensible passion, blending the incoherence of delirium with fragments of theosophy which might have been imported from old alexandrian sources or from dim regions of the east, a student of our century would shrink aghast from some of these hermaphroditic hymns, as though he had been witness of wild acts of nympholepsy in a girl he reckoned sane. through the two centuries which followed jacopone's death (1306?) the lauds of the confraternities continued to form a special branch of popular poetry; and in the fifteenth century they were written in considerable quantities by men of polite education. like all hymns, these spiritual songs are less remarkable for literary quality than devoutness. it is difficult to find one rising to the height of jacopone's inspiration. many of the later compositions even lack religious feeling, and seem to have been written as taskwork. those, for example, by lorenzo de' medici bear the same relation to his _canti carnascialeschi_ as pontano's odes to the saints bear to his elegies and baian lyrics. this was inevitable in an age saturated with the adverse ideals of the classical revival, when platonic theism threatened to supplant christianity, and society was clogged with frigid cynicism. yet even in the sixteenth century, those hymns which came directly from the people's heart, thrilling with the strong vibrations of savonarola's preaching, are still remarkable for almost frantic piety. among the many florentine hymn-writers who felt that influence, girolamo benivieni holds the most distinguished place, both for the purity of his style and for the sincerity of his religious feeling. i will set side by side two versions from his book of lauds, illustrating the extreme limits of devout emotion--the calmness of a meditative piety and the spasms of passionate enthusiasm. the first is a little hymn to jesus, profoundly felt and expressed with exquisite simplicity[383]: jesus, whoso with thee hangs not in pain and loss pierced on the cruel cross, at peace shall never be. lord, unto me be kind: give me that peace of mind, which in this world so blind and false dwells but with thee. give me that strife and pain, apart from which 'twere vain thy love on earth to gain or seek a share in thee. if, lord, with thee alone heart's peace and love be known, my heart shall be thine own, ever to rest with thee. here in my heart be lit thy fire, to feed on it, till burning bit by bit it dies to live with thee. jesus, whoso with thee hangs not in pain or loss, pierced on the cruel cross, at peace shall never be. the second is an echo of jacopone's eulogy of madness, prolonged and developed with amorous extravagance[384]: never was there so sweet a gladness, joy of so pure and strong a fashion, as with zeal and love and passion thus to embrace christ's holy madness. they who are mad in jesus, slight all that the wise man seeks and prizes; wealth and place, pomp, pride, delight, pleasure and fame, their soul despises: sorrow and tears and sacrifices, poverty, pain, and low estate, all that the wise men loathe and hate, are sought by the christian in his madness. they who are fools for christ in heaven, should they be praised peradventure, mourn, seeing the praise that to them is given was taken from god; but hate and scorn with joy and gladness of soul are borne: the christian listens and smiles for glee when he hears the taunt of his foe, for he glories and triumphs in holy madness. many collections of lauds were early committed to the press; and of these we have an excellent modern reprint in the _laude spirituali di feo belcari e di altri_, which includes hymns by castellano castellani, bernardo giambullari, francesco albizzi, lorenzo de' medici, lucrezia tornabuoni, and the pulci brothers.[385] studying this miscellany, we perceive that between the _laude_ and _ballate_ of the people there is often little but a formal difference. large numbers are parodies of amatory or obscene songs, beginning with nearly the same words and intended to be sung to the same tunes. thus the famous ballad, _o vaghe montanine e pastorelle_ becomes _o vaghe di gesù, o verginelle_.[386] the direction for singing _crucifisso a capo chino_ is _cantasi come--una donna di fino amore_, which was a coarse street song in vogue among the common folk.[387] _vergine, alta regina_, is modeled upon _galantina, morosina_; _i' son quella pecorella_ upon _i' son quella villanella_; _giù per la mala via l'anima mia ne va_ on _giù per la villa lunga la bella se ne va_.[388] others are imitations of carnival choruses noted for their grossness and lewd innuendoes.[389] it is clear that the _laudesi_, long before the days of rowland hill, discerned the advantage of not letting the devil have all the good tunes. other parallels between the florentine lauds and the revival hymns of the present century might be pointed out. yet in proportion as the italian religious sentiment is more sensuous and erotic than that of the teutonic nations, so are the lauds more unreservedly emotional than the most audacious utterances of american or english evangelicalism. as an excellent italian critic has recently observed, the amorous and religious poems of the people were only distinguished by the difference of their object. expression, versification, melody, pitch of sentiment, remained unaltered. "men sang the same _strambotti_ to the virgin and the lady of their love, to the rose of jericho and the red rose of the balcony."[390] no notion of impropriety seems to have been suggested by this confusion of divergent feelings. otherwise, savonarola would hardly have suffered his proselytes to roam the streets chanting stanzas which are little better than echoes from the brothel or travesties of poliziano's chorus of the mænads. the italians have never been pious in the same sense as the northern nations. their popular religious poetry is the lyric of emotion, the lyric of the senses losing self-restraint in an outpouring of voluptuous ecstasy. with them "music is a love-lament or a prayer addressed to god;" and both constituents of music blend and mingle indistinguishably in their hymns. as they lack the sublime chorales of the reformation period in germany, so they lack the grave and meditative psalms for which bach made his melodies. the origins of the italian theater were closely connected with the services of the _laudesi_. and here it has to be distinctly pointed out that the evolution of the sacred drama in italy followed a different course from that with which we are familiar in france and england. miracle-plays and mysteries, properly so called, do not appear to have been common among the italians in the early middle ages. there is, indeed, one exception to this general statement which warns us to be cautious, and which proves that the cyclical sacred play had been exhibited at least in one place at a very early date. at cividale, in the district of friuli, a _ludus christi_, embracing the principal events of christian history from the passion to the second advent, was twice acted, in 1298 and 1303. from the scanty notices concerning it, we are able to form an opinion that it lasted over three days, that it was recited by the clergy, almost certainly in latin, and that the representation did not take place in church.[391] the friulian _ludi christi_ were, in fact, a mystery of the more primitive type, corresponding to greban's _mystère de la passion_ and to our coventry or widkirk miracles. but, so far as present knowledge goes, this sacred play was an isolated phenomenon, and proved unfruitful of results. we are only able to infer from it, what the close intercourse of the italians with the french would otherwise make evident, that mysteries were not entirely unknown in the peninsula. yet it seems clear, upon the other hand, that the two forms of the sacred drama specific to italy, the umbrian _divozione_ and the florentine _sacra rappresentazione_, were not a direct outgrowth from the mystery. we have to trace their origin in the religious practices of the _laudesi_, from which a species of dramatic performance was developed, and which placed the sacred drama in the hands of these lay confraternities. at first the _disciplinati di gesù_ intoned their lauds in the hall of the company, standing before the crucifix or tabernacle of a saint, as they are represented in old wood-cuts.[392] from simple singing they passed to antiphonal chanting, and thence made a natural transition to dialogue, and lastly to dramatic action. to trace the steps of this progress is by no means easy; nor must we imagine that it was effected wholly within the meeting-places of the confraternities without external influence. though the italians may not have brought the miracle-play to the perfection it attained among the northern nations, they were, as we have seen, undoubtedly aware of its existence. furthermore, they were familiar with ecclesiastical shows but little removed in character from that form of medieval art. representations of the manger at bethlehem made part of christmas ceremonies in umbria, as we learn from a passage in the works of s. bonaventura referring to the year 1223.[393] nor were occasions wanting when pageants enlivened the ritual of the church. among liturgical dramas, enacted by priests and choristers at service time, may be mentioned the descent of the angel gabriel at the feast of the annunciation, the procession of the magi at epiphany, the descent of the dove at pentecost, and the easter representation of a sepulcher from which the body of christ had been removed. thus the _laudesi_ found precedents in the liturgy itself for introducing a dramatic element into their offices. having assumed a more or less dramatic form, the laud acquired the name of _divozione_ as early as the middle of the fourteenth century. it was written in various lyric meters, beginning with six-lined stanzas in _ottonari_, passing through hendecasyllabic _sesta rima_, and finally settling down into _ottava rima_, which became the common stanza for all forms of popular poetry in the fifteenth century.[394] the passion of our lord formed the principal theme of the _divozioni_; for the _laudesi_ were bound by their original constitution to a special contemplation of his suffering upon the cross for sinners. the perugian chronicles refer to compositions of this type under the name of _corrotto_, or song of mourning. in its highest form it was the passionate outpouring of mary's anguish over her crucified son--the counterpart in poetry to the _pietà_ of painting, for which the giottesque masters, the umbrian school, crivelli, and afterwards mantegna, reserved the strongest exhibition of their powers as dramatists. we have already seen with what a noble and dramatic dialogue jacopone da todi initiated this species of composition.[395] at the same time, the _divozioni_ and the lauds from which they sprang, embraced a wide variety of subjects, following the passages of scripture appointed to be read in church on festivals and sundays. thus the laud for advent dramatized the apocalypse and introduced the episode of antichrist. the story of the prodigal furnished a theme for the vigil when that parable was used. it was customary to sing these compositions in the oratories after the discipline of the confraternity had been duly performed; and that they were sung, is a fact of importance which must never be forgotten. every company had its own collection of dramatic lauds, forming a cycle of sacred melodramas, composed with no literary end and no theatrical effect in view, but with the simple purpose of expressing by dialogue the substance of a scripture narrative. an inventory of the perugian confraternity of s. domenico, dated in the year 1339, includes wings and crowns for sixty-eight angels, masks for devils, a star for the magi, a crimson robe for christ, black veils for the maries, two lay figures of thieves, a dove to symbolize the holy ghost, a coat of mail for longinus, and other properties which prove that not passion-plays alone but dramas suited to epiphany, pentecost and the annunciation must have been enacted at that period. yet we have no exact means of ascertaining when the _laudesi_ left their oratories and began to recite _divozioni_ with action in church or on the open square. the compagnia del gonfalone are said to have presented a play to the roman people in the coliseum in 1260; but though the brotherhood was founded in that year, it is more than doubtful whether their famous passion dates from so early an epoch.[396] by the year 1375 it had become customary for _laudesi_ to give representations in church, accompanied by a sermon from the pulpit. the audience assembled in the nave, and a scaffold was erected along the screen which divided the nave and transepts from the choir. here the brethren played their pieces, while the preacher at appropriate intervals addressed the people, explaining what they were about to see upon the stage or commenting on what had been performed.[397] the actors were the chorus, the preacher the choregus. the stage was technically called _talamo_.[398] it had a large central compartment, corresponding to the "logeion" of the attic theater, with several smaller rooms termed _luoghi deputati_, and galleries above reserved for the celestial personages. the actors entered from a central and two side doors called _reggi_. these umbrian _divozioni_ form a link between the laud of the thirteenth and the _sacra rappresentazione_ of the fifteenth century. they still--in form at least, if not in sacred character--survive in the _maggi_ of the tuscan peasantry, which are yearly acted among the villages of the lucchese and pistojese highlands.[399] it is difficult to say how far we are justified in regarding them as wholly different in type from the northern miracle-plays. that they originated in the oratories of lay brotherhoods, and that they retained the character of lauds to be sung after they had assumed dramatic shape, may be reckoned as established points. moreover, they lack the cyclical extension and the copious admixture of grotesquely comic elements which mark the french and english mysteries. yet we have already seen that such mysteries were not entirely unknown in italy, and that the liturgical drama, performed by ecclesiastics, had been from early times a part of church ceremonial on holy days. we are, therefore, justified in accepting the _divozioni_ as the italian species of a genus which was common to the medieval nations. the development of gothic architecture in central italy might furnish an illustration. its differentiation from the grander and more perfect type of french and english gothic does not constitute a separate style. to bridge the interval between the _divozione_, used in umbria, and the _sacra rappresentazione_, as it appeared at florence, is rendered impossible by the present lack of documents. still there seems sufficient reason to believe that the latter was evolved from the former within the precincts of the confraternities. in the _sacra rappresentazione_ the religious drama of italy reached its highest point of development, and produced a form of art peculiar to florence and the tuscan cities. though it betrays certain affinities to the northern miracle-play, which prove familiarity with the french _mystères_ on the part at least of some among the playwrights, it is clearly a distinct kind. as in the case of the umbrian _divozioni_, so here the absence of grotesque episodes is striking; nor do we find connected series of _sacre rappresentazioni_, embracing the christian history in a cyclical dramatic work. this species flourished for about fifty years, from 1470 to 1520. these dates are given approximately; for though we know that the sacred drama of florence did not long survive the second decade of the sixteenth century, we cannot ascertain the period of its origin. the _sacre rappresentazioni_ we possess in print, almost all written within the last thirty years of the fifteenth century, present so marked a similarity of style and structure that they must have been preceded by a series of experiments which fixed and conventionalized their form. like the _divozioni_, they were in the hands of confraternities, who caused them to be acted at their own expense. since these companies were wealthy, and included members of the best florentine families, their plays were put upon the stage with pomp. the actors were boys belonging to the brotherhoods, directed by a chorodidascalus called _festajuolo_. s. antonino, the good archbishop, promoted the custom of enrolling youths of all classes in religious companies, seeking by such influences to encourage sound morality and sober living. the most fashionable brotherhoods were those of san bastiano or del freccione, del vangelista or dell'aquila, dell'arcangelo raffaello or della scala--the name of the saint or his ensign being indifferently used. representations took place either in the oratory of the company, or in the refectory of a convent. meadows at fiesole and public squares were also chosen for open-air performances.[400] the _libretti_ were composed in octave stanzas, with passages of _terza rima_, and were sung to a recitative air. interludes of part-songs, with accompaniment of lute and viol, enlivened the simple _cantilena_; and there is no doubt, from contemporary notices, that this music was of the best. the time selected was usually after vespers. the audience were admitted free of cost, but probably by invitation only to the friends and relatives of the young actors. _sacra rappresentazione_ was the generic name of the show; but we meet with these subordinate titles, _festa_, _mistero_, _storia_, _vangelo_, _figura_, _esemplo_, _passione_, _martirio_, _miracolo_, according to the special subject-matter of the play in question. d'ancona, in his book on the origins of the italian drama, suggests that the _sacre rappresentazioni_ were developed by a blending of the umbrian _divozioni_ with the civic pageants of s. john's day at florence. this theory is plausible enough to deserve investigation; especially as many points relating to the nature of the performances will be elucidated in the course of the inquiry. we must, however, be cautious not to take for granted that d'ancona's conclusions have been proved. the researches of that eminent literary antiquarian, in combination with those made by professor monaci, are but just beginning to throw light on this hitherto neglected topic. from the chroniclers of the fifteenth century we have abundant testimony that in all parts of italy sacred and profane shows formed a prominent feature of municipal festivals, and were exhibited by the burghers of the cities when they wished to welcome a distinguished foreigner, or to celebrate the election of their chief magistrates.[401] thus sigismund, king of the romans, was greeted at lucca in 1432 by a solemn triumph. perugia gratified eugenius iv. in 1444 with the story of the minotaur, the tragedy of iphigenia, the nativity and the ascension.[402] the popular respect for s. bernardino found expression at siena in a pageant, when the papal curia, in 1450, issued letters for his canonization.[403] frederick iii. was received in 1452 at naples with the spectacle of the passion. leonora of aragon, on her way through rome in 1473 to ferrara, witnessed a series of pantomimes, profane and sacred, splendidly provided by pietro riario, the cardinal of san sisto.[404] the triumphs of the popes on entering office filled the streets of rome with dramatic exhibitions, indifferently borrowed from biblical and classic history. at parma in 1414 the students celebrated the election of andrea di sicilia to a chair in their university by a procession of the magi.[405] when the head of s. andrew entered rome in 1462, the citizens and prelates testified their joy with figurative pomps.[406] viterbo in the same year enjoyed a variety of splendid exhibitions, cardinal vying with cardinal in magnificence, upon the festival of corpus domini.[407] the pageants above-mentioned formed but prolusions to the yearly feast of s. john at florence.[408] florence had, as it were, the monopoly of such shows; and we know from many sources that florentine artists were employed in distant cities for the preparation of spectacles which they had brought to perfection in their own town. an extract from matteo palmieri's chronicle, referring to the year 1454, brings this midsummer rejoicing vividly before the reader's mind.[409] it is an accurate description of the order followed at that period in the exhibition of pantomimic pageants by the guilds and merchants of the town. "on the 22d day of june the cross of s. maria del fiore moved first, with all the clergy and children, and behind them seven singing men. then the companies of james the wool-shearer and nofri the shoe-maker, with some thirty boys in white and angels. thirdly, the tower (_edifizio_) of s. michael, whereupon stood god the father in a cloud (_nuvola_); and on the piazza, before the signoria, they gave the show (_rappresentazione_) of the battle of the angels, when lucifer was cast out of heaven. fourthly, the company of ser antonio and piero di mariano, with some thirty boys clothed in white and angels. fifthly, the tower of adam, the which on the piazza gave the show of how god created adam and eve, with the temptation by the serpent and all thereto pertaining. sixthly, a moses upon horseback, attended by many mounted men of the chiefs in israel and others. seventhly, the tower of moses, which upon the piazza gave the show of the delivery of the law. eighthly, many prophets and sibyls, including hermes trismegistus and others who foretold the incarnation of our lord." with this list palmieri proceeds at great length, reckoning in all twenty-two towers. the procession, it seems, stopped upon its passage to exhibit tableaux; and these were so arranged that the whole scripture history was set forth in dumb show, down to the last day. the representation of each tableau and the moving of the pageant through the streets and squares of florence lasted sixteen hours. it will be observed that, here at least, a cyclical exposition of christian doctrine, corresponding to the comprehensive mysteries of the north, was attempted in pantomime. the towers, we may remark in passing, were wooden cars, surmounted with appropriate machinery, on which the actors sat and grouped themselves according to their subject. they differed in no essentials from the triumphal chariots of carnival time, as described by vasari in his lives of piero di cosimo and pontormo. from an anonymous greek writer who visited florence in the train of john palæologus, we gather some notion of the effect produced upon a stranger by these pageants.[410] he describes the concourse of the florentines, and gives the measure of his own astonishment by saying: "they work prodigies in this feast, and miracles, or at least the representation of miracles." vasari in his life of il cecca contributes much valuable information concerning the machinery used in the shows of s. john's day.[411] the piazza of the duomo was covered in with a broad blue awning--similar, we may suppose, to that veil of deeper and lighter azure bands which forms the background to fra lippi's "crowning of the virgin." this was sown with golden lilies, and was called a heaven. beneath it were the clouds, or _nuvole_, exhibited by various civic guilds. they were constructed of substantial wooden frames, supporting an almond-shaped aureole, which was thickly covered with wool, and surrounded with lights and cherub faces. inside it sat the person who represented the saint, just as christ and madonna are represented in the pictures of the umbrian school. lower down, projected branches made of iron, bearing children dressed like angels, and secured by waist-bands in the same way as the fairies of our transformation scenes. the wood-work and the wires were hidden from sight by wool and cloth, plentifully sprinkled with tinsel stars. the whole moved slowly on the backs of bearers concealed beneath the frame. vasari attributes the first invention of these and similar _ingegni_ to filippo brunelleschi. their similarity to what we know about the _pegmata_ of roman triumphs, renders this assertion probable. brunelleschi's study of ancient art may have induced him to adapt a classical device to the requirements of christian pageantry. when designed on a colossal scale and stationary, these _nuvole_ were known by the name of _paradiso_. another prominent feature in the midsummer show was the procession of giants and giantesses mounted upon stilts, and hooded with fantastic masks. men marched in front, holding a pike to balance these unwieldy creatures; but vasari states that some specialists in this craft were able to walk the streets on stilts six cubits high, without assistance. then there were _spiritelli_--lighter and winged beings, raised aloft to the same height, and shining down like genii from their giddy altitude in sunlight on the crowd. whether we are right or not in assuming with d'ancona that the _sacra rappresentazione_ was a hybrid between the umbrian _divozione_ and these pageants, there is no doubt that the florentine artists, and _ingegnieri_, were equal to furnishing the stage with richness. the fraternities spared no expense, but secured the services of the best designers. they also employed versifiers of repute to compose their libretti. it must be remembered that these texts were written for boys, and were meant to be acted by boys. thus there came into existence a peculiar type of sacred drama, displaying something childish in its style, but taxing the ingenuity of scene-painters, mechanicians, architects, musicians, and poets, to produce a certain calculated theatrical effect. when we remember how these kindred arts flourished in the last decades of the fifteenth century, we are justified in believing that the _sacre rappresentazioni_ offered a spectacle no less beautiful than curious and rare. an examination of a few of these plays in detail will help us to understand one of the most original products of the popular italian literature. with this object, i propose to consider the three volumes of reprints, edited with copious illustrations by professor alessandro d'ancona.[412] but before proceeding to render an account of the forty-three plays included in this collection, it will be well to give some notice of the men who wrote them, to describe their general character, and to explain the manner of their presentation on the stage. the authors of _sacre rappresentazioni_ are frequently anonymous; but lorenzo de' medici, antonio alamanni, bernardo pulci and his wife monna antonia contribute each a sacred drama. the best were written by feo belcari and castellano castellani. of the latter very little is known, except that in the year 1517 he exercised the priestly functions at florence and was a prolific writer of lauds. feo belcari, a florentine citizen, born in 1410, held civic offices of distinction during the ascendency of casa medici. he was a man of birth and some learning, who devoted himself to the production of literature in prose and verse intended for popular edification. his lauds are among the best which have descended from the fifteenth century, and his translation of the lives of the fathers into tuscan is praised for purity of style. when he died, in 1484, "poor, weak, and white-haired," girolamo benivieni, the disciple of savonarola and the greatest sacred singer of that age, composed his elegy in verses of mingled sweetness and fervor[413]: tace il celeste suon, già spenta e morta è l'armonia di quella dolce lira, che 'l mondo afflitto or lascia, e 'l ciel conforta. e come parimenti si sospira qui la sua morte, così in ciel s'allegra chi alla nuova armonia si volge e gira. felice lui che dalla infetta e negra valle di pianti al ciel n'è gito, e 'n terra lasciata ha sol la veste inferma ed egra, ed or dal mondo e dall'orribil guerra de' vizi sciolto, il suo splendor vagheggia nel volto di colui che mai non erra. as regards their form, the _sacre rappresentazioni_ are never divided into acts; but the copious stage-directions prove that the scenes were shifted, and in one or two instances secular interludes are introduced in the pauses of the action.[414] the drama follows the tale or legend without artistic structure of plot; nor do the authors appear to have aimed, except in subordinate episodes, at much development of character. what they found ready to their hand in prose, they versified. the same fixed personages, and the same traditional phrases recur with singular monotony, proving that a conventional framework and style had become stereotyped. the end in view was religious edification. therefore mere types of virtue in saints and martyrs, types of wickedness in tyrants and persecutors, sufficed alike for authors, actors, and audience. true dramatic genius emerges only in the minor parts, where a certain freedom of handling and effort after character-drawing are discernible. the success of the play depended on the movement of the story, and the attractions of the scenery, costumes and music. it was customary for an angel to prologize and to dismiss the audience[415]; but his place is once at least taken by a young man with a lute.[416] a more dramatic opening was occasionally attempted in a conversation between two boys of florence, the one good and the other bad; and instead of the _licenza_ the scene sometimes closed with a _te deum_, or a laud sung by the actors and probably taken up by the spectators. castellani in his _figliuol prodigo_ made good use of the dramatic opening, gradually working the matter of his play out of a dialogue which begins with a smart interchange of florentine chaff.[417] it would be useless even to attempt a translation of this scene. the raciness of its obsolete street-slang would evaporate, and the fiber of the piece is not strong enough to bear rude handling. it must suffice to indicate its rare dramatic quality. students of our own elizabethan literature may profitably compare this picture of manners with similar passages in _hycke scorner_ or _lusty juventus_. but the florentine interlude is more fairly representative of actual life than any part of our moralities. castellani's prodigal son, however, rises altogether to a higher artistic level than the ordinary; and the same may be said about the _miracolo di s. maria maddalena_, where a simple dramatic motive is interwoven with the action of the whole piece and made to supply a proper ending.[418] as a rule, the _sacre rappresentazioni_ partook of the character of a religious service. their tone is uniformly pious. yet the spirit of the age and the nature of the italians were alike unfavorable to piety of a true temper. here it is unctuous, caressing, sentimental--anything but vigorous or virile. the monastic virtues are highly extolled; and an unwholesome view of life seen from the cloister by some would-be saint, who "winks and shuts his apprehension up" to common facts of experience, is too often presented. vice is sincerely condemned; yet the morality of these exhibitions cannot be applauded. instead of the stern lessons of humanity conveyed in a drama like that of athens or of england, the precepts of the pulpit and confessional are enforced with a childish simplicity that savors more of cloistral pietism than of true knowledge of the world. mere belief in the intercession of saints and the efficacy of relics is made to cover all crimes; while the anti-social enthusiasms of dreamy boys and girls are held up for imitation. we feel that we are reading what a set of feeble spiritual directors wrote with a touch of conscious but well-meaning insincerity for children. the glaring contrast between the professed asceticism of the fraternities and the future conduct of their youthful members in the world of the renaissance leaves a suspicion of hypocrisy.[419] this impression is powerfully excited by lorenzo de' medici's _rappresentazione di s. giovanni e paolo_, which was acted by his children. the tone is not, indeed, so unctuous as that of castellani. yet when we remember what manner of man was lorenzo; when we reflect what parts were played by his sons, piero and leo x., upon the stage of italy; the sanctimonious tone of its frigid octave stanzas fails to impose on our credulity. an adequate notion of the scenic apparatus of the _rappresentazioni_ may be gathered from the stage-directions to _s. uliva_ and from the interludes described in giovanmaria cecchi's _esaltazione della croce_.[420] the latter piece was acted in florence on the occasion of ferrando de' medici's marriage to cristina of lorraine, in 1589. it belongs, therefore, to the very last of these productions. yet, judging by vasari's account of the _ingegni_, we may assume that the style of presentation was traditional, and that a florentine company of the fifteenth century might have put a play upon the stage with at least equal pomp. the prose description of the apparatus and the interludes reads exactly like the narrative portion of ben jonson's masks at court, in which the poet awards due praise to the "design and invention" of master inigo jones and to the millinery of signor forobosco.[421] it was indeed, a custom derived by england from italy for the poet to set forth a minute record of his own designs together with their execution by the co-operating architects, scene-painters, musicians, dress-makers, and morris-dancers. the architect, says cecchi, was one taddeo di leonardo landini, a member of the compagnia, skilled in sculpture as well as an excellent machinist. he arranged the field, or _prato_, of the compagnia di s. giovanni in the form of a theater, covered with a red tent, and painted with pictures of the cross considered as an instrument of shameful death, as a precious relic, and as the reward of virtue in this life. emblems, scrolls and heraldic achievements completed the adornment of the theater. when the curtain rose for the first time, jacob was seen in a meadow, "asleep with his head on certain stones, dressed in costly furs slung across his shoulder, with a thin shirt of fine linen beneath, cloth-of-silver stockings and fair buskins on his feet, and in his hand a gilt wand." while he slept, heaven opened, and seven angels appeared seated upon clouds, and making "a most pleasant noise with horns, greater and less viols, lutes and organ ... the music of this and all the other interludes was the composition of luca bati, a man in this art most excellent." when they had played and sung, the cloud disclosed, and showed a second heaven, where sat god the father.[422] all the angels worshiped him, and heaven increased in splendor. then a ladder was let down, and god, leaning upon it, turned to jacob and "sang majestically to the sound of many instruments, in a sonorous bass voice." thereupon angels descended and ascended by the ladder, singing a hymn in honor of the cross; and at last the clouds closed round, heaven disappeared and jacob woke from sleep. such was the introduction to the drama. between the first and second acts was shown, with no less exuberance of scenical resources, the exodus of israel from egypt; between the second and third, the miracle of aaron's rod that blossomed; between the third and fourth, the elevation of the brazen serpent; between the fourth and fifth, the ecstasy of david dancing before the ark "to the sound of a large lute, a violin, a trombone, but more especially to his own harp." after the fifth act the play was concluded with a pageant of religious chivalry--the knights of malta, s. james, s. maurice, and the teutonic order--who had fought for the cross, and to whom, amid thunderings and lightnings, as they stood upon the stage, was granted the vision of "religion, habited in purest white, full of majesty, with the triple tiara and the crossed keys of s. peter, holding in her hand a large and most resplendent cross, adorned with diamonds, rubies and emeralds." the resources of a theater which could place so many actors on the stage at once, and attempt the illusion of clouds and angels, bringing into play the machinery of transformation scenes, and enriching the whole with a varied accompaniment of music, must have been considerable. those who have spent an hour in the teatro farnese at parma, erected of wood for a similar occasion, may be able to summon by the aid of the imagination a shadow of this spectacle before their eyes. that the effect was not wholly grotesque, though the motives were so hazardous, can be understood from milton's description of the descent of mercy in his christmas ode.[423] for the play of _s. uliva_, though first known to us in a florentine reprint of 1568, we may assume a more popular origin than that of cecchi's mystery of the cross. it abounds in rare renaissance combinations of pagan with christian mythology. the action extended over two days and was interrupted at intervals by dumb shows and lyrical interludes connected only by a slight thread with the story. at one time a chase was brought upon the stage. on other occasions pictures, described with minute attention to details, were presented to the audience in tableaux vivants. these pictures vividly recall the style of florentine masters, piero di cosimo or sandro botticelli. "in the interval," say the stage-directions to the players, "you will cause three women, well-beseen, to issue, one of them attired in white, one in red, the other in green, with golden balls in their hands, and with them a young man robed in white; and let him, after looking many times first on one and then on another of these damsels, at last stay still and say the following verses, gazing at her who is clad in green." this is the mask of hope. in another part the fable of narcissus has to be presented, and directions are given for the disappearance of echo, who is to repeat the final syllables of the boy's lament. "after he has uttered all these complaints, let him thrice with a loud voice cry slowly ahimè, ahimè, ahimè! and let the nymph reply, and having thus spoken let him stretch himself upon the ground and lie like one dead; and within a little space let there issue forth four or more nymphs clad in white, without bows and with dishevelled hair, who, when they have come where the youth lies dead, shall surround him in a circle and at last having wrapped him in a white cloth, carry him within, singing this song[424]: "fly forth in bliss to heaven, thou happy soul and fair, to find thy planet there, and haunt the skies; leaving the tears and sighs of this low-lying earth, where man hath sorry mirth, as thou dost know! bask in the fervent glow of that pure light divine, which on thy path shall shine, and be thy guide. nay, soul, thou hast not died, but still more life hast thou, albeit unbodied now thou art at rest. o soul, divinely blest, enjoy the eternal mind, there dwelling unconfined through nights and days! heaven's angels stand and gaze upon thy glorious eyes, up there in paradise! in crowds they come! now hast thou found thy home; now art thou blithe and blest; dwell now for aye at rest, pure placid soul!" for another interlude a may-day band of girls attired in flower-embroidered dresses and youths with crowns of ivy on their heads are marshaled by dan cupid. they sing a song of which the following is a free translation: let earth herself adorn with grasses and fresh flowers, and let cold hearts, these hours, in love's fire burn. let field, let forest turn to bloom this morn of may, that the whole world to-day may leap and sing. let love within us spring, banishing winter's smart, waking within our heart sweet thoughts and fair. let little birds in air sing yonder boughs above; each young man tell his love to his own maid; and girls through mead and glade, with honest eyes and meek fixed on their lovers, seek true troth to plight. from field and mountain height to-day cold snows are fled; no clouds sail overhead; up springs clear morn. let violets be born, let leaves and grasses sprout, and children wander out, garlands to twine. in every dingle shine flowers white and blue and red, roses and lilies shed perfume around. maidens with may-blooms crowned through copse and meadow stray, singing their thoughts to-day, their sweet thoughts pure. let none be too demure; innocence marries mirth, and from the jocund earth green laurels spring. come, love, and blessings bring; chase sorrow, scatter care; make all men happy there, soul-full of ease. soothe pain, soothe jealousies, that with their restless flame feed on man's heart: no shame, no grief be near. night and the god of sleep again amuse the audience with an allegorical mask; and the seven deadly sins, figured as men, women and beasts, march across the stage. at no great distance from a vision of judgment, the sirens are introduced after this fashion: "now goes the king to rome; and you, meanwhile, make four women, naked, or else clothed in flesh-colored cloth, rise waist-high from the sea, with tresses to the wind, and let them sing as sweetly as may be the ensuing stanzas twice; in the which while shall two or three of you come forth, and seem to fall asleep on earth at the hearing of the song, except one only, who shall be armed, and with closed ears shall pass the sea unstayed, and let the said women take those who sleep and cast them in the waves." when we reach uliva's wedding, we meet with the following quaint rubric: "if you wish to beguile the weariness caused by the length of the show, and to make the spectators take more delight in this than in any other interlude, then you must give them some taste of these bridals by providing a general banquet; but if you mislike the expense, then entertain the players only." it would seem that _s. uliva_ was acted on the _prato_ of the confraternity, where a booth had been erected. the forty-three plays comprised in d'ancona's volumes may be arranged in three classes--those which deal with bible stories or church doctrine based on scripture; dramatized legends of the saints; and _novelle_ transformed into religious fables. among the first sort may be mentioned plays of abraham and isaac, joseph, tobias and raphael, and esther; the annunciation, the nativity, s. john in the desert, christ preaching in the temple, the conversion of the magdalen, the prodigal son, the passion and resurrection of our lord, and the last judgment. the _natività di cristo_ opens with a pastoral reminding us of french _mystères_ and english miracle-plays.[425] the shepherds are bivouacking on the hills of bethlehem when the angel appears to them. for tudde, harvye, houcken, and trowle of our chester play, we find these southern names, bobi di farucchio, nencio di pucchio, randello, nencietto, and so forth. but the conduct of the piece is the same. the italian hinds discuss their cheese and wine and bread just as the clowns of cheshire talk about "ale of hatton," "sheep's head sowsed in ale," and "sour milk." such points of similarity are rare, however; for the _rappresentazioni_ were the growth of more refined conditions, and showed their origin in sentiment and pathos. the anonymous play of _mary magdalen_ rises to a higher level of dramatic art than any sacred play in english.[426] her story, as told in these scenes, is the versified _novella_ of a vittoria accoramboni or a bella imperia converted by the preaching of s. bernardino or savonarola. it might have happened in rome or florence or perugia. magdalen, the lady of noble blood but famous with ill-fame, fair of person and of heaven-bright countenance, who dresses splendidly and lives with many lovers, spending her days in the pleasure of rich banquets and perfumed baths, delighting her heart with the music of lyres and flutes and the voices of young men, appears before us with a reality that proves how deep a hold upon the poet's fancy her picturesque tale had taken. martha, her good but commonplace sister, forms a foil to the more impassioned and radiant figure of magdalen. she has been cured by christ, and has heard him preach. now she entreats her sister but to go and listen, for never man spake words like his. magdalen scoffs: "why should i be damned because i do not follow your strange life? there is time for me to enjoy my youth, and then to make my peace with god, and paradise will open wide for me at last." her friend marcella enters with another argument: "o magdalen, if you did but know how fair and gracious are his eyes! surely he has come forth straight from heaven; could you but see him once, your heart would never be divided from him." this touches the right spring in magdalen's mind. she will not go to hear the words of christ, but the face and form that came from paradise allure her. besides, in the church where christ will preach, there will be found new lovers and men in multitudes to gaze at her. her maidens array her in gold and crimson, and bind up her yellow hair; and forth she rides in all her bravery surrounded by her suitors. what follows may best be told by a translation of the stage-directions and a passage of the play itself. and at these last verses jesus enters the temple; and having gone up into the pulpit, he begins to preach and to say with a loud voice, "homo quidam peregre proficiscens vocavit servos suos et tradidit illis bona sua." now comes magdalen with her company, and her young men prepare for her a seat before the pulpit, and she in all her pomp takes her place upon it, regarding her own pleasure, nor paying heed as yet to jesus. afterward, jesus looks at her and goes on preaching, always keeping his most holy gaze bent upon her; and she, after the first stanza of the sermon, looks at him, and her eyes meet those of jesus. then he goes on preaching, and says as follows: a certain lord who on a journey went, called unto him each of his serving men, and of his goods gave them arbitrament: to one he dealt five talents, to one ten, to another two, to try their heart's intent, and see how far they should be careless; then unto the last he left but one alone: according to their powers, he charged each one. and when he had departed, instantly that servant unto whom he gave the five, went forth, and laboring with much industry, increased them, and therewith so well did thrive that other five he gained immediately, to render when his master should arrive; he who received but twain, did even so, and added to his sum another two. but he on whom one talent was bestowed, went forthwith and concealed it in the soil: careless, unthankful for the debt he owed, while he hath peace, he seeks but strife and toil: called like his fellows in that lord's abode, he answers not, but doth himself despoil; and, as a worthless steward, hides away the money of his master day by day. woe to thee, slothful servant and remiss, that hast thy talent buried in the ground! when reckoning comes, thou'lt yield account for this nay, think how stern and rigorous he'll be found! weep, then, in time for what thou'st done amiss, before the trumpets of the judgment sound: o soul, i tell thee thou hast gone astray, hiding thy talent in the earth away! he who on earth sets his affections still, forgetful of the promised heavenly treasure; he who loves self more than his maker's will, and in ill-doing finds continual pleasure; he who remembers not that sin must kill, nor thinks how hell will plague him above measure; he who against himself makes fast heaven's gate; hideth in earth his talent till too late. he who loves father, mother, more than god, not reckoning his great gifts bestowed on man; he who the path of worldly gain hath trod, publishes for himself damnation's ban: woe, woe to that bad servant sunk in fraud, who leaves the good and doth what ill he can! he who on this world seeks his joy to find, his talent hides in earth, perversely blind. he who is grasping, proud, discourteous, base, who dreameth not that he may come to want, who seeks for flattery, praise, and pride of place, lording it with high airs and arrogant; who to the world gives all, and still doth chase delight in songs and pomps exorbitant; who in this life is fain to rest and sleep- his talent in the earth lies hidden deep. woe for that servant who through negligence hath hearkened not to the command divine! yea, he shall hear the dreadful doom: go hence! go forth, accursed, in endless fire to pine! there shall be then no time for penitence: bound hand and foot with punishment condign, he shall abide among lost souls beneath, where is great weeping and great gnashing of teeth. o soul, so full of sins, what shalt thou do? of all thy countless crimes abominable, look to the end! look to it! hell for you lies open, with damned folk innumerable! whence thou shalt never issue, ever rue in vain remorse and pangs intolerable! weep, soul, ah weep for thy most vile estate, now that repentance need not come too late! seek in this life to feel sincere contrition, before the judge so just and so severe summons thee to his throne, for inquisition into each sin, each thought that wandered here; there shalt thou find no merciful remission, but justice shall be dealt with truth austere; and he who fails shall go to burn with shame for ever, ever, in eternal flame. quis ex vobis centum oves habens, si forte unam ex illis perdiderit, nonne nonagintas novem dimittens et illam querit, donec ipsam invenerit? et cum invenerit, in humeros ponens, gaudens, in domum suam cito venerit, and calls his kinsfolk and his friends to make festival for the new-found wanderer's sake? the soul, she is that lost and wandering sheep; eternal god is the true shepherd: he seeks her, lest on his lamb the wolf should leap, the fiend, who slays with guile and treachery. he spends his life, her safe to seek and keep, and leaves those ninety-nine in bliss to be; and when he finds her, makes great joy in heaven, with all the angelic host, o'er one forgiven. there was a father who had children twain; the younger son began to speak and pray that he might take his share, for he was fain, furnished therewith, from home to wend his way: the father gently urged him to remain, but at the last was bounden to obey: far, far away he roamed, and spent his all, sad wretch, on carnal joys and prodigal. but when he came to want, repenting sore, unto his father, all ashamed, he knelt; his father clothed him with new robes, and bore even more tender love than first he felt: so doth high god, who lives for evermore, unto the souls that with repentance melt; let them but seek his love with contrite will, he is most merciful, and pardons still. soul, thou hast wounded many hearts, i wis, dwelling in delicate and vain delight; with many a lover thou wouldst toy and kiss and art o'erfull of evil appetite; thy heart is big with strifes and jealousies: turn unto me; i wait to wash thee white; that with the rest thy talent thou mayst double, and dwell with them in heaven secure from trouble. after the blessing of jesus, magdalen, weeping, and with her head covered, can have no rest for the great confusion that she felt; and all the people wept, and in great astonishment were waiting agaze to see what should ensue. _o alma peccatrice, che farai?_--christ's voice with its recurrences of gravely sweet persuasion melts magdalen's heart. she may not speak one word, until her sister has led her home and comforted her a space. then she answers: deh, priega iddio che m'allumini il core! after this, left alone with her own soul, awakened to the purer consciousness that christ has stirred, she takes the box of ointment, and, despoiled of all her goodly raiment, with her hair disheveled, goes to the house of the pharisee. there at last, with the breaking of the alabaster, she dissolves in tears, and her heart finds peace. in these scenes, if anywhere, we have the stuff from which the drama might have been evolved. magdalen is a living woman, such as palma might have painted; and christ is a real man gifted with power to penetrate the soul. the _figliuol prodigo_ illustrates the same effort on the poet's part to steep an old-world story in the vivid colors of to-day.[427] in the prodigal himself we find a coarse-hearted villain, like hogarth's idle apprentice--vain, silly, lustful, gluttonous, careless of the honor and love that belong to him in his father's home. the scenes with the innkeeper, the gamblers, and the ruffians, among whom he runs to ruin, portray the vulgar dissipations of florence, and justify the common identification of taverns with places of ill-fame.[428] there is a touch of true pathos at the end of the play in the grief of the father who has lost his son. the conflict of feelings in the heart of the elder brother, vexed at first with the prodigal's reception, but melting into love and pity at the fervor of his penitence, is also not without dramatic spirit. at the very end "a boy with the lyre" enters and "speaks the moral of the parable."[429] the movement of these two plays is not impeded by the sanctity of the subject. when, however, the legend belongs more immediately to the narrative of christ's life, the form of the representation is more severe. this is especially true of castellani's _cena e passione_, where the incidents of the last supper, the agony in the garden, the trials before pilate and caiaphas, the flagellation, and the crucifixion are narrated with reverential brevity.[430] in reading these scenes, we must summon to our memory luca della robbia's bass-reliefs or the realistic groups of the lombard sacri monti. the colored terra-cotta figures in those chapels among the chestnut trees above the sesia are but castellani's poetry conveyed in tableaux, while the florentine actors undoubtedly aimed at presenting by their grouping, dresses and attitudes a living image of such plastic work. but the peculiar pathos of the italians found finer expression in picture or fresco--in luini's "flagellation" at s. maurizio or the pallid anguish of tintoretto's women sunk beneath the cross in the scuola di san rocco--than in the fluent stanzas of the sacred playwrights. on the walls of church or oratory the sweetness and languor of emotion became as dignified in beauty as the melodies of pergolese, and its fervor touched at times the sublimity of tragic passion. not words but plastic forms were ever the noblest vehicle of italian feeling. yet each kind of art may be profitably used to illustrate the other, and the simple phrases of the _rappresentazioni_ are often the best comments on finished works of painting. here, for example, is raphael's _lo spasimo_ in words[431]: oimè, figliuol, è questo il viso ch'era tanto formoso e tanto bello? omè, dove si specchia el paradiso oggi è percosso in tanto gran flagello! io vengo a morte, figliuol mio diletto, se non ti tengo nelle braccia stretto. mary faints, and the magdalen supports her, weeping[432]: omè, che per dolor maria vien meno: noi perderem la madre col figliuolo. pallido è il volto già tanto sereno, quale è tutto mutato pel gran duolo. el polso manca, e nel sacrato seno el cuor suo resta respirante solo. soccorso, aiuto; ognun gli dia conforto, sendo aghiacciato il corpo e quasi morto. the hearts of these rude poets were very tender for mary, mother of our lord. there is a touching passage in the _disputa al tempio_, when joseph and the virgin are walking toward the temple with the boy who is to them a sacred charge[433]: _iosef._ i' guido e son guidato, e reggo quello che regge me, e muovo chi mi muove: pastor mi fo di quel ch'io son agnello; o quanta grazia in questo servo piove! _maria._ s'i' alzo gli occhi alquanto per vederlo, contemplo nel mirar cose alte e nuove. per la virtù di sua divina forma l'amante ne l'amato si trasforma. something artless and caressing in these words brings before us luini's joseph with his golden-brown robes and white hair, mary in her blue and crimson with the beautiful braided curls of gold. the magdalen, again, moves through all these solemn scenes with a grace peculiar to her story. the poet, like the painter, never forgets that her sins were forgiven _quia multum amavit_. she who in luini's fresco at lugano kneels with outstretched arms and long fair rippling loosened hair, beneath the cross, is shown in the _resurrezione di gesù cristo_ upon her knees before the gardener whose one word tells her that she sees her risen lord.[434] it is a scene from fra angelico, a touch of tenderness falling like a faint soft light athwart the mass of orthodox tradition. the sympathy between these shows and the plastic arts may be still further traced in belcari's _dì del giudizio_.[435] after the usual prologue an angel thrice blows the trumpet blast that wakes the dead, crying aloud _surgite!_ minos assembles his fiends, and christ bids the archangel separate the good from the bad.[436] michael, obedient to this order, seeks a hypocrite hidden among the just and sets him on the left hand, while trajan is taken from the damned and placed among the saved. solomon rises alone,[437] and remains undecided in the middle space, till michael, charging him with carnal sin, forces him to take his station with the goats. s. peter now disputes with wicked friars who think to save themselves by pointing to their cowls and girdles. the poor appeal to s. francis, but he answers that poverty is no atonement for a sinful life. magdalen refuses help to women who have lived impenitent. christ and mary reply that the hour of grace is past. then the representatives of the seven deadly sins step forth and reason with the virtuous--the proud man with the humble, the glutton with the temperate. sons upbraid their fathers for neglect or evil education. others thank god for the discipline that saved them in their youth. at the last christ awards judgment, crying to the just: "ye saw me hungry and ye fed me, naked and ye clothed me!" and to the unjust: "i was hungry and ye fed me not, naked and ye clothed me not." just and unjust answer, as in scripture, with those words whereof the double irony is so dramatic. the damned are driven off to hell, and angels open for the blessed the doors of paradise. the _rappresentazioni_ of the second class offer fewer points of interest; almost the sole lesson they inculcate being the superiority of the monastic over the secular life. s. anthony leaves the world in which he has lived prosperous and wealthy, incarcerates his sister in a convent, and becomes a hermit.[438] satan assembles the hosts of hell and makes fierce war upon his resolution; but the temptation is a poor affair, and anthony gets through it by the help of an angel. the play ends with an assault of the foiled fiend of avarice upon three rogues--tagliagambe, scaramuccia, and carabello--who cut each other's throats over their ill-gotten booty. _s. guglielmo gualtero_, like s. francis, sells all that he possesses, embraces poverty, and becomes a saint.[439]. _s. margaret_ subdues the dragon, and is beheaded by a roman prefect for refusing homage to the pagan deities.[440] _ss. giovanni e paolo_ are latin confessors of the conventional type.[441] the legends of the _seven sleepers_, _s. ursula_, and _s. onofrio_ are treated after a like fashion. _s. eufrasia_ still further illustrates the medieval ideal of monastic chastity.[442] she leaves her betrothed husband and her mother to enter a convent. nothing befalls her, and her life is good for nothing, except that she exhales the odor of conventual sanctity and dies. _s. teodora_ is a variation on the same theme.[443] she refuses quintiliano, the governor of asia, in marriage; and is sent to a bad house, whence eurialo, a christian, delivers her. both are immediately dispatched to execution. it is probable that the two last-mentioned plays were intended for representation within the walls of a nunnery. _s. barbara_ presents the same motive, with a more marked theological bias.[444] dioscoro, the father of the saint, hears from his astrologers that she is fated to set herself against the old gods of his worship. to avert this calamity, he builds a tower with two windows, where he shuts her up in the company of orthodox pagan teachers. barbara becomes learned in her retirement, and refuses, upon the authority of plato, to pay homage to idols. faith, instead of love, finds this new danaë, in the person, not of zeus, but of a priest dispatched by origen from alexandria to convert her to christianity. the princess learns her catechism, is baptized, and adds a third window to her tower, in recognition of the trinity. it only remains for her father to torture her cruelly to death. the outline of these stories is often singularly beautiful, and capable of poetic treatment. remembering what massinger and decker made of the _virgin martyr_, we turn with curiosity to _s. teodora_ or _s. ursula_. yet we are doomed to disappointment. the ingenuous charm, again, which painters threw over the puerilities of the monastic fancy, is absent from these plays. sodoma's legend of s. benedict in fresco on the walls of monte oliveto, carpaccio's romance of s. ursula painted for her scuola at venice, are touched with the grace of a child's fairy-story. the _rappresentazioni_ eliminate all elements of mystery and magic from the fables, and reduce them to bare prose. the core of the myth or tale is rarely reached; the depths of character are never penetrated; and still the wizardry of wonderland is gone. in the hands of these italian playwrights the most pregnant story of the orient or north assumed the thin slight character of ordinary life. its richness disappeared. its beauty evanesced. nothing remained but the dry bones of a _novella_. indeed, the prose legends of the fourteenth century are far more fascinating than these dramatized tales of the renaissance, which might be used to prove, if further proof were needed, that the italian imagination is not in the highest sense romantic or fantastic, not far-reaching by symbol or by vision into the depths of nature human and impersonal. the sense of infinity which gives value to northern works of fancy, is unknown in italy. sir thomas mallory wrote of arthur's passage into dreamland[445]: "and when they were at the water's side, even fast by the banke hoved a little barge with many faire ladies in it, and among them all was a queene, and all they had blacke hoods, and they wept and shriked when they saw king arthur." the author of the _tavola ritonda_ makes the event quite otherwise precise[446]: e stando per un poco, ed ecco per lo mare venire una navicella, tutta coperta di bianco ... e la nave s'accostò allo re, e alquante braccia uscirono della nave che presono lo re artù, e visibilemente il misono nella nave, e portàrollo via per mare ... si crede che la fata morgana venisse per arte in quella navicella, e portòllo via in una isoletta di mare; e quivi morì di sue ferite, e la fata il sopellì in quella isoletta. this anxiety after verification and distinctness is almost invariable in italian literature. the very devil becomes a definite and oftentimes prosaic personage. external nature is credited with no inner spirit, reaching forth from wood or wave or cloud to touch the soul of man in reverie or trance, or breaking on his charmed senses in the form of gnome or water-sprite or fairy. men and women move in clear sunlight, disenchanted of the gloom or glory, as of star-irradiate vapor, which a northern mytho-poet wraps around them, making their humanity thereby more poignant. those who care to connect the genius of a people with the country of their birth, may find the source of these mental qualities in the nobly beautiful, serene and gracious, but never mystical italian land. the latin camoenæ have neither in ancient nor in modern years evoked the forms of mythic fable from that landscape. far less is there the touch of celtic or teutonic inspiration--the light that never was on sea or land. the nightingales of sorrento or nettuno in no poet's vision have charmed magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. down the hillsides between lucca and pistoja, where the cypresses stand in rows and olives cast their shadows on the gray tilled soil, no lover has dreamed he met queen guinevere in spring riding through flowers with lancelot. instead of morgan le fay, turning men to lichened and mist-moistened stones upon the heath, the italian witch was ever locusta, the poison-brewer, or alcina, the temptress. this peculiarity of the italian genius made their architects incapable of understanding gothic. this deprived italian art of that sublimity which needs a grain of the grotesque for its perfection, a touch of the uncouth for its accomplishment. the instinct of poets and artists alike induced them to bring mystery within the sphere of definition, to limit the marvelous by reducing it to actual conditions, and to impoverish the terrible by measuring its boundaries. but since every defect has its corresponding quality, this same instinct secured for the modern age a world of immaculate loveliness in art and undimmed joyousness in poetry. if the wonderland of fancy is eliminated, the monstrous and unshaped have disappeared. with the grotesque vanishes disproportion. humanity, conscious of its own emotion, displaces the shadowy people of the legends. we move in a well-ordered world of cheerfulness and beauty, made for man, where symmetry of parts is music. ariosto's jocund irony is no slight compensation for the imagery of a northern mythus. returning to the _rappresentazioni_, we are forced to admit that the defect of the italian fancy is more apparent than its quality, in a species of dramatic art which, being childish, needed some magic spell to reconcile an adult taste to its puerility.[447] they were written at the most prosaic moment of the national development, by men who could not afford to substitute the true italian poetry of irony and idyllic sensuousness for the ancient religious spirit. the bondage of the middle ages was upon them. they were forced to take the extravagance of the monastic imagination for fact. but they did not really believe; and so the fact was apprehended frigidly, prosaically. instead of poetry we get rhetoric; instead of marvels, gross incredibilities are forced upon us in the lives of men and women fashioned like the folk who crowd the streets we know. another step in the realistic direction would have transformed all these religious myths into _novelle_; and then a new beauty, the beauty of the decameron and _novellino_, would have been shed upon them. but it was precisely this step that castellani and belcari dared not take, since their purpose remained religious edification. nay, their instinct led them in the opposite direction. unable to escape the influence of the _novella_, which was the truest literary form peculiar to italy in that age, they converted it into a sacred legend and treated it with the same rhetorical and insincere pietism as the stories of the saints. from s. barbara to the third-class _rappresentazioni_ the transition is easy. the interest of this group of stories, as illustrating the psychological conditions of the italian imagination, is great. stripped of medieval mystery, reduced to the proportions of a _novella_, but not yet invested with its worldly charm, denuded of the pregnant symbolism or tragic intensity of their originals, these plays reveal the poverty of the fifteenth century, the incapacity of the florentine genius at that moment to create poetry outside the sphere of figurative art, and in a region where irony and sensuality and natural passion were alike excluded. they might be compared to dead bones awaiting the spirit-breath of mirth and sarcasm to rouse them into life. _teofilo_ is the italian faustus.[448] a devil accuses him to the bishop he is serving. outcast and dishonored, he seeks manovello, a jewish sorcerer, who takes him to a cross-way and raises the fiend, beelzebub. teofilo abjures christ, adores the devil, and signs a promise to be satan's bondsman. in return, beelzebub dispatches a goblin, farfalletto, to the bishop, who believes that an angel has come to bid him restore teofilo to honor. consequently teofilo regains his post. but in the midst of his prosperity the renegade is wretched. stung by conscience, he throws himself upon the mercy of our lady. she pleads for him with christ, summons the devil, and wrests from his grasp the parchment given by teofilo. poetic justice is satisfied by manovello's descent to hell. such is the prosaic form which the faust legend assumed in italy. instead of the lust for power and knowledge which consumed the doctor of wittenberg, making him exclaim: had i as many souls as there be stars, i'd give them all for mephistophilis! we have this commonplace story of a bishop's almoner, driven by a vulgar trial of his patience to abjure the faith. the intercession of mary introduces a farcial element into the piece: the audience is amused by seeing the devil's contract snatched from him after a jocular altercation with the queen of heaven. our mephistophilis is either fantastically grotesque, as in the old prose-legend, or tragically saturnine, as in marlowe's tragedy. the fiend of this florentine play is a sort of supernatural usurer, who lends at a short date upon exorbitant interest, and is nonsuited for fraud in the supreme court of appeal. to charge the italian imagination in general with this dwarfing and defining of a legend that had in it such elements of grandeur, might be scarcely fair. the fault lies more perhaps with florence of the fifteenth century; yet florence was the brain of italy, and if the people there could find no more of salt or savor in a myth like that of theophilus, this fact gives food for deep reflection to the student of their culture. in the _rè superbo_ we have one of those stories which traveled from the far east in the middle ages over the whole of europe, acquiring a somewhat different form in every country.[449] the proud king in the midst of his prosperity falls sick. he takes a short day's journey to a watering-place, and bathes. by night an angel assumes his shape, dons his royal robes, summons his folk, and fares homeward to his palace. the king, meanwhile, is treated by the innkeeper as an impudent rascal. he begs some rags to cover his nakedness, and arrives in due time at the city he had left the day before. there his servants think him mad; but he obtains an audience with the angel, who reads him a sermon on humility, and then restores him to his throne. in this tale there lay nothing beyond the scope of the italian imagination. consequently the treatment is adequate, and the situations copied from real life are really amusing. the play of _barlaam e josafat_ by bernardo pulci is more ambitious.[450] josafat's father hears from his astrologers that the child will turn christian. accordingly he builds a tower, and places his son there, surrounded with all things pleasant to the senses and cheering to the heart of man. his servants receive strict orders that the boy should never leave his prison, lest haply, meeting with old age or poverty or sickness, he should think of christ. on one occasion they neglect this rule. josafat rides forth and sees a leper and a blind man, and learns that age and death and pain are in store for all. this stirs reflection, and prepares him to receive the message of one barlaam, who comes disguised as a merchant to the tower. barlaam offers him a jewel which restores sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and which turns a fool to wisdom. the jewel is the faith of christ. josafat is instantly converted and baptized; nor can the persuasions of wise men or the allurements of women overcome his fixed resolve. so firmly rooted is his new faith, so wonderful his eloquence, that he converts his father and the court, and receives for his great wisdom the crown of his ancestors. yet an earthly throne savors too much in his eyes of worldly pride. therefore he renounces it, and lives thenceforth a holy hermit. this legend, it will be perceived, is a dim echo of the wonderful history of siddârtha, the founder of buddhism. beautiful as are the outlines, too beautiful to be spoiled by any telling, pulci has done his best to draw it from the dream-world of romance into the sphere of prose. at the same time, while depriving it of romance, he has not succeeded in dramatizing it. we do not feel the psychological necessity for the changes in any of the characters; the charm of each strange revolution is destroyed by the clumsy preparation of the motives. we are forced to feel that the playwright was working on the lines of a legend he did not understand and could not vitalize. the wonder is that he thought of choosing it and found it ready to his hand. few of the _rappresentazioni_ are so interesting as _s. uliva_.[451] uliva is no saint of the catholic calendar but a daughter of world-old romance. her legend may be read in the _gesta romanorum_, in philip de beaumanoir's _roman de la mannelline_, in ser giovanni's _pecorone_, in chaucer's _man of law's tale_, in grimm's _handless maiden_, and in russian and servian variations on the same theme. it is in truth the relic of some very ancient myth, used by the poets of all ages for the sake of its lesson of patience in affliction, its pathos of persecuted innocence. the form the tale assumed in italy is this. uliva, daughter of the roman emperor, giuliano, is begged in marriage by her own father, who says she has more beautiful hands than any other princess. she cuts her hands off, and giuliano sends her to britain to be killed. but her murderers take pity on her, and leave her in a wood alone. there the king of britain finds her and places her under the protection of his queen. after many misfortunes the virgin mary restores her hands, and she is married to the king of castile. she bears him a son; but by this time she has roused the jealousy and hatred of the queen-mother, who takes the opportunity of the king's absence to poison his mind against her by letters, and shortly after drives her forth with her child. uliva reaches rome, and lives there twelve years unknown, till her husband, who has discovered and punished his mother's treason, and has sought his wronged wife sorrowing, at last rejoins her and recognizes in her son his heir. the play ends with a reconciliation scene between the emperor, the king, and uliva, the pope pronouncing benedictions on the whole party. it will be seen from this brief abstract of the legend that the _rappresentazione_ is a chivalrous _novella_ dramatized. several old pathetic stories have been woven into one, and the heroine has been dignified with the title of saint because of the pity she inspires. uliva belongs to the sisterhood of boccaccio's griselda, ariosto's ginevra, and the queen in our old ballad of sir aldingar. the medieval imagination, after creating types of stateliness like guinivere, of malice like morgana, of love like iseult, turned aside and dwelt upon the tender delicacy of a woman, whose whole strength is her beauty, gentleness, and patience; who suffers all things in the spirit of charity; whom the angels love and whom our lady cherishes; who wins all hearts of men by her goodliness; and who, like una, passes unscathed through peril and persecution until at last her joy is perfected by the fruition of her lawful love. it was precisely this element of romance that touched the italian fancy; and the playwright of _s. uliva_ has shown considerable skill in his treatment of it. piteous details are accumulated with remorseless pertinacity upon the head of the unfortunate uliva, in order to increase the pathos of her situation. there is no mitigation of her hardships except in her own innocence, and in the loving compassion wrung by her beauty from her rude tormentors. this want of relief, together with the brusque passage from one incident to another, betrays a lack of dramatic art. but the poet, whoever he was, succeeded in sustaining the ideal of purity and beauty he conceived. he shows how all uliva's sufferings as well as her good fortune were due to the passions her beauty inspired, and how it was her purity that held her harmless to the end. _stella_ is the same story slightly altered, with a somewhat different cast of characters and an evil-hearted step-mother in the place of the malignant queen.[452] if we compare both fables with grimm's version of the "handless maiden," the superiority of the northern conception cannot fail to strike us. the italian _novella_, though written for the people, exhibits the external pomp and grandeur of royalty. all its motives are drawn from the clash of human passions. yet these are hidden beneath a superincumbent mass of trivialities. the german tale has a background of spiritual mystery--good and evil powers striving for the possession of a blameless soul. when the husband, who has been deceived by feminine malice, takes his long journey without food as a penitent to find his injured wife, how far deeper is the pathos and the poetry of the situation than the italian apparatus of couriers with letter-bags, chancellors, tournaments, and royal progresses undertaken with a vast parade, can compass! the northern fancy, stimulated by the simple beauty of the situation, confines itself to the passionate experience of the heart and soul. the florentine playwright adheres to the material facts of life, and takes a childish pleasure in passing the splendors of kings and princes in review. by this method he vulgarizes the legend he handles. beneath his touch it ceases to be holy ground. the enchantment of the myth has evanesced. _rosana_ is simply the story of _floire et blanchefleur_, which boccaccio had already worked into his _filocopo_.[453] austero, king of rome, goes with his wife on pilgrimage to holy land. he falls into the hands of the king of cesaria, and is slain with all his folk, except the queen. she is taken captive to cesaria, where she gives birth to rosana on the same day that ulimeno is born to her master. when ulimeno grows up, he loves the daughter of his father's slave. his parents seek to cure this passion by sending him to france, and at the same time sell rosana to some merchants, who convey her to the sultan's harem. ulimeno returns to cesaria in deep distress, and vows that he will never rest till he has regained his love. after a proper number of adventures, he finds rosana in the seraglio, where notwithstanding the sultan's admiration of her beauty, she has preserved her virginity. they are married, and ulimeno is converted, with his realm, to christianity. the prettiest parts of this play are the scenes in the seraglio, where rosana refuses comfort from the sultan's women, and the contrivances devised by ulimeno to get speech with her. except that rosana and her parents are christian and that the saints protect her, there is nothing to justify the title of _sacra rappresentazione_. it is a love-romance, like shakspere's _pericles_. another _novella_ of less poetic interest is dramatized in _agnolo ebreo_.[454] agnolo, the jew, has a christian wife, who persuades him instead of putting out his money at usury to lend it to christ by giving it away in alms. having thus cast his bread upon the waters, he recovers it again after not many days by picking up money in the streets and finding a jewel in a fish's belly. he is baptized, because he sees clearly that the god of the christians can make him rich. only its tedious solemnity prevents this play from being a farce. three _rappresentazioni_ are written upon incidents of pilgrimage to the shrine of s. james of compostella--il santo barone, as he is always called. the first of these is entitled _rappresentazione di un pellegrino_.[455] it tells the tale of a certain guglielmo who vowed the journey to compostella on his sick bed. upon the road he meets with a fiend in the disguise of s. james, who persuades him to commit suicide. no sooner is he dead, than the devil grasps his soul, as may be seen in lorenzetti's fresco of the campo santo, and makes away with it toward hell. s. james stops him, and a voluble altercation takes place between them, at the end of which the soul, who keeps crying _misericordia_ at intervals, is rescued and restored to its body. then guglielmo completes his vow, and returns joyfully to his wife. _i due pellegrini_ is more complex.[456] arrigo coletta leaves his wife and son at rome; constantino constante leaves his wife and three sons at genoa; and both set forth to compostella. on the way they meet and make friends; but the genoese dies before they have got far upon their journey. his roman friend carries the dead body to compostella, where s. james restores it to life, and both return in safety to their homes. after sojourning some time in rome, arrigo falls sick of leprosy, and has to go forth and wander up and down the earth. chance brings him to the house of the genoese who had received such benefits from him upon their pilgrimage. they consult doctors and wise men together, who assure them that no cure can be wrought unless the leper bathe from head to foot in the blood of virgins. this determines constantino to sacrifice all that he holds dearest in the world. he kills his three sons, and prepares a bath of their blood, which restores his old benefactor to health. but the saint of compostella has still his eye upon his servants. a miracle brings the three boys back to life. they are found with golden apples in their hands, and the play ends with a general thanksgiving. the prosy bluntness with which the incidents of this strange story are treated as matter of fact, is scarcely less remarkable than the immorality which substitutes mere thaumaturgy for the finer instincts of humanity. the exaggerated generosity of constantino might be paralleled from hundreds of _novelle_. this one virtue seems to have had extraordinary fascination for the italians. _i tre pellegrini_ is based upon a legend of medieval celebrity, versified by southey in his "pilgrimage to compostella."[457] a father, a mother, and a son of great personal beauty set forth together for the shrine of s. iago. on the road they put up at an inn, where falconetta, the host's daughter, falls in love with the boy and tempts him. thwarted in her will, she vows to ruin him; and for this purpose, puts a silver cup into his traveling bag. in the morning the pilgrims are overtaken by the police, who find the cup and hang the beautiful young man. the parents complete their vow, and on the way back discover their son upon the gallows alive and well. falconetta is burned, and her parents are hanged--the old host remarking, not without humor, that, though he was innocent of this crime, he had murdered enough people in his day to have deserved his fate. the style of this play merits more praise than can be bestowed on the _rappresentazioni_ in general. falconetta is a real theatrical character, and the bustle of the inn on the arrival of the guests is executed with dramatic vigor. in their _sacre rappresentazioni_ the florentines advanced to the very verge of the true drama. after adapting the miracle-plays of medieval orthodoxy to their stage, they versified the legends of the saints, and went so far as to dramatize novels of a purely secular character. the _figliuol prodigo_ and the farce appended to the _pellegrino_ contain the germs of vernacular comedy. s. maddalena is a complete character. s. uliva is delicately sketched and well sustained. the situation at the opening of the _tre pellegrini_ is worked out with real artistic skill. lastly, in the _esaltazione della croce_ a regular five-act tragedy was attempted. from the oratories of the compagnie and the parlors of the convents this peculiar form of art was extended to the courts and public theaters. poliziano composed a _rappresentazione_ on the classical fable of orpheus, and niccolò da correggio another on the myth of cephalus and procris.[458] other attempts to secularize the religious drama followed, until, in 1521, francesco mantovano put the contemporary history of the french general lautrec upon the boards. still the fact remains that the _sacre rappresentazioni_ did not lead to the production of a national italian theater. if we turn to the history of our elizabethan stage, we shall find that, after the age of the miracles and moralities had passed, a new and independent work of art, emanating from the creative genius of marlowe and shakspere, put england in the possession of that great rarity, a drama commensurate with the whole life of the nation at one of its most brilliant epochs. to this accomplishment of the dramatic art the italians never attained. the causes of their failure will form the subject of a separate inquiry when we come to consider the new direction taken by the playwrights at the courts of ferrara and rome. as an apology for the space here devoted to the analysis of plays childish in their subject-matter, prosaic in their treatment, and fruitless of results, it may be urged that in the _sacre rappresentazioni_ better than elsewhere we can study the limitations of the popular italian genius at the moment when the junction was effected between humanism and the spirit of the people. footnotes: [358] muratori, _rer. ital. script._ viii. 712. [359] a curious letter describing the entrance of the _battuti_ into rome in 1399 may be read in romagnoli's publication _le compagnie de' battuti in roma_, bologna, 1862. it refers to a period later by a century than the first outbreak of the enthusiasm. [360] some banners--_gonfaloni_ or _stendardi_--of the perugian fraternities, preserved in the pinacoteca of that town, are interesting for their illustration of these religious companies at a later date. the gonfalone of s. bernardino by bonfigli represents the saint between heaven and earth pleading for his votaries. their oratory (cappella di giustizia) is seen behind, and in front are the men and women of the order. that of the _societas annuntiatæ_ with date 1466, shows a like band of lay brethren and sisters. that of the giustizia by perugino has a similar group, kneeling and looking up to madonna, who is adored by s. francis and s. bernardino in the heavens. behind is a landscape with a portion of perugia near the church of s. francis. the stendardo of the confraternità di s. agostino by pinturicchio exhibits three white-clothed members of the body, kneeling and gazing up to their patron. there is also a fine picture in the perugian pinacoteca by giov. boccati of camerino (signed and dated 1447) representing madonna enthroned in a kind of garden, surrounded by child-like angels with beautiful blonde hair, singing and reading from choir books in a double row of semi-circular choir-stalls. below, s. francis and s. dominic are leading each two white _disciplinati_ to the throne. these penitents carry their scourges, and holes cut in the backs of their monastic cloaks show the skin red with stripes. one on either side has his face uncovered: the other wears the hood down, with eye-holes pierced in it. this picture belonged to the confraternity of s. domenico. [361] _cantici di jacopone da todi_ (roma, salviano, 1558), p. 64. i quote from this edition as the most authentic, and reproduce its orthography. [362] this life is prefixed to salviano's roman edition of jacopone's hymns, 1558. [363] the biographer adds, "ma fu si horribile e spiacevole a vedere che conturbò tutta quella festa, lasciando ogniuno pieno di amaritudine." [364] see above, p. 284. the seventeenth-century editor of jacopone and his followers, tresatti, has justly styled this repulsive but characteristic utterance, "invettiva terribile contro di se." [365] _op. cit._ p. 109. [366] _ibid._ p. 77. [367] _ibid._ p. 122. see appendix. [368] _ibid._ p. 45. [369] it is printed in salviano's, and reproduced in tresatti's edition. i have followed the reading offered by d'ancona, _origini del teatro_, vol. i. p. 142. see translation in appendix. [370] the word _corrotto_, used by mary, means lamentation for the dead. it corresponds to the greek _threnos_, corsican _vocero_, gaelic _coronach_. [371] _le poesie spirituali del beato jacopone da todi._ in venetia, appresso niccolò miserrimi, mdcxvii. the book is a thick 4to, consisting of 1,055 pages, closely printed. it contains a voluminous running commentary. the editor, tresatti, a minorite friar, says he had extracted 211 _cantici_ of jacopone from mss. belonging to his order, whereas the roman and florentine editions, taken together, contained 102 in all. he divides them into seven sections: (1) satires, (2) moral songs, (3) odes, (4) penitential hymns, (5) the theory of divine love, (6) spiritual love poems, (7) spiritual secrets. this division corresponds to seven stages in the soul's progress toward perfection. the arrangement is excellent, though the sections in some places interpenetrate. for variety of subjects, the collection is a kind of lyrical encyclopædia, touching all needs and states of the devout soul. it might supply material for meditation through a lifetime to a heart in harmony with its ascetic and erotically enthusiastic tone. [372] _op. cit._ p. 149. [373] _ibid._ p. 244. [374] _ibid._ p. 253. [375] _op. cit._ p. 266. see translation in appendix. [376] _op. cit._ p. 306. [377] _ibid._ p. 343. [378] _op. cit._ pp. 416, 420. [379] _ibid._ p. 433. [380] _op. cit._ p. 703. [381] _ibid._ p. 741. [382] _ibid._ p. 715. [383] _opere di girolamo benivieni_ (venegia, g. de gregori, 1524), p. 151. [384] _op. cit._ p. 143. i have only translated the opening stanzas of this hymn. [385] published at florence by molini and cecchi, 1863. compare the two collections printed by prof. g. ferraro from ferrarese mss. _poesie popolari religiose del secolo xiv._ bologna, romagnoli, 1877. [386] _laude, etc._ p. 105. [387] _op. cit._ p. 16. see _canzone a ballo_, etc. (firenze, 1568), p. 30, on this song. [388] _op. cit._ pp. 96, 227, 50. [389] see _op. cit._ pp. 227, 234, and _passim_. [390] carducci, _dello svolgimento della letteratura nazionale_, p. 90. [391] see muratori, _rer. ital. script._ xxiv. 1205, and _ibid._ 1209, friulian chronicle. [392] see the frontispiece to _laude di feo belcari e di altri_. [393] d'ancona, _or. del t._ _op. cit._ vol. i. p. 109. [394] the phases of this progress from _ottonari_ to _ottava rima_ have been carefully traced by d'ancona (_op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 151-165). _ottonari_ are lines of eight syllables with a loose trochaic rhythm, in which great licenses of extra syllables are allowed. the stanza rhymes _a b a b c c_. the _sesta rima_ of the transition has the same rhyming structure. the _corrotto_ by jacopone da todi, analyzed above, shows a similar system of rhymes to that of some latin hymns: _a a a b c c c b_, the _b_ rhyme in _ato_ being carried through the whole poem. [395] see above, pp. 292-294, and appendix. [396] d'ancona, _op. cit._ p. 108. at p. 282 he gives some curious details relating to the coliseum passion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. in 1539 it was suppressed by paul iii., because the romans, infuriated by the drama of the crucifixion, were wont to adjourn from the flavian amphitheater to the ghetto, and begin a murderous crusade against the jews! [397] in the directions for a "devotione de veneredì sancto," analyzed by d'ancona (_op. cit._ pp. 176-182), we read: "_predica, e como fa signo_ che cristo sia posto in croce, li judei li chiavano una mano e poi l'altra" ... "a quello loco quando pilato comanda che cristo sia posto a la colona, _lo predicatore tase_." [398] ducange explains _thalamum_ by _tabulatum_. [399] see appendix to vol. ii. of d'ancona's _origini del teatro_. [400] in the prologues of the later comedies of learning (_commedia erudita_) allusions to the rude style of fiesolan shows are pretty frequent. the playwrights speak of them as our elizabethan dramatists spoke of bartholomew fair. the whole method of a fiesolan _sacra rappresentazione_ is well explained in the induction to the play of _abraam e sara_ (siena, 1581). a father and his son set out from florence, at the boy's request: et vo che noi andiamo a fiesolani poggi, ch'io mi ricordo c'hoggi una festa non più vista mai più el vangelista vi fa e rappresenta. on the road they wonder, will the booth be too full for them to find places, will they get hot by walking fast up hill, will their clothes be decent? they meet the festajuolo at the booth-door, distracted because: manca una voce et è ito un veloce a firenze per lui. _voce_ was the technical name for the actor. [401] see d'ancona, _op. cit._ pp. 245-267. compare the section on "geselligkeit und die feste" in burckhardt's _cultur der renaissance in italien_. [402] graziani, _arch. stor._ xvi. 344. [403] allegretti, muratori, xxxiii. 767. [404] corio, quoted by me, _age of the despots_, p. 390. [405] see d'ancona, _op. cit._ p. 245, and compare the account of a similar show in galvano flamma's _chronicle of milan._ [406] _pii secundi commentarii_ (romæ, 1584), viii. 365. [407] niccolò della tuccia, _cron. di viterbo_ (firenze, vieusseux, 1872) p. 84. [408] look above in chapter i. pp. 50-53, for passages from goro dati's chronicle and other sources, touching on the summer festivals of florence. [409] this passage from palmieri's ms. will be found, together with full information on the subject of s. john's day, in cambiagi, _memorie istoriche riguardanti le feste, etc._ (firenze, stamp. gran-ducale, 1766), p. 65. [410] d'ancona, _op. cit._ p. 205. this use of the term miracle seems to indicate that the florentines applied to them the generic term for northern sacred plays. [411] lemonnier's edition, vol. v. [412] _sacre rappresentazioni_, florence, lemonnier, 3 vols. 1872. [413] it may be not uninteresting to compare this _terza rima_ with a passage written fifty years later by michelangelo buonarroti on his father's death, grander in style but less simply christian: tu se' del morir morto e fatto divo, nè tem'or più cangiar vita nè voglia; che quasì senza invidia non lo scrivo. fortuna e 'l tempo dentro a vostra soglia non tenta trapassar, per cui s'adduce fra no' dubbia letizia e cierta doglia. nube non è che scuri vostra luce, l'ore distinte a voi non fanno forza, caso o necessità non vi conduce. vostro splendor per notte non s'ammorza, nè crescie ma' per giorno, benchè chiaro, sie quand'el sol fra no' il caldo rinforza. in the appendix will be found translations. [414] cecchi's _elevation of the cross_ aims at the dignity of a five-act tragedy; but it was not represented until 1589. _santa uliva_ illustrates the interludes; and a very interesting example is supplied by the _miracolo di s. maria maddalena_, where two boys prologize in dialogue, comment at intervals upon the action, and conclude the exhibition with a laud. [415] "l'angelo annunzia la festa," is the common stage-direction at the beginning; and at the end "l'angelo dà licenza." [416] "constantino imperatore," _sacre rappr._ ii. 187. "un giovine con la citara annunzia." [417] _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 357-359. [418] _sacre rappr._ i. 391. cp. the _abraam_ quoted in a note above, p. 313. [419] compare, for example, vespasiano's _naïve_ astonishment at the virginity of the cardinal di portogallo with the protestations of chastity in the _tre pellegrini_ (_sacre rappr._ iii. 467). [420] _sacre rappr._ iii. p. 235 and p. 1. [421] _sacre rappr._ p. 121. _shakespeare soc. publ._ vol. xvii. [422] for the technical terms _nuvola_ and _paradiso_ see above, pp. 318, 319. [423] it is probable that the painting of the period yields a fair notion of the scenic effects attempted in these shows. or, what is perhaps a better analogue, we can illustrate the pages of the libretti by remembering the terra-cotta groups of the sacro monte at varallo. designed by excellent artists and painted in accordance with the traditions of the milanese school, it is not impossible that these life-size representations of christ's birth and passion reproduce the sacred drama with fidelity. [424] _sacre rappr._ iii. 270. [425] _sacre rappr._ i. 193. see shakespeare society's publications, i. 119. [426] _sacre rappr._ i. 255. [427] _sacre rappr._ i. 357. [428] all the novelists might be cited to illustrate this point. [429] at the end of the _rappresentazione di un pellegrino_ (_sacre rappr._ iii. 430) a little farce is printed, bearing no relation to the play. it is a dialogue between a good and bad apprentice, who discuss the question of gambling. here and in the _figliuol prodigo_ and the induction to the _miracolo di s. maddalena_ we have the elements of comedy, which, however, unfortunately came to nothing. these scenes remind us of heywood's tavern pictures, marston's "eastward ho!" and other precious pieces of english elizabethan farce. [430] _sacre rappr._ i. 304. [431] _ibid._ p. 319. [432] _sacre rappr._ i. 229. [433] this play ends with a pretty moralization of the episode that forms its motive, addressed by mary to the people (_ib._ p. 240). figliuo' diletti, che cercate in terra trovar il figliuol mio, pietoso iddio, non vi fermate in questa rozza terra, chè jesù non istà nel mondo rio. chi vel crede trovar, fortement' erra, e come stolto morra nel disio. al tempio, chi lo vuol, venghi oggi drento, chè 'l viver vostro è come foglia al vento. [434] _sacre rappr._ i. 342. [435] _ibid._ iii. 439. [436] for these incidents we may think of signorelli's huge angels and swarming devils at orvieto. what follows suggests the lorenzetti fresco at pisa, and the orcagna of the strozzi chapel. fra angelico and fra bartolommeo also supply pictorial parallels. [437] poetry forced castellani to decide where solomon should go; lorenzetti left it vague. [438] _sacre rappr._ ii. 33. [439] _sacre rappr._ iii. 140. [440] _ibid._ ii. 124. [441] _ibid._ ii. 235. [442] _ibid._ ii. 269. [443] _ibid._ ii. 323. [444] _ibid._ ii. 71. [445] _la mort d'arthur_ (wright's edition), vol. iii. p. 331. [446] polidori's edition, vol. i. p. 542. [447] the greater maturity of the plastic than of the poetic arts in the fifteenth century is apparent when we contrast the _rappresentazioni_ with masaccio's, ghirlandajo's, mantegna's, or carpaccio's paintings. art, as i have frequently had to observe, emancipated the human faculties, and humanized the figments of the middle age by investing them with corporeal shape and forms of æsthetic beauty. the deliverance of the italian genius was thus effected in painting earlier than in poetry, and in those very spheres of religious art where the poets were helpless to attain true freedom. italian poetry first became free when it turned round and regarded the myths with an amused smile. i do not say that this was absolutely necessary, that an heroic christian poetry might not have been produced in the fifteenth century by another race. but for the italians it was necessary. [448] _sacre rappr._ ii. 447. [449] _sacre rappr._ iii. 177. [450] _ibid._ ii. 163. [451] _sacre rappr._ iii. 235. also edited separately with an introduction by d'ancona. [452] _sacre rappr._ iii. 319. [453] _sacre rappr._ iii. 362. [454] _ibid._ iii. 485. [455] _sacre rappr._ iii. 416. [456] _ibid._ iii. 439. [457] _sacre rappr._ iii. 466. [458] the date of the former is probably 1472, of the latter 1486. chapter vi. lorenzo de' medici and poliziano. period from 1470 to 1530--methods of treating it--by chronology--by places--by subjects--renascence of italian--at florence, ferrara, naples--the new italy--forty years of peace--lorenzo de' medici--his admiration for and judgment of italian poetry--his privileges as a patron--his _rime_--the death of simonetta--lucrezia donati--lorenzo's descriptive power--the _selve_--the _ambra_--_la nencia_--_i beoni_--his sacred poems--carnival and dance songs--carri and trionfi--savonarola--the mask of penitence--leo x. in florence, 1513--pageant of the golden age--angelo poliziano--his place in italian literature--_le stanze_--treatment of the octave stanza--court poetry--mechanism and adornment--the _orfeo_--orpheus, the ideal of the cinque cento--its dramatic qualities--chorus of mænads--poliziano's love poems--_rispetti_--florentine love--la bella simonetta--study and country life. in dealing with the mass of italian literature between the dates 1470 and 1530, several methods suggest themselves, each of which offers certain advantages, while none is wholly satisfactory. in the _first_ place we might adopt a chronological division, and arrange the chief authors of whom we have to treat, by periods. lorenzo de' medici, poliziano, luigi, pulci, boiardo, and sannazzaro would be the leading names in the first group. in the second we should place ariosto, machiavelli, guicciardini and the minor historians of florence. bembo would lead a third class, including castiglione, la casa, and the petrarchistic poets of the academies. a fourth would be headed by pietro aretino, and would embrace the burlesque writers and minor critical prosaists of the decadence. the advantage of this method is that it corresponds to a certain regular progression in the evolution of italian genius during that brief space of brilliant activity. yet the chronological stages are not sufficiently well marked to justify its exclusive adoption. the first group is separated from the rest by a real interval, since the men who compose it died, with one exception, before the close of the fifteenth century, about the year of charles viii.'s entrance into italy.[459] but the authors of the second, third, and fourth groups lived almost contemporaneously, covering the whole period of italy's greatest literary glory and deepest national discomfiture, and witnessing the final extinction of her liberty in the settlement effected by the policy of charles v.[460] nor, again, can we trace in the several phases of literature they represent, so clear a process of expansion as may be detected in the successive stages of artistic or humanistic development. when the work effected by the first group was accomplished, both the language and the literature of italy became in a true sense national, and the cultivated classes of all districts, trained in the common discipline of humanistic studies, set themselves with one accord and simultaneously to the task of polishing the mother tongue. this fact in the history of italian literature suggests a _second_ method of classification. we might take the three chief centers of renascence at the close of the fifteenth century--florence, ferrara, naples--and show how the local characteristics of these cities affected their great writers. rome during the pontificate of leo x.; urbino under the rule of guidubaldo montefeltre; milan in the days of the last sforzas; venice at the epoch of aldo's settlement; might next be chosen to illustrate the subsequent growth of italian culture, when it ceased to be tuscan, neapolitan, and ferrarese. yet though this local method of arrangement offers many advantages, and has the grand merit of fixing the attention upon one important feature of intellectual life in italy--its many-sidedness and diversity, due to the specific qualities of cities vying with each other in a common exercise of energy--still it would not do for the historian of italian culture at one of its most brilliant moments to accentuate minor differences, when it ought to be his object to portray the genius of the people as a whole. in a word, this classification has the same defect as the treatment of the arts by schools.[461] moreover, it cannot fail to lead to repetition and confusion; for though the work we have to analyze was carried on in several provinces, yet each court and each city produced material of the same general character. novels, for example, were written at florence as well as milan. rome saw the first representation of comedies no less than ferrara. the romantic epic was not confined to the court of the estensi, nor dissertations on the gentle life to that of urbino. we are led by the foregoing considerations to yet a _third_ method of arrangement. would it not be scientific to divide the literature of the renaissance into its chief branches, and to treat of the romantic epic, the _novella_, the stage, the idyll, lyric verse, essays in prose, histories, and so forth, under separate chapters? undoubtedly there is much to say for such a treatment of the subject. yet when we consider that it necessitates our bringing the same authors under review in several successive sections, confuses chronology, and effaces local distinctions, it will be seen that to follow this system exclusively would be unwise. it is too strictly analytical for our purpose. that purpose is to draw a portrait of the italian spirit as expressed in the vernacular literature of about seventy years of exceptional splendor; and perhaps it will be conceded by the student that instinct, conscious of the end in view, conscious also of these several methods, but unwilling to be hampered by any one of them too rigorously followed out, will be a safer guide than formal accuracy. i therefore propose in the remaining chapters of this book to adopt a mixed method, partaking of the chronological in so far as i shall attempt to show a certain process of evolution from the renascence led by lorenzo de' medici to the decadence typified in pietro aretino, insisting upon local peculiarities where it can be clearly proved that these contributed an important element to the total result, and relying on the classification by subjects for bringing scattered details under general consideration. five men of the highest eminence mark stages in the history we have to review. these are poliziano, ariosto and machiavelli, bembo and pietro aretino. chronologically, they represent four moments of development--the initial, the consummate, the academical, and the decadent. but if we discard chronology and regard their intellectual qualities alone, we might reduce them to three. merging poliziano and bembo in ariosto, retaining machiavelli and pietro aretino, we obtain the three prominent phases of renaissance culture in italy--firstly, serene, self-satisfied, triumphant art, glorying in the beauty of form for form's sake, and aiming at perfection in style of sunny and delightful loveliness; secondly, profound scientific analysis, taking society for its object, dissecting human history and institutions without prejudice or prepossession, unqualified by religious or ethical principles, pushing its logical method to the utmost verge of audacity, and startling the world with terror by the results of its materialistic philosophy; thirdly, moral corruption unabashed and unrestrained, destitute of shame because devoid of conscience, boldly asserting itself and claiming the right to rule society with cynical effrontery. round ariosto are grouped the romantic and idyllic poets, the novelists and comic playwrights, all the tribe of joyous merry-makers, who translated into prose and verse the beauty found in painting of the golden age. with machiavelli march the historians and political philosophers, the school of pomponazzi and the materialistic analysts, who led the way for a new birth of science in the baconian speculations of the cosentine academy. aretino is the coryphæus of a multitude of scribes and courtiers, literary gladiators, burlesque authors of obscene _capitoli_, men of evil character, who used the pen for poniard, and were the fit successors of invective-writers. if we turn from men to cities, and seek to define the parts played by the several communities in this work of creating an italian literature, we shall find that florence fixes the standard of language, and dominates the nation by the fame of her three poets of the fourteenth century. florence, moreover, gives birth to machiavelli, guicciardini, and the political theorists who form a group around them. florentine wit and humor lend a certain pungency to all the products of the golden age. naples adds the luxury of southern color, felt in sannazzaro's waxen paragraphs and pontano's voluptuous hendecasyllables. ferrara develops the chivalrous elements of the romantic epic, shelters ariosto, and produces the pastoral drama, that eminently characteristic product of the late renaissance. milan is the home of bandello, who takes the first rank among the novelists and leads a school of lombard writers in that style. rome does little for the general culture of the nation, except that in the age of leo the papal court formed a center for studious men of all classes and qualities. her place in literature is therefore analogous to that she occupies in art and scholarship.[462] aretino chooses the city of the lagoons for his retreat, not without a certain propriety; for venice had become the paris of the sixteenth century, and here the press was more active than elsewhere in italy. his instinct led the master of lampoon, the prince of pamphleteers, to the city which combined the utmost license of printing with the most highly developed immorality of manners. thus, seen from many points of view and approached with different objects of study, men, places, and matter alike furnish their own pivots for treatment. italy, unlike england and france, has no political and intellectual metropolis, no london and no paris, where the historian may take his stand securely to survey the manifold activities of the race as from a natural center. he must be content to shift his ground and vary his analytic method, keeping steadily in mind those factors which by their interaction and combination determine the phenomena he has in view. we are now at length upon the threshold of the true renaissance. the division between popular literature and humanistic culture is about to end. classic form, appropriated by the scholars, will be given to the prose and poetry of the italian language. the fusion, divined and attempted, rather than accomplished by alberti, will be achieved. men as great as machiavelli and ariosto henceforth need not preface their _cose volgari_ with apologies. the new literature is no longer tuscan, but italian--national in the widest and deepest sense of the word, when venetian bembo, neapolitan sannazzaro, ariosto from reggio, boiardo count of scandiano, castiglione the mantuan and tasso the bergamasque vie with tuscan pulci and poliziano, machiavelli and guicciardini, in the creation of the golden age. the renascence of italian took place almost simultaneously in three centers: at florence under the protection of the medici, at ferrara in the castle of the estensi, and at naples in the aragonese court. rome from the pontificate of innocent viii. to that of leo x. was almost dumb and deaf to literature. venice waited till the period of the press. milan produced nothing. it was but gradually that the wave of national culture reached the minor states. the three cities to which italy owed the resurrection of her genius were ruled by princes, and the new literature felt the influence of courts from the commencement. indeed, the whole conditions of italy had been altered since the death of boccaccio in 1375. the middle ages had been swept away. of their modes of thought, religious beliefs, political ideals, scholastic theories, scarcely a vestige remained. among the cities which had won or kept their independence during the fourteenth century, only one remained free from a master's yoke; and even venice, though she showed no outward signs of decadence, had reached the utmost verge of her development. the citizens who had fought the battles of the communes round their banners and their sacred cars, were now quiet burghers, paying captains of adventure to wage mimic warfare with political or commercial rivals in neighboring states. a class of professional diplomatists corresponding to these mercenary war-contractors had arisen, selected from the ranks of the scholars for their rhetorical gifts and command of latin style. the humanists themselves constituted a new and powerful body, a nation within the nation, separated from its higher social and political interests, selfish, restless, greedy for celebrity, nomadic, disengaged from local ties, conscious of their strength, and swaying with the vast prestige of learning in that age the intellectual destinies of the race. insolent and ambitious in all that concerned their literary pretensions, these men were servile in their private life. they gained their daily bread by flatteries and menaces, hanging about the courts of petty despots, whose liberality they paid with adulation or quickened with the threat of infamy in libels. at the same time the humanists, steeped in the best and worst that could be extracted from the classics, confounding the dross of greek and roman literature with its precious metal in their indiscriminate worship of antiquity, and debarred through want of criticism from assimilating the noblest spirit of the pagan culture, had created a new mental atmosphere. the work they accomplished for italy, though mixed in quality, had two undeniable merits. not only had they restored the heritage of the past and broken down the barrier between the ancient and the modern world, bringing back the human consciousness from the torpor of the middle ages to a keen and vivid sense of its own unity; but they so penetrated and imbued each portion of the italian nation with their enthusiasm, that, intellectually at least, the nation was now one and ready for a simultaneous progress on the path of culture.[463] it so happened that at this very moment, when the unity of italy in art and scholarship had been achieved, external quiet succeeded to the discords of three centuries. the ancient party-cries of emperor and church, of guelf and ghibelline, of noble and burgher, of german and latin ingredients within the body politic had gradually ceased and been forgotten. the italic element, deriving its instincts from roman civilization, triumphed over the alien and the feudal; and though this victory was attended with the decay of the communes that had striven to achieve it, yet the final outcome was a certain homogeneity of conditions in all the great centers of national life. italy became a net-work of cultivated democracies, ruled by tyrants of different degrees. the middle of the fifteenth century witnessed the commencement of that halcyon period of forty years' tranquillity, destined to be broken by the descent of charles viii., in 1494, upon which machiavelli and guicciardini from amid the tempests of the next half century looked back with eyes of wonder and of envy. constantinople fell, and the undoubted primacy of the civilized races came to the italians. lorenzo de' medici was regarded as the man who, by his political ability and firm grasp of the requisite conditions for maintaining peace in the peninsula, had established and secured the equilibrium between mutually jealous and antagonistic states. whether the merit of that repose, so fruitful of results in art and literature for the italians, was really due to lorenzo's sagacity, or whether the shifting forces of the nation had become stationary for a season by the operation of circumstances, may fairly be questioned. yet there is no doubt that the unprecedented prosperity of the people coincided with his administration of florence, and ended when he ceased to guide the commonwealth. it was at any rate a singular good fortune that connected the name of this extraordinary man with the high-tide of material prosperity in italy and with the resurrection of her national literature. the figure of lorenzo de' medici has more than once already crossed the stage of this history.[464] whether dealing with the political conditions, or the scholarship, or the fine arts of the renaissance, it is impossible to omit his name. there is therefore now no need to sketch his character or to inquire into the incidents of his florentine administration. it will suffice to remind the readers of this book that he finally succeeded in so clinching the power of the casa medici that no subsequent revolutions were able to destroy it. the part he played as a patron of artists and scholars, and as a writer of italian, was subordinate to his political activity in circumstances of peculiar difficulty. while controlling the turbulent democracy of florence and gaining recognition for his tyranny from jealous princes, he still contrived to lead his age in every branch of culture, deserving the magnificent eulogium of poliziano, who sang of him in the _nutricia_[465]: tu vero æternam, per avi vestigia cosmi perque patris (quis enim pietate insignior illo?), ad famam eluctans, cujus securus ad umbram fulmina bellorum ridens procul aspicit arnus, mæoniæ caput, o laurens, quem plena senatu curia quemque gravi populus stupet ore loquentem si fas est, tua nunc humili patere otia cantu secessusque sacros avidas me ferre sub auras. namque, importunas mulcentem pectine curas, umbrosæ recolo te quondam vallis in antrum monticolam traxisse deam: vidi ipse corollas nexantem, numerosque tuos prona aure bibentem.... quodque alii studiumque vocant durumque laborem, hìc tibi ludus erit: fessus civilibus actis, huc is emeritas acuens ad carmina vires. felix ingenio! felix cui pectore tantas instaurare vices, cui fas tam magna capaci alternare animo, et varias ita nectere curas! lorenzo de' medici was the last apologist for the mother speech, as he was the first and chief inaugurator of the age when such apologies were no longer to be needed. he took a line somewhat different from alberti's in his defense of italian, proving not merely its utility but boldly declaring its equality with the classic languages. we possess a short essay of his, written with this purpose, where he bestows due praise on dante, boccaccio and guido cavalcanti, and affirms in the teeth of the humanists that petrarch wrote better love-poems than ovid, tibullus, catullus or propertius.[466] again, in his epistle to federigo of aragon, sent with a ms. volume containing a collection of early tuscan poetry, he passes acute and sympathetic judgments on the lyrists from guittone of arezzo to cino da pistoja, proving that he had studied their works to good purpose and had formed a correct opinion of the origins of italian literature.[467] lorenzo does not write like a man ashamed of the vernacular or forced to use it because he can command no better. he is sure of the justice of his cause, and determined by precept and example and by the prestige of his princely rank to bring the literature he loves into repute again. no one could have been better fitted for the task. unlike alberti, lorenzo was a florentine of the florentines, tuscan to the backbone, imbued with the spirit of his city, a passionate lover of her customs and pastimes, a complete master of her vernacular. his education, though it fitted him for platonic discussions with ficino and rendered him an amateur of humanistic culture, had failed to make a pedant of him. much as he appreciated the classics, he preferred his tuscan poets; and what he learned at school, he brought to bear upon the study of the native literature. consequently his style is always idiomatic; whether he seeks the elevation of grave diction or reproduces the talk of the streets, he uses language like a man who has habitually spoken the words which he commits to paper. his brain was vigorous, and his critical faculty acute. he lived, moreover, in close sympathy with his age, never rising above it, but accurately representing its main tendencies. at the same time he was sufficiently a poet to delight a generation that had seen no great writer of verse since boccaccio. though his work is in no sense absolutely first rate, he wrote nothing that a man of ability might not have been pleased to own. lorenzo's first essays in poetry were sonnets and _canzoni_ in the style of the _trecento_. it is a mistake to classify him, as some historians of literature have done, with the deliberate imitators of petrarch, or to judge his work by its deflection from the petrarchistic standard of pure style. his youthful lyrics show the appreciative study of dante and guido cavalcanti no less than of the poet of vaucluse; and though they affect the conventional melancholy of the petrarchistic mannerism, they owe their force to the strong objective spirit of the fifteenth century. lorenzo's originality consists in the fusion he effected between the form of the love-lyric handed down from petrarch and the realistic genius of the age of ghirlandajo. this is especially noticeable in the sonnets that describe the beauties of the country. they are not penetrated with emotion permeating and blurring the impressions made by natural objects on the poet's mind. his landscapes are not hazy with the atmosphere, now luminous, now somber, of a lover's varying mood. on the contrary, every object is defined and classified; and the lady sits like a beautiful figure in a garden, painted with no less loving care in all its details than herself.[468] these pictures, very delicate in their minute and truthful touches, affect our fancy like a panel of benozzo gozzoli, who omits no circumstance of the scene he undertakes to reproduce, crowds it with incidents and bestows the same attention upon the principal subjects and the accessories. the central emotion of lorenzo's verse is scarcely love, but delight in the country--the florentine's enjoyment of the villa, with its woods and rivulets, the pines upon the hillsides, the song-birds, and the pleasures of the chase. the following sonnet might be chosen as a fair specimen of the new manner introduced into literature by lorenzo. its classical coloring, deeply felt and yet somewhat frigid, has the true stamp of the _quattrocento_[469]: leave thy belovèd isle, thou cyprian queen; leave thine enchanted realm so delicate, goddess of love! come where the rivulet bathes the short turf and blades of tenderest green! come to these shades, these airs that stir the screen of whispering branches and their murmurs set to philomel's enamored canzonet: choose this for thine own land, thy loved demesne! and if thou com'st by these clear rills to reign, bring thy dear son, thy darling son, with thee; for there be none that own his empire here. from dian steal the vestals of her train, who roam the woods at will, from danger free, and know not love, nor his dread anger fear. that lorenzo was incapable of loving as dante or petrarch or even boccaccio loved, is obvious in every verse he wrote. the spirit in him neither triumphs over the flesh nor struggles with it, nor yet submits a willing and intoxicated victim. it remains apart and cold, playing with fancies, curiously surveying the carnival of lusts that hold their revel in the breast whereof it is the lord. under these conditions he could take the wife his mother found for him at rome, and record the fact in his diary[470]; he could while away his leisure with venal beauties or country girls at his villas; but of love in the poet's sense he had no knowledge. it is true that, nurtured as he was in the traditions of fourteenth-century verse, he thought it necessary to establish a titular mistress of his heart. the account he gives of this proceeding in a commentary on his own sonnets, composed after the model of the _vita nuova_, is one of his best pieces of writing. he describes the day when the beautiful simonetta cattaneo, his brother giuliano's lady, was carried to her grave with face uncovered, lying beneath the sunlight on her open bier. all florence was touched to tears by the sight, and the poets poured forth elegies. the month was april, and the young earth seemed to have put on her robe of flowers only to make the pathos of that death more poignant. then, says lorenzo: "night came; and i with a friend most dear to me went communing about the loss we all had suffered. while we spoke, the air being exceedingly serene, we turned our eyes to a star of surpassing brightness, which toward the west shone forth with such luster as not only to conquer all the other stars, but even to cast a shadow from the objects that intercepted its light. we marveled at it a while; and then, turning to my friend, i said: 'there is no need for wonder, since the soul of that most gentle lady has either been transformed into yon new star or has joined herself to it. and if this be so, that splendor of the star is nowise to be wondered at; and even as her beauty in life was of great solace to our eyes, so now let us comfort ourselves at the present moment with the sight of so much brilliance. and if our eyes be weak and frail to bear such brightness, pray we to the god, that is to her deity, to give them virtue, in order that without injury unto our sight we may awhile contemplate it.' ... then, forasmuch as it appeared to me that this colloquy furnished good material for a sonnet, i left my friend and composed the following verses, in which i speak about the star aforesaid: "o lucid star, that with transcendent light quenchest of all those neighboring stars the gleam, why thus beyond thine usage dost thou stream, why art thou fain with phoebus still to fight? haply those beauteous eyes, which from our sight death stole, who now doth vaunt himself supreme, thou hast assumed: clad with their glorious beam, well mayst thou claim the sun-god's chariot bright. listen, new star, new regent of the day, who with unwonted radiance gilds our heaven, o listen, goddess, to the prayers we pray! let so much splendor from thy sphere be riven that to these eyes, which fain would weep alway, unblinded, thy glad sight may yet be given!" from that moment lorenzo began to write poems. he wandered alone and meditated on the sunflower, playing delightfully unto himself with thoughts of love and death. yet his heart was empty; and like augustine or alastor, he could say: "nondum amabam, sed amare amabam, quærebam quod amarem amans amare." when a young man is in this mood it is not long before he finds an object for his adoration. lorenzo went one day in the same spring with friends to a house of feasting, where he met with a lady lovelier in his eyes even than la simonetta. after the fashion of his age, he describes her physical and mental perfections with a minuteness which need not be enforced upon a modern reader.[471] suffice it to say that lucrezia donati--such was the lady's name--supplied lorenzo with exactly what he had been seeking, an object for his literary exercises. the _sonetti_, _canzoni_, and _selve d'amore_ were the fruits of this first passion. though lorenzo was neither a poet nor a lover after the stamp of dante, these juvenile verses and the prose with which he prefaced them, show him in a light that cannot fail to interest those who only know the statesman and the literary cynic of his later years. there is sincere fervor of romantic feeling in the picture of the evening after simonetta's funeral, even though the analytical temper of the poet's mind is revealed in his exact description of the shadow cast by the planet he was watching. the first meeting with lucrezia, again, is prettily described in these stanzas of the _selve_: what time the chain was forged which then i bore, air, earth, and heavens were linked in one delight; the air was never so serene before, the sun ne'er shed such pure and tranquil light; young leaves and flowers upon the grassy floor gladdened the earth where ran a streamlet bright, while venus in her father's bosom lay and smiled from heaven upon the spot that day. she from her brows divine and amorous breast took with both hands roses of many a hue, and showered them through the heavens that slept in rest, covering my lady with their gracious dew; jove, full of gladness, on that day released the ears of men, that they might hear the true echoes of melody and dance divine, which fell from heaven in songs and sounds benign. fair women to that music moved their feet, inflamed with gentle fire by love's breath fanned: behold yon lover with his lady sweet- her hand long yearned for clasped in his loved hand; their sighs, their looks, which pangs of longing cheat; brief words that none but they can understand; the flowers that she lets fall, resumed and pressed, with kisses covered, to his head or breast. amid so many pleasant things and fair, my loveliest lady with surpassing grace eclipsed and crowned all beauties that were there; her robe was white and delicate as lace; and still her eyes, with silent speech and rare, talked to the heart, leaving the lips at peace: come to me, come, dear heart of mine, she said: here shall thy long desires at rest be laid. the impression of these verses is hardly marred by the prosy catalogue of lucrezia's beauties furnished in the _innamoramento_. lorenzo was an analyst. he could not escape from that quality so useful to the observer, so fatal to artists, if they cannot recompose the data furnished by observation in a new subjective synthesis. when we compare his description of the age of gold in the _selve_,[472] justly celebrated for its brilliancy and wealth of detail, with the shorter passage from poliziano's _stanze_, we measure the distance between intelligent study of nature and the imagination which unifies and gives new form of life to every detail. the same end may be more briefly attained by a comparison of this passage about roses from lorenzo's _corinto_ with a musical _ballata_ of poliziano[473]: into a little close of mine i went one morning, when the sun with his fresh light was rising all refulgent and unshent. rose-trees are planted there in order bright, whereto i turned charmed eyes, and long did stay taking my fill of that new-found delight. red and white roses bloomed upon the spray; one opened, leaf by leaf, to greet the morn, shyly at first, then in sweet disarray; another, yet a youngling, newly born, scarce struggled from the bud, and there were some whose petals closed them from the air forlorn; another fell, and showered the grass with bloom; thus i beheld the roses dawn and die, and one short hour their loveliness consume. but while i watched those languid petals lie colorless on cold earth, i could but think how vain a thing is youthful bravery. trees have their time to bloom on winter's brink; then the rathe blossoms wither in an hour, when the brief days of spring toward summer sink; the fruit, as yet unformed, is tart and sour; little by little it grows large, and weighs the strong boughs down with slow persistent power; nor without peril can the branches raise their burden; now they stagger 'neath the weight still growing, and are bent above the ways; soon autumn comes, and the ripe ruddy freight is gathered: the glad season will not stay; flowers, fruits, and leaves are now all desolate. pluck the rose, therefore, maiden, while 'tis may! that is good. it is the best kind of poetry within lorenzo's grasp. but here is poliziano's dance-song: i went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day, in a green garden in mid month of may. violets and lilies grew on every side mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful, golden and white and red and azure-eyed; toward which i stretched my hands, eager to pull plenty to make my fair curls beautiful, to crown my rippling curls with garlands gay. i went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day, in a green garden in mid month of may. but when my lap was full of flowers i spied roses at last, roses of every hue; therefore i ran to pluck their ruddy pride, because their perfume was so sweet and true that all my soul went forth with pleasure new, with yearning and desire too soft to say. i went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day, in a green garden in mid month of may. i gazed and gazed. hard task it were to tell how lovely were the roses in that hour; one was but peeping from her verdant shell, and some were faded, some were scarce in flower. then love said: go, pluck from the blooming bower those that thou seest ripe upon the spray. i went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day, in a green garden in mid month of may. for when the full rose quits her tender sheath, when she is sweetest and most fair to see, then is the time to place her in thy wreath, before her beauty and her freshness flee. gather ye therefore roses with great glee, sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away. i went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day, in a green garden in mid month of may. both in this _ballata_ and also in the stanzas on the age of gold, it might almost seem as though poliziano had rewritten lorenzo's exercise with a view to showing the world the difference between true poetry and what is only very like it. the _selve d'amore_ and the _corinto_ belong to lorenzo's early manner, when his heart was yet fresh and statecraft had not made him cynical. the latter is a musical eclogue in _terza rima_; the former a discursive love-poem, with allegorical episodes, in octave stanzas. up to the date of the _selve_ the _ottava rima_ had, so far as i know, been only used for semi-epical poems and short love-songs. lorenzo proved his originality by suiting it to a style of composition which aimed at brilliant descriptions in the manner of ovid. he also handled it with an ease and brightness hitherto unknown. the pageant of love and jealousy and the allegory of hope in the second part are both such poetry as only needed something magical from the touch of ariosto to make them perfect.[474] as it is, lorenzo's studies in verse produce the same impression as bronzino's in painting. they are brilliant, but hard, cold, calculated, never fused by the final charm of poetry or music into a delightful vision. what is lacking is less technical skill or invention than feeling in the artist, the glow of passion, or the charm of spiritual harmony. here is a picture of hope's attendant train: following this luckless dame, where'er she goes, flit dreams in crowds, with auguries and lies, chiromants, arts that cozen and impose, chances, diviners, and false prophecies, spoken or writ in foolish scroll and glose, whose forecast brings time flown before our eyes, alchemy, all who heaven from our earth measure, and free conjectures made at will and pleasure. 'neath the dark shadow of her mighty wings the whole deluded world at last must cower:- o blindness that involves all mortal things, frail ignorance that treads on human power!- he who can count the woes her empire brings, could number every star, each fish, each flower, tell all the birds that cross the autumnal seas, of leaves that flutter from the naked trees. his _ambra_ is another poem in the same style as the _selve_. it records lorenzo's love for that tuscan farm which poliziano afterwards made famous in the sonorous hexameters he dedicated to the memory of homer.[475] following the steps of ovid, lorenzo feigns that a shepherd lauro loved the nymph ambra, whom umbrone, the river-god, pursued through vale and meadow to the shores of arno. there he would have done her violence, but that diana changed her to a rock in her sore need: ma pur che fussi già donna ancor credi; le membra mostran, come suol figura bozzata e non finita in pietra dura. this simile is characteristic both of lorenzo's love for familiar illustration, and also of the age that dawned on michelangelo's genius. in the same meter, but in a less ambitious style, is _la caccia col falcone_. this poem is the simple record of a tuscan hawking-party, written to amuse lorenzo's guests, but never meant assuredly to be discussed by critics after the lapse of four centuries. these pastorals, whether trifling like _la caccia_, romantic like _corinto_, or pictorial like _ambra_, sink into insignificance beside _la nencia da barberino_--a masterpiece of true genius and humor, displaying intimate knowledge of rustic manners, and using the dialect of the tuscan _contadini_.[476] like the _polyphemus_ of theocritus, but with even more of racy detail and homely fun, _la nencia_ versifies the love-lament of a hind, vallera, who describes the charms of his sweetheart with quaint fancy, wooing her in a thousand ways, all natural, all equally in keeping with rural simplicity. it can scarcely be called a parody of village life and feeling, although we cannot fail to see that the town is laughing at the country all through the exuberant stanzas, so rich in fancy, so incomparably vivid in description. what lifts it above parody is the truth of the picture and the close imitation of rustic popular poetry[477]: le labbre rosse paion di corallo: ed havvi drento due filar di denti che son più bianchi che quei di cavallo: e d'ogni lato ella n'ha più di venti. le gote bianche paion di cristallo senz'altri lisci ovver scorticamenti: ed in quel mezzo ell'è come una rosa. nel mondo non fu mai sì bella cosa. ben sì potrà tenere avventurato che sia marito di sì bella moglie; ben sì potrà tener in buon dì nato chi arà quel fioraliso senza foglie; ben sì potrà tener santo e beato, che sì contenti tutte le sue voglie d'aver la nencia e tenersela in braccio morbida e bianca che pare un sugnaccio. these lines, chosen at random from the poem, might be paralleled from _rispetti_ that are sung to-day in tuscany. the vividness and vigor of _la nencia_ secured for it immediate popularity. it was speedily imitated by luigi pulci in the _beca da dicomano_, a village poem that, aiming at cruder realism than lorenzo's, broke the style and lapsed into vulgarity. _la nencia_ long continued to have imitators; for one of the principal objects of educated poets in the renaissance was to echo the manner of popular verse. none, however, succeeded so well as lorenzo in touching the facts of country life and the truth of country feeling with a fine irony that had in it at least as much of sympathy as of sarcasm. _i beoni_ is a plebeian poem of a different and more displeasing type. written in _terza rima_, it distinctly parodies the style of the divine comedy, using the same phrases to indicate action and to mark the turns of dialogue; introducing similes in the manner of dante, burlesquing virgil and beatrice in the disgusting bartolino and nastagio.[478] the poem might be called the paradise of drunkards, or their hell; for it consists of a succession of scenes in which intoxication in all stages and topers of every caliber are introduced. the tone is coldly satirical, sardonically comic. the old man of tennyson's "vision of sin" might have written _i beoni_ after a merry bout with the wrinkled ostler. when lorenzo composed it, he was already corrupt and weary, sated with the world, worn with disease, disillusioned by a life of compromise, hypocrisy, diplomacy, and treason to the state he ruled. yet the humor of this poem has nothing truly sinister or tragic. its brutality is redeemed by no fierce swiftian rage. if some of the descriptions in lorenzo's earlier work remind us of dutch flower and landscape-painters, breughel or van huysum, the scenes of _i beoni_ recall the realism of dutch tavern-pictures and kermessen. it has the same humor, gross and yet keen, the same intellectual enjoyment of sensuality, the same animalism studied by an acute æsthetic spirit.[479] to turn from _i beoni_ to lorenzo's lauds, written at his mother's request, and to the sacred play of _s. giovanni e paolo_, acted by his children, is to make one of those bewildering transitions which are so common in renaissance italy. without rating lorenzo's sacred poetry very high, either for religious fervor or æsthetic quality, it is yet surprising that the author of the _beoni_ and the platonic sage of careggi should have caught so much of the pietistic tone. we know that _s. giovanni e paolo_ was written when he was advanced in years[480]; and the latent allusions to his illness and the cares of state which weighed upon him, give it an interest it would not otherwise excite. this couplet, spesso chi chiama costantin felice sta meglio assai di me e 'l ver non dice, seems to be a sigh from his own weariness. lorenzo may not improbably have envied constantine, the puppet of his fancy, at the moment of abdication. and yet when savonarola called upon him ere his death to deal justly with florence, the true nature of the man was seen. had he liked it or not, he could not then have laid down the load of care and crime which it had been the business of his whole life to accumulate by crooked ways in the enslavement of florence and the perdition of his soul's peace. the lauds, which may be referred to an earlier period of lorenzo's life, when his mother ruled his education, and the pious bishop of arezzo watched his exemplary behavior in church with admiration, have here and there in them a touch of profound feeling[481]; nor are they in all respects inferior to the average of those included in the florentine collection of 1863. the men of the renaissance were so constituted that to turn from vice, and cruelty, and crime, from the deliberate corruption and enslavement of a people by licentious pleasures and the persecution of an enemy in secret, with a fervid and impassioned movement of the soul to god, was nowise impossible. their temper admitted of this anomaly, as we may plainly see in cellini's autobiography. therefore, though it is probable that lorenzo cultivated the laud chiefly as a form of art, we are not justified in assuming that the passages in which we seem to detect a note of ardent piety, are insincere. the versatility of lorenzo's talent showed itself to greater advantage when he quitted the uncongenial ground of sacred literature and gave a free rein to his fancy in the composition of _ballate_ and carnival songs. this species of poetry offered full scope to a temperament excessive in all pleasures of the senses.[482] it also enabled him to indulge a deeply-rooted sympathy with the common folk. nor must it be supposed that lorenzo was following a merely artistic impulse. this strange man, in whose complex nature opponent qualities were harmonized and intertwined, made his very sensuality subserve his statecraft. the medici had based their power upon the favor of the proletariate. since the days of the ciompi riot they had pursued one line of self-aggrandizement by siding with the plebeians in their quarrels with the oligarchs. the serious purpose which underlay lorenzo's cultivation of popular poetry, was to amuse the crowd with pageantry and music, to distract their attention from state concerns and to blunt their political interest, to flatter them by descending to their level and mixing freely with them in their sports, and to acquire a popularity which should secure him from the aristocratic jealousies of the acciaioli, the frescobaldi, the salviati, soderini, and other ancestral foemen of his house. the frontispiece to an old edition of florentine carnival songs shows him surrounded with maskers in quaint dresses, leading the revel beneath the walls of the palazzo, while women gaze upon them from the windows.[483] that we are justified in attributing a policy of calculated enervation to lorenzo is proved by the verdict of machiavelli and guicciardini, both of whom connect his successful despotism with the pageants he provided for the populace,[484] and also by this passage in savonarola's treatise on the government of florence: "the tyrant, especially in times of peace and plenty, is wont to occupy the people with shows and festivals, in order that they may think of their own pastimes and not of his designs, and, growing unused to the conduct of the commonwealth, may leave the reins of government in his hands."[485] at the same time he would err who should suppose that lorenzo's enjoyment of these pleasures, which he found in vogue among the people, was not genuine. he represented the worst as well as the best spirit of his age; and if he knew how to enslave florence, it was because his own temperament shared the instincts of the crowd, while his genius enabled him to clothe obscenity with beauty. we know that it was an ancient florentine custom for young men and girls to meet upon the squares and dance, while a boy sang with treble voice to lute or viol, or a company of minstrels chanted part-songs. the dancers joined in the refrain, vaunting the pleasures of the may and the delights of love in rhythms suited to the _carola_. taking this form of poetry from the people, lorenzo gave it the dignity of art. sometimes he told the tale of an unhappy lover, or pretended to be pleading with a coy mistress, or broke forth into the exultation of a passion crowned with success. again, he urged both boys and girls to stay the flight of time nor suffer the rose-buds of their youth to fade unplucked. in more wanton moods, he satirized the very love he praised, or, casting off the mask of decency, ran riot in base bestiality. these _canzoni a ballo_, though they lack the supreme beauty of poliziano's style, are stylistically graceful. their tone never rises above sensuality. not only has the gravity of dante's passion passed away from florence, but boccaccio's sensuous ideality is gone, and the _naïveté_ of popular erotic poetry is clouded with gross innuendoes. we find in them the æesthetic immorality, the brilliant materialism of the renaissance, conveyed with careless self-abandonment to carnal impulse. the name of lorenzo de' medici is still more closely connected with the _canti carnascialeschi_ or carnival songs, of which he is said to have been the first author, than with the _ballate_, which he only used as they were handed to him. in carnival time it was the custom of the florentines to walk the streets, masked and singing satiric ballads. lorenzo saw that here was an opportunity for delighting the people with the magnificence of pageantry. he caused the triumphs in which he took a part to be carefully prepared by the best artists, the dresses of the maskers to be accurately studied, and their chariots to be adorned with illustrative paintings. then he wrote songs appropriate to the characters represented on the cars. singing and dancing and displaying their costumes, the band paraded florence. il lasca in his introduction to the triumphs and carnival songs dedicated to don francesco de' medici gives the history of their invention[486]: "this festival was invented by the magnificent lorenzo de' medici. before his time, when the cars bore mythological or allegorical masks, they were called _trionfi_; but when they carried representatives of arts and trades, they kept the simpler name of _carri_." the lyrics written for the triumphs were stately, in the style of antique odes; those intended to be sung upon the _carri_, employed plebeian turns of phrase and dealt in almost undisguised obscenity. it was their wont, says il lasca, "to go forth after dinner, and often they lasted till three or four hours into the night, with a multitude of masked men on horseback following, richly dressed, exceeding sometimes three hundred in number and as many men on foot with lighted torches. thus they traversed the city, singing to the accompaniment of music arranged for four, eight, twelve, or even fifteen voices, supported by various instruments." lorenzo's fancy took the florentine mind. from his days onward these shows were repeated every year, the best artists and poets contributing their genius to make them splendid. in the collection of songs written for the carnival, we find masks of scholars, artisans, frog-catchers, furies, tinkers, women selling grapes, old men and young wives, jewelers, german lansknechts, gypsies, wool-carders, penitents, devils, jews, hypocrites, young men who have lost their fathers, wiseacres, damned souls, tortoiseshell cats, perfumers, masons, mountebanks, mirror-makers, confectioners, prudent persons, lawyers, nymphs in love, nuns escaped from convent--not to mention the four ages of man, the winds, the elements, peace, calumny, death, madness, and a hundred abstractions of that kind. the tone of these songs is uniformly and deliberately immoral. one might fancy them composed for some old phallic festival. their wit is keen and lively, presenting to the fancy of the student all the humors of a brilliant bygone age. a strange and splendid spectacle it must have been, when florence, the city of art and philosophy, ran wild in dionysiac revels proclaiming the luxury and license of the senses! beautiful maidens, young men in rich clothes on prancing steeds, showers of lilies and violets, triumphal arches of spring flowers and ribbons, hail-storms of comfits, torches flaring to the sallow evening sky--we can see the whole procession as it winds across the ponte vecchio, emerges into the great square, and slowly gains the open space beneath the dome of brunelleschi and the tower of giotto. the air rings with music as they come, bass and tenor and shrill treble mingling with the sound of lute and cymbal. the people hush their cheers to listen. it is lorenzo's triumph of bacchus, and here are the words they sing: fair is youth and void of sorrow; but it hourly flies away.- youths and maids, enjoy to-day; naught ye know about to-morrow. this is bacchus and the bright ariadne, lovers true! they, in flying time's despite, each with each find pleasure new; these their nymphs, and all their crew keep perpetual holiday.- youths and maids, enjoy to-day; naught ye know about to-morrow. these blithe satyrs, wanton-eyed, of the nymphs are paramours: through the caves and forests wide they have snared them mid the flowers. warmed with bacchus, in his bowers, now they dance and leap away.- youths and maids enjoy to-day; naught ye know about to-morrow. these fair nymphs, they are not loth to entice their lovers' wiles. none but thankless folk and rough can resist when love beguiles. now enlaced with wreathed smiles, all together dance and play.- youths and maids, enjoy to-day; naught ye know about to-morrow. see this load behind them plodding on the ass, silenus he, old and drunken, merry, nodding, full of years and jollity; though he goes so swayingly, yet he laughs and quaffs alway.- youths and maids, enjoy to-day; naught ye know about to-morrow. midas treads a wearier measure: all he touches turns to gold: if there be no taste of pleasure, what's the use of wealth untold? what's the joy his fingers hold, when he's forced to thirst for aye?- youths and maids, enjoy to-day; naught ye know about to-morrow. listen well to what we're saying; of to-morrow have no care! young and old together playing, boys and girls, be blithe as air! every sorry thought forswear! keep perpetual holiday.- youths and maids, enjoy to-day; naught ye know about to-morrow. ladies and gay lovers young! long live bacchus, live desire! dance and play, let songs be sung; let sweet love your bosoms fire; in the future come what may!- youths and maids, enjoy to-day; naught ye know about to-morrow. on rolls the car, and the crowd closes round it, rending the old walls with shattering hurrahs. then a corner of the street is turned; while soaring still above the hubbub of the town we hear at intervals that musical refrain. gradually it dies away in the distance, and fainter and more faintly still the treble floats to us in broken waves of sound--the echo of a lyric heard in dreams. such were the songs that reached savonarola's ears, writing or meditating in his cloister at s. marco. such were the sights that moved his indignation as he trod the streets of florence. then he bethought him of his famous parody of the carnival, the bonfire of vanities and the hymn in praise of divine madness sung by children dressed in white like angels.[487] yet florence, warned in vain by the friar, took no thought for the morrow; and the morrow came to all italy with war, invasion, pestilence, innumerable woes. in the last year of pier soderini's gonfalonierato (1512) it seemed as though the italians had been quickened to a consciousness of their impending ruin. the siege of brescia, the battle of ravenna, the league of cambray, the massacres of prato, the sack of rome, the fall of florence, were all imminent. a fascination of intolerable fear thrilled the people in the midst of their heedlessness, and this fear found voice and form in a strange carnival pageant described by vasari[488]: "the triumphal car was covered with black cloth, and was of vast size; it had skeletons and white crosses painted upon its surface, and was drawn by buffaloes, all of which were totally black: within the car stood the colossal figure of death, bearing the scythe in his hand; while round him were covered tombs, which opened at all the places where the procession halted, while those who formed it, chanted lugubrious songs, when certain figures stole forth, clothed in black cloth, on whose vestments the bones of a skeleton were depicted in white; the arms, breast, ribs, and legs, namely, all which gleamed horribly forth on the black beneath. at a certain distance appeared figures bearing torches, and wearing masks presenting the face of a death's head both before and behind; these heads of death as well as the skeleton necks beneath them, also exhibited to view, were not only painted with the utmost fidelity to nature, but had besides a frightful expression which was horrible to behold. at the sound of a wailing summons, sent forth with a hollow moan from trumpets of muffled yet inexorable clangor, the figures of the dead raised themselves half out of their tombs, and seating their skeleton forms thereon, they sang the following words, now so much extolled and admired, to music of the most plaintive and melancholy character. before and after the car rode a train of the dead on horses, carefully selected from the most wretched and meager animals that could be found: the caparisons of those worn, half-dying beasts were black, covered with white crosses; each was conducted by four attendants, clothed in the vestments of the grave; these last-mentioned figures, bearing black torches and a large black standard, covered with crosses, bones, and death's heads. while this train proceeded on its way, each sang, with a trembling voice, and all in dismal unison, that psalm of david called the miserere. the novelty and the terrible character of this singular spectacle, filled the whole city, as i have before said, with a mingled sensation of terror and admiration; and although at the first sight it did not seem well calculated for a carnival show, yet being new, and within the reach of every man's comprehension, it obtained the highest encomium for piero as the author and contriver of the whole, and was the cause as well as commencement of numerous representations, so ingenious and effective that by these things florence acquired a reputation for the conduct of such subjects and the arrangement of similar spectacles such as was never equaled by any other city." of this carnival song, composed by antonio alamanni, i here give an english version. sorrow, tears, and penitence are our doom of pain for aye; this dead concourse riding by hath no cry but penitence. even as you are, once were we: you shall be as now we are: we are dead men, as you see: we shall see you dead men, where naught avails to take great care after sins of penitence. we too in the carnival sang our love-song through the town; thus from sin to sin we all headlong, heedless, tumbled down; now we cry, the world around, penitence, oh penitence! senseless, blind, and stubborn fools! time steals all things as he rides: honors, glories, states, and schools, pass away, and naught abides; till the tomb our carcass hides, and compels grim penitence. this sharp scythe you see us bear, brings the world at length to woe; but from life to life we fare; and that life is joy or woe; all heaven's bliss on him doth flow, who on earth does penitence. living here, we all must die; dying, every soul shall live, for the king of kings on high this fixed ordinance doth give: lo! you all are fugitive penitence, cry penitence! torment great and grievous dole hath the thankless heart mid you: but the man of piteous soul finds much honor in our crew; love for loving is the due that prevents this penitence. these words sounded in the ears of the people, already terrified by the unforgotten voice of savonarola, like a trump of doom. the pageant was, indeed, an acted allegory of the death of italy, the repentance after judgment of a nation fallen in its sins. yet a few months passed, and the same streets echoed with the music of yet another show, which has also been described by vasari.[489] if the car of death expressed the uneasy dread that fell on the italians at the opening of the century, the shows of 1513 allegorized their mad confidence in the fortune of the age, which was still more deeply felt and widely shared. giovanni de' medici had just been elevated to the papal chair, and was paying a holiday visit to his native city. giuliano de' medici, his brother, the duke of nemours, was also resident in florence, where he had formed a club of noble youths called the diamond. lorenzo, duke of urbino, the titular chief of the house, presided over a rival company named il broncone--with a withered laurel-branch, whence leaves were sprouting, for its emblem. the diamond signified the constancy of casa medici; the withered branch their power of self-recovery. these two men, giuliano and lorenzo, are the same who now confront each other upon their pedestals in michelangelo's sacristy of s. lorenzo. both were doomed to an untimely death; but in the year 1513, when leo's election shed new luster on their house, they were still in the heyday of prosperity and hope. giuliano resolved that the diamond should make a goodly show. therefore he intrusted the invention and the poems to andrea dazzi, who then held poliziano's chair of greek and latin literature. dazzi devised three cars after the fashion of a roman triumph. for the construction of each chariot an excellent architect was chosen; for their decoration the painter pontormo was appointed. in the first rode beautiful boys; in the second, powerful men; in the third, reverend grandsires. lorenzo, in competition with his uncle, determined that the laurel branch should outrival the diamond. he applied to jacopo nardi, the historian of florence and translator of livy. nardi composed a procession of seven chariots to symbolize the golden age, and wrote appropriate poems for each, which are still extant. in the first car rode saturn and janus, attended by six shepherds of goodly form, naked, on horses without harness. in the second sat numa pompilius, surrounded by priests in antique raiment. the third carried titus manlius, whose consulship beheld the close of the first punic war. in the fifth augustus sat enthroned, accompanied by twelve laureled poets. the horses that drew him, were winged. the sixth carried trajan, the just emperor, with doctors of the law on either side. all these chariots were adorned with emblems painted by pontormo. the seventh car held a globe to represent the world. upon it lay a dead man in a suit of rusty iron armor, from the cloven plates of which emerged a living child, naked and gilt with glistering leaf of gold. this signified the passing of the iron, and the opening of the golden age--the succession of the renaissance to feudalism--the fortunes of italy reviving after her disasters in the sunlight of the smiles of leo. _magnus sæclorum nascitur ordo!_ "the world's great age begins anew; the golden years return!" thus the artists, scholars, and poets of florence symbolized in a carnival show the advent of the renaissance. the boy who represented the golden age, died of the sufferings he endured beneath his gilding; and his father, who was a baker, received ten scudi of indemnity. a fanciful historian might read in this little incident the irony of fate, warning the italians that the age they welcomed would perish for them in its bloom. in the year 1513 luther was already thirty years of age, and charles v. in the low countries was a boy of thirteen, accumulating knowledge under the direction of the future adrian vi. whatever destiny of gold the renaissance might through italy be offering to europe, it was on the point of pouring blood and fastening heavier chains on every city of the sacred land. in my desire to bring together these three representative festivals--lorenzo's triumph of bacchus, alamanni's car of death, and pontormo's pageant of the golden age--marking three moments in the florentine renaissance, and three diverse moods of feeling in the people--i have transgressed the chronological limits of this chapter. i must now return to the year 1464, when a boy of ten years old, destined to revive the glories of italian literature with far greater luster than lorenzo, came from montepulciano to florence, and soon won the notice of the medicean princes. angelo ambrogini, surnamed poliziano from his home above the chiana, has already occupied a prominent place in this work.[490] it is not, therefore, needful to retrace the history of his uneventful life, or again to fix his proper rank among the scholars of the fifteenth century. he was the greatest student, and the greatest poet in greek and latin, that italy has produced. in the history of european scholarship, he stands midway between petrarch and erasmus, taking the post of honor at the moment when erudition had acquired ease and elegance, but had not yet passed on into the final stage of scientific criticism. what concerns us here, is poliziano's achievement as an italian poet. in the history of the vulgar literature he fills a place midway between petrarch and ariosto, corresponding to the station of distinction i have assigned to him in humanistic culture. of few men can it be said that they have held the same high rank in poetry and learning; and had the moral fiber of poliziano, his intellectual tension and his spiritual aim, been at all commensurate with his twofold ability, the italians might have shown in him a fourth singer equal in magnitude to their greatest. as it was, the excellence of his work was marred by the defect of his temperament, and has far less value for the general reader than for the student of versification. lorenzo de' medici could boast of having restored the mother tongue to a place of honor among the learned. but he was far from being the complete artist that the age required. "that exquisite flower of sentiment we call good taste, that harmony of intellect we call judgment, lies not within the grasp of power or riches."[491] a man was needed who should combine creative genius with refined tact in the use of language; who should be competent to carry the tradition of italian poetry beyond the point where boccaccio dropped it, while giving to his work the polish and the splendor of a classic masterpiece. it was further necessary that this new dictator of the literary commonwealth should have left the middle age so far behind as not to be aware of its stern spirit. he must have acquired the erudition of his eminently learned century--a century in which knowledge was the pearl of great price; not the knowledge of righteousness; not the knowledge of nature and her laws; but the knowledge of the life that throbbed in ancient peoples, the life that might, it seemed, yet make the old world young again. moreover, he must be strong enough to carry this erudition without bending beneath its weight; dexterous enough to use it without pedantry; exuberant enough in natural resources to reduce his stores of learning, his wealth of fancy, his thronging emotions, to one ruling harmony--fusing all reminiscences in one style of pure and copious italian. he must be gifted with that reverent sense of beauty, which was the sole survivirg greatness of his century, animating the imagination of its artists, and justifying the proud boast of its students. this man was found in angelo poliziano. he, and only he, was destined, by combining the finish of the classics with the freshness of a language still in use, to inaugurate the golden age of form. faustus, the genius of the middle ages, had wedded helen, the vision of the ancient world. their son, euphorion, the inheritor of all their gifts, we hail in poliziano. when poliziano composed _le stanze_ he was nearly twenty-four years of age.[492] he had steeped himself in the classic literatures. endowed with a marvelous memory, he possessed their spirit and their substance. not less familiar with tuscan poetry of the fourteenth century, he commanded the stores of dante's, petrarch's and boccaccio's diction. long practice in greek and latin composition had given him mastery over the metrical systems of the ancient languages.[493] the daily habit of inditing songs for music to please the ladies of the medicean household, had accustomed him to the use of fluent italian. the translation of the _iliad_, performed in part before he was eighteen, had made him a faithful imitator, while it added dignity and fullness to his style.[494] besides these qualifications for his future task of raising italian to an equality with latin poetry, he brought with him to this achievement a genius apt to comprehend the spirit of the renaissance in its pomp and liberty and tranquil loveliness. the noble and yet sensuous manner of the great venetian painters, their dignity of form, their luxury of color, their boldness and decision, their imperturbable serenity of mundane joy--the choicer delicacy of the florentine masters, their refinement of outline, selection of type, suggestion of restrained emotion--the pure design of the tuscan sculptors, the suavity and flexibility of the lombard _plasticatori_--all these qualities of italian figurative art appear, as it were in bud, in the _stanze_. poliziano's crowning merit as a stylist was that he knew how to blend the antique and the romantic, correct drawing with fleshly fullness. breadth of design and harmony of color have rarely been produced in more magnificent admixture. the octave stanza, which in the hands of boccaccio was languid and diffuse, in the hands of lorenzo harsh, in the hands of pulci rugged, became under poliziano's treatment an inexhaustible instrument of varying melodies. at one time, beneath his touch, the meter takes an epic dignity; again it sinks to idyllic sweetness, or mourns with the elegy, or exults with the ode. its movement is rapid or relaxed, smooth or vibrating, undulatory or impetuous, as he has chosen. when we reflect how many generations of poets it required to bring the sonnet to completeness, we may marvel at this youth, in an age when scholarship absorbed inventive genius, who was able at one stroke to do for the octave stanza what marlowe did for our blank verse. poliziano gave to ariosto the italian epical meter perfected, and established a standard of style amid the anarchy which threatened the literature of italy with ruin. yet it must be confessed that, after all, it is chiefly the style of poliziano that deserves praise. like so much else of renaissance work--like the farnesina frescoes in rome, or giulio romano's luxuriant arabesques at mantua, or the efflorescence of foliage and cupids in the bass-reliefs of palace portals at venice--there is but little solid thought or serious feeling underneath this decorative richness. those who cannot find a pleasure in form for its own sake, independent of matter, will never be able to do poliziano justice. this brings us to the subject of the _stanze_. they were written to celebrate the prowess of giuliano de' medici, lorenzo's brother, in a tournament held at florence in the beginning of the year 1478. this fact is worth consideration. the poem which opened a new age for italian literature, had no nobler theme than a court pageant. dante had been inspired to sing the epic of the human soul. petrarch finished a portrait of the life through love of an impassioned man. boccaccio bound up in one volume a hundred tales, delineating society in all its aspects. then the muse of italy fell asleep. poliziano aroused her with the full deep intonations of a golden instrument. but what was the burden of his song? giuliano de' medici loved the fair simonetta, and bore away the prize in a toy-tournament. this marks the change effected by a century of prince-craft. henceforth great poets were to care less for what they sang than for the style in which they sang. henceforth poetry in italy was written to please--to please patrons who were flattered with false pedigrees and absurd mythologies, with the imputation of virtues they never possessed, and with the impudent palliation of shame apparent to the world. henceforth the bards of ausonia deigned to tickle the ears of lustful boys and debauched cardinals, buying the bread of courtly sloth--how salt it tasted let tasso and guarini tell--with jests or panegyrics. liberty could scarcely be named in verse when natives and strangers vied together in enslaving italy. to praise the great deeds of bygone heroes within hearing of pusillanimous princes, would have been an insult. even satires upon a degraded present, aspirations after a noble future, prophecies of resurrection from the tomb--those last resorts of a national literature that retains its strength through evil days--were unknown upon the lips of the renaissance poets. art had become a thing of pleasure, sometimes infamous, too often nugatory. the fault of this can scarcely be said to have rested with one man more than with another; nor can we lay the blame on poliziano, though he undoubtedly represented the class who were destined to continue literature upon these lines. it was the combined result of scholarship, which for a whole century had diverted the minds of men to the form and words of literature; of court-life, which had enfeebled the recipients of princely patronage; of tyranny, which encouraged flattery, dissimulation, and fraud; of foreign oppression, which already was beginning to enervate a race of slaves; of revived paganism, which set the earlier beliefs and aspirations of the soul at unequal warfare with emancipated lusts and sensualities; of indolence, which loved to toy with trifles, instead of thinking and creating thought; of social inequalities, which forced the poet to eat a master's bread, and turned the scholars of italy into a crowd of servile and yet arrogant beggars. all these circumstances, and many more of the same kind, were slowly and surely undermining the vigor of the italian intellect. over the meridian splendor of _le stanze_ we already see their influences floating like a vaporous miasma. italy, though never so chivalrous as the rest of europe, yet preserved the pompous festivities of feudalism. jousts were held in all great cities, and it was reckoned part of a courtier's business to be a skillful cavalier. at florence the custom survived of celebrating the first of may with tournaments, and on great occasions the wealthy families spent large sums of money in providing pastimes of this sort. february 7, 1468, witnessed a splendid spectacle, when lorenzo de' medici, mounted successively on chargers presented to him by the duke of ferrara and the king of naples, attired in armor given by the duke of milan, bearing the _fleurs de lys_ of france conferred upon the medici by louis xi., and displaying on his pennon for a motto _le tems revient_, won the prize of valor before the populace assembled in the square of s. croce. luca pulci, the descendant of an ancient house of tuscan nobles, composed an adulatory poem in octave stanzas on this event. so changed were the times that this scion of florentine aristocracy felt no shame in fawning on a despot risen from the people to enslave his city. yet the spectacle was worthy celebration. lorenzo, the banker's son, the platonist, the diplomatist and tyrant, charging in the lists of feudalism beneath arnolfo's tower, with the lilies of france upon his shield and the device of the renaissance on his banner--this figured symbol of the meeting of two ages in a single man was no mean subject for a poem! from poliziano's _stanze_ we learn no such characteristic details concerning giuliano's later tournament. though the poem is called _la giostra_, the insignificant subject disappears beneath a wealth of illustration. the episodes, including the pictures of the golden age and of the garden and palace of venus, form the real strength of a masterpiece which blent the ancient and the modern world in a work of art glowing with italian fancy. that _la giostra_ has no subject-matter, no theme of weight to wear the poet thin through years of anxious toil, no progress from point to point, no chain of incidents and no romantic evolution, is a matter of little moment. when giuliano de' medici died before the altar by the hand of an assassin on april 26, 1478, poliziano laid down his pen and left the _stanze_ unfinished.[495] it cannot be said that the poem suffered, or that posterity lost by this abrupt termination of a work conceived without a central thought. enough had been already done to present italy with a model of the style she needed; and if we ask why _la giostra_ should have become immediately popular in spite of its peculiar texture and its abrupt conclusion, the answer is not far to seek. poliziano incarnated the spirit of his age, and gave the public what satisfied their sense of fitness. the three chief enthusiasms of the fifteenth century--for classical literature, for artistic beauty, and for nature tranquilly enjoyed--were so fused and harmonized within the poet's soul as to produce a style of unmistakable originality and charming ease. poliziano felt the delights of the country with serene idyllic rapture, not at second hand through the ancients, but with the voluptuous enjoyment of the florentine who loved his villa. he had, besides, a sense of form analogous to that possessed by the artists of his age, which guided him in the selection and description of the scenes he painted. again, his profound and refined erudition enabled him "to shower," as giovio phrased it, "the finest flowers of antique poetry upon the people." therefore, while he felt nature like one who worshiped her for her own sake and for the joy she gave him, he saw in her the subjects of a thousand graceful pictures, and these pictures he studied through a radiant haze of antique reminiscences. each stanza of _la giostra_ is a mimic world of beauty, art, and scholarship; a painting where the object stands before us modeled with relief of light and shade in finely modulated hues; a brief anthology of daintily-culled phrases, wafting to our memories the perfume of greece, rome, and florence in her prime. these delicate little masterpieces are, turn by turn, a picture of botticelli, a fresco by giulio romano, an engraving of mantegna, a bass-relief of young buonarroti, or a garden-scene of gozzoli, expressed in the purest diction of all literatures by a poet who, while imitating, never ceased to be original.[496] nothing more was needed by a nation of idyllic dreamers, artists and scholars. what poliziano might have achieved, if he had found a worthy theme for the employment of his powers, it would be idle to ask. it is perhaps the condemnation of the man and of his age that the former did not seek heroic subjects for song, and the latter did not demand them--in a word that neither poet nor public had in them anything heroic whatsoever. the fact is undeniably true; but this does not deprive poliziano of the merit of such verses as the following: after such happy wise, in ancient years, dwelt the old nations in the age of gold; nor had the font been stirr'd of mothers' tears for sons in war's fell labor stark and cold; nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers, nor yet had oxen groaning plowed the wold; their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore. nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: joyous in liberty they lived at first; unplowed the fields sent forth their teeming birth: till fortune, envious of such concord, burst the bond of law, and pity banned and worth; within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage which men call love in our degenerate age. a somewhat earlier composition than _la giostra_ was _la favola di orfeo_, a dramatic poem similar in form to the _sacra rappresentazione_, with a classical instead of a religious subject.[497] to call it a tragedy would be to dignify it with too grand a title. to class it with pastorals is equally impossible, though the songs of the shepherds and wood-nymphs may be said to have anticipated the style of tasso's _aminta_ and guarini's _pastor fido_. nor again is it properly speaking an opera, though it was undoubtedly meant for music. the _orfeo_ combined tragedy, the pastoral, and the opera in a mixed work of melodramatic art, which by its great popularity inspired the poets of italy to produce specimens of each kind, and prepared the public to receive them.[498] still, in form and movement, it adhered to the traditions of the _sacra rappresentazione_, and its originality consisted in the substitution of a pagan for a christian fable. unerring instinct guided poliziano in the choice of his subject. orpheus was the proper hero of renaissance italy--the civilizer of a barbarous world by art and poetry, the lover of beauty, who dared to invade hell and moved the iron heart of pluto with a song. long before the composition of _orfeo_, boccaccio had presented the same conception of society humanized by culture in his _ninfale fiesolano_. this was the ideal of the renaissance; and, what is more, it accurately symbolized the part played by italy after the dissolution of the middle ages. in the myth of orpheus the humanism of the revival became conscious of itself. this fable was the mystery of the new age, the allegory of the work appointed for the nation. did we dare to press a metaphor to the verge of the fantastic, we might even read in the martyrdom of orpheus by the mænads a prophecy of the italian doom. italy, who had aroused europe from lethargy with the voice of poetry and learning, who had inaugurated a new age of civil and social refinement, who thought she could resist the will of god by arts and elegant accomplishments, after triumphing over the rude forces of nature was now about to violate the laws of nature in her vices, and to fall a victim to the mænads of incurrent barbarism, inebriate with wine and blood, indifferent to the magic of the lyre, avengers blindly following the dictates of a power that rules the destinies of nations. of this italy, poliziano, the author of _orfeo_, was himself the representative hero, the protagonist, the intellectual dictator.[499] the _orfeo_ was sent with a letter of dedication to messer carlo canale, the obsequious husband of that vannozza, who bore cesare and lucrezia borgia to the pope alexander vi. poliziano says that he "wrote this play at the request of the most reverend the cardinal of mantua, in the space of two days, among continual disturbances, and in the vulgar tongue, that it might be the better comprehended by the spectators." he adds: "this child of mine is of a sort to bring more shame than honor on its father." there is good reason to believe that the year 1472, when the cardinal francesco gonzaga returned from bologna to mantua, and was received with "triumphs and pomps, great feasts and banquets," was the date of its composition. if so, the _orfeo_ was written at the age of eighteen. it could not have been played later than 1483, for in that year the cardinal died. at eighteen poliziano was already famous for his translation of the _iliad_. he had gained the title of _homericus juvenis_, and was celebrated for his powers of improvization.[500] that he should have put the _orfeo_ together in forty-eight hours is hardly so remarkable as that he should have translated herodian in the space of a few days, while walking and dictating. for the _orfeo_ is but a slight piece, though beautiful and pregnant with the germs of many styles to be developed from its scenes. the plot is simple, and the whole play numbers no more than 434 lines. to do the _orfeo_ justice, we ought to have heard it with its own accompaniment of music. viewed as a tragedy, judged by the standard of our northern drama, it will always prove a disappointment. that mastery over the complex springs of human nature which distinguished the first efforts of marlowe, is almost wholly absent. a certain adaptation of the language to the characters, in the rudeness of thyrsis when contrasted with the rustic elegance of aristæus; a touch of feeling in eurydice's outcry of farewell; a discrimination between the tender sympathy of proserpine and pluto's stern relenting; a spirited representation of bacchanalian enthusiasm in the mænads; an attempt to model the satyr mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet conscious of its anguish--these points constitute the chief dramatic features of the melodrama. but where there was the opportunity of a really tragic movement, poliziano failed. we have only to read the lament uttered by orpheus for the loss of eurydice, in order to perceive how fine a situation has been spoiled. the pathos which might have made us sympathize with the lover in his misery, the passion approaching frenzy which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. poliziano seems to have already felt the inspiration of the bacchic chorus which concludes the play, and to have forgotten his duty to his hero, whose sorrow for eurydice is stultified and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. yet, when we return from these criticisms to the real merit of the piece, we find in it a charm of musical language, a subtlety of musical movement, which are irresistibly fascinating. thought and feeling seem alike refined to a limpidity that suits the flow of melody in song. the very words evaporate and lose themselves in floods of sound. orpheus himself is a purely lyrical personage. of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in the passage where the singer has to be displayed. thus the _orfeo_ is a good poem only where the situation is less dramatic than lyrical, and its finest scene was, fortunately for the author, one in which the dramatic motive could be lyrically expressed. before the gates of hades and the throne of proserpine, orpheus sings, and his singing is the right outpouring of a musician-poet's soul. each octave resumes the theme of the last stanza with a swell of utterance, a _crescendo_ of intonation, that recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the boughs alone. to this true quality of music is added the persuasiveness of pleading. even while we read, the air seems to vibrate with pure sound, and the rich recurrence of the tune is felt upon the opening of each successive stanza. that the melody of this incomparable song is lost, must be reckoned a misfortune. we have reason to believe that the part of orpheus was taken by messer baccio ugolini, singing to the viol.[501] space does not permit me to detach the whole scene in hades from the play and print it here; to quote a portion of it would be nothing less than mutilation.[502] i must content myself with this chorus of the mænads, which contains, as in a kernel, the whole dithyrambic poetry of the italians: bacchus! we all must follow thee! bacchus! bacchus! ohé! ohé! with ivy coronals, bunch and berry, crown we our heads to worship thee! thou hast bidden us to make merry day and night with jollity! drink then! bacchus is here! drink free, and hand ye the drinking-cup to me! bacchus! we all must follow thee! bacchus! bacchus! ohé! ohé! see, i have emptied my horn already; stretch hither your beaker to me, i pray; are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady? or is it my brain that reels away? let every one run to and fro through the hay, as ye see me run! ho! after me! bacchus! we all must follow thee! bacchus! bacchus! ohé! ohé! methinks i am dropping in swoon or slumber; am i drunken or sober, yes or no? what are these weights my feet encumber? you too are tipsy, well i know! let every one do as ye see me do, let every one drink and quaff like me! bacchus! we all must follow thee! bacchus! bacchus! ohé! ohé! cry bacchus! cry bacchus! be blithe and merry, tossing wine down your throats away! let sleep then come and our gladness bury: drink you, and you, and you, while ye may! dancing is over for me to-day. let every one cry aloud evohé! bacchus! we all must follow thee! bacchus! bacchus! ohé! ohé! it remains to speak of the third class of poems which the great scholar and supple courtier flung like wild flowers with a careless hand from the chariot of his triumph to the capitolian heights of erudition. small store, indeed, he set by them--these italian love-songs, hastily composed to please donna ippolita leoncina, the titular mistress of his heart; thrown off to serve the turn of giuliano and his younger friends; or improvised, half jestingly, to meet the humor of his princely patron, when lorenzo, quitting the laurel-crowned bust of plato, or the groves of careggi, or the audience-chamber where he parleyed with the envoys of the sforza, went abroad like king manfred of old with lute and mandoline and viol to serenade the windows of some facile beauty in the twilight of a night of june.[503] little did poliziano dream that his learning would pass away almost unreckoned, but that men of after time would gather the honey of the golden days of the renaissance from these wilding garlands.[504] yet, however slightly poliziano may have prized these productions of his early manhood, he proved that the _canzone_, the _rispetto_, and the _ballata_ were as much his own in all their multiformity of lyric loveliness, as were the rich sonorous measures of the octave stanza. expressing severally the depths of tender emotion, the caprices of adoring passion, and the rhythmic sentiment that winds in myriad movements of the dance, these three kinds of poem already belonged to the people and to love. poliziano displayed his inborn taste and mastery of art in nothing more than in the ease with which he preserved the passionate simplicity of the tuscan _volkslied_, while giving it a place among the lyrics of the learned. we have already seen how that had been achieved by boccaccio and sacchetti, and afterwards in a measure by lorenzo de' medici. but the problem of writing love-poetry for the people in their own forms, without irony and innuendo, was not now so easy as it had been in the fourteenth century, when no barrier had yet arisen between educated poets and the folk. nor had even boccaccio, far less lorenzo, solved it with the exquisite tact and purity of style we find in all poliziano's verses. in order to comprehend their charm, we must transfer ourselves to florence on a summer night, when the prince is abroad upon the streets attended by singing-boys as beautiful as sandro's angels. the professor's chair is forgotten, and plato's spheres are left to turn unheeded. pulci and poliziano join hands with girls from the workshop and the attic. lorenzo and pico figure in the dance with 'prentice-lads and carvers of wood-work or marble. all through the night beneath the stars the music of their lutes is ringing; and when the dancing stops, they gather round some balcony, or hold their own upon the square in matches of improvised melody with the unknown rhymsters of the people. what can be prettier than the ballad of roses made for "such a night," by angelo poliziano?[505] poliziano's _rispetti_ are written for the most part in _ottava rima_. this form alone suffices to mark them out as literary reproductions of the poetry upon which they are modeled. in the _rispetti_ more than the _ballate_ we notice a certain want of _naïveté_, which distinguishes them from the racier inspirations of the popular muse. that passionate insight into the soul and essence of emotion which rarely fails the peasant in his verse however rude, is here replaced by _concetti_ rounded into pearls of fancy with the daintiest art. those brusque and vehement images that flash the light of imagination on the movements of the heart, throbbing with intensest natural feeling, yield to carefully selected metaphors developed with a strict sense of economy. instead of the young _contadino_ willing to mortgage paradise for his _dama_, worshiping her with body, will and soul, compelling the morning and the evening star and the lilies of the field and the bells that swing their notes of warning over rome, to serve the bidding of his passion, we have the scholar-courtier, who touches love with the finger-tips for pastime, and who imitates the gold of the heart with baser metal of fine rhetoric. still we find in these _rispetti_ a quality which their rustic models lack. this is the roseate fluency and honeyed rapture of their author--an exquisite limpidity and ease of diction that reveal the inborn gift of art. language in poliziano's hand is plastic, taking form like softest wax, so that no effort of composition, no labor of the file can be discerned. nec pluteum cædit nec demorsos sapit ungues. this line of persius denotes the excellences no less than the faults of his erotic poetry, so charming in its flow, so fit to please a facile ear, so powerless to stir the depth of the soul or wring relenting from reluctant hearts. compared with the love-poetry of elder poets, these _rispetti_ are what the artificial epigrams of callimachus or the anacreontics of the alexandrian versifiers were to the ardent stanzas of sappho, the impassioned scolia of pindar. while they fail to reflect the ingenuous emotions of youth exulting in the paradise of love without an afterthought, they no less fail to embody philosophy or chivalrous religion or the tragedy of passions in conflict. they are inspired by aphrodité pandemos, and the joys of which they tell are carnal.[506] what has been said about the detached _rispetti_, is true of those longer poems which consist of many octave stanzas strung together with a continuity of pleading rhetoric. the facility bordering on negligence of their construction is apparent. verses that occur in one, reappear in others without alteration. all repeat the same arguments, the same enticements to a less than lawful love. the code of florentine wooing may be conveniently studied in the rambling paragraphs, while the levity of their declarations and the fluency of their vows, doing the same service on different occasions, show them to be "false as dicers' oaths," mere verses of the moment, made to sway a yielding woman's heart.[507] yet who can help enjoying them, when he connects their effusiveness of fervent language with the episodes of the _novelle_, illustrated by figures borrowed from contemporary frescoes? those sinewy lads of signorelli and masuccio, in parti-colored hose and tight jackets, climbing mulberry-tree or vine beneath their lady's window; those girls with the demure eyes of lippo lippi and bandello, suspending rope-ladders from balconies to let their romeo escape at daybreak: those lovers rushing, half-clad in shirt or jerkin, from bower and bed-chamber to cross their swords with jealous husbands at street corners; rise before us and sing their love-songs in these verses of poliziano, written for precisely such occasions to express the very feelings of these heroes of romance. after all, too, there is a certain sort of momentary sincerity in their light words of love. three lyrics of higher artistic intention and of very different caliber mark the zenith of poliziano's achievement. these are the portrait of the country girl, _la brunettina mia_; the canzone to _la bella simonetta_, written for giuliano de' medici; and the magnificent imitation of petrarch's manner, beginning _monti, valli, antri e colli_.[508] they are three studies in pictorial poetry, transparent, limpid, of incomparable freshness. a woman has sat for the central figure of each, and the landscape round her is painted with the delicacy of a _quattrocento_ florentine. _la brunettina_ is the simple village beauty, who bathes her face in the fountain, and crowns her blonde hair with a wreath of wild flowers. she is a blossoming branch of thorn in spring. her breasts are may roses, her lips are strawberries. the portrait is so ethereally tinted and so firmly modeled that we seem to be looking at a study painted by a lover from the life. simonetta moves with nobler grace and a diviner majesty[509]: in lei sola raccolto era quant'è d'onesto e bello al mondo. * * * * * un'altra sia tra le belle la prima: costei non prima chiamesi, ma sola; chè 'l giglio e la viola cedono e gli altri fior tutti alla rosa. pendevon dalla testa luminosa scherzando per la fronte e suoi crin d'oro, mentre ella nel bel coro movea ristretti al suono e dolci passi. she is the lady of the _stanze_, whom giuliano found among the fields that april morning[510]: candida è ella, e candida la vesta, ma pur di rose e fior dipinta e d'erba; lo inanellato crin dall'aurea testa scende in la fronte umilmente superba. ridegli attorno tutta la foresta, e quanto può sue cure disacerba, nell'atto regalmente è mansueta; e pur col ciglio le tempeste acqueta. * * * * * ell'era assissa sopra la verdura allegra, e ghirlandetta avea contesta di quanti fior creasse mai natura, de' quali era dipinta la sua vesta. e come prima al giovan pose cura, alquanto paurosa alzò la testa; poi con la bianca man ripreso il lembo, levossi in piè con di fior pieno un grembo. all the defined idealism, the sweetness and the purity of tuscan portraiture are in these stanzas. simonetta does not pass by with a salutation in a mist of spiritual glory like beatrice. she is surrounded with no flames of sensual desire like the griselda of boccaccio. she sits for her portrait in a tranquil light, or moves across the canvas with the dignity of a great lady: lei fuor di guisa umana mosse con maestà l'andar celeste, e con man sospendea l'ornata veste regale in atto e portamento altero. it was a rare and fugitive moment in the history of art when poliziano could paint la simonetta in these verses, and lippo lippi showed her likeness on cathedral walls of prato. different models of feminine beauty, different ideals of womanly grace served the painters and poets of a more developed age; titian's flora and dosso dossi's circe illustrating the alcina of ariosto and the women of guarini. once more, it is the thought of simonetta which pervades the landscape of the third canzone i have mentioned. herself is absent; but, as in a lyric of petrarch, her spirit is felt, and we are made to see her throned beneath the gnarled beech-branches or dipping her foot in the too happy rivulet. something just short of perfection in the _staccato_ exclamations of the final trophe reminds us of poliziano's most serious defect. amid so much tenderness of natural feeling, he fails to make us believe in the reality of his emotion. not passion, not thought, but the refined sensuousness of a nature keenly alive to plastic beauty, educated in the schools of classical and florentine art, and gifted with inexhaustible facility of language, is the dominant quality of poliziano's italian poetry. the same quality is found in his latin and greek verse--in the plaintive elegies for la bella simonetta and albiera degli albizzi, in the _violæ_ and in that ode _in puellam suam_[511] which is the latin sister of _la brunettina_. the _sylvæ_ add a new element of earnestness to his style; for if poliziano felt deep and passionate emotion, it was for homer, virgil and the poets praised in the _nutricia_, while the _rusticus_ condenses in one picture of marvelous fullness the outgoings of genuine emotion stimulated by his love of the country. hanc, o coelicolæ magni, concedite vitam! sic mihi delicias, sic blandimenta laborum, sic faciles date semper opes; hac improba sunto vota tenus. nunquam certe, nunquam ilia precabor, splendeat ut rutilo frons invidiosa galero, tergeminaque gravis surgat mihi mitra corona. that is the heart-felt prayer of poliziano. give me the tranquil scholar's life among the pleasures of the fields; my books for serious thought in studious hours; the woods and fields for recreation; with moderate wealth well-gotten without toil; no bishop's miter or triple tiara to vex my brows. it is the same ideal as alberti's. from this background of the modest rural life emerge three splendid visions--the golden age, when all was plenitude and peace; orpheus of the dulcet lyre, evoking harmony from discord in man's jarring life; and venus rising from the waves to bless the world with beauty felt through art. such was the programme of human life sketched by the representative mind of his century, in an age when the italians were summoned to do battle with france, germany and spain invasive of their borders. poliziano died before the great catastrophe. he sank at the meridian of his fame, in the same month nearly as pico, two years later than lorenzo, a little earlier than ficino, in the year 1494, so fatal to his country, the date that marks the boundary between two ages in italian history. footnotes: [459] lorenzo de' medici, b. 1448, d. 1492. poliziano, b. 1454, d. 1494. luigi pulci, b. 1432, d. about 1487. boiardo, b. about 1434, d. 1494. sannazzaro, b. 1458, d. 1530. [460] machiavelli, b. 1469, d. 1527. ariosto, b. 1474, d. 1533. guicciardini, b. 1482, d. 1540. bembo, b. 1470, d. 1547. castiglione, b. 1478, d. 1529. la casa, b. 1503, d. 1556. pietro aretino, b. 1492, d. 1557. [461] see _fine arts_, p. 183. [462] see _revival of learning_, pp. 215 _et seq._; _fine arts_, pp. 183 _et seq._ [463] it is right to say here that considerable portions of southern italy, the marches of ancona and romagna, piedmont and liguria, remained outside the renaissance movement at this period. [464] see _age of the despots_, pp. 277, 520, 542; _revival of learning_, pp. 314-323; _fine arts_, pp. 263, 387. see also _sketches and studies in italy_, article on florence and the medici. [465] _op. lat._ p. 423. [466] _poesie di lorenzo de' medici_ (firenze, barbèra, 1859), pp. 10-19. [467] _ibid._ pp. 24-34. notice especially the verdict on cino and dante, p. 33. [468] read for instance no. xii. in the edition cited above, "vidi madonna sopra un fresco rio;" no. xviii., "con passi sparti," etc.; no. xlvii., "belle fresche e purpuree viole." [469] _ibid._ p. 97. [470] "tolsi donna ... ovvero mi fu data," from the _ricordi_ printed in the appendix to roscoe's _life_. [471] "innamoramento," _poesie_, pp. 58-62. compare "selve d'amore," _ib._ pp. 172-174. [472] _poesie_, pp. 206-213. [473] _ibid._ p. 236. [474] _poesie_, pp. 190-194, 200-204. [475] see the peroration to _ambra_, in the _sylvæ_; poliziano, _prose volgari e poesie latine_, etc. (firenze, 1867), p. 365: et nos ergo illi, etc. [476] _poesie_, p. 238. [477] _ibid._ p. 239. [478] _poesie_, p. 294. [479] if anything had to be quoted from _i beoni_, i should select the episode of adovardo and his humorous discourse on thirst, cap. ii. _ib._ p. 299. for a loathsome parody of dante see cap. v. _ib._ p. 315. [480] the date is 1489. [481] especially "o dio, o sommo bene," and "poi ch'io gustai, gesù;" _ib._ pp. 444, 447. likewise "vieni a me;" _ib._ p. 449. [482] guicciardini, in his _storia fiorentina_ (_op. ined._ vol. iii. 88), writes of lorenzo: "fu libidinoso, e tutto venereo e constante negli amori suoi, che duravano parecchi anni; la quale cosa, a giudicio di molti, gli indebolì tanto il corpo, che lo fece morire, si può dire, giovane." then, after describing his night-adventures outside florence, he proceeds: "cosa pazza a considerare che uno di tanta grandezza, riputazione e prudenza, di età di anni quaranta, fussi sì preso di una dama non bella e già piena di anni, che si conducessi a fare cose, che sarebbono state disoneste a ogni fanciullo." [483] _canzone per andare in maschera, facte da più persone._ no place or date or printer's name; but probably issued in the lifetime of lorenzo from mongiani's press. there is a similar woodcut on the title-page of the _canzone a ballo_, firenze, 1568. it represents the angle of the medicean palace in the via larga, girls dancing in a ring upon the street, one with a wreath and thyrsus kneeling, another presenting lorenzo with a book. [484] _ist. fior._ viii.; _stor. fior._ ix. [485] _trattato circa il reggimento e governo della città di firenze_ (florence, 1847), ii. 2. [486] _tutti i trionfi, carri, etc._, firenze, 1559. see the edition dated cosmopoli, 1750. [487] in this place should be noticed a sinister carnival song, by an unknown author, which belongs, i think, to the period of savonarola's democracy. it is called _trionfo del vaglio_, or "triumph of the sieve" (_cant. carn._ p. 33): to the sieve, to the sieve, to the sieve, ho, all ye folk, descend! with groans your bosoms rend! and find in this our sieve wrath, anguish, travail, doom for all who live! to winnow, sift and purge, full well we know, and grind your souls like corn: ye who our puissance scorn, come ye to trial, ho! for we will prove and show how fares the man who enters in our sieve. send us no groats nor scrannel seed nor rye, but good fat ears of grain, which shall endure our strain, and be of sturdy stuff. torment full stern and rough abides for him who resteth in our sieve. who comes into this sieve, who issues thence, hath tears and sighs, and mourns: but the sieve ever turns, and gathers vehemence. ye who feel sin's offence, shun ye the rage, the peril of our sieve. a thousand times the day, our sieve is crowned; a thousand times 'tis drained: let the sieve once be strained, and, grain by grain, around ye shall behold the ground covered with folk, cast from the boltering sieve. ye who are not well-grained and strong to bear, abide ye not this fate! penitence comes too late! seek ye some milder doom! nay, better were the tomb than to endure the torment of our sieve! [488] life of piero di cosimo. [489] life of pontormo. [490] _revival of learning_, pp. 345-357, 452-465. [491] carducci, preface to his edition of _le stanze, l'orfeo e le rime di messer angelo ambrogini poliziano_ (firenze, 1863), p. xxiii. [492] this poem must have been written between 1476, the date of simonetta's death, and 1478, the date of giuliano's murder, when poliziano was about twenty-four. chronology prevents us from regarding it as the work of a boy of fourteen, as roscoe thought, or of sixteen, as hallam concluded. [493] his latin elegies on simonetta and on albiera degli albizzi, and those greek epigrams which scaliger preferred to the latin verses of his maturity, had been already written. [494] from _le stanze_, i. 7, we learn that he interrupted the translation of the _iliad_ in order to begin this poem in italian. he never took it up again. it remains a noble torso, the most splendid extant version of a greek poem in latin by a modern hand. [495] by a strange coincidence this was the anniversary of his love, simonetta's, death in 1476. the close connection between her untimely end--celebrated by lorenzo de' medici in his earlier _rime_, by poliziano in his latin elegy and again in the _giostra_--and the renascence of italian poetry, makes her portrait by botticelli della francesca in the pitti interesting. [496] i must refer my readers to the original, and to the translations published by me in _sketches and studies in italy_, pp. 217-224. the description of simonetta in the meadow (_giostra_, i. 43 and following) might be compared to a florentine idyll by benozzo gozzoli; the birth of venus from the waves (i. 99-107) is a blending of botticelli's _venus_ in the uffizzi with his _primavera_ in the belle arti; the picture of venus in the lap of mars (i. 122-124) might be compared to work by piero di cosimo, or, since poetry embraces many suggestions, to paintings from the schools of venice. the metamorphoses of jupiter (i. 104-107) remind us of giulio romano. the episode of ariadne and the bacchic revel (i. 110-112) is in the style of mantegna's engravings. all these passages will be found translated by me in the book above quoted. [497] i believe the _favola di orfeo_, first published in 1494, and republished from time to time up to the year 1776, was the original play acted at mantua before the cardinal gonzaga. it is not divided into acts, and has the usual "annunziatore della festa," of the _sacre rappresentazioni_. the _orphei tragædia_, published by the padre ireneo affò at venice in 1776, from two mss. collated by him, may be regarded as a subsequent recension of his own work made by poliziano. it is divided into five acts, and is far richer in lyrical passages. carducci prints both in his excellent edition of poliziano's italian poems. i may refer english readers to my own translation of the _orfeo_ and the note upon its text, _studies and sketches in italy_, pp. 226-242, 429, 430. [498] the popularity of poliziano's poems is proved by the frequency of their editions. the _orfeo_ and the _stanze_ were printed together or separately twenty-two times between 1494 and 1541, thirteen times between 1541 and 1653. a redaction of the _orfeo_ in octave stanzas was published at florence in 1558 for the use of the common people. it was entitled _la historia e favola d'orfeo alla dolce lira_. this narrative version of poliziano's play is still reprinted from time to time for the tuscan _contadini_. carducci cites an edition of prato, 1860. [499] no one who has read poliziano's greek epigrams on chrysocomus, or who knows the scandal falsely circulated regarding his death, will have failed to connect the sentiments put into the mouth of orpheus (carducci, pp. 109-110) with the personality of the poet-scholar. that the passage in question could have been recited with applause before a cardinal, is a fact of much significance. [500] perhaps ficino was the first to give him this title. in a letter of his to lorenzo de' medici we read: "nutris domi homericum ilium adolescentem angelum politianum qui græcam homeri personam latinis coloribus exprimat. exprimit jam; atque, id quod mirum est ita tenerâ ætate, ita exprimit ut nisi quivis græcum fuisse homerum noverit dubitaturus sit e duobus uter naturalis sit et uter pictus homerus" (_ep._ ed. flor. 1494, lib. i. p. 6). ficino always addressed poliziano as "poeta homericus." [501] among the frescoes by signorelli at orvieto there is a _tondo_ in monochrome, representing orpheus before the throne of pluto. he is dressed like a poet, with a laurel crown, and he is playing on a violin of antique form. medieval demons are guarding the prostrate eurydice. it would be curious to know whether a rumor of the mantuan pageant had reached the ears of the cortonese painter, or whether he had read the edition of 1494. [502] the original should be read in the version first published by the padre affò (carducci, pp. 148-154). my translation will be found in _studies and sketches in italy_, pp. 235-237. [503] "la notte esceva per barletta (rè manfredi) cantando strambotti e canzoni, che iva pigliando lo frisco, e con isso ivano due musici siciliani ch'erano gran romanzatori." m. spinello, in _scr. rer. ital._ vii. spinello's chronicles are, however, probably a sixteenth-century forgery. [504] a letter addressed by poliziano to lorenzo in 1488 from acquapendente justifies the belief that the cultivation of popular poetry had become a kind of pastime in the medicean circle. he says: "yesterday we set off for viterbo. we are all gay, and make good cheer, and all along the road we whet our wits at furbishing up some song or may-day ditty, which here in acquapendente with their roman costume seem to me more fanciful than those at home." see del lungo's edition of the _prose volgari_, etc., p. 75. [505] see above, p. 378. for translations of several _ballate_ by poliziano i may refer to my _sketches and studies in italy_, pp. 190-225. [506] for translations of detached _rispetti_, see my _sketches and studies in italy_, p. 197. [507] i have translated one long _rispetto continuato_ or _lettera in istrambotti_; see _sketches and studies in italy_, pp. 198-201. it is probable that poliziano wrote these love-poems for his young friends, which may excuse the frequent repetitions of the same thoughts and phrases. [508] in carducci's edition, pp. 342, 355, 363. the first seems to me untranslatable. the second and third are translated by me in _sketches and studies, etc._, pp. 202-207. [509] but she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth, seemed pallas in her gait, and in her face venus; for every grace and beauty of the world in her combined. merely to think, far more to tell my mind, of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me; for mid the maidens she who most resembled her was found most rare. call ye another first among the fair; not first, but sole before my lady set: lily and violet. and all the flowers below the rose must bow. down from her royal head and lustrous brow the golden curls fell sportively unpent. while through the choir she went with feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound. [510] white is the maid, and white the robe around her, with buds and roses and thin grasses pied; enwreathéd folds of golden tresses crowned her, shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride: the wild wood smiled; the thicket, where he found her, to ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild, and with her brow tempers the tempests wild. * * * * * reclined he found her on the swarded grass in jocund mood; and garlands she had made of every flower that in the meadow was, or on her robe of many hues displayed; but when she saw the youth before her pass, raising her timid head awhile she stayed; then with her white hand gathered up her dress, and stood, lap full of flowers, in loveliness. [511] praised for their incomparable sweetness by scaliger, and translated into softest italian by firenzuola. chapter vii. pulci and boiardo. the romantic epic--its plebeian origin--the popular poet's standpoint--the pulci family--the carolingian cycle--turpin--_chanson de roland_--historical basis--growth of the myth of roland--causes of its popularity in italy--burlesque elements--the _morgante maggiore_--adventures in paynimry--roncesvalles--episodes introduced by the poet--sources in older poems--the treason of gano--pulci's characters--his artistic purpose--his levity and humor--margutte--astarotte--pulci's _bourgeois_ spirit--boiardo--his life--feudalism in italy--boiardo's humor--his enthusiasm for knighthood--his relation to renaissance art--plot of the _orlando innamorato_--angelica--mechanism of the poem--creation of characters--orlando and rinaldo--ruggiero--lesser heroes--the women--love--friendship--courtesy--orlando and agricane at albracca--natural delineation of passions--speed of narration--style of versification--classical and medieval legends--the punishment of rinaldo--the tale of narcissus--treatment of mythology--treatment of magic--fate of the _orlando innamorato_. lorenzo de' medici and angelo poliziano reunited the two currents of italian literature, plebeian and cultivated, by giving the form of refined art to popular lyrics of divers kinds, to the rustic idyll, and to the sacred drama. another member of the medicean circle, luigi pulci, aided the same work of restoration by taking up the rude tales of the _cantori da piazza_ and producing the first romantic poem of the renaissance. of all the numerous forms of literature, three seem to have been specially adapted to the italians of this period. they were the _novella_, the romantic epic, and the idyll. with regard to the _novella_ and the idyll, it is enough in this place to say that we may reckon them indigenous to modern italy. they suited the temper of the people and the age; the _novella_ furnishing the fit artistic vehicle for italian realism and objectivity; the idyll presenting a point of contact with the literature of antiquity, and expressing that calm sensibility to natural beauty which was so marked a feature of the national character amid the distractions of the sixteenth century. the idyll and the _novella_ formed, moreover, the most precious portion of boccaccio's legacy. concerning the romantic epic it is necessary to speak at greater length. at first sight the material of the carolingian cycle, which formed the basis of the most considerable narrative poems of the renaissance, seems uncongenial to the italians. feudalism had never taken a firm hold on the country. chivalry was more a pastime of the upper classes, more consciously artificial than it had been in france or even england. the interest of the italians in the crusades was rather commercial than religious, and the people were not stirred to their center by the impulse to recover the holy sepulcher. the enthusiasm of piety which animated the northern myth of charlemagne, was not characteristic of the race that earlier than the rest of europe had indulged in speculative skepticism and sarcastic raillery; nor were the marvels of the legend congenial to their positive and practical imagination, turned ever to the beauties of the plastic arts. charlemagne, again, was not a national hero. it seemed as though the great foreign epics, which had been transported into italy during the thirteenth century, would find no permanent place in southern literature after the close of the fourteenth. the cultivated classes in their eagerness to discover and appropriate the ancient authors lost sight of peer and paladin. even boccaccio alluded contemptuously to chivalrous romance, as fit reading only for idle women; and when he attempted an epical poem in octave stanzas, he chose a tale of ancient greece. still, in spite of these apparent drawbacks, in spite of learned scorn and polished indifference, the carolingian cycle had taken a firm hold upon the popular fancy. we have seen how a special class of literary craftsmen reproduced its principal episodes in prose and verse for the multitudes gathered on the squares to hear their recitations, or for readers in the workshop and the country farm. now, in the renascence of the native literature, poets of the highest rank were destined to receive the same material from the people and to give it a form appropriate to their own culture. this fact must not be forgotten by the student of pulci, boiardo, berni, and ariosto. the romantic epics of the golden age had a plebeian origin; and the masters of verse who devoted their best energies to that brilliant series of poems, were dealing with legends which had taken shape in the imagination of the people, before they applied their own inventive faculties to the task of beautifying them with art unrivaled for splendor and variety of fancy. this, and this alone, explains the anomalies of the italian romantic epic--the mixture of burlesque with seriousness, the irony and sarcasm alternating with gravity and pathos, the wealth of comic episodes, the interweaving of extraneous incidents, the antithesis between the professed importance of the subject-matter and the spirit of the poet who plays with it as though he felt its puerility--all the startling contrasts, in a word, which have made this glittering harlequin of art in the renaissance so puzzling to modern critics. if we remember that the poets of the sixteenth century adopted their subjects from the people, finding them already impregnated with the plebeian instincts of _improvisatori_, who felt no real sympathy with knighthood, and whose one aim was to amuse and gratify an audience eager for excitement; if we further recollect that these poets approached their own task in the same spirit, adding yet another element of irony proper to men who stood aloof and laughed, and who desired to entertain the courts of italy with masterpieces of humor and fantastic beauty; we shall succeed in comprehending the peculiarities of their productions. the romances of orlando must be regarded as works of pure art, wrought by courtly singers from a previously existing popular literature, which in its turn had been fashioned from the frankish legends to suit the tastes of a non-chivalrous, but humorous and marvel-loving multitude. in passing from the song of roland or turpin's chronicle to the _orlando furioso_ we can trace two separate processes of transmutation. by the earlier process the _materia di francia_ was adapted to the italian people; by the second the new material thus obtained was reconstructed for the italian courts. the final product is a masterpiece of refined art, retaining something of the french originals, something of the popular italian _rifacimento_, but superadding the wisdom, the irony, and the poetry of one of the world's brightest geniuses. we might compare the growth of a romantic epic of the sixteenth century to the art of calimala, whereby the rough stuffs of flanders were wrought at florence into finer cloths, and the finished fabric was tinted with the choicest dyes, and made fit for a king's chamber. hitherto i have spoken as though pulci, boiardo, ariosto, berni, and the lesser writers of romantic epics could be classed together in one sentence. the justification of so broad a treatment at the outset lies in this, that their relation to the popular romances they rehandled was substantially the same. but it will be the special purpose of the following pages to point out their essential differences, not only as poets, but also with regard to the spirit in which they viewed their common subject-matter. boccaccio, in his desire to fuse the classic and the medieval modes of thought and style, not merely adapted the periods of latin to italian prose, but also sought to treat an antique subject in the popular measure of the octave stanza. his _teseide_ is a narrative poem in which the greek hero plays a prominent part, while all the chiefs of theban and athenian legend are brought upon the scene. yet the main motive is a tale of love, and the language is as modern as need be. writing to please the mistress of his heart, and emulous of epic fame, boccaccio rejected the usual apostrophes and envoys of the _cantori da banca_, and constructed a poem divided into books. poliziano approached the problem of fusing the antique and modern from a different point of view. he adorned a courtly theme of his own day with phrases and decorative details borrowed from the classic authors, presenting in a series of brilliant pictures an epitome of ancient art. it remained for pulci to develop, without classical admixture, the elements of poetry existing in the popular italian romances. the _morgante maggiore_ is therefore more thoroughly and purely tuscan than any work of equal magnitude that had preceded it. this is its great merit, and this gives it a place apart among the hybrid productions of the renaissance. the pulci were a noble family, reduced in circumstances and attached to the casa medici by ties of political and domestic dependency. bernardo, the eldest of three brothers, distinguished himself in literature by his translations of virgil's eclogues, by his elegies on cosimo de' medici, by a _sacra rappresentazione_ on the tale of barlaam, and by a poem on the passion of christ which he composed at the instance of a devout nun. luca wrote the stanzas on the tournament of lorenzo de' medici above mentioned,[512] and took some part at least in the composition of an obscure poem called the _ciriffo calvaneo_.