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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, by
+Jacob Burckhardt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy
+
+Author: Jacob Burckhardt
+
+Translator: S. G. C. (Samuel George Chetwynd Middlemore)
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2014 [EBook #2074]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CIVILISATION OF THE RENAISSANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ THE
+ CIVILISATION OF THE
+ RENAISSANCE
+ IN ITALY
+
+ By
+ JACOB BURCKHARDT
+ AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY
+ S. G. C. MIDDLEMORE
+
+ LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
+ NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Dr. BURCKHARDT'S work on the Renaissance in Italy is too well known, not
+only to students of the period, but now to a wider circle of readers,
+for any introduction to be necessary. The increased interest which has
+of late years, in England, been taken in this and kindred subjects, and
+the welcome which has been given to the works of other writers upon
+them, encourage me to hope that in publishing this translation I am
+meeting a want felt by some who are either unable to read German at all,
+or to whom an English version will save a good deal of time and trouble.
+
+The translation is made from the third edition of the original, recently
+published in Germany, with slight additions to the text, and large
+additions to the notes, by Dr. LUDWIG GEIGER, of Berlin. It also
+contains some fresh matter communicated by Dr. BURCKHARDT to Professor
+DIEGO VALBUSA of Mantua, the Italian translator of the book. To all
+three gentlemen my thanks are due for courtesy shown, or help given to
+me in the course of my work.
+
+In a few cases, where Dr. GEIGER'S view differs from that taken by Dr.
+BURCKHARDT, I have called attention to the fact by bracketing Dr.
+GEIGER'S opinion and adding his initials.
+
+THE TRANSLATOR.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+_THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART_
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+ PAGE
+
+Political condition of Italy in the thirteenth century 4
+
+The Norman State under Frederick II. 5
+
+Ezzelino da Romano 7
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+Finance and its relation to culture 8
+
+The ideal of the absolute ruler 9
+
+Inward and outward dangers 10
+
+Florentine estimate of the tyrants 11
+
+The Visconti 12
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE TYRANNY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+Intervention and visits of the emperors 18
+
+Want of a fixed law of succession. Illegitimacy 20
+
+Founding of States by Condottieri 22
+
+Relations of Condottieri to their employers 23
+
+The family of Sforza 24
+
+Giacomo Piccinino 25
+
+Later attempts of the Condottieri 26
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE PETTY TYRANNIES.
+
+The Baglioni of Perugia 28
+
+Massacre in the year 1500 31
+
+Malatesta, Pico, and Petrucci 33
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE GREATER DYNASTIES.
+
+The Aragonese at Naples 35
+
+The last Visconti at Milan 38
+
+Francesco Sforza and his luck 39
+
+Galeazzo Maria and Ludovic Moro 40
+
+The Gonzaga at Mantua 43
+
+Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino 44
+
+The Este at Ferrara 46
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE OPPONENTS OF TYRANNY.
+
+The later Guelphs and Ghibellines 55
+
+The conspirators 56
+
+Murders in church 57
+
+Influence of ancient tyrannicide 57
+
+Catiline as an ideal 59
+
+Florentine view of tyrannicide 59
+
+The people and tyrannicide 60
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE.
+
+Venice in the fifteenth century 62
+
+The inhabitants 63
+
+Dangers from the poor nobility 64
+
+Causes of the stability of Venice 65
+
+The Council of Ten and political trials 66
+
+Relations with the Condottieri 67
+
+Optimism of Venetian foreign policy 68
+
+Venice as the home of statistics 69
+
+Retardation of the Renaissance 71
+
+Mediæval devotion to reliques 72
+
+Florence from the fourteenth century 73
+
+Objectivity of political intelligence 74
+
+Dante as a politician 75
+
+Florence as the home of statistics: the two Villanis 76
+
+Higher form of statistics 77
+
+Florentine constitutions and the historians 82
+
+Fundamental vice of the State 82
+
+Political theorists 83
+
+Macchiavelli and his views 84
+
+Siena and Genoa 86
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES.
+
+Envy felt towards Venice 88
+
+Relations to other countries: sympathy with France 89
+
+Plan for a balance of power 90
+
+Foreign intervention and conquests 91
+
+Alliances with the Turks 92
+
+Counter-influence of Spain 94
+
+Objective treatment of politics 95
+
+Art of diplomacy 96
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+WAR AS A WORK OF ART.
+
+Firearms 98
+
+Professional warriors and dilettanti 99
+
+Horrors of war 101
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS.
