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.
[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.
[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.
[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 Œconomicus 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 οἶκος and ἀρχή.
[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 exaVolume 4
ITALIAN LITERATURE