[513] but the most famous of the brothers was luigi, whose correspondence with lorenzo de' medici proves him to have been a kind of court-poet in the palace of the via larga, while the sonnets he exchanged with matteo franco breathe burchiello's plebeian spirit.[514] he had a wild fantastic temperament, inclining to bold speculations on religious topics; tinctured with curiosity that took the form of magic art; bizarre in expression, yet withal so purely florentine that his prose and verse are a precious mine of _quattrocento_ idioms gathered from the jargon of the streets and squares. of humanistic culture he seems to have possessed but little. still the terms of familiar intercourse on which he lived with angelo poliziano, matteo palmieri, and paolo toscanelli enabled him to gather much of the learning then in vogue. the theological and scientific speculations of the age are transmitted to us in his comic stanzas with a vernacular raciness that renders them doubly precious.[515] before engaging with the _morgante maggiore_, it is needful to inquire into the source of this and all the other italian romantic poems, and to account for the fact that they were confined, so far as their subject went, within the circle of the carolingian epic. in 1122 a prose history in monkish latin, purporting to be the chronicle of the last years of the reign of charles the great written by turpin, archbishop of rheims, was admitted among the canonical books by calixtus ii., who in his bull cursed those who should thenceforward listen to the "lying songs of jongleurs." this chronicle was merely a sanctimonious and prosaic version of the songs of roland and of roncesvalles.[516] the object of the scribe who compiled it, and of the pope who canonized it, was to give an ecclesiastical complexion to the martial chants which already possessed the ear of the public.[517] accordingly, while he left untouched the tales of magic, the monstrous marvels and the unchristian ethics of the elder fable, this pseudo-turpin interspersed prayers, confessions, vows, miracles, homilies, and pulpit admonitions. in order to secure verisimilitude for his narrative, he reversed the old account of roncesvalles, according to which turpin perished on the field, anathematized all previous poets, and pretended that his chronicle was written by the hands of the archbishop.[518] what he effected for the song of roland, geoffrey of monmouth did, without a sacerdotal bias, for the romance of arthur. we possess a ms. of the _chanson de roland_ in norman french. it was discovered in the bodleian library and published first in 1837 by m. michel, afterwards in 1851 by m. génin. the date of the ms. has been fixed by some critics as early as the eleventh, by others as late as the thirteenth, century. purporting to be the work of one turold, its most enthusiastic admirers claim it as the genuine production of théroulde, tutor to william the conqueror, which, after passing through the hands of taillefer, the knightly bard of senlac field, was deposited in his ms. chest by a second théroulde, abbot of peterborough.[519] be that as it may, we can assume that the bodleian ms. presents the ancient battle-song in nearly the same form as when the normans followed taillefer at hastings, and heard him chanting of "charlemain and roland and oliver who died in roncesvalles." this song reverberated throughout medieval europe. poggio in the _facetiæ_ compares a man who weeps over the fall of rome, to one who in milan shed tears over roland's death at roncesvalles. dante may have heard it on the lips of the _cantores francigenarum_ in lombard towns, or in the halls of fosdinovo above the tyrrhene sea; for he writes with an energy of style scarcely inspired by the pseudo-turpin: dopo la dolorosa rotta, quando carlo magno perdè la santa gesta, non sonò si terribilmente orlando. orlando and oliver (or ogier) are carved upon the façade of the duomo at verona--dietrich's town of bern, where northern traditions of chivalry long lingered.[520] like the spanish legend of the cid, or the climax of the _niebelungenlied_, this song of roland, in dignity and strength of style, in tragic heroism and passionate simplicity, is worthy to be ranked with a canto of the _iliad_. like all medieval romantic poetry, it is but a fragment--the portion of a cycle never wrought by intervention of a homer into epical completeness. but its superiority over turpin's chronicle in all the qualities that could inspire a singer is immeasurable. two questions have now to be asked. what historical basis can be found for the carolingian myth? and how did it happen that the italians preferred this legend of french paladins to any other of the feudal romances? the history of charlemagne and his peers--of roland, oliver, ogier, turpin, ganilo the traitor, pinabel, marsilius the moorish king of spain, and all the rest, of whom we read in the norman song, and who receive numerous additions from the italian romancers--must not be sought in eginhard. it is a myth. but like all myths, it has some nucleus of reality, round which have crystallized the enthusiasms of a semi-barbarous age, the passionate memories of the people looking back to bygone greatness, the glowing fancies of poets intent on visions of the future. this nucleus of fact is little more than the name of charles the frankish emperor. all the legends of the cycle represent him as conducting a crusade, defeating the saracens in mighty battles, besieged by them in paris, betrayed by his own subject ganilo, and bereft of his noblest paladins in the pass of roncesvalles. history knows nothing of these events. nor can history account for the traditional character of the emperor, who is feeble, credulous, browbeaten by lawless vassals, incapable of strenuous action, and yet respected as the conqueror of the world and the anointed of the lord.[521] it is therefore clear that the myth has blent together divers incongruous elements, and that the spirit of the crusades has been at work, giving a kind of unity to scarce remembered acts of the chief of christendom. we hear from eginhard that charlemagne in 778 advanced as far as saragossa into spain, and during his retreat had his rearguard cut off by the basques.[522] among the slain was "roland, prefect of the breton marches." we read again in eginhard (anno 824) how louis le debonair lost two of his counts, who were returning from spain through the pass of roncesvalles. furthermore, the merovingian chronicles tell us of a pyrenean battle in the days of dagobert, when twelve frankish chiefs were surrounded in those passes and slain. these are sufficient data to account for the pass of roncesvalles becoming a valley dolorous, the vale of the great woe. for the crusading exploits of charlemagne we have to look to his predecessor, charles martel, who defeated the saracens at tours and stemmed the tide of mussulman invasion. his successors, the feeble monarchs of the frankish line, several of whom bore the name of charles, explain the transformation of the emperor into a vacillating monarch, infirm of purpose and incapable of keeping his peers in order; for the distinguishing surnames of history are later additions, and chronicles, though written, were not popularly read. the bard, therefore, mixed his materials without care for criticism, and the myth produced a hybrid charlemagne composed of many royal karls. as for the traitor gano, we hear of lupus, duke of gascony, who dealt treasonably with charlemagne, and of one ganilo, ganelon, or wenelon, archbishop of sens, who played the same part toward charles the bald in 864.[523] this portion of the myth may possibly be referred to these dim facts. yet it would be wiser not to insist upon them; for the endeavor to rationalize an entire legend is always hazardous, and it is enough to say that a traitor was needed for the fight of roncesvalles no less than mordred for the death of arthur in the plain of glastonbury. to explain the legendary siege of paris by the saracens, so important an incident in the italian romances, it has been ingeniously remarked that, though the moors never menaced the french capital, the normans did so repeatedly, while both saracens and normans were pagans.[524] it may also be remembered that saracens had pillaged rome, and the saracen forays were a common incident of italian experience. the gathering of great armies from the far east and the incursions of hideous barbarian hordes, which form an integral element of boiardo's and ariosto's scheme, can be referred to the memory of tartar, hun, and turk; while the episodes of christian knights enamored of pagan damsels are incidents drawn from actual history in the intercourse of italy with the levant. allowing for this slight framework of fact, but not pressing even the few points that have been gathered by antiquarian research, it may be briefly said that the bulk of the carolingian romance, with its numerous subordinate legends of knights and ladies, is purely mythical. in the next place we have to consider what led the italians to select the romances of charlemagne for special development rather than those of arthur, with which they were no less familiar.[525] we have seen that on the first introduction of the _materia di francia_ into italy, the arthurian cycle became the property of the nobles, who found in it a mirror of the feudal manners they affected, whereas the people listened to _chansons de geste_ upon the market-place.[526] when, therefore, the polite poets of the fifteenth century adopted the romantic epic from the popular rhymers, they found a mass of carolingian tales in vogue, to which they had themselves from infancy been used. but this preference of the multitude for charlemagne and roland requires further explanation. it must be remarked in the first place that the empire exercised a fascination over the italians in the middle ages, paralleled by no other power except the papacy. they regarded it as their own, as their glory in the past, as their pride in the future, if only the inheritor of the cæsars would do his duty and rule the world from rome with equal justice. the pedigree of the christian emperors from constantine to charles the great formed an integral part of the carolingian romance as it took form in italy.[527] it was something for the italians that charles had been crowned at rome, a ceremony from time to time repeated by his german successors during the centuries which made his legend famous. nor, though the people were but little influenced by the crusading fanaticism, was it of no importance that in the person of this emperor christendom had been imperiled by the infidels, and christendom through him had triumphed. the chronicle of turpin, again, had received authoritative sanction. add to it as the romancers chose, attribute nonsense to the archbishop as they pleased, they always relied, in show at least, on his canonical veracity. pulci, bello, boiardo, and ariosto appeal to his authority with mock seriousness; and even the burlesque berni, while turning turpin into ridicule, adopts the style: perchè egli era arcivescovo, bisogna credergli, ancor che dica la menzogna.[528] the fashion lasted till the days of folengo and fortiguerra. it may further be mentioned that orlando at an early date had been made a roman by the popular italian mythologists. they said that he was born at sutri, and that oliver was the son of the roman prefect for the pope. the sentiment of the people for this strange _senator romanus_ expressed itself touchingly and pithily in his supposed epitaph: "one god, one rome, one roland."[529] orlando was so rooted in the popular consciousness as a hero, that to have substituted for him another epical character would have been impossible. when we further investigate the naturalization of orlando in italy, we find that all the romantic poems written on his legend inclined to the burlesque. the chivalrous element of love which pervades the arthurian cycle, had been extracted and treated after their own fashion by the lyrists of the fourteenth century. that was no immediate concern of the people, nor had the citizens any sympathy with the chivalry of arms. to deal as solemnly with medieval romance as the northern bards had done, was quite beside the purpose of the _improvisatori_ who refashioned the _chansons de geste_ for italian townsfolk. when, therefore, pulci undertook to amuse lucrezia tornabuoni, the mother of lorenzo de' medici, with a tale of roland, he found his material already stripped of epical sobriety; nor was it hard for him to handle his theme in the spirit of boccaccio, bent on exhausting every motive of amusement which it might suggest. he assumed the tone of a street-singer, opening each canto with the customary invocation to madonna or a paraphrase of some church collect, and dismissing his audience at the close with grateful thanks or brief good wishes. but pulci was no mere _cantastorie_. the popular style served but for a cloak to cover his subtle-witted satire and his mocking levity. sarcastic tuscan humor keeps up an _obbligato_ accompaniment throughout the poem. sometimes this humor is in harmony with the plebeian spirit of the old italian romances; sometimes it turns aside and treats it as a theme of ridicule. in reading the _morgante_, we must bear in mind that it was written, canto by canto, to be recited in the palace of the via larga, at the table where poliziano and ficino gathered with michelangelo buonarroti and cristoforo landino. whatever topics may from time to time have occupied that brilliant circle, were reflected in its stanzas; and this alone suffices to account for its tender episodes and its burlesque extravagances, for the satiric picture of margutte and the serious discourses of the devil astarotte. the external looseness of construction and the intellectual unity of the poem, are both attributable to these circumstances. passing by rapid transitions from grave to gay, from pathos to cynicism, from theological speculations to ribaldry, it is at one and the same time a mirror of the popular taste which suggested the form, and also of the courtly wits who listened to it laughing. the _morgante_ is no _naïve_ production of a simple age, but the artistic plaything of a cultivated and critical society, entertaining its leisure with old-world stories, accepting some for their beauty's sake in seriousness, and turning others into nonsense for pure mirth. a careful study of the _morgante maggiore_ reveals to the critic three separate strains of style. to begin with, it is clear that we are dealing with two poems fused in one--the first ending with the twenty-third canto, the second consisting of the last five cantos. between these two divisions a considerable period of time is supposed to have elapsed. the first poem consists of a series of romantic adventures in strange countries, whither orlando, uliviero, rinaldo and astolfo have been driven by the craft of gano, and where they fight giants, liberate ladies, and fall in love with pagan damsels, after the jovial fashion of knights errant. the second assumes a more heroic tone, and tells in truly thrilling verse the tale of roncesvalles. but over and above this double material, different in matter and in manner, we trace throughout the whole romance a third element, which seems to be more essentially the poet's own than either his fantastic tissue of adventures or his serious narrative of roland's death. this third element consists of half-ironical half-sober dissertations, reflective digressions, and brilliant interpolated incidents, among which we have to reckon the splendid episodes of astarotte and margutte. so much was clear to my mind when i first read the _morgante_, and attempted to comprehend the difficulties it presented to critics like ginguené and hallam. since then the truth of this view has been substantiated by the eminent italian scholar, pio rajna, who has proved that the _morgante_ is the _rifacimento_ of two earlier popular poems, the first existing in ms. in the laurentian library, the second entitled _la spagna_.[530] pulci availed himself freely of his popular models, at times repeating the old stanzas with no alteration, but oftener rehandling them and adding to their comic spirit, and interpolating passages of his own invention. since the two originals differed in character, his _rifacimento_ retained their divers peculiarities, notwithstanding those master-touches which betray the same hand in both of its main sections. but the most precious part of the poem remains pulci's own. nothing can deprive him of margutte and astarotte; nor without his clever transmutation of the old material would the bulk of the _morgante maggiore_ deserve more attention than many similar romances buried in condign oblivion. between the two parts we may notice a considerable difference of literary merit. the second and shorter is by far the finer in poetic quality, earnestness, and power of treatment. the first is tedious to read. the second inthralls and carries us along.[531] the poem takes its title from the comic hero morgante, a giant captured and converted by orlando in the first canto.[532] he dies, however, in the twentieth, and the narrative proceeds with no interruption. if we seek for epical unity, in a romance so loosely put together from so many divers sources, we can find it in the treason of gano. the action turns decisively and frequently upon this single point, returns to it from time to time for fresh motives, and reaches its conclusion in the execution of the traitor after the great deed of crime has been accomplished in the valley dolorous. an italian of the fifteenth century could not have chosen a motive more suited to the temper and experience of his age, when conspiracies like that of the pazzi at florence and the baglioni at perugia were frightfully frequent, and when the successful massacre of sinigaglia made cesare borgia the hero of historical romance. _il tradimento_, _il traditore_, the kiss of judas, the simile of the fox, recur with fatal resonance through all the cantos of the poem. the style assumes a rugged grandeur of tragic realism, not unworthy of poets of the stamp of our own webster or marston, in the passage which describes the tempest by the well at saragossa, where gano met marsilio to plan their fraud, and where the locust-tree let fall its fruit upon the traitor's head.[533] the _morgante_ is, in truth, the epic of treason, and the character of gano, as an accomplished yet not utterly abandoned judas, is admirably sustained throughout. the powerful impression of his perversity is heightened by contrast with the loyalty of his son baldovino. in the fight at roncesvalles baldovino carries a mantle given to gano by the saracen king, without knowing for what purpose his father made him wear it; and wherever he charges through the press of men, the foes avoid him. orlando learns that he is protected by this ensign of fraud, and accuses him of partaking in gano's treason. then the youth flings the cloak from his shoulders, and plunges into the fight with an indignant repudiation of this shame upon his lips. the scene is not unworthy of the _iliad_;[534] and his last words, as he falls pierced in the breast with two lances, _or non son io più traditiore!_ are dramatic. pulci deserves credit for strong delineation of character. through all the apish tricks and fantastic arabesque-work of his style, the chief personages retain firmly-marked types. never since the _chanson de roland_ was first sung, has a more heroic portrait of orlando, the god-fearing knight, obedient to his liege-lord, serene in his courage and gentle in his strength, courteous, pious and affectionate, been painted.[535] close adherence to the popular conception of orlando's character here stood pulci in good stead; nor was he hampered with the difficulties which beset boiardo and ariosto, when they showed the champion of christianity subdued to madness and to love. thus one work at least of the renaissance maintained for the italians an ideal of chivalrous heroism, first conceived by franco-norman bards, and afterwards transmitted through the fancy of the people, who are ever ready to discern and to preserve the lineaments of greatness. oliver the true friend and doughty warrior, rinaldo the fiery foe and reckless lover, to whom the press of men was paradise,[536] and malagigi the magician, are drawn with no less skill. charles is such as the traditions of the myth and the requirements of the plot obliged pulci to make him. yet in spite of the feebleness which exposes him to the treasonable arts of gano, he is not deficient in a certain nobility. in the conduct of these characters, amid the windings of the poet's freakish fancy, we trace the solidity of his plan, his faculty for earnest art. but should there still be found critics who, after a careful study of gano, orlando, uliviero, rinaldo and carlo, think that pulci meant his poem for a mere burlesque, this opinion cannot but be shaken by a perusal of the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh cantos. the refusal of orlando to blow his horn: non sonerò perchè e' m'aiuti carlo, chè per viltà mai non volli sonarlo: his address to the knights when rushing into desperate battle at impossible odds[537]; the scene of his death, so tender in its pathos, so quaint in its piety; the agony of charles when he comes, too late, to find him slain, and receives his sword from the paladin's dead hands; these passages must surely be enough to convince the most incredulous of doctrinaires. it has been customary to explain the apparent contradictions of the _morgante maggiore_--pulci's brusque transitions from piety to ribaldry, from pathos to satire--by reference to the circumstances of florence at the date of its composition. the republic was at war with sixtus iv., who had taken part in the pazzi conspiracy. to his bull of excommunication the signoria had retorted by terming it "maledictam maledictionem damnatissimi judicis," and had described the pope himself as "delirum senem," "leno matris suæ, adulterorum minister, diaboli vicarius." it was not to be expected that even an orthodox christian should be tender toward the vices of the clergy or careful in guarding his religious utterances at such a moment. yet we need not go far afield to account for pulci's profanity. the italians of the age in which he lived, were freethinkers without ceasing to be catholics. to begin a canto with a prayer, and to end it with speculations on the destiny of the soul after death, was consistent with their intellectual temper. the schools and private coteries of florence were the arena in which platonism and averroism waged war with orthodoxy, where questions of freewill and creation, the relation of man to god, and the essence of the human spirit, were being discussed with a philosophic indifference and warmth of curiosity that prepared the way for pomponazzi's materialism. criticism, the modern hercules, was already in its cradle, strangling the serpents of sacerdotal authority: and as yet the inquisition had not become a power of terror; the council of trent and the spanish tyranny had not turned italians into trembling bigots or sleek hypocrites. externally they remained tenacious of their old beliefs; and from the point of view of art at least, they were desirous of adhering to tradition. for pulci to have celebrated orlando without assuming the customary style of the _cantastorie_, would have been beside his purpose. therefore, the mixture of magic, theology, impiety, speculation and religious fervor which perplexes a reader of the present day in the _morgante_, corresponded to the mental attitude of the educated majority at pulci's date. on the border-land between the middle ages and the modern world the keen italian intellect loved to entertain itself with a perpetual _perhaps_, impartially including in the sphere of doubt old dogmas and novel hypotheses, and finding satisfaction in an insecurity that flattered it with the sense of disengagement from formulæ.[538] with some minds this volatile questioning was serious; with others it assumed a rabelaisian joviality. pulci ranked with those who made the problems of the world material for humorous debate. a few instances of pulci's peculiar levity might be selected from the last cantos of the _morgante_, where no one can maintain that his intention was burlesque. we have just heard from the minstrel's lips how roland died, recommending his soul to god and delivering his glove in sign of feudal fealty to gabriel. the sound of his horn has startled charlemagne from the sleep of false tranquillity, and the emperor is on his way to roncesvalles. but time is short. he prays christ that as of old for joshua, so now for him in his sore need, the sun may be stayed and the day be prolonged[539]: o crucifisso, il qual, già sendo in croce, oscurasti quel sol contra natura; io ti priego, signor, con umil voce infin ch'io giunga in quella valle oscura, che tu raffreni il suo corso veloce. the prayer is worthy, in its solemn tone, of this exordium; and the desired effect soon follows. but now pulci changes his note from grave to gay[540]: e disse: pazienzia, come giobbe; or oltre in roncisvalle andar si vuole. chè come savio il partito conobbe, _per non tenere in disagio più il sole_. a few lines further he describes the carnage in the dolorous valley, and finds this comic phrase to express the confusion of the field[541]: chi mostra sanguinosa la percossa, chi il capo avea quattro braccia discosto, _da non trovarli in giusaffà si tosto_. pulci's grotesque humor gives an air of false absurdity to many incidents which, together with his hearers, he undoubtedly took in good faith. during the slaughter of the christians he wishes to impress the audience with the multitude of souls who crowded into paradise. s. peter is tired to death with opening the door for them and deafened with their jubilations[542]: e così in ciel si faceva apparecchio d'ambrosia e nettar con celeste manna, e perchè pietro alla porta è pur vecchio, credo che molto quel giorno s'affanna; e converrà ch'egli abbi buono orecchio, tanto gridavan quelle anime osanna ch'eran portate dagli angeli in cielo; sicchè la barba gli sudava e 'l pelo. in the same spirit is the picture of the fiends seated like hawks upon the bell-towers of a little chapel, waiting to pounce upon the souls of pagans.[543] sometimes a flash of purely bernesque humor appears in pulci; as when he says that the saracens: bestemmiavano dio divotamente, or when oliver, after a pathetic love-lament, complains that it is impossible: celar per certo l'amore e la tossa. according to modern notions his jokes not unfrequently savor of profanity. rinaldo and ricciardetto are feasting upon ortolans, and give this punning reason for their excellence[544]: cioè che cristo a maddalena apparve in ortolan, che buon sozio gli parve. on the same occasion rinaldo is so pleased with his fare that he exclaims: questi mi paion miracoli; facciam qui sei non che tre tabernacoli. such expressions flash forth from mere florentine sense of fun in passages by no means deliberately comic. the most diverting character of the _morgante_ is margutte, an eccentric heteroclite creature, the prototype of folengo's cingar and rabelais' panurge, whom the giant met upon his wanderings and adopted for a comrade. it has been supposed with some reason that pulci here intended to satirize the greeks who flocked to florence after the fall of constantinople, and that either marullo, the personal enemy of poliziano, or demetrius chalcondylas, his rival in erudition, sat for margutte's portrait. the character of the rogue, described by himself in thirty stanzas of fantastic humor, contains a complete epitome of the abuse which the scholars of those days used to vomit forth in their reciprocal invectives.[545] part of the comic effect produced by his speech is due to this self-attribution of qualities which supplied the arsenals of humanistic combatants with poisoned arrows. but margutte has far more than a merely illustrative or temporary value. he is the first finished humoristic portrait sketched in modern literature, the first broadly-conceived and jovially-executed rabelaisian study. though it is very improbable that pulci had any knowledge of aristophanes, though he died eight years or thereabouts before the curé of meudon was born, his margutte is cousin-german of the sausage-seller and panurge.[546] margutte takes an impish pride in reckoning up his villanies and vices. when morgante asks him whether he believes in christ or appollino, he replies: a dirtel tosto, io non credo più al nero ch' all'azzurro, ma nel cappone, o lesso, o vuogli arrosto ... e credo nella torta e nel tortello, l'una è la madre, e l'altro è il suo figliuolo; il vero paternostro è il fegatello, e possono esser tre, e due, ed un solo, e diriva dal fegato almen quello. he explains his disengagement from all creeds by referring to his parentage: che nato son d'una monaca greca, e d'un papasso in bursia là in turchia. beginning life by murdering his father, he next set out to seek adventures in the world: e per compagni ne menai con meco tutt'i peccati o di turco o di greco, anzi quanti ne son giù nell'inferno: io n'ho settanta e sette de' mortali, che non mi lascian mai la state o 'l verno; pensa quanti io n'ho poi de' veniali! margutte's humor consists in the baboon-like self-contentment of his infamous confessions, and in the effect they produce upon morgante, who feels that he has found in him a finished gentleman. after amusing his audience with this puppet for a while, pulci flings him aside. margutte, like pietro aretino, dies at last of immoderate laughter.[547] another of pulci's own creations is astarotte, the proud and courteous fiend, summoned by malagigi to bring rinaldo from egypt to roncesvalles. this feat he accomplishes in a few hours by entering the body of the horse baiardo. the journey consists of a series of splendid leaps, across lakes, rivers, mountains, seas and cities; and when the paladin hungers, astarotte spreads a table for him in the wilderness or introduces him invisible into the company of queens at banquet in fair saragossa. the humor and the fancy of this magic journey are both of a high order.[548] yet astarotte is made to serve a second purpose. into his mouth pulci places all his theological speculations, and makes him reason learnedly like mephistophilis: of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute. he is introduced in these lines[549]: uno spirto chiamato è astarotte, molto savio, terribil, molto fero, questo si sta giù nell'infernal grotte; non è spirto folletto, egli è più nero. of his noble descent from the highest of created intelligences astarotte is well aware[550]: io era serafin de' principali ... io fui già serafin più di te degno. he is in earnest to prove that courtesy exists in hell[551]: chè gentilezza è bene anche in inferno ... non creder, nello inferno anche fra noi gentilezza non sia. when malagigi questions him concerning divine foreknowledge and his own state in hell, he replies with a complete theory of sin and punishment founded upon the doctrine of freewill.[552] the angels sinned with knowledge. therefore for them there is no redemption. adam sinned in ignorance. therefore there is hope for all men, and a probability of final restitution for the whole human race[553]: forse che 'l vero dopo lungo errore adorerete tutti di concordia. e troverete ognun misericordia. astarotte's own torment in hell causes him bitter anguish; but he recognizes the justice of god; and knowing that the sentence of damnation cannot be canceled, he is too courageous to complain. when rinaldo offers to intercede for him, he answers[554]: il buon volere accetto; per noi fien sempre perdute le chiavi, maestà lesa, infinito è il difetto: o felici cristian, voi par che lavi una lacrima sol col pugno al petto, e dir; signor, tibi soli peccavi; noi peccammo una volta, e in sempiterno rilegati siam tutti nello inferno. chè pur se dopo un milione e mille di secol noi sperassim rivedere di quell'amor le minime faville, ancor sarebbe ogni peso leggiere: ma che bisogna far queste postille? se non si può, non si debbe volere; ond'io ti priego, che tu sia contento che noi mutiamo altro ragionamento. there is great refinement in this momentary sadness of astarotte, followed by his return to more cheerful topics. he is the italian counterpart of marlowe's fiend, that melancholy demon of the north, who tempts his victim by the fascination of mere horror.[555] like mephistophilis, again, astarotte is ready to satisfy the curiosity of mortals, and condescends to amuse them with elfish tricks.[556] he explains to rinaldo that it is quite a mistake to suppose that there are no inhabited lands beyond the straits of gibraltar. the earth, he says, is round, and can be circumnavigated; and cities full of people, worshiping our planets and our sun, are found in the antipodes. hercules ought to blush for having fixed his pillars where he did.[557] the good understanding established between astarotte and rinaldo on their journey is one of the prettiest incidents of this strange poem. when they part, the fiend and the paladin have become firm friends. astarotte vows henceforth to serve rinaldo for love; and rinaldo promises to free him from malagigi's power.[558] pulci dealt with the carolingian cycle in what may be termed a _bourgeois_ spirit. whether humorous or earnest, he maintained the tone of florentine society: and his _morgante_ reflects the peculiar conditions of the medicean circle at the date of its composition. the second great poem on the same group of legends, boiardo's _orlando innamorato_, transports us into a very different social and intellectual atmosphere. the highborn count of scandiano, reciting his cantos in the huge square castle surrounded by its moat, which still survives to speak of medieval italy in the midst of ferrara, had but little in common with luigi pulci, whose tuscan fun and satire amused the merchant-princes of the via larga. the value of the _orlando innamorato_ for the student of italian development is principally this, that it is the most purely chivalrous poem of the renaissance. composed before the french invasion, and while the classical revival was still unaccomplished, we find in it an echo of an earlier semi-feudal civility. unlike the other literary performances of that age, which were produced for the most part by professional humanists, it was the work of a nobleman to whom feats of arms and the chase were familiar, who disdained the common folk (_popolaccio_, _canaglia_, as he always calls them), and whose ideal both of life and of art was contained in this couplet[559]: e raccontare il pregio e 'l grande onore che donan l'armi giunte con l'amore. matteo maria boiardo was almost an exact contemporary of pulci. he was born about 1434 at his hereditary fief of scandiano, a village seven miles from reggio, at the foot of the apennines, celebrated for its excellent vineyards. his mother was lucia strozzi, a member of the ferrarese house, connected by descent with the strozzi of florence. at the age of twenty-eight he married taddea gonzaga, daughter of the count of novellara. he lived until 1494, when he died at the same time as pico and poliziano, in the year of charles viii.'s invasion, two years after the death of lorenzo de' medici, and four years before ficino. these dates are not unimportant as fixing the exact epoch of boiardo's literary activity. at the court of ferrara, where the count of scandiano enjoyed the friendship of duke borso and duke ercole, this bard of chivalry held a position worthy of his noble rank and his great talents. the princes of the house of este employed him as embassador in diplomatic missions of high trust and honor. he also administered for them the government of reggio and modena, their two chief subject cities. as a ruler, he was celebrated for his clemency and for his indifference to legal formalities. an enemy, panciroli, wrote of him: "he was a man of excessive kindness, more fit for writing poems than for punishing crimes." he is even reported to have held that no offense deserved capital punishment--an opinion which at that period could only have been seriously entertained in italy, and which even there was strangely at variance with the temper of the petty tyrants. well versed in greek and latin literature, he translated herodotus, parts of xenophon, the _golden ass_ of apuleius, and the _ass_ of lucian into italian. he also versified lucian's _timon_ for the stage, and wrote latin poems of fair merit. his lyrics addressed to antonia caprara prove that, like lorenzo de' medici, he was capable of following the path of petrarch without falling into petrarchistic mannerism.[560] but his literary fame depends less upon these minor works than on the _orlando innamorato_, a masterpiece of inventive genius, which furnished ariosto with the theme of the _orlando furioso_. without the _innamorato_ the _furioso_ is meaningless. the handling and structure of the romance, the characters of the heroes and heroines, the conception of love and arms as the double theme of romantic poetry, the interpolation of _novelle_ in the manner of boccaccio, and the magic machinery by which the poem is conducted, are due to the originality of boiardo. ariosto adopted his plot, continued the story where he left it, and brought it to a close; so that, taken together, both poems form one gigantic narrative, of about 100,000 lines, which has for its main subject the love and the marriage of ruggiero and bradamante, mythical progenitors of the estensi. yet because the style of boiardo is rough and provincial, while that of ariosto is by all consent "divine," boiardo has been almost forgotten by posterity. chivalry at no time took firm root in italy, where the first act of the communes upon their achievement of independence had been to suppress feudalism by forcing the nobles to reside as burghers within their walls. the true centers of national vitality were the towns. here the latin race assimilated to itself the teutonic elements which might, if left to flourish in the country, have given a different direction to italian development. during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the immense extension of mercantile activity, the formation of tyrannies, the secular importance of the papacy, and the absorption of the cultivated classes in humanistic studies, removed the people ever further from feudal traditions. even the new system of warfare, whereby the scions of noble families took pay from citizens and priests for the conduct of military enterprises, tended to destroy the stronghold of chivalrous feeling in a nation that grew to regard the profession of arms as another branch of commerce. still italy could not wholly separate herself from the rest of europe, and there remained provinces where a kind of semi-feudalism flourished. the most important of these undoubtedly was the kingdom of naples, subject to alternate influence from france and spain, and governed by monarchs at frequent warfare with their barons. the second was ferrara, where the house of este had maintained unbroken lordship from the period when still the empire was a power in italy. here the ancient lombard traditions of chivalry, the customs of the marca amorosa, and the literature of the troubadours still lingered.[561] externally at least, the manners of the court were feudal, however far removed its princes may have been in spirit from the ideal of knighthood. in ferrara, therefore, more than in florence and venice, those cities of financiers and traders, could the romance of chivalry be seriously treated by a poet who admired the knightly virtues, and looked back upon the days of arthur and of roland as a golden age of honor, far removed but real. while the humanists of florence indulged their fancy with dreams of virgil's saturnian reign, the baron of ferrara refashioned a visionary world from the wrecks of old romance.[562] boiardo did not disdain to assume the style of a minstrel addressing his courtly audience with compliments and _congés_ at the beginning and ending of each canto. the first opens with these words: signori e cavalieri che v'adunati per odir cose dilettose e nuove, state attenti, quieti, ed ascoltati la bella istoria che 'l mio canto muove. but his spirit is always knightly, and he refrains from the quaint pietism of pulci's preambles. he is no mere jongleur or _cantatore da banca_, but a new sir tristram, celebrating in heroic verse the valorous deeds and amorous emotions of which he had himself partaken. nor does he, like ariosto, appear before us as a courtier accomplished in the arts of flattery, or as a man of letters anxious above all things to refine his style. neither the court-life of italy nor the humanism of the revival had destroyed in him the spirit of old-world freedom and noble courtesy. at the same time he was so far imbued with the culture of the renaissance as to appreciate the value of poetic unity and to combine certain elements of classic learning with the material of romance. setting out with the aim of connecting all the frankish legends in one poem, he made orlando his hero; but he perceived that the element of love, which added so great a charm to the arthurian cycle, had hitherto been neglected by the minstrels of charlemagne. he therefore resolved to tell a new tale of the mighty roland; and the originality of his poem consisted in the fact that he treated the material of the _chansons de geste_ in the spirit of the breton legends.[563] turpin, he asserts with a grave irony, had hidden away the secret of orlando's love; but he will unfold the truth, believing that no knight was ever the less noble for his love. accordingly the passion of orlando for "the fairest of her sex, angelica," like the wrath of achilles in the _iliad_, is the mainspring of boiardo's poem. to his genius we owe the creation of that fascinating princess of the east, as well as the invention of the fountains of cupid and merlin, which cause the alternate loves and hates of his heroes and heroines--the whole of that closely-woven mesh of sentiment in which the adventures and the warlike achievements of paladins and saracens alike are involved. in dealing with his subject boiardo is serious--as serious, that is to say, as a writer of romance can be.[564] his belief in chivalry itself is earnest, though the presentation of knightly prowess runs into intentional extravagance. a dash of italian merriment mingles with his enthusiasm; but he has none of pulci's skeptical satiric humor, none of ariosto's all-pervasive irony. the second thoughts of the burlesque poet or of the humorous philosopher do not cross the warp of his conception, and his exaggerations are romantic. such a poem as the _orlando innamorato_ could not have been planned or executed in italy at any other period or under any other circumstances. a few years after boiardo's death italy was plunged into the wars that led to her enslavement. charles v. was born and luther was beginning to shake germany. the forces of the renaissance were in full operation, destroying the faiths and fervors of the medieval world, closing the old æon with laughter and lamentation, raising new ideals as yet imperfectly apprehended. meanwhile boiardo, whose life coincided with the final period of italian independence, uttered the last note of the bygone age. his poem, chivalrous, free, joyous, with not one stain of ariosto's servility or of tasso's melancholy, corresponded to a brief and passing moment in the evolution of the national art. in the pure and vivid beauty which distinguish it, the sunset of chivalry and the sunrise of modern culture blend their colors, as in some far northern twilight of midsummer night. joyousness pervades its cantos and is elemental to its inspiration--the joy of open nature, of sensual though steadfast love, of strong limbs and eventful living, of restless activity, of childlike security. boiardo's style reminds us somewhat of benozzo gozzoli in painting, or of piero di cosimo, who used the skill of the renaissance to express the cheerful _naïveté_ of a less self-conscious time. it is sad to read the last stanza of the _innamorato_, cut short ere it was half completed by the entry of the french into italy, and to know that so free and freshly-tuned a "native wood-note wild" would never sound again.[565] when ariosto repieced the broken thread, the spirit of the times was changed. servitude, adulation, irony, and the meridian splendor of renaissance art had succeeded to independence, frankness, enthusiasm and the poetry of natural enjoyment. far more magnificent is ariosto's muse; but we lack the spontaneity of the elder poet. and as the years advance, the change is more apparent toward decay. the genius of boiardo might be compared to some high-born lad, bred in the country, pure-hearted, muscular, brave, fair to look upon. that of ariosto is studious and accomplished with the smile of worldly sarcasm upon his lips. the elegances of bembo and the petrarchisti remind one of a hectic scented fop, emasculate and artificial. aretino resembles his own _bardassonacci, paggi da taverna_, flaunting meretricious charms with brazen impudence. tasso in the distance wears a hair shirt beneath his armor of parade; he is a jesuit's pupil, crossing himself when he awakes from love-dreams and reveries of pleasure. it was probably the discord between boiardo's spirit and the prevailing temper of the sixteenth century, far more than the roughness of his verse or the provinciality of his language, that caused him to be so strangely and completely forgotten. in the italy of machiavelli and the borgias, of michelangelo and julius ii., his aims, enthusiasms and artistic ideals found alike no sympathy. to class him with his own kind, we must go beyond the alps and seek his brethren in france or england. boiardo's merit as a constructive artist can best be measured by the analysis of his plot. crowded as the _orlando innamorato_ is with incidents and episodes, and inexhaustible as may be the luxuriance of the poet's fancy, the unity of his romance is complete. from the moment of angelica's appearance in the first canto, the whole action depends upon her movements. she withdraws the paladins to albracca, and forces charlemagne to bear the brunt of marsilio's invasion alone. she restores orlando to the french host before montalbano. it is her ring which frees the fated ruggiero from atlante's charms. the nations of the earth are in motion. east, west, and south and north send forth their countless hordes to combat; but these vast forces are controlled by one woman's caprice, and events are so handled by the poet as to make the fate of myriads waver in the balance of her passions. we might compare boiardo's romance to an immense web, in which a variety of scenes and figures are depicted by the constant addition of new threads. none of the old threads are wasted; not one is merely superfluous. if one is dropped for a moment and lost to sight, it reappears again. the slightest incidents lead to the gravest results. narratives of widely different character are so interwoven as to aid each other, introducing fresh agents, combining these with those whom we have learned to know, but leaving the grand outlines of the main design untouched. the miscellaneous details which enliven a tale of chivalry, are grouped round four chief centers--paris, where the poem opens with the tournament that introduces angelica, and where, at the end of the second book, all the actors are assembled for the supreme struggle between christendom and islam; albracca, where angelica is besieged in the far east; biserta, where the hosts of pagan agramante muster, and the hero ruggiero is brought upon the scene; montalbano, where charlemagne sustains defeat at the hands of agramante, rodamonte, marsilio, and ruggiero. in order to combine such distant places in one action, boiardo was obliged to set geography and time at defiance. between tartary and circassia, france and spain, africa and hungary, the knights make marches and countermarches within the space of a few weeks or even days. all arrive at the same dangerous gates and passes, the same seductive lakes and gardens; for the magical machinery of the romance was more important to the poet's scheme than cosmographical conditions. his more than dramatic contempt for distance was indispensable in the conduct of a romance which admitted of no pause in the succession of attractive incidents, and was also pardonable in an age devoid of accurate geography. his chief aim was to secure novelty, excitement, variety, ideal unity. boiardo further showed his grasp of art by the emphatic presentation of the chief personages, whose action determined the salient features of his tale. it is impossible to forget angelica after her first entrance on the scene at paris. in like manner marfisa at albracca, rodamonte in the council-chamber at biserta, ruggiero on the heights of mount carena, orlando entering the combat before albracca, mandricardo passing forth unarmed and unattended to avenge his father's death, are brought so vividly before our eyes, that the earliest impression of each character remains with us in all their subsequent appearances. the inferior actors are introduced with less preparation and diminished emphasis, because they have to occupy subordinate positions, and to group themselves around the heroes; and thus the whole vast poem is like a piece of arras-work, where the strongest definition of form, and the most striking colors, serve to throw into relief the principal figures amid a multitude of minor shapes. not less skill is manifested in the preservation of the types of character outlined in these first descriptions. to vary the specific qualities of all those knights engaged in the same pursuit of love and arms, was extremely difficult. yet boiardo, sometimes working on the lines laid down by earlier romancers, sometimes inventing wholly new conceptions (as in the case of rodamonte, ruggiero, marfisa, brandiamante), may be said to have succeeded in this master-stroke of art. the homeric heroes are scarcely less firmly and subtly differentiated than his champions of chivalry. orlando is the ideal of christian knighthood, fearless, indifferent to wealth, chaste, religious, respectful in his love, courteous toward women, swift to wrath, but generous even in his rage, exerting his strength only when the occasion is worthy of him.[566] his one weakness is the passion for angelica. twice he refuses for her sake to accompany dudone to the help of his liege-lord, and in the fight at montalbano he is careless of christendom so long as he can win his lady.[567] studying boiardo's delineation of love-lunacy in orlando, we understand how ariosto was led by it to the conception of the _furioso_. rinaldo is cast in a somewhat inferior mold. lion-hearted, fierce, rebellious against charles, prone to love and hate excessively, he is the type of the feudal baron, turbulent and troublesome to his suzerain. astolfo, slight, vain, garrulous, fond of finery and flirting, boastful, yet as fearless as the leopards on his shield, and winning hearts by his courtesy and grace, offers a spirited contrast to the massive vigor of rinaldo. it was a master-stroke of humor to have provided this fop of a paladin with the lance of argalia, whereby his physical weakness is supplemented and his bravery becomes a match for the muscles of the doughtiest champions.[568] brandimarte presents another aspect of the chivalrous ideal. fidelity is his chief virtue--loyalty to his love, fiordelisa, and his hero, orlando, combined with a delightful frankness and the freshness of untainted youth. he is not wise, but boyish, amorous, of a simple, trustful soul; a kind of italian sir bors. ferraguto, on the contrary, is all fire and fury, as petulantly fierce in love as in arms, so hot in his temerity that even at times he can forget the laws of honor.[569] mandricardo's distinctive quality (beside that of generous daring, displayed in his solitary and unarmed quest of orlando, and in the achievement of hector's armor) is singular good fortune. ruggiero has for his special mark victorious beauty, blent with a courtesy and loftiness of soul, that opens his heart to romantic love, and renders him peerless among youthful warriors. boiardo has spared no pains to impress our imagination with the potency of his unrivaled comeliness.[570] he moves before our eyes like the angelic knight in mantegna's _madonna of the victory_, or like giorgione's picture of the fair-haired and mail-clad donzel, born to conquer by the might of beauty. agramante, the eastern emperor, whose council is composed of thirty-two crowned heads, enhances by his arrogance of youth the world-worn prudence of old charlemagne. marfisa, the amazonian indian queen, who has the force of twenty knights, and is as cruel in her courage as a famished tigress, sets off the gentler prowess of brandiamante, rinaldo's heroic sister. rodamonte is the blustering, atheistic, insolent young ajax, standing alone against armies, and hurling defiance at heaven from the midst of a sinking navy.[571] agricane is distinguished as the knight who loves fighting for its own sake, and disdains culture; sacripante, as the gentle and fearless suitor of angelica; gradasso, as the hyperbolical champion of the orient, inflamed with a romantic desire to gain durlindana and baiardo, the enchanted sword and horse. gano and truffaldino, among these paragons of honor, are notable traitors, the one brave when he chooses to abandon craft, the other cowardly. brunello is the thersites of the company, a perfect thief, misshapen, mischievous, consummate in his guile.[572] malagise deals in magic, and has a swarm of demons at his back for all exigences. turpin's chivalry is tempered with a subtle flavor of the priest, exposing him to boiardo's mockery. of oliver and ogier we hear, accidentally perhaps, but little. such are some of boiardo's personages. not a few were given to him by the old romancers; but these he has new-fashioned to his needs.[573] others he has molded from his own imagination with such plastic force that they fall short in no respect of the time-honored standard. it is no slight tribute to his creative power that we recognize a real fraternity between these puppets of his fancy and the mythic heroes with whom they are associated. as boiardo left the actors in his drama, so ariosto took them up and with but slight change treated them in his continuation of the tale. women, with the exception of marfisa and brandiamante, fare but ill at boiardo's hands. he seems to have conceived of female character as a compound of fickleness, infidelity, malice, falsehood, and light love. angelica is little better than a seductive witch, who dotes on rinaldo, and yet contrives to make use of orlando, luring him to do her purpose by false promises.[574] falerina and dragontina are sorceresses, apt for all iniquity and guile. morgana and alcina display the capricious loves and inhuman spites of fairies. origille is a subtle traitress, beautiful enough to deceive orlando, but as poisonous as a serpent. even the ladies who are intended to be amiable, show but a low standard of morality.[575] leodilla, princess of the far isles, glories in adultery, and hates orlando for his constancy to angelica in absence.[576] fiordelisa is false in thought to brandimarte, when she sees rinaldo sleeping in the twilight. the picture, however, of the slumbering warrior and the watchful maiden is so fresh and true to boiardo's genius that it deserves quotation[577]: upon his steed forthwith hath sprung the knight, and with the damsel rideth fast away; not far they fared, when slowly waned the light, and forced them to dismount and there to stay. rinaldo 'neath a tree slept all the night; close at his side the lovely lady lay: but the strong magic of wise merlin's well had on the baron's temper cast a spell. he now can sleep anigh that beauteous dame; nor of her neighborhood have any care; erewhile a sea, a flood, a raging flame would not have stayed his quick desire, i swear: to clasp so fair a creature without shame, walls, mountains, he'd have laid in ruins there; now side by side they sleep, and naught he recks; while her, methinks, far other thoughts perplex. the air, meanwhile, was growing bright around, although not yet the sun his face had shown; some stars the tranquil brows of heaven still crowned; the birds upon the trees sang one by one: dark night had flown; bright day was not yet found: then toward rinaldo turned the maid alone; for she with morning light had cast off sleep, while he upon the grass still slumbered deep. beauteous he was, and but a stripling then; strong-thewed and lithe, and with a lively face; broad in the chest, but in the haunches thin; the lady gazed, smit with his manly grace: his beard scarce budded upon cheek and chin: gazing, she almost fainted in that place, and took such pleasure in so sweet a sight that naught she heeds beyond this one delight. love, as conceived by boiardo, though a powerful and steadfast passion, is not spiritual. the knights love like centaurs, and fight like bulls for the privilege of paying suit to their ladies. rinaldo and orlando meet in deadly duel for angelica; rodamonte and ferraguto dispute doralice, though the latter does not care for her, and only asserts his right to dwell in thought upon her charms. orlando and agricane break their courteous discourse outside albracca to fight till one of them is killed, merely because the name of angelica has intervened. for boiardo's descriptions of love returned, and crowned with full fruition, the reader may be referred to two magnificent passages in the episodes of leodilla and fiordelisa.[578] poetically noble in spite of their indelicacy, these pictures of sensuous and natural enjoyment might be paralleled with the grand frankness of venetian painting. it is to be regretted for boiardo's credit as an artist in expression, that more than a bare reference to them is here impossible. boiardo's conception of friendship or fraternity in arms is finer. the delineation of affection generated by mutual courtesy under the most trying conditions of intercourse, which binds together the old rivals iroldo and prasildo, has something in it truly touching.[579] the same passion of comradeship finds noble expression in the stanzas uttered by orlando, when he recognizes rinaldo's shield suspended by aridano near morgana's lake.[580] it must be remembered that the cousins had recently parted as foes, after a fierce battle for angelica before albracca: hearing these dulcet words, the count began little by little of his will to yield; backward already he withdrew a span, when, gazing on the bridge and guarded field, force was that he the armor bright should scan which erst rinaldo bore--broad sword and shield: then weeping, "who hath done me this despite?" he cried: "oh, who hath slain my perfect knight? "here wast thou killed by foulest treachery of that false robber on this slippery bridge; for all the world could not have conquered thee in fair fight, front to front, and edge to edge: cousin, from heaven incline thine ear to me! where now thou reignest, list thy lord and liege! me who so loved thee, though my brief misprision, through too much love, wrought 'twixt our lives division. "i crave thy pardon: pardon me, i pray, if e'er i did thee wrong, sweet cousin mine! i was thine ever, as i am alway, though false suspicion, or vain love malign, and jealous blindness, on an evil day, brought me to cross my furious brand with thine: yet all the while i loved thee--love thee now; mine was the fault, and only mine, i vow. "what traitorous wolf ravening for blood was he who thus debarred us twain from kind return to concord sweet and sweet tranquillity, sweet kisses, and sweet tears of souls that yearn? this is the anguish keen that conquers me, that now i may not to thy bosom turn, and speak, and beg for pardon, ere i part; this is the grief, the dole that breaks my heart!" scarcely less beautiful is the feeling which binds brandimarte to the great count, the inferior to the superior hero, making him ready to release his master from manodante's prison at the price of his own liberty.[581] boiardo devotes the exordium of the seventh canto of the third book to a panegyric of chivalrous friendship: far more than health, far more than strength is worth, nay more than pleasure, more than honor vain, is friendship tried alike in dole and mirth: for when one love doth join the hearts of twain, their woes are halved, their joys give double birth to joy, by interchange of grief and pain; and when doubts rise, with free and open heart each calls his friend, who gladly bears a part. what profit is there in much pearls and gold, or power, or proud estate, or royal reign? lacking a friend, mere wealth is frosty cold: he who loves not, and is not loved again, from him true joys their perfect grace withhold: and this i say, since now across the main brave brandimarte drives his flying ship to help orlando, drawn by comradeship. next to bravery the poet's favorite virtue is courtesy. it is enough to mention orlando's gentle forbearance with agricane at albracca, their evening conversation in the midst of a bloody duel, and the hero's sorrow when he has wounded his opponent to the death.[582] of the same quality is the courteous behavior of rinaldo and gradasso before a deadly encounter, the aid afforded to marfisa by rinaldo in the midst of their duel, and the graceful sympathy of astolfo for brandimarte, whom he has unhorsed.[583] but the two passages which illustrate boiardo's ideal of the chivalrous character, as blent of bravery and courtesy, of intelligence and love, are orlando's discourse with agricane and his speech to morgana's maiden. in the first of these the count and king had fought till nightfall. then they agree to sleep together side by side, and to resume the combat at daybreak. before they settle for the night, they talk[584]: after the sun below the hills was laid, and with bright stars the sky began to glow, unto the king these words orlando said: "what shall we do, now that the day is low?" then agrican made answer, "make our bed together here, amid the herbs that grow; and then to-morrow with the dawn of light we can return and recommence the fight." no sooner said, than straight they were agreed: each tied his horse to trees that near them grew; then down they lay upon the grassy mead- you might have thought they were old friends and true, so close and careless couched they in the reed. orlando nigh unto the fountain drew, and agrican hard by the forest laid his length beneath a mighty pine-tree's shade. herewith the twain began to hold debate of fitting things and meet for noble knights. the count looked up to heaven and cried, "how great and fair is yonder frame of glittering lights, which god, the mighty monarch, did create; the silvery moon, and stars that gem our nights, the light of day, yea, and the lustrous sun, for us poor men god made them every one!" but agrican: "full well i apprehend it is your wish toward faith our talk to turn: of science less than naught i comprehend; nay, when i was a boy, i would not learn, but broke my master's head to make amend for his much prating; no one since did yearn to teach me book or writing, such the dread wherewith i filled them for my hardihead. "and so i let my boyish days flow by, in hunting, feats of arms, and horsemanship; nor is it meet, meseems, for chivalry to pore the livelong day on scholarship. true knights should strive to prove their skill, say i, and strength of limb in noble fellowship; leave priests and teaching men from books to learn. i know enough, thank god, to serve my turn." then spake the count: "thus far we both agree; arms are the chief prime honor of a knight. yet knowledge brings no shame that i can see, but rather fame, as fields with flowers are bright; more like an ox, a stock, a stone is he who never thinks of god's eternal light; nor without learning can we rightly dwell on his high majesty adorable." then agrican, "small courtesy it were, war with advantage so complete to wage! my nature i have laid before you bare; i know full well that you are learned and sage; therefore to answer you i do not care. sleep if you like; in sleep your soul assuage; or if you choose with me to hold discourse, i look for talk of love, and deeds of force. "now, i beseech you, answer me the truth of what i ask, upon a brave man's faith: are you the great orlando, in good sooth, whose name and fame the whole world echoeth? whence are you come, and why? and since your youth were you by love inthralled? for story saith that any knight who loves not, though he seem to sight alive, yet lives but in a dream." then spake the count: "orlando sure am i who both almonte and his brother slew. imperious love hath lost me utterly, and made me journey to strange lands and new; and, for i fain would thus in amity prolong discourse, therefore i tell you true, she who now lies within albracca's wall, gallafron's daughter, holds my heart in thrall." this unlucky mention of angelica stirs the rage of agricane, and the two men fight in the moonlight beneath the forest-trees till the young king is wounded to the death--a splendid subject for some imaginative painter's pencil. we may notice in this dialogue the modification of chivalry occasioned by italian respect for culture. boiardo exalts the courage of the educated gentleman above the valor of a man-at-arms. in the conversation between orlando and morgana's maiden he depicts another aspect of the knightly ideal. the fairy has made orlando offer of inestimable treasures, but he answers that indifference to riches is the sign of a noble heart[585]: orlando smiling heard what she would say, but scarce allowed her time her speech to end, seeing toward riches of the sort the fay proffered, his haughty soul he would not bend; wherefore he spake: "it irked me not to-day my very life unto the death to spend; for only perils and great toils sustain honor of chivalry without a stain. "but for the sake of gold or silver gear, i would not once have drawn my brand so bright; for he who holds mere gain of money dear hath set himself to labor infinite; the more he gets the less his gains appear; nor can he ever sate his appetite; they who most have, still care for more to spend, wherefore this way of life hath ne'er an end." having seen the knights in their more generous moments, we ought to bear in mind that they are capable of blustering, boasting, and exchanging foul abuse like humanists. one reference will suffice. orlando and rinaldo quarrel at albracca and defy each other to combat. before fighting they indulge in elaborate caricatures and vilifications, from which it would appear, to say the least, that these champions of christendom were the subject of much scandalous gossip.[586] human nature, unsophisticated and unqualified, with the crude impulses and the contradictions proper to an unreflective age, has been studied by boiardo for his men and women. his power of expressing the passions by natural signs might win for him the title of the homer of chivalry. the love lamentations of prasildo, the love-languors of angelica, the frenzy of marfisa, the wrath of ferraguto, the truculency of rodamonte, the impish craft of brunello, origille's cunning, brandimarte's fervor, ruggiero's impatience to try his strength in the tournament, and his sudden ecstasy of love for brandiamante--these and a hundred other instances of vigorous dramatic presentation could be mentioned. in his pictures of scenery and descriptions boiardo follows nature no less faithfully--and this, be it remembered, in an age which refined on nature and admitted into art only certain chosen phases of her loveliness. of affectation and elaboration he has none. the freshness of authentic vision gives peculiar vividness to the storm that overtakes rodamonte in mid-channel; to the garden of falerina, where orlando stuffs his cask with roses in order to stop his ears against a siren's song; to the picture of morgana combing ziliante's hair in the midst of her enchanted meadows, and to the scene in which angelica greets orlando with a perfumed bath after the battle.[587] the charm of boiardo's poetry consists in its firm grasp on truth and nature, the spontaneity and immediateness of its painting. he has none of poliziano's richness, no virgilian dignity or sweetness, no smooth and sparkling fluency like that of ariosto. but all that he writes has in it the perfume of the soil, the freedom of the open air; the spirits of the woods and sea and stars are in it. of his style the most striking merit is rapidity. almost always unpolished, sometimes even coarse, but invariably spirited and masculine, his verse leaps onward like a grayhound in its swiftness. story succeeds story with extraordinary speed; and whether of love or arms, they are equally well told. the pathetic novel of tisbina, rinaldo's wondrous combat with the griffins and the giants, the lion-hunt at biserta, the mustering of agramante's lieges, and the flux and reflux of battle before montalbano tax the vivid and elastic vigor of boiardo in five distinct species of rapid narration; and in all of them he proves himself more than adequate to the strain. for ornaments he cared but little, nor did he wait to elaborate similes. a lion at bay, a furious bull, a river foaming to the sea, a swollen torrent, two battling winds, a storm of hail, the clash of thunderclouds, an earthquake, are the figures he is apt to use. the descriptions of rinaldo, marfisa and orlando, may be cited as favorable specimens of his illustrative metaphors.[588] short phrases like _a guisa di leone_, _a guisa di colomba_, _a guisa di serpente_, _a guisa d'uno drago_, _a guisa di castello_, indicate in outline images that aid the poet's thought. but nothing like the polish or minuteness of ariosto's highly-wrought comparisons can be found in the _innamorato_. boiardo's study of the classics had not roused him to the emulation of their decorative beauties. nor, again, did he attend to cadence in his versification. he would have wondered at the _limæ labor_ of the poets who came after him. his own stanzas are forcible, swift, fiery, never pompous or voluptuous, liquid or sonorous. the changes wrought by poliziano in the structure of _ottava rima_, his majesty and "linked sweetness long drawn out," were unknown to boiardo. yet those rugged octaves, in spite of their halting pauses at the end of the fifth line, in spite of their frequent repetitions and inequalities of volume, are better adapted to the spirit of his medieval subject-matter than the sumptuous splendor of more polished versifiers. his diction, in like manner, judged by the standard of the _cinque cento_, is far from choice--loaded with lombardisms, gaining energy and vividness at the expense of refinement and precision. thus style and spirit alike removed him from the sympathies of the correct and classic age that followed. for the student of the earlier renaissance boiardo's art has one commanding point of interest. in the romantic treatment of antique motives he is unique. it was the aim of italian poets after boccaccio to effect a fusion between the classical and modern styles, and to ingraft the beauties of antique literature upon their own language. boiardo, far more a child of nature than either boccaccio or poliziano, with deeper sympathy for feudal traditions and chivalrous modes of feeling, attacked this problem from a point of view directly opposite to theirs. his comprehensive study of greek and roman authors had stored his mind with legends which gave an impulse to the freedom of his own imagination. he did not imitate the ancients; but used the myths with so much novelty and delicate perception of their charm, that beneath his touch they assumed a fresh and fascinating quality. there is nothing grotesque in his presentation of hellenic fancy, nothing corresponding to the medieval transformation of deities into devils; and yet his spirit is not classical. his sphinx, his cyclops, and his circe-dragontina, his medusa, his pegasus, his centaur, his atalanta, his satyr, are living creatures of romantic wonderland, with just enough of classic gracefulness to remove them from the murky atmosphere of medieval superstition into the serene ether of a neo-pagan mythology. nothing can be more dissimilar from ovid, more unlike the forms of græco-roman sculpture. with his firm grasp upon reality, boiardo succeeded in naturalizing these classic fancies. they are not copied, but drawn from the life of the poet's imagination. a good instance of this creative faculty is the description of the faun, who haunts the woodland in the shade of leaves, and lives on fruits and drinks the stream, and weeps when the sky is fair, because he then fears bad weather, but laughs when it rains, because he knows the sun will shine again.[589] it is not easy to find an exact analogue in the sister arts to this poetry, though some points in the work of botticelli and piero di cosimo, some early engravings by robeta and the master of the caduceus, some bass-reliefs of amadeo or incrustations on the chapel-walls of s. francesco at rimini, a circe by dosso dossi in the borghese palace at rome, an etching of mantegna here or there, might be quoted in illustration of its spirit.[590] better justice can be done to boiardo's achievement by citation than by critical description. the following stanzas are a picture of love attended by the graces, punishing rinaldo for his rudeness near the font of merlin[591]: when to the leafy wood his feet were brought, towards merlin's font at once he took his way; unto the font that changes amorous thought journeyed the paladin without delay; but a new sight, the which he had not sought, caused him upon the path his feet to stay. within the wood there is a little close full of pink flowers, and white, and various: and in the midst thereof a naked boy, singing, took solace with surpassing cheer; three ladies round him, as around their joy, danced naked in the light so soft and clear. no sword, no shield, hath been his wonted toy; brown are his eyes; yellow his curls appear; his downy beard hath scarce begun to grow: one saith 'tis there, and one might answer, no! with violets, roses, flowers of every dye, baskets they filled and eke their beauteous hands: then as they dance in joy and amity, the lord of montalbano near them stands: whereat, "behold the traitor!" loud they cry, soon as they mark the foe within their bands; "behold the thief, the scorner of delight, caught in the trap at last in sorry plight!" then with their baskets all with one consent upon rinaldo like a tempest bore: one flings red roses, one with violets blent showers lilies, hyacinths, fast as she can pour: each flower in falling with strange pain hath rent his heart and pricked his marrow to the core, lighting a flame in every smitten part, as though the flowers concealed a fiery dart. the boy who, naked, coursed along the sod, emptied his basket first, and then began, wielding a long-grown leafy lily rod, to scourge the helmet of the tortured man: no aid rinaldo found against the god, but fell to earth as helpless children can; the youth who saw him fallen, by the feet seized him, and dragged him through the meadow sweet. and those three dames had each a garland rare of roses; one was red and one was white: these from their snowy brows and foreheads fair they tore in haste, to beat the writhing knight: in vain he cried and raised his hands in prayer; for still they struck till they were tired quite: and round about him on the sward they went, nor ceased from striking till the morn was spent. nor massy cuirass, nor stout plate of steel, could yield defense against those bitter blows: his flesh was swollen with many a livid weal beneath his mail, and with such fiery woes inflamed as spirits damned in hell may feel; yet theirs, upon my troth, are fainter throes: wherefore that baron, sore, and scant of breath, for pain and fear was well-nigh brought to death. nor whether they were gods or men he knew; nor prayer, nor courage, nor defense availed, till suddenly upon their shoulders grew and budded wings with gleaming gold engrailed, radiant with crimson, white, and azure blue; and with a living-eye each plume was tailed, not like a peacock's or a bird's, but bright and tender as a girl's with love's delight. then after small delay their flight they took, and one by one soared upward to the sky, leaving rinaldo sole beside the brook. full bitterly that baron 'gan to cry, for grief and dole so great his bosom shook that still it seemed that he must surely die; and in the end so fiercely raged his pain that like a corpse he fell along the plain. this is a fine painting in the style i have attempted to characterize--the imagery of the greek mythology taking a new and natural form of fanciful romance. it is alien to anything in antique poetry or sculpture. yet the poet's imagination had been touched to finest issues by the spirit of the greeks before he wrote it. incapable of transplanting the flowers of antiquity like delicate exotics into the conservatory of studied art, he acclimatized them to the air of thought and feeling in which his own romantic spirit breathed. this distinguishes him from poliziano, whose stately poem, like the palm-house in kew gardens, contains specimens of all the fairest species gathered from the art of greece and rome. even more exquisitely instinct with the first april freshness of renaissance feeling is another episode, where boiardo presents the old tale of narcissus under a wholly new and original aspect. by what strange freak of fancy has he converted echo into an empress of the east and added the pathos of the fairy silvanella, whose petulance amid her hopeless love throws magic on the well! we are far away indeed from the pompeian frescoes here[592]: beyond the bridge there was a little close all round the marble of that fountain fair; and in the midst a sepulcher arose, not made by mortal art, however rare: above in golden letters ran the gloss, which said, "that soul is vain beyond compare that falls a-doting on his own sweet eyes. here in the tomb the boy narcissus lies." erewhile narcissus was a damozel so graceful, and of beauty so complete, that no fair painted form adorable might with his perfect loveliness compete; yet not less fair than proud, as poets tell, seeing that arrogance and beauty meet most times, and thus full well with mickle woe the laity of love is taught to know. so that the empress of the orient doting upon narcissus beyond measure, and finding him on love so little bent, so cruel and so careless of all pleasure, poor wretch, her dolorous days in weeping spent, craving from morn till eve of love the treasure, praying vain prayers of power from heaven to turn the very sun, and make him cease to burn. yet all these words she cast upon the wind; for he, heart-hardened, would not hear her moan, more than the asp, both deaf to charms and blind. wherefore by slow degrees more feeble grown, toward death she daily dwindling sank and pined; but ere she died, to love she cried alone, pouring sad sighs forth with her latest breath, for vengeance for her undeservéd death. and this love granted: for beside the stream of which i spoke, narcissus happed to stray while hunting, and perceived its silvery gleam; then having chased the deer a weary way, he leaned to drink, and saw as though in dream, his face, ne'er seen by him until that day; and as he gazed, such madness round him floated, that with fond love on his fair self he doted. whoever heard so strange a story told? justice of love! how true, how strong it is! now he stands sighing by the fountain cold for what he hath, yet never can be his! he that was erst so hard as stone of old, whom ladies like a god on bended knees devoutly wooed, imploring him for grace, now dies of vain desire for his own face. poring upon his perfect countenance, which on this earth hath ne'er a paragon, he pined in deep desire's extravagance, little by little, like a lily blown, or like a cropped rose; till, poor boy, the glance, of his black eyes, his cheek's vermilion, his snowy whiteness, and his gleeful mirth death froze who freezes all things upon earth. then by sad misadventure through the glade the fairy silvanella took her way; and on the spot where now this tomb is made, mid flowers the dead youth very beauteous lay: she, marveling at his fair face, wept and stayed in sore discomfiture and cold dismay; nor could she quit the place, but slowly came to pine and waste for him with amorous flame. yea, though the boy was dead, for him she burned: pity and grief her gentle soul o'erspread: beside him on the grass she lay and mourned, kissing his clay-cold lips and mouth and head. but at the last her madness she discerned, to love a corpse wherefrom the soul had fled: yet knows she not, poor wretch, her doom to shun; she fain would love not, yet she must love on. when all the night and all the following day were wasted in the torrent of her woes, a comely tomb of marble fair the fay built by enchantment in the flowery close; nor ever from that station would she stray, but wept and mourned; till worn by weary throes, beside the font within a little space like snow before the sun she pined apace. yet for relief, or that she might not rue alone the luckless doom which made her die, e'en mid the pangs of love such charms she threw upon the font in her malignity, that all who passing toward the water drew and gazed thereon, perchance with listless eye, must in the depth see maiden faces fair, graceful and soul-inthralling mirrored there. they in their brows have beauty so entire that he who gazes cannot turn to fly, but in the end must fade of mere desire, and in that field lay himself down to die. now it so chanced that by misfortune dire a king, wise, gentle, ardent, passed thereby, together with his true and loving dame; larbin and calidora, such their name. in these stanzas the old vain passion of narcissus for his own beauty lives again a new life of romantic poetry. that the enchantment of the boy's fascination, prolonged through silvanella's mourning for his death, should linger for ever after in the font that was his tomb, is a peculiarly modern touch of mysterious fancy. this part of the romance has little in common with the classic tale of salmacis; it is far more fragile and refined. the greeks did not carry their human sympathy with nature, deep and loyal as indeed it was, so far into the border-land of sensual and spiritual things. haunted hills, like the venusberg of tannhäuser's legend; haunted waters, like morgana's lake in boiardo's poem; the charmed rivers and fountains of naiads, where knights lose their memory and are inclosed in crystal prison-caves; these are essentially modern, the final flower and blossom of the medieval fancy, unfolding stores of old mythology and half-forgotten emblems to the light of day in art.[593] for their perfection it was needful that the gods of hellas should have died, and that the phantoms of old-world divinities should linger in dreams and reveries about the shores of young romance. boiardo's treatment of magic is complementary to his use of classical mythology. he does not employ this important element of medieval art in its simplicity, but adapts it to the nature of his own imagination, adding, as it were, a new quality by the process of assimilation. some of his machinery belongs, indeed, to the poems of his predecessors, or is framed in harmony with their spirit. the enchantment of durlindana and baiardo; the invulnerability of orlando, ferraguto, and other heroes; the wizardry of malagise, mambrino's helmet, morgana's stag, the horse rabicano, argalia's lance, angelica's ring, and the countless dragons and giants which boiardo creates at pleasure, may be mentioned in this category. but it is otherwise with the gardens of falerina and dragontina, the sublacustrine domain of fata morgana, and the caverns of the naiades. these, however much they may have once belonged to medieval tradition, have been alchemized by the imagination of the poet of the renaissance. they are glimpses into ideal fairyland, which ariosto and tasso could but refine upon and vary in their famous gardens of alcina and armida. boiardo's use of the old tradition of merlin's fountain, and the other well of cupid feigned by him beside it, might again be chosen to illustrate his free poetic treatment of magical motives. when he trespasses on these enchanted regions, then and then only does he approach allegory. the quest of the tree guarded by medusa in tisbina's story; the achievement by orlando of morgana's garden, where penitence and fortune play their parts; and rinaldo's encounter with cupid in the forest of ardennes, have obviously allegorical elements. yet the hidden meaning is in each case less important than the adventure; and the same may be said about the highly tragic symbolism of the monster in the rocca crudele.[594] boiardo had too vivid a sympathy with nature and humanity to appreciate the mysteries which allured the northern poets of _parzival_, the _sangraal_, and the _faery queen_. when he lapses into allegory, it is with him a sign of weakness. akin, perhaps, to this disregard for parable is the freedom of his spirit from all superstition. the religion of his knights is bluff, simple, and sincere, in no sense savoring of the cloister and the cowl. a high sense of truth and personal honor, indifference to life for life's sake, profound humility in danger, charity impelling men of power to succor the oppressed and feeble, are the fruits of their piety. but of penance for sins of the flesh, of ceremonial observances, of visions and fasts, of ascetic discipline and wonder-working images, of all the ecclesiastical trumpery with which the pseudo-turpin is filled, and which contaminates even the _mort d'arthur_ of our heroic mallory, we read nothing. in taking up the thread of boiardo's narrative, ariosto made use of all his predecessor had invented. he adopted the machinery of the two fountains, the lance of argalia, angelica's ring, rabicane, and the magic arts of atalante. the characters of the _innamorato_ reappear with slight but subtle changes and with somewhat softened names in the _furioso_.[595] ariosto, again, followed boiardo closely in his peculiar method of interweaving _novelle_ with the main narrative; of suspending one story to resume another at a critical moment; of prefacing his cantos with reflections, and of concluding them with a courteous license.[596] lastly, ariosto is at great pains, while connecting his poem with the _innamorato_, to make it intelligible by giving short abstracts at intervals of the previous action. yet throughout this long laborious work of continuation he preserves a studied silence respecting the poet to whom he owed so much. was this due to the desire of burying boiardo's fame beneath his own? did he so contrive that the contemporary repute of the _innamorato_ should serve to float his _furioso_ and then be forgotten by posterity? if so, he calculated wisely; for this is what almost immediately happened. though the _orlando innamorato_ was printed four times before 1513--once at venice in 1486, once at scandiano in 1495, and again at venice in 1506, 1511, and 1513--and though it continued to be reprinted at venice through the first half of the sixteenth century, yet the sudden silence of the press after this period shows that the _furioso_ had eclipsed boiardo's fame. still the integral connection between the two poems could not be overlooked; and just about the period of ariosto's death, francesco berni conceived the notion of rewriting boiardo's epic with the expressed intention of correcting its diction and rendering it more equal in style to the _orlando furioso_. this _rifacimento_ was published in 1541, after his death. the mysterious circumstances that attended its publication, and the nature of the changes introduced by berni into the substance of boiardo's poem, will be touched upon when we arrive at this illustrious writer of burlesque verse. it is enough to mention here that berni's version was printed twice between 1541 and 1545, and that then, like the original, it fell into comparative oblivion till the end of the last century. meanwhile the second _rifacimento_ by domenichi appeared in 1545; and though this new issue was a mere piece of impudent book-making, it superseded berni's masterpiece during the next two hundred years. the critics of the last century rediscovered berni's _rifacimento_, and began to quote boiardo's poem under his name, treating the real author as an ignorant and uncouth writer of a barbarous dialect. thus one of the most original poets of the fifteenth century, to whom italy owes the form and substance of the _furioso_, has been thrust aside and covered with contempt, by a curious irony of fortune, owing to the very qualities that ought to have insured his immortality. used by ariosto as the ladder for ascending to parnassus; by berni as an exercising ground for the display of style; by domenichi as the means of getting his name widely known, the _orlando innamorato_ served any purposes but that of its great author's fame. panizzi, by reprinting the original poem along with the _orlando furioso_, restored boiardo at length to his right place in italian literature. from that time forward it has been impossible to overlook his merits or to underestimate ariosto's obligations to so gifted and original a master. footnotes: [512] see p. 406. [513] this poem relates the adventures of ciriffo and il povero avveduto, bastards of two noble ladies, and gives the history of a crusade of louis against the soldan of egypt. it was published as the work, as far as the first book, of luca pulci, completed and restored by bernardo giambullari. "il ciriffo calvaneo, diviso in iv. canti, col primo libro di luca pulci, ed il resto riformato per bernardo giambullari" (roma, mazzocchio, 1514). luigi pulci claims a share in it, if not the whole in the _morgante_, xxviii. 118, 129. [514] see _lettere di luigi pulci a lorenzo il magnifico_, lucca, giusti, 1868. _sonetti di matteo franco e luigi pulci_, 1759. the sonnets are indescribably scurrilous, charged with florentine slang, and loaded with the filthiest abuse. the point of humor is that franco and pulci undertook (it is said, for fun) to heap scandals on each other's heads, ransacking the language of the people for its vilest terms of invective. if they began in joke, they ended in earnest; and lorenzo de' medici, who had a taste for buffoonery, enjoyed the scuffle of his court-fools. it was a combat of humanists transferred from the arena of the schools to the market-place, where two men of parts degraded themselves by assuming the character of coal-heavers. [515] the poetical talents of the pulci family were hereditary. cellini tells us of a luigi of that name who improvised upon the market-place of florence. [516] turpin's chronicle consists of thirty-two chapters, relating the wars of charlemain with the spanish moors, the treason of ganelon, and roland's death in roncesvalles. the pagan knight, ferraguto, and the christian peers are mentioned by name, proving that at the date of its compilation the whole carolingian myth was tolerably perfect in the popular imagination. [517] it has been conjectured by m. génin, editor of the _chant de roland_, not without substantial grounds, that gui de bourgogne, bishop of vienne, afterwards pope calixtus ii., was himself the pseudo-turpin. [518] see _chanson de roland_, line 804, and compare _morg. magg._ xxvii. 79. [519] see ludlow's _popular epics of the middle ages_, vol. i. p. 412, and m. génin's introduction to the _chanson de roland_, paris, 1851. [520] see génin (_op. cit._ pp. xxix., xxx.) for the traces of the roland myth in the pyrenees, at rolandseck, in england, and at verona; also for gigantic statues in germany called rolands (_ib._ pp. xxi. xxii.). at spello, a little town of umbria between assisi and foligno, the people of the place showed me a dint in their ancient town wall, about breast-high, which passes for a mark made by orlando's knee. there is learned tradition of a phallic monument named after roland in that place; but i could find no trace of it in local memory. [521] the _song of roland_ does not give this portrait of charlemagne's dotage. but it is an integral part of the italian romances, a fixed point in all _rifacimenti_ of the pseudo-turpin. [522] ludlow (_op. cit._ i. 358) translates the basque song of atta-biçar, which relates to some destruction of chivalrous forces by the pyrenean mountaineers. [523] see génin (_op. cit._ pp. xxv.-xxviii.). [524] introduction to panizzi's edition of the _orlando innamorato_ and _orlando furioso_ (london, pickering, 1830), vol. i. pp. 126-128. [525] see dante, _inf._ xxxii. 61, v. 67, v. 128. galeotto, lancelot's go-between with guinevere, gave his name to a pimp in italy, as pandarus to a pander in england. boccaccio's _novelliere_ was called _il principe galeotto_. petrarch in the _trionfi_ and boccaccio in the _amoroso visione_ make frequent references to the knights of the round table. the latter in his _corbaccio_ mentions the tale of tristram as a favorite book with idle women. the _fiammetta_ might be quoted with the same object of proving its wide-spread popularity. the lyrics of folgore da san gemignano and other _trecentisti_ would furnish many illustrative allusions. [526] see above, p. 17. [527] the _reali di francia_ sets forth this legendary genealogy at great length, and stops short at the coronation of charles in rome and the discovery of roland. considering the dryness of its subject-matter, it is significant that this should have survived all the prose romances of the fifteenh century. we may ascribe the fact perhaps to the tenacious italian devotion to the imperial idea. [528] _orl. inn. rifac._ i. 18, 26. niccolò da padova in the thirteenth century quoted turpin as his authority for the history of charlemagne which he composed in northern french. this proves the antiquity of the custom. see bartoli, _storia della lett. it._ vol. ii. p. 44. to believe in turpin was not, however, an article of faith. thus bello in the _mambriano_, c. viii.: ma poi che 'l non è articolo di fede, tenete quella parte che vi piace, che l'autor libramente vel concede. [529] "un dio, uno orlando, e una roma." _morg. magg._ xxvii. 220. compare this with arthur's "flos regum arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus." [530] see _propugnatore_ (anni ii., iii., iv.). _la spagna_ was itself two popular compilations. [531] this is only strictly true of cantos xxiv., xxv., xxvi., xxvii. the last canto, in fact the whole poem after the execution of marsilio, is a dull historical epitome, brightened by pulci's personal explanations at the ending. [532] it is called _morgante maggiore_ because the part relating to him was published separately under the title of _morgante_. this character pulci derived from the ms. poem called by signor rajna the _orlando_ to distinguish it. in the year 1500 we find one of the baglioni called morgante which proves perhaps the popularity of this giant. [533] canto xxv. 73-78. the locust-tree, according to the tradition of the south, served judas when he hanged himself. northern fancy reserved this honor for the elder, not perhaps without a poetic sense of the outcast existence of the plant and its worthlessness for any practical use. on the same locust-tree marsilio was afterwards suspended (c. xxvii. 267). the description of the blasted pleasure-garden in the latter passage is also very striking. for the translation of these passages see appendix. [534] xxvii. 5-7 and 47. note in particular (translated in appendix): rispose baldovin: se il padre mio ci ha qui condotti come traditore, s'io posso oggi campar, pel nostro iddio, con questa spada passerògli il core! ma traditore, orlando, non son io, ch'io t'ho seguito con perfetto amore; non mi potresti dir maggiore ingiuria! poi si stracciò la vesta con gran furia, e disse: io tornerò nella battaglia, poi che tu m'hai per traditore scorto; io non son traditor, se dio mi vaglia, non mi vedrai più oggi se non morto! e inverso l'oste de' pagan si scaglia, dicendo sempre: tu m'hai fatto torto! orlando si pentea d'aver ciò detto chè disperato vide il giovinetto. [535] of all the paladins only orlando is uniformly courteous to charlemagne. when rinaldo dethrones the emperor and flies to his cousin (c. xi. 114), orlando makes him return to his obedience (_ib._ 127). see, too, c. xxv. 100: or oltre in roncisvalle orlando va, per obbedir, com'e' fe' sempre, carlo. [536] xxvi. 126: rinaldo, quando e' fu nella battaglia, gli parve esser in ciel tra' cherubini tra suoni e canti. [537] canto xxvi. 24-39. these two touches, out of many that are noble, might be chosen: stasera in paradiso cenerete; come disse quel greco anticamente lieto a' suoi già, ma disse--nello inferno: and la morte è da temere, o la partita, quando l'anima e 'l corpo muore insieme; ma se da cosa finita a infinita si va qui in ciel fra tante diademe, questo è cambiar la vita a miglior vita. [538] this pervasive doubt finds its noblest and deepest expression in some lines spoken by orlando just before engaging in the fight at roncesvalles (xxvi. 31): tutte cose mortal vanno ad un segno; mentre l'una sormonta, un'altra cade: così fia forse di cristianitade. this is said not from the hero's but the author's point of view. pomponazzi afterwards gave philosophical utterance to the same disbelief in the permanence of christianity. [539] canto xxvii. 172. [540] _ibid._ 196. [541] _ibid._ 198. [542] canto xxvi. 91. [543] canto xxvi. 89. [544] canto xxv. 217, 218. [545] canto xviii. 114, _et seq._ [546] i have placed in the appendix a rough plaster cast rather than a true copy of margutte's admirable comic autobiography. my stanzas cannot pretend to exactitude of rendering or interpretation. the _morgante_ has hitherto been very imperfectly edited; and there are many passages in this speech which would, i believe, puzzle a good florentine scholar, and which, it is probable, i have misread. [547] canto xix. 148. [548] cantos xxv. xxvi. [549] xxv. 119. this distinction between the fallen angels and the _spiriti folletti_ deserves to be noticed. the latter were light and tricksy spirits, on whom not even a magician could depend. marsilio sent two of them in a magic mirror to charlemagne (xxv. 92), and astarotte warned malagigi expressly against their vanity (xxv. 160, 161). fairies, _feux follets_, and the lying spirits of modern spiritualists seem to be of this family. translations from astarotte's dialogue will be found in the appendix. [550] xxv. 159, 208. [551] xxv. 161; xxvi. 83. [552] canto xxv. 141-158; translation in appendix. [553] _ibid._ 233. [554] _ibid._ 284. [555] _doctor faustus_, act i. scene with mephistophilis in a franciscan's habit. [556] the scene in the banquet-hall at saragossa (xxv. 292-305) is very similar to some of the burlesque scenes in _doctor faustus_. [557] xxv. 228-231. astarotte's discourses upon theology and physical geography are so learned that this part of the _morgante_ was by tasso ascribed to ficino. it is not improbable that pulci derived some of the ideas from ficino, but the style is entirely his own. the sonnets he exchanged with franco prove, moreover, that he was familiar with the treatment of grave themes in a burlesque style. in acknowledging the help of poliziano he is quite frank (xxv. 115-117, 169; xxviii. 138-149). what that help exactly was, we do not know. but there is nothing whatever to justify the tradition that poliziano was the real author of the _morgante_. probably he directed pulci's reading; and i think it not impossible, judging by one line in canto xxv. (stanza 115, line 4), that he directed pulci's attention to the second of the two poems out of which the narrative was wrought. if we were to ascribe all the passages in the _morgante_ that display curious knowledge to pulci's friends, we might claim the discourse on the antipodes for toscanelli and the debates on the angelic nature for palmieri. such criticism is, however, far-fetched and laboriously hypothetical. pulci lived in an intellectual atmosphere highly charged with speculation of all kinds, and his poem reflected the opinion of his age. his own methods of composition and the relation in which he stood to other poets of the age are explained in two passages of the _morgante_ (xxv. 117, xxviii. 138-149), where he disclaims all share of humanistic erudition, and expresses his indifference to the solemn academies of the learned. see translation in appendix. [558] xxvi. 82-88. we may specially note these phrases: astarotte, e' mi duole il tuo partir, quanto fussi fratello; e nell'inferno ti credo che sia gentilezza, amicizia e cortesia. * * * * * chè di servirti non mi fia fatica; e basta solo astarotte tu dica, ed io ti sentirò sin dello inferno. [559] book ii. canto viii. 1. all references will be made to panizzi's edition of the _orlando innamorato_, london, pickering, 1830. [560] _sonetti e canzone [sic] del poeta clarissimo matteo maria boiardo conte di scandiano_, milano, 1845. the descriptions of natural beauty, especially of daybreak and the morning star, of dewy meadows, and of flowers, in which these lyrics abound, are very charming and at all points worthy of the fresh delightful inspiration of boiardo's epic verse. nor are they deficient in metrical subtlety; notice especially the intricate rhyming structure of a long canto, pp. 44-49. [561] see above, p. 15. [562] see the exordium to the second book, where it appears that the gentle poet caressed a vain hope that the peace of italy in the second half of the fifteenth century was destined to revive chivalry. [563] see the opening of book ii. canto xviii. where boiardo compares the courts of arthur and of charlemagne. [564] the acute and learned critic pio rajna, whose two massive works of scholarlike research, _i reali di francia_ (bologna, 1872), and _le fonti dell'orlando furioso_ (firenze, 1876), have thrown a flood of light upon chivalrous romance literature in italy, is at pains to prove that the _orlando innamorato_ contains a vein of conscious humor. see _le fonti_, etc., pp. 24-27. i agree with him that boiardo treated his subject playfully. but it must be remembered that he was far from wishing to indulge a secret sarcasm like ariosto, or to make open fun of chivalry like fortiguerra. [565] mentre che io canto, o dio redentore, vedo l'italia tutta a fiamma e foco, per questi galli, che con gran valore vengon, per disertar non so che loco. compare ii. xxxi. 50; iii. i. 2. [566] orlando was not handsome (ii. iii. 63): avea folte le ciglia, e l'un de gli occhi alquanto stralunava. [567] see his prayer, ii. xxix. 36, 37. [568] see the description of him in the tournament (i. ii. 63, iii. 4), when he saves the honor of christendom to the surprise of everybody including himself. again (i. vii. 45-65), when he defies and overthrows gradasso, and liberates charles from prison. the irony of both situations reveals a master's hand. [569] for instance, when he attacks argalia with his sword, contrary to stipulation, after being unhorsed by him (i. i. 71-73). the fury of ferraguto in this scene is one of boiardo's most brilliant episodes. [570] his epithets are always _fiorito_, _fior di cortesia_, _di franchezza fiore_, etc. for the effect of his beauty, see ii. xxi. 49, 50. the education of ruggiero by atalante was probably suggested to boiardo by the tale of cheiron and achilles. see ii. i. 74, 75. [571] see ii. i. 56, for rodamonte's first appearance; for his atheism, ii. iii. 22: che sol il mio buon brando e l'armatura e la mazza, ch'io porto, e 'l destrier mio e l'animo, ch'io ho, sono il mio dio. [572] ii. iii. 40. [573] in bello's _mambriano_, for instance, we have a very lively picture of the amorous and vain astolfo. pulci supplies us with even a more impressive orlando than boiardo's hero, while his amazonian heroines, meridiana and antea, are at least rough sketches for marfisa. it was boiardo's merit to have grasped these characters and drawn them with a fullness of minute detail that enhances their vitality. [574] her arts and their success are splendidly set forth, i. xxv. xxvi. [575] in proem to ii. xii., boiardo makes an excuse, imitated by ariosto to his lady for this bad treatment of women. [576] leodilla's story is found in i. xxi. xxii. xxiv. 14-17, 44. [577] i. iii. 47-50. [578] i. xxii. 24-27; i. xix. 60-65. [579] i. xvii. 21, 22. [580] ii. vii. 50. [581] ii. xii. 14, _et seq._ [582] i. xvi. 36-44; xviii. 39-47; xix. 15, 16. [583] i. v. 7-12; xix. 47; ix. 55-57. [584] i. xviii. 39-47. [585] i. xxv. 13, 14. [586] i. xxvii. 15-22; xxviii. 4-11. [587] ii. vi. 7-15, 28-42; ii. iv. 24-39; ii. xiii. 20-23; i. xxv. 38. [588] i. xxiii. 38, 47; xxvi. 28. [589] i. xxiii. 6. [590] burne jones, in his _pan and syrinx_, offers a parallel. [591] ii. xv. 43 _et seq._ [592] ii. xvii. 49 _et seq._ [593] see ii. xxxi. xlv.; iii. i. ii. [594] see i. viii. 56 _et seq._ the whole tale of grifone and marchino in that canto is horrible. [595] on ariosto's treatment of boiardo's characters there is much excellent criticism in pio rajna's _le fonti dell'orlando furioso_ (firenze, sansoni, 1876), pp. 43-53. [596] i do not mean that other poets--pulci and bello, for example--had not interwoven episodical _novelle_. the latter's poem of _mambriano_ owes all its interest to the episodes, and many of its introductory reflections are fair specimens of the discursive style. but the peculiarity of boiardo, as followed by ariosto, consisted in the art of subordinating these subsidiary motives to the main design. neither pulci nor bello showed any true sense of poetical unity. it may here be parenthetically remarked that francesco bello, a native of ferrara, called il cieco because of his blindness, recited his _mambriano_ at the mantuan court of the gonzagas. it was not printed till after his death in 1509. this poem consists of a series of tales, loosely stitched together, each canto containing just enough to stimulate the attention of an idle audience. rinaldo, astolfo, and mambriano, king of bithynia, play prominent parts in the action. chapter viii. ariosto. ancestry and birth of ariosto--his education--his father's death--life at reggio--enters ippolito d'este's service--character of the cardinal--court life--composition and publication of the _furioso_--quiet life at ferrara--comedies--governorship of garfagnana--his son virginio--last eight years--death--character and habits--the satires--latin elegies and lyrics--analysis of the satires--ippolito's service--choice of a wife--life at court and place-hunting--miseries at garfagnana--virginio's education--autobiographical and satirical elements--ariosto's philosophy of life--minor poems--alessandra benucci--ovidian elegies--madrigals and sonnets--ariosto's conception of love. ariosto's family was ancient and of honorable station in the duchy of ferrara. his father, nicolò, held offices of trust under ercole i., and in the year 1472 was made governor of reggio, where he acquired property and married. his wife, daria maleguzzi, gave birth at reggio in 1474 to their first-born, lodovico, the poet. at reggio the boy spent seven years of childhood, removing with his father in 1481 to rovigo. his education appears to have been carried on at ferrara, where he learned latin but no greek. this ignorance of greek literature placed him, like machiavelli, somewhat at a disadvantage among men of culture in an age that set great store upon the knowledge of both ancient languages. he was destined for a legal career; but, like petrarch and boccaccio, after spending some useless years in uncongenial studies, ariosto prevailed upon his father to allow him to follow his strong bent for literature. in 1500 nicolò ariosto died, leaving a family of five sons and five daughters, with property sufficient for the honor of his house but scarcely adequate to the needs of his numerous children. lodovico was the eldest. he therefore found himself at the age of twenty-six in the position of father to nine brothers and sisters, for whose education, start in life, and suitable settlement, he was called on to arrange. the administration of his father's estate, and the cares thus early thrust upon him, made the poet an exact man of business, and brought him acquainted with real life under its most serious aspects. he discharged his duties with prudence and fidelity; managing by economy to provide portions for his sisters and honorable maintenance for his brothers out of their joint patrimony. the first three years after his father's death were spent by ariosto in the neighborhood of reggio, and to this period of his life we may perhaps refer some of the love-affairs celebrated in his latin poems. he held the captaincy of canossa, a small sinecure involving no important duties, since the castle of canossa was even in those days a ruin. in 1503 he entered the service of cardinal ippolito d'este, with whom he remained until 1517. he was placed upon the list of the cardinal's extraordinary servants, to be employed in matters of confidence and delicacy, involving frequent journeys to all parts of italy and ceremonial embassies. his pay seems to have been fixed at 240 _lire marchesane_, corresponding to about 1200 francs, charged upon the archiepiscopal chancery of milan.[597] this salary, had it been regularly paid, would have suffered to maintain the poet in decent comfort; but he had considerable difficulty from time to time in realizing the sums due to him. ippolito urged him to take orders, no doubt with a view of securing better emoluments from benefices that could only be conferred upon a member of the priesthood. but ariosto refused to enter a state of life for which he felt no vocation.[598] the cardinal deacon of s. lucia in silice was one of those secular princes of the church, addicted to worldly pleasures, profuse in personal expenditure, with more inclination for the camp and the hunting-field than for the duties of his station, who since the days of sixtus iv. had played a prominent part in the society of the italian courts. he was of distinguished beauty; and his military courage, like that of the cardinal ippolito de' medici, was displayed in the hungarian campaign against the turks. with regard to his character and temper, it may suffice to remind the reader how, in a fit of jealous passion, he hired assassins to put out his natural brother giulio's eyes. that ippolito d'este did not share the prevailing enthusiasm of his age for literary culture, seems pretty clear; and he failed to discern the unique genius of the man whom he had chosen for his confidential agent. ariosto complains that he was turned into a common courier and forced to spend his days and nights upon the road by the master upon whom, at the expense of truth and reason, he conferred an immortality of fame in his great poem. yet it would not be fair to echo the commonplace invectives against the cardinal for illiberality and ingratitude. ariosto knew the nature of his patron when he entered his service, and ippolito did not hire a student but an active man of business for his work. it was an arrangement of convenience on both sides, to which the poet would never have stooped had his private means sufficed, or had the conditions of italian society offered any decent career for a gentleman outside the circle of the court. moreover, it was not until after their final rupture, caused by ariosto's refusal to undertake the hungarian expedition in his master's train, that the true greatness of the author of the _furioso_ was revealed. how should a dissolute and ill-conditioned cardinal have discerned that a dreamy poem in ms. on the madness of orlando would live as long as the _æneid_, or that the flattering lies invented by his courier would in after ages turn the fierce glare of criticism and celebrity upon the darkest corners of his own history? the old legend about his brutal reception of the _orlando furioso_ has been now in part disproved.[599] we know that he defrayed the expenses of its publication, and secured the right and profits of its sale to ariosto.[600] there is even an entry in his memoranda of expenditure proving that he bought a copy for the sum of one _lira marchesana_.[601] while deploring the waste of ariosto's time and strength in the uncongenial service of this patron, we must acknowledge that his choice of ippolito was a mistake for which he alone was responsible, and that the panegyrics showered on such a man are wholly inexcusable.[602] when all the circumstances of their connection are taken into account, there is nothing but the extreme irritation caused by incompatibility of temper, and divergence of aims and interests, to condone the poet's private censure of the master whom publicly he loaded with praises.[603] the whole unhappy story illustrates the real conditions of that court-life, so glowingly described by castiglione, which proved the ruin of tasso and the disgrace of guarini. could anything justify the brigandlike brutalities of pietro aretino, _il flagello de' principi_, we might base his apology upon the dreary histories of these italian poets, soured, impoverished, and broken because they had been forced to put their trust in princes. when there lay no choice between levying blackmail by menaces and coaxing crumbs by flatteries, it accorded better with the italian ideal _virtù_ to fatten upon the former kind of infamy than to starve upon the latter. the _orlando furioso_ was conceived and begun in the year 1505. it was sent to press in 1515. giovanni mazzocchi del bondeno published it in april, 1516. a large portion of the poet's life was subsequently spent in correcting and improving it. in 1518, having freed himself from ippolito's bondage, ariosto entered the service of duke alfonso i. he was termed _cameriere_ or _famigliare_, and his stipend was fixed at eighty-four golden crowns per annum, with maintenance for three servants and two horses, paid in kind.[604] he occupied his own house in ferrara; and the duke, who recognized his great literary qualities and appreciated the new luster conferred upon his family by the publication of the _furioso_, left him in the undisturbed possession of his leisure.[605] the next four years were probably the happiest of ariosto's life; for he had now at last secured independence and had entered upon the enjoyment of his fame. the medici of florence and rome, and the ducal families of urbino and mantua, were pleased to number him among their intimate friends, and he received flattering acknowledgments of his poem from the most illustrious men of italy. the few journeys he made at the request of alfonso carried him to florence, the head-quarters of literary and artistic activity. at home the time he spared from the revision of the _furioso_, was partly devoted to the love-affairs he carried on with jealous secrecy, and partly to the superintendence of the ducal theater. the criticism of ariosto's comedies must be reserved for another chapter. it is enough to remark here that their composition amused him from his boyhood to his latest years. so early as 1493 he had accompanied ercole i. to pavia in order to play before lodovico sforza, and in the same year he witnessed the famous representation of the _menæchmi_ at ferrara. some of his earliest essays in literature were translations of latin comedies, now unfortunately lost. they were intended for representation; and, as exercises in the playwright's art, they strongly influenced his style. his own _cassaria_ appeared for the first time at ferrara in 1508; the _suppositi_ followed in 1509, and was reproduced at the vatican in 1519. it took leo's fancy so much that he besought the author for another comedy. ariosto, in compliance with this request, completed the _negromante_, which he had already had in hand during the previous ten years. the _lena_ was first represented at ferrara in 1528, and the _scolastica_ was left unfinished at the poet's death. what part ariosto took in the presentation of his comedies, is uncertain; but it is probable that he helped in their performance, besides directing the stage and reciting the prologue. he thus acquired a practical acquaintance with theatrical management, and it was by his advice, and on plans furnished by him, that alfonso built the first permanent stage at ferrara in 1532. on the last day of that year, not long after its erection, the theater was burned down. these dates are important; since they prove that ariosto's connection with the stage, as actor, playwright, and manager, was continuous throughout his lifetime. ariosto's peaceful occupations at ferrara were interrupted early in 1522 by what must be reckoned the strangest episode of his career. on february 7 in that year, he was nominated ducal commissary for the government of garfagnana, a wild upland district stretching under monte pellegrino almost across the apennines from the lucchese to the modenese frontiers. we find that the salary allowed him by alfonso had never been very regularly paid, and that in 1521 the duke, straitened in means by his warfare with the papacy, was compelled to suspend it altogether.[606] at the same period the communes forming what is known as garfagnana (who had placed themselves beneath the marquises of ferrara in the first half of the fifteenth century, but had lately suffered from florentine and papal incursions) besought alfonso to assert his suzerainty of their district and to take measures for securing its internal quiet. the emoluments of the commissary amounted to about 930 _lire marchesane_, estimated at something like 2,300 francs of present value; and it was undoubtedly the pecuniary profits of the office which induced the duke to offer it, and the poet to accept it. we may think it strange that so acute a judge of men as alfonso should have selected the author of the _furioso_, a confirmed student, almost a recluse in his habits, and already broken in health, for the governorship of a district half-ruined by foreign raids and domestic feuds, which had become the haunt of brigands and the asylum of bandits from surrounding provinces. yet we must remember that ariosto had already given ample proof of his good sense and business-like qualities, not only in the administration of his own affairs, but in numerous embassies undertaken for the cardinal and duke, his masters. at that epoch of italian history the name and fame of an illustrious writer were themselves a power in politics: and it is said that during ariosto's first journey into garfagnana, he owed his liberation from the hands of brigands to the celebrity of the _orlando furioso_.[607] alfonso knew, moreover, that the poet was well qualified for negotiating with princes; and what was of grave practical importance, he stood in excellent personal relations to the medici, from whom as the rulers of florence the garfagnana was menaced with invasion. these considerations are sufficient to explain alfonso's choice. nothing but necessity would probably have induced ariosto to quit ferrara for the intolerable seclusion of those barbarous mountains; where it was his duty to issue edicts against brigands, to hunt outlaws, to punish murderers and robbers, to exact fines for rape and infamous offenses, to see that the hangman did his duty, and to sit in judgment daily upon suits that proved the savage immorality of the entire population. the hopelessness of the task might have been enough to break a sterner heart than ariosto's, and his loathing of his life at castelnovo found vent in the most powerful of his satires. he managed to endure this uncongenial existence for three years, from february 20, 1522, till june, 1525, sustaining his spirits with correspondence and composition, and varying the monotony of his life by visits to ferrara. it was during his garfagnana residence in all probability that he composed the _cinque canti_. the society of his dearly-loved son, virginio--whose education he superintended and for whom he wrote the charming seventh satire to pietro bembo--also served to diminish the dreariness of his exile from love, leisure, and the society of friends. virginio was ariosto's natural son by a woman of reggio. he collected the latin poems after his father's death, and prepared the _cinque canti_ for manuzio's press in 1545. he also helped his uncle gabriele to finish _la scolastica_, and wrote a few brief recollections of his father. ariosto had a second illegitimate son, named giovanni battista, who distinguished himself in a military career. the last eight years of ariosto's life were spent in great tranquillity at ferrara. soon after his return from garfagnana he built his house in the contrada mirasol, and placed upon it the following characteristic inscription[608]: parva sed apta mihi sed nulli obnoxia sed non sordida parta meo sed tamen ære domus. about this time, too, he married the lady to whom for many years he had been tenderly attached.[609] she was the florentine alessandra benucci, widow of tito strozzi, whom he first saw at florence in the year 1513. the marriage was kept strictly secret, probably because the poet did not choose to relinquish the income he derived from certain minor benefices. nor did it prove fruitful of offspring, for ariosto left no legitimate heirs. his life of tranquil study was varied only by short journeys to venice, abano, and mantua. in 1531 he was sent to negotiate certain matters for his master in the camp of the marquis del vasto at correggio. on this occasion he received from alfonso davalos a pension of one hundred golden ducats, by a deed which sets forth in its preamble the duty of princes to recompense poets who immortalize the acts of heroes. this is the only instance of reward bestowed on ariosto for his purely literary merits. the poet repaid his benefactor by magnificent eulogies inserted in the last edition of the _furioso_.[610] between the year 1525, when he left garfagnana, and 1532, when his poem issued from the press, he devoted himself with unceasing labor to its revision and improvement. the edition of 1516 consisted of forty cantos. that of 1532 contained forty-six, and the whole text had been subjected in the interval to minute alterations.[611] not long after the publication of the revised edition ariosto's health gave way. his constitution had never been robust, for he suffered habitually from a catarrh of the lungs which made his old life as ippolito d'este's courier not only distasteful but dangerous.[612] toward the close of 1532 this complaint took the form of a consumption, which ended his days on the sixth of june, 1533. great pains have been bestowed by his biographers on proving that he died a good catholic; nor is there any reason to suppose that he neglected the consolations of the church in his last hours. he was by no means a man to break abruptly with tradition or to make an indecorous display of doubts that may have haunted him. yet the best latin verses he ever penned were a half-humorous copy of hendecasyllables for his own epitaph, which seem to prove that he applied montaigne's _peut-être_ even to the grave.[613] of ariosto's personal habits and opinions we know unfortunately but little, beyond what may be gathered from the incomparably transparent self-revelation of his satires. his son, virginio, who might have amply satisfied our curiosity, confined himself to the fewest and briefest details in the notes transcribed and published by barotti. some of these, however, are so characteristic that it may not be inopportune to translate them. with regard to his method of composition, virginio writes: "he was never satisfied with his verses, but altered them again and again, so that he could not keep his lines in his memory, and consequently lost many of his compositions.... in horticulture he followed the same system as in composition, for he would not leave anything he planted for more than three months in one place; and if he sowed peaches or any kind of seed, he went so often to see if they were sprouting, that at last he broke the shoots. he had but small knowledge of herbs, and used to think that whatever grew near the things he had sown, were the plants themselves, and watched them diligently till his mistake was proved beyond all doubt. i remember once, when he had planted capers, he went every day to see them and was greatly delighted at their luxuriance. at last he discerned that they were but elders, and that the capers had not come up at all.... he was not much given to study, and cared to see but few books. virgil gave him pleasure, and tibullus for his diction; but he greatly commended horace and catullus, propertius not much.... he ate fast and much, and made no distinction of food. so soon as he came home, if he found the bread set out, he would eat one piece walking, while the meats were being brought to table. when he saw them spread, he had water poured upon his hands and then began to eat whatever was nearest to him.... he was fond of turnips." from the bare details of ariosto's biography it is satisfactory to turn to the living picture of the man himself revealed in his satires. these compositions rank next to the _orlando furioso_ in the literary canon of his works, and have the highest value for the light they cast upon his temperament and mode of feeling. though they are commonly called satires, they rather deserve the name of epistles; for while a satiric element gives distinct flavor to each of the seven poems, this is subordinated to personal and familiar topics of correspondence. we learn from them what the great artist of the golden age thought and felt about the times in which he lived; what moved his indignation or aroused his sympathy; how he strove to meet the troubles of his checkered life; and where, amid the carnival of that mad century, he laid his finger upon hidden social maladies. reading them, we come to know the man himself, and are better able to understand how, while italy was distracted with wars and trampled on by foreign armies, he could withdraw himself from the tumult, and spend his years in polishing the stanzas of _orlando_. the satires do not reveal a hero or a sage, a poet passionate like dante with the sense of wrong, or like petrarch aspiring after an impossible ideal. it is rather the type of boccaccio's character, refined and purged of sensuality, with delicate touches of irony and a more fastidious taste, that meets us in this portrait of ariosto painted by himself. his mental vision is more lucid, his judgment more acute, his philosophy less indulgent, and his ideal of art more exacting; yet he, too, might be nicknamed _lodovico della tranquillità_. with his head in philiroe's lap beside a limpid rivulet, he basks away the summer hours, and cares not whether french or german get the upper hand in italy.[614] does it greatly signify, he asks ercole strozzi in one of his latin poems, whether we serve a french or an italian tyrant? servitude is the same, if the despot be a barbarian only in manners, like our princelings, or in name too, like these foreigners.[615] left alone to study and to polish verses, ariosto is content. he is content to flatter and confer immortality on the master he despises. he is content to rest in one place, turning his maps over when he fain would take a journey into foreign lands. only let him be, and give him enough to live upon, and he will trouble no man, dispute no pretender's claims, raise no inconvenient questions of right and wrong, inflame the world with no far-reaching thoughts, but gild the refined gold of his purest phrases and paint the lilies of his loveliest thoughts in placid ease. italy has grown old, and ariosto is the genius of a tired, world-weary, disillusioned age. what is there worth a struggle? at the same time he preserves his independence as a private gentleman. he passes free judgment upon society; and the patron he has praised officially in his epic, receives hard justice in his satires. he is frank and honest, free from hypocrisy and guile, genial and loyal toward his friends, upright in his dealings and manly in his instincts. we respect his candor, his contempt for worldly honors, and his love of liberty. we admire his intellectual sagacity, his deep and wise philosophy of life, the knowledge of the world so easily communicated, the irony so pungent yet so free from bitterness, which gives piquancy to these familiar discourses. still both respect and admiration are tempered with some regret that the greatest poet of the sixteenth century should have been so easy-going. such is the ariosto revealed to us by the satires--not a noble or sublime being: by no means the man to save the state if safety had been possible. throughout the tragedy of italy's last years of freedom he moves, an essentially comic character, only redeemed by genius and by _weltweisheit_ from the ridicule attaching to a man whose aims are commonplace, and whose complaints against the world are petty. he is not servile enough to accept the humiliations of a courtier's lot without a murmur. he is not proud enough to break his chains and live in haughty isolation. hence in these incomparable records of his private opinion, we find him at one moment painting the discomforts of his position with a _naïveté_ that provokes our laughter, at another analyzing the vices of society with luminous acumen, then shrugging his shoulders and summoning philosophy to his aid with a final cry of _pazienza!_ the motive of the first epistle is a proposed journey to rome.[616] the second enumerates the reasons why the poet will not accompany ippolito d'este to hungary. the subject of the third is the choice of a wife. the fourth discusses the vanity of honors and wealth in comparison with a contented mind. the fifth describes the poet's isolation in the garfagnana, and contains a confession of his love. in the sixth he explains why he does not wish to go to rome and seek advancement from clement vii. the seventh is devoted to the education of youth in the humanities, and contains a retrospect of his own early life. the satire of the first is directed against the ambition and avarice of priests, the pride of roman prelates, and the nepotism of the popes. the passage describing an ecclesiastic's levee is justly famous for its humor; and the diatribe on papal vices for its force. the second shows how the dependents upon princes are forced to flatter, and how they exchange their freedom for the empty honor of sitting near great men at table. ariosto takes occasion to describe the character of ippolito d'este, who cared for his hawks and hounds more than for the muses, and who paid his body-servants better than the poet of orlando.[617] "i owe you nothing, phoebus, nor you, holy college of the muses! from you i never got enough to buy myself a cloak. 'indeed? your lord has given you....' more than the price of several cloaks, i grant. but not for your sake, muses, i am certain. he has told me, and i do not mind repeating it, that my verses are just worth the price of their waste paper. he will not give a penny for my praises, but pays me for courier's service. his followers in the barge or villa, his _valet-de-chambre_ and butler, his lackeys who outwatch the night, get paid. but when i set his name with honor in my verse, he tells me i have whiled my time away in ease and pleasure--i had pleased him better by attendance on his person. if you remind me that i owe to him a third of the chancery dues at milan, i answer that he gave me this because i ply both spur and whip, change beasts and guides, and hurry over hills and precipices, risking my life upon his business." the third epistle is a masterpiece of sound counsel and ripe knowledge of the world. better rules could not be given about the precautions to be taken in selecting a wife, the qualities a man should seek in her, and the conduct he should use toward her after marriage. the satire consists in that poor opinion of female honesty which the author of the _furioso_ had conceived, not without much experience of women, and after mature reflection upon social institutions. it is not envenomed like the invectives of the _corbaccio_, or exaggerated like the abuse in alberti's dialogues. leaning back in his arm-chair with an amused and quiet smile, the indulgent satirist enunciates truths that are biting only because they condense the wisdom of an observant lifetime. he never ceases to be kindly; and we feel, while listening to him, that his epigrams are double-edged. the poet who has learned thus much of women, gives the measure of his limited capacity for noble feeling; for while he paints them as he finds them, he leaves an impression of his own emotional banality. after making due allowance for this defect in ariosto's point of view, we may rank the third epistle among the ripest products of his intellect. the fourth resumes the theme of court-life and place-hunting. "you ask me, friend annibale, how i fare with duke alfonso, and whether i find his service lighter than the cardinal's. to tell the truth, i do not like one burden better than the other; and were i rich enough, i certainly would be no man's servant. but i was not born an only son, and mercury was never generous to my race. so i am forced to live at a patron's charge, and it is better to owe my maintenance to the duke than to beg bread from door to door. i know that most people think it a grand thing to be a courtier, but i count court-life as mere slavery. a nightingale is ill at ease in a cage, and a swallow dies after a day's imprisonment. if a man wants to be decorated with the spurs or the red hat, let him serve kings or popes. for my part, i care for neither; a turnip in my own house tastes sweeter to me than a banquet in a master's.[618] i would rather stretch my lazy limbs in my armchair than be able to boast that i had traveled over half the globe. i have seen tuscany, lombardy, romagna, the apennines and alps, the adriatic and the mediterranean. that is enough for me. the rest of the world i can visit at my leisure with ptolemy for guide. the duke's service has this advantage, that it does not interrupt my studies, or take me far from ferrara, where my heart is always. i think i hear you laughing at this point, and saying that neither love of study nor of country, but a woman ties me to my home. well: i will confess it frankly. but suppose i had gone to rome to fish for benefices, says some one, i should certainly have netted more than one, especially as i was leo's friend before his merits or his luck raised him to the highest earthly station. i knew him at urbino when he cheered his exile with castiglione and bembo; and afterwards when he returned to florence, he bade me count upon him like a brother. all this is true; but listen to a fable i will tell you.[619] in time of drought, when there was no water to be had in all the country, a shepherd found a scanty spring. he drank of it first, and next his wife, and then his children, and afterwards his servants and his cattle. last of all there came a magpie he had petted in old days; but the bird saw that she had no right to drink of the fountain, for she was neither wife nor child nor hind, nor could she bring wealth to the household.[620] it is just the same with me. leo has all the medici, and all his friends in exile, who risked their lives and fortunes for him, and all the priests who made him pope, to recompense. what is there left for me? it is true that he has not forgotten me. when i went to rome and kissed his foot, he bent down from the holy seat, and took my hand and saluted me on both cheeks. besides, he made me free of half the stamp-dues i was bound to pay; and then, breast-full of hope but soaked with rain and smirched with mud, i went and had my supper at the ram![621] but supposing the pope kept all his promises and put as many miters on my head as michelangelo's jonah sees beneath him in the sistine chapel, what would this profit me? no amount of wealth can satisfy desire. honors and riches do not bring tranquillity of mind. true honor is, to be esteemed an honest man, and to be this in good earnest; for if you are not really one, you will be detected. what is the advantage of wearing fine clothes and being bowed to in the market-place, if people point you out behind your back as thief and traitor? there are dignities which are notorious disgraces; and the richer and greater a man is who has gained his rank dishonorably, the more he calls attention to his shame." quante collane, quante cappe nove per dignità si comprano, che sono pubblici vituperi in roma e altrove! in the sixth epistle written in the garfagnana, ariosto still further develops the same theme. his friend, pistofilo, had advised him to go to rome and seek preferment from clement vii. "what would be the use?" he argues. "i have as much of worldly honor as i care for; and if leo did not find it in his power to help me, i cannot expect anything from the other medici. nay, my friend, bait your hook with more enticing dainties: remind me of bembo, sadoleto, giovio, vida, molza, tibaldeo; in whose company i might wander over the seven hills: or speak to me about the libraries of rome. not even these allurements would move me; for if i had to live away from ferrara, i should not be happy in the lap of jove. existence is only made endurable by occasional visits to the town i love; and if the duke wishes to fulfill my desires, he must recall me to himself and make me stationary at ferrara. why do i cling so to that place, you ask me? i would as lief tell you as confess my worst crimes to a friar. i am forty-nine years of age, and too old to be the slave of love." the conclusion of the sixth epistle makes it clear that his residence at castelnovo was irksome to the poet because it forced him to be absent from the woman he loved. but the fifth is even more explicit. "this day completes the first year of my exile among these barbarous mountains, dead to the muses, divided by snows, fells, forests, rivers, from the mistress of my soul![622] i am nearly fifty, and yet love rules me like a beardless boy. well: this weakness is at least pardonable. i do not commit murder; i do not smite or stab, or vex my neighbors. i am not consumed with avarice, ambition, prodigality, or monstrous lust. but in this doleful place my heart fails me. i cannot write poetry as i used to do at reggio when life was young. imprisoned between the naked heights of pania and pellegrino's precipices, the wild steeps of these woody apennines inclose me in a living grave. here in the castle, or out there in the open air, my ears are deafened with continual law-suits, accusations, brawls. theft, murder, hatred, vengeance, anger, furnish me with occupation day and night. my time is spent in threatening, punishing, persuading, or acquitting. i write dispatches daily to the duke for counsel or for aid against the bandits that encompass me. the whole province is disorganized with brigandage, and its eighty-three villages are in a state of chronic discord. is it likely then that phoebus, when i call him, will quit delphi for this den? you ask me why i left my mistress and my studies for so dolorous a cave of care. i was never greedy of money, and my stipend at ferrara satisfied me, until the war stopped it altogether, as well as my profits from the chancery at milan. when i asked the duke for help, it so happened that the garfagnana wanted a governor, and he sent me here with more regard for my necessities than for the needs of the people under my care. i am grateful to him for his good will; but though his gift is costly, it is not to my mind. so i am like the cock who found a jewel on his dungheap, or like the venetian who had a fine horse given him and could not ride it." the satirical passages in this epistle can be separated from its autobiography, and furnish striking specimens of ariosto's style. in order to show how ill the world judges of the faults and follies of great men, he draws a series of portraits with a few but telling touches. though furnished with fictitious names, they suit the persons of the time to a nicety. this, for example, is francesco guicciardini, as pitti represented him: ermilian sì del denajo ardente come di alessio il gianfa, e che lo brama ogn'ora, in ogni loco, da ogni gente, nè amico nè fratel nè sè stesso ama; uomo d'industria, uomo di grande ingegno, di gran governo e gran valor si chiama. and here, without doubt, is the elder lorenzo de' medici[623]: laurin si fa della sua patria capo, ed in privato il pubblico converte; tre ne confina, a sei ne taglia il capo; comincia volpe, indi con forze aperte esce leon, poi c'ha 'l popol sedutto con licenze, con doni e con offerte. gl'iniqui alzando, e deprimendo in lutto gli buoni, acquista titolo di saggio, di furti, stupri e d'omicidi brutto. autobiography and satire are mingled in the same unequal proportions in the seventh epistle, which is perhaps the most interesting poem of the series. "bembo," so begins the letter, "i want my son virginio to be well taught in the arts that elevate a man. you possess them all: i therefore ask you to recommend me a good greek tutor at venice or padua, in whose house the youth may live and study. the greek must be learned, but also of sound principles, for erudition without morality is worse than worthless. unhappily, in these days it is difficult to find a teacher of this sort. few humanists are free from the most infamous of vices, and intellectual vanity makes most of them skeptics also. why is it that learning and infidelity go hand in hand? why do our scholars latinize their names of baptism, changing peter into pierius, and john into janus, or jovianus? plato was right when he expelled such poets from his state. little have they in common with phoebus and amphion who taught civil life to barbarous races. for myself, it stings me to the quick when men of my own profession are proved thus vain and vicious. find, then, an honest tutor to instruct virginio in greek. i have already taught him latin; but the difficulties of my early manhood deprived me of greek learning. my father drove me at the spear's point into legal studies. i wasted five years in that trifling, and it was not till i was twenty that i found a teacher in gregorio da spoleto. he began by grounding me in latin; but before we had advanced to greek, the good man was summoned to milan. his pupil, francesco sforza, went with il moro, a prisoner, into france. gregorio followed him, and died there. then my father died and left me the charge of my younger brothers and sisters. i had to neglect study and become a strict economist. next my dear relative pandolfo ariosto, the best and ablest of our house, died; and, as if these losses were not enough, i found myself beneath the yoke of ippolito d'este. all through the reign of julius ii. and for seven years of leo's pontificate he kept me on the move from place to place, and made me courier instead of poet. small chance had i of learning greek or hebrew on those mountain roads." these abstracts of ariosto's so-called satires will not be reckoned superfluous when we consider the clear light they cast upon his personal character and philosophy. the note of sincerity throughout is unmistakable. no one can read the pure and simple language of the poet without feeling that his mind was as transparent as his style, his character as ingenuous as his diction was perspicuous. when he tells us, for example, that he does not care for honors, that he prefers his study to the halls of princes, and that a turnip in his own house tastes better than the pheasants of a ducal table, we believe him. his confession of unseasonable love, and his acknowledgment that he has none of the qualities of judge or ruler, are a security for equal frankness when he professes himself free from avarice and the common vices of his age. his satire upon women, his picture of the roman prelates, his portraits of great men, and his condemnation of the humanists are convincing by their very moderation. like horace, he plays about the heart instead of wielding the whip of lucilius. this parsimony of expression adds weight to his censure, and renders these epistles more decisive than the invectives in which contemporary authors indulged. we doubt the calumnies of poggio and filelfo until we read the well-considered passage of the seventh epistle, which includes them all.[624] in like manner the last lines of the fourth epistle confirm the diaries of burchard and infessura, while the first contains an epitome of all that could be said of alexander's nepotism. these familiar poems have, therefore, a singular value for the illustration of the italian renaissance in general no less than for that of ariosto's own life. furthermore, they are unique in the annals of italian literature. the _terza rima_ of dante's vision has here become a vehicle for poetry separated by the narrowest interval from prose. it no longer lends itself to parody, as in the _beoni_ of lorenzo de' medici. it is not contaminated by the foul frivolities of the bernesque _capitoli_. it takes with accuracy the impress of the writer's common thought and feeling. the meter designed to express a sublime belief, adapts itself to the discursive utterance of a man of sense and culture in a disillusioned age; and thus we might use the varying fortunes of _terza rima_ to symbolize the passage from the _trecento_ to the _cinque cento_, from dante to ariosto, from faith and inspiration to art and reflection. ariosto's minor poems, with but one or two exceptions, have direct reference to the circumstances of his life. they consist of elegies, capitoli, and an eclogue composed in _terza rima_, with canzoni, sonnets, and madrigals of the type made obligatory by petrarch. the poet of the _orlando_ was not great in lyric verse. these lesser compositions show his mastery of simple and perspicuous style; but the specific qualities of his best work, its color and imagery and pointed humor, are absent. the language is sometimes pedestrian in directness, sometimes encumbered with conceits that anticipate the taste of the seventeenth century.[625] where it is plainest, we lack the seasoning of epigram and illustration which enlivens the satires; and though the sincere feeling and ovidian fluency of the more ambitious lyrics render them delightful reading, we acknowledge that a wider channel of description or narrative or reflection was needed for the full tide of the poet's eloquence. the purely subjective style was hardly suited to his genius. only three _canzoni_ are admitted into the canon of ariosto's works. the first relates the origin of his love for alessandra benucci, wife of tito strozzi, whom he admired as wife and married as widow. it was on s. john's day in the year 1513 that he saw her at florence among the gay crowd of the midsummer festival. she was dressed in black silk embroidered with two vines, her golden hair twisted into heavy braids, and her forehead overshadowed with a jeweled laurel-wreath. the brightness of the scene was blotted out for the poet, and swallowed in the intense luster of her beauty: d'altro ch'io vidi, tenni poco ricordo, e poco me ne cale: sol mi restò immortale memoria, ch'io non vidi in tutta quella bella città, di voi cosa più bella. how much he admired florence, he tells us in the fourteenth elegy, where this famous compliment occurs: se dentro un mur, sotto un medesmo nome fosser raccolti i tuoi palazzi sparsi, non ti sarian da pareggiar due rome. the second _canzone_ is supposed to be spoken by the soul of giuliano de' medici, duke of nemours, to his widow, filiberta of savoy. elevation of conception raises the language of this poem to occasional sublimity, as in the passage where he speaks of immortality: di me t'incresca, ma non altrimente che, s'io vivessi ancor, t'incresceria d'una partita mia che tu avessi a seguir fra pochi giorni: e se qualche e qualch'anno anco soggiorni col tuo mortale a patir caldo e verno, lo dêi stimar per un momento breve, verso quel altro, che mai non riceve nè termine nè fin, viver eterno. the undulation of rhythm obeying the thought renders these lines in a high sense musical. some of the elegies have been already used in illustration of other poems. there remain a group apart, which seem to have been directly modeled upon ovid. of these the sixth, describing a night of love, and the seventh, when the lover dares not enter his lady's door in moonlight lest he should be seen, are among the finest. the ninth, upon fidelity in love, contains these noble lines: la fede mai non debbe esser corrotta, o data a un sol o data ancor a cento, data in palese o data in una grotta. per la vil plebe è fatto il giuramento; ma tra gli spirti più elevati sono le semplici promesse un sagramento. the second is written on the famous black pen fringed with gold, which ariosto adopted for his device and wore embroidered on his clothes. he declines to explain the meaning of this bearing; but it is commonly believed to have referred in some way to his love for alessandra strozzi. baruffaldi conjectures that her black dress and golden hair suggested the two colors. but since this elegy threatens curious inquirers with actæon's fate, we may leave his device to the obscurity he sought. secrecy in respect to the great passion of his life was jealously maintained by ariosto. his ink-stand at ferrara still bears a cupid with one finger on his lip, as though to bid posterity observe the reticence adopted by the poet in his lifetime. the madrigals and sonnets do not add much to our conception of ariosto's genius. it has been well remarked that while his latin love-poems echo the style of horace, these are imitations of petrarch's manner.[626] in the former he celebrates the facile attractions of lydia and megilla, or confesses that he is inconstant in every thing except in always varying his loves.[627] in the latter he professes to admire a beautiful soul and eloquent lips more than physical charms, praises the spiritual excellences of his mistress, and writes complimentary sonnets on her golden hair.[628] in neither case is there any insincerity. ariosto never pretended to be a platonic lover, nor did he credit women with great nobility of nature. yet on the other hand it is certain that he was no less tenderly than passionately attached to alessandra; and this serious love, of which the sonnets are perhaps the record, triumphed over the volatility of his earlier affections. it is enough in this chapter to have dealt with ariosto's life and minor writings. the _orlando furioso_, considered both as the masterpiece of his genius and also as the representative poem of the italian renaissance, must form the subject of a separate study. footnotes: [597] see _satire_, i. 100-102; ii. 109-111. [598] see _satire_, i. 113-123, for his reasons. he seems chiefly to have dreaded the loss of personal liberty, if he took orders. [599] ippolito is said to have asked the poet: "dove avete trovato, messer lodovico, tante corbellerie?" that he did in effect say something of the kind is proved by _satire_, ii. 94-99. [600] campori, _notizie per la vita di l. ariosto_ (modena, vincenzi, 1871), pp. 55-58. [601] _ibid._ p. 58. [602] he penned the following couplet in 1503, when it is to be hoped he had yet not learned to know his master's real qualities: quis patre invicto gerit hercule fortius arma, mystica quis casto castius hippolyto? in another epigram, written on the death of the cardinal, he pretends that ippolito, hearing of alfonso's illness, vowed his own life for his brother's and was accepted. see _opere minori_, i. 349. [603] see _satires_ ii. vii.; _capitoli_ i. ii. [604] campori, _op. cit._ p. 59. [605] see _satire_ iv. 67-72. [606] see _satire_ v. 172-204. [607] this is one of the pretty stories on which some doubt has lately been cast. see campori, pp. 105-110, for a full discussion of its probable truth. [608] "small, but suited to my needs, freehold, not mean, the fruit of my own earnings." his son virginio substituted another inscription which may still be seen upon the little house-front: _sic domus hæc areostea propitios habeat deos olim ut pindarica_--"may this house of ariosto have gods propitious as of old the house of pindar." [609] the date is uncertain. it was not before 1522, perhaps even so late as 1527. [610] xv. 28; xxxiii. 24. [611] see panizzi, _op. cit._ vol. vi. p. cxix. for a description of these verbal changes. [612] see especially _satire_ ii. 28-51, and _capitolo_ i. [613] "ludovici areosti humantur ossa," etc., _op. min._ i. 365. [614] see the _opere minori_, vol. i. p. 336. also carducci's eloquent defense of these horatian verses in his essay, _delle poesie latine di l. ariosto_ (bologna, zanichelli, 1876), p. 82. the latter treatise is a learned criticism of ariosto's latin poetry from a point of view somewhat too indulgent to ariosto as a poet and a man. carducci, for example, calls the four alcaic stanzas in question "una cosellina quasi perfetta," though they contain three third lines like these: furore militis tremendo.... jacentem aquæ ad murmur cadentis.... mecumque cespite hoc recumbens. ariosto was but second-rate among the latin versifiers of his century. it must, however, be added that his latin poems were written in early manhood and only published after his death by giambattista pigna, in 1553. [615] _op. min._ vol. i. p. 333: quid nostra an gallo regi an servire latino, si sit idem hinc atque hinc non leve servitium? barbaricone esse est pejus sub nomine, quam sub moribus? at ducibus, dii, date digna malis. what ariosto thought about the italian despots finds full expression in the _cinque canti_, ii. 5, 6, where he protests that caligula, nero, phalaris, dionysius and creon were surpassed by them in cruelty and crime. [616] i have followed the order of lemonnier's edition, vol. i. of _opere minori_, florence, 1857. but the dates of composition are uncertain, and it may be doubted whether ariosto's own autograph can be taken as the basis of a chronological arrangement. much obscurity rests upon these poems. we do not know, for instance, whether they were sent to the friends addressed in them by name, or whether the author intended them for publication. the student may profitably consult upon these points the lithographed facsimile of the autograph, published at bologna by zanichelli in 1875. meanwhile it is enough to mention that the first epistle was addressed to messer galasso ariosto, the poet's brother, the second to messer alessandro ariosto and messer lodovico da bagno, the third and fourth to messer annibale maleguccio, the fifth to messer sismondo maleguccio, the sixth to messer buonaventura pistofilo, and the seventh to monsignore pietro bembo. [617] the first and second _capitoli_, upon the irksome and exhausting service of the cardinal, as dangerous to ariosto's health as it was irritating to his temper, should be read side by side with this epistle. [618] see above, p. 505, for ariosto's liking for turnips. he ate them with vinegar and wine sauce. [619] compare the apologue of the gourd and the pear-tree in the sixth satire (55-114). it is to the same effect, but even plainer. [620] the word i have translated "magpie" is _gaza_ in the autograph. this has been interpreted as a slip of the pen for _ganza_; but it may be a lombardism for _gazza_. in the latter case we should translate it "magpie," in the former "sweetheart." i prefer to read _gazza_, as the ironical analogy between a magpie and a poet is characteristic of ariosto. [621] the irony of this passage is justly celebrated. after all his hopes and all the pontiff's promises, the poet gets a kiss, a trifling favor, and has to trudge down from the vatican to his inn. the _mezza bolla_ is supposed to refer to the fine for entrance on the little benefice of sant'agata, half of which leo remitted. [622] the third elegy is a beautiful lamentation over his separation from his mistress. written to ease his heart in solitude, it is more impassioned and less guarded than the epistle. [623] it may be interesting to compare this scarcely disguised satire with the official flatteries of _canzone_ ii. and _elegies_ i., xiv., where ariosto praises the medici, and especially lorenzo, as the saviours of florence, the honor of italy. [624] 22-69. [625] as when, for instance, he calls the sun in the first _canzone_, "l'omicida lucido d'achille." several of the sonnets are artificial in their tropes. [626] de sanctis, ii. [627] see especially the lines entitled _de suâ ipsius mobilitate_. [628] see sonnets xii. xi. xxvi. xxiii. appendices. appendix i. _note on italian heroic verse._ (see above, p. 24.) the italian hendecasyllable is an accentual iambic line of five feet with one unaccented syllable over and included in the rhyme. thus the first line of the _inferno_ may be divided:- nel mez|zo del | cammin | di nos|tra vita. when the verse is so constructed, it is said to be _piano_, the rhyme being what in english we call double. when the rhyme is single, the verse is _tronco_, and the rhythm corresponds to that of our heroic, as in the following instance (_par._ xxv. 102): il ver|no avreb|be un me|se d'un | sol dì. when the rhyme is treble, the verse is _sdrucciolo_, of which form this is a specimen (_par._ xxvi. 78): che ri|fulge|va più | di mil|le milia. it is clear that the quality of the verse is not affected by the number of syllables in the rhyme; and the line is called hendecasyllabic because _versi piani_ are immeasurably more frequent and more agreeable to the ear than either _versi tronchi_ or _sdruccioli_. if we inquire into the origin of the meter, the first remark we have to make is that lines of similar construction were used by poets of provence. dante, for example, quotes (_de vulg. eloq._ ii. 2) from bertram: non puesc mudar q'un chantar non esparja. this fact will seem to many minds conclusive on the point in question. but, following the investigations of recent scholars, we find this form of verse pretty generally referred to the watch-song of the modenese soldiers. thus professor adolfo bartoli, after quoting two lines of that song, o tu qui servas armis ista moenia, noli dormire, moneo, sed vigila, adds: "quì apparisce per la prima volta il nostro verso endecasillabo, regolarmente accentato." if this, which is the view accepted by italian critics, be right, he ought to have added that each line of the modenese watch-song is a _sdrucciolo_ verse. otherwise, the rhythm bears the appearance of a six-foot accentual iambic, an appearance which is confirmed by the recurrence of a single rhyme or assonance in _a_ throughout the poem. still the strong accent on the antepenultimate syllable of every verse is sufficient to justify us in regarding the meter as _endecasillabo sdrucciolo_. going further back than the modenese watch-song (date about 924), the next question is whether any of the classic meters supplied its precedent. by reading either horatian sapphics or catullian hendecasyllables without attention to quantity, we may succeed in marking the beat of the _endecasillabo piano_.[629] thus: cui do|no lep|idum | novum | libellum? and: serus | in coe|lum red|eas, | diuque lætus | inter|sis po|pulo | quirini. when these lines are translated into literal italian, the metamorphosis is complete. thus: cui don|o il lep|ido | nuovo | libretto? and: tardo in | ciel ried|i e di|utur|no serba fausto il | tuo aspet|to al pop|ol di | quirino. even alcaics, unceremoniously handled by a shifting of the accent, which is violent disregard of quantity, yield like results. thus: atqui | scie | bat quæ | sibi | barbarus. or in italian: eppur | conob|be ciò | ch'il man|igoldo. the accentual sapphics of the middle ages throw some curious light upon these transmutations of meter. in a lament for aquileia (tenth century) we find these lines: bella sublimis inclyta divitiis, olim fuisti celsa ædificiis. here, instead of the latin sapphic, we get a loose _sdrucciolo_ rhythm. the meter of the serventese seems built upon this medieval sapphic model. here is an example[630]: o jeso cristo, padre onipotente, aprestame lo core con la mente che rasonare possa certamente un servientese. when the humanistic italians tried to write italian sapphics, they produced a meter not very dissimilar. thus in the _certamen coronarium_[631]: eccomi, i' son qui dea degli amici, quella qual tutti li omini solete mordere, e falso fuggitiva dirli or la volete. what seems tolerably certain is that the modern italian hendecasyllable was suggested by one of the latin eleven-syllabled meters, but that, in the decay of quantitative prosody, an iambic rhythm asserted itself. it has no exact correspondence in any classic meter; but it was early developed out of the accentual latin measures which replaced quantitative meter in the middle ages. signor rubieri points out that there may be traces of it in the verses of etruscan inscriptions.[632] nor is it impossible that the rhythm was indigenous, persisting through a long period of græco-roman culture, to reappear when the rustic language threw out a modern idiom. footnotes: [629] see ermolao rubieri, _storia della poesia popolare italiana_, p. 45. [630] carducci, _intorno ad alcune rime_, p. 107. [631] _opere volgari di l.b. alberti_, vol. i. p. ccxxv. [632] see passage referred to above, p. 524, note. appendix ii. _ten sonnets translated from folgore da san gemignano._ (see chapter i. p. 55.) _on the arming of a knight._ i. this morn a young squire shall be made a knight; whereof he fain would be right worthy found, and therefore pledgeth lands and castles round to furnish all that fits a man of might. meat, bread and wine he gives to many a wight; capons and pheasants on his board abound, where serving men and pages march around; choice chambers, torches, and wax-candle light. barbed steeds, a multitude, are in his thought, mailed men at arms and noble company, spears, pennants, housing-cloths, bells richly wrought. musicians following with great barony and jesters through the land his state have brought, with dames and damsels whereso rideth he. ii. lo prowess, who despoileth him straightway, and saith: "friend, now beseems it thee to strip; for i will see men naked, thigh and hip, and thou my will must know and eke obey; and leave what was thy wont until this day, and for new toil, new sweat, thy strength equip; this do, and thou shalt join my fellowship, if of fair deeds thou tire not nor cry nay." and when she sees his comely body bare, forthwith within her arms she him doth take, and saith: "these limbs thou yieldest to my prayer; i do accept thee, and this gift thee make, so that thy deeds may shine for ever fair, my lips shall never more thy praise forsake." iii. humility to him doth gently go, and saith: "i would in no wise weary thee; yet must i cleanse and wash thee thoroughly, and i will make thee whiter than the snow. hear what i tell thee in few words, for so fain am i of thy heart to hold the key; now must thou sail henceforward after me; and i will guide thee as myself do go. but one thing would i have thee straightway leave: well knowest thou mine enemy is pride; let her no more unto thy spirit cleave: so leal a friend with thee will i abide that favor from all folk thou shalt receive; this grace hath he who keepeth on my side." iv. then did discretion to the squire draw near, and drieth him with a fair cloth and clean, and straightway putteth him the sheets between, silk, linen, counterpane, and minevere. think now of this! until the day was clear, with songs and music and delight the queen, and with new knights, fair fellows well-beseen, to make him perfect, gave him goodly cheer. then saith she: "rise forthwith, for now 'tis due, thou shouldst be born into the world again; keep well the order thou dost take in view." unfathomable thoughts with him remain of that great bond he may no more eschew; nor can he say, "i'll hide me from this chain." v. comes blithesomeness with mirth and merriment, all decked in flowers she seemeth a rose-tree; of linen, silk, cloth, fur, now beareth she to the new knight a rich habiliment; head-gear and cap and garland flower-besprent, so brave they were, maybloom he seemed to be; with such a rout, so many and such glee, that the floor shook. then to her work she went; and stood him on his feet in hose and shoon; and purse and gilded girdle neath the fur that drapes his goodly limbs, she buckles on; then bids the singers and sweet music stir, and showeth him to ladies for a boon and all who in that following went with her. _the cry for courtesy._ courtesy! courtesy! courtesy! i call: but from no quarter comes there a reply. they who should show her, hide her; wherefore i and whoso needs her, ill must us befall. greed with his hook hath ta'en men one and all, and murdered every grace that dumb doth lie: whence, if i grieve, i know the reason why; from you, great men, to god i make my call: for you my mother courtesy have cast so low beneath your feet she there must bleed; your gold remains, but you're not made to last of eve and adam we are all the seed: able to give and spend, you hold wealth fast: ill is the nature that rears such a breed! _on the ghibelline victories._ i praise thee not, o god, nor give thee glory, nor yield thee any thanks, nor bow the knee, nor pay thee service; for this irketh me more than the souls to stand in purgatory; since thou hast made us guelphs a jest and story unto the ghibellines for all to see: and if uguccion claimed tax of thee, thou'dst pay it without interrogatory. ah, well i wot they know thee! and have stolen st. martin from thee, altopascio, st. michael, and the treasure thou hast lost; and thou that rotten rabble so hast swollen that pride now counts for tribute; even so thou'st made their heart stone-hard to thine own cost. _to the pisans._ ye are more silky-sleek than ermines are, ye pisan counts, knights, damozels, and squires, who think by combing out your hair like wires to drive the men of florence from their car. ye make the ghibellines free near and far, here, there, in cities, castles, buts, and byres, seeing how gallant in your brave attires, how bold you look, true paladins of war. stout-hearted are ye as a hare in chase, to meet the sails of genoa on the sea; and men of lucca never saw your face. dogs with a bone for courtesy are ye: could folgore but gain a special grace, he'd have you banded 'gainst all men that be. _on discretion._ dear friend, not every herb puts forth a flower; nor every flower that blossoms, fruit doth bear; nor hath each spoken word a virtue rare; nor every stone in earth its healing power: this thing is good when mellow, that when sour; one seems to grieve, within doth rest from care; not every torch is brave that flaunts in air; there is what dead doth seem, yet flame doth shower. wherefore it ill behooveth a wise man his truss of every grass that grows to bind, or pile his back with every stone he can, or counsel from each word to seek to find, or take his walks abroad with dick and dan: not without cause i'm moved to speak my mind. _on disordered will._ what time desire hath o'er the soul such sway that reason finds nor place nor puissance here, men oft do laugh at what should claim a tear, and over grievous dole are seeming gay. he sure would travel far from sense astray who should take frigid ice for fire; and near unto this plight are those who make glad cheer for what should rather cause their soul dismay. but more at heart might he feel heavy pain who made his reason subject to mere will, and followed wandering impulse without rein; seeing no lordship is so rich as still one's upright self unswerving to sustain, to follow worth, to flee things vain and ill. appendix iii. _translations from alesso donati._ (see chapter iii. p. 157.) _the nun._ the knotted cord, dark veil and tunic gray, i'll fling aside, and eke this scapulary, which keeps me here a nun immured alway: and then with thee, dressed like a gallant gay, with girded loins and limber gait and free, i'll roam the world, where chance us twain may carry. i am content slave, scullion-wench to be; that will not irk me as this irketh me! _the lovers._ nay, get thee gone now, but so quietly, by god, so gently go, my love, that yon damned villain may hear naught thereof! he's quick of hearing: if he hears but me turn myself round in bed, he clasps me tight for fear i may be sped. god curse whoever joined me to this hind, or hopes in churls good merchandise to find! _the girl._ in dole i dree the days all lonely here, a young girl by her mother shut from life, who guardeth me with jealousy and strife: but by the cross of god i swear to her, if still she keeps me pent up thus to pine, i'll say: "aroint thee, thou fell hag malign!" and fling yon wheel and distaff to the wall, and fly to thee, my love, who art mine all! appendix iv. _jacopone's presepio, corrotto, and cantico dell'amore superardente, translated into english verse._ (see chapter v. pp. 291 _et seq._) three poems attributed to jacopone da todi. though judging it impossible to preserve the least part of jacopone's charm in a translation, i have made versions of the christmas carol, the passion poem, and the hymn of divine love, alluded to in chapter v., pp. 291-298. the metrical structure of the first is confused in the original; but i have adopted a stanza which follows the scheme pretty closely, and reproduces the exact number of the lines. in the second i have forced myself to repeat the same rhyme at the close of each of the thirty-four strophes, which in the italian has a very fine effect--the sound being _ato_. no english equivalent can do it justice. the third poem i admit to be really untranslatable. the recurrences of strong voweled endings in _ore_, _are_, _ezza_, _ate_ cannot be imitated. _the presepio._ by thy great and glorious merit, mary, mother, maid! in thy firstling, new-born child all our life is laid. that sweet smiling infant child, born for us, i wis; that majestic baby mild, yield him to our kiss! clasping and embracing him, we shall drink of bliss. who could crave a deeper joy?- purer none was made. for thy beauteous baby boy we a-hungered burn; yea, with heart and soul of grace long for him and yearn. grant us then this prayer; his face toward our bosom turn: let him keep us in his care, on his bosom stayed! mary, in the manger where thou hast strewn his nest, with thy darling baby we fain would dwell at rest those who cannot take him, see, place him on their breast! who shall be so rude and wild as to spurn thee, maid? come and look upon her child nestling in the hay! see his fair arms opened wide, on her lap to play! and she tucks him by her side, cloaks him as she may; gives her paps unto his mouth, where his lips are laid. for the little babe had drouth, sucked the breast she gave; all he sought was that sweet breast, broth he did not crave; with his tiny mouth he pressed, tiny mouth that clave: ah, the tiny baby thing, mouth to bosom laid! she with left hand cradling rocked and hushed her boy, and with holy lullabies quieted her toy. who so churlish but would rise to behold heaven's joy sleeping?--in what darkness drowned, dead and renegade?- little angels all around danced, and carols flung; making verselets sweet and true, still of love they sung; calling saints and sinners too with love's tender tongue; now that heaven's high glory is on this earth displayed. choose we gentle courtesies, churlish ways forswear; let us one and all behold jesus sleeping there. earth, air, heaven he will unfold, flowering, laughing fair; such a sweetness, such a grace from his eyes hath rayed. o poor humble human race, how uplift art thou! with the divine dignity re-united now! even the virgin mary, she all amazed doth bow; and to us who sin inherit, seems as though she prayed. by thy great glorious merit, mary, mother, maid! in thy firstling, new-born child all our life is laid. _the corrotto._ _messenger._ lady of paradise, woe's me, thy son is taken, even he, christ jesus, that saint blessed! run, lady, look amain how the folk him constrain: methinks they him have slain, sore scourged, with rods opprest. _mary._ nay, how could this thing be? to folly ne'er turned he, jesus, the hope of me: how did they him arrest? _messenger._ lady, he was betrayed; judas sold him, and bade those thirty crowns be paid- poor gain, where bad is best. _mary._ ho, succor! magdalen! the storm is on me: men my own son, christ, have ta'en! this news hath pierced my breast. _messenger._ aid, lady! up and run! they spit upon thy son, and hale him through the town; to pilate they him wrest. _mary._ o pilate, do not let my son to pain be set! that he is guiltless, yet with proofs i can protest. _the jews._ crucify! crucify! who would be king, must die. he spurns the senate by our laws, as these attest. we'll see if, stanch of state, he can abide this fate; die shall he at the gate, and barab be redressed. _mary._ i pray thee, hear my prayer! think on my pain and care! perchance thou then wilt bear new thoughts and change thy quest. _the jews._ bring forth the thieves, for they shall walk with him this day: crown him with thorns, and say he was made king in jest. _mary._ son, son, son, dear son! o son, my lovely son! son, who shall shed upon my anguished bosom rest? o jocund eyes, sweet son! why art thou silent? son! son, wherefore dost thou shun this thy own mother's breast? _messenger._ lady, behold the tree! the people bring it, see, where the true light must be lift up at man's behest! _mary._ o cross, what wilt thou do? wilt thou my son undo? him will they fix on you, him who hath ne'er transgressed? _messenger._ up, full of grief and bale! they strip thy son, and rail; the folk are fain to nail him on yon cross they've dressed. _mary._ if ye his raiment strip, i'll see him, breast and hip! lo, how the cruel whip hath bloodied back and chest! _messenger._ lady, his hand outspread unto the cross is laid: 'tis pierced; the huge nail's head down to the wood they've pressed. they seize his other hand, and on the tree expand: his pangs are doubled and too keen to be expressed! lady, his feet they take, and pin them to the stake, rack every joint, and make each sinew manifest! _mary._ i now the dirge commence. son, my life's sole defense! son, who hath torn thee hence? sweet son, my son caressed! far better done had they my heart to pluck away, than by thy cross to lay of thee thus dispossessed! _christ._ mother, why weep'st thou so? thou dealest me death's blow. to watch thy tears, thy woe unstinted, tears my breast. _mary._ son, who hath twinned us two? son, father, husband true! son, who thy body slew? son, who hath thee suppressed? _christ._ mother, why wail and chide? i will thou shouldst abide, and serve those comrades tried i saved amid the rest. _mary._ son, say not this to me! fain would i hang with thee pierced on the cross, and be by thy side dying blessed! one grave should hold us twain, son of thy mother's pain! mother and son remain by one same doom oppressed! _christ._ mother, heart-full of woe, i bid thee rise and go to john, my chosen!--so is he thy son confessed. john, this my mother see: take her in charity: cherish her piteously: the sword hath pierced her breast. _mary._ son! ah, thy soul hath flown! son of the woman lone! son of the overthrown! son, poisoned by sin's pest! son of white ruddy cheer! son without mate or peer! son, who shall help me here, son, left by thee, distressed! son, white and fair of face! son of pure jocund grace! son, why did this wild place, this world, son, thee detest? son, sweet and pleasant son! son of the sorrowing one! son, why hath thee undone to death this folk unblessed? john, my new son, behold thy brother he is cold! i feel the sword foretold, which prophecies attest. lo, son and mother slain! dour death hath seized the twain: mother and son, they strain upon one cross embraced. here the miserable translation ends. but i would that i could summon from the deeps of memory some echo of the voice i heard at perugia, one dark good friday evening, singing penitential psalms. this made me feel of what sort was the _corrotto_, chanted by the confraternities of umbria. the psalms were sung on that occasion to a monotonous rhythm of melodiously simple outline by three solo voices in turn--soprano, tenor, and bass. at the ending of each psalm a candle before the high-altar was extinguished, until all light and hope and spiritual life went out for the damned soul. the soprano, who sustained the part of pathos, had the fullness of a powerful man's chest and larynx, with the pitch of a woman's and the timbre of a boy's voice. he seemed able to do what he chose in prolonging and sustaining notes, with wonderful effects of _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_ passing from the wildest and most piercing _forte_ to the tenderest _pianissimo_. he was hidden in the organ-loft; and as he sang, the organist sustained his cry with long-drawn shuddering chords and deep groans of the diapason. the whole church throbbed with the vibrations of the rising, falling melody; and the emotional thrill was as though christ's or mary's soul were speaking through the darkness to our hearts. i never elsewhere heard a soprano of this sort sing in tune so perfect or with so pure an intonation. the dramatic effect produced by the contrast between this soprano and the bass and tenor was simple but exceedingly striking. englishmen, familiar with cathedral music, may have derived a somewhat similar impression from the more complex motett of mendelssohn upon psalm xxii. i think that when the umbrian laud began to be dramatic, the parts in such a hymn as jacopone's _corrotto_ must have been distributed after the manner of these perugian good friday services. mary's was undoubtedly given to the soprano; that of the jews, possibly, to the bass; christ's, and perhaps the messenger's also, to the tenor. and it is possible that the rhythm was almost identical with what i heard; for that had every mark of venerable antiquity and popular sincerity. i now pass to the hymn of divine love, which tresatti entitles _cantico dell'amore superardente_ (book vi. 16). it consists of three hundred and seventy lines, all of which i have translated, though i content myself here with some extracts: o love of charity! why didst thou so wound me? why breaks my heart through thee, my heart which burns with love? it burns and glows and finds no place to stay; it cannot fly, for it is bound so tight; it melts like wax before the flame away; living, it dies; swoons, faints, dissolves outright; prays for the force to fly some little way; finds itself in the furnace fiery-white; ah me, in this sore plight, who, what consumes my breath? ah, thus to live is death! so swell the flames of love. or ere i tasted jesus, i besought to love him, dreaming pure delights to prove, and dwell at peace mid sweet things honey-fraught, far from all pain on those pure heights above: now find i torment other than i sought; i knew not that my heart would break for love! there is no image of the semblance of my plight! i die, drowned in delight, and live heart-lost in love! lost is my heart and all my reason gone, my will, my liking, and all sentiment; beauty is mere vile mud for eyes to shun; soft cheer and wealth are naught but detriment; one tree of love, laden with fruit, but one, fixed in my heart, supplies me nourishment: hourly therefrom are sent, with force that never tires but varies still, desires, strength, sense, the gifts of love. * * * * * let none rebuke me then, none reprehend, if love so great to madness driveth me! what heart from love her fortress shall defend? so thralled, what heart from love shall hope to flee? think, how could any heart not break and rend, or bear this furnace-flame's intensity?- could i but only be blest with some soul that knows, pities and feels the woes which whelm my heart with love! lo, heaven, lo, earth cries out, cries out for aye, and all things cry that i must love even thus! each calls:--with all thy heart to that love fly, loving, who strove to clasp thee, amorous; that love who for thy love did seek and sigh, to draw thee up to him, he fashioned us!- such beauty luminous, such goodness, such delight, flows from that holy light, beams on my soul from love! * * * * * for thee, o love, i waste, swooning away! i wander calling loud with thee to be! when thou departest, i die day by day; i groan and weep to have thee close to me: when thou returnest, my heart swells; i pray to be transmuted utterly in thee! delay not then!--ah me! love deigns to bring me grace! binds me in his embrace, consumes my heart with love! * * * * * love, love, thou hast me smitten, wounded sore! no speech but love, love, love! can i deliver! love, i am one with thee, to part no more! love, love, thee only shall i clasp for ever! love, love, strong love, thou forcest me to soar heavenward! my heart expands; with love i quiver; for thee i swoon and shiver, love, pant with thee to dwell! love, if thou lovest me well, oh, make me die of love! love, love, love, jesus, i have scaped the seas! love, love, love, jesus, thou has guided me! love, love, love, jesus, give me rest and peace! love, love, love, jesus, i'm inflamed by thee! love, love, love, jesus! from wild waves release! make me, love, dwell for ever clasped with thee! and be transformed in thee, in truest charity, in highest verity, of pure transmuted love! love, love, love, love, the world's exclaim and cry! love, love, love, love, each thing this cry returns! love, love, love, love, thou art so deep, so high: whoso clasps thee, for thee more madly yearns! love, love, thou art a circle like the sky; who enters, with thy love for ever burns! web, woof, art thou; he learns, who clothes himself with thee, such sweetness, suavity, that still he shouts, love, love! love, love, love, love, thou giv'st me such strong pain! love, love, love, love, how shall i bear this ache? love, love, love, love, thou fill'st my heart amain! love, love, love, love, i feel my heart must break! love, love, love, love, thou dost me so constrain! love, love, love, love, absorb me for love's sake! love-languor, sweet to take! love, my love amorous! love, my delicious! swallow my soul in love! love, love, love, love, my heart it is so riven! love, love, love, love, what wounds i feel, what bliss! love, love, love, love, i'm drawn and rapt to heaven! love, love, i'm ravished by thy beauteousness! love, love, life's naught, for less than nothing given! love, love, the other life is one with this! thy love the soul's life is! to leave thee were death's anguish! thou mak'st her swoon and languish, clasped, overwhelmed in love! love, love, love, love, o jesus amorous! love, love, fain would i die embracing thee! love, love, love, love, o jesus my soul's spouse! love, love, love, love, death i demand of thee! love, love, love, love, jesus, my lover, thus resume me, let me be transformed in thee! where am i? love! ah me! jesus, my hope! in thee ingulf me, whelm in love! appendix v. _passages translated from the morgante maggiore of pulci._ (see chapter vii. pp. 444 _et seq._) morgante xviii. 115. answered margutte: "friend, i never boasted: i don't believe in black more than in blue, but in fat capons, boiled, or may be roasted; and i believe sometimes in butter too, in beer and must, where bobs a pippin toasted; sharp liquor more than sweet i reckon true; but mostly to old wine my faith i pin, and hold him saved who firmly trusts therein. "i believe in the tartlet and the tart; one is the mother, t'other is her son: the perfect paternoster is a part of liver, fried in slips, three, two, or one; which also from the primal liver start: and since i'm dry, and fain would swill a tun, if mahomet forbids the juice of grape, i reckon him a nightmare, phantom, ape. "apollo's naught but a delirious vision, and trivigant perchance a midnight specter; faith, like the itch, is catching; what revision this sentence needs, you'll make, nor ask the rector: to waste no words, you may without misprision dub me as rank a heretic as hector: i don't disgrace my lineage, nor indeed am i the cabbage-ground for any creed. "faith's as man gets it, this, that, or another! see then what sort of creed i'm bound to follow: for you must know a greek nun was my mother, my sire at brusa, mid the turks, a mollah; i played the rebeck first, and made a pother about the trojan war, flattered apollo, praised up achilles, hector, helen fair, not once, but twenty thousand times, i swear. "next, growing weary of my light guitar, i donned a military bow and quiver; one day within the mosque i went to war, and shot my grave old daddy through the liver: then to my loins i girt this scimitar, and journeyed forth o'er sea, land, town, and river taking for comrades in each holy work the congregated sins of greek and turk. "that's much the same as all the sins of hell! i've seventy-seven at least about me, mortal; summer and winter in my breast they swell: guess now how many venial crowd the portal! 'twere quite impossible, i know full well, if the world never ended, to report all the crimes i've done in this one life alone; each item too is catalogued and known. "i pray you listen for one little minute; the skein shall be unraveled in a trice:- when i've got cash, i'm gay as any linnet, cast with who calls, cut cards, and fling the dice; all times, all places, or the devil's in it, serve me for play; i've spent on this one vice fame, fortune--staked my coat, my shirt, my breeches; i hope this specimen will meet your wishes. "don't ask what juggler's tricks i teach the boxes! or whether sixes serve me when i call, or jumps an ace up!--foxes pair with foxes; the same pitch tars our fingers, one and all!- perhaps i don't know how to fleece the doxies? perhaps i can't cheat, cozen, swindle, bawl? perhaps i never learned to patter slang?- i know each trick, each turn, and lead the gang. "gluttony after gambling's my prime pleasure. here it behooves one to be learned and wise, to gauge the merits and the virtues measure of pheasant, partridge, fowl; with practiced eyes noting each part, of every dish at leisure, seeking where tender slice or morsel lies; and since i've touched upon this point, i'll tell ye how best to grease your jaws and stuff your belly. "if i could only show you how i baste, if you could see me turn the spit and ladle, you'd swear i had a most consummate taste! of what ingredients are black-puddings made all? not to be burned, and not to run to waste, not over-hot nor frozen in the cradle, done to a turn, juicy, not bathed in butter, smooth, plump and swelling!--don't you hear 'em sputter? "about fried liver now receive my say: it wants five pieces--count them on your fingers; it must be round--keep this in mind, i pray!- fire on this side or that the frying injures! be careful not to brush the fat away, which keeps the stew soft while it drops and lingers; you must divide it in two parts, and see that each part is apportioned equally. "it should not be too large; but there's a saw- stint not your bag-pudding of hose and jacket: now mark me, for i'm laying down the law- don't overcook the morsel in the packet; it ought to melt, midway twixt done and raw, like a ripe autumn fig, when you attack it: serve it up hissing, and then sound the tabors with spice and orange peel, to end your labors! "i've got a hundred hints to give the wary! but take it on my word, ragouts and pies are the true test of science culinary: a lamprey now--you'd scarce believe your eyes to see its stews and salmis, how they vary! yet all are known and numbered by the wise.- true gourmandize hath seventy-two divisions, besides a few that are my own additions: "if one be missed, the cooking's spoiled, that's granted: not heaven itself can save a ruined platter!- from now till noon i'd hold your sense enchanted with secrets of my art, if i dared chatter!- i kept an inn at corinth once, and wanted to argue publicly upon the matter.- but we must leave this point, for 'twill divert you to hear about another cardinal virtue. "only to f these confidences carry; just think what 'twill be when we come to r! i plow (no nonsense) with ass, cassiowary, ox, camel--any other beast bizarre. a thousand bonfires, prisons, by lord harry, my tricks have earned, and something uglier far: where my head will not pass, i stick my tail in, and what i like's to hear the good folk railing. "take me to balls, to banquets, for an airing; i'll do my duty there with hands and feet: i'm rude, importunate, a bore, and daring; on friends no less than foes i'll take a seat: to shame i've said farewell; nor am i sparing of fawning like a cur when kicks i meet, but tell my tale and swagger up and down, and with a thousand fibs each exploit crown. "no need to ask if i've kept geese at grass, purveyed stewed prunes, taught kittens how to play. suppose a thousand--widow, wife, and lass: that's just about my figure, i dare say. when mid the women by mishap i pass, six out of every five become my prey; i make the pretty dears so deucéd cunning, they beat nurse, maid, duenna out of running. "three of my moral qualities are these- gluttony, dicing, as i said, and drinking: but, since we'll drain the barrel to the lees, hear now the fourth and foremost to my thinking. no need of hooks or ladders, crows or keys, i promise, where my hands are! without blinking i've worn the cross and miter on my forehead- no pope's nor priest's, but something much more horrid! "screws, files and jemmies are my stock in trade, springs, picklocks, of more sorts than i could mention; rope and wood ladders, levers, slippers made of noiseless felt--my patented invention- drowsing all ears, where'er my feet are laid; i fashioned them to take my mind's intention; fire too that by itself no light delivers, but when i spit on it, springs up and quivers. "see me but in a church alone and frisky! i'm keener on the robbing of an altar than gaugers when they scent a keg of whiskey; then to the alms-box off i fly, nor falter: sacristies are my passion; though 'tis risky, with cross and sacring cup i never palter, but pull the crucifixes down and stow 'em- virgins and saints and effigies, you know 'em! "i've swept, may-be, a hen-roost in my day and if you'd seen me loot a lot of washing, you'd swear that never maid or housewife gay could clear it in a style so smart and dashing! if naught, morgante, 's left but blooming may to strip, i steal it--i can't keep from flashing! i ne'er drew difference twixt thine and mine: all things, to start with, were effects divine. "but ere i learned to thieve thus on the sly, i ran the highway rig as bold as any; i would have robbed the biggest saint on high- if there _are_ saints above us--for a penny; but loving peace and fair tranquillity, i left assassination to the many: not that my will was weak--i'd rather say, because theft mixed with murder does not pay. "my virtues theological now smile on! god knows if i can forge or falsify: i'll turn an h into a greek upsilon- you could not write a neater, prettier y! i gut the pages of a book, and pile on new rubrics for new chapters, change the die, change title, cover, index, name--the poet who wrote the verse i counterfeit, won't know it. "false oaths and perjuries come trickling down out of my mouth as smooth and sweet as honey, ripe figs, or macaroni nicely brown, or anything that's natural and funny: suppose they brain some guileless count or clown; all's one; ware heads, i cry, and pouch my money! i've set on foot full many a strife and wrangle, and left 'em in inextricable tangle. "with ready coin i always square a scandal: of oaths i've got a perfect stock in trade; each saint supplies my speech with some choice handle; i run them off in rows from a to z: in lying no man holds to me a candle; truth's always the reverse of what i've said:- i'd like to see more fire than land or water, in heaven and earth naught but plague, famine, slaughter. "don't fancy that in fasting, prayer and prate, or charities my spare time i employ! not to seem stiff, i beg from gate to gate, and always utter something to annoy: proud, envious, tiresome and importunate- this character i've cherished from a boy; for the seven deadly sins and all the other vices have brought me up to be their brother! "so that i'd roam the world, cross ban and border, hood-winked, nor ever fear to miss my way; as sweet and clean as any lump of ordure, i leave my trail like slugs where'er i stray, nor seek to hide that slimy self-recorder: creeds, customs, friends i slough from day to day; change skin and climate, as it suits me best, for i was evil even in the nest. "i've left a whole long chapter undiscussed of countless peccadilloes in a jumble: were i to catalogue each crime and lust, the medley of my sins might make you grumble: 'twould take from now till june to lay the dust, if in this mud heap we began to tumble; one only point i'd have you still perpend- i never in my life betrayed a friend." morgante xxv. 119. there is a spirit, astarotte height, wise, terrible, and fierce exceedingly; in hell's dark caves profound he hides from sight: no goblin, but a fiend far blacker he.- malagigi summoned him one deep midnight, and cried: "how fares rinaldo, tell to me! then will i say what more i'd have thee work; but look not on me with face so mirk! "if thou wilt do this bidding, i declare i'll never call nor conjure thee by force, but burn upon my death yon book, i swear, which can alone compel thee in due course: so shalt thou live thenceforward free as air."- thereat the fiend swaggered, and had recourse to threatening wiles, and would not yield an inch, if haply he could make the master flinch. but when he saw malagigi's blood was stirred, in act to flash the ring of his dread art, and hurl him to some tomb by book and word, he threw his cards up with a sudden start, and cried: "of your will yet i've nothing heard." then malagigi answered: "in what part are ricciardetto and rinaldo now? tell all the truth, or you'll repent, i vow!" morgante xxv. 135. said astarotte: "this point remains obscure, unless i thought the whole night through thereon; nor would my best of judgments be secure;- the paths of heaven for us are all undone, our sight of things to be is no more sure than that of sages gazing on the sun; for neither man nor beast would 'scape from hell, had not our wings been shortened when we fell. "of the old testament i've much to teach, and of what happened in the days gone by; but all things do not come within our reach: one only power there is, who sees on high, as in a glass before him, all and each, past, present, and remote futurity: he who made all that is, alone knows all, nor doth the son well know what shall befall. "therefore i could not without thought intense tell thee the destined fate of charlemain:- know that the air around us now is dense with spirits; in their hands i see them strain astrolabe, almanac, and tablet, whence to read yon signs in heaven of strife and bane- the blood and treason, overthrow and war, menaced by mars in scorpio angular. "and for thy better understanding, he is joined with saturn in the ascendant, so charged with all-powerful malignity that e'en the wars of turnus had less woe. slaughters of many peoples we shall see, with dire disasters in confusion flow, and change of states and mighty realms; for i know that these signs were never wont to lie. "i know not whether thou hast fixed thy thought upon those comets which appeared of late, veru and dominus and ascon, brought treasons and wars and strife to indicate, with deaths of princes and great nobles fraught? these, too, ne'er falsified the word of fate. so that it seems from what i learn and see, that what i say, and worse, is like to be. "what gano with marsilio planned before, i know not, since i did not think thereon: but he's the same, methinks, he was of yore; wherefore this needs no divination: a seat is waiting for him at hell's core; and if his life's book i correctly con, that evil soul will very shortly go to weep his sins in everlasting woe." then spake malagigi: "something thou hast said which holds my sense and reason still in doubt, that some things even from the son are hid; this thy dark saying i can fathom not." then astarotte: "thou, it seems, hast read but ill thy bible, or its words forgot; for when the son was asked of that great day, only the father knows, he then did say. "mark my words, malagigi! thou shalt hear, now if thou wilt, the fiend's theology: then to thy churchmen go, and make it clear. you say: three persons in one entity, one substance; and to this we, too, adhere: one flawless, pure, unmixed activity:- wherefore it follows from what went before, that this alone is what you all adore. "one mover, whence all movement is impelled: one order, whence all order hath its rise; one cause, whereby all causes are compelled; one power, whence flow all powers and energies; one fire, wherein all radiances are held; one principle, which every truth implies; one knowledge, whence all wisdom hath been given; one good, which made all good in earth and heaven. "this is that father and that ancient king, who hath made all things and can all things know, but cannot change his own wise ordering, else heaven and earth to ruin both would go. having lost his friendship, i no more may wing my flight unto the mirror, where our woe perchance e'en now is clearly shown to view; albeit futurity i never knew. "if lucifer had known the doom to be, he had not brought those fruits of rashness forth; nor had he ruined for eternity, seeking his princely station in the north; but being impotent all things to see, he and we all were damned 'neath heaven and earth; and since he was the first to sin, he first fell to giudecca, and still fares the worst. "nor had we vainly tempted all the blest, who now sit crowned with stars in paradise, if, as i said, a veil by god's behest had not been drawn before our mental eyes; nor would that saint, of saints the first and best been tempted, as your gospel testifies, and borne by satan to the pinnacle where at the last he saw his miracle. "and forasmuch as he makes nothing ill, and all hath circumscribed by fixed decrees, and what he made is present with him still, being established on just premises, know that this lord repents not of his will; nay, if one saith that change hath been, he sees falsehood for truth, in sense and judgment blind for what is now, was in the primal mind." "tell me," then answered malagigi, "more, since thou'rt an angel sage and rational! if that first mover, whom we all adore, within his secret soul foreknew your fell, if time and hour were both foreseen before, his sentence must be found tyrannical, lacking both justice and true charity; since, while creating, and while damning, he "foreknew you to be frail and formed in sin; nathless you call him just and piteous, nor was there room, you say, pardon to win:- this makes our god the partisan of those angels who stayed the gates of heaven within, who knew the true from false, discerning thus which side would prosper, which would lose the day, nor went, like you, with lucifer astray." astarotte, like the devil, raged with pain; then cried: "that just sabaoth loved no more michael than lucifer; nor made he cain more apt than abel to shed brother's gore: if one than nimrod was more proud and vain, if the other, all unlike to gabriel, swore he'd not repent nor bellow psalms to heaven, it was free-will condemned both unforgiven. "that was the single cause that damned us all: his clemency, moreover, gave full time, wherein 'twas granted us to shun the fall, and by repentance to compound our crime; but now we've fallen from grace beyond recall: just was our sentence from that judge sublime; his foresight shortened not our day of grace, for timely penitence aye finds a place. "just is the father, son, and just the word! his justice with great mercy was combined: through pride no more than thanklessness we erred; that was our sin malignant and unkind: nor hath remorse our stubborn purpose stirred, seeing that evil nourished in the mind and will of those who knew the good, and were untempted, never yet was changed to fair. "adam knew not the nature of his sin; therefore his primal error was forgiven, because the tempter took him in a gin: only his disobedience angered heaven; therefore, though cast from eden, he might win grace, when repentance from his heart had driven the wicked will, with peace to end his strife, and mercy also in eternal life. "but the angelic nature, once debased, can never more to purity return: it sinned with science and corrupted taste: whence in despair incurable we burn. now, if that wise one answered not, nor raised his voice, when pilate asked of him to learn what was the truth, the truth was at his side; this ignorance was therefore justified. "pilate was lost, because in doing well he persevered not when he washed his hand; and judas, too, beyond redemption fell, because, though penitent at last, he banned hope, without which no soul escapes from hell: his doom no origen shall countermand, nor who to judas give what's meant for judah- _in diebus illis salvabitur juda._ "thus there is one first power in heaven who knew all things, by whom all things were also made: making and damning us, he still was true; on truth and justice all his work is laid: future and past are present to his view; for it must follow, as i elsewhere said, that the whole world before his face should lie, from whom proceeds force, virtue, energy. "but now that thou hast bound me to relate, my master thou, the cause of our mischance, thou fain would'st hear why he who rules o'er fate, and of our fall foresaw each circumstance, labored in vain, and made us reprobate?- sealed is that rubric, closed from every glance, reserved for him, the lord victorious: i know not, i can only answer thus! "nor speak i this to put thy mind to proof; but forasmuch as i discern that men weave on this warp of doubts a misty woof, seeking to learn; albeit they cannot ken whence flows the nile--the danube's not enough! assure thy soul, nor ask the how and when, that heaven's high master, as the psalmist taught, is just and true in all that he hath wrought. "the things whereof i speak are known not by poet or prophet, moralist or sage: yet mortal men in their presumption try to rank the hierarchies, stage over stage! a chieftain among seraphim was i; yet knew not what in many a learnéd page denys and gregory wrote!--full surely they who paint heaven after earth will go astray! "but above all things see thou art not led by elves and wandering sprites, a tricksy kind, who never speak one word of truth, but shed doubt and suspicion on the hearer's mind; their aim is injury toward fools ill-sped: and, mark this well, they ne'er have been confined to glass or water, but reside in air, playing their pranks here, there, and everywhere. "from ear to ear they pass, and 'tis their vaunt ever to make things seem that are not so: for one delights in horseplay, jeer and jaunt; one deals in science; one pretends to show where treasures lurk in some forgotten haunt: others, more grave, futurity foreknow:- but now i've given thee hints enough, to tell that courtesy can even be found in hell!" morgante xxv. 282. and when rinaldo had learned all his need, "astarotte," he cried, "thou art a perfect friend, and i am bound to thee henceforth indeed! this i say truly: if god's will should bend, if grace divine should e'er so much concede as to reverse heaven's ordinance, amend its statutes, sentences, or high decrees, i will remember these thy services. "more at the present time i cannot give: the soul returns to him from whom it flew: the rest of us, thou knowest, will not live! o love supreme, rare courtesy and new."- i have no doubt that all my friends believe this verse belongs to petrarch; yet 'tis true rinaldo spoke it very long ago: but who robs not, is called a rogue, you know.- said astarotte: "thanks for your good will! yet shall those keys be lost for us for ever: high treason was our crime, measureless ill. thrice happy christians! one small tear can sever _your_ bonds!--one sigh, sent from the contrite will: lord, to thee only did i sin!--but never shall _we_ find grace: we sinned once; now we lie sentenced to hell for all eternity. "if after, say, some thousand million ages we might have hope yet once to see again the least spark of that love, this pang that rages here at the core, could scarce be reckoned pain!