+
+Relation of the Papacy to Italy and foreign countries 103
+
+Disturbances in Rome from the time of Nicholas V. 104
+
+Sixtus IV. master of Rome 105
+
+States of the Nipoti in Romagna 107
+
+Cardinals belonging to princely houses 107
+
+Innocent VIII. and his son 108
+
+Alexander VI. as a Spaniard 109
+
+Relations with foreign countries 110
+
+Simony 111
+
+Cæsar Borgia and his relations to his father 111
+
+Cæsar's plans and acts 112
+
+Julius II. as Saviour of the Papacy 117
+
+Leo X. His relations with other States 120
+
+Adrian VI. 121
+
+Clement VII. and the sack of Rome 122
+
+Reaction consequent on the latter 123
+
+The Papacy of the Counter-Reformation 124
+
+Conclusion. The Italian patriots 125
+
+
+PART II.
+
+_THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+The mediæval man 129
+
+The awakening of personality 129
+
+The despot and his subjects 130
+
+Individualism in the Republics 131
+
+Exile and cosmopolitanism 132
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+The many-sided men 134
+
+The universal men 136
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME.
+
+Dante's feeling about fame 139
+
+The celebrity of the Humanists: Petrarch 141
+
+Cultus of birthplace and graves 142
+
+Cultus of the famous men of antiquity 143
+
+Literature of local fame: Padua 143
+
+Literature of universal fame 146
+
+Fame given or refused by the writers 150
+
+Morbid passion for fame 152
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MODERN WIT AND SATIRE.
+
+Its connection with individualism 154
+
+Florentine wit: the novel 155
+
+Jesters and buffoons 156
+
+Leo X. and his witticisms 157
+
+Poetical parodies 158
+
+Theory of wit 159
+
+Railing and reviling 161
+
+Adrian VI. as scapegoat 162
+
+Pietro Aretino 164
+
+
+PART III.
+
+_THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
+
+Widened application of the word 'Renaissance' 171
+
+Antiquity in the Middle Ages 172
+
+Latin poetry of the twelfth century in Italy 173
+
+The spirit of the fourteenth century 175
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ROME, THE CITY OF RUINS.
+
+Dante, Petrarch, Uberti 177
+
+Rome at the time of Poggio 179
+
+Nicholas V., and Pius II. as an antiquarian 180
+
+Antiquity outside Rome 181
+
+Affiliation of families and cities on Rome 182
+
+The Roman corpse 183
+
+Excavations and architectural plans 184
+
+Rome under Leo X. 184
+
+Sentimental effect of ruins 185
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE OLD AUTHORS.
+
+Their diffusion in the fourteenth century 187
+
+Discoveries in the fifteenth century 188
+
+The libraries 189
+
+Copyists and 'Scrittori' 192
+
+Printing 194
+
+Greek scholarship 195
+
+Oriental scholarship 197
+
+Pico's view of antiquity 202
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+Its inevitable victory 203
+
+Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio 205
+
+Coronation of the poets 207
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS.
+
+Position of the Humanists at the Universities 211
+
+Latin schools 213
+
+Freer education: Vittorino da Feltre 213
+
+Guarino of Verona 215
+
+The education of princes 216
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM.
+
+Florentine citizens: Niccoli and Manetti 217
+
+The earlier Medici 220
+
+Humanism at the Courts 222
+
+The Popes from Nicholas V. onwards 223
+
+Alfonso of Naples 225
+
+Frederick of Urbino 227
+
+The Houses of Sforza and Este 227
+
+Sigismodo Malatesta 228
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY. LATIN CORRESPONDENCE AND ORATIONS.
+
+The Papal Chancery 230
+
+Letter-writing 232
+
+The orators 233
+
+Political, diplomatic, and funeral orations 236
+
+Academic and military speeches 237
+
+Latin sermons 238
+
+Form and matter of the speeches 239
+
+Passion for quotation 240
+
+Imaginary speeches 241
+
+Decline of eloquence 242
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY.
+
+Value of Latin 243
+
+Researches on the Middle Ages: Blondus 245
+
+Histories in Italian; their antique spirit 246
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+GENERAL LATINISATION OF CULTURE.
+
+Ancient names 250
+
+Latinised social relations 251
+
+Claims of Latin to supremacy 252
+
+Cicero and the Ciceronians 253
+
+Latin conversation 254
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MODERN LATIN POETRY.