- but wherefore annotate such dreary pages? to wish for what can never be, is vain. therefore i mean with your kind approbation to change the subject of our conversation." morgante xxv. 73. what god ordains is no chance miracle. next prodigies and signs in heaven were seen; for the sun suddenly turned ghastly pale, and clouds with rain o'erladen flew between, muttering low prelude to their thunder-knell, as when jove shakes the world with awful spleen: next wind and fury, hail and tempest, hiss o'er earth and skies--good god, what doom is this? then while they cowered together dumb with dread, lightning flashed forth and hurtled at their side, which struck a laurel's leaf-embowered head, and burned it; cleft unto the earth, it died. o phoebus! yon fair curls of gold outspread! how could'st thou bear to see thy love, thy pride, thus thunder-smitten? hath thy sacred bay lost her inviolable rights to-day? marsilio cries: "mahound! what can it mean! what doleful mystery lies hid beneath? o bianciardino, to our state, i ween, this omen brings some threat of change or death!" but, while he spoke, an earthquake shook the scene, nay, shook both hemispheres with blustering breath: falseron's face changed hue, grew cold and hot, and even bianciardino liked it not. yet none for very fear dared move a limb, the while above their heads a sudden flush spread like live fire, that made the daylight dim; and from the font they saw the water gush in gouts and crimson eddies from the brim; and what it sprinkled, with a livid flush burned: yea, the grass flared up on every side; for the well boiled, a fierce and sanguine tide. above the fountain rose a locust-tree, the tree where judas hanged himself, 'tis said; this turned the heart of gano sick to see, for now it ran with ruddy sweat and bled, then dried both trunk and branches suddenly, moulting its scattered leaves by hundreds dead; and on his pate a bean came tumbling down, which made the hairs all bristle on his crown. the beasts who roamed at will within the park, set up a dismal howl and wail of woe; then turned and rushed amuck with yelp and bark, butting their horns and charging to and fro: marsilio and his comrades in the dark watched all dismayed to see how things would go; and none knew well what he should say or do, so dreadful was heaven's wrath upon the crew. morgante xxv. 115. i had it in my mind once to curtail this story, knowing not how i should bring rinaldo all that way to roncesvale, until an angel straight from heaven did wing, and showed me arnald to recruit my tale: he cries, "hold, louis! wherefore cease to sing? perchance rinaldo will turn up in time!" so, just as he narrates, i'll trim my rhyme. i must ride straight as any arrow flies, nor mix a fib with all the truths i say; this is no story to be stuffed with lies! if i diverge a hand's breadth from the way, one croaks, one scolds, while everybody cries, "ware madman!" when he sees me trip or stray. i've made my mind up to a hermit's life, so irksome are the crowd and all their strife. erewhile my academe and my gymnasia were in the solitary woods i love, whence i can see at will afric or asia; there nymphs with baskets tripping through the grove, shower jonquils at my feet or colocasia: far from the town's vexations there i'd rove, haunting no more your areopagi, where folk delight in calumny and lie. morgante xxvii. 6. then answered baldwin: "if my sire in sooth hath brought us here by treason, as you say, should i survive this battle, by god's truth, with this good sword i will my father slay!- but, roland, i'm no traitor--i forsooth, who followed thee with love as clear as day!- how could'st thou fling worse insult on thy friend?" then with fierce force the mantle he did rend, and cried: "i will return into the fight, since thou hast branded me with treason, thou! i am no traitor! may god give me might, as living thou shalt see me ne'er from now!" straight toward the paynim battle spurs the knight, still shouting, "thou hast done me wrong, i vow!" roland repents him of the words he spake, when the youth, mad with passion, from him brake. morgante xxviii. 138. i ask not for that wreath of bay or laurel which on greek brows or roman proudly shone: with this plain quill and style i do not quarrel, nor have i sought to sing of helicon: my pegasus is but a rustic sorrel; untutored mid the graves i still pipe on: leave me to chat with corydon and thyrsis; i'm no good shepherd, and can't mend my verses. indeed i'm not a rash intrusive claimant, like the mad piper of those ancient days, from whom apollo stripped his living raiment, nor quite the satyr that my face bewrays. a nobler bard shall rise and win the payment fame showers on loftier style and worthier lays: while i mid beech-woods and plain herdsmen dwell, who love the rural muse of pulci well. i'll tempt the waters in my little wherry, seeking safe shallows where a skiff may swim: my only care is how to make men merry with these thick-crowding thoughts that take my whim: 'tis right that all things in this world should vary;- various are wits and faces, stout and slim, one dotes on white, while one dubs black sublime, and subjects vary both in prose and rhyme. appendix vi. _translations of elegiac verses by girolamo benivieni and michelangelo buonarroti._ (see page 321). the heavenly sound is hushed, from earth is riven the harmony of that delighted lyre, which leaves the world in grief, to gladden heaven. yea, even as our sobs from earth aspire, mourning his loss, so ring the jocund skies with those new songs, and dance the angelic choir. ah happy he, who from this vale of sighs, poisonous and dark, heavenward hath flown, and lost only the vesture, frail and weak, that dies! freed from the world, freed from the tempest-tossed warfare of sin, his splendor now doth gaze full on the face of god through endless days. * * * * * thou'rt dead of dying, and art made divine; nor need'st thou fear to change or life or will; wherefore my soul well-nigh doth envy thine. fortune and time across thy threshold still shall dare not pass, the which mid us below bring doubtful joyance blent with certain ill. clouds are there none to dim for thee heaven's glow; the measured hours compel not thee at all; chance or necessity thou canst not know. thy splendor wanes not when our night doth fall, nor waxes with day's light however clear, nor when our suns the season's warmth recall. end of the first part. special thanks to andrew d. hwang. [transcriber's note: obvious printer errors have been corrected without note. for ease of reading, the table of contents has been formatted as paragraphs, rather than as a table. this is part ii of a two-part work. part i is available at project gutenberg.] renaissance in italy _italian literature_ _in two parts_ by john addington symonds _author of_ _"studies of the greek poets," "sketches in italy and greece," etc._ "italia, sepoltura de' lumi suoi, d'esterni candeliere" campanella: _poesie filosofiche_. part ii [illustration] new york henry holt and company 1888 contents of the second part. chapter ix. the orlando furioso. _orlando furioso_ and _divina commedia_--ariosto expresses the renaissance as dante the middle ages--definition of romantic, heroic, burlesque, heroic-comic, and satiric poems--ariosto's bias toward romance--sense of beauty in the _cinque cento_--choice of boiardo's unfinished theme--the propriety of this choice--ariosto's irony and humor--the subject of the _furioso_--siege of paris--orlando's madness--loves of ruggiero and bradamante--flattery of the house of este--the world of chivalry--ariosto's delight in the creatures of his fancy--close structure of the poem--exaggeration of motives--power of picture-painting--faculty of vision--minute description--rhetorical amplification--rapidity of movement--solidity--nicety of ethical analysis--the introductions to the cantos--episodes and _novelle_--imitations of the classics--power of appropriation and transmutation--irony--astolfo's journey to the moon--ariosto's portrait--s. michael in the monastery--the cave of sleep--humor--pathos and sublimity--olimpia and bireno--conception of female character--the heroines--passion and love--ariosto's morality--his style--the epithet of divine--exquisite finish--ariosto and tasso--little landscape-painting--similes--realism--adaptation of homeric images--ariosto's relation to his age 1 chapter x. the novellieri. boccaccio's legacy--social conditions of literature in italy--importance of the _novella_--definition of the _novella_--method of the novelists--their style--materials used--large numbers of _novelle_ in print--lombard and tuscan species--introductions to il lasca's _cene_, parabosco's _diporti_--bandello's dedications--life of bandello--his moral attitude--bandello as an artist--comparison of bandello and fletcher--the tale of _gerardo and elena_--_romeo and juliet_--the tale of _nicuola_--the _countess of salisbury_--bandello's apology for his morals and his style--il lasca--mixture of cruelty and lust--extravagant situations--treatment of the _parisina_ motive--the florentine _burla_--apology for il lasca's repulsiveness--firenzuola--his life--his satires on the clergy--his dialogue on beauty--novelettes and poems--doni's career--his bizarre humor--bohemian life at venice--the pellegrini--his _novelle_--miscellaneous works--the _marmi_--the novelists of siena--their specific character--sermini--fortini--bargagli's description of the siege of siena--illicini's novel of _angelica_--the _proverbi_ of cornazano--the _notti piacevoli_ of straparola--the novel of _belphegor_--straparola and machiavelli--giraldi cinthio's _hecatommithi_--description of the sack of rome--plan of the collection--the legend of the borgias--comparison of italian novels and english plays 51 chapter xi. the drama. first attempts at secular drama--the _orfeo_ and _timone_--general character of italian plays--court pageants and comedies borrowed from the latin--conditions under which a national drama is formed--their absence in italy--lack of tragic genius--eminently tragic material in italian history--the use made of this by english playwrights--the ballad and the drama--the humanistic bias in italy--parallels between greek and italian life--il lasca's critique of the latinizing playwrights--the _sofonisba_ of trissino--rucellai's _rosmunda_--sperone's _canace_--giraldi's _orbecche_--dolce's _marianna_--transcripts from the greek tragedians and seneca--general character of italian tragedies--sources of their failure--influence of plautus and terence over comedy--latin comedies acted at florence, rome, ferrara--translations of latin comedies--manner of representation at court--want of permanent theaters--bibbiena's _calandra_--leo x. and comedy at rome--ariosto's treatment of his latin models--the _cassaria_, _suppositi_, _lena_, _negromante_, _scolastica_--qualities of ariosto's comedies--machiavelli's plays--the _commedia in prosa_--fra alberigo and margherita--the _clizia_--its humor--the _mandragola_--its sinister philosophy--conditions under which it was composed--aretino disengages comedy from latin rules--his point of view--the _cortegiana_, _marescalco_, _talanta_--italy had innumerable comedies, but no great comic art--general character of the _commedia erudita_--its fixed personages--gelli, firenzuola, cecchi, ambra, il lasca--the farsa--conclusion on the moral aspects of italian comedy 108 chapter xii. pastoral and didactic poetry. the idyllic ideal--golden age--arcadia--sannazzaro--his life--the art of the _arcadia_--picture-painting--pontano's poetry--the neapolitan genius--baiæe and eridanus--eclogues--the play of _cefalo_--castiglione's _tirsi_--rustic romances--molza's biography--the _ninfa tiberina_--progress of didactic poetry--rucellai's _api_--alamanni's _coltivazione_--his life--his satires--pastoral dramatic poetry--the _aminta_--the _pastor fido_--climax of renaissance art 194 chapter xiii. the purists. the italians lose their language--prejudice against the mother tongue--problem of the dialects--want of a metropolis--the tuscan classics--petrarch and boccaccio--dante rejected--false attitude of the petrarchisti--renaissance sense of beauty unexpressed in lyric--false attitude of boccaccio's followers--ornamental prose--speron sperone--the dictator bembo--his conception of the problem--the _asolani_--grammatical essay--treatise on the language--poems--letters--bembo's place in the _cortegiano_--castiglione on italian style--his good sense--controversies on the language--academical spirit--innumerable poetasters--la casa--his life--_il forno_--peculiar melancholy--his sonnets--guidiccioni's poems on italy--court life--caro and castelvetro--their controversies--castelvetro accused of heresy--literary ladies--veronica gambara--vittoria colonna--her life--her friendship for michelangelo--life of bernardo tasso--his _amadigi_ and other works--life of giangiorgio trissino--his quarrel with his son giulio--his critical works--the _italia liberata_ 246 chapter xiv. burlesque poetry and satire. relation of satiric to serious literature--italy has more parody and caricature than satire or comedy--life of folengo--his _orlandino_--critique of previous romances--lutheran doctrines--orlando's boyhood--griffarosto--invective against friars--maccaronic poetry--the travesty of humanism--pedantesque poetry--glottogrysio ludimagistro--tifi odassi of padua--the pedant vigonça--evangelista fossa--giorgio alione--folengo employs the maccaronic style for an epic--his address to the muses--his hero baldus--boyhood and youth--cingar--the travels of the barons--gulfora--witchcraft in italy--folengo's conception of witchcraft--entrance into hell--the zany and the pumpkin--nature of folengo's satire--his relation to rabelais--the _moscheis_--the _zanitonella_--maccaronic poetry was lombard--another and tuscan type of burlesque--_capitoli_--their popular growth--berni--his life--his mysterious death--his character and style--three classes of _capitoli_--the pure bernesque manner--berni's imitators--the indecency of this burlesque--such humor was indigenous--_terza rima_--berni's satires on adrian vi. and clement vii.--his caricatures--his sonnet on aretino--the _rifacimento_ of boiardo's _orlando_--the mystery of its publication--albicante and aretino--the publishers giunta and calvi--berni's protestant opinions--eighteen stanzas of the _rifacimento_ printed by vergerio--hypothesis respecting the mutilation of the _rifacimento_--satire in italy 309 chapter xv. pietro aretino. aretino's place in italian literature and society--his birth and boyhood--goes to rome--in the service of agostino chigi--at mantua--gradual emergence into celebrity--the incident of giulio romano's postures--giovanni delle bande nere--aretino settles at venice--the mystery of his influence--discerns the power of the press--satire on the courts--magnificent life--aretino's wealth--his tributary princes--bullying and flattery--the divine aretino--his letter to vittoria colonna--to michelangelo--his admiration of artists--relations with men of letters--epistle to bernardo tasso--his lack of learning--disengagement from puristic prejudices--belief in his own powers--rapidity of composition--his style--originality and independence--prologue to _talanta_--bohemian comrades--niccolò franco--quarrel with doni--aretino's literary influence--his death--the anomaly of the renaissance--estimate of aretino's character 383 chapter xvi. history and philosophy. frivolity of renaissance literature--the contrast presented by machiavelli--his sober style--positive spirit--the connection of his works--two men in machiavelli--his political philosophy--the _patria_--place of religion and ethics in his system--practical object of his writings--machiavellism--his conception of nationality--his relation to the renaissance--contrast between machiavelli and guicciardini--guicciardini's doctrine of self-interest--the code of italian corruption--the connection between these historians and the philosophers--general character of italian philosophy--the middle ages in dissolution--transition to modern thought and science--humanism counterposed to scholasticism--petrarch--pico--dialogues on ethics--importance of greek and latin studies--classical substituted for ecclesiastical authority--platonism at florence--ficino--translations--new interest in the problem of life--valla's hedonism--the dialogue _de voluptate_--aristotle at padua and bologna--arabian and greek commentators--life of pietro pomponazzi--his book on immortality--his controversies--pomponazzi's standpoint--unlimited belief in aristotle--retrospect over the aristotelian doctrine of god, the world, the human soul--three problems in the aristotelian system--universals--the first period of scholastic speculation--individuality--the second period of scholasticism--thomas aquinas--the nature of the soul--new impulse given to speculation by the renaissance--averroism--the lateran council--is the soul immortal?--pomponazzi reconstructs aristotle's doctrine by help of alexander of aphrodisias--the soul is material and mortal--man's place in nature--virtue is the end of man--pomponazzi on miracles and spirits--his distinction between the philosopher and the christian--the book on fate--pomponazzi the precursor--coarse materialism--the school of cosenza--aristotle's authority rejected--telesio--campanella--bruno--the church stifles philosophy in italy--italian positivism 429 chapter xvii. conclusion. retrospect--meaning of the renaissance--modern science and democracy--the preparation of an intellectual medium for europe--the precocity of italy--servitude and corruption--antiquity and art--the italian provinces--florence--lombardy and venice--the march of ancona, urbino, umbria--perugia--rome--sicily and naples--italian ethnology--italian independence on the empire and the church--persistence of the old italic stocks--the new nation--its relation to the old--the revival of learning was a national movement--its effect on art--on literature--resumption of the latin language--affinities between the latin and italian genius--renascence of italian literature combined with humanism--greek studies comparatively uninfluential--the modern italians inherited roman qualities--roman defects--elimination of roman satire--decay of roman vigor--italian realism--positivism--sensuousness--want of mystery, suggestion, romance--the intellectual atmosphere--a literature of form and diversion--absence of commanding genius--lack of earnestness--lack of piety--materialism and negation--idyllic beauty--the men of the golden age--the cult of form--italy's gifts to europe--the renaissance is not to be imitated--its importance in human development--feudalism, renaissance, reformation, revolution 488 appendices. no. i.--italian comic prologues 533 no. ii.--passages translated from folengo and berni, which illustrate the lutheran opinions of the burlesque poets 536 no. iii.--on palmieri's "città di vita" 548 index 555 renaissance in italy. chapter ix. the orlando furioso. _orlando furioso_ and _divina commedia_--ariosto expresses the renaissance as dante the middle ages--definition of romantic, heroic, burlesque, heroic-comic, and satiric poems--ariosto's bias toward romance--sense of beauty in the _cinque cento_--choice of boiardo's unfinished theme--the propriety of this choice--ariosto's irony and humor--the subject of the _furioso_--siege of paris--orlando's madness--loves of ruggiero and bradamante--flattery of the house of este--the world of chivalry--ariosto's delight in the creatures of his fancy--close structure of the poem--exaggeration of motives--power of picture-painting--faculty of vision--minute description--rhetorical amplification--rapidity of movement--solidity--nicety of ethical analysis--the introductions to the cantos--episodes and _novelle_--imitations of the classics--power of appropriation and transmutation--irony--astolfo's journey to the moon--ariosto's portrait--s. michael in the monastery--the cave of sleep--humor--pathos and sublimity--olimpia and bireno--conception of female character--the heroines--passion and love--ariosto's morality--his style--the epithet of divine--exquisite finish--ariosto and tasso--little landscape-painting--similes--realism--adaptation of homeric images--ariosto's relation to his age. ariosto's satires make us know the man _intus et in cute_--to the very core. the lyrics have a breadth and amplitude of style that mark no common master of the poet's craft. yet neither the satires nor the lyrics reveal the author of the _furioso_. the artist in ariosto was greater than the man; and the _furioso_, conceived and executed with no reference to the poet's personal experience, enthroned him as the orpheus of his age. the _orlando furioso_ gave full and final expression to the _cinque cento_, just as the _divina commedia_ uttered the last word of the middle ages. the two supreme italian singers stood in the same relation to their several epochs. dante immortalized medieval thoughts and aspirations at the moment when they were already losing their reality for the italian people. separated from him by a short interval of time, came petrarch, who substituted the art of poetry for the prophetic inspiration; and while petrarch was yet singing, boccaccio anticipated in his multifarious literature the age of the renaissance. then the evolution of italian literature was interrupted by the classical revival; and when ariosto appeared, it was his duty to close the epoch which petrarch had inaugurated and boccaccio had determined, by a poem investing boccaccio's world, the sensuous world of the renaissance, with the refined artistic form of petrarch. this he accomplished. but even while he was at work, italy underwent those political and mental changes, in the wars of invasion, in the sack of rome, in the siege of florence, in the spanish occupation, in the reconstruction of the papacy beneath the pressure of luther's schism, which ended the renaissance and opened a new age with tasso for its poet. those, therefore, who would comprehend the spirit of italy upon the point of transition from the middle ages, must study the divine comedy. those who would contemplate the genius of the renaissance, consummated and conscious of its aim, upon the very verge of transmutation and eventual ruin, must turn to the _orlando furioso_. it seems to be a law of intellectual development that the highest works of art can only be achieved when the forces which produced them are already doomed and in the act of disappearance.[1] [footnote 1: students who care to trace the thoughts and characters of this great poem to their sources, should read pio rajna's exhaustive essay, _le fonti dell'orlando furioso_, firenze, sansoni, 1876. the details of the orlando are here investigated and referred with scientific patience to greek, latin, french, italian, and other originals. if anything, signor rajna may seem to have overstrained the point of critical sagacity. it is hardly probable that ariosto, reader of few books as virginio says he was, should have drawn on stores so multifarious of erudition.] italian critics have classified their narrative poems, of which the name is legion, into romantic, heroic, burlesque, heroic-comic, and satiric.[2] the romantic poet is one who having formed a purely imaginary world, deals with the figments of his fancy as though they were realities. his object is to astonish, fascinate, amuse and interest his readers. nothing comes amiss to him, whether the nature of the material be comic or tragic, pathetic or satiric, miraculous or commonplace, impossible or natural, so long as it contributes grace and charm to the picture of adventurous existence he desires to paint. his aim is not instruction; nor does he seek to promote laughter. putting all serious purposes aside, he creates a wonderland wherein the actions and passions of mankind shall be displayed, with truth to nature, under the strongly colored light of the artistic fantasy. the burlesque poet enters the same enchanted region; but he deliberately degrades it below the level of common life, parodies the fanciful extravagances of romance, and seeks to raise a laugh at the expense of its most delicate illusions. the heroic poet has nothing to do with pure romance and pleasurable fiction. he deals with the truths of history, resolving to embellish them by art, to extract lessons of utility, to magnify the virtues and the valor of the noblest men, and to inflame his audience with the fire of lofty aspiration. his object, unlike that of the romancer, is essentially serious. he is less anxious to produce a work of pure beauty than to raise a monument of ideal and moralized sublimity. the heroic-comic poet adopts the tone, style, conduct and machinery of the heroic manner; but he employs his art on some trivial or absurd subject, making his ridicule of baseness and pettiness the more pungent by the mock-gravity of his treatment. unlike the burlesque writer, he does not aim at mere scurrility. there is always method in his buffoonery, and a satiric purpose in his parody. the satirist strikes more directly; he either attacks manners, customs, institutions, and persons without disguise, or he does so under a thin veil of parable. he differs from the heroic-comic poet chiefly in this, that he does not array himself in the epical panoply. within the range of italian literature we find ready examples of these several styles. boiardo and ariosto are romantic poets. the _morgante maggiore_ is a romance with considerable elements of burlesque and satire mingled.[3] tasso's _gerusalemme liberata_ is a fair specimen of the heroic, and tassoni's _secchia rapita_ of the heroic-comic species. the _ricciardetto_ of fortiguerri and folengo's _orlandino_ represent burlesque, while casti's _animali parlanti_ is a narrative satire. [footnote 2: see ugo foscolo's essay on the narrative and romantic poems of italy in the _quarterly review_ for april, 1819.] [footnote 3: especially in morgante and margutte.] it may seem at first sight strange that ariosto should have preferred the romantic to the heroic style of poetry, and that the epic of the italian renaissance should be a pure play of the fancy. yet this was no less natural to the man revealed in his epistles, than to the spirit of his century as we have learned to know it. the passions and convictions that give force to patriotism, to religion, and to morality, were extinct in italy; nor was ariosto an exception to the general temper of his age. yet the heroic style demands some spiritual motive analogous to the enthusiasm for rome which inspired virgil, or to the faith that touched the lips of milton with coals from the altar. an indolent and tranquil epicurean, indifferent to the world around him, desiring nothing better than a life among his books, with leisure for his loves and day-dreams, had not the fiber of a true heroic poet; and where in italy could ariosto have found a proper theme? before he settled to the great work of his life, he began a poem in _terza rima_ on the glories of the house of este. that was meant to be heroic; but the fragment which remains, proves how frigid, how all unsuited to his genius and his times, this insincere and literary epic would have been.[4] italy offered elements of greatness only to a prophet or a satirist. she found her prophet in michelangelo. but what remained for a poet like ariosto, without dante's anger or swift's indignation, without the humor of cervantes or the fire of juvenal, without tasso's piety or shakspere's england, yet equal as an artist to the greatest singers whom the world has known? the answer to this question is not far to seek. what really survived of noble and enthusiastic in the _cinque cento_ was the sense of beauty, the adoration of form, the worship of art. the supreme artist of his age obeyed a right instinct when he undertook a work which required no sublime motive, and which left him free for the production of a masterpiece of beauty. in this sphere the defects of his nature were not felt, and he became the mouthpiece of his age in all that still remained of greatness to his country. [footnote 4: see _capitolo_ iii.] in like manner we can explain to ourselves ariosto's choice of boiardo's unfinished theme. he was not a poet with something irresistible to say, but an artist seeking a fit theater for the exercise of his omnipotent skill. he did not feel impelled to create, but to embellish. boiardo had constructed a vast hall in the style of the renaissance, when it first usurped on gothic; he had sketched a series of frescoes for the adornment of its walls and roof, and then had died, leaving his work incomplete. to enrich the remaining panels with pictures conceived in the same spirit, but executed in a freer and a grander manner, to adorn them with all that the most wealthy and fertile fancy could conceive, and to bestow upon them perfect finish, was a task for which ariosto was eminently suited. nor did he vary from the practice of the greatest masters in the other arts, who willingly lent their own genius to the continuation of designs begun by predecessors. few craftsmen of the renaissance thought as much of the purpose of their work or of its main motive as of execution in detail and richness of effect. they lacked the classic sense of unity, the medieval sincerity and spontaneity of inspiration. therefore ariosto was contented to receive from boiardo a theme he could embroider and make beautiful, with full employment of his rare inventive gifts upon a multitude of episodical inventions. it is vain to regret that a poet of his caliber should not have bent his faculties to the task of a truly original epic--to the re-awakening of prostrate italy, to the scourging of her feebleness and folly, or even to the celebration of her former glories. had he done either of these things, his poem would not have been so truly national, and we should have lacked the final product of a most brilliant though defective period of civilization. ariosto's own temperament and the conditions of his age alike condemned him to the completion of a romance longer than the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ together, which has for its sole serious aim, if serious aim it has of any sort, the glorification of an obscure family, and which, while it abounds in pathos, wisdom, wit, and poetry of dazzling brilliance, may at the same time be accused of levity, adulation, and licentiousness. to arraign ariosto for these faults is tantamount to arraigning his whole century and nation. the greatest artist of the sixteenth century found no task worthier of his genius than to flatter the house of este with false pedigrees and fulsome praises. he had no faith that could prevent him from laughing at all things human and divine, not indeed, with the titanic play of aristophanes, whose merriment is but the obverse of profound seriousness, but with the indulgent nonchalance of an epicurean. no sentiment of sublimity raised him above the grosser atmosphere in which love is tainted with lust, luxurious images are sought for their own sake, and passion dwindles in the languor of voluptuousness. the decay of liberty, the relaxation of morals and the corruption of the church had brought the italians to this point, that their representative renaissance poem is stained with flattery, contaminated with licentiousness, enfeebled with levity. poetic beauty of the highest order it cannot claim. that implies more earnestness of purpose and an ideal of sublimer purity. still, though the _furioso_ misses the supreme beauty of the _iliad_, the _antigone_ and the _paradise lost_, it has in superfluity that secondary beauty which expressed itself less perfectly in italian painting. in one respect it stands almost alone. the form reveals no inequalities or flaws. this artist's hand has never for a moment lost its cunning; this homer never nods. pulci approached the romance of charlemagne from a _bourgeois_ point of view. he felt no sincere sympathy with the knightly or the religious sentiment of his originals. boiardo treated similar material in a chivalrous spirit. the novelty of his poem consisted in the fusion of the carolingian and arthurian cycles; for while he handled an episode of the former group, he felt sincere admiration for errant knighthood as figured in the tales of lancelot and tristram. throughout the _orlando innamorato_ we trace the vivid influence of feudal ideals. ariosto differed in his attitude from both of his predecessors. the irony that gives a special quality to his romance, is equally removed from the humor of pulci and the frank enthusiasm of boiardo. ariosto was neither the citizen of a free burgh playing with the legends of a bygone age, nor yet the highborn noble in whose eyes the adventures of orlando and his comrades formed a picture of existence as it ought to be. he was a courtier and a man of letters, and his poem is a masterpiece of courtly and literary art. boiardo never flattered the princes of the house of este. ariosto took every occasion to interweave their panegyric with his verse. for boiardo the days of chivalry were a glorious irrecoverable golden age. ariosto contemplated this mythical past less with the regret of a man who had fallen upon worse days, than with the satisfaction of an artist who perceives the rare opportunities for poetic handling it afforded. he does not really believe in chivalry; where boiardo is in earnest, ariosto jests. it is not that, like cervantes, he sought to satirize the absurdities of romance, or that he set himself, like folengo, to burlesque the poems of his predecessors; but his philosophy inclined him to watch the doings of humanity with a genial half-smile, an all-pervasive irony that had no sting in it. a poet who stands thus aside and contemplates the comedy of the world with the dry light of a kindly and indulgent intellect, could not treat the tales of paladins and giants seriously. he uses them as the machinery of a great work on human life, painting mankind, not as he thinks it ought to be, but as he finds it. this treatment of romance from the standpoint of good sense and quiet humor produces an apparent discrepancy between his practical knowledge of the world and his fanciful extravagance. in the artistic harmony effected by ariosto between these opposite elements lies the secret of his irony. his worldly wisdom has the solidity of prose and embraces every circumstance of life. the creatures of his imagination belong to fairyland and exceed the wildest dreams in waywardness. he smiles to see them play their pranks; yet he never loses sight of reality, and moves his puppets by impulses and passions worthy of real men and women. having granted the romantic elements of wonder and exaggeration for a basis, we find the superstructure to be natural. never was sagacity of insight combined more perfectly with exuberance of fancy and a joyous lightheartedness than in this poem. nowhere else have sound lessons in worldly wisdom been conveyed upon a stage of so much palpable impossibility. we may here ask what is the main subject of the _orlando furioso_. the poem has three chief sources of interest--the siege of paris and the final rout of the saracen army, the insanity of orlando, and the loves of ruggiero and bradamante. the first serves merely as a groundwork for embroidery, a background for relieving more attractive incidents. orlando's madness, though it gives its name to the romance, is subordinate to the principal action. it forms a proper development of the situation in the _orlando innamorato_; and ariosto intends it to be important, because he frequently laments that the paladin's absence from the field injured the cause of christendom. but charlemagne, by help of rinaldo, bradamante, and marfisa, conquers without orlando's aid. thus the hero's insanity is only operative in neutralizing an influence that was not needed; and when he regains his wits, he performs no critical prodigies of valor. finding the saracens expelled from france, and charlemagne at peace, orlando fights a duel with a crownless king upon a desert island more for show than for real service. far different is the remaining motive of the poem. if the _furioso_ can be said to have constructive unity, the central subject is the love and marriage of ruggiero. ariosto found this solution of the plot foreshadowed in the _innamorato_. the pomp and ceremony with which the fourth book opens, the value attached to the co-operation of ruggiero in the war with charlemagne, and the romantic beginning of his love for bradamante, make it clear that boiardo would have crowned his poem, as ariosto has done, with the union of the ancestors of casa d'este. flattery, moreover, was ariosto's serious purpose. consequently, the love of ruggiero and bradamante, whose protracted disappointments furnished the occasion for renewed prophecies and promises of future glory for their descendants, formed the artistic center of his romance. the growing importance of all that concerns this pair of characters, the accumulation of difficulties which interfere with their union, and the final honor reserved for ruggiero of killing the dreadful rodomonte in single combat, are so disposed and graduated as to make the marriage of the august couple the right and natural climax to an epic of 100,000 lines. the fascinations of angelica, the achievements of orlando and rinaldo, the barbaric chivalry of rodomonte and marfisa, even the shock of christian and pagan armies, sink into insignificance before the interest that environs bradamante toward the poem's ending. victorious art was needed for the achievement of this success. like a pyramid, upon the top of which a sculptor places a gilded statue, up grows this voluminous romance, covering acres of the plain at first, but narrowing to a point whereon the poet sets his heroes of the house of este.[5] [footnote 5: ariosto's method of introducing flattery is simple. he makes merlin utter predictions from his tomb, melissa prophesy to bradamante and atlante to ruggiero; or he displays magic frescoes, statues, and embroideries, where the future splendors of the este family are figured; or, again, in the exordia of his cantos he directly addresses his patrons. omitting lesser passages, we may reckon fifteen principal panegyrics of the este house: canto iii. 16 to end, the fabulous pedigree; viii. 62, 63, praise of ippolito; xiii. 57 and on, praises of the women of the family; xiv. beginning, the battle of ravenna and alfonso; xv. 2, 29, alfonso's defeat of the venetians; xviii. 1, 2, alfonso's justice; xxxv. 4-9, prophecy of ippolito; xxxvi. 1-9, ippolito and the venetians; xl. 1-5, defeat of the venetians again; xli. 1-3, general adulation; xli. 62-67, pedigree again; xlii. 3, alfonso wounded; xlii. 83-92, women of the family again; xliii. 54-62, praises of ferrara; xlvii. 85-97, life of ippolito. the most extravagant flatteries are lavished upon ippolito and lucrezia borgia. when we remember who and what these este princes were--how brutal in his cruelty alfonso, how coarse and selfish and sensual ippolito, how doubtful in her life lucrezia--we cannot but feel these panegyrics to be sickening in their impudence.] though the marriage of ruggiero and bradamante forms the consummation of the _furioso_, it would show want of sympathy with ariosto's intention to imagine that he wrote his poem for this incident alone. the opening lines of the first canto are explicit: le donne, i cavalier, l'arme, gli amori, le cortesie, l'audaci imprese io canto che furo al tempo che passaro i mori d'africa il mare, in francia nocquer tanto.... "the ladies, the knights, the feats of arms, the loves, the courtesies, the bold adventures are my theme." in one word, his purpose was to paint the world of chivalry. agramante's expedition into france gives him the time; orlando's madness is an episode; ruggiero's marriage forms a fitting climax. but his true subject-matter is chivalry--the dream-world of love, honor, magic, marvel, courtesy, adventure, that afforded to his fancy scope for its most brilliant imaginings. in ariosto's age chivalry was a thing of the past, even among the nations of the north. it is true that francis i. was kneeling on the battlefield before bayard to receive the honor of knighthood in the names of oliver and roland. it is true that henry viii. was challenging his most christian cousin to a kingly settlement of their disputed claims in a pitched field. but the spirit of the times was not in these picturesque incidents. charles v., who incarnated modern diplomacy, dynastic despotism, and autocratic statecraft, was deciding the destinies of europe. gunpowder had already revolutionized the art of feudal war.[6] the order of the golden fleece, monarchical and pompous, had eclipsed the orders of the temple and s. john. what remained of chivalry formed a splendid adjunct to court-equipage; and the knight errant, if he ever existed, was merged in the modern gentleman. far less of real vitality had chivalry among the cities of the south, in the land of popes like sixtus, adventurers like cesare borgia, princes like lodovico sforza, commercial aristocracies like the republic of s. mark. a certain ideal of life, summed up in the word _cortesia_, existed in italy; where numerous petty courts had become the school of refined sentiment and manners. but this was not what we mean by chivalry, and even this was daily falsified by the cynicism and corruption of the princes and their servants.[7] castiglione's _cortegiano_, the handbook of that new ideal, must be read by the light of the roman diaries and machiavelli's speculative essays. the renaissance was rapidly destroying the feudal fabric of ideas throughout europe. those ideas were always weak in italy, and it was in italy that the modern intellect first attained to self-consciousness. therefore the magic and marvels of romance, the restless movement of knight-errantry, the love of peril and adventure for their own sake, the insane appetite for combat, the unpractical virtues no less than the capricious willfulness of paladins and saracens, presented to the age and race of men like guicciardini nothing but a mad unprofitable medley. _dove avete trovato, messer lodovico, tante minchionerie?_ was no unpardonable question for a cardinal to make, when he opened the _furioso_ in the pontificate of clement vii. of all this ariosto was doubtless well aware. yet he recognized in the _orlando_ a fit framework for the exercise of his unrivaled painter's power. he knew that the magic world he had evoked was but a plaything of the fancy, a glittering bubble blown by the imagination. this did not suggest an afterthought of hesitation or regret: for he could make the plaything beautiful. the serious problem of his life was to construct a miracle of art, organically complete, harmonious as a whole and lovely in the slightest details. yet he never forgot that chivalry was a dream; and thus there is an airy unsubstantiality in his romantic world. his characters, though they are so much closer to us in time and sympathy, lack the real humanity of achilles in the _iliad_ or of penelope in the _odyssey_. they do not live for us, because they were not living for the poet, but painted with perfection from an image in his brain. he stood aloof from the work of his own hands, and turned it round for his recreation, viewing it with a smile of conscious and delighted irony. nowhere did he suffer himself to be immersed in his own visionary universe. that wonderland of love and laughter, magic and adventure, which so amused his fancy that once he walked from carpi to ferrara in slippers dreaming of it, was to him no more solid than the shapes of clouds we form, no more durable than the rime that melts before the sun to nothing. the smile with which he contemplates this fleeting image, is both tender and ironical. sarcasm and pathos mingle on his lips and in his eyes; for while he knows it to be but a vision, he has used it as the form of all his thought and feeling, making of this dream a mirror for the world in which his days were spent. [footnote 6: see the ending of the ninth and the beginning of the eleventh cantos of the _furioso_.] [footnote 7: what ariosto thought about contemporary italy may be gathered from these lines (xvii. 76): o d'ogni vizio fetida sentina, dormi, italia imbriaca, e non ti pesa ch'ora di questa gente, ora di quella, che già serva ti fu, sei fatta ancella?] notwithstanding the difficulty of precisely ascertaining the main subject of the _orlando furioso_, the unity of the poem is close, subtle, serried. but it is the unity of a vast piece of tapestry rather than of architecture. there is nothing massive in its structure, no simple and yet colossal design like that which forms the strength of the _iliad_ or the _divine comedy_. the delicacy of its connecting links, and the perpetual shifting of its scene distinguish it as a romantic poem from the true epic. the threads by which the scheme is held together, are slight as gossamer; the principal figures are confounded with a multitude of subordinate characters; the interest is divided between a succession of episodical narratives. at no point are we aroused by the shock of a supreme sensation, such as that which the death of patroclus in the _iliad_ communicates. the rage of rodomonte inside the walls of paris has been cited as an instance of heroic grandeur. but the effect is exaggerated. ariosto is too much amused with the extravagant situation for the blustering of his pagan to arouse either terror or surprise. when we compare this episode with the appearance of achilles in the trench, the elaborate similes and prolonged description of the italian poet are as nothing side by side with the terrific shout of the greek hero stung at last into activity. and what is true of rodomonte may be said of all the studied situations in the _furioso_. ariosto pushes every motive to the verge of the burlesque, heightening the passion of love till it becomes insanity, and the sense of honor till it passes over into whimsical punctiliousness, and the marvelous until the utmost bounds of credibility are passed. this is not done without profound artistic purpose. the finest comic effects in the poem are due to such exaggerations of the motives; and the ironic laughter of the poet is heard at moments when, if he preserved his gravity, we should accuse him of unpardonable childishness. our chief difficulty in appreciating the _furioso_ is to take the author's point of view, to comprehend the expenditure of so much genius and wisdom upon paradoxes, and to sympathize with the spirit of a masterpiece which, while it verges on the burlesque, is never meant to pass the limit. in putting this dream-world of his fantasy upon the canvas, ariosto showed the power of an accomplished painter. this is the secret of the _furioso's_ greatness. this makes it in a deep sense the representative poem of the italian renaissance. all the affinities of its style are with the ruling art of italy, rather than with sculpture or with architecture; and the poet is less a singer uttering his soul forth to the world in song, than an artist painting a multitude of images with words instead of colors. his power of delineation never fails him. through the lucid medium of exquisitely chosen language we see the object as clearly as he saw it. we scarcely seem to see it with his eyes so much as with our own, for the poet stands aloof from his handiwork and is a spectator of his pictures like ourselves. so authentic is the vision that, while he is obliged by his subject to treat the same situations--in duels, battles, storms, love-passages--he never repeats himself. a fresh image has passed across the camera obscura of his brain, and has been copied in its salient features. for the whole of this pictured world is in movement, and the master has the art to seize those details which convey the very truth of life and motion. we sit in a dim theater of thought, and watch the motley crowd of his fantastic personages glide across the stage. they group themselves for a moment ere they flit away; and then the scene is shifted, and a new procession enters; fresh _tableaux vivants_ are arranged, and when we have enjoyed their melodies of form and color, the spell is once more broken and new actors enter. the stage is never empty; scene melts into scene without breathing-space or interruption; but lest the show should weary by its continuity, the curtain is let down upon each canto's closing, and the wizard who evokes these phantoms for our pleasure, stands before it for a moment and discourses wit and wisdom to his audience. it is this all-embracing universally illuminating faculty of vision that justifies galileo's epithet of the divine for ariosto. this renders his title of the italian homer intelligible. but we must remember that these high-sounding compliments are paid him by a nation in whose genius the art of painting holds the highest rank; and it may well happen that critics less finely sensitive to pictorial delineation shall contest them both. as in italian painting, so in ariosto's poetry, deep thought and poignant passion are not suffered to interrupt the calm unfolding of a world where plastic beauty reigns supreme. no thrilling cry from the heart of humanity is heard; no dreadful insight into mortal woe disturbs the rhythmic dance. tragedy is drowned and swallowed in a sea of images; and if the deeper chords of pathos are touched here and there, they are so finely modulated and blent with the pervading melody that a harsh note never jars upon our ears. a nation in whom the dramatic instinct is paramount, an audience attuned to _hamlet_ or _king lear_, will feel that something essential to the highest poetry has been omitted. the same imperious pictorial faculty compels ariosto to describe what more dramatic poets are contented to suggest. where dante conveys an image in one pregnant line, he employs an octave for the exhibition of a finished picture.[8] thus our attention is withdrawn from the main object to a multitude of minor illustrations, each of which is offered to us with the same lucidity. the dædal labyrinth of exquisitely modeled forms begins to cloy, and in our tired ingratitude we wish the artist had left something to our own imagination. it is too much to be forced to contemplate a countless number of highly-wrought compositions. we long for something half-seen, indicated, shyly revealed by lightning flashes and withdrawn before it has been fully shown. when lessing in _laocoon_ censured the famous portrait of alcina, this was, in part at least, the truth of his complaint. she wearies us by the minuteness of the touches that present her to our gaze; and the elaboration of each detail prevents us from forming a complete conception of her beauty. but the italians of the sixteenth century, accustomed to painted forms in fresco and in oils, and educated in the descriptive traditions of boccaccio's school, would not have recognized the soundness of this criticism. for them each studied phrase of ariosto was the index to an image, summoned by memory from the works of their own masters, or from life. his method of delineation was analogous to that of figurative art. in a word, the defect pointed out by the german critic is the defect of ariosto's greatest quality, the quality belonging to an age and race in which painting was supreme. [footnote 8: those who are curious may compare the three lines in which dante likens piero delle vigne's voice issuing from his tree of torment to the hissing of sap in a green log upon the fire (_inf._ xiii. 40) with the eight lines used by ariosto to expand the same simile (_orl. fur._ vi. 27); or, again, dante's picture of the sick woman on her bed of fever (_purg._ vi. 149) with ariosto's copy (_orl. fur._ xxviii. 90).] closely allied to this pictorial method in the representation of all objects to our mental vision, was ariosto's rhetorical amplification. he rarely allows a situation to be briefly indicated or a sentiment to be divined. the emotions of his characters are analyzed at length; and their utterances, even at the fever-heat of passion, are expanded with a dazzling wealth of illustration. many of the episodes in the _furioso_ are eminently dramatic, and the impression left upon the memory is forcible enough. but they are not wrought out as a dramatist would handle them. the persons do not act before us, or express themselves by direct speech. the artist has seen them in motion, has understood what they are feeling; and by his manner of describing them he makes us see them also. but it is always a picture, always an image; that presents itself. soul rarely speaks to soul without the intervention of interpretative art. this does not prevent ariosto from being a master of the story-teller's craft. no poet of any nation knew better what to say and what to leave unsaid in managing a fable. the facility of his narration is perfect; and though the incidents of his tales are extremely complicated, there is no confusion. each story is as limpid as each picture he invents. nor, again, is there any languor in his poem. its extraordinary swiftness can only be compared to the rush of a shining river, flowing so smoothly that we have to measure its speed by objects on the surface. the _furioso_, in spite of its accumulated images, in spite of its elaborated rhetoric, is in rapid onward movement from the first line to the last. it has an elasticity which is lacking to the monumental architecture of the _divine comedy_. it is free from the stationary digressions that impede a student of _paradise lost_. the fairy-like fantastic structure of the _furioso_ has a groundwork of philosophical solidity. externally a child's story-book, it is internally a mine of deep world-wisdom, the product of a sane and vigorous intellect. not that we have any right to seek for allegory in the substance of the poem. when spenser fancied that ariosto had "ensampled a good governour and vertuous man" in orlando--in the orlando who went mad, neglected his liege-lord, and exposed christendom to peril for angelica's fair face--he was clearly on the wrong tack. for a man of ariosto's temperament, in an age of violent contrast between moral corruption and mental activity, it was enough to observe human nature without creating ideals. his knowledge of the actions, motives, passions and characters of men is concrete; and his readings in the lessons of humanity, are literal. the excellence of his delineation consists precisely in the nicety of _nuances_, the blending of vice and virtue, the correct analysis of motives. he paints men and women as he finds them, not without the irony of one who stands aloof from life and takes malicious pleasure in pointing out its misery and weakness. if i wished to indicate a single passage that displays this knowledge of the heart, i should not select the too transparent allegory of logistilla[9]--though even here the contrast between alcina's seductive charms and the permanent beauty of her sister is wrought with a magnificence of detail worthy of spenser. i would rather point to the reflections which conclude the tale of marganorre and his wicked sons.[10] in lucid exposition of fact lay the strength of ariosto; and here it may be said that he proved his affinity to the profoundest spirits of his age in italy--to machiavelli and guicciardini, the founders of analytical science for modern europe. this intimate study of the laws which govern human action when it seems most wayward, is displayed in grifone's subjection to the faithless orrigille, in the conflict of passions which agitate the heroes of agramante's camp, in the agony of orlando when he finds medoro's name coupled with angelica's, in bradamante's jealousy, in the conflict of courtesy between leone and ruggiero, in the delusive visions of atlante's castle, in the pride of rodomonte, and in the comic termination of angelica's coquetries. the difference between ariosto and machiavelli is, that while the latter seems to have dissected human nature with a scalpel, the former has gained this wisdom by sympathy. the one exhibits his anatomical preparations with grim scientific gravity; the other makes his puppets move before us, and smiles sarcastically at their antics. [footnote 9: canto x. 52 _et seq._] [footnote 10: canto xxxvii. 104 _et seq._] sometimes he condenses his philosophy of life in short essays that form the prefaces to cantos, introducing us as through a shapely vestibule into the enchanted palace of his narrative. among these the finest are the exordia on love and honor, on jealousy, on loyalty, on avarice, on the fickleness of fortune, on hypocrisy in courts, and on the pains of love.[11] the merit of these discourses does not consist in their profundity so much as in their truth. they have been deeply felt and are of universal applicability. what all men have experienced, what every age and race of men have known, the supreme poet expresses with his transparent style, his tender and caressing melody of phrase, his graceful blending of sympathy and satire. tasso in the preface to _rinaldo_ rebukes ariosto for the introduction of these digressions. he says they are below the dignity of the heroic manner, and that a true poet should be able by example and the action of his characters to point the moral without disquisition. this may be true. yet ariosto was writing a romance, and we welcome these personal utterances as a relief from the perpetual movement of his figures. in like manner we should be loth to lose the lyrical inter-breathings of euripidean choruses, or portia's descant upon mercy, or fielding's interpolated reflections, all of which are halting-places for the mind to rest on in the rapid course of dramatic or narrative evolution. still it is not in these detached passages that ariosto shows his greatest wealth of observation. the _novelle_, scattered with a lavish hand through all his cantos, combine the same sagacity with energy of action and pictorial effect. whatever men are wont to do, feel, hope for, fear--what moves their wrath--what yields them pleasure, or inflicts upon them pain--that is the material of ariosto's tales. he does not use this matter either as a satirist or a moralist, as a tragic poet to effect a purification of the passions, or, again, as a didactic poet to inculcate lessons. like plautus, he seems to say: "whatever be the hues of life, my words shall paint them." following the course of events without comment, his page reflects the mask of human joys and griefs which is played out before him. in the tale of polinesso and ginevra all the elements of pathos that can be extracted from the love of women and the treachery of men, are accumulated. the desertion of olimpia by bireno after the sacrifices she has made for him, invests the myth of ariadne with a wild romantic charm. isabella's devotion to zerbino through captivity and danger; the friendship of cloridano for the beautiful medoro, and their piety toward dardinello's corpse; angelica's doting on medoro, and the idyll of their happiness among the shepherd folk; the death of brandimarte, and fiordeligi's agony of grief; fiordespina's vain love for bradamante, and her consolation in the arms of ricciardetto; the wild legend of the amazons, who suffered no male stranger to approach their city; norandino's loyalty to lucina in the cave of orco; lidia's cruel treatment of alceste; the arts whereby tanacro and olindo, sons of marganorre, work their wicked will in love; gabrina's treachery toward husband and paramour; giocondo's adventures with the king astolfo; the ruse by which argia justifies her infidelity to anselmo; the sublime courtesies of leone; the artful machinations of melissa--these are the rubrics of tales and situations, so varied, so fertile in resource, that a hundred comedies and tragedies might be wrought from them. ariosto, in his conduct of these stories, attempts no poetical justice. virtue in distress, vice triumphant, one passion expelling another, nobler motives conquered by baser, loyalty undermined by avarice, feminine frailty made strong to suffer by the force of love; so runs the world, and so the poet paints it. [footnote 11: cantos xxxviii. xxxi. xxi. xliii. xlv. xliv. xvi.] new and old, false and real, he mixes all together, and by the alchemy of his imagination makes the fusion true. the classics and the italian poets, writers of history and romance, geographers and chroniclers, have been laid under contribution. but though the poem is composed of imitations, it is invariably original, because ariosto has seen and felt whatever he described. angelica on the horse going out to sea recalls europa. the battle with the orc is borrowed from the tale of perseus. astolfo in the myrtle grove comes straight from virgil. cloridano and medoro are nisus and euryalus in modern dress. the shield of atlante suggests medusa's head. pegasus was the parent of the hippogriff, and polyphemus of orco. rodomonte rages like mezentius and dies like turnus. grifone on the bridge is a renaissance study from horatius cocles. senapo repeats the myth of phineus and the harpies. yet throughout these plagiarisms ariosto remains himself. he has assimilated his originals to his own genius, and has given every incident new life by the vividness of his humanity. if it were needful to cite an instance of his playful, practical ironic treatment of old material, we might point to lucinda's feminine delicacy in the cave of orco. she refuses to smear herself with the old goat's fat, and fails to escape with norandino and his comrades from the hands of this new polyphemus. so comprehensive is the poet's fancy that it embraces the classic no less than the medieval past. both are blent in a third substance which takes life from his own experience and observation. in this respect the art of ariosto corresponds to raphael's--to the stanza of the segnatura or the antinous-jonah of the chigi chapel. it is the first emancipation of the modern spirit in a work of catholic beauty, preluding to the final emancipation of the reason in the sphere of criticism, thought, and science. the quality which gives salt and savor to ariosto's philosophy of life is irony, sometimes bordering on satire, sometimes running over into drollery and humor. irony is implicit in the very substance of the _furioso_. the choice of a _mad_ orlando for hero reveals the poet's intention; and the recovery of his lost wits from the moon parodies the medieval doctrine that only in the other world shall we find our true selves. the fate of angelica, again, is supremely ironical. after flouting kings and paladins, the noblest knights of the whole world, her lovers, she dotes upon a handsome country-lad and marries him in a shepherd's hut. medoro plucks the rose for which both christendom and paynimry had fought in furious rivalry; and wayward love requites their insults with a by-blow from his dart. such, smiles the poet, is the end of pride, ambition, passion, and the coquetries that placed the kingdoms of the east and west in peril. angelica is the embodiment of mortal frailty. the vanity of human wishes, the vicissitudes which blind desire prepares for haughtiest souls, the paradoxes held in store by destiny, are symbolized and imaged in her fate. astolfo's journey to the moon, related in the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth cantos, presents the ariostean irony with all its gradations of satire, parody, and comic humor. this duke of england in the italian romances played the part of an adventurous vain-glorious cavalier, eminent for courtesy and courage, who carried the wandering impulse of knight-errantry to the extreme verge of the ridiculous. we find him at the opening of the thirty-fourth canto in possession of atlante's hippogriff and logistilla's marvelous horn. mounting his winged horse, he flies through space, visits the sources of the nile, and traverses the realm of ethiopia. there he delivers king senapo from a brood of harpies, whom he pursues to the mouth of a cavern whence issues dense smoke. this is the entrance into hell: l'orecchie attente allo spiraglio tenne, e l'aria ne sentì percossa e rotta da pianti e d'urli, e da lamento eterno; segno evidente quivi esser lo 'nferno. the paladin's curiosity is roused, and he determines to advance: di che debbo temer, dicea, s'io v'entro? chè mi posso aiutar sempre col corno. farò fuggir plutone e satanasso, e 'l can trifauce leverò dal passo. this light-hearted reliance in a perfectly practical spirit upon his magic horn is wholly in keeping with ariosto's genius. the terrible situation, the good sense of the adventurer, and the enchantment which protects him are so combined as to be prosaically natural. astolfo gropes his way into the cavern and is immediately suffocated by dense smoke. in the midst of it above his head he sees a body hanging and swinging to and fro like a corpse on a gibbet. he cuts at this object with his sword, and wakes the melancholy voice of lidia, who tells him that in the smoke are punished obdurate and faithless lovers. the tale of her falseness to alceste is very beautiful, and shows great knowledge of the heart. but it leads to nothing in the action of the poem, and astolfo goes out of hell as he came in--except that the smoke has befouled both face and armor, and he has to scrub himself in a fountain before he can get clean again. meanwhile ariosto has parodied the opening of dante's _inferno_ with its sublime: mi mise dentro alle segrete cose. lidia is the inversion of francesca; for her sin was, not compliance with the impulses of nature, but unkindness to her lover. this travesty is wrought with no deliberate purpose, but by a mere caprice of fancy, to entertain his audience with a novel while he flouts the faiths and fears of a more earnest age. for ariosto, the child of the renaissance, there remained nothing to affirm or to deny about the future of the soul. the inferno of the middle ages had become a plaything of romance. astolfo now pursues his journey, looks in on prester john, and scales the mountain of the earthly paradise. there he finds a palace wrought of precious stones, and in the vestibule an ancient man with venerable beard and snowy hair. this is no other than s. john the evangelist, who hastens to feed the knight's horse with good corn, and sets before him a table spread with fruits which make the sin of adam seem excusable: con accoglienza grata il cavaliero fu dai santi alloggiato in una stanza: fu provvisto in un'altra al suo destriero di buona biada, che gli fu abbastanza. de' frutti a lui del paradiso diero, di tal sapor, ch'a suo giudicio, sanza scusa non sono i duo primi parenti, se per quei fur sì poco ubbidienti! s. john, delighted with his courteous guest, discourses many things about orlando, his lost wits, and the moon where they have been stored with other rubbish. at the close of their conversation, he remarks that it is a fine night for a journey to the moon; and orders out the fiery chariot which erewhile took elijah up to heaven. it holds two passengers with comfort; and after a short voyage through the air, astolfo and the evangelist land upon the lunar shores. the stanzas which describe the valley of vain things and useless lumber lost to earth, are justly famous for their satire and their pathos.[12] there are found the presents made to kings in hope of rich reward, the flatteries of poets, shameful loves, the services of courtiers, the false beauties of women, and bottles filled with the lost sense of men. the list is long; nor was milton unmindful of it when he wrote his lines upon the paradise of fools.[13] the passage illustrates certain qualities in ariosto's imagination. he has no dread of the prosaic and the simple. inexhaustibly various alike in thought, in rhythm, in imagery, and in melody of phrase, he yet keeps close to reality, and passes without modulation from seriousness to extravagant fun, returning again to the sadness of profound reflection. his poetry is like the picture of his own face--a large and handsome man with sleepy eyes and epicurean mouth, over whose broad forehead and open features, plowed by no wrinkles of old age or care, float subtle smiles and misty multitudes of thoughts half lost in dreams. human life to ariosto was a comedy such as menander put upon the attic stage; and the critic may ask of him, too, whether he or nature were the plagiarist. [footnote 12: canto xxxiv. 76-85.] [footnote 13: _par. lost_, iii. 440.] meanwhile s. john is waiting at astolfo's elbow to point out the fates, spinning their web of human destinies, and time carrying the records of history to the river of oblivion. it is a sad picture, did not ariosto enliven the most somber matter with his incorrigible humor. by the river bank of lethe wait cormorants and swans. the former aid time in his labor of destruction. the latter, who symbolize great poets, save chosen names from undeserved neglect. this leads to a discourse on the services rendered by writers to their patrons, which is marked by ariosto's levity. he has just been penning praises for ippolito.[14] yet here he frankly confesses that the eulogies of poets are distortions of the truth, that history is a lie, and that the whole pageant of humanity conceals a sorry sham. s. john is even made to hint that his good place in paradise is the guerdon of a panegyric written on his master: gli scrittori amo, e fo il debito mio; ch'al vostro mondo fui scrittore anch'io: e sopra tutti gli altri io feci acquisto che non mi può levar tempo nè morte; e ben convenne al mio lodato cristo rendermi guidardon di sì gran sorte. [footnote 14: canto xxxv. 4-9.] the episode of astolfo's journey to the moon abounds in satire upon human weakness in general. another celebrated passage has satire of a more direct kind, and is, moreover, valuable for illustrating ariosto's conduct of his poem. paris is besieged by the assembled forces of the saracens. the chief paladins are absent, and charlemagne, in his sore need addresses a prayer to heaven.[15] it is just such a prayer as the israelites offer up in rossini's _mosè in egitto_--very resonant, very rhetorical, but without sincerity of feeling. ariosto selects a number of decorous phrases redolent of reniassance humanism, _tolte agl'inimici stigi_, _al maggior tempio_, _gli occhi al ciel supini_, and combines them with melodramatic effect. god accepts the emperor's prayer, and sends michael down to earth to find discord and silence, in order that the former may sow strife in the saracen camp, and the latter lead re-enforcements into paris. michael starts upon his errand: dovunque drizza michelangel l'ale, fuggon le nubi, e torna il ciel sereno; gli gira intorno un aureo cerchio, quale veggiam di notte lampeggiar baleno. [footnote 15: canto xiv. 68-73.] he flies straight to a monastery, expecting to find silence there. the choir, the parlor, the dormitory, the refectory are searched. wherever he goes, he sees _silenzio_ written up: but silence cannot be found. instead of him, discord presents herself, and is recognized by her robe of many-colored fluttering ribbons, disheveled hair, and an armful of law-papers. fraud, too, accosts the angel with a gentle face like gabriel's when he said _ave!_ to michael's question after silence, fraud replies: he used to live in convents and the cells of sages; but now he goes by night with thieves, false coiners and lovers, and you may find him in the houses of treason and homicide. yet if you are very anxious to lay hands on him at once, haste to the haunt of sleep. this cavern is described in stanzas that undoubtedly suggested spenser's; but ariosto has nothing so delicate as: a trickling stream from high rock tumbling down, and ever drizzling rain upon the loft, mixed with a murmuring wind much like the sown of swarming bees. instead, he paints in his peculiar style of realistic imagery, the corpulent form of ease, sloth that cannot walk and scarce can stand, forgetfulness who bars the door to messengers, and silence walking round the cave with slippers of felt. silence, summoned by the archangel, sets forth to meet rinaldo. discord also quits the convent with her comrade pride, leaving fraud and hypocrisy to keep their places warm till they return. but discord does her work inadequately; and the cries of rodomonte's victims rise to heaven. this rouses michael from his slumber of beatitude. he blushes, plumes his pinions, and shoots down again to earth in search of discord among the monks. he finds her sitting in a chapter convened for the election of officers, and makes her in a moment feel his presence:[16] le man le pose l'angelo nel crine, e pugna e calci le diè senza fine. indi le roppe un manico di croce per la testa, pel dosso e per le braccia. mercè grida la misera a gran voce, e le ginocchia al divin nunzio abbraccia. [footnote 16: canto xxvii. 37.] this is a good specimen both of ariosto's peculiar levity and of the romantic style which in the most serious portion of his poem permitted such extravagance. the robust archangel tearing discord's disheveled hair, kicking her, pounding her with his fists, breaking a cross upon her back, and sending her about her business with a bee in her bonnet, presents a picture of drollery which is exceedingly absurd. nor is there any impropriety in the picture from the poet's point of view. michael and the evangelist are scarcely serious beings. they both form part of his machinery and help to make the action move. broad fun, untinctured by irony, seasons the _furioso_--as when astolfo creates a fleet by throwing leaves into the sea, and mounts his ethiopian cavalry on horses made of stone, and catches the wind in a bladder; all of which burlesque miracles are told with that keen relish of their practical utility which formed an element of ariosto's sprightliness.[17] ruggiero's pleasure-trip on rabicane; orlando's achievement of spitting six fat dutchmen like frogs upon one spear; the index to astolfo's magic book; the conceit of the knights who jousted with the golden lance and ascribed its success to their own valor; orlando's feats of prowess with the table in the robber's den; are other instances of ariosto's lightheartedness, when he banters with his subject and takes his readers into confidence with his own sense of drollery.[18] the donkey race in armor between marfisa and zerbino for a cantankerous old hag, with its courteous ceremonies and chivalrous conclusion, might be cited as an example of more sustained humor.[19] and such, too, though in another region, is the novel of jocondo. [footnote 17: canto xxxviii. 30, 33, 26. [transcriber's note: last reference should be canto xxxix. 26.]] [footnote 18: canto x. 72; ix. 68; xxii. 16; xlv. 65; xiii. 36.] [footnote 19: canto xx. 122.] ariosto's irony, no less than his romantic method, deprived the _furioso_ of that sublimity which only belongs to works of greater seriousness and deeper conviction. yet he sometimes touches the sublime by force of dramatic description or by pathetic intensity. the climax of orlando's madness has commonly been cited as an instance of poetic grandeur. yet i should be inclined to prefer the gathering of the storm of discord in agramante's camp.[20] the whole of this elaborate scene, where the fiery characters and tempestuous passions of the moslem chiefs, of ruggiero, rodomonte, gradasso, mandricardo, and marfisa, are brought successively into play by impulses and motives natural to each and powerful to produce a clash of adverse claims and interests, is not only conceived and executed in a truly dramatic spirit, but is eminently important for the action of the poem. the thunder-clouds which had been mustering to break in ruin upon christendom, rush together and spend their fury in mid air. thus the moment is decisive, and nothing has been spared to dignify the passions that provoke the final crash. they go on accumulating in complexity, like a fugue of discords, till at last the hyperbole of this sonorous stanza that seems justified:[21] tremò parigi, e turbidossi senna all'alta voce, a quell'orribil grido; rimbombò il suon fin alla selva ardenna sì che lasciâr tutte le fiere il nido. udiron l'alpi e il monte di gebenna, di blaia e d'arli e di roano il lido; rodano e sonna udì, garonna e il reno: si strinsero le madri i figli al seno. [footnote 20: canto xxvii.] [footnote 21: _ibid._ 101.] his pathos also has its own sublimity. imogen stretched lifeless on the corpse of cloten; the duchess of malfi telling cariola to see that her daughter says her prayers; bellario describing his own sacrifice as a mere piece of boyhood flung away--these are instances from our own drama, in which the pathetic is sublime. ariosto's method is different, and the effect is more rhetorical. yet he can produce passages of almost equal poignancy, prolonged situations of overmastering emotion, worthy to be set side by side with the euripidean pictures of polyxena, alcestis, or iphigenia.[22] the death of zerbino; the death of brandimarte with half of fiordeligi's name upon his lips; the constancy of isabella offering her neck to rodomonte's sword; the anguish of olimpia upon the desert island; are instances of sublime poetry wrung from pathos by the force of highly-wrought impassioned oratory. zerbino is one of the most sympathetic creations of the poet's fancy. of him ariosto wrote the famous line:[23] natura il fece, e poi ruppe la stampa. [footnote 22: the comparison of ariosto and euripides is not wholly fanciful. both were supreme artists in an age of incipient decadence, lacking the convictions of their predecessors, and depending for effect upon rhetorical devices. both were [greek: tragikôtatoi] in aristotle's sense of the phrase, and both were romantic rather than heroic poets.] [footnote 23: canto x. 84.] he is killed by the tartar mandricardo before his lady isabella's eyes:[24] a questo la mestissima isabella, declinando la faccia lacrimosa, e congiungendo la sua bocca a quella di zerbin, languidetta, come rosa, rosa non colta in sua stagion, sì ch'ella impallidisca in su la siepe ombrosa, disse: non vi pensate già, mia vita, far senza me quest'ultima partita. [footnote 24: the whole scene, with all its gradations of emotion, is too long to quote. but see xxiv. 74-87.] with stanzas like this the poet cheats the sorrow he has stirred in us. their imagery is too beautiful to admit of painful feeling while we read; and thus, though the passion of the scene is tragic, its anguish is brought by touches of pure art into harmony with the romantic tone of the whole poem. so also when isabella, kneeling before rodomonte's sword, like s. catherine in luini's fresco at milan, has met her own death, ariosto heals the wound he has inflicted on our sensibility by lines of exquisitely cadenced melody:[25] vattene in pace, alma beata e bella. così i miei versi avesson forza, come ben m'affaticherei con tutta quella arte che tanto il parlar orna e come, perchè mille e mill'anni, e più, novella sentisse il mondo del tuo chiaro nome. vattene in pace alla superna sede, e lascia all'altre esempio di tua fede. [footnote 25: canto xxix. 27.] but it is in the situations, the elegiac lamentations, the unexpected vicissitudes, and the strong pictorial beauties of olimpia's novel, that ariosto strains his power over pathos to the utmost. olimpia has lost her kingdom and spent her substance for her husband, bireno. orlando aids her in her sore distress, and frees bireno from his prison. bireno proves faithless, and deserts her on an island. she is taken by corsairs, exposed like andromeda on a rock to a sea-monster, and is finally rescued by orlando. each of these touching incidents is developed with consummate skill; and the pathos reaches its height when olimpia, who had risked all for her husband, wakes at dawn to find herself abandoned by him on a desolate sea-beach.[26] in this passage ariosto comes into competition with two poets of a different stamp--with catullus, who thus describes ariadne: saxea ut effigies bacchantis prospicit: and with fletcher, who makes aspatia in the _maid's tragedy_ dramatize the situation. catullus in a single felicitous simile, fletcher by the agony of passionate declamation, surpass ariosto's detailed picture. the one is more restrained, the other more tragic. but ariosto goes straight to our heart by the natural touch of olimpia feeling for bireno in the darkness, and by the suggestion of pallid moonlight and a shivering dawn. the numerous prosaic details with which he has charged his picture, add to its reality, and enhance the euripidean quality we admire in it. [footnote 26: canto x. 20-34.] in the case of a poet whose imagination was invariably balanced by practical sound sense, the personal experience he acquired of the female sex could not fail to influence his delineation of women. he was not a man to cherish illusion or to romance in verse about perfection he had never found in fact. he did not place a beatrice or laura on the pedestal of his heart; nor was it till he reached the age of forty-seven, when the _furioso_ had lain for six years finished on his desk, that he married alessandra strozzi. his great poem, completed in 1515, must have been written under the influence of those more volatile amours he celebrated in his latin verses. therefore we are not surprised to find that the female characters of the _orlando_ illustrate his epistle on the choice of a wife.[27] his highest ideal of woman is presented to us in bradamante, whose virtues are a loyal attachment to ruggiero and a modest submission to the will of her parents. yet even in bradamante he has painted a virago from whom the more delicate humanity of shakspere would have recoiled. the scene in which she quarrels with marfisa about ruggiero degrades her in our eyes, and makes us feel that such a termagant might prove a sorry wife.[28] it was almost impossible to combine true feminine qualities with the blood-thirst of an amazon. consequently when, just before her marriage, she snuffs the carnage of the saracens from afar, and regrets that she must withhold her hand from "such rich spoil of slaughter in a spacious field," a painful sense of incongruity is left upon our mind.[29] marfisa, who remains a warrior to the last, and who in her first girlhood had preserved her virginity by slaughtering a palace-full of pagans,[30] is artistically justified as a romantic heroine. but bradamante, destined to become a mother, gentle in her home affections, obedient to her father's wishes, tremulous in her attachment to ruggiero, cannot with any propriety be compared to a leopard loosed from the leash upon defenseless gazelles.[31] between the amazonian virgin and the mother of a race of kings to be, the outline of her character wavers. [footnote 27: see above, part i. p. 510.] [footnote 28: canto xxxvi., especially stanza 50.] [footnote 29: canto xxxix. 10-15; cp. _ib._ 67-72.] [footnote 30: canto xxxvii. 15.] [footnote 31: canto xxxix. 69.] after the more finished portrait of bradamante, we find in isabella and fiordeligi, the lovers of zerbino and brandimarte, ariosto's purest types of feminine affection. the cardinal virtue of woman in his eyes was self-devotion--loyalty to the death, unhesitating sacrifice of wealth, ease, reputation, life, to the one object of passionate attachment. and this self-devotion he has painted in olimpia no less romantically than in isabella and fiordeligi. still it must be remembered that isabella had eloped with zerbino from her father's palace, that fiordeligi was only a wife in name, and that olimpia murdered her first husband and consoled herself very rapidly for bireno's loss in the arms of oberto. the poet has not cared to interweave with either portrait such threads of piety and purity as harmonize the self-abandonment of juliet. fiordespina's ready credence of the absurd story by which ricciardetto persuades her that he is bradamante metamorphosed by a water-fairy to a man, and her love longings, so frankly confessed, so unblushingly indulged, illustrate the passion ariosto delighted to describe. he feels a tender sympathy for feminine frailty, and in more than one exquisitely written passage claims for women a similar license in love to that of men.[32] indeed, he never judges a woman severely, unless she adds to her want of chastity the spitefulness of gabrina or the treachery of orrigille or the cupidity of argia or the heartlessness of angelica. angelica, who in the _innamorato_ touches our feelings by her tenderness for rinaldo, in the _furioso_ becomes a mere coquette, and is well punished by her insane passion for the first pretty fellow that takes her fancy. the common faults for which ariosto taxes women are cupidity, infidelity, and fraud.[33] the indulgence due to them from men is almost cynically illustrated by the story of adonio and the magic virtues of merlin's goblet.[34] in the preface to the fifth canto he condemns the brutality of husbands, and in the tenth he recommends ladies to be free of their favors to none but middle-aged lovers.[35] [footnote 32: see especially iv. 63-67.] [footnote 33: introductions to cantos xliii. xxviii. xxix. xxii. xxvi.; cp. xxvii. 123.] [footnote 34: canto xlii.] [footnote 35: stanzas 6-9.] ariosto's morality was clearly on a level with that of the novelists from boccaccio to bandello; and his apology is that he was not inferior to the standard of his age. still it is not much to his credit to plead that his cantos are less impure than the _capitoli_ of monsignore la casa or the prurient comedies of aretino. even allowing for the laxity of renaissance manners, it must be conceded that he combined vulgar emotions and a coarse-fibered nature with the most refined artistic genius.[36] our elizabethan drama, in spite of moral crudity, contains nothing so cynical as ariosto's novel of jocondo. the beauty of its style, the absence of tragedy in its situations or of passion in its characters, and the humorous smile with which the poet acts as showman to the secrets of the alcove, render this tale one of the most licentious in literature. nor is this licentiousness balanced by any sublimer spiritual quality. his ideal of manliness is physical force and animal courage. cruelty and bloodshed for the sake of slaughter stain his heroes.[37] the noblest conflict of emotion he portrays is the struggle between love and honor in ruggiero,[38] and the contest of courtesy between ruggiero and leone.[39] in the few passages where he celebrates the chivalrous ideal, he dwells chiefly on the scorn of gain and the contempt for ease which characterized the errant knighthood.[40] [footnote 36: if this seems over-stated, i might refer the reader to the prologue of the _suppositi_, where the worst vice of the renaissance is treated with a flippant relish; or, again, to the prologue of the _lena_, where the _double entendre_ is worthy of the grossest _capitolo_. the plots of all ariosto's comedies are of a vulgar, obscene, _bourgeois_ type.] [footnote 37: see xxxix. 10-72, xx. 113, xlvi. 137, and _passim_, for the carnage wrought by knights cased in enchanted armor with invulnerable bodies upon defenseless saracens or unarmed peasants. it was partly this that made shelley shrink with loathing from the _furioso_.] [footnote 38: cantos xxi. 1-3, xx. 143, xxxviii. introduction, xlv. 57, xxv. introduction.] [footnote 39: cantos xliv. xlv.] [footnote 40: canto vi. 80, vii. 41-44. the sentiments, though superficial, are exquisitely uttered.] the style of the _furioso_ is said to have taught galileo how to write italian. this style won from him for ariosto the title of _divine_. as the luminous and flowing octave stanzas pass before us, we are almost tempted to forget that they are products of deliberate art. the beauty of their form consists in its limpidity and naturalness. ariosto has no mannerism. he always finds exactly the expression needed to give clearness to the object he presents. whether the mood be elegiac or satiric, humorous or heroic, idyllic or rhetorical, this absolute sincerity and directness of language maintains him at an even level. in each case he has given the right, the best, the natural investiture to thought, and his phrases have the self-evidence of crystals. just as he collected the materials of his poem from all sources, so he appropriated every word that seemed to serve his need. the vocabulary of dante, petrarch, and boccaccio, the racy terms of popular poetry, together with latinisms and lombardisms, were alike laid under contribution. yet these diverse elements were so fused together and brought into a common toning by his taste that, though the language of his poem was new, it was at once accepted as classical. when we remember the difficulties which in his days beset italian composition, when we call to mind the frigid experiments of bembo in tuscan diction, the meticulous proprieties of critics like speron speroni, and the warfare waged around the _gerusalemme liberata_, we know not whether to wonder at ariosto's happy audacities in language or at their still happier success. his triumph was not won without severe labor. he spent ten years in the composition of the _furioso_ and sixteen in its polishing. the autograph at ferrara shows page upon page of alteration, transposition, and refinement on the first draught, proving that the homeric limpidity and ease we now admire, were gained by assiduous self-criticism. the result of this long toil is that there cannot be found a rough or languid or inharmonious passage in an epic of 50,000 lines. if we do not discern in ariosto the inexhaustible freshness of homer, the sublime music of milton, the sculpturesque brevity of dante, the purity of petrarch, or the majestic sweetness of virgilian cadences, it can fairly be said that no other poet is so varied. none mingles strength, sweetness, subtlety, rapidity, rhetoric, breadth of effect and delicacy of suggestion, in a harmony so perfect. none combines workmanship so artistic with a facility that precludes all weariness. whether we read him simply to enjoy his story or to taste the most exquisite flavors of poetic diction, we shall be equally satisfied. language in his hands is like a soft and yielding paste, which takes all forms beneath the molder's hand, and then, when it has hardened, stays for ever sharp in outline, glittering as adamant. while following the romantic method of boiardo and borrowing the polished numbers of poliziano, ariosto refined the stanzas of the former poet without losing rapidity, and avoided the stationary pomp of the latter without sacrificing richness. he thus effected a combination of the two chief currents of italian versification, and brought the octave to its final perfection. when we study the passage which describes the entrance of ruggiero into the island home of alcina, we feel the advance in melody and movement that he made. we are reminded of the gardens of morgana and venus; but both are surpassed in their own qualities of beauty, while the fluidity that springs from complete command of the material, is added. such touches as the following:[41] pensier canuto nè molto nè poco si può quivi albergare in alcun core: are wholly beyond the scope of boiardo's style. again, this stanza, without the brocaded splendor of poliziano, contains all that he derived from claudian:[42] per le cime dei pini e degli allori, degli alti faggi e degli irsuti abeti, volan scherzando i pargoletti amori; di lor vittorie altri godendo lieti, altri pigliando a saettare i cori la mira quindi, altri tendendo reti: chi tempra dardi ad un ruscel più basso, e chi gli aguzza ad un volubil sasso. [footnote 41: canto vi. 73.] [footnote 42: canto vi. 75.] raphael, correggio and titian have succeeded to botticelli and mantegna; and as those supreme painters fused the several excellences of their predecessors in a fully-developed work of art, so has ariosto passed beyond his masters in the art of poetry. nor was the process one of mere eclecticism. intent upon similar aims, the final artists of the early sixteenth century brought the same profound sentiment for reality, the same firm grasp on truth, the same vivid imagination as their precursors to the task. but they possessed surer hands and a more accomplished method. they stood above their subject and surveyed it from the height of conscious power. after the island of alcina, it only remained for tasso to produce novelty in his description of armida's gardens by pushing one of ariosto's qualities to exaggeration. the _dolcezza_, which in tasso is too sugared, has in ariosto the fine flavor of wild honeycombs. in the tropical magnificence of tasso's stanzas there is a sultry stupor which the fresh sunlight of the _furioso_ never sheds. this wilding grace of the ferrarese homer is due to the lightness of his touch--to the blending of humorous with luxurious images in a style that passes swiftly over all it paints.[43] after a like fashion, the idyl of angelica among the shepherds surpasses the celebrated episode of erminia in the _gerusalemme_. it is not that tasso has not invented a new music and wrung a novel effect from the situation by the impassioned fervor of his sympathy and by the majestic languor of his cadences. but we feel that what tasso relies on for his main effect, ariosto had already suggested in combination with other and still subtler qualities. the one has the overpowering perfume of a hothouse jasmine; the other has the mingled scents of a garden where roses and carnations are in bloom. [footnote 43: notice, for example, the irony of the seventh line in vi. 71, and of the third and fourth in the next stanza.] ariosto's pictorial faculty has already formed the topic of a paragraph, nor is it necessary to adduce instances of what determines the whole character of the _orlando furioso_. otherwise it would be easy to form a gallery of portraits and landscapes; to compare the double treatment of andromeda exposed to the sea monster in the tenth and eleventh cantos,[44] to set a pageant in the style of mantegna by the side of a correggiesque vignette,[45] or to enlarge upon the beauty of those magical renaissance buildings which the poet dreamed of in the midst of verdant lawns and flowery wildernesses.[46] true to the spirit of italian art, he had no strong sentiment for nature except in connection with humanity. therefore we find but little of landscape-painting for its own sake and small sympathy with the wilder and uncultivated beauties of the world. his scenery recalls the backgrounds to carpaccio's pictures or the idyllic gardens of the giorgionesque school. sometimes there is a magnificent drawing in the style of titian's purple mountain ranges, and here and there we come upon minutely finished studies that imply deep feeling for the moods of nature. of this sort is the description of autumn[47]; tra il fin d'ottobre e il capo di novembre, nella stagion che la frondosa vesta vede levarsi, e discoprir le membre, trepida pianta, finchè nuda resta, e van gli augelli a strette schiere insembre. [footnote 44: canto x. 95, 96, xi. 65, 66. the one is angelica, the other olimpia.] [footnote 45: canto vi. 62, 63, 75.] [footnote 46: canto vi. 71, xxxiv. 51-53.] [footnote 47: canto ix. 7.] the illuminative force of his similes is quite extraordinary. he uses them not only as occasions for painting cabinet pictures of exquisite richness, but also for casting strong imaginative light upon the object under treatment. in the earlier part of the _furioso_ he describes two battles with a huge sea monster. the orc is a kind of romantic whale, such as piero di cosimo painted in his tale of andromeda; and ruggiero has to fight it first, while riding on the hippogriff. it is therefore necessary for ariosto to image forth a battle between behemoth and a mighty bird. he does so by elaborately painting the more familiar struggles of an eagle who has caught a snake, and of a mastiff snapping at a fly.[48] at the same time he adds realistic touches like the following: l'orca, che vede sotto le grandi ale l'ombra di qua e di là correr su l'onda, lascia la preda certa littorale, e quella vana segue furibonda. [footnote 48: canto x. 102-106.] or, again, when ruggiero is afraid of wetting his aërial courser's wings: che se lo sprazzo in tal modo ha a durare, teme sì l'ale innaffi all'ippogrifo, che brami invano avere o zucca o schifo. the mixture of imagery with prosaic detail brings the whole scene distinctly before our eyes. when orlando engages the same monster, he is in a boat, and the conditions of the contest are altered. accordingly we have a different set of similes. a cloud that fills a valley, rolling to and fro between the mountain sides, describes the movement of the orc upon the waters; and when orlando thrusts his anchor in between its jaws to keep them open, he is compared to miners propping up their galleries with beams in order that they may pursue their work in safety.[49] in this way we realize the formidable nature of the beast, and comprehend the stratagem that tames it to orlando's will. [footnote 49: canto xi. 34-38.] the same nice adaptation of images may be noticed in the similes showered on rodomonte. the giant is alone inside the walls of paris, and the poet is bound to make us feel that a whole city may have cause to tremble before a single man. therefore he never leaves our fancy for a moment in repose. at one time it is a castle shaken by a storm; at another a lion retreating before the hunters; again, a tigress deprived of her cubs, or a bull that has broken from the baiting-pole, or the whelps of a lioness attacking a fierce young steer.[50] image succeeds image with dazzling rapidity, all tending to render a strained situation possible. [footnote 50: canto xviii. 11, 14, 19, 22, 35.] some of ariosto's illustrations--like the plowman and the thunderbolt, the two dogs fighting, the powder magazine struck by lightning, the house on fire at night, the leaves of autumn, the pine that braves a tempest, the forest bending beneath mighty winds, the april avalanche of suddenly dissolving snow--though wrought with energy and spirit, have not more than the usual excellences of carefully developed homeric imitation.[51] framed in single octave stanzas, they are pictures for the mind to rest on. others illuminate the matter they are used to illustrate, with the radiance of subtle and remote fancy. of this sort is the brief image by which the paladins in charlemagne's army are likened to jewels in a cloth of gold:[52] ed hanno i paladin sparsi tra loro, come le gemme in un ricamo d'oro. [footnote 51: canto i. 65, ii. 5, ix. 78, xx. 89, xxi. 15, 16, xxiv. 63, xxxvi. 40.] [footnote 52: canto xxxix. 17.] a common metaphor takes new beauty by its handling in this simile[53]; pallido come colto al mattutino e da sera il ligustro o il molle acanto. [footnote 53: canto xliii. 169.] homer had compared the wound of menelaus to ivory stained by a mæonian woman with crimson.[54] ariosto refines on this conceit:[55] così talora un bel purpureo nastro ho veduto partir tela d'argento da quella bianca man più ch'alabastro. da cui partire il cor spesso mi sento. [footnote 54: _iliad_, iv. 140.] [footnote 55: canto xxiv. 66.] both homer and virgil likened their dying heroes to flowers cut down by the tempest or the plow. the following passage will bear comparison even with the death of euphorbus:[56] come purpureo fior languendo muore, che 'l vomere al passar tagliato lassa, o come carco di superchio umore il papaver nell'orto il capo abbassa: così, giù della faccia ogni colore cadendo, dardinel di vita passa; passa di vita, e fa passar con lui l'ardire e la virtù di tutti i sui. [footnote 56: canto xviii. 153.] one more example may be chosen where ariosto has borrowed nothing from any model. he uses the perfume that clings to the hair or dress of youth or maiden, as a metaphor for the aroma of noble ancestry:[57] l'odor ch'è sparso in ben notrita e bella o chioma o barba o delicata vesta di giovene leggiadro o di donzella, ch'amor sovente sospirando desta; se spira, e fa sentir di sè novella, e dopo molti giorni ancora resta, mostra con chiaro ed evidente effetto, come a principio buono era e perfetto. [footnote 57: canto xli. 1.] the unique importance of ariosto in the history of renaissance poetry justifies a lengthy examination of his masterpiece. in him the chief artistic forces of the age were so combined that he remains its best interpreter. painting, the cardinal art of italy, determined his method; and the tide of his narrative carried with it the idyl, the elegy, and the _novella_. in these forms the genius of the renaissance found fittest literary expression; for the epic and the drama lay beyond the scope of the italians at this period. the defect of deep passion and serious thought, the absence of enthusiasm, combined with rare analytic powers and an acute insight into human nature, placed ariosto in close relation to his age. free from illusions, struggling after no high-set ideal, accepting the world as he found it, without the impulse to affirm or to deny, without hate, scorn, indignation or revolt, he represented the spirit of the sixteenth century in those qualities which were the source of moral and political decay to the italians. but he also embodied the strong points of his epoch--especially that sustained pursuit of beauty in form, that width of intellectual sympathy, that urbanity of tone and delicacy of perception, which rendered italy the mistress of the arts, the propagator of culture for the rest of europe. chapter x. the novellieri. boccaccio's legacy--social conditions of literature in italy--importance of the _novella_--definition of the _novella_--method of the novelists--their style--materials used--large numbers of _novelle_ in print--lombard and tuscan species--introductions to il lasca's _cene_, parabosco's _diporti_--bandello's dedications--life of bandello--his moral attitude--bandello as an artist--comparison of bandello and fletcher--the tale of _gerardo and elena_--_romeo and juliet_--the tale of _nicuola_--the _countess of salisbury_--bandello's apology for his morals and his style--il lasca--mixture of cruelty and lust--extravagant situations--treatment of the _parisina_ motive--the florentine _burla_--apology for il lasca's repulsiveness--firenzuola--his life--his satires on the clergy--his dialogue on beauty--novelettes and poems--doni's career--his bizarre humor--bohemian life at venice--the pellegrini--his _novelle_--miscellaneous works--the _marmi_--the novelists of siena--their specific character--sermini--fortini--bargagli's description of the siege of siena--illicini's novel of _angelica_--the _proverbi_ of cornazano--the _notti piacevoli_ of straparola--the novel of _belphegor_--straparola and machiavelli--giraldi cinthio's _hecatommithi_--description of the sack of rome--plan of the collection--the legend of the borgias--comparison of italian novels and english plays. of boccaccio's legacy the most considerable portion, and the one that bore the richest fruit, was the decameron. during the sixteenth century the _novella_, as he shaped it, continued to be a popular and widely practiced form of literature. in italy the keynote of the renaissance was struck by the _novella_, as in england by the drama. nor is this predominance of what must be reckoned a subordinate branch of fiction, altogether singular; for the _novella_ was in a special sense adapted to the public which during the age of the despots grew up in italy. since the fourteenth century the conditions of social life had undergone a thorough revolution. under the influence of dynastic rulers stationed in great cities, merchants and manufacturers were confounded with the old nobility; and in commonwealths like florence the _bourgeoisie_ gave their tone to society. at the same time the community thus formed was separated from the people by the bar of humanistic culture. literature felt this social transformation. its products were shaped to suit the taste of the middle classes, and at the same time to amuse the leisure of the aristocracy. the _novella_ was the natural outcome of these circumstances. its qualities and its defects alike betray the ascendency of the _bourgeois_ element. when a whole nation is addressed in drama or epic, it is necessary for the poet to strike a lofty and noble note. he appeals to collective humanity, and there is no room for aught that savors of the trivial and base. homer and sophocles, dante and shakspere, owed their grandeur in no slight measure to the audience for whom they labored. the case is altered when a nation comes to be divided into orders, each of which has its own peculiar virtues and its own besetting sins. limitations are of necessity introduced and deflections from the canon of universality are welcomed. if the poet, for example, writes for the lowest classes of society, he can afford to be coarse, but he must be natural. an aristocracy, taken by itself, is apt, on the contrary, to demand from literature the refinements of fashionable vice and the subtleties of artificial sentiment. under such influence we obtain the arthurian legends of the later middle ages, which contrast unfavorably, in all points of simplicity and directness, with the earlier niebelungen and carolingian cycles. the middle classes, for their part, delight in pictures of daily life, presented with realism, and flavored with satire that touches on the points of their experience. literature produced to please the _bourgeois_, must be sensible and positive; and its success will greatly depend upon the piquancy of its appeal to ordinary unidealized appetites. the italians lacked such means of addressing the aggregated masses of the nation as the panhellenic festivals of greece afforded. the public, which gave its scale of grandeur and sincerity to the attic and elizabethan drama, was wanting. the literature of the _cinque cento_, though it owed much to the justice of perception and simple taste of the true people, was composed for the most part by men of middle rank for the amusement of citizens and nobles. it partook of those qualities which characterise the upper and middle classes. it was deficient in the breadth, the magnitude, the purity, which an audience composed of the whole nation can alone communicate. we find it cynical, satirical, ingenious in sly appeals to appetite, and oftentimes superfluously naughty. above all it was emphatically the literature of a society confined to cities. it may be difficult to decide what special quality of the italian temperament was satisfied with the _novella_. yet the fact remains that this species of composition largely governed their production, not only in the field of narrative, but also in the associated region of poetry and in the plastic arts. so powerful was the attraction it possessed, that even the legends of the saints assumed this character. a notable portion of the _sacre rappresentazioni_ were dramatized _novelle_. the romantic poets interwove _novelle_ with their main theme, and the charm of the _orlando furioso_ is due in no small measure to such episodes. popular poems of the type represented by _ginevra degli almieri_ were versified _novelle_. celebrated trials, like that of the countess of cellant, vittoria accoramboni, or the cenci, were offered to the people in the form of _novelle_. the humanists--pontano, poggio, æneas sylvius--wrote _novelle_ in latin. the best serial pictures of the secondary painters--whether we select benozzo gozzoli's legend of s. augustine at san gemignano, or carpaccio's legend of s. ursula at venice, or sodoma's legend of s. benedict at monte oliveto, or lippo lippi's legend of s. john at prato--are executed in the spirit of the novelists. they are _novelle_ painted in their salient incidents for the laity to study on the walls of church and oratory. the term _novella_ requires definition, lest the thing in question should be confounded with our modern novel. although they bear the same name, these species have less in common than might be supposed. both, indeed, are narratives; but while the novel is a history extending over a considerable space of time, embracing a complicated tissue of events, and necessitating a study of character, the _novella_ is invariably brief and sketchy. it does not aim at presenting a detailed picture of human life within certain artistically chosen limitations, but confines itself to a striking situation, or tells an anecdote illustrative of some moral quality. this is shown by the headings of the sections into which italian _novellieri_ divided their collections. we read such rubrics as the following: "on the magnanimity of princes"; "concerning those who have been fortunate in love"; "of sudden changes from prosperity to evil fortune"; "the guiles of women practiced on their husbands." a theme is proposed, and the _novelle_ are intended to exemplify it. the _novelle_ were descended in a direct line from the anecdotes embedded in medieval treasuries, bestiaries, and similar collections. the novel, on the other hand, as cervantes, richardson, and fielding formed it for the modern nations, is an expansion and prose digest of the drama. it implies the drama as a previous condition of its being, and flourishes among races gifted with the dramatic faculty. furthermore, the _novelle_ were composed for the amusement of mixed companies, who met together and passed their time in conversation. all the _novellieri_ pretend that their stories were originally recited and then written down, nor is there the least doubt that in a large majority of cases they were really read aloud or improvised upon occasions similar to those invented by their authors. these circumstances determined the length and ruled the mechanism of the _novella_. it was impossible within the short space of a spoken tale to attempt any minute analysis of character, or to weave the meshes of a complicated plot. the narrator went straight to his object, which was to arrest the attention, stimulate the curiosity, gratify the sensual instincts, excite the laughter, or stir the tender emotions of his audience by some fantastic, extraordinary, voluptuous, comic, or pathetic incident. he sketched his personages with a few swift touches, set forth their circumstances with pungent brevity, and expended his force upon the painting of the central motive. sometimes he contented himself with a bare narrative, leaving its details to the fancy. many _novelle_ are the mere skeletons of stories, short notes, and epitomes of tales. at another time he indulged in descriptive passages of great verbal beauty, when it was his purpose to delight the ideal audience with pictures, or to arouse their sympathy for his characters in a situation of peculiar vividness. or he introduced digressions upon moral themes suggested by the passion of the moment, discoursing with the easy flow of one who raises points of casuistry in a drawing-room. again, he heightened the effects of his anecdote by elaborate rhetorical development of the main emotions, placing carefully-studied speeches into the mouth of heroine or hero, and using every artifice for appealing directly to the feelings of his hearers. thus, while the several _novellieri_ pursue different methods at different times according to their purpose, their styles are all determined by the fact that recitation was essential to the species. all of them, moreover, have a common object in amusement. though the _novellieri_ profess to teach morality by precept, and though some of them prefix prayers to their most impudent debauches of the fancy,[58] it is clear that entertainment was their one sole end in view. for their success they relied on the novelty and strangeness of their incidents; on obscenity, sometimes veiled beneath the innuendoes and suggestive metaphors of italian convention, but more often unabashed and naked to the view; on startling horrors, acts of insane passion, or the ingenuities of diabolical cruelty. the humor of _beffe_ and _burle_, jests played by rogues on simpletons, practical jokes, and the various devices whereby wives and lovers fooled confiding husbands, supplied abundant material for relieving the more tragic stories. lastly, the wide realm of pathos, the spectacle of beauty in distress, young lovers overwhelmed by undeserved calamity, sudden reverses of fortune, and accidents of travel upon land and sea, provided the narrator with plentiful matter for working on the sympathy of his readers. of moral purpose in any strict sense of the phrase the _novelle_ have none. this does not mean that they are invariably immoral; on the contrary, the theme of a considerable number is such that the tale can be agreeably told without violence to the most sensitive taste. but the novelist had no ethical intention; therefore he brought every motive into use that might amuse or stimulate, with business-like indifference. he felt no qualm of conscience at provoking the cruder animal instincts, at dragging the sanctities of domestic life in the mire of his buffoonery, or at playing on the appetite for monstrous vice, the thirst for abnormal sensations, in his audience. so long as he could excite attention, he was satisfied. we cannot but wonder at the customs of a society which derived its entertainment from these tales, when we know that noble ladies listened to them without blushing, and that bishops composed them as a graceful compliment to the daughter of a reigning duke.[59] [footnote 58: see bandello's introduction to _nov._ xxxv. of part i., where a most disgusting story is ushered in with ethical reflections; and take this passage from the opening of one of il lasca's least presentable novels: "prima che al novellare di questa sera si dia principio, mi rivolgo a te, dio ottimo e grandissimo, che solo tutto sai e tutto puoi, pregandoti divotamente e di cuore, che per la tua infinita bontà e clemenza mi conceda, e a tutti questi altri che dopo me diranno, tanto del tuo ajuto e della tua grazia, che la mia lingua e la loro non dica cosa niuna, se non a tua lode e a nostra consolazione."--_le cene_ (firenze, lemonnier, 1857), p. 7.] [footnote 59: it may be mentioned that not _all_ stories were recited before women. bandello introduces one of his tales with the remark that in the absence of the ladies men may be less careful in their choice of themes (_nov._ xxx. pt. i.). the exception is singular, as illustrating what was thought unfit for female ears. the _novella_ itself consists of a few jokes upon a disgusting subject; but it is less immodest than many which he dedicated to noble women.] in style the _novelle_ are, as might be expected, very unequal. everybody tried his hand at them: some wrote sparkling tuscan, others a dense lombard dialect; some were witty, others dull. yet all affected to be following boccaccio. his artificial periods and rhetorical amplifications, ill-managed by men of imperfect literary training, who could not free themselves from local jargons, produced an awkward mixture of discordant faults. yet the public expected little from the novelist in diction. what they required was movement, stimulus, excitement of their passions. so long as the tale-maker kept curiosity awake, it was a matter of comparative indifference what sort of words he used. the _novella_ was a literary no-man's-land, where the critic exercised a feeble sway, and amateurs or artists did what each found suited to his powers. it held its ground under conditions similar to those which determined the supply of plays among us in the seventeenth century, or of magazine novels in this. in their material the _novelle_ embraced the whole of italian society, furnishing pictures of its life and manners from the palaces of princes to the cottages of _contadini_. every class is represented--the man of books, the soldier, the parish priest, the cardinal, the counter-jumper, the confessor, the peasant, the duke, the merchant, the noble lady, the village maiden, the serving-man, the artisan, the actor, the beggar, the courtesan, the cut-throat, the astrologer, the lawyer, the physician, the midwife, the thief, the preacher, the nun, the pander, the fop, the witch, the saint, the galley-slave, the friar--they move before us in a motley multitude like the masquerade figures of carnival time, jostling each other in a whirl of merriment and passion, mixing together in the frank democracy of vice. though these pictures of life are brightly colored and various beyond description, they are superficial. it is only the surface of existence that the _novelliere_ touches. he leaves its depths unanalyzed, except when he plunges a sinister glance into some horrible abyss of cruelty or lust, or, stirred by gentler feeling, paints an innocent unhappy youthful love. the student of contemporary italian customs will glean abundant information from these pages; the student of human nature gathers little except reflections on the morals of sixteenth-century society. it was perhaps this prodigal superfluity of striking incident, in combination with poverty of intellectual content, which made the _novelle_ so precious to our playwrights. the tales of cinthio and bandello supplied them with the outlines of tragedies, leaving the poet free to exercise his analytic and imaginative powers upon the creation of character and the elaboration of motive. but that in spite of all their faults, the _novelle_ fascinate the fancy and stimulate the mental energies, will be admitted by all who have made them the subject of careful study. to render an adequate account of the _novellieri_ and their works is very difficult.[60] the printing-press poured novels forth in every town in italy, and authors of all districts vied with one another in their composition. at florence firenzuola penned stories with the golden fluency and dazzling wealth of phrase peculiar to him. il lasca's _cene_ rank among the most considerable literary products of the age. at florence again, machiavelli wrote _belphegor_, and scipione bargagli printed his _trattenimenti_. gentile sermini, pietro fortini and giustiniano nelli were the novelists of siena; masuccio and antonio mariconda, of naples. at rome the modenese francesco maria molza rivaled the purity of tuscan in his _decamerone_. but it was chiefly in the north of italy that novelists abounded. giraldi's hundred tales, entitled _hecatommithi_, issued from ferrara. they were heavy in style, and prosaic; yet their matter made them widely popular. sabadino wrote his _porretane_ at bologna, and francesco straparola of caravaggio published his _tredici piacevoli notti_ at venice. there also appeared the _diporti_ of girolamo parabosco, the _sei giornate_ of sebastiano erizzo, celio malespini's _ducento novelle_, and the _proverbi_ of antonio cornazano. cademosto of lodi, monsignor brevio of venice, ascanio de' mori of mantua, luigi da porto of vicenza, and, last not least, the illustrious matteo bandello, proved how rich in this species of literature were the northern provinces. the lombards displayed a special faculty for tales in which romance predominated. venice, notorious for her pleasure-marts of luxury, became the emporium of publications which supplied her courtesans and rufflers with appropriate mental food. the tuscans showed more comic humor, and, of course, a purer style. but in point of matter, intellectual and moral, there is not much to choose between the works of florentine and lombard authors. [footnote 60: _i novellieri in prosa_, by giambattista passano (milano, schiepatti, 1864), will be found an excellent dictionary of reference.] following the precedent of boccaccio, it was usual for the _novellieri_ to invent a framework for their stories, making it appear that a polite society of men and women (called in italy a _lieta brigata_) had by some chance accident been thrown upon their own resources in circumstances of piquant novelty. one of the party suggests that they should spend their time in telling tales, and a captain is chosen who sets the theme and determines the order of the story-tellers. these introductions are not unfrequently the most carefully written portion of the collection, and abound in charming sketches of italian life. thus il lasca at the opening of _le cene_ feigns that a company of young men and women went in winter time to visit at a friend's house in florence. it was snowing, and the youths amused themselves by a snow-ball match in the inner courtyard of the palace. the ladies watched them from a _loggia_, till it came into their heads to join the game. snow was brought them from the roofs, and they began to pelt the young men from their balcony.[61] the fire was returned; and when the _brigata_ had enough of this fun, they entered the house together, dried their clothes, and, sitting round a blazing hearth, formed a plan for telling stories at supper. girolamo parabosco places the scene of his _diporti_ on the venetian lagoons. a party of gentlemen have left the city to live in huts of wood and straw upon the islands, with the intention of fowling and fishing. the weather proves too bad for sport, and they while away the hours of idleness with anecdotes. bandello follows a different method, which had been suggested by masuccio. he dedicates his _novelle_ to the distinguished people of his acquaintance, in prefaces not devoid of flattery, but highly interesting to a student of those times. princes, poets, warriors, men of state, illustrious women, and humanists pass before us in these dedications, proving that polite society in italy, the society of the learned and the noble, was a republic of wit and culture. alessandro bentivoglio and ippolita sforza, the leaders of fashion and bandello's special patrons, take the first rank.[62] then we have the gonzaga family of mantua, lancinus curtius, aldus manutius, machiavelli, molsa, guicciardini, castiglione, the duchess of urbino, giovanni de' medici, julius cæsar scaliger, bernardo tasso, prospero colonna, julius ii., porcellio, pontano, berni, the milanese visconti, the neapolitan sanseverini, the adorni of genoa, the foscari of venice, the estensi of ferrara. either directly addressed in prefaces or mentioned with familiar allusion in the course of the narratives, these historic names remind us that the author lived at the center of civilization, and that his _novelle_ were intended for the entertainment of the great world. what castiglione presents abstractedly and in theory as a critique of noble society, is set before us by bandello in the concrete form of every-day occurrence. nor does the author forget that he is speaking to this company. his words are framed to suit their prejudices; his allusions have reference to their sentiments and predilections. the whole work of art breathes the air of good manners and is tuned to a certain pitch-note of fashionable tone. we may be astounded that ladies and gentlemen of the highest birth and breeding could tolerate the licenses of language and suggestion furnished by bandello for their delectation. we may draw conclusions as to their corruption and essential coarseness in the midst of refined living and external gallantries[63]. yet the fact remains that these _novelle_ were a customary adjunct to the courtly pleasures of the sixteenth century; and it was only through the printing-press that they passed into the taverns and the brothels, where perhaps they found their fittest audience. [footnote 61: this motive may have been suggested by folgore da s. gemignano's sonnet on the month of january.] [footnote 62: these are the pair so nobly painted by luini above the high-altar of s. maurizio at milan. see my _sketches and studies in italy_.] [footnote 63: what we know about manners at the courts of our elizabeth and james, and the gossip of the french court in brantome's _dames galantes_, remind us that this blending of grossness and luxury was not peculiar to italy.] matteo bandello was a member of the petty lombard nobility, born at castelnuovo in tortona. his uncle was general of the dominicans, and this circumstance determined matteo's career. after spending some years of his youth at rome, he entered the order of the predicatori in the convent delle grazie at milan. he was not, however, destined to the seclusion of a convent; for he attended his uncle, in the character apparently of a companion or familiar secretary, when the general visited the chief dominican establishments of italy, spain, france and germany. a considerable portion of bandello's manhood was passed at mantua, where he became the tutor and the platonic lover of lucrezia gonzaga. before the date 1525, when french and spaniards contested the duchy of milan, he had already formed a collection of _novelle_ in manuscript--the fruits of all that he had heard and seen upon his frequent travels. these were dispersed when the spaniards entered milan and pillaged the house of the bandello family.[64] matteo, after numerous adventures as an exile, succeeded in recovering a portion of his papers, and retired with cesare fregoso to the court of france. he now set himself seriously to the task of preparing his _novelle_ for the press; nor was this occupation interrupted by the duties of the see of agen, conferred upon him in 1550 by henry ii. the new bishop allowed his colleague of grasse to administer the see, drawing enough of its emoluments for his private needs, and attending till his death, about the year 1560, to study and composition. [footnote 64: see dedication to _nov._ xi. of second part.] bandello's life was itself a _novella_. the scion of a noble house, early dedicated to the order of s. dominic, but with the general of that order for his uncle, he enjoyed rare opportunities of studying men and manners in all parts of europe. his good abilities and active mind enabled him to master the essentials of scholarship, and introduced him as tutor to one of the most fascinating learned women of his age. these privileges he put to use by carrying on a courtly flirtation with his interesting pupil, at the same time that he penned his celebrated novels. the disasters of the milanese duchy deprived him of his literary collections and probably injured his fortune. but he found advancement on a foreign soil, and died a bishop at the moment when europe was ringing with the scandals of his too licentious tales. these tales furnished the reformers with a weapon in their war against the church; nor would it have been easy to devise one better to their purpose. even now it moves astonishment to think that a monk should have written, and a bishop should have published, the _facetiæ_ with which bandello's books are filled. bandello paints a society in dissolution, bound together by no monarchical or feudal principles, without patriotism, without piety, united by none of the common spiritual enthusiasms that make a people powerful. the word honor is on everybody's lips; but the thing is nowhere: and when the story-teller seeks to present its ideal image to his audience, he proves by the absurdity of his exaggeration that he has no clear conception of its meaning.[65] the virtues which inspired an earlier and less corrupt civility, have become occasions for insipid rhetoric. the vice that formerly stirred indignation, is now the subject of mirth. there is no satire, because there is no moral sense. bandello's revelations of clerical and monastic immorality supplied the enemies of rome with a full brief; but it is obvious that bandello and his audience regarded the monstrous tale of profligacy with amusement. his frankness upon the very eve of the council of trent has something at once cynical and sinister. it makes us feel that the hypocrisy engendered by the german reformation, the _si non caste tamen caute_ of the new ecclesiastical _régime_, was the last resort of a system so debased that vital regeneration had become impossible. this does not necessarily mean that the italian church had no worthy ministers in the sixteenth century. but when her dealing with the people ended in a humorous acceptance of such sin, we perceive that the rottenness had reached the core. to present the details of bandello's clerical stories would be impossible in pages meant for modern readers. it is enough to say that he spares no rank or order of the roman priesthood. the prelate, the parish curate, the abbot and the prioress, the monk and nun, are made the subject of impartial ribaldry.[66] the secrets of convents abandoned to debauchery are revealed with good-humored candor, as though the scandal was too common to need special comment.[67] sometimes bandello extracts comedy from the contrast between the hypocritical pretensions of his clerical ruffians and their lawless conduct, as in the story of the priest who for his own ends persuaded his parishioners that the village was haunted by a griffin.[68] sometimes he succeeds in drawing a satirical portrait, like that of the franciscan friar who domesticated himself as chaplain in the castle of a noble norman family.[69] but the majority of these tales are simply obscene, with no point but a coarse picture or a shockingly painful climax.[70] [footnote 65: read, for example, the _novella_ of zilia, who imposed silence on her lover because he kissed her, and the whole sequel to his preposterous obedience (iii. 17); or the tale of don giovanni emmanuel in the lion's den (iii. 39); or the rambling story of don diego and ginevra la bionda (i. 27). the two latter have a touch of spanish extravagance, but without the glowing spanish passion. in quoting bandello, i shall refer to _part_ and _novel_ by two numerals. references are made to the milanese edition, _novellieri italiani_, 1813-1816.] [footnote 66: for instance, parte ii. _nov._ 14; ii. xlv.; iii. 2, 3, 4, 7, 20.] [footnote 67: see the description in ii. 36 (vol. v. p. 270); and again, iii. 61; ii. 45.] [footnote 68: ii. 2.] [footnote 69: ii. 24.] [footnote 70: see, for instance, ii. 20; ii. 7.] the same judgment may be passed upon a large portion of the _novelle_ which deal with secular characters. they are indecent anecdotes, and do not illustrate any specific quality in the author or in the temper of his times.[71] the seasoning of horror only serves to render their licentiousness more loathsome. as bandello lacked the indignation of masuccio, so he failed to touch masuccio's tragic chord. when he attempted it, as in the ghastly story of violante, who revenged herself upon a faithless lover by tearing him to pieces with pincers, or in the disgusting novel of pandora, or again in the tale of the husband who forced his wife to strangle her lover with her own hands, he only rouses physical repulsion.[72] he makes our flesh creep, and produces literature analogous to that of the _police times_. nor does he succeed better with subjects that require the handling of a profound psychologist. his rosmunda and tarquin, his faustina and seleucus, leave an impression of failure through defect of imaginative force[73]; while the incestuous theme of one tale, treated as it is with frigid levity, can claim no justification on the score of dramatic handling or high-wrought spiritual agony.[74] [footnote 71: i need not give any references to the _novelle_ of this groveling type. but i may call attention to i. 35; ii. 11; iv. 34, 35. these tales are not exceptionally obscene; they illustrate to what extent mere filth of the swiftian sort passed for fun in the italy of bembo and castiglione.] [footnote 72: i. 42; iii. 21; iii. 52; ii. 12.] [footnote 73: iii. 18; ii. 21; i. 36; iii. 55.] [footnote 74: ii. 35; cp. i. 37.] it was not in this region of tragic terror that bandello's genius moved with freedom. in describing the luxury of milan or the manners of the venetian courtesans, in bringing before us scenes from the _demi-monde_ of rome or painting the life of a _grisette_, he shows acute knowledge of society, studied under its more superficial aspects, and produces pictures that are valuable for the antiquarian.[75] the same merit of freshness belongs to many minor anecdotes, like the romance of the girl who drowned herself in the oglio to save her honor, or the pretty episode of costantino boccali who swam the adige in winter at a thoughtless lady's behest.[76] yet in bandello's versions of contemporary histories which taxed the imaginative powers or demanded deeper insight into human passions, we miss the true dramatic ring. it was only when it fell into the hands of webster, that his dull narrative of the duchess of amalfi revealed its capacities for artistic treatment.[77] nor is the story of the countess of cellant, though full of striking details, so presented as to leave the impression of tragedy upon our minds.[78] we only feel what webster, dealing with it as he dealt with vittoria corombona's crime, might have made out of this poor material. [footnote 75: the pictures of milanese luxury before the spanish occupation are particularly interesting. see i. 9, and the beginning of ii. 8. it seems that then, as now, milan was famous for her equipages and horses. the tale of the two fops who always dressed in white (iii. 11) brings that life before us. for the venetian and roman _demi-monde_, iii. 31; i. 19; i. 42; ii. 51, may be consulted. these passages have the value of authentic studies from contemporary life, and are told about persons whom the author knew at least by name.] [footnote 76: i. 8; i. 47.] [footnote 77: i. 26.] [footnote 78: i. 108.] it may be asked, if this is all, why any one should take the pains to read through the two hundred and fourteen _novelle_ of bandello, and, having done so, should think it worth his while to write about them. ought they not rather to be left among the things the world would willingly let die? the answer to this question is twofold. in the first place they fairly represent the whole class of novels which were produced so abundantly in italy that the historian of renaissance literature cannot pass them by in silence. secondly, bandello at his best is a great artist in the story-teller's craft. the conditions under which he displayed his powers to true advantage, require some definition. once only did he successfully handle a really comic situation. that was in his tale of the monkey who dressed himself up in a dead woman's clothes, and frightened her family when they returned from the funeral, by mimicking her movement.[79] he was never truly tragic. but in the intermediate region between tragedy and comedy, where situations of romantic beauty offer themselves to the sympathetic imagination--in that realm of pathos and adventure, where pictures of eventful living can be painted, and the conflicts of tender emotion have to be described, bandello proved himself a master. it would make the orthodox italian critics shudder in their graves to hear that he had been compared to ariosto. yet a foreigner, gifted with obtuser sensibility to the refinements of italian diction, may venture the remark that bandello was a kind of prose ariosto--in the same sense as heywood seemed a prose shakspere to charles lamb. judged by the high standard of athenian or elizabethan art, neither ariosto nor bandello was a first-rate dramatist. but both commanded the material of which romantic tragedies can be constructed. bandello's best _novelle_ abound in the situations which delighted our playwrights of the jacobean age--in the thrilling incidents and scenes of high-wrought passion we are wont to deem the special property of fletcher. he puts them before us with a force of realistic coloring, and develops them with a warmth of feeling, that leave no doubt of his artistic skill. composition and style may fail him, but his sympathy with the poetic situation, and his power to express it are unmistakable. in support of this opinion i might point to his vigorous but repulsive presentation of parisina's legend, where the gradual yielding of a sensitive young man to the seductions of a sensual woman, is painted with touches of terrible veracity.[80] or the tale of the venetian lovers might be chosen.[81] gerardo and elena were secretly married; but in his absence on a voyage, she was plighted by her father to another husband. before the consummation of this second marriage, elena fell through misery into a death-like trance, and was taken by her kindred to be buried at castello on the shores of the lagoons. at the moment when the funeral procession was crossing the waters by the light of many torches, the ship of gerardo cast anchor in the port of venice, and the young man heard that his wife was dead. attended by a single friend, he went under cover of the night to where she had been laid in a sarcophagus outside the church. this he opened, and, frantic between grief and joy, bore the corpse of his beloved to his boat. he kissed her lips, and laid himself beside her lifeless body, wildly refusing to listen to his friend's expostulations. then while the gondola rocked on the waves of the lagoons and the sea-wind freshened before daybreak, elena awoke. it is needless to add that the story ends in happiness. this brief sketch conveys no notion of the picturesque beauty of the incidents described, or of the intimate acquaintance with venetian customs displayed in the _novella_. to one who knows venice, it is full of delicate suggestions, and the reader illuminates the margin with illustrations in the manner of carpaccio. [footnote 79: iii. 65.] [footnote 80: i. 44.] [footnote 81: ii. 41.] there is a point of romeo and juliet in the tale of gerardo and elena. bandello's own treatment of the veronese romance deserves comparison with shakspere's.[82] the evolution of the tragedy is nearly the same in all its leading incidents; for we hear of romeo's earlier love, and the friar who dealt in simples is there, and so are the nurse and apothecary. bandello has anticipated shakspere even in juliet's soliloquy before she drinks the potion, when the dreadful thought occurs to her that she may wake too soon, and find herself alone among the dry bones of her ancestors, with tybalt festering in his shroud. but the prose version exhibits one motive which shakspere missed. when romeo opens the tomb, he rouses juliet from her slumber, and in his joy forgets that he has drunk the poison. for a while the lovers are in paradise together in that region of the dead; and it is only when the chill of coming death assails him, that romeo remembers what he has done. he dies, and juliet stabs herself with his sword. had shakspere chosen to develop this catastrophe, instead of making romeo perish before the waking of juliet, he might have wrought the most pathetically tragic scene in poetry. reading the climax in bandello, where it is overpoweringly affecting, we feel what we have lost. [footnote 82: ii. 37. it is clear that both followed the earlier version of da porto.] another _novella_ which provokes comparison with our dramatic literature--with the _twelfth night_ or with fletcher's _philaster_--is the tale of nicuola.[83] she and her brother paolo were twins, so like in height and form and feature that it was difficult even for friends to know them apart. they were living with their father at rome, when the siege of 1527 dispersed the family. paolo was taken prisoner by spaniards, and nicuola went to dwell at jesi. the _novella_ goes on to relate how she fell in love with a nobleman of jesi, and entering his service disguised as a page, was sent by him to woo the lady of his heart; and how this lady loved her in her page's dress. then her brother, paolo, returned, attired like her in white, and recognitions were made, and both couples, paolo and the lady, nicuola and the nobleman, were happily married in the end. it will be seen that these situations, involving confusions of identity and sex, unexpected discoveries, and cross-play of passions, offered opportunities for rhetorical and picturesque development in the style of a modern euripides; nor did bandello fail to utilize them. [footnote 83: ii. 36. this tale was fashionable in italy. it forms the basis of that rare comedy, _gli ingannati_, performed by the academy degli intronati at siena, and printed in 1538. the scene in this play is laid at modena; the main plot is interwoven with two intrigues--between isabella's father and lelia, the heroine; and between isabella's maid and a spaniard. in spite of these complications the action is lucid, and the comedy is one of the best we possess. there is an excellent humorous scene of two innkeepers touting against each other for travelers (act iii. 2). that shakspere knew the _novella_ or the comedy before he wrote his _twelfth night_ is more than probable.] of a higher type is the _novella_ which narrates the love of edward iii. for the virtuous alice of salisbury.[84] here the interest centers in four characters--the king, alice, and her father and mother, the earl and countess of salisbury. there is no action beyond the conflict of motives and emotions caused by edward's passion, and its successive phases. but that conflict is so vigorously presented that attention never flags; and, though the tale is long, we are drawn without weariness by finely-modulated transitions to the point where a felicitous catastrophe is not only natural but necessary. what is at first a mere desire in edward, passes through graduated moods of confident, despairing, soul-absorbing love. the ordinary artifices of a seducer are replaced by the powerful compulsion of a monarch, who strives to corrupt the daughter by working on her father's ambition and her mother's weakness. thwarted by the girl's constancy at every turn, he sinks into love-melancholy, then rouses himself with the furious resolve to attempt force, and lastly, yielding to his nobler nature, offers his crown to alice. these several moments in the king's passion are exhibited with a descriptive wealth and exuberance of resource that remind us forcibly of our own stage. the contrasts between the girl's invincible honor and her lover's ungovernable impulse, between her firmness and her mother's feebler nature, and again between the sovereign's overbearing willfulness and the earl's stubborn but respectful resistance, suggest a series of high-wrought situations, which only need to be versified and divided into acts to make a drama. fletcher himself might have proudly owned the scene in which edward discovers his love to the earl, begs him to plead with his daughter, and has to hear his reproaches, so courteously and yet unflinchingly expressed. what follows is equally dramatic. the earl explains to alice his own ideal of honor; still he fairly sets before her the king's lawless offer, and then receives the assurance of her unconquerable chastity. her mother, moved to feebler issues by the same pressure, attempts to break her daughter's resolve, and at last extorts a reluctant consent by her own physical agony. finally, the girl, when left alone with her royal lover, demands from him or death or honor, and wins her cause by the nobility of her carriage in this hour of trial. the whole _novella_ in its choice of motives, method of treatment, and ethical tone, challenges comparison with beaumont and fletcher's serious plays. nor is the style unlike theirs; for the situations are worked out in copious and colored language, hasty and diffuse, but charged and surcharged with the passion of the thing to be portrayed. bandello, like fletcher, strikes out images at every turn, enlarges in rhetorical digressions, and pours forth floods of voluble eloquence.[85] the morality, though romantic, is above his usual level; for while he paints a dissolute and willful prince in edward, he contrives to make us feel that the very force of passion, when purified to true love by the constancy of alice, has brought the monarch to a knowledge of his better self. nor is the type of honor in alice and the earl exaggerated. they act and speak as subjects, conscious of their duty to the king, but resolved to preserve their self-respect at any cost, should speak and act. the compliance of the countess, who is willing to sacrifice her daughter's honor under the impulse of blind terror, cannot be called unnatural. the consequent struggle between a mother's frailty and a daughter's firmness, though painful enough, is not so disagreeably presented as in tourneur's _revenger's tragedy_. if all bandello's novels had been conceived in the same spirit as this, he would have ranked among the best romantic writers of the modern age. as it is, we english may perhaps take credit to ourselves for the superior inspiration of the legend he here handled. the moral fiber of the tale is rather english than italian. [footnote 84: ii. 37. historians will not look for accuracy in what is an italian love-tale founded on an english legend.] [footnote 85: take the description of the king's love-sickness (_nov. it._ vol. v. p. 352), the incident of the king's offer to the earl (pp. 353, 354), edward's musings (p. 364), alice alone in london (p. 376), the king's defiance of opinion (p. 379), the people's verdict against alice (p. 380), alice arming herself with the dagger (p. 398), the garden scene upon the thames (p. 399). then the discourses upon love and temperament (p. 325), on discreet conduct in love affairs (pp. 334-338), on real and false courtiers (pp. 382-388). compare the descriptive passages on pp. 352, 354, 369, 393, 395, 398, with similar passages in beaumont and fletcher.] bandello was not unaware that his _novelle_ lay under censure for licentiousness. his apology deserves to be considered, since it places the italian conscience on this point in a clear light. in the preface to the eleventh _novella_ of the second part, he attacks the question boldly.[86] "they say that my stories are not honest. in this i am with them, if they rightly apprehend honesty. i do not deny that some are not only not honest, but i affirm and confess that they are most dishonest; for if i write that a maiden grants favors to a lover, i cannot pretend that the fact is not in the highest sense immoral. so also of many things i have narrated. no sane person will fail to blame incest, theft, homicide, and other vicious actions; and i concede that my _novelle_ set forth these and similar enormous crimes. but i do not admit that i deserve to be therefore blamed. the world ought to blame and stigmatize those who commit such crimes, and not the man who writes about them." he then affirms that he has written his stories down as he heard them from the lips of the narrators, that he has clothed them in decent language, and that he has always been careful to condemn vice and to praise virtue. in the twenty-fourth novel of the same part he returns to the charge.[87] hypocrites, he argues, complain that the decameron and similar collections corrupt the morality of women and teach vice; "but i was always of opinion that to commit crimes rather than to know about them was vicious. ignorance is never good, and it is better to be instructed in the wickedness of the world than to fall into error through defect of knowledge." this apology, when read by the light of bandello's own _novelle_, is an impudent evasion of the accusation. they are a school of profligacy; and the author was at pains to make his pictures of sensuality attractive. that he should plume himself upon the decorum of his language, is simply comic. such simulation of a conscience was all that remained at an epoch when the sense of shame had been extinguished, while acquiescence in the doctrines of a corrupt church had not ceased to be fashionable. [footnote 86: _nov. it._ vol. iv. p. 226. compare the peroration of his preface to the third part (vol. vii. p. 13).] [footnote 87: vol. v. p. 38.] bandello is more sensitive to strictures on his literary style, and makes a better defense. "they say that i have no style. i grant it; nor do i profess to be a master of prose, believing that if those only wrote who were consummate in their art, very few would write at all. but i maintain that any history, composed in however rough and uncouth a language, will not fail to delight the reader; and these novels of mine (unless i am deceived by their narrators) are not fables but true histories."[88] in another place he confesses that his manner is and always has been "light and low and deficient in intellectual quality."[89] again, he meets the objection that his diction is not modeled on the purest tuscan masterpieces, by arguing that even petrarch wrote italian and not tuscan, and that if livy smacked of patavinity, he, a lombard, does not shrink from lombardisms in his style.[90] the line of defense is good; but, what is more, bandello knew that he was popular. he cared to be read by all classes of the people rather than to be praised by pedants for the purity of his language. therefore he snapped his fingers at speron sperone and trifone, the so-called socrates of his century. the _novella_ was not a branch of scholarly but of vulgar literature; and bandello had far better right to class himself among italian authors than straparola or giraldi, whose novels were none the less sought after with avidity and read with pleasure by thousands. it is true that he was not a master of the best italian prose, and that his _novelle_ do not rank among the _testi di lingua_. he is at one and the same time prolix and involved, ornate and vulgar, coarse in phraseology and ambitious in rhetoric. he uses metaphors borrowed from the slang of the fashionable world to express gross thoughts or actions. he indulges in pompous digressions and overloads his narrative with illustrations. but, in spite of these defects, he is rarely dull. his energy and copiousness of diction never fail him. his style is penetrated with the passion of the subject, and he delights our imagination with wonderfully varied pictures drawn from life. it is probable that foreigners can render better justice to the merits of bandello as a writer, than italians, who are trained to criticise language from a highly refined and technical point of view. we recognize his vividness and force without being disgusted by his lombardisms or the coarseness of his phrases. yet even some italian critics of no mean standing have been found to say a good word for his style. among these may be reckoned the judicious mazzuchelli.[91] [footnote 88: vol. iv. p. 226. cp. vol. ix. p. 339.] [footnote 89: vol. vi. p. 254.] [footnote 90: vol. vii. p. 11.] [footnote 91: in the biography of bandello he says, "lo stile è piuttosto colto e studiato, che che taluno n'abbia detto in contrario, non però in guisa che possa mettersi a confronto di quello del boccaccio."] the author of _le cene_ presents a marked contrast to bandello. antonfrancesco grazzini belonged to an ancient and honorable family of staggia in valdelsa.[92] some of his ancestors held office in the florentine republic, and many were registered in the art of the notaries. born at florence in 1503, he was matriculated into the speziali, and followed the profession of a druggist. his literary career was closely connected with the academies of gli umidi and la crusca.[93] the sobriquet il lasca, or the roach, assumed by him as a member of the umidi, is the name by which he is best known. besides _novelle_, he wrote comedies and poems, and made the renowned collection of _canti carnascialeschi_. he died in 1583 and was buried in s. pier maggiore. thus while bandello might claim to be a citizen of the great world, reared in the ecclesiastical purple and conversant with the noblest society of northern italy, il lasca began life and ended it as a florentine burgher. for aught we know, he may not have traveled beyond the bounds of the republic. his stories are written in the raciest tuscan idiom and are redolent of the humor peculiar to florence. if bandello appropriated the romantic element in boccaccio, il lasca chose his comic side for imitation. nearly all his novels turn on _beffe_ and _burle_, similar to those sketched in sacchetti's anecdotes, or developed with greater detail by pulci and the author of _il grasso legnaiuolo_.[94] three boon companions, lo scheggia, il monaco, and il pilucca are the heroes of his comedy; and the pranks they play, are described with farcical humor of the broadest and most powerful sort. still the specific note of il lasca's novels is not pure fun. he combines obscenity with fierce carnal cruelty and inhuman jesting, in a mixture that speaks but ill for the taste of his time.[95] neither boccaccio nor the author of _il grasso_ struck a chord so vicious, though the latter carried his buffoonery to the utmost stretch of heartlessness. it needed the depravity of the sixteenth century to relish the lust, seasoned with physical torture and spiritual agony, which was so cunningly revealed, so coldly reveled in by il lasca.[96] a practical joke or an act of refined vengeance had peculiar attraction for the florentines. but the men must have been blunted in moral sensibility and surfeited with strange experiences, who could enjoy pilucca's brutal tricks, or derive pleasure from the climax of a tale so ghastly as the fifth _novella_ of the second series. [footnote 92: see sonnet 79, _rime_ (ed. 1741).] [footnote 93: founded respectively in 1540 and 1583. grazzini quarreled with them both.] [footnote 94: _cena_ i. _nov._ 3, is in its main motive modeled on that novel.] [footnote 95: the contrast between the amiable manners of the young men and women described in the introduction to _le cene_, and the stories put into their mouths; between the profound immorality, frigid and repellent, of the tales and ghiacinto's prayer at the beginning; need not be insisted on.] [footnote 96: as i shall not dilate upon these novels further in the text, i may support the above censure by reference to the practical joke played upon the pedagogue (i. 2), to the inhuman novel of _il berna_ (ii. 2), to the cruel vengeance of a brother (ii. 7), and to the story of the priest (ii. 8).] this is a story of incest and a husband's vengeance. substantially the same as parisina's tragedy, il lasca has invented for it his own whimsically horrible conclusion. the husband surprises his wife and son. then, having cut off their hands, feet, eyes and tongues, he leaves them to die together on the bed where he had found them. the rhetoric with which this catastrophe is embellished, and the purring sympathy expressed for the guilty couple, only serve to make its inhumanity more glaring. incapable of understanding tragedy, these writers of a vitiated age sought excitement in monstrous situations. the work produced is a proper pendent to the filth of the burlesque _capitoli_. literature of this sort might have amused caligula and his gladiators. prefaced by an unctuous prayer to god, it realizes the very superfluity of naughtiness.[97] [footnote 97: see above, p. 56, note.] in favor of the florentines, we might plead that these _novelle_ were accepted as pure fictions--debauches of the fancy, escapades of inventive wit. the ideal world they represented, claimed no contact with realities of life. the pranks of lo scheggia and il pilucca, which drove one man into exile, another to the hospital, and a third to his death, had no more actuality than the tricks of clown and pantaloon. a plea of this sort was advanced by charles lamb for the dramatists of the restoration; and it carries, undoubtedly, its measure of conviction. literature of convention, which begins by stimulating curiosity, must find novel combinations and fresh seasonings, to pique the palate of the public. thus the abominations of il lasca's stories would have to be regarded as the last desperate bids for popularity, as final hyperboles of exhausted rhetoric. yet, after all, books remain the mirror of a people's taste. whatever their quality may be, they are produced to satisfy some demand. and the wonderful vivacity of il lasca's coloring, the veracity of his art, preclude him from the benefit of a defense which presupposes that he stood in some unnatural relation to his age. while we read his tales, we cannot but remember the faces painted by bronzino, or modeled by cellini. the sixteenth-century florentines were hard and cold as steel. their temper had been brutalized by servitude, superficially polished by humanism, blunted by the extraordinary intellectual activity of three centuries. compared with the voluptuous but sympathetic mood of the lombard novelists, this cruelty means something special to the race. some of il lasca's stories, fortunately, need no such strained apology or explanation. the tale of lisabetta's dream, though it lacks point, is free from his worse faults[98]; while the novel of zoroaster is not only innocent, but highly humorous and charged with playful sarcasm.[99] it contains a portrait of a knavish astrologer, worthy to be set beside the _negromante_ of ariosto or ben jonson's _alchemist_. when jerome cardan was coquetting with chiromancy and magic, when cellini was raising fiends with the sicilian necromancer in the coliseum, a novelist found sufficient stuff for comedy and satire in the foibles of ghost-seekers and the tricks of philter-mongers. the companion portrait of the dissolute monk, who sets his hand to any dirty work that has the spice of fun in it, is also executed with no little spirit. [footnote 98: _cena_ ii. 3.] [footnote 99: _cena_ ii. 4.] among the most graceful of the tuscan novelists may be mentioned agnolo firenzuola. his family derived its name from a village at the foot of the pistojan apennines, and his father was a citizen of florence. agnolo spent his youth at siena and perugia, where he made the friendship of pietro aretino, leading the wild student life described in their correspondence.[100] that he subsequently entered the vallombrosan order seems to be certain; but it is somewhat doubtful whether he attained the dignity of abbot which his biographers ascribe to him.[101] tiraboschi, unwilling to admit so great a scandal to the church, has adduced reasons why we should suspend our judgment.[102] yet the tradition rests on substantial authority. a monument erected by firenzuola to his uncle alessandro braccio in the church of s. prassede, at rome, describes him as _ædis hujus abbas_. s. maria di spoleti and s. salvator di vaiano are supposed to have been his benefices. some further collateral proof might be drawn from the opening of the dialogue _sopra le bellezze delle donne_. the scene of it is laid in the convent grounds of grignano, and celso is undoubtedly firenzuola. a portion of his manhood was spent at rome in friendship with molza, berni, and other brilliant literary men. while resident in rome he contracted a severe and tedious illness, which obliged him to retire to prato, where he spent some of the happiest years of his life.[103] nearly all his works contain frequent and affectionate recollections of this sunny little town, the beauty of whose women is enthusiastically celebrated by him. firenzuola died before the middle of the sixteenth century at the age of about fifty. neither his life nor his friendships nor yet his writings were consistent with his monastic profession and the dignity of abbot. the charm of firenzuola's _novelle_ is due in a large measure to his style, which has a wonderful transparency and ease, a wealth of the rarest tuscan phrases, and a freshness of humor that renders them delightful reading. the storm at sea in the first tale, and the night scene in the streets of florence in the third, are described with ariostean brilliancy.[104] in point of subject-matter they do not greatly differ from the ordinary novels of the day, and some of the tales reappear in the collections of other novelists.[105] most of them turn upon the foibles and the vices of the clergy. the fourth _novella_, which is perhaps the best of all in style and humor, presents a truly comic picture of the parish priest, while the fifth describes the interior of a dissolute convent at perugia, and the tenth exposes the arts whereby confessors induced silly women to make wills in the favor of their convents. don giovanni, suor appellagia, and fra cherubino, the chief actors in these stories, might be selected as typical characters in the italian comedy of clerical dissoluteness. [footnote 100: see the letters of aretino, vol. ii. p. 239.] [footnote 101: all my references are made to the _opere di messer agnolo firenzuola_, 5 vols. milan, 1802.] [footnote 102: _storia della lett. it._ lib. iii. cap. 3, sect. 27.] [footnote 103: in a letter to aretino, dated prato, oct. 5, 1541, he says he had been ill for eleven years. it seems probable that his illness was of the kind alluded to in his _capitolo_ "in lode del legno santo" (_op. volg._ iv. p. 204).] [footnote 104: _op._ ii. pp. 94, 130.] [footnote 105: for example, _nov._ iv. is the same as bandello's ii. xx.; _nov._ vii. is the same as il lasca's ii. 10. and fortina's xiv.] firenzuola prefaced his novels with an elaborate introduction, describing the meeting of some friends at celso's villa near pazolatico, and their discourse on love.[106] from discussion they pass to telling amorous stories under the guidance of a queen selected by the company.[107] the introductory conversation is full of a dreamy, sensualized, disintegrated platonism. it parades conventional distinctions between earthly and heavenly love, between the beauty of the soul and the beauty of the body; and then we pass without modulation into the region of what is here called _accidenti amorosi_. the same insincere platonism gives color to firenzuola's discourse on the beauty of women--one of the most important productions of the sixteenth century in illustration of popular and artistic taste.[108] the author imagines himself to have interrupted a bevy of fair ladies from prato in the midst of a dispute about the beauty of mona amelia della torre nuova. mona amelia herself was present; and so were mona lampiada, mona amorrorisca, mona selvaggia, and mona verdespina.[109] under these names it is clear that living persons of the town of prato are designated; and all the examples of beauty given in the dialogue are chosen from well-known women of the district. the composition must therefore be reckoned as an elaborate compliment from firenzuola to the fair sex of prato.[110] celso begins his exposition of beauty by declaring that "it is god's highest gift to human nature, inasmuch as by its virtue we direct our soul to contemplation, and through contemplation to the desire of heavenly things."[111] he then proceeds to define beauty as "an ordered concord, or, as it were, a harmony inscrutably resulting from the composition, union, and commission of divers members, each of which shall in itself be well proportioned and in a certain sense beautiful, but which, before they combine to make one body, shall be different and discrepant among themselves."[112] having explained each clause of this definition, he passes to the appetite for beauty, and tells the myth invented for aristophanes in plato's _symposium_. this leads by natural transitions to the real business of the dialogue, which consists in analyzing and defining every kind of loveliness in women, and minutely describing the proportions, qualities, and colors of each portion of the female body. the whole is carried through with the method of a philosopher, the enthusiasm of an artist, and the refinement of a well-bred gentleman. the articles upon _leggiadria_, _grazia_, _vaghezza_, _venustà_, _aria_, _maestà_, may even now be read with profit by those who desire to comprehend the nice gradations of meaning implied by these terms.[113] the discourses on the form and color of the ear, and on the proper way of wearing ornamental flowers, bring incomparably graceful images before us[114]; and this, indeed, can be said about the whole dialogue, for there is hardly a sentence that does not reveal the delicate perceptions of an artistic nature. [footnote 106: vol ii. p. 28. the poem put into celso's mouth, p. 39, is clearly autobiographical.] [footnote 107: there is the usual reference to boccaccio, at p. 32. i may take this occasion for citing an allusion to boccaccio from the introduction to _le cene_, which shows how truly he was recognized as the patron saint of novelists. see _le cene_ (firenze, lemonnier, 1857), p. 4.] [footnote 108: vol. i. pp. 1-97. i may here allude to a still more copious and detailed treatise on the same theme by federigo luigino of udine: _il libro della bella donna_, milano, daelli, 1863; a reprint from the venetian edition of 1554. this book is a symphony of grateful images and delicately chosen phrases; it is a dithyramb in praise of feminine beauty, which owes its charm to the intense sympathy, sensual and æsthetic, of the author for his subject.] [footnote 109: selvaggia was the lady of firenzuola's _rime_.] [footnote 110: see the _elegia alle donne pratesi_, vol. iv. p. 41.] [footnote 111: vol. i. p. 16. compare the extraordinary paragraph about female beauty being an earnest of the beauties of paradise (pp. 31, 32).] [footnote 112: _ibid._ p. 21.] [footnote 113: _ibid._ pp. 51-62.] [footnote 114: vol. i. pp. 75-80.] firenzuola's adaptation of the _golden ass_ may be reckoned among the triumphs of his style, and the fables contained in his _discorsi degli animali_ are so many minutely finished novelettes.[115] both of these works belong to the proper subject of the present chapter. his comedies and his burlesque poems must be left for discussion under different headings. with regard to his serious verses, addressed to mona selvaggia, it will be enough to say that they are modeled upon petrarch. though limpid in style and musical, as all firenzuola's writing never failed to be, they ring hollow. the true note of the man's feeling was sensual. the highest point it reached was the admiration for plastic beauty expressed in his dialogue on women. it had nothing in common with petrarch's melancholy. of these minor poems i admire the little ballad beginning _o rozza pastorella_, and the wonderfully lucid version of poliziano's _violæ--o viole formose, o dolci viole_--more than any others.[116] [footnote 115: vol. iii. the _golden ass_ begins with an autobiography (vol. i. p. 103).] [footnote 116: vol. iv. pp. 19, 76.] except for the long illness which brought him to prato, firenzuola appears to have spent a happy and mirthful life; and if we may trust his introduction to the novels, he was fairly wealthy. what we know about the biography of antonfrancesco doni, who also deserves a place among the tuscan novelists, presents a striking contrast to this luxurious and amorous existence.[117] he was a florentine, and, like firenzuola, dedicated to religion. born in 1513, he entered the servite order in the cloister of the annunziata. he began by teaching the boys intrusted to the monks for education. but about 1540 he was obliged to fly the monastery under the cloud of some grave charge connected with his pupils.[118] doni turned his back on florence; and after wandering from town to town in northern italy, settled at last in 1542 at piacenza, where he seems for a short while to have applied himself with an unwilling mind to law-studies. at piacenza he made the acquaintance of lodovico domenichi, who introduced him into the accademia ortolana. this was a semi-literary club of profligates with the priapic emblems for its ensign. doni's wild and capricious humor made him a chief ornament of the society; but the members so misconducted themselves in word and deed that it was soon found necessary to suppress their meetings. while amusing himself with poetry and music among his boon companions, doni was on the lookout for a place at court or in the household of a wealthy nobleman. his letters at this period show that he was willing to become anything from poet or musician down to fool or something worse. failing in all his applications, he at last resolved to make what gains he could by literature. his friend domenichi had already settled at venice, when doni joined him there in 1544. but his stay was of brief duration. we find him again at piacenza, next at rome, and then at florence, where he established a printing-press. the principal event of this florentine residence was a definite rupture with domenichi. we do not know the causes of their quarrel; but both of them were such scamps that it is probable they took good care, while abusing one another in general terms, to guard the secrets of their respective crimes. during the rest of doni's life he pursued his old friend with relentless animosity. his invectives deserve to be compared with those of the humanists in the preceding century; while domenichi, who had succeeded in securing a position for himself at florence, replied with no less hostility in the tone of injured virtue. [footnote 117: my principal authority is doni's life by s. bongi prefixed to an edition of the _novelle_, 1851, and reprinted in fanfani's edition of _i marmi_, florence, 1863.] [footnote 118: see zilioli, quoted by bongi, _i marmi_, vol. i. p. xiv.] in 1547 doni settled finally at venice. the city of the lagoons was the only safe resort for a man who had offended the church by abandoning his vows, and whose life and writings were a scandal even in that age of license. everywhere else he would have been exposed to peril from the inquisition. though he had dropped the cowl, he could not throw aside the cassock, and his condition as priest proved not only irksome but perilous.[119] at venice he lived a singular bohemian existence, inhabiting a garret which overlooked one of the noisiest of the small canals, and scribbling for his daily bread. he was a rapid and prolific writer, sending his copy to the press before it was dry, and never caring for revision. to gain money was the sole object of his labors. the versatility of his mind and his peculiar humor made his miscellanies popular; and like aretino he wheedled or menaced ducats out of patrons. indeed, doni's life at venice is the proper pendent to aretino's, who was once his friend and afterwards his bitter foe. but while aretino contrived to live like a prince, doni, for many years at any rate, endured the miseries of grub street. they quarreled about a present which the duke of urbino had promised doni through his secretary. aretino thought that this meant poaching on his manors. accordingly he threatened his comrade with a thorough literary scourging. doni replied by a pamphlet with this singular title: "terremoto del doni fiorentino, con la rovina d'un gran colosso bestiale antichristo della nostra età." his capricious nature and bizarre passions made doni a bad friend; but he was an incomparably amusing companion. accordingly we find that his society was sought by the literary circles of all cities where he lived. at florence he had been appointed secretary to the umidi. at venice he became a member of the pellegrini. this academy was founded before the league of cambrai in a deserted villa near the lagoons.[120] mystery hung over its origin and continued to involve its objects. several wealthy noblemen of venice supplied the club with ample funds. they had a good library, and employed two presses for the printing of their works. the members formed a kind of masonic body, bound together by strict mutual obligations, and sworn to maintain each other in peril or in want. they also exercised generosity toward needy men of letters, dowered poor girls, and practiced many charities of a similar description. their meetings took place in certain gardens at murano or on the island of s. giorgio maggiore. the two sansovini, nardi, titian, dolce, and other eminent men belonged to the society; but doni appears to have been its moving spirit on all occasions of convivial intercourse. [footnote 119: how doni hated his orders may be gathered from these extracts: "la bestial cosa che sia sopportare quattro corna in capo senza belare unquanco. io ho un capriccio di farmi scomunicare per non cantare più _domine labia_, e spretarmi per non essere a noia a tutte le persone." "l'esser colla chierica puzza a tutti." his chief grievance was that he had made no money out of the church.] [footnote 120: the greater part of what we know about the pellegrini occurs in doni's _i marmi_. see also a memoir by giaxich, and the notices in mutinelli's _diari urbani_.] the last years of this bohemian life were spent beneath the euganean hills in a square castle, which, picturesquely draped with ivy, may still be seen towering above monselice. that doni had accumulated some capital by his incessant scribbling, is proved by the fact that he laid out the grounds about his fortress with considerable luxury. a passage quoted from the venetian zilioli serves to bring the man more vividly before us: "at the summit of the hill above monselice stands the house where antonfrancesco doni indulged his leisure with philosophy and poetry. he was a man of bizarre humor, who had but little patience with his neighbors. retiring from society, he chose this abode in order to give full scope in his own way and without regard for any one to his caprices, which were often very ludicrous. who could have refrained from laughter, when he saw a man of mature age, with a beard down to his breast, going abroad at night barefooted and in his shirt, careering among the fields, singing his own songs and those of other poets; or else in daytime playing on a lute and dancing like a little boy?" doni died at venice in the autumn of 1574. doni's _novelle_ are rather detached scenes of life than stories with a plot or theme. glowing and picturesque in style, sharply outlined, and smartly told, they have the point of epigrams. the fourth of the series might be chosen to illustrate the extravagant efforts after effect made by the italian novelist with a view to stimulating the attention of his audience. it is a tale of two mortal enemies, one of whom kills the father and the brother of his foe. the injured man challenges and conquers him in single combat, when, having the ruffian at his mercy, he raises him from the ground, pardons him, and makes him his bosom friend. likelihood and moral propriety are sacrificed in order that the _novella_ may end with a surprise. doni's _novelle_, taken by themselves, would scarcely have justified the space allotted to him in this chapter. his biography has, however, the importance attaching to the history of a representative man, for much of the literature of amusement in the sixteenth century was supplied by bohemians of doni's type. to give a complete account of his miscellaneous works would be out of the question. besides treatises on music and the arts of design and a catalogue of italian books, which might be valuable if the author had not used it as a vehicle for his literary animosities, he published letters and poems, collections of proverbs and short tales under the title of _la zucca_, dialogues and dissertations on various topics with the name of _i mondi_, an essay on moral philosophy, an edition of burchiello's poems illustrated by notes more difficult to understand than the text, an explanation of the apocalypse proving luther to be antichrist, a libel upon aretino, two commonplace books of sentences and maxims styled _i cancellieri_, a work on villa-building, a series of imaginary pictures, a comedy called _lo stufaiuolo_, and many others which it would be tedious to catalogue. it is not probable that any one has made a thorough study of doni's writings; but those who know them best, report that they are all marked by the same sallies of capricious humor and wild fancy.[121] [footnote 121: those i am acquainted with are _i marmi_, _i mondi_, _lo stufaiuolo_, the _novelle_, and two little burlesque caprices in prose, _la mula_ and _la chiave_.] a glance at the _marmi_ will suffice to illustrate doni's method in these miscellanies.[122] in his preface to the reader he says it often happens that, awaked from sleep, he spends the night-hours in thinking of himself and of his neighbors--"not, however, as the common folk do, nor like men of learning, but following the whimsies of a teeming brain. i am at home, you see. i fly aloft into the air, above some city, and believe myself to be a huge bird, monstrous, monstrous, piercing with keen sight to everything that's going on below; and in the twinkling of an eye, the roofs fly off, and i behold each man, each woman at their several affairs. one is at home and weeping, another laughing; one giving birth to children, one begetting; this man reading, that man writing; one eating, another praying. one is scolding his household, another playing; and see, yon fellow has fallen starved to earth, while that one vomits his superfluous food! what contrasts are there in one single city, at one single moment! then i pass from land to land, and notice divers customs, with variety of speech and converse. in naples, for example, the gentry are wont to ride abroad and take the evening freshness. in rome they haunt cool vineyards, or seek their pleasure by artificial fountains. in venice they roam the canals in dainty gondolas, or sweep the salt lagoons, with music, women, and such delights, putting to flight the day's annoyances and heat. but above all other pleasures in the cool, methinks the florentines do best. their way is this. they have the square of santa liberata, midway between the ancient shrine of mars, now san giovanni, and the marvelous modern duomo. they have, i say, certain stairs of marble, and the topmost stair leads to a large space, where the young men come to rest in those great heats, seeing that a most refreshing wind is always blowing there, and a delicious breeze, and, besides, the fair white marbles for the most part keep their freshness. it is there i find my best amusements; for, as i sail through the air, invisibly i settle, soaring over them; and hear and see their talk and doings. and forasmuch as they are all fine wits and comely, they have a thousand lovely things to say--novels, stratagems and fables; they tell of intrigues, stories, jokes, tricks played off on men and women--all things sprightly, noble, noteworthy and fit for gentle ears." such is the exordium. what follows, consists of conversations, held at night upon these marble slabs by citizens of florence. the dialogue is lively; the pictures tersely etched; the language racy; the matter almost always worthy of attention. one sustained dialogue on printing is particularly interesting, since it involves a review of contemporary literature from the standpoint of one who was himself exclusively employed in hack production for the press.[123] the whole book, however, abounds in excellent criticism and clever hints. "see what the world is coming to," says one of the speakers, "when no one can read anything, full though it be of learning and goodness, without flinging it away at the end of three words! more artifice than patience goes nowadays to the writing of a book; more racking the brains to invent some whimsical title, which makes one take it up and read a word or two, than the composition of the whole book demands. just try and tell people to touch a volume labeled _doctrine of good living_ or _the spiritual life_! god preserve you! put upon the title page _an invective against an honest man_, or _new pasquinade_, or _pimps expounded_, or _the whore lost_, and all the world will grab at it. if our gelli, when he wanted to teach a thousand fine things, full of philosophy and useful to a christian, had not called them _the cobbler's caprices_, there's not a soul would have so much as touched them. had he christened his book _instructions in civil conduct_ or _divine discourses_, it must have fallen stillborn; but that _cobbler_, those _caprices_ make every one cry out: 'i'll see what sort of balderdash it is!'" [footnote 122: _i marmi_, per fanfani e bongi, firenze, barbèra, 1863, 2 vols.] [footnote 123: parte ii. "della stampa."] one might fancy that this passage had been written to satirize our own times rather than the sixteenth century. more than enough, however, remains from the popular literature of doni's days to illustrate his observation. we have already seen how ingeniously he titillated public curiosity in the title of his invective against aretino. "_the earthquake of doni, the florentine, with the ruin of a great bestial colossus, the antichrist of our age_," is worthy to take rank among the most capricious pamphlets of the english commonwealth. meanwhile the venetian press kept pouring out stores of miscellaneous information under bizarre titles; such as the _piazza_, which described all sorts of trades, including the most infamous, and _il perchè_, which was a kind of vulgar cyclopædia, with special reference to physiology. manuals of domestic medicine or directions for the toilette, like the curious _comare_ on obstetrics, and marinello's interesting _ornamenti delle donne_; eccentricities in the style of the _hospidale de' pazzi_ or the _sinagoga degli ignoranti_; might be cited through a dozen pages. it is impossible to do justice to this undergrowth of literature, which testifies to the extent of the plebeian reading public in italy. the novelists of siena form a separate group, and are distinguished by a certain air of delicate voluptuous grace.[124] siena, though it wears so pensive an aspect now, was famous in the middle ages for the refinements of sensuality. it was here that the _godereccia brigata_, condemned to hell by dante, spent their substance in gay living. folgore da san gemignano's pleasure-seeking company was sienese. beccadelli called the city _molles senæ_, and æneas sylvius dedicated her groves and palaces to venus--the venus who appeared in dreams to gentile sermini.[125] the impress of luxury is stamped upon the works of her best novelists. they blend the _morbidezza_ of the senses with a rare feeling for natural and artistic beauty. descriptions of banquets and gardens, fountains and wayside thickets, form a delightful background to the never-ending festival of love. we wander through pleasant bypaths of tuscan country, abloom in spring with acacia trees and resonant with song-birds. though indescribably licentious, these novelists are rarely coarse or vulgar. there is no florentine blackguardism, no acerbity of scorn or stain of blood-lust on their pages. they are humorous; but they do not season humor with cruelty. their tales, for the most part, are the lunes of wanton love, day-dreams of erotic fancy, a free debauch of images, now laughable, now lewd, but all provocative of sensual desire. at the same time, their delight in landscape-painting, combined with a certain refinement of æsthetic taste, saves them from the brutalities of lust. [footnote 124: _novelle di autori senesi_, edited by gaetano poggiali, londra (livorno), 1796. this collection, reprinted in the _raccolta di novellieri italiani_, milano, 1815, vols. xiv. and xv., contains bernardo illicini, giustiniano nelli, scipione bargagli, gentile sermini, pietro fortini, and others. of sermini's _novelle_ a complete edition appeared in 1874 at livorno, from the press of francesco vigo; and to this the student should now go. romagnoli of bologna in 1877 published three hitherto inedited novels of fortini, together with the rubrics of all those which have not yet been printed. their titles enable us to comprehend the scruples which prevented poggiali from issuing the whole series.] [footnote 125: _imbasciata di venere_, sermini, ed. cit. p. 117.] the foregoing remarks apply in their fullest extension to sermini and fortini. the best passages from the _ars amandi_ of these authors admit of no quotation. attention, may, however, be called to the graphic description by sermini of the sienese boxing-matches.[126] it is a masterpiece of vigorous dialogue and lively movement--a little drama in epitome or profile, bringing the excitement of the champions and their backers vividly before us by a series of exclamations and ejaculated sentences. fortini does not offer the same advantage to a modest critic; yet his handling of a very comic situation in the fourteenth _novella_ may be conveniently compared with firenzuola's and il lasca's treatment of the same theme.[127] those, too, who are curious in such matters, may trace the correspondences between his twelfth _novella_ and many similar subjects in the _cent nouvelles nouvelles_. the common material of a _fabliau_ is here italianized with an exquisite sense of plastic and landscape beauty; and the crude obscenity of the _motif_ craves pardon for the sake of its rare setting. [footnote 126: _il giuoco della pugna_, sermini, ed. cit. p. 105.] [footnote 127: see _le cene_, pt. ii. _nov._ 10, and firenzuola's seventh _novella_.] bargagli's tales are less offensive to modern notions of propriety than either sermini's or fortini's. they do not detach themselves from the average of such compositions by any peculiarly sienese quality. but his _trattenimenti_ are valuable for their introduction, which consists of a minute and pathetically simple narrative of the sufferings sustained by the sienese during the siege of 1553. boccaccio's description of the plague at florence was in bargagli's mind, when he made this unaffected record of a city's agony the frontispiece to tales of mirth and passion. though somewhat out of place, it has the interest which belongs to the faithful history of an eye-witness. one beautiful story, borrowed from the annals of their own city, was treated by the two sienese novelists, illicini and sermini. the palm of excellence, however, must be awarded to the elder of these authors. of bernardo lapini, surnamed illicini or ollicino, very little is known, except that he served both gian galeazzo visconti and borso da este in the capacity of physician, and composed a commentary on the _trionfi_ of petrarch. his _novella_ opens with a conversation between certain noble ladies of siena, who agreed that the three most eminent virtues of a generous nature are courtesy, gratitude, and liberality. an ancient dame, who kept them company on that occasion, offered to relate a tale, which should illustrate these qualities and raise certain fine questions concerning their exercise in actual life. the two sienese families de' salimbeni and de' montanini had long been on terms of coldness; and though their ancient feuds were passing into oblivion, no treaty of peace had yet been ratified between their houses, when anselmo salimbeni fell deeply in love with angelica the only sister of carlo montanini. anselmo was wealthy; but to carlo and his sister there only remained, of their vast ancestral possessions, one small estate, where they lived together in retirement. delicacy thus prevented the rich anselmo from declaring his affection, until an event happened which placed it in his power to be of signal service to the montanini. a prosperous member of the sienese government desired to purchase carlo's house at the price of one thousand ducats. carlo refused to sell this estate, seeing it was his sister's only support and future source of dowry. thereupon the powerful man of state accused him falsely of treason to the commonwealth. he was cast into prison and condemned to death or the forfeit of one thousand ducats. anselmo, the very night before carlo's threatened execution, paid this fine, and sent the deed of release by the hands of a servant to the prison. when carlo was once more at liberty, he made inquiries which proved beyond doubt that anselmo, a man unknown to him, the member of a house at ancient feud with his, had done him this great courtesy. it then rushed across his mind that certain acts and gestures of anselmo betrayed a secret liking for angelica. this decided him upon the course he had to take. having communicated the plan to his sister, he went alone with her at night to salimbeni's castle, and, when he had expressed his gratitude, there left her in her lover's power, as the most precious thing he could bestow upon the saviour of his life. anselmo, not to be surpassed in this exchange of courtesies, delivered angelica to the women of his household, and afterwards, attended by the train of his retainers, sought carlo in his home. there he made a public statement of what had passed between them, wedded angelica with three rings, dowered her with the half of his estates, and by a formal deed of gift assigned the residue of his fortune to carlo. this is a bare outline of the story, which illicini has adorned in all its details with subtle analyses of feeling and reflections on the several situations. the problem proposed to the gentlewoman is to decide which of the two men, anselmo or carlo, showed the more perfect courtesy in their several circumstances. how they settled this knotty point, may be left to the readers of _novelle_ to discover. bandello more than adequately represents the lombard group of novelists; and since his works have been already discussed, it will suffice to allude briefly to three collections which in their day were highly popular. these are _i proverbi_ of antonio cornazano, _le piacevoli notti_ of straparola, and giraldi's _hecatommithi_.[128] cornazano was a copious writer both in latin and italian. he passed his life at the courts of francesco sforza, bartolommeo colleoni, and ercole i. of ferrara. one of his earliest compositions was a life of christ. this fact is not insignificant, as a sign of the conditions under which literature was produced in the renaissance. a man who had gained reputation by a learned or religious treatise, ventured to extend it by jests of the broadest humor. the _proverbi_, by which alone cornazano's name is now distinguished, are sixteen carefully-wrought stories, very droll but very dirty. each illustrates a common proverb, and pretends to relate the circumstances which gave it currency. the author opens one tale with a simple statement: "from the deserts of the thebaid came to us that trite and much used saying, _better late than never_; and this was how it happened." having stated the theme, he enters on his narrative, diverts attention by a series of absurdities which lead to an unexpected climax. he concludes it thus: "the abbot answered: 'it is not this which makes me weep, but to think of my misfortune, who have been so long without discovering and commending so excellent an usage.' 'father,' said the monk, '_better late than never_.'" there is considerable comic vigor in the working of this motive. our sense of the ridiculous is stimulated by a studied disproportion between the universality of the proverb and the strangeness of the incidents invented to account for it. [footnote 128: none of them are included in the milanese _novellieri italiani_. the editions i shall use are _proverbii di messer antonio cornazano in facetie_, bologna, romagnoli, 1865; _le piacevoli notti_, in vinegia per comin da trino di monferrato, mdli.; _gli hecatommithi di m. giovanbattista giraldi cinthio, nobile ferrarese_, in vinegia, mdlxvi., girolamo scotto, 2 vols.] straparola breaks ground in a different direction. the majority of his novels bear traces of their origin in fairy stories or _volksmärchen_. much interest attaches to the _notti piacevoli_, as the literary reproduction of a popular species which the venetian gozzi afterwards rendered famous. students of folk-lore may compare them with the sicilian fables recently committed to the press by signor pitrè.[129] the element of bizarre fancy is remarkable in all these tales; but the marvelous has been so mingled with the facts of common life as to give each narrative the true air of the conventional _novella_. one in particular may be mentioned, since it is written on the same motive as machiavelli's _belphegor_. the rubric runs as follows: "the devil, hearing the complaints of husbands against their wives, marries silvia ballastro, and takes gasparino boncio for gossip of the ring, and forasmuch as he finds it impossible to live with his wife, enters into the body of the duke of melphi, and gasparino, his gossip, expels him thence." between straparola's and machiavelli's treatment of this subject, the resemblance is so close as to justify the opinion that the former tale was simply modeled on the latter, or that both were drawn from an original source. in each case it is the wife's pride which renders life unendurable to her demon husband, and in both he is expelled from the possessed person by mistaking a brass band in full play for the approach of his tumultuous consort. but straparola's loose and careless style of narrative bears no comparison with the caustic satire of machiavelli's meditated art.[130] the same theme was treated in italian by giovanni brevio; and since machiavelli's novel first appeared in print in the year 1549, straparola's seeing the light in 1550, and brevio's in 1545, we may reasonably conclude that each version was an adaptation of some primitive monastic story.[131] [footnote 129: _fiabe, novelle, racconti_, palermo, lauriel, 1875, 4 vols. i may here take occasion to notice that one _novella_ by the conte lorenzo magalotti (_nov. it._ vol. xiii. p. 362), is the story of whittington and his cat, told of a certain florentine, ansaldo degli ormanni, and the king of the canary islands.] [footnote 130: john wilson's play of _belphegor_, dekker's _if it be not good the divel is in it_, and ben jonson's _the devil is an ass_, were more or less founded on machiavelli's and straparola's novels.] [footnote 131: dunlop in his _history of fiction_, vol. ii. p. 411, speaks of a latin ms. preserved in the library of s. martin at tours which contained the tale, but he also says that it was lost at "the period of the civil wars in france."] on the score of style alone, it would be difficult to explain the widespread popularity of giraldi cinthio's one hundred and ten tales.[132] the _hecatommithi_ are written in a lumbering manner, and the stories are often lifeless. compared with the brilliancy of the tuscan _novelle_, the point and sparkle of _le cene_, the grace and gusto of sermini, or firenzuola's golden fluency, the diction of this noble ferrarese is dull. yet the _hecatommithi_ were reprinted again and again and translated into several languages. in england, through painter's _palace of pleasure_, they obtained wide circulation and supplied our best dramatists, including shakspere and fletcher, with hints for plays. it is probable that they owed their fame in no small measure to what we reckon their defects. giraldi's language was more intelligible to ordinary readers of italian than the racy tuscan of the sienese authors. his stories had less of a purely local flavor than those of the florentines. they enjoyed, moreover, the singular advantage of diffusion through the press of venice, which then commanded the book-market of europe. but, if we put this point of style aside, the vogue of cinthio in italy and europe becomes at once intelligible. there is a massive force and volume in his matter, which proclaims him an author to be reckoned with. the variety of scenes he represents, the tragic gravity of many of his motives, his intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of a class that never fails to interest the vulgar, combined with great sagacity in selecting and multiplying instances of striking crime, stood him in the stead of finer art with the special public for whom _novelle_ were composed.[133] compared even with boccaccio, the prince of story-tellers, cinthio holds his own, not as a great dramatic or descriptive writer but as one who has studied, analyzed, dissected, and digested the material of human action and passion in a vast variety of modes. his work is more solid and reflective than bandello's; more moralized than il lasca's. the ethical tendency both of the tales and the discussions they occasion, is, for the most part, singularly wholesome. in spite, therefore, of the almost revolting frankness with which impurity, fraud, cruelty, violence, and bestial lust are exposed to view, one rises from the perusal of the _hecatommithi_ with an unimpaired consciousness of good and evil. it is just the negation of this conscience which renders the mass of italian _novelle_ worse than unprofitable. [footnote 132: the title leads us to expect one hundred tales; but counting the ten of the introduction, there are one hundred and ten. when the book first circulated, it contained but seventy. the first edition is that of monte regale in sicily, 1565. my copy of the venetian edition of 1566 is complete.] [footnote 133: the ten novels of the introduction deal exclusively with the manners of italian prostitutes. placed as a frontispiece to the whole repertory, they seem intended to attract the vulgar reader.] the plan of the _hecatommithi_ deserves a passing notice, if only because it illustrates the more than ordinary force of brain which cinthio brought to bear upon his light material. he begins with an elaborate description of the sack of rome. a party of men and women take refuge from its horrors of rape, pestilence and tortures in one of the colonna palaces. when affairs have been proved desperate, they set sail from cività vecchia for marseilles, and enliven their voyage with story-telling. a man of mature years opens the discussion with a long panegyric of wedded love, serving as introduction to the tales which treat of illicit passion. from this first day's debate the women of the party are absent. they intervene next day, and upon this and the following nine days one hundred stories are related by different members of the party upon subjects selected for illustration. each novel is followed by a copious commentary in the form of dialogue, and songs are interspersed. cinthio thus adhered, as closely as possible, to the model furnished by boccaccio. but his framework, though ingeniously put together, lacks the grace and sweetness of the decameron. not a few of the novels are founded upon facts of history. in the tenth tale of the ninth decade, for example, he repeats the legend of the borgia family--the murder of the duke of gandia, alexander's death by poison, and cesare's escape. the names are changed; but the facts, as related by guicciardini, can be clearly discerned through the transparent veil of fiction. in concluding this chapter on the _novelle_, it may be repeated that the species of narrative in question was, in its ultimate development, a peculiar italian product. originally derived through the french _fabliaux_ from medieval latin stories, the _novella_ received in italy more serious and more artistic treatment. it satisfied the craving of the race for such delineation of life and manners as a great literature demands; and it did this for reasons which will be explained in the next chapter, with more originality, more adequacy to the special qualities of the italian people, than even their comedies. what de quincey wrote concerning our theater in the age of elizabeth and james, might almost be applied to the material which the _novellieri_ used: "no literature, not excepting even that of athens, has ever presented such a multiform theater, such a carnival display, mask and anti-mask of impassioned life--breathing, moving, acting, suffering, laughing: "quicquid agunt homines--votum, timor, ira, voluptas, gaudia, discursus." but, when we quit material to think of form, the parallel fails. de quincey's further description of our dramas, "scenically grouped, draped, and gorgeously colored," is highly inapplicable to the brief, careless, almost pedestrian prose of the _novelle_. in spite of their indescribable wealth of subject-matter, in spite of those inexhaustible stores of plots and situations, characters and motives, which have made them a mine for playwrights in succeeding ages, they rarely rise to the height of poetry, nor are they ever dramas. the artistic limitations of the italian _novelle_ are among the most interesting phenomena presented by the history of literature. chapter xi. the drama. first attempts at secular drama--the _orfeo_ and _timone_--general character of italian plays--court pageants and comedies borrowed from the latin--conditions under which a national drama is formed--their absence in italy--lack of tragic genius--eminently tragic material in italian history--the use made of this by english playwrights--the ballad and the drama--the humanistic bias in italy--parallels between greek and italian life--il lasca's critique of the latinizing playwrights--the _sofonisba_ of trissino--rucellai's _rosmunda_--sperone's _canace_--giraldi's _orbecche_--dolce's _marianna_--transcripts from the greek tragedians and seneca--general character of italian tragedies--sources of their failure--influence of plautus and terence over comedy--latin comedies acted at florence, rome, ferrara--translations of latin comedies--manner of representation at court--want of permanent theaters--bibbiena's _calandra_--leo x. and comedy at rome--ariosto's treatment of his latin models--the _cassaria_, _suppositi_, _lena_, _negromante_, _scolastica_--qualities of ariosto's comedies--machiavelli's plays--the _commedia in prosa_--fra alberigo and margherita--the _clizia_--its humor--the _mandragola_--its sinister philosophy--conditions under which it was composed--aretino disengages comedy from latin rules--his point of view--the _cortegiana_, _marescalco_, _talanta_--italy had innumerable comedies, but no great comic art--general character of the _commedia erudita_--its fixed personages--gelli, firenzuola, cecchi, ambra, il lasca--the farsa--conclusion on the moral aspects of italian comedy. contemporaneously with the roman epic, the drama began to be a work of studied art in italy. boiardo by his _timone_ and poliziano by his _orfeo_ gave the earliest specimens at ferrara and mantua of secular plays written in the vulgar tongue. the _timone_ must have been composed before 1494, the date of boiardo's death; and we have already seen that the _orfeo_ was in all probability represented in 1472. it is significant that the two poets who were mainly instrumental in effecting a revival of italian poetry, should have tried their hands at two species of composition for the stage. in the _orfeo_ we find a direct outgrowth from the _sacre rappresentazioni_. the form of the florentine religious show is adapted with very little alteration to a pagan story. in substance the _orfeo_ is a pastoral melodrama with a tragic climax. boiardo in the _timone_ followed a different direction. the subject is borrowed from lucian, who speaks the prologue, as gower prologizes in the _pericles_ of shakspere. the comedy aims at regularity of structure, and is written in _terza rima_. yet the chief character leaves the stage before the end of the fifth act, and the conclusion is narrated by an allegorical personage, lo ausilio.[134] [footnote 134: "comedia de timone per el magnifico conte matheo maria boyardo conte de scandiano traducta de uno dialogo de luciano. stampata in venetia per georgio di rusconi milanese, del mdxviii. adì iii di decembre." from the play itself we learn that it must have been represented on a double stage, a lower one standing for earth and a higher one for heaven. the first three acts consist chiefly of soliloquies by timon and conversations with celestial personages--jove, mercury, wealth, poverty. in the fourth act we are introduced to characters of athenians--gnatonide, phylade, demea, trasycle, who serve to bring timone's misanthropy into relief; and the fifth act brings two slaves, syro and parmeno, upon the scene, with a kind of underplot which is not solved at the close of the play. the whole piece must be regarded rather as a morality than a comedy, and the characters are allegories or types more than living persons.] these plays, though generally considered to have been the first attempts at secular italian dramatic poetry, were by no means the earliest in date, if we admit the latin plays of scholars.[135] besides some tragedies, which will afterwards be mentioned, it is enough here to cite the _philogenia_ of ugolino pisani (parma, 1430), the _philodoxius_ of alberti, the _polissena_ of leonardo bruni, and the _progne_ of gregorio corrado. it is therefore a fact that, in addition to religious dramas in the mother tongue, the italians from an early period turned their attention to dramatic composition. still the drama never flourished at any time in italy as a form of poetry indigenous and national. it did not succeed in freeing itself from classical imitation on the one hand, or on the other from the hampering adjuncts of court-pageants and costly entertainments. why the italians failed to develop a national theater, is a question easier to ask than to answer. the attempt to solve this problem will, however, serve to throw some light upon their intellectual conditions at the height of the renaissance. [footnote 135: to determine the question of priority in such matters is neither easy nor important. students who desire to follow the gradual steps in the development of italian play-writing before the date of ariosto and machiavelli may be referred to d'ancona's work on the _origini del teatro_.] plays in italy at this period were either religious _feste_ of the kind peculiar to florence, or masks at court, or comedies and tragedies imitated by men of learning from classical models, or, lastly, pastorals combining the scenic attractions of the mask with the action of a regular drama. none of these five species can be called in a true sense popular; nor were they addressed by their authors to the masses of the people. performed in private by pious confraternities or erudite academies, or exhibited on state occasions in the halls of princely palaces, they were not an expression of the national genius but a highly-cultivated form of aristocratic luxury. when heywood in his prologue to the _challenge for beauty_ wrote: those [_i.e._ plays] that frequent are in italy or france, _even in these days_, _compared with ours_, are rather jigs than plays: when marlowe in the first scene of _edward ii._ made gaveston, thinking how he may divert the pleasure-loving king, exclaim: therefore i'll have italian masks by night, sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows: both of these poets uttered a true criticism of the italian theater. marlowe accurately describes the scenic exhibitions in vogue at the courts of ferrara, mantua, urbino, and rome, where the stage was reckoned among the many instruments of wanton amusement. heywood, by his scornful phrase _jigs_, indicates their mixed nature between comedies and ballets, with interludes of pageantry and accompaniment of music. the words italicized show that the english playwrights were conscious of having developed a nobler type of the drama than had been produced in italy. in order to complete the outline sketched by heywood and marlowe, we must bear in mind that comedies adapted from the latin, like the _suppositi_ of ariosto, or constructed upon latin principles, like machiavelli's _mandragola_ or the _calandra_ of bibbiena, were highly relished by a society educated in humanistic traditions. such efforts of the scholarly muse approved themselves even in england to the taste of critics like sir philip sidney, who shows in his _defense of poesy_ that he had failed to discern the future greatness of the national drama. but they had the fatal defect of being imitations and exotics. the stage, however learnedly adorned by men of scholarship and fancy, remained within the narrow sphere of courtly pastime. what was a mere _hors d'oeuvre_ in the elizabethan age of england, formed the whole dramatic art of the italians. if tragedy and comedy sprang by a natural process of evolution from the medieval mystery, then the florentines should have had a drama. we have seen how rich in the elements of both species were the _sacre rappresentazioni_; and how men of culture like lorenzo de' medici, and bernardo pulci deigned to compose them. but the _sacre rappresentazioni_ died a natural death, and left no heritage. they had no vital relation to the people, either as a source of amusement or as embodying the real thoughts and passions of the race. designed for the edification of youth, their piety was too often hypocritical, and their extravagant monastic morality stood in glaring opposition to the ethics of society. we must go far deeper in our analysis, if we wish to comprehend this failure of the italians to produce a drama. three conditions, enjoyed by greece and england, but denied to italy, seem necessary for the poetry of a nation to reach this final stage of artistic development. the first is a free and sympathetic public, not made up of courtiers and scholars, but of men of all classes--a public representative of the whole nation, with whom the playwright shall feel himself in close _rapport_. the second is, a center of social life: an athens, paris or london: where the heart of the nation beats and where its brain is ever active. the third is a perturbation of the race in some great effort, like the persian war or the struggle of the reformation, which unites the people in a common consciousness of heroism. taken in combination, these three conditions explain the appearance of a drama fitted to express the very life and soul of a puissant nation, with the temper of the times impressed upon it, but with a truth and breadth that renders it the heritage of every race and age. a national drama is the image created for itself in art by a people which has arrived at knowledge of its power, at the enjoyment of its faculties, after a period of successful action. concentrated in a capital, gifted with a common instrument of self-expression, it projects itself in tragedies and comedies that bear the name of individual poets, but are in reality the spirit of the race made vocal.[136] [footnote 136: i have enlarged on these points in my essay on euripides (_greek poets_, series i.). i may take occasion here to say that until sept. 1879, after this chapter was written, i had not met with professor hillebrand's _études italiennes_ (paris, franck, 1868).] these conditions have only twice in the world's history existed--once in the athens of pericles, once in the london of elizabeth. the measure of greatness to which the dramas of paris and madrid, though still not comparable with the attic and the english, can lay claim, is due to the participation by the french and spanish peoples in these privileges. but in italy there was no public, no metropolis, no agitation of the people in successful combat with antagonistic force. the educated classes were, indeed, conscious of intellectual unity; but they had no meeting-point in any city, where they might have developed the theater upon the only principles then possible, the principles of erudition. and, what was worse, there existed no enthusiasms, moral, religious or political, from which a drama could arise. a society without depth of thought or seriousness of passion, highly cultured, but devoid of energy and aspiration, had not the seed of tragedy within its loins. in those polite italian courts and pleasure-seeking coteries, the idyl, the _novella_, and the vision of a golden age might entertain men weary with public calamities, indulgent to the vice and crime around them. from this soil the forest-trees of a great drama could not spring. but it yielded an abundant crop of comedies, an undergrowth of rankly sprouting vegetation. it was, moreover, well adapted to the one original production of the italian stage. pastoral comedy, attaining perfection in tasso's _aminta_ and guarini's _pastor fido_, and bearing the germs of the opera in its voluptuous scenes, formed the climax of dramatic art in italy. independently of these external drawbacks, we find in the nature of the italian genius a reason why the drama never reached perfection. tragedy, which is the soul of great dramatic poetry, was almost uniformly wanting after dante. petrarch, boccaccio, poliziano, boiardo, ariosto, tasso, are pathetic, graceful, polished, elevated, touching, witty, humorous, reflective, radiant, inventive, fanciful--everything but stern, impassioned, tragic in the true heroic sense. even the florentines, who dallied sometimes with the thoughts of death and judgment in bizarre pageants like the show of hell recorded by villani, or the mask of penitence designed by piero di cosimo, or the burlesque festivals recorded in the life of rustici by giorgio vasari--even the florentines shrank in literature from what is terrible and charged with anguish of the soul. the horrors of the _novelle_ are used by them to stimulate a jaded appetite, to point the pleasures of the sense by contrast with the shambles and the charnel-house. we are never invited to the spectacle of human energies ravaged by passion, at war with destiny, yet superior to fate and fortune and internal tempest in the strength of will and dignity of heroism. it is not possible to imagine those _liete brigate_ of young men and maidens responding to the fierce appeal of marston's prologue: therefore we proclaim, if any spirit breathes within this round, uncapable of weighty passion- as from his birth being huggéd in the arms and nuzzled twixt the breasts of happiness- who winks, and shuts his apprehension up from common sense of what men were, and are, who would not know what men must be; let such hurry amain from our black-visaged shows: we shall affright their eyes. but if a breast nailed to the earth with grief, if any heart pierced through with anguish pant within this ring, if there be any blood whose heat is choked and stifled with true sense of misery, if aught of these strains fill this consort up, they arrive most welcome. sterner, and it may be gloomier conditions of external life than those which the italians enjoyed, were needed as a preparation of the public for such spectacles. it was not on these aspects of human existence that a race, accustomed to that genial climate and refined by the contemplation of all-golden art, loved to dwell in hours of recreation. the _novella_, with its mixture of comedy and pathos, license and satire, gave the tone, as we have seen, to literature. the same quality of the italian temperament may be illustrated from the painting of the sixteenth century, which rarely rises to the height of tragedy. if we except michelangelo and tintoretto, we find no masters of sublime and fervid genius, able to conceive with intensity and to express with force the thrilling moods of human passion. raphael marks the height pf national achievement, and even the more serious work of raphael found no adequate interpreters among his pupils. the absence of the tragic element in italian art and literature is all the more remarkable because the essence of italian history, whether political or domestic, was eminently dramatic. when we consider what the nation suffered during the civil wars of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, under the tyranny of monsters like ezzelino, from plagues that swept away the population of great cities, and beneath the scourge of sinister religious revivals, it may well cause wonder that the italian spirit should not have assumed a stern and tragic tone instead of that serenity and cheerfulness which from the first distinguished it. the italians lived their tragedies in the dynasties of the visconti and the sforzas, in the contests of the baglioni and manfredi, in the persons of pandolfo sigismondo malatesta and cesare borgia, in the murders, poisonings, rapes and treasons that form the staple of the annals of their noble houses. but it was the english and not the italian poets who seized upon this tragic matter and placed it with the light of poetry upon the stage.[137] our elizabethan playwrights dramatized the legends of othello and juliet, the loves of bianca capello and vittoria accoramboni, the tragedies of the duchess of amalfi and the duke of milan. there is something even appalling in the tenacity with which poets of the stamp of marlowe, webster, ford, massinger and tourneur clung to the episodes of blood and treachery furnished by italian stories. their darkest delineations of villainy, their subtlest analyses of evil motives, their most audacious pictures of vice, are all contained within the charmed circle of italian history. a play could scarcely succeed in london unless the characters were furnished with italian names.[138] italy fascinated the northern fancy, and the imagination of our dramatists found itself at home among her scenes of mingled splendor and atrocity. nowhere, therefore, can a truer study of italian court-intrigue be found than in the plays of webster. his portraits, it may be allowed, are painted without relief or due gradation of tone. flamineo and bosola seem made to justify the proverb--_inglese italianato è un diavolo incarnato_. yet after reading the secret history of the borgias, or estimating the burden on ferdinand's conscience when he quaked before the french advance on naples, who can say that webster has exaggerated the bare truth? he has but intensified it by the incubation of his intellect. varchi's account of lorenzino de' medici, affecting profligacy and effeminacy in order to deceive duke alessandro, and forming to his purpose the ruffian scoronconcolo from the dregs of the prisons, furnishes a complete justification for even tourneur's plots. the snare this traitor laid for alessandro, when he offered to bring his own aunt to the duke's lust, bears a close resemblance to vendice's scheme in the _revenger's tragedy_; while the inconsequence of his action after the crime, tallies with the moral collapse of duke ferdinand before his strangled sister's corpse in the last act of the _duchess of malfi_. [footnote 137: exception must be made in favor of some ancient quasi-tragedies, which seem to prove that before the influences of boccaccio and the renaissance had penetrated the nation, they were not deficient in the impulse to dramatize history. the _eccerinis_ of albertino mussato (_c._ 1300), half dialogue and half narration, upon the fate of ezzellino da romano, composed in the style of seneca; the dialogue upon the destruction of cesena (1377) falsely attributed to petrarch; giovanni mangini della motta's poem on the downfall of antonio della scala (1387), lodovico da vezzano's tragedy of jacopo piccinino; though far from popular in their character, and but partially dramatic, were such as under happier auspices might have fostered the beginnings of the tragic theater. later on we hear of the _fall of granada_ being represented before cardinal riario at rome, as well as the _ferrandus servatus_ of carlo verradi (1492).] [footnote 138: see the first cast of jonson's _every man in his humor_.] the reality of these acted tragedies may have been a bar to their mimic presentation on the stage in italy. when the borgias were poisoning their victims in rome; when lodovico sforza was compassing his nephew's death at pavia; when the venetians were decapitating carmagnuola; when sixtus was plotting the murder of the medici in church, and grifonetto baglioni was executing _il gran tradimento_; could an italian audience, in the court or on the piazza, have taken a keen pleasure in witnessing the scenic presentment of barbarities so close at hand? the sense of contrast between the world of fact and the work of art, which forms an essential element of æsthetic pleasure, would have been wanting. the poets turned from these crimes to comedy and romance, though the politicians analyzed their motives with impartial curiosity. at the same time, we may question whether the despots would have welcomed tragic shows which dramatized their deeds of violence; whether they would have suffered the patriotism of brutus, the vengeance of virginius, the plots of catiline, or the downfall of sejanus to be displayed with spirit-stirring pomp in theaters of milan and ferrara, when conspiracies like that of olgaiti were frequent. it was the freedom of the english public and the self-restraint of the english character, in combination with the profound appetite for tragic emotion inherent in our northern blood, which rendered the shaksperian drama possible and acceptable. in connection with this inaptitude of the italians for tragedy, it is worth noticing that their popular poetry exhibits but rare examples of the ballad. it abounds in love ditties and lyrics of the inner life. but references to history and the tragedies of noble families are comparatively scarce.[139] in great britain, on the contrary, while our popular poetry can show but few songs of sentiment, the border and robin hood ballads record events in national history or episodes from actual domestic dramas, blent with the memories of old mythology. these poems prove in the unknown minstrels who produced them, a genuine appreciation of dramatic incident; and their manner is marked by vigorous objectivity. the minstrel loses himself in his subject and aims at creating in his audience a vivid sense of the action he has undertaken to set forth. the race which could produce such ballads, already contained the germs of marlowe's tragedy. it would be interesting to pursue this subject further, and by examining the ballad-literature of the several european nations to trace how far the capacities which in a rude state of society were directed to this type of minstrelsy, found at a later period their true sphere of art in the drama.[140] [footnote 139: see above, part i, p. 276, where one ballad of the border type is discussed.] [footnote 140: it is certainly significant that the spanish share with the english the chief honors both of the ballad and the drama. the scandinavian nations, rich in ballads, have been, through danish poets, successful in dramatic composition. the niebelungen lied and the song of roland would, in the case of germany and france, have to be set against the english ballads of action. but these epics are different in character from the minstrelsy which turned passing events into poetry and bequeathed them in the form of spirit-stirring narratives to posterity. long after the epical impulse had ceased and the british epic of arthur had passed into the sphere of literature, the ballad minstrels continued to work with dramatic energy upon the substance of contemporary incidents.] the deficiency of the tragic instinct among the italians seems to be further exhibited by their failure to produce novels of the higher type.[141] though boccaccio is the prince of story-tellers, his _novelle_ are tales, more interesting for their grace of manner and beautifully described situations, than for analysis of character or strength of plot. recent italian _romanzi_ are histories rather than works of free fiction; and these novels were produced after the style of sir walter scott had been acclimatized in every part of europe. meanwhile no balzac or george sand, no thackeray or george eliot, no cervantes or fielding, has appeared in italy. the nearest approach to a great italian novel of life and character is the autobiography of cellini.[142] as the italians lived instead of playing their tragedies, so they lived instead of imagining their novels. [footnote 141: see above, p. 54, for the distinction between the italian _novella_ and the modern novel.] [footnote 142: in the same way alfieri's biography is a tragic and goldoni's a comic novel. the memoirs of casanova, which i incline to accept as genuine, might rather be cited as a string of brilliantly written _novelle_.] if a national drama could have been produced in italy, it might have appeared at florence during the reign of lorenzo de' medici. in no other place and at no other period was the italian genius more alive and centralized. but a city is not a nation, and the compagnia di san giovanni was not the globe theater. the desires of the florentines, so studiously gratified by their merchant prince, were bent on carnival shows and dances. in this modern athens the fine arts failed to find their meeting-point and fulfillment on the stage, because the people lacked the spirit and the freedom necessary to the drama. artists were satisfied with decorating masks and cars. poets amused their patrons with romantic stories. scholars were absorbed in the fervent passion for antiquity. michelangelo carved and lionardo painted the wonders of the modern world. thus the florentine genius found channels that led far afield from tragedy. at a later period, when culture had become more universally italian, it might have been imagined that the bright spirit of ariosto, the pregnant wit of machiavelli, the genial humor of bibbiena would have given birth to plays of fancy like fletcher's or to original comedies of manners like jonson's and massinger's. but such was the respect of these italian playwrights for their classic models, that the scenes of even the best florentine comedies are crowded with spendthrifts, misers, courtesans, lovers and slaves, borrowed from the latin authors. plautus and terence, ariosto and machiavelli, not nature, were their source of inspiration.[143] mistakes between two brothers, confusions of sex, discoveries that poor girls are the lost daughters of princely parents, form the staple of their plots. the framework of comedy being thus antique, the playwright was reduced to narrow limits for that exhibition of "truth's image, the ensample of manners, the mirror of life," which il lasca rightly designated as the proper object of the comic art. [footnote 143: cantù quotes the prologue of a ms. play which goes so far as to apologize for the scene not being laid at athens (_lett. it._ p. 471): benchè l'usanza sia che ogni commedia si soglia fare a atene, non so donde si viene che questa non grecizza, anzi fiorentinizza.] the similarity of conditions between late greek and modern italian life facilitated this custom of leaning on antique models, and deceived the poets into thinking they might safely apply græco-roman plots to the facts of fifteenth-century romance. with the turk at otranto, with the cardinals of este and medici opposing his advance in hungary, with the episodes of french invasion, with the confusions of the sack of rome, there was enough of social anarchy and public peril to justify dramatic intrigues based on kidnapping and anagnorisis. the playwrights, when they adapted comedies of plautus and terence, were fully alive to the advantage of these correspondences. claudio in ariosto's _suppositi_ had his son stolen in the taking of otranto. bartolo in the _scolastica_ lost sight of his intended wife at the moment of lodovico sforza's expulsion from milan. callimaco in machiavelli's _mandragola_ remained in paris to avoid the troubles consequent on charles viii.'s invasion. lidio and santilla in bibbiena's _calandra_, blando's children in aretino's _talanta_, were taken by the turks. fabrizio in the _ingannati_ was lost in the sack of rome. maestro cornelio in ambra's _furto_ was captured by the german lanzi. in the _cofanaria_ of the same author there is a girl kidnapped in the siege of florence. slavery itself was by no means obsolete in italy upon the close of the middle ages; and the slave-merchant of ariosto's _cassaria_, hardly distinguished from a common brothel-keeper, was not so anachronistic as to be impossible. the parasites of latin comedy found their counterpart in the clients of rich families and the poorer courtiers of princes. the indispensable davus was represented by the body servants of wealthy householders. the _miles gloriosus_ reappeared in professional _bravi_ and captains of mercenaries. thus the personages of the latin stage could easily be furnished with italian masks. still there remained an awkwardness in fitting these new masks to the old lay-figures; and when we read the genuine italian comedies of aretino, especially the _cortigiana_ and the _marescalco_, we feel how much was lost to the nation by the close adherence of its greater playwrights, ariosto and machiavelli, to the conventions of the _commedia erudita_. the example of ariosto and machiavelli led even the best florentine playwrights--cecchi, ambra, and gelli--into a false path. the plays of these younger authors abound in reminiscences of the _suppositi_ and _clizia_, adapted with incomparable skill and humor to contemporary customs, but suffering from too close adherence to models, which had been in their turn copied from the antique. it was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that criticism hit the vein of common sense. il lasca, who deserves great credit for his perspicacity, carried on an unremitting warfare against the comedy of _anagnorisis_. in the prologue to his _gelosia_ he says:[144] "all the comedies which have been exhibited in florence since the siege, end in discoveries of lost relatives. this has become so irksome to the audience that, when they hear in the argument how at the taking of this city or the sack of that, children have been lost or kidnapped, they know only too well what is coming, and would fain leave the room.... authors of such comedies jumble up the new and the old, antique and modern together, making a hodge-podge and confusion, without rhyme or reason, head or tail. they lay their scenes in modern cities and depict the manners of to-day, but foist in obsolete customs and habits of remote antiquity. then they excuse themselves by saying: plautus did thus, and this was menander's way and terence's; never perceiving that in florence, pisa and lucca people do not live as they used to do in rome and athens. for heaven's sake let these fellows take to translation, if they have no vein of invention, but leave off cobbling and spoiling the property of others and their own." the prologue to the _spiritata_ contains a similar polemic against "quei ritrovamenti nei tempi nostri impossibili e sciocchi."[145] in the prologue to the _strega_, after once more condemning "quelle recognizioni deboli e sgarbate," he proceeds to attack the authority of ancient critics on whom the pedantic school relied:[146] "aristotle and horace knew their own times. but ours are wholly different. we have other manners, another religion, another way of life; and therefore our comedies ought to be composed after a different fashion. people do not live at florence as they did in rome and athens. there are no slaves here; it is not customary to adopt children; our pimps do not put up girls for sale at auction; nor do the soldiers of the present century carry long-clothes babies off in the sack of cities, to educate them as their own daughters and give them dowries; nowadays they make as much booty as they can, and should girls or married women fall into their hands, they either look for a large ransom or rob them of their maidenhead and honor." [footnote 144: _commedie di antonfrancesco grazzini_ (firenze, lemonnier, 1859), p. 5.] [footnote 145: _op. cit._ p. 109.] [footnote 146: _ibid._ p. 173.] this polemic of il lasca, and, indeed, all that he says about the art and aim of comedy, is very sensible. but at his date there was no hope for a great comedy of manners. what between the tyranny of the medici and the pressure of the inquisition, spanish suspicion and papal anxiety for a reform of manners, the liberty essential to a new development of the dramatic art had been extinguished. and even if external conditions had been favorable, the spirit of the race was spent. all intellectual energy was now losing itself in the quagmire of academical discussions and literary disputations upon verbal niceties. attention was turned backward to the study of petrarch and boccaccio. authors aiming above all things at correctness, slavishly observant of rules and absurdly fearful of each other's ferules, had not the stuff in them to create. what has been said of comedy, is still more true of tragedy. the tragic dramas of this period are stiff and lifeless, designed to illustrate critical principles rather than to stir and purify the passions. they have no relation to the spirit of the people or the times; and the blood spilt at their conclusion fails to distinguish them from moral lucubrations in the blankest verse.[147] [footnote 147: i have put into an appendix some further notes upon the opinions recorded by the playwrights concerning the progress of the dramatic art.] the first regular italian tragedy was the _sofonisba_ of gian giorgio trissino, finished in 1515, and six times printed before the date of its first representation at vicenza in 1562.[148] trissino was a man of immense erudition and laborious intellect, who devoted himself to questions of grammatical and literary accuracy, studying the critics of antiquity with indefatigable diligence and seeking to establish canons for the regulation of correct italian composition. he was by no means deficient in originality of aim, and professed himself the pioneer of novelties in poetry.[149] thus, besides innovating in the minor matter of orthography, he set himself to supply the deficiencies of italian literature by producing an epic in the heroic style and a tragedy that should compete with those of athens. he had made a profound study of the _poetics_ and believed that aristotle's analyses of the epic and the drama might be used as recipes for manufacturing similar masterpieces in a modern tongue.[150] the _italia liberata_ and the _sofonisba_, meritorious but lifeless exercises which lacked nothing but the genius for poetry, were the results of these ambitious theories. aristotle presided over both, while homer served as the professed model for trissino's heroic poem, and sophocles was copied in his play. of the _italia liberata_ this is not the place to speak. the _sofonisba_ is founded on a famous episode in the punic wars, when the wife of syphax was married by massinissa contrary to the express will of lælius and scipio. she takes poison at her new husband's orders, and her death forms the catastrophe. there is some attempt to mark character in lelio, scipione, and massinissa; but these persons do not act and react on one another, nor is there real dramatic movement in the play. sofonisba passes through it automatically, giving her hand to massinissa without remorse for syphax, drinking the poison like an obedient girl, and dying with decorous but ineffective pathos. massinissa plays the part of an idiot by sending her the poison which he thinks, apparently, she will not take. his surprise and grief, no less than his previous impulse of passionate love, are stationary. in a word, trissino selected a well-known story from roman history, and forgot that, in order to dramatize it, he must present the circumstances, not as a narrated fable, but as a sequence of actions determined by powerful and convincing motives. the two essentials of dramatic art, action evolved before the eyes of the spectators, and what goethe called the _motiviren_ of each incident, are conspicuous by their absence. the would-be tragic poet was too mindful of rules--his unities, his diction, his connection of scenes that should occupy the stage without interruption, his employment of the chorus in harmony with antique precedent--to conceive intensely or to express vividly. in form the _sofonisba_ is a fair imitation of attic tragedy, and the good taste of its author secures a certain pale and frigid reflection of classical simplicity. blank verse is judiciously mingled with lyric meters, which are only introduced at moments of high-wrought feeling. the chorus plays an unobtrusive part in the dialogue, and utters appropriate odes in the right places. consequently, the _sofonisba_ was hailed as a triumph of skill by the learned audience to whom alone the author appealed. its merits of ingenuity and scholarship were such as they could appreciate. its lack of vitality and imaginative vigor did not strike men who were accustomed to judge of poetry by rule and precedent. [footnote 148: my references to italian tragedies will be made to the _teatro italiano antico_, 10 vols., milano, 1809.] [footnote 149: this is shown by his device of a golden fleece, referring to the voyage of the argonauts. to sail the ocean of antiquity as an explorer, and to bring back the spoils of their artistic method was his ambition.] [footnote 150: compare what giraldi says in the dedication of his _orbecche_ to duke ercole ii.: "ancora che aristotele ci dia il modo di comporle." in the same passage he dwells on the difficulties of producing tragedies in the absence of dramatic instinct, with an ingenuousness that moves our pity: "quando altri si dà a scrivere in quella maniera de' poemi, che sono stati per tanti secoli tralasciati, che appena di loro vi resta una lieve ombra." it never occurred to him that great poetry comes neither by observation nor by imitation of predecessors. the same dedication contains the monstrous critical assertion that the latin poets, _i.e._ seneca, improved upon greek tragedy--_assai più grave la fecero_.] numerous scholars entered the lists in competition with trissino. among these the first place must be given to giovanni rucellai, whose _rosmunda_ was composed almost contemporaneously with the _sofonisba_ and was acted before leo x. in the rucellai gardens upon the occasion of a papal visit to florence. the chief merit of _rosmunda_ is brevity. but it has the fatal fault of being a story told in scenes and dialogues, not an action moving and expanding through a series of connected incidents. rosmunda's father, comundo, has been slain in battle with the lombards under albuino. like antigone, the princess goes by night to bury his corpse; and when the tyrant threatens her, she replies in language borrowed from sophocles. albuino decapitates comundo and makes a wine-cup of his skull, from which, after his marriage to rosmunda, he forces her to drink. this determines the catastrophe. almachilde appears upon the scene and slaughters albuino in his tent. we are left to conjecture the murderer's future marriage with the heroine. that the old tale of the _donna lombarda_ is eminently fitted for tragic handling, admits of no doubt. but it is equally certain that rucellai failed to dramatize it. almachilde is not introduced until the fourth act, and he assassinates albuino without any previous communication with rosmunda. the horrible banquet scene and the incident of the murder are described by messengers, while the chief actors rarely come to speech together face to face. the business of the play is narrated in dialogues with servants. this abuse of the messenger and of subordinate characters, introduced for the sole purpose of describing and relating what ought to be enacted, is not peculiar to the _rosmunda_. it weakens all the tragedies of the sixteenth century, reducing their scenes to vacant discussions, where one person tells another what the author has conceived but what he cannot bring before his audience. afraid of straining his imaginative faculties by the display of characters in action, the poet studiously keeps the chief personages apart, supplying the hero and the heroine with a shadow or an echo, whose sympathetic utterances serve to elicit the plot without making any demand upon the dramatist's power of presentation. unfortunately for the tragic poets, the precedent of seneca seemed to justify this false method of dramatic composition. and seneca's tragedies, we know, were written, not for action, but for recitation. these defects culminate in speron sperone's _canace_. the tale is horrible. eolo, god of the winds, has two children, canace and macareo, born at one birth by his wife deiopea. under the malign influence of venus this unlucky couple love; and the fruit of their union is a baby, killed as soon as born. the brother and the sister commit suicide separately, after their father's anger has thrown the light of publicity upon their passion. in order to justify the exhibition of incest in this repulsive form, there should at least have been such scenes of self-abandonment to impulse as ford has found for giovanni and annabella; or the poet might have suggested the operation of agencies beyond human control by treading in the footsteps of euripides; or, again, he might have risen from the sordid facts of sin into the region of ideal passion by the presentation of commanding personality in his principal actors. nothing of this kind redeems the dreary disgust of his plot. the first act consists of a dialogue between eolo and his grand vizier; the second, of a dialogue between canace and her nurse; the third, of dialogues between deiopea and her servants; the fourth, of a messenger's narrative; the fifth, of macareo's dialogues with his valet and his father's henchman. this analysis of the situations shows how little of dramatic genius sperone brought to bear upon the hideous theme he had selected. the _canace_ is a succession of conversations referring to events which happen off the stage, and which involve no play of character in the chief personages. it is written throughout in lyrical measures with an affected diction, where rhetorical conceits produce the same effect as artificial flowers and ribbons stuck upon a skeleton. giraldi, the author of the _hecatommithi_, fares little better in his _orbecche_.[151] it is a play founded on one of the poet's own _novelle_.[152] orbecche, the innocent child of sulmone and selina, has led her father to detect his wife's adultery with his own eldest son. selina, killed together with her paramour, exercises a baleful influence from the world of ghosts over this daughter who unwittingly betrayed her sin. orbecche privately marries the low-born oronte and has two sons by her husband. sulmone, when he discovers this _mésalliance_, assassinates oronte and his children in a secret place, and makes a present of his head and hands to his miserable daughter. upon this, orbecche stabs her father and then ends her own life. to horrors of extravagant passion and bloodshed we are accustomed in the works of our inferior playwrights. nor would it perhaps be just to quarrel with giraldi for having chosen a theme so morbid, if any excuse could have been pleaded on the score of stirring scenes or vivid incidents. unluckily, the life of dramatic action and passion is wanting to his ponderous tragedy. instead of it, we are treated to disquisitions in the style of seneca, and to descriptions that would be harrowing but for their invincible frigidity. no amount of crime and bloodshed will atone for the stationary mechanism of this lucubration. [footnote 151: this tragedy was acted at ferrara in giraldi's house before ercole ii., duke of ferrara, and a brilliant company of noble persons, in 1541. the music was composed by m. alfonso dalla viuola, the scenery by m. girolamo carpi.] [footnote 152: giraldi, a prolific writer of plays, dramatized three other of his novels in the _arrenopia_, the _altile_ and the _antivalomeni_. he also composed a _didone_ and a _cleopatra_.] lacking dramatic instinct, these italian scholars might have redeemed their essential feebleness by acute analysis of character. their tragedies might at least have contained versified studies of motives, metrical essays on the leading passions. but we look in vain for such compensations. stock tyrants, conventional lovers, rhetorical pedants, form their _dramatis personæ_. the inherent vices of the _novella_, expanded to excessive length and invested with the forms of antique art, neutralize the labors of the lamp and file that have been spent upon them.[153] if it were requisite to select one play in which a glimmer of dramatic light is visible, we could point to the _marianna_ of lodovico dolce. here the passion of love in a tyrant, dotingly affectionate but egotistic, roused to suspicion by the slightest hint, and jealous beyond othello's lunacy, has been depicted with considerable skill. herod is a fantastical creon, who murders the fancied paramour of marianna, and subsequently assassinates marianna herself, his two sons by her, and her mother, in successive paroxysms of insane vindictiveness, waking up too late from his dream of self-injury into ignoble remorse. though his conviction that marianna meant to poison him, and his persuasion of her adultery with soemo are so ill prepared by reasonable motives as to be ridiculous, the operation of these beliefs upon his wild-beast nature leads to more real movement than is common in italian tragedies. the inevitable chorus is employed for the utterance of sententious commonplaces; and the part of the messenger is abused for the detailed and disgusting description of executions that inspire no horror. [footnote 153: it may here be remarked that though the scholarly playwrights of the renaissance paid great attention to aristotle's _poetics_, and made a conscientious study of some greek plays, especially the _antigone_, the _oedipus tyrannus_, the _phoenissæ_, and the _iphigenia in tauris_, they held the uncritical opinion, openly expressed by giraldi, that seneca had improved the form of the greek drama. their worst faults of construction, interminable monologues, dialogues between heroines and confidantes, dry choric dissertations, and rhetorical declamations are due to the preference for seneca. the more we study italian literature in the sixteenth century, the more we are compelled to acknowledge that humanism and all its consequences were a revival of latin culture, only slightly tinctured with the simpler and purer influences of the greeks. latin poetry had the fatal attraction of facility. it was, moreover, itself composite and derivatory, like the literature of the new age. we may profitably illustrate the attitude of the italian critics by sidney's eulogy of _gorboduc_: "full of stately speeches and well-sounding phrases, climbing to the height of seneca his style, and as full of notable morality which it doth most delightfully teach and so obtain the very end of poesy."] the tragedies hitherto discussed, though conforming to the type of the classical drama, were composed on original subjects. yet the best plays of this pedantic school are those which closely follow some attic model. rucellai's _oreste_, produced in imitation of the _iphigenia in tauris_, far surpasses the _rosmunda_, not only as a poem of action, but also for the richness and the beauty of its style. that rucellai should spoil the plot of euripides by his alterations, protracting the famous recognition-scene till we are forced to suppose that orestes and iphigenia kept up a game of mutual misunderstanding out of consideration for the poet, and spinning out the contest between orestes and pylades to absurdity, was to be expected. a scholar in his study can scarcely hope to improve upon the work of a poet whose very blemishes were the defects of a dramatic quality. he fancies that expansion of striking situations will fortify them, and that the addition of ingenious rhetoric will render a simple action more effective. the reverse of this is true; and the best line open to such a poet is to produce a faithful version of his original. this was done by luigi alamanni, whose translation of the _antigone_, though open to objections on the score of scholarship, is a brilliant and beautiful piece of italian versification. lodovico dolce in his _giocasta_ attempted to remodel the _phoenissæ_ with very indifferent success; while giovanni andrea dell'anguillara defaced the _oedipus tyrannus_ in his _edippo_, by adding a final act and interweaving episodical matter borrowed from seneca. a more repulsive tragi-comedy than this _pasticcio_ of sophocles and seneca, can scarcely be imagined. yet quadrio and tiraboschi mention it with cautious compliment, and it received the honor of public recitation at vicenza in 1565, when palladio erected a theater for the purpose in the noble palazzo della ragione. we cannot contemplate these _rifacimenti_ of standard-making masterpieces without mixed feelings of scorn and pity. sprouting fungus-like upon the venerable limbs of august poetry, they lived their season of mildewy fame, and may now be reckoned among the things which the world would only too willingly let die. the ineptitude of such performance reached a climax in lodovico martelli's _tullia_, where the roman legend of lucius tarquinius is violently altered to suit the plot of sophocles' _electra_. romulus appears at the conclusion of the play as a _deus ex machina_, and the insufferable tedium of the speeches may be imagined from the fact that one of them runs to the length of 211 lines. these tragedies were the literary manufacture of scholars, writing in no relation of reciprocity with the world of action or the audience of busy cities. applying rules of aristotle and horace, travestying sophocles and euripides, copying the worst faults of seneca, patching, boggling, rehandling, misconceiving, devising petty traps instead of plots, mistaking bloodshed and brutality for terror, attending to niceties of diction, composing commonplace sentences for superfluous choruses, intent on everything but the main points of passion, character, and action, they produced the dreariest _caput mortuum_ of unintelligent industry which it is the melancholy duty of historians to chronicle. their personages are shadows evoked in the camera obscura of a pedant's brain from figures that have crossed the orbit of his solitary studies. no breath or juice of life animates these formal marionettes. their movements of passion are the spasms of machinery. no charm of poetry, no bursts of lyrical music, no resolutions of tragic solemnity into irony or sarcasm, afford relief from clumsy horrors and stale disquisitions, parceled out by weight and measure in the leaden acts. an intolerable wordiness oppresses the reader, who wades through speeches reckoned by the hundred lines, wondering how any audience could endure the torment of their recitation. each play is a flat and arid wilderness, piled with barrows of extinct sentences in seneca's manner and with pyramids of reflection heaped up from the commonplace books of a pedagogue. the failure of italian tragedy was inseparable from its artificial origin. it was the conscious product of cultivated persons, who aimed at nothing nobler than the imitation of the ancients and the observance of inapplicable rules. the curse of intellectual barrenness weighed upon the starvelings of this system from the moment of their birth, and nothing better came of them than our own _gorboduc_. that tragedy, built upon the false italian method, is indeed a sign of what we english might have suffered, if sidney and the court had gained their way with the elizabethan drama. the humanistic influences of the fifteenth century were scarcely less unpropitious to national comedy at its outset than they had been to tragedy. although the _sacre rappresentazioni_ contained the germ of vernacular farce, though interludes in dialect amused the folk of more than one italian province, among which special reference may be made to the neapolitan _farse_, yet the playwrights of the renaissance preferred plautus and terence to the indigenous growth of their own age and country.[154] we may note this fact with regret, since it helped to deprive the italians of a national theater. still we must not forget that it was inevitable. humanism embraced the several districts of italy in a common culture, effacing the distinctions of dialect, and bringing the separate elements of the nation to a consciousness of intellectual unity. divided as venetians, as florentines, as neapolitans, as lombards, and as romans, the members of the italian community recognized their identity in the spiritual city they had reconquered from the past. what the english translation of the bible effected for us, the recovery of latin and the humanistic education of the middle classes achieved for the italians. for a florentine scholar to have developed the comic elements existing in the _feste_, for a neapolitan to have refined the matter of the _farse_, would have seemed the same in either case as self-restriction to the limits of a single province. but the whole nation possessed the latin poets as a common heritage; and on the ground of plautus, florentines and neapolitans could understand each other. it was therefore natural that the cultivated orders, brought into communion by the ancients, should look to these for models of an art they were intent on making national. together with this imperious instinct, which impelled the italians to create their literature in sympathy with the commanding spirit of the age, we must reckon the fashionable indifference toward vernacular and obscure forms of poetry. the princes and their courtiers strove alike to remodel modern customs in accordance with the classics. illiterate mechanics might amuse themselves with farces.[155] men who had once tasted the refined and pungent salt of attic wit, could stomach nothing simpler than scenes from antique comedy. [footnote 154: d'ancona (_origini del teatro_, vol. ii. sec. xxxix.) may be consulted upon the attempts to secularize the _sacre rappresentazioni_ which preceded the revival of classical comedy.] [footnote 155: leo x., with a medici's true sympathy for plebeian literature added to his own coarse sense of fun, patronized the farces of the sienese company called rozzi. had his influence lasted, had there been any one to continue the traditions of his court at rome, it is not impossible that a more natural comedy, as distinguished from the _commedia erudita_, might have been produced by this fashionable patronage of popular dramatic art.] we therefore find that, at the close of the fifteenth century, it was common to recite the plays of plautus and terence in their original language. paolo comparini at florence in 1488 wrote a prologue to the _menæchmi_, which his pupils represented, much to the disgust of the elder religious companies, who felt that the ruin of their _feste_ was involved in this revival of antiquity.[156] pomponius lætus at rome, about the same time, encouraged the members of his academy to rehearse terence and plautus in the palaces of nobles and prelates.[157] the company of youthful actors formed by him were employed by the cardinal raffaello riario in the magnificent spectacles he provided for the amusement of the papal court. during the pontificate of sixtus iv. and innocent viii., the mausoleum of hadrian, not then transformed into a fortress, or else the squares of rome were temporarily arranged as theaters for these exhibitions.[158] it was on this stage that tommaso inghirami, by his brilliant acting in the _hippolytus_ of seneca, gained the surname of phædra which clung to him through life. in the pontificate of alexander we hear of similar shows, as when, upon the occasion of lucrezia borgia's espousal to the duke of ferrara in 1502, the _menæchmi_ was represented at the vatican.[159] [footnote 156: see d'ancona, _or. del teatro_, vol. ii. p. 201.] [footnote 157: sabellico, quoted by tiraboschi, says of him: "primorum antistitum atriis suo theatro usus, in quibus plauti, terentii, recentiorum etiam quædam agerentur fabulæ, quas ipse honestos adolescentes et docuit et agentibus præfuit."] [footnote 158: see the letter of sulpizio da veroli to raffaello riario, quoted by tiraboschi; "eamdemque, postquam in hadriani mole divo innocentio spectante est acta, rursus inter tuos penates, tamquam in media circi cavea, toto consessu umbraculis tecto, admisso populo, et pluribus tui ordinis spectatoribus honorifice excepisti. tu etiam primus picturatæ scenæ faciem, quum pomponiam comoediam agerent, nostro sæculo ostendisti."] [footnote 159: see _lucrezia borgia_, by gregorovius (stuttgart, 1874), vol. i. p. 201.] the court which accomplished most for the resuscitation of latin comedy was that of the estensi at ferrara. ercole i. had spent a delicate youth in humanistic studies, collecting manuscripts and encouraging his courtiers to make italian translations of ancient authors. he took special interest in theatrical compositions, and spared no pains in putting latin comedies with all the pomp of modern art upon the stage. thus the ferrarese diaries mention a representation of the _menæchmi_ in 1486, which cost above 1000 ducats. in 1487 the courtyard of the castle was fitted up as a theater for the exhibition of nicolò da correggio's pastoral of _cefalo_.[160] again, upon the occasion of annibale de' bentivogli's betrothal to a princess of the este family, the _amphitryon_ was performed; and in 1491, when anna sforza gave her hand to alfonso d'este, the same comedy was repeated. in 1493 lodovico sforza, on a visit to ferrara, witnessed a representation of the _menæchmi_, which so delighted him that he begged ercole to send his company to milan. the duke went thither in person, attended by his son alfonso and by gentle actors of his court, among whom lodovico ariosto played a part. later on, in 1499, we again hear of latin comedies at ferrara. bembo in a letter of that year mentions the _trinummus_, _poenulus_ and _eunuchus_.[161] [footnote 160: nicolò was a descendant of the princely house of correggio. he married cassandra, daughter of bartolommeo colleoni. his _cefalo_ was a mixed composition resembling the _sacre rappresentazioni_ in structure. in the prologue he says: requiret autem nullus hic comoediæ leges ut observentur, aut tragoediæ; agenda nempe est historia, non fabula. see d'ancona, _op. cit._ vol. 2, pp. 143-146, 155.] [footnote 161: _ep. fam._ i. 18, quoted by tiraboschi.] it is probable that latin comedies were recited at ferrara, as at rome, in the original. at the same time we know that both plautus and terence were being translated into italian for the amusement of an audience as yet but partially acquainted with ancient languages. tiraboschi mentions the _anfitrione_ of pandolfo collenuccio, the _cassina_ and _mostellaria_ versified in _terza rima_ by girolamo berardo, and the _menechmi_ of duke ercole, among the earliest of these versions. guarini and ariosto followed on their path with translations from the latin made for special occasions. it was thus that italian comedy began to disengage itself from latin. after the presentation of the original plays, came translation; and after translation, imitation. the further transition from imitation to freedom was never perfectly effected. the comic drama, determined in its form by the circumstances of its origin remained emphatically a _commedia erudita_. adapted to the conditions of modern life, it never lost dependence upon latin models; and its most ingenious representations of manners were defaced by reminiscences which condemn them to a place among artistic hybrids. ariosto, who did so much to stamp italian comedy with the mark of his own genius, was educated, as we have already seen, in the traditions of duke ercole's latin theater; and ariosto gave the law to his most genial successor, cecchi. the pegasus of the italian drama, if i may venture on a burlesque metaphor, was a mule begotten by the sturdy ass of latin on the fleet mare of the italian spirit; and it had the sterility of the mule. the year 1502, when lucrezia borgia came as alfonso d'este's bride to ferrara, marks the climax of these latin spectacles.[162] ercole had arranged a theater in the palace of the podestà (now called the palazzo della ragione), which was connected with the castle by a private gallery. his troupe, recruited from ferrara, rome, siena, and mantua, numbered one hundred and ten actors of both sexes. accomplished singers, dancers, and scene-painters were summoned to add richness to the spectacle. we hear of musical interludes performed by six violins; while every comedy was diversified by morris-dances of saracens, satyrs, gladiators, wild men, hunters, and allegorical personages.[163] the entertainment lasted over five nights, a comedy of plautus forming the principal piece on each occasion. on the first evening the _epidicus_ was given; on the second, the _bacchides_; on the third, the _miles gloriosus_; on the fourth, the _asinaria_; on the fifth, the _casina_. from the reports of cagnolo, zambotto, and isabella gonzaga, we are led to believe that the unlettered audience judged the recitations of the plautine comedies somewhat tedious. they were in the same position as unmusical people of the present day, condemned to listen to bach's passion music, and afraid of expressing their dissatisfaction. yet these more frivolous spectators found ample gratification in the ingenious ballets, accompanied with music, which relieved each act. the occasion was memorable. in those five evenings the court of ferrara presented to the fashionable world of italy a carefully-studied picture of latin comedy framed in a setting of luxuriant modern arabesques. the simplicity of plautus, executed with the fidelity born of reverence for antique art, was thrown into relief by extravagances borrowed from medieval chivalry, tinctured with oriental associations, enhanced by music and colored with the glowing hues of ferrarese imagination. the city of boiardo, of dossi, of bello, of ariosto, strained her resources to devise fantastic foils for the antique. it was as though cellini had been called to mount an onyx of augustus in labyrinths of gold-work and enamel for the stomacher of a grand-duchess. [footnote 162: gregorovius in his book on _lucrezia borgia_ (pp. 228-239) has condensed the authorities. see, too, dennistoun, _dukes of urbino_, vol. i. pp. 441-448.] [footnote 163: the minute descriptions furnished by sanudo of these festivals read like the prose letterpress accompanying the masks of our ben jonson.] we may without exaggeration affirm that the practice of the ferrarese stage, culminating in the marriage shows of 1502, determined the future of italian comedy. the fashion of the court of ercole was followed by all patrons of dramatic art. when a play was written, the author planned it in connection with subordinate exhibitions of dancing and music.[164] he wrote a poem in five acts upon the model of plautus or terence, understanding that his scenes of classical simplicity would be embedded in the grotesques of _cinque cento_ allegory. the whole performance lasted some six hours; but the comedy itself was but a portion of the entertainment. for the majority of the audience the dances and the pageants formed the chief attraction.[165] it is therefore no marvel if the drama, considered as a branch of high poetic art, was suffocated by the growth of its mere accessories. nor was this inconsistent with the ruling tendencies of the renaissance. we have no reason to suppose that even ariosto or machiavelli grudged the participation of painters like peruzzi, musicians like dalla viuola, architects like san gallo, and dancers of ephemeral distinction, in the triumph of their plays. [footnote 164: il lasca in his prologue to the _strega_ (_ed. cit._ p. 171) says: "questa non è fatta da principi, nè da signori, nè in palazzi ducali e signorili; e però non avrà quella pompa d'apparato, di prospettiva, e d'intermedj che ad alcune altre nei tempi nostri s'è veduto."] [footnote 165: a fine example of the italian mask is furnished by _el sacrificio_, played with great pomp by the intronati of siena in 1531 and printed in 1537. _el sacrificio de gli intronati celebrato ne i giuochi del carnovale in siena l'anno mdxxxi._ full particulars regarding the music, _mise en scène_, and ballets on such ceremonial occasions, will be found in two curious pamphlets, _descrizione dell'apparato fatto nel tempio di s. giov. di fiorenza_, etc. (giunti, 1568), and _descrizione dell'entrata della serenissima reina giovanna d'austria_, etc. (giunti, 1566). they refer to a later period, but they abound in the most curious details.] the habit of regarding scenic exhibitions as the adjunct to extravagant court luxury, prevented the development of a theater in which the genius of poets might have shone with undimmed intellectual luster. the want of permanent buildings, devoted to acting, in any great italian town, may again be reckoned among the causes which checked the expansion of the drama. when a play had to be acted, a stage was erected at a great expense for the occasion.[166] it is true that alfonso i. built a theater after ariosto's designs at ferrara in 1528; but it was burnt down in 1532. according to gregorovius, leo x. fitted one up at rome upon the capitol in 1513,[167] capable of holding the two thousand spectators who witnessed a performance of the _suppositi_. this does not, however, seem to have been used continuously; nor was it until the second half of the sixteenth century that theaters began to form a part of the palatial residences of princes. one precious relic of those more permanent stages remains to show the style they then assumed. this is the teatro farnese at parma, erected in 1618 by ranuzio i. after the design of galeotti aleotti of ferrara. it could accommodate seven thousand spectators; and, though now in ruins, it is still a stately and harmonious monument of architectural magnificence.[168] what, however, was always wanting in italy was a theater open to all classes and at all seasons of the year, where the people might have been the patrons of their playwrights.[169] [footnote 166: see the details brought together by campori, _notizie per la vita di lodovico ariosto_, p. 74, castiglione's letter on the _calandra_ at urbino, the private representation of the _rosmunda_ in the rucellai gardens, of the _orbecche_ in giraldi's house, of the _sofonisba_ at vicenza, of gelli's _errore_ by the fantastichi, etc.] [footnote 167: _stadt rom_, viii. 350.] [footnote 168: see the article "fornovo" in my _sketches and studies in italy_.] [footnote 169: at this point, in illustration of what has been already stated, i take the opportunity of transcribing a passage which fairly represents the conditions of play-going in the _cinque cento_. doni, in the _marmi_, gives this description of two comedies performed in the sala del papa of the palazzo vecchio at florence.[a] "by my faith, in florence never was there anything so fine: two stages, one at each end of the hall: two wonderful scenes, the one by francesco salviati, the other by bronzino: two most amusing comedies, and of the newest coinage; the _mandragola_ and the _assiuola_: when the first act of the one was over, there followed the first act of the other, and so forth, each play taking up the other, without interludes, in such wise that the one comedy served as interlude for the other. the music began at the opening, and ended with the close."] [footnote a: barbèra's edition, 1863, vol. i. p. 67.] the transition from latin to italian comedy was effected almost simultaneously by three poets, bernardo dovizio, lodovico ariosto, and niccolò machiavelli. dovizio was born at bibbiena in 1470. he attached himself to the cardinal giovanni de' medici, and received the scarlet from his master in 1513. we need not concern ourselves with his ecclesiastical career. it is enough to say that the _calandra_, which raised him to a foremost place among the literary men of italy, was composed before his elevation to the dignity of cardinal, and was first performed at urbino some time between the dates 1504 and 1513, possibly in 1508. the reader will already have observed that the most popular latin play, both at ferrara and rome, was the _menæchmi_ of plautus. in dovizio's _calandra_ the influence of this comedy is so noticeable that we may best describe it as an accommodation of the latin form to italian circumstance. the intrigue depends upon the close resemblance of a brother and sister, lidio and santilla, whose appearance by turns in male and female costume gives rise to a variety of farcical incidents. the name is derived from calandro, a simpleton of calandrino's type; and the interest of the plot is that of a _novella._ the characters are very slightly sketched; but the movement is continuous, and the dialogue is always lively. the _calandra_ achieved immediate success by reproducing both the humor of boccaccio and the invention of plautus in the wittiest vernacular.[170] a famous letter of baldassare castiglione, describing its representation at urbino, enlarges upon the splendor of the scenery and dresses, the masks of jason, venus, love, neptune, and juno, accompanied by morris-dances and concerts of stringed instruments, which were introduced as interludes.[171] from urbino the comedy passed through all the courts of italy, finding the highest favor at rome, where leo more than once decreed its representation. one of these occasions was memorable. wishing to entertain the marchioness isabella of mantua (1514), he put the _calandra_ with great pomp upon his private stage in the vatican. baldassare peruzzi designed and painted the decorations, giving a new impulse to this species of art by the beauty of his inventions.[172] [footnote 170: one of the chief merits of the _calandra_ in the eyes of contemporaries was the successful adaptation of boccaccio's style to the stage. though italians alone have the right to pronounce judgment on such matters, i confess to preferring the limpid ease of ariosto and the plebeian freshness of gelli. the former has the merit of facile lucidity, the latter of native raciness. bibbiena's somewhat pompous phraseology sits ill upon his farcical obscenities.] [footnote 171: see the translation in dennistoun, vol. ii. p. 141.] [footnote 172: see vasari, viii. 227.] leo had an insatiable appetite for scenic shows. comedies of the new latinizing style were his favorite recreation. but he also invited the sienese company of the rozzi, who only played farces, every year to rome; nor was he averse to even less artistic buffoonery, as may be gathered from many of the stories told about him.[173] in 1513 leo opened a theater upon the capitol, and here in 1519, surrounded with two thousand spectators, he witnessed an exhibition of ariosto's _suppositi_. we have a description of the scene from the pen of an eye-witness, who relates how the pope sat at the entrance to the gallery leading into the theater, and admitted with his benediction those whom he thought worthy of partaking in the night's amusements.[174] when the house was full, he took his throne in the orchestra, and sat, with eye-glass in hand, to watch the play. raphael had painted the scenery, which is said to have been, and doubtless was, extremely beautiful. leo's behavior scandalized the foreign embassadors, who thought it indecorous that a pope should not only listen to the equivocal jests of the prologue but also laugh immoderately at them.[175] as usual, the inter-acts consisted of vocal and instrumental concerts, with ballets on classical and allegorical subjects. [footnote 173: see d'ancona, _op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 250, for the special nature of the _farsa_. see also _ib._ p. 211, the description by paolucci of leo's buffooneries in the vatican.] [footnote 174: see campori, _notizie inedite di raffaello di urbino_, modena, 1863, quoted by d'ancona, _op. cit._ p. 212. the entertainment cost leo 1,000 ducats.] [footnote 175: no doubt paolucci refers to the obscene play upon the word _suppositi_, and to the ironical epithet of _santa_ applied to _roma_ in a passage which does no honor to ariosto.] enough has now been said concerning the mode of presenting comedies in vogue throughout italy. the mention of leo's entertainment in 1519 introduces the subject of ariosto's plays. the _suppositi_, originally written in prose and afterwards versified by its author, first appeared in 1509 at ferrara. in the preceding year ariosto exhibited the _cassaria_, which, like the _suppositi_, was planned in prose and subsequently versified in _sdrucciolo_ iambics.[176] [footnote 176: for the dates of ariosto's dramatic compositions, see above, part 1, p. 499. the edition i shall refer to, is that of giovanni tortoli (firenze, barbèra, 1856), which gives both the prose and verse redactions of the _cassaria_ and _suppositi_. it may here be incidentally remarked that there are few thoroughly good editions of italian plays. descriptions of the _dramatis personæ_, stage directions, and illustrative notes are almost uniformly wanting. the reader is left to puzzle out an intricate action without help. all the slang, the local customs, and the passing allusions which give life to comedy and present so many difficulties to the student, are for the most part unexplained.] in ariosto's comedies the form of roman art becomes a lay-figure, dressed according to various modes of the italian renaissance. the wire-work, so to speak, of plautus or of terence can be everywhere detected; but this skeleton has been incarnated with modern flesh and blood, habited in ferrarese costume, and taught the paces of contemporary fashion. blent with the traditions of plautine comedy, we find in each of the four plays an italian _novella_. the motive is invariably trivial. in the _cassaria_ two young men are in love with two girls kept by a slave-merchant. the intrigue turns upon the arts of their valets, who cheat the pander and procure the girls for nothing for their masters. in the _suppositi_ a young man of good family has assumed the part of servant, in order to seduce the daughter of his master. the devices by which he contrives to secure her hand in marriage, furnish the action of the play. the _lena_ has even a simpler plan. a young man needs a few quiet hours for corrupting his neighbor's daughter. lena, the chief actress, will not serve as a go-between without a sum of ready money paid down by the hero. the movement of the piece depends on the expedients whereby this money is raised, and the farcical obstacles which interrupt the lovers at the point of their felicity. in the _negromante_ a young man has been secretly married to one woman, and openly to another. cinthio loves his real wife, lavinia, and feigns impotence in order to explain his want of affection for emilia, who is the recognized mistress of his home. an astrologer, iacchelino, holds the threads of the intrigue in his hands. possessed of cinthio's secret, paid by the parents of emilia to restore cinthio's virility, paid again by a lover of emilia to advance his own suit, and seeking in the midst of these rival interests to make money out of the follies and ambitions of his clients, iacchelino has the whole domestic company at his discretion. the comic point lies in the various passions which betray each dupe to the astrologer--cinthio's wish to escape from emilia, camillo's eagerness to win her, the old folks' anxiety to cure cinthio. temolo, a servant, who is hoodwinked by no personal desire, sees that iacchelino is an impostor; and the inordinate avarice of the astrologer undoes him. thus the _negromante_ presents a really fine comic web of humors at cross purposes and appetites that overreach themselves. there is considerable similarity in ariosto's plots. in all of them, except the _negromante_, we have a sub-plot which brings a tricksy valet into play. a sum of money is imperatively needed to effect the main scheme of the hero; and this has to be provided by the servant's ingenuity. such direct satire as the poet thought fit to introduce, is common to them all. it concerns the costs, delays and frauds of legal procedure, favoritism at court, the ferrarese game-laws, and the tyranny of custom-house officials. but satire of an indirect, indulgent species--the horatian satire of ariosto's own epistles--adds a pleasant pungency to his pictures of contemporary manners no less than to his occasional discourses. the prologue to the _cassaria_, on its reappearance as a versified play, might be quoted for the perfection of genial sarcasm, playing about the foibles of society without inflicting a serious wound. all the prologues, however, are not innocent. those prefixed to the _lena_ and the _suppositi_ contain allusions so indecent, and veil obscenities under metaphors so flimsy, as to justify a belief in ariosto's vulgarity of soul. here the satirist borders too much on the sympathizer with a vice he professes to condemn. it remains to speak of the _scolastica_, a comedy left incomplete at ariosto's death, and finished by his brother gabrielle, but bearing the unmistakable stamp of his ripest genius impressed upon the style no less than on the structure of the plot.[177] the scene is laid at ferrara, where we find ourselves among the scholars of its famous university, and are made acquainted in the liveliest manner with their habits. the heroes are two young students, claudio and eurialo, firm friends, who have passed some years at pavia reading with messer lazzaro, a doctor of laws. the disturbance of the country having driven both professors and pupils from pavia,[178] a variety of accidents brings all the actors of the comedy to ferrara, where eurialo is living with his father, bartolo. of course the two lads are in love--claudio with the daughter of his former tutors, and eurialo with a fatherless girl in the service of a noble lady at pavia. the intrigue is rather farcical than comic. it turns upon the difficulties encountered by claudio and eurialo in concealing their sweethearts from their respective fathers, the absurd mistakes they make in the hurry of the moment, and the misunderstandings which ensue between themselves and the old people. ariosto has so cleverly complicated the threads of his plot and has developed them with such lucidity of method that any analysis would fall short of the original in brevity and clearness. the _dénouement_ is effected by the device of a recognition at the last moment. eurialo's _innamorata_ is found to be the lost ward of his father, bartolo; and claudio is happily married to his love, flaminia. the merit of the play lies, however, less in the argument than the characters, which are ably conceived and sustained with more than even ariosto's usual skill. the timid and perplexed eurialo, trembling before his terrible father, seeking advice from every counselor, despairing, resigning himself to fate, is admirably contrasted with the more passionate and impulsive claudio, who takes rash steps with inconsiderate boldness, relies on his own address to extricate himself, and vibrates between the ecstasies of love and the suspicions of an angry jealousy.[179] bartolo, burdened in his conscience by an ancient act of broken faith, and punished in the disobedience of his son, forms an excellent pendent to the honest but pedantic messer lazzaro, who cannot bear to see his daughter suffer from an unrequited passion.[180] each of the servants, too, has a well-marked physiognomy--the witty accursio, picking up what learning he can from his master's books, and turning all he says to epigrams; the easy-going, bacchanalian duenna; blunt pistone; garrulous stanna. but the most original of all the _dramatis personæ_ is bonifazio, that excellent keeper of lodgings for ferrarese students, who identifies himself with their interests, sympathizes in their love-affairs, takes side with them against their fathers, and puts his conscience in his pocket when required to pull them out of scrapes.[181] each of these characters has been copied from the life. the taint of latin comedy has been purged out of them.[182] they move, speak, act like living beings, true to themselves in every circumstance, and justifying the minutest details of the argument by the operation of their several qualities of head and heart. viewed as a work of pure dramatic art, the _scolastica_ is not only the most genial and sympathetic of ariosto's comedies, but also the least fettered by his latinizing prepossessions, and the strongest in psychological analysis. like the _lena_, it has the rare merit of making us at home in the ferrara which he knew so well; but it does not, like that play, disgust us by the spectacle of abject profligacy.[183] there is a sunny, jovial freshness in this latest product of ariosto's genius, which invigorates while it amuses and instructs. [footnote 177: gabrielle added the last two scenes of the fifth act. see his prologue. but whether he introduced any modifications into the body of the play, or filled up any gaps, does not appear.] [footnote 178: poichè a pavia levato era il salario alli dottor, nè più si facea studio per le guerre che più ogni dì augumentano.] [footnote 179: their opposite humors are admirably developed in the dialogues of act ii. sc. 5, act iii. sc. 5.] [footnote 180: compare bartolo's soliloquy in act iv. sc. 6, with lazzaro's confidences to bonfazio, whom he mistakes for bartolo, in act v. sc. 3.] [footnote 181: his action in the comedy is admirably illustrated by the self-revelation of the following soliloquy (act iv. sc. 1): io vuò a ogni modo aiutar questo giovane, e dir dieci bugie, perchè ad incorrere non abbia con suo padre in rissa e in scandalo: e così ancor quest'altro mio, che all'ultima disperazione è condotto da un credere falso e da gelosia che a torto il stimola. nè mi vergognerò d'ordire, o tessere fallacie e giunti, _e far ciò ch'eran soliti_ _gli antichi servi già nelle commedie_: chè veramente l'aiutare un povero innamorato, non mi pare uffizio servil, ma di gentil qualsivoglia animo.] [footnote 182: the process is well indicated in the lines i have italicized in bonifazio's soliloquy. he is no longer a copy of the latin slaves, but a free agent who emulates their qualities.] [footnote 183: with all admiration for the _lena_, how can we appreciate the cynicism of the situation revealed in the first scene--the crudely exposed appetites of flavio, the infamous conduct of fazio, who places his daughter under the tutelage of his old mistress?] the _scolastica_ is not without an element of satire. i have said that bartolo had a sin upon his conscience. in early manhood he promised to adopt a friend's daughter, and to marry her in due course to his own eurialo. but he neglected this duty, lost sight of the girl, and appropriated her heritage. he has reason to think that she may still be found in naples; and the parish priest to whom he confided his secret in confession, will not absolve him, unless he take the journey and do all he can to rectify the error of his past. bartolo is disinclined to this long pilgrimage, with the probable loss of a fortune at the end of it. in his difficulty he has recourse to a frate predicatore, who professes to hold ample powers for dispensing with troublesome vows and pious obligations:[184] voi potete veder la bolla, e leggere le facultadi mie, che sono amplissime; e come, senza che pigliate, bartolo, questo pellegrinaggio, io posso assolvere e commutar i voti; e maravigliomi, che essendo, com'io son, vostro amicissimo, non m'abbiate richiesto; perchè, dandomi quel solamente che potreste spendere voi col famiglio nel viaggio, assolvere vi posso, e farvi schifar un grandissimo disconcio, all'età vostra incomportabile: oltra diversi infiniti pericoli, che ponno a chi va per cammino occorrere. [footnote 184: act iii. sc. 6.] the irony of this speech depends upon its plain and business-like statement of a simoniacal bargain, which will prove of mutual benefit to the parties concerned. bartolo confides his case of conscience to the friar, previously telling him that he has confessed it to the parson: ma non mi sa decidere questo caso, chè, come voi, teologo non è; sa un poco di ragion canonica. at the close of the communication, which is admirable for its lucid exposition of a domestic romance adapted to the circumstances of the sixteenth century, the friar asks his penitent once more whether he would not willingly escape this pilgrimage. who could doubt it? answers bartolo. well then: ben si potrà commutare in qualche opera pia. non si trova al mondo sì forte obbligo, che non si possa scior con l'elemosine. here again the sarcasm consists in the hypocritical adaptation of the old axiom that everything in this world can be got for money. on both sides the transaction is commercial. bartolo, like a good man of business, wishes to examine the frate's title-deeds before he engages in the purchase of his spiritual privileges. in other words he must be permitted to examine the bull of indulgence:[185] porterollavi, e ve la lascerò vedere e leggere. siate pur certo che la bolla è amplissima, e che di tutti i casi, componendovi meco, vi posso interamente assolvere, non meno che potria 'l papa medesimo. _bartolo._ vi credo; nondimeno, per iscarico della mia conscienza, la desidero veder, e farla anco vedere e leggere al mio parrocchiano. _frate._ ora sia _in nomine_ _domini_, porterolla, e mostrerolla a chi vi pare. [footnote 185: act iv. sc. 4. in the last line but one, ought we not to read _mostreratela_ or else _mostrerollavi_?] we may further notice how the parish priest is here meant to play the part of solicitor in the bargain. he does not deal in these spiritual commodities; but he can give advice upon the point of validity. the episode of bartolo and the dominican reminds us that we are on the eve of the reformation. while rome and ferrara laughed at the hypocrisies, credulities, and religious frauds implied in such transactions, northern europe broke into flame, and luther opened the great schism.[186] [footnote 186: room must be found for a few of the sarcasms, uttered chiefly by accursio, which enliven the _scolastica_. here are the humanists: questi umanisti, che cercano medaglie, e di rovesci si dilettano. here is rome: roma, dove intendono che 'l sangue degli apostoli e de' martiri è molto dolce, e a lor spese è un bel vivere. here is ferrara: ferrara, ove pur vedesi che fino alli barbieri paion nobili. here are the signori of naples: da napoli. ho ben inteso che ve n'è più copia che a ferrara di conti; e credo ch'abbiano, come questi contado, quei dominio.] the artistic merit of ariosto's comedies consists in the perfection of their structure. however involved the intrigues may be, we experience no difficulty in following them; so masterly is their development.[187] it may be objected that he too frequently resorts to the device of anagnorisis, in order to solve a problem which cannot find its issue in the action. this mechanical solution is so obviously employed to make things easy for the author that no interest attaches to the climax of his fables. yet the characters are drawn with that ripe insight into human nature which distinguished ariosto. machiavelli observed that, being a native of ferrara, cautious in the handling of tuscan idioms, and unwilling to use the dialect of his own city, ariosto missed the salt of comedy.[188] there is truth in this criticism. matched with the best florentine dialogues, his language wants the raciness of the vernacular. the _sdrucciolo_ verse, which he preferred, fatigues the ear and adds to the impression of formality. he frequently interrupts the action with tirades, talking, as it were, in his own person to the audience, instead of making his characters speak.[189] yet foreigners, who study his comedies side by side with plautus, at almost the same distance of unfamiliarity, will recognize the brilliance of his transcripts from contemporary life. these studies of italian manners are eminent for good taste, passing at no point into extravagance, and only marred by a certain banality of moral instinct. the _lena_ has the highest value as a picture of ferrarese society. we have good reason to believe that it was founded on an actual incident. it deserves to rank with machiavelli's _mandragola_ and aretino's _cortigiana_ for the light it throws on sixteenth-century customs. and the light is far more natural, less lurid, less partial, than that which either machiavelli or aretino shed upon the vices of their century. [footnote 187: cecchi noticed the lucid order, easy exposition and smooth conduct of ariosto's plots, ranking him for these qualities above the latin poets. see the passage from _le pellegrine_ quoted below.] [footnote 188: in an essay on the italian language, included among machiavelli's works, but ascribed to him on no very certain ground.] [footnote 189: notice the long monologue of the _cassaria_ in which lucramo describes the fashionable follies of ferrara. ariosto gradually outgrew this habit of tirade. the _scolastica_ is freer than any of his pieces from the fault.] of machiavelli we have two genuine comedies in prose, the _mandragola_ and the _clizia_, and two of doubtful authenticity, called respectively _commedia in prosa_ and _commedia in versi_, besides a translation of the _andria_.[190] judging by internal evidence alone, a cautious critic would reject the _commedia in versi_ from the canon of machiavelli's works; and if the existence of a copy in his autograph has to be taken as conclusive evidence of its genuineness, we can only accept it as a crude and juvenile production. it is written in various measures, a graceless octave stanza rhyming only in the last couplet being used instead of blank verse, while many of the monologues are lyrical. the language is crabbed, uncertain, archaistic--in no point displaying the incisive brevity of machiavelli's style. the scene is laid in ancient rome, and the intrigue turns upon a confusion between two names, catillo and cammillo. the conventional parasite of antiquity and the inevitable slaves play prominent parts; while the plot is solved by a preposterous exchange of wives between the two chief characters. thus the fabric of the comedy throughout is unnatural and false to the conditions of real life. were it not for some piquant studies of italian manners, scattered here and there in the descriptive passages, this _commedia in versi_ would scarcely deserve passing notice.[191] [footnote 190: _le commedie di n. machiavelli, con prefazione di f. perfetti_, firenze, barbèra, 1863.] [footnote 191: take this picture of virginia (act i. sc. 2): _ap._ dilettasi ella dar prova a filare, o tessere, o cucire, com'è usanza? _mis._ no, chè far lassa tal cosa a sua madre. _ap._ di che piglia piacer? _mis._ delle finestre, dove la sta dal mattino alla sera. e vaga è di novelle, suoni e canti, e studia in lisci, e dorme, e cuce in guanti. or the picture of the lovers in church described by the servant, doria (act iii. sc. 2), or virginia's portrait of her jealous husband (act iii. sc. 5).] the _commedia in prosa_, for which we might find a title in the name of the chief personage, fra alberigo, displays the spirit and the style of the _mandragola_. critics who do not accept it for machiavelli's own, must assume it to have been the work of a clever and obsequious imitator. it is a short piece in three acts written to expose the corruption of a florentine household. caterina, the heroine, is a young wife married to an old husband, amerigo. their maid-servant, margherita, holds the threads of the intrigue in her hands. she has been solicited on the one side by amerigo to help him in his amours with a neighbor's wife, and on the other by the friar, alberigo, to win caterina to his suit. the devices whereby margherita brings her mistress and the monk together, cheats amerigo of his expected enjoyment, and so contrives that the despicable but injured husband should establish fra alberigo in the position of a favored house-friend, constitute the argument. short as the play is, it combines the chief points of the _clizia_ and the _mandragola_ in a single action, and may be regarded as the first sketch of two situations afterwards developed with more fullness by the author.[192] the language is coarse, and the picture of manners, executed with remorseless realism, would be revolting but for its strong workmanship.[193] the playwright expended his force on the servant-maid and the friar, those two instruments of domestic immorality. fra alberigo is a vulgar libertine, provided with pious phrases to cloak his vicious purpose, but casting off the mask when he has gained his object, well knowing from past experience that the appetites of the woman he seduces will secure his footing in her husband's home.[194] margherita revels in the corruption she has aided. she delights in sin for its own sake, extracts handfuls of coppers from the friar, and counts on profiting by the secret of her mistress. her speech and action display the animal appetites and gross phraseology of the proletariate, degraded by city vices and hardened to the spectacle of clerical hypocrisy.[195] one of her exclamations: "i frati, ah! son più viziati che 'l fistolo!" taken in conjunction with her argument to caterina: "i frati, eh? non si trova generazione più abile ai servigi delle donne!" points the satire intended by the playwright. yet neither caterina nor amerigo yields a point of baseness to these servile agents. plebeian coarseness is stamped alike upon their language and their desires. they have no delicacy of feeling, no redeeming passion, no self-respect. they speak of things unmentionable with a crudity that makes one shudder, and abuse each other in sarcasms borrowed from the rhetoric of the streets.[196] to a refined taste the calculations of caterina are no less obnoxious and are far less funny than the rogueries of the friar. [footnote 192: the scene between caterina and amerigo, when the latter is caught in flagrant adultery (act iii. 5), anticipates the catastrophe of the _clizia_. the final scene between caterina, amerigo, and fra alberigo bears a close resemblance to the climax of the _mandragola_. on the hypothesis that this comedy is not machiavelli's but an imitator's, the playwright must have had both the _clizia_ and the _mandragola_ in his mind, and have designed a pithy combination of their most striking elements.] [footnote 193: see especially the scenes between caterina and margherita (act i. 3; act ii. 1) where the advantages of taking a lover and of choosing a friar for this purpose are discussed. they abound in _gros mots_, as thus: _cat._ odi, in quanto a cotesta parte tu di' la verità; ma quello odore ch'egli hanno poi di salvaggiume, non ch'altro mi stomaca a pensarlo. _marg._ eh! eh! poveretta voi! i frati, eh? non si trova generazione più abile ai servigi delle donne. voi dovete forse avere a pigliarvi piacere col naso? etc.] [footnote 194: compare his speech to caterina (act ii. 5) with his dialogue with margherita (act iii. 4) and his final discourse on charity and repentance (act iii. 6). the irony of these words, "certamente, amerigo, che voi potete vantarvi d'aver la più saggia e casta giovane, non vo' dir di fiorenza ma di tutto 'l mondo," pronounced before caterina a couple of hours after her seduction, fixes the measure of machiavelli's cynicism.] [footnote 195: the quite unquotable but characteristic monologue which opens the third act is an epitome of margherita's character.] [footnote 196: act iii. 5.] this comedy of fra alberigo is a literal transcript from a cynical _novella_, dramatized and put upon the stage to amuse an audience familiar with such arguments by their perusal of sacchetti and boccaccio. its freedom from latinizing conventionality renders it a striking example of the influence exercised by the _novellieri_ over the theater. the same may be said about both the _clizia_ and the _mandragola_, though the former owes a portion of its structure to the _casina_ of plautus.[197] the _clizia_ is a finished picture of florentine home-life. nicomaco and sofronia are an elderly couple, who have educated a beautiful girl, clizia, from childhood in their house. at the moment when the play opens, both nicomaco and his son, cleandro, are in love with clizia. nicomaco as determined to marry her to one of his servants, pirro, having previously ascertained that the dissolute groom will not object to sharing his wife with his master. sofronia's family pride opposes the marriage of her son and heir with clizia; but she is aware of her husband's schemes, and seeks to frustrate them by giving the girl to an honest bailiff, eustachio. in the contest that ensues, nicomaco gains the victory. it is settled that clizia is to be wedded to pirro, and on the night of the marriage nicomaco makes his way into the bridal chamber. but here sofronia proves more than a match for her lord and master. helped by cleandro, she substitutes for clizia a young man-servant disguised as a woman, who gives nicomaco a warm reception, beats him within an inch of his life, and exposes him to the ridicule of the household.[198] sofronia triumphs over her ashamed and miserable husband, who now consents to clizia's marriage with eustachio. but at this juncture the long-lost father of the heroine appears like a _deus ex machina_. he turns out to be a rich neapolitan gentleman. there remains no obstacle to cleandro's happiness, and the curtain falls upon a marriage in prospect between the hero and the heroine. the weakness of the play, considered as a work of art, is the mechanical solution of the plot. its strength and beauty are the masterly delineation of a family interior. the _dramatis personæ_ are vigorously sketched and act throughout consistently. nothing can be finer than the portrait of a sober florentine merchant, regular in his pursuits, punctual in the performance of his duties, exact in household discipline and watchful over his son's education, whose dignified severity of conduct has yielded to the lunacies of an immoderate passion.[199] for the time being nicomaco forgets his old associates, abandons his business, and consorts with youthful libertines in taverns. his appetite so blinds him that he devises the odious scheme i have described, in order to gratify a senile whim.[200] the lifelong fabric of honesty and honor breaks down in him; and it is only when lessoned by the punishment inflicted on him by his wife and son, that he returns to his old self and sees the vileness of the situation his folly has created. sofronia is a notable housewife, rude but respectable. the good understanding between her and her handsome son, cleandro, whom she loves affectionately, but whom she will not indulge in his caprice for clizia, is one of the best traits furnished by italian comedy. cleandro himself has less than usual of the selfishness and sensuality which degrade the florentine _primo amoroso_. there is even something of enthusiasm in his passion for clizia--a germ of sentiment which would have blossomed into romance under the more genial treatment of our drama.[201] morally speaking, what is odious in this comedy is the willingness of every one to sacrifice clizia. even cleandro says of her: "io per me la torrei per moglie, per amica, e in tutti quei modi, che io la potessi avere." nicomaco, when he has failed in his plot to secure the girl, thinks only of his own shame, and takes no account of the risk to which he has exposed her. sofronia is merely anxious to get her decently established beyond her husband's reach. [footnote 197: from an allusion in act ii. sc. 3, it is clear that the _clizia_ was composed after the _mandragola_. if we assign the latter comedy to a date later than 1512, the year of machiavelli's disgrace, which seems implied in its prologue, the _clizia_ must be reckoned among the ripest products of his leisure. the author hints that both of these comedies were suggested to him by facts that had come under his notice in florentine society.] [footnote 198: the _clizia_ furnished dolce with the motive of his _ragazzo_ ("il ragazzo, comedia di m. lodovico dolce. per curtio de navò e fratelli al leone, mdxli."). an old man and his son love the same girl. a parasite promises to get the girl for the old man, but substitutes a page dressed up like a woman, while the son sleeps with the real girl. readers of ben jonson will be reminded of _epicoene_. but in dolce's _ragazzo_ the situation is made to suggest impurity and lacks rare ben's gigantic humor.] [footnote 199: see sofronia's soliloquy, act. ii. sc. 4.] [footnote 200: cleandro understands the faint shadow of scruple that suggested this scheme: "perchè tentare d'averla prima che maritata, gli debbe parere cosa impia e brutta" (act i. sc. 1). this sentence is extremely characteristic of italian feeling.] [footnote 201: his observations on his father, are, however, marked by more than ordinary coarseness. "come non ti vergogni tu ad avere ordinato, che si delicato viso sia da sì fetida bocca scombavato, sì delicate carni da sì tremanti mani, da sì grinze e puzzolenti membra tocche?" then he mingles fears about nicomaco's property with a lover's lamentations. "tu non mi potevi far la maggiore ingiuria, avendomi con questo colpo tolto ad un tratto e l'amata e la roba; perchè nicomaco, se questo amor dura, è per lasciare delle sue sustanze più a pirro che a me" (act iv. sc. 1).] only long extracts could do justice to the sarcasm and irony with which the dialogue is seasoned. still a few points may be selected.[202] sofronia is rating nicomaco for his unseasonable dissipation. he answers: "ah, moglie mia, non mi dire tanti mali a un tratto! serba qualche cosa a domane." eustachio, in view of taking clizia for his wife, reflects: "in questa terra chi ha bella moglie non può essere povero, e del fuoco e della moglie si può essere liberale con ognuno, perchè quanto più ne dai, più te ne rimane." when pirro demurs to nicomaco's proposals, on the score that he will make enemies of sofronia and cleandro, his master answers: "che importa a te? sta' ben con cristo e fàtti beffe de' santi." a little lower down nicomaco trusts the decision of clizia's husband to lot: _pirro._ se la sorte me venisse contro? _nicom._ io ho speranza in dio, che la non verrà. _pirro._ o vecchio impazzato! vuole che dio tenga le mani a queste sue disonestà. [footnote 202: act iii. scs. 4, 5, 6.] nor can criticism express the comic humor of the scenes, especially of those in which nicomaco describes the hours of agony he spent in siro's bed, and afterwards capitulates at discretion to sofronia.[203] in spite of what is disagreeable in the argument and obscene in the catastrophe, the _clizia_ leaves a wholesomer impression on the mind than is common with florentine comedies. it has something of ariosto's _bonhomie_, elsewhere unknown in machiavelli. [footnote 203: act v. scs. 2 and 3.] meanwhile the _mandragola_ is claiming our attention. in that comedy, machiavelli put forth all his strength. sinister and repulsive as it may be to modern tastes, its power is indubitable. more than any plays of which mention has hitherto been made, more even than ariosto's _lena_ and _negromante_, it detaches itself from latin precedents and offers an unsophisticated view of florentine life from its author's terrible point of contemplation. in order to appreciate the _mandragola_, it is necessary to know the plot. after spending his early manhood in paris, callimaco returns to florence, bent on making the beautiful lucrezia his mistress. he has only heard of her divine charms; but the bare report inflames his imagination, disturbs his sleep, and so distracts him that he feels forced "to attempt some bold stroke, be it grave, dangerous, ruinous, dishonorable; death itself would be better than the life i lead." lucrezia is the faithful and obedient wife of nicia, a doctor of laws, whose one wish in life is to get a son. the extreme gullibility of nicia and his desire for an heir are the motives upon which callimaco relies to work his schemes. he finds a parasite, ligurio, ready to assist him. ligurio is a friend of nicia's family, well acquainted with the persons, and so utterly depraved that he would sell his soul for a good dinner. he advises callimaco to play the part of a physician who has studied the last secrets of his art in paris, introduces him in this capacity to nicia, and suggests that by his help the desired result may be obtained without the disagreeable necessity of leaving florence for the baths of san filippo. in their first interview callimaco explains that a potion of mandragora administered to lucrezia will remove her sterility, but that it has fatal consequences to the husband. he must perish unless he first substitutes another man, whose death will extinguish the poison and leave lucrezia free to be the mother of a future family. nicia revolts against this odious project, which makes him the destroyer of his own honor and a murderer. but callimaco assures him that royal persons and great nobles of france have adopted this method with success. the argument has its due weight: "i am satisfied," says nicia, "since you tell me that a king and princes have done the like." but the difficulty remains of persuading lucrezia. ligurio answers: that is simple enough; let us work upon her through her confessor and her mother. "you, i, our money, our badness, and the badness of those priests will settle the confessor; and i know that, when the matter is explained, we shall have her mother on our side." thus we are introduced to fra timoteo, the chief agent of corruption. the monk, in a first interview, does not conceal his readiness to procure abortion and cover infanticide. for a consideration, he agrees to convince lucrezia that the plot is for her good. he first demonstrates the utility of callimaco's method to the mother sostrata, and then by her help persuades lucrezia that adultery and murder are not only venial, but commendable with so fair an end in view. his sophistries anticipate the darkest casuistry of escobar. lucrezia, with a woman's good sense, fastens on the brutal and unnatural loathsomeness of the proposed plan: "ma di tutte le cose che si sono tentate, questa mi pare la più strana; avere a sottomettere il corpo mio a questo vituperio, et essere cagione che un uomo muoia per vituperarmi: chè io non crederei, se io fussi sola rimasa nel mondo, e da me avesse a risurgere l'umana natura, che mi fusse simile partito concesso." timoteo replies: "qui è un bene certo, che voi ingraviderete, acquisterete un'anima a messer domenedio. il male incerto è, che colui che giacerà dopo la pozione con voi, si muoia; ma e' si truova anche di quelli che non muoiono. ma perchè la cosa è dubbia, però è bene che messer nicia non incorra in quel pericolo. quanto all'atto che sia peccato, questo è una favola: perchè la volontà è quella che pecca, non il corpo; e la cagione del peccato è dispiacere al marito: e voi gli compiacete; pigliarne piacere: e voi ne avete dispiacere," etc. sostrata, accustomed to follow her confessor's orders, and not burdened with a conscience, clinches this reasoning: "di che hai tu paura, moccicona? e c'è cinquanta dame in questa terra che ne alzarebbero le mani al cielo." lucrezia gives way unwillingly: "io son contenta; ma non credo mai esser viva domattina." timoteo comforts her with a final touch of monkish irony: "non dubitare, figliuola mia, io pregherò dio per te; io dirò l'orazione dell'angiolo raffaelo che t'accompagni. andate in buon'ora, e preparatevi a questo misterio, che si fa sera." what follows is the mere working of the plot, whereby ligurio and timoteo contrive to introduce callimaco as the necessary victim into lucrezia's bed-chamber. the silly nicia plays the part of pander to his own shame; and when lucrezia discovers the scheme by which her lover has attained his ends, she exclaims: "poi chè l'astuzia tua e la sciochezza del mio marito, la semplicità di mia madre e la tristizia del mio confessore, m'hanno condotta a far quello che mai per me medesima avrei fatto, io voglio giudicare che e' venga da una celeste disposizione, che abbia voluto così. però io ti prendo per signore, padrone e guida." it must be remarked that lucrezia omits from her reckoning the weakness which led her to consent. my excuse for analyzing a comedy so indecent as the _mandragola_, is the importance it has, not only as a product of machiavelli's genius, but also as an illustration of contemporary modes of thought and feeling. in all points this play is worthy of the author of the _principe_. the _mandragola_ is a microcosm of society as machiavelli conceived it, and as it needs must be to justify his own philosophy. it is a study of stupidity and baseness acted on by roguery. credulity and appetite supply the fulcrum needed by unscrupulous intelligence. the lover, aided by the husband's folly, the parasite's profligacy, the mother's familiarity with sin, the confessor's avarice, the wife's want of self-respect, achieves the triumph of making nicia lead him naked to lucrezia's chamber. moving in the region of his fancy, the poet adds _quod erat demonstrandum_ to his theorem of vileness and gross folly used for selfish ends by craft. but we who read it, rise from the perusal with the certainty that it was only the corruption of the age which rendered such a libel upon human nature plausible--only the author's perverse and shallow view of life which sustained him in this reading of a problem he had failed to understand. viewed as a critique upon life, the _mandragola_ is feeble, because the premises are false; and these same false premises regarding the main forces of society, render the logic of the _principe_ inconsequent. men are not such fools as nicia or such catspaws as ligurio and timoteo. women are not such compliant instruments as sostrata and lucrezia. human nature is not that tissue of disgusting meannesses and vices, by which callimaco succeeds. here lay machiavelli's fallacy. he dreamed of action as the triumph of astuteness over folly. virtue with him meant the management of immorality by bold intelligence. but while, on the one hand, he exaggerated the stupidity of dupes, on the other he underestimated the resistance which strongly-rooted moral instincts offer to audacious villainy. he left goodness out of his account. therefore, though his reasoning, whether we examine the _mandragola_ or the _principe_, seems irrefragable on the premises from which he starts, it is an unconvincing chain of sophisms. the world is not wholly bad; but in order to justify machiavelli's conclusions, we have to assume that its essential forces are corrupt. if we turn from the _mandragola_ to the society of which it is a study, and which complacently accepted it as an agreeable work of art, we are filled with a sense of surprise bordering on horror. what must the people among whom machiavelli lived, have been, to justify his delineation of a ruffian so vicious as ligurio, a confessor so lost to sense of duty as timoteo, a mother who scruples not to prostitute her daughter to the first comer, a lover so depraved as callimaco, a wife so devoid of womanly feeling as lucrezia? on first reflection, we are inclined to believe that the poet in this comedy was venting swiftian indignation on the human nature which he misconceived and loathed. the very name lucrezia seems chosen in irony--as though to hint that rome's first martyr would have failed, if tarquin had but used her mother and her priest to tame her. yet, on a second reading, the _mandragola_ reveals no scorn or anger. it is a piece of scientific anatomy, a demonstration of disease, executed without subjective feeling. the argument is so powerfully developed, with such simplicity of language, such consistency of character, such cold analysis of motives, that we cannot doubt the verisimilitude of the picture. no one, at the date of its appearance, resented it. florentine audiences delighted in its comic flavor. leo x. witnessed it with approval. his hatred of the monks found satisfaction in timoteo. society, far from rising in revolt against the poet who exposed its infamy with a pen of poisoned steel, thanked the man of genius for rendering vice amusing. of satire or of moral purpose there is none in the _mandragola_. machiavelli depicted human nature just as he had learned to know it. the sinister fruits of his studies made contemporaries laugh. the _mandragola_ was the work of an unhappy man. the prologue offers a curious mixture of haughtiness and fawning, only comparable to the dedication of the _principe_ and the letter to vettori.[204] a sense of his own intellectual greatness is combined with an uneasy feeling of failure: non è componitor di molta fama. [footnote 204: see _age of the despots_, pp. 315-319. of the two strains of character so ill-blent in machiavelli, the _mandragola_ represents the vulgar, and the _principe_ the noble. the one corresponds to his days at casciano, the other to his studious evenings.] as an apology for his application to trivialities, he pleads wretchedness and _ennui_: e se questa materia non è degna, per esser più leggieri d'un uom che voglia parer saggio e grave, scusatelo con questo, che s'ingegna con questi vani pensieri fare el suo tristo tempo più soave; perchè altrove non ave dove voltare el viso; che gli è stato interciso mostrar con altre imprese altra virtue, non sendo premio alle fatiche sue. these verses, indifferent as poetry, are poignant for their revelation of a disappointed life. left without occupation, unable to display his powers upon a worthy platform, he casts the pearls of his philosophy before the pleasure-seeking swine. the sense of this degradation stings him and he turns upon society with threats. let them not attempt to browbeat or intimidate him: che sa dir male anch'egli, e come questa fu la sua prim'arte: e come in ogni parte del mondo, ove il sì suona, non istima persona, ancor che faccia el sergiere a colui che può portar miglior mantel di lui. throughout his prologue we hear the growl of a wounded lion, helpless in his lair, yet conscious that he still has strength to rend the fools and knaves around him. aretino completed the disengagement of italian from latin comedy. ignoring the principles established by the plautine mannerists, he liberated the elements of satire and of realism held in bondage by their rules. his reasoning was unanswerable. why should he attend to the unities, or be careful to send the same person no more than five times on the stage in one piece? his people shall come and go as they think fit, or as the argument requires.[205] why should he make romans ape he style of athens? his romans shall be painted from life; his servants shall talk and act like italian varlets, not mimicking the ways of geta or davus.[206] why should he shackle his style with precedents from petrarch and boccaccio? he will seek the fittest words, the aptest phrases, the most biting repartees from ordinary language.[207] why condescend to imitation, when his mother wit supplies him with material, and the world of men lies open like a book before his eyes?[208] why follow in the footsteps of the pedants, who mistake their knowledge of grammar for genius, and whose commentaries are an insult to the poets they pretend to illustrate?[209] [footnote 205: "se voi vedessi uscire i personaggi più di cinque volte in scena, non ve ne ridete, perchè le catene che tengono i molini sul fiume, non terrebbeno i pazzi d'oggidì" (prologue to the _cortigiana_).] [footnote 206: "non vi maravigliate se lo stil comico non s'osserva con l'ordine che si richiede, perchè si vive d'un'altra maniera a roma che non si vivea in atene" (_ibid._).] [footnote 207: "io non mi son tolto dagli andari del petrarca e del boccaccio per ignoranza, chè pur so ciò che essi sono; ma per non perdere il tempo, la pazienza e il nome nella pazzia di volermi transformare in loro" (prologue to the _orazia_).] [footnote 208: "più pro fa il pane asciutto in casa propria che l'accompagnato con molte vivande su altrui tavola. imita qua, imita là; tutto è fava, si può dire alle composizioni dei più ... di chi imita, mi faccio beffe ... posso giurare d'esser sempre me stesso, ed altri non mai" (_ibid._).] [footnote 209: "io mi rido dei pedanti, i quali si credono che la dottrina consiste nella lingua greca, dando tutta la riputatione allo in _bus_ in _bas_ della grammatica" (prologue to _orazia_). "i crocifissori del petrarca, i quali gli fanno dir cose con i loro comenti, che non gliene fariano confessare diece tratti di corda. e bon per dante che con le sue diavolerie fa star le bestie in dietro, che a questa ora saria in croce anch'egli" (prologue to _cortigiana_).] conscious of his own defective education, and judging the puristic niceties of the age at their true value, aretino thus flung the glove of defiance in the face of a learned public. it was a bold step; but the adventurer knew what he was doing. the originality of his _ars poetica_ took the world by surprise. his italian audience delighted in the sparkle of a style that gave point to their common speech. had aretino been a writer of genius, italy might now have owed to his audacity and self-reliance the starting-point of national dramatic art.[210] he was on the right path, but he lacked the skill to tread it. his comedies, loosely put together, with no constructive vigor in their plots and no grasp of psychology in their characters, are a series of powerfully-written scenes, piquant dialogues, effective situations, rather than comedies in the higher sense of the word. we must not look for ariosto's lucid order, for machiavelli's disposition of parts, in these vagaries of a brilliant talent aiming at immediate success. we must be grateful for the filibustering bravado which made him dare to sketch contemporary manners from the life. the merit of these comedies is naturalness. such affectation of antithesis or labored epigram as mars their style, was part of aretino's self. it reveals the man, and is not wearisome like the conceits of the pedantic school. what he had learned, seen or heard in his experience of the world--and aretino saw, heard and learned the worst of the society in which he lived--is presented with vigor. the power to express is never shackled by a back-thought of reserve or delicacy. each character stands outlined with a vividness none the less convincing because the study lacks depth. what aretino cannot supply, is the nexus between these striking passages, the linking of these lively portraits into a coherent whole. machiavelli's logic, perverse as it may be, produces by its stringent application a more impressive æsthetical effect. the doctrine of style for style's sake, derided by aretino, satisfies at least our sense of harmony. in the insolence of freedom he spoils the form of his plays by discussions, sometimes dull, sometimes disgusting, in which he vents his spite or airs his sycophancy without regard for the exigencies of his subject. still, in spite of these defects, aretino's plays are a precious mine of information for one who desires to enter into direct communication with the men of the renaissance. [footnote 210: his tragedy _orazia_ has just the same merits of boldness and dramatic movement in parts, the same defects of incoherence. it detaches itself favorably from the tragedies of the pedants.] aretino's point of view is that of the successful adventurer. unlike machiavelli, he has no sourness and reveals no disappointment. he has never fallen from the high estate of an impersonal ambition. his report of human depravity is neither scientific nor indignant. he appreciates the vices of the world, by comprehending which, as means to ends, he has achieved celebrity. they are the instruments of his advance in life, the sources of his wealth, the wisdom he professes. therefore, while he satirizes, he treats them with complacence. evil is good for its own sake also in his eyes. having tasted all its fruits, he revels in recalling his sensations, just as casanova took pleasure in recording his debaucheries. his knowledge of society is that of an upstart, who has risen from the lowest ranks by the arts of the bully, flatterer and pander. we never forget that he began life as a lackey, and the most valuable quality of his comedies is that they depict the great world from the standpoint of the servants' hall. aretino is too powerful and fashionable to be aware of this. he poses as the sage and satirist. but the revelation is none the less pungent because it is made unconsciously. the court, idealized by castiglione, censured by guarini, inveighed against by la casa, here shows its inner rottenness for our inspection, at the pleasure of a charlatan who thrives on this pollution. we hear how the valets of debauched prelates, the parasites of petty nobles, the pimps who battened on the vices of the rich, the flatterer who earned his bread by calumny and lies, viewed this world of fashion, how they discussed it among themselves, how they utilized its corruption. we shake hands with ruffians and cut-throats, enter the roman brothels by their back-door, sit down in their kitchens, and become acquainted with the secrets of their trade. it may be suggested that the knowledge supplied by aretino, if it concerns such details, is neither profitable nor valuable. no one, indeed, who is not specially curious to realize the manners of renaissance italy, should occupy his leisure with these comedies. the _cortigiana_ is a parody of castiglione's _cortegiano_. a sienese gentleman, simple and provincial, the lineal descendant of pulci's messer goro, arrives in rome to make his fortune.[211] he is bent on assuming the fine airs of the court, and hopes to become at least a cardinal before he returns home. on his first arrival messer maco falls into the clutches of a sharper, who introduces him to disreputable society, under color of teaching him the art of courtiership. the satire of the piece consists in showing rome to be the school of profligacy rather than of gentle customs.[212] before he has spent more than a few days in the eternal city, the country squire learns the slang of the _demi-monde_ and swaggers among courtesans and rufflers. maestro andrea, who has undertaken his education, lectures him upon the virtues of the courtier in a scene of cynical irony:[213] "la principal cosa, il cortigiano vuol sapere bestemmiare, vuole essere giuocatore, invidioso, puttaniere, eretico, adulatore, maldicente, sconoscente, ignorante, asino, vuol sapere frappare, far la ninfa, et essere agente e paziente." some of these qualities are understood at once by messer maco. concerning others he asks for further information: "come si diventa eretico? questo è 'l caso.--notate.--io nuoto benissimo.--quando alcuno vi dice che in corte sia bontà, discrezione, amore, o conoscenza, dite no 'l credo ... in somma a chi vi dice bene de la corte, dite: tu sei un bugiardo." again, messer maco asks: "come si dice male?" the answer is prompt and characteristic of aretino:[214] "dicendo il vero, dicendo il vero." what maestro andrea teaches theoretically, is expounded as a fact of bitter experience by valerio and flamminio, the gentlemen in waiting on a fool of fortune named parabolano.[215] these men, admitted to the secrets of a noble household, know its inner sordidness, and reckon on the vanity and passions of their patron. a still lower stage in the scale of debasement is revealed by the conversations of the lackeys, rosso and cappa, who discuss the foibles of their master with the coarseness of the stables.[216] in so far as the _cortigiana_ teaches any lesson, it is contained in the humiliation of parabolano. his vices have made him the slave and creature of foul-minded serving-men, who laugh together over the disgusting details of his privacy, while they flatter him to his face in order to profit by his frivolities.[217] aretino's own experience of life in rome enabled him to make these pictures of the servants' hall and antechamber pungent.[218] the venom engendered by years of servitude and adulation is vented in his criticism of the court as censured from a flunkey's point of view. nor is he less at home in painting the pleasures of the class whom he has chosen for his critics of polite society. cappa's soliloquy upon the paradise of the tavern, and rosso's pranks, when he plays the gentleman in his master's fine clothes, owe the effect of humor to their realistic verve.[219] we feel them to be reminiscences of fact. these scenes constitute the salt of the comedy, supported by vivid sketches of town characters--the news-boy, the fisherman of the tiber, and the superannuated prostitute.[220] [footnote 211: "egli è uno di quegli animali di tanti colori che il vostro avolo comperò in cambio d'un papagallo" (act i. sc. 1).] [footnote 212: its most tedious episode is a panegyric of venice at the expense of rome (act iii. sc. 7).] [footnote 213: act i. sc. 22.] [footnote 214: he makes the same point in the prologue to _la talenta_: "chi brama d'acquistarsi il nome del più scellerato uomo che viva, dica il vero."] [footnote 215: act i. sc. 9; act ii. sc. 6; act ii. sc. 10; act iii. sc. 7.] [footnote 216: see especially act i. sc. 7.] [footnote 217: act iv. sc. 6.] [footnote 218: notice the extraordinary virulence of his invective against the _tinello_ or common room of servants in a noble household (act v. sc. 15).] [footnote 219: act ii. sc. 1; act i. scs. 11-18.] [footnote 220: act i. sc. 4; act i. sc. 11; act ii. sc. 7.] in the _cortigiana_ it was aretino's object to destroy illusions about court-life by describing it in all the vileness of reality.[221] the _marescalco_ is a study of the same conditions of society, with less malignity and far more geniality of humor.[222] a rich fool has been recommended by his lord and master, the duke of mantua, to take a wife. he loathes matrimony, and shrinks from spending several thousand ducats on the dower. but the parasites, buffoons and henchmen of the prince persuade and bully him into compliance. he is finally married to a page dressed as a woman, and his relief at discovering the sex of his supposed wife forms the climax of the plot. the play is conducted with so much spirit that we may not be wrong in supposing shakspere in _twelfth night_ and ben jonson in _epicoene_ to have owed something to its humor. we look, however, in vain for such fine creatures of the fancy as sir toby belch, or for a catastrophe so overwhelming as the _crescendo_ of noise and bustle which subdue the obstinacy of morose. on the other hand, the two companion scenes in which marescalco's nurse enlarges on the luxuries of married life, while ambrogio describes its miseries, are executed with fine sense of comic contrast.[223] [footnote 221: act ii. sc. 6.] [footnote 222: of all aretino's plays the _marescalco_ is the simplest and the most artistically managed.] [footnote 223: act i. sc. 6; act ii. sc. 5.] in the _talanta_ we return to roman society. this comedy is a study of courtesan life, analyzed with thorough knowledge of its details. the character of talanta, who plays her four lovers one against the other, extracting presents by various devices from each of them, displays the author's intimate acquaintance with his subject.[224] talanta on the stage is a worthy pendant to nanna in the _ragionamenti_. but the intrigue is confused, tedious and improbable; and after reading the first act, we have already seen the best of aretino's invention. the same may be said about the _ipocrita_ and the _filosofo_, two comedies in which aretino attempted to portray a charlatan of tartufe's type and a student helpless in his wife's hands. these characters are not ill conceived, but they are too superficially executed to bear the weight of the plot laid upon them. in like manner the pedant in the _marescalco_ and the swashbuckler in the _talanta_ are rather silhouettes than finished portraits. though well sketched, they lack substance. they have neither the lifelike movement of shakspere's minor persons, nor the impressive mechanism of jonson's humors. bobadil and master holofernes, though caricatures, move in a higher region of the comic art. the characters aretino would imitate supremely well, were a page like giannico in the _marescalco_, a footman like rosso in the _cortigiana_, or a woman of the town like talanta. his comedies are never wanting in bustle and variety of business; while the sarcasm of the author, flying at the best-established reputations, sneering at the most fashionable prejudices of society, renders them effective even now, when all the jealousies he flouted have long been buried in oblivion.[225] [footnote 224: talanta's apology for her rapacity and want of heart (act i. sc. 1); the description of her by her lover orfinio, who sees through her but cannot escape her fascination (act i. sc. 7); the critique of her by a sensible man (act i. sc. 12); her arts to bring her lover back to his allegiance and wheedle the most odious concessions (act i. sc. 13); her undisguised marauding (act i. sc. 14); these moments in the evolution of her character are set forth with the decision of a master's style.] [footnote 225: the prologue to the _cortigiana_ passes all the literary celebrities of italy in review with a ferocity of sarcasm veiled in irony that must have been extremely piquant. and take this equivocal compliment to molza from the _marescalco_ (act v. sc. 3), "il molza mutinense, che arresta con la sua fistola i torrenti."] bibbiena's _calandra_ is a farce, obscene but not malignant. ariosto's comedies are studies of society from the standpoint of the middle class. if he is too indulgent to human frailty, too tolerant of vice, we never miss in him the wisdom of a genial observer. machiavelli's _mandragola_ casts the dry light of the intellect on an abyss of evil. nothing but the brilliance of the poet's wit reconciles us to his revelation of perversity. aretino, by the animation of his sketches, by his prurient delight in what is vile, makes us comprehend that even the _mandragola_ was possible. machiavelli stands outside his subject, like lucifer, fallen but disdainful. aretino is the belial who acknowledges corruption for his own domain. ariosto and machiavelli are artists each in his kind perfect. aretino is an _improvvisatore_, clever with the pen he uses like a burin. it would be difficult to render an account of the comedies produced by the italians in the sixteenth century, or to catalogue their authors. a computation has been made which reckons the plays known to students at several thousands. in spite of this extraordinary richness in comic literature, italy cannot boast of a great comedy. no poet arose to carry the art onward from the point already reached when aretino left the stage. the neglect that fell on those innumerable comedies, was not wholly undeserved. it is true that their scenes suggested brilliant episodes to french and english playwrights of celebrity. it is true that the historian of manners finds in them an almost inexhaustible store of matter. still they are literary lucubrations rather than the spontaneous expression of a vivid nationality. nor have they the subordinate merit of dealing in a scientific spirit with the cardinal vices and follies of society. we miss the original plots, the powerful modeling of character, the philosophical insight which would have reconciled us to a _commedia erudita_. when we examine the plays of firenzuola, cecchi, ambra, gelli, il lasca, doni, dolce, we find that a hybrid form of art had been established by the practice of the earlier playwrights. this hybrid implied plautus and terence as a necessary basis. it adopted the fusion of latin arguments with italian manners which was so ably realized by ariosto and machiavelli. it allowed something for the farce traditions which the rozzi made fashionable at rome. it assumed ingredients from the _burle_ and _novelle_ of the marketplace, reproduced the language of the people, and made use of current scandals to give piquancy to its conventional plots. but notwithstanding the admixture of so many modern elements, the stereotyped latinism of its form rendered this comedy unnatural. ingenious _contaminatio_, to use a phrase in vogue among roman critics, was always more apparent than creative instinct. the _commedia erudita_ presented a framework ready-made to the playwright, and easily accepted on the strength of usage by the audience he sought to entertain. at the same time it left him free, within prescribed limits, to represent the manners of contemporary life. the main object of a great drama "to show the very age and body of the time his form and pressure," is thrust into the second rank; and the most valuable portions of these clever works of skill are their episodes--such scenes, for example, as those which in the _aridosio_ of lorenzino de' medici reveal the dissoluteness of conventual customs in a scholastic _rifacimento_ of the _adelphi_ and the _mostellaria_.[226] had the fusion of classical and modern elements been complete as in the _epicoene_ of jonson, or had the character-drawing been masterly as in molière's _avare_, we should have no cause for complaint. but these are just the qualities of success missed by the italian playwrights. their studies from nature are comparatively slight. having exhibited them in the presentation of the subject or introduced them here and there by way of interludes, they work the play to its conclusion on the lines of latinistic convention.[227] [footnote 226: _lorenzino de' medici_, daelli, milano, 1862.] [footnote 227: the pseudo-classical hybrid i have attempted to describe is analogous in its fixity of outline to the conventional framework of the _sacre rappresentazioni_, which allowed a playwright the same subordinate liberty of action and saved him the trouble of invention to a like extent. it may here be noticed that the italians in general adopted stereotyped forms for dramatic representation. harlequin, columbine, and pantaloon, the bolognese doctor, the stenterello of florence, the meneghino of milan, and many other dramatic types, recognized as stationary, yet admitting of infinite variety in treatment by author or actor, are notable examples. in estimating the dramatic genius of italy this tendency to move within defined and conventional limits of art, whether popular or literary, must never be forgotten.] such being the form of _cinque cento_ comedy, it follows that its details are monotonous. the characters are invariably drawn from the ranks of the rich burgher classes; and if we may trust the evidence furnished by the playwrights, the morality of these classes must have been of an almost inconceivable baseness. we survey a society separated from the larger interests than elevate humanity, without public ambition or the sense of national greatness, excluded from the career of arms, dead to honor, bent upon sensual enjoyment and petty intrigues. the motive which sustains the plot, is illicit love; but in its presentation there is no romance, nothing to cloak the animalism of an unchecked instinct. the young men who play the part of _primi amorosi_, are in debt or without money. it is their object to repair their fortunes by a rich marriage, to secure a maintenance from a neighbor's wife they have seduced, to satisfy the avarice of a greedy courtesan, or to conceal the results of an intrigue which has brought their mistress into difficulties. from the innumerable scenes devoted to these elegant and witty scapegraces, it would be difficult to glean a single sentence expressive of conscience, remorse, sense of loyalty or generous feeling. they submit to the most odious bargains and disreputable subterfuges, sacrificing the honor of their families or the good fame of the women who depend upon them, to the attainment of some momentary self-indulgence.[228] without respect for age, they expend their ingenuity in robbing their parents and exposing their fathers to ridicule.[229] nor is it possible to feel much sympathy for the elders, who are so brutally used. the old man of these comedies is either a superannuated libertine, who makes himself ridiculous by his intrigues with a neighbor's wife, or a parsimonious tyrant, or else an indulgent rake, who acts the pander for his good-for-nothing rascal of a son.[230] mere simpletons like machiavelli's nicia, or aretino's messer maco, furnish another type of irreverent age, unredeemed by the comic humor of falstaff or the gigantic lusts of sir epicure mammon. between son and father the inevitable servant plays the part of clever rogue. it is he who weaves the meshes of the intrigue that shall cut the purse-strings of the stingy parent, blind the eyes of the husband to his wife's adultery, or cheat the creditor of his dues. our sympathy is always enlisted on the side of the schemers; and however base their tricks may be, we are invited to applaud the success which crowns them. the girls are worthy of their lovers. corrupted by nurses; exposed to the contaminating influences of the convent; courted by grooms and servants in their father's household; tampered with by infamous duennas; betrayed by their own mothers or intrusted by their fathers to notorious prostitutes; they accept the first husband proposed to them by their parents, confident in the hope of continuing clandestine intrigues with the neighbor's son who has seduced them.[231] the wives are such as the _novelle_ paint them, yielding to the barest impulses of wantonness, and covering their debauchery with craft that raises a laugh against the husbands they have cozened. such are the main actors, the conventional personages, of the domestic comedy. the subordinate characters consist of parasites and flatterers; ignorant pedants and swaggering _bravi_; priests who ply the trade of pimps; astrologers who thrive upon the folly of their clients; doctors who conceal births; prostitutes and their attendant bullies; compliant go-betweens and rapacious bawds; pages, street urchins, and officers of justice. the adulterous intrigue required such minor persons as instruments; and it often happens that scenes of vivid comic humor, dialogues of the most brilliant tuscan idiom, are suggested by the interaction of these puppets, whose wires the clever valet and the _primo amoroso_ pull. [footnote 228: cinthio's conduct towards emilia in the _negromante_ is a good instance.] [footnote 229: see above, p. 163, note, for cleandro in the _mandragola_; and compare alamanno's conversation with his uncle lapo, his robbery of his mother's money-box, and his reflections on the loss he should sustain by her re-marriage, in gelli's _la sporta_ (act iii. 5; ii. 2). camillo's allusions to his father's folly in gelli's _errore_ (act iv. 2) are no less selfish and heartless. alamanno's plot to raise a dower by fraud (_la sporta_, iv. 1) may be compared with fabio's trick upon his stepmother in cecchi's _martello_. in the latter his father takes a hand.] [footnote 230: ghirigoro in gelli's _sporta_, gherardo in gelli's _errore_, girolamo in cecchi's _martello_. it is needless to multiply examples. the analyses of machiavelli's comedies will suffice.] [footnote 231: it would be easy to illustrate each of these points from the comedies of ariosto, cecchi, machiavelli, lorenzino de' medici; to which the reader may be referred _passim_ for proof.] the point of interest for contemporary audiences was the _burla_--the joke played off by a wife upon her husband, by rogues upon a simpleton, by a son upon his father, by a servant on his master's creditors, by a pupil on his pedantic tutor. accepting the conditions of a comedy so constructed, and eliminating ethical considerations, we readily admit that these jokes are infinitely amusing. the scene in gelli's _sporta_ where ghirigoro de' macci receives the confidences of the youth who has seduced his daughter, under the impression that he is talking about his money-box, is not unworthy of molière's _avare_. two scenes in gelli's _errore_, where gherardo amieri, disguised as an old woman, is tormented by a street urchin whom his son has sent to teaze him, and afterwards confronted by his angry wife, might have adorned the _merry wives of windsor_.[232] cecchi's comedies in like manner abound in comical absurdities, involving exquisitely realistic pictures of florentine manners.[233] for the student of language, no less than for the student of renaissance life, they are invaluable. but the similarity of form which marks the comedies of the _cinque cento_, renders it impossible to do justice to their details in the present work. i must content myself with the foregoing sketch of their structure derived from the perusal of such plays as were accessible in print, and with the further observation that each eminent dramatist developed some side of the common heritage transmitted by their common predecessors. thus firenzuola continued the latin tradition with singular tenacity, adapting classical arguments in his _lucidi_ and _trinuzia_ to modern themes with the same inimitable transparency of style he had displayed in his _rifacimento_ of the _golden ass_.[234] gelli adapted the _aulularia_ in his _sporta_, and closely followed the _clizia_ in his _errore_. the devotion professed for machiavelli by this playwright, was yielded by cecchi to ariosto; and thus we notice two divergent strains of tradition within the circle of florentine art.[235] cecchi was a voluminous dramatic writer. besides his comedies in _sdrucciolo_ and _piano_ verse, he composed _sacre rappresentazioni_ and plays of a mixed kind derived from a free handling of that elder form.[236] while gelli and cecchi severally followed the example of machiavelli and ariosto, il lasca attempted to free the italian drama from the fetters of erudite convention.[237] his comedies are exceedingly witty versions of _novelle_, forming dramatic pendants to his narratives in that style. yet though he strove to make the stage a mirror of contemporary customs, he could not wholly escape from the mannerism into which the dramatic art had fallen. nor was it possible, now that the last gleam of liberty had expired in italy, when even florence accepted her fate, and the inquisition was jealously watching every new birth of the press, to create what the earlier freedom of the renaissance had missed. the drama was condemned to trivialities which only too faithfully reflected the political stagnation, and the literary trifling of a decadent civilization.[238] [footnote 232: _opere di gio. battista gelli_ (milano, 1807), vol. iii.] [footnote 233: _commedie di giovan maria cecchi_, 2 vols., lemonnier.] [footnote 234: _opere di messer agnolo firenzuola_ (milano, 1802), vol. v.] [footnote 235: e 'l divino ariosto anco, a chi cedono greci, latini e toscan, tutti i comici. prologue to _i rivali_. ma che dirò di te, spirito illustre, ariosto gentil, qual lode fia uguale al tuo gran merto, al tuo valore? cede a te nella comica palestra ogni greco e latin, perchè tu solo hai veramente dimostrato come esser deve il principio, il mezzo e 'l fine delle comedie, etc. _le pellegrine_, intermedio sesto, published by barbèra, 1855.] [footnote 236: see the "esaltazione della croce," _sacre rappresentazioni_, lemonnier, vol. iii. compare those curious hybrid plays, _il figliuolo prodigo_, _la morte del re acab_, _la conversione della scozia_, in his collected plays (lemonnier, 1856). _lo sviato_ may be mentioned as another of his comedies derived from the _sacre rappr._ with a distinctly didactic and moral purpose.] [footnote 237: see prologue to _la strega_, and above, p. 124.] [footnote 238: i reserve for another chapter the treatment of the pastoral, which eventually proved the most original and perfect product of the italian stage.] it is worthy of notice, as a final remark upon the history of the comic stage, that at this very moment of its ultimate frustration there existed the germ of a drama analogous to that of england, only waiting to be developed by some master spirit. that was the _farsa_, which cecchi, the most prolific, original and popular of florentine playwrights, deigned to cultivate.[239] he describes it thus: "the _farsa_ is a new third species between tragedy and comedy. it enjoys the liberties of both, and shuns their limitations; for it receives into its ample boundaries great lords and princes, which comedy does not, and, like a hospital or inn, welcomes the vilest and most plebeian of the people, to whom dame tragedy has never stooped. it is not restricted to certain motives; for it accepts all subjects--grave and gay, profane and sacred, urbane and rude, sad and pleasant. it does not care for time or place. the scene may be laid in a church, or a public square, or where you will; and if one day is not long enough, two or three may be employed. what, indeed, does it matter to the _farsa_? in a word, this modern mistress of the stage is the most amusing, the most convenient, the sweetest, prettiest country-lass that can be found upon our earth."[240] he then goes on to describe the liberty of language allowed in the _farsa_, rounding off a picture which exactly applies to our elizabethan drama. the _farsa_, in the form it had assumed when cecchi used it, was, in fact, the survival of an ancient, obscure species of dramatic art, which had descended from the period of classical antiquity, and which recently had blent with the traditions of the _sacre rappresentazioni_. had circumstances been favorable to the development of a national drama in italy, the popular elements of the pagan farce and the medieval mystery would have naturally issued through the _farsa_ in a modern form of art analogous to that produced in england. but the italians had, as we have seen, no public to demand the rehabilitation of the _farsa_; nor was cecchi a shakspere, or even a marlowe, to prove, in the face of latinizing playwrights, that the national stage lay in its cradle here. it remained for the poets of a far-off island, who disdained italian _jigs_ and owed nothing to the _farse_ of either florentine or neapolitan contemporaries, acting by instinct and in concert with the sympathies of a great nation, to take this "sweetest, prettiest country-lass" by the hand and place her side by side with attic tragedy and comedy upon the supreme throne of art. [footnote 239: the titles of his _farse_ given by d'ancona are _i malandrini_, _pittura_, _andazzo_, _sciotta_, _romanesca_.] [footnote 240: prologue to the _romanesca_, firenze, cenniniana, 1874.] the italian comedies offer an even more startling picture of social vice than the _novelle_.[241] to estimate how far they represent a general truth, is difficult; especially when we remember that they were written in a conventional style, to amuse princes, academicians, and prelates.[242] comparing their testimony with that of private letters and biographical literature (the correspondence, for example, of alessandra degli strozzi, alberti's treatise on the family, and statements gleaned from memoirs and _ricordi_), we are justified in believing that a considerable difference existed at the commencement of this epoch between public and domestic manners in italy; between the court and the home, the piazza and the fireside, the diversions of fashionable coteries and the conversation of friends and kinsmen. the family still retained some of its antique simplicity. and it was not as yet vitiated by the institution of cicisbeism. but the great world was incredibly corrupt. each court formed a nucleus of dissolute living. rome, stigmatized successively by men so different as lorenzo de' medici, pietro aretino, gian-giorgio trissino, and messer guidiccioni, poisoned the whole italian nation. venice entertained a multitude of prostitutes, and called them _benemeritæ_ in public acts. since, therefore, these centers of aristocratic and literary life drew recruits from the burgher and rural classes, the strongholds of patriarchal purity were continually being sapped by contact with fashionable uncleanliness. and thus in the sixteenth century a common standard of immorality had been substituted for earlier severity of manners. the convulsions of that disastrous epoch, following upon a period of tranquillity, during which the people had become accustomed to luxury, submerged whole families in vice. "wars, famines, and the badness of the times," wrote aretino, "inclining men to give themselves amusement, have so debauched all italy (_imputtanita tutta italia_), that cousins and kinsfolk of both sexes, brothers and sisters, mingle together without shame, without a shadow of conscience."[243] though it is preposterous to see aretino posing as a censor of morals, his acuteness was indubitable; nor need we suppose that his acquaintance with the disease rendered him less sagacious in detecting its causes. what corio tells us about lodovico sforza's capital, what we read about the excess of luxury into which the nobles of vicenza and milan plunged, amid the horrors of the french and spanish occupation, confirms his testimony.[244] after the black death, described by matteo villani, the florentines consoled themselves for previous sufferings by an outburst of profligate and reckless living. so now they sought distraction in unbridled sensuality. society was in dissolution, and men lived for the moment, careless of consequences. the immorality of the theater was at once a sign and a source of this corruption. "o times! o manners!" exclaims lilius giraldus:[245] "the obscenities of the stage return in all their foulness. plays are acted in every city, which the common consent of christendom had banned because of their depravity. now the very prelates of the faith, our nobles, our princes, bring them back again among us, and cause them to be publicly presented. nay, priests themselves are eagerly ambitious of the infamous title of actors, in order to bring themselves into notoriety, and to enrich themselves with benefices." [footnote 241: dolce in the prologue to his _ragazzo_ says that, immodest as a comedy may be, it would be impossible for any play to reproduce the actual depravity of manners.] [footnote 242: what i have already observed with regard to the _novelle_--namely, that italy lacked the purifying and ennobling influences of a real public, embracing all classes, and stimulating the production of a largely designed, broadly executed literature of human nature--is emphatically true also of her stage. the people demand greatness from their authors--simplicity, truth, nobleness. they do not shrink from grossness; they tolerate what is coarse. but these elements must be kept in proper subordination. princes, petty coteries, academies, drawing-room patrons, the audience of the antechamber and the boudoir, delight in subtleties, _doubles entendre_, scandalous tales, divorce court arguments. the people evokes shakspere; the provincial court breeds bibbiena.] [footnote 243: _cortigiana_, act ii. sc. 10.] [footnote 244: see corio, quoted in _age of the despots_, p. 548, note 1. for milanese luxury, bandello, vol. i. pp. 219 _et seq._; vol. iv. p. 115 (milan edition, 1814). for vicenza, morsolin's _trissino_, p. 291.] [footnote 245: _de poet. hist._ dial. 8. giraldi may have had men like inghirami, surnamed "phædra," and cardinal bibbiena in view.] it must not be supposed that the immorality of the comic stage consists in the license of language, incident or plot. had this been all, we should hardly be justified in drawing a distinction between the italians of the renaissance and our own elizabethan playwrights. it lies far deeper, in the vicious philosophy of life paraded by the authors, in the absence of any didactic or satirical aim. molière, while exposing evil, teaches by example. a canon of goodness is implied, from which the deformities of sin and folly are deflections. but machiavelli and aretino paint humanity as simply bad. the palm of success is awarded to unscrupulous villainy. an incapacity for understanding the immutable power of moral beauty was the main disease of italy. if we seek the cause of this internal cancer, we must trace the history of italian thought and feeling back to the age of boccaccio; and we shall probably form an opinion that misdirected humanism, blending with the impieties of a secularized papacy, the self-indulgence of the despots, and the coarse tastes of the _bourgeoisie_, had sapped the conscience of society. chapter xii. pastoral and didactic poetry. the idyllic ideal--golden age--arcadia--sannazzaro--his life--the art of the _arcadia_--picture-painting--pontano's poetry--the neapolitan genius--baiæ and eridanus--eclogues--the play of _cefalo_--castiglione's _tirsi_--rustic romances--molza's biography--the _ninfa tiberina_--progress of didactic poetry--rucellai's _api_--alamanni's _coltivazione_--his life--his satires--pastoral dramatic poetry--the _aminta_--the _pastor fido_--climax of renaissance art. the transition from the middle ages to the renaissance was marked by the formation of a new ideal, which in no slight measure determined the type of italian literature. the faiths and aspirations of catholicism, whereof the _divine comedy_ remains the monument in art, began to lose their hold on the imagination. the world beyond the grave grew dim to mental vision, in proportion as this world, through humanism rediscovered, claimed daily more attention. poliziano's contemporaries were as far removed from dante's apprehension of a future life as modern evangelicals from bunyan's vivid sense of sin and salvation. this parallel, though it may seem strained, is close enough to be serviceable. as the need of conversion is taken for granted among protestants, so the other world was then assumed to be real. yet neither the expectation of heavenly bliss nor the fear of purgatorial pain was felt with that intense sincerity which inspired dante's cantos and orcagna's frescoes. on both emotions the new culture, appearing at one moment as a solvent through philosophical speculation, at another as a corrosive in the skeptical and critical activity it stimulated, was acting with destructive energy. the present offered a distracting tumult of antagonistic passions, harmonized by no great hope. the future, to those inexperienced pioneers of modern thought, was dim, although the haze, through which the vision came to them, seemed golden. thus it happened that the sensibilities of men athirst for some consoling fancy, took refuge in the dream of a past happy age. virgil's description of saturn's reign: au reus hanc vitam in terris saturnus agebat, necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdum impositos duris crepitare incudibus enses: fascinated their imagination, and they amused themselves with the fiction of a primal state of innocence. hesiod and the metamorphoses of ovid, the idyls of theocritus and virgil's eclogues, legends of early greek civility, and romances of late greek literature contributed their several elements to this conception of a pastoral ideal. it blent with biblical reminiscences of eden, with medieval stories of the earthly paradise. it helped that transfusion of christian fancy into classic shape, for which the age was always striving.[246] on one side the ideal was purely literary, reflecting the artistic instincts of a people enthusiastic for form, and affording scope for their imitative activity. but on the other side it corresponded to a deep and genuine italian feeling. that sympathy with rustic life, that love of nature humanized by industry, that delight in the villa, the garden, the vineyard, and the grove, which modern italians inherited from their roman ancestors, gave reality to what might otherwise have been but artificial. vespasiano's anecdote of cosimo de' medici pruning his own fruit-trees; ficino's description of the village feasts at montevecchio; flamminio's picture of his latin farm; alberti's tenderness in gazing at the autumn fields--all these have the ring of genuine emotion. for men who felt thus, the age of gold was no mere fiction, and arcady a land of possibilities. [footnote 246: see above, part i. p. 170, for the golden age in the _quadriregio_.] what has been well called _la voluttà idillica_--the sensuous sensibility to beauty, finding fit expression in the idyl--formed a marked characteristic of renaissance art and literature. boccaccio developed this idyllic motive in all his works which dealt with the origins of society. poliziano and lorenzo devoted their best poetry to the praise of rural bliss, the happiness of shepherd folk anterior to life in cities. the same theme recurs in the latin poems of the humanists, from the sonorous hexameters of the _rusticus_ down to the delicate hendecasyllables of the later lombard school. it pervades the elegy, the ode, the sonnet, and takes to itself the chiefest honors of the drama. the vision of a golden age idealized man's actual enjoyment of the country, and hallowed, as with inexplicable pathos, the details of ordinary rustic life. weary with courts and worldly pleasures, in moments of revolt against the passions and ambitions that wasted their best energies, the poets of that century, who were nearly always also men of state and public office, sighed for the good old times, when honor was an unknown name, and truth was spoken, and love sincere, and steel lay hidden in the earth, and ships sailed not the sea, and old age led the way to death unterrified by coming doom. as time advanced, their ideal took form and substance. there rose into existence, for the rhymsters to wander in, and for the readers of romance to dream about, a region called arcadia, where all that was imagined of the golden age was found in combination with refined society and manners proper to the civil state. a literary eldorado had been discovered, which was destined to attract explorers through the next three centuries. arcadia became the wonder-world of noble youths and maidens, at madrid no less than at ferrara, in elizabeth's london and in marie antoinette's versailles. after engaging the genius of tasso and guarini, spenser and sidney, it degenerated into quaint conventionality. companions of turenne and marlborough told tales of pastoral love to maids of honor near the throne. frederick's and maria theresa's courtiers simpered and sighed like dresden-china swains and shepherdesses. crooked sticks with ribbons at the top were a fashionable appendage to red-heeled shoes and powdered perukes. few phenomena in history are more curious than the prolonged prosperity and widespread fascination of this arcadian romance. to sannazzaro belongs the glory of having first explored arcadia, mapped out its borders, and called it after his own name. he is the columbus of this visionary hemisphere. jacopo sannazzaro has more than once above been mentioned in the chapters devoted to latin poetry. but the events of his life have not yet been touched upon.[247] his ancestors claimed to have been originally spaniards, settled in a village of pavia called s. nazzaro, whence they took their name. the poet's immediate forefather was said to have followed charles of durazzo in 1380 to the south of italy, where he received fiefs and lands in the basilicata. jacopo was born at naples in 1458, and was brought up in his boyhood by his mother at s. cipriano.[248] he studied at naples under the grammarian junianus maius,[249] and made such rapid progress in both greek and latin scholarship as soon to be found worthy of a place in pontano's academy. in that society he assumed the pseudonym of actius sincerus. the friendship between pontano and sannazzaro lasted without interruption till the former's death in 1503. their latin poems abound in passages which testify to a strong mutual regard, and the life-size effigies of both may still be seen together in the church of monte oliveto at naples.[250] distinction in scholarship was, after the days of alfonso the magnanimous, a sure title to consideration at the neapolitan court. sannazzaro attached himself to the person of frederick, the second son of ferdinand i.; and when this prince succeeded to the throne, he conferred upon the poet a pension of 600 ducats and the pleasant villa of mergoglino between the city and posillipo.[251] this recompense for past service was considerably below the poet's expectations and deserts; nor did he receive any post of state importance. yet sannazzaro remained faithful through his lifetime to the aragonese dynasty. he attended the princes on their campaigns; espoused their quarrels in his fierce and potent series of epigrams against the rovere and borgia pontiffs; and when frederick retired to france in 1501, he journeyed into exile with his royal master, only returning to naples after the ex-king's death. there sannazzaro continued to reside until his own death in 1530. his later years were imbittered by the destruction of his villa mergellina during the occupation of naples by the imperial troops under the prince of orange. but with the exception of this misfortune, he appears to have passed a quiet and honorable old age, devoting himself to piety, contributing to charitable works and church-building, and employing his leisure in study and the society of a beloved lady, cassandra marchesa. [footnote 247: the chief sources of sannazzaro's biography are a section of his _arcadia_ (_prosa_, vii.), and his latin poems. the sannazzari of pavia had the honor of mention in dante's _convito_. among the poet's latin odes are several addressed to the patron saint of his race. see _sannazarii op. omn. lat. scripta_ (aldus, 1535), pp. 16, 53, 56, 59.] [footnote 248: elegy, "quod pueritiam egerit in picentinis," _op. cit._ p. 27.] [footnote 249: elegy, "ad junianum maium præceptorem," _op. cit._ p. 20.] [footnote 250: i may refer in particular to sannazzaro's beautiful elegy "de studiis suis et libris joviani pontani" among his latin poems, _op. cit._ p. 10. for their terra-cotta portraits, see above _revival of learning_, p. 365.] [footnote 251: sannazzaro's two odes on "villa mergellina" and "fons mergellines" (_op. cit._ pp. 31, 53), are among his purest and most charming latin compositions.] in his early youth sannazzaro formed a romantic attachment for a girl of noble birth, called carmosina bonifacia. this love made him first a poet; and the majority of his italian verses may be referred to its influence. they consist of sonnets and _canzoni_, modeled upon petrarch, but marked by independence of treatment, and spontaneity of feeling. the puristic revival had not yet set in, and sannazzaro's style shows no servile imitation of his model. it may not be out of place to give a specimen in translation of these early _rime_. i have chosen a sonnet upon jealousy, which la casa afterwards found worthy of rehandling: horrible curb of lovers, jealousy, that with one force doth check and sway my will; sister of loathed and impious death, that still with thy grim face troublest the tranquil sky; thou snake concealed in laughing flowers which lie rocked on earth's lap; thou that my hope dost kill; amid fair fortunes thou malignant ill; venom mid viands which men taste and die! from what infernal valley didst thou soar, o ruthless monster, plague of mortals, thou that darkenest all my days with misery o'er? hence, double not these griefs that cloud my brow! accurséd fear, why camest thou? was more needed than love's keen shafts to make me bow? about the reality of sannazzaro's passion for carmosina there can be no doubt. the most directly powerful passages in the _arcadia_ are those in which he refers to it.[252] his southern temperament exposed him to the fiercest pangs of jealousy; and when he found that love disturbed his rest and preyed upon his health he resolved to seek relief in travel. for this purpose he went to france; but he could not long endure the exile from his native country; and on his return he found his carmosina dead. the elegies in which he recorded his grief, are not the least poetical of his compositions both in latin and italian.[253] after establishing himself once more at naples, sannazzaro began the composition of the _eclogæ piscatoriæ_, in which he has been said to have brought the pastoral muses down to the sea shore. the novelty of these poems secured for them no slight celebrity. nor are they without real artistic merit. the charm of the sea is nowhere felt more vividly than on the bay of naples, and nowhere else are the habits of a fishing population more picturesque. nereids and sirens, proteus and nisa, cymothoe and triton, are not out of place in modern verses, which can commemorate naples, ischia and procida, under the titles of parthenope, inarime and prochyte. happy indeed is the poet, if he must needs write latin elegies, whose home suggests such harmonies and cadences, for whom baiæ and cumæ and the lucrine lake, puteoli and capreæ and stabiæ, are household words, and who looks from his study windows daily on scenes which realize the mythology still lingering in names and memories around them by beauty ever-present, inexpressible. [footnote 252: she is described in _prosa_ iv., and frequently mentioned under the name of _arancio_ or _amaranta_.] [footnote 253: see the epitaph "hic amarantha jacet," the last eclogue of _arcadia_, and the latin eclogue "mirabar vicina mycon," in which carmosina is celebrated under the name of phyllis. i may here call attention to pontano's elegy beginning "harmosyne jacet hic" in the _tumuli_, lib. ii. (_joannis joviani pontani amorum libri, etc._, aldus, 1518, p. 87).] the second mistress of sannazzaro's heart was a noble lady, cassandra marchesa. he paid his addresses to her _more platonico_, and chose her for the object of refined compliments in classical and modern verse. the latin elegies and epigrams are full of her praises; and one of the eclogues, _pharmaceutria_, is inscribed with her name. it would scarcely have been necessary to mention this courtly attachment, but for the pleasant light it casts upon sannazzaro's character. the lady whom he had celebrated and defended in his manhood, was the friend of his old age. he is said to have died in her house. the _arcadia_ was begun at nocera in sannazzaro's youth, continued during his first residence in france, and finished on his return to naples. so much can be gathered from its personal references. the book blends autobiography and fable in a narrative of very languid interest. the poet's circumstances and emotions in exile are described at one moment in plain language, at another are presented with the indirectness of an allegory. arcadia in some passages stands for a semi-savage country-district in france; in others it is the dream-world of poetry and pastoral simplicity. but in either case its scenery is drawn from sannazzaro's own italian home. the inhabitants are shepherds such as virgil fancied, with even more of personal refinement. through their lips the poet tells the tale of his own love, and paints his neapolitan mistress among the nymphs of mount parthenion. throughout, we note an awkward interminglement of subjective and objective points of view. realism merges into fancy. experience of life assumes the garb of myth or legend. neither as an autobiographical romance nor again as a work of pure invention has the _arcadia_ surpassing merit. loose in construction and uncertain in aim, it lacks the clearness and consistency of perfect art. and yet it is a masterpiece; because its author, led by prescient instinct, contrived to make it reflect one of the deepest and most permanent emotions of his time. the whole pastoral ideal--the yearning after a golden age, the beauty and pathos of the country, the felicity of simple folk, the details of rustic life, the charm of woods and gardens, the mythology of pan and satyrs, nymphs and fauns--all this is expressed in a series of pictures, idyllically graceful, artistically felt. it is not for its story that we read _arcadia_, but for the feast of pales, the games at massilia's shrine, the sacrifice to pan, androgéo's tomb, the group of girls a-maying, the carved work of the beechen cup, the passion of carino, the gardens with their flowers, and the bands of youths and maidens meeting under shadowy trees to dance and play. pictures like these are presented with a scrupulous and loving sincerity, an anxious accuracy of studied style, which proves how serious was the author. his heart, as an artist, is in the realization of his dream-world; and his touch is firm and dry and delicate as mantegna's. indeed, we are constantly reminded of the mantegnesque manner, and one reference justifies the belief that sannazzaro strove to reproduce its effect.[254] the sensuousness of the italian feeling for mere beauty is tempered with reticence and something of the coldness of greek marbles. in point of diction, boccaccio has been obviously imitated. but boccaccio's style is not revived, as masuccio strove to revive it, with the fire and energy of southern passion substituted for its tuscan irony and delicacy. on the contrary, the periods are still more artificial, the turns of phrase more tortured. sannazzaro writes with difficulty in a somewhat unfamiliar language, rendered all the more stubborn by his endeavors to add classical refinements. boccaccio's humor is gone; his sensuality is purged by contact with antique examples; the waving groves of the _filocopo_ are clipped and tutored like box-hedges in an academic garden. if there is less of natural raciness than came unsummoned to boccaccio's aid, there is more of virgil and theocritus than he chose to appropriate. the slow deliberate expansion of each picture, stroke by stroke and touch by touch, reminds us of the _quattrocento_ painters; while the _précieuseté_ of the phrasing has affinity to the manner of a late greek stylist, especially perhaps, though almost certainly unconsciously, to that of philostratus. this close correspondence of the _arcadia_ to the main artistic sympathies of the renaissance, rendered it indescribably popular in its own age, and causes it still to rank as one of the representative masterpieces of the epoch. through its peculiar blending of classical and modern strains--the feasts of pales and of pan taking color from capo di monte superstitions; the nymphs of wood and river modeled after girls from massa and sorrento; the yellow-haired shepherds of mount mænalus singing love-laments for neapolitan carmosina--we are enabled more nearly than in almost any other literary essay to appreciate the spirit of the classical revival as it touched italian art. a little earlier, there was more of spontaneity and _naïveté_. a little later, there was more of conscious erudition and consummate skill. the _arcadia_ comes midway between the _filocopo_ and the _pastor fido_. [footnote 254: in _prosa_ xi. he mentions a vase painted by the "padoano mantegna, artefice sovra tutti gli altri accorto ed ingegnosissimo."] it is time to turn from dissertation, and to detach, almost at haphazard, some of those descriptions which render the _arcadia_ a storehouse of illustrations to the pictures of the fifteenth century. i will first select the frescoes on the front of pales' chapel, endeavoring so far as possible to reproduce the intricacies and quaint affectations of the style.[255] the constant abuse of epithets, and the structure of the period by means of relatives, pegging its clauses down and keeping them in their places, will be noticed as part of the boccaccesque tradition. "intending now to ratify with souls devout the vows which had been made in former times of need, upon the smoking altars, all together in company we went unto the sacred temple, along whose frontal, raised upon a few ascending steps, we found above the doorway painted certain woods and hills of most delightful beauty, full of leafy trees and of a thousand sorts of flowers, among the which were seen many herds that went a-pasture, wending at pleasure through green fields, with peradventure ten dogs to guard them, the footsteps of the which upon the dust were traced most natural to the view. of the shepherds, some were milking, some shearing wool, others playing on pipes, and there were there a few, who, as it seemed, were singing and endeavoring to keep in tune with these. but that which pleased me to regard with most attention were certain naked nymphs, the which behind a chestnut bole stayed, as it were, half-hidden, laughing at a ram, who, in his eagerness to gnaw a wreath of oak that hung before his eyes, forgot to feed upon the grass around him. in that while came four satyrs, with horns upon their heads and goat's feet, stealing through a shrubbery of lentisks, softly, softly, to take the maidens from behind. whereof when they were ware, they took to flight through the dense grove, shunning nor thorns nor aught else that might annoy them; and of these one, nimbler than the rest, was clinging to a hornbeam's branches, and thence, with a long bough in her hands, defending herself. the others had cast themselves through fright into a river, wherethrough they fled a-swimming; and the clear water hid little or but nothing of their snow-white flesh. but whenas they saw themselves escaped, they sat them down on the further bank, fordone with toil and panting, drying their soaked hair, and thence with word and gesture seemed to mock at those who had not shown the power to capture them. and in one of the sides there was apollo, with the yellowest hair, leaning upon a wand of wild olive, and watching admetus' herds beside a river-bed; and thus, intently gazing on two sinewy bulls which jousted with their horns, he was not ware of wily mercury, who in a shepherd's habit, with a kid-skin girded under his left shoulder, stole the cows away from him. and in that same space stood battus, the bewrayer of the theft, transformed into a stone, stretching his finger forth in act of one who pointed. a little lower, mercury was seen again, seated upon a large stone, and playing with swollen cheeks upon a rustic pipe, while his eyes were turned to mark a white calf close beside him, and with most cunning arts he strove to cozen argus of the many eyes. on the other side, at the foot of an exceeding high oak-tree, was stretched a shepherd asleep among his goats; and a dog stayed near him, smelling at his pouch, which lay beneath his head; and he, forasmuch as the moon gazed at him with glad eyes, methought must be endymion. next to him was paris, who with his sickle had begun to carve _oenone_ on an elm-tree's bark, and being called to judge between the naked goddesses that stood before him, had not yet been able to complete his work. but what was not less subtle in the thought than pleasant in the seeing was the shrewdness of the wary painter, who, having made juno and minerva of such extreme beauty that to surpass them was impossible, and doubting of his power to make venus so lovely as the tale demanded, had painted her with back turned, covering the defect of art by ingenuity of invention. and many other things right charming and most beautiful to look upon, of the which i now have but a faulty memory, i saw there painted upon divers places." it is clear that sannazzaro had not read lessing's _laocoon_ or noted the distinctions between poetry and painting. yet in this he was true to the spirit of his age; for actions no less continuous than some of those described by him, may be found represented in the frescoes of gozzoli or lippo lippi. [footnote 255: _prosa_ iii.] the finished portrait of sannazzaro's mistress carmosina shall supply my next question.[256] the exile is listening to shepherds singing, and one of them has mentioned amaranta. he knows that she is present, and resolves to choose her by her gestures from the rest. "with wary glance, watching now one and now another, i saw among the maidens one who seemed to me the loveliest. her hair was covered with a very thin veil, beneath which two eyes, lovely and most brilliant, sparkled not otherwise than the clear stars are wont to shine in a serene and limpid sky; and her face, inclining somewhat to the oval more than the round, of fair shape, with pallor that was not unpleasing, but tempered, as it were toward dark complexion turning, and relieved therewith by vermeil and gracious hues, filled with joy of love the eyes that gazed on her. her lips were of the sort that surpass the morning roses; between the which, each time she spoke or smiled, she showed some portion of her teeth, of such rare and marvelous grace that i could not have compared them to aught else but orient pearls. thence passing down to her marble and delicate throat, i saw upon that tender bosom the slight and youthful breasts, which, like two rounded apples, thrust her robe of finest texture somewhat forward; and in the midst of them i could discern the fairest little way, exceeding pleasant to the sight, the which, because it ended and escaped the view, was reason why i dwelt thereon with greater force of thought. and she, with most delicate gait and a gentle and aspiring stature, went through the fair fields, with her white hand plucking tender flowers. with the which when she had filled her lap, no sooner had the singing youth within her hearing mentioned amaranta, than, dropping her hands and gathered robe, and as it were lost to her own recollection, without her knowing what befell, they all slid from her grasp, sowing the earth with peradventure twenty sorts of colors. which, as though suddenly brought to herself, when she perceived, she blushed not otherwise than sometimes reddens the enchanted moon with rosy aspect, or as, upon the issuing of the sun, the red aurora shows herself to mortal gaze. whereupon she, not for any need methinks compelling her thereto, but haply hoping better thus to hide the blushes that came over her, begotten by a woman's modesty, bent toward earth again to pick them up, as though she cared for only that, choosing the white flowers from the crimson and the dark blue from the violet blossoms." amaranta makes a pretty picture, but one which is too elaborate in detail. her sisterhood is described with touches more negligent, and therefore the more artful.[257] "some wore garlands of privet with yellow buds and certain crimson intermingled; others had white lilies and purple mixed with a few most verdant orange leaves between; one went starred with roses, and yon other whitened with jasmines. so that each by herself and altogether were more like to divine spirits than to human creatures. whereupon many men there present cried with wonder: o blessed the possessor of such beauties!" the young swains are hardly less attractive than their nymphs.[258] "logisto and elpino, shepherds, comely of person and in years within the bounds of earliest youth: elpino guardian of goats, logisto of the woolly sheep: both with hair yellower than ripe ears of corn; both of arcadia; both fit alike to sing and to make answer." [footnote 256: _prosa_ iv.] [footnote 257: _prosa_ iv.] [footnote 258: _ibid._] sannazzaro's touch upon inanimate nature is equally precise. here is a description of the evening sky.[259] "it was the hour when sunset embroidered all the west with a thousand varieties of clouds; some violet, some darkly blue, and certain crimson; others between yellow and black, and a few so burning with the fire of backward-beaten rays that they seemed as though of polished and finest gold." here is a garden:[260] "moved by sympathy for ergasto, many shepherds had moreover wrought the place about with high hedges, not of thorns or briars, but of junipers, roses and jasmines, and had delved therein with their mattocks a pastoral seat, and at even spaces certain towers of rosemary and myrtles interwoven with the most incomparable art." here are flowers:[261] "there were lilies, there privets, there violets toned to amorous pallor, and in large abundance the slumberous poppies with their leaning heads, and the ruddy spikes of the immortal amaranth, most comely of coronals mid winter's rudeness." [footnote 259: _prosa_ v.] [footnote 260: _prosa_ x.] [footnote 261: _ibid._] the same research of phrase marks the exhibition of emotion. carino, the shepherd, tells how, overwhelmed with grief, he lay upon the ground and seemed lost to life:[262] "came the oxherds, came the herdsmen of the sheep and goats, together with the peasants of the neighboring farms, deeming me distraught, as of a truth indeed i was; and all with deepest pity asked the reason of my woe. unto whom i made no answer, but, minding my own weeping, thus with lamentable voice exclaimed: you of arcady shall sing among your mountains of my death! you of arcady, who only have the art of song, you of my death shall sing amid your mountains!" his complaint extends to a length which defies quotation. but here is an extract from it:[263] "o gods of heaven and earth, and whosoe'er ye are who have regard for wretched lovers, lend, i pray, your ears of pity to my lamentation, and listen to the dolent cries my tortured spirit sendeth forth! o naiads, dwellers in the running water brooks! o napean nymphs, most gracious haunters of far places and of liquid fonts, lift up your yellow tresses but a little from the crystal waves, and receive these my last cries before i perish! o you, o fairest oreads, who naked on the hanging cliffs are wont to go achase, leave now your lofty mountain realm, and in my misery visit me, for i am sure to win your sorrow by what brings my cruel maid delight! come forth from your trees, o pitying hamadryads, ye anxious guardians over them, and turn your thoughts a little toward the martyrdom these hands of mine prepare for me! and you, o dryads, most beauteous damsels of the woods profound, ye who not once but many and many a time have watched our shepherds at the fall of eve in circle dancing neath the shadow of cool walnut trees, with yellowest curls a-ripple down their snow-white necks, cause now i pray, if you are not with my too changeful fortune changed, that mid these shades my death may not be mute, but ever grow from day to day through centuries to come, so that the tale of years life lacks, may go to lengthen out my fame!" [footnote 262: _prosa_ viii.] [footnote 263: _ibid._] for english students the _arcadia_ has a special interest, since it begot the longer and more ambitious work of sir philip sidney. hitherto i have spoken only of its prose; but the book blends prose and verse in alternating sections. the verse consists of mingled _terza rima_, _canzoni_ and sestines. not less artificial and decidedly less original than the prose, sannazzaro's lyrics and eclogues do not demand particular attention. he put needless restraint upon himself by affecting the awkwardness of _sdrucciolo_ rhymes[264]; and he lacked the roseate fluency, the winning ease, the unaffected graces of poliziano. one sestine, sung by himself among the shepherds of arcady, i have translated, because it paints the actual conditions of life which drove sannazzaro into his first exile.[265] but the singularly charmless form adopted, which even petrarch hardly rendered tolerable, seems to check the poet's spontaneity of feeling. [footnote 264: even in this sidney tried to follow him, with an effect the clumsiness of which can only be conceived by those who have read his triple rhyming english _terza rima_.] [footnote 265: _egloga_ vii.] even as a bird of night that loathes the sun, i wander, woe is me, through places dark, the while refulgent day doth shine on earth; then when upon the world descendeth eve, i cannot, like all creatures, sink in sleep, but wake to roam and weep among the fields. if peradventure amid woods and fields, where shines not with his radiance the sun, mine eyes, o'er-tired with weeping, close in sleep, harsh dreams and wandering visions, vain and dark, affright me so that still i shrink at eve, for fear of sleep, from resting on the earth. o universal mother, kindly earth, shall't ever be that, stretched on verdant fields, in slumber deep, upon that latest eve, i ne'er shall wake again, until the sun rise to reveal his light to eyelids dark, and stir my soul again from that long sleep? from that first moment when i banished sleep, and left my bed to lay myself on earth, the cloudless days for me were drear and dark, and turned to stubbly straw the flowery fields; so that when morn to men brings back the sun, it darkens round mine eyes in shadowy eve. my lady, of her kindness, came one eve, joyous and very fair, to me in sleep, and gladdened all my heart, even as the sun, when rains are past, is wont to clear the earth; and said to me: come, gather from my fields some flow'ret; cease to haunt those caverns dark. fly hence, fly hence, ye tedious thoughts and dark, that have obscured me in so long an eve! for i'll go seek the sunny smiling fields, taking upon their herbage honeyed sleep: full well i know that ne'er man made of earth more blest than now i am beheld the sun! song, in mid eve thou'lt see the orient sun, and me neath earth among those regions dark, or e'er on yonder fields i take my sleep. whether the distinctively neapolitan note can be discerned in sannazzaro, seems more than doubtful. as in his sapphic odes and piscatory eclogues, so also in his _arcadia_ we detect the working of a talent self-restrained within the limits of finely-tempered taste. the case is very different with pontano's latin elegies and lyrics.[266] they breathe the sensuality and self-abandonment to impulse of a southern temperament. they reflect the profuseness of nature in a region where men scarcely know what winter means, her somewhat too nakedly voluptuous beauties, her volcanic energies and interminglement of living fire with barren scoriæ. for this reason, and because there is some danger of neglecting the special part played by the southern province in italian literary history, i am induced to digress from the main topic of this chapter in the direction of pontano's poetry. [footnote 266: from my chapter on latin poetry in the _revival of learning_ i purposely omitted more than a general notice of pontano's erotic verses, intending to treat of them thereafter, when it should be necessary to discuss the neapolitan contribution in italian literature. the lyrics and elegies i shall now refer to, are found in two volumes of _pontani opera_, published by aldus, 1513 and 1518. these volumes i shall quote together, using the minor titles of _amorum_, _hendecasyllabi_, and so forth, and mentioning the page. i am sorry that i have not a uniform edition of his latin poetry (if that, indeed, exists, of which i doubt) before me.] though a native of cerreto in umbria, pontano passed his life at naples, and became, if we may trust the evidence of his lyrics, more neapolitan than the neapolitans. in him the southern peoples found a voice, which, though it uttered a dead language, expressed their sentiments. it is unlucky that pontano, who deserves to be reckoned as the greatest poet of naples, should have made this important contribution to italian literature in latin. whether at that moment he could have spoken so freely in the vulgar tongue is more than doubtful. but be that as it may, we must have recourse to his latin poems, in order to supply a needed link in the chain of italian melody. carducci acutely remarked that, more than any other poems of the century, they embody "the æsthetic and learned reaction against the mystical idealism of christianity in a preceding age." they do so better than beccadelli's, because, where the _hermaphroditus_ is obscene, the _eridanus_, _baiæ_, _amor conjugalis_, _pompæ_, _næniæ_ of pontano are only sensual. the cardinal point in pontano is the breadth of his feeling. he touches the whole scale of natural emotions with equal passion and sincerity. the love of the young man for his sweetheart, the love of the husband for his bride, the love of a father for his offspring, the love of a nurse for her infant charge, find in his verse the same full sensuous expression. in pontano there is no more of teutonic _schwärmerei_ than of dantesque transcendentalism. he does not make us marvel how the young man, who has embroidered odes upon the theme of _alma pellegrina_, or who has woven violet and moonshine into some _du bist wie eine blume_, can submit to light the hymeneal torch and face the prose of matrimony. within the limits of unsophisticated instinct he is perfectly complete and rounded to a flawless whole. he does not say one thing and leave another to be understood--a contradiction that imports some radical unreality into the platonic or sentimental modes of sexual expression. he expects woman to weigh but little less than man in scales of natural appetite. and yet his muse is no mere vagrant venus. she is a respectable if not, according to our present views, an altogether decent juno. the final truth about her is that she revealed to her uniquely gifted bard, on earth and in the shrine of home, that poetry of love which milton afterwards mythologized in eden. the note of unadulterated humanity sounds with a clearness that demands commemoration in this poetry of passion. it is, if not the highest, yet the frankest and most decided utterance of mutual, legitimate desire. as such, it occupies an enviable place in the history of italian love--equally apart from _trecento_ sickliness and _cinque cento_ corruption; unrefined perchance, but healthy; doing justice to the proletariate of naples whence it sprung. pontano paints all primitive affections in a way to justify his want of reticence. his fannia, focilla, stella, ariadne, cinnama--mistress or wife, we need not stop to question--are the very opposite of dante's or of petrarch's loves.[267] liberal of their charms, rejoicing like the waves of the chiaja in the laughter of the open day, they think it no shame to unbare their beauties to their lover's eyes, or to respond with ardor to his caresses. christian modesty, medieval asceticism, the strife between the spirit and the flesh, the aspiration after mystic modes of feeling, have been as much forgotten in their portraits, as though the world had never undergone reaction against paganism. and yet they differ from the women of the roman elegiac poets. they are less artificial than corinna. though "the sweet witty soul of ovid" passed over these honeyed elegies, the neapolitan poet remains a _bourgeois_ of the fifteenth century. his passion is unreservedly sensual and at the same time tenderly affectionate. its motive force is sexual desire; its depth and strength are in the love a husband and a father feels. given the verses upon fannia alone, we should be justified in calling pontano a lascivious poet. the three books _de amore conjugali_ show him in a different light. he there expounds the duties and relations of the family with the same robust and unaffected force of feeling he had shown in the description of a wanton. after painting his stella with the gusto of an italian rubens, he can turn to shed tears almost sublime in their pathos over the tomb of lucia his daughter, or to write a cradle-song for his son luciolus.[268] the carnal appetites which are legitimated by matrimony and hallowed in domestic relations, but which it is the custom of civilized humanity to veil, assume a tone of almost bacchic rapture in this fluent latin verse. this constitutes pontano's originality. such a combination has never been presented to the world before or since. the genial bed, from which he draws his inspiration, found few poets to appreciate it in ancient days, and fewer who have dared to celebrate it so unblushingly among the moderns.[269] [footnote 267: fannia is the most attractive of these women. see _amorum_, lib. i. pp. 4, 5, 13. stella, the heroine of the _eridani_, is touched with greater delicacy. cinnama seems to have been a girl of the people. pontano borrows for her the language of popular poetry (_amorum_, i. 19). ipsa tibi dicat, mea lux, mea vita, meus flos, liliolumque meum, basiolumque meum. carior et gemmis, et caro carior auro, tu rosa, tu violæ, tu mihi lævis onyx.] [footnote 268: among the most touching of his elegiac verses is the lament addressed to his dead wife upon the death of their son lucius, _eridanorum_, lib. ii. p. 134. the collection of epitaphs called _tumuli_ bears witness to the depth and sincerity of his sorrow for the dead, to the all-embracing sympathy he felt for human grief. the very original series of lullabies, entitled _næniæ_, illustrate the warmth of his paternal feeling. the nursery has never before or since been celebrated with such exuberance of fancy--and in the purest ovidian elegiacs! it may, however, be objected that there is too much about wet-nurses in these songs.] [footnote 269: pontano revels in epithalamials and pictures of the joys of wedlock. see the series of elegies on stella, _eridanorum_, lib. i. pp. 108, 111, 113, 115; the congratulation addressed to alfonso, duke of calabria, _hendecasyllaborum_, lib. i. p. 194; and two among the many epithalamial hymns, _hendec._ lib. i. p. 195; _lepidina_ pompa 7, p. 172, with its reiterated "dicimus o hymenæe io hymen hymenæe." the sensuality of these compositions will be too frank and fulsome for a chastened taste; but there is nothing in them extra or infra-human.] the same series of pontano's poems may be read with no less profit for their pictures of neapolitan life.[270] he brings the baths of baiæ, unspoiled as yet by the eruption from monte nuovo, vividly before us; the myrtle-groves and gardens by the bay; the sailors stretched along the shore; the youths and maidens, flirting as they bathe or drink the waters, their evening walks, their little dinners, their assignations; all the round of pleasure in a place and climate made for love. or we watch the people at their games, crowded together on those high-built carts, rattling the tambourine and dancing the tarantella--as near to fauns and nymphs in shape as humanity well may be.[271] each mountain and each stream is personified; the genii of the villages, the oreads of the copses, the tritons of the waves, come forth to play with men:[272] claudicat hinc heros capimontius, et de summo colle ruunt misti juvenes mistæque puellæ; omnis amat chorus, et juncti glomerantur amantes. is lento incredit passu, baculoque tuetur infirmum femur, et choreis dat signa movendis, assuetus choreæ ludisque assuetus amantum. [footnote 270: _hendecasyllaborum_, lib. i. and ii. pp. 186-218. if one of these lyrics should be chosen from the rest, i should point to "invitantur pueri et puellæ ad audiendum charitas," p. 209. it begins "ad myrtum juvenes venite, myrti."] [footnote 271: for such glimpses into actual life, see _lepidina_, pp. 160-174, in which a man and woman of naples discourse of their first loves and wedlock. the eclogues abound in similar material.] [footnote 272: _lepidina_, p. 168. capimontius is easily recognized as capo di monte.] nor are these personifications merely frigid fictions. the landscape of naples lends itself to mythology, not only because it is so beautiful, but because human life and nature interpenetrate, as nowhere else in europe, on that bay. pontano has a tale to tell of every river and every grove--how adonis lives again in the orange trees of sorrento, how the sebeto was a boy beloved by one of nereus' daughters and slain by him in anger.[273] his tendency to personification was irresistible. not content, like sannazzaro, with singing the praises of his villa, he feigns a nympha antiniana, whom he invokes as the muse of neo-latin lyric rapture.[274] in the melodious series of love-poems entitled _eridanus_, he exercises the same imaginative faculty on lombard scenery. after closing this little book, we seem to be no less familiar with the "king of rivers," phaethon, and the heliades, than with the living stella, to frame whose beauty in a fitting wreath these fancies have been woven.[275] even the elegy, which he used so freely and with so complete a pleasure in its movement, becomes for him a woman, with specific form and habit, and a love tale taken from some propertian memory of he poet's umbrian home. to quote pontano is neither easy nor desirable. yet i cannot resist the inclination to present dame elegia in her ionian garb in part at least before a modern audience.[276] huc ades, et nitidum myrto compesce capillum, huc ades ornatis o elegia comis. inque novam venias cultu prædivite formam, laxa fluat niveos vestis adusque pedes. quaque moves, arabum spires mollissima nardum, lenis et assyrio sudet odore liquor. tecum etiam charites veniant, tua cura, puellæ, et juvet insolita ducere ab arte choros. tu puerum veneris primis lasciva sub annis instruis, et studio perficis usque tuo. hinc tibi perpetuæ tribuit cytherea juventæ tempora, neu formæ sint mala damna tuæ; ergo ades, et cape, diva, lyram, sed pectine molli, sed moveas dulci lenia fila sono. quinetiam tu experta novos, ni fallor, amores, dulcia supposito gramine furta probas. namque ferunt, patrios vectam quandoque per umbros, clitumni liquidis accubuisse vadis: hic juvenem vidisse, atque incaluisse natantem, et cupisse ulnas iner habere tuas. quid tibi lascivis, puer o formose, sub undis? deliciis mage sunt commoda prata tuis. hic potes e molli viola junxisse coronam, et flavam vario flore ligare comam; hic potes et gelida somnum quæsisse sub umbra, et lassum viridi ponere corpus humo; hic et adesse choris dryadum, et saluisse per herbas, molliaque ad teneros membra movere modos. hic juvenis succensus amor, formamque secutus et facilem cantum, quo capis ipsa deos, tecum inter salices, sub amicta vitibus ulmo, in molli junxit candida membra toro; inter et amplexus lassi jacuistis uterque, et repetita venus dulce peregit opus. [footnote 273: see _de hortis hesperidum_, p. 139, and _amorum_, lib. ii. p. 33.] [footnote 274: _versus lyrici_, pp. 91-94.] [footnote 275: see, for example, the elegy "de venere lavante se in eridano et quiescente," _erid._ lib. i. p. 118.] [footnote 276: _de amore conjugali_, lib. i. p. 35. "hither, and bind with myrtle thy shining hair! o hither, elegia, with the woven tresses! take a new form of sumptuous grace, and let thy loose robe flutter to thy snow-white feet. and where thou movest, breathe arabian nard, and blandest perfume of assyrian unguents. let the girl graces come, thy charge, with thee, and take their joy in dances woven with unwonted arts. thou in his earliest years dost teach he boy of venus, and instruct him in thy lore. wherefore cytherea gives thee perpetual youth, that never may thy beauty suffer decrease. come hither, then, and take, o goddess, thy lyre, but with a gentle quill, and move the soft strings to a dulcet sound. nay, thou thyself hast tried new pleasures, and knowest the sweet thefts of lovers laid on meadow grass. for they say that, wandering once in umbria, my home, thou didst lie down beside clitumnus' liquid pools; and there didst see a youth, and dote upon him while he swam, and long to hold him in thine arms. what dost thou, beauteous boy, beneath the wanton waves? these fields are better suited to thy joys! here canst thou weave a violet wreath, and bind thy yellow hair with flowers of many a hue! here canst thou sleep beneath cool shade, and rest thy body on the verdant ground! here join the dances of the dryads, and leap along the sward, and move thy supple limbs to tender music! the youth inflamed with this, and eager for the beauty and the facile song, wherewith thou captivatest gods, with thee among the willows, under a vine-mantled elm, joined his white limbs upon a grassy bed, and both enjoyed the bliss of love."] that this poet was no servile imitator of tibullus or ovid is clear. that he had not risen to their height of diction is also manifest. but in pontano, as in poliziano, latin verse lived again with new and genuine vitality. if it were needful to seek a formal return from this digression to the subject of my chapter there would be no lack of opportunity. pontano's eclogues, the description of his gardens, his vision of the golden age and his long discourse on the cultivation of orange trees, justify our placing him among the strictly pastoral poets.[277] in treating of the country he displays his usual warmth and sensuous realism. he mythologizes; but his myths are the substantial forms of genuine emotion and experience. the fauns he talks of, are such lads as even now may be seen upon the ischian slopes of monte epomeo, with startled eyes, brown skin, and tangled tresses tossed adown their sinewy shoulders. the bacchus of his vintage has walked, red from the wine-press, crowned with real ivy and vine, and sat down at the poet's elbow, to pledge him in a cup of foaming must. [footnote 277: i will only refer in detail to the elegy entitled "lætatur in villa et hortis suis constitutis" (_de amore conjugali_, lib. ii. p. 52). the two books _de hortis hesperidum_ (aldus, 1513, pp. 138-159), compose a typical didactic poem.] while sannazzaro was exploring arcadia at naples, poliziano had already transferred pastoral poetry to the theater at mantua. of the _orfeo_ and its place in italian literature, i have spoken sufficiently elsewhere. it is enough to remember, in the present connection, that, while arcady became the local dreamland of the new ideal, orpheus took the place of its hero. as the institutor of civil society in the midst of a rude population, he personified for our italian poets the spirit of their own renascent culture. arcadia represented the realm of art and song, unstirred by warfare or unworthy passions. orpheus attuned the simple souls who dwelt in it, to music with his ravishing lyre. pastoral representations soon became fashionable. niccolò da correggio put the tale of cephalus and procris on the stage at ferrara, with choruses of nymphs, vows to diana, eclogues between corydon and thyrsis, a malignant faun, and a _dea ex machinâ_ to close the scene.[278] at urbino in the carnival of 1506 baldassare castiglione and his friend cesare gonzaga recited amoebean stanzas, attired in pastoral dress, before the court. this eclogue, entitled _tirsi_, deserves notice, less perhaps for its intrinsic merits, though these, judged by the standard of bucolic poetry, are not slight, than because it illustrates the worst vices of the rustic style in its adaptation to fashionable usage.[279] the dialogue opens with the customary lament of one love-lorn shepherd to another, and turns upon time-honored bucolic themes, until the mention of metaurus reminds us that we are not really in arcadia but at urbino. the goddess who strays among her nymphs along its bank, is no other than the duchess, attended by emilia pia and the other ladies of her court. "the good shepherd, who rules these happy fields and holy lands," is duke guidubaldo. then follow compliments to all the interlocutors of the _cortegiano_. bembo is the shepherd, "who hither came from the bosom of hadria." the "ancient shepherd, honored by all, who wears a wreath of sacred laurel," is morello da ortona. the tuscan shepherd, "wise and learned in all arts," must either be bernardo accolti or else giuliano de' medici. and yonder shepherd from the mincio is lodovico da canossa. a chorus of shepherds and a morris-dance relieved the recitation, which was also enlivened by the introduction of one solo, sung by iola. thus in this early specimen of the pastoral mask we observe that confusion of things real and things ideal, of past and present, of imaginary rustics and living courtiers, which was destined to prove the bane of the species and to render it a literary plague in every european capital. the radical fault existed in virgil's treatment of the syracusan idyl. but each remove from its source rendered the falsehood more obnoxious. in spenser's eclogues the awkwardness is greater than in castiglione's. before teresa maria the absurdity was more apparent than before elizabeth. at last the common sense of the public could no longer tolerate the sham, and arcadia, with its make-believe and flattery and allegory, became synonymous with affectation. [footnote 278: it was printed in 1486.] [footnote 279: see the _poesie volgari e latine del conte b. castiglione_ (roma 1760), pp. 7-26.] it is no part of my programme to follow the development of the pastoral drama through all its stages in italy.[280] for the end of this chapter i reserve certain necessary remarks upon its masterpieces, the _aminta_ and the _pastor fido_. at present it will suffice to indicate the fact that, on the stage, as in the eclogue, bucolic poetry followed two distinct directions--the one arcadian and artificial, the other national and closely modeled on popular forms. the _nencia da barberino_ and _beca da dicomano_ of lorenzo de' medici and luigi pulci belong to the latter class of eclogues.[281] their corresponding forms in dramatic verse are berni's _catrina_ and _mogliazzo_, together with the _tancia_ and _fiera_ of michelangelo buonarroti the younger.[282] if it is impossible to render any adequate account of pastoral drama, to do this for bucolic idyls would be no less difficult. their name in latin and italian is legion. poets so different in all things else as were girolamo benivieni, antonio tebaldeo, sperone speroni, bernardino baldi, benedetto varchi, and luigi tansillo--to mention only men of some distinction--brought mopsus and tityrus, menalcas and melibæus, amaryllis and cydippe, from virgil's arcadia, and made them talk interminably of their loves and sheep in delicate italian.[283] folengo's sharp satiric wit, as we shall remark in another chapter, finally pursued them with the shafts of ridicule in _baldus_ and _zanitonella_. thus pastoral poetry completed the whole cycle of italian literature--expressed itself through dialogue in the drama, adhered to virgilian precedent in the latinists and their italian followers, adopted the forms of popular poetry, and finally submitted to the degradation of maccaronic burlesque. [footnote 280: to do so would be almost impossible within lesser limits than those of a bulky volume. any one who wishes to form a conception of the multitudes of pastoral plays written and printed in italy, may consult the catalogues. i have before me one list, which i do not believe to be complete, in the _teatro italiano_, vol. x. it occupies twenty-seven closely-printed pages, and is devoted solely to rural scenes of actual life. the arcadian masks and plays are omitted. mutinelli, in the _annali urbani di venezia_, p. 541, gives a list of the shows performed at doges' banquets between 1574 and 1605. the large majority are pastoral; and it is noticeable that, as years go on, the pastorals drive all other forms of drama out of the field.] [footnote 281: see above, part i., pp. 381, 382.] [footnote 282: for berni, see barbèra's small edition, florence, 1863. for buonarroti, lemonnier's edition in two volumes, 1860.] [footnote 283: see _poesie pastorali e rusticali_ (milano, _classici italiani_, 1808) for a fairly representative collection of these authors.] we can well afford to turn in silence from the common crowd of eclogue-writers. yet one poet emerges from the rank and file, and deserves particular attention. francesco maria molza stood foremost in his own day among scholars of ripe erudition and literary artists of accomplished skill. his high birth, his genial conversation, his loves and his misfortunes rendered him alike illustrious; and his _ninfa tiberina_ is still the sweetest pastoral of the golden age. molza was born in 1489 at modena. since his parents were among the richest and noblest people of that city, it is probable that he acquired the greek and latin scholarship, for which he was in after-life distinguished, under tutors at home. at the age of sixteen he went to rome in order to learn hebrew, and was at once recognized as a youth of more than ordinary promise by men like marcantonio flamminio and lilio giraldi. in 1512 he returned to modena, where he married according to his rank. his wife brought him four children, and he passed a few years at this period with his family. but molza soon wearied of domestic and provincial retirement. in 1516 he left home again and plunged into the dissipations of roman life. from this date forward till his death in 1544 he must be reckoned among those italians for whom rome was dearer than their native cities. the brilliance of his literary fame and the affection felt for him by men of note in every part of italy will not distract attention from the ignobility of his career. faithless to his wife, neglectful of his children, continually begging money from his father, he passed his manhood in a series of amours. some of these were respectable, but most of them disreputable. a certain furnia, a low-born beatrice paregia, and the notorious faustina mancina are to be mentioned among the women who from time to time enslaved him. in the course of his intrigue with beatrice he received a stab in the back from some obscure rival, which put him in peril of his life. for faustina he composed the _ninfa tiberina_. she was a roman courtesan, so famous for her beauty and fine breeding as to attract the sympathy of even severe natures. when she died, the town went into mourning, and the streets echoed with elegiac lamentations. it is curious that among michelangelo's sonnets should be found one--not, however, of the best--written upon this occasion. while seeking amusement with the imperias, who took aspasia's place in papal rome, molza formed a temporary attachment for a more illustrious lady--the beautiful and witty camilla gonzaga. he passed two years, between 1523 and 1525, in her society at bologna. after his return to rome, molza witnessed the miseries of the sack, which made so doleful an impression on his mind that, saddened for a moment, he retired like the prodigal to modena. rome, however, although not destined to regain the splendor she had lost, shook off the dust and blood of 1527; and there were competent observers who, like aretino, thought her still more reckless in vice than she had been before. molza could not long resist the attractions of the papal city. in 1529 we find him once more in rome, attached to the person of ippolito de' medici, and delighting the academies with his wit. two years afterwards, his father and mother died on successive days of august. molza celebrated their death in one of the most lovely of his many sonnets. but his ill life and obstinate refusal to settle at modena had disinherited him; and henceforth he lived upon his son camillo's bounty. to follow his literary biography at this period would be tantamount to writing the history of the two famous academies _delle virtù_ and _de' vignaiuoli_. of both he was a most distinguished member. he amused them with his conversation, recited before them his _capitoli_, and charmed them with the softness and the sweetness of his manners. numbers of his sonnets commemorate the friendships he made in those urbane circles. from the interchange, indeed, of occasional poems between such men as molza, soranzo, gandolfo, caro, varchi, guidiccioni, and la casa, the materials for forming a just conception of he inner life of men of letters at that epoch must be drawn. they breathe a spirit of gentle urbanity, enlivened by jests, and saddened by a sense, rather uneasy than oppressive, of italian disaster. the moral tone is pensive and relaxed; and in spite of frequent references to a corrupt church and a lost nation, scarcely one spark of rage or passion flashes from the dreamy eyes that gaze at us. leave us alone, they seem to say; it is true that florence has been enslaved, and the shadow of disgrace rests upon our rome; but what have we to do with it? and then they turn to indite sonnets on faustina's hair or elegies upon her modesty[284]; and when they are tired with these recreations, meet together to invent ingenious obscenities.[285] it was in the midst of such trifling that the great misfortune of molza's life befell him. the disease of the renaissance, not the least of italy's scourges in those latter days of heedlessness and dissolute living, overtook him in some haunt of pleasure. after 1539 he languished miserably under the infliction, and died of it, having first suffered a kind of slow paralysis, in february 1544. during the last months of his illness his thoughts turned to the home and children he had deserted. the exquisitely beautiful latin elegy, in which he recorded the misery of slow decay, speaks touchingly, if such a late and valueless repentance can be touching, of his yearning for them.[286] in the autumn of 1543, accordingly, he managed to crawl back to modena; and it was there he breathed his last, offering to the world as his biographer is careful to assure us, a rare example of christian resignation and devotion.[287] all the men of the renaissance died in the odor of piety; and molza, as many of his sonnets prove, had true religious feeling. he was not a bad man, though a weak one. in the flaccidity of his moral fiber, his intellectual and æsthetical serenity, his confused and yet contented conscience, he fairly represents his age. [footnote 284: of molza's many sonnets upon this woman and her death, see especially nos. cxi. cxii.] [footnote 285: in the chapter on burlesque poetry i shall have to justify this remark.] [footnote 286: see _revival of learning_, p. 488.] [footnote 287: the best life of molza is that written by pierantonio serassi, bergamo, 1747. it is republished, with molza's italian poems, in the series of _classici italiani_, 1808.] it would be difficult to choose between molza's latin and italian poems, were it necessary to award the palm of elegance to either. both are marked by the same _morbidezza_, the same pliancy, as of acanthus leaves that feather round the marble of some roman ruin. both are languid alike and somewhat tiresome, in spite of a peculiar fragrance. i have sought through upwards of 350 sonnets contained in two collections of his italian works, for one with the ring of true virility or for one sufficiently perfect in form to bear transplantation. it is not difficult to understand their popularity during the poet's lifetime. none are deficient in touches of delicate beauty, spontaneous images, and sentiments expressed with much lucidity. and their rhythms are invariably melodious. reading them, we might seem to be hearing flutes a short way from us played beside a rippling stream. and yet--or rather, perhaps, for this very reason--our attention is not riveted. the most distinctly interesting note in them is sounded when the poet speaks of rome. he felt the charm of the seven hills, and his melancholy was at home among their ruins. yet even upon this congenial topic it would be difficult to select a single poem of commanding power. the _ninfa tiberina_ is a monody of eighty-one octave stanzas, addressed by the poet, feigning himself a shepherd, to faustina, whom he feigns a nymph. it has nothing real but the sense of beauty that inspired it, the beauty, exquisite but soulless, that informs its faultless pictures and mellifluous rhythms. we are in a dream-world of fictitious feelings and conventional images, where only art remains sincere and unaffected. the proper point of view from which to judge these stanzas, is the simply æsthetic. he who would submit to their influence and comprehend the poet's aim, must come to the reading of them attuned by contemplation of contemporary art. the arabesques of the loggie, the metal-work of cellini, the stucchi of the palazzo del te, sansovino's bass-reliefs of fruits and garlands, albano's cupids, supply the necessary analogues. poliziano's _giostra_ demanded a similar initiation. but between the _giostra_ and the _ninfa tiberina_ italian art had completed her cycle from early florence to late rome, from botticelli and donatello to giulio romano and cellini. the freshness of the dawn has been lost in fervor of noonday. faustina succeeds to the fair simonetta. molza cannot "recapture the first fine careless rapture" of poliziano's morning song--so exuberant and yet so delicate, so full of movement, so tender in its sentiment of art. the _voluttà idillica_, which opened like a rosebud in the _giostra_, expands full petals in the _ninfa tiberina_; we dare not shake them, lest they fall. and these changes are indicated even by the verse. it was the glory of poliziano to have discovered the various harmonies, of which the octave, artistically treated, is capable, and to have made each stanza a miniature masterpiece. under molza's treatment the verse is heavier and languid, not by reason of relapse into the negligence of boccaccio, but because he aims at full development of its resources. he weaves intricate periods, and sustains a single sentence, with parentheses and involutions, from the opening of the stanza to its close. given these conditions, the _ninfa tiberina_ is all nectar and all gold. after an exordium, which introduces la bella ninfa mia, che al tebro infiora col piè le sponde, molza calls upon the shepherds to transfer their vows to her from pales. she shall be made the goddess of the spring, and claim an altar by pomona's. here let the rustic folk play, dance, and strive in song. hither let them bring their gifts.[288] io dieci pomi di fin oro eletto, ch'a te pendevan con soave odore, simil a quel, che dal tuo vago petto spira sovente, onde si nutre amore, ti sacro umil; e se n'avrai diletto, doman col novo giorno uscendo fuore, per soddisfar in parte al gran disio, altrettanti cogliendo a te gl'invio. e d'ulivo una tazza, ch'ancor serba quel puro odor, che già le diede il torno, nel mezzo a cui si vede in vista acerba portar smarrito un giovinetto il giorno, e sì 'l carro guidar che accende l'erba, e sin al fondo i fiumi arde d'intorno, stolto che mal tener seppe il viaggio, e il consiglio seguir fedele e saggio! [footnote 288: ten apples of fine gold, elect and rare, which hung for thee, and softest perfume shed, like unto that which from thy bosom fair doth often breathe, whence love is nourishéd, humbly i offer; and if thou shalt care, to-morrow with the dawn yon fields i'll tread, my great desire some little to requite, plucking another ten for thy delight. also an olive cup, where still doth cling that pure perfume it borrowed from the lathe, where in the midst a fair youth ruining conducts the day, and with such woeful scathe doth guide his car, that to their deepest spring the rivers burn, and burn the grasses rathe; ah fool, who knew not how to hold his way, nor by that counsel leal and wise to stay!] the description of the olive cup is carried over the next five stanzas, when the poet turns to complain that faustina does not care for his piping. and yet pan joined the rustic reeds; and amphion breathed through them such melody as held the hills attentive; and silenus taught how earth was made, and how the seasons come and go, with his sweet pipings. even yet, perchance, she will incline and listen, if only he can find for her some powerful charm. come forth, he cries, repeating the address to galatea, leave tiber to chafe within his banks and hurry toward the sea. come to my fields and caves:[289] a te di bei corimbi un antro ingombra, e folto indora d'elicrisi nembo l'edera bianca, e sparge sì dolce ombra, che tosto tolta a le verd'erbe in grembo d'ogni grave pensier te n'andrai sgombra; e sparso in terra il bel ceruleo lembo, potrai con l'aura, ch'ivi alberga il colle, seguir securo sonno dolce e molle. [footnote 289: white ivy with pale corymbs loads for thee that cave, and with thick folds of helichryse gildeth the arch it shades so lovingly; here lapped in the green grass which round it lies, thou shalt dismiss grave thoughts, and fancy-free spread wide thy skirt of fair cerulean dyes, and with the wholesome airs that haunt the hill, welcome sweet soothing sleep, secure from ill.] it is perilous for thee to roam the shores where mars met ilia. o father tiber, deal gently with so fair a maiden. it was thou who erewhile saved the infant hope of rome, whom the she-wolf suckled near thine overflow! but such themes soar too high for shepherd's pipings. i turn to caro and to varchi. both are shepherds, who know how to stir the streams of mincius and arethuse. even the gods have lived in forest wild, among the woods, and there anchises by the side of venus pressed the flowers. what gifts shall i find for my faustina? daphnis and moeris are richer far than i. how can i contend with them in presents to the fair? and yet she heeds them not: tanto d'ogni altrui dono poco si cura questa vaga angioletta umile e pura. my passion weighs upon me as love weighed on aristæus. he forgot his flocks, his herds, his gardens, even his beehives for eurydice. his heartache made him mad, and he pursued her over field and forest. she fled before him, but he followed:[290] la sottil gonna in preda a i venti resta, e col crine ondeggiando addietro torna: ella più ch'aura, o più che strale, presta per l'odorata selva non soggiorna; tanto che il lito prende snella e mesta, fatta per paura assai più adorna: fende aristeo la vagha selva anch'egli, e la man parle aver entro i capegli. tre volte innanzi la man destra spinse per pigliar de le chiome il largo invito; tre volte il vento solamente strinse, e restò lasso senza fin schernito: nè stanchezza però tardollo o vinse, perchè tornasse il pensier suo fallito; anzi quanto mendico più si sente, tanto s'affretta, non che il corso allente. [footnote 290: her rippling raiment, to the winds a prey, waves backward with her wavering tresses light; faster than air or arrow, without stay she through the perfumed wood pursues her flight; then takes the river-bed, nor heeds delay, made even yet more beautiful by fright; threads aristæus, too, the forest fair, and seems to have his hands within her hair. three times he thrust his right hand forth to clasp the abundance of her curls that lured him on; three times the wind alone deceived his grasp, leaving him scorned, with all his hopes undone; yet not the toil that made him faint and gasp, could turn him from his purpose still unwon; nay, all the while, the more his strength is spent, the more he hurries on the course intent.] the story of eurydice occupies twenty-nine stanzas, and with it the poem ends abruptly. it is full of carefully-wrought pictures, excessively smooth and sugared, recalling the superficial manner of the later roman painters. even in the passage that describes eurydice's agony, just quoted, the forest is _odorata_ or _vagha_. fear and flight make the maiden more _adorna_. the ruffian aristæus gets tired in the chase. he, too, must be presented in a form of elegance. not the action, but how the action might be made a groundwork for embroidery of beauty, is the poet's care. we quit the _ninfa tiberina_ with senses swooning under superfluity of sweetness--as though we had inhaled the breath of hyacinths in a heated chamber. closely allied to bucolic stands didactic poetry. the _works and days_ of hesiod and the _georgics_ of virgil--the latter far more effectually, however, than the former--determined this style for the italians. we have already seen to what extent the neo-latin poets cultivated a form of verse that, more than any other, requires the skill of a great artist and the inspiration of true poetry, if it is to shun intolerable tedium.[291] the best didactic poems written in latin by an italian are undoubtedly poliziano's _sylvæ_, and of these the most refined is the _rusticus_.[292] but poliziano, in composing them, struck out a new line. he did not follow his virgilian models closely. he chose the form of declamation to an audience, in preference to the time-honored usage of apostrophizing a patron. this relieves the _sylvæ_ from the absurdity of the poet's feigning to instruct a memmius or augustus, a francis i. or charles v., in matters about which those warriors and rulers can have felt but a frigid interest. pontano's _urania_ and _de hortis hesperidum_ are almost free from the same blemish. the former is addressed to his son lucius, but in words so brief and simple that we recognize the propriety of a father giving this instruction to his child.[293] the latter is dedicated to francesco gonzaga, marquis of mantua, who receives complimentary panegyrics in the exordium and peroration, but does not interfere with the structure of the poem. its chief honors are reserved, as is right and due, for virgil:[294]- dryades dum munera vati annua, dum magno texunt nova serta maroni, e molli violâ et ferrugineis hyacinthis, quasque fovent teneras sebethi flumina myrtos. [footnote 291: _revival of learning_, chap. viii.] [footnote 292: _ibid._ pp. 453-463.] [footnote 293: tu vero nate ingentes accingere ad orsus et mecum illustres coeli spatiare per oras, namque aderit tibi mercurius, cui coelifer atlas est avus, et notas puerum puer instruet artes. ed. aldus (1513), p. 2.] [footnote 294: _ibid._ p. 138.] pontano's greatness, here as elsewhere, is shown in his mytho-poetic faculty. the lengthy dissertation on the heavens and the lighter discourse on orange-cultivation are adorned and enlivened with innumerable legends suggested to his fertile fancy by the beauty of neapolitan scenery. when we reach the age of vida and fracastoro, we find ourselves in the full tide of virgilian imitation[295]; and it is just at this point in our inquiry that the transition from latin to italian didactic poetry should be effected. [footnote 295: see _revival of learning_, pp. 471-481, for notices of the _poetica_, _bombyces_, _scacchia_ and _syphilis_.] giovanni rucellai, the son of that bernardo, who opened his famous florentine gardens to the platonic academy, was born in 1475. as the author of _rosmunda_, he has already appeared in this book. when he died, in 1526, he bequeathed a little poem on bees to his brother palla and his friend gian giorgio trissino. trissino and rucellai had been intimate at florence and in rome. they wrote the _sofonisba_ and _rosmunda_ in generous rivalry, meeting from time to time to compare notes of progress and to recite their verses. an eye-witness related to scipione ammirato how "these two dearest friends, when they were together in a room, would jump upon a bench and declaim pieces of their tragedies, calling upon the audience to decide between them on the merits of the plays."[296] trissino received the ms. of his friend's posthumous poem at padua, and undertook to see it through the press. the _api_ was published at venice in 1539.[297] what remained to be said or sung about bees after the fourth georgic? very little indeed, it must be granted. yet the _api_ is no mere translation from virgil; and though the higher qualities of variety invention and imagination were denied to rucellai, though he can show no passages of pathos to compete with the _corycius senex_, of humor to approach the battle of the hives, no episode, it need be hardly said, to match with _pastor aristæus_, still his modest poem is a monument of pure taste and classical correctness. it is the work of a ripe scholar and melodious versifier, if not of a great singer; and its diction belongs to the best period of polite italian. [footnote 296: see morsolin's _giangiorgio trissino_ (vicenza, 1878), p. 92.] [footnote 297: _ibid._ p. 245.] the same moderate praise might be awarded to the more ambitious poem of luigi alamanni, entitled _coltivazione_, but for its immoderate prolixity.