+
+Epic poems on ancient history: The 'Africa' 258
+
+Mythic poetry 259
+
+Christian epics: Sannazaro 260
+
+Poetry on contemporary subjects 261
+
+Introduction of mythology 262
+
+Didactic poetry: Palingenius 263
+
+Lyric poetry and its limits 264
+
+Odes on the saints 265
+
+Elegies and the like 266
+
+The epigram 267
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+FALL OF THE HUMANISTS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+The accusations and the amount of truth they contained 272
+
+Misery of the scholars 277
+
+Type of the happy scholar 278
+
+Pomponius Laetus 279
+
+The Academies 280
+
+PART IV.
+
+_THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+JOURNEYS OF THE ITALIANS.
+
+Columbus 286
+
+Cosmographical purpose in travel 287
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+NATURAL SCIENCE IN ITALY.
+
+Empirical tendency of the nation 289
+
+Dante and astronomy 290
+
+Attitude of the Church towards natural science 290
+
+Influence of Humanism 291
+
+Botany and gardens 292
+
+Zoology and collections of foreign animals 293
+
+Human menagerie of Ippolito Medici 296
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF NATURAL BEAUTY.
+
+Landscapes in the Middle Ages 299
+
+Petrarch and his ascents of mountains 301
+
+Uberti's 'Dittamondo' 302
+
+The Flemish school of painting 302
+
+Æneas Sylvius and his descriptions 303
+
+Nature in the poets and novelists 305
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF MAN.--SPIRITUAL DESCRIPTION IN POETRY.
+
+Popular psychological ground-work. The temperaments 309
+
+Value of unrhymed poetry 310
+
+Value of the Sonnet 310
+
+Dante and the 'Vita Nuova' 312
+
+The 'Divine Comedy' 312
+
+Petrarch as a painter of the soul 314
+
+Boccaccio and the Fiammetta 315
+
+Feeble development of tragedy 315
+
+Scenic splendour, the enemy of the drama 316
+
+The intermezzo and the ballet 317
+
+Comedies and masques 320
+
+Compensation afforded by music 321
+
+Epic romances 321
+
+Necessary subordination of the descriptions of character 323
+
+Pulci and Bojardo 323
+
+Inner law of their compositions 324
+
+Ariosto and his style 325
+
+Folengo and parody 326
+
+Contrast offered by Tasso 327
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BIOGRAPHY.
+
+Advance of Italy on the Middle Ages 328
+
+Tuscan biographers 330
+
+Biography in other parts of Italy 332
+
+Autobiography; Æneas Sylvius 333
+
+Benvenuto Cellini 333
+
+Girolamo Cardano 334
+
+Luigi Cornaro 335
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE DESCRIPTION OF NATIONS AND CITIES.
+
+The 'Dittamondo' 339
+
+Descriptions in the sixteenth century 339
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTWARD MAN.
+
+Boccaccio on Beauty 344
+
+Ideal of Firenzuola 345
+
+His general definitions 345
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+DESCRIPTIONS OF LIFE IN MOVEMENT.
+
+Æneas Sylvius and others 349
+
+Conventional bucolic poetry from the time of Petrarch 350
+
+Genuine poetic treatment of country life 351
+
+Battista Mantovano, Lorenzo Magnifico, Pulci 352
+
+Angelo Poliziano 353
+
+Man, and the conception of humanity 354
+
+Pico della Mirandola on the dignity of man 354
+
+
+PART V.
+
+_SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE EQUALISATION OF CLASSES.
+
+Contrast to the Middle Ages 359
+
+Common life of nobles and burghers in the cities 359
+
+Theoretical criticism of noble birth 360
+
+The nobles in different parts of Italy 362
+
+The nobility and culture 363
+
+Bad influence of Spain 363
+
+Knighthood since the Middle Ages 364
+
+The tournaments and the caricature of them 365
+
+Noble birth as a requisite of the courtier 367
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+OUTWARD REFINEMENT OF LIFE.
+
+Costume and fashions 369
+
+The toilette of women 371
+
+Cleanliness 374
+
+The 'Galateo' and good manners 375
+
+Comfort and elegance 376
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+LANGUAGE AS THE BASIS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
+
+Development of an ideal language 378
+
+Its wide diffusion 379
+
+The Purists 379
+
+Their want of success 382
+
+Conversation 383
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE HIGHER FORMS OF SOCIETY.
+
+Rules and statutes 384
+
+The novelists and their society 384
+
+The great lady and the drawing-room 385
+
+Florentine society 386
+
+Lorenzo's descriptions of his own circle 387
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE PERFECT MAN OF SOCIETY.
+
+His love-making 388
+
+His outward and spiritual accomplishments 389
+
+Bodily exercises 389
+
+Music 390
+
+The instruments and the Virtuosi 392
+
+Musical dilettantism in society 393
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE POSITION OF WOMEN.