[298] alamanni resolved to combine the precepts of hesiod, virgil and varro, together with the pastoral passages of lucretius, in one work, adapting them to modern usage, and producing a comprehensive treatise upon farming. with this object he divided his poem into six books, the first four devoted to the labors of the several seasons, the fifth to gardens, and the sixth to lucky and unlucky days. on a rough computation, the whole six contain some 5,500 lines. _la coltivazione_ is dedicated to francis i., and is marred by inordinate flatteries of the french people and their king. students who have the heart to peruse its always chaste and limpidly flowing blank verse, will be rewarded from time to time with passages like the following, in which the sad circumstances of the poet and the pathos of his regrets for italy raise the style to more than usual energy and dignity:[299] ma qual paese è quello ove oggi possa, glorioso francesco, in questa guisa il rustico cultor goderse in pace l'alte fatiche sue sicuro e lieto? non già il bel nido ond'io mi sto lontano, non già l'italia mia; che poichè lunge ebbe, altissimo re, le vostre insegne, altro non ebbe mai che pianto e guerra. i colti campi suoi son fatti boschi, son fatti albergo di selvagge fere, lasciati in abbandono a gente iniqua. il bifulco e 'l pastor non puote appena in mezzo alle città viver sicuro nel grembo al suo signor; chè di lui stesso che 'l devria vendicar, divien rapina ... fuggasi lunge omai dal seggio antico l'italico villan; trapassi l'alpi; truove il gallico sen; sicuro posi sotto l'ali, signor, del vostro impero. e se quì non avrà, come ebbe altrove così tepido il sol, sì chiaro il cielo, se non vedrà quei verdi colli toschi, ove ha il nido più bello palla e pomona; se non vedrà quei cetri, lauri e mirti, che del partenopeo veston le piagge; se del benaco e di mill'altri insieme non saprà quì trovar le rive e l'onde; se non l'ombra, gli odor, gli scogli ameni che 'l bel liguro mar circonda e bagna; se non l'ampie pianure e i verdi prati che 'l po, l'adda e 'l tesin rigando infiora, quì vedrà le campagne aperte e liete, che senza fine aver vincon lo sguardo, etc.[300] [footnote 298: see _versi e prose di luigi alamanni_, 2 vols., lemonnier, firenze, 1859. this edition is prefaced by a life written by pietro raffaelli.] [footnote 299: _op. cit._ vol. ii p. 210. it is the opening of the peroration to book i.] [footnote 300: "but what land is that where now, o glorious francis, the husbandman may thus enjoy his labors with gladness and tranquillity in peace? not the fair nest, from which i dwell so far away; nay, not my italy! she since your ensigns, mighty king, withdrew from her, hath had naught else but tears and war. her tilled fields have become wild woods, the haunts of beasts, abandoned to lawless men. herdsman or shepherd can scarce dwell secure within the city beneath their master's mantle; for those who should defend them, make the country folk their prey.... let italy's husbandman fly far from his own home, pass the alpine barrier, seek out the breast of gaul, repose, great lord, beneath thy empire's pinions! and though he shall not have the sun so warm, the skies so clear, as he was wont to have; though he shall not gaze upon those green tuscan hills, where pallas and pomona make their fairest dwelling; though he shall not see those groves of orange, laurel, myrtle, which clothe the slopes of parthenope; though he shall seek in vain the banks and waves of garda and a hundred other lakes; the shade, the perfume, and the pleasant crags, which liguria's laughing sea surrounds and bathes; the ample plains and verdant meadows which flower beneath the waters of po, adda, and ticino; yet shall he behold glad fields and open, spreading too far for eyes to follow!"] luigi alamanni was the member of a noble florentine family, who for several generations had been devoted to the medicean cause. he was born in 1495, and early joined the band of patriots and scholars who assembled in the rucellai gardens to hear machiavelli read his notes on livy. after the discovery of the conspiracy against cardinal giulio de' medici, in which machiavelli was implicated, and which cost his cousin luigi di tommaso alamanni and his friend jacopo del diacceto their lives, luigi escaped across the mountains by borgo san sepolcro to urbino. finally, after running many risks, and being imprisoned for a while at brescia by giulio's emissaries, he made good his flight to france. his wife and three children had been left at florence. he was poor and miserable, suffering as only exiles suffer when their home is such a paradise as italy. in 1527, after the expulsion of the medici, luigi returned to florence, and took an active part in the preparations for the siege as well as in the diplomatic negotiations which followed the fall of the city. alessandro de' medici declared him a rebel; and he was forced to avail himself again of french protection. with the exception of a few years passed in italy between 1537 and 1540, the rest of his life was spent as a french courtier. both francis i. and henri ii. treated him with distinction and bounty. catherine de medicis made him her master of the household; and his son received the bishopric of macon. in 1556 he died at amboise following the court. luigi alamanni was the greatest italian poet of whose services francis i. could boast, as cellini was the greatest italian artist. his works are numerous, and all are marked by the same qualities of limpid facility, tending to prolixity and feebleness. sonnets and _canzoni_, satires, romantic epics, eclogues, translations, comedies, he tried them all. his translation of the _antigone_ deserves commendation for its style. his _flora_ is curious for its attempt to reproduce the comic iambic of the latin poets. if his satires dealt less in generalities, they might aspire to comparison with ariosto's. as it is, the poet's bile vents itself in abstract invectives, of which the following verses upon rome may stand for a fair specimen:[301] or chi vedesse il ver, vedrebbe come più disnor tu, che 'l tuo luter martino, porti a te stessa, e più gravose some. non la germania, no, ma l'ozio e 'l vino, avarizia, ambizion, lussuria, e gola ti mena al fin, che già veggiam vicino. non pur questo dico io, non francia sola, non pur la spagna, tutta italia ancora che ti tien d'eresia, di vizi scola. e chi nol crede, ne dimandi ognora urbin, ferrara, l'orso, e la colonna, la marca, il romagnuol, ma più chi plora per te servendo, che fu d'altri donna. [footnote 301: vol. i. p. 251. it is the end of the third satire. "he who saw truly, would perceive that thyself brings on thee more dishonor than thy martin luther, and heavier burdens too. not germany, no, but sloth and wine, avarice, ambition, sensuality, and gluttony, are bringing thee to thy now near approaching end. it is not i who say this, not france alone, nor yet spain, but all italy, which holds thee for the school of heresy and vice. he who believes it not, let him inquire of urbino, ferrara, the bear and the column, the marches and romagna, yet more of her who weeps because you make her serve, who was once mistress over nations."] alamanni is said to have been an admirable improvisatore; and this we can readily believe, for his verses even when they are most polished, flow with a placidity of movement that betrays excessive case. we have traced the pastoral ideal from its commencement in boccaccio, through the _arcadia_ of sannazzaro, poliziano's _orfeo_, and the didactic poets, up to the point when it was destined soon to find its perfect form in the _aminta_ and the _pastor fido_. both tasso and guarini lived beyond the chronological limits assigned to this work. the renaissance was finished; and italy had passed into a new phase of existence, under the ecclesiastical reaction which is called the counter-reformation. it is no part of my programme to enter with particularity into the history of the second half of the sixteenth century. and yet the subject of this and the preceding chapter would be incomplete were i not to notice the two poems which combined the drama and the pastoral in a work of art no less characteristic for the people and the age than fruitful of results for european literature. great tragedy and great comedy were denied to the italians. but they produced a novel species in the pastoral drama, which testified to their artistic originality, and led by natural transitions to the opera. poetry was on the point of expiring; but music was rising to take her place. and the imaginative medium prepared by the lyrical scenes of the arcadian play, afforded just that generality and aloofness from actual conditions of life, which were needed by the new art in its first dramatic essays. it would be a mistake to suppose that because the form of the arcadian romance was artificial, it could not lend itself to the presentation of real passion when adapted to the theater. the study of the _aminta_ and the _pastor fido_ is sufficient to remove this misconception. though the latter is the more carefully constructed of the two, the plot in either case presents a series of emotional situations, developed with refined art and expressed with lyrical abundance. the rustic fable is but a veil, through which the everlasting lineaments of love are shown. arcadia, stripped of pedantry and affectation, has become the ideal world of sentiment. like amber, it incloses in its glittering transparency the hopes and fears, the pains and joys, which flit from heart to heart of men and women when they love. the very conventionality of the pastoral style assists the lyrical utterance of real feeling. for it must be borne in mind that both _aminta_ and the _pastor fido_ are essentially lyrical. the salt and savor of each play are in their choruses and monologues. the dialogue, the fable and the characters serve to supply the poet with motives for emotion that finds vent in song. this being conceded, it will be understood how from their scenes as a whole world of melodrama issued. whatever may have been the subject of an opera before the days of gluck, it drew its life-blood from these pastorals. the central motive of _aminta_ and the _pastor fido_ is the contrast between the actual world of ambition, treachery and sordid strife, and the ideal world of pleasure, loyalty and tranquil ease. nature is placed in opposition to civil society, the laws of honor to the laws of love, the manners of arcadia to the manners of italy. this cardinal motive finds its highest utterance in tasso's chorus on the age of gold: o bella età dell'oro, non già perchè di latte sen corse il fiume, e stillò mele il bosco; non perchè i frutti loro dier dall'aratro intatte le terre, e gli angui erràr senz'ira o tosco; non perchè nuvol fosco non spiegò allor suo velo, ma in primavera eterna, ch'ora s'accende, e verna, rise di luce e di sereno il cielo; nè portò peregrino o guerra, o mercè agli altrui lidi il pino: ma sol perchè quel vano nome senza oggetto, quell'idolo d'errori, idol d'inganno, quel che dal volgo insano onor poscia fu detto, che di nostra natura 'l feo tiranno, non mischiava il suo affanno fra le liete dolcezze dell'amoroso gregge; nè fu sua dura legge nota a quell'alme in libertate avvezze: ma legge aurea e felice, che natura scolpì, "s'ei piace, ei lice." the last phrase, _s'ei piace, ei lice_, might be written on the frontispiece of both dramas, together with dafne's sigh: _il mondo invecchia, e invecchiando intristisce_. of what use is life unless we love? amiam, che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; a noi sua breve luce s'asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce. the girl who wastes her youth in proud virginity, prepares a sad old age of vain regret: cangia, cangia consiglio, pazzarella che sei; che 'l pentirsi da sezzo nulla giova. it is the old cry of the florentine _canti_ and _ballate_, "gather ye rose-buds while ye may!" _di doman non c'è certezza._ and the stories of _aminta_ and _pastor fido_ teach the same lesson, that nature's laws cannot be violated, that even fate and the most stubborn bosoms bow to love. of the music and beauty of these two dramas, i find it difficult to speak. before some masterpieces criticism bends in silence. we cannot describe what must be felt. all the melodies that had been growing through two centuries in italy, are concentrated in their songs. the idyllic voluptuousness, which permeated literature and art, steeps their pictures in a golden glow. it is easy enough to object that their apparent simplicity conceals seduction, that their sentimentalism is unmanly, and their suggestions of physical beauty effeminating:- ma come silvia il ricconobbe, e vide le belle guance tenere d'aminta iscolorite in sì leggiadri modi, che viola non è che impallidisca sì dolcemente, e lui languir sì fatto, che parea già ultimi sospiri esalar l'alma; in guisa di baccante, gridando e percotendosi il bel petto, lasciò cadersi in sul giacente corpo; e giunse viso a viso, e bocca a bocca. this passage warns us that an age of _cicisbei_ and _castrati_ has begun, and that the italian sensuousness has reached its final dissolution. silvia's kisses in _aminta_, mirtillo's kisses in _pastor fido_, introduce a new refinement of enervation. marino with his _adone_ is not distant. but, while we recognize in both these poems--the one perfumed and delicate like flowers of spring, the other sculptured in pure forms of classic grace--evident signs of a civilization sinking to decay; though we almost loathe the beauty which relaxes every chord of manhood in the soul that feels it; we are bound to confess that to this goal the italian genius had been steadily advancing since the publication of the _filocopo_. the negation of chivalry, mysticism, asceticism, is accomplished. after traversing the cycle of comedy, romance, satire, burlesque poetry, the plastic arts, and invading every province of human thought, the italian reaction against the middle ages assumes a final shape of hitherto unapprehended loveliness in the _aminta_ and the _pastor fido_. they complete and close the renaissance, bequeathing in a new species of art its form and pressure to succeeding generations. chapter xiii. the purists. the italians lose their language--prejudice against the mother tongue--problem of the dialects--want of a metropolis--the tuscan classics--petrarch and boccaccio--dante rejected--false attitude of the petrarchisti--renaissance sense of beauty unexpressed in lyric--false attitude of boccaccio's followers--ornamental prose--speron sperone--the dictator bembo--his conception of the problem--the _asolani_--grammatical essay--treatise on the language--poems--letters--bembo's place in the _cortegiano_--castiglione on italian style--his good sense--controversies on the language--academical spirit--innumerable poetasters--la casa--his life--_il forno_--peculiar melancholy--his sonnets--guidiccioni's poems on italy--court life--caro and castelvetro--their controversies--castelvetro accused of heresy--literary ladies--veronica gambara--vittoria colonna--her life--her friendship for michelangelo--life of bernardo tasso--his _amadigi_ and other works--life of giangiorgio trissino--his quarrel with his son giulio--his critical works--the _italia liberata_. it was the misfortune of the italians that, when culture had become national and the revival of the vulgar literature had been effected, they found themselves in nearly the same relation to their own language as to latin. after more than a hundred years absorbed in humanistic studies, the authors of the fourteenth century were hardly less remote than the augustan classics; and to all but tuscans their diction was almost foreign. at the beginning of the _cinque cento_, the living mother-tongue of italy which dante sought--the _vulgare, quod superius venabamur, quod in qualibet redolet civitate, nec cubat in ulla_--was still to seek. since the composition of dante's essay _de vulgari eloquio_, the literary activity of the nation had, indeed, created a desire for some fixed standard of style in modern speech. but the experiments of the _quattro cento_ had not far advanced the matter. they only proved that tuscan was the dialect to imitate, and that success in the future must depend on adherence to the tuscan authors. hence it happened that petrarch and boccaccio came to be studied with the same diligence, the same obsequious reverence, as cicero and virgil. italian was written with no less effort after formal purity, no less minute observance of rules, than if it had been a dead language. at the same time, as a consequence of this system, the vices of the humanistic style--its tendency to servile imitation, emptiness, rhetorical verbosity, and preference of form to matter--were imported into the vernacular literature. while noting these drawbacks, which attended the resurgence of italian at an epoch when the whole nation began to demand a common language, we must give due credit to the sagacity displayed by scholars at that epoch in grappling with the problem before them. the main points at issue were, _first_, to overcome the prejudice against the mother tongue, which still lingered among educated people; _secondly_, to adjust italian to the standards of taste established by the humanistic movement; and, _thirdly_, to decide whether tuscan should reign supreme, or be merged in a speech more representative of the italians as a nation. early in the century, the battle of italian against latin was practically won. there remained no obstinate antagonism to a purely national and modern literature. still the type to which this literature should conform, the laws by which it should be regulated, were as yet unsettled. these questions had to be decided by intelligence rather than by instinct; for the italians possessed no common medium of conversation, no common opportunities of forensic or parliamentary debate. that insensible process whereby french style has been modeled on the usages of conversation, and english style has been adapted to the tone of oratory, had to be performed, so far as this was possible, by conscious analysis. the italians were aware that they lacked a language, and they set themselves deliberately to remedy this defect. these peculiar circumstances gave a pedantic tone to the discussion of the problem. yet the problem itself was neither puerile nor pedantic. it concerned nothing less than the formation of an instrument of self-expression for a people, who had reached the highest grade of artistic skill in the exercise of the dead languages, and who, though intellectually raised to an equality of culture, were divided by tenacious local differences. that petrarch and boccaccio should have been chosen as models of classical italian style, was not only natural but inevitable. writers, trained in the method of the humanists, required the guidance of authoritative masters. just as they used cicero and virgil for the correction of medieval latin, so petrarch and boccaccio were needed for the castigation of homespun dialects. dante, had he been comprehended by such men, would not have satisfied ears educated in the niceties of latin versification; nor could the builders of ciceronian perorations have revived the simple prose of the villani. petrarch contented their sense of polish; boccaccio supplied them with intricate periods and cadences of numerous prose. yet the choice was in either case unfortunate, though for somewhat different reasons. it was impossible for poets of the sixteenth century to follow petrarch to the very letter of his diction, without borrowing his tone. consequently these versifiers affected to languish and adore, wove conceits and complained of cruelty, in the fashion of vaucluse. their facile mistresses became lauras; or else they draped a lay-figure, and wrote sonnets to its painted eyebrows. the confusion between literary ceremony and practical experience of passion wrought an ineradicable discord. authors of indecent burlesques penned platonic odes. bembo, who was answerable for the _menta_ in its latin form, praised his mistress morosina in polished sonnets and elegiac threnodies. firenzuola published the poems to selvaggia and the _capitolo_ in praise of a specific against infamous diseases. la casa gratified the same academies with his panegyric of the oven and his scholastic exercises in a metaphysical emotion. reading thee diverse compositions side by side, we wake to the conviction that the petrarchistic counterfeits, however excellent in form, have precisely the same mediocrity as sannazzaro's epic, while the bernesque effusions express the crudest temper of the men who wrote them. the one class of poems is redolent of affectation, the other of coarse realism. the middle term between these opposites is wanting. nor could it well be otherwise. the conditions of society in the sixteenth century rendered petrarch's sentiment impossible. his melancholy, engendered by the contest between passion and religious duty, had become a thing of the far past. the license of the times rendered this halting between two impulses ridiculous, when no man was found to question the divine right of natural appetite. even the reverential attitude assumed by petrarch as a lover, was out of date; and when his imitators aped it, their insincerity was patent. the highest enthusiasm of the renaissance revealed itself through the plastic arts in admiration for corporeal beauty. this feeling, while it easily degenerated into sensuality, had no point of contact with petrarch's medieval platonism. therefore the tone of the petrarchisti was hypocritical, and the love they professed, a sham. we have a further reason for resenting this devotion to a poet with whose habitual mood the men of that age could not sympathize. we know that they had much to say which remained buried beneath their fourteenth-century disguises. the sincerity of feeling, the fervid passion of poets like bembo, molza, or la casa, cannot be denied. but their emotion found no natural channel of expression. it is not without irritation that we deplore the intellectual conditions of an age, which forced these artists to give forth what they felt in one of two equally artificial forms. between transcription from the latin elegists and reproduction of petrarch there lay for them no choice. consequently, the renaissance lacked its full development upon the side of lyric poetry. the secret of the times remained unspoken--a something analogous to venetian painting, a something indicated in firenzuola's and luigini's dialogues on female beauty, a something indirectly presented in ariosto's episodes, which ought to have been uttered from the heart in song by men who felt the loveliness of plastic form. instead of this lyrical expression of a ruling passion, we have to content ourselves with pseudo-platonic rhymes and with the fervid sensualities of pontano's elegiacs. the sensibility to corporeal beauty, which was abundantly represented by titian, lionardo, raphael, correggio, michelangelo in art, in literature was either shorn of its essential freedom by the limitations of conventional platonism, or exaggerated on the side of animalism by imitation of erotic latin poets. furthermore, we have some right to regard the burlesque obscenity of academical literature as a partial reaction against the hypocritical refinements of the petrarchistic mannerism. thus the deepest instinct of the epoch, that which gave its splendor to the painting of the golden age, found no spontaneous utterance in lyric verse. the academical study of boccaccio proved disastrous for a different reason. in this case there was no division between the master and his pupils; for we have seen already that the author of the decameron anticipated the renaissance in the scope and tenor of his work. but he supplied students with a false standard. his latinizing periods, his involved construction of sentences and oratorical amplification of motives encouraged the worst qualities of humanistic style. boccaccio prevented the italians from forming a masculine prose manner. each writer, whatever might be the subject of his work, aimed at ornate diction. cumbrous and circuitous phrases were admired for their own sake. the simplicity of the chronicles was abandoned for ponderous verbosity, and machiavelli's virile force found no successors in the crowd of academicians who dissected the decameron for flowers of rhetoric. thus the efforts of the purists took a false direction from the outset both in prose and verse. the literature which aimed at being national, began with archaistic exercises; and italy, at the moment of attaining self-consciousness, found herself, without a living language, forced to follow in the steps of antiquated authors. the industry and earnestness of the disciples made their failure the more notable; for while they pursued a track that could not lead to aught but mannerism, they plumed themselves upon the soundness of their method. in order to illustrate the spirit of this movement, i will select a passage from the works of speron sperone, who was by no means the least successful stylist of the period. he is describing his earlier essays in the art of writing and the steps by which he arrived at what he clearly thought to be perfection:[302] "being in all truth desirous beyond measure from my earliest years to speak and to write my thoughts in our mother tongue, and that not so much with a view to being understood, which lies within the scope of every unlettered person, as with the object of placing my name upon the roll of famous men, i neglected every other interest, and gave my whole attention to the reading of petrarch and the hundred novels; in which studies having exercised myself for many months with little profit and without a guide, under the inspiration of god i finally betook me to our revered master trifone gabrielli[303]; by whose kindly assistance i arrived at perfect comprehension of those authors, whom, through ignorance of what i ought to notice, i had frequently before misunderstood. this excellent man and true father of ours first bade me observe the vocables, then gave me rules for knowing the declension and conjugation of nouns and verbs in tuscan, and lastly explained to me articles, pronouns, participles, adverbs, and other parts of speech; so that, collecting all that i had learned, i composed a grammar for myself, by following the which while writing i so controlled my style that in a short space of time the world held me for a man of erudition, and still considers me as such. when it seemed to me that i had taken rank as a grammarian, i set myself, with the utmost expectation of every one who knew me, to the making of verses; and then, my head full of rhythms, sentences and words from petrarch and boccaccio, for a few years, i produced things that appeared wonderful to my judgment; but afterwards, thinking that my vein was beginning to dry up (inasmuch as words frequently failed me, and, not finding what to say in different sonnets, it occurred to me to rehandle the same thoughts), i had recourse to that which all the world does now[304]; for, using the greatest diligence, i composed a rhyming dictionary or vocabulary of italian phrases; in the which i classed by the alphabet every word those two authors had used; moreover i collected in another book their divers ways of describing things, as day, night, anger, peace, hate, love, fear, hope, beauty, in such wise that not a single word or thought came from me which had not its precedent in their sonnets and novels." at this point sperone frankly admits that his practice was too slavish. he then proceeds to tell how he compared petrarch's latin with his vulgar style in order to discover the correct rules of italian versification. "conquered by the arguments and experiments i have described, i returned to my earlier studies; and then, in addition to continual self-exercise in the reading of petrarch (which by itself and without any other artifice may procure great benefit), by fixing my mind more diligently than before upon his modes of diction, i observed (as i believed) certain qualities pertaining in an eminent degree to the poet and also the orator; which, since you desire it, i will briefly expound. in the first place, while numbering and weighing his words one by one, i became aware that i discovered none common and none base, few harsh, all clear, all elegant; and all, moreover, so adapted to common use that one might have supposed he had selected and accumulated them with the concurrence of all italy in conclave. among the which (like stars amid the limpid space of midnight) some few shone out with special luster; for some part ancient words, but not unpleasing through their age, as _uopo_, _unquanco_, _sovente_; for some part beautiful and very graceful words, which like jewels that delight the eyes of all men, are only used by gentle and high intellects, such as _gioia_, _speme_, _rai_, _disio_, _soggiorno_, _beltà_, and others of like quality, the which no learned tongue would utter, nor hand write, unless the ear consented. time would fail to tell in detail of the verbs, adverbs, and other parts of speech, which make his verses noble; but one thing i will not pass in silence, namely that, when speaking of his lady, now of her person, now of her soul, now of her tears, now of her smile, now of her movement, now of her taking rest, now of her anger, now of her pity, and now of her age, in a word when describing and magnifying her alive or dead, he generally avoids the proper name of things, and by some wonderful art adorns each thing by words appropriate to others, calling her head fine gold and roof of gold, her eyes suns, stars, sapphires, nest and home of love, her cheeks now snow and roses, now milk and fire, rubies her lips, pearls her teeth, her throat and breast now ivory, now alabaster." halfway up this _gradus ad parnassum_ we are forced to stop and take deep breath. sperone has launched the theory of "poetic diction," and advances boldly to its extreme consequences. we need not follow his analysis further into particulars. he carries it through the several topics of tautology, periphrasis, antithesis, and proportion of syllables in words of different length; after which the subject of prosody proper is discussed. having finished with petrarch, he then proceeds to render the same account of his studies in boccaccio, observing the variety and choice of his phrases, but calling special attention to the numbers of his periods, and winding up with this sonorous sentence on prose architecture. "but you must know that as the composition of prose is a marshaling of the sounds of words in proper order, so its numbers are certain orders in their syllables; pleasing the ear wherewith, the art of oratory opens, continues and finishes a period: forasmuch as every clause has not only a beginning but also a middle and an end; at the beginning it puts itself in motion and ascends; in the middle, as though weary with exertion, it rests upon its feet awhile; then it descends, and flies to the conclusion for repose."[305] [footnote 302: _i dialoghi di messer speron sperone_ (aldus, venice, 1542), p. 146. the passage is taken from a dialogue on rhetoric. i have tried to preserve the clauses of the original periods.] [footnote 303: trifone gabrielli was a venetian, celebrated for his excellent morals no less than for his learning. he gained the epithet of the socrates of his age, and died in 1549. his personal influence seems to have been very great. bembo makes frequent and respectful references to him in his letters, and giasone de nores wrote a magnificent panegyric of him in the preface to his commentary on horace's _ars poetica_, which he professed to have derived orally from trifone.] [footnote 304: sperone probably alludes to works like minerbi's vocabulary of words used by boccaccio (venice, 1535); luna's _vocabolario di cinque mila vocaboli toschi del furioso petrarca boccaccio e dante_ (naples, 1536); accarigi's dictionary to boccaccio entitled _ricchezze della lingua volgare_ (venice, 1543); and so forth.] [footnote 305: it should be mentioned that the passage i have paraphrased is put into the lips of antonio broccardo, a venetian poet, whose _rime_ were published in 1538. he attacked bembo's works, and brought down upon himself such a storm of fury from the pedants of padua and venice that he took to his bed and died of grief.] what is admirable, in spite of pedantry and servility, in this lengthy diatribe is the sense of art as art, the devotion to form for its own sake, the effort to grapple with the problems of style, the writer's single-hearted seeking after perfection. nothing but a highly-developed artistic instinct in the nation could have produced students of this type. at the same time we feel an absence of spontaneity, and the tendency to aim at decorative writing is apparent. when the glow of discovery, which impelled sperone and his fellow-pioneers to open a way across the continent of literature, had failed; when the practice of their school had passed into precepts, and their inventions had been formulated as canons of style; nothing remained for travelers upon this path but frigid repetition, precise observance of conventional limitations, and exercises in sonorous oratory. the rhetoric of the seventeenth century was a necessary outgrowth of pedantic purism. the conceits of marini and his imitators followed inevitably from a rigorous application of rules that denied to poetry the right of natural expression. it may be urged that for a nation so highly sensitive to form as the italians, without a metropolis to mold the language in the process of development, and without a spoken dialect of good society, there existed no common school of style but the recognized classics of tuscany.[306] when each district habitually used a different speech for private and public utterance, men could not write as they talked, and they were therefore forced to write by rule. there is force in these arguments. yet the consequences of a too minute and fastidious study of the tuscan authors proved none the less fatal to the freedom of italian literature; and what is more, sagacious critics foresaw the danger, though they were unable to avert it. [footnote 306: the difficulty is well put by one of the interlocutors in castiglione's dialogue upon the courtier (ed. lemonnier, p. 41): "oltre a questo, le consuetudini sono molto varie, nè è città nobile in italia che non abbia diversa maniera di parlar da tutte l'altre. però non vi ristringendo voi a dichiarar qual sia la migliore, potrebbe l'uomo attaccarsi alla bergamasca così come alla fiorentina." messer federigo fregoso of genoa is speaking, and he draws the conclusion which practically triumphed in italy: "parmi adunque, che a chi vuol fuggir ogni dubio ed esser ben sicuro, sia necessario proporsi ad imitar uno, il quale di consentimento di tutti sia estimato buono ... e questo (nel volgar dico), non penso che abbia da esser altro che il petrarca e 'l boccaccio; e chi da questi dui si discosta va tentoni, come chi cammina per le tenebre e spesso erra la strada."] the leader in this movement, acknowledged throughout italy for more than half a century as dictator in the republic of letters, "foster-father of the language" (_balio della lingua_), "guide and master of our tongue" (_guida e maestro di questa lingua_), was pietro bembo.[307] though only sixteen years junior to angelo poliziano, whom he had himself saluted as "ruler of the ausonian lyre," bembo outlived his master for the space of fifty-one years, and swayed the literary world at a period when italian succeeded to the honors of latin scholarship.[308] he was a venetian. this fact is not insignificant, since it clearly marks the change that had come over the nation, when the scepter of learning was transferred to the northern provinces, and the exclusive privilege of correct italian composition was shared with tuscans by men of other dialects.[309] in his early youth bembo had the good sense to perceive that the mother tongue was no less worthy of cultivation than greek and latin. the arguments advanced by dante, by alberti, by lorenzo de' medici, recurred with fresh force to his mind. he therefore made himself the champion of italian against those exclusive students who, like ercole strozzi, still contended that the dead languages were alone worthy of attention.[310] he also saw that it was necessary to create a standard of correct style for writers who were not fortunate enough to have been born within the bounds of tuscany. accordingly, he devoted himself to the precise and formal study of fourteenth-century literature, polishing his own italian compositions with a diligence that, while it secured transparent purity of diction, deprived them of originality and impulse. it is said that he passed each of his works through forty successive revisions, keeping as many portfolios to represent the stages at which they had arrived. [footnote 307: in the famous passage of the _furioso_ where ariosto pronounces the eulogy of the poets of his day, he mentions bembo thus (_orl. fur._ xlvi. 15). pietro bembo, che 'l puro e dolce idioma nostro, levato fuor del volgar uso tetro, quale esser dee, ci ha co 'l suo esempio mostro.] [footnote 308: see bembo's elegy on poliziano quoted by me in the _revival of learning_, p. 484.] [footnote 309: see _revival of learning_, p. 506, for the transference of scholarship to lombardy.] [footnote 310: see the latin hendecasyllables quoted by me in the _revival of learning_, p. 415, and the defense of italian in the treatise "della volgare lingua" (bembo, _opere_, milan, _class. it._ x. 28). carducci in his essay _delle poesie latine di ludovico ariosto_, pp. 179-181, gives some interesting notices of ercole strozzi's conversion to the vulgar tongue.] having already sketched the life of bembo, i shall here restrict myself to remarks upon those of his works which were influential in reviving the practice of italian composition.[311] among these the first place must be awarded to _gli asolani_, a dialogue on love, written in his early manhood and dedicated to lucrezia borgia. the beauty of its language and the interest of the theme discussed rendered this treatise widely fashionable. yet it is not possible to study it with pleasure now. those platonic conversations, in which the refined society of the italian courts delighted, have lost their attraction for us. nothing but the charming description of asolo, where the queen of cyprus had her garden, surrounded by trimmed laurels and divided crosswise with a leafy _pergola_ of vines, retains its freshness. that picture, animated by the figures of the six novitiates of love, now sauntering through shade and sunlight under the vine-branches, now seated on the grass to hear a lute or viol deftly touched, is in the best idyllic style of the venetian masters. at the court of urbino, where bembo was residing when his book appeared, it was received with acclamation, as a triumph of divine genius. the illustrious circle celebrated by castiglione in his _cortegiano_ perused it with avidity, and there is no doubt that the publication gave a powerful impulse to italian studies. these were still further fostered by bembo's defense of the vulgar tongue.[312] he had secured the hearing of the world by his _asolani_. women and the leaders of fashionable society were with him; and he pushed his arguments home against the latinizing humanists. "to abandon our own language for another," he reminded them, "is the same as withdrawing supplies from our mother to support a strange woman." this phrase is almost identical with what dante had written on the same topic two centuries earlier. but bembo's standing-ground was different from dante's. the poet of the fourteenth century felt called to create a language for his nation. the student of the sixteenth, imbued with the assimilative principles of scholarship, too fastidious to risk a rough note in his style, too feeble to attempt a new act of creation, was content to "affect the fame of an imitator."[313] his piety toward the mother-tongue was generous; his method of rehabilitation was almost servile. [footnote 311: see _revival of learning_, pp. 410-415, 481-485.] [footnote 312: _opere del cardinale bembo_ (_class. it._ milano, 1808, vol. x.).] [footnote 313: see his latin treatise _de imitatione_. it is in the form of an epistle.] with the view of illustrating his practice by precepts, bembo published a short italian grammar, or compendium of _regole grammaticali_. it went through fourteen editions, and formed the text-book for future discussions of linguistic problems. though welcomed with enthusiasm, this first attempt to reduce italian to system was severely criticised, especially by sannazzaro, caro, castelvetro and the florentine academy. i have already had occasion to observe that, as a latin poet, bembo succeeded best with memorial verses. the same may be said about his italian poems. the _canzoni_ on the death of his brother, and that on the death of his mistress morosina, are justly celebrated for their perfection of form; nor are they so wanting in spontaneous emotion as many of his petrarchistic exercises. bembo was tenderly attached to this morosina, whom he first met at rome, and with whom he lived till her death at padua in 1525. she was the mother of his three children, lucilio, torquato and elena. the _canzone_ in question, beginning: donna, de' cui begli occhi alto diletto: was written so late as 1539, three months after bembo had been raised to the dignity of cardinal.[314] as a specimen of the conceits which he tolerated in poetry, i have thought it worth while to present the following translation of a sonnet:[315] ah me, at one same moment forced to cry and hush, to hope and fear, rejoice and grieve, the service of one master seek and leave, over my loss laugh equally and sigh! my guide i govern; without wings i fly; with favoring winds, to rocks and sandbanks cleave; hate haughtiness, yet meekness disbelieve; mistrust all men, nor on myself rely. i strive to stay the sun, set snows on fire; yearn after freedom, run to take the yoke: defend myself without, but bleed within; fall, when there's none to lift me from the mire; complain, when plaints are vain, of fortune's stroke; and power, being powerless, from impuissance win. [footnote 314: see panizzi, _bioardo ed ariosto_, vi. lxxxi.] [footnote 315: sonnet xxxvi. of his collected poems.] in the sixteenth century verses of this stamp passed for masterpieces of incomparable elegance. the same high value was set on bembo's familiar letters. he wrote them with a view to publication, and they were frequently reprinted during the course of the next fifty years.[316] these may still be read with profit by students for the light they cast upon italian society during the first half of the _cinque cento_, and with pleasure by all who can appreciate the courtesies of refined breeding expressed in language of fastidious delicacy. the chief men of the day, whether popes, princes, cardinals or poets, and all the illustrious ladies, including lucrezia borgia, veronica gambara, and vittoria colonna, are addressed with a mingled freedom and ceremony, nicely graduated according to their rank or degree of intimacy, which proves the exquisite tact developed by the intercourse of courts in men like bembo. [footnote 316: my edition is in four volumes, gualtero scotto, vinegia, mdlii. they are collected with copious additions in the _classici italiani_.] since the composition and publication of such letters formed a main branch of literary industry in the period we have reached,[317] it will be well to offer some examples of bembo's epistolary style; and for this purpose, the correspondence with lucrezia borgia may be chosen, not only because of the interest attaching to her friendship with the author, but also because the topics treated display the refinement of his nature in a very agreeable light.[318] in one of these, written upon the occasion of her father's death, he calls alexander vi. _quel vostro così gran padre_. in a second, touched with the deepest personal feeling, he announces the death of his own brother carlo, _mio solo e caro fratello, unico sostegno e sollazzo della vita mia_.[319] in a third he thanks her for her letters of condolence: _le lagrime alle quali mi scrivete essere stata constretta leggendo nelle mei lettere la morte del mio caro e amato fratello m. carlo, sono dolcissimo refrigerio stato al mio dolore, se cosa dolce alcuna m'è potuta venire a questo tempo._ in a fourth he turns this graceful compliment: _pregherei eziandio il cielo, che ogni giorno v'accrescerebbe la bellezza; ma considero che non vi se ne può aggiungere._ in a fifth he congratulates lucrezia upon the birth of a son and heir, and in a sixth condoles with her upon his early death. then another boy is born, just when the duke of urbino dies; and bembo mingles courtly tears with ceremonious protestations of his joy. it would be impossible to pen more scholarly exercises upon similar occasions; and through the style of the professed epistolographer we seem to feel that bembo had real interest in the events he illustrates so elegantly. the fatal defect of his letters is, that he is always thinking more of his manner than of his matter. like the humanists from whom he drew his mental lineage, he labored for posterity without reckoning on the actual demands posterity would make. success crowned his efforts in the pleasure he afforded to the public of his day; but this was a success comparable with that of bernardo accolti or tibaldeo of ferrara, whom he scorned. he little thought that future students would rate an annalist of corio's stamp, for the sake of his material, at a higher value than the polished author of the _lettere_. yet such is the irony of fame that we could willingly exchange bembo's nicely-turned phrases for a few solid facts, a few spontaneous effusions. [footnote 317: it will be impossible to do more than make general reference to the vast masses of italian letters printed in the sixteenth century. i must, therefore, content myself here with mentioning the collections of la casa, caro, bernardo, and torquato tasso, aretino, guidiccioni, together with the miscellanies published under the titles of _lettre scritte al signor pietro aretino_, the _lettere diverse_ in three books (aldus, 1567), and the _lettere di tredici uomini illustri_ (venetia, 1554).] [footnote 318: _lettere_, ed. cit. vol. iv. pp. 1-31.] [footnote 319: another letter, dated venice, august 1, 1504, is fuller in particulars about this dearly-loved brother.] bembo was a power in literature, the exact force of which it is difficult to estimate without taking his personal influence into consideration. distinguished by great physical beauty, gifted with a noble presence, cultivated in the commerce of the best society, he added to his insight and his mental energy all the charm that belongs to a man of fashion and persuasive eloquence in conversation. he was untiring in his literary industry, unfailing in his courtesy to scholars, punctual in correspondence, and generous in the use he made of his considerable wealth. at urbino, at venice, at rome, and at padua, his study was the meeting-place of learned men, who found the graces of the highest aristocracy combined in him with genial enthusiasm for the common interests of letters. thus the man did even more than the author to promote the revolution he had at heart. this is brought home to us with force when we consider the place assigned to him in castiglione's _cortegiano_--a masterpiece of composition transcending, in my opinion, all the efforts made by bembo to conquer the difficulties of style. castiglione is no less correct than the dictator strove to be; but at the same time he is far more natural. he treats the same topics with greater ease, and with a warmth of feeling and conviction which endears him to the heart of those who read his golden periods. yet castiglione gives the honors of his dialogue to the author of the _asolani_, when he puts into the mouth of bembo that glowing panegyric of platonic love, which forms the close and climax of his dialogue upon the qualities of a true gentleman.[320] [footnote 320: _il cortegiano_ (ed. lemonnier, firenze, 1854), pp. 296-303. i have already spoken at some length about this essay in the _age of the despots_, pp. 183-190, and have narrated the principal events of castiglione's life in the _revival of learning_, pp. 418-422. for his latin poems see _ib._ pp. 490-497.] the crowning merit of the _cortegiano_ is an air of good breeding and disengagement from pedantic prejudices. this urbanity renders it a book to read with profit and instruction through all time. castiglione's culture was the result of a large experience of men and books, ripened by intercourse with good society in all its forms. his sense and breadth of view are peculiarly valuable when he discusses a subject like that which forms the topic of the present chapter. there is one passage in his book, relating to the problem of italian style, which, had it been treated with the attention it deserved, might have saved his fellow-countrymen from the rigors of pedagogical despotism.[321] [footnote 321: ed. cit. pp. 39-53.] starting from his cardinal axiom that good manners demand freedom from all affectation, he deprecates the use in speech or writing of those antiquated tuscan words the purists loved. as usual, he hits the very center of the subject in his comments on this theme. "it seems to me, therefore, exceedingly strange to employ words in writing which we avoid in all the common usages of conversation. writing is nothing but a form of speaking, which continues to exist after a man has spoken, and is, as it were, an image or rather the life of the words he utters. therefore in speech, which, as soon as the voice has issued from the mouth, is lost, some things may be tolerated that are not admissible in composition, because writing preserves the words, subjects them to the criticism of the reader, and allows time for their mature consideration. it is consequently reasonable to use greater diligence with a view to making what we write more polished and correct, yet not to do this so that the written words shall differ from the spoken, but only so that the best in spoken use shall be selected for our composition." after touching on the need of lucidity, he proceeds "i therefore should approve of a man's not only avoiding antiquated tuscan phrases, but also being careful to employ such as are in present use in tuscany and other parts of italy, provided they have a certain grace and harmony."[322] at this point another interlocutor in the dialogue observes that italy possesses no common language. in the difficulty of knowing whether to follow the custom of florence or of bergamo, it is desirable to recognize a classical standard of style. petrarch and boccaccio should be selected as models. to refuse to imitate them is mere presumption. here castiglione states the position of the school he combats. in his answer to their argument he makes giuliano de' medici, one of the company, declare that he, a tuscan of the tuscans as he is, should never think of employing any words of petrarch or boccaccio which were obsolete in good society. then the thread of exposition is resumed. the italian language, in spite of its long past, may still be called young and unformed. when the roman empire decayed, spoken latin suffered from the corruptions introduced by barbarian invaders. it retained greater purity in tuscany than elsewhere. yet other districts of italy preserved certain elements of the ancient language that have a right to be incorporated with the living tongue; nor is it reasonable to suppose that a modern dialect should at a certain moment have reached perfection any more than latin did. the true rule to follow is to see that a man has something good to say. "making a division between thoughts and words is much the same as separating soul and body. in order, therefore, to speak or write well, our courtier must have knowledge; for he who has none, and whose mind is void of matter worthy to be apprehended, has naught to say or write." he must be careful to clothe his thoughts in select and fitting words, but above all things to use such "as are still upon the lips of the people." he need not shun foreign phrases, if there be a special force in them above their synonyms in his own language. nor is there cause to fear lest the vulgar tongue should prove deficient in resources when examined by grammarians and stylists. "even though it be not ancient tuscan of the purest water, it will be italian, common to the nation, copious and varied, like a delicious garden full of divers fruits and flowers." here castiglione quotes the precedent of greek, showing that each of its dialects contributed something to the common stock, though attic was recognized as sovereign for its polish. among the romans likewise, livy was not tabooed because of his patavinity, nor virgil because the romans recognized a something in him of rusticity. "we, meanwhile, far more severe than the ancients, impose upon ourselves certain newfangled laws that have no true relation to the object. with a beaten track before our eyes, we try to walk in bypaths. we take a willful pleasure in obscurity, though our language, like all others, is only meant to express our thoughts with force and clearness. while we call it the popular speech, we plume ourselves on using phrases that are not only unknown to the people, but unintelligible to men of birth and learning, and which have fallen out of conversation in every district of the land." if petrarch and boccaccio were living at our epoch, they would certainly omit words that have fallen out of fashion since their days; and it is mere impertinence for a purist to tell me that i ought to say _campidoglio_ instead of _capitolio_ and so forth, because some elder tuscan author wrote it, or the peasants of the tuscan district speak it so. you argue that only pride prevents our imitating petrarch and boccaccio. but pray inform me whom they imitated? to model latin poems upon virgil or catullus is necessary, because latin is a dead language. but since italian is alive and spoken, let us write it as we use it, with due attention to artistic elegance. "the final master of style is genius, and the ultimate guide is a sound natural judgment." do we require all our painters to follow one precedent? lionardo, mantegna, raphael, michelangelo, giorgione have struck out different paths of excellence in art. writers should claim the same liberty of choice, the same spontaneity of inspiration. "i cannot comprehend how it should be right, instead of enriching italian and giving it spirit, dignity and luster, to make it poor, attenuated, humble and obscure, and so to pen it up within fixed limits as that every one should have to copy petrarch and boccaccio. why should we, for example, not put equal faith in poliziano, lorenzo de' medici, francesco diaceto, and others who are tuscan too, and possibly of no less learning and discretion than were petrarch and boccaccio? however, there are certain scrupulous persons abroad nowadays, who make a religion and ineffable mystery of their tuscan tongue, frightening those who listen to them, to the length of preventing many noble and lettered men from opening their lips, and forcing them to admit they do not know how to talk the language they learned from their nurses in the cradle."[323] [footnote 322: ariosto's style was formed on precisely these principles.] [footnote 323: the preface to the _cortegiano_ may be compared with this passage. when it appeared, the critics complained that castiglione had not imitated boccaccio. his answer is marked by good sense and manly logic: see pp. 3, 4. with castiglione, aretino joined hands, the ruffian with the gentleman, in this matter of revolt against the purists. see the chapter in this volume upon aretino.] if the italians could have accepted castiglione's principles, and approached the problem of their language in this liberal spirit, the nation would have been spared its wearisome, perpetually recurrent quarrel about words. but the matter had already got into the hands of theorists; and local jealousies were inflamed. the municipal wars of the middle ages were resuscitated on the ground of rhetoric and grammar. unluckily, the quarrel is not over; _adhuc sub judice lis est_, and there is no judge to decide it. but in the nineteenth century it no longer rages with the violence that made it a matter of duels, assassinations and lifelong hatreds in the sixteenth. the italians have recently secured for the first time in their history the external conditions which are necessary to a natural settlement of the dispute by the formation of a common speech through common usage. the parliament, the army, the newspapers of united italy are rapidly creating a language adequate to all the needs of modern life; and though purists may still be found, who maintain that passavanti's _specchio_ is a model of style for leading articles in _fanfulla_, yet the nation, having passed into a new phase of existence, must be congratulated on having exchanged the "golden simplicity of the _trecento_" for a powerful and variously-colored instrument of self-expression. to stir the dust of those obsolete controversies on the language of italy--to make extracts from varchi's, sperone's or bembo's treatises upon the tongues--to set tolommei's claims for tuscan priority in the balance against muzio's more modest pleas in favor of italian[324]--to describe how one set of scholars argued that the vernacular ought to be called tuscan, how another dubbed it florentine or sienese, and how a third, more sensible, voted for italian[325]--to enumerate the blasts and counterblasts of criticism blown about each sentence in boccaccio and petrarch[326]--to resuscitate the orthographical encounters between trissino and firenzuola on the matter of the letter k--is no part of my present purpose. it must suffice to have noted that these problems occupied the serious attention of the literary world, and to have indicated by extracts from sperone and castiglione the extreme limits of pedantry and sound sense between which the opinion of the learned vibrated. the details of the quarrel may be left to the obscurity of treatises, long since doomed to "dust and an endless darkness." [footnote 324: varchi's _ercolano_ or _dialogo delle lingue_; sperone's dialogue _delle lingue_; claudio tolommei's _cesano_; girolamo muzio's _battaglie_.] [footnote 325: varchi called it _fiorentina_, tolommei and salviati _toscana_, bargagli _senese_, trissino and muzio _italiana_. castiglione and bembo agreed in aiming at italian rather than pure tuscan, but differed in their proposed method of cultivating style. bembo preferred to call the language _volgare_, as it was the common property of the _volgo_. castiglione suggested the title _cortigiana_, as it was refined and settled by the usage of courts. yet castiglione was more liberal than bembo in acknowledging the claims of local dialects.] [footnote 326: for a list of commentators upon petrarch at this period, see tiraboschi, lib. iii. cap. iii., section 1. common sense found at last sarcastic utterance in tassoni.] much unprofitable expenditure of time and thought upon verbal questions of no vital interest was encouraged by the academies, which now began to sprout like mushrooms in all towns of italy.[327] the old humanistic societies founded by cosimo de' medici, pomponius lætus, pontano, and aldo for the promotion of classical studies, had done their work and died away. their successor, the umidi of florence, the pellegrini of venice, the eterei of padua, the vignaiuoli of rome, professed to follow the same objects, with special attention to the reformation of italian literature. yet their very titles indicate a certain triviality and want of manly purpose. they were clubs combining conviviality with he pursuit of study; and it too frequently happened that the spirit of their jovial meetings extended itself to the _dicerie_, _cicalate_ and _capitoli_ recited by their members, when the cloth was drawn and the society sat down to intellectual banquets. at the same time the academies were so fashionable and so universal that they gave the tone to literature. it was the ambition of all rising students to be numbered with the more illustrious bodies; and when a writer of promise joined one of these, he naturally felt the influence of his companions. member vied with member in producing sonnets and rhetorical effusions on the slenderest themes; for it was less an object to probe weighty matters or to discover truth, than to make a display of ingenuity by clothing trifles in sonorous language. surrounded by a crowd of empty-pated but censorious critics, exercised in the minutiæ of style and armed with precedents from petrarch, the poet read his verses to the company. they were approved or rejected according as they satisfied the sense of correctness, or fell below the conventional standard of imitative diction. to think profoundly, to feel intensely, to imagine boldly, to invent novelties, to be original in any line, was perilous. the wealth of the academies, the interest of the public in purely literary questions, and the activity of the press encouraged the publication and circulation of these pedantic exercises. time would fail to tell of all the poems and orations poured forth at the expense of these societies and greedily devoured by friends prepared to eulogize, or rival bodies eager to dissect and criticise. students who are desirous of forming some conception of the multitudes of poets at this period, must be referred to the pages of quadrio with a warning that tiraboschi is inclined to think that even quadrio's lists are incomplete. all ranks and conditions both of men and women joined in the pursuit. princes and plebeians, scholars and worldlings, noble ladies and leaders of the _demi-monde_, high-placed ecclesiastics and penniless bohemians aspired to the same honors; and the one idol of the motley crowd was petrarch. there is no doubt that the final result of their labors was the attainment of a certain grace and the diffusion of literary elegance. yet these gains carried with them a false feeling about poetry in general, a wrong conception of its purpose and its scope. the italian purists could scarcely have comprehended the drift of milton's excursion, in his "reason of church government urged against prelaty," upon the high vocation of the prophet-bard. they would have been no less puzzled by sidney's definition of poetry, and have felt shelley's last word upon the poetic office, "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world," to be no better than a piece of pardonable lunacy. [footnote 327: see _revival of learning_, pp. 365-368.] in this thick-spreading undergrowth of verse, where, as tiraboschi aptly remarks, "beneath the green and ample foliage we seek in vain for fruit," it is difficult to see the wood by reason of the trees. poet so closely resembles poet in the mediocrity of similar attainment, that we are forced to sigh for the energy of michelangelo's unfinished sonnets, or the crudities of campanella's muse. yet it is possible to make a representative selection of writers, who, while they belonged to the school of the purists and were associated with the chief academies of the day, distinguished themselves by some originality of style or by enduring qualities of literary excellence. foremost among these may be placed monsignore giovanni della casa. he was born in 1503 of noble florentine parents, his mother being a member of the tornabuoni family. educated at bologna, he entered the service of the church, and already in 1538 had reached the dignity of apostolic clerk. rome was still what lorenzo de' medici had called it, "a sink of all the vices," and very few ecclesiastics escaped its immoralities. la casa formed some permanent connection, the fruit of which was his acknowledged son quirino.[328] in 1540 he was sent on a special mission to florence with the title of apostolic commissary; and in 1544 he was raised to the archbishopric of benevento, and soon afterwards appointed nuncio at venice. during the pontificate of julius iii., finding himself out of favor with the vatican, he continued to reside at venice, employing his leisure in literary occupations. paul iv. recalled him to rome, and made him secretary of state. but though he seemed upon the point of touching the highest ecclesiastical dignity, la casa was never promoted to the cardinalate. it is difficult to find a reason for this omission, unless we accept the traditional belief that the scandal of his _capitolo del forno_ barred la casa's entrance to the sacred college.[329] this burlesque poem, at any rate, supplied the protestants with a weapon which they used against the church. the legend based upon its audacious obscenities was credited by bayle, and in part refuted by the _antibaillet_ of ménage. though by no means more offensive to good taste than scores of similar compositions, the high rank of its author and the offices of trust he had discharged for the papal curia, emphasized its infamy, and caused la casa to be chosen as the scapegoat for his comrades. he died in 1556. [footnote 328: quirino is mentioned as "legitimatum, seu forsitan legitimandum," in la casa's will (_opp._ venezia, pasinelli, 1752, vol. i. p. lxxvii.). from his name and his age at la casa's death we ought perhaps to refer this fruit of his amours to the venetian period of his life and his intimacy with the quirino family. his biographer, casotti, says that he discovered nothing about the mother's name (_loc. cit._ p. lxxiii.).] [footnote 329: la casa received a special commission at venice in 1546, to prosecute pier paolo vergerio for heresy. when vergerio went into exile, he did his best to blacken la casa's character, and used his writings to point the picture he drew in protestant circles of ecclesiastical profligacy. the whole subject of la casa's exclusion from the college is treated by his editor, casotti (_opp._ vol. 1. pp. xlv.-xlviii.). that the bishop of benevento was stung to the quick by vergerio's invectives may be seen in his savage answer "adversus paulum vergerium" (_opp._ iii. 103), and in the hendecasyllables "ad germanos" (_opp._ i. 295), both of which discuss the _forno_ and attempt to apologize for it.] la casa's name is best known in modern literature by his treatise on the manners of the finished gentleman. in his short essay, entitled _galateo_, he discusses the particulars of social conduct, descending to rules about the proper use of the drinking-glass at table, the employment of the napkin, the dressing of the hair, and the treatment of immodest topics by polite periphrases.[330] galateo is recommended not to breathe hard in the face of the persons he is speaking to, not to swear at his servants in company, not to trim his nails in public, not to tell indecent anecdotes to girls, and so forth. he is shown how to dress with proper pomp, what ceremonies to observe, and which to omit as servile or superfluous, how to choose his words, and how to behave at dinner. the book is an elaborate discourse on etiquette; and while it never goes far below the surface, it is full of useful precepts based upon the principles of mutual respect and tolerance which govern good society. we might accept it as a sequel to the _courtier_; for while castiglione drew the portrait of a gentleman, la casa explained how this gentleman should conduct himself among his equals. the chief curiosity about the book is, that a man of its author's distinction should have thought it worthy of his pains to formulate so many rules of simple decency. from the introduction it is clear that la casa meant the _galateo_ to be a handbook for young men entering upon the world. that it fulfilled this purpose, seems proved by the fact that its title passed into a proverb. "to teach the galateo" is synonymous in italian with to teach good manners. [footnote 330: _opp._ vol. i. pp. 237-306. galateo is said to have been a certain galeazzo florimonte of sessa.] one whole volume of la casa's collected works is devoted to his official and familiar correspondence, composed in choice but colorless italian.[331] another contains his italian and latin poems. no poet of the century expressed his inner self more plainly than la casa in his verse. the spectacle is stern and grave. from the vocabulary of the tuscan classics he seems to have chosen the gloomiest phrases, to adumbrate some unknown terror of the soul.[332] sometimes his sonnets, in their vivid but polished grandeur, rise even to sublimity, as when he compares himself to a leafless wood in winter, beaten by fiercer storms, with days more cold and short in front, and with a longer night to follow.[333] it is a cheerless prospect of old age and death, uncomforted by hope, unvisited by human love. the same shadow, intensified by even a deeper horror of some coming doom, rests upon another sonnet in which he deplores his wasted life.[334] it drapes, as with a funeral pall, the long majestic ode describing his early errors and the vanity of worldly pomp.[335] it adds despair to his lines on jealousy, intensity to his satire on court-life, and incommunicable sadness to the poems of his love.[336] very judicious were the italian critics who pronounced his style too stern for the erotic muse. we find something at once sinister and solemn in his mood. the darkness that envelops him, issues from the depth of his own heart. the world around is bright with beautiful women and goodly men; but he is alone, shut up with fear and self-reproach. such a voice befits the age, as we learn to know it in our books of history, far better than the light effusions of contemporary rhymsters. it suits the black-robed personages painted by moroni, whose calm pale eyes seem gazing on a world made desolate, they know not why. its accents are all the more melancholy because la casa yielded to no impulses of rage. he remained sober, cold, sedate; but by some fatal instinct shunned the light and sought the shade. the gloom that envelops him is only broken by the baleful fires of his _capitoli_. that those burlesque verses, of which i shall speak in another place, were written in his early manhood, and that the _rime_ were perhaps the composition of his age, need not prevent us from connecting them together. the dreariness of la casa's later years may well have been engendered by the follies of his youth. it is the despondency of exhaustion following on ill-expended energy, the _tædium vitæ_ which fell on italy when she awoke from laughter. [footnote 331: vol. ii. of the venetian edition, 1752.] [footnote 332: take for instance this outburst from a complimentary sonnet (no. 40, vol. i. p. 70): o tempestosa, o torbida procella, che 'n mar sì crudo la mia vita giri! donna amar, ch'amor odia e i suoi desiri, che sdegno e feritate onor appella. or this opening of the sonnet on court-honors (no. 26): mentre fra valli paludose ed ime ritengon me larve turbate, e mostri, che tra le gemme, lasso, e l'auro, e gli ostri copron venen, che 'l cor mi roda e lima. or this from a _canzone_ on his love (no. 2): qual chiuso albergo in solitario bosco pien di sospetto suol pregar talora corrier di notte traviato e lasso; tal io per entro il tuo dubbioso, e fosco. e duro calle, amor, corro e trapasso.] [footnote 333: sonnet 58, vol. i. 154.] [footnote 334: no. 52, _ib._ p. 136.] [footnote 335: _canzone_ 4, _ib._ p. 102.] [footnote 336: sonnets 8, 26, 40. _ib._ pp. 12, 39, 70; _canzone_ 2, _ib._ p. 79.] in illustration of the foregoing remarks i have translated six of la casa's sonnets, which i shall here insert without further comment.[337] in point of form, italian literature can show few masterpieces superior to the first and second. [footnote 337: they are nos. 58, 50, 25, 26, 8. the sixth, on jealousy, may be compared with sannazzaro's, above, p. 200.] sweet woodland solitude, that art so dear to my dark soul lost in doubt's dreadful maze, now that the north-wind, these short sullen days, wraps earth and air in winter's mantle drear, and thy green ancient shadowy locks are sere, white as my own, above the frosty ways, where summer flowers once basked beneath heaven's rays, but rigid ice now reigns and snows austere; pondering upon that brief and cloudy light that's left for me, i walk, and feel my mind and members, like thy branches, frozen too; yet me, within, without, worse frost doth bind, my winter brings a fiercer east-wind's blight, a longer darkness, days more cold, more few. o sleep, o tranquil son of noiseless night, of humid, shadowy night; o dear repose for wearied men, forgetfulness of woes grievous enough the bloom of life to blight! succor this heart that hath outgrown delight, and knows no rest; these tired limbs compose; fly to me, sleep; thy dusky vans disclose over my languid eyes, then cease thy flight. where, where is silence, that avoids the day? where the light dreams, that with a wavering tread and unsubstantial footing follow thee? alas! in vain i call thee; and these gray, these frigid shades flatter in vain. o bed, how rough with thorns! o nights, how harsh to me! it was my wont by day to seek the grove or grot or font, soothing my soul with song, weaving sweet woes in rhyme, and all night long to watch the stars with phoebus and with love; nor, bernard, did i fear with thee to rove that sacred mount where now few poets throng: till like sea-billows, uncontrollably strong, me too the vulgar usage earthward drove; and bound me down to tears and bitter life, where fonts are not, nor laurel boughs, nor shade, but false and empty honor stirs vain strife. now, not unmixed with envious regret, i watch thee scale yon far-off heights, where yet no footstep on the sward was ever laid. while mid low-lying dells and swampy vales those troubled ghosts and dreams my feet delay, which hide 'neath gems and gold and proud array the barb of poison that my heart impales; thou on the heights that virtue rarely scales, by paths untrodden and a trackless way, wrestling for fame with thine own soul, dost stray, free o'er yon hills no earth-born cloud assails. whence i take shame and sorrow, when i think how with the crowd in this low net accursed i fell, and how 'tis doomed that i shall die. o happy thou! thou hast assuaged thy thirst! not phoebus but grief dwells with me, and i must wait to purge my woes on lethe's brink. now pomps and purple, now clear stream or field seeking, i've brought my day to evensong, profitless, like dry fern or tares, the throng of luckless herbs that no fair fruitage yield. wherefore my heart, false guide on this vain quest, more than a smitten flint strikes spark and flame; so dulled a spirit must she bring with shame to him who placed it bright within my breast. poor heart! she well deserves to chafe and burn since her so precious and so noble freight, ill-governed, she to loss and woe doth turn! nor 'neath the north-wind do the branches quake on yonder bristling oak-trees, as i shake fearing that even repentance comes too late. heart-ache, that drawest nutriment from fear, and still through growing fear dost gather power; that mingling ice with flame, confusion drear and fell disaster on love's realm dost shower! forth from my breast, since all thy bitter cheer with my life's sweet thou'st blent in one brief hour! hence to cocytus! where hell drinks each tear of tortured souls, self-plagued, self-loathing, cower! there without rest thy dolorous days drag out, thy dark nights without slumber! smart thy worst no less with felt pangs than fictitious doubt! avaunt! why fiercer now than at the first, now when thy venom runs my veins throughout, bring'st thou on those black wings new dreams accurst? the vicissitudes of italy during the first half of the sixteenth century were so tragic, and her ruin was so near at hand, that we naturally seek some echo of this anguish in the verses of her poets. nothing, however, is rarer than to find direct allusion to the troubles of the times, or apprehension of impending danger expressed in sonnet or _canzone_. while following petrarch to the letter, the purists neglected his odes to rienzi and the princes of italy. his passionate outcry, _italia mia_, found no response in their rhetoric. those sublime outpourings of eloquence, palpitating with alternate hopes and fears, might have taught the poets how to write at least the threnody of rome or florence. had they studied this side of their master's style, the gravity of the matter supplied them by the miseries of their country, might have immortalized their purity of style. as it was, they preferred the _rime in vita e morte di madonna laura_, and sang of sentiments they had not felt, while italy was dying. only here and there, as in the somber rhymes of la casa, the spirit of the age found utterance unconsciously. but for the mass of versifiers it was enough to escape from the real agonies of the moment into academical arcadia, to forget the spaniard and the frenchman in philiroe's lap with ariosto, or to sigh for a past age of gold:[338] o rivi, o fonti, o fiumi, o faggi, o querce, onde il mondo novello ebbe suo cibo in quel tranquilli secoli dell'oro: deh come ha il folle poi cangiando l'esca, cangiato il gusto! e come son questi anni da quei diversi in povertate e 'n guerra! [footnote 338: la casa, _canzone_ 4 (_opp._ i. 151).] this makes the occasional treatment of political subjects the more valuable; and we hail the patriotic poems of giovanni guidiccioni as a relief from the limpid nonsense of the amourists. born at lucca in 1500, he was made bishop of fossombrone by paul iii., and died in 1541. contemporaries praised him for the grandeur of his conceptions and the severity of his diction, while they censured the obscurity that veiled his unfamiliar thoughts. "in those songs," writes lilius giraldus, "which he composed upon the woes and miseries of italy, he set before his readers ample proofs of his illustrious style."[339] one sonnet might be chosen from these rhymes, reproving the italians for their slavery and shame, and pointing to the cause, now irremediable, of their downfall:[340] from deep and slothful slumber, where till now entombed thou liest, waken, breathe, arise! look on those wounds with anger in thine eyes, italia, self-enslaved in folly's slough! the diadem of freedom from thy brow torn through thine own misdoing, seek with sighs; turn to the path, that straight before thee lies, from yonder crooked furrow thou dost plow. think on thine ancient memories! thou shalt see that those who once thy triumphs did adorn, have chained thee to their yoke with fetters bound. foe to thyself, thine own iniquity, with fame for them, for thee fierce grief and scorn, to this vile end hath forced thee, queen discrowned! [footnote 339: _de poetis_, dial. ii.] [footnote 340: _opere di messer g. guidiccioni_ (firenze, barbèra, 1867), vol. i. p. 12.] such appeals were impotent. yet they proved a consciousness of the situation, an unextinguished sense of duty, in the man who penned them.[341] [footnote 341: we might parallel guidiccioni's lamentations with several passages from the latin elegies of the period, and with some of the obscurer compositions of italian poetasters. see, for example, the extracts from cariteo of naples, tibaldeo of ferrara, and cammelli of pistoja on the passage of charles viii. quoted by carducci, _delle poesie latine di ludovico ariosto_, pp. 83-86. but the most touching expression of sympathy with italy's disaster is the sudden silence of boiardo in the middle of a canto of _orlando_. see above, part i. p. 463.] the court-life followed by professional men of letters made it difficult for them to utter their real feelings in an age of bitter political jealousies. they either held their tongues, or kept within the safer regions of compliment and fancy. the biographies of annibale caro and lodovico castelvetro illustrate the ordinary conditions as well as the exceptional vicissitudes of the literary career at this epoch. annibale caro was born in 1507 at civitanuova in the march of ancona. being poor and of humble origin, he entered the family of luigi gaddi at florence, in the quality of tutor to his children. this patron died in 1541, and caro then took service under pier luigi farnese, one of the worst princelings of the period. when the duke was murdered in 1547, he transferred himself to parma, still following the fortunes of the farnesi. employed as secretary by the cardinal ranuccio and afterwards by the cardinal alessandro of that house, he lived at ease until his death in 1566. caro's letters, written for his patrons, and his correspondence with the famous scholars of the day, pass for models of italian epistolography. less rigid than la casa's, less manneristic than bembo's, his style is distinguished by a natural grace and elegance of diction. he formed his manner by translation from the greek, especially by a version of _daphnis and chloe_, which may be compared with firenzuola's _asino d'oro_ for classic beauty and facility of phrase. but the great achievement of his life was a transcription of the _æneid_ into blank verse. though caro's poem exceeds the original by about 5,500 lines, and therefore cannot pass for an exact copy of virgil's form, italians still reckon it the standard translation of their national epic. the charm of caro's prose was communicated to his _versi sciolti_, always easy, always flowing, with varied cadence and sustained melody of rhythm. a _diceria de' nasi_, or discourse on noses, and a dissertation called _ficheide_, commenting on molza's _fichi_, prove that caro lent himself with pleasure to the academical follies of his contemporaries. it seems incredible that a learned man, who had spent the best years of his maturity in diplomatic missions to the courts of princes, should have employed the leisure of his age in polishing these trifles. yet such was the temper of the times that this frivolity passed for a commendable exercise of ingenuity. caro's original poems have not much to recommend them beyond limpidity of language. the sonnets to an imaginary mistress repeat conventional antitheses and complimentary _concetti_.[342] the adulatory odes are stiff and labored, as, indeed, they might be, when we consider that they were made to order upon charles v., the casa farnese, and the lilies of france, by a plebeian scholar from ancona.[343] the last-named of these flatteries, "venite all'ombra de' gran gigli d'oro," is a masterpiece of prize poetry, produced with labor, filed to superficial smoothness, and overloaded with conceits. on its appearance it was hailed with acclamation as the final triumph of italian writing. the farnesi, who had recently placed themselves under the protection of france, and who bore her lilies on their scutcheon, used all their influence to get their servant's work applauded. the academies were delighted with a display of consummate artifice and mechanical ability. one only voice was raised in criticism. aurelio bellincini, a gentleman of modena, had sent a copy of the ode to lodovico castelvetro, with a request that he should pronounce upon its merits. castelvetro, who was wayward and independent beyond the usual prudence of his class, replied with a free censure of the "plebeian diction, empty phrases, strange digressions, purple patches, poverty of argument, and absence of sentiment or inspiration," he detected in its stanzas. at the same time he begged his friend to keep this criticism to himself. bellincini was indiscreet, and the letter found its way to caro. then arose a literary quarrel, which held all italy in suspense, and equaled in ferocity the combats of the humanists. [footnote 342: see, for example, "donna, qual mi foss'io," and "in voi mi trasformai," or "eran l'aer tranquillo e l'onde chiare."] [footnote 343: see "carlo il quinto fu questi"; "nell'apparir del giorno"; and "venite all'ombra de' gran gigli d'oro."] lodovico castelvetro was born in 1505 at modena. he studied successively at bologna, ferrara, padua, and siena. thence he passed to rome, where strong pressure was put upon him to enter orders. his uncle, giovanni maria della porta, promised, if he did so, to procure for him the bishopric of gubbio. but castelvetro had no mind to become a priest. he escaped clandestinely from rome, and, after a brief sojourn at siena, returned to modena. here in 1542 he subscribed the formulary of faith dictated by cardinal contarini, and thereby fell under suspicion of heresy. though he escaped inquisitorial censure at the moment, the charges of lutheranism were revived in 1554, when caro declared open war against him. invectives, apologies, censures, and replies were briskly interchanged between the principals, while half the scholars of italy allowed themselves to be drawn into the fray--varchi and molza siding with caro, gian maria barbieri and other friends of castelvetro taking up the cudgels for the opposite champion.[344] the bitterness of the contending parties may be gathered from the fact that castelvetro was accused of having murdered a friend of caro's, and caro of having hired assassins to take castelvetro's life.[345] it seems tolerably certain that either caro or one of his supporters denounced their enemy to the inquisition. he was summoned to rome, and in 1560 was confined in the convent of s. maria in via to await his trial. after undergoing some preliminary examinations, castelvetro became persuaded that his life was in peril. he contrived to escape by night from rome, and, after a journey of much anxiety and danger, took refuge in chiavenna, at that time a city of the grisons. the holy office condemned him as a contumacious heretic in his absence. wandering from chiavenna to lyons and geneva, and back again to chiavenna, he spent the rest of his life in exile, and died at the last place in 1571. [footnote 344: among the liveliest missiles used in this squabble are bronzino's _sattarelli_, recently reprinted by romagnoli, bologna, 1863.] [footnote 345: alberigo longo was in fact murdered in 1555, and a servant of castelvetro's was tried for the offense. but he was acquitted. caro, on his side, gave occasion to the worst reports by writing in may 1560 to varchi: "e credo che all'ultimo sarò sforzato a finirla, per ogni altra via, e vengane ciò che vuole." see tiraboschi, part 3, lib. iii. chap. 3 sec. 13.] castelvetro's publications do not correspond to his fame; for though he gave signs of an acute wit and a biting pen in his debate with caro, he left but little highly-finished work to posterity. in addition to critical annotations upon bembo's prose, published in his lifetime, he wrote a treatise upon rhetoric, which was printed at modena in 1653, and sent an italian version of aristotle's _poetics_ to the press in 1570. this book was the idol of his later years. it is said that, while residing at lyons, his house took fire, and castelvetro, careless of all else, kept crying out "the _poetics_, the _poetics_! save me my _poetics_!" he may be fairly reckoned among the men who did solid service in the cause of graver studies. yet, but for the vicissitudes of his career, he could hardly claim a foremost place in literary history. the ladies who cultivated poetry and maintained relations with illustrious men of letters at this epoch, were almost as numerous as the songsters of the other sex. lodovico domenichi in the year 1559 published the poems of no less than fifty authoresses in his _rime di alcune nobilissime e virtuosissime donne_. subjected to the same intellectual training as men, they felt the same influences, and passed at the same moment from humanism to renascent italian literature.[346] many of these viragos,[347] as it was the fashion of the age approvingly and with no touch of sarcasm to call them, were dames of high degree and leaders of society. some, like _la bella imperia_, were better known in the resorts of pleasure. all were distinguished by intercourse with artists and writers of eminence. it is impossible to render an account of their literary labors. but the names of a few, interesting alike for their talents and their amours, may here be recorded. tullia di aragona, the mistress of girolamo muzio, who ruled society in rome, and lived in infamy at venice[348]--vittoria accoramboni, whose tragedy thrilled italy, and gave a masterpiece to our elizabethan stage--tarquinia molza, granddaughter of the poet, and maid of honor at ferrara in guarini's brilliant days--laura terracina, with whose marriage and murder romance employed itself at the expense of probability--veronica franco, who entertained montaigne in her venetian home in 1580--ersilia cortese, the natural daughter of a humanist and wife of a pope's nephew--gaspara stampa, "sweet songstress and most excellent musician":--such were the women, to whom bembo and aretino addressed letters, and whose drawing-rooms were the resort of bandello's heroes. [footnote 346: the identity of male and female education in italy is an important feature of this epoch. the history of vittorino da feltre's school at mantua given by his biographer, rosmini, supplies valuable information upon this point. students may consult burckhardt, _cultur der renaissance_, sec. 5, ed. 2, p. 312; gregorovius, _lucrezia borgia_, book i. sec. 4; janitschek, _gesellschaft der renaissance_, lecture 3.] [footnote 347: see vulgate, gen. ii. 23: "hæc vocabitur virago," etc.] [footnote 348: in a rare tract called _tariffa delle puttane, etc._, tullia d'aragona is catalogued among the courtesans of venice. see passano, _novellieri in verso_, p. 118.] two poetesses have to be distinguished from the common herd. these are veronica gambara and vittoria colonna. veronica was the daughter of count gianfrancesco gambara and his wife alda pia of carpi, whose name recalls the fervid days of humanism at its noon.[349] she was born in 1485, and was therefore contemporary with the restorers of italian literature. bembo was the guide of her youth, and vittoria colonna the friend of her maturer years. in 1509 she married giberto, lord of correggio, by whom she had two sons, ippolito and girolamo. her husband died after nine years of matrimony, and she was left to educate her children for the state and church. she discharged her duties as a mother with praiseworthy diligence, and died in 1550, respected by all italy, the type of what a noble woman should be in an age when virtue shone by contrast with especial luster. her letters and her poems were collected and published in 1759 at brescia, the city of her birth. except for the purity of their sentiments and the sincerity of their expression, her verses do not rise far above mediocrity. like literary ladies of the french metropolis, she owed her fame to personal rather than to literary excellence. "the house of veronica," writes a biographer of the sixteenth century, "was an academy, where every day she gathered round her for discourse on noble questions bembo and cappello, molza and mauro, and all the famous men of europe who followed the italian courts."[350] [footnote 349: see _revival of learning_, p. 375.] [footnote 350: rinaldo corso, quoted by tiraboschi.] fabrizio, the father of vittoria colonna, was grand constable of naples. he married agnesina di montefeltro, daughter of duke federigo of urbino. their child vittoria was born at marino, a feud of the colonna family, in the year 1490. at the age of four she was betrothed to ferrante francesco d'avalos, a boy of the same age, the only son of the marchese di pescara. his father died while he was still a child: and in their nineteenth year the affianced couple were married at ischia, the residence of the house of d'avalos. the splendor of two princely families alike distinguished in the annals of spanish and italian history and illustrious by their military honors, conferred unusual luster upon this marriage. it was, moreover, on the bride's side at least, a love-match. vittoria was beautiful and cultivated; the young marquis of pescara chivalrous and brave. she was tenderly attached to him, and he had not as yet revealed the darker side of his mixed character. yet their happiness proved of very short duration. in 1512 he was wounded and made prisoner at the battle of ravenna; and though he returned to his wife for a short interval, his duties again called him to the field of war in lombardy in 1515. vittoria never saw him after this date; and before his death the honor of her hero was tarnished by one of the darkest deeds of treason recorded in italian history. acting as general for the spanish emperor, the marquis entered milan immediately after the battle of pavia in 1525. he there and then began his intrigues with girolamo morone, grand chancellor of francesco sforza's duchy. morone had formed a plan for reinstating his master in milan by the help of an italian coalition. with the view of securing the marquis of pescara, by which bold stroke he would have paralyzed the spanish military power, morone offered the young general the crown of naples, if he would consent to join the league. d'avalos turned a not unwilling ear to these proposals; but while the plot was hatching, he saw good reason to doubt of its success, and determined to clear himself with charles v. by revealing the conspiracy. accordingly, he made his lieutenant, antonio de leyva, assist at a privy conference between morone and himself. concealed behind the arras, this spanish officer heard enough to be able afterwards to deliver direct testimony against the conspirators, while the marquis averred that he had led them on designedly to this end. it may be difficult to estimate the precise amount of pescara's guilt. but whether he was deceiving morone from the first, or whether, as seems more probable, he entered the negotiation resolved to side with charles or with the league as best might suit his purpose, there can be no doubt that he played an odious part in this transaction. he did not long survive the treason; for his constitution had been ruined by wounds received at pavia. it was also rumored that charles accelerated his death by poison. he died on november 25, 1525, execrated by the italians, and handed down by their historians too perpetual infamy. something of national jealousy mingled undoubtedly in their resentment. d'avalos was a spaniard, and made no concealment of his contempt for the italian character. finally, it must be admitted that if he really was acting throughout in his master's interest, his betrayal of morone was but a bold stroke of policy which machiavelli might have approved. the game was a dangerous one; but it was thoroughly consistent with statecraft as then understood.[351] [footnote 351: see _ricordi inediti di gerolamo morone_, pubblicati dal c. tullio dandolo, milano, 1855.] no suspicion of her husband's guilt seems to have crossed vittoria colonna's mind. though left so young a widow, beautiful and illustrious by her high rank and education, she determined to consecrate her whole life to his memory and to religion. she survived him two-and-twenty years, which were spent partly in retirement at ischia, partly in convents at orvieto and viterbo, partly in a semi-monastic seclusion at rome. while still a girl and during her husband's absence in the field, she had amused her leisure with study. this now became her chief resource in the hours she spared from pious exercises. there was no man of great name in the world of letters who did not set his pride on being thought her friend. the collections of letters and poems belonging to that period abound in allusions to her genius, her holiness, and her great beauty. but her chief associates were the group of earnest thinkers who felt the influences of the reformation without ceasing to be children of the church. with vittoria colonna's name are inseparably connected those of gasparo contarini, reginald pole, giovanni morone, jacopo sadoleto, marcantonio flamminio, pietro carnesecchi, and fra bernardino ochino. the last of these avowed his lutheran principles; and carnesecchi was burned for heresy; but vittoria never adopted protestantism in any of its dogmatic aspects. she remained an orthodox catholic to the last, although it seems tolerably certain that she was by no means ignorant of the new doctrines nor unsympathetic to their spirit.[352] her attitude was probably the same as that of many italians who, before the opening of the council of trent, desired a reformation from within the church. to bring it back to purer morals and an evangelical sincerity of faith, was their aim. like savonarola, they shrank from heresy, and failed to comprehend that a radical renovation of religion was inseparable, in the changed conditions of modern thought, from a metamorphosis of dogma and a new freedom accorded to the individual conscience. while the teutonic world struck boldly for the liberation of the reason, the italians dreamed of an impossible harmony between catholicism and philosophy. their compromises led to ethical hypocrisies and to that dogmatic despotism which was confirmed by the tridentine council. [footnote 352: the most recent investigations tend rather to confirm the tradition of vittoria's lutheran leanings. see giuseppe campori's _vittoria colonna_ (modena, 1878), and the fine article upon it by ernesto masi in the _rassegna settimanale_, january 29, 1879. karl benrath's _ueber die quellen der italienischen reformationsgeschichte_ (bonn, 1876) is a valuable contribution to the history of lutheran opinion in the south.] a pleasant glimpse into vittoria's life at rome is given by the portuguese artist, francesco d'olanda, who visited her about the year 1548. "madonna vittoria colonna," he says, "marchioness of pescara and sister to the lord antonio colonna, is one of the most excellent and famous women of europe,--that is, of the whole civilized world. not less chaste than beautiful, learned in latin literature and full of genius, she possesses all the qualities and virtues that are praiseworthy in woman. after the death of her hero husband, she now leads a modest and retired life. tired with the splendor and grandeur of her former state, she gives her whole affections to christ and to serious studies. to the poor she is beneficent, and is a model of true catholic devotion." he then proceeds to describe a conversation held with her, in which michelangelo buonarroti took a part.[353] [footnote 353: the whole document may be seen in the _archivio storico_, nuov. ser. tom. v. part 2, p. 139, or in grimm's life of michelangelo.] vittoria colonna's _rime_ consist for the most part of sonnets on the death of her husband, and on sacred and moral subjects. penetrated by genuine feeling and almost wholly free from literary affectation, they have that dignity and sweetness which belongs to the spontaneous utterance of a noble heart. like the poets of an earlier and simpler age, vittoria listens to the voice of love, and when he speaks, records the thoughts dictated by his inspiration.[354] that the object of her lifelong regret was unworthy of her, does not offend our sense of fitness.[355] it is manifest that her own feeling for the marquis of pescara, _il mio bel sole, mio lume eterno_, as she loves to call him with pathetic iteration of the chosen metaphor, had satisfied her unsuspecting nature.[356] death consecrates her husband for vittoria, as death canonized laura for petrarch. he has become divine, and her sole desire is to rejoin him in a world where parting is impossible.[357] the blending of the hero with the saint, of earthly fame with everlasting glory, in this half christian half pagan apotheosis, is characteristic of the renaissance. michelangelo strikes the same note in the _capitolo_ upon his father's death: "or sei tu del morir morto e fatto divo." it is said that, in her first grief, vittoria thought of suicide as the means of escaping from this world. but she triumphed over the temptation, and in bembo's words proved herself _vincitrice di se stessa_. we seem to trace the anguish of that struggle in a sonnet which may possibly have suggested bembo's phrase.[358] [footnote 354: the first lines of the introductory sonnet are strictly true: scrivo sol per sfogar l'interna doglia, di che si pasce il cor, ch'altro non vole, e non per giunger lume al mio bel sole, che lasciò in terra si onorata spoglia.] [footnote 355: the last biographer of vittoria colonna, g. campori, has shown that her husband was by no means faithful to his marriage vows.] [footnote 356: the close of the twenty-second sonnet is touching by reason of its allusion to the past. vittoria had no children. sterili i corpi fur, l'alme feconde, chè il suo valor lasciò raggio si chiaro, che sarà lume ancor del nome mio. se d'altre grazie mi fu il ciel avaro, e se il mio caro ben morte m'asconde, pur con lui vivo; ed è quanto disio.] [footnote 357: see, for instance, _rime varie_, sonetto li. and lxxi. xc.] [footnote 358: it is no. 31 of the _rime varie_ (florence, barbèra, 1860).] the religious sonnets are distinguished in general by the same simplicity and sincerity of style.[359] while vittoria proves herself a catholic by her invocation of madonna and s. francis,[360] it is to the cross of christ that she turns with the deepest outgoings of pious feeling.[361] her cry is for lively faith, for evangelical purity of conviction. there is nothing in these meditations that a christian of any communion may not read with profit, as the heartfelt utterances of a soul athirst for god and nourished on the study of the gospel. [footnote 359: the introductory sonnet has, however, these ugly _concetti_: i santi chiodi ormai sian le mie penne, e puro inchiostro il prezioso sangue; purgata carta il sacro corpo esangue, sì ch'io scriva nel cor quel ch'ei sostenne.] [footnote 360: _rime sacre_, 119, 120, 86, 87.] [footnote 361: _ibid._ 75, 80, 81.] the memory of vittoria colonna is inseparable from that of michelangelo buonarroti, who was her intimate companion during the closing years of her life. of that famous friendship this is not the place to speak at length. it may be enough to report condivi's words about michelangelo's grief when he had lost her. "i remember having heard him say that nothing caused him so much sorrow as that, when he went to visit her upon her passage from this life, he had not kissed her forehead and face, even as he kissed her hand. her death left him oftentimes astonied and, as it were, deprived of reason." some of michelangelo's best sonnets were composed for vittoria colonna in her lifetime. others record his sorrow for her loss. those again which give expression to his religious feelings, are animated by her spirit of genuine piety. it is clear that her influence affected him profoundly. to include any notice of michelangelo's poetry in a chapter devoted to the purists, may seem paradoxical.[362] his verses are remarkable for the imperfection of their style, and the rugged elevation of their thoughts. with the school of bembo he has nothing in common except that platonism which the versifiers of the time affected as a fashion, but which had a real meaning for his creative genius. in the second half of the sixteenth century michelangelo's sonnets upon the divine idea, lifting the soul by contemplation to her heavenly home, reach our ears like utterances from some other and far distant age. both in form and in spirit they are alien to the _cinque cento_. yet the precisians of the time admired these uncouth verses for the philosophic depth of thought they found in them. benedetto varchi composed a learned treatise on the sonnet "non ha l'ottimo artista"; and when the poems were printed, mario guidicci delivered two lectures on them before the florentine academy.[363] [footnote 362: for a brief account of michelangelo's _rime_, see _fine arts_, appendix ii.; also the introduction to my translation of the sonnets, _the sonnets of michael angelo buonarroti and tommaso campanella_, smith and elder, 1878.] [footnote 363: varchi's and guidicci's _lezioni_ will be found in guasti's edition of the _rime_.] there is no sort of impropriety in placing bernardo tasso and giangiorgio trissino upon the list of literary purists. the biographies of these two men, more interesting for the share they took in public life than for their poetical achievements, shall close a chapter which has been, almost of necessity, rambling. bernardo tasso was a member of the noble and ancient bergamasque family dei tassi.[364] he was born at venice in 1493. left an orphan in his early childhood, an uncle on his father's side, the bishop of recanati, took charge of him. but this good man was murdered in 1520, at the time when bernardo had just begun a brilliant career in the university of padua. the loss of his father and his uncle threw the young student on the world, and he was glad to take service as secretary with the count guido rangone. at this epoch the rangoni stood high among the first nobility of italy, and count guido was captain-general of the church. he employed bernardo in a mission to paris in 1528, on the occasion of ercole d'este's marriage to renée, daughter of louis xii. tasso went to france as servant of the rangoni. he returned to italy in the employment of the estensi. but he did not long remain at the court of ferrara. about the year 1532, we find him with ferrante sanseverino, prince of salerno, whom he accompanied in 1535 on the expedition to tunis. it cannot have been much later than this date that he married the beautiful porzia de' rossi, who was the mother of his illustrious son, torquato. but though this marriage was in all respects a happy one, in none more fortunate than in the birth of italy's fourth sovran poet, bernardo was not destined to lead a life of tranquil domesticity. his master, whom he followed whithersoever military service called him, fell out of favor with the spanish court in 1547. maddened by the injustice of his treatment, the prince deserted from charles v. to his rival, francis, was declared a rebel and deprived of his vast domains. bernardo resolved to share his fortunes, and in return for this act of loyalty, found himself involved in the ruin of the sanseverini. henceforth he lived a wandering life, away from porzia and his family, and ill-contented with the pittance which his patron could afford. in 1556, at duke guidubaldo's invitation, he joined the court of urbino; and again in 1563 he entered the service of the duke of mantua. he died in 1569 at ostiglia. [footnote 364: i use the life prefixed by g. campori to his _lettere inedite di bernardo tasso_ (bologna, romagnoli, 1869).] it will be seen from this brief sketch that bernardo tasso spent his life in mixed employments, as courtier, diplomatist, and military secretary. his career was analogous to that of many nobly-born italians, for whom there existed no sphere outside the service of a prince. yet he found time, amid his journeys, campaigns and miscellaneous court duties, to practice literature. the seven books of his collected poems--sonnets, odes and epithalamial hymns--placed him among the foremost lyrists of the century; while his letters displayed the merits which were usual in that species of composition. had this been all, he would have deserved honorable mention by the side of caro, on a somewhat lower level than bembo. but he was also ambitious of giving a new kind of epic to italian literature. with this view, he versified the spanish romance of amadis of gaul in octave stanzas. the _amadigi_ is a chivalrous poem in the style of the _orlando_, but without the irony of ariosto.[365] it cannot be reckoned a success; for though written with fertile fancy and a flowing vein, its prolixity is tedious. tasso lacked the art of sustaining his reader's attention. his attempt to treat the ideal of feudalism seriously, without the faith and freshness of the chivalrous epoch, deprived his work of that peculiar charm which belongs to the italian romantic epic. while still in ms., he submitted his poem to literary friends, and read it at the court of urbino. the acclamation it received from men whose literary principles coincided with his own, raised tasso's expectations high. he imagined that the world would welcome _amadigi_ as a masterpiece, combining the interest of _orlando_ with the dignity and purity of a classic. when it appeared, however, the public received it coldly, and on this occasion the verdict of the people was indubitably right. another mortification awaited the author. he had dedicated his epic to philip ii. and filled its cantos with adulation of the spanish race. but the king took no notice of the gift; and two years after the publication of _amadigi_, it appeared that tasso's agents at the spanish court had not taken the trouble to present him with a copy.[366] [footnote 365: the _amadigi_ was printed by giolito at venice in 1560 under the author's own supervision. the book is a splendid specimen of florid typography.] [footnote 366: besides the _amadigi_, bernardo tasso composed a second narrative poem, the _floridante_, which his son, torquato, retouched and published at mantua in 1587.] bernardo tasso is the representative of a class which was common in renaissance italy, when courtiers and men of affairs devoted their leisure to study and composed poetry upon scholastic principles. his epic failed precisely through the qualities for which he prized it. less the product of inspiration than pedantic choice, it bore the taint of languor and unpardonable dullness. giangiorgio trissino, in the circumstances of his life no less than in the nature of his literary work, bears a striking resemblance to the author of the _amadigi_. the main difference between the two men is that trissino adopted by preference the career of diplomacy into which poverty drove tasso.[367] he was born at vicenza in 1478 of wealthy and noble ancestors, from whom he inherited vast estates. his mother was cecilia, of the bevilacqua family. during his boyhood trissino enjoyed fewer opportunities of study than usually fell to the lot of young italian nobles. he spent his time in active exercises; and it was only in 1506 that he began his education in earnest. at this date he had been married nine years, and had already lost his wife, the mother of two surviving children, francesco and giulio.[368] [footnote 367: _giangiorgio trissino_, by bernardo morsolin (vicenza, 1878), is a copious biography and careful study of this poet's times.] [footnote 368: francesco died in 1514.] trissino's inclination toward literature induced him to settle at milan, where he became a pupil of the veteran demetrius chalcondylas. he cultivated the society of learned men, collected mss., and devoted himself to the study of greek philosophy. from the first, he showed the decided partiality for erudition which was destined to rule his future career. but scholars at that epoch, even though they might be men of princely fortune, had little chance of uninterrupted leisure. trissino's estates gave him for a while as much trouble as poverty had brought on tasso. vicenza was allotted to the empire in 1509; and afterwards, when the city gave itself to the venetian republic, trissino's adherence to maximilian's party cost him some months of exile in germany and the temporary confiscation of his property. between 1510 and 1514, after his return from germany, but before he made his peace with venice, trissino visited ferrara, florence and rome. these years determined his life as a man of letters. the tragedy of _sofonisba_, which was written before 1515, won for its author a place among the foremost poets of the time.[369] the same period decided his future as a courtier. leo x. sent him on a mission to bavaria, and upon his return procured his pardon from the republic of s. mark. there is not much to be gained by following the intricate details of trissino's public career. after leo's death, he was employed by clement vii. and paul iii. he assisted at the coronation of charles v., and on this occasion was made knight and count. gradually he assumed the style of a finished courtier; and though he never took pay from his papal or princely masters, no poet carried the art of adulation further.[370] [footnote 369: see above, pp. 126-128.] [footnote 370: see morsolin, _op. cit._, p. 360, for trissino's own emphatic statement that his services had been unpaid. _ibid._ p. 344, for a list of the personages he complimented.] this self-subjection to the annoyances and indignities of court-life is all the more remarkable because trissino continued to live like a great noble. when he traveled, he was followed by a retinue of servants. a chaplain attended him for the celebration of mass. his litter was furnished with silver plate, and with all the conveniences of a magnificent household. his own cook went before, with couriers, to prepare his table; and the equipage included a train of sumpter-mules and serving-men in livery.[371] at home, in his palace at vicenza or among his numerous villas, he showed no less magnificence. upon the building of one country-house at cricoli, which he designed himself and surrounded with the loveliest italian gardens, enormous sums were spent; and when the structure was completed, he opened it to noble friends, who lived with him at large and formed an academy called after him la trissiniana.[372] trissino was, moreover, a diligent student and a lover of solitude. he spent many years of his life upon the island of murano, in a villa secluded from the world, and open to none but a few guests of similar tastes.[373] yet in spite of the advantages which fortune gave him, in spite of his studious habits, he could not resist the attraction which courts at that epoch exercised over men of birth and breeding throughout europe. he was for ever returning to rome, although he expressed the deepest horror for the corruptions of that sinful city.[374] no sooner had he established himself in quiet among the woods and streams of the vicentine lowlands or upon the breast of the venetian lagoons, than the hankering to shine before a prince came over him, and he resumed his march to ferrara, or made his bow once more in the vatican. [footnote 371: _ibid._ p. 323.] [footnote 372: _ibid._ pp. 219-235.] [footnote 373: _ibid._ p. 301.] [footnote 374: _op. cit._ p. 366.] the end of trissino's life was troubled by a quarrel with his son giulio, in which it is difficult to decide whether the father or the son was more to blame. some years after the death of his first wife, he married a cousin, bianca trissino, by whom he had another son, ciro. giulio was sickly, and had taken to the ecclesiastical career. his father's preference for ciro was decided, and he openly expressed it. that bianca was not entirely responsible for the ensuing quarrel, is certain from the fact that trissino separated from this second wife in 1535. but it appears that giulio opened hostilities by behaving with brutal rudeness to his stepmother. trissino refused to receive him, and cut off his allowance. giulio then went to law with his father. a hollow peace was patched up, and, after bianca's death in 1540, giulio was appointed steward of the family estates. his management of trissino's property led to new disputes, and new acts of violence. on one occasion the son broke into his father's palace at vicenza, and tried to turn him by armed force into the streets upon a bitter night of christmas. meanwhile fresh lawsuits were on foot, and giulio's cause triumphed in the courts of venice, whither the case had been removed on appeal from vicenza. infuriated by what he deemed a maladministration of justice, the old poet hurled sonnets and invectives against both cities, execrating their infamy in the strongest verse he ever penned.[375] but he could not gain redress against the son he hated. at the age of seventy-two, in the midst of these private troubles, trissino undertook his last journey to rome. there he died in 1550, and was buried near john lascaris in the church of s. agata in suburra. [footnote 375: _op. cit._ p. 385.] whatever may have been the crimes of giulio against his father, trissino used a cruel and unpardonable revenge upon his eldest son. not content with blackening his character under the name of agrilupo in the _italia liberata_,[376] he wrote a codicil to his will, in which he brought against giulio the most dangerous charge it was then possible to make. he disinherited him with a curse, and accused him of lutheran heresy.[377] it was clearly the father's intention to hand his son down to an immortality of shame in his great poem, to ruin him in his temporal affairs, and to deprive him of his ecclesiastical privileges. posterity has defeated his first purpose; for few indeed are the readers of trissino's _italia liberata_. in his second and his third objects, he was completely successful. giulio was prosecuted for heresy in 1551, cited before the inquisition of bologna in 1553, excommunicated by the roman holy office in 1554, condemned as a contumacious heretic in 1556, driven into hiding at venice, attacked in bed and half murdered there in 1568, and finally thrown into prison in 1573. he died in prison in 1576, without having shown any signs of repentance, a martyr to his lutheran opinions.[378] ciro trissino, the third actor in this domestic tragedy, had already been strangled in his villa at cornedo in the year 1574. [footnote 376: _ibid._ p. 413.] [footnote 377: _ibid._ p. 414.] [footnote 378: the whole of this extraordinary sequel to trissino's biography will be read with interest in the last chapter of signor morsolin's monograph. it leaves upon my mind the impression that giulio, though unpardonably ill-tempered, and possibly as ill-conducted in his private life as his foes asserted, was the victim of an almost diabolical persecution.] trissino's literary labors bring us back to the specific subject of this chapter. he made it the aim of his life to apply the methods of the ancients to the practice of italian poetry, and to settle the vexed questions of the language on rational principles. conscious of the novelty and ambitious nature of his designs, he adopted the golden fleece of jason for an emblem, signifying that his voyages in literature led far beyond the ordinary track, with an inestimable prize in view.[379] had his genius been equal to his enterprise, he might have effected a decisive revolution. but trissino was a man of sterling parts and sound judgment rather than a poet: a formulator of rules and precepts rather than a creator. his bent of mind was critical; and in this field he owed his success more to coincidence with prevalent opinion than to originality. though he fixed the type of italian tragedy by his _sofonisba_, and tied comedy down to latin models by his _simillimi_, we cannot rate his talents as a playwright very high. the _poetica_, in which he reduced horace and aristotle to italian prose, and laid down laws for adapting modern literature to antique system, had a wide and lasting influence.[380] we may trace the canon of dramatic unities, which through italian determined french practice, up to this source: but had not trissino's precepts been concordant with the tendencies of his age, it is probable that even this treatise would have carried little weight. when he attempted to reform italian orthography on similar principles, he met with derision and resistance.[381] the world was bent on aping the classics; it did not care about adopting the greek kappa, zeta, phi, etc. trissino intervened with more effect in the dispute on language. he pleaded that the vernacular, being the common property of the whole nation, should be called italian and cultivated with a wise tolerance of local diction. having discovered a copy of dante's _de eloquio_, he communicated this treatise to the learned world in support of his own views, and had a translation of it printed.[382] this publication embittered the strife which was then raging. some florentine scholars, led by martelli, impugned its genuineness. but the _de eloquio_ survived antagonistic criticism, and opened a new stage in the discussion. [footnote 379: see morsolin, _op. cit._, p. 197. this device was imprinted as early as 1529, upon the books published for trissino at verona by janicolo of brescia.] [footnote 380: the _poetica_ was printed in 1529; but it had been composed some years earlier.] [footnote 381: his grammatical and orthographical treatises were published under the titles of _epistola a clemente vii._, _grammatichetta_, _dialogo castellano_, _dubbi grammaticali_. firenzuola made trissino's new letters famous and ridiculous by the burlesque sonnets he wrote upon them.] [footnote 382: vicenza, tolomeo janicolo, 1529.] in his attempt to add the heroic species of the epic to italian literature, trissino was even less successful than in his dramatic experiments. disgusted with ariosto's success in what he regarded as a barbarous style of art, he set himself to make an epic on the model of homer, with scrupulous obedience to aristotle's rules. for his subject he chose an episode from italian history, and used blank verse instead of the attractive octave stanza. the _italia liberata_ cost its author twenty years of labor.[383] it was a masterpiece of erudition, displaying profound acquaintance with roman tactics, and a competent knowledge of roman topography. but in spite of its characters _plaqués_ upon those of the _iliad_, in spite of its learnedly-constructed episodes, in spite of its fidelity to aristotle, the _italia liberata_ was not a poem. the good sense of the nation refused it. tasso returned to the romantic method and the meretricious charms of the _ottava rima_. only gravina among critics spoke a good word for it. the subject lacked real grandeur. italy delivered from the goths, was only italy delivered to the lombards. the unity of the poem was not the unity of an epic, but of a chapter from a medieval chronicle. the machinery of angels, travestied with classic titles, was ridiculous. the norcian sibyl, introduced in rivalry with virgil's sibyl of avernus, was out of place. and though trissino expunged what made the old romantic poems charming, he retained their faults. intricate underplots and flatteries of noble families were consistent with a species which had its origin in feudal minstrelsy. they were wholly out of character with a professed transcription from the greek. neither style nor meter rose to the heroic level. the blank verse was pedestrian and prolix. the language was charged with lombardisms. thus the _italia liberata_ proved at all points that trissino could make rules, but that he could not apply them to any purpose. it is curious to compare his failure with milton's success in a not entirely dissimilar endeavor. the poet achieves a triumph where the pedant only suffers a defeat; and yet the aim of both was almost identical. so different is genius guided by principles from the mechanical carpentry of imitative talent. [footnote 383: nine books were first printed at rome in 1547 by valerio and luigi dorici. the whole, consisting of twenty-seven books, was published at venice in 1548 by tolomeo janicolo of brescia. this janicolo was trissino's favorite publisher.] chapter xiv. burlesque poetry and satire. relation of satiric to serious literature--italy has more parody and caricature than satire or comedy--life of folengo--his _orlandino_--critique of previous romances--lutheran doctrines--orlando's boyhood--griffarosto--invective against friars--maccaronic poetry--the travesty of humanism--pedantesque poetry--glottogrysio ludimagistro--tifi odassi of padua--the pedant vigonça--evangelista fossa--giorgio alione--folengo employs the maccaronic style for an epic--his address to the muses--his hero baldus--boyhood and youth--cingar--the travels of the barons--gulfora--witchcraft in italy--folengo's conception of witchcraft--entrance into hell--the zany and the pumpkin--nature of folengo's satire--his relation to rabelais--the _moscheis_--the _zanitonella_--maccaronic poetry was lombard--another and tuscan type of burlesque--_capitoli_--their popular growth--berni--his life--his mysterious death--his character and style--three classes of _capitoli_--the pure bernesque manner--berni's imitators--the indecency of this burlesque--such humor was indigenous--_terza rima_--berni's satires on adrian vi. and clement vii.--his caricatures--his sonnet on aretino--the _rifacimento_ of boiardo's _orlando_--the mystery of its publication--albicante and aretino--the publishers giunta and calvi--berni's protestant opinions--eighteen stanzas of the _rifacimento_ printed by vergerio--hypothesis respecting the mutilation of the _rifacimento_--satire in italy. in all classical epochs of literature comedy and satire have presented their antithesis to ideal poetry, by setting the actual against the imagined world, or by travestying the forms of serious art. thus the titanic farce of aristophanes was counterposed to æschylean tragedy; and molière portrayed men as they are, before an audience which welcomed racine's pictures of men as the age conceived they ought to be. it is the mark of really great literature when both thesis and antithesis, the aspiration after the ideal and the critique of actual existence, exhibit an equality of scale. the comic and satiric species of poetry attain to grandeur only by contact with impassioned art of a high quality, or else by contrast with a natural greatness in the nation that produces them. both mask and anti-mask reveal the mental stature of the people. both issue from the conscience of society, and bear its impress. if so much be admitted, we can easily understand why burlesque poetry formed the inevitable pendent to polite literature in italy. there was no national tragedy; therefore there could be no great comedy. the best work of the age, typified by ariosto's epic, was so steeped in irony that it offered no vantage-ground for humorous counterpoise. there was nothing left but to exaggerate its salient qualities, and to caricature its form. such exaggeration was burlesque; such caricature was parody. in like manner, satire found no adequate sphere. the nation's life was not on so grand a scale as to evolve the elements of satire from the contrast between faculties and foibles. nor again could a society, corrupt and satisfied with corruption, anxious to live and let live, apply the lash with earnestness to its own shoulders. _facit indignatio versus_, was juvenal's motto; and indignation tore the heart of swift. but in italy there was no indignation. all men were agreed to tolerate, condone, and compromise. when vices come to be laughingly admitted, when discords between practice and profession furnish themes for tales and epigrams, the moral conscience is extinct. but without an appeal to conscience the satirist has no _locus standi_. therefore, in italy there was no great satire, as in italy there was no great comedy. the burlesque rhymsters portrayed their own and their neighbors' immorality with self-complacent humor, calling upon the public to make merry over the spectacle. this poetry, obscene, equivocal, frivolous, horribly sincere, supplied a natural antithesis to the pseudo-platonic, pedantic, artificial mannerism of the purists. in point of intrinsic value, there is not much to choose between the petrarchistic and the burlesque styles. many burlesque poets piqued themselves with justice on their elegance, and clothed gross thoughts in diction of elaborate polish. meanwhile they laid the affectations, conventions and ideals of the age impartially under contribution. the sonneteers suggested parodies to aretino, who celebrated vice and deformity in women with hyperboles adapted from the sentimental school.[384] the age of gold was ridiculed by romolo bertini.[385] the idyl found its travesty in berni's pictures of crude village loves and in folengo's _zanitonella_. chivalry became absurd by the simple process of enforcing the prosaic elements in ariosto, reducing his heroes to the level of plebeian life, and exaggerating the extravagance of his romance. the ironical smile which played upon his lips, expands into broad grins and horse-laughter. yet, though the burlesque poets turned everything they touched into ridicule, these buffoons were not unfrequently possessed of excellent good sense. not a few of them, as we shall see, were among the freest thinkers of their age. like court jesters they dared to utter truths which would have sent a serious writer to the stake. lucidity of intellectual vision was granted at this time in italy to none but positive and materialistic thinkers--to analysts like machiavelli and pomponazzi, critics like pietro aretino, poets with feet firmly planted on the earth like berni and folengo. the two last-named artists in the burlesque style may be selected as the leaders of two different but cognate schools, the one flourishing in lombardy, the other in florence. [footnote 384: see the madrigals in _opere burlesche_, vol. iii. pp. 36-38.] [footnote 385: _ibid._ p. 290.] girolamo folengo was born in 1491 of noble parents at cipada, a village of the mantuan district. he made his first studies under his father's roof, and in due time proceeded to bologna. here he attended the lectures of pomponazzi, and threw himself with ardor into the pleasures and perils of the academical career. francesco gonzaga, a fantastical and high-spirited libertine from mantua, was the recognized leader of the students at that moment. duels, challenges, intrigues and street-quarrels formed the staple of their life. it was an exciting and romantic round of gayety and danger, of which the novelists have left us many an animated picture. folengo by his extravagant conduct soon exhausted the easy patience of the university authorities. he was obliged to quit bologna, and his father refused to receive him. in this emergency he took refuge in a benedictine convent at brescia. when he made himself a monk, folengo changed his christian name to teofilo, by which he is now best known in literature. but he did not long endure the confinement of a cloister. after six years spent among the benedictines, he threw the cowl aside, and ran off with a woman, girolama dieda, for whom he had conceived an insane passion.[386] this was in the year 1515. during the next eleven years he gave himself to the composition of burlesque poetry. his _maccaronea_ appeared at venice in 1519, and his _orlandino_ in 1526. the former was published under he pseudonym of merlinus cocaius, compounded of a slang word in the mantuan dialect, and of the famous wizard's title of romance.[387] the latter bore the _nom de plume_ of _limerno pitocco_--an anagram of merlino, with the addition of an epithet pointing to the poet's indigence. these works brought folengo fame but little wealth, and he was fain to return at last to his old refuge.[388] resuming the cowl, he now retired to a monastery in the kingdom of naples, visited sicily, and died at last near padua, in the convent of s. croce di campese. this was in 1544. the last years of his life had been devoted to religious poetry, which is not read with the same curiosity as his burlesque productions. [footnote 386: in _mac._ xx. (p. 152 of mantuan edition, 1771), he darkly alludes to this episode of his early life, where he makes an exposed witch exclaim: nocentina vocor magicis tam dedita chartis, decepique mea juvenem cum fraude folengum.] [footnote 387: i cannot find sufficient authority for the story of folengo's having had a grammar-master named cocaius, from whom he borrowed part of his pseudonym. the explanation given by his mantuan editor, which i have adopted in the text, seems the more probable. _cocáj_ in mantuan dialect means a cork for a bottle; and the phrase _ch'al fà di cocáj_ is used to indicate some extravagant absurdity or blunder.] [footnote 388: there seems good reason, from many passages in his _maccaronea_, to believe that his repentance was sincere. i may here take occasion to remark that, though his poems are gross in the extreme, their moral tone is not unhealthy. he never makes obscenity or vice attractive.] teofilo folengo, or merlinus cocaius, or limerno pitocco, was, when he wrote his burlesque poems, what the french would call a _déclassé_. he had compromised his character in early youth and had been refused the shelter of his father's home. he had taken monastic vows in a moment of pique, or with the baser object of getting daily bread in idleness. his elopement from the convent with a paramour had brought scandal on religion. each of these steps contributed to place him beyond the pale of respectability. driven to bay and forced to earn his living, he now turned round upon society; and spoke his mind out with a freedom born of bile and cynical indifference. if he had learned nothing else at bologna, he had imbibed the materialistic philosophy of pomponazzi together with gonzaga's lessons in libertinage. brutalized, degraded in his own eyes, rejected by the world of honest or decorous citizens, but with a keen sense of the follies, vices and hypocrisies of his age, he resolved to retaliate by a work of art that should attract attention and force the public to listen to his comments on their shame. in his humorous poetry there is, therefore, a deliberate if not a very dignified intention. he does not merely laugh, but mixes satire with ribaldry, and points buffoonery with biting sarcasm. since the burlesque style had by its nature to be parasitical and needed an external motive, folengo chose for the subject of his parody the romance of _orlando_, which was fashionable to the point of extravagance in italy after the appearance of the _furioso_. but he was not satisfied with turning a tale of paladins to ridicule. he used it as the shield behind which he knew that he might safely shoot his arrows at the clergy and the princes of his native land, attack the fortresses of orthodoxy, and vent his spleen upon society by dragging its depraved ideals in the mire of his own powerful but vulgar scorn. folengo has told us that the _orlandino_ was conceived and written before the _maccaronea_, though it was published some years later. it is probable that the rude form and plebeian language of this burlesque romance found but little favor with a public educated in the niceties of style. they were ready to accept the bastard latin dialect invented for his second venture, because it offended no puristic sensibilities. but the coarse italian of the _orlandino_ could not be relished by academicians, who had been pampered with the refinements of berni's wanton muse.[389] only eight cantos appeared; nor is there reason to suppose that any more were written, for it may be assumed that the fragment had fulfilled its author's purpose.[390] that purpose was to satirize the vice, hypocrisy and superstition of the clergy, and more particularly of the begging friars. in form the _orlandino_ pretends to be a romance of chivalry, and it bears the same relation to the _orlando_ of boiardo and ariosto as the _secchia rapita_ to the heroic poems of tasso's school. it begins with a burlesque invocation to federigo gonzaga, marquis of mantua, in which the poet bluntly describes his poverty and begs for largess. then folengo passes to an account of his authorities and to the criticism of his predecessors in romantic poetry. he had recourse, he says, to a witch of val camonica, who mounted him upon a ram, and bore him to the country of the goths. there he found forty decades of turpin's history among the rubbish of old books stolen from italy. of these, three decades had already been discovered and translated by boiardo; but, after versifying a large portion of the second, the poet left the rest of it to ariosto. the sixth was stolen from him by francesco bello. the last he gave with his own hands to poliziano, who put it into rhyme and allowed pulci to have the credit of his labors.[391] folengo himself took a portion of the first decade, and thus obtained material for treating of the birth and boyhood of orlando. this exordium is chiefly valuable as a piece of contemporary criticism: queste tre deche dunque sin quà trovo esser dal fonte di turpin cavate; ma _trebisonda_, _ancroia_, _spagna_, e _bovo_ coll'altro resto al foco sian donate: apocrife son tutte, e le riprovo come nemiche d'ogni veritate; boiardo, l'ariosto, pulci, e'l cieco autenticati sono, ed io con seco. [footnote 389: part of folengo's satire is directed against the purists. see canto i. 7-9. he confesses himself a lombard, and shrugs his shoulders at their solemn criticisms: non però, se non nacqui tosco, i' piango; chè ancora il ciacco gode nel suo fango. to the reproach of "turnip-eating lombard" he retorts, "tuscan chatterbox." compare vi. 1, 2, on his own style: oscuri sensi ed affettate rime, qual'è chi dica mai compor limerno?] [footnote 390: the first line of the elegy placed upon the edition of 1526 runs thus: mensibus istud opus tribus _indignatio fecit_. folengo claims for himself a satiric purpose. the edition used by me is molini's, londra, 1775.] [footnote 391: see above part i. p. 455, for the belief that poliziano was the real author of the _morgante maggiore_.] if we may accept this stanza as expressing the opinion of italians in the sixteenth century relative to their romantic poets, we find that it almost exactly agrees with that of posterity. only the _mambriano_ of bello has failed to maintain its place beside the _morgante_ and _orlando_. embarking upon the subject of his tale, folengo describes the court of charlemagne, and passes he paladins in review, intermingling comic touches with exaggerated imitations of the romantic style. the peers of france preserve their well-known features through the distorting medium of caricature; while humorous couplets, detonating here and there like crackers, break the mock-heroical monotony. gano, for example, is still the arch-traitor of the tribe of judas: figliuol non d'uomo, nè da dio creato, ma il gran diavol ebbelo cacato. the effect of parody is thus obtained by emphasizing the style of elder poets and suddenly breaking off into a different vein. next comes the description of berta's passion for milone, with a singularly coarse and out-spoken invective against love.[392] meanwhile charlemagne has proclaimed a tournament. the peers array themselves, and the court is in a state of feverish expectation. _parturiunt montes_: instead of mailed warriors careering upon fiery chargers, the knights crawl into the lists on limping mules and lean asses, with a ludicrous array of kitchen-gear for armor. the description of this donkey-tournament, is one of folengo's triumphs.[393] when milone comes upon the scene and jousts beneath his lady's balcony, the style is heightened to the tone of true romance, and, but for the roughness of the language, we might fancy that a page of the _orlando_ were beneath our eyes. a banquet follows, after which we are regaled with a court-ball, and then ensues the comic chain of incidents which bring milone and berta to the fruition of their love. they elope, take ship, and are separated by a series of mishaps upon the open sea. berta is cast ashore alone in italy, and begs her way to sutri, where she gives birth to orlando in a shepherd's cabin. during the course of these adventures, folengo diverts his readers with many brilliant passages and bits of satire, at one time inveighing against the license of balls, at another describing the mixed company on board a ship of passage; now breaking off into burlesque pedigrees, and then again putting into berta's mouth a string of lutheran opinions. though the personages are romantic, the incidents are copied with realistic fidelity from actual life. we are moving among italian _bourgeois_ in the masquerade of heroes and princesses. [footnote 392: canto i. 64, 65; ii. 1-4: ed io dico ch'amor è un bardassola più che sua madre non fu mai puttana, etc. folengo, of course, has a mistress, to whom he turns at the proper moments of his narrative. this _mia diva caritunga_ is a caricature of the fashionable laura. see v. 1, 2: o donna mia, ch'hai gli occhi, ch'hai l'orecchie, quelli di pipistrel, queste di bracco, etc.] [footnote 393: canto ii. 9-42.] berta's prayer when she found herself alone upon the waters in an open boat, is so characteristic of folengo's serious intention that it deserves more than a passing comment.[394] she addresses herself to god instead of to any saints: a te ricorro, non a piero, o andrea, chè l'altrui mezzo non mi fa mestiero: ben tengo a mente che la cananea non supplicò nè a giacomo nè a piero. [footnote 394: canto vi. 40-46. i have placed a translation of this passage in an appendix to this chapter.] it is the hypocrisy of friars, folengo says, who sacrifice to moloch, while they use the name of mary to cloak their crimes--it is this damnable hypocrisy which has blinded simple folk into trusting the invocation of saints. avarice is the motive of these false priests: and lust moves them to preach the duty of confession: e quì trovo ben spesso un confessore essere più ruffiano che dottore. therefore, cries berta, i make my confession to god alone and from him seek salvation, and vow that, if i escape the fury of the sea, i will no more lend belief to men who sell indulgences for gold. so far the poet is apparently sincere. in the next stanza he resumes his comic vein: cotal preghiere carche d'eresia berta facea, mercè ch'era tedesca; perchè in quel tempo la teologia era fatta romana e fiandresca; ma dubito ch'alfin nella turchia si troverà vivendo alla moresca; perchè di cristo l'inconsutil vesta squarciata è sì che più non ve ne resta. the blending of buffoonery and earnestness in folengo's style might be illustrated by the bizarre myth of the making of peasants, where he introduces christ and the apostles:[395] _transibat jesus_ per un gran villaggio con pietro, andrea, giovanni, e con taddeo; trovan ch'un asinello in sul rivaggio molte pallotte del suo sterco feo. disse allor piero al suo maestro saggio: _en, domine, fac homines ex eo._ _surge, villane_, disse cristo allora; e 'l villan di que' stronzi saltò fora. [footnote 395: canto v. 56-58. the contempt for country folk seems unaffected.] his fantastic humor, half-serious, half-flippant, spares nothing sacred or profane. even the last judgment receives an inconceivably droll treatment on the slender occasion of an allusion to the disasters of milan.[396] folengo has just been saying that italy well deserves her title of _barbarorum sepultura_.[397] chè veramente in quell'orribil giorno che in giosafatto suonerà la tromba, facendosi sentire al mondo intorno, e i morti salteran fuor d'ogni tomba, non sarà pozzo, cacatojo, o forno, che mentre il tararan del ciel ribomba, non getti fuora svizzeri, francesi, tedeschi, ispani, e d'altri assai paesi; e vederassi una mirabil guerra, fra loro combattendo gli ossi suoi: chi un braccio, chi una man, chi un piede afferra; ma vien chi dice--questi non son tuoi- anzi son miei--non sono; e sulla terra molti di loro avran gambe di buoi, teste di muli, e d'asini le schiene, siccome all'opre di ciascun conviene. [footnote 396: canto vi. 55-57. this passage is a caricature of pulci's burlesque description of the last day. see above part i. p. 449. folengo's loathing of the strangers who devoured italy is clear here, as also in i. 43, ii. 4, 59. but there is no force in his invectives or laments. l'italia non più italia appello, ma d'ogni strana gente un bel bordello.... che 'l cancaro mangiasse il taliano, il quale, o ricco, o povero che sia, desidra in nostre stanze il tramontano.... chè se non fosser le gran parti in quella, dominerebbe il mondo italia bella.] [footnote 397: for verily on that most dreadful day, when in the valley of jehosaphat the trump shall sound, and thrill this globe of clay, and dead folk shuddering leave their tombs thereat, no well, sewer, privy shall be found, i say, which, while the angels roar their rat-tat-tat, shall not disgorge its spaniards, frenchmen, swiss, germans, and rogues of every race that is. then shall we see a wonderful dispute, as each with each they wrangle, bone for bone; one grasps an arm, one grabs a hand, a foot; comes one who says, "these are not yours, you loon!" "they're mine!" "they're not!" while many a limb of brute joined to their human bodies shall be shown, mule's heads, bull's legs, cruppers and ears of asses, as each man's life on earth his spirit classes.] the birth of orlando gives occasion for a mock-heroic passage, in which pulci is parodied to the letter.[398] all the more amusing for the assumption of pompous style, is the ensuing account of the hero's boyhood among the street-urchins of sutri. when he is tall enough to bestride a broomstick, orlandino proves his valor by careering through the town and laughing at the falls he gets. at seven he shows the strength of twelve: urta, fracassa, rompe, quassa, e smembra; orsi, leoni, tigri non paventa, ma contro loro intrepido s'avventa. [footnote 398: canto vi. 8-11: quì nacque orlando, l'inclito barone; quì nacque orlando, senator romano, etc.] the octave stanzas become a cataract of verbs and nouns to paint his tempestuous childhood. it is a spirited comic picture of the italian _enfant terrible_, stone-throwing, boxing, scuffling, and swearing like a pickpocket. at the same time the boy grows in cunning, and supports his mother by begging from one and bullying another of the citizens of sutri:- io v'addimando per l'amor di dio un pane solo ed un boccal di vino; officio non fu mai più santo e pio che se pascete il pover pellegrino: se non men date, vi prometto ch'io, quantunque sia di membra si piccino, ne prenderò da me senza riguardo; chè salsa non vogl'io di san bernardo. cancar vi mangi, datemi a mangiare, se non, vi butterò le porte giuso; per debolezza sentomi mancare, e le budella vannomi a riffuso. gente devota, e voi persone care che vi leccate di buon rosto il muso, mandatemi, per dio, qualche minestra, o me la trate giù dalla finestra. in the course of these adventures orlandino meets oliver, the son of rainero, the governor, and breaks his crown in a quarrel. this brings about the catastrophe; for the young hero pours forth such a torrent of voluble slang, mixed with imprecations and menaces, that rainero is forced to acknowledge the presence of a superior genius.[399] but before the curtain falls upon the discovery of orlandino's parentage and his reception into the company of peers, folengo devotes a canto to the episodical history of the prelate griffarosto.[400] the name of this rabelaisian ecclesiastic--claw-the-roast--sufficiently indicates the line of the poet's satire. [footnote 399: canto vii. 61-65.] [footnote 400: he has been identified on sufficiently plausible grounds with ignazio squarcialupo, the prior of folengo's convent. in the _maccaronea_ this burlesque personage reappears as the keeper of a tavern in hell, who feeds hungry souls on the most hideous messes of carrion and vermin (book xxiii. p. 217). there is sufficient rancor in griffarosto's portrait to justify the belief that folengo meant in it to gratify a private thirst for vengeance.] whatever appeared in the market of sutri fit for the table, fell into his clutches, or was transferred to the great bag he wore beneath his scapulary. his library consisted of cookery books; and all the tongues he knew, were tongues of swine and oxen.[401] orlandino met this griffarosto fat as a stalled ox, one morning after he had purchased a huge sturgeon: la reverenzia vostra non si parta; statemi alquanto, prego, ad ascoltare. _nimis sollicita es, o marta, marta, circa substantian christi devorare._ dammi poltron, quel pesce, ch'io 'l disquarta, per poterlo _in communi_ dispensare, nassa d'anguille che tu sei, lurcone; e ciò dicendo dagli col bastone. [footnote 401: in the play on the word _lingue_ there is a side-thrust at the purists.] the priest was compelled to disgorge his prey, and the fame of the boy's achievement went abroad through sutri. rainero thereupon sent for griffarosto, and treated the abbot to such a compendious abuse of monks in general as would have delighted a lutheran.[402] griffarosto essayed to answer him with a ludicrous jumble of dog latin; but the governor requested him to defer his apology for the morrow. the description of griffarosto's study in the monastery, where wine and victuals fill the place of books, his oratory consecrated to bacchus, the conversation with his cook, and the _ruse_ by which the cook gets chosen prior in his master's place, carry on the satire through fifty stanzas of slashing sarcasm. the whole episode is a pendent picture to pulci's margutte. then, by a brusque change from buffoonery to seriousness, folengo plunges into a confession of faith, attributed to rainero, but presumably his own.[403] it includes the essential points of catholic orthodoxy, abjuring the impostures of priests and friars, and taking final station on the lutheran doctrine of salvation by faith and repentance. idle as a dream, says folengo, are the endeavors made by friars to force scholastic conclusions on the conscience in support of theses s. paul would have rejected. what they preach, they do not comprehend. their ignorance is only equal to their insolent pretension. they are worse than judas in their treason to christ, worse than herod, anna, caiaphas, or pilate. they are only fit to consort with usurers and slaves. they use the names of saints and the altar of the virgin as the means of glutting their avarice with the gold of superstitious folk. they abuse confession to gratify their lusts. their priories are dens of dogs, hawks, and reprobate women. they revel in soft beds, drink to intoxication, and stuff themselves with unctuous food. and still the laity intrust their souls to these rogues, and there are found many who defraud their kith and kin in order to enrich a convent![404] [footnote 402: canto viii. 23-32.] [footnote 403: canto viii. 73-84. this passage i have also translated and placed in an appendix to this chapter, where the chief lutheran utterances of the burlesque poets will be found together.] [footnote 404: in addition to the eighth canto, i have drawn on iii. 4, 20; iv. 13; vi. 44, for this list.] it would not be easy to compose an invective more suited to degrade the objects of a satirist's anger by the copiousness and the tenacity of the dirt flung at them. yet the _orlandino_ was written by a monk, who, though he had left his convent, was on the point of returning to it; and the poem was openly printed during the pontificate of clement vii. that folengo should have escaped inquisitorial censure is remarkable. that he should have been readmitted to the benedictine order after this outburst of bile and bold diffusion of heretical opinion, is only explicable by the hatred which subsisted in italy between the rules of s. francis and s. benedict. while attacking the former, he gratified the spite and jealousy of the latter. but the fact is that his auditors, whether lay or clerical, were too accustomed to similar charges and too frankly conscious of their truth, to care about them. folengo stirred no indignation in the people, who had laughed at ecclesiastical corruption since the golden days of the decameron. he roused no shame in the clergy, for, till luther frightened the church into that pseudo-reformation which sarpi styled a deformation of manners, the authorities of rome were nonchalantly careless what was said about them.[405] an atrabilious monk in his garret vented his spleen with more than usual acrimony, and the world applauded. _ha fatto un bel libro!_ that was all. conversely, it is not strange that the weighty truths about religion uttered by folengo should have had but little influence. he was a scribbler, famous for scurrility, notoriously profligate in private life. free thought in italy found itself too often thus in company with immorality. the names of heretic and lutheran carried with them at that time a reproach more pungent and more reasonable than is usual with the epithets of theological hatred.[406] [footnote 405: leo x.'s complacent acceptance of the _mandragola_ proves this.] [footnote 406: the curious history of giulio trissino, told by bernardo morsolin in the last chapters of his _giangiorgio trissino_ (vicenza, 1878), reveals the manner of men who adopted lutheranism in italy in the sixteenth century. see above, p. 304. i shall support the above remarks lower down in this chapter by reference to berni's lutheran opinions.] in the _orlandino_, ariosto's irony is degraded to buffoonery. the prosaic details he mingled with his poetry are made the material of a new and vulgar comedy of manners. the satire he veiled in allegory or polite discussion, bursts into open virulence. his licentiousness yields to gross obscenity. the chivalrous epic, as employed for purposes of art in italy, contained within itself the germs of this burlesque. it was only necessary to develop certain motives at the expense of general harmony, to suppress the noble and pathetic elements, and to lower the literary key of utterance, in order to produce a parody. ariosto had strained the semi-seriousness of romance to the utmost limits of endurance. for his successors nothing was left but imitation, caricature, or divergence upon a different track. of these alternatives, folengo and berni, aretino and fortiguerra, chose the second; tasso took the third, and provided tassoni with the occasion of a new burlesque. while the romantic epic lent itself thus easily to parody, another form of humorous poetry took root and flourished on the mass of latin literature produced by the revival. latin never became a wholly dead language in italy; and at the height of the renaissance a public had been formed whose appreciation of classic style insured a welcome for its travesty. to depreciate the humanistic currency by an alloy of plebeian phrases, borrowed from various base dialects; to ape virgilian mannerism while treating of the lowest themes suggested by boisterous mirth or satiric wit; was the method of the so-called maccaronic poets. it is matter for debate who first invented this style, and who created the title _maccaronea_. so far back as the thirteenth century, we notice a blending of latin with french and german in certain portions of the _carmina burana_.[407] but the two elements of language here lie side by side, without interpenetration. this imperfect fusion is not sufficient to constitute the genuine maccaronic manner. the jargon known as maccaronic must consist of the vernacular, suited with latin terminations, and freely mingled with classical latin words. nothing should meet the ear or eye, which does not sound or look like latin; but, upon inspection, it must be discovered that a half or third is simple slang and common speech tricked out with the endings of latin declensions and conjugations.[408] in italy, where the modern tongue retained close similarity to latin, this amalgamation was easy; and we find that in the fifteenth century the hybrid had already assumed finished form. the name by which it was then known, indicates its composition. as maccaroni is dressed with cheese and butter, so the maccaronic poet mixed colloquial expressions of the people with classical latin, serving up a dish that satisfied the appetite by rarity and richness of concoction. at the same time, since maccaroni was the special delicacy of the proletariate, and since a stupid fellow was called a _maccherone_, the ineptitude and the vulgarity of the species are indicated by its title. among the maccaronic poets we invariably find ourselves in low bohemian company. no phoebus sends them inspiration; nor do they slake their thirst at the castalian spring. the muses they invoke are tavern-wenches and scullions, haunting the slums and stews of lombard cities.[409] their mistresses are of the same type as villon's margot. mountains of cheese, rivers of fat broth, are their helicon and hippocrene. their pictures of manners demand a coarser brush than hogarth's to do them justice. [footnote 407: the political and ecclesiastical satires known in england as the work of walter mapes, abound in pseudo-maccaronic passages. compare du méril, _poésies populaires latines antérieures au xiime siècle_, p. 142, etc., for further specimens of undeveloped maccaronic poetry of the middle ages.] [footnote 408: those who are curious to study this subject further, should consult the two exhaustive works of octave delepierre, _macaronéana_ (paris, 1852), and _macaronéana andra_ (londres, trübner, 1862). these two publications contain a history of maccaronic verse, with reprints of the scarcer poems in this style. the second gives the best text of odassi, fossa, and the _virgiliana_. the _maccheronee di cinque poeti italiani_ (milano, daelli, 1864), is a useful little book, since it reproduces delepierre's collections in a cheap and convenient form. in the uncertainty which attends the spelling of this word, i have adopted the form _maccaronic_.] [footnote 409: take one example, from the induction to odassi's poems (_mac. andr._ p. 63): o putanarum putanissima, vacca vaccarum, o potifarum potissima pota potaza ... tu phrosina mihi foveas, mea sola voluptas; nulla mihi poterit melius succurrere musa, nullus apollo magis.] before engaging in the criticism of this maccaronic literature, it is necessary to interpolate some notice of a kindred style, called _pedantesco_. this was the exact converse of the maccaronic manner. instead of adapting italian to the rules of latin, the parodist now treated latin according to the grammatical usages and metrical laws of italian. a good deal of the _hypnerotomachia poliphili_ is written in _lingua pedantesca_. but the recognized masterpiece of the species is a book called _i cantici di fidentio glottogrysio ludimagistro_. the author's real name was camillo scrofa, a humanist and schoolmaster of vicenza. though more than once reprinted, together with similar compositions by equally obscure craftsmen, his verses are exceedingly rare.[410] they owe their neglect partly to the absurdity of their language, partly to the undisguised immorality of their subject-matter. of the _stilo pedantesco_ the following specimen may suffice. it describes a hostelry of boors and peasants:[411] pur pedetentim giunsi ad un cubiculo, sordido, inelegante, ove molti hospiti facean corona a un semimortuo igniculo. salvete, dissi, et giove lieti e sospiti vi riconduca a i vostri dolci hospitii! ma responso non hebbi; o rudi, o inhospiti! io che tra veri equestri e tra patritii soglio seder, mi vedi alhor negligere da quegli huomini novi et adventitii. non sapea quasi indignabundo eligere partito; pur al fin fu necessario tra lor per calefarmi un scanno erigere. che colloquio, o dii boni, empio e nefario pervenne a l'aure nostre purgatissime, da muover nausea a un lenone a un sicario! [footnote 410: the book was first printed at vicenza. the copy i have studied is the florentine edition of 1574. scrofa's verses, detached from the collection, may be found in the _parnaso italiano_, vol. xxv.] [footnote 411: _op. cit._ p. 23.] one of the most famous and earliest, if not absolutely the first among the authors of maccaronic verse, was tifi odassi, a paduan, whose poems were given to the press after his death, in at least two editions earlier than the close of the fifteenth century.[412] he chose a commonplace _novella_ for his theme; but the interest of his tale consists less in its argument than in its vivid descriptions of low town-life. odassi's portraits of plebeian characters are executed with masterly realism, and the novelty of the vehicle gives them a singularly trenchant force. it is unfortunately impossible to bring either the cook-shop-keeper or his female servant, the mountebank or the glutton, before modern readers. these pictures are too rabelaisian.[413] i must content myself with a passage taken from the description of a bad painter, which, though it is inferior in comic power, contains nothing unpardonably gross.[414] quodsi forte aliquem voluit depingere gallum, quicunque aspiciat poterit jurare cigognam; depinxitque semel canes in caza currentes, omnes credebant natantes in æquore luzos; sive hominem pingit, poteris tu credere lignum in quo sartores ponunt sine capite vestes; seu nudos facit multo sudore putinos, tu caput a culo poteris dignoscere nunquam; sive facit gremio christum retinere mariam, non licet a filio sanctam dignoscere matrem; pro gardelinis depingit sepe gallinas, et pro gallinis depingit sepe caballos: blasfemat, jurat, culpam dicit esse penelli, quos spazzaturas poteris jurare de bruscho; tam bene depingit pictorum pessimus iste, nec tamen inferior se cogitat esse bellino. [footnote 412: bernardino scardeone in his work _de antiquitate urbis patavii_, etc. (basileæ, 1560), speaks of odassi as the inventor of maccaronic poetry: "adinvenit enim primus ridiculum carminis genus, nunquam prius a quopiam excogitatum, quod macaronæum nuncupavit, multis farcitum salibus, et satyrica mordacitate respersum." he adds that odassi desired on his deathbed that the book should be burned. in spite of this wish, it was frequently reprinted during scardeone's lifetime.] [footnote 413: it is with great regret that i omit bertapalia, the charlatan--a portrait executed with inimitable verve. students of italian life in its lowest and liveliest details should seek him out. _mac. andr._ pp. 68-71.] [footnote 414: _ibid._ p. 71. i have altered spelling and punctuation.] it will be seen from this specimen that italian and latin are confounded without regard to either prosody or propriety of diction. the style, far from being even pedestrian, is reptile, and the inspiration is worthy of the source imagined by the poet.[415] as odassi remarks in his induction: aspices, lector, prisciani vulnera mille gramaticamque novam, quam nos docuere putane. [footnote 415: cognosces in me quantum tua numina possunt, quæque tua veniunt stilantia carmina pota.] the note struck by odassi was sustained by his immediate imitators. another paduan author used this parody of humanistic verse to caricature a humanist, whom he called vigonça.[416] like odassi, he invoked venus volgivaga; and like odassi's, very little of his verse is quotable. the following extracts may be found acceptable for their humorous account of a professor's inaugural lecture in the university of padua.[417] vigonça announces the opening of his course: ipse ante totis facit asavere piacis, et totis scolis mandat bolletina bidelis, quæ bolletina portabant talia verba: "comes magnificus cavalerius ille vigonça, patricius patavus comesque ab origine longa, vos rogat ad primam veniatis quisque legendam; qui veniet, magnum fructum portabit a casa." omnes venturos sese dixere libenter; promissit comes, capitaneus atque potestas, et paduani vechi juvenesque politi. lux promissa aderat, qua se smatare vigonça debebat, atque suam cunctis monstrare matieram. ille tamen totam facit conçare la scolam, de nigro totam facit conzare cathedram, in qua debebat matus sprologare vigonça; cetera fulgebant banchalis atque thapetis, et decem in brochis dicit spendidisse duchatos. [footnote 416: this anonymous poet has been variously identified with odassi and with fossa of cremona. the frequent occurrence of paduan idioms seems to point to a paduan rather than a cremonese author; and though there is no authoritative reason for referring the poem to odassi, it resembles his style sufficiently to render the hypothesis of his authorship very plausible. the name of the hero, vigonça, is probably the italian _bigoncia_, which meant in one sense a pulpit or a reading-desk, in its ordinary sense a tub.] [footnote 417: daelli, _maccheronee di cinque poeti italiani_ (milano, 1864), p. 50; cp. _mac. andr._ p. 19.] after narrating how the whole town responded to vigonça's invitation, and how the folk assembled to hear his first address, the poet thus describes the great occasion:[418] sed neque bastabat ingens intrantibus ussus; rumpebant cupos parietes atque fenestras, inque ipso multos busos fecere parete. tunc ibi bidelus cunctos ratione pregavit, et sibi cavavit nigrum vigonça biretum, et manicas alzans dedit hic sua verba de mato, et començavit sanctam faciendo la crucem. "magnifice pretor, pariter generose prefecte, tu facunde comes auri portando colanam, magnus philosophus, lingua in utraque poeta, tu primicerius, venete spes alma paludis, et vos doctores, celeberrima fama per orbem, vos cavalerii multum sperone dorati, vosque scolares, cives, charique sodales! non ego perdivi tempus futuendo putanas, non ego zugando, non per bordella vagando; non ego cum canibus lepores seguendo veloces, non cum sparveris, non cum falconibus ipse; non ego cum dadis tabulam lissando per ullam; non ego cum chartis volui dissipare dinaros, qualiter in padue faciunt de nocte scolares. quum jocant alii, stabat in casa vigonça et studiabat guardando volumina longa." [footnote 418: daelli, _op. cit._ pp. 52, 54.] this paduan caricature may be reckoned among the most valuable documents we possess for the illustration of the professorial system in italy during the ascendancy of humanism. some material of the same kind is supplied by the _virgiliana_ of evangelista fossa, a cremonese gentleman, who versified a venetian _burla_ in mock-heroic latin. he, too, painted the portrait of a pedant, priscianus:[419] est mirandus homo; nam sunt miracula in illo, omnes virtutes habet hic in testa fichatas ... nam quicquid dicit, semper per littera parlat, atque habet in boccham pulchra hæc proverbia semper.... est letrutus nam multum, studiavit in omni arte, fuit padoe, fuit in la citta de perosa, bononie multum mansit de senno robando. [footnote 419: _ibid._ p. 112; _mac. andra_, p. 32.] but fossa's _virgiliana_, while aiming at a more subtle sort of parody than the purely maccaronic poems, misses their peculiar salt, and, except for the hudibrastic description of the author on horseback,[420] offers nothing of great interest. [footnote 420: "de fossa compositore quando venit patavio" (_mac. andra_, p. 39).] brief notice also may be taken of giovan giorgio alione's satire on the lombards. alione was a native of asti, and seasoned his maccaroni with the base french of his birthplace. for asti, transferred to the house of orleans by gian galeazzo visconti, was more than half a french city and its inhabitants spoke the gallic dialect common to piedmont.[421] alione is proud of this subjection, and twits the lombards of milan and pavia with being unworthy of their ancient origin no less than of their modern masters.[422] unlike the ordinary run of burlesque poems, his _macharonea_ is virulently satirical. animated by a real rage against the north italians, alione paints them as effeminate cowards, devoid of the sense of honor and debased by the vices of ill-bred _parvenus_. the opening of a _novella_ he relates, may be cited as a fair specimen of his style:[423] quidam franzosus, volens tornare parisum, certum mìlaneysum scontravit extra viglianam sine capello docheti testa bagnatum: et cum ignoraret gallicus hic unde fuisset dixit vulgariter _estes vous moglie mon amicus_? ille qui intelligit a la rebusa, respondit _sy sy mi che ho mogle milani et anca fiolos._ gallus tunc cernens lombardum fore loquela, et recordatus quod tempore guerre salucis alixandrini fecerant pagare menestram scutumque sibi sgrafignarant de gibesera, sfodravit ensem dicens _o tretre ribalde_ _rendez moy sa mon escu_, sy non a la morte spazat. [footnote 421: alione says: cum nos astenses reputemur undique galli.] [footnote 422: see the passage beginning "o longobardi frapatores," and ending with these lines: tunc baratasti gallorum nobile nomen cum longobardo, etc. daelli, _op. cit._ p. 94.] [footnote 423: daelli, p. 93.] the end of the story is far too crude to quote, and it is probable that even the most curious readers will already have had enough of alione's peculiar gibberish. the maccaronic style had reached this point when folengo took possession of it, stamped it with his own genius, and employed it for one of the most important poems of the century. he is said to have begun a serious latin epic in his early manhood, and to have laid this aside because he foresaw the impossibility of wresting the laurels from virgil. this story is probably a legend; but it contains at least an element of truth. folengo aimed at originality; he chose to be the first of burlesque latin poets rather than to claim the name and fame of a virgilian imitator.[424] in the proemium to his _moscheis_ he professes to have found the orthodox apollo deaf to his prayers: illius heu frustra doctas captare sorores speravi ac multa laude tenere polos. [footnote 424: in the first book of the _moscheis_, line 7, he says: gens ceratana sinat vecchias cantare batajas, squarzet virgilios turba pedanta suos. the end of the _maccaronea_ sets forth the impossibility of modern bards contending with the great poet of antiquity. pontanus, sannazzarius, all the best latin writers of the age, pale before virgil: non tamen æquatur vati quem protulit andes, namque vetusta nocet laus nobis sæpe modernis. this refrain he repeats for each poet with whimsical reiteration. folengo's own ambition to take the first place among burlesque writers appears in the final lines of _mac._ book iii.: mantua virgilio gaudet, verona catullo, dante suo florens urbs tusca, cipada cocajo: dicor ego superans alios levitate poetas, ut maro medesimos superans gravitate poetas. the induction to the _moscheis_ points to a serious heroic poem on mantua which he abandoned for want of inspiration. we have in these references enough to account for the myth above mentioned.] the reason of the god's anger was that his votary had sullied the clear springs of hippocrene: nescio quas reperi musas, turpesve sorores, nescio quas turpi carmina voce canunt. limpida pegasidum vitiavi stagna profanus, totaque sunt limo dedecorata meo. the exordium to the _maccaronea_ introduces us to these vulgar muses, _grossæ camoenæ_, who fill their neophytes with maccaronic inspiration: jam nec melpomene, clio, nec magna thalia, nec phoebus grattando lyram mihi carmina dictet, qui tantos olim doctos fecere poetas; verum cara mihi foveat solummodo berta, gosaque, togna simul, mafelina, pedrala, comina. veridicæ musæ sunt hæ, doctæque sorellæ; quarum non multis habitatio nota poetis. the holy hill of folengo's muses is a mountain of cheese and maccaroni, with lakes of broth and rivers of unctuous sauces: stant ipsæ musæ super altum montis acumen, formajum gratulis durum retridando foratis. here he seeks them, and here they deign to crown him poet:[425] ergo macaronicas illic cattavimus artes, et me grossiloquum vatem statuere sorores. [footnote 425: compare _mac._ vii. p. 195. nil nisi crassiloquas dicor scrivisse camoenas, crassiloquis igitur dicamus magna camoenis. this _great theme_ is nothing less than monasticism in its vilest aspects.] we have seen already that the maccaronic style involved a free use of plebeian italian, imbedded in a mixed mass of classical and medieval latinity. folengo refined the usage of his predecessors, by improving the versification, adopting a more uniformly heroic tone, and introducing scraps of mantuan dialect at unexpected intervals, so that each lapse into italian has the force of a surprise--what the greeks called [greek: para prosdokian]. the comic effect is produced by a sustained epical inflation, breaking irregularly into the coarsest and least pardonable freaks of vulgarity. it is as though the poet were improvising, emulous of virgil; but the tide of inspiration fails him, he falls short of classical phrases to express his thoughts, and is forced in the hurry of the moment to avail himself of words and images that lie more close at hand. his pegasus is a showy hack, who ambles on the bypaths of parnassus, dropping now and then a spavined hock and stumbling back into his paces with a snort. his war-trumpet utters a sonorous fanfaronnade; but the blower loses breath, and breaks his note, or suffers it to lapse into a lamentable quaver. tifi odassi, who may be regarded as folengo's master in this species of verse, confined the maccaronic muse to quaintly-finished sketches in the dutch style.[426] his pupil raised her to the dignity of clio and composed an epic in twenty-five books. the length of this poem and the strangeness of the manner render it unpalatable to all but serious students at the present time. its humor has evaporated, and the form itself strikes us as rococo. we experience some difficulty in sympathizing with those readers of the sixteenth century, who, perfectly acquainted with latin poetry and accustomed to derive intellectual pleasure from its practice, found exquisite amusement in so cleverly constructed a parody. nor is it possible for englishmen to appreciate the more delicate irony of the vulgarisms, which folengo adopted from one of the coarsest italian dialects, and cemented with subtle skill upon the stately structure of his hexameters. still we may remember that the _maccaronea_ was read with profit by rabelais, and that much of butler's humor betrays a strong affinity to this antiquated burlesque. [footnote 426: at the end of the _maccaronea_ i think there may be an allusion to odassi conveyed in these words, _tifi caroloque futuris_.] in substance the _maccaronea_ begins with a rehandling of the _orlandino_. guido, peerless among paladins, wins the love of his king's daughter, baldovina of france. they fly together into italy, and she dies in giving birth to a son at cipada, near mantua. guido disappears, and the boy, baldus, is brought up by a couple of peasants. he believes himself to be their child, and recognizes the rustic boor, zambellus, for his brother. still the hero's nature reveals itself in the village urchin; and, like the young orlando, baldus performs prodigies of valor in his boyhood: non it post vaccas, at sæpe caminat ad urbem, ac ad panadæ dispectum praticat illam; in villam semper tornabat vespere facto, portabatque caput fractum gambasque macatas. when he goes to school, he begins by learning his letters with great readiness. but he soon turns away from grammar to books of chivalry: sed mox orlandi nasare volumina coepit: non vacat ultra deponentia discere verba, non species, numeros, non casus atque figuras, non doctrinalis versamina tradere menti: fecit de norma scartazzos mille donati inque perotinum librum salcicia coxit. orlandi solum, nec non fera bella rinaldi aggradant; animum faciebat talibus altum: legerat ancrojam, tribisondam, gesta danesi, antonæque bovum, mox tota realea francæ, innamoramentum carlonis et asperamontem, spagnam, altobellum, morgantis facta gigantis. and so forth through the whole list of chivalrous romances, down to the _orlando furioso_ and the _orlandino_. the boy's heart is set on deeds of daring. he makes himself the captain of a band of rogues who turn the village of cipada upside down. three of these deserve especial notice--fracassus, cingar, and falchettus; since they became the henchmen of our hero in all his subsequent exploits. fracassus was descended in the direct line from morgante: primus erat quidam fracassus prole gigantis, cujus stirps olim morganto venit ab illo, qui bachiocconem campanæ ferre solebat cum quo mille hominum colpo sfracasset in uno. cingar in like manner drew his blood from pulci's margutte: alter erat baldi compagnus, nomine cingar, accortus, ladro, semper truffare paratus; scarnus enim facie, reliquo sed corpore nervis plenus, compressus, picolinus, brunus, et atrox, semper habens nudam testam, rizzutus et asper. iste suam traxit marguti a sanguine razzam, qui ad calcagnos sperones ut gallus habebat et nimio risu simia cagante morivit. falchettus boasted a still stranger origin:[427] sed quidnam de te, falchette stupende, canemus? tu quoque pro baldo bramasti prendere mortem. forsitan, o lecor, quæ dico, dura videntur, namque pulicano falchettus venit ab illo quem scripsere virum medium, mediumque catellum; quapropter sic sic noster falchettus habebat anteriora viri, sed posteriora canina. [footnote 427: i do not recognize pulicanus, who is said to be the ancestor of falchettus. is it a misprint for fulicanus? fulicano is a giant in bello's _mambriano_, one of folengo's favorite poems of romance.] it would be too long to relate how baldus received knightly education from a nobleman who admired his daring; how, ignorant of his illustrious blood, he married the village beauty berta; and how he made himself the petty tyrant of cipada. the exploits of his youth are a satire on the violence of local magnates, whose manners differed little from those of the peasants they oppressed. in course of time baldus fell under the displeasure of a despot stronger than himself, and was shut up in prison.[428] in the absence of his hero from the scene, the poet now devotes himself to the exploits of cingar among the peasants of cipada. without lowering his epic tone, folengo fills five books with whimsical adventures, painting the manners of the country in their coarsest colors, and introducing passages of stinging satire on the monks he hated.[429] cingar, finding himself on one occasion in a convent, gives vent to a long soliloquy which expresses folengo's own contempt for the monastic institutions that filled italy with rogues: quo diavol, ait, tanti venere capuzzi? nil nisi per mundum video portare capuzzos: quisquam vult fieri frater, vult quisque capuzzum postquam giocarunt nummos, tascasque vodarunt, postquam pane caret cophinum, celaria vino, in fratres properant, datur his extemplo capuzzus. undique sunt isti fratres, istique capuzzi. qui sint nescimus; discernare nemo valeret tantas vestitum foggias, tantosque colores: sunt pars turchini, pars nigri, parsque morelli, pars albi, russi, pars gialdi, parsque bretini. si per iter vado telluris, cerno capuzzos: si per iter pelagi, non mancum cerno capuzzos; quando per armatos eo campos, cerno capuzzos; sive forum subeo, sive barcam, sive tabernam, protinus ante oculos aliquem mihi cerno capuzzum. [footnote 428: _mac._ iii. the edition i quote from is that of mantua (?) under name of amsterdam, 1769 and 1771, 2 vols. 4to. see vol. i. p. 117, for a satire on the frauds and injustice of a country law-court, followed by a mock heroic panegyric of the casa gonzaga. the description of their celebrated stud and breed of horses may be read with interest.] [footnote 429: the episode of berta's battle with her sister laena (_mac._ iv. p. 144), the apostrophe to old age (_mac._ v. p. 152), the village ball (_ibid._ p. 163), the tricks played by cingar on zambellus (_ibid._ p. 168, and _mac._ vi.), the description of the convent of motella (_mac._ vii. 196), the portrait of the ignorant parish-priest (_mac._ vii. p. 202), the carnival mass (_mac._ viii. p. 212), followed by a drunken _ker mess_ (_ibid._ p. 214), are all executed in the broad style of a dutch painter, and abound in realistic sketches of lombard country-life.] there will soon be no one left to bear arms, till the fields, or ply the common handicrafts. all the villains make themselves monks, aspiring to ecclesiastical honors and seeking the grade of superiority denied them by their birth. it is ambition that fills the convents: illic nobilitas sub rusticitate laborat, ambitio quoniam villanos unica brancat. this tirade is followed by the portrait of prae jacopinus, a village parson whose stupidity is only equaled by his vices. jacopino's education in the alphabet is a masterpiece of rabelaisian humor, and the following passage on his celebration of the mass brings all the sordidness of rustic ceremonial before our eyes:[430] præterea missam foggia dicebat in una, nec crucis in fronte signum formare sciebat. inter confiteor parvum discrimen et amen semper erat, jam jam meditans adjungere finem; incipiebat enim nec adhuc in nomine patris, quod tribus in saltis veniebat ad ite misestum. [footnote 430: _mac._ vii. p. 204.] from generalities folengo passes to particulars in the following description of a village mass:[431] inde jacopinus, chiamatis undique pretis, coeperat in gorga missam cantare stupendam; subsequitant alii, magnisque cridoribus instant. protinus introitum spazzant talqualiter omnem, ad chyrios veniunt, quos miro dicere sentis cum contrappunto, veluti si cantor adesset master adrianus, constantius atque jachettus. hic per dolcezzam scorlabant corda vilani quando de quintis terzisque calabat in unam musicus octavam noster jacopinus et ipsas providus octavas longa cum voce tirabat. gloria in excelsis passat, jam credo propinquat; oh si josquinus cantorum splendor adesset! [footnote 431: _mac._ vii. p. 212. folengo seems to have been fond of music. see the whimsical description of four-part singing, _mac._ xx. p. 139, followed by the panegyric of music and the malediction of her detractors.] meanwhile baldus has been left in prison, and it is time for cingar to undertake his rescue. he effects this feat, by stripping two franciscan monks, and dressing himself up in the frock he had just filched from one of them, while he coaxes the unfortunate zambellus to assume the other. then he persuades the people of mantua that he has seen himself assassinated on the high road; gains access to baldus in the dungeon, on the plea of hearing his confession; and contrives to leave zambellus there in the clothes of baldus, after disguising his friend in one of the friar's tunics. the story is too intricate for repetition here.[432] suffice it to say that baldus escapes and meets a knight errant, leonardus, at the city gate, who has ridden all the way from rome to meet so valorous a paladin. the swear eternal friendship. the three henchmen of the hero muster round the new comrades in arms; and the party thus formed set forth upon a series of adventures in the style of astolfo's journey to the moon. [footnote 432: this episode of cingar's triumph over the enemies of baldus, his craft, his rhetoric, his ready wit, his infinite powers of persuasion, his monkey tricks and fox-like cunning, is executed with an energy of humor and breadth of conception, that places it upon a level with the choicest passages in rabelais.] this part of the epic is a close copy of the chivalrous romances in their more fantastic details. the journey of the barons, as they are now invariably styled, is performed in a great ship. they encounter storms and pirates, land on marvelous islands, enter fairy palaces, and from time to time recruit their forces with notable rogues and drunkards whom they find upon their way. the parody consists in the similarity of their achievements to those of knight-errantry, while they are themselves in all points unlike the champions of chivalry. one of their most cherished companions, for example, is boccalus, a bergamasque buffoon, who distinguishes himself by presence of mind in a great storm:[433] ille galantus homo, qui nuper in æquora bruttam jecerat uxorem, dicens non esse fagottum fardellumque homini plus laidum, plusque pesentum quam sibi mojeram lateri mirare tacatam quæ sit oca ingenio, quæ vultu spazzacaminus. [footnote 433: _mac._ xii. p. 296.] the tale of adventures is diversified, after the manner of the romantic poets, by digressions, sometimes pathetic, sometimes dissertational. among these the most amusing is cingar's lecture on astronomy, in which the planetary theories of the middle ages are burlesqued with considerable irony.[434] the most affecting is the death of leonardus, who chooses to be torn in pieces by bears rather than yield his virginity to a vile woman. this episode suggests one of the finest satiric passages in the whole poem. having exhibited the temptress muselina, the poet breaks off with this exclamation:[435] heu quantis noster muselinis orbis abundat! [footnote 434: in the course of this oration folengo introduces an extraordinarily venomous invective against _contadini_, which may be paralleled with his allegory in the _orlandino_. it begins (_mac._ xiii. p. 11): progenies maledicta quidem villana vocatur, and extends through forty lines of condensed abuse.] [footnote 435: _mac._ xvi. p. 66.] he then enumerates their arts of seduction, and winds up with a powerful dramatic picture, painted from the life, of a _mezzana_ engaged in corrupting a young man's mind during mass-time: dum missæ celebrantur, amant cantonibus esse, postque tenebrosos mussant chiachiarantque pilastros; ah miserelle puer, dicunt, male nate, quod ullam non habes, ut juvenes bisognat habere, morosam!... numquid vis fieri frater monachusve, remotis delitiis veneris, bacchi, martisque, jovisque, quos vel simplicitas, vel desperatio traxit?... nemo super terram sanctus; stant æthere sancti: nos carnem natura facit, quo carne fruamur. as the epic approaches its conclusion, baldus discovers his true father, guido, under the form of a holy hermit, and learns that it is reserved for him by destiny, first to extirpate the sect of witches under their queen smirna gulfora, and afterwards to penetrate the realms of death and hell. the last five books of the _maccaronea_ are devoted to these crowning exploits. merlin appears, and undertakes the guidance of the barons on their journey to avernus.[436] but first he requires full confession of their sins from each; and this humorous act of penitence forms one of the absurdest episodes, as may be easily imagined, in the poem. absolved and furnished with heroic armor, the barons march to the conquest of gulfora and the destruction of her magic palace. folengo has placed it appropriately on the road to hell; for under gulfora he allegorizes witchcraft. the space allotted to smirna gulfora and the importance attached to her overthrow by baldus and his barons, call attention to the prevalence of magic in italy at this epoch.[437] it may not, therefore, be out of place, before engaging in this portion of the analysis, to give some account of italian witchcraft drawn from other sources, in order to estimate the truth of the satire upon which folengo expended his force. [footnote 436: _mac._ xx. p. 152. from this point onward the poet and merlin are one person: nomine merlinos dicor, de sanguine mantus, est mihi cognomen cocajus maccaronensis.] [footnote 437: the _novella_ of luca philippus, who kept a tavern at the door of paradise, and had no custom, since no one came that way so long as gulfora ruled on earth, forms a significant preface to her episode. see _mac._ xxi. p. 180. the altercation between this host and peter at the rusty gate of heaven is written in the purest italian style of pious parody.] "beautiful and humane italy," as bandello calls his country in the preface to one of his most horrible _novelle_, was, in spite of her enlightenment, but little in advance of europe on the common points of medieval superstition. the teaching of the church encouraged a belief in demons; and the common people saw on every chapel wall the fresco of some saint expelling devils from the bodies of possessed persons, or exorcising domestic utensils which had been bewitched.[438] thus the laity grew up in the confirmed opinion that earth, air, and ocean swarmed with supernatural beings, whom they distinguished as fiends from hell or inferior sprites of the elements, called _spiriti folletti_.[439] while the evil spirits of both degrees were supposed to lie beneath the ban of ecclesiastical malediction, they lent their aid to necromancers, witches and wizards, who, defying the interdictions of the church, had the audacity to use them as their slaves by the employment of powerful spells and rites of conjurations. there was a way, it was believed, of taming both the demons and the elves, of making them the instruments of human avarice, ambition, jealousy and passion. since all forms of superstition in italy lent themselves to utilitarian purposes, the necromancer and the witch, having acquired this power over supernatural agents, became the servants of popular lusts. they sold their authority to the highest bidders, undertaking to blast the vines or to poison the flocks of an enemy; to force young men and maidens to become the victims of inordinate appetites; to ruin inconvenient husbands by slowly-wasting diseases; to procure abortion by spells and potions; to confer wealth and power upon aspirants after luxury; to sow the seeds of discord in families--in a word, to open a free path for the indulgence of the vain desires that plague ill-regulated egotisms. a class of impostors, half dupes of their own pretensions, half rogues relying on the folly of their employers, sprang into existence, who combined the locusta of ancient rome with the witch of medieval germany. such was the italian _strega_--a loathsome creature, who studied the chemistry of poisons, philtres, and abortion-hastening drugs, and while she pretended to work her miracles by the help of devils, played upon the common passions and credulities of human kind.[440] by her side stood her masculine counterpart, the _stregone_, _negromante_ or _alchimista_, who plays so prominent a part in the italian comedies and novels. [footnote 438: aretino's _cortigiana_ contains a very humorous exorcism inflicted by way of a practical joke upon a fisherman.] [footnote 439: see above, part i, p. 453, note 2, for the distinction between the fiends and the sprites drawn by pulci.] [footnote 440: see lasca's _novella_ of _zoroastro_; bandello's novels of witchcraft (part iii. 29 and 52); cellini's celebrated conjuration in the coliseum; and ariosto's comedy of the _negromante_. these sources may be illustrated from the evidence given by virginia maria lezia before her judges, and the trial of witches at nogaredo, both of which are printed in dandolo's _signora di monza_ (milano, 1855). compare the curious details about lombard witchcraft in cantù's _diocesi di como_.] witchcraft was localized in two chief centers--the mountains of norcia, and the lombard valleys of the alps.[441] in the former we find a remnant of antique superstition. the witches of this district, whether male or female, had something of the classical sibyl in their composition and played upon the terrors of their clients. like their roman predecessors, they plied the trades of poisoner, quack-doctor and bawd. in lombardy witchcraft assumed a more teutonic complexion. the witch was less the instrument of fashionable vices, trading in them as a lucrative branch of industry, than the hysterical subject of a spiritual disease. lust itself inflamed the victims of this superstition, who were burned by hundreds in the towns, and who were supposed to hold their revels in the villages of val camonica. like the hags of northern europe, these lombard _streghe_ had recourse to the black art in the delirious hope of satisfying their own inordinate ambitions, their own indescribable desires. the disease spread so wildly at the close of the fifteenth century that innocent viii., by his bull of 1484, issued special injunctions to the dominican monks of brescia, bergamo and cremona, authorizing them to stamp it out with fire and torture.[442] the result was a crusade against witchcraft, which seems to have increased the evil by fascinating the imagination of the people. they believed all the more blindly in the supernatural powers to be obtained by magic arts, inasmuch as this traffic had become the object of a bloody persecution. when the church recognized that men and women might command the fiends of hell, it followed as a logical consequence that wretches, maddened by misery and intoxicated with ungovernable lusts, were tempted to tamper with the forbidden thing at the risk of life and honor in this world and with the certainty of damnation in the other. after this fashion the confused conscience of illiterate people bred a formidable extension of this spiritual malady throughout the northern provinces of italy. some were led by morbid curiosity; others by a vain desire to satisfy their appetites, or to escape the consequences of their crimes. a more dangerous class used the superstition to acquire power over their neighbors and to make money out of popular credulity. [footnote 441: it may be remembered that the necromancer in cellini sent his book to be enchanted in the apennines of norcia. folengo alludes to this superstition: qualiter ad stagnum nursæ sacrare quadernos. with regard to val camonica, see the actual state of that district as reported by cantù. folengo in the _orlandino_ mentions its witches. bandello (iii. 52) speaks of it thus: "val camonica, ove si dice essere di molte streghe."] [footnote 442: witchcraft in italy grew the more formidable the closer it approached the german frontier. it seems to have assumed the features of an epidemic at the close of the fifteenth century. up to that date little is heard of it, and little heed was paid to it. the exacerbation of the malady portended and accompanied the dissolution of medieval beliefs in a population vexed by war, famine and pestilence, and vitiated by ecclesiastical corruption.] born and bred in lombardy at the epoch when witchcraft had attained the height of popular insanity, folengo was keenly alive to the hideousness of a superstition which, rightly or wrongly, he regarded as a widespread plague embracing all classes of society. it may be questioned whether he did not exaggerate its importance. but there is no mistaking the verisimilitude of the picture he drew. all the uncleanliness of a diseased imagination, all the extravagances of wanton desire, all the consequences of domestic unchastity--incest, infanticide, secret assassination, concealment of births--are traced to this one cause and identified by him with witchcraft. the palace of the queen gulfora is a pandemonium of lawless vice: quales hic reperit strepitus, qualemque tumultum, quales mollities turpes, actusque salaces, utile nil scribi posset, si scribere vellem. her courts are crowded with devils who have taken human shape to gratify the lusts of her votaries: leggiadros juvenes, bellos, facieque venustos, stringatos, agiles, quos judicat esse diablos, humanum piliasse caput moresque decentes, conspicit, innumeras circum scherzare puellas, quæ gestant vestes auri brettasque veluti. the multitude is made up of all nations, sexes, ages, classes: obstupet innumeros illic retrovare striones, innumerasque strias vecchias, modicasque puellas. non ea medesimo generatur schiatta paeso; at sunt italici, græci, gallique, spagnoles, magnates, poveri, laici, fratresque, pretesque, matronæ, monighæ per forzam claustra colentes. some of them are engaged in preparing love-potions and poisonous draughts from the most disgusting and noxious ingredients. others compound unguents to be used in the metamorphosis of themselves on their nocturnal jaunts. among these are found poets, orators, physicians, lawyers, governors, for whose sins a handful of poor old women play the part of scapegoats before the public: sed quia respectu legis prævertitur ordo, namque solent grossi pisces mangiare minutos, desventuratæ quædam solummodo vecchiæ sunt quæ supra asinos plebi spectacula fiunt, sunt quæ primatum multorum crimina celant, sunt quæ sparagnant madonnis pluribus ignem. some again are discovered compiling books of spells: quomodo adulterium uxoris vir noscere possit, quomodo virgineæ cogantur amare puellæ, quomodo non tumeat mulier cornando maritum, quomodo si tumuit fantinum mingat abortum, quomodo vix natos vitient sua fascina puttos, quomodo desiccent odiati membra mariti. the elder witches keep a school for the younger, and instruct them in the secrets of their craft. among these baldus recognizes his own wife, together with the principal ladies of his native land. it is clear that under the allegory of witchcraft, in which at the same time he seems to have believed firmly, folengo meant to satirize the secret corruption of society. when gulfora herself appears, she holds her court like an italian duchess: longa sequit series hominum muschiata zibettis, qui cortesanos se vantant esse tilatos, quorum si videas mores rationis ochialo, non homines maschios sed dicas esse bagassas. the terrible friar then breaks into a tirade against the courtiers of his day, comparing them with arthur's knights: tempore sed nostro, proh dii, sæcloque dadessum, non nisi perfumis variis et odore zibetti, non nisi, seu sazaræ petenentur sive tosentur, brettis velluti, nec non scufiotibus auri, auri cordiculis, impresis, atque medallis, millibus et frappis per calzas perque giupones, cercamus carum merdosi germen amoris. baldus exterminates the whole vile multitude, while fracassus pulls gulfora's palace about her ears. after this, the barons pursue their way to acheron, and call upon charon to ferry them across. he refuses to take so burdensome a party into his boat; but by the strength of fracassus and the craft of cingar they effect a passage. their entry into hell furnishes folengo with opportunities for new tirades against the vices of italy. tisiphone boasts how rome, through her machinations, has kept christendom in discord. alecto exults in her offspring, the guelph and ghibelline factions: unde fides christi paulatim lapsa ruinet, dum gentes italæ bastantes vincere mundum se se in se stessos discordant, seque medesmos vassallos faciunt, servos, vilesque famejos his qui vassalli, servi, vilesque fa meji tempore passato nobis per forza fu ere. after passing the furies, and entering the very jaws of hades, baldus encounters the fantasies of grammarians and humanists, the idle nonsense of the schoolmen, all the lumber of medieval philosophy mixed with the trifles of the renaissance.[443] he fights his way through the thick-crowding swarm of follies, and reaches the hell of lovers, where a mountebank starts forward and offers to be his guide. led by this zany, the hero and his comrades enter an enormous gourd, the bulk of which is compared to the mountains of val camonica. within its spacious caverns dwell the sages of antiquity, with astrologers, physicians, wizards, and false poets. but, having brought his barons to this place merlinus cocajus can advance no further. he is destined to inhabit the great gourd himself. beyond it he has no knowledge; and here, therefore, he leaves the figments of his fancy without a word of farewell: nec merlinus ego, laus, gloria, fama cipadæ, quamvis fautrices habui tognamque gosamque, quamvis implevi totum macaronibus orbem, quamvis promerui baldi cantare batajas, non tamen hanc zuccam potui schifare decentem, in qua me tantos opus est nunc perdere dentes, tot, quot in immenso posui mendacia libro. [footnote 443: hic sunt grammaticæ populi, gentesque reductæ, huc, illuc, istuc, reliqua seguitante fameja: argumenta volant dialectica, mille sophistæ adsunt bajanæ, pro, contra, non, ita, lyque: adsunt errores, asunt mendacia, bollæ, atque solecismi, fallacia, fictio vatum... omnes altandem tanto rumore volutant ethicen et physicen, animam, centumque novellas, ut sibi stornito baldus stopparet orecchias. squarnazzam scoti fracassus repperit illic, quam vestit, gabbatque deum, pugnatque thomistas. alberti magni lironus somnia zaffat.] with this grotesque invention of the infernal pumpkin, where lying bards are punished by the extraction of teeth which never cease to grow again, folengo breaks abruptly off. his epic ends with a rabelaisian peal of laughter, in which we can detect a growl of discontent and anger. laying the book down, we ask ourselves whether the author had a serious object, or whether he meant merely to indulge a vein of wayward drollery. the virulent invectives which abound in the _maccaronea_, seem to warrant the former conclusion; nor might it be wholly impossible to regard the poem as an allegory, in which baldus should play the part of the reason, unconscious at first of its noble origin, consorting with the passions and the senses, but finally arriving at the knowledge of its high destiny and defeating the powers of evil.[444] yet when we attempt to press this theory and to explain the allegory in detail, the thread snaps in our hands. like the romances of chivalry which it parodies, the _maccaronea_ is a bizarre mixture of heterogeneous elements, loosely put together to amuse an idle public and excite curiosity. if its author has used it also as the vehicle for satire which embraces all the popular superstitions, vices and hypocrisies of his century; if, as he approaches the conclusion, he assumes a tone of sarcasm more sinister than befits the broad burlesque of the commencement; we must rest contented with the assumption that his choleric humor led him from the path of comedy, while the fury of a soul divided against itself inspired his muses of the cook-shop with loftier strains than they had promised at the outset.[445] should students in the future devote the same minute attention to folengo that has been paid to rabelais, it is not improbable that the question here raised may receive solution. the poet is not unworthy of such pains. regarded merely as the precursor of rabelais, folengo deserves careful perusal. he was the creator of a style, which, when we read his epic, forces us to think of the seventeenth century; so strongly did it influence the form of humorous burlesque in europe for at least two hundred years. on this account, the historian of modern literature cannot afford to neglect him. for the student of italian manners in lombardy during the height of the renaissance, the huge amorphous undigested mass of the _maccaronea_ is one of the most valuable and instructive documents that we possess. i do not hesitate, from this point of view, to rank it with the masterpieces of the age, with the _orlando_ of ariosto, with machiavelli's comedies, and with the novels of bandello. [footnote 444: this hypothesis receives support from the passage in which baldus compares his new love for crispis, the paragon of all virtues, with his old infatuation for berta, who is the personification of vulgar appetite, unrefined natural instinct. see the end of book xxiii.] [footnote 445: the rage of a man who knows that he has chosen the lower while he might have trodden the higher paths of life and art, flames out at intervals through this burlesque. take this example, the last five lines of book xxiii.: sic ego macronicum penitus volo linquere carmen cum mihi tempus erit, quod erit, si celsa voluntas flectitur et nostris lachrymis et supplice voto. heu heu! quod volui misero mihi? floribus austrum perditus et liquidis immisi fontibus aprum.] folengo used the maccaronic style in two other considerable compositions. the one entitled _moscheis_ is an elegant parody of the _batrachomyomachia_, relating the wars of ants and flies in elegiac verse. the other, called _zanitonella_, celebrates the rustic loves of zanina and tonello in a long series of elegies, odes and eclogues. this collection furnishes a complete epitome of parodies modeled on the pastorals in vogue. the hero appears upon the scene in the following _sonolegia_, under which title we detect a blending of the sonnet and the elegy:[446] solus solettus stabam colegatus in umbra, pascebamque meas virda per arva capras. nulla travajabant animum pensiria nostrum, cercabam quoniam tempus habere bonum. quando bolzoniger puer, o mea corda forasti; nec dedit in fallum dardus alhora tuus. immo fracassasti rationis vincula, quæ tunc circa coradam bastio fortis erat. [footnote 446: _zanitonella_, p. 3.] the lament is spun out to the orthodox length of fourteen verses, and concludes with a pretty point. who the _bolzoniger puer_ was, is more openly revealed in another sonolegia:[447] nemo super terram mangiat mihi credite panem seu contadinus, seu citadinus erit, quem non attrapolet veneris bastardulus iste, qui volat instar avis, cæcus, et absque braga. [footnote 447: _ibid._ p. 2. compare sonolegia xiii. _ib._ p. 40.] to follow the poet through all his burlesques of petrarchistic and elegiac literature, italian or latin, would be superfluous. it is enough to say that he leaves none of their accustomed themes untouched with parody. the masterpiece of his art in this style is the sixth eclogue, consisting of a dialogue between two drunken bumpkins--_interloquutores tonellus et pedralus, qui ambo inebriantur_.[448] [footnote 448: _op. cit._ p. 42.] the maccaronic style was a product of north italy, cultivated by writers of the lombard towns, who versified comic or satiric subjects in parodies of humanistic poetry. the branch of burlesque literature we have next to examine, belonged to tuscany, and took its origin from the equivocal carnival and dance songs raised to the dignity of art by lorenzo de' medici. its conventional meter was _terza rima_, handled with exquisite sense of rhythm, but degraded to low comedy by the treatment of trivial or vulgar motives. the author of these _capitoli_, as they were called, chose some common object--a paint-brush, salad, a sausage, peaches, figs, eels, radishes--to celebrate; affected to be inspired by the grandeur of his subject; developed the drollest tropes, metaphors and illustrations; and almost invariably conveyed an obscene meaning under the form of innuendoes appropriate to his professed theme. though some exceptions can be pointed out, the _capitoli_ in general may be regarded as a species of priapic literature, fashioned to suit the taste of florentines, who had been accustomed for many generations to semi-disguised obscenity in their vernacular town poetry.[449] taken from the streets and squares, adopted by the fashionable rhymsters of academies and courtly coteries, the rude fescennine verse lost none of its license, while it assumed the polish of urbane art. were it not for this antiquity and popularity of origin, which suggests a plausible excuse for the learned writers of _capitoli_ and warns us to regard their indecency as in some measure conventional, it would be difficult to approach the three volumes which contain a selection of their poems, without horror.[450] so deep, universal, unblushing is the vice revealed in them. [footnote 449: we may ascend to the very sources of popular tuscan poetry, and we shall find this literature of _double entendre_ in the _canzoni_ of the _nicchio_ and _ugellino_, noticed above, part i. p. 38. besides the _canti carnascialeschi_ edited by il lasca, we have a collection of _canzoni a ballo_, printed at florence in 1569, which proves that the raw material of the _capitoli_ lay ready to the hand of the burlesque poets in plebeian literature.] [footnote 450: my references are made to _opere burlesche_, 3 vols., 1723, with the names of londra and firenze. gregorovius says of them: "wenn man diese 'scherzenden' gedichte liest, muss man entweder über die nichtigkeit ihrer gegenstände staunen, oder vor dem abgrund der unsittlichkeit erschrecken, den sie frech entschleiern." _stadt rom._ vol. viii. p. 345.] to francesco berni belongs the merit, such as it is, of having invented the burlesque _capitoli_. he gave his name to it, and the term bernesque has passed into the critical phraseology of europe. the unique place of this rare poet in the history of italian literature, will justify a somewhat lengthy account of his life and works. studying him, we study the ecclesiastical and literary society of rome in the age of leo x. and clement vii. francesco berni was born at lamporecchio, in the val di nievole, about the end of the fifteenth century.[451] his parents were poor; but they were connected with the family of the cardinal bibbiena, who, after the boy's education at florence, took him at the age of nineteen to rome. upon the death of this patron in 1520, berni remained in the service of bibbiena's nephew, agnolo dovizio. receiving no advancement from these kinsmen, he next transferred himself, in the quality of secretary, to the household of giammatteo giberti, bishop of verona, who was a distinguished mecænas of literary men. this change involved his taking orders. berni now resided partly at rome and partly at verona, tempering the irksome duties of his office by the writing of humorous poetry, which he recited in the then celebrated academy of the vignajuoli. this society, which numbered molza, mauro, la casa, lelio capilupi, firenzuola, and francesco bini among its members, gave the tone to polite literature at the courts of leo and clement. [footnote 451: the probable date is 1496.] berni survived the sack of 1527, which proved so disastrous to italian scholars; but he lost everything he possessed.[452] monsignor giberti employed him on various missions of minor importance, involving journeys to venice, padua, nice, florence, and the abruzzi. after sixteen years of court-life, berni grew weary of the petty duties, which must have been peculiarly odious to a man of his lazy temperament, if it is true, as he informs us, that the archbishop kept him dancing attendance till daylight, while he played primiera with his friends. accordingly, he retired to florence, where he held a canonry in the cathedral. there, after a quiet life of literary ease, he died suddenly in 1535. it was rumored that he had been poisoned: and the most recent investigations into the circumstances of his death tend rather to confirm this report. all that is known, however, for certain, is that he spent the evening of may 25 with his friends the marchionesse di massa in the palazzo pazzi, and that next morning he breathed his last. his mysterious and unexplained decease was ascribed to one of the two medicean princes then resident in florence. a sonnet in berni's best style, containing a vehement invective against alessandro de' medici, is extant. the hatred expressed in this poem may have occasioned the rumor (which certainly acquired a certain degree of currency) that cardinal ippolito de' medici attempted to use the poet for the secret poisoning of his cousin, and on his refusal had him murdered. other accounts of the supposed assassination ascribe a like intention to the duke, who is said to have suggested the poisoning of the cardinal to berni. both stories agree in representing his tragic end as the price paid for refusal to play the part of an assassin. the matter remains obscure; but enough suspicion rests upon the manner of his death to render this characteristic double legend plausible; especially when we remember what the customs of florence with respect to poisoning were, and how the cardinal de' medici ended his own life.[453] [footnote 452: _orl. inn. rifatto da fr. berni_, i. 14, 23-28, makes it clear that berni was an eye-witness of the sack of rome. panizzi's reference to this passage (_boiardo ed ariosto_, london, 1830, vol. ii. p. cxi.) involves what seems to me a confusion.] [footnote 453: the matter is fully discussed by mazzuchelli in his biography of berni. he, relying on the hypothesis of berni having lived till 1536, if not till 1543, points out the impossibility of his having been murdered by the cardinal, who died himself in july, 1535. this difficulty has recently been removed by signor antonio virgili's demonstration of the real date of berni's death in may, 1535. see _rassegna settimanale_, february 23, 1879, a paper of great importance for students of berni's life and works, to which i shall frequently refer.] such is the uneventful record of berni's career. he was distinguished among all the poets of the century for his genial vein of humor and amiable personal qualities. that he was known to be stained with vices which it is not easy to describe, but which he frankly acknowledged in his poetical epistles, did not injure his reputation in that age of mutual indulgence.[454] willing to live and let live, with a never-failing fund of drollery, and with a sincere dislike for work of any sort, he lounged through existence, an agreeable, genial and witty member of society. if this were all we should not need to write about him now. but with this easy-going temperament he combined a genius for poetry so peculiar and delicate, that his few works mark an epoch in italian literature. [footnote 454: it is enough to mention the _capitoli_ "delle pesche," "a m. antonio da bibbiena," "sopra un garzone," "lamentazion d'amore." references are made to the _rime e lettere di fr. berni_, firenze, barbèra, 1865. for the _rifacimento_ of the _orlando innamorato_ i shall use the milan reprint in 5 vols., 1806, which also contains the _rime_.] the best description of berni is contained in the burlesque portrait of himself, which forms part of his _boiardo innamorato_.[455] this has been so well translated by an english scholar, the late w.s. rose, that i cannot do better than refer the student to his stanzas. they convey as accurate a notion of the bernesque manner as can be derived from any version in a foreign language.[456] the character he there has given to himself for laziness is corroborated by his extant epistles in prose. berni represents himself as an incurably bad correspondent, pleased to get letters, but overcome with mortal terror when he is obliged to answer them.