+
+Their masculine education and poetry 396
+
+Completion of their personality 397
+
+The Virago 398
+
+Women in society 399
+
+The culture of the prostitutes 399
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+DOMESTIC ECONOMY.
+
+Contrast to the Middle Ages 402
+
+Agnolo Pandolfini (L. B. Alberti) 402
+
+The villa and country life 404
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE FESTIVALS.
+
+Their origin in the mystery and the procession 406
+
+Advantages over foreign countries 408
+
+Historical representatives of abstractions 409
+
+The Mysteries 411
+
+Corpus Christi at Viterbo 414
+
+Secular representations 415
+
+Pantomimes and princely receptions 417
+
+Processions and religious Trionfi 419
+
+Secular Trionfi 420
+
+Regattas and processions on water 424
+
+The Carnival at Rome and Florence 426
+
+
+PART VI.
+
+_MORALITY AND RELIGION._
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+MORALITY.
+
+Limits of criticism 431
+
+Italian consciousness of demoralization 432
+
+The modern sense of honour 433
+
+Power of the imagination 435
+
+The passion for gambling and for vengeance 436
+
+Breach of the marriage tie 441
+
+Position of the married woman 442
+
+Spiritualization of love 445
+
+General emancipation from moral restraints 446
+
+Brigandage 448
+
+Paid assassination: poisoning 450
+
+Absolute wickedness 453
+
+Morality and individualism 454
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+RELIGION IN DAILY LIFE.
+
+Lack of a reformation 457
+
+Relations of the Italian to the Church 457
+
+Hatred of the hierarchy and the monks 458
+
+The mendicant orders 462
+
+The Dominican Inquisition 462
+
+The higher monastic orders 463
+
+Sense of dependence on the Church 465
+
+The preachers of repentance 466
+
+Girolamo Savonarola 473
+
+Pagan elements in popular belief 479
+
+Faith in reliques 481
+
+Mariolatry 483
+
+Oscillations in public opinion 485
+
+Epidemic religious revivals 485
+
+Their regulation by the police at Ferrara 487
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+RELIGION AND THE SPIRIT OF THE RENAISSANCE.
+
+Inevitable subjectivity 490
+
+Worldliness 492
+
+Tolerance of Mohammedanism 492
+
+Equivalence of all religions 494
+
+Influence of antiquity 495
+
+The so-called Epicureans 496
+
+The doctrine of free will 497
+
+The pious Humanists 499
+
+The less pronounced Humanists 499
+
+Codrus Urceus 500
+
+The beginnings of religious criticism 501
+
+Fatalism of the Humanists 503
+
+Their pagan exterior 504
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MIXTURE OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SUPERSTITIONS.
+
+Astrology 507
+
+Its extension and influence 508
+
+Its opponents in Italy 515
+
+Pico's opposition and influence 516
+
+Various superstitions 518
+
+Superstition of the Humanists 519
+
+Ghosts of the departed 522
+
+Belief in dæmons 523
+
+The Italian witch 524
+
+Witches' nest at Norcia 526
+
+Influence and limits of Northern witchcraft 528
+
+Witchcraft of the prostitutes 529
+
+The magicians and enchanters 530
+
+The dæmons on the way to Rome 531
+
+Special forms of magic: the Telesmata 533
+
+Magic at the laying of foundation-stones 534
+
+The necromancer in poetry 535
+
+Benvenuto Cellini's tale 536
+
+Decline of magic 537
+
+Special branches of the superstition 538
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GENERAL DISINTEGRATION OF BELIEF.
+
+Last confession of Boscoli 543
+
+Religious disorder and general scepticism 543
+
+Controversy as to immortality 545
+
+The pagan heaven 545
+
+The Homeric life to come 546
+
+Evaporation of Christian doctrine 547
+
+Italian Thei 548
+
+
+
+
+_PART I._
+
+THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+This work bears the title of an essay in the strictest sense of the
+word. No one is more conscious than the writer with what limited means
+and strength he has addressed himself to a task so arduous. And even if
+he could look with greater confidence upon his own researches, he would
+hardly thereby feel more assured of the approval of competent judges. To
+each eye, perhaps, the outlines of a given civilisation present a
+different picture; and in treating of a civilisation which is the mother
+of our own, and whose influence is still at work among us, it is
+unavoidable that individual judgment and feeling should tell every
+moment both on the writer and on the reader. In the wide ocean upon
+which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the
+same studies which have served for this work might easily, in other
+hands, not only receive a wholly different treatment and application,
+but lead also to essentially different conclusions. Such indeed is the
+importance of the subject, that it still calls for fresh investigation,
+and may be studied with advantage from the most varied points of view.
+Meanwhile we are content if a patient hearing be granted us, and if this
+book be taken and judged as a whole. It is the most serious difficulty
+of the history of civilisation that a great intellectual process must be
+broken up into single, and often into what seem arbitrary categories, in
+order to be in any way intelligible. It was formerly our intention to
+fill up the gaps in this book by a special work on the 'Art of the
+Renaissance,'--an intention, however, which we have been able only to
+fulfil[1] in part.
+
+The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen left Italy in a
+political condition which differed essentially from that of other
+countries of the West. While in France, Spain and England the feudal
+system was so organised that, at the close of its existence, it was
+naturally transformed into a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it
+helped to maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy
+had shaken it off almost entirely. The Emperors of the fourteenth
+century, even in the most favourable case, were no longer received and
+respected as feudal lords, but as possible leaders and supporters of
+powers already in existence; while the Papacy,[2] with its creatures and
+allies, was strong enough to hinder national unity in the future, not
+strong enough itself to bring about that unity. Between the two lay a
+multitude of political units--republics and despots--in part of long
+standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply
+on their power to maintain it.[3] In them for the first time we detect
+the modern political spirit of Europe, surrendered freely to its own
+instincts, often displaying the worst features of an unbridled egoism,
+outraging every right, and killing every germ of a healthier culture.
+But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or in any way
+compensated, a new fact appears in history--the state as the outcome of
+reflection and calculation, the state as a work of art. This new life
+displays itself in a hundred forms, both in the republican and in the
+despotic states, and determines their inward constitution, no less than
+their foreign policy. We shall limit ourselves to the consideration of
+the completer and more clearly defined type, which is offered by the
+despotic states.
+
+The internal condition of the despotically governed states had a
+memorable counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily,
+after its transformation by the Emperor Frederick II.[4] Bred amid
+treason and peril in the neighbourhood of the Saracens, Frederick, the
+first ruler of the modern type who sat upon a throne, had early
+accustomed himself, both in criticism and action, to a thoroughly
+objective treatment of affairs. His acquaintance with the internal
+condition and administration of the Saracenic states was close and
+intimate; and the mortal struggle in which he was engaged with the
+Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring into the
+field all the resources at his command. Frederick's measures (especially
+after the year 1231) are aimed at the complete destruction of the feudal
+state, at the transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of
+will and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the utmost degree
+to the exchequer. He centralised, in a manner hitherto unknown in the
+West, the whole judicial and political administration by establishing
+the right of appeal from the feudal courts, which he did not, however,
+abolish, to the imperial judges. No office was henceforth to be filled
+by popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the offending
+district and of the enslavement of its inhabitants. Excise duties were
+introduced; the taxes, based on a comprehensive assessment, and
+distributed in accordance with Mohammedan usages, were collected by
+those cruel and vexatious methods without which, it is true, it is
+impossible to obtain any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find,
+not a people, but simply a disciplined multitude of subjects; who were
+forbidden, for example, to marry out of the country without special
+permission, and under no circumstances were allowed to study abroad. The
+University of Naples was the first we know of to restrict the freedom of
+study, while the East, in these respects at all events, left its youth
+unfettered. It was after the example of Mohammedan rulers that Frederick
+traded on his own account in all parts of the Mediterranean, reserving
+to himself the monopoly of many commodities, and restricting in various
+ways the commerce of his subjects. The Fatimite Caliphs, with all their
+esoteric unbelief, were, at least in their earlier history, tolerant of
+the differences in the religious faith of their people; Frederick, on
+the other hand, crowned his system of government by a religious
+inquisition, which will seem the more reprehensible when we remember
+that in the persons of the heretics he was persecuting the
+representatives of a free municipal life. Lastly, the internal police,
+and the kernel of the army for foreign service, was composed of Saracens
+who had been brought over from Sicily to Nocera and Luceria--men who
+were deaf to the cry of misery and careless of the ban of the Church. At
+a later period the subjects, by whom the use of weapons had long been
+forgotten, were passive witnesses of the fall of Manfred and of the
+seizure of the government by Charles of Anjou; the latter continued to
+use the system which he found already at work.