[457] he confides to his friend francesco bini that the great affair in life is to be gay and to write as little as possible:[458] "a vivere avemo sino alla morte a dispetto di chi non vuole, e il vantaggio è vivere allegramente, come conforto a far vio, attendando a frequentar quelli banchetti che si fanno per roma, e scrivendo sopra tutto manco che potete. _quia hæc est victoria, quæ vincit mundum._" the curse has been laid upon him of having to drive his quill without ceasing:[459] "_o ego lævus_, che scrivo d'ogni tempo, e scrivo ora che ho una gamba al collo, che ieri tornando dalla certosa mi ruppe la mia cavalla, cascandomivi sopra. sono pure un gran coglione!" so his pen runs on. the man writes just as he spoke, without affectation, mixing his phrases of latin with the idiom of common life. the whole presents an agreeable contrast to the stilted style of bembo, la casa's studied periods, and the ambitious epistolary efforts of aretino. sometimes he breaks into doggrel:[460] "s'io avessi l'ingenio del burchiello, io vi farei volentier un sonetto, che non ebbi giammai tema e subietto, più dolce, più piacevol, nè più bello." when his friends insist upon his writing to them, rhyme comes to his aid, and he affects a comic fit of rage:[461] perchè m'ammazzi con le tue querele, priuli mio, perchè ti duole a torto, che sai che t'amo più che l'orso il miele, etc. [footnote 455: book iii. canto vii. (canto 67 of the _rifacimento_, vol. iv. p. 266).] [footnote 456: this translation will be found in panizzi's edition of the _orlando innamorato_ (london, pickering, 1830), vol. ii. p. cxiv.] [footnote 457: letter vi. to messer giamb. montebuona.] [footnote 458: letter xvii.] [footnote 459: letter xxiv.] [footnote 460: letter to ippolito de' medici (ed. milan, vol. v. p. 227).] [footnote 461: letter ix.] importuned to publish the poems he recited with so much effect in private circles, he at last consents because he cannot help it:[462] "compare, io non ho potuto tanto schermirmi che pure m'è bisognato dar fuori questo benedetto capitolo e comento della primiera; e siate certo che l'ho fatto, non perchè mi consumassi d'andare in stampa, nè per immortalarmi come il cavalier casio, ma per fuggire la fatica mia, e la malevolenza di molti che domandandomelo e non lo avendo mi volevano mal di morte." nor were these the ordinary excuses of an author eager to conceal his vanity. the _capitolo_ upon the game of primiera was the only poem which appeared with his consent.[463] he intended his burlesque verses for recitation, and is even said to have preserved no copies of them, so that many of his compositions, piratically published in his lifetime, were with difficulty restored to a right text by il lasca in 1548. this indifference to public fame did not imply any carelessness of style. mazzuchelli, who had seen some of his rough copies, asserts that they bore signs of the minutest pains bestowed upon them. the melody of versification, richness of allusion, refinement of phrase, equality and flowing smoothness, which distinguish berni's work from that of his imitators confirm the belief that his _capitoli_ and sonnets, in spite of their apparent ease, were produced with the conscientious industry of a real artist. [footnote 462: letter vii. compare the sonnet "in nome di m. prinzivalle da pontremoli" (ed. milan, vol. v. p. 3).] [footnote 463: it was published at rome by calvo in 1526, with the comment of m. pietro paolo da s. chirico.] berni's theory of poetry revealed a common-sense and insight which were no less rare than commendable in that age of artificial literature. he refused to write at command, pleading that spontaneity of inspiration is essential to art, and quoting vida's dictum: nec jussa canas, nisi forte coactus magnorum imperio regum. notwithstanding his avoidance of publication and parsimony of production, berni won an almost unique reputation during his lifetime, and after his death was worshiped as a saint by the lovers of burlesque.[464] in one of his drollest sonnets he complains that poets were wont to steal their neighbors' verses, but that he is compelled to take the credit of more than he ever wrote:[465] a me quei d'altri son per forza dati, e dicon tu gli arai, vuoi o non vuoi. [footnote 464: il lasca prefixed a sonnet to his edition of 1548, in which he speaks of "il berni nostro dabbene e gentile," calls him "primo e vero trovatore, maestro e padre del burlesco stile," says that it is possible to envy but impossible to imitate him, and compares him thus with burchiello: non sia chi mi ragioni di burchiello, che saria proprio come comparare caron dimonio all'agnol gabriello. in another sonnet he climbs a further height of panegyric: quanti mai fur poeti al mondo e sono, volete in greco, in ebreo, o in latino, a petto a lui non vagliono un lupino, tant'è dotto, faceto, bello e buono: and winds up with the strange assurance that: da lui si sente anzi s'impara con gioja infinita come viver si debbe in questa vita.] [footnote 465: sonnet xxvii.] a piece of comic prose or verse cannot appear but that it is at once ascribed to him: e la gente faceta mi vuole pure impiastrar di prose e carmi, come s'io fussi di razza di marmi: non posso ripararmi; come si vede fuor qualche sonetto, il berni l'ha composto a suo dispetto. e fanvi su un guazzetto di chiose e di sensi, che rinnieghi il cielo, se luter fa più stracci del vangelo. one of the glosses referred to in this _coda_, lies before me as i write. it was composed by gianmaria cecchi on berni's sonnet which begins "cancheri e beccafichi." the sonnet is an amusing imprecation upon matrimony, written in one paragraph, and containing the sting of the epigram in its short _coda_ of three lines.[466] but it did not need a commentary, and cecchi's voluminous annotations justify the poet's comic anger. [footnote 466: sonnet ix.] berni's _capitoli_ may be broadly divided into three classes. the first includes his poetical epistles, addressed to fracastoro, sebastian del piombo, ippolito de' medici, marco veneziano, and other friends. except for the peculiar humor, which elevates the trivial accidents of life to comedy, except for the consummate style, which dignifies the details of familiar correspondence and renders fugitive effusions classical, these letters in verse would scarcely detach themselves from a mass of similar compositions. as it is, berni's personality renders them worthy companions of ariosto's masterpieces in a similar but nicely differentiated branch of literature. it remains for the amateurs of autobiographical poetry to choose between the self-revelation of the philosophizing ferrarese poet and the brilliant trifling of the florentine. the second class embraces a number of occasional poems--the complaint against love, the deluge in mugello, the satire upon adrian vi., the lamentation of nardino--descriptive or sarcastic pieces, where the poet chooses a theme and develops it with rhetorical abundance. the third class may be regarded as the special source and fountain of the bernesque manner, as afterwards adopted and elaborated by berni's imitators. omitting personal or occasional motives, he sings the praises of the plague, of primiera, of aristotle, of peaches, of debt, of eels, of the urinal, of thistles, and of other trifling subjects. here his burlesque genius takes the most fantastic flight, soaring to the ether of absurdity and sinking to the nadir of obscenity, combining heterogeneous elements of fun and farce, yet never transgressing the limits of refined taste. these _capitoli_ revealed a new vehicle of artistic expression to his contemporaries. penetrated with their author's individuality, they caught the spirit of the age and met its sense of humor. consequently they became the touchstones of burlesque inspiration, the models which tempted men of feebler force and more uncertain tact to hopeless tasks of emulation. we still possess la casa's _capitolo_ on the oven; molza's on salad and the fig; firenzuola's on the sausage and the legno santo; bronzino's on the paint-brush and the radish; aretino's on the quartan fever; franzesi's on carrots and chestnuts; varchi's on hard eggs and fennel; mauro's on beans and priapus; dolce's on spittle and noses; bini's on the _mal franzese_; lori's on apples; ruscelli's on the spindle--not to speak of many authors, the obscurity of whose names and the obscenity of the themes they celebrated, condemn them to condign oblivion. not without reason did gregorovius stigmatize these poems as a moral syphilis, invading italian literature and penetrating to the remotest fibers of its organism. after their publication in academical circles and their further diffusion through the press, simple terms which had been used to cloak their improprieties, became the bywords of pornographic pamphleteers and poets. figs, beans, peaches, apples, chestnuts acquired a new and scandalous significance. sins secluded from the light of day by a modest instinct of humanity, flaunted their loathsomeness without shame beneath the ensigns of these literary allegories. the corruption of society, hypocritically veiled or cynically half-revealed in coteries, expressed itself too plainly through the phraseology invented by a set of sensual poets. the most distinguished members of society, cardinals like bembo, prelates like la casa, painters like bronzino, critics like varchi, scholars like molza, lent the prestige of their position and their talents to the diffusion of this leprosy, which still remains the final most convincing testimony to the demoralization of italy in the renaissance.[467] [footnote 467: the scholars of the day were not content with writing burlesque _capitoli_. they must needs annotate them. see caro's commentary on the _ficheide_ of molza (romagnoli, _scelta di curiosità letterarie_, dispensa vii. bologna, 1862) for the most celebrated example. there is not a sentence in this long and witty composition, read before the accademia delle virtù, which does not contain a grossly obscene allusion, scarcely a paragraph which does not refer to an unmentionable vice.] to what extent, it may be asked, was berni responsible for these consequences? he brought the indecencies of the piazza, where they were the comparatively innocuous expression of coarse instincts, into the close atmosphere of the study and the academical circle, refined their vulgarisms, and made their viciousness attractive by the charm of his incomparable style. this transition from the _canto carnascialesco_ to the _capitolo_ may be observed in berni's _caccia di amore_, a very licentious poem dedicated to "noble and gentle ladies." it is a carnival song or _canzone a ballo_ rewritten in octave stanzas of roseate fluency and seductive softness. a band of youthful huntsmen pay their court in it to women, and the _double entendre_ exactly reproduces the style of innuendo rendered fashionable by lorenzo de' medici. yet, though berni is unquestionably answerable for the obscene _capitoli_ of the sixteenth century, it must not be forgotten that he only gave form to material already sufficiently appropriated by the literary classes. with him, the grossness which formed the staple of mauro's, molza's, bini's, la casa's and bronzino's poems, the depravities of appetite which poisoned the very substance of their compositions, were but accidental. the poet stood above them and in some measure aloof from them, employing these ingredients in the concoction of his burlesque, but never losing the main object of his art in their development. a bizarre literary effect, rather than the indulgence of a sensual imagination, was the aim he had in view. therefore, while we regret that his example gave occasion to coarser debaucheries of talent, we are bound to acknowledge that the jests to which he condescended, do not represent his most essential self. this, however, is but a feeble apology. that without the excuse of passion, without satirical motive or overmastering personal proclivity, he should have penned the _capitolo a m. antonio da bibbiena_, and have joked about giving and taking his metaphorical peaches, remains an ineradicable blot upon his nature.[468] [footnote 468: the six opening lines of the _lamentazion d'amore_ prevent our regarding berni's jests as wholly separate from his experience and practice.] the bernesque _capitoli_ were invariably written in _terza rima_, which at this epoch became the recognized meter of epistolary, satirical, and dissertational poetry throughout italy.[469] thus the rhythm of the divine comedy received final development by lending itself to the expression of whims, fancies, personal invectives and scurrilities. to quote from berni's masterpieces in this style would be impossible. each poem of about one hundred lines is a perfect and connected unity, which admits of no mutilation by the detachment of separate passages. still readers may be referred to the _capitolo a fracastoro_ and the two _capitoli della peste_ as representative of the poet's humor in its purest form, without the moral deformities of the still more celebrated _pesche_ or the uncleanliness of the _orinale_. [footnote 469: a familiar illustration is cellini's _capitolo del carcere_. curious examples of these occasional poems, written for the popular taste, are furnished by mutinelli in his _annali urbani di venezia_. see above, part i. pp. 172, 519, for the vicissitudes of _terza rima_ after the close of the fourteenth century.] at the close of the _capitolo_ written on the occasion of adrian vi.'s election to the papacy, berni declared that it had never been his custom to speak ill of people: l'usanza mia non fu mai di dir male; e che sia il ver, leggi le cose mie, leggi l'anguille, leggi l'orinale, le pesche, i cardi e l'altre fantasie: tutte sono inni, salmi, laudi ed ode. we have reason to believe this declaration. genial good humor is a characteristic note of his literary temperament. at the same time he was no mean master of caricature and epigram. the _capitolo_ in question is a sustained tirade against the fleming, who had come to break the peace of polished rome--a shriek of angry lamentation over altered times, intolerable insults, odious innovations. the amazement and discomfiture of the poet, contrasted with his burlesque utterance, render this composition comic in a double sense. its satire cuts both ways, against the author and the object of his rage. yet when adrian gave place to giulio de' medici, and berni discovered what kind of a man the new pope was, he vented nobler scorn in verse of far more pungent criticism. his sonnet on clement is remarkable for exactly expressing the verdict posterity has formed after cool and mature inquiry into this pope's actions. clement's weakness and irresolution must end, the poet says, by making even adrian seem a saint:[470] un papato composto di rispetti, di considerazioni e di discorsi, di più, di poi, di ma, di sì, di forsi, di pur, di assai parole senza effetti; di pensier, di consigli, di concetti, di congetture magre per apporsi d'intrattenerti, purchè non si sborsi, con audienze, risposte, e bei detti: di piè di piombo e di neutralità, di pazienza, di dimostrazione, di fede, di speranza e carità, d'innocenza, di buona intenzione; ch'è quasi come dir, semplicità. per non le dare altra interpretazione, sia con sopportazione, lo dirò pur, vedrete che pian piano farà canonizzar papa adriano. [footnote 470: a papacy composed of compliment, debate, consideration, complaisance, of furthermore, then, but, yes, well, perchance, haply, and such-like terms inconsequent; of thought, conjecture, counsel, argument, starveling surmise to summon countenance, negotiations, audiences, romance, fine words and shifts, disbursement to prevent; of feet of lead, of tame neutrality, of patience and parade to outer view. of fawning faith, of hope and charity, of innocence and good intentions too, which it were well to dub simplicity, uglier interpretations to eschew; with your permission, you, to speak the plain truth out, shall live to see pope adrian sainted through this papacy.] the insight into clement's character displayed in this sonnet, the invective against adrian, and the acerbity of another sonnet against alessandro de' medici: empio signor, che de la roba altrui lieto ti vai godendo, e del sudore: would gain in cogency, could we attach more value to the manliness of berni's utterances. but when we know that, while he was showering curses on the duke of cività di penna, he frequented the medicean court and wrote a humorous _capitolo_ upon gradasso, a dwarf of cardinal ippolito, we feel forced to place these epigrammatic effusions among the ebullitions of personal rather than political animosity. there was nothing of the patriot in berni, not even so much as in machiavelli, who himself avowed his readiness to roll stones for the signori medici. as a satirist, berni appears to better advantage in his caricatures of private or domestic personages. the portrait of his housekeeper, who combined in her single person all the antiquities of all the viragos of romance: io ho per cameriera mia l'ancroja madre di ferraù, zia di morgante, arcavola maggior dell'amostante, balia del turco e suocera del boja: alcionio upon his mule: quella che per soperchio digiunare tra l'anime celesti benedette come un corpo diafano traspare: ser cecco who could never be severed from the court, nor the court from ser cecco: perch'ambedue son la corte e ser cecco: the pompous doctor: l'ambasciador del boja, un medico, maestro guazzaletto: domenico d'ancona, the memory of whose beard, shorn by some vandal of a barber, draws tears from every sympathetic soul: or hai dato, barbier, l'ultimo crollo ad una barba la più singolare che mai fosse descritta in verso o 'n prosa: these form a gallery of comic likenesses, drawn from the life and communicated with the force of reality to the reader. each is perfect in style, clearly cut like some antique chalcedony, bringing the object of the poet's mirth before us with the exact measure of ridicule he sought to inflict.[471] [footnote 471: sonnets xi. xvi. xiv. iii. xx. the same vivid picturesqueness is displayed in the desecrated abbey (sonnet xvii.), which deserves to be called an etching in words.] this satiric power culminates in the sonnet on pietro aretino.[472] the tartness of berni's more good-humored pasquinades is concentrated to vitriol by unadulterated loathing. he flings this biting acid in the face of one whom he has found a scoundrel. the sonnet starts at the white heat of fury: tu ne dirai e farai tante e tante, lingua fracida, marcia, senza sale. [footnote 472: sonnet xix. in the _capitolo_ to ippolito de' medici, berni thus alludes to aretino: com'ha fatto non so chi mio vicino, che veste d'oro, e più non degna il panno, e dassi del messere e del divino.] it proceeds with execration; and when the required fourteen lines have been terminated, it foams over into rage more voluble and still more voluble, unwinding the folds of an interminable _coda_ with ever-increasing _crescendo_ of vituperation, as though the passion of the writer could not be appeased. the whole has to be read at one breath. no quotation can render a conception of its rhetorical art. every word strikes home because every word contains a truth expressed in language of malignant undiluted heartfelt hate. that most difficult of literary triumphs, to render abuse sublime, to sustain a single note of fierce invective without relaxing or weakening the several grades that lead to the catastrophe, has been accomplished. this achievement is no doubt due in some measure to the exact correspondence between what we know of pietro aretino and what berni has written of him. yet its blunt fidelity to fact does not detract from the skill displayed in the handling of those triple series of rhymes, each one of which descends like a lash upon the writhing back beneath: ch'ormai ogni paese hai ammorbato, ogn'uom, ogn'animale, il ciel e dio e 'l diavol ti vuol male. quelle veste ducale, o ducali accattate e furfantate, che ti piangono addosso sventurate, a suon di bastonate ti saran tratte, prima che tu muoja, dal reverendo padre messer boja, che l'anima di noja, mediante un capestro, caveratti, e per maggior favore squarteratti; e quei tuoi leccapiatti, bardassonacci, paggi da taverna, ti canteranno il requiem eterna. or vivi e ti governa, bench'un pugnale, un cesso, overo un nodo ti faranno star cheto in ogni modo. from this conclusion the rest may be divined. berni paid dearly for the satisfaction of thus venting his spleen. aretino had found more than his match. though himself a master in the art of throwing dirt, he could not, like berni, sling his missiles with the certainty of gaining for himself by the same act an immortality of glory. this privilege is reserved for the genius of style, and style alone. therefore he had to shrink in silence under berni's scourge. but aretino was not the man to forego revenge if only an opportunity for inflicting injury upon his antagonist, full and effectual, and without peril to himself, was offered. the occasion came after berni's death; and how he availed himself of it, will appear in the next paragraphs. though the _capitoli_ and sonnets won for their author the high place he occupies among italian poets, berni is also famous for his _rifacimento_ or remodeling of the _orlando innamorato_. he undertook this task after the publication of the _furioso_; and though part was written at verona, we know from references to contemporary events contained in the _rifacimento_, that berni was at work upon it in the last years of his life at florence. it was not published until some time after his death. berni subjected the whole of boiardo's poem to minute revision, eliminating obsolete words and lombard phrases, polishing the verse, and softening the roughness of the elder poet's style. he omitted a few passages, introduced digressions, connected the episodes by links and references, and opened each canto with a dissertation in the manner of ariosto. opinions may vary as to the value of the changes wrought by berni. but there can be no doubt that his work was executed with artistic accuracy, and that his purpose was a right one. he aimed at nothing less than rendering a noble poem adequate to the measure of literary excellence attained by the italians since boiardo's death. the _innamorato_ was to be made worthy of the _furioso_. the nation was to possess a continuous epic of orlando, complete in all its parts and uniformly pure in style. had berni lived to see his own work through the press, it is probable that this result would have been attained. as it happened, the malignity of fortune or the malice of a concealed enemy defeated his intention. we only possess a deformed version of his _rifacimento_. the history, or rather the tragedy, of its publication involves some complicated questions of conjecture. yet the side-lights thrown upon the conditions of literature at that time in italy, as well as on the mystery of berni's death, are sufficiently interesting to justify the requisite expenditure of space and time. the _rifacimento_ appeared in a mutilated form at venice in 1541, from the press of the giunti, and again in 1542 at milan from that of francesco calvo. these two issues are identical, except in the title and tail pages. the same batch of sheets was in fact divided by the two publishers. in 1545 another issue, called _edizione seconda_, saw the light at venice, in which giunta introduced a very significant note, pointing out that certain stanzas were not the work of "m. francesco berni, but of one who presumptuously willed to do him so great an injury."[473] this edition, differing in many respects from those of 1541 and 1542, was on the whole an improvement. it would seem that the publishers, in the interval between 1541 and 1545, regretted that berni's copy had been tampered with, and did their best, in the absence of the original, to restore a correct text. still, as giunta acknowledged, the _rifacimento_ had been irretrievably damaged by some private foe.[474] the introductory dedication to isabella gonzaga, where we might have expected an allusion to boiardo, is certainly not berni's; and the two lines, nè ti sdegnar veder quel ch'altri volse forse a te dedicar, ma morte il tolse, must be understood to refer to berni's and not to boiardo's death. comparison of the two editions makes it, moreover, clear that berni's ms. had been garbled, and the autograph probably put out of the way before the publication of the poem. [footnote 473: "di chi presuntuosamente gli ha voluto fare tanta ingiuria." this note occurs at stanza 83 of canto 1.] [footnote 474: in some cases the readings of the second edition are inferior to those of the first, while both fall short of boiardo. boiardo wrote in his description of astolfo (canto i. 60): quel solea dir, ch'egli era per sciagura, e tornava a cader senza paura. in the _rifacimento_ of 1541 we have: e alle volte cadeva per sciagura, e si levava poi senza paura. in that of 1545: un sol dispetto avea: dice turpino che nel cader alquanto era latino. i take these instances from panizzi.] who is to be held responsible for this fraud? who was the presumptuous enemy who did such injury to berni? panizzi, so far back as 1830, pointed out that giovanni alberto albicante took some part in preparing the edition of 1541-2. this man prefixed sonnets written by himself to the _rifacimento_; "whence we might conclude that he was the editor."[475] signor virgili, to whose researches attention has already been directed, proved further by references to pietro aretino's correspondence that this old enemy of berni had a hand in the same work. writing to francesco calvo from venice on february 16, 1540, aretino approaches the subject of the _rifacimento_ in these words:[476] "our friend albicante informs me, with reference to the printing of _orlando_ defamed by berni, that you are good enough to meet my wishes, for which i thank you.... you will see that, for the sake of your own modesty, you are bound either not to issue the book at all, or else to purge it of all evil-speaking." he then states that it had been his own intention "to emend the count of scandiano's _innamoramento_, a thing in its kind of heroic beauty, but executed in a trivial style, and expressed with phrases at once plebeian and obsolete." this task he renounced upon reflection that it would bring him no fame to assume the mask of a dead man's labors. in another letter to the same calvo, dated february 17, 1542, aretino resumes the subject. sbernia (so he chooses to call berni) has been "overwhelmed beneath the ruins he pulled down upon himself by his undoing of the _innamoramento_."[477] now, it is certain that the ruin proclaimed by aretino did really fall on berni's labors. in 1545 lodovico domenichi published a second _rifacimento_, far inferior in style to that of berni, and executed with the slovenliness of a literary hack. but this was several times reprinted, whereas berni's remained neglected on the shelves of the librarians until the year 1725, when it was republished and welcomed with a storm of exaggerated enthusiasm. [footnote 475: _boiardo ed ariosto_, vol. ii. p. cxxxiv.] [footnote 476: _lettere_, book ii. p. 121.] [footnote 477: _ibid._ p. 249. we might quote a parallel passage from the prologue to the _ipocrita_, which aretino published in 1542, just after accomplishing his revenge on berni: "io non ho pensato al gastigo che io darei a quegli che pongono il lor nome nei libri che essi guastano nella foggia che un non so chi ha guasto il boiardo, per non mi credere che si trovasse cotanta temerità nella presunzione del mondo." the hypocrisy of this is worthy of the play's title.] we have therefore reached this conclusion, that aretino, aided by albicante, both of them notable literary brigands, contrived to send a mutilated version of the _rifacimento_ to press, with a view of doing irreparable mischief to berni's reputation.[478] we have also seen that there was something dangerous in berni's work, described by aretino as _maldicentia_, which he held as a threat over the milanese publisher. lastly, giunta recognized too late that he had made himself the party to some act of malice by issuing a garbled copy. aretino had, we know, a private grudge to satisfy. he could not forget the castigation he received at berni's hands, in the sonnet which has been already described. the hatred subsisting between the two men had been further exasperated by the different parts they took in a literary duel. antonio broccardo, a young venetian scholar, attacked pietro bembo's fame at padua in 1530, and attempted to raise allies against the great dictator. aretino took up the cudgels for bembo, and assailed broccardo with vehement abuse and calumny. berni ranged himself upon broccardo's side. the quarrel ended in broccardo's death under suspicious circumstances in 1531 at padua. he was, indeed, said to have been killed by aretino.[479] berni died mysteriously at florence four years later, and aretino caused his _rifacimento_, "purged of evil-speaking," to be simultaneously published at venice and milan. [footnote 478: mazzuchelli (_scrittori d'italia_: albicante, giov. alberto) may be consulted about the relations between these two ruffians, who alternately praised and abused each other in print.] [footnote 479: see mazzuchelli, _op. cit._, under "brocardo, antonio." the spelling of the name varies. bembo, six years afterwards, told varchi that aretino drove broccardo for him into an early grave. see _lettere all'aretino_, vol. ii. p. 186, ed. romagnoli. the probability is that broccardo died of fever aggravated by the annoyance caused him by aretino's calumnies. there is no valid suspicion of poison.] the question still remains to be asked how aretino, berni's avowed enemy, obtained possession of the ms. berni had many literary friends. yet none of them came forward to avert the catastrophe. none of them undertook the publication of his remains. his last work was produced, not at florence, where he lived and died, but at venice; and albicante, aretino's tool, was editor. in the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to answer this question authoritatively. considerable light, however, is thrown upon the mystery by a pamphlet published in 1554 by the heretic vergerio. he states that berni undertook his _rifacimento_ with the view of diffusing protestant doctrines in a popular and unobtrusive form; but that the craft of the devil, or in other words the policy of the church, effected its suppression at the very moment when it was finished and all but printed.[480] here, then, we seem to find some missing links in the dark chain of intrigue. aretino's phrase _maldicentia_ is explained; his menace to francesco calvo becomes intelligible; the silence of berni's friends can be accounted for; and the agency by which the ms. was placed in albicante's hands, can be at least conjectured. as a specimen of berni's lutheran propaganda, vergerio subjoins eighteen stanzas, written in the poet's purest style, which were addressed to battista sanga, and which formed the induction to the twentieth canto. this induction, as it stands in berni's _innamorato_, is reduced to seven stanzas, grossly garbled and deformed in diction. very few of the original lines have been retained, and those substituted are full of vulgarisms.[481] from a comparison of the original supplied by vergerio with the mutilated version, the full measure of the mischief practiced upon berni's posthumous work can be gauged. furthermore, it must be noticed that these compromising eighteen stanzas contained the names of several men alive in italy, all of whom were therefore interested in their suppression, or precluded from exposing the fraud. [footnote 480: this curious pamphlet was reprinted from a unique copy by panizzi, _op. cit._ vol. iii. p. 361. in the introduction, vergerio gives an interesting account of berni. he represents him as a man of worldly life, addicted to gross pleasures and indecent literature until within a few years of his death. having been converted to evangelical faith in christ, berni then resolved to use the _orlando_ as a vehicle for lutheran opinions; and his _rifacimento_ was already almost printed, when the devil found means to suppress it. vergerio is emphatic in his statement that the poem was finished and nearly printed. if this was indeed the case, we must suppose that albicante worked upon the sheets, canceling some and leaving others, and that the book thus treated was afterwards shared by giunta and calvo.] [footnote 481: i shall print a translation of the eighteen stanzas in an appendix to this volume. lines like the following, arrandellarsi come un salsicciuolo, which are common in the mangled version, would never have passed berni's censure.] the inference i am inclined to draw from signor virgili's researches, combined with vergerio's pamphlet, is that the church interfered to prevent the publication of berni's heretical additions to boiardo's poem. berni's sudden death, throwing his affairs into confusion at the moment when he was upon the point of finishing the business, afforded an excellent occasion to his ecclesiastical and personal opponents, who seem to have put some pressure on his kinsmen to obtain the ms. or the sheets they meant to mutilate.[482] the obnoxious passages may have been denounced by aretino; for we know that he was intimate with vergerio, and it is more than probable that the verses to sanga were already in circulation.[483] aretino, strange to say, was regarded in clerical quarters as a pillar of the church. he therefore found it in his power to wreak his vengeance on an enemy at the same time that he posed as a defender of the faith. that he was allowed to control the publication, appears from his letters to calvo; and he confided the literary part of the business to albicante. his threats to calvo have reference to berni's heresy, and the _maldicentia_ may possibly have been the eighteen stanzas addressed to sanga. the terror of the inquisition reduced berni's friends to silence. aretino, even if he had not denounced berni to the church, had now identified himself with the crusade against his poem, and he was capable of ruining opponents in this unequal contest by charges they would have found it impossible to refute. the eighteen stanzas were addressed to a secretary of clement vii.; and men of note like molza, flamminio, navagero, fondulo, fregoso, were distinctly named in them. if, then, there is any cogency in the conclusions i have drawn from various sources, berni's poem, and perhaps his life, was sacrificed to theological hatred in combination with aretino's personal malice. the unaccountable inactivity of his friends is explained by their dread of being entangled in a charge of heresy.[484] [footnote 482: this appears from a reference in aretino's second letter to calvo, where he talks of berni's "friends and relatives." it might be going too far to suggest that berni was murdered by his ecclesiastical enemies, who feared the scandal which would be caused by the publication of his opinions.] [footnote 483: vergerio may have communicated the eighteen stanzas to aretino; or conversely he may have received them from him. i have read through the letters exchanged between him and aretino--and they are numerous--without, however, finding any passage that throws light on this transaction. aretino published both series of letters. he had therefore opportunity to suppress inconvenient allusions.] [footnote 484: we may note the dates and fates of the chief actors in this tragedy. broccardo died of grief in 1531. berni died, under suspicion of poison, in 1535. cardinal ippolito de' medici was poisoned a few months later, in 1535. alessandro de' medici was murdered by lorenzino in 1537. pietro paolo vergerio was deprived of his see and accused of heresy in 1544. berni's old friend, the author of _il forno_, m. la casa, conducted his trial, as papal nuncio at venice. aretino, who had assumed the part of inquisitor and mutilator to gratify his private spite, survived triumphant.] enough has been already said about berni's imitators in the burlesque style. of satire in the strict sense of the term, the poets of the sixteenth century produced nothing that is worth consideration. the epistolary form introduced by ariosto, and the comic caprices rendered fashionable by berni, determined the compositions of pietro aretino, of ercole bentivoglio, of luigi alamanni, of antonio vinciguerra, of giovanni andrea dell'anguillara, of cesare caporali, and of the minor versifiers whose occasional poems in _terza rima_, seasoned with more or less satirical intention, are usually reckoned among the satires of the golden age.[485] personal vituperation poured forth in the heat of literary quarrels, scarcely deserves the name of satire. else it might be necessary in this place to mention niccolò franco's sonnets on pietro aretino, or the far more elegant compositions of annibale caro directed against his enemy castelvetro.[486] models for this species of poetical abuse had been already furnished by the sonnets exchanged between luigi pulci and matteo franco in a more masculine age of italian literature.[487] it is not, however, incumbent upon the historian to resuscitate the memory of those forgotten and now unimportant duels. the present allusion to them may suffice to corroborate the opinion already stated that, while the italians of the renaissance were ingenious in burlesque, and virulent in personal invective, they lacked the earnestness of moral conviction, the indignation, and the philosophic force that generate real satire. [footnote 485: see the _raccolta di poesie satiriche_, milano, 1808.] [footnote 486: see, for the latter series, _poesie satiriche_, pp. 138-156.] [footnote 487: see _sonetti di matteo franco e di luigi pulci_, 1759. cp. above, part i. p. 431.] chapter xv. pietro aretino. aretino's place in italian literature and society--his birth and boyhood--goes to rome--in the service of agostino chigi--at mantua--gradual emergence into celebrity--the incident of giulio romano's postures--giovanni delle bande nere--aretino settles at venice--the mystery of his influence--discerns the power of the press--satire on the courts--magnificent life--aretino's wealth--his tributary princes--bullying and flattery--the divine aretino--his letter to vittoria colonna--to michelangelo--his admiration of artists--relations with men of letters--epistle to bernardo tasso--his lack of learning--disengagement from puristic prejudices--belief in his own powers--rapidity of composition--his style--originality and independence--prologue to _talanta_--bohemian comrades--niccolò franco--quarrel with doni--aretino's literary influence--his death--the anomaly of the renaissance--estimate of aretino's character. pietro aretino, as i have already had occasion to observe, is a representative name in the history of italian literature. it is almost as impossible to slur him over with a passing notice as it would be to dwell but casually upon machiavelli or ariosto, cellini or poliziano, in reviewing the renaissance. base in character, coarse in mental fiber, unworthy to rank among real artists, notwithstanding his undoubted genius, aretino was the typical ruffian of an age which brought ruffianism to perfection, welcomed it when successful, bowed to its insolence, and viewed it with complacent toleration in the highest places of church, state, and letters. he was the _condottiere_ of the pen in a society which truckled to the borgias. he embodied the infamy and cowardice which lurked beneath the braveries of italian court-life--the coarseness of speech which contradicted literary purism--the cynicism and gross strength of appetite for which convention was a flimsy veil.[488] the man himself incarnated the dissolution of italian culture. his works, for the student of that period, are an anti-mask to the brilliant display of ariosto's or of tasso's puppets. it is the condemnation of italy that we are forced to give this prominence to aretino. if we place poliziano or guicciardini, bembo or la casa, bandello or firenzuola, cellini or berni, paolo giovio or lodovico dolce--typical men of letters chosen from the poets, journalists, historians, thinkers, artists, novel-writers of the age--under the critical microscope, we find in each and all of them a tincture of aretino. it is because he emphasizes and brings into relief one master element of the renaissance, that he deserves the rank assigned to him. in athens aristophanes is named together with sophocles, thucydides and plato, because, with genius equal to theirs, he represented the comic antithesis to tragedy, philosophy and history. in italy aretino is classed with machiavelli and ariosto for a different reason. his lower nature expressed, not an antithesis, but a quality, which, in spite of intellectual and moral superiority, they possessed in common with him, which he exhibited in arrogant abundance, and which cannot be omitted from the survey of his century. the alloy of cynicism in machiavelli, his sordid private pleasures, his perverse admiration for cesare borgia, his failure to recognize the power of goodness in the world, condemn him to the company of this triumvir. the profligacy of genius in ariosto, his waste of divine gifts upon trifles, his lack of noble sentiment, his easy acquiescence in conditions of society against which he should have uttered powerful protest, consign him, however undeservedly, to the same association.[489] [footnote 488: the best source of information regarding pietro aretino is his own correspondence published in six volumes (paris, 1609), and the two volumes of letters written to him by eminent personages, which are indeed a rich mine of details regarding italian society and manners in the sixteenth century. mazzuchelli's _vita di pietro aretino_ (padua, 1741) is a conscientious, sober, and laborious piece of work, on which all subsequent notices have been based.] [footnote 489: it may be mentioned that ariosto has immortalized this bully in the _orlando_ (xlvi. 14), among the most illustrious men and women of his age: ecco il flagello de' principi, il divin pietro aretino.] pietro was born at arezzo in 1492. his reputed father was a nobleman of that city, named luigi bacci. his mother, tita, was a woman of the town, whose portrait, painted as the virgin of the annunciation, adorned the church-door of s. pietro. the boy, "born," as he afterwards boasted, "in a hospital with the spirit of a king," passed his childhood at arezzo with his mother. he had no education but what he may have picked up among the men who frequented tita's house, or the artists who employed her as a model. of greek and latin he learned nothing either now or afterwards. before growing to man's estate, he had to quit his native city--according to one account because he composed and uttered a ribald sonnet on indulgences, according to another because he robbed his mother. he escaped to perugia, and gained his livelihood by binding books. here he made acquaintance with firenzuola, as appears from a letter of the year 1541, in which he alludes to their youthful pranks together at the university. one of aretino's exploits at perugia became famous. "having noticed in a place of much resort upon the public square a picture, in which the magdalen was represented at the feet of christ, with extended arms and in an attitude of passionate grief, he went privily and painted in a lute between her hands." from perugia he trudged on foot to rome, and entered the service of agostino chigi, under whose patronage he made himself useful to the medici, remaining in the retinue of both leo x. and clement vii. between 1517 and 1524. this period of seven years formed the man's character; and it would be interesting to know for certain what his employment was. judging by the graphic descriptions he has left us of the roman court in his comedy of the _cortigiana_ and his dialogue _de le corti_, and also by his humble condition in perugia, we have reason to believe that he occupied at first the post of lackey, rising gradually by flattery and baser arts to the position of a confidential domestic, half favorite, half servant.[490] that he possessed extraordinary social qualities, and knew how to render himself agreeable by witty conversation and boon companionship, is obvious from the whole course of his subsequent history. it is no less certain that he allowed neither honor nor self-respect to interfere with his advancement by means which cannot be described in detail, but which opened the readiest way to favor in that profligate society of rome. his own enormous appetite for sensual enjoyment, his cynicism, and his familiarity with low life in all its forms, rendered him the congenial associate of a great man's secret pleasures, the convenient link of communication between the palace and the stews.[491] [footnote 490: aretino's comedies, letters, and occasional poems are our best sources for acquaintance with the actual conditions of palace-life. the _dialogo de le corti_ opens with a truly terrible description of the debauchery and degradation to which a youth was exposed on his first entrance into the service of a roman noble. it may have been drawn from the author's own experience. the nauseous picture of the _tinello_, or upper-servants' hall, which occurs in the comedy _cortigiana_ (act v. sc. 15), proves intimate familiarity with the most revolting details of domestic drudgery. the dirt of these places made an ineffaceable impression on aretino's memory. in his burlesque _orlandino_, when he wishes to call up a disgusting image, he writes: odorava la sala come odora un gran tinel d'un monsignor francese, o come quel d'un cardinal ancora quando febo riscalda un bestial mese.] [footnote 491: aretino's correspondence and the comedy above mentioned throw sufficient light upon these features of roman society. it will, for the rest, suffice to quote a passage from monsignore guidiccioni's letter to giambattista bernardi (_opere di m. giov. guidiccioni_, barbèra, 1867, vol. i. p. 195): "non solamente _da questi illustri per ricchezze_ non si può avere, ma non si puote ancora sperare premio che sia di lunghe fatiche o di rischio di morte, se _l'uomo non si rivolge ad acquistarlo per vie disoneste_. perciocchè essi non carezzano e non esaltano se non adulatori, e _quelli che sanno per alfabeto le abitazioni, le pratiche e le qualità delle cortigiane_." the whole letter should be read by those who would understand roman society of the renaissance. the italics are mine.] yet though pietro resided at this time principally in rome, he had by no means a fixed occupation, and his life was interrupted by frequent wanderings. he is said to have left agostino chigi's service, because he stole a silver cup. he is also said to have taken the cowl in a capuchin convent at ravenna, and to have thrown his frock to the nettles on the occasion of leo's election to the papacy. we hear of him parading in the courts of lombardy, always on the lookout for patronage, supporting himself by what means is unapparent, but gradually pushing his way to fame and fashion, loudly asserting his own claims to notice, and boasting of each new favor he received. here is a characteristic glimpse into his nomadic mode of life:[492] "i am now in mantua with the marquis, and am held by him in so high favor that he leaves off sleeping and eating to converse with me, and says he has no other pleasure in life; and he has written to the cardinal about me things that will not fail to help me greatly to my credit. i have also received a present of 300 crowns. he has assigned to me the very same apartment which francesco maria, duke of urbino, occupied when he was in exile; and has appointed a steward to preside over my table, where i always have some noblemen of rank. in a word, more could not be done for the entertainment of the greatest prince. besides, the whole court worships me. happy are they who can boast of having got a verse from me. my lord has had all the poems ever writ by me copied, and i have made some in his praise. so i pass my life here, and every day get some gift, grand things which you shall see at arezzo. but it was at bologna they began to make me presents. the bishop of pisa had a robe of black satin embroidered with gold cut for me; nothing could be handsomer. so i came like a prince to mantua. everybody calls me 'messere' and 'signore.' i think this easter we shall be at loreto, where the marquis goes to perform a vow; and on this journey i shall be able to satisfy the dukes of ferrara and urbino, both of whom have expressed the desire to make my acquaintance." [footnote 492: quoted by philarète chasles from gamurrini, _ist. gen. delle famiglie nobili toscane ed umbre_, iii. 332. i do not know exactly to what period the letter refers.] on the election of clement vii., pietro returned to rome with a complimentary sonnet in his pocket for the new pope. he had now acquired an italian reputation, and was able to keep the state of an independent gentleman, surrounded by a band of disreputable hangers-on, the _bardassonacci, paggi da taverna_, of berni's satirical sonnet. but a misfortune obliged him suddenly to decamp. giulio romano had designed a series of obscene figures, which marcantonio raimondi engraved, and aretino illustrated by sixteen sonnets, describing and commenting upon the lewdness of each picture. put in circulation, these works of immodest art roused the indignation of the roman prelates, who, though they complacently listened to berni's _pesche_ or la casa's _forno_ behind the closed doors of a literary club, disliked the scandal of publicity. raimondi was imprisoned; giulio romano went in the service of the marquis of mantua to build the famous palazzo del te; and aretino discreetly retired from rome for a season. of the three accomplices in this act of high treason against art, aretino was undoubtedly the guiltiest. yet he had the impudence to defend his sonnets in 1537, and to address them with a letter of dedication, unmatched for its parade of shamelessness, to messer battista zatti of brescia.[493] in this epistle he takes credit to himself for having procured the engraver's pardon and liberation from clement vii. however this may be, he fell in 1524 under the special ban of monsignor giberti's displeasure, and had to take refuge with giovanni de' medici delle bande nere.[494] this famous general was a wild free-liver. he conceived a real affection for aretino, made him the sharer in his debaucheries, gave him a place even in his own bed, and listened with rapture to his indecent improvisations. aretino's fortune was secured. it was discovered that he had the art of pleasing princes. he knew exactly how to season his servility with freedom, how to flatter the great man by pandering to his passions and tickling his vanity, while he added the pungent sauce of satire and affected bluntness. _il gran diavolo_, as giovanni de' medici was called, introduced aretino to francis i., and promised, if fortune favored him, to make the adventurer master of his native town, arezzo.[495] [footnote 493: _lettere_, vol. i. p. 258.] [footnote 494: it may be remembered that giberti, bishop of verona, was berni's patron. this helps to account for the animosity between berni and aretino.] [footnote 495: _op. burl._ ii. p. 11: sotto milano dieci volte, non ch'una, mi disse: pietro, se di questa guerra mi scampa dio e la buona fortuna, ti voglio impadronir della tua terra. giovanni de' medici wrote to him thus: "vieni presto.... il re a buon proposito si dolse che non ti aveva menato al solito, onde io diedi la colpa al piacerti più lo stare in corte che in campo ... non so vivere senza l'aretino."--_lettere scritte all'aretino_, i. 6.] aretino's intercourse with these powerful protectors was broken by a short visit to rome, where he seems to have made peace with the prelates. it was probably inconvenient to protract hostilities against a man who had gained the friendship of a king of france and of the greatest italian _condottiere_ of his age. but fortune had ceased to smile on our hero in rome. it so happened that he wrote a ribald sonnet on a scullion-wench in the service of monsignor giberti, to whom a certain achille della volta was at the same time paying his addresses. the _bravo_ avenged this insult to his mistress by waylaying aretino in the trastevere and stabbing him several times in the breast and hands. when aretino recovered from his wounds, he endeavored in vain to get justice against achille. the pope and his datary refused to interfere in this ignoble quarrel. aretino once more retired from rome, vowing vengeance against clement, whom he defamed to the best of his ability in scurrilous libels and calumnious conversation.[496] [footnote 496: the sonnet by berni quoted above, p. 371, was written to meet these libels of aretino. it contains an allusion to achille della volta's poignard.] he now remained with giovanni de' medici until that general's death in 1526. the great captain died in aretino's arms at mantua from the effect of a wound inflicted by an unknown harquebuss in frundsperg's army.[497] this accident decided aretino to place no further reliance on princely patronage. he was thirty-two years of age, and had acquired a singular reputation throughout italy for social humor, pungent wit and literary ability. though deficient in personal courage, as the affair of achille della volta proved, he contrived to render himself formidable by reckless evil-speaking; and while he had no learning and no style, he managed to pass for a writer of distinction. how he attained this position in an age of purists, remains a puzzle; we possess nothing which explains the importance attached to his compositions at this early period. his sonnets had made what the french call a success of scandal; and the libertines who protected him, were less particular about literary elegance than eager to be amused. if we inquire minutely into the circumstances of aretino's career, we find that he had worked himself into favor with a set of princes--the marquis of mantua, the dukes of ferrara and urbino, giovanni de' medici, and the king of france--who were powerful enough to confer fashion upon an adventurer, and to place him in a position where it would be perilous to contest his claims, but who were not eminent for literary taste. in the court of the two medici at rome, who exacted more scholarship and refinement than aretino possessed, he never gained firm footing; and this was perhaps the chief reason of his animosity against clement. he had in fact become the foremost parasite, the wittiest and most brilliant companion of debauch, in the less cultivated italian courts. this reputation he now resolved to use for his own profit. from the moment when he retired to venice in 1527, resolved to support himself by literary work, until his death, in 1557, he enjoyed a princely income, levying tribute on kings and nobles, living with prodigal magnificence, corresponding with the most illustrious men of all nations, and dictating his own terms to the society he alternately flattered and insulted. the history of these last thirty years, which may be clearly read in the six bulky volumes of his published correspondence, and in the four volumes of letters written to him, is one of the most extraordinary instances on record of celebrity and power acquired by calculated imposture and audacious brigandism.[498] [footnote 497: see aretino's letters, vol. i. pp. 8, 10, for very interesting details concerning the death of giovanni de' medici. he here used the interest of his old master to secure the favor of duke cosimo.] [footnote 498: the edition of aretino's own letters which i shall use is that of paris, 1609 in six books. the edition of the _lettere scritte all'aretino_ is romagnoli's reprint, _scelta di curiosità_, bologna, 1873-1876, dispensa cxxxii., two books divided into four volumes; to these, for convenience sake, i shall refer as 1, 2, 3, 4.] aretino showed prudence in the choice of venice for his fixed abode. in venice there was greater liberty both of life and speech than elsewhere at that time in italy. so long as a man refrained from politics and offered no cause of suspicion to the state, he might do and publish pretty much what he chose, without fear of interference and without any serious peril from the inquisition. for a filibuster of aretino's type, venice offered precisely the most advantageous harbor, whence he could make sallies and predatory excursions, and whither he might always return to rest at ease beneath the rampart of a proud political indifference. his greatness consisted in the accurate measure he had taken of the society upon which he now intended to live by literary speculation. his acute common sense enabled him to comprehend the power of the press, which had not as yet been deliberately used as a weapon of offense and an instrument of extortion. we have seen in another portion of this book how important a branch of literature the invectives of the humanists had been, how widely they were read, and what an impression they produced upon society. the diatribes of poggio and filelfo circulated in manuscript; but now the press was in full working order, and aretino perceived that he might make a livelihood by printing threats and libels mixed with eulogies and personal panegyrics. the unwieldy three-decker of the invective should be reduced to the manageable form of the epistolary torpedo and gunboat. to propagate calumnies and to render them imperishable by printing was the menace he addressed to society. he calculated wisely on the uneasiness which the occasional appearance of stinging pamphlets, fully charged with personalities, would produce among the italians, who were nothing if not a nation of readers at this epoch. at the same time he took measures to secure his own safety. professing himself a good christian, he liberally seasoned his compositions with sacred names; and, though he had no more real religion than fra timoteo in machiavelli's _mandragola_ he published pious romances under the titles of _i tre libri della humanità di christo_, _i sette salmi de la penitentia di david_, _il genesi di pietro aretino_, _la vita di catherina vergine_, _la vita di maria vergine_, _la vita di s. tommaso signor d'aquino_. these books, proceeding from the same pen as the _sonetti lussuriosi_ and the pornographic _ragionamenti_, were an insult to piety. still they served their author for a shield, behind which he shot the arrows of his calumnies, and carried on the more congenial game of making money by pandering to the licentiousness or working on the cowardice of the wealthy.[499] [footnote 499: it is clear from a perusal of the _lettere all'aretino_ that his reputation depended in a great measure upon these pious romances. the panegyrics heaped on them are too lengthy and too copious to be quoted. they are curiously mixed with no less fervent praises of the _dialoghi_.] aretino, who was able to boast that he had just refused a flattering invitation from the marquis of montferrat, was received with honor by the state of venice. soon after his arrival he wrote thus to the doge andrea gritti:[500] "i, who, in the liberty of so great and virtuous a commonwealth, have now learned what it is to be free, reject courts henceforth for ever, and here make my abiding tabernacle for the years that yet remain to me; for here there is no place for treason, here favor cannot injure right, here the cruelty of prostitutes exerts no sway, here the insolence of the effeminate is powerless to command, here there is no robbing, no violence to the person, no assassination. wherefore i, who have stricken terror into kings, i, who have restored confidence to virtuous men, give myself to you, fathers of your people, brothers of your servants, sons of truth, friends of virtue, companions of the stranger, pillars of religion, observers of your word, executors of justice, treasuries of charity, and subjects of clemency." then follows a long tirade in the same stilted style upon the majesty of venice. the doge took aretino by the hand, reconciled him with clement and the bishop of verona, and assured him of protection, so long as the illustrious author chose to make the city of the lagoons his home. luigi gritti, the doge's son, assigned him a pension; and though invitations came from foreign courts, aretino made his mind up to remain at venice. he knew that the very singularity of his resolve, in an age when men of letters sought the patronage of princely houses, would enable him to play the game he had in view. nor could he forget the degradation he had previously undergone in courtly service. "only let me draw breath outside that hell! ah! your court! your court! to my mind a gondolier here is better off than a chamberlain there. look you at yonder poor waiting man, tortured by the cold, consumed by the heat, standing at his master's pleasure--where is the fire to warm him? where is the water to refresh him? when he falls ill, what chamber, what stable, what hospital will take him in? rain, snow, mud! faugh, it murders a man to ride in such weather with his patron or upon his errands. think how cruel it is to have to show a beard grown in the service of mere boys, how abject are white hairs, when youth and manhood have been spent in idling around tables, antechamber doors, and privies? here i sit when i am tired; when i am hungry, eat; when i feel the inclination, sleep; and all the hours are obedient to my will."[501] he revels in the sense of his own freedom. "my sincerity, and my virtue, which never could stomach the lies that bolster up the court of rome, nor the vices that reign in it, have found favor in the eyes of all the princes of the world. emperors, thank god, are not popes, nor kings cardinals! therefore i enjoy their generosity, instead of courting that hypocrisy of priests, which acts the bawd and pander to our souls. look at chieti, the parasite of penitence! look at verona, the buffoon of piety! they at least have solved the doubts in which their ambitious dissimulation held those who believed that the one would not accept the hat, and the other was not scheming for it. i meanwhile praise god for being what i am. the hatred of slaves, the rancors of ambition no longer hem me round. i rob no man's time. i take no delight in seeing my neighbors go naked through the world. nay, i share with them the very shirts off my back, the crust of bread upon my plate. my servant-girls are my daughters, my lackeys are my brothers. peace is the pomp of my chambers, and liberty the majordomo of my palace. i feast daily off bread and gladness; and, wishing not to be of more importance than i am, live by the sweat of my ink, the luster of which has never been extinguished by the blasts of malignity or the mists of envy."[502] at another time he breaks into jubilant descriptions of his own magnificence and popularity. "i swear to you by the wings of pegasus that, much as may have reached your ears, you have not heard one half the hymn of my celebrity. medals are coined in my honor; medals of gold, of silver, of brass, of lead, of stucco. my features are carved along the fronts of palaces. my portrait is stamped upon comb-cases, engraved on mirror-handles, painted on majolica. i am a second alexander, cæsar, scipio. nay more: i tell you that some kinds of glasses they make at murano, are called aretines. aretine is the name given to a breed of cobs--after one pope clement sent me and i gave to duke frederick. they have christened the little canal that runs beside my house upon the canalozzo, rio aretino. and, to make the pedants burst with rage, besides talking of the aretine style, three wenches of my household, who have left me and become ladies, will have themselves known only as the aretines."[503] [footnote 500: _lettere_, vol. i. p. 3.] [footnote 501: _lettere_, i. 204.] [footnote 502: _lettere_, ii. 58.] [footnote 503: _lettere_, iii. 145; cp. iii. 89. the whole of the passage translated above is an abstract of a letter professedly written to aretino by doni (_lett. all'ar._ vol. iv. p. 395), which may be read with profit as an instance of flattery. the occurrence of the same phrases in both series of epistles raises a doubt whether aretino did not tamper with the text of the correspondence he published, penning panegyrics of himself and printing them under fictitious names as advertisements. doni was a man who might have lent himself to such imposture on the public.] these self-congratulations were no idle vaunts. his palace on the grand canal was crowded with male and female servants, thronged with visitors, crammed with costly works of art and presents received from every part of italy and europe. the choicest wines and the most exquisite viands--rare birds, delicate fruits, and vegetables out of season--arrived by special messengers to furnish forth his banquets. here he kept open house, enjoying the society of his two bosom friends, titian and sansovino, entertaining the magnificent venetian prostitutes, and welcoming the men of fashion or of learning who made long journeys to visit him.[504] "if i only spent in composition one third of the time i fling away, the printers would do nothing but attend to the issuing of my works. and yet i could not write so much if i would; so enormous is the multitude which comes incessantly to see me. i am often forced to fly from my own house, and leave the concourse to take care of itself."[505] "so many lords and gentlemen are eternally breaking in upon me with their importunities, that my stairs are worn by their feet like the capitol with wheels of triumphal chariots. turks, jews, indians, frenchmen, germans, spaniards, flock to see me. you can fancy how many italians come! i say nothing about the common folk. you could not find me without a flock of friars and priests. i have come to be the oracle of truth, the secretary of the universe: everybody brings me the tale of his injury by this prince or that prelate."[506] this sumptuous train of life demanded a long purse, and aretino had nothing but his brains to live by. yet, by the sale of his books and the contributions levied on great folk, he accumulated a yearly income sufficient to his needs. "thanks to their majesties of spain and france, with the addition of a hundred crowns of pension allowed me by the marquis of vasto, and the same amount paid by the prince of salerno, i have six hundred crowns of fixed income, besides the thousand or thereabouts i make yearly with a quire of paper and a bottle of ink."[507] in another place he says that in the course of eighteen years "the alchemy of his pen had drawn over twenty-five thousand crowns from the entrails of various princes."[508] it was computed that, during his lifetime, he levied blackmail to the extent of about 70,000 crowns, or considerably more than a million of francs, without counting his strictly professional earnings. all this wealth he spent as soon as he laid hands upon it, boasting loudly of his prodigality, as though it were a virtue. he dressed splendidly, and denied himself no sensual indulgence. his house contained a harem of women, devoted to his personal pleasures and those, apparently, of his familiar friends. he had many illegitimate daughters, whom he dowered. moreover, he was liberal to poor people; and while squandering money first upon his vices, he paid due attention to his reputation for generosity.[509] the bastard of arezzo vaunted he had been born in a hospital with the soul of a king.[510] yet he understood nothing of real magnanimity; his charity was part of an openhanded recklessness, which made him fling the goods of fortune to the wind as soon as gained--part of the character of _grand seigneur_ he aspired to assume.[511] [footnote 504: see _lettere all'ar._ vol. iv. p. 352, for a vivid description, written by francesco marcolini, of aretino's train of living and prodigal hospitality. it realizes the vast banqueting-pictures of veronese.] [footnote 505: _lettere_, iii. 72.] [footnote 506: _lettere_, i. 206. this passage occurs also in a letter addressed to aretino by one alessandro andrea (_lett. all'ar._ vol. iii. p. 178); whence mazzuchelli argues that aretino tampered with the letters written to him, and interpolated passages before he sent them to the press. see last page, note 1.] [footnote 507: _lettere_, ii. 213.] [footnote 508: _lettere_, iii. 70.] [footnote 509: see _lettere_, ii. 257; iii. 340; v. 251.] [footnote 510: see the _capitolo al duca di fiorenza_.] [footnote 511: marcolini's letter (_lettere all'aretino_, vol. iv. p. 352), and some letters from obscure scholars (for example, _ib._ vol. ii. pp. 118-121), seem to prove that he was really openhanded in cases of distress.] it would fatigue the patience of the reader to furnish forth a complete list of the presents made to aretino and acknowledged by him in his correspondence. chains, jewels, horses, pictures, costly stuffs, cups, mirrors, delicacies of the table, wines--nothing came amiss to him; and the more he received, the more he cried continually, give, give, give! there was hardly a reigning prince in europe, hardly a noble of distinction in italy, who had not sent some offering to his shrine. the sultan soliman, the pirate barbarossa, the pope, the emperor, were among his tributaries.[512] the empress gave him a golden collar worth three hundred crowns. philip, infante of spain, presented him with another worth four hundred. francis i. bestowed on him a still more costly chain, wrought of pure gold, from which hung a row of red enameled tongues, bearing the inscription _lingua ejus loquetur mendacium_. aretino received these presents from the hands of embassadors, and wore them when he sat to titian or to tintoretto for his portrait. instead of resenting the equivocal compliment of the french king's motto, he gloried in it. lies, no less than flattery, were among the openly-avowed weapons of his armory.[513] upon the medals struck in his honor he styled himself _divus p. aretinus, flagellum principum_, the divine pietro aretino, scourge of princes. another inscription ran as follows: _i principi tributati dai popoli il servo loro tributano_--princes who levy tribute from their people, bring tribute to their servant. and there is aretino seated on a throne, with noble clients laying golden vases at his feet.[514] [footnote 512: there is a letter from barbarossa to aretino in the _lettere all'ar._ vol. iii. p. 269.] [footnote 513: see the frank admissions in _lettere_, ii. 52; iv. 168; i. 19, 30, 142.] [footnote 514: see the plates prefixed to mazzuchelli's life of aretino. compare a passage in his letters, vi. 115, and the headings of the letters addressed to him, _passim_.] it is incredible that arrogance so palpable should have been tolerated, inconceivable how such a braggart exercised this fascination. what had emperors and kings to gain or lose by aretino's pen? what was the secret of his power? no satisfactory answer has yet been given to these questions. the enigma does not, indeed, admit of solution. we have to deal in aretino's case with a blind movement among "the better vulgar," expressing itself as fashion; and nothing is more difficult to fathom than the fashion of a bygone age.[515] the prestige which attached itself to people like cagliostro or s. germains or beau nash is quite incalculable. yet some account may be rendered of what seems to have been aretino's method. he assiduously cultivated a reputation for reckless freedom of speech. he loudly trumpeted his intention of speaking evil when and where it pleased him. he proclaimed himself the champion of veracity, asserted that nothing was so damnatory as the truths he had to tell, and announced himself the "censor of the world," the foe of vice, the defender of virtue. having occupied the ear of society by these preliminary fanfaronnades, he proceeded to satirize the courts in general, and to vilify the manners of princes, without mentioning any in particular.[516] it thus came to be believed that aretino was a dangerous person, a writer it would be wiser to have upon one's side, and who, if he were not coaxed into good humor, might say something eminently disagreeable.[517] there was pungency enough in his epigrams, in the slashing, coarse, incisive brutality of his style, to make his attack formidable. people shrank from it, as they now shrink from articles in certain libelous weekly papers. aretino was recognized as a cerberus, to whom sops should be thrown. accordingly, the custom began of making him presents and conferring on him pensions. then it was discovered that if he used a pen dipped in vitriol for his enemies, he had in reserve a pen of gold for his patrons, from which the gross mud-honey of flatteries incessantly trickled.[518] to send him a heavy fee was the sure way of receiving an adulatory epistle, in which the scourge of princes raised his benefactor of the moment to the skies. in a word, aretino's art consisted in making each patron believe that the vigilant satirist of other people's vices bestowed just eulogy on him alone, and that his praises were wrung from the mouth of truth by singular and exceptional merit. the fact is that though aretino corresponded with all the princes of europe and with at least thirty cardinals, his letters are nothing but a series of the grossest flatteries. there is a hint here and there that the benefactor had better loosen his purse strings, if he wishes the stream of sycophancy to continue. when cerberus has been barking long without a sop, we hear an angry growl, a menace, a curt and vicious snarl for gold.[519] but no sooner has the gift been sent, than the fawning process recommences. in this way, by terrorism and toad-eating, by wheedling and bullying, by impudent demands for money and no less impudent assertions of his power to confer disgrace or fame, the rascal held society at his disposal. he boasted, and not without reason, that from his study in venice he could move the world by a few lines scribbled on a piece of paper with his pen. what remains inconceivable, is that any value should have been attached to his invectives or his panegyrics--that persons of distinction should have paid him for the latter, and have stooped to deprecate the former. but it had become the fashion to be afraid of aretino, the fashion to court his goodwill, the fashion to parade his praises. francis i. and charles v. led this vogue. the other princes followed suit. charles wished to knight aretino: but the adventurer refused a barren honor. julius iii. made him knight of s. peter with a small pension. henry viii. sent him a purse of 300 crowns for a dedicatory epistle.[520] it was even talked of elevating him to the rank of cardinal, and engrossing his talents for the service of the church.[521] nobody thought of addressing him without the prefix of _divino_.[522] and yet, all this while, it was known to every one in italy that aretino was a pander, a coward, a liar, a debauchee, who had wallowed in every lust, sold himself to work all wickedness, and speculated on the grossest passions, the basest curiosities, the vilest vices of his age.[523] [footnote 515: after studying the _lettere scritte all'aretino_--epistles, it must be remembered, from foreign kings and princes, from cardinals and bishops, from italian dukes and noblemen, from illustrious ladies and great artists, and from the most distinguished men of letters of his day--i am quite at a loss to comprehend the _furore_ of fashion which accompanied this man through his career. one and all praise him as the most powerful, the most virtuous, the bravest, the wittiest, the wisest, or, to use their favorite phrase, the _divinest_ man of his century. was all this a mere convention? was it evoked by fear and desire of being flattered in return? or, after all, had aretino some now occult splendor, some real, but now unintelligible, utility for his contemporaries?] [footnote 516: the papal court was attacked by him; but none other that i can discover. the only prince who felt the rough side of his tongue was the farnese: impara tu, pierluigi ammorbato, impara, ducarel da sei quattrini, il costume d'un rè si onorato. cardinal gaddi and the bishop of verona were pretty roughly treated. so was clement vii. but all these personages made their peace with aretino, and paid him homage.] [footnote 517: see the curious epistle written to messer pompeo pace by the conte di monte labbate, and included among the _lettere all'aretino_, vol. iv. p. 385. speaking of aretino's singular worth and excellent qualities, it discusses the question of the terror he inspired, which the author attributes to a kind of justifiable _chantage_. that aretino was the inventor of literary _chantage_ is certain; but that it was justifiable, does not appear.] [footnote 518: aretino made no secret of his artificial method of flattery. in a letter to bembo (_lettere_, ii. 52), he openly boasts that his literary skill enables him to "swell the pride of grandees with exorbitant praises, keeping them aloft in the skies upon the wings of hyperboles." "it is my business," he adds, "to transform digressions, metaphors, and pedagogeries of all sorts into capstans for moving and pincers for opening. i must so work that the voice of my writings shall break the sleep of avarice; and baptize that conceit or that phrase which shall bring me crowns of gold, not laurels."] [footnote 519: as a sample of his begging style, we may extract the following passage from a letter (1537), referring to the king of france (_lettere_, i. 111): "i was and ever shall be the servant of his majesty, of whom i preached and published what appears in all my utterances and in all my works. but since it is my wonted habit not to live by dreams, and since certain persons take no care for me, i have with glory to myself made myself esteemed and sought by those who are really liberal. the chain was three years delayed, and four have gone without so much as a courtesy to me from the king's quarter. therefore i have turned to one who gives without promising--i speak of the emperor. i adored francis; but never to get money from the stirring of his liberality, is enough to cool the furnaces of murano."] [footnote 520: see cromwell's letter, in the _lettere all'aretino_, vol. ii. p. 15.] [footnote 521: _lettere all'aretino_, vol. i. p. 245; vol. iv. pp. 281, 289, 300, contain allusions to this project, which is said to have originated with the duke of parma. the first citation is a letter of titian's.] [footnote 522: "divino," "divinissimo," "precellentissimo," "unichissimo," "onnipotente," are a few of the epithets culled from the common language of his flatterers.] [footnote 523: i will translate passages from two letters, which, by their very blasphemies, emphasize this contradiction. "one might well say that you, most divine signor pietro, are neither prophet nor sibyl, but rather the very son of god, seeing that god is highest truth in heaven, and you are truth on earth; nor is any city but venice fit to give you harborage, who are the jewel of the earth, the treasure of the sea, the pride of heaven; and that rare cloth of gold, bedecked with gems, they place upon the altar of s. mark's, is naught but you" (_lettere scritte a p. aretino_, vol. iii. p. 176). the next is more extraordinary, since it professes to be written by a monk: "in this our age you are a column, lantern, torch and splendor of holy church, who, could she speak, would give to you the revenues of chieti, farnese, santa fiore, and all those other idlers, crying out--let them be awarded to the lord pietro, who distinguishes, exalts and honors me, in whom unite the subtlety of augustine, the moral force of gregory, jerome's profundity of meaning, the weighty style of ambrose. it is not i but the whole world that says you are another paul, who have borne the name of the son of god into the presence of kings, potentates, princes of the universe; another baptist, who with boldness, fearing naught, have reproved, chastised, exposed iniquities, malice, hypocrisy before the whole world; another john the evangelist, for exhorting, entreating, exalting, honoring the good, the righteous, and the virtuous. verily he who first called you divine, can claim the words christ spake to peter: beatus es, quia caro et sanguis non revelavit tibi, sed pater noster qui in coelis est" (_ibid._ p. 142).] sometimes he met with men stout enough to treat him as he deserved. the english embassador at venice cudgeled him within an inch of his life. pietro strozzi threatened to assassinate him if he showed his face abroad, and aretino kept close so long as the _condottiere_ remained in venice. tintoretto offered to paint his portrait; and when he had got the fellow inside his studio, grimly took his measure with a cutlass. aretino never resented these insults. bully as he was, he bowed to blows, and kissed the hand that dared to strike him. we have already seen how he waited till berni's death before he took revenge for the famous sonnet. all this makes the general adulation of society for the "divine aretino" the more unintelligible. we can only compare the treatment he received with the mingled contempt and flattery, the canings and the invitations, showered at the present time on editors of scandal-mongering journals. the miracle of aretino's dictatorship is further enhanced by the fact that he played with cards upon the table. his epistles were continually being printed--in fact, were sent to the press as soon as written. here all the world could see the workings of his mind, his hypocrisies, his contradictions, the clamorousness of his demands for gold, the grossness and universality of his flatteries, his cynical obscenity, his simulation of a superficial and disgusting piety. yet the more he published of his correspondence, the louder was the acclamation of society. the charlatan of genius knew his public, and won their favor by effronteries that would have ruined a more cautious impostor. some of his letters are masterpieces of infernal malice. the marchioness of pescara had besought him to change his mode of life, and to dedicate his talents only to religion.[524] this is how he answers her:[525] "it gives me pleasure, most modest lady, that the religious pieces i have written do not displease the taste of your good judgment. your doubt, whether to praise me or to dispraise me for expending my talents on aught else than sacred studies, is prompted by that most excellent spirit which moves you to desire that every thought and every word should turn toward god, forasmuch as he is the giver of virtue and of intellectual power. i confess that i am less useful to the world, and less acceptable to christ, when i exhaust my studious energies on lying trifles, and not on the eternal verities. but all this evil is caused by the pleasure of others, and by my own necessities; for if the princes were as truly pious as i am indigent, i would employ my pen on nothing else but misereres. excellent my lady, all men are not gifted with the graces of divine inspiration. _they_ are ever burning with lustful desires, while _you_ are every hour inflamed with angelic fire. for _you_ the services of the church and sermons are what music and comedies are for _them_. _you_ would not turn your eyes to look at hercules upon his pyre, nor yet on marsyas without his skin: while _they_ would hardly keep a s. lawrence on the gridiron or a flayed bartholomew in their bedroom. there's my bosom friend bruciolo; five years ago he dedicated his bible to the king, who calls himself most christian, and yet he has not had an answer. perhaps the book was neither well translated nor well bound. on this account my _cortigiana_, which drew from his majesty the famous chain of gold, abstained from laughing at his _old testament_; for this would be indecent. so you see i ought to be excused if i compose jests for my livelihood and not for evil purpose. anyhow, may jesus inspire you with the thought of paying me through m. sebastiano of pesaro--from whom i received your thirty crowns--the rest, which i owe, upon my word and honor. from venice. the 9th of january, 1537." [footnote 524: her letter may be read in the _lettere all'aretino_, vol iii. p. 28.] [footnote 525: _lettere_, ii. 9.] this letter, one long tissue of sneers, taunts and hypocritical sarcasms, gives the complete measure of aretino's arrogance. yet the illustrious and pious lady to whom it was addressed, suffered the writer--such was this man's unaccountable prestige--to remain her correspondent. the collection of his letters contains several addressed to vittoria colonna, of which the date is subsequent to 1537.[526] not less remarkable were aretino's dealings with the proud, resentful, solitary michelangelo. professing the highest admiration for buonarroti's genius, averring that "the world has many kings but one only michelangelo," aretino wrote demanding drawings from the mighty sculptor, and giving him advice about his pictures in the sistine. instead of treating these impertinent advances with silence or sending a well-merited rebuff, we have a letter from michelangelo addressed to "m. pietro, my lord and brother," requesting the dictator to write something concerning him:[527] "not only do i hold this dear, but i implore you to do so, since kings and emperors regard it as the height of favor to be mentioned by your pen." was this the depth of humility, or the acme of irony, or was it the acquiescence of a noble nature in a fashion too prevalent to be examined by the light of reason? let those decide who have read a portion of aretino's letters to his "singularly divine buonaruoto." for my own part, in spite of their strange but characteristic fusion of bullying and servility, i find in these epistles a trace of aretino's most respectable quality--his worship of art, and his personal attachment to great artists. it may be said in passing that he never shows so well as in the epistles to sansovino and titian, men from whom he could gain but indirectly, and to whom he clung by an instinct of what was truest and sincerest in his nature. it is, therefore, not improbable that michelangelo gave him credit for sincerity, and, instead of resenting his importunity, was willing to accept his advances in a kindly spirit.[528] [footnote 526: she wrote to him again in 1539; see _lettere all'aretino_, vol. iii. p. 30. the series of letters from the virtuous veronica gambara are equally astonishing (_ib._ vol. i. pp. 318-333).] [footnote 527: _lettere all'aretino_, vol. ii. p. 335.] [footnote 528: giorgio vasari, the common friend of pietro aretino and m.a. buonarroti, had no doubt something to do with the acquiescent courtesy of the latter.] thus far we have been dealing with aretino's relation to sovereigns, ladies, and people of importance in the world of art. that he should have imposed upon them is singular. but his position in the republic of letters offers still stranger food for reflection. in an age of literary refinement and classical erudition, this untaught child of the people arrogated to himself the fame of a prominent author, and had his claims acknowledged by men like bembo, varchi, molza, sperone.[529] all the academies in italy made him their member with extraordinary honors, and he corresponded with every writer of distinction. he treated the scholars of his day as he treated the princes of italy, abusing them collectively for pedantry, and showering the epithets of _divino, divinissimo_, upon them individually. with his usual sagacity, aretino saw how to command the public by running counter to the prejudices of his century, and proclaiming his independence of its principles. he resolved to win celebrity by contrast, by piquancy of style, by the assertion of his individual character, by what machiavelli termed _virtù_. as he had boasted of the baseness of his origin, so now he piqued himself upon his ignorance. he made a parade of knowing neither latin nor greek, derided the puristic veneration for petrarch and boccaccio then in vogue, and asserted that his mother-wit was the best source of inspiration. this audacity proved successful. while the stylists of the day were polishing their labored periods to smoothness, he expressed such thoughts as occurred to him in the words which came first to hand, seeking only vivacity, relief and salience. he wrote as he talked; and the result was that he acquired a well-won reputation for freshness, wit, originality and vigor. this is how he dictates the terms of epistolary style to bernardo tasso:[530] "i, who am more your brother in benevolence than you show yourself to be my friend in honor, did not believe that the serenity of my mind would ever again be dimmed by those clouds, which, after thunders and lightnings, burst in the bolt that sent antonio broccardo beneath the earth. pride and vanity, for certain, prompted you to tell the excellent and illustrious annibale caro that no writer of letters is worthy to be imitated at the present day, sagaciously hinting at yourself as the right man to be imitated. without doubt, your inordinate self-love, combined with your inattention to the claims of others, brought your judgment to this pass. i published letters before you, and you borrowed your style, in so far as it is worth anything, from me. yet you cannot produce even a counterfeit of my manner. my sentences and similes are made to live; yours issue stillborn from your mind. it is time that you copy a few of my familiar phrases, word by word. what else can you do? your own taste is rather inclined to the scent of flowers than the savor of fruits. you have the graces of a certain celestial style, fit for epithalamial odes and hymns. but all that sweetness is out of place in epistles, where we want the salience of invention, not the illuminated arabesques of artifice. i am not going to sing my own praises, nor to tell you that men of merit ought to mark my birthday with white chalk--i, who without scouring the post-roads, without following courts, without stirring from my study, have made every living duke, prince, sovereign, tributary to my virtue--i, who hold fame at my discretion through the universe--i, whose portrait is revered, whose name is honored in persia and the indies. to end this letter, i salute you with the assurance that nobody, so far as your epistles go, blames you for envy's sake, while many, very many, praise you through compassion for your having written them." there was no limit to his literary self-confidence.[531] "of the three opinions current respecting the talents which keep my name alive, time has refuted that, which, hearing i had no erudition, judged my compositions to be nonsense, together with that other, which, finding in them some gust of genius, affirmed they were not mine. whence it follows that only one remains, the opinion, to wit, that i, who never had a tutor, am complete in every branch of knowledge. all this comes from the poverty of art, which ever envies the wealth of nature, from whom i borrow my conceptions. wherefore, if you are of the number of those who, in order to deprive me of nature's favor, attribute to me the learning that comes from study, you deceive yourself, for i swear by god i hardly understand my mother tongue." meanwhile his tirades against the purists are full of excellent good sense. "o mistaken multitude, i tell you again, and yet again that poetry is a caprice of nature in her moments of gladness; it depends on a man's own inspiration, and if this fails, a poet's singing is but a tambourine without rattles, a bell-tower without bells. he who attempts to write verses without the gift is like the alchemists, who, for all their industry and eager avarice, never yet made gold, while nature, without labor, turns it out in plenty, pure and beautiful. take lessons from that painter, who, when he was asked whom he imitated, pointed to a crowd of living men, meaning that he borrowed his examples from life and reality. this is what i do, when i write or talk. nature herself, of whose simplicity i am the secretary, dictates that which i set down."[532] and again: "i laugh at those pedants, who think that learning consists in greek and latin, laying down the law that one who does not understand these languages, cannot open his mouth. it is not because i do not know them, that i have departed from petrarch's and boccaccio's precedents; but because i care not to lose time, patience, reputation, in the mad attempt to convert myself into their persons. the true aim of writing is to condense into the space of half a page, the length of histories, the tedium of orations; and this my letters clearly show that i have done." "it is far better to drink out of one's own wooden cup than another's golden goblet; and a man makes a finer show in his own rags than in stolen velvets. what have we to do with other people's property?"[533] "what have we to do with words which, however once in common use, have now passed out of fashion?"[534] at times he bursts into a fury of invective against erudition: "those pedants, the asses of other people's books, who, after massacring the dead, rest not till they have crucified the living! it was pedantry that murdered duke alessandro, pedantry that flung the cardinal of ravenna into prison, and, what is worse, stirred up heresy against our faith through the mouth of that arch-pedant luther."[535] this is admirable. it plunges to the very root of the matter. sharpened by his hostility to the learning he did not share, and the puerile aspects of which he justly satirized, this acute and clairvoyant critic is enabled to perceive that both italian tyrannicide and german reformation had their origin in the humanistic movement of the fifteenth century. he is equally averse to either consequence. erudition spoils sport, stiffens style, breaks in upon the pastimes of the principalities and papacies, which breed the lusts on which an aretino lives. [footnote 529: the adulation with which all the chief literary men of italy greeted aretino, is quite incredible. one must read their letters in the _lettere all'aretino_ to have any conception of it. see in particular those of varchi (_ib._ vol. ii. pp. 186-202), of dolce (vol. ii. pp. 277-295), of paolo giovio (vol. iii. pp. 59-64), of niccolò martelli (vol. iii. pp. 116-125), of annibale caro (_ib._ p. 163), of sperone (_ib._ pp. 324-330), of firenzuola (_ib._ p. 345), of doni (vol. iv. p. 395). molza, terrified by one of aretino's threats, cringes before him (vol. i. p. 340). doni signs himself "il doni dell'aretino," and vergerio, bishop of capo d'istria, "il vescovo dell'aretino." even the excellent bishop of fossombrone pays him courtly compliments (vol. ii. pp. 61-67). the pitch attained by these flatteries may be understood from this opening of a letter: "bella armonia, e soave concento, dovea essere nel cielo, signor pietro divino, e fra le stelle amiche, il dì, che iddio e la natura di voi fece altero dono a questa nostra etade," etc. _ad. inf._ (vol. iv. p. 269). here is another fragment: "manifestamente si vede e si conosce che da iddio per conservazione de la sua gloria e per utilità del mondo v'abbi fra tanti avversari," etc. (vol. iv. p. 398).] [footnote 530: _lettere_, v. 184. the above is only a condensed paraphrase of a very long tirade.] [footnote 531: _lettere_, ii. 242.] [footnote 532: _lettere_, i. 123.] [footnote 533: _lettere_, ii. 182.] [footnote 534: _lettere_, i. 210.] [footnote 535: _lettere_, i. 143.] it was aretino's boast that he composed as fast as the pen would move across the paper, and that his study contained no books of reference--nothing but the quire of paper and the bottle of ink, which were necessary to immortalize the thick-crowding fancies of his brain. his comedy of the _filosofo_ was written in ten mornings; the _talanta_ and the _ipocrita_ in "the hours robbed from sleep during perhaps twenty nights."[536] referring to his earlier fertility in 1537, he says:[537] "old age begins to stupefy my brains, and love, which ought to wake them up, now sends them off to sleep. i used to turn out forty stanzas in a morning; now i can with difficulty produce one. it took me only seven mornings to compose the _psalms_; ten for the _cortigiana_ and the _marescalco_; forty-eight for the two _dialogues_; thirty for the _life of christ_." the necessary consequences of this haste are discernible in all his compositions. aretino left nothing artistically finished, nothing to which it is now possible to point in justification of his extraordinary celebrity. his sonnets are below contempt. frigid, inharmonious, pompous, strained, affected, they exhibit the worst vices to which this species of poetry is liable. his _capitoli_, though he compared them to "colossal statues of gold or silver, where i have carved the forms of julius, a pope, charles, an emperor, catherine, a queen, francesco maria, a duke, with such art that the outlines of their inner nature are brought into relief, the muscles of their will and purpose are shown in play, the profiles of their emotions are thrown into salience"[538]--these _capitoli_ will not bear comparison for one moment with berni's. they are coarse and strident in style, threadbare in sentiment, commonplace in conception, with only one eminent quality, a certain gross prolific force, a brazen clash and clangor of antithesis, to compensate for their vulgarity. yet, such as they are, the _capitoli_ must be reckoned the best of his compositions in verse. of his comedies i have already spoken. these will always be valuable for their lively sketches of contemporary manners, their free satiric vein of humor. the _dialoghi_, although it is scarcely possible to mention them in a decent book of history, are distinguished by the same qualities of veracity, acumen, prolific vigor, animal spirits, and outspokenness. aretino's religious works, it need hardly be said, are worthless or worse. impudent romances, penned by one of the most unscrupulous of men, frankly acknowledged by their author to be a tissue of "poetical lies," we are left to marvel how they could have deceived the judgment and perverted the taste of really elevated natures.[539] that the marchioness of pescara should have hailed the coarse fictions of the life of s. catherine, which aretino confessed to have written out of his own head, as a work of efficient piety, remains one of the wonders of that extraordinary age. [footnote 536: _lettere_, iii. 84. letter at the end of the _talanta_.] [footnote 537: _lettere_, i. 99.] [footnote 538: _lettere_, vi. 4.] [footnote 539: see _lettere_, ii. 168, iii. 169, for his method of composing these books.] what then, it may finally be asked, was aretino's merit as an author? why do we allude to him at all in writing the history of sixteenth-century literature? the answer can be given in two words--originality and independence. it was no vain boast of aretino that he trusted only to nature and mother-wit. his intellectual distinction consisted precisely in this confidence and self-reliance, at a moment when the literary world was given over to pedantic scruples and the formalities of academical prescription. writing without the fear of pedagogues before his eyes--seeking, as he says, relief, expression, force, and brilliancy of phrase, he produced a manner at once singular and attractive which turned to ridicule the pretensions of the purists. he had the courage of his personality, and stamped upon his style the very form and pressure of himself. as a writer, he exhibited what machiavelli demanded from the man of action--_virtù_, or the virility of self-reliance. that was the secret of his success. the same audacity and independence characterize all his utterances of opinion--his criticisms of art and literature--his appreciation of natural beauty. in some of the letters written to painters and sculptors, and in a description of a venetian sunset already quoted in this book, we trace the dawnings of a true and natural school of criticism, a forecast of the spontaneity of diderot and henri beyle. this naturalness of expression did not save aretino from glaring bad taste. his letters and his dedicatory introductions abound in confused metaphors, extravagant _concetti_, and artificial ornaments. it seems impossible for him to put pen to paper without inventing monstrous and ridiculous periphrases. still the literary impropriety, which would have been affectation in any one else, and which became affectation in his imitators, was true to the man's nature. he could not be true to himself without falseness of utterance, because there was in him an inherent insincerity, and this was veiled by no scholastic accuracy or studied purity of phrase. much of the bad taste of the later renaissance (the tropes of marini and the absurdities of _seicentismo_) may be ascribed to the fascination exercised by this strange combination of artificiality and naturalness in a style remarkable for vigor. who, for instance does not feel that the mannerism of our euphuistic prosaists is shadowed forth in the following passage from the introduction to the _talanta_?[540] the prologue, on the drawing of the curtain, takes the audience into his confidence, and tells them that he long had hesitated which of the immortal gods to personate. mars, jupiter, phoebus, venus, mercury, and all the pantheon in succession were rejected, for different appropriate reasons, till the god of love appeared. "when at last it came to cupid's turn, i immediately said yes! and having so assented, i felt wings growing at my shoulders, the quiver at my side, the bow within my hands. in a moment i became all steel, all fire; and eager to be ware what things are done in love, i cast a glance upon the crowd of lovers; whence i soon could see who has the rendezvous, who is sent about his business, who prowls around his mistress' house, who enters by the door, who clambers up the walls, who scales the rope, who jumps from the window, who hides himself within a tub, who takes the cudgel, who gets a gelding for his pains, who is stowed away by the chambermaid, who is kicked out by the serving-man, who goes mad with anxiety, who bursts with passion, who wastes away in gazing, who cuts snooks at hope, who lets himself be hoodwinked, who spends a fortune on his mistress to look grand, who robs her for a freak, who saps her chastity with threats, who conjures her with prayers, who blabs of his success, who hides his luck, who bolsters up his vaunt with lies, who dissembles the truth, who extols the flame that burns him, who curses the cause of his heart's conflagration, who cannot eat for grief, who cannot sleep for joy, who compiles sonnets, who scribbles billets-doux, who dabbles in enchantments, who renews assaults, who takes counsel with bawds, who ties a favor on his arm, who mumbles at a flower the wench has touched, who twangles the lute, who hums a glee, who thrusts his rival through the body, who gets killed by his competitors, who eats his heart out for a mylady, who dies of longing for a strumpet. when i understood the things aforesaid, i turned round to these female firebrands, and saw how the devil (to chastise them for the perverse ways they use toward men who serve them, praise them, and adore them) gives them up, easy victims, to a pedant, a plebeian, a simpleton, a loon, a groom, a graceless clown, and to a certain mange that catches them." [footnote 540: i have purposely chosen an extract where the style is keen and mobile. had i taken examples from the letters, i could have produced a far closer parallel to lilly's rhetoric.] aretino congregated round him a whole class of literary bohemians, drawing forth the peccant humors of more than one italian city, and locating these greedy adventurers in venice as his satellites. it is enough to mention niccolò franco, giovanni alberto albicante, lorenzo veniero, doni, lodovico dolce. they were, most of them, hack writers, who gained a scanty livelihood by miscellaneous work for the booksellers and by selling dedications to patrons. more or less successfully, they carried on the trade invented and developed by aretino; remaining on terms of intimacy with him, at first as friends or secretaries, afterwards as enemies and rivals. we have already seen what use was made of albicante for the mutilation of berni's _innamoramento_. this poetaster was a native of milan, who published a history of the war in piedmont, which aretino chose to ridicule in one of his _capitoli_.[541] albicante replied with another poem in _terza rima_, and aretino seems to have perceived that he had met a worthy adversary. it was albicante's glory to be called _furibondo_ and _bestiale_. he affected an utter indifference to consequences, an absolute recklessness concerning what he did and said. whether aretino was really afraid of him, or whether he wished to employ him in the matter of berni's _innamoramento_, is not certain. at any rate, he made advances to albicante in a letter which begins: "my brother, the rage of poets is but a frenzy of stupidity." the antagonists were reconciled, and the academy of the intronati at siena thought this event worthy of commemoration in a volume: "combattimento poetico del divino aretino e del bestiale albicante occorso sopra la guerra di piemonte, e la pace loro celebrata nella accademia de gli intronati a siena." [footnote 541: see the article on albicante in mazzuchelli's _scrittori italiani_, vol. i.] niccolò franco was a native of benevento, whom aretino took into his service, as a kind of secretary.[542] being deficient in scholarship, he needed a man capable of supplying him with greek and latin quotations, and who could veneer his coarse work with a show of humanistic erudition. franco undertook the office; and it is probable that some of aretino's earlier works of piety and learning--the _genesis_, for instance--issued from this unequal collaboration. but their good accord did not last long. franco proved to be a ruffian of even fiercer type than his master. if aretino kept a literary poignard in the scabbard, ready to strike when his utility demanded, franco went about the world with unsheathed dagger, stabbing for the pleasure of the sport. "i would rather lose a dinner," he writes, "than omit to fire my pen off when the fancy takes me." the two men could not dwell together in union. when aretino published the first series of his letters, franco issued a rival volume, in the last epistle of which, addressed to envy, he made an attack on his patron. ambrogio degli eusebi, an _âme damnée_ of the aretine, about whom many scurrilous stories were told, stabbed franco, while aretino published invective after invective against him in the form of letters. franco left venice, established himself for a while at casale in the lordship of montferrat, opened a school at mantua, and ran a thousand infamous adventures, pouring forth satirical sonnets all the while at aretino. in the course of his wanderings, he completed a latin commentary on the _priapea_. these two works together--the centuries of sonnets against aretino, and the priapic lucubrations--obtained a wide celebrity. speaking of the book, tiraboschi is compelled to say that "few works exist which so dishonor human nature. the grossest obscenities, the most licentious evil-speaking, the boldest contempt of princes, popes, fathers of the council, and other weighty personages, are the gems with which he adorned his monument of perverse industry." franco proved so obnoxious to polite society that he was at last taken and summarily hanged in 1569. the curious point about this condemnation of a cur is, that he was in no whit worse than many other scribblers of the day. but he made more noise; he had not the art to rule society like aretino; he committed the mistake of trusting himself to the perilous climates of lombardy and rome. his old master drove him out of venice, and the unlucky reprobate paid the penalty of his misdeeds by becoming the scapegoat for men whom he detested. [footnote 542: for what follows see tiraboschi, tom. vii. part 3, lib. iii.] doni began his venetian career as a friend of aretino, whose companion he was in the famous academy of the pellegrini. they quarreled over a present sent to doni by the duke of urbino, and the bizarre florentine passed over to the ranks of aretino's bitterest enemies. in 1556 he declared war, with a book entitled "terremoto del doni fiorentino." the preface was addressed to "the infamous and vicious pietro aretino, the source and fountain of all evil, the stinking limb of public falsehood, and true antichrist of our century." soon after the appearance of this volume, followed aretino's death. but doni pursued his animosity beyond the grave, and was instrumental in causing his rival's writings to be subjected to ecclesiastical interdiction. we tire of these low literary quarrels. yet they form an integral part of the history of italian civilization; and the language of invective used in them, originating with aretino and improved upon by doni and franco, became the model of vituperative style in europe. doni's "earthquake, with the ruin of a great bestial colossus, the antichrist of our age," brings to mind a score of pamphlets, published in europe during the conflict of the church with reformation. we find an echo of its strained metaphors in the polemical writings of bruno and campanella. the grotesque manner of the seventeenth century begins with aretino and his satellites, just as its far-fetched conceits may be traced in the clear language of guarini. gongora, marini, euphues, and the _précieuses ridicules_ of the hôtel rambouillet are contained, as it were, in germ among this little knot of refugees at venice, who set their wits against the academical traditions of pure italian taste. a characteristic legend is told of aretino's death. two of his sisters kept, it is said, a house of ill fame; and the story runs that he died of immoderate laughter, flinging himself backward in his chair and breaking his neck, on hearing some foul jest reported by them. it is difficult to believe that this tale has any foundation in fact. we must take it as a scurrilous invention, proving the revolution of public opinion, which since his books had been put upon the index in 1559, undoubtedly took place. of like tenor is the epitaph which was never really placed upon his grave:[543] qui giace l'aretin poeta tosco, che disse mal d'ognun fuorchè di cristo, scusandosi col dir: non lo conosco. [footnote 543: these lines have been, without authority, ascribed to giovio; they may thus be rendered: here lieth aretine, in prose and poem who spake such ill of all the world but christ, pleading for this neglect, i do not know him. giovio, we may remember, styled aretino _divino_, _divinissimo_, _unichissimo_, _precellentissimo_, in his letters.] his features, though formed upon a large and not ignoble type, bore in later life a mixed expression of the wolf and the fox; nor was it without oblique satire that the engraver of his portrait, giuseppe patrini, surrounded the medallion with a wolf's hide, the grinning snarl and slanting eyes of the brute mimicking the man's physiognomy. it was a handsome face, no doubt, in youth, when, richly attired in the satin mantle cut for him by a bishop, and mounted on his white charger, he scoured the streets of reggio at giovanni de' medici's side, curling his blue-black beard, and fixing his bold bright eyes upon the venal beauties they courted in company. but the thick lips and open sensual mouth, the distended nostrils, and the wicked puckers of the wrinkles round his eyes and nose, show that the beast of prey and appetite had been encouraged through a life of self-indulgence, until the likeness of humanity yielded to victorious animalism. the same face, at once handsome and bestial, never to be forgotten after a first acquaintance, leans out, in the company of sansovino and titian, from the bronze door of the sacristy in s. mark's church.[544] the high relief is full of life and movement, one of sansovino's masterpieces. and yet it strikes one here with even greater strangeness than the myths of ganymede and leda on the portals of s. peter's at rome. [footnote 544: among the many flatteries addressed to aretino none is more laughable than a letter (_lettere all'aretino_, vol. iii. p. 175) which praises his physical beauty in most extravagant terms: "most divine lord peter; if, among the many and so lovely creatures that swinish nature sends into this worst of worlds, you alone are of such beauty and incomparable grace that you combine all qualities the human frame can boast of: for the which cause there is no need to wonder that titian, when he seeks to paint a face that has in it true beauty, uses his skilled brush in only drawing you," etc. etc. the period is too long to finish.] aretino is, in truth, not the least of the anomalies which meet us everywhere in the italian renaissance. was he worse, was he not even in some respects better than his age? how much of the repulsion he inspires can be ascribed to altered taste and feeling? to what extent was the legend of the man, so far as this is separable from the testimony of his writings, made black by posthumous malevolence and envy? these are the questions which rise in our mind when we reflect upon the incidents of his extraordinary career, and calmly estimate his credit with contemporaries. the contradictions of the epoch were concentrated in his character. he was a professed christian of the type formed by rome before the counter-reformation. he helped the needy, tended the sick, dowered orphans, and kept open house for beggars. he was the devoted friend of men like titian, a sincere lover of natural and artistic beauty, an acute and enthusiastic critic. at the same time he did his best to corrupt youth by painting vice in piquant colors. he led a life of open and voluptuous debauchery. he was a liar, a bully, a braggart, venomous in the pursuit of private animosities, and the remorseless foe of weaker men who met with his displeasure. from the conditions of society which produced cesare and lucrezia borgia, pier luigi farnese and gianpaolo baglioni, it was no wonder that a writer resolved on turning those conditions to account, should have arisen. the credit of originality, independence, self-reliant character--of what machiavelli called _virtù_--does certainly belong to him. it is true that he extracted the means of a luxurious existence from patrons upon whom he fawned. yet he was superior to the common herd of courtiers, in so far as he attached himself to no master, and all his adulation masked a battery of menaces. the social diseases which emasculated men of weaker fiber, he turned to the account of his rapacious appetites. his force consisted in the clear notion he had formed of his own aim in life, and the sagacity with which he used the most efficient means for attaining it. the future, whether of reputation or of literary fame, had no influence over his imagination. he resolved to enjoy the present, and he succeeded beyond expectation. corruption is itself a kind of superiority, when it is consummate, cynical, self-conscious. it carries with it its own clairvoyance, its own philosophy of life, its own good sense. more than this, it imposes on opinion and fascinates society. aretino did not suffer from a divided will. he never halted between two courses, but realized the ideal of the _perfettamente tristo_. he lived up to guicciardini's conception of the final motive, which may be described as the cult of self. sneering at all men less complete in purpose than himself, he disengaged his conduct from contemporary rules of fashion; dictated laws to his betters in birth, position, breeding, learning, morals, taste; and vindicated his virility by unimpeded indulgence of his personal proclivities. he was the last, the most perfect, if also the most vitiated product of renaissance manners. in the second half of the sixteenth century, when hypocrisy descended like a cloud upon the ineradicable faults of italy, there was no longer any possibility for the formation of a hero after aretino's type. thus at the close of any estimate of aretino, we are forced to do justice to the man's vigor. it is not for nothing that even a debased society bows to a dictatorship so autocratic; nor can eminence be secured, even among the products of a decadent civilization, by undiluted defects. aretino owed his influence to genuine qualities--to the independence which underlay his arrogance, to the acute common sense which almost justified his vanity, to the outspokenness which made him satirize the vices that he shared and illustrated.[545] we have abundant and incontrovertible testimony to the fact that his _dialoghi_, when they were first published, passed for powerful and drastic antidotes to social poisons[546]; and it is clear that even his religious works were accepted by the pious world as edifying. the majority of his contemporaries seem to have beheld in him the fearless denouncer of ecclesiastical and civil tyrants, the humble man's friend, and the relentless detective of vice. the indescribable nastiness of the _dialoghi_, the false feeling of the _vita di s. catherina_, which makes us turn with loathing from their pages, did not offend the taste of his century. while, therefore, he comprehended and expressed his age in its ruffianism and dissoluteness, he stood outside it and above it, dealing haughtily and like a potentate with evils which subdued less hardened spirits, and with personages before whom his equals groveled. we must not suffer our hatred of his mendacity, uncleanliness, brutality, and arrogance to blind us to the elements of strength and freedom which can be discerned in him.[547] [footnote 545: i should not be surprised to see an attempt soon made to whitewash aretino. balzac, in his _catherine de médicis_, has already indicated the line to be followed: "l'arétin, l'ami de titien et le voltaire de son siècle, a, de nos jours, un renom en complète opposition avec ses oeuvres, avec son caractère, et que lui vaut une débauche d'esprit en harmonie avec les écrits de ce siècle, où le drolatique était en honneur, où les reines et les cardinaux écrivaient des contes, dits aujourd'hui licentieux."] [footnote 546: i will only refer to a very curious epistle (_lettere a p. aretino_, vol. iii. p. 193), which appears to me genuine, in which aretino is indicated as the poor man's friend against princely tyrants; and another from daniello barbaro (_ibid._ p. 217), in which the dialogue on courts is praised as a handbook for the warning and instruction of would-be courtiers. the pornographic dialogues made upon society the same impression as zola's _nana_ is now making, although it is clear to us that they were written with a licentious, and not an even ostensibly scientific, intention.] [footnote 547: while these sheets are passing through the press, i see announced a forthcoming work by antonio virgili, _francesco berni con nuovi documenti_. we may expect from this book more light upon aretino's relation to the tuscan poet.] chapter xvi. history and philosophy. frivolity of renaissance literature--the contrast presented by machiavelli--his sober style--positive spirit--the connection of his works--two men in machiavelli--his political philosophy--the _patria_--place of religion and ethics in his system--practical object of his writings--machiavellism--his conception of nationality--his relation to the renaissance--contrast between machiavelli and guicciardini--guicciardini's doctrine of self-interest--the code of italian corruption--the connection between these historians and the philosophers--general character of italian philosophy--the middle ages in dissolution--transition to modern thought and science--humanism counterposed to scholasticism--petrarch--pico--dialogues on ethics--importance of greek and latin studies--classical substituted for ecclesiastical authority--platonism at florence--ficino--translations--new interest in the problem of life--valla's hedonism--the dialogue _de voluptate_--aristotle at padua and bologna--arabian and greek commentators--life of pietro pomponazzi--his book on immortality--his controversies--pomponazzi's standpoint--unlimited belief in aristotle--retrospect over the aristotelian doctrine of god, the world, the human soul--three problems in the aristotelian system--universals--the first period of scholastic speculation--individuality--the second period of scholasticism--thomas aquinas--the nature of the soul--new impulse given to speculation by the renaissance--averroism--the lateran council--is the soul immortal?--pomponazzi reconstructs aristotle's doctrine by help of alexander aphrodisius--the soul is material and mortal--man's place in nature--virtue is the end of man--pomponazzi on miracles and spirits--his distinction between the philosopher and the christian--the book on fate--pomponazzi the precursor--coarse materialism--the school of cosenza--aristotle's authority rejected--telesio--campanella--bruno--the church stifles philosophy in italy--italian positivism. the literature which has occupied us during the last nine chapters, is a literature of form and entertainment. whether treating chivalrous romance, or the arcadian ideal, or the conditions of contemporary life, these poets, playwrights and novelists had but one serious object--the perfection of their art, the richness and variety of their pictures. in the conscious pursuit of beautiful form, poliziano and ariosto, bembo and berni, castiglione and firenzuola, il lasca and molza, were alike earnest. for the rest, they sought to occupy their own leisure, and to give polite society the pastime of refined amusement. the content of this miscellaneous literature was of far less moment to the authors and their audience than its mode of presentation. even when they undertook some theme involving the realities of life, they dwelt by preference upon externals. in the _cortegiano_ and _galateo_, for example, conduct is studied from an æsthetical far more than from a moral point of view. the questions which stirred and divided literary coteries, were questions of scholarship, style, language. matter is everywhere subordinated to expression; the writer's interest in actuality is slight; the power or the inclination to think is inferior to the faculty for harmonious construction. these characteristics of literature in general, render the exceptions noticeable, and force me, at some risk of repetition, to devote a chapter to those men in whom the speculative vigor of the race was concentrated. these were the historians and a small band of metaphysicians, who may be fitly represented by a single philosopher, pietro pomponazzi. of the florentine historiographers, from villani to guicciardini, i have already treated at some length in a previous portion of this work.[548] i shall therefore confine myself to resuming those points in which machiavelli and guicciardini uttered the reflections of their age on statecraft and the laws that govern political life. [footnote 548: _age of the despots_, chaps. v. and vi.] when we compare machiavelli with his contemporaries, we are struck by his want of sympathy with the prevalent artistic enthusiasms. far from being preoccupied with problems of diction, he wrote with the sole object of making what he had to say plain. the result is that, without thinking about expression, machiavelli created italian prose anew, and was the first to form a monumental modern style. language became, beneath his treatment, a transparent and colorless medium for presenting thoughts to the reader's mind; and his thoughts were always removed as little as possible from the facts which suggested them. he says himself that he preferred in all cases the essential reality of a fact to its modification by fancy or by theory.[549] his style is, therefore, the reverse of that which the purists cultivated. they uttered generalities in ornamented and sonorous phrases. machiavelli scorned ornament, and ignored the cadence of the period. his boldest abstractions are presented with the hard outline and relief of concrete things. each sentence is a crystal, formed of few but precise words by a spontaneous process in his mind. it takes shape from the thought; not from any preconceived type of rhythm, to which the thought must be accommodated. it is perfect or imperfect according as the thinking process has been completely or incompletely victorious over the difficulties of language. it is figurative only when the fact to be enforced derives new energy from the imagination. beauty is never sought, but comes unbidden, as upon the limbs and muscles of an athlete, whose aim has been to gain agility and strength. these qualities render machiavelli's prose a model worthy of imitation by all who study scientific accuracy. [footnote 549: "mi è parso più conveniente andare dietro alla verità effettuale della cosa che all'immaginazione di essa" (_principe_, cap. xv.).] the style is the man; and machiavelli's style was the mirror of his mind and character. while the literary world echoed to the cry of art for art, he followed science for the sake of science. occupied with practical problems, smiling at the supra-mundane aspirations of the middle ages, scorning the æsthetical ideals of the renaissance, he made the political action of man, _l'homme politique_, the object of exclusive study. his resolute elimination of what he considered irrelevant or distracting circumstances from this chosen field of research, justifies our placing him among the founders or precursors of the modern scientific method. we may judge his premises insufficient, his conclusions false; but we cannot mistake the positive quality of his mind in the midst of a rhetorical and artistic generation. there is a strict link of connection between machiavelli's works. these may be divided into four classes--official, historical, speculative and literary. to the first belongs his correspondence with the florentine government; to the second, his florentine history and several minor studies, the _vita di castruccio_, the _ritratti_, and the _metodo tenuto dal duca valentino_; to the third, his _discorsi_, _principe_, _arte della guerra_ and _discorso sopra la riforma di firenze_; to the fourth, his comedies, poems, novel of _belfagor_, and _descrizione della peste_. the familiar letters should be used as a key to the more intimate understanding of his character. they illustrate some points in his political philosophy, explain his personal motives, and throw much light upon his purely literary compositions. we learn from them to know him as a friend, the father of a family, the member of a little social circle, and finally as the ever-restless aspirant after public employment. valuable as these letters are for the student of machiavelli's writings, his private reputation would have gained by their destruction. they show that the man was inferior to the thinker. in spite of his logical consistency of intellect, we become convinced, while reading them, that there were two persons in machiavelli. the one was a faithful servant of the state, a student of books and human nature, the inaugurator of political philosophy for modern europe. the other was a boon companion, stooping to low pleasures, and soiling his correspondence with gossip which breathes the tainted atmosphere of florentine vice. these letters force us to reject the theory that he wrote his comedies with any profound ethical purpose, or that he personally abhorred the moral corruption of which he pointed out the weakening results for italy. the famous epistle from san casciano paints the man in his two aspects--at one moment in a leathern jerkin, playing games of hazard with the butcher, or scouring the streets of florence with a giuliano brancaccio; at another, attired in senatorial robes, conversing with princes, approaching the writers of antiquity on equal terms, and penning works which place him on a level with ariosto and galileo. the second of these machiavellis claims our exclusive attention at the present moment. yet it is needful to remember that the former existed, and was no less real. only by keeping this in mind can we avoid the errors of those panegyrists who credit the _mandragola_ with a didactic purpose, and refuse to recognize the moral bluntness betrayed in machiavelli's theorization of human conduct. the man who thought and felt in private what his familiar letters disclose, was no right censor of the principles that rule society. we cannot trust his moral tact or taste. machiavelli was not a metaphysician. he started with the conception of the state as understood in italy. his familiarity with the latin classics, and his acquaintance with the newly-formed monarchies of europe, caused him, indeed, to modify the current notion. but he did not inquire into the final cause of political communities, or present to his own mind a clear definition of what was meant by the phrase _patria_. we are aware of a certain hesitancy between the ideas of the commune and the race, the state and the government, which might have been removed by a more careful preliminary analysis. between the roman republic, on the one hand, and the modern nation, on the other, we always find an italian city. from this point of view, it is to be regretted that he did not appropriate plato's _republic_ or aristotle's _politics_.[550] he might by such a course of study have avoided the severance of politics from ethics, which renders his philosophy unnatural. we must, however, remember that he did not propose to plan a scientific system. his works have a practical aim in view. they are directed toward the grand end of italy's restoration from weakness and degeneracy to a place among the powerful peoples of the world. this purpose modifies them in the most minute particulars. it is ever present to machiavelli's mind. it makes his philosophy assume the form of a critique. it explains the apparent discord between the _discorsi_ and the _principe_. it enables us to comprehend the nature of a patriotism which subordinates the interests of the individual to the body politic, even though the state were in the hands of an unscrupulous autocrat. the salvation of italy, rather than any metaphysical principle, is the animating motive of machiavelli's political writings. yet we may note that if he had laid a more solid philosophical basis, if he had striven more vigorously to work out his own conception of the _patria_, and to understand the laws of national health, instead of trusting to such occasional remedies as the almost desperate state of italy afforded, he would have deserved better of his country and more adequately fulfilled his own end. [footnote 550: the section on the types of commonwealths in the _discorsi_ (cap. ii.) comes straight from polybius. but i am not aware of any signs in machiavelli of a direct study of the elder greek philosophical writings.] though machiavelli had not worked out the conception of a nation as an organic whole, he was penetrated with the thought, familiar to his age, that all human institutions, like men, have a youth, a manhood, and a period of decline. looking round him, he perceived that italy, of all the european nations, had advanced farthest on the path of dissolution. he calls the italians the reproach and corruption of the world--_la corruttela, il vituperio del mondo_. when he inquires into the causes of this ruin, he is led to assign (i) the moral debasement of his country to the roman church; (ii) her sloth and inefficiency in warfare to the despots and the mercenaries; (iii) her inability to cope with greater nations to the want of one controlling power in the peninsula. a nation, he argues, cannot be a nation while divided into independent and antagonistic states. it needs to be united under a monarch like france, reduced beneath the sway of a presiding commonwealth like ancient rome, or connected in a federation like the swiss. this doctrine of the nation, or, to use his own phrase, of the _patria_, as distinguished from the commune and the empire, was highly original in italy at the time when machiavelli gave it utterance. it contained the first logically reasoned aspiration after that independence in unity, which the italians were destined to realize between the years 1858 and 1871. he may be said to have formed it by meditating on the roman historians, and by comparing italy with the nascent modern nations. the notion of ethnology did not enter into it so much as the notion of political and social cohesion. yet nationality was not excluded; for he conceived of no power, whether empire or church, above the people who had strength to define themselves against their neighbors. to secure for the population of the italian peninsula that unity which he rightly considered essential to the _patria_, and the want of which constituted their main inferiority, was the object of all his speculations. the word _patria_ sounds the keynote of his political army, and a patriot is synonymous for him with a completely virtuous man. all energies, public and private, are only valuable in so far as they build up the fabric of the commonwealth. religion is good because it sustains the moral fiber of the people. it is a powerful instrument in the hands of a wise governor; and the best religion is that which develops hardy and law-loving qualities. he criticises christianity for exalting contemplative virtues above the energies of practical life, and for encouraging a spirit of humility. he sternly condemns the church because she has been unfaithful even to the tame ideal of her saints, and has set an example of licentious living. religion is needed as the basis of morality; and morality itself must be encouraged as the safeguard of that discipline which constitutes a nation's vigor. a moralized race is stronger than a corrupt one, because it has a higher respect for law and social order, because it accepts public burdens more cheerfully, because it is more obedient to military ordinances. thus both religion and morality are means to the grand end of human existence, which is strenuous life in a united nation. i need hardly point out how this conception runs counter to the transcendentalism of the middle ages. machiavelli admires the germans for their discipline and sobriety, which he ascribes to the soundness of their religious instincts. france and spain, he says, have been contaminated by the same corrupting influence as italy; but they owe their present superiority to the fact of their monarchical allegiance. this opens a second indictment against the church. not only has the church demoralized the people; but it is chiefly due to the ambition of the popes that italy has never passed beyond the stage of conflict and disunion. an important element in this conception of the _patria_ is that it should be militant. races that have ceased from war, are on the road to ruin; and only those are powerful which train the native population to arms. the feebleness of italy can be traced to the mercenary system, introduced by despots adopted by commercial republics, and favored by ecclesiastics. if the italians desire to recover freedom, they must form a national militia; and this can best be done by adapting the principles of the roman army to modern requirements. the _art of war_ is a development of this theme. at its close, machiavelli promises the scepter of italy, together with the glory of creating italian nationality, to any state clear-sighted and self-denying enough to arm its citizens and take the lead in the peninsula. that state, he says, shall play the part of macedon. reading the peroration of the _art of war_ by the light of recent history, its paragraphs sound like a prophecy. what machiavelli there promised, has been achieved, much in the way he indicated, by piedmont, the macedon of united italy. when machiavelli discusses the forms of constitutions, he is clearly thinking of cities rather than of nations as we understand them. he has no conception of representative government, but bases all his observations on the principle of burghership. there is no sound intermediate, he says, between a commonwealth and a principality. in the former, the burghers have equal rights. in the latter there will be a hierarchy of classes. though his sympathies are with the former (since he holds that the equality of the citizens is the best safeguard for the liberties and law abiding virtues of the state), he is yet by no means unfavorable to despotism. the decadence of italy, indeed, had gone so far that her best chance of restoration depended on a prince. therefore, while he suggests measures for converting despotic states into republics by crushing the aristocracy, and for creating principalities out of free commonwealths by instituting an order of nobles, he regards the latter as the easier task of the two. upon such topics we must always bear in mind that what he says is partly speculative, and partly meant to meet the actual conditions of italian politics. the point of view is never simply philosophical nor yet simply practical. so long as the great end could be achieved, and a strong military power could rise in italy, he is indifferent to the means employed. the peroration of the _art of war_ is an appeal to either prince or republic. the peroration of the _riforma di firenze_ is an appeal to a patriotic nomothetes. he there says to clement: you have one of those singular opportunities offered to you, which confer undying glory on a mortal; you may make florence free, and, by wise regulations, render her the bulwark of renascent italy. the peroration of the _principe_ is an appeal to an ambitious autocrat. follow the suggestions of ancient and contemporary history, which all point to the formation of a native army. comprehend the magnitude of the task, and use the right means for executing it; and you will earn the fame of restoring your country to her place among the nations. the case of italy is almost desperate. yet there is still hope. a prudent lawgiver may infuse life into the decaying commonwealth of florence. a spirited despot may succeed in bringing the whole peninsula by force of arms beneath his sway. machiavelli will not scrutinize the nature of the remedy too closely. he is ready to sacrifice his republican sympathies, and to welcome the saviour who comes even in the guise of cesare borgia. when the salvation of the _patria_ is at stake, none but precisians can hesitate about the choice of instruments. this indifference to means, provided the end be secured, is characteristic of the man. machiavelli's machiavellism consists in regarding politics as a game of skill, where all ways are justified, and fixity of purpose wins. he does not believe in fortune, though he admits the favorable circumstances which smoothed the way for men like cesare. with juvenal, he says: _nos te, nos facimus, fortuna, deam_. again, he does not believe in providence. though a prophet speak with the voice of god, he will not succeed unless, like moses, he be provided with a sword to ratify his revelation. history is a logical sequence of events, the sole intelligible nexus between its several links being the human will. virtue is decision of character, accompanied by intellectual sagacity; it is the strong man's subordination of his passions, prejudices, predilections, energies, to the chosen aim. we all admit that it is better to be good than bad. yet morality has little to do with political success. what lies in the way of really great achievement, is the mediocrity of human nature. men will not be completely bad or perfectly good. they spoil their best endeavors by vacillation and incompetence to guide their action with regard to the sole end in view. enough has been said in different portions of this book about the morality of machiavelli's political essays. yet this much may be here repeated. those who wish to understand it, must not forget the medieval background of the despots--ezzelini, visconti, scaligeri, estensi, carreresi--which lay behind machiavelli. the sinfulness, treason, masterful personality, thyestean tragedies, enormous vices and intolerable mischief of the renaissance--all this was but a pale reflex of the middle ages. in those earlier tyrants, the centaur progenitors of feebler broods, through generations in which men gradually discriminated the twy-formed nature of their ancestry, the lust and luxury of sin had been at their last apogee. _in istis peccandi voluptas erat summa._ what followed in machiavelli's age, was reflection succeeding to action--evil philosophized in place of evil energetic. though machiavelli perceived that the decadence of italy was due to bad education, corrupt customs, and a habit of irreligion, he did not insist on the necessity of reformation. he was satisfied with invoking a dictator, and he counseled this dictator to meet the badness of his age with fraud and violence. thus he based his hope of national regeneration upon those very vices which he indicated as the cause of national degeneracy. whether we ascribe this error to the spirit of the times in which he lived, or to something defective in his own character, it is clear he had not grasped the fundamental principle of righteousness, as that which can alone be safely trusted by a people or its princes. perhaps he thought that, for practical purposes, the method of radical reformation was too tardy. perhaps he despaired of seeing it attempted. of all italian institutions, the church, in his opinion, was the most corrupted. yet the church held religious monopoly, and controlled education. and the church had severed morality from religion, religion from the state; making both the private concern of individuals between their conscience and their god. just as machiavelli proved himself incapable of transcending the corruption of his age, though he denounced it; so, while he grasped the notion of a _patria_ superior to the commune, he was not able to disengage his mind from the associations of italian diplomacy. he perceived that the _débris_ of medieval society in italy--the papacy, the nobles, the _condottieri_--afforded no foundation for the state he dreamed of building. he relied on the masses of the people as the only sound constituent of his ideal _patria_. he foresaw a united nation, to which the individual should devote himself, and which should absorb the dispersed forces of the race. and yet he had not conceived of the nation as a living whole, obeying its own laws of evolution and expansion. he regarded the state as a mechanical or artificial product, to be molded by the will of a firm ruler. in his theory there is always a nomothetes, a dictator, the intervenient skill of a constructor, whom he imagines capable of altering the conditions of political existence by a _coup d'état_ or by a readjustment of conflicting rights and interests. even while praising the french monarchy for its stability, in words that show a just appreciation of constitutional government, he hypothesizes a lawgiver in the past. _chi ordinò quello stato, volle che quelli rè_--he who organized that state, willed that those kings, etc. the _ordinò_ and _volle_ are both characteristic of his habitual point of view. probably this faith in manipulation arose from his lifelong habit of regarding small political communities, where change was easily effected. in his works we do not gain any broad prospect from the vantage-ground of comprehensive principles, but a minutely analytical discussion of statecraft, based in the last resort upon the observation of decadent italian cities. the question always presents itself: how, given certain circumstances, ought a republic or a prince to use them to the best advantage? the deeper problem, how a nation stirred by some impulse, which combines all classes in a common heroism or a common animosity, must act, hardly occurs to his mind. england, with forces intellectual, emotional and practical at fullest strain, in combat with the spanish tyranny, adopting a course of conduct which reveals the nation to itself by the act of its instinctive will--such a phase of the larger, more magnetic life of peoples, which milton compared to the new youth of the eagle, had not been observed by machiavelli. the german reformation, the french revolution, the american war of independence, might have taught him to understand that conception of the modern nation which he had divined, but which the conditions of his experience prevented his appropriating. had he fully grasped it, we can scarcely believe that the _principe_ would have been written. the good faith of that essay depends upon a misconception. in like manner machiavelli discerned the weaknesses of the renaissance without escaping from its enthusiasms. he despised the æsthetical ideal of his age. he was willing to sacrifice form, beauty, rhythm, the arts of culture and learned leisure, to stern matters of fact and stringent discipline. yet he believed as firmly as any humanist, that the regeneration of his country must proceed from a revival of the past. it is the loss of antique virtues that has enervated our character, he cries. it is the neglect of historical lessons that renders our policy so suicidal. we need to recover the roman military system, the roman craft of conquest, the roman pride and poverty, the roman subordination of the individual to the state. what we want is a dictator or a lawgiver after the roman fashion--a romulus, a numa, a camillus, a coriolanus. the _patria_, as he imagines it, is less the modern nation than the roman commonwealth before the epoch of the empire. this unquestioning belief in the efficacy of classical revival finds vent, at the close of the _arte della guerra_, in a sentence highly characteristic of the renaissance. "this province, italy," he says, "seems made to give new birth to things dead, as we have seen in poetry, in painting, and in sculpture." hence, he argues, it may be her vocation to bring back the military system and supremacy of ancient rome. thus, to resume what has been said, machiavelli ascribed the weakness of the italians to their loss of morality; but he was not logical enough to insist that their regeneration must begin with a religious revolution. he foresaw the modern nation; but he attempted to construct it on the outlines of antiquity. believing that states might be formed or reformed by ingenious manipulation of machinery, he acquired no true notion of constitutional development or national evolution. his neglect to base his speculations on a thorough-going definition of the state and its relation to man as a social being, caused him to assume a severance between ethics and politics, which no sound philosophy of human life will warrant. on what, then, if these criticisms are just, is founded his claim to rank among the inaugurators of historical and political science? the answer has been already given. it was not so much what he taught, as the spirit in which he approached the problems of his inquiry, which was scientific in the modern sense. practical, sincere and positive, machiavelli never raises points deficient in actuality. he does not invite us to sympathize with the emotions of a visionary, or to follow the vagaries of a dreamer. all that he presents, is hard, tangible fact, wrought into precise uncompromising argument, expressed in unmistakably plain language. not only do his works cast floods of light upon italian history; but they suggest questions of vital importance, which can still be discussed upon the ground selected by their author. they are, moreover, so penetrated with the passion of a patriot, however mistaken in his plan of national reconstitution, that our first sense of repulsion yields to a warmer feeling of admiration for the man who, from the depths of despair, could thus hope on against hope for his country. studying guicciardini, we remain within the same sphere of conceptions, limited by the conditions of italian politics in the beginning of the sixteenth century. there is no less stringency of minute analysis, an even sharper insight into motives, an equal purity and precision of language.[551] but the moral atmosphere is different. the corruption which machiavelli perceived and criticised, is now accepted. in the place of desperate remedies suggested by the dread of certain ruin, guicciardini has nothing to offer but indifference and self-adjustment to the exigencies of the moment. machiavelli was a visionary and an idealist in spite of his positive bias. guicciardini is a practical diplomatist, bent on saving his own state and fortune from the wreck which he contemplated. what gives grandeur to machiavelli's speculation is the conception of the _patria_, superior to the individual, demanding unlimited self-sacrifice, and repaying the devotion of the citizens by strength in union. this idea has disappeared in guicciardini's writings. in its stead he offers us self-interested egotism. where machiavelli wrote _patria_, he substituted _il particolare_. it follows from this cold acquiescence in a base theory of public conduct, adapted to a recognized state of social anarchy, that guicciardini's philosophy is far more immoral than machiavelli's. the _ricordi_, in which, under the form of aphorisms, he condensed the results of his experience and observation, have been well described as the "code of italian corruption." resistance has to be abandoned. remedies are hopeless. let us sit down and calmly criticise the process of decay. a wise man will seek to turn the worst circumstances to his own profit; and what remains for political sagacity is the accumulation of wealth, honors, offices of power on the ambitious individual. [footnote 551: i refer to the _opere inedite_. in the _isteria d'italia_, guicciardini's style is inferior to machiavelli's.] machiavelli and guicciardini had this in common, that their mental attitude was analytical, positive, critically scientific. it negatived the _à priori_ idealism of medieval political philosophy, and introduced a just conception of the method of inquiry. this quality connects them on the one hand with the practical politicians of their age, and on the other with its representative thinkers in the field of metaphysics. it is no part of my plan to attempt a general history of italian philosophy during the renaissance period, or even to indicate its leading moments. on the scale of my present work, any such endeavor would of necessity be incomplete; for the material to be dealt with is obscure, and the threads of thought to be interwoven are scattered, requiring no little patience and no slight expenditure of exposition on the part of one who seeks to place them in their proper relations. of philosophy, in the strict sense of the term, the italian renaissance had not much to offer. we do not revert to that epoch, expecting to meet with systematic theories of the universe, plausible analyses of the laws of thought, or ingenious speculations upon the nature of being. it is well known that the thinkers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries can scarcely claim to have done more than lead the revolt of reason against scholastic tyranny and obsolete authorities, appealing with often misdirected enthusiasm to original sources, and suggesting theories and methods which, in the hands of abler speculators, at a more fortunate epoch, generated the philosophies of modern europe. yet even so the movement of thought in italy was of no slight moment, and the work accomplished deserves to be recorded with more honor than it has hitherto received from the historians of philosophy. the renaissance in general may be called the middle ages in dissolution. that the period was transitional in its chief aspects, has often already been insisted on. the massive fabrics of feudalism and the church were breaking up. the vast edifice of scholastic theology was being undermined by men who had the energy to free themselves from orthodox tradition, but scarcely force enough or opportunity to mold the thought of the new age. the italians who occupied themselves with philosophical problems, from petrarch to campanella, hold an intermediate place between the schoolmen and the founders of modern metaphysics. they accomplish the transition from s. thomas and occam to bacon, descartes and spinoza. it is possible to mark three phases in this process of transition, each of which was necessary in the progress of the mind from theological ontology to science and free speculation. the thinkers of the first stage began by questioning the authority of dogma. those of the second stage accepted the authority of the ancients. those of the third appealed to nature against ecclesiastical and classical authority alike. humanism was thus intermediate between scholasticism and what, for want of a more definite phrase, may be termed rationalism. succeeding to the schoolmen, the scholars cleared the groundwork of philosophy of old encumbrances, and reappropriated antique systems of thought. after them, the schools of lower italy, including telesio, campanella and bruno, prepared the path to be immediately followed; with what profit is apparent to the dullest intellect. clearly, and beyond the possibility of question, they propounded the main problems which have agitated all the scientific schools of modern europe. to them belongs the credit of having first speculated knowledge and reality from no external standpoint, but from the immediate consciousness. the _interrogatio naturæ_ and the _cogito, ergo sum_, which became the watchwords of modern empiricism and rationalism, are theirs. but, at the very moment when the italians of the revival had performed their pioneering task-work, all vital vigor in the nation was extinguished or suspended by the deadly influences of spanish domination and papal terrorism.[552] it was left for other races to enter on the promised land which they had conquered. [footnote 552: i cannot refrain from translating a paragraph in spaventa's essay upon bruno, which, no less truly than passionately, states the pith of this italian tragedy. "the sixteenth century was the epoch, in which the human spirit burst the chains that up to then had bound it, and was free. there is no more glorious age for italy. the heroes of thought and freedom, who then fought for truth, were almost all her sons. they were persecuted and extinguished with sword and fire. would that the liberty of thought, the autonomy of the reason, they gave to the other nations of europe, had borne fruit in italy! from that time forward we remained as though cut off from the universal life; it seemed as if the spirit which inspired the world and pushed it onward, had abandoned us" (_saggi di critica_, napoli, 1867, p. 140).] upon its first appearance, it was clear that humanism would run counter to both currents of medieval thought, the orthodox and the heretical, the thomistic and averroistic. dante designed his epic in accordance with the fixed outlines of thomistic theology. the freethinkers of the lombard universities expressed a not uncertain adhesion to the materialistic doctrines which passed for averroism. but petrarch, the hero of the coming age, pronounced his contempt for scholastic quibbles, and at the same time waged war against the tenants of averroes. he introduced a new spirit into philosophical discussion, a new style of treatment, literary rather than scientific, which tended to substitute humane culture for logical pedantry. the departure from medieval lines of thought, thus signalized by petrarch, was followed by the students of the next two centuries. questions which had agitated europe since the days of roscelin, now seemed to lose the interest of actuality. the distinctions of nominalism and realism retained no attraction for men who were engaged in discovering manuscripts, learning to write correct latin, acquiring greek, and striving to penetrate the secret of antiquity. the very style of the schoolmen became a byword for ineptitude and barbarism. it required no little courage and a prestige as brilliant as pico's to sustain the cause of albertus magnus or johannes scotus.[553] scholars of the type of poggio and filelfo, beccadelli and poliziano, abhorred their ponderous metaphysics, as though they were grotesque chimeras generated by the indigestion of half-starved intellectual stomachs. orpheus had reappeared. he bade the world thenceforward move to music and melodious rhythms both of thought and language. the barbarians might harbor mercury within their hearts, to quote pico's apology; they might display wisdom in unvarnished plainness; but what were these claims worth in an age that required the lips rather than the soul to be eloquent, and when a decorated fiction found more favor than a naked truth? no more decided antithesis than that of scholastic philosophy to the new classical ideal is conceivable. [footnote 553: _epistolæ angeli poliziani_, lib. ix. p. 269 (ed. gryphius, 1533).] thus the first movement of the revival implied an uncompromising abandonment of medieval thought as worse than worthless. if men educated by the humanistic method were to speculate, they would do so upon lines different from those suggested by the schoolmen. cicero and seneca became their models; and the rhetorical treatment of moral topics passed muster with them for philosophy. a garrulous colloquial skimming in fair latin over the well-trodden ground of ethics supplanted the endeavor to think strictly upon difficult subjects. much of this literature--the dialogues of alberti, for example, and landino's camaldolese disputations--can still be read with profit. but regarded from the point of view of systematic thought, it has slight importance. we value it principally for the light it casts upon contemporary manners and modes of opinion. the study of greek and latin texts revealed a world to the italians far wider than the regions where the medieval mind had moved in narrow limits. the immediate effect of this discovery was not, however, wholly salutary. the ancients began to exercise a kind of despotism; and a new authority, no less stringent than that of dogma, bound the scholars of the revival beneath the tyranny of classical names. it was impossible for the intellect to free itself from fetters at a single leap. this second servitude seemed destined to be even more pernicious than the first; for as yet there was no criticism, and the superincumbent masses of antique literature, extending from the earliest dawn of greek history to the latest commentators of byzantium and ravenna, underwent but little process of sifting. it was enough for the italians of that epoch to assimilate. nothing which bore the stamp of antiquity came amiss to their omnivorous appetite. compilations from second or third sources were valued as equally precious with original texts. the testimony of hearsay reporters passed for conclusive evidence in matters of history. masters in philosophy were confounded with expositors, who flourished at the distance of some centuries. athens and alexandria, rome and constantinople, were indiscriminately regarded as a single holy land of wisdom. while this fermentation of assimilative erudition was still at its height, gemistos plethon preached his neo-platonic mysticism at florence; and the first attempt at a new philosophy for western europe, independent of the schoolmen, uninfluenced by orthodoxy, proceeded from the medicean academy. the platonism of ficino and pico, we now know, was of a very mixed and ill-determined quality. uncontrolled by critical insight, and paralyzed by the prestige attaching to antiquity, the florentine school produced little better than an unintelligent eclecticism. their so-called philosophical writings were commonplace-books of citations, anthologies of ill-digested abstracts, in which greek and asiatic and christian opinions issued in an incoherent theosophy. it must be reckoned a great misfortune for italian thought that the platonists were able to approach the masterpieces of their attic teacher through a medium of alexandrian and byzantine enthusiasm. had they been forced to attack the "republic" without the intervention of plotinus and gemistos, they might have started on some fruitful line of speculation. they would at least have perceived that plato's theology formed a background to his psychological, ethical, educational and political theories, instead of fastening upon those visionary systems which his later greek expositors extracted from the least important portions of his works. at the same time, this neo-platonic mysticism was only too sympathetic to the feebler pietism of the middle ages for men who had discovered it, to doubt its inspiration. what was finally accomplished for sound scholarship by ficino, lay in the direction, not of metaphysics or of history, but of translation. the enduring value of pico's work is due, not to his quixotic quest of an accord between pagan, hebrew and christian traditions, but to the noble spirit of confidence and humane sympathy with all great movements of the mind, which penetrates it. if we cannot rate the positive achievements of the florentines in philosophy at a high value, still the discussion of platonic and aristotelian doctrines which their investigations originated, caused the text of the greek philosophers to be accurately examined for the first time in western europe. their theories, though devoid of originality and clogged at every point with slavish reverence for classical authority, marked a momentous deviation from the traditional methods of medieval speculation. thus a vast and tolerably accurate acquaintance with the chief thinkers of antiquity, re-enforced by the translation of their principal works, was the main outcome of the platonic revival at florence. uncritically, and with many a blundering divergence into the uncongenial provinces of oriental thought, the italian intellect appropriated greek philosophy. a groundwork was laid down for the discussion of fundamental problems in the forms under which they had presented themselves to the ancient world. but while the platonists were wrangling with the aristotelians about the superiority of their respective masters; while the scholars were translating from the original languages; while the mystics were building castles in the air, composed of fragments from neo-platonic and neo-pythagorean systems, cementing them with the mortar of christianity and adding quaint outbuildings of cabbalistic and astrological delusions; the writers of ethical treatises pursued another line of inquiry, which was no less characteristic of the age and no less fruitful of results. during the middle ages thought of every kind had been concentrated on the world beyond this life. the question of how to live here was answered with reference to eternal interests solely. human existence had no meaning except as the prelude to heaven or hell. but contact with antiquity introduced a new class of problems. men began once more to ask themselves how they ought to live in this world, not with the view of avoiding misery and securing happiness in the next, but with the aim of making their terrestrial home most comfortable and their sojourn in it most effective for themselves and their companions. the discussion of the fundamental question how to live to best advantage, without regard for the next world and unbiased by the belief in a rigid scheme of salvation, occupies an important place in the philosophical essays of the time. landino, for example, in his camaldolese disputations, raises the question whether the contemplative or the practical life offers superior attractions to a man desirous of perfecting self-culture. alberti touches the same topic in his minor dialogues, while he subjects the organism of the family in all its relations to a searching analysis in his most important essay. valla, in the famous dialogue _de voluptate_, attacks the problem of conduct from another point of view.[554] contrasting the stoical with the epicurean ideals, asceticism with hedonism, he asks which of the two fulfills the true end of human life. his treatise on pleasure is, indeed, a disputation between renascent paganism, naturalism, and humanism on the one side, and the medieval scheme of ethics on the other. man according to nature contends with man according to grace; the soul, obeying the desires of the flesh, defends her cause against the spirit, whose life is hid with a crucified christ in god. thus the two points of view between which the renaissance wavered, are placed in powerful contrast; and nowhere has their antagonism been more ably stated. for the champion of hedonism valla appropriately chose the poet beccadelli, while he committed the defense of asceticism to niccolò niccoli. though at the close of the argument he awarded the palm of victory to the latter,[555] it is clear that his sympathies lay with the former, and all the strength of his reasoning faculty is employed in the statement and support of beccadelli's thesis. the first and far the longest part of the dialogue, where we detect a true note of sincerity, is a remorseless onslaught upon monasticism under the name of stoicism, resulting in a no less uncompromising defense of physical appetite. some of the utterances upon sexual morality are penetrated with the rancor of rebellion.[556] it is the revolt of the will against unnatural restrictions, the reassertion of natural liberty, emboldened by the study of classical literature, imbittered by long centuries of ecclesiastical oppression. underlying the extravagances of an argument which owes its crudity and coarseness to the contradictions of the century, we find one central thought of permanent importance. nature can do nothing wrong: and that must be wrong which violates nature.[557] it is man's duty, by interrogation of nature, to discover the laws of his own being and to obey those. in other words, valla, though in no sense a man of science, proclaims the fundamental principle of science, and inaugurates a new criterion of ethics. [footnote 554: _laurentius valla: opera omnia_, basileæ, 1465. the "de voluptate" begins at p. 896 of this edition.] [footnote 555: "uterque pro se de laudibus voluptatis suavissime quidem quasi cantare visus est; sed antonius hirundini, nicolaus philomelæ (quam lusciniam nominant) magis comparandus" (_ib._ lib. iii. p. 697).] [footnote 556: "meâ quidem sententiâ odiosus est si quis in moechos, si rerum naturam intueri volumus, invehat" (_ib._ lib. i. cap. 38). "quisquis virgines sanctimoniales primus invenit, abominandum atque in ultimas terras exterminandum morem in civitatem induxisse.... melius merentur scorta et postribula quam sanctimoniales virgines ac continentes" (_ib._ lib. i. cap. 43).] [footnote 557: "quod natura finxit atque formavit id nisi sanctum laudabileque esse non posse" (_ib._ lib. i. cap. 9).] three main points may be discriminated in the intellectual movement briefly surveyed in the preceding paragraphs. the first is an abrupt breach with scholasticism. the whole method of philosophy has been changed, and the canon of authority has altered. the second is the acquisition of classical thought, and the endeavor, especially at florence, among the platonists to appropriate it and adapt it to christianity. the third is the introduction of a new problem into philosophical discussion. how to make the best of human life, is substituted for the question how to insure salvation in the world beyond the grave. it will be observed that each of these three points implies departure from the prescribed ground of medieval speculation, which always moved within the limits of theology. theology, except in the mysticism of the platonists, except in occasional and perfunctory allusions of the rhetoricians, has no place in this medley of scholarship, citation, superstition, and frank handling of practical ideals. while the florentine platonists were evolving an eclectic mysticism from the materials furnished by their greek and oriental studies; while the ciceronian humanists were discussing the fundamental principles which underlie the various forms of human life; the universities of lombardy continued their exposition of aristotle upon the lines laid down by thomistic and averroistic schoolmen. padua and bologna extended the methods of the middle ages into the renaissance. their professors adhered to the formal definitions and distinctions of an earlier epoch, accumulating comment upon comment, and darkening the text of their originals with glosses. yet the light shed by the revival penetrated even to the lecture-rooms of men like achillini. humanism had established the principle of basing erudition on the study of authentic documents. the text of aristotle in the greek or in first-hand translations, had become the common property of theologians and philosophers. it was from these universities that the first dim light of veritable science was to issue. and here the part played by one man in the preparation of a new epoch for modern thought is so important that i may be allowed to introduce him with some prolixity of biographical details.[558] [footnote 558: for the following sketch of pomponazzi's life, and for help in the study of his philosophy, i am indebted to francesco fiorentino's _pietro pomponazzi_, firenze, lemonnier, 1868, 1 vol. i may here take occasion to mention a work by the same author, _bernardino telesio_, _ibid._ 1872, 2 vols. together, these two books form an important contribution to the history of italian philosophy.] pietro pomponazzi was born of noble lineage at mantua in 1462. he completed his studies at padua, where he graduated in 1487 as laureate of medicine. it may be remarked incidentally that teachers of philosophy at this era held the degree of physicians. this point is not unimportant, since it fixes our attention on the fact that philosophy, as distinguished from theology, had not yet won a recognized position. logic formed a separate part of the educational curriculum. rhetoric was classed with humanistic literature. philosophy counted as a branch of physics. at florence, in the schools of the platonists, metaphysical inquiries assumed a certain hue of mysticism. at padua and bologna, in the schools of the physicians, they assimilated something of materialism. during the middle ages they had always flourished in connection with theology. but that association had been broken; and as yet a proper place had not been assigned to the science of the human mind. a new department of knowledge was in process of formation, distinct from theology, distinct from physics, distinct from literature. but at the epoch of which we are now treating, it had not been correctly marked off from either of these provinces, and in the schools of lombardy it was confounded with physical science. in 1488 pomponazzi, soon after taking his degree as a physician, was appointed professor extraordinary of philosophy at padua. he taught in concurrence with the veteran achillini, who was celebrated for his old-world erudition and his leaning toward the doctrines of averroes. pomponazzi signalized his _début_ in the professorial career, by adopting a new method of instruction. less distinguished for learning than acuteness, he confined himself to brilliant elucidations of his author's text. for glosses, citations and hair-splitting distinctions, he substituted lucid and precise analysis. it is probable that he was a poor greek scholar. paolo giovio goes so far, indeed, as to assert that, of the two classical languages, he only knew latin; nor is there anything in his own writings to demonstrate that he had studied greek philosophy in the original. but he proved himself a child of the new era by his style of exposition, no less than by a strict adherence to alexander of aphrodisias, the greek commentator of aristotle. what that divergence from the system of his rival, achillini, who still adhered to the commentaries of averroes, implied, i shall endeavor to make clear in the sequel. for the present, we must follow his career as a professor. before the year 1495 he had been appointed to the ordinary chair of natural philosophy at padua; and there he resided until 1509, when the schools of padua were closed. he spent this period chiefly in lecturing on aristotle's physics, for the sake presumably of the medical students who crowded that university. forced by circumstances to leave padua, pomponazzi found a home in ferrara, where he began to expound aristotle's treatise _de animâ_. unlike padua, the university of ferrara had a literary bias; and we may therefore conclude that pomponazzi availed himself of this first favorable opportunity to pursue the studies in aristotelian psychology for which he had a decided personal preference. in 1512 he was invited to bologna, where he remained until his death, in the capacity of professor of natural and moral philosophy. his stipend, increased gradually through a series of engagements, varied from a little over 200 to 600 golden ducats. bologna, like ferrara, was not distinguished for its school of medicine. consequently, we find that from the date of his first settlement in that city, pomponazzi devoted himself to psychological and ethical investigations. all the books on which his fame are founded were written at bologna. in the autumn of 1516 he published his treatise _de immortalitate animæ_. it was dedicated to marcantonio flavio contarini; and, finding its way to venice, it was immediately burned in public because of its heretical opinions. a long and fierce controversy followed this first publication. contarini, agostino nifo, ambrogio fiandino, and bartolommeo di spina issued treatises, in which they strove to combat the aristotelian materialism of pomponazzi with arguments based on thomistic theology or averroistic mysticism. he replied with an _apologia_ and a _defensorium_, avowing his submission to the church in all matters of faith, but stubbornly upholding a philosophical disagreement with the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul. during this discussion pomponazzi ran some risk of being held accountable for his opinions. the friars and preachers of all colors were loud in their denunciations; and it is said that bembo's intercession with pope leo in behalf of his old master was needed to secure pomponazzi from ecclesiastical procedure. during the last years of his life the professor of bologna completed two important treatises, _de incantationibus_ and _de fato_. they were finished in 1520 but not published until after his death, when they appeared in the basle edition of his collected works. he died in 1525, and was buried at mantua. pomponazzi had been thrice married. he left behind him an unsullied reputation for virtuous conduct and sweet temper. he was, physically, a little man, and owed to this circumstance the _sobriquet_ of _peretto_. we gain a glimpse of him in one of bandello's novels. but, with this exception, the man is undiscernible through the mists of three intervening centuries. with the author the case is different. in his books pomponazzi presents a powerful and unmistakable personality. what remains to be said about him and his influence over italian thought must be derived from an examination of the three treatises already mentioned. in order to make pomponazzi's position intelligible, it will be needful to review the main outlines of aristotelian thought, as it was transmitted through the middle ages to the men of the renaissance. pomponazzi claimed to be no more than an expositor of aristotle's system. if he diverged from the paths of orthodox philosophy, it was because he recognized a discrepancy upon vital points between thomas of aquino and the peripatetic writings. if he rejected some fashionable theories of the freethinkers who preceded him, it was because he saw that averroes had misinterpreted their common master. he aimed at stating once again the precise doctrine of the greek philosopher. he believed that if he could but grasp aristotle's real opinion, he should by that mental act arrive at truth. the authority of the stagirite in all matters of human knowledge lay for him beyond the possibility of question; or, what amounted to nearly the same thing, his interest in speculative questions was confined to making aristotle's view intelligible. thus, under the humble garb of a commentator, one of the boldest and in some respects the most original thinkers of his age stepped forth to wage war with superstition and ecclesiastical despotism. the church, since the date of thomas aquinas, had so committed herself to aristotle that proving a discrepancy between her dogma and the aristotelian text upon any vital point, was much the same as attacking the dogma itself. this must be kept steadily in mind if we wish to appreciate pomponazzi.[559] his attitude cannot easily be understood at the present day, when science has discarded authority, and the _ipse dixit_ of a dead man carries no weight outside religious or quasi-religious circles. this renders the prefatory remarks i have to make necessary. [footnote 559: it will be remembered that in the controversy between galileo and the inquisition, the latter condemned copernicus on the score that he contradicted aristotle and s. thomas of aquino.] in the platonic system it was impossible to explain the connection between ideas, conceived as sole realities, and phenomena, regarded as distinct from that ideal world to which they owed their qualities of relative substantiality and cognizability. aristotle attempted to solve plato's problem by his theory of form and matter, activity and passivity, energy and potentiality, inseparable in the reality of the individual. he represented the intelligible world as a scale of existences, beginning with form and matter coherent in the simplest object, and ending in god. god was the form of forms, the thought of thoughts, independent of matter, immovable and unchangeable, although the cause of movement and variety. the forms resumed in god, as species are included in the summum genus, were disseminated through the universe in a hierarchy of substances, from the most complex immediately below god, to the most simple immediately above the groundwork given by incognizable matter. in this hierarchy matter was conceived as the mere base; necessary, indeed, to every individual but god; an essential element of reality; but beyond the reach of knowledge. the form or universal alone was intelligible. it may already be perceived that in this system, if the individual, composed of form and matter, alone is substantial and concrete, while the universal alone is cognizable, aristotle admitted a division between reality and truth. the former attribute belongs to the individual, the latter to the universal. the place of god, too, in the system is doubtful. is he meant to be immanent in the universe, or separated from it? aristotle uses language which supports each of these views. again, god is immaterial, universal, the highest form; and yet at the same time he is an individual substance; whereas, by the fundamental conception of the whole scheme, the coherence of form and matter in the individual is necessary to reality. it might seem possible to escape from these difficulties by regarding aristotle's deity as the idea of the universe, and each inferior form in the ascending series of existences as the material of its immediate superior, until the final and inclusive form is reached in god. but what, then, becomes of matter in itself, which, though recognized as unintelligible, is postulated as the necessary base of individual substances? in aristotle's theory of life there is a similar ascending scale. the soul ([greek: psychê]) is defined as the form of the body. its vegetative, motive, sensitive, appetitive faculties ([greek: psychê threptikê, kinêtikê, aisthêtikê, orektikê]), are subordinated to the active intellect ([greek: nous pathêtikos]), which receives their reports; and this in its turn is subordinated to the active intellect ([greek: nous poiêtikos]), which possesses the content of the passive intellect as thought. the intellect ([greek: nous]) is man's peculiar property: and aristotle in plain words asserts that it is separate from the soul ([greek: psychê]). but he has not explained whether it is separate as the highest series of an evolution may be called distinct from the lower, or as something alien and communicated from without is separate. the passive intellect, being a receptacle for images and phantasms furnished by the senses, perishes with the soul, which, upon the dissolution of the body, whereof it is the form, ceases to exist. but the active intellect is immortal and eternal, being pure thought, and identifiable in the last resort with god. so much aristotle seems to have laid down about the immortality of the intellect. it is tempting to infer that he maintained a theory of man's participation in the divine idea--that is to say, in the complex of the categories which render the universe intelligible and distinguish it as a cosmos. but, just as aristotle failed to explain the connection of god with the world, so he failed to render his opinion regarding the relation of god to the human intellect, and of the immortal to the perishable part of the soul, manifest. it can, however, be safely asserted that he laid himself open to a denial of the immortality of each individual person. this, at any rate, would follow from the assumption that he believed us to be persons by reason of physical existence, of the soul's faculties, and of that blending of the reason with the orectic soul which we call will. as the universe culminates in god, so man culminates in thought, which is the definition of god; and this thought is eternal, the same for all and for ever. it does not, however, follow that each man who has shared the divine thought, should survive the dissolution of his body. the person is a complex, and this complex perishes. the active intellect is imperishable, but it is impersonal. in like manner the whole hierarchy of substances between the ground of matter and the form of forms is in perpetual process of combination and dissolution. but the supreme idea endures, in isolation from that flux and reflux of the individuals it causes. whether we regard the ontological or the psychological series, only the world of pure thought, the idea, is indissoluble, subject to no process of becoming, and superior to all change. the supreme place assigned to thought in either hierarchy is clear enough. but the nexus between (i) god and the universe (ii) god and the active intellect (iii) the active intellect, or pure thought, and the inferior faculties of the soul, which supply it with material for thought, is unexplained. three distinct but interpenetrating problems were presented by the aristotelian system. one concerns the theory of the universal. are universals or particulars prior? do we collect the former from the latter; or do the latter owe their value as approximate realities to the former? the second concerns the theory of the individual. assuming that the individual is a complex of form and matter, are we to regard the matter or the form as its essential substratum? the third concerns the theory of the human soul. is it perishable with the body, or immortal? if it is immortal, does the incorruptible quality perpetuate the person who has lived upon this globe; or is it the common property of all persons, surviving their decease, but not insuring the prolongation of each several consciousness? the first of these problems formed the battlefield of nominalists, realists and conceptualists in the first period of medieval thought. it was waged upon the data supplied by porphyry's abstract of the aristotelian doctrine of the predicaments. the second problem occupied the encyclopædic thinkers of the second period, albertus magnus, duns scotus and thomas of aquino. their contest was fought out over the metaphysics of aristotle. the third problem arrested the attention of speculators in the age of the renaissance. the text which they disputed was aristotle's essay _de animâ_. this movement of medieval thought from point to point was not unnatural nor unnecessitated. in the first period aristotle was unknown; but the creeds of christianity supplied a very definite body of conceptions to be dealt with. about the personality of god, the immortality of the soul, and the concrete reality of the human individual, there was then no doubt. theology was paramount; and the contention of the schoolmen at this epoch regarded the right interpretation of the universal. was it a simple conception of the mind, or an external and substantial reality? was it a name or an entity? the nominalists, who adopted the former of these two alternatives, fell necessarily beneath the ban of ecclesiastical censure and suspicion; not because their philosophical conclusions were unwarranted, but because these ran counter to the prevailing spirit of the christian belief. their definitions sapped the basis of that transcendentalism on which the whole fabric of medieval thought reposed. nevertheless, at the end of the battle, the nominalists virtually gained the day. abelard's conceptualism was an attempt to harmonize antagonistic points of view by emphasizing the abstractive faculty of the human subject. in the course of this warfare the problem of the individual had been neglected. the reciprocity of form and matter had not been expressly made a topic of dispute. meanwhile a flood of new light was being cast upon philosophical questions by the introduction into europe of latin texts translated by jewish scholars from the arabic versions of aristotle, as well as by the commentaries of averroes. this rediscovery of aristotle forced the schoolmen of the second period to consider the fundamental relation of matter to form. the master had postulated the conjunction of these two constituents in the individual. thomas of aquino and duns scotus advanced opposing theories to explain the ground and process of individualization. with regard to the elder problem of the universal, s. thomas declared himself for modified conceptualism. with regard to the second problem, he pronounced matter to be the substratum of individuals--matter stamped as with a seal by the form impressed upon it. thus he adhered as closely as was possible for a theologian to the peripatetic doctrines. for a student of philosophy to advance opinions without reckoning with aristotle was now impossible. the great dominican doctor achieved the task of bringing aristotle into satisfactory accord with christian dogma. nor was this so difficult as it appears. aristotle, as we have seen, did not define his views about the soul and god. moreover, he had written no treatise on theology proper. whether he ascribed personality or conscious thought to god was more than doubtful. his god stood at the apex of the world's pyramid, inert, abstract, empty, and devoid of life. christendom, meanwhile, was provided with a robust set of theological opinions, based on revelation and held as matters of faith. to transfer these to the account of the aristotelian deity, to fill out the vacuous and formal outline, and to theosophize the whole system was the work of s. thomas. to the fixed dogmas of the latin church he adjusted the more favorable of aristotle's various definitions, and interpreted his dubious utterances by the light of ecclesiastical orthodoxy. up to this point the doctrine of personal immortality had been accepted by all christians as requiring no investigation. human life was only studied in relation to the world beyond the grave, where each man and woman was destined to endure for all eternity. to traverse this fundamental postulate, was to proclaim the grossest heresy; and though epicureans, as dante calls them, of that type were found, they had not formulated their opinions regarding the soul's corruptibility in any scientific theory, nor based them on the authority of aristotle. s. thomas viewed the soul as the essential form of the human body; he further affirmed its separate existence in each person, and its separate immortality. the soul, he thought, although defined as the form of a physical body, acquired a habit of existence in the body, which sufficed for its independent and perpetual survival. these determinations were clearly in accordance with the christian faith. but the time was approaching when the problem of the soul itself should be narrowly considered. averroes had interpreted aristotle to mean that the active intellect alone, which he regarded as common to all human beings, was immortal. this was tantamount to denying the immortality of the individual. men live and die, but the species is eternal. the active intellect arrives continually at human consciousness in persons, who participate in it and perish. knowledge is indestructible for the race, transitory for each separate soul. at one end of the universal hierarchy is matter; at the other end is god. between god and man in the descending scale are the intelligences of the several spheres. from the lowest or lunar sphere humanity derives the active intellect. this active intellect is a substantial entity, separate no less from god than from the human soul on which it rains the knowledge of a lifetime. it is not necessary to point out how much of mystical and oriental material averroes ingrafted on aristotle's system. his doctrine, though vehemently repudiated by orthodox schoolmen, found wide acceptance; and there were other heretics who asserted the perishable nature of the human soul, without distinction of its faculties. these heterodoxies gained ground so rapidly through the first two centuries of the italian revival (1300-1500), that in december, 1513, it was judged needful to condemn them, and to reassert the thomistic doctrine by a council of the lateran over which leo x. presided.[560] [footnote 560: these are the words: "hoc sacro approbante concilio damnamus et reprobamus omnes asserentes _animam intellectivam mortalem esse_, aut _unicam in cunctis hominibus_, et hæc in dubium vertentes, cum illa non solum vere per se et essentialiter humani corporis forma existat ... verum et immortalis, et pro corporum quibus infunditur multitudine, singulariter multiplicabilis et multiplicata et multiplicanda sit."] if we consider the intellectual conditions of the renaissance, it becomes clear why the problem of immortality acquired this importance, and why heretical opinions spread so widely as to necessitate a confirmation of the orthodox dogma. medieval speculation had a perpetual tendency to transcend the sphere of this earth. the other world gave reality and meaning to human life. all eyes were fixed on the beyond, at first with an immediate expectation of the judgment, afterwards with a continued looking forward to paradise or punishment. this attitude toward eternity was an absorbing preoccupation. but with the dawn of the new age our life on earth acquired a deeper significance; and the question was not unnaturally posed--this soul, whose immortality has been postulated, on whose ultimate destiny so many anticipations of weal and woe have been based, what is it? are we justified in assuming its existence as an incorruptible and everlasting self? what did aristotle really think about it? the age inclined with overmastering bias toward a practical materialism. men were eager to enjoy their lives and to indulge their appetites. they tired of the restrictions imposed upon their nature by the prospect of futurity. they found in their cherished classics, whose authority had triumphed over church and council, but vague and visionary hints of immortality. even in the highest ecclesiastical quarters it was fashionable to speak lightly of the fundamental dogmas of the christian creed. leo x., who presided over the lateran council of 1513, did not disguise his doubts concerning the very doctrine it had re-enforced. the time had come for a reconsideration _ab initio_ of a theory which the middle ages had accepted as an axiom. the battle was fought out on the ground of aristotle's treatise on the soul. independent research had not yet asserted its claims against authority; and the problem which now presented itself to the professors and students of italy, was not: is the soul immortal? but: did aristotle maintain the immortality of the soul? the philosopher of stagira, having been treated on his first appearance as a foe of the faith and then accepted as its bulwark, was now to be used as an efficient battering-ram against the castles of orthodox opinion. there were two ways of regarding aristotle's doctrine of the active intellect. the one was to view the nous as a development from the soul, which in its turn should be conceived as a development from the senses. the other was to recognize it as separate from the soul and imported from without. each claimed substantial support in various dicta of the master. the latter found able exposition at the hands of his arabic commentator averroes. the former was maintained by the fullest and latest of the greek peripatetics, alexander of aphrodisias. in the later middle ages free thought, combating the thomistic system, inclined to averroism. pomponazzi, the chief aristotelian of the renaissance, declared for alexander. his great work, _de immortalitate animæ_, is little more than an attempt to reconstruct the doctrine of aristotle by the help of alexander. pomponazzi starts by laying down the double nature of the human soul. it is both sensitive and intelligent. on this point philosophers are agreed; the questions at issue relate to the mode of connection between the two portions, and the prospect of immortality for both or either. he next proceeds to state the opinions of averroes, the platonists, and thomas of aquino, meeting their several arguments, and showing how and where they diverge from aristotle, and endeavoring to prove the superiority of his master's doctrine. pomponazzi agrees with s. thomas as to the division of the soul and its relation to the body. he differs with him on the point of immortality, declaring with sufficient clearness that no portion of the human soul can be other than perishable. if we admit that the soul in general is the act or form of the body, the intelligent portion of the soul is included in this definition. it cannot dispense with the body, at least as the object of its intelligent activity. but if it be thus intimately bound up with the body, it must suffer corruption with the body; or even should we suppose it to survive, it will have no images or phantasms furnished by the senses, which are the necessary pabulum of its thinking faculty.[561] the order of nature admits of no interruption. it will not do to say that the soul thinks in one way during life on earth, and in another way after death. this contradicts the first principle of continuity. man occupies a middle place between imperishable and perishable things.[562] he has a certain odor of immateriality, a mere shadow of intellect, because he stands upon the confine between these regions.[563] but his very conduct shows how vain and unsubstantial is his claim to pure reason. if we see a few men elevate themselves toward god, there are thousands who descend toward the brutes; and of those who spend their lives in clarifying their intelligence, none can boast of more than an obscure and cloudy vision.[564] in the hierarchy of souls we can broadly distinguish three grades; the pure intelligences of the astral spheres, who have no need of physical organs; the souls of brutes, immersed in matter, and no better than a mode of it; the souls of men, which occupy a middle place, requiring matter as the object of their thought, but rising by speculation above it. even so within the mind of man we may discern a triple series--the factive, practical, and speculative intellects. the first subserves utility; man shares it with the brutes. the third enables him to lift himself toward god. the second is essentially human; he uses it in moral action, and performs his duty by obeying it. both the sensitive soul and the intellect are material in the full sense of extension.[565] to conceive of them otherwise is contradictory to reason and to aristotle. it is therefore impossible to hold that either soul or intellect, although the latter has certain affinities to imperishable intelligence, should survive the body. the senses supply the object of thought; the phantasms dealt with by the intellect depend upon the physical organs: abstract these, and where is the cogitative faculty? having thus attempted to demonstrate the mortality of the human soul, pomponazzi feels bound to attack the problem of the final end of human beings. hitherto, throughout the ages of christianity, men had lived on this world with eternity in view. that was their aim and goal. he has removed this object; and he anticipates hostile argument by affirming that virtue itself is the proper end of man on earth. the practical intellect is the attribute of humanity as distinguished both from the brutes and from the separate intelligences of the spheres. to act in accordance with the nature of this specific quality--in other words, to follow virtue--is the end of man. virtue is her own reward, as vice is its own punishment.[566] the question whether the soul be mortal or immortal, whether we have a right to expect future judgment or not, has really nothing to do with the matter.[567] with this ethical conclusion pomponazzi terminates his argument. he is careful, however, to note that though he disbelieves in the immortality of the soul as a philosopher, he accepts it in the fullest sense as a christian.[568] it has been suggested that the orthodox doctrine of the resurrection of the body might have supplied pomponazzi with a link between science and faith.[569] however, he did not avail himself of it; and his philosophy stands in abrupt and open conflict with his creed. [footnote 561: cap. viii. "cum et aristoteles dicat, necesse esse intelligentem phantasma aliquod speculari." again, _ibid._: "ergo in omni suo intelligere indiget phantasia, sed si sic est, ipsa est materialis; ergo anima intellectiva est materialis." again, _ibid._: "humanus intellectus corpus habet caducum, quare vel corrupto corpore ipse non esset, quod positioni repugnat, vel si esset, sine opere esset, cum sine phantasmate per positionem intelligere non posset et sic otiaretur."] [footnote 562: cap. ix. "et sic medio modo humanus intellectus inter materialia et immaterialia est actus corporis organici." again, _ibid._: "ipse igitur intellectus sic medius existens inter materialia et immaterialia." again, _ibid._: "homo est medius inter deos et bestias, quare sicut pallidum comparatum nigro dicitur album, sic homo, comparatus bestiis, dici potest deus et immortalis, sed non vere et simpliciter."] [footnote 563: cap. viii. "vixque sit umbra intellectûs." again, cap. ix.: "cum ipsa sit materialium nobilissima, in confinioque immaterialium, aliquid immaterialitatis odorat, sed non simpliciter."] [footnote 564: see (cap. viii.) the passage which begins "secundò quia cum in ista essentia."] [footnote 565: see the passages quoted above; and compare _de nutritione_, lib. i. cap. 11, which contains pomponazzi's most mature opinion on the material extension of the soul, which he calls, in all its faculties, _realiter extensa_.] [footnote 566: _de immortalitate_, cap. xiv. after demonstrating that the _intellectus practicus_, as distinguished from the _speculativus_ and the _factivus_, is the special property of man, and that consequently in ethics we have the true science of humanity, he lays down and tries to demonstrate the two positions that (1) "præmium essentiale virtutis est ipsamet virtus quæ hominem felicem facit;" (2) "poena vitiosi est ipsum vitium, quo nihil miserius, nihil infelicius esse potest."] [footnote 567: for this argument he refers to plato in cap. xiv.: "sive animus mortalis sit, sive immortalis, nihilominus contemnenda est mors, neque alio pacto declinandum est a virtute quicquid accidat post mortem."] [footnote 568: see especially the exordium to cap. viii.] [footnote 569: ritter, _geschichte der christlichen philosophie_, part v. p. 426, quoted by fiorentino, _op. cit._] the treatise _de incantatione_ presents the same antithesis between peripatetic science and christian faith. pomponazzi composed it at the instance of a physician, his friend, who begged him to offer an explanation of some apparently supernatural phenomena. it is, in fact, an essay upon demons and miracles. as a philosopher, pomponazzi stoutly rejects both. the order of nature cannot be interrupted. angels and devils only exist in the popular imagination. miracles are but imperfectly comprehended manifestations of natural forces, which the vulgar ascribe to the intervention of god or spirits.[570] each religion has its own miracles and its own saints, to whom the common folk attribute supernatural power.[571] but moses, mahomet and christ stand upon the same level; the thaumaturgists of every creed are equally unable to alter the universal order.[572] credulity and ignorance ascribe to all of them faculties they cannot possess. having, as a philosopher, expressed these revolutionary ideas, as a christian, he briefly and summarily states his belief in all that he has just denied.[573] [footnote 570: _de incant._ cap. 3.] [footnote 571: _ibid._ cap. 4.] [footnote 572: _ibid._ cap. 12.] [footnote 573: peroration of _de incant._] basing his argument upon the ground of reason, which, for him, was no other than the aristotelian doctrine of the cosmos, pomponazzi recognizes no agency that interrupts the sequence of cause and effect in nature. but the astral intelligences are realities, and their operation has been as clearly ascertained as that of any other natural force. therefore pomponazzi refers to the planets many extraordinary exhibitions of apparently abnormal power, conceding upon this point as much as could have been desired by the most superstitious of his contemporaries. not only are the lives of men subject to planetary influence; but all human institutions rise, flourish and decay in obedience to the same superior laws. even religions have their day of inevitable decline, and christianity is no exception to the general rule. at the present moment, says pomponazzi, we may discern signs of approaching dissolution in the fabric of our creed.[574] he is careful to add, as usual, that he holds this doctrine as a philosopher; but that, as a christian, he believes in the permanence of revealed religion. faith and reason could not be brought into more glaring antagonism, nor is it possible to affirm contradictory propositions with less attempt at reconciliation. pomponazzi seems determined to act out by anticipation pascal's axiom, _il faut être pyrrhonniste accompli et chrétien soumis_. what the real state of his mind was, and whether the antithesis which seems to us so untenable, did not present itself to him as an anomaly, hardly admits of explanation. a similar unresolved discord may be traced in nearly all the thinkers of this epoch. [footnote 574: _de incant._ cap. 12.] it remains to mention one more treatise of pomponazzi, the book on fate. here he raises the question of human freedom face to face with god and the unbroken order of the universe. the conclusions at which he arrives are vacillating and unsatisfactory; nor is there much in his method of handling this ancient problem to arrest attention. the essay, however, contains one sentence which deserves to be recorded. "a very prometheus," he says, "is the philosopher. seeking to penetrate the secret things of god, he is consumed with ceaseless cares and cogitations; he forgets to thirst, to hunger, to eat, to sleep, to spit; he is derided of all men, and held for a fool and sacrilegious person; he is persecuted by inquisitors; he becomes a gazing-stock to the common folk. these, then, are the gains of the philosophers; these are their guerdons."[575] not only were these words spoken from the man's own heart, smarting under the attacks to which his treatise on the soul had exposed him; but they were in a profound sense prophetic. while reading them, we think of campanella's lifelong imprisonment and sevenfold tortures; of bruno's death by fire, and vanini's tongue torn out before his execution; of galileo's recantation and disgrace; of carnesecchi, paleario and montalcino burned or strangled. a whole procession of italian martyrs to free thought and bold avowal of opinion passes before our eyes. [footnote 575: _de fato_, lib. iii. cap. 7.] reviewing pomponazzi's work, we find that, though he occupied for the most part the modest place of a commentator and expositor, he valiantly asserted the rights of reason face to face with ecclesiastical authority. under the ægis of the formula _salvâ fide_, he attacked the popular belief, disputed the fiats of church councils, denied miracles, rejected supernatural causes, and proclaimed that science must be based upon the axiom of an unalterable permanence in the order of the universe. the controversy which his treatise on immortality inflamed in italy, popularized the two conceptions of god's immanence in nature and of the evolution of the human soul from corporeal organs. in other words it struck a powerful blow at transcendental, extra-mundane speculation, and prepared the way for sounder physical investigations. the positive spirit appeared in pomponazzi, never thenceforward to be set at rest until the cycle of modern scientific illumination shall be accomplished. the deep impression produced by this controversy on the mind of the italians, may be illustrated by a little story. pomponazzi's disciple, simone porzio, when invited to lecture at pisa, opened aristotle's meteorological treatises at the commencement of his course. the assembly, composed of students and people of the town, who had assembled, as was then the custom, to gaze upon the new professor and to judge his manner,[576] cried in a loud voice: "_quid de animâ?_ speak to us about the soul!" he had to close his book, and take up the _de animâ_. this porzio frankly professed his belief that the human soul differed in no essential point from the soul of a lion or a plant, and that those who thought otherwise, were prompted by a generous pity for our mean estate.[577] materialism of the purest water became fashionable and expressed itself in pithy sentences, which, though devoid of historical accuracy, sufficiently paint the temper of the folk who gave them currency. of this type is the apocryphal epitaph of cesare cremonini, one of the latest of the italian peripateticians. he died in 1631, and on his grave was said to have been written at his own request _hic jacet cremoninus totus_. to the same cremonini is ascribed the jesuitical motto _foris ut moris, intus ut libet_, which may be regarded as a cynical version of pomponazzi's oft-repeated protestation of belief in dogmas he had demonstrated contrary to reason.[578] had it been possible for the church to continue her tolerance of leo's age, or had the counter-reformation taken a direction less inimical to free inquiry, the studied hypocrisy of this epigram, so painfully characteristic of the age that gave it birth, might have been avoided. the men who uttered it and acted by it, were the same of whom milton spoke in _areopagitica_: "i have sat among their learned men (for that honor i had), and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic freedom as they supposed england was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the servile condition into which learning amongst them was brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of italian wits; that nothing had been written now these many years but flattery and fustian." [footnote 576: an interesting description of a humanist opening his course at padua, and of the excitement in the town about it, is furnished by the anonymous maccaronic poet who sang the burlesque praises of _vigonça_. see delepierre, _macaronéana andra_, london, 1862. above, p. 331.] [footnote 577: he makes these assertions in a treatise _de mente humanâ_.] [footnote 578: in the peroration of his treatise on incantation, pomponazzi says: "habes itaque, compater charissime, quæ, ut mea fert opinio, peripatetici ad ea quæ quæsivisti, dicere verisimiliter haberent. habes et quæ veritati et christianæ religioni consona sunt."] central and northern italy performed the first two stages of renaissance thought. florence, true to the destiny which made her artful and form-giving, attempted to restore platonic philosophy in accordance with the conditions determined by the middle ages. bologna, gifted with a personality no less substantial, adhered to scholastic traditions, but accommodated their rigid subject-matter to the spirit breathed upon them by more liberal scholarship. it remained for the south of italy to complete the work, and to supply the fulcrum needed for the first true effort of modern science. hitherto, whether at florence or bologna, philosophy had recognized authority. discarding the yoke of the church, both platonists and aristotelians recognized masters, whose words they were contented to interpret. reason dared not declare herself, except beneath the mask of some great teacher--plato or plotinus, aristotle or alexander or averroes. the school of cosenza cut itself adrift from authority, ecclesiastical or classical. this is the import of the first sonnet in campanella's series, preserved for us by the fortunate mediation of his disciple, the german with the italianized patronymic, tobia adami:[579] born of god's wisdom and philosophy, keen lover of true beauty and true good, i call the vain self-traitorous multitude back to my mother's milk; for it is she, faithful to god her spouse, who nourished me, making me quick and active to intrude within the inmost veil, where i have viewed and handled all things in eternity. if the whole world's our home where we may run, up, friends, forsake those secondary schools which give grains, units, inches for the whole! if facts surpass mere words, melt pride of soul, and pain, and ignorance that hardens fools, here in the fire i've stolen from the sun! [footnote 579: from my _sonnets of michael angelo and campanella_, p. 119.] campanella calls the students of truth back to nature from the "secondary schools" of the philosophers, plato, aristotle, thomas of aquino, or averroes; who imposed upon their reason by the word "authority." in his fifth sonnet he enforces the same theme:[580] the world's the book where the eternal sense wrote his own thoughts; the living temple where, painting his very self, with figures fair he filled the whole immense circumference. here then should each man read, and gazing find both how to live and govern, and beware of godlessness; and, seeing god all-where, be bold to grasp the universal mind. but we tied down to books and temples dead, copied with countless errors from the life,- these nobler than that school sublime we call. o may our senseless souls at length be led, to truth by pain, grief, anguish, trouble, strife! turn we to read the one original! [footnote 580: _ibid._ p. 123.] tyrants, hypocrites and sophists--that is to say, the triple band of state and church oppressors, of interested ecclesiastics, and of subtle logicians--have drawn their threefold veil between the human intelligence and the universe, from which alone, as their proper home and _milieu_, men must derive the knowledge that belongs to them. campanella, with the sincerity of one to whom the truth is dearer than his own reputation, yields the _spolia opima_ of this latest victory over the strongholds of authority to his master--the master whom he never knew in life, but over whose bier he wept and prayed in secret, hiding the fire of modern freedom and modern science beneath the black cowl of a dominican friar:[581] telesius, the arrow from thy bow midmost his band of sophists slays that high tyrant of souls that think; he cannot fly: while truth soars free, loosed by the self-same blow. proud lyres with thine immortal praises glow, smitten by bards elate with victory: lo, thine own cavalcante, stormfully lightning, still strikes the fortress of the foe! good gaieta bedecks our saint serene with robes translucent, light-irradiate, restoring her to all her natural sheen; the while my tocsin at the temple-gate of the wide universe proclaims her queen, pythia of first and last ordained by fate. [footnote 581: _ibid._ p. 174.] in these verses, the saint and queen proclaimed by campanella is nature. during the middle ages truth had seemed to descend as by a sort of inspiration upon man from an extra-mundane god. during the first and second periods of the renaissance the human intellect repudiated this transcendentalism, but yielded itself, a willing victim, to the authority of books, plato or aristotle, and their commentators. now the mind of man stands face to face with nature, and knows that there, and there alone, is inspiration. the great baconian secret, the interrogation of nature, has been revealed. it is now acknowledged on all sides that not what telesio or campanella, or their famous disciple, bacon, achieved in actual discovery, was noteworthy. but the spirit communicated from telesio and campanella to bacon, is the spirit of modern science. meanwhile, another native of south italy, giordano bruno, proclaimed the immanence of god in the world, the identification of the universe with god in thought, the impossibility of escaping from god in nature, because nature, realizing god for the human soul, is divine. the central conception of the third age of italian thought, underlying the apparently divergent systems of campanella and bruno--the conception, namely, of a real and indestructible correlation between the human spirit and the actual universe, and the consequent reliance of the human consciousness upon its own testimony in the search for truth--contained the germ of all that has, in very various regions, been subsequently achieved by french, dutch, english, and german speculators. telesio and campanella, long before bacon, founded empirical science. campanella and bruno, long before descartes, established the principle of idealistic philosophy in the self-conscious thinking faculty of man. the sensualism of telesio, the spiritualism of bruno, and campanella's dualism, foreshadow all possible sects of empiricists, rationalists and eclectics, which have since divided the field of modern speculation. it is easy enough now to look down either from the height of full-blown transcendental metaphysics or from the more modest eminence of solid physical science upon the intellectual abortions generated by this potent conception in its earliest fusion with medieval theology. yet it is impossible to neglect the negative importance of the work effected by men who declared their independence of ecclesiastical and classical authority in an age when the church and antiquity contended for the empire of the human reason. still less possible is it to deny the place of galileo, descartes, bacon, spinoza, among the offspring begotten of the movement which pomponazzi, telesio, campanella and bruno inaugurated and developed. thus, therefore, by the substitution of human for revealed authority; by the suggestion of new and real topics of inquiry, and finally by the repudiation of all authority except that of nature's ascertained laws; by the rending of all veils between the human reason and the universe, the italian philosophers of the renaissance effected for europe the transition from the middle ages to the modern era. what is the link of connection between machiavelli and pomponazzi, the two leaders of italian thought at the height of the renaissance? it may be expressed in one formula--a vivid sense of man and the world as they are; or, in other words, positivism. machiavelli dispenses with providence, smiles incredulously at fortune, explains all social and historical problems by reference to the will and thought of men in action. he studies human nature as he finds it, not as it ought to be according to some ideal standard. pomponazzi shatters transcendentalism at a blow. he proves that there is no convincing argument for immortality. he demonstrates that the end of man is to be found in conduct. he treats religions without exception as transitory institutions, subject to the universal laws of birth and corruption, useful to society in their day of vigor, but destined to succeed each other with the waxing and the waning of the influences that control our globe and all that it contains. on this point machiavelli and pomponazzi are in complete accord. both of them interpret the spirit of their century. as machiavellism existed in italian politics before machiavelli theorized it, so materialism leavened society before pomponazzi gave it the consistency of demonstration. the middle ages with their political and theological idealism were at an end. machiavelli and pomponazzi contemporaneously philosophized the realism on which science was destined to be founded. they were the deicides of elder faiths; the hierophants of a new revelation, as yet but dimly apprehended; the columbus and vespucci of an intellectual hemisphere which it remained for their posterity to colonize. the conditions of public and private life in the italian cities--the decline of religious feeling, the corruption of morality, the paganizing tendencies of humanism, the extinction of political activity, the decay of freedom, the survival of the church and commune when their work was ended--rendered any such movement as that of the german reformation wholly impossible. the people lacked the spiritual stuff for it. we have seen that it was chiefly men like berni and folengo who gave open utterance to lutheran opinions; and from sources like those no pure or vivifying waters could be drawn. italy's work lay in another direction. those very conditions which unfitted her for a religious revival, enabled her to perform her true mission. it was no slight achievement to have set up the pillars of hercules for transcendentalism, and at the same time to have discovered the continent of positive science. for the fruits and recognition of her labors she has had to wait. her history since the date of machiavelli's death has been obscure until the middle of this century, and in the race of the nations she has been left behind.[582] but the perturbation of the intellectual current caused by the reformation is now nearly over, and the spirit of modern science still finds itself in harmony with that of the italian thinkers who gave it earliest expression. [footnote 582: it may be worth reminding the reader that pomponazzi died in 1525, and machiavelli in 1527--the year of rome's disaster. their births also were nearly synchronous. pomponazzi was born in 1462, machiavelli in 1469.] chapter xvii. conclusion. retrospect--meaning of the renaissance--modern science and democracy--the preparation of an intellectual medium for europe--the precocity of italy--servitude and corruption--antiquity and art--the italian provinces--florence--lombardy and venice--the march of ancona, urbino, umbria--perugia--rome--sicily and naples--italian ethnology--italian independence on the empire and the church--persistence of the old italic stocks--the new nation--its relation to the old--the revival of learning was a national movement--its effect on art--on literature--resumption of the latin language--affinities between the latin and italian genius--renascence of italian literature combined with humanism--greek studies comparatively uninfluential--the modern italians inherited roman qualities--roman defects--elimination of roman satire--decay of roman vigor--italian realism--positivism--sensuousness--want of mystery, suggestion, romance--the intellectual atmosphere--a literature of form and diversion--absence of commanding genius--lack of earnestness--lack of piety--materialism and negation--idyllic beauty--the men of the golden age--the cult of form--italy's gifts to europe--the renaissance is not to be imitated--its importance in human development--feudalism, renaissance, reformation, revolution. at the end of a long journey it is natural to review the stages of the way that has been traversed. we resume the impressions made upon our mind, and extract that element of generality from recollection, which the rapid succession of scenes, incidents and interests denied to the experience of travel. in like manner, those who have been engaged in some historical inquiry, after examining each province of the subject separately, seek a vantage-ground of contemplation, whence the conclusions they have reached can be surveyed in their relation to each other. what we call, for want of a better name, the renaissance, was a period of transition from the middle ages to the first phase of modern life. it was a step which had to be made, at unequal distances of time and under varying influences, by all the peoples of the european community. its accomplishment brought the several members of that community into international relationship, and formed a confederation of reciprocally balanced powers out of the occidental races who shared the inheritance of imperial rome. at the commencement of this period, the modern nations acquired consistency and fixity of type. mutually repelled by the principle of nationality, which made of each a separate organism, obeying its own laws of growth according to peculiarities of climate, blood and social institutions, they were at the same time drawn and knit together by a common bond of intellectual activities and interests. the creation of this international consciousness or spirit, which, after the lapse of four centuries, justifies us in regarding the past history of europe as the history of a single family, and encourages us to expect from the future a still closer interaction of the western nations, can be ascribed in a great measure to the renaissance. one distinctive feature of that epoch was, reaction against the main forces of the middle ages. and since reaction implies a vivid principle of vitality, we find, in the further progress of this movement, the new ideas of democracy and science counterposed to feudalism and the church. so vast a revolution as the reconstruction of society upon new bases, could not be effected by any simple or continuously progressive process. the nations educated by the church and disciplined by feudalism, could not pass into a new phase of being without checks, hesitations, retrogressions, hindrances innumerable. nor was it to be expected that the advance of each member in the european community should proceed upon an exactly similar method, or with equally felicitous results. it was inevitable that both feudalism and the church should long remain in liquidation, resisting the impact of skepticism inherent in the reformation; opposing stubborn resistance to republican energy liberated by the revolution; crystallizing the counter-movement of the modern spirit at one point in monarchical absolutism, at another in protestant establishments; receding from this rebellious province to fortify and garrison that loyal stronghold; tolerating no compromise here, and there achieving a temporary triumph by transaction with the steadily-advancing forces ranged against them. the battle even now is being waged with varying success over the wide field of europe; and whatever may be our conviction as to the ultimate issue of the struggle, it is impossible to foresee a definite end, or to assign even probable limits to the extent and the duration of the conflict. although we may hold the opinion that science and democracy constitute the fundamental points in modern as distinguished from medieval history, it would be paradoxical to assert that they emerged into prominence during the initial stage of the renaissance. a common intellectual atmosphere had first to be prepared for europe. the sense of human freedom had to be acquired by studies and discoveries which made man master of himself and of the world around him. his attention had to be diverted from the life beyond the grave to his life upon this planet. the culture, which formed the great achievement of the italian renaissance and which was diffused through europe, uniting men of all races and all creeds in speculative and literary activity, evoking sympathies and stimulating antagonisms upon vital questions of universal import, was necessary for the evolution of the modern world as we now know it. in many senses we have already transcended the original conditions of that culture. but we owe to it our spiritual solidarity, our feeling of intellectual identity, our habit of pouring convergent contributions from divers quarters into the stock of indestructible experience. quickened to livelier consciousness by contact with the masterpieces of antiquity, in the dawn of that new age, the reason rapidly engaged in exploratory expeditions. both human nature and the material universe presented themselves with altered aspect to thought and senses, which had lain dormant during centuries of incubation. at first, like the blind man of the miracle, the awakening intelligence saw confusedly. it is easy with our clearer vision to despise the hybrid fancies of a time when things old and new were so romantically blent--"the men as trees, walking," of that inexperienced intuition, the childish science and the scarce-fledged criticism of discoverers, who, while they reached forth to the future, still retained the hold of custom and long reverence on the past. a note of imperfection, vacillation, tentative endeavor, can be traced in all the productions of the renaissance--everywhere, in fact, but in the fine arts, where a simpler insight and more unimpeded faculties were exercised at that period than the last three centuries have boasted. in another important department the men of that age proved themselves more than merely precocious and immature. the humanistic system of mental training has survived with little alteration to the present day, and still forms the basis of what is called a liberal education. this transition from the middle ages to the modern era, which we designate by the metaphor of renascence or new birth, made itself first powerfully felt in italy. of all the european nations, the italians alone can boast of a great and uninterrupted history, extending over the twenty-five centuries which are known to us by tolerably trustworthy records. they first gave the civilization of republican and imperial rome to the western world. they formed the latin church, and extended the organization of ecclesiastical rome to european christendom. this was their double work in what we call the ancient and medieval periods. at the close of the latter, they inaugurated the age of culture, science and associated intellectual endeavor, in which we are now living. in italy the people preserved unbroken memories of their classical past; and, as we have seen throughout these volumes, the point of departure for modern reconstruction was a renewed and vital interest in antiquity. here, too, the characteristic institutions of feudalism had taken but slight hold, while the secularization of the papacy had undermined the spiritual prestige of the church. thus the forces to be overcome were feebler in italy than elsewhere, while the current of fresh energy was stronger. the conditions under which the italians performed their task in the renaissance were such as seem at first sight unfavorable to any great achievement. yet it is probable that, the end in view being the stimulation of mental activity, no better circumstances than they enjoyed could have been provided. owing to a series of adverse accidents, and owing also to their own instinctive preference for local institutions, they failed to attain the coherence and the centralized organization which are necessary to a nation as we understand that word. their dismemberment among rival communities proved a fatal source of political and military weakness, but it developed all their intellectual energies by competition to the utmost. at the middle of the fifteenth century their communes had lost political liberty, and were ruled by despots. martial spirit declined. wars were carried on by mercenaries; and the people found itself in a state of practical disarmament, when the neighboring nations quarreled for the prize of those rich provinces. at the same time society underwent a rapid moral deterioration. when machiavelli called italy "the corruption of the world," he did not speak rhetorically. an impure and worldly clergy; an irreligious, though superstitious, laity; a self-indulgent and materialistic middle class; an idle aristocracy, excluded from politics and unused to arms; a public given up to pleasure and money-getting; a multitude of scholars, devoted to trifles, and vitiated by studies which clashed with the ideals of christianity--from such elements in the nation proceeded a widely-spread and ever-increasing degeneracy. public energy, exhausted by the civil wars and debilitated by the arts of the tyrants, sank deep and deeper into the lassitude of acquiescent lethargy. religion expired in laughter, irony and license. domestic simplicity yielded to vice, whereof the records are precise and unmistakable. the virile virtues disappeared. what survived of courage assumed the forms of ruffianism, ferocity and treasonable daring. still, simultaneously with this decline in all the moral qualities which constitute a powerful people, the italians brought their arts and some departments of their literature to a perfection that can only be paralleled by ancient greece. the anomaly implied in this statement is striking; but it is revealed to us by evidence too overwhelming to be rejected. we must be careful not to insist on any causal link of connection between the moral and intellectual conditions of italian society at this epoch. still we are forced to admit that servitude and corruption are the commanding features of the age in which italy for the third time in her history won and held the hegemony of the world. in politics, in religion, in ethics, she seemed to have been left devoid of guiding principles; and tragic interest is added to the climax of her greatness by the long series of disasters, culminating in spanish enslavement and ecclesiastical tyranny, which proved her internal rottenness and put an end to her unrivaled intellectual triumphs. it has been my object in this work to review the part played by the italians at the beginning of modern history, subjecting each department of their activity to separate examination. in the first of the five volumes i described the social and political conditions under which the renascence of the race took place. in the second i treated of that retrogressive movement toward antiquity, which constitutes the most important factor in the problem offered by that age. the third volume was devoted to the fine arts, wherein the main originality of modern italy emerged. it was through art that the creative instincts of the people found their true and adequate channel of expression. paramount over all other manifestations of the epoch, fundamental beneath all, penetrative to the core of all, is the artistic impulse. the slowly self-consolidating life of a great kingdom, concentrating all elements of national existence by the centripetal force of organic unity, was wanting. commonwealths and despotisms, representing a more imperfect stage of political growth, achieved completion and decayed. but art survived this disintegration of the medieval fabric; and in art the italians found the cohesion denied them as a nation. while speaking thus of art, it is necessary to give a wide extension to that word. it must be understood to include literature. nor, in the case of italy, does this imply an undue strain upon its meaning. the last two volumes of my work have been devoted to the stages whereby vernacular literature absorbed into itself the elements of scholarship, and gave form to the predominating thoughts and feelings of the people. this process of form-giving was controlled, more or less consciously throughout, by the artistic instincts of which i have been speaking. thus we are justified in regarding the literary masterpieces of the sixteenth century as the fullest and most representative expression of the italian temperament at the climax of its growth. the literature of the golden age implies humanism, implies painting. it will be seen that the logic of the whole subject necessitated the reservation of this department for final treatment, and justified a more minute investigation than had been accorded to the rest. it is not only possible but right to speak of italy collectively when we review her work in the renaissance. yet it should not be forgotten that italy at this time was a federation, presenting upon a miniature scale the same diversities in her component parts as the nations of europe do now. if for this reason alone, we may profitably survey the different shares claimed by her several communities in the general achievement. at the beginning of such a review, we cannot fail to be struck with the predominance of florence. the superiority of the tuscans was threefold. in the first place, they determined the development of art in all its branches. in the second place, they gave a language to italy, which, without obliterating the local dialects, superseded them in literature when the right moment for intellectual community arrived. that moment, in the third place, was rendered possible by the humanistic movement, which began at florence. the humanists prepared the needful literary medium by introducing classical studies into every town of the peninsula. without this discipline, tuscan could not so speedily have produced italian, or have been so readily accepted by north and south. it may, indeed, be affirmed without exaggeration that, prior to the close of the fifteenth century, what we call the italian genius was, in truth, the genius of florence. what the lombards and venetians produced in fine art and literature was of a later birth.[583] yet the novelists of lombardy, the latin lyrists of garda, the school of romantic and dramatic poets at ferrara, the group of sculptors and painters assembled in milan by the sforza dynasty, the maccaronic muse of mantua, the unrivaled magnificence of painting at venice, the transient splendor of the parmese masters, the wit of modena, the learning of the princes of mirandola and carpi, must be catalogued among the most brilliant and characteristic manifestations of italian genius. in pure literature venice contributed but little, though she sent forth a dictator, pietro bembo, to rule the republic of letters at the moment when the scepter was about to pass from florence. her place, as the home of aldo's greek press, and as the refuge for adventurers like aretino and folengo, when the rest of italy was yielding to reactionary despotism, has to be commemorated. of the northern universities, padua preserved the tradition of physical studies, and bologna that of legal erudition, onward from the middle ages. both became headquarters of materialistic philosophy in the sixteenth century. the school of vicenza had flourished in humane letters at the commencement of the epoch. but it declined early; while that of ferrara, on the contrary, succeeded to the honors of florence and pisa. genoa was almost excluded from the current of italian culture. her sumptuous palaces and churches, her sensual unsympathetic painting, belong to the last days of italian energy. her few great scholars owed their fame to correspondence and connection with the students of more favored districts. [footnote 583: i need hardly guard this paragraph by saying that i speak within the limits of the renaissance.] from romagna, the marches of ancona, and the umbrian cities, more captains of adventure than men of letters or artists swelled the muster-roll of italian worthies. we must not, however, forget the unique place which urbino, with its refined society, pure court, and concourse of accomplished men and women, occupies in the history of italian civilization. the position of perugia, again, is not a little singular. situated upon the borders of tuscany and umbria, sharing something of the spirit of both districts, overshadowed by papal rome, yet harboring such broods of _bravi_ as the baglioni, conferring a tyranny on braccio and the honor of her name on pietro vannucci, this city offers a succession of picturesque and perplexing contradictions. perugia was the center of the most religious school of painting which flourished in the fifteenth century, and also the cradle of the religious drama. for the student of italian psychology, very much of serious moment is contained in this statement. rome continued to be rather cosmopolitan than italian. the power, wealth, and prestige of the popes made their court a center; and men who settled in the eternal city, caught something of its greatness. there is, however, no reason to recapitulate the benefits conferred by ecclesiastical patronage at various times on fine arts, scholarship, and literature. rather must it be borne in mind that the romans who advanced italian culture, were singularly few. the work of rome was done almost exclusively by aliens, drawn for the most part from tuscany and lombardy. after frederick ii.'s brilliant reign, the sicilians shared but little in the intellectual activity of the nation. that this was not due to want of capacity in the people, seems proved by their aptitude for poetry first shown at frederick's court, and next by the unrivaled richness of their dialectical literature, both popular and cultivated. whether the semi-feudalism which oppressed the southern provinces, checked the free expansion of mental faculty, admits of question. but it is certainly remarkable that, during the renaissance, the wide districts of the regno produced so little. antonio beccadelli was, indeed, a native of palermo; but pontano owned cerreto for his birthplace. valla claimed to be a roman, and sannazzaro traced his ancestry through piacenza into spain. these are the four greatest names of the period when naples formed a literary center under the aragonese dynasty. we have already seen that naples, though not prolific of native genius, gave specific tone of warmth and liberty to literature. this may be ascribed partly to the free manners, bordering on license, of the south, and partly to the permanent jealousy subsisting between the kingdom and the papacy. the _novella_ produced humorous pictures of society at florence, facetiæ in rome, but bitter satires on the clergy at naples. the scandals of the church provoked the frigid animosity of florentines like machiavelli and guicciardini; in naples they led to valla's ponderous critique and sannazzaro's envenomed epigrams. the sensuousness of poliziano assumed voluptuous fervor in pontano's lyrics. lastly, the platonic mysticism of florence, and the peripatetic materialism of bologna ended in the new philosophy of the calabrian school. this crowning contribution of the south to italy, this special glory of the sixteenth century, came less from naples than from minor cities of calabria. telesio of cosenza, bruno of nola, campanella of stilo, showed that something of the old greek speculative genius--the spirit of parmenides and pythagoras--still lingered round the shores of magna græcia. just as the hellenic colonists at elea and tarentum anticipated the dawn of attic philosophy, so did those robust and innovating thinkers shoot the arrows of their speculation forward at the mark of modern science. it is tempting to pass from this review of the italian provinces to meditations on a further problem. how far may the qualities of each district have endured from remote antiquity? to what extent may they have determined the specific character of italian production in the modern age? did the population of calabria, we ponder, really inherit philosophical capacity from their greek ancestors? dare we connect the tuscan aptitude for art with that mysterious race who built their cities on etrurian hill-tops? can the primitive ethnology of the ligurian and iapygian stocks be used to explain the silence of the genoese riviera and the apulian champaign? is a teutonic strain discernible in the gross humor of the mantuan muse, or in the ballads of montferrat? it would be easy to multiply these questions. but the whole subject of national development is still too obscure to admit of satisfactory answers.[584] all we can affirm without liability to error, amounts to this; that rome never completely fused the divers races of the italian peninsula, nor obliterated their characteristic differences. after the dissolution of her empire, we find the italian provinces presenting local types in language, manners, sentiments, and intellectual proclivities. it is not unreasonable, therefore, to conjecture that certain of these differences sprang from the persistence of ethnological qualities, and others from the infusion of fresh blood from without. [footnote 584: those who are curious in such matters, may be referred to the following works by giustiniano nicolucci: _la stirpe ligure in italia_, napoli, 1864; _sulla stirpe iapigica_, napoli, 1866; _sull'antropologia delta grecia_, napoli, 1867; _antropologia dell'etruria_, napoli, 1869; _antropologia del lazio_, napoli, 1873. also to luigi calori's _del tipo brachicefalo negli italiani odierni_, bologna, 1868, and a learned article upon this work by j. barnard davis in the _journal of the anthropological institute_, jan. july, 1871. nicolucci's and calori's researches lead to opposite results regarding the distribution of brachycephalic skulls in italy. nicolucci adopts in its entirety the theory of an aryan immigration from the north; barnard davis rejects it. it seems to me impossible in our present state of knowledge to draw conclusions from the extremely varied and interesting observations recorded in the treatises cited above.] the decisive fact of italian history in all its branches at this epoch is the resurgence of the latin, or shall we rather say, of the italic spirit? the national consciousness survived, though dimly, through the middle ages; nor had the people suffered shipwreck in the break-up of the roman power. this was due in no small measure to the fact that the empire was the creation of this people, and that consequently they were in a sense superior to its fall. roman civilization, roman organization, roman institutions, roman law, were the products of the italian genius; and when the roman state declined, the home province suffered a less thorough-going transformation than, to take an instance, either gaul or spain. it would be paradoxical to maintain that the imperial despotism exercised a more controlling authority over the outlying provinces than over italy proper. yet something of this kind might be advanced, when we reflect upon the self-indulgent majesty of rome herself; upon the sovereign privileges accorded to the chief italian cities; upon the prosperity and vastness of mediolanum, aquileia and ravenna. local ties and local institutions kept a lasting hold upon the ancient no less than the medieval italian; and long after rome became the _colluvies omnium gentium_ so bitterly described by juvenal, the country towns, especially in the valley of the po, retained a vigorous personality. in this respect the relation in which men of state and letters, like the plinies, stood on one side to the capital and on the other to their birthplace, is both interesting and instructive. the citizens of the provincial _municipia_ gloried in the might of rome. rome was for them the fulcrum of a lever which set the habitable globe in movement at their touch. still the empire existed for the world, while each italian city claimed the duty and affection of its own inhabitants. when rome failed, the cosmopolitan authority of the empire was extended to the church, or, rather, fell into abeyance between the church and the resuscitated empire. just as the _municipia_ flourished beneath the shadow of old rome, so now the communes grew beneath the church and the new empire. these two creations of the earlier middle ages, though formulated and legalized in italy, weighed less heavily there than on some other parts of europe. the italians resisted imperial authority, and preserved their own local independence. the northern emperors were never really strong below the alps except on sufferance and by the aid of faction. in like manner the italian burghers tolerated ecclesiastical despotism only in so far as they found it convenient to do so. in spite of gothic, lombard, frankish and german attempts at solidification, the cities succeeded in asserting their autonomy. the italic stock absorbed the several foreign elements that mingled with it. vernacular latin, surviving the decay of literature, repelling the influence of alien dialects, prevailed and was the language of the people. notwithstanding this persistence of the antique type, the italian nation, between the ages of constantine and frederick barbarossa, was intellectually and actually remade. it was not a new nation like the english, french or germans; for its life had continued without cessation on the same soil from a period antecedent to the birth of rome. it had no fund of myth and legend, embodying its memories in popular epical poetry. instead of siegfried, arthur or roland, it looked back to the virgilian æneas.[585] still it underwent, together with the rest of europe, the transformation from paganism to christianity. it felt the influences of feudalism, while repelling them with obstinate and finally victorious jealousy. it owed something to chivalry, though the instincts of the race were rather practical and positive than romantic. it suffered the eclipse of antique culture, and borrowed from its conquerors a tincture of their style in art and literature. when these new italians found a voice, they spoke in tones which lacked the ring of roman eloquence. the massy fabric of the roman syntax was dismembered. and yet their speech had more affinity to roman style than that of any northern people. the greatest jurists, ecclesiastics and statesmen of the middle ages, the interpreters of roman law, the fabricators of solid theological edifices, the founders of the catholic church, the champions of the imperial idea, were italians, proving by their grasp of practical affairs and by the positive turn they gave to speculative inquiries, a participation in the ancient latin spirit.[586] even when it is least classical, the medieval work of the italian genius betrays this ancestry--in lombard no less than in tuscan architecture, in the monumental structure of the divine comedy, in the comprehensive digest of the _summa_, in the rejection of sentimentalism from the tradition of provençal poetry, in petrarch's conception of scholarship, in the sensuous realism of boccaccio. [footnote 585: that the _æneid_ was still the italian epos is proved by the many local legends which connected the foundation of cities with the trojan wars.] [footnote 586: it is enough to mention a few names--gregory the great, lanfranc, s. anselm, peter the lombard, hildebrand, s. thomas aquinas, accursius, bartolus--to prove how strong in construction, as opposed to criticism, were the italian thinkers of the middle ages.] the revival of learning was the acquisition of complete self-consciousness by this new race, which still retained so much of its old temperament. ill at ease among the customs and ideals of teutonic tribes; stubbornly refusing to merge their local independence in a kingdom; struggling against feudalism; accepting chivalry and gothic architecture as exotics; without national legends; without crusading enthusiasms; the italians were scarcely themselves until they regained the right use of their energies by contact with the classics. this makes the revival of learning a national, a patriotic, a dramatic movement. this gives life and passion to a process which in any other country, upon any other soil, might have possessed but little more than antiquarian interest. this, and this alone, explains the extraordinary fervor with which the italians threw themselves into the search, abandoning the new-gained laurels of their modern tongue, absorbing the intellectual faculties of at least three generations in the labor of erudition, and emerging from the libraries of the humanists with a fresh sense of national unity. at the same moment, and by the same series of discoveries, they found themselves and found for europe the civilization of the modern world. it is only by remembering that the italic races, clogged by the ruins of the roman empire, and tardily receptive of teutonic influences, resumed their natural activity and recognized their vocation in the revival of learning, that we can comprehend the radical revolution effected in all departments of thought by this event. in architecture, the gothic style, which had been adopted as it were with repugnance and imperfectly assimilated, was at once abandoned. brunelleschi, alberti, bramante, san gallo, michelangelo, palladio, strove, one and all, to effect a right adjustment of the antique style to modern requirements. foreign elsewhere, the so-called palladian manner is at home and national in italy. sculpture, even earlier than architecture, took and followed the same hint. what chiefly distinguishes the work of the pisan school from contemporary work of french or german craftsmen is, that here the manner of græco-roman art has been felt and partly comprehended. painting, though more closely connected with christianity, more perfectly related to conditions of contemporary life, owed strength and vigor in great measure to the same conditions. during the fifteenth century classical influences continued increasingly to modify the practice of the strongest masters. in literature, the effect of the revival was so decisive as to demand a somewhat closer investigation. the awakened consciousness of the italic people showed itself first in the creation of a learned literature, imitating as closely as possible in a dead language the models recovered from ancient rome. it was not enough to appropriate the matter of the latin authors. their form had to be assimilated and reproduced. these pioneers in scholarship believed that the vulgar tongue, with its divergent dialects, had ever been and still remained incapable of higher culture. the refined diction of cicero and virgil was for them a separate and superior speech, consecrated by infallible precedent, and no less serviceable for modern than it formerly had been for antique usage. recovering the style of the augustan age, they thought they should possess an instrument of utterance adapted to their present needs, and correlated to the living language of the people as it had been in the age of roman greatness. they attacked the easier branches of composition first. epistolography and rhetoric assumed the roman habit. then the meters of horace, ovid, and virgil were analyzed and copied. in the inevitable compromise between classical modes of expression and modern necessities of thought, concessions were always made to the advantage of the former. the persons of the trinity, the saints and martyrs of the church, pranked themselves in phrases borrowed from an obsolete mythology. christ figured as a hero. the councils of each petty commune arrogated the style of senate and people. _condottieri_ masqueraded as scipio, hannibal, and fabius cunctator. cecco and tonino assumed the graceful garb of lycidas and thyrsis. so fervid was the sense of national resurgence that these literary conventions imposed on men who ruled the politics of italy--on statesmen with subtle insight into practical affairs; on generals with egotistic schemes to be developed from the play and counter-play of living interests. when poliziano ruled the republic of letters, this acclimatization of the latin classics was complete. innumerable poems, reproducing the epic, elegiac and lyric measures of the romans, poured from the press. moralists draped themselves in the hortensian toga. orators fulminated copious floods of ciceronian rhetoric. critics aped quintilian. historians stuffed their chapters with speeches and descriptions modeled upon livy. pastoral and didactic poets made centos from virgil. the drama flourished under the auspices of plautus, terence, and seneca. preachers were more scrupulous to turn their sentences in florid style than to clinch a theological argument. upon the lips of popes the god of sinai or calvary was jupiter optimus maximus. even envoys and embassadors won causes for their states by paragraphs, citations, perorations in the manner of the ancients. this humanistic ardor at first effected a division between the lettered and unlettered classes. the people clung to their dialects. educated folk despised all forms of speech but latin. it seemed as though the national literature might henceforth follow two separate and divergent courses. but with the cessation of the first enthusiasm for antique culture, the claims of vernacular italian came to be recognized. no other modern nation had produced masterpieces equal to dante's, petrarch's and boccaccio's. the self-esteem of the italians could not suffer the exclusion of the divine comedy, the _canzoniere_ and the decameron from the rank of classics. men of delicate perception, like alberti and lorenzo de' medici, felt that the honors of posterity would fall to the share of those who cultivated and improved their mother tongue. thus the earlier position of the humanists was recognized as false. could not their recent acquisitions be carried over to the account and profit of the vernacular? a common italian language, based upon the tuscan, but modified for general usage, was now practiced in accordance with the rules and objects of the scholars. upon the briar of the popular literature were grafted the highly-cultivated roses of the classic gardens. it was thus that the masterpieces of _cinque cento_ literature came into being--the _orlando_ and the comedies of ariosto, machiavelli's histories and sannazzaro's _arcadia_--tasso's _gerusalemme_, and guarini's _pastor fido_, together with the multitudinous and multifarious work of lesser craftsmen in prose and verse. steeped in classical allusion and reminiscence, the form of this new literature was modern; but its spirit was in a true sense latin. the italic people had found their proper mode of self-expression, and proclaimed their hereditary affinities to the makers of roman art. in the history of the italian renaissance greek studies form but an episode. the platonic school of florence, the venetian labors of aldus, exercised a partial and imperfect influence over italian culture. they proved more important for europe at large than for the peninsula, more valuable in their remote than their immediate consequences. with the whole of classic literature to choose from, this instinctive preference of latin illustrates the point i am engaged in demonstrating--namely, that in italy the revival of learning was a resurgence of the italic genius modified and formed by roman influence. true to their ancestry, the italians assimilated roman types, and left the greek aside. if we pause to consider the qualities of the roman spirit in art and literature, we shall see in how real a sense the modern people reproduced them and remained within their limits. compared with the hellenic and teutonic races, the romans were not myth-making, nor in the sincerest sense poetical. in like manner the italians are deficient on the side of legend and romance. this defect has been insisted on in the preceding volumes, where the practical and positive quality of italian poetry, its leaning to realism and abstinence from visionary flights of the imagination, have more than once been pointed out. roman literature was composite and cultured, rather than simple or spontaneous. the roman epic was literary; based on antecedent models, and confined within the sphere of polished imitation. the roman comedy and tragedy were copies of the greek. in these highest departments of art the roman poets gave new form to foreign matter, and infused their national spirit into works that might be almost ranked with free translations. the same is true of their lyrics. even the meters in all these species are appropriated. the italians in like manner invented but little. they borrowed from every source--from the arthurian and carolingian romances, from provençal love-poetry, and lastly in copious quantities from roman literature. but they stamped their own genius on the materials adopted, retouched the form, and modified the sentiment, converting all they took to their own genuine uses. in this respect the italians, though apparently so uncreative, may be called more original than the romans. their metrical systems, to begin with--the sonnet, the octave stanza, and _terza rima_--are their own. their touch upon teutonic legend is more characteristic than the roman touch on greek mythology. dante and petrarch deal more freely with provençal poetry than horace or catullus with the lyrics of their predecessors. in the matter of dramatic composition, the italians stand in much the same relation to the romans as the romans to the greeks; and this may be repeated with reference to elegiac and pastoral poetry, and some minor species. the italic race, in its later as in its earlier development, seems here, also, satisfied with form-giving and delicacy of execution. if we turn to the indigenous and characteristic qualities of roman literary genius, we find these reappearing with the force of spontaneity among the italians. first of all may be reckoned the strong love of country-life which lends undying freshness to catullus, horace, and the poetical episodes of lucretius. this is a no less marked feature of italian literature. the very best poetry of the humanists is that which deals with villa-life among the tuscan hills, beside the bay of naples, or on the shores of garda. the purest passages in the _novelle_, the least intolerable descriptions in the treatises of the essayists, are those which celebrate the joys of field and wood and garden. the most original products of the italian stage are the _aminta_ and the _pastor fido_, penetrated through and through with a real love of the country--not with any feeling for nature in her sublimer and wilder aspects, but with the old saturnian pathos and fresh clinging loveliness of nature made the friend of man and humanized by labor. the tears shed by alberti over the rich fields of autumn, as he gazed upon them from some tuscan summit, seem to have fallen like a dew of real emotion upon the driest places of a pastoral literature which is too often conventional. resuming the main thread of the argument, it may be said that the italians also shared the roman partiality for didactic poetry. the latin poems of poliziano, vida, and fracastoro, together with the italian work of alamanni, rucellai, and other authors, sufficiently prove this. nor does it seem to me that we need suppose these essays in a style of inevitable weariness to have been merely formal imitations of the ancients. the delight with which they were first received and even now sometimes are read in italy, and the high reputation they have won for their authors, show that there is something in the italian genius sympathetic to their spirit. one department of their roman heritage was left uncultivated by the italians. they produced no really great satire; but, on the other hand, that indigenous satiric humor, inclining to caricature and obscenity, which found vent in the fescennine songs of roman festivals and triumphs, endured without material change through all modifications of the national life. the earliest monuments of the vernacular literature afford instances of its popularity throughout the middle ages. it gave a special quality to the florentine carnival; it assumed high literary form in lorenzo's _canti_ and berni's burlesque _capitoli_; it flourished on the quays of naples, and sheltered at rome under the protection of pasquino. leaving pure literature aside, we may trace the latin ancestry of the italians in their strong forensic bias. just as the forum was the center of roman, so was the piazza the center of italian life. the declamatory emphasis that spoils much latin prose and verse for northern ears, sounds throughout italian literature. their writers too easily assume a rhetorical tone, and substitute sonorousness of verbiage for solid matter or sound feeling. the recitations of the romans find an analogue in the italian academies. the colloquial taint of roman philosophical discussion is repeated in the moral diatribes of the humanists. but with equal justice we might urge that the practical and legal qualities of the latin race, and its powerful organizing faculty, survived, and found expression in the modern nation. the italians, as we have already said, were the greatest churchmen, statesmen, and jurists of medieval europe. they created the papacy. they formulated the conception of the empire. they preserved, explained, and taught roman law. but this element was already worked out and exhausted at the close of the medieval period. we find it in abeyance during the renaissance. the political vigor, the martial energy, the cohesive force, the indomitable will of the romans, have clearly deserted their italian inheritors. there is a massive architecture, as of masonry, in roman writing, which italian almost always misses. if it were permissible to venture here upon a somewhat bold hypothesis, we might ask whether the italic races now displayed themselves as they might have been without the centralizing and controlling genius of rome? in the history of the italian peninsula can we regard the ascendancy of rome as a gigantic episode? rome bound the various tribes together in a common system, formed one language, and used italy as the throne of world-wide empire. but rome's empire passed, and the tribes remained--indelibly stamped, it is true, with her mark, and subsequently modified by a succession of intrusive incidents--yet yielding to the world in a new form a second crop of flowers and fruitage similar to that which they had borne for rome. it will not do to press these speculations. they suggest themselves when we observe that, what the italians lacked in the renaissance was precisely what rome, or the latin confederacy, gave to italy in the ancient days of her supremacy. it is as though the great saturnian mother, exhausted by the production of rome and all that rome implied through empire and through papacy for europe, had little force left but for amenities and subtleties in modern literature. to the masonry of rome succeeds the filigree work of the _cinque cento_. there is no mistaking the positive, materialistic, quality possessed by the italians in common with their latin ancestors. this, after all is said, constitutes the true note of their art and literature. realism, preferring the tangible and concrete to the visionary and abstract, the defined to the indefinite, the sensuous to the ideal, determines the character of their genius in all its manifestations. we find it even in the divine comedy. dante's pictures appeal to our eyes; his songs of angels and cries of damned souls reach our ears; he makes us shrink with physical loathing from the abominations of malebolge, and feel upon our foreheads the cool morning wind of purgatory. his imaginary world can be mapped out; his journey through it has been traced and measured, inch by inch, and hour by hour. the same realism determined the speculation of the italians, deflecting it from metaphysics to problems of practical life. again it leavened their religion. we find it in s. catherine's visions, in the stigmata of s. francis, in the miracle of bolsena. under its influence the dogmas of the church assumed a kind of palpability. it was against italian sensuousness that the finer spiritual perceptions of the teutonic races rose in revolt; and the italians, who had transmitted their own religious forms to europe, could not understand the point at issue. feeble or insufficient as we may judge this realism in the regions of pure thought or pious feeling, it was supremely powerful in art. it enabled the italians so to apprehend the mysteries of the faith, and so to assimilate the classic myths, as to find for both a form of beauty in sculpture and in painting. had they inclined more to the abstract or to the visionary, christian art would have remained impossible. had they been less simply sensuous, they might perhaps have shrunk from pagan legends, or have failed to touch them with the right sincerity. how ill these legends fared at the hands of contemporary teutonic artists, is notorious. in the realm of literature the same quality gave to petrarch's treatment of chivalrous love a new substantiality. it animated boccaccio, and through his influence created a literature of fiction, indescribably rich in objective realism and spontaneous passion. ariosto owed to it the incomparable brilliance of his pictures. and, since such sensuousness has perforce its evil side, we find it, in the last resort, no longer clothing unsubstantial thoughts with forms of beauty, lending reality to the poet's visions, or humanizing the austerities of faith, but frankly and simply subordinating its powers to a debased imagination. the italian sensuousness too often degenerates into mere sensuality in the period of our inquiry. nor is this the only defect of the quality. when we complain that the italians are deficient in the highest tragic imagination, that their feeling for nature lacks romance, or that none but their rarest works of art attain sublimity, we are but insisting on the realistic bias which inclined them to things tangible, palpable, experienced, compassable by the senses. how much of tragedy is due to horror the soul alone can gauge; how much of romance depends upon a sense of mystery and unexplored capacities in natural things; how much of the sublime consists of incorporeal vagueness, need not here be insisted on. the sensuousness of the italians, simpler and less finely tempered with spiritual substance than that of the greeks, while it gave them so much of serene beauty and intelligible form, denied them those high and rare touches which the less evenly balanced genius of the northern races can command at will. the poverty of imaginative suggestion in their lyrical and dramatic poetry has been already indicated. we feel this even in their music. the most adorable melodies, poured forth like nightingale songs in the great schools of the eighteenth century, owe their perfection to purity of outline; their magic depends on a direct appeal to sensibility. there is not in them "more than the ear discovers." they are not, to quote sir thomas browne again, "a hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world and creatures of god." palestrina and stradella, pergolese and salvator rosa, move in a region less mystical and pregnant with accumulated meaning than that which belongs to bach and beethoven. the intellectual medium formed in italy upon the dissolution of the middle ages was irreligious and indifferent; highly refined and highly cultivated; instinctively æsthetic and superbly gifted, but devoid of moral earnestness or patriotic enthusiasm, of spiritual passion or political energy. society, enslaved, disfranchised, and unwarlike, was composed of peasants and artisans, sleek citizens, effeminated nobles, courtiers and scholars of a hundred types, monks and clergy of manifold variety and almost incalculable multitude, despots more or less successful in their arts of imposition and seduction, and the countless dependents on the wants and whims and vices of this motley population. among the last may be reckoned artists of all but the first rank, men of letters, parasites and captains of adventure, courtesans and abbés, pamphleteers and _bravi_, orators and secretaries. outside the universities, the factories and the marketplace, there were few callings that could be reckoned honorable or honest, independent or respectable. over the rest hung the shadow of servitude and corruption, of ecclesiastical depravity and private debauchery, of political stagnation and haughty patronage. still the qualities of intellectual sagacity, determined volition, and a certain æsthetical good taste, were all but universal. we find them in such works as cellini's biography, lorenzino de' medici's apology, and the memoirs of his murderer--to mention only documents where the last-named quality might well have been absent. even the lowest instruments of public or private profligacy maintained an independence face to face with art, and recognized a higher law than their employer's in the duties imposed upon them by the ideal after which they strove as men of letters, painters or the like. we trace this loyal service and artistic freedom even in pietro aretino. a literature, corresponding to this medium, of necessity arose. it was a literature of form and style, of pleasure and diversion, without intensity of passion, earnestness of purpose, or profundity of thought. it could boast no shakspere, no pindar, no dante, no descartes. the prevailing types which it developed, were idyllic, descriptive, melodramatic, narrative, elegiac, sentimental, burlesque, and licentious. poliziano, sannazzaro, lorenzo de' medici, pulci, the writers of sonnets and _capitoli_, the novelists and the satirists, are each and all of them related by no superficial tie to boccaccio. he is the morning star of this multifarious and brilliant band of artist-authors, until the moment when ariosto rises above the horizon, and the _cinque cento_ finds adequate expression in the _orlando furioso_. in that poem the qualities by which the age is characterized, are concentrated, and the advance in artistic faculty and feeling since the period of the decameron is manifested. amid the many writers of the century we seek in vain a true philosopher. we have, instead, to content ourselves with the ethical dissertations of the humanists; with sketches like the _cortegiano_, the _galateo_, the _governo della famiglia_; with erudite fancies like the speculations of ficino, or the scholastic triflings of pico della mirandola. yet out of the very indifferentism of the age philosophy will spring. pomponazzi formulates the current materialism. it remains for telesio, campanella, bruno, galileo to found the modern scientific method. meanwhile, the political agitations of despotisms and republics alike, and the diplomatic relations of so many petty states, have stimulated observation and developed the powers of analysis. therefore the most vigorous and virile product of this literature is such work as the _principe_ and _discorsi_ of machiavelli, the _ricordi_ of guicciardini, together with the histories and reflective treatises on statecraft published by the statists of their school. the absence of seriousness in the literature of the golden age is striking to a northern student. it seems to have been produced for and by men who had lost their ethical and political conscience, and had enthroned an æsthetical conscience in its room. their religious indifference is deadlier than atheism. their levity is worse than sarcasm. they fulfill the epigram of tacitus, who wrote: _corrumpere et corrumpi sæculum vocant_. yet no one has the vigor to be angry. it is difficult to detect the true note of satire in their criticism of society. ariosto is playful, aretino scurrilous, alamanni peevish, folengo atrabilious. the purely religious compositions of the period lack simplicity and sincerity. the _sacre rappresentazioni_ are sentimental and romantic. the christian epics of the latin poets are indescribably frigid. the _laudi_ are either literary like lorenzo's, or hysterical like benivieni's praise of christian madness. the impertinent biographies of aretino pass muster for genuinely pious work with vittoria colonna. it is only in some heartfelt utterance of the aged michelangelo, in the holy life of a s. antonino, or the charity of luca della robbia's mission to young boscoli, or the fervor of savonarola's sermons, that here and there the chord of real religious feeling vibrates. philosophy entrenches herself, where she is strongest, in negation--in valla's negation of any ethical standard superior to sensuous hedonism, in pomponazzi's negation of immortality, in machiavelli's negation of providence. so complete an antithesis to the medieval ground of thought was necessary; and its results for the future of science are incontestable. but at the moment it meant a withdrawal from spiritual interests, an insistance on the material side of human life, which was correlated to religious indifference and social dissolution. the drama abounds in comedies and masks, of wonderful variety and great artistic beauty. but there is no tragedy worthy of the name. and the tragic element, as distinguished from romance and pathos, is conspicuous by its absence in the novels of the period. lyrical poets prefer the conscious shams of petrarchism to any genuine utterance of emotion. the gravity of la casa's sonnets, wrenched from an uneasy and unwilling conscience, the sublimity of michelangelo's platonic mysticism, the patriotic indignation of guidiccioni's laments for italy enslaved and sunk in sensual sloth, must rank as luminous exceptions. in the romantic epic, chivalry, the ideal of an earlier age, is turned to gentle ridicule. honor is sneered at or misunderstood. the absurd, the marvelous, the licentious are mingled in a form of incomparable artistic suavity. tasso's graver epic belongs to another epoch. trissino's heroic poem is unreadable. like the tragedies of the scholars, it lacks life and stands in no relation to the spirit of the age. over the whole art and literature of the epoch is shed an agreeable light of quietude and acquiescence, a glow of contentment and well-being, which contrasts strangely with the tragic circumstances of a nation crumbling into an abyss of ruin. it is not precisely the _bourgeois_ felicity of boccaccio, but a tranquillity that finds choicest expression in the painted idyls of giorgione and the written idyls of sannazzaro. its ultimate ideal is the golden age, when no restraints were placed on natural inclination, and no ambition ruffled the spirit rocked in halcyon ease. this prevailing mood of artists and writers was capable of sensuous depth, as in the _baiæ_ of pontano. it was capable of refined irony, as in the smile of ariosto. it was capable of broad laughter, as in the farce of bibbiena. it was capable of tenderness, as in the _ballate_ of poliziano. it was capable of cynical licentiousness, as in aretino's _ragionamenti_, and the florentine _capitoli_. but it was incapable of tragic passion, lyrical rapture, intensity, sublimity, heroism. what ears would there have been in italy for marston's prologue to _antonio and mellida_ or for milton's definition of the poet's calling? the men who made this literature and those with whom they lived, for whom they wrote, were well-bred, satisfied with inactivity, open at all pores to pleasure, delighting in the refinements of tact and taste, but at the same time addicted to gross sensuality of word and deed. the world was over for them. the arenas of energy were closed. about the future life they entertained a suave and genial skepticism, a delicate _peut-être_ of blended affirmation and negation, lightly worn, which did not interrupt the observance of ceremonial piety. they loved their villa, like flamminio, ficino, bembo, all the poets of benacus. they spent their leisure between a grove of laurels and a study. they met in courtly circles for polite discourse and trifling dissertation, with no influencing passion, no speculative enthusiasm, no insight into mysteries deeper than the subtleties of poetry and art. not one of them, amid the crash and conflict of three nations on their soil, exclaimed in darkness _imus, imus præcipites!_ when the woes of italy touched them with a shade of melancholy, they sought relief in pastimes or in study. cinthio, prefacing his novels with the horrors of the sack of rome, bargagli using siena's agony as introduction to his love-romances, are parables of what was happening in the world of fact and feeling. the portrait of castiglione, clear-browed, sedate, intelligent, humane, expresses the best men of the best moment in that age. the _aminta_ is their dream-world, modeled on reality. vida's apostrophe to _pulcherrima roma_ utters their sentiment of nationality. there is a beautiful side to all this. it is the idyllic ideal of life, revealed in titian's picture of the _three ages of man_, the ideal which results in golden and consummate art, tranquilized to euthanasia, purged of all purpose more earnest than may be found in melodies played beside a fountain in the fields by boys to listening girls, on flute or viol. for this ideal a great future was in store, when the animating motive of idyllic melody expressed itself in the opera music of the eighteenth century, and italy gave the last of her imperishable gifts, a new and perfect art of song, to europe. but there is also an ugly side to all this. the ultimate corruption of the age--in its absence of energy, its avoidance of serious endeavor, its courtly adulation, its ruffianism, servility, cynicism and hypocrisy--is incarnated in aretino. here the vices of the italian renaissance show their cloven hoofs. through the orange and laurel bowers, flooded with tintoretto's golden sunlight, grins a bestial all-devouring satyr, a satyr far less innocent or gentle than greek poets feigned, with a wolf's jaws as well as a goat's legs. and in aretino is already foreshadowed baffo, the prurient and porcine caliban of verse, more barbarously bestial than venetian casanova. meanwhile amid apparent civility of manner, the violent crimes of a corrupt and servile race were frequent. poisoning and secret assassination, acts of personal vengeance and the employment of hired cut-throats, rendered life unsafe in that idyllic italy. the historian of this epoch, though he feels its splendor and would fain bless, finds himself forced to insist upon the darker details of the subject. the triumphal pæan of his opening pages ends, too often for his sympathy, in dissonance and wailing echoes. yet it would be unjust and unscientific to close on any note of lamentation, when the achievements of the eldest-born of europe's daughters stand arrayed before him. it has often been said that the renaissance presents an insoluble problem. twy-natured and indeterminate, the spirit of the age has been likened to the sphinx, whose riddle finds no oedipus. but this language is at best rhetorical. the anomalies and contradictions of a period to which we owe so much of our spiritual and intellectual force, are due to its transitional character. the middle ages were closed. the modern world was scarcely formed. this interval was chosen for the re-birth of the italian spirit. on the italians fell the complicated and perplexing task of modulating from the one phase to the other. and, as i have attempted to explain, the italians were a peculiar people. they had resisted the teutonic impact of the medieval past; but they had failed to prepare themselves for the drama of violence and bloodshed which the feudal races played out on the plains of lombardy. when we say that it was their duty to have formed themselves into a nation like the french, we are criticising their conduct from a modern point of view. experience proved that their policy of municipal independence was a kind of suicide. but the instincts of clanship, slowly transmuted through feudal institutions into a monarchical system, had from time immemorial been absent in italy. rome herself had never gathered the italian cities into what we call a nation. and when rome, the world's head, fell, the municipalities of italy remained, and the italian people sprang to life again by contact with their irrecoverable past.[587] then, though the church swayed europe from italian soil, she had nowhere less devoted subjects than in italy. proud as the italians had been of the empire, proud as they now were of the church, still neither the roman empire nor the roman church imposed on the italian character. pondering on the unique circumstances of this new nation, unorganized like her sisters, conscious of an immense past and a persistent vitality, shrewdly apathetic to the religious enthusiasms of the younger races, yet obliged to temporize and acquiesce and cloak indifference with hypocrisy, we are brought to feel, though we may not fully explain, the inevitableness of many distracting discords in what was still an incomplete phase of national existence. [footnote 587: "roma, caput mundi," is a significant phrase. it marks the defect of italian nationality as distinguished from cosmopolitan empire.] as a final consideration, after reviewing the anomalies of italian society upon the dissolution of the middle ages, we are fully justified in maintaining that the race which had produced machiavelli and columbus, campanella and galileo--that is to say, the firmest pioneers and freest speculators of the dawning modern age--was capable, left but alone, of solving its own moral contradictions by some virile effort. pioneering energy, speculative boldness, virility of effort (however masked by pedantry and purism, by the urbanities and amenities of polite culture, by the baseness of egotism and the immorality of social decadence), were the deepest notes of the bewildering age which forms our theme. but this freedom from interference, this luck of being left alone, was just what the italians could never get. the catastrophes of several successive invasions, followed by the petrifying stagnation of political and ecclesiastical tyranny, checked their natural evolution and suspended their intellectual life, before the fruit-time had succeeded to the flower-time of the renaissance. the magnificent audacity of their impulse fell checked in mid-career. their achievement might be likened to an arch ascending bravely from two mighty piers, whereon the key stone of completion was not set. when all her deities were decayed or broken, italy still worshiped beauty in fine art and literary form. when all her energies seemed paralyzed, she still pursued her intellectual development with unremitting ardor. this is the true greatness of those fifty years of glorious achievement and pitiful humiliation, during which the italians, like archimedes in his syracusan watch-tower, turned deaf ears to combatant and conqueror, intent on problems that involved the future destinies of man. the light of the classics had fallen on their pathway at the close of the middle ages. the leading of that light they still pursued, as though they had been consecrated to the service of a god before unknown in modern europe. their first and foremost gift to nations who had scourged and slain them, was a new and radiant conception of humanity. this conception externalized itself in the creation of a common mental atmosphere, in the expression of the modern spirit by fine art and literature, in the diffusion of all that is contained for us in culture. they wrought, thought, painted, carved and built with the antique ideal as a guiding and illuminative principle in view. this principle enabled them to elevate and harmonize, to humanize and beautify the coarser elements existing in the world around them. what they sought and clung to in the heritage of the ancients, was the divinity of form--the form that gives grace, loveliness, sublimity to common flesh and blood in art; style to poetry and prose; urbanity to social manners; richness and elegance to reflections upon history and statecraft and the problems of still infantine science. lastly, whatsoever is implied in the double formula of the discovery of man and of the world--the resuscitation of learning by scholars; the positive study of human motives and action by historians; the new philosophy prepared by speculators of the southern school; the revival of mathematical and astronomical researches after a sound method; the endeavor to base physical science on experiment and observation; the exploration of the western hemisphere by navigators--all this we owe to the italians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. we may allow that their execution of a task so arduous and beneficial was accomplished under conditions of social corruption and political apathy, which somewhat dimmed the luster of their triumph. it may be admitted that they failed, even in their own domains of art and poetry, to realize the highest possible ideals; and we may ascribe this failure partly to their moral feebleness, which contradicts our sense of manhood. still these are no reasons why we should not pay the homage due to their achievement. the deepest interest in the italian renaissance, the warmest recognition of its services to modern europe, are compatible with a just conviction that the tone of that epoch is not to be imitated. such imitation would, in point of fact, be not merely anachronistic but impossible. to insist on anything so obvious would be impertinent to common sense, were we not from time to time admonished from the chair of criticism that a new gospel, founded on the principles of the renaissance, has been or is being preached in england. criticism, however, is fallible; and in this matter its mistake is due to the english incapacity for understanding that scientific curiosity may be engaged, without didactic objects, on moral and historical problems. we cannot extract from the renaissance a body of ethical teaching, an ideal of conduct, or a discipline of manners, applicable to the altered conditions of the nineteenth century. but we can exercise our ingenuity upon the complex questions which it offers; we can satisfy the passion of inquiry, which prompts men to examine, analyze, reflect upon, and reappropriate the past. we can attempt to depict the period, as we recover a phase of our own youth by recollection, extenuating nothing, setting nothing down in malice, using the results of our researches for no purposes of propaganda, but aiming, in so far as our capacity sustains us, at the simple truth about it. for a student animated with this passion of curiosity, the italian renaissance, independently of any sympathies he may have formed for the italian people, or any fascination which an age and race so picturesque may exercise, must be a subject worthy of most patient contemplation. as we grow in knowledge, corroborating and confirming those views about the world and man which originated with the new direction given to inquiry in the fifteenth century, we learn with ever stronger certainty, that as there is no interruption in the order of nature, so the history of civilization is continuous and undivided. in the sequence of events, in the growth of human character, no arbitrary freaks, no flaws of chance, are recognizable. age succeeds to age; nations rise and perish; new elements are introduced at intervals into the common stock; the drama is not played out with one set of actors. but, in spite of all change, and though we cannot as yet demonstrate the law of evolution in details, we are reasonably convinced that the development of human energy and intellectual consciousness has been carried on without cessation from the earliest times until the present moment, and is destined to unbroken progress through the centuries before us. history, under the influence of this conception, is rapidly ceasing to be the record of external incidents, of isolated moments, or of brilliant episodes in the epic of humanity. we have learned to look upon it as the biography of man. to trace the continuity of civilization through the labyrinths of chance and error and suspended energy, apparent to a superficial glance or partial knowledge, but on closer observation and a wider sweep of vision found to disappear, is the highest aim of the historian. the germ of this new notion of man's life upon our planet was contained in the cardinal intuition of the renaissance, when the ancient and the modern worlds were recognized as one. it assumed the dignity of organized speculation in the german philosophies of history, and in the positive philosophy of auguste comte. it has received its most powerful corroboration from recent physical discoveries, and has acquired firmer consistency in the darwinian speculation. whether we approach the problem from a theological, a positive, or a purely scientific point of view, the force of the hypothesis remains unaltered. we are obliged to think of civilized humanity as one. in this unbroken sequence of events, a place of prime importance must be assigned to the renaissance; and the italian race at that moment must be regarded, for a short while at least, as the protagonist of the universal drama. the first stage of civilization is by common consent assigned to the eastern empires of remote antiquity; the second to the hellenic system of civic liberty and intellectual energy; the third to roman organization. during the third period a new spiritual force was evolved in christianity, and new factors were introduced into europe by the immigration of the northern races. the fourth historical period is occupied by the church and feudalism, the first inheriting roman organization, the second helping to constitute the immigrant races into new nationalities. the fifth great epoch is the emancipation of modern europe from medieval influences. we may be said to live in it; for though the work of liberation has in large measure been accomplished, no new social principle or comprehensive system has yet supervened. three movements in the process can, however, be discerned; and these are respectively known by the names of renaissance, reformation, revolution. it was in the first of these three stages that italy determined the course of civilization. to neglect the work achieved by italy, before the other nations of europe had emerged from feudalism, is tantamount to dropping a link indispensable to the strength and cohesion of the whole chain. accustomed to regard the church as a political member of their own confederation, and withdrawn from the feudal system by the action of their communes, the italians were specially fitted to perform their task. the conditions under which they lived as the inheritors of rome, obliged them to look backward instead of forward; and from this necessity emerged the revival of learning, which not only restored the interrupted consciousness of human unity, but supplied the needful starting-point for a new period of intellectual growth. the connection between the study of classical literature, scientific investigation, and biblical criticism, has been already insisted on in this work. from the renaissance sprang the reformation, veiling the same spirit in another form, before the church bethought herself of quenching the new light in italy. without the skeptical and critical industry of the italians; without their bold explorations in the fields of philosophy, theology and political science; without their digging round the roots of human knowledge; without their frank disavowal of past medieval transcendentalism; neither the german reformation nor the advance of speculative thought in france, holland and england, would have been possible. to pursue the subject further is not necessary. how the revolution was linked to the reformation by the intermediate action of holland, england and america; and how the european peoples, educated after the type designed by italian humanists, formed their literatures, built up philosophies, and based positive inquiry on solid foundations, are matters too well known and have too often been already noted to need illustration. it is enough for a student of the renaissance to have suggested that the peculiar circumstances and sympathies of the italians, at a certain moment of this modern evolution, forced and enabled them to do what was imperatively demanded for its after progress. that they led the van of liberation; that, like the jews and greeks, their predecessors, they sacrificed their independence in the very triumph of achievement; are claims upon our everlasting gratitude. this lends the interest of romance or drama to the doleful tale of depredation and enslavement which concludes the history of the italian renaissance. appendices. appendix i. (see above, chapter xi.) _italian comic prologues._ the current of opinion represented by the prologues to italian comedies deserves some further illustration. bibbiena, in the _calandra_, starts with what is tantamount to an apology for the modern style of his play. "voi sarete oggi spettatori d'una nuova commedia intitolata calandra, in prosa non in versi, moderna non antica, volgare non latina." he then explains why he has chosen the language of his age and nation, taking great pains to combat learned prejudices in favor of pure latin. at the close he defends himself from the charge of having robbed from plautus, confessing at the same time that he has done so, and thus restricting his earlier boast of novelty to the bare point of diction. in the prose _cassaria_, which was contemporaneous with the _calandra_, ariosto takes the same line: nuova commedia v'appresento, piena di vari giuochi; che nè mai latine nè greche lingue recitarno in scena. parmi vedere che la più parte incline a riprenderla, subito ch'ho detto nuova, senza ascoltarne mezzo o fine: chè tale impresa non gli par suggetto delli moderni ingegni, e solo stima quel, che gli antiqui han detto, esser perfetto. he then proceeds to defend his own audacity, which really consists in no more than the attempt to remodel a latin play. in the prologue to the prose _suppositi_ ariosto follows a different course, apologizing for his _contaminatio_ of plautus and terence by the argument that they borrowed from menander and apollodorus. machiavelli in the prologue to the _clizia_ says that history repeats itself. what happened at athens, happened yesterday at florence. he has, therefore, laid his scene at florence: "perchè atene è rovinata, le vie, le piazze, i luoghi non vi si riconoscono." he thus justifies the modern _rifacimento_ of an ancient comedy conducted upon classical principles. gelli in the _sporta_ reproduces ariosto's defense for the _suppositi_. if he has borrowed from plautus and terence, they borrowed from menander. then follows an acute description of comedy as it should be: "la commedia, per non essere elleno altro ch'uno specchio di costumi della vita privata e civile sotto una imaginazione di verità, non tratto da altro che di cose, che tutto 'l giorno accaggiono al viver nostro, non ci vedrete riconoscimenti di giovani o di fanciulle che oggidì non ne occorre." cecchi in the _martello_ says he has followed the _asinaria_: rimbustata a suo dosso, e su compostovi (aggiungendo e levando, come meglio gli è parso; e ciò, non per corregger plauto, ma per accomodarsi ai tempi e agli uomini che ci sono oggidì) questa sua favola. in the _moglie_ and the _dissimili_ he makes similar statements, preferring "la opinione di quelli maestri migliori" (probably ariosto and machiavelli), and also: perchè il medesimo ved'egli che hanno fatto li più nobili comici che vi sieno. lorenzino de' medici in his prologue to the _aridosio_ tells the audience they must not be angry if they see the usual lover, miser, and crafty servant, "e simil cose delle quali non può uscire chi vuol fare commedie." these quotations may suffice. if we analyze them, it is clear that at first the comic playwrights felt bound to apologize for writing in italian; next, that they had to defend themselves against the charge of plagiarism; and in the third place that, when the public became accustomed to latinizing comedies in the vulgar tongue, they undertook the more difficult task of justifying the usage which introduced so many obsolete, monotonous, and anachronistic elements into dramatic literature. at first they were afraid to innovate even to the slight extent of adaptation. at last they were driven to vindicate their artificial forms of art on the score of prescribed usage. but when cecchi and lorenzino de' medici advanced these pleas, which seem to indicate a desire on the part of their public for a more original and modern comedy, the form was too fixed to be altered. aretino, boldly breaking with tradition, had effected nothing. il lasca, laughing at the learned unrealities of his contemporaries, was not strong enough to burst their fetters. nothing was left for the playwrights but to go on cutting down the old clothes of plautus and terence to fit their own backs--as cecchi puts it. appendix ii. (see above, chapter xiv.) _passages translated from folengo and berni, which illustrate the lutheran opinions of the burlesque poets._ orlandino vi. 41. "to thee, and not to any saint i go; how should their mediation here succeed? the canaanitish woman, well i know, prayed not to james or peter in her need; she had recourse to only thee; and so, alone with thee alone, i hope and plead. thou know'st my weal and woe; make plain the way thou, lord, for to none other dare i pray. "nor will i wander with the common kind, who, clogged with falsehood and credulity, make vows to gothard or to roch, and mind i know not what saint bovo more than thee; because some friar, as cunning as they're blind, offering to moloch, his dark deity, causes thy mother, up in heaven, a queen, to load with spoil his sacrifice obscene. "beneath the husk of piety these friars make a huge harvest for themselves to hold; the alms on mary's altar quench the fires of impious greed in priests who burn for gold: another of their odious laws requires that year by year my faults should still be told to a monk's ears:--i who am young and fair!- he hears, and straightway flogs his shoulders bare: "he flogs himself because he feels the sting my words, impregnate with lasciviousness, send to his heart; so sharp are they, and wring his lust so nearly, that, in sore distress, with wiles and wheedling ways, he seeks to bring me in his secret will to acquiesce; and here confessors oft are shown to be more learned in pimping than divinity. "therefore, o lord, that know'st the heart of man, and seest thy church in these same friars' grasp, to thee with contrite soul, as sinners can, who hope their faults forgiven, my hands i clasp; and if, my god, from this mad ocean thou'lt save me, now, as at my latest gasp, i vow that never more will i trust any who grant indulgences for pound or penny." such prayers, chock-full of rankest heresy, prayed berta; for she was a german wench: in those days, you must know, theology had changed herself to roman, flemish, french; but i've my doubts that in the end she'll be found squatting _à la_ moor on some turk's bench, because christ's seamless coat has so been tattered its rags have long since to the winds been scattered. orlandino viii. 22. "i do not marvel much," rainero cried, "if the lambs suffer scandals and the fold be ruined by these wolves of lust and pride, foemen to god beneath god's flag enrolled: but for the present need i'll soon provide- ho! to my presence drag yon prior bold!" sharp were the words; the sheriff in a skurry, he and his serjeants to the convent hurry, drag forth that _monstr'horrendum_ from his lair, and lead him straight to rayner on his throne; folk run together at the brute to stare, you never saw an ox so overgrown; and not a man but stops his nostrils there from the foul stench of wine, sweat, filth unknown; one calls him bacchus, and silenus one, or hog, or bag of beastliness, or tun. "stand forth before my face," rainero cries, "thou man of god, prophet most reverend! i know that thou in all the lore art wise, of things divine, and what the stars portend; with thee the freedom of s. peter lies, great freedom though but little pelf to spend! stand forth, i say, before me, father blest; there are some doubts i'd fain have put to rest. "truly thou know'st e'en better how much tripe must go to stuff the cupboard of thy prog: 'tis there are stowed more fish, flesh, onions ripe, than there be leaves in forest, field, or bog: thy scores of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, outnumber the sea sands, thou gorging dog! therefore i honor thee no more nor less than a beast filled with filth, a stinking cess. "bundle of guts, hast thou no shame to show thy visage to the eyes of living wight? think'st thou that 'tis for nothing thou dost owe thy calling to christ's sheepfold? by this light, judas the traitor did no worse, i know, than thou what time he sold his lord at night; caiaphas, annas, herod, pilate, all helped pluto less than thou man's soul to thrall. "think'st thou the benedicts, pauls, anthonies, gave rules like thine unto their neophytes? they fed on lentils, beans, peas, cabbages, curbing their own rebellious appetites, not merely preaching how the spirit flees from satan's fraud and his accursèd rites; they slept on sand and marble cold, and sang psalms that through night and day unceasing rang. "quiet within their cells they stayed, nor dealt on street or square with idle loitering bands; kindly to wayfarers and meek, they knelt to wash their feet, and not, like you, their hands; and when they left the cloisters where they dwelt, to traverse hills or plains in foreign lands, a staff or crutch upon their pilgrimage sufficed to prop the faltering steps of age. "that frugal diet of plain herb and root you've changed to-day for quails and partridges; some miracle has turned to flesh their fruit, their acorns, brambles, and wild strawberries; the straw they slept on, hath grown dissolute with down and cushions; their lean visages are swathed in fat, with double, treble chins, red as the sun's face when the day begins. "their staves and crutches, o rare miracle wrought by these living saints! are steeds of price; their reed-built cot, refectory or cell, soar into palaces that flout the skies; in many an abbey now lewd strumpets dwell, hounds, hawks, the instruments of pride and vice:- fools, madmen, idiots, maniacs are ye, who've left to priests or friars your wealth in fee! "what could be worse impiety than thus to rob your lawful kindred of their own, and squander it on those obstreperous bell-ringing monks, who let one voice alone speak in the church for twenty?--all that fuss in praise of poverty is only shown to bait beneath the shadow of their cowl some gudgeon, or birdlime some silly fowl!" such things and others full of angry spite said rayner, contrary to sober reason; for if a man should lose his temper quite, sense leaves him, he can't speak one word in season: but when church rights and wrongs their wrath excite, i've noticed that your great men often seize on some crazy fad; they fancy, o how silly! that friars should feed on acorns, willy-nilly. then spake the prior: "noble lord and sir! with your forbearance i'll speak with precision. _ecclesia dei_ ne'er was known to err; you may have read in tully this decision: the stagyrite, our sole interpreter of gospel text, confirms this definition- _quod merum laicus non det judicare clericam preti et fratris scapulare._ "there is a gloss which lays down, _quod prelatum non est subjectus legi constantina, affirmans eo quod nullum peccatum accidit in persona et re divina. et hoc deinceps fuit roboratum in capite, ne agro a clementina. et princeps, qui de ecclesia se impazzabit, scomunicatus cito publicabit_. "saith _thomas_ in a text on which i've pored, second distinction of his chapter _quo_, _quod unde spirtus sanctum_ hath been stored, _possibile non est_ for sin to accrue: my life hath naught to hide, illustrious lord, _in visu verbo et opera_ from you; for christ himself our saviour teaches that, speaking to all, _lux vestra luceat_. "behold and see how next my skin i wear a shirt of wool instead of linen fine! by hair-cloth of this texture you may swear i circumspectly walk in duty's line. look now a little lower!"--free and fair laughed rayner, when the excellent divine shows all he's got--an illustration purer than e'er occurred to saint bonaventura. orlandino viii. 73. i am no heretic, as to my shame before the common folk you christen me! perchance your lofty reverence will claim me for a cut-throat, come from saxony, to wreak my violence on rome's dread name! yet you are wrong: for, look you, burgundy trusts less in german bishops, or in french, or spanish, than the mighty roman bench. far more i trust in the high trinity, in father, son, and eke the spirit blest; in mary's undefiled virginity, since god from her derived his fleshly vest; i trust in that inscrutable potency granted from god to man, by which behest he dares, if his enormities be great, call himself, not god, but god's delegate. it is my creed that the good jesus wrought all that he came to witness here below; i hold that the predicted sword he brought, came to bring peace on earth and also woe; i hold that a thief's tear, repentance-fraught, shuts hell and opens heaven; and this i know that the firm truth of what the gospel saith, is naught but pure and uncorrupted faith. i hold that he was fair without one flaw, wore beard and locks around his shoulder sprent; i hold the lamb's blood abrogates the law and every type of that old testament; wherefore i hold there differs not a straw betwixt the tonsure and the hair unshent; but i believe the clergy still were known for rebels to his work and will alone. i hold that on the motion of a lewd pope of that year, with certain pharisees, pilate did nail him to the cruel wood between two thieves with fierce indignities; i hold that thence for men a pledge accrued, and memory so sweet that still it frees us from god's righteous anger, and discloses the veil that clung before the eyes of moses. i speak of his dire passion, and the boon most wondrous of his body and his blood, eating the which all persons late or soon may quit those quails and grouse, their desert food; i hold that christ seeks not for eyes that swoon, wry necks, and faces set to solemn mood; but for the heart alone: this is my creed; if it be wrong, i waste vain breath indeed. i hold that hell exists, and purgatory, beyond this world; and here i prove it too: wherefore, in concert with s. paul, i glory in having passed those many trials through, not by my might but that great adjutory, who calls aloud with ringing voice and true; perils mid hills and robbers, storms and fires, perils at sea, and perils from false friars! my saviour in the flesh i trust to see, and hope for ever to enjoy his sight:- but here the force of faith abandons me; help then, thou bishop, great albertus hight! son of nichomachus, i turn to thee, dubbed doctor of the church by thomas wight, without whose metaphysic, as i've read, the _verbum dei_ were but ill bestead. i hold that a lay sinner can repent; that churchmen never are what they pretend- i speak of bad ones:--d'you mistake my bent, and in god's house defy me to contend?- pray softly, softly! it was never meant, good servants of our lord, _your_ fame to rend: nay, _you_ i honor, since you please god duly; places i'd change with _you_ really and truly: gainst scapular and cord i've naught to tell, gainst cowl or tassel, breviary or book; that superstition need not choke you, well i know; you may be pious as you look: i swear to all that no man here should smell disparagement to monks, from prior to cook; i'm aiming at those wolves and hirelings fairly, who give large orders and perform them sparely. orlando innamorato, canto xx. the suppressed induction. a brand-new story now compels my song, to make the twentieth canto bright and clear, whence all the world shall plainly learn ere long some saints are not such saints as they appear; for cowls, gray, blue or black, a motley throng, with dangling breviaries and brows severe, and often naming on the lips our lord, while the heart's cold, no sanctity afford. a cupping-glass upon your skull, a leech, a blister, or a tonsure, are all one; it will not help you though you gird your breech with several braces or with one alone; or wear straight vestments, long and lank, that reach like coachmen's great-coats to your heels, or drone gibberish and paternosters:--sainthood needs more than fair words for foul and filthy deeds. the hands are where true charity begins; not the mouth, face, or clothes: be mild, humane, reticent, sorry for your neighbor's sins, pitiful to his suffering and his pain: christians need wear no masks; who wears them, wins a backway to the fold, and brings it bane, scaling the wall by craft--a traitor he, a thief and knave, who deals in subtlety. these be that tribe of rogues and rascals whom our good lord hates, the race on whom alone in wrath he uttered that tremendous doom, though every other fault he could condone: ye whited sepulchers, ye living tomb, fire on the surface, in the soul a stone! why will ye wash the outside of the platter? first cleanse your heart--that is the graver matter! 'tis said by some that by and by the good pope and his prelates will reform their ways: i tell you that a turnip has no blood, nor sick folk health, nor can you hope to raise syrup from vinegar to sauce your food: the church will be reformed when summer days come without gad-flies, when a butcher's store has neither bones nor dogs about the door. sanga, this lewd age is an age of lead, whence truth is banished both in deed and word: you're called a fool, poor-spirited, ill-bred, if you but name s. peter and our lord: where'er you walk, where'er you turn your head, some rascal hypocrite, with scowl abhorred, snarls twixt his teeth "freethinker! lutheran!"- and lutheran means, you know, good christian. those grasping priests have thrown a net full wide: with bells and anthems, altar-cloth and cope, they lift their well-decked shrines on every side, bent upon life eternal--sorry hope! this wooden image is the sailor's pride, that plastered face the soldier's; piss-pots slope in rows to cosmo and s. damian; the pox belong to stout sebastian. baron s. anthony hides fire in heart, thoughts of the donkey and the swine in head; whence comes it that all monks in every part stuff paunch and wallet with flesh, wine, and bread: yon abbot, like silenus, fills a cart; yon cardinal's a bacchus overfed; the pope through europe sells, a second mars, bulls and indulgences to feed his wars. the word of god, aroused from its long trance, runs like live fire abroad through germany; the work continues, as the days advance, unmasking that close-cloaked iniquity, which with a false and fraudulent countenance so long imposed on france, spain, italy: now by the grace of god we've learned in sooth what mean the words church, charity, hope, truth. o the great goodness of our heavenly sire! behold, his son once more appears on high, treads under foot the proud rebellious ire of faithless churchmen, who by threat and lie strove to conceal the love that did inspire the mighty maker of earth, sea, and sky, what time he served, and bore our flesh, and trod with blood the path that leads man back to god. none speaks in this lost land of his pure blood, that sinless blood of christ, both god and man, which quelled the serpent's stiff and venomous brood, the powers malign that reigned where lethe ran! in his fair bleeding limbs he slew the lewd old adam from whose sin our woes began, appeased his father's wrath, and on the door of impious hell set bars for evermore. this is that seed thrice holy and thrice blest, promised to our first parents, which doth bring unto the stairs of heaven our hope oppressed! this is that puissant and victorious king, whose foot treads man's misjudgment on the crest! this is that calm clear light, whose sunbeams fling shade on the souls and darkness o'er the eyes of fools in this world's knowledge vainly wise! o christians, with the hearts of hebrews! ye who make a mortal man your chief and head, of these new pharisees first pharisee! your soaring and immortal pinions spread for that starred shrine, where, through eternity, the lamb of god is pope, whose heart once bled that men, blind men, from yon pure font on high might seek indulgence full and free for aye! yet that cooked crayfish hath the face to pray, kneeling in chapel opposite that crow, that antichrist, upon some holy day- "thou art our sail, our rudder!"--when we know the simple truth requires that he should say "thou art the god of ruin and of woe, father of infinite hypocrisies, of evil customs and all heresies!"- o sanga, for our lord verona's sake, put by your virgil, lay lucretius down, ovid, and him in whom such joy you take, tully, of latin eloquence the crown! with arms out-spread, our heart's arms, let us make to him petition, who, without our own merit or diligence or works, can place our souls in heaven, made worthy by his grace! and prithee see that molza is aware, and navagero, and flaminio too, that here far other things should be our care than janus, flora, thetis, and the crew of homer's gods, who paint their page so fair! here we experience the false and true; here find that sun, which shows, without, within, that man by nature is compact of sin. o good fregoso, who hast shut thine ear to all those siren songs of poesy, abiding by the mirror keen and clear, in joyance of divine philosophy both testaments, old, new, to thee are dear! thou hast outworn that ancient fantasy which led thee once with fondulo to call plato the link twixt peter and s. paul!- but now gradasso calls me; i am bid back to the follies of my paladins- etc., etc. appendix iii. _on palmieri's "città di vita."_ (_to illustrate part i. p. 171._) in the first part of this sketch of italian literary history (_renaissance in italy_, vol. iv. p. 171, note 2) i promised, if possible, to give some further notice of palmieri's poem entitled the _città di vita_. this promise i was unable to fulfill in the proper place. but while my book was going through the press, i obtained the necessary materials for such a study of palmieri's work through the courtesy of a florentine scholar, signor a. gherardi, who sent me extracts from a ms. existing in the laurentian library. this ms., which is an illuminated parchment codex, contains, besides the poem, the commentary of lionardo dati, with his life of the author and two of his letters addressed to palmieri. whether or not the codex is an autograph, remains uncertain. but it has this singular interest, that matteo palmieri himself presented it to the art of the notaries in florence, sealed and under the express condition that it should not be opened so long as he lived imprisoned in his body--"ut non aperiatur dum in suo religatus corpusculo vivat." after his death, the republic decreed a public funeral to their honored magistrate and servant; and the ms. in question was placed upon his breast in the church of s. pier maggiore, where he was interred in the family chapel of the palmieri. alamanno rinuccini pronounced the panegyrical oration on this occasion; and in his speech he alluded to "this bulky volume which lies upon his breast, a poem in _terza rima_, called by him the city of life." it would appear, from the circumstance of the volume having been presented under seal to the art of the notaries, that palmieri, while wishing to secure the safety of his poem, was aware of its liability to censure. what he may have dreaded, happened after his decease; for his opinions were condemned as heretical, and the picture botticelli painted for him in illustration of his views, was removed from its place in the palmieri chapel of s. pier maggiore. this picture is now in the possession of the duke of hamilton. the ms. of the _città di vita_ passed from the art of the notaries into the laurentian library. since the biographical notices from the pen of palmieri's friend, lionardo dati, which this ms. contains, form our most trustworthy source of information about the poet's life, it may be well to preface the account of his poem with an abstract of their contents. matteo palmieri was a member of an honorable florentine family. born in 1405, he received his first education in grammar from sozomeno of pistoja. afterwards he studied greek and latin letters in the schools of carlo aretino and ambrogio traversari. in early manhood he entered public life, and passed through the various florentine magistracies to the dignity of gonfalonier of justice. the signory employed him upon embassies to calixtus iii., frederick iii., alfonso the magnanimous and paul ii. matteo devoted his leisure to study and composition. the treatise _della vita civile_, which he wrote in italian, was a work of his adolescence. then followed, in latin, a life of niccolò acciaiolo, a narrative of the successful war with pisa, and a universal history, which was subsequently continued by mattia palmieri--a pisan, who, though he bore the same name, was in no wise related to our author. the _città di vita_ was a work of his mature age. he died probably in 1478. matteo told lionardo dati that on the first of august, 1451, while he was living at pescia as governor of the val di nievole, he dreamed that his dead friend cipriano rucellai appeared to him, and invited him to the yearly festival which was celebrated on that day in a monastery, called il paradiso, near florence. in his dream, matteo accompanied the ghost of cipriano, conversing on the way about the state of spirits after death--where they dwell, and how they are permitted to revisit their living friends. cipriano, moreover, revealed to him weighty matters concerning the nature of the human soul. he told him how god first made angels in innumerable hosts. these angels separated into three companies. the one band followed lucifer, when he rebelled. the second held with michael and abode firm in their allegiance. the third decided neither for god nor for the devil. after lucifer's defeat, these angels of the third class were relegated to the elysian fields, which extend at all points over the extreme periphery of the highest sphere; and god, wishing to give them a final chance of determining for good or evil, ordained that they should, one by one, be sent to dwell in human bodies. there, attended by a good and a bad spirit, they have the choice of lives, and after their death in the body, are drafted into the trains of lucifer or michael according to their conduct. having communicated this doctrine, cipriano vanished from his friend's sight with these words upon his lips: misero ad noi quanto mal segno rizoron quelli che si fer ribelli per porre in aquilon loco più degno. palmieri forgot or neglected the import of his dream until the year 1455, when he was at alfonso's court in naples. there cipriano appeared to him again, rebuked him for his carelessness, and bade him write a poem in _terza rima_, after dante's method, on the subject of their former discourse. he also recommended him three books, which would assist him in the labor. when palmieri returned to florence, he obtained these helps and set about the composition of his poem. it must have been completed in 1464; for in this year dati received a copy, which he styled _opus pæne divinum_, and began to annotate. in 1466 dati wrote again to palmieri, thanking him for an emended copy of the work, which the author had sent him from florence to rome. palmieri's own letter accompanying the gift, refers to the poem as already published. this proves (as would, indeed, appear from the title given him by ficino of _poeta theologicus_) that, whatever may have been his dread of a prosecution for heresy, he had at least divulged the _città di vita_ to the learned. the poem consists of three books, divided, like dante's _commedia_, into one hundred cantos; but the extra canto has by palmieri been assigned to the last instead of the first cantica. the title _città di vita_ was given to it, because palmieri designed to bring the universe into consideration under the aspect of spiritual existence. the universe, as he conceived it, is the burgh in which all souls live. his object was to show how free-will is innate in men, who have the choice of good and evil, of salvation or perdition, in this life. the origin of evil he relegates to that prehistoric moment of lucifer's revolt, when the third class of angels refused to side with either god or devil. in the first book, then, he describes how these angels are transmitted from the elysian fields to earth, in order that they may become men, and in their mortal body be forced to exercise their faculty of election. in the second book he treats of the way of perdition. in the third book he deals with the way of salvation. following dante's precedent in the choice of virgil, he takes the sibyl for his guide upon the beginning of this visionary journey. the heretical portions of the _città di vita_ are cantos v. ix. x. xi. of the first cantica. these deal with the original creation of angelic essences, and with the transit of the indeterminate angels to our earth. regarding the universe from the ptolemaic point of view, palmieri conceives that these angels, who inhabit the elysian fields beyond the utmost verge of the stellar spheres, proceed on their earthward journey through the several planets, till they reach our globe, which is the center of the whole. on their way, they gradually submit to animal impressions and prepare themselves for incarnation, according to that conception which made the human soul itself in a certain sense corporeal. it is here that palmieri adjusts the theory of planetary influences to his theory of free will. for he supposes that the angels assimilate the qualities of the planetary spheres as they pass through them, being attracted by curiosity to one planet rather than another. at the same time they undergo the action of the three superior elements, which fits them for their final reception into an earthly habitation. after this wise he ingeniously combined his theories of the creation, the fall, and free-will, with averroistic doctrines of intermediate intelligences and speculations collected from platonistic writings. the path of the descending angels is, to quote the words of dati, "in a straight line beneath the first point of cancer to the cave of earth, in which line there are ten gates, for each of the planets to wit, and for the three super-terrestrial elements each his gate. the whole of this vast body of the universe is by our poet called the city of life, forasmuch as in this universe all creatures live. and this journey of the souls from elysium to their bodies is performed in one year." it will be observed that palmieri affected the precision of his master dante. having thus conducted the soul to earth, he is no less definite in his description of the two ways, which severally lead to damnation and salvation. in the second cantica, he employs the space of a whole year compressed into one night, in passing through the eighteen mansions of the passions of the flesh, fortune and the mind. for this journey he has the guidance of an evil spirit. afterwards, in the third cantica, he employs the same space of one year compressed into a single day, in traversing the twelve mansions of civil virtue and purgation, through which the soul arrives at beatific life. in this voyage he is guided by a good angel. it is not necessary to enter further into the calculations whereby palmieri adjusts the chronology and cosmography of his vision to the ptolemaic theory of the universe. though the material of the poem is thus curious, and the structure thus ingenious, it does not rise in style above the level of the works of frezzi and uberti (see above vol. iv. chap. 3). in order to give the reader a specimen of its composition, i will extract a passage from cantica i. canto v., which concerns the divine being and the creation of angels: sopra ogn'altro potere è questo tale, che come e' vuole in tutto può giovare, sanza potenza di voler far male. tal carità volendo ad altri dare la gloria in sè, (?) di se stesso godeva, degnò co' cieli ancor la terra fare. et perchè cosa far non si poteva che eterno bene in ciel sempre godesse, se sempre quel goder non intendeva; intelligenza bisognò facesse con lume di ragione et immortale, ad chi l'eterno ben tutto si desse. creatura fè per questo rationale, l'angelo et l'huomo acciò che 'l somme bene godessono intendendo quel che e' vale. da 'ntenderlo et amar di ragion vene volerlo possedere, et con letitia per sempre usar sanza timor di pene. ad questo idio creò la gran militia del celestiale exercitio et felice, che 'n parte cadde per la sua malitia. index. _in the following index the volume on the 'age of the despots' is referred to as vol. i., that on the 'revival of learning' as vol. ii., that on the 'fine arts' as vol. iii., and the two volumes on 'italian literature' as vols. iv. and v._ abbas siculus, received 800 scudi yearly as jurist at bologna, ii. 122 abbreviators, college of, founded by pius ii., ii. 358 abelard, teaching of, i. 9, v. 467 academies, the italian, ii. 161, 311; lose their classical character, 365; their degeneracy, 367, 542, v. 272; milton's commendation of them, ii. 367; their effect on italian poetry, v. 272 academy, the aldine, at venice, ii. 385, v. 272 accaiuolo, ruberto, i. 197 _note_ 1, 203 _note_ 2 accaiuolo, zenobio, made librarian of the vatican, ii. 425 accarigi, his dictionary to boccaccio, v. 254 _note_ 1 accolti, francesco di michele, his _terza rima_ version of the _principe di salerno_, iv. 250 _note_ 2 accoramboni, vittoria, bandello's _novella_ upon her trial, v. 54; use made of it by webster, 69, 117, 288; her poetry, v. 288 achates, leonard, his edition of lascari's grammar, ii. 376 achillini, professor of philosophy at padua, v. 458, 459 adami, tobia, the disciple of campanella, v. 481 admonition, the law of, at florence, i. 226 adolph of nassau, pillages maintz, ii. 368 adorni, the, at genoa, i. 201 adrian vi., the tutor of charles v., iv. 398; elected by political intrigues, i. 441; his simplicity of life and efforts at reform, 441-443 (cp. ii. 434, 442); berni's satire on him, i. 443, v. 368 agnolo, baccio d', architect of the campanile of s. spirito at florence, iii. 86 agolanti of padua, i. 114 agostino, pre, his _lamenti_, iv. 172 _note_ 2 agrippa, his _de vanitate scientiarum_ quoted for the corruptions of rome, i. 459 _note_ 1 alamanni, antonio, writer of the 'triumph of death,' iv. 320, 393-395; translated, 395 alamanni, jacopino, story of, i. 211 alamanni, luigi, his translation of the _antigone_, v. 134, 240; his didactic poem, _la coltivazione_, 237; translation (in prose) of a passage on the woes of italy, 238; story of his life, 239; number and variety of his works, 240; his dramatic poem, the _flora_, 240; translation (in prose) of a passage on rome, 240 _note_ 1; said to have been a great _improvisatore_, 240; his satires, 381; composed in the metre of the divine comedy, iv. 172 alamanni, luigi di tommaso, executed for his share in the conspiracy against cardinal giulio de' medici, v. 239 albano, francesco, v. 229 albergati, niccolò degli, his patronage of tommaso parentucelli (nicholas v.), ii. 223 alberti, the, at florence, exiled by the albizzi, iv. 184, 188; their family history, 190 _note_ 1 alberti, leo battista, his originality, ii. 5; his many-sided genius, 10, 341-344, iv. 183, 214-219; one of the circle gathered around lorenzo de' medici, ii. 322; iii. 263; his cosmopolitan spirit, iv. 184; recommends the study of italian, iv. 185, v. 508; his feelings for the greatness of ancient rome, iv. 186; character of his religious sentiment, 206, 216, 217; tenderness of his character, 218, v. 196, 511; arranges a poetical competition in italian at florence, iv. 238; architect of s. francesco at rimini, i. 172, 326, ii. 34, 210, 342, iii. 70 _note_ 1, 74; of s. andrea at mantua, ii. 342, iii. 70 _note_ 1, 75, 278; of the rucellai palace at florence, ii. 342, iii. 75; other architectural works of alberti, ii. 342, 440, iii. 74-76; his admiration of brunelleschi's dome at florence, iii. 67 _note_ 1, iv. 209 (cp. _ib._ 204), 216; influence of boccaccio on his writings, iv. 136; character of his style, 187; his narrative of porcari's attempt on nicholas v., i. 265 _note_ 1, 386; his description of nicholas' administration, i. 377; his latin play _philodoxius_, ii. 341, 452, iv. 183, v. 110; his _trattato della famiglia_, ii. 37, iv. 188, v. 190, 518; its value, iv. 188, 190, v. 455; analyzed, iv. 191; question whether alberti was the original author of the treatise _del governo della famiglia_, i. 239 _note_ 1, 272, iv. 192-203; the dialogues, v. 451, 455; the _deiciarchia_, iv. 203; the _tranquillità dell'animo_, 204; the _teogenio_, 205; the essays on the arts, 207-209; the dedication to brunelleschi, 208; the 'treatise on building' cited for the influence of vitruvius on italian architects, iii. 94 _note_ 1; the 'treatise on painting,' 127 _note_ 1; the various discourses upon love and matrimony, iv. 209-211; alberti the reputed author of 'ippolito and leonora,' 212, 250; his poems, 213 alberti, leo battista, the anonymous memoir of alberti, ii. 37, 184 _note_ 1, 195 _note_ 1, 216 _note_ 1, 218 albertini, francesco, aids mazochi in collecting the roman inscriptions, ii. 429 albertinelli, mariotto, his friendship with fra bartolommeo, iii. 304, 310 alberto da sarteano, fra, denounces beccadelli's 'hermaphroditus,' ii. 256 _note_ 1 albertus magnus, v. 467 albicante, giovanni alberto, probability that he was aretino's agent in mutilating berni's _rifacimento_ of the _orlando innamorato_, v. 375-380, 419; his relations to aretino, 419 albigenses, the, i. 9 albizzi, the, rule of, at florence, i. 221, iv. 2; their contest with the medici, i. 227 _note_ 3, ii. 167, 170, iv. 176, 184, 252; their exile of the alberti, iv. 184, 189 albizzi, rinaldo degli, his patronage of learning, ii. 165, 223 alciato, ii. 84 aldus manutius. [_see_ manuzio, aldo.] aleander, his lectures in hebrew at paris, i. 27, ii. 424; a member of the aldine academy, ii. 387; made cardinal, 402, 424; sent to germany as nuncio, 424 aleotti, galeotti, architect of the teatro farnese at parma, v. 144 alessi, galeazzo, his work at genoa, iii. 96; his church of s. maria di carignano there, 96 alexander of aphrodisias, his view of aristotle's doctrine of the soul, v. 472; adopted by pomponazzi, 459, 472 alexander, a cretan, joint editor of a greek psalter, ii. 376 alexander iii., i. 64 alexander iv., preaches a crusade against ezzelino, i. 107 _note_ 1, iv. 280 alexander vi., guiccardini's character of him, i. 308; invites the french into italy, 349, 427, 515; machiavelli makes him his example of successful hypocrisy, 357; his additions to the vatican, 389 _note_ 1; personal descriptions of him at his accession, 407; the popular legend of him, 408; his policy, 410, 427; his avarice, 413; his relations with the sultan and murder of prince djem, 415, 566 _note_ 1; his attitude towards orthodoxy, 416; his establishment of the censorship, 416, ii. 359, 371; his sensuality, 417-419; his exaggerated love of his children, 417; his grief at the murder of the duke of gandia, 425; his death--was it by poison? 429-431; the legend that he had sold his soul to the devil, 431; his attempt to gain over or silence savonarola, 529; comes to terms with charles and saves himself from a general council, 427, 532 _note_ 1, 565; joins the league of venice against charles viii., 577; the _menæchmi_ represented by his orders at the vatican at the espousal of lucrezia borgia, v. 139 alexius, marcus attilius, his character of paul ii., i. 385 _note_ 1 alfonso (the magnanimous), conquers naples, i. 88, 568; vespasiano's life of him, 480 _note_ 1, 569 _note_ 1, ii. 352; wins over the duke of milan, 568 _note_ 1; his nobility of character and love of learning, 569, ii. 38, 252, 265; his family life, 569; story of his patient listening to a speech of manetti, ii. 191 _note_ 1, 254; his patronage of manetti, 192 alfonso ii., king of naples, i. 543, 550; his avarice, 105; his league against charles viii., 550; character of him by comines, 572; his terrors of conscience and abdication, 119, 572 alfonso, prince of biseglia, husband of lucrezia borgia, murder of, i. 420 alidosi, the, of imola, i. 375 alidosi, cardinal, his patronage of scholars, ii. 404 alighieri, jacopo, his commentary upon the divine comedy, iv. 163; his _dottrinale_, 240 alione, giovan giorgio, his maccaronic satire on the lombards, v. 333 allegre, monseigneur d', captures the mistresses of alexander iii., i. 418 allegretti, allegretto, cited, i. 165 _note_ 1; on the reconciliation of factions at siena, 616, iii. 213 alopa, lorenzo, printer of the first edition of homer, ii. 369, 376 alticlinio of padua, i. 114 amadeo, antonio, iii. 78 _note_ 1; dispute about his name, 164; his work at the certosa of pavia, 164; his monument to media colleoni, 165 amalteo, ii. 506; his latin eclogues, 453, 497 ambra, his comedies, v. 123, 181 ambrogio da milano, his reliefs in the ducal palace, urbino, iii. 162 _note_ 1 america, discovery of, i. 3, 15, 29, ii. 112; given by alexander vi. to spain, i. 413 amerigo di peguilhan, his _lament_ on the death of manfred, iv. 27 amidei, the, at florence, i. 74, 210, _note_ 2 ammanati, bartolommeo, his work as sculptor and architect in florence, iii. 96; feebleness of his statues, 173; his regret that he had made so many statues of heathen gods, 174; his quarrels with cellini, 477 ammirato, scipione, quoted for the friendly rivalry of giangiorgio trissino and giovanni rucellai, v. 236 amurath ii., filelfo's mission to him, ii. 268 andrea dell'anguillara, giovanni, his tragedy of _edippo_, v. 134; acted in the palazzo della ragione, 134; his satiric poems, 381 andrea dell'aquila, probable sculptor of a monument in s. bernardino, aquila, iii. 141 _note_ 1 andrea da barbarino, probably the author of the _reali di francia_, iv. 246; other romances of his, 246 andrea of florence, said to be the painter of frescoes in s. maria novella, iii. 205 _note_ 1 andrea de pontadero (_called_ pisano), his work in bronze and marble, iii. 119 andrea di sicilia, elected professor at parma, iv. 315 angelico, fra, spirituality of his paintings, iii. 239; his intense religious feeling, 303, 311; critical difficulty of deciding his place in the succession of florentine painters, 240; his frescoes at orvieto, 283 _note_ 1 angioleri, cecco, his sonnets, iv. 56 _note_ 1 anguillara, i. 114, 404, 545 annales bononienses, quoted for the revival of 1457, i. 617 annius of viterbo, his forged histories, ii. 156 _note_ 2 antiquari, jacopo, his latin correspondence, ii. 288 _note_ 1, 532; quotation from a letter of his upon poliziano's miscellanies, 352; his verses on aldo manuzio, 390 _note_ 2; his nobility of character, 523 antonino, sant', the good archbishop of florence, i. 470 _note_ 1, iv. 313, v. 519 antonio da tempo, his _treatise on italian poetry_ cited for the early estimation of tuscan, iv. 31 _note_ 1 antonio di san marco (the roman goldsmith), his answer to agostino chigi's couplet on leo x., i. 435 _anziani_ or ancients, name of magistrates in some italian cities, i. 35, 68, 224 apollo belvedere, discovery of the, ii. 431; description of it by a venetian envoy, 434 apostolios aristoboulos, a compositor employed by aldo manuzio, ii. 378; a member of the aldine academy, 387; appiano, gherardo, sells pisa to gian galeazzo, i. 114, 148 appiano, jacopo, murders pietro gambacorta, i. 148, 148 _note_ 1 aquila, s. bernardo, monument of the countess montorio, iii. 141 _note_ 1 arabs, the, their preservation of greek literature, ii. 66, 68, 251, iii. 209, v. 468 arcadia, creation of the arcadian ideal at the renaissance, v. 197; length of time during which it prevailed, 197, 223; received form at the hands of sannazzaro, 197; lent itself to the dramatical presentation of real passion, in spite of its artificial form, 241. (_see_ guarini, sannazzaro, and tasso.) archio, latin verse writer, ii. 507 architecture, italian architecture rather local than national, ii. 5; architecture does not require so much individuality in the artist as painting, 7; effect on italian architecture of the ancient roman buildings, 439, iii. 48 _note_ 1; reasons why the middle ages excelled in architecture, iii. 10; architecture precedes the other arts, 40; the various building materials used in italian architecture, 44 arcimboldi, gian angelo, discovered the ms. of tacitus' _annals_ at corvey, ii. 140, 425 _ardenti_, the, an academy at naples, ii. 366 aretino, carlo. (_see_ marsuppini.) aretino, pietro, parallel between aretino, machiavelli, and cellini, iii. 479 (cp. v. 384); said to have died from excessive laughter, iv. 452; the story probably without foundation, v. 423; his quarrel with doni, 90, 419, 422; his writings placed on the index after his death, 422, 423; the comedies, 40, 123; their originality and freedom from imitation of the antique, 172, 173 (cp. 269 _note_ 1), 517; defective in structure, 173; point of view from which aretino regards contemporary manners in them, 174; celerity of their composition, 414; the _cortigiana_, its plot and characters, 176; intended to expose the courts, 176, 177, 178 (cp. 386 _note_ 1); sarcasms of the prologue on the italian authors, 180, _note_ 1; its testimony to the profligacy of rome, and to the belief that the sack of the city was a divine chastisement, i. 446 _note_ 1, v. 176, 190, 226; to the general corruption of morals in italy, v. 191; the _marescalco_, its plot, 178; may have supplied hints to shakspere and ben jonson, 178; the _talanta_, _ipocrita_, and _filosofo_, 179; comparison of the comedies of aretino, bibbiena, and machiavelli, 180; passage in the prologue to the _ipocrita_, referring to berni's _rifacimento_ of the orlando innamorato, 376 _note_ 2; prologue of the _talanta_ translated (in prose), 417-419; his madrigals and sonnets, 311; their badness, 415; his _capitoli_, 364, 381, 419; inferior to berni's, 415; the _dialoghi_, 386, 394, _note_ 1, 415; their description of life in roman palaces, 386 _note_ 1; belief of contemporary society in the good intentions of aretino in writing the work, 427; probability that aretino was the author of the mutilation of berni's _rifacimento_ of the orlando innamorato, 375-380, 406; he sides with bembo in his dispute with broccardo, 377; his place in italian literature, 383-385; his boyhood, 385; enters agostino chigi's service, 386; nature of his position, 386; stories of his early life, 387; begins to find his way into courts, 388; comes to rome at the election of clement vii., 389; writes a series of sonnets on obscene designs by giulio romano, and is obliged to quit rome, 389; makes the friendship of giovanni de' medici delle bande nere, 390, 391, 424; narrowly escapes assassination at rome, 391; his animosity against clement vii., 391, 392, 402 _note_ 1; retires to venice in order to support himself by literary labour, 392-395; dread inspired by his talents, ii. 34, 512, iii. 171, v. 392; trades upon the new power given by the press, v. 393; secures his reputation by writing religious romances, 394, 519; their worthlessness, 416, 427; may have been aided in them by niccolò franco, 420; his life at venice, 396-399; amount of money extorted by him, 399; presents made him by various princes, 400, 405; question as to the real nature of the influence exercised by him, 392, 401, 404, 406; partly owing to his force of character, 425-427; his attractiveness as a writer due to his naturalness and independence, 416; his employment of lying, abuse, and flattery, 401-404; his reputation for orthodoxy, 380, 405; idea of making him cardinal, ii. 22, 282 _note_ 1, 403, v. 405; his cowardice, 391, 405, 406; his relations to michelangelo, iii. 426, v. 408; the friend of sansovino and titian, iii. 167, 168, v. 398, 405 _note_ 4, 409, 425; his relations to men of letters, v. 409; his boasts of ignorance and attacks on the purists, 410-414; his celerity of composition, 414; his faults of taste, 417; effect of his writings on the euphuistic literature of the seventeenth century, and on the literature of abuse in europe, 417, 422; his literary associates, 419-423; the epitaph composed upon him, 423; his portrait (1) engraved by guiseppe patrini, (2) by sansovino, on the door of the sacristy in st. mark's, iii. 168, v. 424; his contradictions of character, v. 425, 517; aretino embodies the vices of his age, 425, 523; his correspondence, 384, _note_ 1, 393 _note_ 1; its illustrations of the profligacy of rome, 386 _note_ 1, 387 _note_ 1; a letter to titian quoted for a description of a venetian sunset, iii. 351, v. 417; aretino relates in a letter his life at mantua, v. 388; letters of his cited for the death of giovanni de' medici delle bande nere, 391 _note_ 2; the letter to the doge of venice, 395; letters describing his life at venice, 396-399; probability that aretino tampered with his correspondence before publication, 398 _note_ 1, 399 _note_ 1; letter describing his method of flattery, 403 _note_ 1; another quoted as a specimen of his begging style, 404 _note_ 1; another written to vittoria colonna, who entreated him to devote himself to pious literature, 407; another to bernardo tasso on epistolary style, 411 arezzo, the high school at, ii. 116; receives a diploma from charles iv., 118 ---cathedral shrine of s. donato (by giovanni pisano), iii. 110 ---s. francesco, piero della francesca, _dream of constantine_, iii. 235 argyropoulos, john, the guest of palla degli strozzi at padua, ii. 168; teaches greek at florence and rome, 210 ariosto, gabriele, brother of the poet, finishes _la scolastica_, iv. 502, v. 150 ariosto, giovanni battista, illegitimate son of the poet, iv. 502 ariosto, lodovico, his panegyrics of lucrezia borgia, i. 420, 422, v. 12 _note_ 1; of the d'este family, v. 5, 7, 9, 11, 12 _note_ 1, 30; ariosto inferior as a poet to dante, ii. 9; analogy of his character to that of boccaccio, iv. 506; quoted for the word _umanista_, ii. 71 _note_ 1; had no knowledge of greek, iv. 493, 517; facts of his life, 493-503 (cp. 517); enters the service of cardinal ippolito d'este, 494, (cp. 517); refuses to enter the church, 495; his rupture with the cardinal, 496; enters the service of alfonso i. of ferrara, 498; his superintendence of the ducal theatre, 498, v. 140, 141, 144; his marriage, iv. 502, v. 38; receives a pension from the marquis of vasto, iv. 503; his personal habits, 504; his device of the pen, 521; his genius representative of his age, v. 49, 518; the satires cited for the nepotism of the popes, i. 413, _note_ 2, iv. 509, 518; on the relations of the papacy to the nation, ii. 22; on the bad character of the humanists, 519, iv. 517; written in the metre of the divine comedy, iv. 172, 519; revelation of his own character contained in the satires, 504, 505-508, 517-519, v. 1, 5; their interest in illustrating the renaissance, iv. 518; subjects of the satires, 508; the first satire: ecclesiastical vices, 509 (cp. ii. 406); the second: dependents upon courts, character of ippolito d'este, 509; the third: the choice of a wife, 510, v. 38; fourth and sixth: court life and place-hunting, iv. 511-513; the fifth: the poet at garfagnana, 514; sketches of contemporaries, 515; the seventh: a tutor wanted for his son, vices of the humanists, 516 (for the latter cp. v. 155 _note_ 2); the _canzoni_, iv. 520; the origin of his love for alessandra benucci, 520; giuliano de' medici to his widow, 520; the _capitoli_, 509 _note_ 1, 519, v. 5; the _cinque canti_, iv. 501, 502; passage on the italian tyrants quoted, i. 130, iv. 506 _note_ 2; the madrigals and sonnets, iv. 522; the elegies, 519, 521; his latin poems, ii. 497, iv. 494, 497 _note_ 1, 506 _note_ 1, 522, v. 38; his translations from latin comedies, v. 140; the comedies, 40 _note_ 5, 111, 122, 123, 146 _note_ 1; the _negromante_ cited in illustration of the character of italian witches, 346 _note_ 1; plots of the comedies, 148, 153 _note_ 1; their satire, 150; the prologues, 147 _note_ 1, 150; the _scolastica_, left unfinished by ariosto, iv. 502, v. 150; its plot, v. 150; excellence of the characters, 151-153; its satire, 153-155; artistic merit of the comedies, 156; criticisms of them by machiavelli (?) and cecchi, 156; their value as sketches of contemporary life, 159; the _orlando furioso_: its relation to the old romances, iv. 248, 249; his debt to boiardo, 458 (cp. i. 171), 470, 489, 492; his silence respecting his indebtedness, 490; contrast of ariosto and boiardo, 463; continuous labour of ariosto upon the _orlando_, 497, 503, v. 42; the _orlando_ the final expression of the _cinque cento_, v. 2; ariosto's choice of a romantic subject, 4-6; why he set himself to finish boiardo's poem, 6; artistic beauty of the _orlando_, 6, 8, 14, 515; its subject as illustrating the age, 7; ariosto's treatment of romance, 9, 15; material of the _orlando_, 9-12; the connection of its various parts, 15; its pictorial character, 17-20; ariosto's style contrasted with the brevity of dante, 19; his power of narrative, 20; his knowledge of character, 21; the preludes to the cantos, 22; tasso's censure of them, 23; the tales interspersed in the narrative, 23-25; ariosto's original treatment of the material borrowed by him, 25; his irony, 26; illustrated by astolfo's journey to the moon, 27-30; illustrated by the episode of s. michael in the monastery, 31-33; peculiar character of his imagination, 29; his humour, 33; his sublimity and pathos, 34-36; the story of olimpia, 36; euripidean quality of ariosto, 35-37; the female characters in the _orlando_, 37-40; lessing's criticism of the description of alcina, iv. 116, v. 19; ariosto's perfection of style, v. 41; his advance in versification on poliziano and boiardo, 43; comparison of ariosto and tasso, 44; illustrations of his art from contemporary painters, 45; his similes 46-49; the lines on the contemporary poets quoted ---upon bembo, 258 _note_ 1; ---upon aretino, 385 _note_ 1 ariosto, virginio, illegitimate son of the poet, iv. 502; his recollections of his father, 502, 504 aristotle, influence of the politics at the renaissance, i. 197 _note_ 1, 250 _note_ 1; cited, 234 _note_ 1, 235 _note_ 1; the lines on virtue translated, iv. 62; supposed coffin of aristotle at palermo, i. 461; aristotle known to the middle ages chiefly through the arabs, ii. 66, 68, iii. 209, v. 468; regarded in the middle ages as a pillar of orthodoxy, ii. 208, v. 462; his system turned against orthodox doctrines at the renaissance, v. 472; quarrel of the aristotelians and the platonists, ii. 208, 244, 247, 394, v. 454; study of the _poetics_ by the italian playwrights, v. 127, 132 _note_ 1, 135; outlines of the aristotelian system, 462-466; problems for speculation successively suggested by aristotelian studies, 466-470 arnold of brescia, i. 64, iv. 12 arnolfo del cambio, ii. 5; the architect of the palazzo vecchio at florence, iii. 61-63; impress of his genius on florence, 63; his work as a sculptor, 62 _note_ 1; begins the duomo, 64; his intentions, 66 arpino, traditional reverence for cicero there, ii. 30, iv. 12 arrabbiati, name of the extreme medicean party at florence, i. 529 arthur legends, the, preferred by the italian nobles to the stories of roland, iv. 13, 17, 244, 437, v. 52; represent a refined and decadent feudalism, v. 52 arti, the, in italian cities, i. 35, 72; at florence, 224 arts, degeneracy of the plastic arts in the early middle ages, i. 17; change brought about in them by the renaissance, 18-20; predominance of art in the italian genius, iii. 1-5; art and religion--how far inseparable, 6 _note_ 1; the arts of the renaissance had to combine pagan and christian traditions, 6, 170; share of the arts in the emancipation of the intellect, 8, 23, 32, iv. 346 _note_ 1; the arts invade religion by their tendency to materialize its ideals, iii. 11, 19, 22, 31; antagonism of art and religion, 24-26, 28, 31; the separate spheres and meeting-points of art and religion, 30; important part played by tuscany in the development of italian art, 185 _note_ 1; fluctuations in the estimation of artists, illustrated by botticelli, 249 _note_ 1; works of art may be judged either by æsthetic quality or as expressing ideas, 343 _note_ 1; commercial spirit in which art was pursued in italy, 442 _note_ 1 ascanio de' mori, his _novelle_, v. 60 ascham, roger, quoted for the english opinion on italy, i. 472 asolanus, father-in-law and partner of aldo manuzio, ii. 388 assisi, church of s. francis, designed by a german architect, iii. 50; importance of its decorations by giotto in the history of italian art, 195; simone martini's legend of s. martin, 217 _assorditi_, the, an academy at urbino, ii. 366 asti, transferred to the house of orleans by gian galeazzo visconti, i. 143 _note_ 2, v. 333; its half french character, v. 333 astrology, influence of, in italy, i. 428 _note_ 1, iii. 77 _note_ 1 athens, comparison of athens and florence, i. 234, 236, ii. 163, 165 athens, duke of, i. 75 _note_ 1, 221, iii. 309 attendolo, sforza (father of francesco sforza), i. 86; said to have been a peasant, 159; his murder of terzi, 121 _note_ 1; his desertion of queen joan of naples, 361 aurispa, giovanni, protected by nicholas, i. 111, 173; brings greek mss. to italy, ii. 141, 267, 301; obliged to leave florence by niccoli's opposition, 182; made apostolic secretary by eugenius iv., 220; his life at ferrara, 301 avanzi, girolamo, a member of the aldine academy, ii. 387 averrhoes, the arch-heresiarch of medieval imagination, iii. 206-209 (cp. iv. 447), v. 449; his teaching on immortality, v. 469 averrhoists, petrarch's dislike of them, ii. 101, iii. 209; pomponazzi and the averrhoists, v. 462 avignon, transference of the papal court there, i. 77, 80, 101, 374, iv. 2, 87 _avvelenato, l'_, name of an italian ballad, iv. 275; its correspondence with northern ballads, 275-278, v. 119 _note_ 1 baccio della porta. (_see_ bartolommeo, fra.) bacon, roger, his anticipation of modern science, i. 9; imprisoned by the franciscans, 10; knew the use of the telescope, 29 baden (switzerland), poggio's visit to, ii. 231 baglioni, the, supported by the people at perugia, i. 87 (cp. v. 498); their rise to power, 114, 115, 122, 123; their misgovernment, 130, 225, iii. 328; overthrown by gian galeazzo, i. 148; members of this family become condottieri, 161; take part in the diet of la magione, 351; attempted massacre of them, 397 _note_ 2 ---astorre, his comeliness of person, ii. 31; gian paolo, i. 421 _note_ 1; machiavelli condemns him for not murdering julius ii., 324, 463; beheaded by leo x., 439; grifonetto, 168 _note_ 1, iii. 221, v. 118; malatesta, betrays florence, i. 223, 245, 285; pandolfo, murder of, 148 _note_ 2 bajazet, sultan, his relations with alexander vi., i. 415 baldi, bernardino, his pastoral poems, v. 224 balduccio, giovanni, invited to milan by azzo visconti, iii. 123; carves the shrine of s. peter martyr in s. eutorgio, 123 baldus, dies of hunger in the sack of rome, ii. 444 _balia_, the, at florence, i. 230, 526 ballad poetry, general absence of ballads in italian, iv. 37 (cp. 251), 274, v. 119; the ballad of _l'avvelenato_, iv. 275-278; connection of ballad poetry and the drama, v. 120 _ballata_, or _canzone a ballo_, meaning of the term in italian, iv. 261 _note_ 2; popularity of the _ballate_ in italy, 261-263 bambagiuoli, poems of, iv. 164 bandello, matteo, belonged to the dominican order, i. 459 v. 64; facts of his life, v. 63; his _novelle_ cited for the profligacy of rome and the scandals of the church, i. 446 _note_ 1, 458, v. 66; use of them made by the reformers against the church, v. 65, 66; state of society revealed by them, 65; their allusions to witchcraft, 346 _note_ 1; their dedications, 62; want of tragic and dramatic power in the _novelle_, 67-69; their pictures of manners, 68; bandello's ability best shown in the romantic tales, 69; the description of pomponazzi in one of the novels, 461; bandello, a sort of prose-ariosto, 70; the tale of gerardo and elena, 70; the tale of romeo and juliet: comparison with shakspere's drama, 71; the tale of nicuola: its relation to the _twelfth night_, 72; tale of edward iii. and alice of salisbury, 73-75; comparison of bandello with beaumont and fletcher, 74, 75 _note_ 1; bandello's apology for the licentiousness of the _novelle_, 76; for their literary style, 77 bandinelli, baccio, feebleness of his statues, iii. 173; legend that he destroyed michelangelo's cartoon for the _battle of pisa_, 396 _note_ 1; his quarrel with cellini, 477 (cp. 173) bandini assassinates giuliano de' medici, i. 398 barbaro, daniello, a letter of his to aretino quoted for contemporary opinion of the _dialogo de le corti_, v. 427 _note_ 2 barbaro, francesco, i. 173; a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100; learns greek from chrysoloras, 110; his account of poggio's enthusiasm in the quest of mss., 138; his patronage of learning at venice, 212 barbavara, francesco, i. 150 barbiano, alberico da, leader of condottieri, i. 150, 159 barbieri, gian maria, sides with castelvetro in his quarrel with caro, v. 286 bardi, the, at florence, i. 238; their loan to edward iii., 257; their bankruptcy, 258 bargagli, scipione, his _novelle_, v. 60; the description of the siege of siena in the introduction, 98 (cp. 522) barlam, teaches leontius pilatus greek, ii. 90 baroccio, federigo, his relation to correggio, iii. 495 baroncelli, the roman conspirator, i. 376 bartolommeo, fra, his portraits of savonarola, i. 508, iii. 309 _note_ 2; story of his _sebastian_ in the cloister of san marco, iii. 28; his position in the history of italian art, 304; his friendship with albertinelli, 305; furthered the progress of composition and colouring in painting, 331, 498; his attempt to imitate michelangelo, 307; the painter of adoration, 307; his unfinished _madonna with the patron saints of florence_, 308; influence of savonarola upon him, 309 bartolommeo da montepulciano, discovers the mss. of vegetius and pompeius festus, ii. 140 basaiti, marco, iii. 362 basle, council, question of precedence at, ii. 216 bassani, the, venetian painters, iii. 371 basso, girolamo, nephew of sixtus iv., i. 389 bati, luca, composes the music for cecchi's _elevation of the cross_, iv. 326 _battuti_, the italian name for the flagellants, iv. 281, 282, 283 bazzi. (_see_ sodoma.) beatrice di tenda, i. 152 beaufort, cardinal, invites poggio to england, ii. 231 _note_ 3 beaumont and fletcher, comparison of, with bandello, v. 74, 75 _note_ 1 beauty, greek appreciation of bodily beauty contrasted with christian asceticism, iii. 13-18, 19; the study of human beauty revived by the painters of the renaissance, 23; the delight in the beauty of nature restored by the renaissance, 33, 107, v. 250; the later artists wholly absorbed by the pursuit of sensual beauty, iii. 453-455; the beauty of wild and uncultivated scenery unappreciated in the renaissance, 464, v. 46 beccadelli, antonio, tutor of ferdinand i., i. 174, ii. 257; in attendance on alphonso i., 252; the author of the _hermaphroditus_, 254 (cp. i. 174 _note_ 1), 452; favourable reception of his work, 255; crowned poet by the emperor sigismund, 255; his _hermaphroditus_ denounced by the church, 256; honours paid to him, 256 (cp. 524); introduces pontanus at the court of naples, 363 beccafumi, domenico, the scholar of sodoma, iii. 501 beccaria family, the, of pavia, i. 145 begarelli, antonio, modanese artist in terra-cotta, iii. 164 _note_ 1 belcari, feo, his alphabet, iv. 240; his _vita del beato colombino_, 240; his _sacre rappresentazioni_, 320, 340; benivieni's elegy on his death, 321 belgioioso, count of, lodovico sforza's ambassador to charles viii., i. 541 bellincini, aurelio, communicates castelvetro's criticisms to caro, and so causes the quarrel between them, v. 285 bellini, gentile, iii. 362; his pictures for the scuola of s. croce, 363; giovanni, 362; how far influenced by his brother-in-law mantegna, 277, 362; his perfection as a colourist, 365; adhered to the earlier manner of painting, 365; jacopo, 362 bello, francesco (called _il cieco_), language of his _mambriano_ respecting the chronicle of turpin, iv. 439 _note_ 1; character of astolfo in it, 470 _note_ 1; use of episodical _novelle_ in it, 490 _note_ 2; classed by folengo with boiardo, pulci, and ariosto, v. 316 beltraffio, giovanni antonio, the scholar of lionardo da vinci, iii. 484 bembo, bernardo, builds the tomb of dante at ravenna, ii. 410 bembo, pietro, introduced in castiglione's 'cortegiano,' i. 184, ii. 411, v. 260, 265; his moral quality, i. 459 _note_ 2, v. 261; his account of de comines' behaviour before the venetian signory, i. 578 _note_ 1; a member of the aldine academy, ii. 387; made a cardinal, 402; his rise into greatness, 403; his friendship with lucrezia borgia, i. 422, ii. 403, 411, v. 263; with veronica gambara, v. 289; said to have saved pomponazzo from ecclesiastical procedure, ii. 410, v. 461; his life at urbino, ii. 411, v. 260; his retirement at padua, ii. 413; becomes the dictator of italian letters, ii. 414, v. 258, 497; greatness of his personal influence, v. 264; his quarrel with broccardo, 377; his panegyric of sadoleto's _laocoon_, ii. 497; his venetian origin, illustrating the loss of intellectual supremacy by florence, 507, v. 258; cellini visits him at padua and makes a medallion of him, iii. 463; his advice to sadoleto not to read st. paul for fear of spoiling his taste, ii. 398, 413; his ridiculous purisms, 400; his pedantic and mannered style, 413 (cp. 535), v. 259; his latin verses, ii. 453, 481-485, v. 249; gyraldus' criticism of them, ii. 484; the _de galeso_ translated, 483; the elegy on poliziano, 357, 484, v. 258; translated (in prose), ii. 484; his cultivation of italian, 414, v. 258; the _gli asolani_, ii. 411, v. 259, 265; the defence of the vulgar tongue, v. 259 _note_ 1, 260; the _regole grammaticali_, 261; the italian poems, 261; translation of a sonnet, illustrating the conceits affected by him, 261; his letters, 262-264, 360; mention in one of them of the representations of latin comedies at ferrara, 140. benedetti, the, of todi, the family to which jacopone da todi belonged, iv. 285, 287 benedict xi., surmise of his death by poison, i. 374, iii. 115; his monument by giovanni pisano, iii. 115 benedictines, their treatment of the classical literature, i. 10, ii. 133; their hatred of the franciscans, v. 325 benevento, a lombard duchy, i. 48; its fate, _note_ 1, 50; battle of, iv. 21, 27, 48 benignius, cornelius, his edition of pindar, the first greek book printed in rome, i. 405 _note_ 1 benivieni, i. girolamo, his elegies in the metre of the divine comedy, iv. 172; his poetical version of the novel _tancredi_, 250; his hymns, v. 519; two translated, iv. 303; his elegy on feo belcari, 321 (see appendix vi. for translation); his pastoral poems, v. 224 bentivogli, the, supported by the people of bologna, i. 87, 102; their rise to power, 114, 123, 124; claimed descent from king enzo, 115, iv. 49; take part in the 'diet of la magione,' 351 bentivogli, annibale de', v. 140; cardinal de', his portrait by vandyck, ii. 27; francesca, murders her husband, galeotto manfredi, i. 428 _note_ 1 bentivoglio, ercole, his satiric poems, v. 381 benucci, alessandra, the wife of ariosto, iv. 502, 520, 521, 522, v. 38 benvenuto da imola, his account of boccaccio's visit to monte cassino, ii. 133 benzoni family, the, at crema, i. 150 berardo, girolamo, his versions of the _casina_ and the _mostellaria_, v. 140 berengar, the last italian king, i. 51-53 bergamo, story of calabrians murdered there, i. 74 ---s. maria maggiore, the capella colleoni, iii. 165 bernard, s., the type of medieval contempt for natural beauty, i. 13; his _hymn to christ on the cross_, iii. 17; two stanzas translated, _note_ 1 bernard de ventadour, iv. 60 bernardino s. (of siena), his preaching, i. 611-613, iv. 175; his attacks on beccadelli's _hermaphroditus_, ii. 256 _note_ 1 (cp. 516); his canonisation, i. 461, iv. 315 berni, francesco, related to cardinal bibbiena, v. 357; taken by him to rome, 357; enters the church and becomes canon of florence, i. 459, v. 357, 358; acts as secretary to giberti, bishop of verona, v. 357; becomes a member of the _vignajuoli_ academy at rome, ii. 366, v. 357; loses his property in the sack of rome, v. 357; retires to florence, 358; aids broccardo against aretino in his quarrel with bembo, 377; mysterious circumstances of his death, 358, 374, 377, 381 (cp. i. 170 _note_ 1); his easy, genial temper, 357, 359, 368; his correspondence, 360; his scantiness of production and avoidance of publication, 361-363; his refinement of style, 315; the _capitoli_, (1) poetical epistles, 363; (2) occasional poems, 364; (3) poems on burlesque subjects, 364; degree in which berni is responsible for the profligacy of the _capitoli_, 366; manner in which he treated his themes, 366; the _capitoli_ written in _terza rima_, 366 (cp. iv. 172); the _capitolo_ on adrian vi.'s election to the papacy, v. 368, 369 (cp. i. 443); the sonnet on pope clement, v. 368 (cp. i. 443); translated, v. 368; the sonnet on alessandro de' medici, the force of their satire weakened by berni's servility to the medici, 369; excellence of berni's personal caricatures, 370; the sonnet on aretino, 371, 389, 390 _note_ 1, 406; the rustic plays, _catrina_ and _mogliazzo_, 224, 311; the _rifacimento_ of the _orlando innamorato_, iv. 491, v. 373; object of the undertaking, v. 373; published in a mutilated form, 374; the question who was guilty of the fraud, 375; probability that aretino, with the aid of albicante, contrived the mutilation of the ms. or proof-sheets, 375-378, 419; vergerio's statement that berni had embraced protestantism and wrote the _rifacimento_ with the view of spreading lutheran opinions, 378-380; the suppressed stanzas, intended by berni as the induction to the twentieth canto of the _innamorato_, 379 (for a translation see appendix ii. 543); likelihood that the ecclesiastical authorities may have employed aretino, 380 bernini, adds the colonnades to s. peter's, iii. 93 beroaldo, filippo, edits tacitus' annals for the first edition, ii. 425; made librarian of the vatican, 425; professor in the sapienza at rome, 427; his version of the _principe di salerno_ in latin elegiacs, iv. 250 _note_ 2 bertini, romolo, v. 311 bertoldo, his work as a bronze founder in italian churches, iii. 78 _note_ 1 bertrand du poiet, i. 81 bescapé, pietro, his _bible history_ written for popular use in a north italian dialect, iv. 34 bessarion, cardinal, a disciple of gemistos plethos, ii. 204, 247; joins the latin church, 204, 246; gives his library to venice, 247; his controversy with trapezuntios, 247 beyle, henri, his critique on the frescoes in the sistine chapel, iii. 427 bianchi and neri factions, the, at pistoja, i. 210 _note_ 2; at florence, 221, 225 bianchino, il cieco, his _incatenatura_, iv. 268 bibbiena, cardinal, i. 459; introduced in castiglione's 'cortegiano,' 184, 190; his kinship with berni, v. 357; his rise to greatness, ii. 403, v. 145; his comedy, _calandra_, v. 111, 123; largely indebted to the _menæchmi_, 145; its popularity, 146; its literary style, 146 _note_ 1; representations of it at urbino and rome, 146; comparison of his comedy with those of aretino and machiavelli, 180 bibboni, francesco, the murderer of lorenzino de' medici, i. 480 _note_ 3 (cp. v. 517) bigi, name of the medicean faction at florence, i. 529 bini, francesco, a member of the _vignajuoli_ academy at rome, v. 357; the friend and correspondent of berni, 360; his _capitolo_ on the _mal franzese_, 365 biondo, flavio, ii. 430; patronized by eugenius iv., ii. 220; his prodigious learning, 220, iii. 272; not duly appreciated by his contemporaries, ii. 221 bishoprics, the italian bishoprics in roman municipia, i. 61 bishops, the, on the side of the people in their first struggles for independence, i. 53, 55-61; the cities claim the privilege of electing their own bishops, 59 bissolo, venetian painter, iii. 362 blastos, nicolaos, a greek printer at venice, ii. 386 bloodmadness, i. 109, appendix no. 1 boccaccino da cremona, the _madonna with s. catherine_, iii. 225 boccaccio, giannandrea, cited for the popular detestation of the spanish cardinals, i. 410; for the temperance in eating of alexander vi., 417 boccaccio, giovanni, his services to the renaissance, i. 11, iv. 142; learnt greek late in life, 20, ii. 91, iv. 120 _note_ 2; cited for the attachment of the italians to their past history, ii. 30; influenced by petrarch, 87, 89, iv. 102; story of his visit to the tomb of virgil at naples, ii. 88, iv. 101; his enthusiasm for dante, ii. 89; the first greek scholar in europe, 91; translates homer, 93; his industry as a scholar, 94, iv. 101; sensuousness of his ideal, ii. 97, iv. 100 _note_, 106, 114, 118, v. 504, 515; his visit to monte cassino, ii. 133; his relation to robert of anjou, 252, iv. 120 _note_ 1; his influence on italian literature, iv. 3, 123, v. 518; not of pure italian blood, iv. 98; the typical italian of the middle class, 99, 104, 113, 114, 164; his realism, 99, v. 515; his nickname of giovanni della tranquillità, iv. 100 _note_ 1; contemporary denunciations of the decameron, 100; shallowness of boccaccio's philosophy, 101, 103; his frank recognition of genius, 102; comparison of his character with that of ariosto, 506; his devotion to art, 103; his genius representative of the renaissance, 110, v. 2; his descriptions have the nature of painting, iv. 116; shared the contempt of the learned for the lower classes, 125, 239; comparison of his prose with that of the other _trecentisti_, 132-135; influence of his style not paramount till the age of the academies, 135; considered by some italian critics to have established a false standard of taste, 136; the life of dante, ii. 36; its want of real appreciation for dante, iv. 101; the commentary upon dante, ii. 89, 96, iv. 163; the _genealogia deorum_, ii. 94; quoted for boccaccio's teaching on poetry, 94; the decameron: contrasted with the _divina commedia_, iv. 104, 127 (cp. 114, 122); description of the plague, forming the background of the decameron, 111; the satire of the decameron, 112; its irony, 113; its beauty, 114; its superiority to his other works, 127; its testimony to the corruption of rome, i. 457; said by sacchetti to have been translated into english, iv. 148 _note_ 4; comparison between boccaccio, masuccio, and sacchetti, 179; his minor poems, 118; show the feeling of despair common to the last _trecentisti_, 165; the two sonnets on dante, 162; the _ballata, il fior che 'l valor perde_, 262; the _amorosa visione_, 114, 119, 123; the _ameto_, 123; the _fiammetta_, 123; the first attempt in modern literature to portray subjective emotion outside the writer, 123; the _corbaccio_, 124; occasion of its being written, 124 (cp. 98); the _filicopo_, quoted, 115; its euphuism, 120; the song of the angel, 118; the meeting with fiammetta quoted as a specimen of boccaccio's style, 133; the _filostrato_, boccaccio's finest narrative in verse, 121; the _teseide_, 117, 429; numerous imitations and adaptations of it by other poets, 117; its value in fixing the form of the _ottava rima_, 118; the _ninfale fiesolano_, 125, 410; its place in italian literature, 126 boccati, giovanni, picture of his at perugia, representing _disciplinati_ in presence of the virgin, iv. 203 _note_ 1 boethius, cult of him at pavia, i. 20, ii. 30 boiardo, matteo maria, the facts of his life, iv. 457; contrast between him and pulci, 456, v. 8; contrast of boiardo and ariosto, iv. 463, v. 8; neglect of boiardo, iv. 459, 464, 491; the _sonetti e canzoni_, 458; the _orlando innamorato_: gave ariosto his theme (cp. i. 171); its originality in introducing the element of love into the roland legends, iv. 461; earnestness of the poem, 462; its relation to the period of its composition, 462; broken off by the invasion of charles viii. 463, v. 282 _note_ 3; structure of the _innamorato_, 464-466; the presentation of personages, 466-470, 478; the women of the _innamorato_, 470-472; translation of the episode of fiordelisa and the sleeping rinaldo, 471; boiardo's conception of love, 472; of friendship and comradeship, 472-474 (translation of orlando's lament for rinaldo, 473); of courage and courtesy as forming the ideal of chivalry, 474-477; the panegyric of friendship translated, 474; translation of the conversation of orlando and agricane, 475; freshness of boiardo's art, 478, 484; passage on chivalrous indifference to wealth translated, 477; rapidity of the narration, 479; roughness of the versification and style, 480; advance of ariosto upon boiardo in this respect, v. 43; his treatment of the antique, iv. 480-488; translation of the episode of rinaldo at merlin's fount, 482-484; of that of narcissus, 485-487; boiardo's use of magic, 488; of allegory, 489; his freedom from superstition, 489; the _timone_, v. 108 bologna, annexed to the milanese, i. 136, 148; the riot of 1321, 210 _note_ 2; revival in 1457, 617; joins the lombard league, ii. 116; character of bologna, as partly determined by local position, iv. 46 ---s. dominic: the shrine, designed by niccola pisano, 109; michelangelo's work on it, 131, 389; s. petronio, iii. 68 _note_ 1 ---university, the, its rise, i. 62, ii. 115; its attempted suppression by frederick ii., 116; number of its students, 116, 119; attendance of foreigners there, 119; liberality of the town government to the university, 120; its reputation in the middle ages, iv. 7; pay of professors there, ii. 122, v. 460; long continuance of scholasticism at bologna, v. 457, 481; different character of bologna and padua, 460, 497; part played by bologna in the history of italian thought, 481 ---bolognese school of painters, the, their partiality to brutal motives, iii. 25, 187 ---bolognese school of poetry, iv. 46-49 bologna, gian, his eminence as neo-pagan sculptor, iii. 176 bombasi paolo, murdered during the sack of rome, ii. 444 bona of savoy, married to galeazzo maria sforza, i. 164, 543 bonaccorso da montemagno, poems of, iv. 165 bonaventura, s., cited for early representations of the nativity at christmas, iv. 308 bondini, alessandro, a member of the aldine academy, ii. 386 bonfadio, latin verse writer, ii. 507 boniface viii., calls in charles of valoise, i. 76; his death, 77, 374; his witticism on the florentines, 247, iv. 31; establishes the high school at rome, ii. 117; saying of jacopone da todi's about him, iv. 289 boniface ix., appoints poggio apostolic secretary, ii. 218 bonifacia, carmosina, her relations to sannazzaro, v. 199; description of her in the _arcadia_, 207-209 bonifazio veneziano, iii. 242 _note_ 2, 368, 371 bonvesin da riva, his works written for popular use in a north italian dialect, iv. 34 book, the golden, at venice, i. 91, 195 books, scarcity of, an impediment to medieval culture, ii. 127; their enormous value, 128; price of the books issued by aldo manuzio, 381 bordone, paris, iii. 371 borghese, nicolà, assassination of, i. 121 borgia, alfonso (_see_ calixtus iii.):--cesare, i. 98; his visit to the french court, 117; his murder of giulio varani, 121, 122; besieges bologna, 124; guicciardini's character of him, 308; machiavelli's admiration of him, 324-326, 345-354; the story of his life, 345-354; his contest with the orsini, 349-352; his massacre of the orsini faction at sinigaglia, 324, 347, 352, iv. 443; his systematic murders of the heirs of ruling families, i. 353, 427; made cardinal, 419; helps in the murder of prince alfonso, 420; his murder of his brother, the duke of gandia, 424; his murder of perotto, 426; his cruelty, 426; his sickness--was it occasioned by poison? 429-431; breakdown of his plans, 431; taken as a hostage by charles viii., 566; escapes, 577; prided himself on his strength, ii. 29; john, son of alexander vi., i. 419; lucrezia, her marriage, 419; the festivities on the occasion, v. 141; her life at ferrara, i. 420-424, ii. 42; her real character, i. 420; her friendship with bembo, i. 422, ii. 403, 411, v. 263; relics of her in the ambrosian library, ii. 411; much of the common legend about her due to sannazzaro's epigrams, 469; roderigo lenzuoli (_see_ alexander vi.) borgo san sepolcro, piero della francesca's _resurrection_, iii. 234; signorelli's _crucifixion_, 280 _note_ 1 boscoli, paolo, his conspiracy against the medici, i. 314; his confession, 466 (cp. v. 519) boson da gubbio, his commentary upon the divine comedy, iv. 163 botticelli, sandro, modern hero-worship of him, iii. 249; his attractiveness, arising from the intermixture of ancient and modern sentiment in his work, 250, 291; the qualities of various paintings of his, 251-254; represents the same stage of culture in painting as poliziano and boiardo in literature, 255; abandons his art from religious motives, 264, 310; influenced by dante, 283 _note_ 2; incurs a charge of heterodoxy by a _madonna in glory_ painted for palmieri, iv. 171, v. 549 bourbon, the constable, killed at the capture of rome, i. 444, iii. 455 bracceschi, the (condottieri bands formed by braccio da montone), i. 160, 362 braccio da montone, i. 86, 362; his aspirations to the throne of italy, 113 _note_ 1; aids corrado trinci against pietro rasiglia, 122; his government of perugia, 123, v. 498; the comrade and opponent of sforza, 159, 160 bramante, ii. 5; his work as an architect, ii. 440, iii. 81, v. 505; his share in s. peter's, iii. 90, 398; michelangelo's panegyric of his plan, 92, 428; said to have suggested the employment of michelangelo on the sistine chapel, 403 brancaleone, roman senator (1258), ii. 151 brantôme, describes cesare borgia's visit to the french court, i. 117 _note_ 1 bregni, the, at venice, iii. 162 brescia, savonarola at, i. 508; sack of, 508, ii. 380, iii. 328 brevio, monsignor giovanni, his _novelle_, v. 60; the story of the devil and his wife, compared with machiavelli's and straparola's versions, 103 briçonnet, bishop of st. malo, made cardinal by alexander vi., i. 532 _note_ 1, 566; his influence with charles viii., 541 britti (called _il cieco_), his _incatenatura_, iv. 268 _note_ 3 broccardo, antonio, introduced in sperone's dialogues, v. 256 _note_ 1; his quarrel with bembo, 256 _note_ 1, 377; his death said to have been hastened by the calumnies of aretino, 377 _note_ 2, 381 _note_ 1 _broncone, il_, name of a club at florence formed by lorenzo, duke of urbino, iv. 397 bronzino, angelo, his portraits, iii. 498 (cp. v. 82); coldness of his frescoes and allegories, iii. 498; character of his talent, iv. 380; mentioned by doni as scene-painter at a representation of comedy in florence, v. 144 _note_ 4; his _serenata_, iv. 268; his _capitoli_, v. 364 (cp. iii. 499) brugiantino, v., turned the decameron into octave stanzas, iv. 249 _note_ 1 brunelleschi, filippo, individuality of his character, ii. 5; his many-sided genius, 10; a friend of niccolò de' niccoli's, 180; his work as an architect, 440, v. 505; builds the dome of the cathedral of florence, iii. 67, 73 (cp. i. 562); his visit to rome, 68; his churches of s. lorenzo and s. spirito at florence, 73 (cp. 263); designs the pitti palace, 73; his plans for the casa medici rejected, 76; his designs in competition for the baptistery gates at florence, 127; resigns in favour of ghiberti, 128; faults of his model, 128; his study of perspective, 225; his criticism of donatello's _christ_, 233; jest played by him on the cabinet-maker as related in the novel of _il grasso_, iv. 150 (cp. 253); his _ingegni_ for the florentine festivals, 319 bruni, lionardo, his history of florence, i. 274, ii. 182; its style and value, i. 274; account of him by vespasiano, 275; cited to show the unreasoning admiration of antiquity by the italian scholars, ii. 31; a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, 100; patronised by salutato, 106, 183; learns greek from chrysoloras, 110-112, 183; his letter to poggio upon receiving a copy of quintilian, 137; discovers a ms. of cicero's letters, 140; his testimony to niccolò de' niccoli's judgment of style, 179; story of his rise to fame, 182; his translations from the classics and other works, 184; his italian lives of petrarch and dante, 185, iv. 235; receives the honour of a public funeral, ii. 185; made apostolic secretary, 218; his quarrel with niccoli, 243; his latin play, _polissena_, v. 110 bruno, giordano, ii. 394, v. 449; his execution, v. 478; his place in the history of thought, 484, 500, 518 brusati family, the, at brescia, i. 145 budæus, ii. 391 buonacolsi, passerino, murdered by luigi gonzaga, i. 145 _note_ 1 buonarroti, lodovico (father of michelangelo), iii. 385, 387 buonarroti, michelangelo, his boyhood, iii. 385; studies under ghirlandajo, 386, 404; michelangelo and torrigiano, 386 _note_ 2, 445; effect produced by savonarola upon him, 491, 509, iii. 311, 344, 382, 388, 435; one of the circle gathered round lorenzo de' medici, ii. 322, 323, iii. 263, 387, 388, 435; his political attitude to the medici, iii. 392-394; fortifies samminiato in the siege of florence, 393 (cp. i. 318), 414; invited to rome by julius ii., 397; suggests carving the headland of sarzana into a statue, 401; leaves rome in disgust at julius's treatment of him, 401; reconciled to him at bologna, 402 (cp. 397); his relations to aretino, 426, v. 408; the last years of his life, 421, 429, 432 (cp. v. 519); his purity, iii. 432; his friendship with vittoria colonna, 429, 433, v. 294, 296; his friendship with tommaso cavalieri, 429, 434; his death, 435; his greatness in maintaining the dignity of art amidst the general decline of italy, 171, 343, 384 (cp. v. 5); the sublimity of his genius, v. 116; his genius never immature, iii. 387; its many-sidedness, ii. 10; the controversy between his admirers and detractors, iii. 343 _note_ 1, 419, 424 _note_ 1, 435, 494; mistake of his successors in imitating his mannerisms and extravagances, iii. 493; number of his unfinished works, 420; their want of finish not intentional, 420; comparison between michelangelo, dante, and machiavelli, i. 318, iii. 395; between michelangelo and beethoven, iii. 386, 410, 413, 418, 432; between michelangelo and milton, 388; his peculiarity as an architect, 86, 87; the sagrestia nuova, s. lorenzo, 86; the laurentian library, 87, 393; the dome of s. peter's, 88, 398, 428; his judgment of bramante's design for s. peter's, 92, 428; his own plans, 92; his four years' work on the façade of s. lorenzo, 413; his aim in architecture, v. 505; his tombs of the medici, i. 314, 319, iii. 354, 377 _note_ 2, 393, 415-419, 420; his statues at florence, ii. 440, iii. 391, 395 _note_ 2; his work on the shrine of s. dominic, bologna, 131, 389; his _pietà_ in s. peter's, 389; his scheme for the mausoleum of julius ii., 398-400; michelangelo not responsible for the decadence of italian sculpture, 173; the (destroyed) statue of julius ii. at bologna, 402 (cp. 397); the frescoes of the sistine chapel, 344, 399, 407-410; their bad condition, 426 _note_ 2; the true story of michelangelo's work on them, 404-407; difference between his creations and those of a greek, 410-412; his treatment of the story of the creation of eve, 118 _note_ 2, 130, 131; the _last judgment_, 346, 422; its merits and defects, 423-425; contemporary disapproval on account of the nudity of the figures, 425; michelangelo's criticisms of perugino and francia, 268 _note_ 1, 386 _note_ 2; his indebtedness to signorelli, 279; influenced by dante, 283 _note_ 2; his _leda and the swan_, illustrating his treatment of the antique, 291; his account of signorelli's bad treatment of him, 293 _note_ 1; one of the four great painters by whom the renaissance was fully expressed, 312, 346; his reproach of lionardo da vinci's dislike of finishing, 323, 386 _note_ 2; contrast of his genius and life with those of the other great painters, 342; the cartoon for _the battle of pisa_, 395; contrast between michelangelo and raphael, 412; his genius not that of a painter, 412 _note_ 1; his sonnet to giovanni da pistoja, quoted, 404 _note_ 1; one of his sonnets to vittoria colonna, quoted, 409; the madrigal on florence, translated, 392; lines placed by michelangelo in the mouth of his _night_, translated, iii. 394; the elegy on his father's death, iv. 321 _note_ 1, v. 295; the sonnet on the death of mancina faustina, iv. 226. (for the poems _see also_ appendix ii. of vol. iii., and appendix vi. of vol. iv., and cp. v. 296.) buonarroti, michelangelo (the younger), his _tancia_ and _fiera_, v. 226 buondelmonte dei buondelmonti, i. 74, 210 _note_ 2 buondelmonti, vaggia de', the wife of poggio, ii. 245 _buonuomini_, name of magistrates in some italian cities, i. 135; at florence, 226 burchard, value of his testimony, i. 388 _note_ 1; his evidence that alexander vi. died of fever, 428, 429; on the confessions said to have been made by savonarola during his torture, 534 _note_ 1 burchiello, il, facts of his life, iv. 259; character of his poems, 260; doni's edition of them, v. 92 bureaucracy, invention of a system of bureaucracy by gian galeazzo, i. 142 burigozzo, his chronicles of milan, quoted, i. 253 burlamacchi, his account of lorenzo de' medici's dying interview with savonarola, i. 523 _note_ 1 byzantium, the byzantine supremacy in italy, i. 33, 43, 48, 50 cabbala, the, ii. 334 cacciaguida, his speech in the _paradiso_ quoted, i. 73 _note_ 1 cademosto, his _novelle_, v. 60 caffagiolo, the villa of lorenzo de' medici, ii. 322 cajano, lorenzo de' medici's villa, ii. 322, 463 calcagnini, celio, teaches in the high school of ferrara, ii. 427, 506; his epigram on raphael's death, 438; his latin poems, 497 calendario, filippo, influenced by niccola pisano, iii. 123; his work at venice, 123 caliari, the, venetian painters, iii. 371 calixtus ii., his sanction of the chronicle of turpin, iv. 432, 438 calixtus iii., i. 380; his contempt for classical learning, ii. 357 calliergi, zacharias, a greek printer at venice, ii. 386; works for agostino chigi at rome, 405 _note_ 1 callistus, andronicus, the teacher of poliziano, ii. 248, 346; one of the first greeks who visited france, 248 calvi, marco fabio, translates vitruvius for raphael, ii. 436, iii. 94 _note_ 1; his death, ii. 444; his nobility of character, 523; aids raphael with notes on greek philosophy for the _school of athens_, iii. 335 calvo, francesco, the milanese publisher of the fraudulent version of berni's _rifacimento_ of the _orlando innamorato_, v. 374; aretino's correspondence with him on the subject, 375, 378, 380 camaldolese, il. (_see_ traversari.) cambray, league of, i. 214, 220, 289, 434, ii. 16, 379, 441 camers, julianus, his suicide during the sack of rome, ii. 444 cammelli of pistoja, v. 282 _note_ 3 camonica, val, the witches of, i. 402 _note_ 1, v. 316, 346 _notes_ 1 and 2, 347; teutonic character assumed by witchcraft in this district, 347 campaldino, battle of, iv. 51; dante present, 71 campanella, tommaso, ii. 394, v. 448, 449; his imprisonment, v. 478; his relations to telesio, 483; his importance in the history of thought, 483, 500, 518; three sonnets of his translated, 481, 482, 483 campano, gian antonio, his description of demetrius chalcondylas' teaching, ii. 249 campi, the, painters at cremona, iii. 503. campione, bonino and matteo da, sculptors of the shrine of s. augustine in the duomo, pavia, iii. 123 campo, antonio, his _historia di cremona_ cited for a story of gabrino tondulo, i. 463 _note_ 1 can grande. (_see_ scala, can grande, della.) canale, carlo, husband of vanozza catanei, i. 417; poliziano's _orfeo_ dedicated to him, iv. 411 cane, facino, leader of condottieri, i. 150, 151 canetoli, story of the, i. 124 canisio, egidio, general of the augustines, ii. 409; made cardinal and legate at the court of spain, 416; his knowledge of languages, 417 canossa, castle of, iv. 494; the house of, i. 57; claim of the buonarroti family to descent from them, iii. 385 _cantatori in banca_, professional minstrels in medieval italy, iv. 257 _canti carnascialeschi_, the, i. 476, 505; collection of them by il lasca, iv. 388, v. 79; utilized by lorenzo de' medici, iv. 388, v. 355; the 'triumph of death' described by vasari, iv. 393-395, v. 114; the _trionfo del vaglio_, iv. 392 _note_ 1; translated, 392 _note_ 1; connection of the _capitoli_ with the carnival songs, v. 355, 366 _cantori di piazza_, professional minstrels in medieval italy, iv. 257 _canzune_, a name of the _rispetti_ in sicily, iv. 264, 265 capanna, puccio, the scholar of giotto, iii. 197 capello, paolo (venetian ambassador), cited for the murders in rome under alexander vi., i. 414; for the murder of perotto by cesare borgia, 426 _note_ 1 capilupi, lelio, a member of the academy of the _vignajuoli_ at rome, v. 357; a writer of latin verse, ii. 506 _capitoli_, the, of tuscan origin, v. 355; their relation to the _canti carnascialeschi_, 355; their antiquity, plebeian character, and obscenity, 477 _note_ 1, ii. 521, v. 355, 365, 366; berni's new use of them, v. 356 caporali, cesare, his satiric poems, v. 381 capponi, agostino, conspiracy of, i. 314; gino, the chronicler of the ciompo rebellion, 265 _note_ 1, iv. 176; nicolò, gonfaloniere at florence, i. 222 _note_ 1, 232, 284, 289, 292, 536; piero, his resistance to the demands of charles viii., 563 captain of the people, name of the supreme magistrate in some italian cities, i. 35, 71; often became tyrant, 75, 77, 84, 112, 156; at florence, 224 caracci, the, iii. 496 caracciolo, his _de varietate fortunæ_ cited, i. 520 _notes_ 2 and 3 caravaggio, defeat of the venetians at, i. 155 cardan, jerome, v. 82; autobiography of, ii. 36 cardona, captain of the florentine forces, i. 157 _note_ 1 carducci, francesco, gonfaloniere of florence, his part in the siege of florence, i. 284, 288, 289, 536 careggi, the villa of lorenzo de' medici, ii. 322, 460, iv. 383, 415 cariani, said to have painted pictures commonly assigned to giorgione, iii. 368 _note_ 1 cariteo, of naples, v. 282 _note_ 3 carmagnuola, francesco bussoni, called il, story of, i. 161, 362, v. 118 carmina burana, the, i. 9; many of them of french origin, iv. 9; their nature, 108; some of them pastorals, 156; undeveloped maccaronic poems contained among them, 327 carnesecchi, pietro, his friendship with vittoria colonna, v. 292; burned for heresy, 292, 478 caro, annibale, story of his life, v. 283; his letters, 283; his translation of _daphnis and chloe_, 283; his academical exercises: the _diceria de' nasi_, ii. 367, 526, v. 284; the _ficheide_, v. 284, 365 _note_ 1; his translation of the _æneid_, 284; his literary style, 284; his italian poems, 284; the quarrel with castelvetro, 285; the sonnets produced by the occasion, 381; he or one of his friends said to have denounced castelvetro to the inquisition, 286; his correspondence with aretino, 410 _note_ 1 carpaccio, vittore, iii. 362; his pictures for the scuola of s. ursula at venice, 363, v. 54 carpi, connection of aldo manuzio with, ii. 302, 375 carrara family, the, at padua, how they became tyrants, i. 112; number of violent deaths among them in one century, 120; driven from padua by gian galeazzo visconti, 145, 146; return, 149 carrara, francesco da, i. 146, 149 carroccio, the, i. 58 casal maggiore, destruction of the venetian fleet at, i. 155 casanova, dies of the plague during the sack of rome, ii. 444 castagno, andrea del, harsh realism of his work, iii. 232 castellani, castellano, writer of _sacre rappresentazioni_, iv. 320, 324, 338 castelvetro, lodovico, his quarrel with annibale caro, v. 285; denounced by his enemies to the inquisition, 286; escapes, is condemned _in contumaciam_, and dies in exile, 286; his chief work, a translation of the _poetics_, 287 castiglione, baldassare, i. 181; the _il cortigiano_, 183-189, 192, 457, ii. 37, 393, 411, 420, v. 14, 265, 518; quoted for castiglione's theory of italian style, v. 257 _note_ 1, 266-270; on the physical exercises befitting a gentleman, ii. 29, 419; its subject treated from an æsthetical rather than a moral point of view, v. 430; raphael's portrait of him, ii. 28, 421, v. 522; ambassador of mantua and ferrara at rome, ii. 405, 420; assists raphael in his letter on the exploration of rome, 419; employed by julius ii. at urbino, 419; his mission to england, 420; his life at rome, 420; sent by clement vii. as nuncio to madrid, 421; his poem on the statue of ariadne, 431 _note_ 1, 432, 496; his epigram on raphael's death, 438; his latin verses--their interest, 490-493; his flatteries of julius ii. and leo x., 493; his eclogue, the _tirsi_, v. 222; his mantuan origin illustrating the loss of intellectual supremacy by florence, ii. 506; his letter describing the representation of the _calandra_ at urbino, v. 144 _note_ 1, 146 castiglione, francesco, i. 177 castracane, castruccio, tyrant of lucca, i. 75 _note_ 1, 133; his life by machiavelli, 76 _note_ 1, 112, ii. 37; introduced in the frescoes in the campo santo, pisa, iii. 203 castro, duke of (son of paul iii.). (_see_ farnese, pier luigi.) catanei, vanozza, the mistress of alexander vi., i. 417, iv. 411; takes to religion in her old age, 424; her interview with alexander after the murder of the duke of gandia, 425 catapans, i. 35 _catasto_, the, or schedule of properties, introduced by frederick ii., i. 105 catena, vincenzo, venetian painter, iii. 362 _catenati_, the, an academy at macerata, ii. 366 cathari, the, an heretical sect, i. 9, iv. 109 catherine de' medici. (_see_ medici, catherine de'.) catherine, s. (of siena), beauty of style in her letters, iv. 173 catini, monte, battle of, i. 112 cavalca, domenico, his _leggende dei santi padri_, iv. 131; his poems, 164 cavalcabò family, the slaughter of them by tondulo, i. 120; overthrown by the visconti, 145; reappear after the death of gian galeazzo, 150 cavalcanti, giovanni, his florentine histories, iv. 176 cavalcanti, guido, his metaphysical odes, iv. 64; his _ballate_, 65 cavalieri, tommaso, his friendship with michelangelo, iii. 429, 434 cecchi, gianmaria, his _sacra rappresentazione_, _the elevation of the cross_, iv. 322 _note_ 1, 324, 357; other plays of his written with a didactic purpose, v. 187 _note_ 2; writes a commentary on a sonnet of berni's, 363; his comedies, 123, 141, 181, 186; his veneration for ariosto, 156 _note_ 1, 187; his _farse_, 188 cellant, countess of, bandello's _novella_ upon her tragedy, v. 54 cellini, benvenuto, i. 170 _note_ 1, 325; quoted to illustrate the italian idea of the sanctity of the popes, 462, iii. 471; his life typical of the age, 492, iii. 385, 439, 479, iv. 385 (cp. v. 517); his fits of religious enthusiasm--their sincerity, 492, ii. 18, iii. 450, 468-471; his autobiography, ii. 36; may be compared to a novel, v. 120; his criticisms on bandinelli, iii. 173, 477; his admiration of michelangelo, 396, 445, 494; invited by torrigiano to accompany him to england, 444; his account of torrigiano, 445; sets off to rome, 446; returns to florence, but goes back to rome in consequence of a quarrel, 447; his homicides and brutal behaviour, 447-449, 458; returns to rome, 451; his description of life there, 452; his exploits at the siege of rome, 455; miracles and wonders related by him, 456; domestic affection and lightheartedness, 456-458; incantation witnessed by him in the colosseum, 460-462, v. 82, 346 _notes_ 1 and 2; his journey to france, iii. 463, v. 239; visits of francis i. to him, iii. 443 _note_ 1, 474 _note_ 1; returns to rome and is thrown into prison, 465; endeavors to escape, 466; given up by cardinal cornaro, 466; attempt to murder him, 467; released from prison and summoned to the court of francis i., 472; his stay in france, 473-475; parallelism of cellini, machiavelli, and aretino, 479; his _capitolo del carcere_ cited in illustration of the general use of the _terza rima_ during the sixteenth century, iv. 172, v. 367 _note_ 2; his statue of perseus, iii. 176, 438, 455, 470, 478; purely physical beauty of his statues, 455; scarcity of his works in gold and jewels, 437, 479; character of his work in metals, v. 229 cenci, the, a _novella_ made of their trial, v. 54 cendrata, taddea, wife of guarino da verona, ii. 301 cene dalla chitarra, his satirical poems on the months in parody of folgore da gemignano, iv. 54 _note_ 2, 56 _note_ 1 cennini, bernardo, the first italian printer who cast his own type, ii. 369 censorship of the press, established by alexander vi., i. 411, 416, ii. 359, 371 _cento novelle_, the, character given in them of the court of frederick ii., iv. 21; illustrate the origin of italian prose, 36 cerchi, the, at florence, i. 210 _note_ 2 cesena, massacre of, i. 82 cesi, angelo, his sufferings in the sack of rome, ii. 444 cette, the bishop of, poisoned by cesare borgia, i. 428 chalcondylas, demetrius, teaches greek at perugia, ii. 249; his edition of isocrates, 376; aids in the publication of the first edition of homer, 376 chancellors of florence, list of illustrious, ii. 106 _note_ 3 charles i., of sicily (charles of anjou), summoned by the popes into italy, i. 75 (cp. 539 _note_ 1); visits cimabue's studio, ii. 187; his legislation for the university of naples, 117 charles iv., the emperor, i. 100; grants diplomas to the universities of florence, siena, arezzo, lucca, pavia, ii. 118 charles v., the emperor, i. 50; governed italy in his dynastic interests, 98, 100; his project of suppressing the papal state, 445; the final conqueror of italy, 584; charles v. at rome, iii. 438; story that he hastened the marquis of pescara's death by poison, v. 291; his patronage of aretino, 400, 404 charles viii., of france, invades italy, i. 90, 113 _note_ 1, 164, 237, 434, 525, 539; popular outbreak at his entry into pisa, 343, 561; his accession, 539; his claims on naples, 539, 542; his character by guicciardini and comines, 540; prepares for his expedition, 542; amount of his forces, 554; captures sarzana, 559; enters florence, 561; enters rome, 564; marches to naples, 566, ii. 363; forced by the league of venice to retreat, i. 576, 579; wins the battle of fornovo, 580; signs peace at vercelli, 581; effects of his conquest, 582-586 charles, the great, crowned emperor, i. 50, iv. 438; his pact with rome, 94; his character in the romances of roland, iv. 435, 445, 469 charles of durazzo, v. 198 chiaravalle, the certosa of, iii. 42, 66 chiavelli, the, of fabriano, i. 111; massacre of them, 121, 168 _note_ 1, 397 _note_ 2 chigi, agostino, the roman banker, couplet put up by him at the entrance of leo x., i. 435; his banquets, 437; his greek press, ii. 405; his entertainments of the roman academy, 409; builds the villa farnesina, iii. 84; his patronage of aretino, v. 386 chivalry, alien to the italian temper, i. 359, 482, iv. 6, 27, 44, 60, 73, v. 13; the ideal of chivalrous love, iv. 59 christ, said to have been proclaimed king of florence by savonarola, i. 222, 526, iii. 214 _note_ 2, 308; difficulty of representing christ by sculpture, iii. 16-18 christianity, influence of, in producing the modern temper of mind, ii. 19; contrast between greek and christian religious notions, iii. 12-21, 410-412; ascetic nature of christianity, 24 _note_ 1 chronicon venetum, cited for the cruelty of ferdinand of aragon, i. 572 _note_ 1; for the good will of the common people to the french, 583 _note_ 2 chrysoloras, john, teaches filelfo greek, ii. 268; marries his daughter theodora to filelfo, 268 chrysoloras, manuel, summoned to florence as greek professor, ii. 108-110; obliged to leave by niccolò's opposition, 182; author of the _erotemata_, 376 church, assassination of italian tyrants frequently undertaken in churches, i. 168 _note_ 1, 397 _note_ 2 church, the, compromises made by the church with the world, iii. 26; opposition of the medieval church to poetry, ii. 60, iv. 81 cibo, franceschetto (son of innocent viii.), i. 114, 404; marries the daughter of lorenzo de' medici, 545 cibo, giambattista. (_see_ innocent viii.) cicala, milliardo (treasurer of sixtus iv.), his quarrel with filelfo, ii. 286 cicero, petrarch's love of cicero, ii. 73; loss of the 'de gloria,' 73; influence of cicero in the renaissance, 527 ciceronianism, the, of the humanists, ii. 108, 414, 528 cima da conegliano, iii. 362 cimabue, giovanni, story of his _madonna_ which was carried in triumph to s. maria novella, iii. 11, 187 _note_ 1; character of the picture, 188; story of his finding giotto, as a child, drawing, 190, 191; his frescoes at assisi, 196 cino da pistoja, character of his poems, iv. 65; his influence on petrarch, 94 cinthio (giovanbattista giraldi), his _ecatommithi_, v. 60, 78; cited for the story of the poisoning of alexander vi., i. 429, _note_ 1, v. 106; their style, 103; use made of them by the elizabethan dramatists, 104; their ethical tendency, 105; plan of the work, 105; description of the sack of rome forming the introduction, 522; his tragedies, 131 _note_ 2; the dedication of the _orbecche_ cited for italian conceptions of tragedy, 127 _note_ 1, 132 _note_ 1; analysis of the _orbecche_, 131 ciompi rebellion, the, at florence, i. 221, 227, iv. 111, 150; gino capponi's chronicle of, i. 265 _note_ 1, iv. 176 cione, benci di, architect of the loggia dei lanzi at florence, iii. 125 cione, bernardo di (brother of andrea orcagna), iii. 124 ciriaco of ancona, his zeal in collecting antiquities, ii. 155, 429, iii. 236, 272; suspected of forgery, ii. 156 citizens, decline in the number of persons possessing the rights of citizenship at the renaissance, i. 546 citizenship, italian theories of, i. 195 ciuffagni, bernardo, his bas-reliefs in s. francesco, rimini, iii. 162 ciullo d'alcamo, his _tenzone_--the character of its metre, iv. 24 _note_ 1, 25; shows a genuinely popular feeling, 26, 42 cividale, _ludus christi_ acted there in 1298 and 1303, iv. 15, 307 civitale, matteo, his work as a sculptor in italian churches, iii. 78 _note_ 1; purity and delicacy of his work, 152; his monuments, &c., at lucca, ii. 229, iii. 157 clarence, duke of, his marriage with violante visconti, i. 137 classical writers, the, influence of, on the italians, i. 197 _note_ 1, 250 _note_ 1, 464; on columbus and copernicus, ii. 19; present tendency to restrict the use of the classics in education, 537-540 clement ii., i. 59 clement v., founds the high school at perugia, ii. 117 clement vi., i. 135; gives charters to the universities of pisa and florence, ii. 118 clement vii., commissions machiavelli to write the _history of florence_, i. 327; the conspiracy against him, 314, ii. 366, v. 239; his patronage of scholars, ii. 404; advances giovio, vida, and giberti in the church, 402-417; sends castiglione to madrid, 421; his election to the papacy, i. 443; his conduct during the sack of rome, 444; employs the troops which had sacked rome against florence, 283, 446; puts guicciardini in command of florence after the siege, 298; makes guicciardini lieutenant-general of the papal army, 297; his management of florence in the medicean interest, 222, 277, 285; said by pitti to have wished to give florence a liberal government, 288 _note_ 1; macaulay's account of him erroneous, 320; correctness of the character of him given by berni's sonnet, 443 _note_ 1, v. 368; aretino's attacks on him, v. 391, 392, 402 _note_ 1; absolves cellini for stealing gold given him to melt down, iii. 465 cléomadés (an old french romance), quoted to illustrate the gaiety of medieval florence, iv. 50 cocaius, merlinus. (_see_ folengo.) coccio, marco antonio (sabellicus), a member of the roman academy, ii. 361; of the aldine academy, 387; his account of the representations of plautus and terence by the roman academy, v. 138 _note_ 3 coliseum passion, the, question of the date of its first representation, iv. 310; suppressed by paul iii., 310 _note_ 1 colle, paper factory of, ii. 371 collenuccio, pandolfo, his version of the _amphitryon_, v. 140 colleoni family, the, at bergamo, i. 150 colleoni, bartolommeo, i. 170 _note_ 1; his statue at venice, ii. 39, iii. 143; description of him by spino, iii. 144; monument erected by him to his daughter medea, 165; his daughter cassandra married to nicolò da correggio, v. 139 _note_ 3 colocci, angelo, secretary of leo x., ii. 409; his losses in the sack of rome, 444 colonna, the house of: contest of the colonnesi with cesare borgia, i. 349; their rise to power, 375; destroyed by alexander vi., 413; friendly to the french, 551 ---giovanni, the friend of petrarch, ii. 149; fabrizio, the father of vittoria colonna, v. 289; sciarra, i. 77; stefano, disloyal to florence, 284; vittoria, her married life, v. 289; her virtues and genius, 292, 293; the society gathered round her, 292; her leaning to the reformation, 292 _note_ 1; flaminio's elegy on her death, ii. 503; her friendship with michelangelo, iii. 429, 433, v. 294, 296; her correspondence with aretino, v. 407, 408, 416; the _rime_, 294; (1) the sonnets on the death of her husband; genuineness of their feeling, 294; (2) the sonnets on religious subjects, 295 colonna, egidio, his _de regimine principum_ translated into italian, iv. 35, 130 colonna, francesco, author of the _hypnerotomachia_, iv. 219; maccaronic dialect (_lingua pedantesca_) of the work, 219, 238, v. 328; its illustrations erroneously ascribed to raphael, iv. 221 _note_ 1; its historical value, 221, 225, 227, 229-232; analysed, 222-225; its basis of reality, 227-229; its imaginativeness, 232 columbus discovers america, i. 15, 29, 411; question of his indebtedness for the discovery to classical writers, ii. 19 comet, a comet supposed by gian galeazzo to foreshow his death, i. 149 comines, philip de, his descriptions of siena and venice, i. 207 _note_ 2, 214 _note_ 1; praises venice for piety, 475 _note_ 1; on the humanity of the italian peasants, 478 _note_ 2; his character of charles viii., 541; quoted for the popular belief that charles' invasion was guided by providence, 553 _note_ 1; for the expense of the invasion, 553 _note_ 2; for charles' want of money, 563 _note_ 1; on the avarice of ferdinand of aragon, 571 _note_ 2; his character of ferdinand and alfonso ii., 572; his account of the communication of the news of the venetian league, 578; his witness to the brutality and avarice of the french in the invasion, 583 _note_ 2 _commedia dell'anima_ (old italian religious drama), iv. 75 commissaries, i. 35 communes, the italian, their rise, i. 33, 53-82; the differences between them, 35, 36, iii. 43; their quarrels, i. 36-38, 62, 66; why the historian cannot confine his attention to the communes, 51; their willingness to submit to the authority of the emperor, 64, 97; why they did not advance to federal unity, 95-98; their public spirit, iii. 42; the real life of the italian nation, iv. 27, 459, v. 493 como, traditional reverence for the plinies there, ii. 30, iv. 12 ---the cathedral, luini's paintings, iii. 487 _note_ 3 compagnacci, the young aristocratic opponents of savonarola, so called, i. 531, 533, iii. 307 comparini, paoli, representation of the _manæchmi_ by his pupils, v. 138 conceptualists, the, v. 466, 467 condivi, his biography of michelangelo, ii. 36, iii. 399, 402 _note_ 1, 406 condottieri, the, i. 86, 87, 113, 131, 143; their origin, 156-158; members of noble italian houses become condottieri, 158, 160, iv. 459; their mode of campaigning, 159, 160 _note_ 1; the condottieri system took its rise from the mercantile character of the italian states, 244; machiavelli traces the ruin of italy to the condottieri, 160 _note_ 2, 312, 361, v. 436 _confusi_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 conrad ii., i. 58 _conservatori_, name of magistrates in some italian cities, i. 35 _consiglio_ del comune, in italian cities, i. 35, 71; di dieci, 35; della parte, 71; del popolo, 35, 71; de' savi, 35; di tre, 35 constance, council of, ii. 134; jerome of prague before the council, 231, 535; peace of, 64, iv. 6; not signed by venice, 214 constantinople, fall of, i. 89, ii. 285, iv. 2 constitution, the, of genoa, i. 201; of florence, 201, 222 (see also appendix ii.); of siena, 207; of venice, 214 constitution-making, in the italian republics, i. 201 consuls, magistrates of italian communes, i. 35, 56, 83; their part in italian history, 61, 62, 68 _contado_, the, i. 66, 67; original meaning of the word, 55 _note_ 1 contarini, cardinal, his friendship with flaminio, ii. 498, 502; ---with vittoria colonna, v. 292; his work upon the commonwealth of venice, ii. 502; his venetian origin, illustrating the loss of intellectual supremacy of florence, 506; his formulary of faith, v. 286; marcantonio flavio, takes part in the controversy raised by the publication of pomponazzi's _de immortalitate animæ_, 460 conte lando, the, leader of condottieri, i. 86 conversation, the art of, invented by the italians, ii. 34 copernicus, discoveries of, i. 15, 29; their importance, 15, 16; question of his indebtedness to the classical writers, ii. 19 coppola, francesco, execution of, by ferdinand of aragon, i. 571 _note_ 3 copyists, their inaccuracy, ii. 129; their pay, 130; their opposition to the new art of printing, 370 cordegliaghi, venetian painter, iii. 362 corio, quoted, i. 135, 137 _note_ 1, 137 _note_ 2, 138 _note_ 1, 141 _note_ 2, 150 _note_ 1, 152 _note_ 1, 160 _note_ 1, 167 _note_ 1; his witness to the corruption of the milanese court, 326, 548 _note_ 1, 554, v. 191; his character of paul ii., 385 _note_ 1; his description of the reception of leonora of aragon by cardinal pietro riario, 390; cited for the death of the cardinal, 392 _notes_ 1 and 2, 393; for the history of alfonso the magnanimous, 568 _note_ 1; his account of the flagellants, 619; his value as an historian, iv. 177 cornaro, cardinal, abandons cellini to the pope in exchange for a bishopric, iii. 466; caterina, queen of cyprus, i. 233; lodovico, autobiography of, ii. 36 cornazano, antonio, his _proverbi_, v. 60, 101 corneto, cardinal, his connection with the death of alexander vi., i. 429-431 corniole, giovanni della, his portrait of savonarola, i. 509 corrado, gregorio, his latin play, _progne_, v. 110 correggi, the, at parma, v. 139 _note_ 3; how they rose to power, i. 112; overthrown by the visconti, 145; reappear after the death of gian galleazzo, 150 ---ghiberto da, (1) the pupil of vittoria da feltre, i. 177; (2) the husband of veronica gambara, v. 289 correggio, antonio allegri, sensuousness of his work, iii. 25, 495; his introduction of pagan motives into christian art, 137; founded no school of local artists, 184; his _danaë_ and _io_, illustrating his treatment of mythology, 291; one of the four great painters by whom the renaissance was fully expressed, 312, 339; manner in which his genius differed from that of michelangelo, raphael, or lionardo da vinci, 339; beauty and joyousness of his works, 340; the imitations of his style in the period of _barocco_ architecture, 495 _corrotto_, meaning of the term, iv. 294 _note_ 1, 309, 538 corso, rinaldo, his account of the society around veronica gambara, v. 289 cortese, ersilia, v. 288 cortesi, paolo, his _hyppolyti et deyaniræ historia_, iv. 213 _cortesia_, meaning of the word in italian, v. 13 cortona, signorelli's _last supper_, iii. 289 coryat, cited for the profligacy of venice, i. 475 corycius. (_see_ goritz.) cosimo i. (_see_ medici, cosimo de', first grand duke.) council, the grand, of venice, i. 215-217 ---of ten, the, at venice, 215 _note_ 1; its powers, 218; comparison of, with the spartan ephorate, 234 counts, the, opposed to the communes, i. 55, 66, 67 crasso, leonardo, defrayed the cost of printing the _hypnerotomachia_, iv. 221 credenza, name for the privy council in italian cities, i. 35, 57, 71 credi, lorenzo di, the pupil of verrocchio, iii. 142; influence of savonarola upon him, 310 crema, the duomo, i. 74, iii. 53 cremona, gabbriello da, a pupil of vittorino da feltre's, i. 177 cremonini, cesare, epitaph on himself said to have been composed by him, v. 480; said to be the author of the saying, _foris ut moris, intus ut libet_, 480 cretans, number of cretans who aided aldo manuzio, ii. 378, 386 cristina of lorraine, her marriage to ferrando de' medici, iv. 325 criticism: criticism in the modern sense unknown to the ancients, i. 24, ii. 59 _note_ 1; created by the renaissance, ii. 67; uncritical character of the first scholars, 296, 327, 337, 382 crivelli, crivello, iii. 362 cronaca, il, architect, iii. 76 crusades, the, i. 7; joined in by the italians mainly from commercial motives, iv. 426 (cp. v. 505) culture, the culture of modern europe due to the italians of the renaissance, ii. 9, 408, 506, 524, v. 491, 505; intricacy of the history of culture in italy, ii. 158-140; growth of, at the roman court, 406 d'albornoz, egidio, i. 81 dalla viuola, his musical compositions for the theatre, v. 143 damasus ii., i. 59 damiano, fra, da bergamo, his tarsia work at perugia, iii. 78 _note_ 2 daniel da volterra, employed to paint clothes on the nude figures in michelangelo's _last judgment_, iii. 426; influenced by michelangelo, 493 dante, the facts of his life, iv. 70-73; refused the poet's crown unless he could receive it in florence, 86, 88; his devotion to the imperial idea, i. 76, 77 _note_ 1, iv. 161; veneration of the ghibelline poets for dante, iv. 162; his firmness in exile contrasted with machiavelli's servility, i. 318, iii. 395 (cp. iv. 86); his denunciations of the papacy, i. 457; his idea of nobility, 186 _note_ 1; dante and petrarch compared, ii. 70, iv. 85-89, 90; dante depreciated by petrarch, ii. 82; points of contrast between dante and ariosto, v. 15, 19, 21, 28; dante's genius never immature, iii. 387; the poet of medieval christianity, v. 2, 194, 449; between the ancient and the modern world, i. 10, ii. 13, 39, 69, iv. 84; the first exponent of italian genius, iv. 84; his superiority in lyric to his predecessors, 66; not wholly free from scholasticism, 67; his relation to the _summa_, i. 60, v. 449; the _convito_, iv. 71; dante's censure in it of the writers who preferred french to italian, 16; the _de monarchiâ_, i. 60, 260, ii. 57, iii. 261, iv. 88; the _vita nuova_, ii. 31, 35, iv. 68-70, 86, 123; the meeting with beatrice quoted as a specimen of dante's style, 133; dante's treatment of love in the _vita nuova_, 90; the _de vulgari eloquio_, i. 261, 272, iv. 28, 66 _note_ 2; its citations of vernacular poetry, iv. 20, 32; ideal of language proposed in the work, 33, 42, v. 246; dante's account in it of the sicilian poets, iv. 21; the mention of guittone of arezzo, 46; dante's remark in it on the subjects of poetry, 117 _note_ 1; translated by trissino, v. 306; the _divina commedia_: dante himself the hero, iv. 78; its scientific structure, 79; the allegories of the _commedia_, 81; its characteristic italian realism, 82, v. 514; dante finds no place for those who stood aloof from faction, i. 73; contrast of the _commedia_ and the _decameron_, iv. 104; the _commedia_ as an epic of italian tyranny, i. 77 _note_ 1; influence exercised by it on the painters, iii. 283 _note_ 2 (cp. 406); dante's own explanation of the _divina commedia_, iv. 75-77; its comprehensive spirit, 77; quotations:--the _inferno_: the speech of ulysses, ii. 330 _note_ 2; the ancient poets, ii. 32, iii. 283 _note_ 2; mention of the story of roland, iv. 433; the _paradiso_: cacciaguida's speech, i. 73 _note_ 1; the miseries of patronage, 318; the planet mercury, ii. 39; character of s. dominic, iii. 205; lines quoted to show the clinging of the italians to their past history, iv. 12 (cp. 151); the _purgatory_: the apostrophe to italy, i. 77 _note_ 1; the speech of manfred, 133 _note_ 1; the fickleness of florence, 237; the fleetingness of fame, ii. 39; the sacred city, rome, 144; the sculpture seen by dante in purgatory, iii. 149; the trevisan court, iv. 15; the praise of guido guinicelli, 47; the mention of guittone of arezzo, 48; the canzone--_donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore_, 62; philosophical treatment of love in the poem, 62; the song of the _ghirlandetta_: its popularity, 261 dati, goro di stagio, iv. 176; his description of may festivals at florence, 52 dati, leonardo, his cosmographical history, iv. 240 dati, leonardo, theologian and friend of palmieri, v. 549; comments on the _città di vita_, 548, 549 dattiri, altobello, assassination of, i. 121 d'avalos, alfonso, marquis of vasto, gives ariosto a pension, iv. 503 ---ferrante francesco, marquis of pescara, marries vittoria colonna, v. 289; his reputed treason, 290 (cp. i. 245) dazzi, andrea, devises the cars for the pageant of the golden age, iv. 397 death, the black, its effects at florence, i. 259, ii. 120, iv. 111, v. 191; description of, in the decameron, iv. 111 decembrio, candido, his account of filippo maria visconti, i. 153 _note_ 1, ii. 266; followed the model of suetonius, ii. 533; patronised by eugenius iv., 220; translates appian and homer, and aids trapezuntius in translating the _republic_, for nicholas v., 228, 266; appointed secretary of the abbreviators by nicholas, 229; his position at milan, 266; cited for filelfo's conceit, 271 _note_ 1 decorative art, wealth of, in italian palaces and churches, iii. 54, 56, 78 decretals, the false, i. 3 della casa, giovanni, bishop of benevento, facts of his life, v. 274; his morality, i. 459 _note_ 2 (cp. v. 274); a member of the _vignajuoli_ academy at rome, ii. 366, v. 357; said to have been refused the cardinalate on account of the _capitolo del forno_, v. 275; his relations with pier paolo vergerio, 275 _note_ 1, 381 _note_ 1; the _galateo_, i. 183 _note_ 1, ii. 37, v. 275; a code of social etiquette æsthetically treated, v. 430; the _capitolo del forno_, 40, 275, 278, 364; the latin lyrics, ii. 497, v. 276; his correspondence, v. 276, 360; the italian poems: sternness and sadness of their tone, 277; translations of six sonnets, 279 della casa, quirino (son of giovanni della casa), v. 274 _della crusca_ academy, the, at florence, ii. 366; il lasca and the _della crusca_, v. 79 _note_ 2 della rovere family, the, sixtus iv. claims kindred with them, i. 388; their armorial bearings, 388, ii. 495 ---francesco (_see_ sixtus iv.): francesco maria, duke of urbino, ii. 419; his violence of temper, i. 393; neglects to defend rome in 1527, 245, 297, 444; giovanni della, duke of urbino, 182 _note_ 2, 389, 393, ii. 419; cardinal girolamo, his monument by sansovino, iii. 156; giuliano (_see_ julius ii.); lionardo, i. 389; nicolò, marries laura, daughter of alexander vi., 407 _note_ 1 demetrius of crete, aids in the first printing of greek books in italy, ii. 375; furnishes the model for the greek type of the first edition of homer, 376 democracy, the renaissance and democracy, i. 27, 28, v. 489; gradual approach of the italian cities to democracy, 72 democratic principles of modern society, i. 28 desiderio da settignano, his monument to carlo marsuppini, ii. 186, iii. 158 _note_ 2, 159; his bust of marietta strozzi, iii. 159; giovanni santi's description of him, 160 _desiosi_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 despots, the italian, i. 42; their rise, 75-77, 81; their services to art and literature, 78-80, iii. 42; popular with the middle classes and the people, i. 83, 116; disarm their subjects, 85; their downfall, 89, 90; their title rested solely on ability, 102, 117, 118; character and effect of their government, 103; luxury and culture of their courts, 105; the atrocities of the tyrants--how far due to mania, 109, 110, 151 (_see also_ appendix i.); divided into six classes, 110-114; led a life of terror, 118; their superstition, 119, 149; their crimes, 120-125, 139, v. 441; errors in macaulay's account of them, i. 127; description of them by villani, 128; by ariosto, 130, iv. 506 _note_ 2; their practice of division among joint heirs a source of weakness to them, i. 136; developed refinement of manners, 192 d'estampes, madame, iii. 474, 476 _desti_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 diacceto, jacopo del, executed for his share in the conspiracy against cardinal giulio de' medici, v. 239 diamond, the, name of a club at florence formed by the duke of nemours, iv. 396 dino compagni, chronicle of, cited, i. 210 _note_ 2, 225 _note_ 1; question of its authenticity, 262, 263 _note_ 1, 266, 272; dino's reason for undertaking the work, 264; its character and value, 265 diplomacy: diplomatic ability fostered by the number of the italian commonwealths, ii. 3, iv. 366 (cp. v. 518) _disciplinati di gesù cristo_, italian religious societies, iv. 282, 307 _disuniti_, the, an academy at fabriano, ii. 366 divizio, agnolo, nephew of cardinal bibbiena, v. 367; bernardo (_see_ bibbiena, cardinal) _divozioni_, the umbrian form of the sacred drama, iv. 307; various metres in which they were written, 308; their themes, 309; question of the date when they were first represented in public, 310; their relation to the northern miracle plays, 311 djem, prince, brother of sultan bajazet, his captivity in italy, i. 415, 461; said to have been poisoned by alexander vi., 415, 566 _note_ 1 doctrinaire spirit, the, of italian political theorists, i. 202, 244 _note_ 2, 283 doge, gradual limitation of the power of the doges at venice, i. 216; unpopularity of the office, 216 _note_ 1 dolce, lodovico, v. 181; his tragedy of _marianna_, 133; more truly dramatic than the majority of italian tragedies, 133; the _giocasta_, 134; the comedy of _ragazzo_, 162 _note_ 1; its prologue cited in testimony of the prevalent corruption of manners, 190; his _capitoli_, 365; his relations to aretino, 419 domenichi, lodovico, his revision of ser giovanni's _novelle_, iv. 152 _note_ 2; his _rifacimento_ of the _orlando innamorato_, 491, v. 376; his friendship and quarrel with doni, v. 88; his collection of works of italian poetesses, 287 domenico, fra (savonarola's friend), offers to undergo the ordeal of fire, i. 533; executed with savonarola, 534 domenico di giovanni. (_see_ burchiello, il.) domenico, s., perugian confraternity of: inventory of their dramatic properties in 1339, iv. 310 dominic, s., contrast of s. dominic and s. francis, iii. 205 dominico di viterbo, story of his crimes and execution by innocent viii., i. 404 _note_ 1 donatello, ii. 8, 433; a friend of niccolò de' niccoli's, 180; his statue of poggio, 246; his statues at florence, 440, iii. 138; his work as a sculptor and bronze founder in italian churches, iii. 78 _note_ 1; said to have been consulted in the competition for the baptistery gates at florence, 127; his fidelity to nature, 136; his smaller works, 139-141; the _judith and holofornes_: its fortunes, 139 (cp. i. 233); the equestrian statue of gattamelata at padua, 140; contrast of his genius with that of ghiberti, 141; brunelleschi's criticism of his _christ_, 233; employed by cosimo de' medici, 138, 139, 263 donati, the, at florence, i. 210 _note_ 2, iv. 71 donati, alesso, his madrigals, iv. 157; their realistic energy, 157 (see appendix iii. vol. iv. for translations); gemma, wife of dante, iv. 71 doni, antonfrancesco, enters the servite order, v. 88; obliged to quit florence, 88; his friendship and quarrel with domenichi, 88; his correspondence with aretino: suspicion that part may have been written by aretino himself, 398 _note_ 1, 410 _note_ 1; settles at venice, 89; his praises of aldo manuzio, ii. 391; his quarrel with aretino, v. 90, 96, 419, 422; becomes a member of the _pellegrini_ academy, 90; his life at monselice, 91; his account of two comedies performed in the palazzo vecchio, florence, 144 _note_ 4; his _novelle_, 92; his miscellaneous works, 92; his _marmi_, 93-95; his comedies, 181 doria, andrea, i. 201 dossi, dosso, his _circe_, illustrating his treatment of mythology, iii. 291, 502, iv. 422, 482 doucas, demetrius, a member of the aldine academy, ii. 387 drama, the italian, a national drama never fully developed in italy, ii. 8, iv. 357, v. 110, 112-114, 125, 181, 241, 310; imperfect connection of the italian theatre with the _sacre rappresentazioni_, iv. 306, v. 109; want of profoundly tragical element in italian art, v. 114-116; reasons for this, 116-120; the first attempts in italian: boiardo's _timone_ and poliziano's _orfeo_, 108; early latin plays, 110; contrast between the italian and the elizabethan drama, 111; the growth of a national italian drama hindered by the adherence of playwrights to classical models, 121-125; poverty of the early italian tragedies, 126, 132, 135; seneca's influence over italian tragedies, 129, 131, 132 _note_ 1; italian tragedies adapted from the greek tragedians, 133-135; imperfect evolution of italian comedy, 136-138, 140; influence of the ferrarese stage on italian comedy, 142; the want of permanent theatres in italian towns, 144; character of the italian _commedia erudita_, 181; tendency of the italians to adopt stereotyped forms for dramatic representation, 182 _note_ 2; fixed elements in italian comedy, 183-185; employment of the _burla_ or _beffa_, 185; vicious philosophy of life taught by the italian playwrights, 192; the pastoral drama the culmination of italian dramatic effort, 114, 223, 241; contained the germs of the italian opera, 114, 241 duccio, agostino di, his façade in marble and terra-cotta of s. bernardino at perugia, iii. 79 _note_ 1, 150 duccio di buoninsegna, his _majesty of the virgin_ in the duomo of siena, iii. 215 duranti, durante, attempts the murder of benvenuto cellini, iii. 467 education, modern education founded upon the system of vittorino and guarino, ii. 537, v. 492; present tendency to diminish greek and latin elements in education: how far justifiable, ii. 537-540; identity of male and female education in italy at the renaissance, v. 287 _note_ 1 egidius of viterbo, quoted for the acknowledgment of his children by innocent viii., i. 403 _note_ 1 egnazio, giambattista, a member of the aldine academy, ii. 387 emilia pia, wife of antonio da montefeltro, introduced in castiglione's _cortegiano_, i. 184 england, poggio's journey to, ii. 231 enzo, king, reputed ancestor of the bentivogli, i. 115, iv. 49; his _greeting to the provinces of italy_, 49 ephors, the spartan, compared with the venetian council of ten, i. 234 epic, the italian romantic: its anomalies explained by a large plebeian element, iv. 426-428, 439; manner in which the roland legend passed into its italian form, 428 epicureans, in italy during the middle ages, iv. 10, 109 epistolography, latin, importance of, in the renaissance, ii. 107, 531, v. 507 erasmus, i. 24, 27; quoted on the worldly tendency of classical learning, 456 _note_, ii. 44; his ridicule of 'ciceronianism,' ii. 108, 414 (cp. 528); his visit to aldo manuzio at venice, 384; popularity of his _adagia_, 384 _note_ 1; hatred of the clergy against him, 385; quoted for musurus' knowledge of latin, 386 _note_ 2; a member of the aldine academy, 387; his praises of aldo manuzio, 391; his visit to rome, 408; cited for inghirami's eloquence, 425 _note_ 2; initiated a second age of scholarship, 541; quoted for the italian origin of northern culture, 544 erizzo, sebastiano, his _sei giornate_, v. 60 este, house of, i. 52, 57, 145; confirmed in their succession by the papacy, 111; their crimes and tragic history, 125, 168, 423; their patronage of learning, ii. 298; important part played by the d'esti in the resuscitation of latin comedy in italy, v. 139 ---alberto d', i. 146; alfonso d', aids frundberg's army on the march to rome, 245, 444; married (1) to anna sforza, v. 140, (2) lucrezia borgia, 420, 422, 423, v. 141; his skill as a gunsmith, i. 423, iii. 403; takes ariosto into his service, iv. 498; builds the first permanent theatre in italy, iv. 499, v. 144; makes ariosto governor of the garfagnana, iv. 500; his warfare with the papacy, 500; azzo d', i. 168; beatrice d' (1), mentioned by dante, 133; beatrice d' (2), wife of lodovico sforza, 555; borso d', 173; his reception of filelfo, ii. 285; the friend of boiardo, iv. 457; ercole d', his assassination attempted by nicolò d'este, i. 168; urges ludovico sforza to invite the french, 546; meets charles at pavia, 554; the friend of boiardo, iv. 457; his interest in the representation of latin comedies, v. 139; his translation of the _menæchmi_, 140; his visit to milan, iv. 498, v. 140; festivities prepared by him at the marriage of lucrezia borgia to alfonso d'este, v. 141; his marriage to renée, daughter to louis xii., 297; ferdinand d', shares giulio's plot against alfonso, i. 423; giulio d', his attempt on alfonso, 423; his eyes put out by order of ippolito d'este, 423, iv. 495; cardinal ippolito d', invites cellini to the court of francis i., iii. 472, 476; takes ariosto into his service, iv. 494; wishes him to enter the church, 495; quarrel between them, 496 (cp. 509); puts out the eyes of giulio d'este, i. 423, iv. 495; lionello d', the pupil of guarino, i. 173, ii. 240, 299; his correspondence with eminent scholars, 173, ii. 300; his portrait in the national gallery, ii. 300; alberti's _teogenio_ dedicated to him, iv. 205; nicolò d' (nicolas iii.), his journey to rome, ii. 152 _note_ 1; reopens the high school of ferrara, 298; his patronage of men of letters, i. 173; obizzo d', sells parma to lucchino visconti, i. 134; murdered by his uncle, 146; ugo d', his journey to rome, ii. 152 _note_ 1 _eterei, gli_, an academy at padua, v. 272 eugenius iv., consulted by cosimo de' medici as to how he should make restitution, ii. 172; lionardo bruni's translation of aristotle's _politics_ dedicated to him, 184; retires to florence after his expulsion from rome, 185, 186, 196, 219; makes traversari general of the camaldolese order, 194; his proclivities rather monastic than humanistic, 219; makes marsuppini and aurispa papal secretaries, and patronises other scholars, 220; proscribes the reading of beccadelli's _hermaphroditus_, 