+
+At the side of the centralising Emperor appeared an usurper of the most
+peculiar kind: his vicar and son-in-law, Ezzelino da Romano. He stands
+as the representative of no system of government or administration, for
+all his activity was wasted in struggles for supremacy in the eastern
+part of Upper Italy; but as a political type he was a figure of no less
+importance for the future than his imperial protector Frederick. The
+conquests and usurpations which had hitherto taken place in the Middle
+Ages rested on real or pretended inheritance and other such claims, or
+else were effected against unbelievers and excommunicated persons. Here
+for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a throne by
+wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the adoption, in short, of
+any means with a view to nothing but the end pursued. None of his
+successors, not even Cæsar Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of
+Ezzelino; but the example once set was not forgotten, and his fall led
+to no return of justice among the nations, and served as no warning to
+future transgressors.
+
+It was in vain at such a time that St. Thomas Aquinas, a born subject of
+Frederick, set up the theory of a constitutional monarchy, in which the
+prince was to be supported by an upper house named by himself, and a
+representative body elected by the people; in vain did he concede to
+the people the right of revolution.[5] Such theories found no echo
+outside the lecture-room, and Frederick and Ezzelino were and remain for
+Italy the great political phenomena of the thirteenth century. Their
+personality, already half legendary, forms the most important subject of
+'The Hundred Old Tales,' whose original composition falls certainly
+within this century.[6] In them Frederick is already represented as
+possessing the right to do as he pleased with the property of his
+subjects, and exercises on all, even on criminals, a profound influence
+by the force of his personality; Ezzelino is spoken of with the awe
+which all mighty impressions leave behind them. His person became the
+centre of a whole literature from the chronicle of eyewitnesses to the
+half-mythical tragedy[7] of later poets.
+
+Immediately after the fall of Frederick and Ezzelino, a crowd of tyrants
+appeared upon the scene. The struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline was
+their opportunity. They came forward in general as Ghibelline leaders,
+but at times and under conditions so various that it is impossible not
+to recognise in the fact a law of supreme and universal necessity. The
+means which they used were those already familiar in the party struggles
+of the past--the banishment or destruction of their adversaries and of
+their adversaries' households.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE TYRANNY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+The tyrannies, great and small, of the fourteenth century afford
+constant proof that examples such as these were not thrown away. Their
+misdeeds cried forth loudly and have been circumstantially told by
+historians. As states depending for existence on themselves alone, and
+scientifically organised with a view to this object, they present to us
+a higher interest than that of mere narrative.
+
+The deliberate adaptation of means to ends, of which no prince out of
+Italy had at that time a conception, joined to almost absolute power
+within the limits of the state, produced among the despots both men and
+modes of life of a peculiar character.[8] The chief secret of government
+in the hands of the prudent ruler lay in leaving the incidence of
+taxation so far as possible where he found it, or as he had first
+arranged it. The chief sources of income were: a land tax, based on a
+valuation; definite taxes on articles of consumption and duties on
+exported and imported goods; together with the private fortune of the
+ruling house. The only possible increase was derived from the growth of
+business and of general prosperity. Loans, such as we find in the free
+cities, were here unknown; a well-planned confiscation was held a
+preferable means of raising money, provided only that it left public
+credit unshaken--an end attained, for example, by the truly Oriental
+practice of deposing and plundering the director of the finances.[9]
+
+Out of this income the expenses of the little court, of the body-guard,
+of the mercenary troops, and of the public buildings were met, as well
+as of the buffoons and men of talent who belonged to the personal
+attendants of the prince. The illegitimacy of his rule isolated the
+tyrant and surrounded him with constant danger; the most honourable
+alliance which he could form was with intellectual merit, without regard
+to its origin. The liberality of the northern princes of the thirteenth
+century was confined to the knights, to the nobility which served and
+sang. It was otherwise with the Italian despot. With his thirst of fame
+and his passion for monumental works, it was talent, not birth, which he
+needed. In the company of the poet and the scholar he felt himself in a
+new position, almost, indeed, in possession of a new legitimacy.
+
+No prince was more famous in this respect than the ruler of Verona, Can
+Grande della Scala, who numbered among the illustrious exiles whom he
+entertained at his court representatives of the whole of Italy.[10] The
+men of letters were not ungrateful. Petrarch, whose visits at the courts
+of such men have been so severely censured, sketched an ideal picture of
+a prince of the fourteenth century.[11] He demands great things from his
+patron, the lord of Padua, but in a manner which shows that he holds him
+capable of them. 'Thou must not be the master but the father of thy
+subjects, and must love them as thy children; yea, as members of thy
+body.[12] Weapons, guards, and soldiers thou mayest employ against the
+enemy--with thy subjects goodwill is sufficient. By citizens, of course,
+I mean those who love the existing order; for those who daily desire
+change are rebels and traitors, and against such a stern justice may
+take its course.'
+
+Here follows, worked out in detail, the purely modern fiction of the
+omnipotence of the state. The prince is to be independent of his
+courtiers, but at the same time to govern with simplicity and modesty;
+he is to take everything into his charge, to maintain and restore
+churches and public buildings, to keep up the municipal police,[13] to
+drain the marshes, to look after the supply of wine and corn; he is to
+exercise a strict justice, so to distribute the taxes that the people
+can recognise their necessity and the regret of the ruler to be
+compelled to put his hands in the pockets of others; he is to support
+the sick and the helpless, and to give his protection and society to
+distinguished scholars, on whom his fame in after ages will depend.
+
+But whatever might be the brighter sides of the system, and the merits
+of individual rulers, yet the men of the fourteenth century were not
+without a more or less distinct consciousness of the brief and uncertain
+tenure of most of these despotisms. Inasmuch as political institutions
+like these are naturally secure in proportion to the size of the
+territory in which they exist, the larger principalities were constantly
+tempted to swallow up the smaller. Whole hecatombs of petty rulers were
+sacrificed at this time to the Visconti alone. As a result of this
+outward danger an inward ferment was in ceaseless activity; and the
+effect of the situation on the character of the ruler was generally of
+the most sinister kind. Absolute power, with its temptations to luxury
+and unbridled selfishness, and the perils to which he was exposed from
+enemies and conspirators, turned him almost inevitably into a tyrant in
+the worst sense of the word. Well for him if he could trust his nearest
+relations! But where all was illegitimate, there could be no regular law
+of inheritance, either with regard to the succession or to the division
+of the ruler's property; and consequently the heir, if incompetent or a
+minor, was liable in the interest of the family itself to be supplanted
+by an uncle or cousin of more resolute character. The acknowledgment or
+exclusion of the bastards was a fruitful source of contest; and most of
+these families in consequence were plagued with a crowd of discontented
+and vindictive kinsmen. This circumstance gave rise to continual
+outbreaks of treason and to frightful scenes of domestic bloodshed.
+Sometimes the pretenders lived abroad in exile, and like the Visconti,
+who practised the fisherman's craft on the Lake of Garda,[14] viewed the
+situation with patient indifference. When asked by a messenger of his
+rival when and how he thought of returning to Milan, he gave the reply,
+'By the same means as those by which I was expelled, but not till his
+crimes have outweighed my own.' Sometimes, too, the despot was
+sacrificed by his relations, with the view of saving the family, to the
+public conscience which he had too grossly outraged.[15] In a few cases
+the government was in the hands of the whole family, or at least the
+ruler was bound to take their advice; and here, too, the distribution of
+property and influence often led to bitter disputes.
+
+The whole of this system excited the deep and persistent hatred of the
+Florentine writers of that epoch. Even the pomp and display with which
+the despot was perhaps less anxious to gratify his own vanity than to
+impress the popular imagination, awakened their keenest sarcasm. Woe to
+an adventurer if he fell into their hands, like the upstart Doge Aguello
+of Pisa (1364), who used to ride out with a golden sceptre, and show
+himself at the window of his house, 'as relics are shown.' reclining on
+embroidered drapery and cushions, served like a pope or emperor, by
+kneeling attendants.[16] More often, however, the old Florentines speak
+on this subject in a tone of lofty seriousness. Dante saw and
+characterised well the vulgarity and commonplace which mark the ambition
+of the new princes.[17] 'What mean their trumpets and their bells,
+their horns and their flutes; but come, hangman--come, vultures?' The
+castle of the tyrant, as pictured by the popular mind, is a lofty and
+solitary building, full of dungeons and listening-tubes,[18] the home of
+cruelty and misery. Misfortune is foretold to all who enter the service
+of the despot,[19] who even becomes at last himself an object of pity:
+he must needs be the enemy of all good and honest men; he can trust no
+one, and can read in the faces of his subjects the expectation of his
+fall. 'As despotisms rise, grow, and are consolidated, so grows in their
+midst the hidden element which must produce their dissolution and
+ruin.'[20] But the deepest ground of dislike has not been stated;
+Florence was then the scene of the richest development of human
+individuality, while for the despots no other individuality could be
+suffered to live and thrive but their own and that of their nearest
+dependents. The control of the individual was rigorously carried out,
+even down to the establishment of a system of passports.[21]
+
+The astrological superstitions and the religious unbelief of many of the
+tyrants gave, in the minds of their contemporaries, a peculiar colour to
+this awful and God-forsaken existence. When the last Carrara could no
+longer defend the walls and gates of the plague-stricken Padua, hemmed
+in on all sides by the Venetians (1405), the soldiers of the guard heard
+him cry to the devil 'to come and kill him.'