256; attacked by valla in the treatise on _constantine's donation_, 260; his saying on the malice of the humanists, 511; pageants in his honour at perugia, iv. 315 euripides, compared with ariosto, v. 35, 37 eusebi, ambrogio degli, a secretary of aretino's, v. 421 exarchate and pentapolis, the, i. 48, 51; exarchs, the, 35, 43 excommunication, terrors of, i. 132, 133 _note_ 1, 471, 531, ii. 332 ezzelino da romana, i. 69, 75, 110; his cruelty, 106-110, iv. 279; influence of his example on italy, i. 107, 108, iv. 280; his love of astrology, 119 _fabliaux_, the, of the middle ages, iv. 107 fabriano, paper factory of, ii. 371, 37 [transcriber's note: so in original] fabrizio, early bolognese poet, iv. 48 faenza, massacre of, i. 82; sold by astorre manfredi, 114; church of s. costanzo: benedetto da majano's bas-reliefs, iii. 160 falconetto, giovanni maria, his work as an architect at padua, iii. 86 farnesi, the, origin of their greatness, i. 417 _note_ 2 ---cardinal alessandro, v. 283; alexander (_see_ paul iii.); giulia, surnamed la bella, mistress of alexander vi., i. 407 _note_ 1; her portrait statue on paul iii.'s tomb, 417 _note_ 2, iii. 108; captured by the french, i. 417; pier luigi (son of paul iii.), 428 _note_ 1, iii. 422 _note_ 1, 460, 462, 465, v. 283; aretino's lines on him, v. 402 _note_ 1; cardinal ranuccio, 283; ranuzio, orders the building of the teatro farnese at parma, 144 _farse_, the, at naples, v. 136, 137; cultivated by cecchi at florence, 188; his description of the _farsa_, 188; how related to the english type of drama, 188, 189 faust, legend of, ii. 53; in italy and england, iv. 347 fazio, bartolommeo, the historiographer of alfonso the magnanimous, i. 569, ii. 38; his criticisms on valla, ii. 263 federigo d'arezzo, poems of, iv. 164 felix, the anti-pope, ii. 236 feltre, vittorino da, i. 171; a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100, 290; acquainted with filelfo at venice, 267; his poverty and early education, 289; begins teaching, 290; summoned to mantua, i. 176, ii. 291; traversari's account of his system of education, 177 (cp. ii. 291-297); his single-mindedness contrasted with the self-seeking of other scholars, ii. 290, 523; his nobility of character, 297; effect of his labours, 273, 537 ferdinand the catholic, his hypocrisy, i. 296, 358; his persecution of the jews, 399-401; his alliance with louis xii., 428; obtains roussillon from charles viii. as the price of neutrality, 542; joins the league of venice against charles, 577 ferdinand i., king of naples, i. 113 _note_ 1; his cruelty and avarice, 139 _note_ 1, 395, 570; supports virginio orsini against alexander vi., 545; character of him by comines, 572; his judgment of pope alexander vi., 409; his opinion of the papacy, 451 ferdinand ii., king of naples, retires before the approach of the french, i. 574; his marriage and death, 575 fernus, michael, his panegyric of alexander vi., i. 408 ferrara, share of, in italian literature, iv. 364, 365; retained more feudal feeling than other towns, iv. 460 ---the castle of, i. 423, iii. 60, iv. 456; the palazzo della ragione, v. 141 ---the high school, ii. 117; reopened by niccolò iii., 298; most flourishing at the beginning of the sixteenth century, 427, v. 497; difference of character between the universities of ferrara and padua, v. 460 ferrari, gaudenzio, belongs to the lombard school, iii. 484; his masters and mixed style, 488-490 ferrucci, his part in the siege of florence, i. 238, 285, 521 feudalism, uncongenial to the italian character, i. 42, 58, 61, 62, 100, 359, 484, ii. 3, iii. 51, iv. 6, 7, 27, 44, 140, 405, 426, 459, v. 492, 503, 505, 524, 530; had a stronger hold on the valley of the po than elsewhere in italy, iv. 6, 460; and on naples, 460 fiamma, galvano, his milanese annals, i. 81 fiammetta, the natural daughter of king robert, iv. 120 _note_ 1; her relations with boccaccio, 120 fiandino, ambrogio, takes part in the controversy raised by the publication of pomponazzi's _de immortalitate animæ_, v. 460 ficino, his attempt to combine ancient philosophy and christianity, i. 171, 456, ii. 209, 325, 470, iii. 35, v. 452; educated by cosimo de' medici in order to teach greek philosophy, ii. 177, 207, 324; his influence over italian thought, 207, 327; his translations the most valuable part of his work, v. 453; one of the circle gathered round lorenzo de' medici, ii. 322, 323; his earnestness of character, 325, 523; in common with his age, did not comprehend plato's system, 327, v. 452; his letter to jacopo bracciolini describing a celebration of plato's birthday, ii. 329; his praise of palmieri's _città di vita_, iv. 171; part of the _morgante_ erroneously ascribed to him by tasso, 455 _note_ 3; his description of the village feasts at montevecchio, v. 196 fieschi, isabella, poisons her husband, lucchino visconti, i. 134 fiesole, the cathedral, mino's altar, iii. 158 _note_ 1; mino's bust of bishop salutati, 158 filarete, antonio, builds the _ospedale maggiore_ at milan, iii. 59, 77; his treatise on the building of the ideal city, 77 _note_ 2; his work as a bronze founder, 78 _note_ 1; executes the bronze gates of s. peter's, 108, v. 424 filelfo, francesco, corresponds with lionello d'este, i. 173; his epigrams on pius ii., 381; patronised by francesco sforza, ii. 38, 282 (cp. 511); his boasts of his learning, 84, 271, 347; his wanderings, 100, 268, 277; a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, 100; his various emoluments and offers of stipends, 122, 274, 277; obliged to leave florence by niccoli's opposition, 182, 275; offended by marsuppini's success at florence, 187, 275, 278 _note_ 1; patronised by eugenius iv., 220; receives a present from nicholas v. for his satires, 236, 284 (cp. 514); his quarrel with poggio, 238-240; teaches at venice, 267; his journey to constantinople, 267; his diplomatic employments, 268 (cp. 532); his marriage with theodora chrysoloras, 268; returns to venice, 270; list of greek books brought by him, 270; leaves venice, first for bologna, finally for florence, 273; his success and literary labours at florence, 273; his lectures on dante, 274, iv. 235; his feud with the medicean party, 275; they attempt his assassination, 170 _note_ 1, ii. 243, 275; references in his satires to his florentine quarrels, ii. 276 _note_ 1; his stay in siena and in bologna, 276; settles in milan, 277; his labours in milan, 278; his position there, i. 171, ii. 265, 266, 277; his second and third marriages, 279, 282; his loose morals, 280; solicits ecclesiastical preferment from nicholas v., 281, 517; his rapacity, 282; the _sforziad_, 283 _note_ 1, 284; his journey to naples, 284; obtains the release of his mother-in-law at the fall of constantinople, 285; invited to rome by sixtus iv., 285; returns to florence and dies, 288; his importance as a typical scholar of the renaissance, 288; his answer when urged to open a school, 291; quotation from a letter of his containing an early mention of printed books, 306 _note_ 2; poorness of his latin verse, 452; his contempt for italian, 532 _note_ 1, iv. 235; his commentary on petrarch, and _terza rima_ poem on s. john, iv. 235 fiorentino, bernardo, iii. 75 _fioretti di s. francesco_, beauty of the work, iv. 131; has the childlike character of italian _trecento_ prose, 131; s. anthony preaching to the fishes, quoted as a specimen of its style, 134 firenzuola, agnolo, the friend of aretino, v. 83; their correspondence, 410 _note_ 1; a member of the _vignajuoli_ academy at rome, ii. 366 (cp. v. 83), v. 357; said to have been abbot in the vallambrosan order, v. 83; his _novelle_, 60; their beauty of style, 84; their subjects chiefly the weaknesses and the vices of the clergy, 84; the introduction, 84; his discourse on the beauty of women, ii. 37, v. 83, 85-87; his miscellaneous works and poems, v. 87, 187, 249; his comedies, 181, 186; adhered closely to latin models, 186; his _capitoli_, 249, 364; his orthographical disputes with trissino, 271, 306 fisiraghi family, the, of lodi, i. 145 fisiraga, antonio, his murder of the vistarini and death by poison, i. 120 fivizzano, massacre of, 557 flagellants, the, i. 618, iv. 40, 73; description of them from the chronicle of padua, iv. 280; from a private letter from rome (1399), 282 _note_ 1; social danger caused by them, 282; merged in the _disciplinati_ and _laudesi_, 282 flaminio, marcantonio, his verses upon the death of navagero, ii. 488; his latin poems: their beauty and interest, 498-504 (cp. v. 196); his friendship with cardinal pole and vittoria colonna, ii. 498, 502, v. 292 flanders, artists brought from, by frederick of urbino, i. 179; comparison between flemish and venetian art, iii. 362 _note_ 1 flattery of great personages by the humanists, ii. 492-496, 512, 514 florence: struggle between florence and the visconti, i. 81, 149; constitutional history of, 221 foll.; parties at florence in 1494, 528; in 1527, 281; the ciompi rebellion, 221, 227, iv. 111, 150; the exclusion of the nobles, 224. iv. 27, 51; florence laid under interdict by martin v., iv. 258; war of the florentines with sixtus iv., 447; harsh treatment of pisa and other cities by florence, i. 212, 237, 342, 560, ii. 165; florence under savonarola, i. 526-529; the siege of florence, 222, 284 foll., 319, 536 _note_ 2, iii. 393, 414, 438 (_see_ savonarola); christ declared king of florence, 222, 526, iii. 214, 308, 358; goodwill of florence to france, i. 518, 550 _note_ 1, 583 _note_ 2; expulsion of the medici, 222, 561, iii. 389; political contrast of florence and venice, i. 221, 222 _note_ 1, 231; comparison of florence and athens, 234, 236, 306 _note_ 2; beauty of florence, 504, 561, 562, ii. 322, iii. 63 (cp. iv. 520); festivals of medieval florence, iv. 50-58, 316-319, 520; of renaissance florence, 387-398; florence the centre of the true italic element in italy, iv. 141; population of florence, i. 197 _note_ 2, 209, 256; effects of the 'black death' at florence, 259, ii. 120, iv. 111, v. 191; the revenues of florence, i. 255; wealth of the florentines, 257; the guelf laws against _scioperati_, iv. 27, 204; commercial spirit of the florentines, i. 224, 238, 245, 600; florentine intelligence, 232, 250, 504, 505, ii. 26, iv. 45; compared with the athenian, i. 246; fickleness of the florentines, 236; their immorality, 230, 476, 504, iv. 337, v. 81, 358; illustrated by machiavelli's comedies and letters, v. 163, 165, 433; by the _capitoli_, 355; their malicious temper, iv. 150, 253, 255, v. 79, 82; florentine manners as depicted in sacchetti's _novelle_, iv. 149; in alessandra strozzi's letters, 176, 190 _note_ 1; florentine conceptions of nobility, 125; florence the centre of intellectual activity in italy, ii. 108, 162, 250, 311, iv. 349, 364, 365; leads the way in italian literature, ii. 394, 426, iv. 27, 185, 243; part played by florence in the history of italian thought, v. 452-454, 457, 481; favourable conditions presented by florence for the growth of culture, ii. 163; services of the florentines to historical literature, i. 248 foll.; the share taken by florence in the renaissance, v. 496; the main elements of florentine society represented severally by dante, petrarch, and boccaccio, iv. 98; eagerness of the florentines in learning greek, ii. 197 _note_ 1, 206, 250; early florentine printers, 369, 376; loss of the florentine supremacy in literature, 506; architecture of the florentine palaces and churches, iii. 59, 72; florentine pre-eminence in architecture at the renaissance, 76; influence of the florentine painters on sculpture, 161; comparison between florentine and venetian art, 182, 354; the ovation of cimabue's _madonna_, 11, 187; florentine influence on italian painting, 261; positive and scientific character of the florentine intellect as shown in their artistic productions, 182, 215, 221, 364, iv. 128, 402 florence: s. ambrogio, mino's altar, iii. 158 _note_ 1; the annunziata, del sarto's, franciabigio's, and rossi's frescoes, 498 _note_ 1; the _badia_, monuments by mino da fiesole, 158; filippino lippi's 'madonna dictating her life to s. bernard,' 248 _note_ 2; the baptistery, the bronze gates--the first by andrea pisano, 119; the second and third by ghiberti, 128; the carmine, masaccio's frescoes, 229, 231; filippino lippi's frescoes, 248; the duomo, built by public decree, 64; its proportions criticised, 65; arnolfo's intentions, 66; brunelleschi's dome, 67, 73, 74; giotto's campanile, 63, 190, iv. 251; s. lorenzo (by brunelleschi), 73, 393, 399, 413; bronzino's _christ in limbo_, 499 _note_ 1; the medicean chapel, its marble panelling, 79 _note_ 3; the _sagrestia nuova_, character of its architecture, 87, 414, 415; tombs of the medici, i. 314, 319, iii. 354, 377 _note_ 2, 393, 415-419, 420; s. maria maddalena dei pazzi, perugino's fresco of the crucifixion, 295; s. maria novella, cimabue's _madonna_, iii. 188; ghirlandajo's _birth of the virgin_, 259; (spagnuoli chapel), its frescoes, 205; (strozzi chapels) filippino lippi's frescoes, 248; orcagna's frescoes, 199; s. maria nuova, fra bartolomeo's last judgment, 306, 309, 331; s. miniato, 49; rossellino's monument of cardinal di portogallo, 153; spinello's frescoes in the sacristy, 220; orsammichele (by taddeo gaddi and orcagna), 63, 124; orcagna's tabernacle, 125; donatello's statue of s. george, 138; santa croce, 63; benedetto da maiano's pulpit, 160; giotto's frescoes, 190; s. trinità, desiderio's statue of the magdalen, 159 _note_ 1; ghirlandajo's _death of s. francis_, 259; s. spirito (by brunelleschi), 73; agnolo's campanile, 86 florence: loggia del bigallo (by orcagna), 125; loggia de' lanzi (wrongly ascribed to him), 125, 478 ---palazzo vecchio, 61-63; ---del bargello, chapel of the podestà, 191; ---pitti (by brunelleschi), 73; ---riccardi (by michelozzo), 59, 76; ---gozzoli's frescoes, 242; ---rucellai (by alberti), ii. 342, iii. 75 (_see also_ rucellai gardens, the); ---strozzi (by benedetto da maiano), iii. 77 ---academy, the, founded by cosimo de' medici, ii. 177, 207; influence exerted by, over italian thought, 207; celebrations of plato by, 328; later fortunes of, 366 florence, university, the, its foundation, i. 259, ii. 118; establishment of a greek chair, ii. 106; liberality of the signory to the university, 120; partial transfer of the high school to pisa by lorenzo de' medici, 122, v. 497; important services of palla degli strozzi to the university, ii. 166 florence, council of, impression left by, on the florentines, ii. 196, 206 fogliani, giovanni, murder of, by his nephew, oliverotto da fermo, i. 354 fojano, fra, starved to death in the dungeons of s. angelo, iii. 468 folengo, teofilo (girolamo), story of his life, v. 312; enters the benedictine order (cp. i. 459); leaves the cloister, v. 313; resumes the cowl, 313; his pseudonym, merlinus cocaius, 313; said to have once contemplated writing a serious latin epic, 334; his aim at originality, 334; his use of the maccaronic style, 335; the _orlandino_--freedom of its satire, 314; its roughness of style, 315; the introduction, 316; subject of the poem, 317; berta's prayer, 318 (_see_ for translation, appendix ii.); the story of how peasants were made, 319 (cp. 343 _note_ 2); the _resurrection_, 320; translated, 320; passage on the woes of italy, i. 101, v. 320 _note_ 1; the boyhood of orlandino, 321; the episode of griffarosto, 322 (_see_ for translation, appendix ii.); rainero's confession of faith, 323 (_see_ for translation, appendix ii.); lutheran opinions expressed in the _orlandino_, 324, 486; reasons why folengo's religious opinions escaped censure, 325; relation of the _orlandino_ to the _furioso_, 326; the _maccaronea_, 337; its loss of popularity, 337; plot of the poem, 337-345; satire of the monks and clergy, 340; the court of smirna gulfora and the extirpation of the witches, 344, 348-350; the entry into hell, 350-352; probability that the poem was written with a serious aim, 352; the bitterness of the satire increased by folengo's consciousness of his failure in life, 353 _note_ 1 (cp. 314); value of the _maccaronea_ to the student of literature, 353; the _moscheis_, 334 _note_ 2, 354; the _zanitonella_, 354; written in mockery of the fashionable arcadian poetry, 224, 354 folgore da san gemignano, the question of his date, iv. 54 _note_ 1, 163 _note_ 5; his sonnets on the months and days, 54-57; the five sonnets on the arming of a knight, 55 _note_ 1; passage on the triumph of uguccione, 163. (_see_ appendix ii. vol. iv. for translation of ten sonnets.) fondulo, gabrino, his massacre of the cavalcabò family, i. 120; leader of condottieri under gian galeazzo visconti, 150; story of his taking the pope and the emperor up the tower of cremona, 463 _note_ 1 fontana, domenico, his work at s. peter's, iii. 93 forgeries, literary, frequency of, at the renaissance, ii. 156 _note_ 2 form preferred to matter by the humanists, ii. 471, 513, 514 fornovo, battle of, i. 580, iii. 275 _note_ 1 fortiguerra, scipione, prefixes a greek letter to aldo manuzio's edition of aristotle, ii. 382; a member of the aldine academy, 385 fortini, pietro, his _novelle_, v. 60, 97 fortunio, francesco, his suicide during the sack of rome, ii. 445 foscari, francesco, i. 155; his policy and execution by the council of ten, 215 _note_ 1; jacopo, 215; marco, his reports cited, 211 _note_ 2, 221 _note_ 1, 230 _note_ 1, 238 _note_ 1, 597 _note_ 2 fossa, evangelista, writer of maccaronic poems, v. 331 _note_ 2, 332 fracastorius, his _syphilis_, i. 567 _note_ 1, ii. 477-481; his adulatory verses, ii. 481, 496; his veronese birth, illustrating the movement of culture from tuscany to lombardy, 506; his friendship with berni, v. 363 fra moriale, leader of condottieri, i. 86 francesco da bologna (_i. e._ probably francia, the painter), cuts the italian type for aldo manuzio, ii. 381 francesco da montepulciano, frate, his preaching at florence, i. 621 francia, francesco, probably identical with francesco da bologna, ii. 381 _note_ 1; religious feeling and beauty of his works, iii. 303; adhered to the earlier manner of painting, 303, 365 franciabigio, his frescoes in the annunziata, florence, iii. 498 _note_ 1 francis i. of france, i. 518, 584; number of italian artists invited by him to france, iii. 444; summons cellini to his court, 473; his visit to cellini, 443 _note_ 1; his character as described by cellini, 473; his patronage of aretino and presents to him, v. 400, 404 francis of holland, his record of the conversations of michelangelo and vittoria colonna, iii. 434, v. 293 francis, s., his revival of religion, iii. 182 (cp. iv. 296); contrast of s. francis and s. dominic, iii. 205; his first poetry composed in french, iv. 16; his _cantico del sole_, 40, 73 franciscans, the, imprison roger bacon, i. 10; reasons for the popular hatred of them, 459; their religious poetry, iv. 295; their quarrel with the benedictines, v. 325 franco, matteo, his quarrel with luigi pulci, iv. 431, 455 _note_ 3 ---niccolò, his relations to aretino, v. 419, 420; quarrels with aretino, 421; writes satirical sonnets against him, 381, 421; composes a latin commentary on the _priapea_, 421; taken and hanged, 421 ---veronica, v. 288 franco-italian, the language produced by the mixture of french and italian, iv. 15, 19 franzesi, mattio, his _capitoli_, v. 364 frate di s. marco, the, his preaching at milan, i. 620 frateschi, name of the followers of savonarola at florence, i. 529 fraticelli, the, an heretical sect of the franciscan order, i. 9 frederick barbarossa, his war with the lombard cities, i. 63, 64, 67; his defeat at legnano, 42, 64, 95 frederick of naples, i. 552, 574, 575 _note_ 1 frederick ii., the emperor, his warfare with the church, i. 10, 41, 68, ii. 251, iv. 6, 279; establishes a saracen colony at nocera, i. 105, 156 (cp. iv. 280); began the system of government afterwards pursued by the despots, 105-107; his terror under excommunication, 133 _note_ 1; founds the university of naples and attempts to suppress that of bologna, ii. 116; his cultivation of vernacular literature, 251 (cp. i. 10), iv. 6, 21; italian testimonies to his character, iv. 21; probably influenced by political motives in his cultivation of italian literature, 22; his temper not in unison with that of his age, 61 frederick iii., the emperor, i. 100, 163; story of the florentine embassy which went to congratulate him, ii. 190; representation of the _passion_ in his honour at naples, iv. 315 fregosi, the, at genoa, i. 201; two fregosi introduced in castiglione's _cortegiano_, i. 184, v. 257 _note_ 1 fregoso, cesare, v. 64 french, widely-spread use of, by medieval italian writers, iv. 16 frescobaldi, matteo, his political poems, iv. 163 frezzi, frederigo, his _quadriregio_, iv. 168-171; its confusion of christian and antique motives, 169 friola, capture of, i. 108 froben, john, i. 23; prints the greek testament, ii. 391 fulvio, andrea, his _antiquities of rome_, ii. 428 fusina, andrea, works in concert with amadeo at the certosa, pavia, iii. 164 gaddi, cardinal, attacked by aretino, v. 402 _note_ 1; makes terms with him, 402 gaddi, the, scholars of giotto, iii. 197, 226 ---gaddo, supposed to have worked on the frescoes of assisi, 196; taddeo, his work as architect at orsammichele, florence, iii. 124; the painter of the _triumph of s. thomas aquinas_, in s. maria novella, 205 _note_ 1 galileo, his services to modern science, i. 29, v. 518; his trial before the inquisition, v. 462 _note_ 1, 478 gallo, antonio di san, iii. 76, v. 505; his skill in military engineering, iii. 86; his work at s. peter's, 91, 398; giuliano di san, ii. 431, iii. 76; his work at s. peter's, iii. 91; francesco di san, his letter on the discovery of the _laocoon_, ii. 431 gambacorti, the, of pisa, their rise to power, i. 114; their downfall, 147 gambara, veronica, her virtues, v. 289; her poems, 289; society gathered round her, 289; her correspondence with aretino, 408 _note_ 1 gandia, duke of, son of alexander vi. by vanozza catanei, i. 419; story of his murder, 424 garfagnana, ariosto's governorship of, iv. 500-502, 514 garofalo, benvenuto, character of his paintings, iii. 502 garter, the, conferred on frederick of urbino by henry vii., i. 181; on guidobaldo, his son, ii. 420 gasparino da barzizza, the initiator of latin epistolography, ii. 107, 531; his position at milan, 266 gasparino of verona, his panegyric of alexander vi., i. 408 gaza, theodorus, translates aristotle's history of animals, for nicholas v., ii. 229; joins in the controversy of bessarion and trapezuntius, 248 _gelati_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 gelli, his comedies, v. 124, 146 _note_ 1, 181, 186, 187; took machiavelli as his model, 187 generosity, admiration of the italians for this virtue, iv. 356 genezzano, fra mariano da, preaching of, i. 506, 522 gennadius, patriarch of constantinople, his controversy with gemistos plethon, ii. 209 genoa, annexed to the milanese, i. 136, 568; constitution of 1528, 201; intellectual and artistic backwardness of genoa, ii. 212, iii. 181 _note_ 1, v. 497; building of the mole and aqueduct at genoa, iii. 42; architecture of the genoese palaces, 59, v. 498; the genoese painters, v. 498 ---s. maria di carignano, iii. 96 gentile da fabriano, his studies in natural history, iii. 226; peculiarities of his genius, 238; his power of colouring, 349 gentile, girolamo, his attempt against galeazzo sforza, i. 168 gentleman, notion of the gentleman formed by italians, i. 184-189, 192, ii. 408 ghibellines and guelfs, quarrel of, i. 38, 61, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 80, 95, 101, 206, 221, 584, ii. 57, iv. 159-164, 367 ghiberti, lorenzo di cino, cited for the enthusiasm of sculptors over the remains of ancient art, ii. 432, iii. 134; his work as a bronze founder in italian churches, iii. 78 _note_ 1; his treatment of the story of the creation of adam and eve, 118 _note_ 2, 130; his designs in competition for the baptistery gates at florence, 127; criticism of his model, 129; his introduction of picturesque treatment into sculpture, ii. 8, iii. 132, 141; reckons in his commentaries by olympiads, iii. 135; not really affected by the paganism of the renaissance, 135 ghirlandajo, domenico, his influence over benedetto da maiano, iii. 160; his great qualities and prosaic plainness, 161, 258-261, 262 ghislieri, a poet of bologna, iv. 48 giacomini, antonio, aids machiavelli in his plan for a national militia, i. 313 _note_ 1 giacomino, fra, his works written in a north italian dialect for popular use, iv. 34 giacomo of florence, his wood-panelling at urbino, iii. 78 _note_ 2 giamboni, bono, reputed author of many early popular italian works, iv. 129; translates latini's _tesoro_ into italian, 130 gianni, lapo, comparison of his _amor eo chero_ with folgore's poems on the months, iv. 56 _note_ 1 giannotti, donato, on tyrannicide, i. 169; on citizenship, 196 (cp. iii. 55); influenced by aristotle, i. 197 _note_ 1, 250 _note_ 1; his translation of the word [greek: êthos], 200 _note_ 1; assigns to savonarola the authorship of the florentine constitution, 202 _note_ 2; his estimation of the population of venice, 210; cited for the factions of siena, 207 _note_ 2; cited, 216 _note_ 1, 217 _note_ 1; his description of the corruption of the state of florence, 231; his admiration of the venetian polity, 234; cited for the trading spirit of florence, 238; his florentine history, 278; his democratic spirit, 280; his advocacy of the governo misto, 283; cited for italian notions of honour, 485 _note_ 1 giano della bella, i. 225 _note_ 1 giasone de nores, his panegyric of trifone (in the commentary on the _ars poetica_), v. 253 _note_ 1 giberti, giammatteo, made bishop of verona by clement vii., ii. 403; his patronage of berni, v. 357, 390 _note_ 1; his animosity against aretino, 390; becomes reconciled to him, 402 _note_ 1 gieremei, bonifazio, i. 74 giocondo, fra, his collection of roman inscriptions, ii. 429; his work at s. peter's, iii. 91 gioja, said to have discovered the compass, i. 29 giorgi, marino, venetian ambassador, cited for leo's 'let us enjoy the papacy,' i. 437; for the refusal of giuliano, duke of nemours, to take the duchy of urbino, 438 _note_ 1 giorgio, francesco di, architect of palaces at pienza, iii. 75 giorgio, francesco di, cited for the character of frederick, duke of urbino, i. 176 _note_ 1 giorgione, greatness of his genius, iii. 366; fate of his works, 366; his power in depicting tranquillised emotion, 367 giottino, the scholar of giotto, iii. 197 giotto, the campanile at florence, iii. 63, 190, iv. 251; his work in s. francis', assisi, iii. 117, 190, 195; his genius pictorial, 120, 177; story of cimabue's finding him, as a child, drawing, 190, 191; amount of his work, 190; his fidelity to nature, 191; advances made by him in painting, 192; his power of representation, 193; excellence of his allegories, 194; mention of him by petrarch, 217 _note_ 1; influenced by dante, 283 _note_ 2; his ode on poverty, iv. 39 _note_ 1, 243 (cp. iii. 124, 194) giovanni da capistrano, fra, i. 490; his preaching at brescia, 615 giovanni da imola, his salary from the university of padua, ii. 122 giovanni da ravenna, petrarch's secretary, ii. 98; the first of the vagabond humanists, 99; his influence, 100 giovanni, ser (of florence), his _novelle_, iv. 150; called his work _il pecorone_, 150; poverty of the framework of the _novelle_, 151; their antiquarian interest, 151; one novel the source of the _merchant of venice_, 152 _note_ 1; revision of the _novelle_ by domenichi, 152 _note_ 2; giovanni as a poet, 152 giovanni da udine, the scholar of raphael, iii. 490 giovanni, fra, da verona, his work as a wood-carver at monte oliveto and naples, iii. 78 _note_ 2 giovio, paolo, his description of azzo visconti, i. 134; of gian galeazzo, 141, 142 _note_ 1; of the marriage of violante visconti, 138; his conception of history, 249 _note_ 2; his untrustworthiness, 292 _note_ 2, ii. 354 _note_ 1, 417, 512; his account of machiavelli's education, 310; praises the massacre of sinigaglia, 324; his criticism of machiavelli's _art of war_, 330; believed that alexander vi. died of poison, 429, 430; on lodovico sforza, 547 _note_ 2; on poliziano's personal appearance, ii. 350 _note_ 1; his account of poliziano's death, ii. 354 _note_ 1; his description of poliziano's poetry, iv. 407; made bishop of nocera, ii. 402, 417; his versatility of talent, 417; his criticism of navagero, 485 _note_ 3; relates that navagero suffered from _atra bilis_, 487; his confession that culture had left italy, 544; his correspondence with aretino, v. 410 _note_ 1; relates that pomponazzi was ignorant of greek, 459 giraldi, giovanbattista. (_see_ cinthio.) giunta of pisa, said to have worked on the frescoes of assisi, iii. 196 giunta, the roman printer, his piracies on aldo manuzio, ii. 379 _note_ 2; publishes the _lysistrata_ and _thesmaphoriazusæ_ of aristophanes, 382 giunti, the, printers at venice, v. 374; giunta prints the mutilated version of boiardo's _rifacimento_ of the _orlando innamorato_, 374; acknowledges the fact of the mutilation in a second edition, 374, 377 giulio romano, his decoration of the palazzo del te, ii. 440, iii. 83, 492, iv. 403, v. 389; his architectural work at rome, iii. 83; his superintendence of s. peter's, 91; the only great master produced by rome, 184; his occasional coarseness and vulgarity, 454, 492; driven from rome for designing a series of obscene figures, v. 389 giustiniani, the, their patronage of learning at venice, ii. 212 ---venetian ambassador, his testimony to the death of alexander vi. by apoplexy, i. 430; mentions the legend that alexander had sold his soul to the devil, 431; lionardo, procures filelfo a secretaryship at constantinople, ii. 267 giusto de' conti, his _canzoniere_, iv. 165 _gli otto_, name of council in some italian cities, i. 35 goldsmith's work, all the earlier florentine artists served an apprenticeship to this art, iii. 124, 442 gonfaloniere di giustizia, a name of office in some italian cities, i. 35; at florence, 224 gonzaga, the, at mantua, i. 145; how they became tyrants, 112, 148 _note_ 1; members of this family become condottieri, 161; distinguish themselves at fornovo, 580 _note_ 1 ---alessandro, educated by vittorino da feltre, 177, ii. 297; camilla, molza's attachment to her, v. 226; cario, the pupil of vittorino da feltre, ii. 293; betrays milan to sforza, 281; cecilia, educated by vittorino da feltre, i. 177, ii. 297; cesare, v. 122; elisabetta, i. 182, 184; francesco, (1) 147; commands at fornovo, 580, iii. 275 _note_ 1; letter of, to his wife, quoted for the account of alexander vi.'s death, i. 431 _note_ 1, 432; (2) cardinal, his patronage of scholars, ii. 404 (cp. iii. 277 _note_ 1); causes poliziano to write the _orfeo_, iii. 277 _note_ 1, iv. 411; (3) a wild libertine student at bologna, v. 312, 314; gian francesco, (1) his murder of his wife, i. 119 _note_ 2; (2) summons vittorino da feltre to mantua, 176, ii. 291, 295; gianlucido, educated by vittorino da feltre, i. 177, ii. 297; isabella, her reception at rome by leo x., v. 146; lodovico, the pupil of vittorino da feltre, ii. 291, iii. 276; his reception of filelfo, ii. 285; invites mantegna to mantua, iii. 276; lucrezia, bandello her tutor, v. 64, 65; ugolino, i. 134; his murder, 119 _note_ 2 gorboduc, tragedy of, praised by sir philip sidney, v. 132 _note_ 1; illustrates the character of the italian tragedies, 136 gorello, ser, quoted for the character of bishop guido tarlati of arezzo, i. 83 goritz, john, why called _corycius_, ii. 397; his entertainments of the roman academy, 409; his sufferings in the sack of rome, 444 gothic architecture, its rarity in rome, iii. 46; never understood by the italians, 50, 66, 69, iv. 345, v. 505 gothic, italian, its mixed, exotic character, iii. 50; its relations to northern styles, iv. 312 goths, policy of the goths in italy, i. 94 _governo misto_, the ideal government of italian statesmen, i. 283, 306, ii. 319 gozzoli, benozzo, his repetition of traini's _triumph of s. thomas_, iii. 208; character of his genius, 241 (cp. iv. 261 _note_ 2, 372, 463); various works of his, 242; his excellence in portraying idyllic subjects, 243; employed by cosimo de' medici to paint his private chapel, 263 _gran consiglio_, in italian cities, i. 35, 57, 71 granacci, francesco, michelangelo's friend in boyhood, iii. 386 gravina, praised the _italia liberata_ of trissino, v. 307 graziani, quoted for the preaching of san bernardino, i. 613; for fra jacopo and fra roberto da lecce, 614 grazzini, antonfrancesco. (_see_ lasca, il.) greece and italy, contrasts and resemblances of, i. 195, 205, 237, ii. 4, 10, 16, 43, 513, iii. 1, 121, 355, 410-412, iv. 45, 117, v. 112; contrast between greek and christian religious notions, iii. 12, 136 greek, utter ignorance of, in the middle ages, ii. 66, 94; importance of the study of greek, 112; probability that the lost greek classics perished before the fall of constantinople, 141; impression produced by the greek visitors to the council of florence, 197; greek studies owed less to the byzantine than to the italian scholars, 197, 250; the first greek books printed in italy, 368, 375, 377, 382, 405 _note_ 1; the first in northern europe, 391 _note_ 2; greek hardly studied in italy by the end of the sixteenth century, 543 greene, robert, the dramatist, quoted for italian immorality, i. 473 gregoropoulos, john, the reader in aldo manuzio's greek press, ii. 378; a member of the aldine academy, 387 gregory the great, i. 50; his contempt for grammatical correctness, ii. 61 gregory vi., i. 59 gregory vii. (_see_ hildebrand.) gregory ix., war of, with frederick ii., iv. 279 gregory xi., 113 _note_ 1 gregory xii., makes antonio losco apostolic secretary, ii. 218 gregory of tours, cited for medieval contempt of antiquity, ii. 60 gritti, andrea, doge of venice, his patronage of aretino, v. 395; luigi (son of the doge), gives aretino a pension, 395 grocin, his endeavours to introduce the study of greek into england, ii. 388, 391 guardi, his sketch of a _masked ball in the council chamber, ducal palace, venice_, iii. 358 guarini, battista, shows the completion of the italian reaction against the middle ages, v. 244; the _pastor fido_ with tasso's _aminta_ the perfection of the italian pastoral drama, 114, 223, 241, 511; essentially lyrical nature of the _pastor fido_, 242; its central motive the opposition of an ideal world of pleasure to the world of facts and laws, 242 guarino da verona, the tutor of lionello d'este, i. 171, 173, ii. 299; a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100; brings greek mss. to italy, 141, 267; obliged to leave florence by niccolò's opposition, 182; his translation of strabo, 228; his quarrels with poggio and other scholars, 240, 301; his praise of beccadelli's _hermaphroditus_, 255, 301, 514; his friendship with filelfo, 267; his success as a teacher at ferrara, 300 (cp. 473, 537); his nobility of character, 301, 523 gubbio, the pottery of, i. 80 gucci, agostino di. (_see_ duccio, agostino di.) guelfs and ghibellines, quarrel of, i. 38, 61, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 80, 95, 101, 206, 221, 584, ii. 57, iv. 159-164, 367 guicciardini, francesco, his life and character, i. 295-301; pleads the cause of alessandro de' medici before charles v., 232, 280, 298; his services to the medici, 280, 285, 297; his cynicism, 278, 291, 302, v. 446; portrait of him in ariosto's satires, iv. 515; comparison of guicciardini and machiavelli, v. 446; differences of opinion between guicciardini and machiavelli, i. 44, 45 _note_ 1, 91; the comment on the _discorsi_ of machiavelli, 306 _note_ 2; the _governo misto_ (cp. passage cited from the _reggimento di f._, 306); the decay of italy due to the papacy, 451 (cp. passage cited from the _ricordi_, 382, 452); the _istoria d'italia_, 300-303; the murder of manfredi, 428 _note_ 1; the death of alexander vi, ascribed to poison, 429; the joy in rome at alexander's death, 431; character of julius ii., 434 _note_ 1, 552 _note_ 3; the effect of the murder of gian galeazzo sforza, 480 _note_ 2, 556; character of charles viii., 540, 547; of lodovico sforza, 548 _note_ 2; the french invasion, 549, 582; believes that it was guided by providence, 553 _note_ 1; the reception of charles at naples by pontanus, ii. 363; the _reggimento di firenze_, 304-308; the ideal government of florence, 223 _note_ 1; the motives of tyrannicide, 169; the corruption of florence, 229; the venetian polity, 306; his admiration for venice, 234, 299; the _governo misto_, 306 (cp. passage cited from the _reggimento di f., note_ 2); the account of savonarola, 304 (cp. passage cited from the _storia fiorentina_, 308, 512 _note_ 1); the _ricordi_, 308, v. 446, 519; the disunion of italy, 92 _note_ 1; 'the blood of the citizens the mortar of tyranny,' 131, 298 _note_ 2; the faults of democracy, 306 _note_ 1; use of the word _popolo_, 306; guicciardini's conception of history, i. 249 _note_ 2; the faith of the florentine patriots in savonarola during the siege, 284 _note_ 1, 536 _note_ 2; the character of the medici, 298 _note_ 2, 299 _note_ 2; the decay of italy due to the papacy, 382, 452 (cp. passage cited from the comment on the _discorsi_ of machiavelli, 451); the balance of power created in italy by lorenzo de' medici, 404 _note_ 2; the _storia fiorentina_, 278, 279, 308; the suspicious temper of lorenzo de' medici, 119 _note_ 1; his sensuality, iv. 385 _note_ 1; his policy, 386; policy of cosimo de' medici, i. 229 _notes_ 1 and 2, ii. 170 (for the medici cp. also i. 298 _note_ 2, 299 _note_ 2); the account of savonarola, i. 308, 512 _note_ 1 (cp. passage cited from the _reggimento di firenze_, i. 301); character of alexander vi., i. 412, 417 _note_ 1 (see also appendix iii. vol. i.) guicciardini, luigi, his account of clement's behaviour at the sack of rome, 444 guicciardini, francesco and luigi, mentioned together, i. 197 _note_ 1, 203 _note_ 1, 230 guidalotto, francesco, murders biordo michelotti, i. 148 _note_ 2 guidicci, mario, his dissertations on michelangelo's sonnets, v. 297 guidiccioni, giovanni, bishop of fossombrone, his letters, quoted for the profligacy of rome, i. 446 _note_ 1, 459 _note_ 2, v. 190, 387 _note_ 1; his poems, their patriotic feeling, v. 282, 520; gyraldus' criticism of them, 282; translation of a sonnet, 282; his correspondence with aretino, 410 _note_ 1 guido delle colonne, iv. 5 _note_ 1, 25 guido da siena, the earliest of the sienese painters, iii. 214 guidotto, of bologna, iv. 48; reputed author of many early popular italian works, 129 guilds, their importance in italy, i. 72, 72 _note_ 1 guinicelli, guido, his services to italian poetry, iv. 46; dante's praise of him, 47; his treatment of love, 61 guiniforte (son of gasparino da bartizza), tutor of francesco sforza's children, ii. 266 guinizzi, family of the, at lucca, i. 148 guittone of arezzo, importance of his epistles in the history of italian prose, iv. 36, 45, 130; his poems mentioned with contempt by dante, 46; his religious poems, 73 gyraldus, lilius, on the academy of naples, ii. 365; cited for the purism of italian scholars, 398; teacher at the high school of ferrara, 427, 506; his criticism of poliziano's _sylvæ_, 459; of sannazzaro's _de partu virginis_, 469 _note_ 1; of bembo's latin verses, 484; of guidiccioni's poems, v. 282; his attack on the humanists, ii. 518, 530; his denunciations of the immorality of the italian stage, v. 192 hadrian, cardinal, concerned in pitrucci's conspiracy, i. 437 hæmatomania, i. 109 (_see_ appendix i. vol. i.) hawkwood, john, sir, i. 113 _note_ 1, 362 hegel, his criticism of machiavelli's _prince_, i. 367; his saying that architecture preceded the other arts, iii. 40 henry ii. of france, appoints bandello bishop of agen, v. 64 henry vii. the emperor, marches into italy, i. 76; his death, 77, 80 henry vii. of england, confers the garter on frederick of urbino, i. 181; on guidobaldo, his son, ii. 420 henry viii. invites torrigiano to england, iii. 444; makes a present to aretino, v. 405 henry the german, an early printer, ii. 376 heribert, archbishop of milan, i. 58 heywood, the _challenge for beauty_ quoted for the character of italian plays, v. 111 (cp. 189) hildebrand, made pope, i. 59; declares war on the empire, 60; his arrogation of spiritual autocracy, 411 historians, the florentine, i. 246 foll. (_see_ also under the names of the various writers); contrast of the historians of the renaissance period with the earlier writers, 278 hobbes, his saying about the papacy quoted, i. 6 hohenstauffen, war between the house of hohenstauffen and the papacy, i. 59, 60, 68, 74, 100, 374, ii. 251, iv. 6 (_see_ also frederick ii.) honor, italian notions of, i. 481, 485, v. 242, 520 honorius, his retirement to ravenna, i. 46 howell, quoted for the english opinion on italy, i. 472 _note_ 2 human life, medieval conception of, i. 10, 13, 14, iv. 289, v. 454, 455, 456 humanism, definition of the word, ii. 71; four periods of italian humanism, ii. 160-162, 310, 393, 440, 517; humanism a revival of latin culture, and little affected by greek models, v. 132 _note_ 1, 509; italian tyrannicide and the reformation had their origin in humanistic liberty, i. 465-468, v. 414 humanists, the, persecution of the roman humanists by paul the second, i. 384 _note_ 1, 386, 387, ii. 36, 511; their quarrels, ii. 237-245, 264, 511, iv. 431 _note_ 1, 451, v. 89, 285; formed a class by themselves, ii. 216, 510, 543, iv. 366; their flatteries of the great, ii. 492, 496, 512, 514, iv. 367, 405; their pretensions and vanity, ii. 511, 521, iv. 405; their employment of invective, ii. 512 (cp. i. 387), v. 393; their resemblance to the greek sophists and rhetoricians, ii. 513; emptiness of their works from their preference of form to matter, 514, 530, v. 247, 264; came to be considered the corrupters of youth, ii. 515; universal bad opinion of them, 518 (cp. the passages from maccaronic writers, v. 331-333); injury occasioned to their character by their vagrant habits, ii. 520; their irreligion and licentiousness, 520; the better characters among them, 523; the real value of their works, 524; their study of style, 525; their letter-writing, 532; services rendered by their erudition, 533; aided in diffusing a liberal spirit, 535; their influence on modern education, 536; the services rendered by them to italy, iv. 367; effect of their labours in preparing for the growth of italian literature, v. 496 hussites, the, i. 9 hutton, von, ulrich, i. 27, 437 _hypnerotomachia poliphili_. (_see_ colonna, francesco.) _i nove_, name of governing body at siena, i. 35, 208 ibrahim ibn ahmed. (_see_ appendix i. vol. i.) ibycus, lines on peace translated, iv. 52 _il grasso, legnaiuolo_, the metrical version of the novel so called, iv. 253 ilaria del carretto, her monument in the cathedral, lucca, iii. 132, 165 illicini, bernardo lapini, his commentary on petrarch's _trionfi_, v. 99; his _novella_ of anselmo salimbeni and carlo montanini, 99-101 imperia, la bella, v. 288; epitaph upon her, ii. 406 _note_ 1 _incogniti_, the, an academy at naples, ii. 366 infessura, stefano, quoted, i. 22; cited for the stories about sixtus and alexander, 388 _note_ 1; quoted about the sale of offices by sixtus, 394 _note_ 1; upon his avarice, 395 _note_ 1; upon his cruelty and sensuality, 395 _note_ 2; about the papacy of innocent viii., 404 _note_ 1, 405 _note_ 1, 405; for the immorality of rome, 474 _note_ 2 _informi_, the, an academy at ravenna, ii. 366 _ingannati, gli_, comedy of, v. 72 _note_ 1, 123 inghirami, tommaso, his rise into greatness, ii. 403 (cp. v. 139); made librarian of the vatican, ii. 424; professor in the sapienza at rome, 427 innocent iii., war of, with frederick ii., iv. 279 innocent iv., establishes the university of piacenza, ii. 117 innocent viii., i. 113, ii. 359; his additions to the vatican, i. 384 _note_ 1; employs mantegna to paint his chapel there, iii. 277; his bull against witchcraft, i. 402 _note_ 1, v. 347; his pontificate, i. 403-406; his monument by antonio del pollajuolo, 415, iii. 147; his detention of prince djem, i. 415, 461; appoints bruni apostolic secretary, ii. 218; his destruction of ancient monuments at rome, 430 inquisition, the, foundation of, i. 399 _insensati_, the, an academy at perugia, ii. 366 _instabili_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 _intronati_, the, an academy at siena, their performance of the masque _el sacrificio_, v. 143 _note_ 2; volume published by them on the quarrel and reconcilement of aretino and albicante, v. 420 invention, effect of the progress of inventions on the renaissance, i. 3, 29 investitures, war of, i. 59, 60, 97, iv. 7, 13 isabella of aragon, i. 555 _istoria bresciana_, cited, i. 615 _note_ 2 italy, italians: divergent character of the italian cities, 34, 35, iii. 43, 181, iv. 361, v. 137; reasons why the italians failed to attain political unity, i. 90, 98, iii. 261, iv. 5; their dislike to monarchy, i. 92, 369, v. 503, 504; feudalism alien to their temper, i. 42, 58, 61, 62, 100, 359, 484, ii. 3, iii. 51, iv. 6, 7, 27, 44, 73, 140, 405, 426, 459, v. 492, 503, 505, 524, 530; their estimation of tyrannicide, i. 169, 464; their notions of nobility, 186 _note_ 1; their tendency towards despotism, 190; had no conception of representative government or confederation, 196, 211, ii. 3 (cp. v. 438), v. 495; did not aim at national independence, i. 457, ii. 509; their civilisation in advance of that of northern europe, i. 100, 260, 586, iii. 42, v. 50; italian ideas about the pope, i. 418, 462-464, iii. 471; reasons why the italians held to the papacy, i. 470, iv. 438; their attachment to the imperial idea, iv. 438; independent attitude of the italians to the empire and church, v. 502, 524; ready means of intercourse between the italian provinces in the middle ages, iv. 270; the local divisions of italy a source of intellectual strength as well as political weakness, ii. 8, iv. 493, 518; the modern development of the italians precocious and never matured, i. 495, iv. 146; their ignorance of the power of the northern nations, i. 538; the italian lower classes welcomed the french invasion, 549 _note_ 1, 583 _note_ 2; italy 'revealed to the north' by the invasion, 583; fascination exercised by italy over the northern fancy, 119 _note_ 2, v. 117; complete change in italy between 1375-1470, iv. 366; confidence of the italians at the renaissance in the fortune of the age, ii. 208, iv. 396, v. 281, 522; physical and ethnographical character of the italians, i. 12, ii. 24, v. 500; persistence of the italic type through all historical mutations, v. 501-504, 509; hold retained by their past history upon the italians, ii. 30, 56, 505, iv. 5, 7, 11, 141, 187 _note_ 1, 242, 273, v. 492; essential unity of the italian nation, i. 32, 42, 47 _note_ 1, 54, 65; formation of the national character, 100, ii. 1-4. iv. 146, v. 505; preoccupation of the italians in the middle ages with the idea of death, iii. 198, iv. 74; italian morality at the renaissance, i. 323, v. 365; morality and religion disunited in italy, i. 174 _note_ 1, 433, 447, 462, ii. 234, 257, iii. 451; material and irreligious temperament of the italians, i. 454, 490, 493, ii. 17, 205. iv. 10, 39, 128, 140, 146, 426, v. 114, 486, 504, 509, 514; difference of their religious feelings from those of northern nations, iv. 306, 323, v. 486, 514; decay of religious feeling in italy between the time of dante and poliziano, iv. 207, v. 194, 493, 516; unwillingness of italian thinkers to break with catholicism, i. 454, v. 293; italian passion for reliques, i. 461; defects of their imagination, iv. 249, 253, 273, 343, v. 18, 504, 509, 514; reasons for these defects, iv. 344; character of the italian imagination illustrated from the _sacre rappresentazioni_, 347; lack of sterner passion in the italian æsthetic temperament, v. 114 (cp. 515); organising faculty of the italians, 504, 513; foreign judgments of italian morality, i. 472, ii. 408; anomaly of the corruption of italy while the arts and literature were at their height, v. 494; profligacy of the italians, i. 474 (cp. bandello's apology for his _novelle_, v. 76, and the analysis of machiavelli's _mandragola_, v. 165-170); their addiction to unnatural vices, i. 476; their cruelty and debauchery, 476-479; their love of poisoning and assassination, 480, v. 523; their notions of honour and female fidelity, i. 481-486 (cp v. 163 _note_ 1); their admiration of generosity, iv. 356; the italians had not adopted chivalry, i. 359, 482, iv. 6. 27, 44, 60, 73, v. 13, 505; character of the _bourgeoisie_ as drawn in italian comedies, v. 183; refinement and toleration of the italians, i. 486-488, ii. 14, 408; cosmopolitan nature of their ideals, ii. 15, 55, iv. 184; the art of conversation invented by the italians, ii. 34; free play given to personality in italy, i. 488, ii. 3, 4, 6; superior morals of the lower classes illustrated from italian art, i. 488-490; the same fact proved by contemporary biographies and memoirs, v. 190; revivalism in italy, i. 490 (_see_ appendix iv. vol. i.; also _flagellants_ and _laudesi_); italian architecture local rather than national, ii. 5, iii. 45; gothic architecture never fully understood in italy, iii. 51, 66, 69, iv. 345, v. 505; italian feeling for spatial proportion in architecture, iii. 67; reasons why the italians succeeded better in sculpture and painting than architecture, ii. 7; italian genius best shown in painting, iii. 5, 31, v. 495; universal feeling for art in the italians, iii. 1, 4; their æsthetic enthusiasm, 3; their innate susceptibility to beauty, iv. 242, v. 526; the italian artists were contented to work out old motives, iii. 118, v. 6; italian love of cultivated landscape beauty, v. 196, 511; the cosmopolitan culture of the italians implied some sacrifice of national personality, ii. 9, 394, v. 137; the italians contented to accept the primacy in culture instead of national independence, ii. 39, 475; respect of the italians for culture, iv. 447; italian unity only attained in literature and art, iii. 261, iv. 147, 367, v. 137, 248, 495; the recovery of the classics equivalent to the recovery of national consciousness in italy, iv. 142, v. 505; the roman element in italian genius, v. 501-516; persistency of the italians in carrying out the revival, ii. 509, v. 505, 525; injurious effects of the revival upon them, ii. 516, v. 193; decay of learning in italy, ii. 540, v. 480; the italians cease to study greek, ii. 543; work achieved by the italians in educating the northern nations, 544, v. 530; attention paid by the italians to biography, ii. 35; their susceptibility to rhetoric, 149, 190, 216, 513, 525, iii. 3, v. 512; questioning spirit of the italian intellect, iv. 448, v. 500; contempt of the early italian scholars for italian, ii. 448, 532 _note_ 1, iv. 4, 7, 143, 176, 234-238, 365, v. 137, 247, 506, 508; growth of italian out of latin, iv. 28-32; the development of italian slower than that of other modern languages, 3-8; italian superseded french as the literary language in the middle of the thirteenth century, 20; character of the various italian dialects, 30; early popular works in the dialects, 34, 129; artificial character of the italian literary language, ii. 448, iv. 8, v. 246; revival of italian in the fourth period of culture, ii. 393, iv. 3, 365, v. 246; manner in which tuscan was made into the standard italian, iv. 33, v. 246, 508; problem presented by language to the writers of italian, v. 247; petrarch and boccaccio taken as models, iv. 164, v. 248; manner in which their influence was injurious, (1) the imitation of petrarch's affectation and melancholy, v. 249-251; (2) of boccaccio's ornate and complicated style, 251 (cp. iv. 136); effect of purism on italian literature, v. 256-258; false position of the _petrarchisti_, 249, 520; they show no sympathy for the calamities of italy, 281, 522; erroneous conception of poetry implied in petrarchism, 273; want of a natural means of expression in the _petrarchisti_, 250; the unity of italy is now producing a common italian, ii. 450, v. 270; italian literature brought to perfection between 1300 and 1530, iv. 1; subdivisions of that period, 1; positive spirit in which the italians treated ancient legends and sagas, 5, 11; effect produced by their free political life on early italian writers, 8; degree of superiority in the use of latin obtained by medieval italian writers, 9; effect of provençal and french literature on the italians, 13 foll.; the italian hendecasyllabic, 24 (_see_ also appendix i. vol iv.); history of the _ottava rima_, 25, 308; effect on italian literature produced by the want of a central court, 33, 365, v. 112, 257; origin of italian prose, iv. 35, 128; inferiority of the first attempts, 130; beginnings of italian poetry, 37; the modern italians never had a national epic, ii. 4, iv. 5, 7, 244, v. 503; general absence of ballad poetry in italian, iv. 37 (cp. 251), 274, v. 11; exceptions to this, iv. 274; early poems treating of obscene subjects, iv. 38, v. 356 _note_ 1; italian literature in the middle ages created no feminine ideal like those of the old romances, iv. 63; italian prose-writers of the _trecento_, 131; exaggerated admiration of modern italians for the _trecentisti_, 132, v. 270; importance of the _quattro cento_ in italian literature, iv. 147; sentiment of disappointment and despair common to the later _trecentisti_, 165; employment of the _terza rima_ by the poets after dante, 166, 172; materials afforded for studying the growth of italian prose by familiar letters, 175, v. 262; improvements effected in italian prose by the popular writers of the _quattro cento_, iv. 240; appreciation of the great italian poets by the mass of the people, 241; popular poems upon contemporary events during the _quattro cento_, 255; erotic spirit of italian hymns, 305; rarity of miracle plays in italy, 306; their place supplied by _divozioni_ and _sacre rappresentazioni_, 307; the best manner of dealing with italian literature between 1470-1530, 359 foll.; typical men of genius during this period, 362; share of the different cities in literature, 364-366; degeneracy of italian poetry during the renaissance, 404, 463; the classification of the italian narrative poems, v. 3; the literature of the _cinque cento_ influenced by the manners of the _bourgeoisie_, 52; injury occasioned to italian literature by the absence of a general public, 52, 190 _note_ 2; number of popular works issued by the venetian press, 96; burlesque considered as a counterpoise to serious poetry in italy, 310, 382; survival of ancient satiric humour in italy, 512 (cp. 366); no great satire produced by the italians, 512; burlesque poetry in italy a medium for free thought, 311, 315; association at the reformation of lutheran opinions and immorality in italy, 325; number of italian poetesses, 287; identity of male and female education in renaissance italy, 287 _note_ 1; comparison of italian and latin art and literature, 509-514; italian love of didactic poetry, 512; general characteristics of italian literature, 518; results achieved by the italians during the renaissance, 526 jacopo del bussolaro, fra, preaching of, i. 490, 610, 611 jacopo da lentino, iv. 25, 43, 60 jacopo della marca, fra, preaches at perugia, i. 491, 613 jacopone da todi, the legend of his life, iv. 285-289; his italian hymns, 40, 283; their ecstatic spirit, 284; their simplicity, 284; specimens of them, 289-292; the dialogue between mary and christ on the cross, 292-295, 309; many of the hymns ascribed to him belong to his followers, 295; specimens of these, 297-302; his saying about boniface viii., 289. (_see_ appendix iv. vol. iv. for translations.) jenson, nicholas, joins john of spires as printer at venice, ii. 369 jerome of prague, poggio's description of him at the council of constance, ii. 231, 535 jeronimo, his preaching at milan, i. 620 jews, expulsion of the, from spain, i. 400 joachim (of flora), saying of his, i. 9, iii. 36 joanna of naples, i. 361, 574; married to her nephew ferdinand, 575 _note_ 1 john of maintz, early printer at florence, ii. 369 john of spires, establishes himself as printer at venice, ii. 369 john of vicenza, preaching of, i. 490, 607-610 jonson, ben, his _epicoene_ compared with dolce's _ragazzo_, v. 162 _note_ 1; may have been partially indebted to aretino's _marescalco_ for its humour, 178; more successful in the fusion of ancient and modern elements than the italian comedies, 182 jovius. (_see_ giovio.) jubilee, the (of 1300), iv. 2; visited by dante and villani, i. 253, ii. 144; (of 1450), i. 377, 378, iv. 173 julia, corpse of, said to have been discovered on the appian way, i. 22, ii. 31, 433 julius ii., i. 157; character of him by volaterranus, 389 _note_ 2; his hostility to the borgias, 406, 432; his services to art, 433; commences st. peter's, 433, iii. 90, 398; his policy, i. 434; contrast of julius and leo, 438; saying ascribed to him, ii. 17; story of his wishing to be represented with a sword in his statue, iii. 397; his project for a mausoleum, 398; his reconciliation with michelangelo, 401; his impatience with michelangelo during the painting of the sistine chapel, 407 julius iii., makes aretino a knight of s. peter, v. 404 justinian, his conquest of italy, i. 47; the code of justinian enthusiastically studied in medieval italy, 62 kydonios, demetrios, ii. 109 ladislaus, king, filelfo's mission to him on his marriage, ii. 268 lætus, pomponius, i. 386; his relation to the sanseverini, ii. 33, 359; his letter to his kindred, 359; assimilated his life to that of the ancients, 360; founds the roman academy, 361, 409, v. 272; his apology for his life, ii. 362; his funeral, 362; his nobility of character, 523; causes plays of terence and plautus to be represented in the original by the roman academy, v. 138 la magione, the diet of (the conspiracy against cesare borgia), i. 351 lambertazzi, imelda, i. 74, 210 _note_ 2 lampugnani, giannandrea, one of the assassins of galeazzo maria sforza i. 166 landi family, the, at bobbio, i. 150 landini, taddeo di leonardo, architect at the representation of cecchi's _elevation of the cross_, iv. 325 landino, cristoforo, one of the circle gathered round lorenzo de' medici, ii. 322; his labours as professor at florence, 338; his edition of dante, 338, iv. 235; the _camaldolese discussions_, 338-341, iv. 206, v. 451, 455; his preference of latin to italian, iv. 236, 237 landriani, gherardo, discovers a ms. of cicero at lodi, ii. 140 langue d'oc, iv. 13, 14, 16 langue d'oïl, iv. 13, 14, 16 languschi family, the, of pavia, i. 145 _laocoon_, discovery of the, ii. 415, 431; description of it, by a venetian ambassador, 435; transcends the limits of ancient sculpture, iii. 18 laonicenus, a cretan, joint editor of a greek psalter, ii. 376 lapaccini, fra giuliano, copies mss. for cosimo de' medici, ii. 174 lasca, il, origin, of his _nom de plume_, v. 79; depreciates burchiello in comparison with berni, iv. 261, v. 362 _note_ 1; edits the poems of berni, v. 361; his collection of _canti carnascialeschi_, iv. 388, v. 79, 356 _note_ 1; quoted in proof of their invention by lorenzo de' medici, iv. 388; his _cene_, v. 79, 80; introduction to the work, 81; its obscenity and cruelty, 80-82; the better stories contained in it, 82; the _novella_ of _zoroastro_, cited in illustration of italian witchcraft, 346 _note_ 1; his criticism of contemporary comedy, 122, 124, 143 _note_ 1, 187; his comedies, 181 lascaris, john, his greek grammar the first greek book printed in italy, ii. 375; the edition of vicenza, 376; his edition of four plays of euripides, 383 _note_ 1; a member of the aldine academy, 386; his visits to france, 386, 427; invited by leo to rome, 427; his epitaph on himself, 428 lateran, council of the (1513), reasserts the thomistic doctrine on the soul, v. 470 latin, the transformation of, into the modern romance languages, iv. 28-32; reasons why the italian scholars preferred latin to italian, ii. 447; imperfection of their first attempts at latin versification, 451, 482, 486; latinisation of names and phrases by scholars at the renaissance, 397 (cp. 480 _note_ 2, iv. 120, v. 507) latini, brunetto, his _tesoro_, originally written in french, iv. 16; translated into italian, 35, 130; dante studies under him, 70; reputed author of many early popular italian works, 129 _laudesi_, the (umbrian religious societies), origin of the name iv. 283; gave rise by their religious practices to the _divozioni_ and the _sacre rappresentazioni_, 307 _laudi_, the, popular hymns in italian, originally produced by the umbrian religious societies, iv. 40, 283, 302, v. 519; set to the tunes of popular songs, iv. 263, 305 laura (daughter of alexander vi.), marries nicolò della rovere, i. 407 _note_ 1 laurentian library, its formation by cosimo de' medici, ii. 175; its architectural features, iii. 87 lazzari, bramante. (_see_ bramante.) legates, i. 35 legnano, battle of, i. 42, 64, 95, iv. 6 leo iii., crowns charles the great as emperor, i. 50 leo ix., 59 leo x., machiavelli's _discorso sul reggimento di firenze_ dedicated to him, 197 _note_ 1, 203; his management of florence in the medicean interest, 222, 277, 438; said by pitti to have wished to give a liberal government to florence, 288 _note_ 1; makes guicciardini governor of reggio and modena, 296; confers the dukedom of urbino on his nephew, 322, 438, ii. 420; his remark on the election of alexander vi., 409; on lionardo da vinci's love of experiment, iii. 323; his saying, 'let us enjoy the papacy since god has given it us,' i. 437, ii. 17, 412; his policy, i. 98, 322; his character, 435, ii. 401, 412; his extravagance, 436-438; contrast of leo and julius, 438; his _imprimatur_ to the editors of tacitus, ii. 40, 425; aldo manuzio's edition of plato dedicated to him, 379; his patronage of scholars, 404, 415, 470; reforms the sapienza at rome, 426; his visit to florence after his election, iv. 396; representation of rucellai's _rosmunda_ before him at florence, v. 129; his sympathy for popular literature, 138 _note_ 1; theatre built by him at rome, 144, 147; his love of plays, 146; causes the _calandra_ to be represented before isabella of mantua, 146; paolucci's account of leo's behaviour at a representation of the _suppositi_, 147; representations of the _mandragola_ before leo, 170, 325 _note_ 1; his dislike of the monks, 170; presides over the lateran council of 1513, 470; his doubts upon the thomistic doctrine of immortality, 471 leo the isaurian, i. 50 leoniceno, nicolao, his 'de morbo gallico,' i. 567 _note_ 1; his praise of aldo manuzio, ii. 391; teacher in the high school of ferrara, 427 leonora of aragon, her reception by pietro riario at rome, i. 390, iv. 315 leopardi, alessandro, his statue of colleoni at venice, iii. 78 _note_ 1, 143 lessing, his criticism of ariosto's alcina, iv. 116, v. 19 lezia, virginia maria, her trial for witchcraft, v. 346 _note_ 1 libraries, formation of the great libraries, i. 21; smallness of ancient, ii. 127; first ideas of the formation of a public library, 166; libraries founded by cosmo de' medici, 173-176. (_see_ also bessarion, petrarch, &c.) ligorio, piero, his labours at s. peter's, iii. 93 linacre, a pupil of poliziano and chalcondylas, ii. 350, 387; a member of the aldine academy, 387; founds the greek chair at oxford, 387, 391 _lingua aulica_, name given by dante to the dialect adopted by the sicilian poets, iv. 6, 22 lippi, filippino, his _triumph of s. thomas_ in s. maria sopra minerva, rome, iii. 207; story that he was the son of filippo lippi, 247; powerfully influenced by revived classicism, 248 lippi, fra filippo, his genius cramped by his enforced attention to religious subjects, iii. 244; his frescoes at prato, 245, iv. 422, v. 54; his frescoes at spoleto, iii. 246; his friendship with lorenzo de' medici, 247, 263 livy, tomb of, at padua, i. 462, ii. 30 lodovico da vezzano, his tragedy of jacopo piccinino, v. 117 _note_ 1 lomazzo, his _history of painting_, iii. 322 _note_ 3; emblems assigned by him to the great painters, 337, 488 lombards, the, come into italy, i. 48; the laws of the lombards, 49, 62; effect of their rule, 48, 49; the lombard kings join the catholic communion, 49; their error in this, 49, 94; the pope brings in the franks against the lombards, 50, 51; war of the lombard cities with frederic barbarossa, 63, 64, 67, 68, 95, iv. 6; little trace left by this war on italian art, iii. 220 lombardy, part played by, in the history of italian art and literature, ii. 506, iii. 482-490, v. 497 ---lombard architecture, use of the term, iii. 43; character of the style, 47 (cp. v. 504) ---lombard school of painting, the, owed its origin to lodovico sforza, i. 79; lombard masters after lionardo da vinci, iii. 183, 482-484; piety of their art, 489; richness of the italian lake district in works of this school, 490 _note_ 1 (cp. iv. 338) longo, alberigo, lodovico castelvetro accused of his murder, v. 286 lorenzetti, ambrogio, his frescoes in the palazzo pubblico, siena, 210 lorenzetti, ambrogio and pietro, scholars of giotto, iii. 197, 226; probably the painters of the frescoes in the campo santo, pisa, 200; free from the common pietism of the sienese painters, 216, 218 lori, his _capitolo_ on apples, v. 365 lo scalza, his statuary at orvieto and elsewhere, iii. 56, 78 _note_ 1; his statue of s. sebastian at orvieto, illustrating the pagan motives introduced by the renaissance into christian art, 170 _note_ 1 losco, antonio, made apostolic secretary by gregory xii., ii. 218; his praises of beccadelli's _hermaphroditus_, 255 lotto, lorenzo, iii. 503 louis d'orléans, his marriage to valentina visconti, i. 143 _note_ 1, 154 louis xi., of france, confers the _fleurs de lys_ on the medici, iv. 405 louis xii., of france: machiavelli's criticism of his policy in italy, i. 339; invited into italy by alexander vi., 349, 427, 584; his alliance with ferdinand the catholic, 427; marriage of his daughter renée to ercole d'este, v. 297 louis of bavaria, i. 81, 133 love, the ideal of, in chivalrous poetry, iv. 59; reality of the feeling in the medieval poets, 64; brought back by petrarch to experience, 94; its character in popular italian poetry, 272, 419 lucca, its political history, i. 194 ---the duomo: monument of ilaria del carretto, iii. 132, 165; monuments, &c., by civitale, 157 lucca: s. frediano, francia's _assumption_, 303 _note_ 1 ---s. martino, pisano's bas-relief, 105 ---university, the: receives a diploma from charles iv., ii. 118 lugano: church of the angeli, luini's frescoes, iii. 485-487 (cp. iv. 340) luigi da porto, his _novelle_, v. 60; his version of the story of romeo and juliet, 71 _note_ 1 luigini, federigo, his _libro della bella donna_, ii. 37, v. 85 _note_ 3 luini, bernardino, the scholar of lionardo da vinci, iii. 484; idyllic religious beauty of his frescoes, 485-487; their defects of composition, 487 luna, his _vocabolario di cinque mila vocaboli toschi_, v. 254 _note_ 1 luther: effect of his reformation, i. 2, 26; his visit to rome, ii. 408; the lutheran leanings of vittoria colonna and her circle, v. 292; lutheran opinions expressed by the burlesque poets, 312, 315, 325; association in italy, at the reformation, of lutheran opinions and immorality, 325 luziano, architect of the ducal palace at urbino, iii. 162 _note_ 1 macalo, battle of, i. 161 macaulay, his essay on machiavelli criticised, i. 320 _note_ 1; quoted, 329 maccaronic poetry, its origin, v. 327 machiavelli, the facts of his life, i. 232, 308, foll.; his description of his country life, 314-317; accused of complicity in the plot against giulio de' medici, 314, ii. 366, v. 239; his servility to the medici, i. 317, v. 170, 370; his epigram on piero, soderini, i. 324, iii. 391 (translated i. 325); his plan for a national militia, i. 311; his cynicism, 278, 292, v. 160 _note_ 1, 168, 312, 385; his analysis of character contrasted with that of ariosto, v. 22 (cp. 432); comparison of machiavelli, michelangelo, and dante, i. 318, iii. 395; of machiavelli, aretino, and cellini, iii. 479; of machiavelli and pomponazzi, v. 485; machiavelli and savonarola contrasted, i. 368; varchi's character of him, 333; his knowledge of the greek classics scanty, 310, iv. 493; indirectly indebted to aristotle, i. 197 _note_ 1; directly to polybius, v. 434 _note_ 1; chiefly used livy, i. 250 _note_ 1; plainness and directness of his style in contrast to the prevailing love of rhetoric and form, v. 431; division of his works into four classes, 433; light thrown by his letters on the complications of his character, 433; his aim partly practical, partly speculative, 435; his opinion upon the place of religion in the state, i. 453, 454, v. 437; his contempt for christianity, i. 453 _note_ 1 (cp. v. 520); his analysis of the causes of the decay of italy, (1) the corruptions and ambition of the papacy, 96, 382, 448-451, v. 436, 438, 442; (2) the condottiere system, i. 160 _note_ 2, 311, v. 436; (3) the want of a central power, i. 214, 321, 449, 450, v. 436; difference between machiavelli's views on the last point and those of guicciardini, i. 44 _note_ 1, 45 _note_ 1; calls italy 'the corruption of the world,' v. 493; his conception of _patria_, v. 435, 436, 442, 446; his analysis of democracy, i. 236; has no idea of representative government, v. 438; urges the training of the citizens to arms, 438, 439; indifferent as to means if his political aims could be carried out, 439-441; his use of the word _virtù_, i. 171, 337 _note_ 1, 345, 482, 484, 493, ii. 35, iii. 439, 479, v. 410, 416, 425, 440; the ideal prince or saviour of society, i. 98, 214, 321, v. 435, 439, 441; weakness of the conception, v. 441; machiavelli's belief in the power of legislation, i. 202, v. 439, 442, 444; his experience of the small italian states prevented him from forming an adequate conception of national action, v. 443; shared with the humanists the belief in the possibility of a revival of the past, 444; his severance of ethics and politics, 440, 441, 445; his greatness based upon the scientific spirit in which he treated his subjects, 445, 447, 519; genuineness of his patriotism, 445; the _prince_, v. 519; composed in his retirement, i. 317; analysis of the work, 336-367; criticised, 367-370; theories on the object of the _prince_, 326; its real character, 334-336, v. 443; machiavelli's admiration of cesare borgia, i. 324, 326, 345-356, v. 385; alexander vi. made an example of successful hypocrisy, i. 357; observation that the temporal power of the papacy was created by alexander, 413; passage quoted on the courtesy shown by the condottieri among themselves, 162 _note_ 1; hegel's criticism of the _prince_, 367; the ethics of the _prince_, 321-326, 482, 484, 494. ii. 37, 312, iii. 479, v. 441; the _istorie fiorentine_, i. 331, 332, v. 432; written by desire of the cardinal giulio de' medici, i. 331; critique of bruni and poggio in the proemium; ---machiavelli's own conception of history, 249; remark on the divisions of florence, 227; passage on the growth of the condottiere system, 245; passage on venetian policy, 215 _note_ 1; the censure of the _ordinanze della giustizia_, 225, 244; the policy of cosimo and lorenzo de' medici, 229 _note_ 1, 231, iv. 386; the contention between church and empire, i. 82 _note_ 1; the execution of beatrice di tenda, 152 _note_ 2; visit of the duke of milan to florence--its effect on florentine manners, 165; negative testimony of machiavelli to the natural death of alexander vi., 430; the _discorsi_, 328, v. 432, 519; machiavelli's debt to polybius, v. 434 _note_ 1; not really in discord with the _principe_, 435; passage quoted for machiavelli's opinion that a city which had once been under a tyrant will never become free, i. 84, 115; on the policy of enfeebling a hostile prince by making him odious to his subjects, 146; treatment of tyrannicide in the _discorsi_, 169; censure of aristocracy, 186 _note_ 1; cynical account of gianpaolo baglioni's omission to assassinate julius ii., 324, 463; the _arte della guerra_, 329, v. 432, 438, 439, 444; the _descrizione della peste_, iii. 188, v. 433; _discorso sopra la riforma dello stato di firenze_, i. 328 _note_ 1, v. 432, 439; its aristotelian air, i. 197 _note_ 1; the _vita di castruccio castracane_, 76 _note_ 1, 112, ii. 37, v. 432; the _belphegor_, v. 60, 433; compared with straparola's version of the story, 102; criticism of ariosto's comedies ascribed to machiavelli, v. 156; translation of the _andria_, 157; the comedies--doubtful authenticity of the _commedia in prosa_ and the _commedia in versi_, 157, 159 _note_ 1; their plots, 157; character of fra alberigo, 158 (cp. i. 460); of margherita, 159; of caterina and amerigo, 160; the _clizia_, its plot, 161; the characters, 162-164; coarseness of the moral sentiment, 163; sarcasm and irony of the comedy, 164; the _mandragola_, 111, 123, 165; the plot, 165-168; character of fra timoteo, 166 (cp. i. 460, v. 394); state of society revealed by the play, 168-170; mistake to suppose that the _mandragola_ was written with a moral purpose, 434; its prologue, as illustrating the character of machiavelli, 170-172; machiavelli's comedies compared with those of aretino and bibbiena, 180 maderno, carlo, finishes s. peter's in disregard of michelangelo's scheme, iii. 93 maestro ferrara, the, his poems in the _langue d'oc_, iv. 16 _maggi_, the, a survival, in regard to form, of the old sacred drama, iv. 311 magiolini, laura, filelfo's third wife, ii. 280, 287 maglioli, sperando, traditionally said to have made the bust of mantegna in s. andrea, mantua, iii. 278 mainus, jason, his panegyric of alexander vi., i. 408 maitani, lorenzo, the architect of the duomo of orvieto, iii. 117 maius, junianus, the tutor of sannazzaro, v. 198 majano, benedetto da, builds the strozzi palace at florence, iii. 76, 77, 161; his work as a sculptor in italian churches, 78 _note_ 1; purity and delicacy of his work, 152; pictorial character of his bas-reliefs, 161; story of his journey to king matthias corvinus, 161 _note_ 1 malaspina, the marchese alberto, his poems in the _langue d'oc_, iv. 16 malatesti, the, how they rose to power, i. 111; sell cervia to venice, 114; members of this family become condottieri, 161 malatesta, carlo, throws a statue of virgil into the mincio, ii. 433; galeazzo, sells pesaro and fossombrone, i. 114; novello, his library at cesena, ii. 303; pandolfo, murders vidovero, i. 113 _note_ 1; raimondo and pandolfo, assassination of, 121; sigismondo pandolfo, contradictions of his character, 173, ii. 303; his crimes, i. 421 _note_ 1, 428 _note_ 1; his removal of pletho's remains to rimini, 173, 461, ii. 34, 209; his portrait by piero della francesca, iii. 235 malespini family, the, chronicle of, i. 251; its disputed authorship, 252 _note_ 1, iv. 36 malespini, celio, his _ducento novelle_, v. 60 mallory, sir thomas, comparison of his _mort d'arthur_ with the _reali di francia_, iv. 246 malpaga, castle of, the frescoes there attributed to cariani, iii. 368 _note_ 1 mancina, faustina, the roman courtesan, ii. 488, v. 225, 226 manetti, giannozzo, one of the circle in santo spirito, ii. 102, 188; learns greek from chrysoloras and traversari, 110, 189; ruined by cosimo de' medici, 170, 191; pronounces the funeral oration over bruni, 185; his industry in acquiring knowledge, 188; his reputation for oratory, 190; maintained by nicholas v. after his exile, 192, 228; greatness of his character, 192; attempted to harmonise christian and classical traditions, 332 manfred, king of sicily, his death at the battle of benevento, iv. 21, 27, 48; story of his wandering with music of evenings through barletta, 415 _note_ 1 manfredi di boccaccio, sentiment of despair expressed in his poems, iv. 165 manfredi, the, of faenza, i. 111, 353, 375, 428 ---astorre (1), sells faenza and imola, i. 114; astorre (2), 292; murdered by cæsar borgia, 428 _note_ 1; galeotto, murdered by his wife, francesca bentivogli, 119 _note_ 2, 428 _note_ 1; taddeo, one of vittorino da feltre's scholars, 177 mangini della motta, giovanni, his poem on the downfall of antonio della scala, v. 117 _note_ 1 mansueti, venetian painter, iii. 362 mantegna, andrea, founded no school of local artists, iii. 184; owed his training to squarcione, 270 _note_ 1; his frescoes in the eremitani, padua, 270; his inspiration derived from the antique, 272, 362, 382; the _triumph of julius cæsar_, 273, 277; tragic power of his compositions, 274; the _madonna of the victory_, 275; enters the service of the gonzaga family at mantua, 276; his visit to rome, 277; his domestic circumstances, 277; his monument in s. andrea, mantua, 278; his treatment of the antique compared with that of signorelli and botticelli, 291; his art illustrated by the _arcadia_ of sannazzaro, v. 203 mantegna, francesco (son of andrea), iii. 277 mantovano, battista, cited for the irreligiousness and pride of the humanists, ii. 518, 521 mantovano, francesco, his drama upon the history of general lautrec, iv. 358 mantua: san andrea (by alberti), ii. 342, iii. 70 _note_ 1, 75; mantegna's monument, 278; palazzo del te, decorations of, by giulio romano, ii. 440, iii. 83, 492, iv. 403, v. 229, 389 manuscripts: the quest of manuscripts at the commencement of the renaissance, ii. 131-140 manuzio, aldo, i. 24, ii. 368, 373; his panegyrics of lucrezia borgia, i. 422; story of the appearance of his edition of plato, ii. 16 (cp. 379); his dedication of aristotle quoted, 330 _note_ 2; his birth and education, 373; his greek press at venice, 377, v. 497; his assistants, ii. 378; his industry, 378; his generous spirit and love of his art, 380, 390; original prices of his editions, 381; list of first editions of greek classics printed by him, 382; his latin and italian publications, 383; his academy at venice, 385, v. 272; his marriage and death, ii. 388; his successors, 389; meaning of his motto, 389; his modesty and nobility of character, 368, 390, 523; greatness of his work, 391; his prefaces, &c., cited for the sufferings of scholars, 542; aldo, the grandson, ii. 389; antonio, son of aldo, 388; manutio, son of aldo, 388; paolo, son of aldo, 385, 388 marcello, cristoforo, tortured by the spaniards during the sack of rome, ii. 444 marchesa, cassandra, her relations to sannazzaro, v. 199 marco polo, translation of his _travels_ into italian, iv. 35 marcolini, francesco, his account of aretino's life at venice, v. 398 _note_ 2, 400 _note_ 3 marescotti, the, at bologna, their history, i. 124, 427 margaret of castile (wife of alfonso the magnanimous); her murder of margaret de hijar, i. 570 margaret de hijar, murder of her by queen margaret, i. 570 mariconda, antonio, his _novelle_, v. 60 marino, giovanni battista, the _adone_, v. 244, 257; his conceits referred to aretino's mannerism, 417 marliano, bartolommeo, his topography of rome, ii. 428 marlowe, his _edward ii._ quoted for the character of italian plays, v. 111 marone, his losses in the sack of rome, ii. 444 marrani, popular name of contempt for the spaniards in italy, i. 410, 553 marsigli, luigi, influence of, through the society founded by him in s. spirito, ii. 101-103, 189 marston (the dramatist), his testimony to the profligacy of venice, i. 473; his prologue to _antonio and mellida_ quoted, v. 115, 521 marsuppini, carlo, a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100; learns greek from chrysoloras, 110; his lectures at florence, and public funeral there, 186 (cp. 530); story of his being surpassed by manetti in speaking before frederick iii., 190; made papal secretary by eugenius iv., 220 martelli, lodovico, his tragedy of _tullia_, v. 135; disputes the genuineness of dante's _de vulgari eloquio_ against trissone, 306; niccolò, his correspondence with aretino, 410 _note_ 1 martin v., story of his irritation at the verses sung by the florentines beneath his window, iv. 258 martini, simone, reputed painter of frescoes in s. maria novella, iii. 205 _note_ 1, 217; not wholly free from the faults of the sienese painters, 216, 218; his fame during his lifetime, 216; various works by him, 217; mention of him by petrarch, 217 _note_ 1 masaccio, i. 170 _note_ 1; the pupil of masolino, iii. 229 _note_ 1; the greatest of the early painters of the renaissance, 229; comparison of masaccio and giotto, 230; his early death, 231; comparison of masaccio and fra angelico, 240 masolino, the master of masaccio, iii. 229 _note_ 1 massimi, the, at rome, their protection of sweynheim and pannartz, ii. 368 masuccio, quoted for the corruptions of the roman church, i. 458 _note_ 2, iv. 180, 181 (cp. v. 499); for the italian ideas of honour, 486 _note_ 2; his style modelled on the decameron, iv. 136, 178; character of his language, 179; comparison between masuccio, boccaccio, and sacchetti, 179; his aristocratic feeling, 179; his earnestness, 180; his art, 181; superior in moral feeling to boccaccio, 183; alluded to by pulci, 255 _note_ 1 matarazzo, cited, i. 22, 158 _note_ 1, 225; his account of grifonetto baglioni's massacre of his kinsmen, 123; of the misgovernment of the baglioni, 130; cited for the spread of syphilis from charles's army, 567 _note_ 1; his testimony to the welcome of the french by the common people in italy, 583 _note_ 2; on the comeliness of person of astorre baglioni, ii. 31; great value of his work, iv. 177; said to be identical with francesco maturanzio, 183 _note_ 3 mattasalà di spinello dei lambertini, his accounts of expenditure, an early memorial of the sienese dialect, iv. 35 matteo, and bonino, da campione. (_see_ campione, matteo and bonino.) matteo da civitale. (_see_ civitale, matteo da.) matthaeus, johannes, his verses upon the death of navagero, ii. 488 maturanzio, francesco, said to be identical with matarazzo, iv. 183 _note_ 3 mauro, a member of the _vignajuoli_ academy at rome, ii. 366, v. 357; his _capitoli_, v. 365 maximilian i., the emperor, i. 100, v. 301; his relations with charles viii., i. 542; betrothed to bianca, niece of lodovico sforza, 544 _note_ 1; joins the league of venice against charles, 576 maximus, pacificus, his poems, ii. 519 mazochi, jacopo, his collection of roman inscriptions, ii. 429 mazzocchi del bondeno, giovanni, the first publisher of the _orlando furioso_, iv. 497 mazzola, francesco. (_see_ parmigianino.) mazzoni, guido (il modanino), his _pietà_ in terra cotta in monte oliveto, naples, ii. 365, iii. 163 medicean library, its foundation, i. 21, ii. 174 medici, the, i. 88; their patronage of art, 80; disputed question of its nature, iii. 263, iv. 39; their tyranny partly produced by political exhaustion, i. 82; supported by the people, 87, ii. 171, 316, 317, iv. 385; their rise to power, i. 114, 228-231; their expulsion, 222; are restored, 223, 314; their contest with the albizzi, 227 _note_ 1, ii. 167, 170, iv. 176; their policy, i. 228, 282, ii. 165, 167, 312, 317, iii. 264, iv. 385; foundation of the medicean interests in rome, i. 404, ii. 315; raised above common tyrants by their love of culture, ii. 33; have the _fleurs de lys_ of france conferred on them by louis xi., iv. 405 medici, alessandro de', duke of cività di penna, i. 231; murdered by his cousin lorenzino, 170, 223, 277, 287, 468, ii. 317, iii. 438, v. 118, 381 _note_ 1; poisons his cousin ippolito, i. 277, v. 358, 381 _note_ 1; leaves florence, i. 286, iii. 414; accused by the florentines before charles v., 232, 280, 298; protects cellini from the consequences of a homicide, iii. 458; the story that he had berni poisoned, v. 358; averardo de', i. 212 _note_ 1; catherine de', her marriage to the duke of orleans, 287; clarice de', wife of filippo strozzi, 286; cosimo de' (the elder), his return to florence, iv. 259; his policy at florence, i. 87, 102, 155, 212, 228, ii. 312, iii. 438; guicciardini's critique of his taxation, i. 305; the impersonation of his age, 492, ii. 168, 170, iii. 228, 262, 325; his regret that he had not built more, ii. 38, 172; his patronage of letters, 165, 168, 173, 177, 225; subtlety of his character, 169; his cruelty, 170; sums spent by him in building, 171, 172; consults pope eugenius as to how he should make restitution for his ill-gotten gains, 172; builds the library of s. giorgio at venice during his exile, 173; his libraries at florence, i. 21, ii. 174-176, iii. 263; his versatility of talent, ii. 176; his political cynicism expressed by his sayings, 19, 177; founds the academy of florence, 177, 207, v. 272; his conversations with gemistos, ii. 207; rejects brunelleschi's plans for the casa medici, iii. 76; said to have instigated the poisoning of il burchiello, iv. 260; cosimo de' (first grand duke), i. 223, 229; his elevation due to guicciardini, 280, 300; diverts the florentines from commerce, 186 _note_ 1; his petty, meddling character, iii. 476; ferrando de', his marriage to cristina of lorraine, iv. 325; giovanni de' (_see_ leo x.); giovanni de' (delle bande nere), his friendship with aretino, v. 390; his death, 391; giuliano de' (the elder), assassination of, i. 168 _note_ 1, 396-398, iv. 401 _note_ 1, 406; his love for simonetta la bella, iv. 374, 403, 420; his tournament, 403; giuliano de', duke of nemours, i. 184, ii. 314; refuses the duchy of urbino, i. 438; his pageant of the golden age. iv. 396-398; his tomb at san lorenzo, i. 314, 319, iii. 415; cardinal giulio de' (_see_ clement vii.); cardinal ippolito de', leaves florence, i. 286, iii. 414; founds a club for the study of vitruvius at rome, ii. 366; said to have maintained three hundred poets, 405; poisoned by his cousin alessandro, i. 277, v. 358, 381 _note_ 1; portraits of him by titian and pontormo, ii. 27; the story that he had berni poisoned, v. 358; lorenzino de', assassinates his cousin alessandro, i. 170, 223, 277, 287, 468, iii. 438, v. 118, 381 _note_ 1; his apology, i. 468, v. 517; murdered by bibboni, i. 480 _note_ 3; cellini's character of him, iii. 463; his comedy, the _aridosio_, v. 182; lorenzo de' (brother of cosimo the elder), patronises marsuppini, ii. 187; lorenzo de', the magnificent, his suspicious temper, i. 119; his appropriation of public moneys, 305; guicciardini's character of him, 308; describes rome to his son giovanni as 'the sink of all vices,' 421 (cp. v. 190), v. 274; attempt on his life, i. 397 _note_ 2; balance of power created by him in italy, 404 _note_ 2, 538, 544, ii. 315, iv. 368; his character the type of the renaissance, i. 504, 505, 523, ii. 321, iv. 384; recalls savonarola to florence, i. 521; his dying interview with savonarola, 523, iv. 384; universality of his genius, ii. 10, 320; transfers the high school of florence to pisa, 122; his policy, ii. 315, iii. 264, iv. 369, 386; without commercial talent, ii. 317; the true view of his character, 318, iv. 39, 387; literary society gathered round him, ii. 322; his love of the vernacular literature, 393, iv. 3, 236, 370, v. 508; has a monument erected to filippo lippi, iii. 247; his character typically florentine, iv. 371; wins the prize of valour at a tournament in 1468, 405; his taste for buffoonery, 430 _note_ 2; ariosto's character of him in the satires, 516; character of his poems, 371, 372; his _lauds_, 302, 384; his sacred drama, _s. giovanni e paolo_, 320, 324, 384; his treatment of love, 373-375; the sonnet to venus and that to the evening star translated, 373; analytical character of his genius, 377; the _selve d'amore_, 376-380; passages translated, 376-380; use of the _ottava rima_ in the _selve_, 379; the _corinto_, 379; passage translated, 380; the _ambra_, 380; the _nencia da barberino_ and other rustic poems, 381, v. 223; the _beoni_, iv. 172, 382; his _canzoni a ballo_, 385-388; his _canti carnascialeschi_, 388-392 (cp. i. 461); the song of bacchus and ariadne translated, 390; said to have originated this form of composition, 388, v. 355; lorenzo de' (nephew of leo x.), made duke of urbino by leo, i. 322, 438, ii. 420, iv. 396; advised by filippo strozzi to make himself duke of florence, 286; machiavelli's _prince_ dedicated to him, 319; maddalena de', married to franceschetto, son of innocent viii., 404; piero de' (_il gottosa_), ii. 313; piero de' (the younger), i. 305; his cowardly surrender of the tuscan fortresses, 525, 559; his relation to the orsini, 543; inclines to friendship with naples, 543; his weak and foolish character, i. 544; driven out by the florentines, 559, iii. 389 melanchthon, the pupil of reuchlin, ii. 208, 210 melozzo da forli, his picture of sixtus iv. among his cardinals, i. 384 _note_ 1, iii. 236 _note_ 1; his picture of frederick, duke of urbino, and his court, ii. 304, iii. 236 _note_ 1; the pupil of piero della francesca, iii. 235 melzi, francesco, the scholar of lionardo da vinci, iii. 484 memling, comparison of his works with those of the venetian masters, iii. 361 memmi, simone. (_see_ martini, simone.) merula, quoted for the justice of azzo visconti, i. 83 _note_ 1 messina cathedral, the, marble panellings in, iii. 79 _note_ 3; montorsoli's fountain, 177 metres, the question why different nations have adopted different metres, iv. 24; the italian hendecasyllabic, 24 _note_ 1 (_see_ appendix i.); the _ottava rima_ popularised by boccaccio's _teseide_, 118; use of the _ottava rima_ by lorenzo de' medici and poliziano, 379, 382, 403; of the _terza rima_ in _capitoli_ and satires, 519; vicissitudes of the _terza rima_ after dante, 172; employment of the _terza rima_ in the sixteenth century, v. 367; originality of the italian metrical systems, 510 michelet, quoted, i. 10; his formula of the discovery of world and man, 15 _note_ 1 (cp. v. 526); his remark that the french alone understood italy, criticised, 585; his description of the building of brunelleschi's dome at florence, iii. 67 michelotti, biordo, murder of, i. 123, 148 _note_ 2 michelozzo, his work as an architect, ii. 440; builds the riccardi palace at florence, iii. 76; employed by cosimo de' medici, 263 middle ages, their ignorance, i. 6, 13, 20, 24; the beauty of nature unappreciated in the middle ages, 13; progress effected by the middle ages, 6, 7; conception of life in, 10, 13, 14, iv. 289, v. 454, 455, 456; memories of antiquity in the middle ages, ii. 52; character of the middle ages illustrated from the faust legend, 53; low state of scholarship in the middle ages, 58 foll.; materialism and mysticism of the middle ages, iii. 9; architecture the pre-eminent art of the middle ages, 10; uncompromising christianity of the middle ages, 26; medieval prepossession with death, hell, and judgment, i. 13, iii. 198, 201, iv. 74, v. 454, 471; medieval ideas of the claims of the church illustrated by paintings of the _triumph of thomas_, iii. 205-210; medieval theories of government illustrated by lorenzetti's frescoes at siena, 210-214; allegory in the middle ages, iv. 74, 81; the _fabliaux_ of the middle ages, 107; satire in the middle ages, 108; treatment of women by medieval authors, 212; types of womanhood created by medieval authors, 352; abandonment of scholasticism for the humanities, v. 450, 457; medieval speculation never divorced from theology, 457 milan, greatness of, under the rule of the bishops, i. 53, 58, 59; heads the league against frederick, 64, 81; becomes the centre of the ghibelline party, 81; hostility of milan and piacenza, 151, 162 _note_ 1, 212; luxury of milan, v. 68 _note_ 3; corruption of the milanese court, i. 326, 548 _note_ 1, 554, v. 191; early printers of greek at milan, ii. 375; the wealth of milan due to the naviglio grande, iii. 41; share of milan in the development of italian literature, iv. 364 ---duomo, the, built by the visconti, i. 141, iii. 42; german influence in its design, iii. 50; its merits and defects, illustrating the character of italian gothic, 57; s. eustorgio, chapel of s. peter martyr, terra-cotta work in, iii. 79, 151; shrine, 123; s. gottardo, the tower, i. 133 _note_ 2, iii. 42; s. maurizio maggiore, luini's frescoes, iii. 485-487 (cp. v. 62) milan: hospital, the, iii. 59, 77 milton, his eulogy of the italian academies, ii. 367; his indebtedness in _lycidas_ to renaissance latin verse, 490 (cp. 497 _note_ 2); compared with michelangelo, iii. 388; comparison of his epics with the _italia liberata_ of trissino, v. 308; his description (in the _areopagitica_) of the decay of italian learning, 480; his conception of the poet's vocation in opposition to italian ideas, 521 minerbi, his vocabulary of boccaccio's diction, v. 254 _note_ 1 mino da fiesole, his work as a sculptor in italian churches, iii. 78 _note_ 1; delicacy and purity of his work, 152 (cp. iv. 66); his skill in character portraits, iii. 158 minorite friars, the, their denunciation of beccadelli's _hermaphroditus_, ii. 256; their attacks on valla, 261, 263 miracle plays, exhibition of, in the trevisan marches, iv. 15, 306; rarity of, in medieval italy, 306; their place supplied by the _divozioni_ and the _sacre rappresentazioni_, 307 mirandola, alberto pico della, murder of, ii. 423; galeazzo pico della, (1) died under excommunication, i. 133 _note_ 1; (2) murders his uncle, giovanni francesco, 119 _note_ 2, ii. 423; galeotto pico della, ii. 422; giovanni francesco pico della, the biographer of savonarola, i. 520, ii. 36, 423; his description of the effect of savonarola's preaching, i. 511; his belief in savonarola's gift of prophecy, 512 _note_ 1; his account of the dying interview of lorenzo de' medici with savonarola, 523 _note_ 1; influence of savonarola upon him, ii. 423; his address on the reformation of the church, 423; his friendship with northern scholars, 423; murdered by his nephew, i. 119 _note_ 2, ii. 423; lodovico pico della, ii. 422; pico della, on the expulsion of the jews by ferdinand, i. 401; his attempt to fuse christianity and ancient philosophy, 171, 456, ii. 470, iii. 35, v. 452, 453; the friend of savonarola, i. 520; his apology for the schoolmen, ii. 333, v. 450; universality of his genius, ii. 10; in common with the rest of his age did not comprehend plato's system, v. 452; his 'oration on the dignity of man' quoted, ii. 48; his influence on italian thought, 207; value of his labours, v. 453; one of the circle gathered round lorenzo de' medici, ii. 322, 329; description of him by poliziano, 329; his portrait in the uffizi gallery, 330; his devotion to learning, 330, 523; his great memory, 331; condemned for heresy on account of his 900 theses, 332; his ideal of knowledge, 332; studies the cabbala, 334; his attack on astrology, 335; his contempt for mere style, 526; his latin correspondence, 532; preferred lorenzo de' medici to petrarch as a poet, iv. 236 miscomini, antonio, an early printer at florence, ii. 369 modena, verses sung by the soldiers on guard against the huns there, iv. 12 (cp. appendix i.) molza, francesco maria, facts of his life, v. 225-228; a member of the roman academy, ii. 361; of the _vignajuoli_, 366, v. 357; patronized by ippolito de' medici, ii. 405; sides with caro in his quarrel with castelvetro, v. 286; his correspondence with aretino, 410 _note_ 1; his latin poems, ii. 488-490, v. 228; passage translated (in prose), 489; his _decamerone_, v. 60; molza as an italian poet, 228-234; the _ninfa tiberina_, 225, 229; illustrated by contemporary art, 229; molza's use of the octave stanza, 230; analysis of the poem, 230-234; translations, 231, 232, 233; the _capitoli_, 284, 364 molza, tarquinia, granddaughter of the poet, v. 288 monaldeschi, the chronicler, quoted, i. 252 monarchy: why italy did not become a monarchy, i. 92-95 montaigne, entertained by veronica franco at venice in 1580, v. 288 montalcino, his execution, v. 478 montanini, the, at siena, v. 99 montano, the bolognese scholar, i. 165 montaperti, battle of, iii. 214 monte labbate, conte di, his letter to pompeo pace, describing the influence exercised by aretino, v. 402 _note_ 2 montefalco, gozzoli's frescoes, iii. 242 montefeltro, the house of, i. 110, 375; members of this family become condottieri, 161 ---agnesina da, mother of vittoria colonna, v. 289; frederick da, duke of urbino, the suspicion of his legitimacy, i. 102; his life and character, 174-181; receives the garter from henry vii., 181; his library, ii. 304; the picture of him and his court by melozzo da forli, 304, iii. 236 _note_ 1; his portrait by piero della francesca, iii. 235; giovanna da, daughter of frederick, duke of urbino, married to giovanni della rovere, i. 182 _note_ 2, 393. ii. 419; guidobaldo da, duke of urbino, his character and accomplishments, i. 181-182; receives the garter from henry vii., ii. 420; bembo's dialogue in praise of him, 412; oddo antonio da, murder of, i. 121 montemurlo, battle of, i. 287 montesecco, giambattista, his share in the pazzi conspiracy, i. 397, 398 montferrat, the house of, i. 52, 57, 110, 146 _note_ 1 _monti_, the, names for successive governments at siena, i. 35, 207, 616, ii. 164, iii. 212 _note_ 1 montorsoli, gian angelo, follower of michelangelo, iii. 172; his fountain at messina, 177 monza, battle of, i. 161 morando, benedetto, his quarrel with valla, ii. 242 morello, il, iii. 503 morena, ottone, his chronicle of milan, i. 251 morone, giovanni, his friendship with vittoria colonna, v. 292 morone, girolamo, his intrigue with the marquis of pescara, v. 290 moroni, giovanni battista, his genius in portrait-painting, iii. 503 (cp. v. 278) morosini, paolo, his consolatory letter to filelfo on the death of his wife, ii. 287 mosca, his statuary at orvieto, iii. 56 mucchio da lucca, his sonnet on dante, iv. 162 museum, capitol, foundation of the, ii. 431; vatican, foundation of the, 431; description of the sculptures there by a venetian envoy, 434-436 music: the development of music, iii. 36; music the essentially modern art, 37; difference between italian and german music, v. 516 mussato, albertino, his _eccerinis_, v. 117 _note_ 1; cited for the traditional reverence of livy at padua, iv. 12 mussi, his milanese annals, i. 81 musurus, marcus, the assistant of aldo manuzio, ii. 378; a member of the aldine academy, 386; his knowledge of latin, 386 _note_ 2; made bishop of malvasia, 402; lectures in leo's gymnasium at rome, 427 muzio, his life of duke frederick of urbino, quoted, i. 174 muzio, girolamo, his _battaglie_, v. 271 _note_ 1 nantiporto, quoted, i. 22 naples, entry of the french into naples, i. 566, 575, ii. 363; history of the neapolitan kingdom under the aragonese dynasty, 567-574; hostility of naples to the church, ii. 260, 265; feudalism lasted longer in naples than in other parts of italy, 251, iv. 460, v. 499; insecurity of life in naples, i. 569; neapolitan manners described in the poems of pontano, v. 217; beauty of naples, 201; traces of french influence on neapolitan architecture, iii. 44; character of neapolitan culture, ii. 250, 265; neapolitan influence on literature, v. 213 foll.; sensuousness of neapolitan writers, ii. 251, 364, 468, iv. 26, 364, v. 213, 499, 521 ---monte oliveto, fra giovanni's tarsia-work. iii. 78 _note_ 2; rosellino's altarpiece, 153; benedetto's _annunciation_, 160; mazzoni's _pietà_, ii. 365, iii. 163, v. 198 ---academy, the, ii. 362, 364 ---university, the, founded by frederick ii., ii. 116; its subsequent vicissitudes, 117 neapolitan school of painters, the, their brutality, iii. 25, 187 nardi, jacopo, cited, i. 226, 229 _note_ 2; pleads for the florentine exiles before charles v., 232, 280; his history of florence, 278, 279; on the democratic side, 290; character and value of his work, 291, 292; his account of savonarola, 290, 292, 511 _note_ 1, 512 _note_ 1, 534 _note_ 1; his account of guicciardini, 299 _note_ 2; cited for the murder of the manfredi, 292, 428 _note_ 1; acts as peacemaker in cellini's quarrel with the florentine exiles, iii. 463; aids in the composition of the pageant of the golden age, iv. 397. (_see_ appendix ii., vol. i. for translation of a passage on the government of florence.) narses, brings the lombards into italy, i. 47 navagero, andrea, a member of the aldine academy, ii. 387; his flattery of julius ii., 494; his venetian origin, illustrating the loss of intellectual supremacy by florence, 506; his latin poems, their beauty and grace, 453, 485-488; translations (prose) 485-488 naviglio grande, construction of the, iii. 41 nelli, giustiniano, his _novelle_, v. 60 nepotism of the popes, i. 113, 303, 372, 375, 388, 392, 413, 434 neri and bianchi factions, the, at florence, i. 221, 225; at pistoja, 210 _note_ 2 nerli, filippo, his history of florence, i. 278, 279; took part in the political events of his time, 280; belonged to the medicean party, 290; value of his work, 293; his account of machiavelli's discourses in the rucellai gardens, 328, ii. 366; cited for the downfall of cesare borgia's plans after the death of his father, i. 431 neroni, diotisalvi, his conspiracy against piero de' medici, ii. 314 niccolò da correggio, his drama of _cefalo_, iv. 357, v. 221; acted before duke ercole at ferrara, v. 139 niccoli, niccolò de', turns piero de' pazzi from a life of pleasure to study, ii. 41; one of the circle in santo spirito, 102; helps to bring chrysoloras to florence, 109, 110; cited for the practice of scholars making their own copies of mss., 131, 179; generosity of cosimo de' medici to him, 173; his bequest of mss., 174, 178; his zeal in collecting mss., 178; his judgment of style, 179; his literary dictatorship at florence, 180; vespasiano's account of him, 181; his exacting temperament, 182, 275; did not know greek, 194 _note_ 1; his kindness to poggio, 230 _note_ 1; his quarrel with bruni, 243; his contempt for dante, iv. 436 niccolò da padova, quotes turpin as his authority for his history of charlemagne, iv. 439 _note_ 1 nicholas of breslau, an early printer at florence, ii. 369 nicholas ii., i. 60 nicholas v., his catalogue of niccolò niccoli's mss., ii. 174, 175, 225; his humble birth, 222; comes to florence, 223; acts as tutor in the households of rinaldo degli albizzi and palla degli strozzi, 165, 223; generosity of cosimo de' medici to him while bishop of bologna, 173; his character, 244 (cp. 523); his election to the papacy, i. 371, ii. 173, 225; his speech to vespasiano after his election, ii. 226; restores the papal court to rome, i. 88; his treaty with the great italian states, 89; description of his administration by leo alberti, 377; receives manetti after his exile, ii. 192, 228; founds the vatican library, i. 21, ii. 227; his policy, i. 377-380, ii. 227; his project for rebuilding st. peter's, i. 379, iii. 90; why he did nothing for the roman university, ii. 227; translations executed by his command, 228, 402; rewards filelfo for his satires, 236 (cp. 514); employs poggio against the anti-pope felix, 237; his toleration, as shown by his protection of valla, 262; his destruction of ancient monuments at rome, 430; his will, i. 379 nicholas of treves, sends a ms. of plautus to rome, ii. 140 nifo, agostino, takes part in the controversy raised by the publication of pomponazzi's _de immortalitate animæ_, v. 460 niger, hieronymus, cited for the wickedness of rome, ii. 446 nino (son of andrea da pontedera), sculptor of the _madonna della rosa_ in the spina chapel, iii. 123 nobility, italian ideas of, i. 186 _note_ 1, iv. 125 nobles, the, excluded from the government of florence, i. 224, iv. 27, 51 nocera, establishment of a saracen colony there by frederick ii., i. 105 nominalists, the, v. 466, 467 norcia, one of the two chief centres of italian witchcraft, v. 346 normans, the norman conquest of southern italy, i. 58, ii. 251 novelists, the italian, their testimony to the corruption of the roman church, i. 458, 476, 486 _note_ 1, ii. 406, iv. 180, 181; to florentine immorality, iv. 337 _note_ 2; importance of the _novella_ in the history of the renaissance, 158; the _novella_ especially suited to the italian genius, 426, v. 52, 53, 106, 114-116; manner in which women are treated by the novelists, iv. 212, v. 185; versified novels of the _quattro cento_, iv. 249-255; testimony of the novelists to the great intercourse between the italian provinces from 1200-1550, 271; the _novelle_ written for the amusement of the _bourgeoisie_, v. 52; definition of the word _novella_, 54; the _novelle_ originally recitations, 55; subjects and material of the _novelle_, 55-57, 59; their object was amusement, 56, 57; their indelicacy, as illustrating contemporary manners, 58; inequality of merit among them, 58; reasons why the elizabethan dramatists were attracted to them, 59, 117; the introductions of the _novelle_, 61; degree in which they are to be accepted as fiction, 81; characteristics of the novelists of siena, 96; the scope and limitations of the _novelle_, 107; influence of the _novelle_ upon the theatre, 161, 181, 187 _novellino, il_, or _le novelle antiche_, the first collection of italian stories, iv. 107, 129 novels, defect of the italians in true novels of the modern type, v. 120 ochino, fra bernardino, his friendship with vittoria colonna, v. 292 odasio, the tutor of guidobaldo, duke of urbino, i. 181 odassi, tifi, said to have been the inventor of maccaronic verse, v. 329 _note_ 3; quoted in illustration of its character, 328 _note_ 1; the description of a bad painter, 330; possibly the author of the anonymous poem on vigonça, 331; his use of the maccaronic style, 336 oddi, the, at perugia, i. 225; worsted by the baglioni, 115, 123 odo delle colonne, shows in his _lament_ traces of genuine italian feeling, iv. 26 odoacer, i. 46 oggiono, marco d', the scholar of lionardo da vinci, iii. 484 ognibene da lonigo, effect of his teaching at vicenza, ii. 249 olgiati, girolamo, one of the assassins of galeazzo maria sforza, i. 166, 466, v. 119 oliverotto da fermo, his murder of his uncle, i. 119 _note_ 2, 168 _note_ 1, 354; takes part in the diet of la magione, 351; murdered at sinigaglia by cesare borgia, 351 _onestà_, italian ideas of, i. 485 onesto, bolognese poet, iv. 48 _onore_, use of the word in italian, i. 481, 485, iv. 180 _note_ 1 (_see_ tasso); illustrated by the life of benvenuto cellini, iii. 449 orange, the prince of, in command at the siege of florence, iii. 414; wounded at the capture of rome, 455; his troops destroy sannazzaro's villa at naples, v. 199 orcagna (andrea arcagnuolo di cione), completes the church of orsammichele, florence, iii. 63, 124; comprehensiveness of his genius, 124; the tabernacle there, 125; architect of the loggia del bigallo, 125; influence of his master, giotto, upon him, 125, 197; his frescoes in the strozzi chapel, s. maria novella, 199; beauty of his faces, 200 _note_ 1; probably not the painter of the frescoes in the campo santo, pisa, 200; his sincerity, v. 195; influenced by dante, iii. 283 _note_ 2; his sonnet on love, iv. 39 _note_ 1 ordelaffi, the, of forli, i. 111, 375; their patronage of learning, ii. 302 _ordinanze della giustizia_, the, at florence, i. 224, 238, 244 orlandi, the pisan orator, i. 343 orlandini, zuccagni, his estimation of the population of florence, i. 209 orleans, claim of the house of orleans to milan, i. 154 _note_ 1, 339 orleans, duke of, i. 577, 579, 581 orpheus, fitness of his legend to express the renaissance, iv. 410, v. 450; the _orfeo_ (_see_ poliziano) orsini, the, members of this family become condottieri, i. 161; their rise to power, 375; contest between the orsini and cesare borgia, 349-352; destroyed by alexander vi., 413; devoted to naples, 543; related by marriage to the medici, 543, ii. 314, 354; ---clarice, wife of lorenzo de' medici, i. 314, ii. 354; francesco, murdered at sinigaglia by cesare borgia, 351, 353; paolo, murdered at sinigaglia by cesare borgia, 351; cardinal, takes part in the diet of la magione, 351; virginio, 552; buys anguillara from franceschetto cibo, 545; makes terms with charles viii., 564 _ortolana_, the, an academy at piacenza: domenichi and doni members, v. 88 orvieto, duomo, the, illustrates the defects of italian gothic, iii. 53; contrasted with northern cathedrals, 56; signorelli's frescoes, ii. 440, iii. 56, 280, 281, 282; its façade, iii. 116; importance of its sculptures in the history of italian art, 117; fra angelico's frescoes, 283 _note_ 1; perugino invited to work there, 296 _note_ 1, 299 osnaga, orsina, filelfo's second wife, ii. 280 otho i., i. 52; assumes the title of king of italy, 52, 53 _ottimati_, name given to the party of the oligarchy at florence, ii. 441 _oziosi_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 pacchia, girolamo del, the scholar of sodoma, iii. 501 padua, traditional reverence for livy there, iv. 12 padua, s. antonio: andrea riccio's candelabrum, iii. 78 _note_ 1; donatello's bas-reliefs, 140, 270 _note_ 1; chapel of the arena, iii. 190, iv. 298; the eremitani, mantegna's frescoes, iii. 270; hall of the _ragione_, 60, iv. 130 ---university, the, ii. 116; pay of professors there, 122; its state at the end of the fifteenth century, 506; long continuance of scholasticism at padua, v. 457; different character of padua from other lombard universities, 460; closing of the schools in 1509, 460 padua, chronicle of, cited for a description of the flagellants, iv. 280 paganism, mixture of paganism and christianity in the renaissance, i. 456 _note_ 1, 464, iii. 1, 33-35, 107. (_see_ renaissance.) pagello, bartolommeo, his panegyric of ognibeno da lonigo, ii. 249 painting, demands more independence in the artist than architecture, ii. 7; character of greek painting, 8; effect on italian painting of the discoveries of ancient works of art, 439; painting the best gauge of italian genius, iii. 5, iv. 116, 338, v. 18, 20, 49, 515; how painting instead of sculpture became the exponent of modern feeling, iii. 8, 12-21, 31, 120; the problem for italian painting, 10-20, v. 515; difficulties presented to the first painters, iii. 21; first attempts in painting to make beauty an end in itself, 22, 32; italian painting in the first period devoted to setting forth the catholic mythology, 27, 185; why painting has lost its earlier importance, 37; the personality of the different italian cities visible in painting, 181; contrast between the florentine and venetian painters, 182; character of the umbrian school, 182; the so-called 'schools': how far the term is justified, 183; general course taken by italian painting, i. 17-20, iii. 185-187, v. 506; changes introduced by giotto into painting, iii. 192; character of the sienese masters, 214; characteristics of italian painting from 1400-1470, 224 (cp. v. 204); the _quattro cento_ a period of effort, iii. 227; exaggerated study of perspective and anatomy by these painters, 232; the painters of the renaissance--how to be classified, 266-269; influence of dante on italian painters, 283 _note_ 2; the perfection of painting in michelangelo, lionardo da vinci, raphael, and correggio, 312; over attention paid to the nude after michelangelo, 397, 453; the decline of painting, 481, 504 palæologus, andrea, sells the title of emperor of constantinople to charles viii., i. 576 _note_ 1; john, attends the council of florence, ii. 196, 205; takes filelfo into his service, 268 paleario, aonio, ii. 394; his latin poem on the _immortality of the soul_, 497; his execution, v. 478 palermo: norman, arabic and byzantine influence on palermitan architecture, iii. 44, 45 palimpsests, ii. 129 palladio, his judgment of sansovino's library of s. mark, iii. 85; character of his architectural work, 94, v. 505; the palazzo della ragione at vicenza, iii. 95; palladio's treatise on architecture, 96 _note_ 1 palladius, blosius, ii. 409 pallavicini, battista, i. 177 palma, iii. 371; his _venus_, illustrating his treatment of the antique, 291 palmieri, matteo, facts of his life, v. 549 (appendix iii.); pronounces the funeral oration over marsuppini, ii. 187; his _chronicle_ quoted for a description of the florentine festivals, iv. 316; author of the _città di vita_, 188, v. 548; history of the ms. of the work, v. 548; origin of the poem, 549; its doctrine on the soul and fallen angels, iv. 171, v. 551; the work brings him into suspicion of heresy, iv. 171; the _della vita civile_, v. 549; influence of xenophon on the work, 196 _note_ 1; mattia, continues matteo palmieri's _chronicle_, 549 panciatichi, lorenzo, alludes to the ballad _l'avvelenato_, iv. 276 panciroli, his testimony to the kindness of boiardo, iv. 458 pandects, the ms. of the, taken by florence from pisa, i. 62, ii. 351 pandolfini, agnolo, his treatise _del governo della famiglia_, i. 239-243, 481; said to have been really written by leo battista alberti, 239 _note_ 1, 273, ii. 37, iv. 192-203 panicale, perugino's fresco of s. sebastian, iii. 295 pannartz, the printer at rome, ii. 368 panvinius, cited for the murders committed by alexander vi., i. 414 paolo da castro, his salary from the university of padua, ii. 122 paolucci, his account of the behaviour of leo x. at a representation of the _suppositi_, v. 147 papacy, the, 'the ghost of the roman empire,' i. 5; rise of the papal power, 7, 32; its history cosmopolitan, 41, 60; invites the franks against the lombards, 50; compact of the papacy with charlemagne, 50, 94; war between the papacy and the empire, 59, 60, 68, 97, 100, 374, iv. 6; election of the popes transferred from the emperor to the cardinals, i. 60; summons charles of anjou into italy, 75; calls in charles of valois, 76; transference of the papal court to avignon, 77, 80, 374, iv. 7; restored to rome, i. 88; the papacy prevented the unification of italy, 93-95, ii. 2; machiavelli's criticism of the papacy, i. 96, 382, 448-451, v. 436, 438, 442; the only italian power which survived all changes, i. 98; connivance of the popes at crime, 170; paradoxical character of the papacy during the renaissance, 371-374, 401; guicciardini's observations on the papacy, 451, 452; universal testimony to its corruption, 446, 457, 460; italian ideas about the pope, 418, 462-464, iii. 471; worldliness of the papacy at the renaissance, ii. 263; more tolerant of obscenity than of heterodoxy, 22; corruption of the papal court under leo x., 402, 406, 408, 516; flattery of the popes by the latin poets of the renaissance, 493-496; the organisation of the papacy due to italian genius, iv. 7, v. 513 papal secretaries, their rise into importance owing to the influence of rhetoric at the renaissance, ii. 216 paper, where first made in italy, ii. 371 paquara, reconciliation of the lombard cities at, i. 108, 608 parabosco, girolamo, his _diporti_, v. 60; its introduction, 62 paravisini, dionysius, the first printer of greek in italy, ii. 375 parentucelli, tommaso. (_see_ nicholas v.) parhasius, janus, a member of the roman academy, ii. 361; professor in the sapienza at rome, 426 parisio, gianpaolo. (_see_ parhasius, janus.) _parlamenti_, name of the popular assemblies in italian cities, i. 35, 57 ---the _parlamento_ at florence under the medici, 229, 526 parma, sold by obizzo d'este, i. 134; pageant got up by the students at the election of andrea di sicilia to a professorship, iv. 315 ---the teatro farnese (by aleotti), v. 144 parmigianino (mazzola, francesco), story of him at the sack of rome, ii. 16; the follower of correggio, iii. 495 _parte guelfa_, in italian cities, i. 35; at florence, 70 _note_ 1 party strife, effects of, in italy, i. 199, 206, 207, 584 paruta, the venetian historian, i. 233 passavanti, jacopo, his _specchio della vera penitenza_, iv. 131, v. 270 paterini, the, an heretical sect, i. 9, iv. 109, 279 _patria_, machiavelli's use of the term, v. 435, 436 patrician, title of dignity in italian cities, i. 35 patrini, giuseppe, engraver of a portrait of aretino, v. 423 paul ii., becomes pope, i. 383; his love of show, 383; his services to art, 384, 384 _note_ 1; his persecution of the roman platonists, 385, ii. 359, 362, 511; claimed descent from the ahenobarbi, ii. 31; his destruction of ancient monuments at rome, 430; his death, i. 387 paul iii., i. 297, iii. 438; his monument in st. peter's, i. 417 _note_ 2, iii. 108; a member of the roman academy, ii. 361; advances sadoleto, bembo, and aleander to the cardinalate, ii. 402, 416, 424; his patronage of scholars while cardinal, 404, 498, 500, 504; employs michelangelo to paint the _last judgment_, iii. 422; his character, 422, 438, 472, 473, _note_ 1 pavia, becomes the capital of the lombards, i. 48, 49 ---the cathedral (by rocchi), iii. 82; shrine of s. augustine, 123; the certosa, 42, 165; the façade characteristic of the first period of renaissance architecture, 72 ---university, the, eclipsed by the school of bologna, i. 62; raised to eminence by gian galeazzo, 142, ii. 118; staff of the university in 1400, ii. 120; pay of professors there, 122 pazzi, alessandro de', his discourse on the florentine constitution, i. 197 _note_ 1, 203 _note_ 1; piero de', called to study by niccolò de niccoli, ii. 41 pazzi conspiracy, the, i. 168, 396, 398, 466, 505, ii. 287, iv. 443, 447, v. 118 _pedantesco_, name given to a kind of pseudo-maccaronic verse, v. 328; specimen from scrofa, 329 pelacane, biagio, master of vittorino da feltre in mathematics, ii. 289 pelavicini, the, become feudatories of the see of parma, i. 57 _note_ 1; overthrown by the visconti, 145 _pellegrini_, the, an academy at venice, v. 90, 272 penni, francesco, the scholar of raphael, iii. 490 pepoli, romeo, his rise to power at bologna, i. 114, 116 peregrinus, bononiensis, an early printer at venice, ii. 376 perino, a milanese, carved the tomb of mastino ii. della scala, iii. 124 _note_ 1 perino del vaga, the scholar of raphael, iii. 490 perotti, niccolò, a pupil of vittorino da feltre, i. 177; author of the _cornucopia_, 179; translates polybius, ii. 228; takes part in the quarrel of poggio and valla, 240, 241; pirro, his preface to his uncle's _cornucopia_, i. 179 perotto, murder of, by cesare borgia, i. 426 perrucci, antonelli, execution of, by ferdinand of aragon, i. 571 _note_ 3 perugia, seized by gian galeazzo, i. 148; generally guelf, 194; excitable and emotional character of the people of perugia, iii. 221; peculiar position of perugia in italian art and literature, v. 498; standards of the religious confraternities preserved at perugia, iv. 283 _note_ 1 ---s. bernardino, its façade, iii. 79 _note_ 1, 150; s. domencio, monument of benedict xi., 115; s. pietro de' cassinensi, tarsia work, 78 _note_ 2; mino da fiesole's altar in the baglioni chapel, 158 _note_ 1 ---the sala del cambio, tarsia work designed by perugino, iii. 78 _note_ 2; perugino's frescoes, 210, 295, 296 ---high school, the, founded by clement v., ii. 117 perugino (pietro vannucci), i. 325, v. 498; his arabesques at perugia, ii. 440; his designs for tarsia work there, in the sala del cambio, iii. 78 _note_ 2; his frescoes in the sala, 210, 295; michelangelo's criticism of him, 296, 298 _note_ 1, 300, 386 _note_ 2; character of his genius, 294; his artistic development impaired by his commercial character, 296, 298, 299; the problem of his personal character, 297, 298 (cp. i. 170 _note_ 1); competes for the decoration of the stanze of the vatican, 300; his influence upon italian art, 300, 303; his adherence to the older manner of painting, 303, 365 peruzzi, the, at florence, i. 238; their loan to edward iii., 257; their bankruptcy, 258 peruzzi, baldassare, church built by him at carpi, ii. 374; architect of the villa farnesina at rome, iii. 83, 84; his work at s. peter's, 91; how far influenced by sodoma in painting, 501; employed as scene-painter at the representation of the _calandra_ in the vatican, v. 143, 146 pescara, marquis of. (_see_ d'avalos, ferrante francesco.) peselli, the, florentine painters, introduced new methods of colouring, iii. 225 petrarch, his love of antique culture, i. 11, ii. 13; ignorant of greek, i. 20, ii. 74, 75, 90; his autobiographical tracts, ii. 36, iv. 91, 123; present at the marriage of the duke of clarence, i. 138; his remark on florentine intelligence, 250; his denunciations of papal profligacy, 457; his conception of self-culture, ii. 4; belongs less than dante to the middle ages, 13, iv. 91, 140, v. 2; dante and petrarch compared, ii. 70, iv. 85-89, 90; greatness of his services to culture, ii. 71, 86; his love of cicero and virgil, 73, 76; his liberal spirit, 75, 78, iv. 87 (cp. v. 504); his judgments of poetry and oratory, ii. 76, 77, 450; his vanity and inconsistency of conduct, 79-84; depreciated dante, 82; his relations to rienzi, 83, 147-149; his philosophical creed, 84-86, v. 450; despaired of getting greek learning from constantinople, ii. 92 _note_ 1, 142 _note_ 1; his invective against the copyists, 129; began the search for mss. of the classics, 132 (cp. 530); his study of the ruins of rome, 149; his description of rome in desolation, 154; conceives the idea of forming a public library, 166; his friendship with robert of anjou, 252, iv. 120 _note_ 1; his denunciation of the astrologers, ii. 75, 336; aldo manusio's italic types imitated from his handwriting, 381; began the fashion of ciceronian letter-writing, 530; his description of death illustrated by frescoes in the campo santo, pisa, iii. 202; his mention of simone martini and giotto, 217 _note_ 1; his account of the sicilian poets, iv. 21; attained the conception of italy as a whole, 87; crowned in the capitol, 88; his language free from dialect, 89; his treatment of love, 89; conflict in his mind between his love of laura and his religious feelings, 90; the nature of his passion for laura, 92-94; brings the feeling of love back from mysticism to experience, 94, v. 515; his artistic treatment of his subject-matter, iv. 95; had no strong objective faculty, 96; his power of self-portraiture, 97; the dialogue on the destruction of cesena, falsely attributed to him, v. 117 _note_ 1 petrarchistic school in italian literature, petrarchists of the _trecento_, iv. 159; the revival under bembo and the purists, 165; injurious effects of the imitation of petrarch, v. 249-251, 273; inattention shown by the petrarchists to the calamities of italy, 281 petrucci, the, at siena, supported by the people, i. 87 ---antonio, invites filelfo to siena, ii. 276; cardinal, conspiracy of, i. 436; his patronage of scholars at rome, ii. 404; pandolfo, his rise to power at siena, i. 114, 209; his murder of borghese, 121 _note_ 1 philosophy, at the commencement of the renaissance did not form a separate branch of study, v. 458; materialism in the lombard universities due to physical studies, 458 philosophy, italian: italian philosophy unduly neglected in the history of modern thought, v. 448; three stages of thought in the passage through renaissance to modern science, 448, 457; disengagement of the reason from authority due to italian thinkers, 448, 449, 485-487, 520; cicero and seneca used as models by the humanistic ethicists, 451; value of the labours of the florentine platonists, 452-454; problems of life posed by ethical rhetoricians, 454-457; valla's _de voluptate_, 455; rapid growth of heterodox opinions on immortality during the renaissance, 470; influence of pomponazzi on italian thought, 479, 520 piacenza, destruction of, by the milanese, i. 152, 162 _note_ 1, 212 ---university, the, established by innocent iv., ii. 117 _piagnoni_, name of the followers of savonarola at florence, i. 290, 529, ii. 355, iii. 252 piccinino, jacopo, murdered by ferdinand of aragon, i. 113 _note_ 1, 571 piccinino, nicolò, i. 161, ii. 264 piccolomini, his _la raffaella_ quoted for italian ideas of honour in women, i. 485 (cp. ii. 37) piccolomini, æneas sylvius. (_see_ pius ii.) pico. (_see_ mirandola.) piero di cosimo, his studies in natural history, iii. 226; his eccentricity, 256; his romantic treatment of classical mythology, 256; his art as illustrating the poetry of boiardo, iv. 463; the _triumph of death_ designed by him, 393-395, v. 114 piero della francesca, his fresco of the _resurrection_ at borgo san sepolcro, iii. 234; his _dream of constantine_ at arezzo, 235; his portraits of sigismondo pandolfo malatesta and frederick of urbino, 235, 275 _note_ 1 piero da noceto, private secretary of nicholas v., ii. 229 piero delle vigne, his _perocchè amore_ an early instance of a sonnet, iv. 25 pilatus, leontius, boccaccio's greek master, ii. 91 pinturicchio, bernardo, i. 325, 384 _note_ 1; competes for the decoration of the stanze of the vatican, iii. 300; his frescoes in the cathedral library at siena, 302; his affectation, 302, 364 _note_ 1 pio [pia], alberto, the patron of aldo manuzio, ii. 374; a member of the aldine academy, 387; ambassador from france at rome, 405; alda, mother of veronica gambara, v. 288; lionello, ii. 374 pippin, named patrician of rome, i. 50 pirkheimer, willibad, the friend of gian francesco pico, ii. 423 pisa, not eminent for literary talent, i. 79; sale of, to gian galeazzo, 148; its cruel treatment by florence, 212, 237, 342, 560, ii. 165; popular outbreak at the entry of charles viii., 343, 561 ---campo santo, the, story of the sarcophagus there, which influenced the genius of niccola pisano, iii. 106; built by giovanni pisano, 110; the frescoes, 200-204, 209, 219, 242 (cp. iv. 261 _note_ 2); s. caterina, traini's _triumph of s. thomas_, iii. 207; simone martini's altarpiece, 217 _note_ 2; the cathedral, iii. 49; s. francesco, taddeo di bartolo's _visit of the apostles to the virgin_, 218; s. maria della spina (spina chapel), rebuilt by giovanni pisano, 110 ---university, the, ii. 117, v. 497; transfer of the high school from florence thither, ii. 122 pisanello, medal struck by him in honour of vittorino da feltre, i. 178 pisani, the (giovanni and niccola), their bas-reliefs at orvieto, iii. 56; vasari's statement that they aided in the façade of orvieto discussed, 116 ---giovanni, contrast of his work with that of his father, niccola, iii. 110, 177; his architectural labours, 110; his pulpit in s. andrea, pistoja, 111-114; his allegorical figure of pisa, 114; his tomb of benedict xi. in s. domenico, perugia, 115; niccola, individuality of his genius, ii. 5; his influence on sculpture, iii. 101, 177; the legend of his life, how far trustworthy, 102; his first work as a sculptor, the _deposition from the cross_, 104; story of his genius having been aroused by the study of a sarcophagus in the campo santo, 106; the sculptures of the pisan pulpit, 107, 109 (_see_ also appendix i.); degree in which he was indebted to ancient art, 108, 110, v. 506; contrast of his work with that of his son, giovanni, iii. 110, 177 ---ugolino, his latin play, _philogenia_ v. 110 pistoja, contrast of its history with that of lucca, i. 194 ---s. andrea, giovanni pisano's pulpit, iii. 111-114; the duomo, cino da pistoja's monument, iv. 66 _note_ 1; church of the umiltà (by vitoni), iii. 83 ---ospedale del ceppo, the, its frieze, by the robbian school, iii. 150 _note_ 1 pitigliano, count, general of alfonso ii. of naples, i. 552 pitti, jacopo, his history of florence, i. 278, 279; his democratic spirit, 280, 288, 299 _note_ 2; his panegyric of piero soderini, 289, iii. 391; ascribes the downfall of florence to the _ottimati_, i. 288; his style, 291; his account of guicciardini, 299, 299 _note_ 1 (cp. iv. 515); on the preaching of frate francesco, i. 621; the life of giacomini cited for giacomini's share in machiavelli's plan for a militia, 313 _note_ 1 ---luca, his conspiracy against piero de' medici, ii. 314 pius ii., in the service of the emperor before his election, ii. 190; his reputation as an orator, 191; his latin correspondence, 532; his letter to his nephew, 42 _note_ 1; contrast between his life before and after his election to the papacy, i. 380, ii. 358; his saying on the celibacy of the clergy, i. 459; his canonisations and love of reliques, 461; pardons the people of arpino as fellow-citizens of cicero, ii. 30; his epigram on the ruins of rome, 151; endeavours to protect the roman monuments, 429; founds the college of abbreviators, 358; his saying upon tommaso parentucelli (nicholas v.), 224; his commentaries cited for his conversations with frederick duke of urbino, i. 178 _note_ 2; for gian galeazzo's saying on salutato, ii. 105 _note_ 1; his testimony in another work to beccadelli's reputation as a stylist, 257 _note_ 1 pius iii., i. 433 pius vi., his destruction of the chapel in the vatican painted by mantegna, iii. 277 plagiarism, commonness of, in the fifteenth century, iv. 194 _note_ 1 platina, his account of paul ii.'s persecution of the humanists, i. 384 _note_ 1, 386, 387, ii. 36, 511; a member of the roman academy, ii. 361 plato, aldine edition of, ii. 16, 379; impulse given by gemistos to platonic studies, 207; quarrel of the platonists and the aristotelians, 208, 244, 247, 394, v. 454; the study of plato prepared the way for rationalism, ii. 209, 325, iv. 447; influence of plato at the renaissance, ii. 323; plato not fully comprehended by the thinkers of the renaissance, 327, v. 452; celebrations of his birthday by the florentine academy, ii. 328; the florentine platonists, iv. 452. (_see_ also ficino and pico mirandola.) plautus, influence of, on the italian playwrights, v. 122, 136, 148, 161, 181; representations of plautus in the original at rome, 138, 145; at ferrara, iv. 499, v. 139-142, 145; early translations of plautus, forming the beginnings of italian comedy, v. 140 plethon, gemistos, settles at mistra, ii. 199; his dream of a neo-pagan religion, 200; his system of philosophy, 201-204; attends the council of florence, 205; his reception by the florentines, 206; impulse given by him to platonic studies in italy, 207, 328, v. 452; his treatises on fate, and on the differences between plato and aristotle, ii. 208; his controversy with gennadios, 209; his remains brought from greece by sigismondo pandolfo malatesta, i. 173, 461, ii. 34, 209 plutarch, effect of the study of plutarch in italy, i. 165 _note_ 2, 464; life of cleomenes quoted, 235 _note_ 2 podestà, the place and function of this magistrate, i. 35, 71, 84; meaning of the word, 67; sometimes became tyrants, 112 poetry, opposition of the medieval church to, iv. 81 poggio, corresponds with lionello d'este, i. 173; his relations to frederick of urbino, 179; account of him by vespasiano, 275; attached to the papal court, 459, ii. 218, 230; a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100, 230; his funeral oration on niccolò de' niccoli quoted for the society founded by marsigli, 102; patronised by salutato, 106; learns greek of chrysoloras, 110, 230; his copying and sale of mss., 131; his discoveries of mss., i. 21, ii. 134-139; his zeal and unscrupulousness in the quest, ii. 138; his translations of diodorus siculus and xenophon, 228, 237, 243; his debt to niccolò de' niccoli, 230 _note_ 1; description contained in one of his letters of jerome of prague before the council of constance, 231, 535; his pictures of foreign manners, 231; varied character of his talents, 232; his attacks on the clergy, 233-237; terror caused by his invectives, 237 (cp. 513); his quarrel with filelfo, 238-240; with guarino and with valla, 240-242, 263, 301; his fight with trapezuntius, 243; his criticism of beccadelli's _hermaphroditus_, 255; his scandalous account of filelfo's marriage, 269 _note_ 1; his marriage and life as a citizen of florence, 245; the _de nobilitate_, i. 186 _note_ 1; the _history of florence_, 81, 274; its style and value, 275; the description of the ruins of rome (the first part of the _de varietate fortunæ_), ii. 152-154, 231, 429, 530 pole, cardinal, his friendship with flaminio and vittoria colonna, ii. 498, 502, v. 292 polentani, the, of ravenna, i. 111, 375 polenta, obizzo da, his murder of his brother, i. 119 _note_ 2; ostasio da, his murder of his brother, 119 _note_ 2 polidoro da caravaggio, the scholar of raphael, iii. 490 polissena, countess of montalto, her murder, i. 119 _note_ 2 _politici_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 poliziano, angelo, assassination of his father, i. 170 _note_ 1; present at the murder of giuliano de' medici, 265 _note_ 1; his letter to antiquari, containing an account of lorenzo's last interview with savonarola, 523 _note_ 1, ii. 355 (cp. 533); wide scope of his genius, ii. 10, iv. 399; his lectures on the pandects, ii. 124; learnt greek from callistus, 248, 346; one of the circle gathered round lorenzo de' medici, 322, 323; his description of pico della mirandola, 329; his wooing of alessandra scala, 344; brought into fame by his latin version of part of homer, ii. 346, iv. 401, 411; his lectures at florence, i. 171; their enormous success, ii. 350, 464; popularity of poliziano, 353; his relations to the medicean family, 354; his want of self-respect, 354; giovio's story of his death, 348 _note_ 2, 354 _note_ 1; epitaph placed upon his tomb, 357; his indebtedness to sacchetti, iv. 155; his eulogy of alberti, 214; one of his letters cited for the maccaronic italian used by scholars, 237; represents the servility of his age in literature, 404; ideal of life expressed in his works, 423; erroneous ascription of the _morgante_ to him, 455 _note_ 3, v. 316 _note_ 1; his position as an italian poet, ii. 347, iv. 399-401; insincerity of emotion in his italian poems, iv. 423; popularity of his italian poems, 409 _note_ 2; injury caused to his poems by the defects of his temperament, 399; his mastery of metre, 401-403, v. 212, 230; surpassed by ariosto, v. 43; the _stanze_, iv. 401, 403, 406-409, 421; their importance in italian literature, 403; illustrations of the _stanze_ by contemporary works of art, 408; translation of passages, 408, 420; the _orfeo_, iv. 357, 409, v. 108, 221; excellent choice of its subject, iv. 410; occasion of its being written, 411; its greatness lyrical, not dramatical, 412-414; translation of the chorus of the mænads, 414; popular redaction of the _orfeo_, 409 _note_ 2; the _orfeo_ cited for the tendency of the italians to unnatural passions, 477 _note_ 1; his canzonet, _la pastorella si leva per tempo_, iv. 268 _note_ 3; a letter of his to lorenzo cited for the antiquity of the _rispetti_ and the cultivation of popular poetry in the medicean circle, 269, 416 _note_ 1; translation of a _ballata_, 378; his _rispetti_, &c., 416; more artificial in character than the popular poetry, 417; the _rispetti continuati_, 419; illustrations of them from contemporary works of art, 419; the _la brunettina mia_, _la bella simonetta_, and _monti, valli, antri e colli_, 420-422; part of _la bella simonetta_ translated, 420; the essay on the pazzi conspiracy, i. 265 _note_ 1; the miscellanies, ii. 352; the greek and latin poetry, 348; original character of the latin poetry, 348, 356, 453-458, 463; the lament for lorenzo, 355, 356; analysis of the _nutricia_, 453-458; the eulogy on lorenzo, 457, iv. 369; gyraldus' criticism of the _sylvæ_, ii. 459; the _rusticus_, 459, iv. 423, v. 234; the _manto_, ii. 460-462; the _ambra_, 463 (prose translations of passages from the latin poems will be found 454-463); the minor poems, 464; greek epigram sent to guidobaldo, duke of urbino, i. 182 _note_ 1; translation of greek hexameters, ii. 24; the epigram on pico when he attacked the astrologers, 337 _note_ 1; the epigram on the first greek printers, 375 _note_ 2; the sapphics to innocent viii., 495; the verses on filippo lippi, iii. 247; his latin correspondence, ii. 532 pollajuolo, antonio del, his choice of subjects of a passionate character, iii. 146; his monument of sixtus iv., 147; his experiments in colour, 225; over prominence of anatomy in his works, 232; his _hercules_, illustrating his treatment of the antique, 291; architect of the belvedere of the vatican, i. 384 _note_ 1; his statue of innocent viii., 415, iii. 147; his portrait of poggio, ii. 246; his work as a bronze founder, iii. 78 _note_ 1; piero del, aids his brother, antonio, iii. 147, 225 polybius, studied by machiavelli, v. 434 _note_ 1 pomponazzi, pietro, studies at padua, v. 458, 459; moves from padua to ferrara, and finally to bologna, 460; his treatise on the immortality of the soul burnt in public at venice, 460; controversy raised by that work, 461, 479; pomponazzi aimed at stating the doctrines of aristotle as against the thomists and averrhoists, 462; adopted the views of alexander of aphrodisias, 459, 472; his profession of faith, 476, 477, 480; powerful personality shown by his writings, 461; his positivism, 478; akin in this respect to machiavelli, 485-487; his influence on italian thought, 479; his materialistic philosophy, i. 456, ii. 124, 394 (cp. 477), iv. 447, v. 312, 314, 518; the _de immortalitate animæ_, ii. 410, v. 460; pomponazzi's doctrine of the soul's materiality there stated, v. 472-476, 520; the _de incantationibus_, 461; rejects demons and miracles in this work, 476; acknowledges astral influence, 477; expresses the opinion that christianity is doomed to decline, iv. 448 _note_ 1, v. 477; the _apologia_ and _defensorium_, v. 461; the _de fato_, 461, 477; description of the philosopher contained there, 478 pontano (jovianus pontanus), assassination of his father, i. 170 _note_ 1; his relation to frederick of urbino, 179; tutor to piero de' pazzi, ii. 41; a member of the roman academy, 361; founder of the neapolitan academy, 363, v. 198, 272; his employment by the kings of naples, ii. 363; his oration to charles viii., 363; portrait of him in the church of monte oliveto at naples, 365, iii. 164, v. 198; value of his works, ii. 364, v. 220; the _de immanitate_, cited, i. 139 _note_ 1, 481 _note_ 2, 569, 569 _note_ 1, 571 _note_ 1; the _de liberalitate_, cited, 569 _note_ 1; his merits as a writer of latin verse, ii. 364, 465, v. 235; the _de stellis_, ii. 466-468, v. 220, 235; the _de hortis hesperidum_, v. 220, 235; his odes to the saints, iv. 302; neapolitan colouring of his poems, ii. 364, v. 213, 235; their pictures of neapolitan life, v. 217; their sensual but unaffected character, 214-217; pontano's love of personification, 218; translation (in prose) of the lines personifying elegy, 219 pontelli, baccio, architect of the hospital of santo spirito at rome, i. 384 _note_ 1; employed as architect upon the ducal palace, urbino, iii. 162 _note_ 1 pontius, paulus, his monument of alberto pio, ii. 375 pontormo, jacopo, his portraits of cosimo and lorenzo de' medici, iii. 498; his portrait of ippolito de' medici, ii. 27; decorates the cars for the pageant of the golden age, iv. 397 ponzoni family, the, of cremona, i. 145 _popolo_, meaning of the word, 55, 56, 71, iv. 7, 8; increase in the power of the _popolo_, i. 61; guicciardini's use of the word, 306 _note_ 1 porcari, stefano, his attempt on nicholas v., i. 376, 377, 386; influenced by the history of rienzi, 376, ii. 147 porcello, giannantonio, patronised by alfonso the magnanimous, ii. 264, 303 pordenone, iii. 371 porta, giacomo della, his work at s. peter's, iii. 93; guglielmo della, his monument of paul iv., i. 371, iii. 108 portogallo, cardinal di, his monument in s. miniato, iii. 153; vespasiano's testimony to his virtues, 154 portuguese, the, round the cape, i. 15 porzio, simone, the disciple of pomponazzi, v. 479; story of his lecturing at pisa, 479; his belief as to the soul, 479 _pratiche_, name of an extraordinary council in some italian communes, i. 35 prato, sack of, iii. 308 _note_ 2, 393; the duomo, mino's pulpit, 158 _note_ 1; filippo lippi's frescoes, 245, v. 54 (cp. iv. 422); chapel of the sacra cintola, iii. 79 prendilacqua, his biography of vittorino da feltre, cited, i. 178 _note_ 1, ii. 37 primaticcio, his residence at the court of france, iii. 445 princes, effect of, upon italian literature, iv. 404 _principi_, the _lettere de'_, quoted, i. 442 printers, the early, i. 23; the first printers in italy, ii. 306 _note_ 2, 368-391; labour employed in printing the first editions of the classics, 372 priors, name of the chief magistrates in some italian communes, i. 35, 68, 71; priors of the arts at florence, i. 224 professors, pay of, in the italian universities, ii. 121, v. 460; subordinate position of the humanist professors, ii. 123; their system of teaching, 124-127, 274; illustrations of the italian professorial system at the renaissance from the maccaronic writers, v. 332 provençal literature, its effect on medieval italy, iv. 13 provence, extinction of heresy there, i. 9 ptolemaic system, superseded by the copernican, i. 15, 16 pucci, antonio, his political poems, iv. 163; his _terza rima_ version of villani's chronicle, 240; his celebrity as a _cantatore_, 257 pulci, bernardo, writer of the sacred drama, _barlaam e josafat_, iv. 320, 349; other works of his, 430; luca, his poem on lorenzo de' medici's giostra, iv. 405; his share in the _ciriffo calvaneo_, 430; luigi, one of the circle gathered round lorenzo de' medici, ii. 322, iv. 440; his story of messer goro and pius ii., iv. 255; his _beca da dicomano_, 382, v. 224; his quarrel with matteo franco, and sonnets, iv. 431, 455 _note_ 3; the _morgante_ purely tuscan, 430, 431; the burlesque element ready to hand, 440; the _morgante_ written to be read in the medicean circle, 440; three elements in the poem, 441; the _morgante_ a _rifacimento_ of earlier poems, 442; its plot, 443; excellence of the delineations of character, 445, 470 _note_ 1; character of margutte, 451; of astarotte, 452-456; not a mere burlesque, 446; its profanity, how explained, 446-448; instances of pulci's humour, 448-450; false ascription of part of the _morgante_ to ficino, 455 _note_ 3; erroneous idea that poliziano wrote the _morgante_, 455 _note_ 3; _bourgeois_ spirit of the _morgante_ contrasted with boiardo's _orlando innamorato_, 456, v. 8 (_see_ appendix v. vol. iv., for translations from the _morgante_); monna antonia (wife of bernardo), authoress of a _sacra rappresentazione_, iv. 320 puritanism, a reaction against the renaissance, i. 25; its political services, 27; antipathy of, to art, iii. 24 quarrel of the aristotelians and the platonists, ii. 208, 244, 247, 394, v. 454; literary quarrels at the renaissance, ii. 237-245, 264, 511, iv. 431 _note_ 1, 451, v. 89, 285 quercia, jacopo della, his work as a sculptor in italian churches, iii. 78 _note_ 1; his treatment of the story of the creation of eve, 118 _note_ 2, 130; his designs in competition for the gates of the florentine baptistery, 127; other works of his--the fonte gaja, and the monument of ilaria del carretto, 132, 165 quintilian, discovery of a mss. of, by poggio, ii. 134-137. quirino, lauro, his stipend at padua, ii. 122 rabelais, quoted for the feudal idea of honour, i. 483 raffaelle da montelupo, a feeble follower of michelangelo, iii. 172 raimond of tours, quoted to illustrate the gaiety of medieval florence, iv. 50 raimondi, marc antonio, imprisoned for engraving a series of obscene designs by giulio romano, v. 389 raimondo da capua, the confessor of s. catherine of siena, iv. 174 ramiro d'orco, appointed governor of the romagna by cesare borgia, i. 354; his end, 355 rangoni, count guido, the patron of bernardo tasso, v. 297 rapallo, massacre of, i. 557 raphael, the question entertained of making him a cardinal, ii. 403; his project for the exploration of rome, ii. 419, 436, iii. 337; his friendship with castiglione, ii. 421; his work in the loggie and stanze of the vatican, ii. 436, 440, iii. 108, 333, v. 229; raphael the harmonist of classical and christian traditions, iii. 35, 333 (cp. v. 26); woodwork executed from his designs at perugia, iii. 78 _note_ 2; his mosaics in s. maria del popolo, 79 _note_ 2, 334; his work as an architect, 83, 330; as a sculptor, 329; his frescoes in the villa farnesina, 84, 331, 334, iv. 403; the _galatea_, illustrating his treatment of the antique, 291, 337; his work on s. peter's, iii. 91; borrowed the figure of s. paul in the cartoon of _mars' hill_ from filippino lippi, 248; the pupil of perugino, 300; his power of assimilation, 301, 330-332; one of the four great painters by whom the renaissance was fully expressed, 312; equality, facility, and fertility of his genius, 328; comparison of his genius with that of mozart, 328; his gentleness, 329; his indebtedness to fra bartolommeo, 330; influence of michelangelo on his later works, 331, 412; his school of workmen, 332; enormous mass of his work, 334; mental power displayed by him, 335, 338, v. 116; variety of his genius, iii. 336; the _madonna di san sisto_, 337, 380; his humane spirit and avoidance of painful subjects, 338; the woodcuts of the _hypnerotomachia_ erroneously ascribed to him, iv. 221 _note_ 1; the scenery for a representation of the _calandra_ at rome painted by him, v. 147 rasiglia, pietro, his murder of nicolà and bartolommeo trinci, i. 122 _raspanti_, the, a faction at perugia, i. 122 raul, sire, his chronicle of milan, i. 251 ravenna, i. 46, 118; battle of, ii. 380, iii. 329; tomb of dante, ii. 410 razzi, his account of the interview of savonarola with lorenzo de' medici on his deathbed, i. 523 _note_ 1 _reali di francia_, illustrates the little influence of boccaccio's style on his immediate successors, iv. 136; its stylistic merits, 240; the most popular of all italian books, 245, 247; attributed to andrea da barberino, 246 realists, the, v. 466 recanati, the bishop of, murder of, v. 297 rectors, or _rettori_, the magistrates in some italian cities, i. 35, 68 reformation, connected with political liberty, i. 26; how related to the renaissance, 25, ii. 536; inimical to the fine arts, iii. 28 regno, the, early medieval effort to form a monarchy in italy, i. 50-52 religion, opposition between religion and science, i. 15; a cause of disorder in italy, 205; morality and religion disunited in italy, 174 _note_ 1, 433, 447, 462, ii. 234, 257, iii. 451; machiavelli's opinions on religion, i. 453, 454; vitality of religion, 469; religion and art: how far inseparable, iii. 6 _note_ 1; injury done to religion by the sensuousness of art, iii. 11, 19, 22, 31; contrast between greek and christian religious notions, 12; the opposition of religion and art, 24-26, 28; separate spheres and points of contact between religion and art, 30 reliques, italian passion for, i. 460 renaissance, the, meaning of the term, i. 1-4, 5, 28, v. 489 foll.; the renaissance the emancipation of the reason, i. 9, 14, ii. 13, 43, 535, iii. 8, 179, 333, iv. 447, v. 14, 26, 447, 491; the revelation of nature in the world and man, i. 15 _note_ 1, iii. 325, v. 483, 527, 528; problem of the renaissance, v. 523, 527; the imitation of the renaissance impossible, 526; place of the renaissance in the history of humanity, 527-529; rise and growth of the renaissance, i. 26, v. 448; precursors of the renaissance, i. 8, 26, 27; its relation to the reformation, 26, ii. 536, v. 529, 530; the renaissance and modern science, i. 16, 17, v. 483, 491; aided by the progress of inventions, i. 3, 29; began in italy, 30, v. 492, 529; mingled polish and barbarism of the italian renaissance, i. 172, 183, 373, 570, v. 523; changes in culture effected by the humanism of the renaissance, i. 185, ii. 393, 543, v. 508; irreligious character of the renaissance, i. 174 _note_ 1, 455, ii. 16, 44, 205, 217, 257, 518, iii. 228, v. 486; the paganism of the renaissance, i. 454 _note_ 1, 464, ii. 17, 18, 39, 72, 395 foll., 470, 489, 516, 520, 540, iii. 7, 33-35, 107, 135, 167, 175, 257, iv. 39, 404, v. 216, 486, 492; indigenous in italy, iv. 39; its real character and extent, ii. 395, iv. 106 _note_ 2; religious sentiment, how influenced by the renaissance, iv. 207, v. 455; fitness of the italian character to work out the renaissance, ii. 1-4, iv. 10; fertility of the renaissance in men of universal genius, ii. 10 (cp. 125), 341; the renaissance not so productive in religion and philosophy as in art, 21, 337, iv. 10, v. 447, 492; introduced a democracy of intellect, ii. 32, 33; the thirst for fame characteristic of the renaissance, 38, 80; criticism a creation of the renaissance, iv. 447; the passion for collecting, ii. 139; effect of the study of roman antiquities upon the renaissance, 142 foll., 429 foll. (cp. iii. 48 _note_ 1); undue influence of rhetoric in the renaissance, ii. 149, 190, 216, 513, 525, v. 247, 430, 451; uncritical character of the first scholars of the renaissance, ii. 296, 327, 337, 382, v. 451, 483; ideal of life produced by the renaissance, ii. 330, iv. 219, v. 517; the renaissance checked the spontaneity of the italian intellect, ii. 394, iv. 403; modern culture a gift of the renaissance, ii. 9, 408, 506, 524, v. 491, 505, 524; the renaissance appreciative of form independently of matter, ii. 471, 513, 514, iv. 403; the weaknesses of the literary and artistic ideal of the renaissance, ii. 504, iii. 170, 179; predominance of art in the renaissance period, iii. 1-5, v. 6; difficulty of rendering justice to the poetry of the renaissance, iii. 2 (cp. iv. 403); the renaissance restored the appreciation of natural beauty, iii. 32; error of the artists of the renaissance in imitating the worst side of paganism, 175, 454, 489; expression of the renaissance by the four great painters, lionardo da vinci, michelangelo, raphael, and correggio, 312, 319, 323, 325, 346; different parts borne by venice and florence in the renaissance, iii. 354, iv. 364; the genius of the renaissance typified in boccaccio, iv. 104; satire on the church not combined with unorthodoxy in the renaissance, 109 _note_ 1, 447; mixture of religious feelings with vices in men of the renaissance, 384, v. 228; manner in which the myth of orpheus expressed the renaissance, iv. 410, v. 221, 450; the culture of the renaissance derived from latin, not greek, models, v. 132 _note_ 1; the completion of the renaissance announced by the pastoral dramas of tasso and guarini, 245; belief in the efficacy of a classical revival common at the renaissance, 444; the dream of a golden age, 195, 521; the _volluttà idillica_ of the renaissance, 196, 230 renaissance architecture: brunelleschi's visit to rome, iii. 68; task of the first architects of the renaissance, 69; criticism of renaissance architecture, 70; divided into three periods, 70; character of the first period, 71, 80; of the second, 80; of the third, 93; influence of this third or palladian period on northern europe, 97; comparison of the various stages of this style with the progress of scholarship towards pedantry, 98; reasons why this style can never be wholly superseded, 99; this style the most truly national in italy, v. 505 rené of anjou, expelled from naples by alfonso, i. 568 republics, the italian: varied character of the italian republics, i. 193; their resemblance to the greek states, 195; theories of citizenship in them, 195; their instability, 198; causes of this, 205; their smallness, 209; their disunion, 211; their mercantile character, 238 reuchlin, i. 27, ii. 391; influenced by florentine platonism, ii. 208; heard argyropoulos lecture at rome, 210; a pupil of poliziano's, 350; the friend of gian francesco pico, 423 revivalism, religious, in italy, i. 490, ii. 17 (_see_ appendix iv. vol. i.); unknown at venice, iii. 358 reynolds, sir joshua, his criticism of ghiberti, iii. 132 rhetoric, influence of, at the renaissance, ii. 149, 190, 216, 513, 525, v. 247, 430, 451; want of original thought in the oratory of the renaissance, ii. 191, 278 _note_ 2, 513 rhosos, joannes, a member of the aldine academy, ii. 387 riario, girolamo, i. 389; murder of, 120, 390; pietro, cardinal di san sisto, 389; his extravagant profligacy, 390-392 (cp. iv. 315); his convention with galeazzo maria sforza, 392; cardinal raphael, 407; concerned in petruccio's conspiracy, 437; his patronage of scholars at rome, ii. 404; buys michelangelo's _cupid_ as an antique, iii. 389; representation of the _fall of granada_ before him, v. 117 _note_ 1 (cp. 138) _ribellamentu lu, di sicilia_, its doubtful authenticity, iv. 36 riccio, andrea, his work as a bronze founder, iii. 78 _note_ 1 rienzi, takes the title of tribune, ii. 30; his relations to petrarch, 83, 147-149; his plan to restore the republic in rome, 145 (cp. i. 376); his confusion of medieval and classical titles, 146; his downfall, 147 _rifacimento_, question whether dino's chronicle is a work of this class, i. 263, 273; similar question about the malespini chronicle, 252 _note_ 1, iv. 36; about pandolfini's _governo della famiglia_, iv. 194; _rifacimento of the orlando innamorato_ (_see_ berni) rimini, s. francesco, adapted by leo battista alberti, i. 172, 326, ii. 34, 210, 342; the bas-reliefs in the side chapels, iii. 161; piero della francesca's portrait of sigismondo pandolfo malatesta, 235 rinaldo d'aquino, his _farewell_, iv. 37 ripamonti, quoted, i. 163, 167 _note_ 1 _rispetti_, meaning of the term, iv. 264; common character of, throughout italy, 266; question of their first origin, 267; their antiquity, 268; their themes, 272; purer in the country than in the towns, 272 ristoro da arezzo, his _composizione del mondo_, iv. 36 robbia, luca della, his work as a sculptor in italian churches, iii. 78 _note_ 1; his bas-reliefs in glazed ware, 79; unaffected by the pagan spirit of the renaissance, 135; his genius contrasted with that of ghiberti or donatello, 148; beauty of his work, 148-150; luca della, nephew of the sculptor, his account of his interview with paolo boscolo, i. 466, v. 519 robbias, the della, successors of luca in his manufacture of earthenware, iii. 150 robert of anjou, king of naples, his patronage of petrarch and boccaccio, ii. 252, iv. 120 _note_ 1 robert of geneva, i. 81 robert, illegitimate son of pandolfo sigismondo malatesta, said to have poisoned the florentine poet, il burchiello, iv. 260 roberto di battifolle, poems of, iv. 165 roberto da lecce, his preaching at perugia and rome, i. 614; his attacks on beccadelli's _hermaphroditus_, ii. 256 _note_ 1 robusti, the (tintoretto and his son), iii. 371 rocchi, cristoforo, his model for the cathedral of pavia, iii. 68; the pupil of bramante, 82 rodolph of hapsburg, his grant to the papacy, i. 374 roland legend, the: spread of the roland romances in italy, iv. 13, 427; in the upper classes gave place to the arthur legend, 17, 18; preference of the popular writers for the episode of rinaldo, 244; reasons of this, 437; the _chanson de roland_, 433; historical basis of the myth, 434-437; legend that roland was son of a roman prefect, 439 (cp. ii. 30) rolandino, the chronicle of, i. 251 roman empire, the old, its dissolution, i. 5; its place taken by the papacy, 6 roman empire, the holy, i. 41; conflict of the empire and the papacy, 59, 60, 68, 97, 100, 374, iv. 6; power of the imperial idea, i. 97 romances of the _quattro cento_, iv. 244-249; their positive tone, 248 romanesque (tuscan) style, the, iii. 47, 49, 111, v. 504 romanino, girolamo, iii. 503 rome, not included in theodoric's kingdom, i. 46; effect of this, 47, 49, 93; address of the roman senate to the emperor frederick, 65, iv. 13; prestige of the name of rome, i. 92, ii. 57; sack of rome, i. 222, 444, ii. 443, iii. 414, 438, 455, iv. 2; ---universally recognized as a judgment on its sins, i. 446, ii. 445; sufferings of the learned in the sack of rome, 443, v. 357; government of rome in the middle ages, i. 375; the romans welcome the accession of alexander vi. to the papacy, 407; state of rome under leo x., 437; pageants at the reception of the head of s. andrew at rome, 461, iv. 316; profligacy of rome, i. 474, ii. 217, 405-407, v. 190, 386; effect of the study of the ruins of rome on the renaissance, ii. 142 foll., 429 foll. (cp. iii. 48 _note_ 1); culture flourished less at rome than florence, ii. 215, iv. 364, 366, v. 499; place of rome in literature and art, i. 79, iii. 181 _note_ 1, 184; early roman printers, ii. 368, 405; reasons for the pre-eminence of rome in the fourth age of culture, 440; occupation of the old roman buildings by the various great families, iii. 46; gothic architecture never much practised at rome, 46; cellini's description of rome under clement vii., 452; protection of assassins in papal rome, 459; representations of plautus and terence in the original at rome, v. 138 ---s. clemente, masaccio's fresco of st. catherine, iii. 229; s. maria sopra minerva, filippino lippi's _triumph of s. thomas_, 207, 248; the _christ_ of michelangelo, 414; s. maria delle pace, raphael's frescoes, 334; s. maria del popolo, raphael's mosaics, 79 _note_ 3, 334; s. maria in trastevere, mino's tabernacle, 158 _note_ 1; s. peter's, plan of nicholas v., i. 379, iii. 90; commenced by julius ii., i. 433, iii. 90; built with money raised from indulgences, i. 439; michelangelo's dome, iii. 88; the various architects employed, 90-93; bernini's colonnade, 93; the bronze gates (by filarete), 108, v. 424; giotto's mosaic, iii. 190; michelangelo's _pietà_, 389, 420; s. pietro in vincoli, michelangelo's _moses_, 399, 340, 420, 422 ---sistine chapel, the, building of, i. 384 _note_ 1; michelangelo's frescoes, iii. 403-423. (_see_ buonarroti, michelangelo.) ---cancelleria, the, by bramante, iii. 82; villa farnesina, by baldassare peruzzi, 83, 84, 334; villa madama, by raphael and giulio romano, 83; pandolfini, by raphael, 83; vidoni, by raphael, 83 ---academy, the, founded by pomponius lætus, ii. 361, 365, 409, v. 272; representations of plautus and terence in the original by the academy, v. 138 ---high school, the (the sapienza), established by boniface viii., ii. 117; reformed by leo x., 426; reasons why it did not rival other italian universities, 426 roman school of painting, the, iii. 183; reason of its early decadence, 490-492 romeo and juliet, story of, i. 74; treatment of the story by bandello and shakspere compared, v. 71 romualdo, s., legend of, ii. 339 rondinelli, giuliano (or andrea), the franciscan chosen to undergo the ordeal of fire with fra domenico, i. 533 _note_ 1 rossellino, antonio, delicacy and purity of his work, iii. 154; his monument to the cardinal di portogallo, 153; bernardo, his monument to lionardo bruni, ii. 186, iii. 158 _note_ 2 rossi, the, at parma, how they acquired despotic power, i. 112, 114; overthrown by the visconti, 145; reappear after the death of gian galeazzo, 150 rossi, porzia de', the mother of tasso, v. 298; roberto de', a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100; one of the society in s. spirito, 102; visits chrysoloras at venice, 109; learns greek of him, 110 rosso de' rossi, his visit to the court of france, iii. 445, 498; his frescoes at the annunziata, florence, 498 _note_ 1 rubens, his transcript of the _battle of the standard_, iii. 145, 321; his transcript of mantegna's _triumph of cæsar_, 274, 321 _note_ 1; compared with paul veronese, 372 rucellai, bernardo, opens the rucellai gardens to the florentine academy, v. 236; cipriano, his friendship with palmieri, 549; giovanni, his _api_, ii. 471, v. 236; his tragedy of _rosmunda_, v. 129, 236; the _oreste_, 133; compared with the _rosmunda_, 134; his friendship with giangiorgio trissino, 236; palla, 236 rucellai gardens, the, machiavelli's discourses there, i. 293, 328, ii. 366, v. 236, 239; rucellai's _rosmunda_ acted before leo x. there, v. 129 ruggieri, fra, leader of mercenaries in southern italy, i. 156 ruggieri pugliese, shows in his _lament_ traces of genuine italian feeling, iv. 26 ruscelli, girolamo, his _capitolo_ on the spindle, v. 365 rusconi family, the, at como, i. 150 rustici, giovanni francesco, festivals organised by him, v. 115 rusticiano of pisa, his french version of marco polo, iv. 35 sabadino, his _porretane_, v. 60 sabbatini, andrea, the scholar of raphael, iii. 490 sabellicus. (_see_ coccio.) sacchetti, franco, his _novelle_, iv. 148; composed in the vernacular tuscan, 148; their value as a picture of manners, 149; comparison between sacchetti, masuccio, and boccaccio, 179; sacchetti as a poet, 154-156; his funeral ode for petrarch, 137 _note_ 1; for boccaccio, 137; his political poems, 161, 163; his _ballata, o vaghe montanine pasturelle_, 155, 262, 305; his admiration for boccaccio, 148 _sacre rappresentazioni_, the, i. 477 _note_ 1, 480, iv. 172; contained the germs of a national theatre, iv. 306, v. 109, 136; took their origin from the religious practices of the _laudesi_, iv. 307; their relation to the northern miracle plays, 312; mode in which they were represented, 313; theory that they arose from a blending of the midsummer festivals at florence and the _divozioni_, 314-320; their form, 321, v. 182 _note_ 2; their religious character, iv. 323, v. 112, 519; their scenic apparatus, iv. 324-327; how far illustrated from contemporary works of art, 327 _note_ 1, 338, 340, 343; analysis of the play of s. _uliva_, 327-330, 351; translation of the dirge of narcissus and the may song, 328; universality of the legend upon which it is founded, 351, 353; subjects of other plays which have been preserved, 331; analysis of the play of mary magdalen, 331-337; translation of christ's sermon, 333-336; the _figliuol prodigo_, 337; elements of comedy in the sacred dramas, 337 _note_ 3; their treatment of mary and the magdalen, 339; dramas dealing with monastic legends, 341-343; lack of the romantic element, 343; show less maturity than the contemporary works of art, 346; their interest as illustrating italian imagination, 347, v. 54; analysis of _teofilo_, the italian faust, iv. 347-349; analysis of the _rè superbo_ and _barlam e josafat_, 349; the _stella_, _rosana_, and _agnolo ebrao_, 353-355; the three pilgrimage plays, 355-357; failure of the sacred dramas to create a national theatre, 357, v. 112 _sacrificio, el_, a masque played at siena, v. 143 _note_ 2 sadoleto, jacopo, cited for the prevalent belief that the sack of rome was a judgment of god on the city, i. 446, ii. 416; made a cardinal, ii. 402, 416; his rise into greatness, 403; his entertainments of the roman academy, 409; his poem on the _laocoon_, 415, 432, 496; his gravity and sincerity of character, 416; his friendship with vittoria colonna, v. 292; his 'commentary on the romans' placed on the index, ii. 416 salaino, andrea, the favourite pupil of lionardo da vinci, iii. 317, 484 salerno, university of, ii. 117 salimbene, fra, his chronicle of parma, i. 251; his account of frederick ii., iv. 21 salimbeni, the, at siena, v. 99 salutato, coluccio, his 'letters' quoted for the influence of petrarch on boccaccio, ii. 90 _note_ 1; their value, 104 _note_ 1; their contemporary influence, 104, 531, iv. 175; his importance as a stylist, ii. 103-105; one of the circle in s. spirito, 102; his patronage of learning, 106, 230; translates dante into latin verse, 103, 106, 449; causes petrarch's _africa_ to be published, 104 _note_ 1, 106; his invective against the copyists, 130; saw the desirability of forming public libraries, 166; his poems, iv. 165 salviati, archbishop of pisa, his share in the pazzi conspiracy, i. 397, 398 salviati, caterina, wife of nerli, i. 290 salviati, francesco, mentioned by doni as scene-painter at a representation of comedy in florence, v. 144 _note_ 4 san gemignano, savonarola at, i. 507; the towers of, 507, iii. 58; gozzolo's frescoes, i. 507, iii. 242, v. 54; ghirlandajo's frescoes, i. 507, iii. 259; da majano's bas-reliefs, iii. 160 sancia, donna, wife of the youngest son of alexander vi. by vanozza catanei, i. 418 sanga, battista, the secretary of clement vii., v. 380; addressed by berni in the suppressed stanzas of the _rifacimento_ of the _orlando innamorato_, 379, 380 sanmicheli, michele, his work as an architect at verona, iii. 86 sannazzaro, jacopo, facts of his life, v. 198; a member of the roman academy, ii. 361; of the neapolitan, 363, v. 198; his friendship with pontanus, ii. 363, v. 198; representation of him in the church of monte oliveto at naples, ii. 365, iii. 164, v. 198; frigid purism of his _de partu virginis_, ii. 398, 468, 470 (cp. v. 249); criticism of lilius gyraldus upon it, ii. 469 _note_ 1; his latin poems, 468, v. 198-201; his epigrams on the borgia and rovere families, ii. 469, v. 199; preferred fracastoro's _syphilis_ to his own epic, ii. 477; translation of one of his sonnets, v. 200; his _arcadia_, 202; first gave form to the arcadian ideal, 197; its mixture of autobiography and fable, 202; idyllic beauty of the episodes, 202; its art illustrated by the paintings of mantegna, 203; by the _quattro cento_ painters in general, 204, 207; its literary style, 203; representative of the spirit of the renaissance, 202; translation of the description of the 'shrine of pales,' 205-207; of the portrait of amaranta (carmosina bonifacia), 207-209; of the description of the nymphs and shepherds, 209; of pictures of inanimate nature, 209; of carino's lament, 210; the _arcadia_ the model of sir philip sidney's work, 211; the poetical portions, 211; translation of a sestine, 212 sanseverini, the, of rome, pomponius lætus said to have been related to them, ii. 33, 359; their ruin, v. 298 ---ferrante, prince of salerno, takes bernardo tasso into his service, v. 298 sansovini, the, their work as sculptors and bronze founders in italian churches, iii. 78 _note_ 1 ---(1) andrea contucci di monte sansavino: his tombs of ascanio sforza and girolamo della rovere, iii. 156; straining after effect in his work, 156, 166; ---(2) jacopo tatti, called il sansovino: his work as an architect at venice, iii. 85, 167, 355; the library of st. mark's, 85, 167; the friend of titian and aretino, 167, 168, v. 398, 409; _bravura_ character of his works in sculpture, iii. 167; his bronze door of the sacristy of st. mark, 168, v. 424; his _bacchus_, illustrating the supremacy of pagan motives in the art of the renaissance, iii. 169; story of the model who sat for the _bacchus_, 233 santi, giovanni (father of raphael), his chronicle cited, i. 166 _note_ 3; written in the metre of the divine comedy, iv. 172; his character of desiderio, iii. 160; his _madonna_, with portraits of his wife and the infant raphael, 330 sanudo, a member of the aldine academy, ii. 387; his diary cited for the wealth of the venetian nobles, i. 235 _note_ 1; for the disorders caused by the sensuality of alexander vi., 417 _note_ 1; for the belief that alexander died of poison, 429, 430; for the story that alexander had sold his soul to the devil, 431; for the gluttony of the prelates, 479 _note_ 1; for the pay of jurists in italian universities, ii. 121; for the shows at ferrara on the marriage of lucrezia borgia, v. 141 _note_ 2 sappho, lines on fame, translated, ii. 40 saronno, church of, luini's frescoes, iii. 485-487; ferrari's frescoes, 488 sarto, andrea del, his visit to the court of france, iii. 445; qualities of his colouring, 497; his pictures wanting in depth of thought and feeling, 497; creates an epoch in florentine art, 496, 498 sarzana, surrender of, by pietro de' medici, i. 559 satire in the middle ages, iv. 108; in italy at the renaissance, v. 310, 381 sauli, stefano, the friend of flaminio, ii. 501; his genoese origin, illustrating the loss of literary supremacy by florence, 506 savelli, the, at rome, i. 375 saviozzo da siena, his political poems, iv. 161; his commentary upon the divine comedy, 163 savonarola, his treatise on the government of florence, i. 128 _note_ 1, 277, iii. 265, 392 _note_ 1, iv. 386; the author of the florentine constitution of 1494, i. 202, 222, 526; proclaims christ the head of the state, 222, 526, iii. 214, 308; his hostility to the _parlamento_, i. 230 _note_ 1, 526; his constitution came too late to save the city, 231; his admiration of the venetian polity, 234; influence of his prophecies at the siege of florence, 284, 290, 518, 536; guicciardini's account of him, 304, 308; criticism of him by machiavelli, 345; savonarola and machiavelli contrasted, 368; confined himself to the reformation of morals, and shrank from the imputation of heresy, 454, 499; objected to classical learning on the ground of its worldliness, 456 _note_ 1, 499, 505, 506, ii. 326, 396, 516; his opposition to the arts, iii. 24, 29 _note_ 1, 265, 310; his denunciations of the papacy, i. 530; his testimony to florentine profligacy, 475, 477 _note_ 1, 480; story of his life--his boyhood, 499; takes the cowl, 501; his account of his vocation, 501; goes to florence, 503; sent to san gemignano, 506; his first success at brescia, 508; his appearance and style of preaching, 508-514 (cp. iii. 309 _note_ 2); believed in his own gift of prophecy, 512 _note_ 1; his visions, 515; how far he was guided by them, 518; his error in teaching the florentines to look for foreign aid, 518; recalled by lorenzo de' medici, 521; his opposition to lorenzo, 521; called to lorenzo de' medici's deathbed, 523; his activity takes a political turn, 524, iv. 384; the bonfire of vanities, i. 527, iv. 392; his influence begins to decay, i. 529, 531; his contest with alexander vi., 529; weakness of his position in not breaking with rome, 530, 622; writes letters summoning a european council, 532; his letter to alexander, 532; the ordeal by fire, 533; his imprisonment, torture, and death, 533-535; his canonisation proposed, 535 savonarola, michael, his 'panegyric of padua,' quoted for the teaching of perspective in padua, iii. 236 savoy, the house of, i. 52, 57, 110, 146 _note_ 1 scala family, the, how they acquired their power, i. 111; violent deaths among them, 120, 145; their tombs at verona, iii. 124, 163 scala, alessandra, poliziano's wooing of her, ii. 344; ---bartolommeo, raised by the medici from a low station, 344; his quarrel with poliziano, 344 scala, can grande della, i. 145; mastino della, 145 scaliger, julius cæsar, his character of aldo manuzio (the grandson), ii. 389; his criticism of fracastoro's _syphilis_, 477 scamozzi, vincenzo, character of his architectural work, iii. 96; his 'universal architecture,' 96 _note_ 1 _scandiano_, the fief of boiardo, iv. 456, 457 scardeone, bernardino, describes odassi as the inventor of maccaronic verse, v. 329 _note_ 3 scarparia, giacomo, journeys to byzantium with chrysoloras, ii. 109 schiavo da bari, the, his aphorisms iv. 240 scholarship, state of, in the middle ages, ii. 58 foll. science, opposition between science and religion, i. 16; modern science dates from the renaissance, 16, 17. v. 483, 491 scotti, the, at piacenza, how they acquired power, i. 112; overthrown by the visconti, 145; reappear after the death of gian galeazzo, 150 scoronconcolo, the murderer employed by lorenzino de' medici against his cousin alessandro, v. 118 scotus, duns, v. 467, 468 scrofa, camillo, author of the _i cantici di fidentio glottogrysio ludimagistro_, v. 328 sculpture, why sculpture yielded to painting in the modern era, iii. 8, 12-21, 31, 120; the handmaid of architecture, 101; took a pictorial form with the italians, 121, 132, 161, 177, 195; necessarily assumes a subordinate position in christian architecture, 122; influence of goldsmith's work over the florentine sculptors, 126; the three periods of italian sculpture, 177; more precocious in its evolution than painting, 225 sebastian del piombo, influence of michelangelo on his work, iii. 493; his friendship with berni, v. 363 sebastian of pontremolo, an early printer, ii. 376 segni, bernardo, belonged to the neutral medicean party, i. 289; his florentine history, 278, 279; its character and value, 292; his knowledge drawn from practical life, 231, 280; his account of savonarola's legislation at florence, 197 _note_ 1, 526 _note_ 1; cited for the story of jacopino alamanni, 211; for the factions of siena, 207 _note_ 2; for the dedication of florence to christ, 222 _note_ 1; his description of the _parlamento_ at florence, 230 _note_ 1; cited for the corruption of florence, 231; for the conduct of the florentine exiles, 236; his account of guicciardini, 299 _note_ 2; of giovanni bandini, 477 _note_ 1 senarega, cited for the expulsion of the jews by ferdinand, i. 400 _note_ 2, 401 _senato_, name of a council in some italian cities, i. 35 senator, supreme official in the roman republic, i. 35 seneca, influence of his tragedies on italian playwrights, v. 127 _note_ 1, 130, 132 _note_ 1, 135 sercambi, giovanni, his _novelle_, iv. 150 _note_ 1 _sereni_, the, an academy at naples, ii. 366 serfs, gradual emancipation of the, i. 66 sermini, gentile, his _novelle_, v. 60, 97; story of anselmo salimbeni and carlo montanini, v. 99 _sermintese_, a form of italian poetry adapted from the provençal, iv. 160, 257 _note_ 1 sesto, cesare da, the scholar of lionardo da vinci, iii. 484 sforza, anna, the wife of alfonso d'este, v. 140; ascanio, cardinal, i. 163, 405, 565; his monument by sansovino, iii. 156; caterina riario (wife of girolamo riario), 160 _note_ 1, 390; francesco, 86, 88; enters milan as conqueror, 87, 154, 163, ii. 281; supported by cosimo de' medici, i. 91, 155; acquired his despotism as leader of condottieri, 113 _note_ 1, 153, 160, 163, 361, 364; the son of a peasant, 116, 153, 160 _note_ 1; treatment of his history by machiavelli, 345; his patronage of filelfo, ii. 38, 282 (cp. 511); his hospital at milan, iii. 59; galeazzo, his assassination attempted by girolamo gentile, i. 168; galeazzo maria, 165; his assassination, 163, 166, 397 _note_ 2, 543; his intrigue with pietro riario, 392; giovanni galeazzo, 543; murdered by his uncle lodovico, 163, 480 _note_ 2, 555, v. 118; doubts about his murder, i. 556 _note_ 1; lodovico, debt of the milanese school of painting to him, 79; invites the french, 89, 90, 164, 538, 542, 546; poisons his nephew, 163, 480 _note_ 2, 555, v. 118; imprisoned in loches, i. 547; attempt to assassinate him, 397 _note_ 2; his usurpation of power, 543, 548; origin of his surname _il moro_, 547; his character, 548; joins the league of venice against charles, 576; representations of latin plays before him by the ferrarese actors, iv. 498, v. 140 sforza (of pesaro), alessandro, his patronage of learning, ii. 302; costanzo, his patronage of learning, 302; giovanni, the husband of lucrezia borgia, i. 420 sforzeschi, the, mercenary troops, i. 160, 362 shakspere: his treatment of the story of romeo and juliet compared with bandello's, v. 71; was probably acquainted with bandello's _novella_ of _nicuola_ and the comedy _gli ingannati_ before writing the _twelfth night_, 72 shelley, quoted to illustrate the character of venetian landscape, iii. 350; his opinion of the _orlando furioso_, v. 41 _note_ 1 sicilian period of italian literature, iv. 20; period during which it flourished, 21, 27; character of the dialect used by the sicilian poets (the _lingua aulica_), 22; artificial nature of this poetry, 25; translated into tuscan idioms, 41, 42, 268; traces of popular feeling in it, 26, v. 504; its intrinsic weakness, iv. 44 sicilies, kingdom of the two, united by frederick ii. to the empire, i. 68; given by the papacy to charles of anjou, 75 sidney, sir philip, his ideal of a classic drama, v. 111, 136; his praise of the tragedy of _gorboduc_, 132 _note_ 1, 136; took sannazzaro's _arcadia_ as the model of his own work, 211 siena, produced no great work of literature, i. 79; generally ghibelline, 194 (cp. iv. 161); discords of siena, 207-209, 616, ii. 164, iii. 212, 213, 220; distinguished by religious revivals as well as by factions, i. 620 _note_ 1, iii. 183, 220 (cp. iv. 281); the sienese bury a statue of venus in the florentine territory, ii. 433, iii. 212; architecture of the sienese palaces, iii. 60; independent origin of painting in siena, 214; the sienese dedicate their city to the virgin, 214, 357; pageants at siena in honour of s. bernardino, iv. 315; luxury of siena in the middle ages, v. 96 ---s. bernardino, pacchia's paintings, iii. 501; s. domenico, guido da siena's _madonna_, 214; sodoma's _s. catherine at the execution of tuldo_, 500; duomo, the, contrasted with northern cathedrals, 54; its façade (by giovanni pisano), 110; its mosaic pavements, 209, 502, iv. 130; duccio's altarpiece, iii. 215; pinturicchio's frescoes (in the library), 302; church of fontegiusta, peruzzi's _augustus and the sibyl_, 501; monte oliveto, fra giovanni's wood-carvings, 78 _note_ 2; signorelli's _soldiers of totila_, 286; sodoma's frescoes, 499, iv. 132, 343, v. 54 ---palazzo pubblico, iii. 61; taddeo di bartolo's frescoes, 209; ambrogio lorenzetti's frescoes, 210; simone martini's _virgin enthroned_, 217; comparison of its decorations with those of the ducal palace, venice, 359 ---university, the: receives a diploma from charles iv., ii. 118 ---sienese school in painting, the, characteristics of the early sienese masters, iii. 214, 216; the scholars of sodoma, 501 sigismund, the emperor, crowns beccadelli poet at siena, ii. 255; filelfo's mission to him at buda, 268; pageant in his honour at lucca, iv. 315 signorelli, luca, his studies from the nude illustrate the changed direction of art, iii. 23, 279, 292; his frescoes at orvieto, iii. 56, 280, 281, 282, iv. 414 _note_ 1; the arabesques, ii. 440, iii. 283; boldness and vigour of his genius, iii. 279; indebtedness of michelangelo to him, 279; story of his painting his dead son, 280; his study of human form, 285, 288; his four types of form, 286, 288; his quality as a colourist, 289; the _last supper_ at cortona, 289, 326 _note_ 1; his treatment of mythology compared with that of other painters, 289-291; said by michelangelo to have treated him badly, 292 _note_ 1; his visit to the vasaris at arezzo, 293; vasari's character of him, 293; competes for the decoration of the stanze of the vatican, 300 simone, his bas-reliefs at s. francesco, rimini, iii. 162 simonetta, cecco, his execution by lodovico sforza, i. 543, 548 simonetta, la bella, v. 230; her relation to giuliano de' medici, iv. 403, 406 _note_ 1 (cp. 420-422); her portrait by botticelli, 406 _note_ 1; painted by lippo lippi in his frescoes at prato, 422 simony of the cardinals at rome, i. 404, 406 simplicity of character, as contemptible in italy as in greece during the peloponnesian war, i. 324 sinigaglia, massacre of, i. 324, 347, 427, 462 sismondi, i. 64; his special pleading for republican institutions, 78, 115; his description of gian galeazzo, 144; quoted about the condottieri, 159; his account of the withdrawal of the florentines from military service, 226; on the venetian council of ten, 234 _note_ 1; his argument that italy would have been best off under a confederation, 538 _note_ 1; his calculation of the decline in number of the free citizens in italy, 547 _note_ 1 _sitibondi_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 sixtus iv., his avarice, sensuality, and brutality, i. 105, 113, 393-396, iii. 146; his low origin, i. 116, 388; abettor of the pazzi conjuration, 168, 396-398, iv. 447, v. 118; his services to art, i. 384 _note_ 1; amount of truth in the stories about him, 388 _note_ 1; began the system of founding principalities for his family, 389; his wars, 395; his share in the creation of the inquisition and the expulsion of the jews, 399-402; invites filelfo to rome, ii. 285; opens the vatican library to the public, i. 384 _note_ 1, ii. 227, 359; his destruction of ancient monuments at rome, 430; dies of disappointment and rage, i. 396; his monument by antonio del pollajuolo, iii. 147 _smarriti_, the, an academy at faenza, ii. 366 soardi family, the, at bergamo, i. 150 soderini, antonio, i. 202, 289, 308, 313 _note_ 1; cardinal, 414; concerned in petrucci's conspiracy, 437 soderini, piero, gonfaloniere of florence, i. 289, 314, iii. 308, iv. 393; machiavelli's epigram upon him, i. 324, iii. 391; aids in the reconciliation of michelangelo with julius ii., iii. 402 sodoma, competes for the decoration of the stanze of the vatican, iii. 300; his _sebastian_, an instance of the introduction of pagan ideas into christian art, 34, 501; his _marriage of alexander_, illustrating his treatment of the antique, 291; studied both under lionardo da vinci and raphael, 499; inferiority of his later manner, 500; deficiency in composition of his pictures, 500 soldanieri, niccolò, his lyrics, iv. 156 soleri, anna, i. 581 _sonnachiosi_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 spaniards, cruelty of the, i. 478, ii. 441, 444 sparta: comparison between venice and sparta, i. 234 spenser, his mistake in supposing the _orlando furioso_ to be an allegory throughout, v. 21 speroni, speron, v. 78; his correspondence with aretino, 410 _note_ 1; his tragedy of _canace_, 130; his pastoral poems, 224; a passage quoted from his dialogues to show the spirit in which the italian purists worked, 252-256; the _dialogo delle lingue_, 271 _note_ 1 spina, bartolommeo di, takes part in the controversy raised by the publication of pomponazzi's _de immortalitate animæ_, v. 461 spinelli, matteo, doubtful authenticity of his chronicle, iv. 36, 130 _note_ 1, 415 _note_ 1 spinello, aretino, the scholar of giotto, iii. 197; vigour of his work, 219; his love of warlike subjects, 220; various paintings of his, 219 spino, pietro, his _life of bartolommeo colleoni_, iii. 144 spirito, convent of santo, at florence, marsigli's circle in, ii. 102 spoleto, a lombard duchy, i. 48; its fate, 48 _note_ 1, 50 spoleto, the cathedral: filippo lippi's frescoes, iii. 246 squarcione, his school of art at padua, iii. 236, 270 stampa, gaspara, v. 288 stefani, marchionne, iv. 176 stefano da bergamo, his tarsia work at perugia, iii. 78 _note_ 2 stephani, the estienne family of printers at paris, i. 23, ii. 373, 383, 391; henricus (the younger) refuses his books to casaubon, 390 _note_ 3 stephen ii., invites the franks against the lombards, i. 50; stephen x., 60 _storditi_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 _stornelli_, meaning of the term, iv. 264; their antiquity, 269; their themes, 272; purer in the country than in the towns, 272 _strambotti_, meaning of the term, iv. 264 straparola, francesco, his _tredici piacevoli notti_, v. 60, 78, 102; the _novella_ of the devil and his wife compared with machiavelli's _belphegor_, 102 strozzi, the, of ferrara, iv. 457; their panegyrics of lucrezia borgia, i. 422 ---ercole, his elegies, ii. 497; advocates the sole use of latin against bembo, 414, v. 259; assassinated, i. 423; lucia, mother of boiardo, iv. 457 strozzi, the, at florence, i. 210 _note_ 2 ---alessandra, her letters, iv. 176, 190 _note_ 1, v. 190; filippo (1), account of his building the palazzo strozzi, iii. 77 _note_ 1; filippo (2), leader of the florentine exiles, i. 211, 237, 280; general agreement of the historians upon his character, 285, 287; advises lorenzo de' medici (duke of urbino) to make himself duke of florence, 286; his vices and inconsistent conduct, 286; his death, 287; marietta di palla, desiderio's bust of her, iii. 159; palla, a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100; aids salutato to found the chair of greek at florence, 106, 109; learns greek from chrysoloras, 110; his patronage of learning, 165, 223; first collects books to form a public library, 166; exiled by cosimo de' medici, 167, 170; pietro, story of his threat to assassinate aretino, v. 406 sulmona, traditional reverence for ovid there, ii. 30, iv. 12 sulpizio da veroli, his letter to cardinal riario mentioning the representations of plautus and terence at rome, v. 139 _note_ 1 sweynheim, printer at rome, ii. 368 sylvius, æneas. (_see_ pius ii.) syncerus, accius. (_see_ sannazzaro.) syphilis, first noticed in charles' army at naples, i. 567, 567 _note_ 1, ii. 477 taddeo di bartolo, iii. 216; his frescoes in the palazzo pubblico, siena, 209; his _visit of the apostles to the virgin_, in s. francesco, pisa, 218 _talento_, use of the word, in early italian writers, iv. 106 tansillo, luigi, his pastoral poems, v. 224 tardolus, laomedon, tortured by the spaniards at the sack of rome, ii. 445 tarlati di pietra mala, bishop guido dei, i. 83; his tomb, iii. 210 _note_ 2 tasso, bernardo (father of the poet), the story of his life, v. 297; his letters and miscellaneous poems, 299; aretino's criticism of the letters, 411; his _amadigi_, 299; failed to gain popular applause, 299; his _floridante_, 300 _note_ 1; torquato, his ascription of part of the _morgante_ to ficino, iv. 455 _note_ 3; his genius representative of the counter-reformation, 464, v. 2; his censure of ariosto's inductions, v. 23; contrast of ariosto and tasso, 44; the _aminta_ with guarini's _pastor fido_, the perfection of the italian pastoral drama, 114, 223, 241; completes the italian reaction against the middle ages, 244; the most original dramatic works in italian, 511; essentially lyrical nature of the _aminta_, 511; its opposition of an ideal world of freedom to the world of laws, 242; the chorus on the age of gold, illustrative of italian ideas of honour, i. 486, v. 243 taxes, farming of, at perugia, i. 86 _note_ 1 tebaldeo, antonio, his pastoral poems, v. 224, 282 _note_ 3 tedaldi, pieraccio, his sonnet on dante, iv. 162; discouragement expressed in his poems, 165 telesio, v. 449; telesio and campanella, 483; his importance in the history of thought, 483-485, 500, 518 ten, council of, at venice. (_see_ council of ten.) terence, influence of, on the italian playwrights, v. 122, 136, 145, 181; representations of, in the original, at rome, 138; at ferrara, 139-142; early translations of terence, forming the beginning of italian comedy, 140 terra cotta, beauty of italian, iii. 79, 151, 163 terracina, laura, v. 288 terzi, ottobon, i. 150, 151; assassinated, 120 tessiras, a scholar of poliziano, ii. 350 theatres, the lack of permanent theatres a hindrance to national drama in italy, v. 144; the first, that built by order of alfonso i. at ferrara, iv. 499, v. 144; theatre built by leo x. at rome, v. 144; the teatro farnese at parma, 144 theodoric, reign of, i. 46, 47, 51 thomas of aquino, s., the _summa_, i. 60, v. 450, 468; teaching of s. thomas on the soul, v. 469 thucydides, his account of greek morality compared with the state of italy at the renaissance, 325 tiburzio, conspiracy of, at rome, i. 386 tiepolo, conspiracy of, at venice, i. 217 _note_ 1, 218 tifernas, gregorios, translates the _ethics_ for nicholas v., ii. 229 tintoretto [jacopo robusti], his sense of beauty, iii. 377; compared with titian and veronese, 378; inequality of his work, 379; character of his genius, v. 46; his _bacchus and ariadne_, illustrating his treatment of the antique, iii. 291; his _paradise_ in the ducal palace, 358; his vehemence and imaginativeness, 369, 370, 375; his preference of subjects more properly belonging to poetry, 376; story of his offering to paint aretino's portrait, v. 406 titian, his portrait of cardinal ippolito de' medici, ii. 27; sensuousness of his work, iii. 25; the friend of sansovino and aretino, 167, 168, v. 398, 409; a letter of his quoted for the project of making aretino cardinal, v. 405 _note_ 2; his _bacchus and ariadne_, illustrating his treatment of the antique, iii. 291; perfect balance of his powers, 370, 379; the _three ages of man_, v. 522; the _assumption of madonna_, iii. 380 todi, s. maria della consolazione (by bramante), iii. 82; birthplace of jacopone, iv. 285 tolommei, claudio, his _cesano_, v. 271 _note_ 1 tommaso, a dominican monk, his preaching at milan, i. 621 tommaso (son of andrea da pontedera), iii. 123 tommaso da sarzana. (_see_ nicholas v.) tornielli family, the, of novara, i. 145 torquemada, i. 400 torrensi, the, or della torre family, at milan: their rise to power, i. 112; their downfall, 132, 136 torriani, the, of verona, ii. 506 torrigiani, his account of michelangelo's scornfulness, iii. 386 _note_ 2; his quarrel with michelangelo, 432, 445; invites cellini to accompany him to england, 444; cellini's description of him, 445; his death, 445 torrigiani, marchionne, poems of, iv. 164 tortello, giovanni, librarian to nicholas v., ii. 229 tortosa, the cardinal of. (_see_ adrian vi.) tourneur, cyril, the plots of his dramas compared with real events in italian history, v. 117, 118 towns, buying and selling of, i. 114, 134, 148 traini, francesco, his _triumph of s. caterina_, pisa, iii. 207 translations of the classics, executed by command of nicholas v., ii. 228 trapezuntius, georgios, teaches greek in italy, ii. 210; employed by nicholas v. in translating plato and aristotle, 228; his quarrel with valla, 242, 263; his fight with poggio, 243; his controversy with bessarion, 247 traversari, ambrogio (il camaldolese), his account of vittorino's system of education, i. 177; a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100; learns greek from chrysoloras, 110; cited for the high pay of the copyists, 130; his distraction between scholarship and the claims of the church, 193-195; cited in proof of poggio's account of filelfo's marriage, 269 _note_ 1; the only great monastic scholar of the renaissance, 517; one of the best class of humanists, 523 tremacoldo, his murder of the vistarini, i. 148 note 1 treviso, culture of the trevisan court, iv. 6, 15 ---monte di pietà, _the entombment_ (by giorgione?), iii. 367 _note_ 2 tribune, name of magistrate in some italian cities, i. 35 trifone [trifone gabrielle], i. 233, v. 78, 253 _note_ 1 trinci, the, at foligno, massacres of the, i. 121, 122 trissiniana, la, an academy founded by giangiorgio trissino, v. 302 trissino, ciro (son of giangiorgio trissino), v. 303; murdered, 305; giangiorgio, story of his life, 300; the pupil of demetrius chalcondylas, 301; his magnificence and studious retirement, 302; always attracted to court life, 303; his quarrel with his son giulio, 303-305; inserts a virulent satire on his son in his _italia liberata_, 304; accuses him of heresy in a codicil of his will, 304; his device of the golden fleece, 305; his _italia liberata_, 126, 127, 306; its dulness and unpoetical character, 307, 520; compared with milton's epics, 308; his _sofonisba_, the first italian tragedy, 126, 236, 301, 305; its correctness and lifelessness, 127; his comedy, the _simillimi_, 305; his testimony to the corruption of rome, 190, 303; his friendship with giovanni rucellai, 236; his orthographical disputes with firenzuola, 271, 306; his _poetica_, 306; discovers the _de eloquio_ of dante, 306; giulio (son of giangiorgio trissino), his quarrel with his father, 303, 325 _note_ 2; denounced as a heretic by his father in his will, 304; condemned by the inquisition and dies in prison, 304 trivulzi, giovan jacopo da, i. 552, 573 tuldo, niccolò, story of his execution as related by s. catherine of siena, iv. 174 tullia di aragona, the, poetess, v. 288 turini, baldassare, ii. 405 turks, descent of the, upon otranto, i. 399, 572 (cp. v. 122) turpin, the chronicle of, iv. 432 tuscan, superiority of, to other italian dialects, iv. 31; early recognition of this, 31 tyrannicide, popular estimation of, in italy, i. 169; influence of the study of antiquity in producing tyrannicide, 165, 466, 468, v. 414 uberti, the, at florence, their houses destroyed as traitors, iii. 63; fazio degli, his _dittamondo_ cited for a description of rome in desolation, ii. 154, iv. 167; character of the _dittamondo_, iv. 166-168; his _sermintese_ on the cities of italy, 160; his _ode on rome_, 160 uccello, paolo, his study of perspective, iii. 225, 232; his love of natural studies, 226, 231 _note_ 1 ugolini, baccio, said to have composed music for the _orfeo_, iv. 414 ugolino da siena, his painting of the madonna in orsammichele, florence, iii. 125 uguccione da fagiuola, tyrant of lucca, i. 75 _note_ 1, 112; introduced in the frescoes in the campo santo, pisa, iii. 203 umbria, distinguished by its pietism, i. 620 _note_ 1, iii. 182, 220, iv. 281 ---umbrian school in painting, the, its originality, 182 _umidi, gli_, an academy at florence, v. 79, 272; il lasca and the _umidi_, 79 _note_ 2; doni once its secretary, 90 _umorosi_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 universities, italian, their character, ii. 115; number of foreigners attending them, 119; liberality of the town governments to them, 119; pay of professors in them, 120; subordinate position of the humanist professors in them, 123 urban viii., consecrates s. peter's, iii. 93 urbino, its position in italian history, v. 498 ---castle of, iii. 59, 76; wood panelling in, 78 _note_ 2 urbino, dukes of, first dynasty (_see_ montefeltro); second dynasty (_see_ rovere); encouragement of the pottery works of gubbio by the princes of urbino, i. 80 valdes, john, his suicide during the sack of rome ii. 445 valeriano, patronised by ippolito de' medici, ii. 405; his _de literatorum infelicitate_ quoted for the sufferings of the learned in the sack of rome, 443, 542 (cp. 530); for the latin periphrases employed by scholars, 397; cited for inghirami's eloquence, 425 _note_ 1; his work on hieroglyphics, 428 valla, lorenzo, the tutor of ferdinand of naples, i. 174; his declamation against the donation of constantine, 377 _note_ 2, 386, ii. 260; his stipend at pavia, ii. 122; his translations of thucydides, homer, and herodotus, 228, 262; appointed apostolic scriptor by nicholas v., 229, 262; his quarrel with poggio, 240 _note_ 1, 241, 263; with trapezantios and with morando, 242, 263; cited for alfonso the magnanimous' love of learning, 253; his opposition to the church, 258, 261; the publication of the _elegantiæ_ brings him into fame, 259 (cp. 526); invited to naples by alfonso, 261; his appearance before the inquisition, 262; his dispute with fazio, 263; his character of aurispa, 302 _note_ 1; the _de voluptate_, v. 455, 457, 519 valori, baccio, i. 230, 285; filippo, bears the expense of printing ficino's plato, ii. 326 vandyck, antony, his portrait of cardinal de' bentivogli, ii. 27 van eyck, john, his power of colouring, iii. 349; comparison of his works with those of the venetian masters, 361 vanini, his execution, v. 478 vannucci, pietro. (_see_ perugino.) varallo, s. maria delle grazie, iii. 489; the terra-cotta groups in the sacro monte, cited in illustration of the sacred drama, iv. 327 _note_ 1 varani, the, of camerino, i. 111, 375; massacre of them, 121, 164 _note_ 1; members of this family become condottieri, 161 varano, giovanni, his murder, i. 119 _note_ 2; giulio cesare, story of, 121; murdered with three of his sons by cesare borgia, 122, 353, 427 varchi, benedetto, his florentine history, i. 278, 279; employed by duke cosimo to write the work, 281; its character and value, 293; written in a liberal spirit, 289; varchi's labour in writing the history, 249 _note_ 2; his study of tacitus and polybius, 250 _note_ 1; account of the florentine government, 195 _note_ 1 (_see_ also appendix ii. vol. i.); the genoese constitution of 1528, 201 _note_ 1; savonarola's legislation, 202 _note_ 2; the defects of the florentine state, 204; the population of florence, 209; censure of the _ordinanze della giustizia_, 225, 244; the corruption of florence, 231, 282; florentine intelligence, 232; the conduct of the florentine exiles, 236; the dedication of florence to christ, 222 _note_ 1; the _parlamento_ at florence, 237 _note_ 2; character of guicciardini, 296, 296 _note_ 2, 298 _note_ 1, 299 _notes_ 1, 2 and 3, 300 _note_ 2; the reception of machiavelli's _prince_ at florence, 326; character of machiavelli, 333; italian immorality, 477 _note_ 1; florentine habits of life, appendix ii. (p. 595); description of the friars who preached in rome in clement's pontificate, 620; the murder of alessandro de' medici by his cousin lorenzino, v. 118; ---the _ercolano_ (_dialogo dellelingue_), v. 271 _note_ 1; its account of varchi's early training, iv. 237; the dissertation on buonarroti's sonnets, iii. 520, v. 297; the pastoral poems, v. 224; varchi sides with caro in his quarrel with castelvetro, 286; his _capitoli_, 365; his correspondence with aretino, 410 _note_ 1 vasari, giorgio, finishes the cupola of the umiltà at pistoja, iii. 83; the lives of the painters, ii. 36; their inaccuracy, iii. 103, 116; ascribes florentine intelligence to the tuscan air, i. 232; his remark on the indebtedness of michelangelo to signorelli, iii. 279; the story of signorelli's painting his dead son, 280; his relation of signorelli's visit to arezzo, 293; his character of signorelli, 293; his account of perugino, 297, 299; on lionardo da vinci, 323, 324; on raphael's gentleness, 329; his panegyric of michelangelo, 424, 494; his account of benvenuto cellini, 440; the story of the picture painted by botticelli for palmieri, iv. 171; the midsummer festivals at florence, 318, 325; the _triumph of death_, 393-395, v. 114; the festivals organised by rustici, v. 115; vasari's friendship with michelangelo and aretino, 409 _note_ 2 vatican library, its foundation, i. 21, ii. 227, 357; opened to the public by sixtus iv., 384 _note_ 1, ii. 227, 359; librarians of the vatican from inghirami to aleander, 424 vaucluse, petrarch's residence at, iv. 87, 96 vegio, matteo, the only writer of latin verse in the renaissance who took the cowl, ii. 517 velletti, agostino, author of the novel in verse of ginevra degli almieri, iv. 250; analysis of the story, 250 venasso, antonio da, murdered at sinigaglia by cesare borgia, i. 351 veneziano, marco, his friendship with berni, v. 363 venice, defeat of the venetians by francesco sforza, i. 155; selfish policy of venetians in not supporting the milanese, 155; neutrality of venice in the french invasion, 550 _note_ 1; heads the league against charles viii., 576; hostile to the roman church, 35, iii. 353, 357, v. 89, 393; hatred of venice by other states, i. 91, 214; never entrusted her armies to venetians, 157, 220; contentment of the venetians with their government, 198, 200, 215, 220, 233, iii. 353; political isolation of venice, i. 214; venetian constitutional history, 215-219; good government of the subject cities by venice, 220; liberty of life and speech at venice, iv. 364, v. 393, 497; estimates of the number of inhabitants, i. 210; divisions of the population, 215; trading spirit of venice, 238, iii. 353; venetian luxury, i. 475, iii. 167, 353, iv. 365, v. 191; unenthusiastic character of venetian religion, iii. 357-359; contrast of venice and florence, i. 221, 222 _note_ 1, 231, 306 _note_ 2, iii. 182, 354; comparison between venice and sparta, i. 234, 306 _note_ 2; beauty of venice, iii. 348; venetian art isolated from that of the rest of italy, iii. 313; architecture of the venetian palaces, 60; literature not encouraged at venice, i. 79, 233, ii. 108, 212, 247 _note_ 3, 441, v. 497; early venetian printers, ii. 369, 376, 386; the press at venice, iv. 364, v. 96, 104; frari, the, donatello's (wooden) statue of the baptist, iii. 136 _note_ 2; s. giovanni e paolo ('s. zanipolo'), the tombs of the doges, 162; s. maria dell' orto, tintoretto's paintings, 376 _note_ 1; s. mark, its style borrowed from the mosques of alexandria, 44, 45; the bronze door of the sacristy by sansovino, 168, v. 424; s. zaccaria, giovanni bellini's _madonna with saints_, iii. 365 ---scuola di s. croce, iii. 363; its decorations by gentile bellini, 363; scuola di sant' orsula, 363; its decorations by carpaccio, 363, iv. 343, v. 54; scuola di san rocco, iii. 85; tintoretto's paintings, 375 _note_ 1, 380 ---ducal palace, the, iii. 61, 355, 376 _note_ 1; contrast of its decorations with those of the public palace of siena, 359; palazzo corner, 85; ---vendramini calergi, 85 ---library of s. mark's, the, iii. 85 venetian masters, the, distinguished by their preference for sensuous beauty, iii. 182, 340, 354, 453, iv. 402; influence of the peculiar character of venice upon them, iii. 348; their art to be compared to that of greece, 355, 357; their personification of venice, 233, iii. 355, 356, 360; quality of their religion, 357-359, 361, 364; originality of their art, 361 _note_ 1, 362; comparison between them and the flemish masters, 361; subjects of their art, i. 233, iii. 362; the unity and solidarity of the venetian school, 371; their naturalness, 382 veniero, lorenzo, his relations to aretino, v. 419 venusti, marcello, influence of michelangelo on his works, iii. 493 vercelli: ferrari's frescoes, iii. 489; high school, the, ii. 116 vergerio, pier paolo (the elder), a scholar of giovanni da ravenna, ii. 100 vergerio, pier paolo, bishop of capo d'istria, his attack on della casa, v. 275 _note_ 1, 381 _note_ 1; his account of berni's conversion to lutheranism, 378 _note_ 1; relates that berni's object in the _rifacimento_ of the _orlando innamorato_ was the diffusion of lutheran opinions, 378-380; his flattery of aretino, 410 _note_ 1 verme, jacopo dal, leader of condottieri, i. 150 verocchio, andrea, importance of his influence, iii. 141; limitations of his genius, 142; various works of his at florence, 142, 145; his equestrian statue of colleoni, 143 verona: s. anastasia, monument of the cavalli, iii. 163; tombs of the scaligers, 124, 163 veronese, paolo, his _europa_, illustrating his treatment of mythology, iii. 291, 374; his appearance before the inquisition, 359, 446 _note_ 1; his sense of magnificence, 370 (cp. v. 398 _note_ 2); subjects of his art, iii. 372, 374; his types of beauty compared with those of rubens, 372; his sobriety of imagination and excellence of workmanship, 373-374 verradi, carlo, his _ferrandus servatus_, v. 117 _note_ 1 verucchio, capture of, i. 176 vesc, stephen de, seneschal de beaucaire, his influence with charles viii., i. 541 vespasiano, his contempt for printing, ii. 304, 370; the last of the copyists, and the first of modern booksellers, 306; value of his work, and goodness of his character, 307; reason why he wrote in italian, iv. 235; his biographies, 265 _note_ 1; his life of duke frederick of urbino, 174, 176, 179; the library which he collected for the duke of urbino, 175, ii. 304; cited for the life of pandolfino, i. 239 _note_ 1, iv. 199; does not mention him as author of the _governo della famiglia_, iv. 199; his account of poggio and bruni, i. 275; his life of alfonso the magnanimous, 480 _note_ 1, 569 _note_ 1; his life of san bernardino, 612; quoted for italian profligacy, 477 _note_ 1; his life of piero de' pazzi, ii. 42 _note_ 1; his account of how palla degli strozzi brought chrysoloras to florence, 109; cited for strozzi's services to learning, 166; copies mss. for cosimo de' medici, 174; relates how he collected books for cosimo, 175; quoted for cosimo's versatility of talent, 176; his anecdote of cosimo's pruning his own fruit trees, v. 196; his life of niccolò de' niccoli, ii. 178; his life of carlo marsuppini, 186, 530; his life of manetti, 186 _note_ 1; his description of tommaso parentucelli (nicholas v.) in the medicean circle at florence, 224; the catalogue of niccolò's mss. made by tommaso, 174; his account of his interview with tommaso after his election, 226; his character of nicholas, 226; his story of pope calixtus in the vatican library, 357; cited for vittorino da feltre's purity of character, 297; for the virtues of the cardinal di portogallo, iii. 154, v. 324 _note_ 1 vespucci, guido antonio, i. 201 vettori, francesco, i. 197 _note_ 1, 203 _note_ 1, 230; the friend of machiavelli, 315, 317 _note_ 1, 322 _note_ 2, 318; his _sommario della storia d' italia_, appendix v. vol. i. vicars of the church, their passage to tyranny, i. 111. vicars of the empire, i. 35, 106, 133; their passage to tyranny, 111, 156 vicenza, early printing at, ii. 376; luxury of the nobles of vicenza, v. 191 ---palazzo della ragione, by palladio, iii. 95; representation of anguillara's _edippo_ there, v. 134 ---high school, the, ii. 116; attendance of foreigners there, 119; its early decline, v. 497 vico of the prefetti at viterbo, francesco, murder of, i. 120, 168 _note_ 1 victor, john bonifacius, tortured by the spaniards at the sack of rome, ii. 445 victor ii., i. 59 vida, made bishop of alba, ii. 403, 407; his cremonese origin, illustrating the loss of intellectual supremacy by florence, 506; frigid purism of his _christiad_, 398, 399 (cp. 535, v. 519); quoted to illustrate the subjects in which the poets of the renaissance best succeeded, ii. 400; the _art of poetry_, 471-476; the apostrophe to rome, 475, v. 522; translated (prose), ii. 475 vidovero, of brescia, murdered by pandolfo malatesta, i. 113 _note_ 1 _vignajuoli, i_, name of an academy at rome, ii. 365, v. 227, 272, 357 vignate, giovanni, the millionaire of lodi, i. 114; imprisoned in a wooden cage by filippo visconti, 120 vignola, his labours at s. peter's, iii. 93; his 'treatise on the orders,' 95, 96 _note_ 1; character of his genius, 96 vigonça, the hero of an anonymous maccaronic poem by a paduan author, v. 331, 479 _note_ 1 villani, chronicle of the, iv. 176; its value, i. 251-260; praised by vespasiano, 276 ---filippo, continues the chronicle of florence, i. 254; his lives of illustrious florentines, 255; cited for the story of boccaccio at the tomb of virgil, ii. 88, iv. 102; apologises for his father not having written in latin, iv. 236; giovanni, his chronicle of florence, i. 251, 254; his reasons for undertaking it, 253, ii. 30, 144; cited for the division of guelfs and ghibellines, i. 81; for the rise of the condottiere system, 156; his account of the flagellants, 618; his relation of the taxes raised in florence to build the cathedral, iii. 64; his story of the representation of hell by burghers of the borgo s. friano, 198, v. 114; his description of florentine festivals, iv. 50, 51; matteo, his description of the despots, i. 128; continues his brother's chronicle, 254; cited for the assassination of matteo visconti, 137 _note_ 1; for the cruelty of bernabo visconti, 139 _note_ 1; his account of the 'black death,' 259, iv. 111, v. 191; of the preaching of fra jacopo, i. 610; of the foundation of the florentine university, ii. 119 _villotta_, a name in n.e. italy for the _rispetti_, iv. 264, 266 vinci, lionardo da, universality of his genius, 171, 326, ii. 10, iii. 313, 314, 322, 327 _note_ 1, 382; the only great florentine artist not befriended with the medici, iii. 263; one of the four great artists by whom the renaissance was fully expressed, 312; his studies of beauty and ugliness, 316-318; his interest in psychological problems, 318 (cp. 35), 323, 363; his study of the technicalities of art, 320; his love of strange things, 321; hisstrong personality, 322 _note_ 3, 329; his reluctance to finish, 323, 482; greatness of his aims, 325; his _s. john_, as illustrating the introduction of pagan motives into christian art, 34, 137, 318; indebted for the type of face preferred by him to verocchio, 142, 316; his models for an equestrian statue of francesco sforza, 144, 324, 325; his _leda and the swan_, illustrating his treatment of the antique, 291, 318; fate of his works, 325; the cartoon for the council chamber at florence, 325, 396; the _last supper_, 323, 326; lionardo's visit to the court of france, 445; school formed by him at milan, 482; his treatise on physical proportions, ii. 37; his poems, iii. 314; translation of a sonnet, 314 _note_ 1 vinciguerra, antonio, his satirical poems, v. 381 vindelino of spires, joins his brother john as printer at venice, ii. 369 violi, lorenzo, his notes of savonarola's sermons, i. 511, 530 _note_ 1 virago, used without reproach at the time of the renaissance as a term for accomplished ladies, v. 288 virgil, read in the middle ages, i. 20; honours paid to him at mantua, 20, ii. 30, 63; translation of a stanza from a hymn on virgil used at mantua, 63; turned by popular belief into a magician, a christian, a prophet of christ, 65, 143; influence of the eclogues in forming the ideal of a golden age prevalent at the renaissance, v. 195; his tomb at naples, i. 461, ii. 30, iv. 12, 88, 101 _viridario_, the, an academy at bologna, ii. 366 _virtù_, machiavelli's use of the word, i. 171, 337 _note_ 1, 345, 482, 484, 493, ii. 35, v. 440; illustrated by benvenuto cellini, iii. 439, 479; by aretino, iv. 497, v. 410, 416, 425 _virtù, le_, the vitruvian club at rome, ii. 366, v. 227 visconti, the, i. 81, 116; quarrel of the visconti with florence, 81, 82; how they acquired their power, 112; their patronage of art, iii. 42 ---azzo, i. 133, 134; his impartiality, 83 _note_ 1; bernabo, 136, 139, 140, 141; carlo, one of the assassins of galeazzo maria sforza, 165; filippo maria, was afraid of thunder, 119, 152; imprisons giovanni vignate in a wooden cage, 120; seizes pavia, 151; has his wife beheaded, 152 _note_ 2; his character, 153, ii. 265; his conduct to alfonso the magnanimous, i. 568 _note_ 1; his patronage of filelfo, ii. 265, 277; commissions filelfo to write an italian poem on s. john the baptist, 279, iv. 235; gabriello, i. 102, 151; galeazzo (1), 133; galeazzo (2), 134, 136-140; gian galeazzo, 87, 98, 102, 113 _note_ 1, 138; his marriage, 138; succeeds, 140; murders his uncle, 141; his love of art, 141; the grandeur of his schemes, 141; his wealth, 143; his character, 144; his plots against the d'este family and the gonzaghi, 146, 147; transfers asti to the house of orleans, 143 _note_ 1, v. 333; progress of his conquests, 149; dies of the plague, 149, iv. 162; his plan to make himself king of italy, iv. 161; his saying on the injury caused him by salutato's literary powers, ii. 104; giovanni, archbishop of milan, i. 135, 136; giovanni maria, 151; his cruelty and lust, 151, 478; murdered, 152, 397 _note_ 2; lucchino, 134; matteo, 136; otho, archbishop of milan, causes the downfall of the della torre family, 132; stefano, 136; valentina, her marriage to louis d'orléans, 143 _note_ 1, 154 _note_ 1; violante, her marriage to the duke of clarence, 137 _note_ 2 viscounts, creation of the title, i. 53 vistarini family, the, their murder by fisiraga, i. 120; massacre by tremacoldo, 148 _note_ 1 vitelleschi, cardinal dei, his slaughter of the trinci, i. 122; attacked by valla in the treatise on _constantine's donation_, ii. 260 vitelli, the, of città di castello, their rise to power, i. 114; members of this family become condottieri, 161 ---vitelozzo, i. 351; murdered by cesare borgia at sinigaglia, 351, 352, 462 viterbo, pageants at, in 1462, on the corpus christi festival, iv. 316 vitoni, ventura, his church of the umiltà at pistoja, iii. 83 vitruvius, his influence on italian architects, ii. 436, iii. 94 _note_ 1 vivarini, the, the first masters of the venetian school, iii. 361 volaterranus, jacobus, his character of julius ii., i. 389 _note_ 3 volterra, sack of, i. 176 _note_ 1 ---duomo, the: its roof, iii. 79 _note_ 4; mino da fiesole's ciborium, 158 _note_ 1 walter of brienne. (_see_ duke of athens.) webster, the dramatist, quoted, i. 119 _note_ 2, ii. 35, iii. 155; his 'white devil of italy,' i. 557, v. 69, 117, 288; his treatment of italian subjects, 68, 117 wenceslaus, the emperor, i. 148, 154 werner of urslingen, leader of condottieri, i. 86, 158 william ii., of sicily, beginning of the sicilian period of italian literature at his court, iv. 21 wippo, his panegyric to the emperor henry iii., cited, iv. 4 witchcraft, bull of innocent viii. against, i. 402 _note_ 1, v. 347; supposed prevalence of witchcraft in the valtellina and val camonica, in the sixteenth century, i. 402 _note_ 1, v. 316, 346 _notes_ 1 and 2, 347; general belief in witchcraft at that period in italy, 344; character of the italian witches, 345; teutonic character of witchcraft in the lombard district, 347 wolfhard, his life of s. walpurgis, cited for medieval contempt of antiquity, ii. 60 women, abuse of, common to the authors of the renaissance, how explained, iv. 212 wool trade, the, of florence, i. 257 worcester, earl of, bruni's translation of aristotle's _politics_ originally dedicated to him, ii. 184 xenophon, the influence of his _oeconomicus_ on italian writers, iv. 196 zanchius, basilius, his verses upon the death of navagero, ii. 488 zane, paolo, his encouragement of learning at venice, ii. 212; sends guarino to constantinople, 299 zeno, the greek emperor, i. 46 zilioli, his account of doni's life at monselice, v. 91 _translations in verse by author._ alamanni, triumph of death, iv. 395 aretino, epitaph on, v. 423 aristotle, lines on virtue, iv. 62 bembo, de galeso, ii. 483; a sonnet, v. 262 benivieni, song of divine madness, i. 481, iv. 304; laud to jesus, iv. 303; passage from an elegy, 561 bernard, s., stanzas from the passion hymn, iii. 17 berni, sonnet on clement vii., v. 368; confession of faith from the _rifacimento_ of _orlando innamorato_, 543-547 boiardo, sleeping rinaldo, iv. 471; apostrophe of orlando, 473; on friendship, 474; discourse of orlando with agricane, 475-477; on chivalrous indifference to wealth, 477; rinaldo at merlin's well, 482-484; tale of narcissus, 485-487 buonarroti, madrigal on florence, iii. 392; quatrain on _la notte_, 394; twenty-three sonnets, appendix ii.; passage from an elegy, iv. 561 campanella, three sonnets, v. 481-483 _canto carnascialesco_, the triumph of the sieve, iv. 392 della casa, six sonnets, v. 279 donati, three madrigals, iv. 531 folengo, two stanzas from the _orlandino_, v. 320 _note_ 2; berta's prayer from ditto, 356; rainero's discourse on monks from ditto, 537-540; rainero's confession of faith from ditto, 541-543 folgore da san gemignano, ten sonnets, iv. 526-530 guidiccioni, a sonnet, v. 282 ibycus, on peace, iv. 52 jacopone, fra, _presepio_, iv. 532-534; _corrotto_, 535-538; stanzas from the hymn of love, 539-542 machiavelli, epigram on soderini, i. 297 medici, lorenzo de', sonnet to venus, iv. 373; sonnet to the evening star, 374; passages from _le selve_, 376-380; passage from _corinto_, 377; song of baccus and ariadne, 390 molza, five stanzas from the _ninfa tiberina_, v. 231-233 poliziano, pantheistic hymn, ii. 24; _ballata_ of roses, iv. 378; golden age, 408; chorus of mænads, 414; passages from the _canzoni_ and _giostra_, 420 popular songs, four, iv. 264-266 pulci, character of margutte, iv. 543, 549; discourses of astarotte, 549-556; description of the storm at saragossa, 557; autobiographical stanza, 558; death of baldwin, 559 _sacre rappresentazioni_, _s. uliva_: dirge for narcissus, iv. 328; may song 329; _s. maddalena_: christ's sermon, 333-336 sannazzaro, sonnet on jealousy, v. 200; sestine from the _arcadia_, 212 sappho, on fame, ii. 41 vinci, lionardo da, sonnet, iii. 314 virgil, stanza from the hymn on, ii. 63 