+
+The most complete and instructive type of the tyranny of the fourteenth
+century is to be found unquestionably among the Visconti of Milan, from
+the death of the Archbishop Giovanni onwards (1354). The family likeness
+which shows itself between Bernabò and the worst of the Roman Emperors
+is unmistakable;[22] the most important public object was the prince's
+boar-hunting; whoever interfered with it was put to death with torture;
+the terrified people were forced to maintain 5,000 boar-hounds, with
+strict responsibility for their health and safety. The taxes were
+extorted by every conceivable sort of compulsion; seven daughters of the
+prince received a dowry of 100,000 gold florins apiece; and an enormous
+treasure was collected. On the death of his wife (1384) an order was
+issued 'to the subjects' to share his grief, as once they had shared his
+joy, and to wear mourning for a year. The _coup de main_ (1385) by which
+his nephew Giangaleazzo got him into his power--one of those brilliant
+plots which make the heart of even late historians beat more
+quickly[23]--was strikingly characteristic of the man. Giangaleazzo,
+despised by his relations on account of his religion and his love of
+science, resolved on vengeance, and, leaving the city under pretext of a
+pilgrimage, fell upon his unsuspecting uncle, took him prisoner, forced
+his way back into the city at the head of an armed band, seized on the
+government, and gave up the palace of Bernabò to general plunder.
+
+In Giangaleazzo that passion for the colossal which was common to most
+of the despots shows itself on the largest scale. He undertook, at the
+cost of 300,000 golden florins, the construction of gigantic dykes, to
+divert in case of need the Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua,
+and thus to render these cities defenceless.[24] It is not impossible,
+indeed, that he thought of draining away the lagoons of Venice. He
+founded that most wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia,[25]
+and the cathedral of Milan, 'which exceeds in size and splendour all
+the churches of Christendom.' The Palace in Pavia, which his father
+Galeazzo began and which he himself finished, was probably by far the
+most magnificent of the princely dwellings of Europe. There he
+transferred his famous library, and the great collection of relics of
+the saints, in which he placed a peculiar faith. King Winceslaus made
+him Duke (1395); he was hoping for nothing less than the Kingdom of
+Italy[26] or the Imperial crown, when (1402) he fell ill and died. His
+whole territories are said to have paid him in a single year, besides
+the regular contribution of 1,200,000 gold florins, no less than 800,000
+more in extraordinary subsidies. After his death the dominions which he
+had brought together by every sort of violence fell to pieces; and for a
+time even the original nucleus could with difficulty be maintained by
+his successors. What might have become of his sons Giovanni Maria (died
+1412) and Filippo Maria (died 1417), had they lived in a different
+country and among other traditions, cannot be said. But, as heirs of
+their house, they inherited that monstrous capital of cruelty and
+cowardice which had been accumulated from generation to generation.
+
+Giovanni Maria, too, is famed for his dogs, which were no longer,
+however, used for hunting, but for tearing human bodies. Tradition has
+preserved their names, like those of the bears of the Emperor
+Valentinian I.[27] In May, 1409, when war was going on, and the starving
+populace cried to him in the streets, _Pace! Pace!_ he let loose his
+mercenaries upon them, and 200 lives were sacrificed; under penalty of
+the gallows it was forbidden to utter the words _pace_ and _guerra_, and
+the priests were ordered, instead of _dona nobis pacem_, to say
+_tranquillitatem_! At last a band of conspirators took advantage of the
+moment when Facino Cane, the chief Condottiere of the insane ruler, lay
+ill at Pavia, and cut down Giovan Maria in the church of San Gottardo at
+Milan; the dying Facino on the same day made his officers swear to stand
+by the heir Filippo Maria, whom he himself urged his wife[28] to take
+for a second husband. His wife, Beatrice di Tenda, followed his advice.
+We shall have occasion to speak of Filippo Maria later on.
+
+And in times like these Cola di Rienzi was dreaming of founding on the
+rickety enthusiasm of the corrupt population of Rome a new state which
+was to comprise all Italy. By the side of rulers such as those whom we
+have described, he seems no better than a poor deluded fool.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE TYRANNY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+The despotisms of the fifteenth century show an altered character. Many
+of the less important tyrants, and some of the greater, like the Scala
+and the Carrara, had disappeared, while the more powerful ones,
+aggrandized by conquest, had given to their systems each its
+characteristic development. Naples for example received a fresh and
+stronger impulse from the new Arragonese dynasty. A striking feature of
+this epoch is the attempt of the Condottieri to found independent
+dynasties of their own. Facts and the actual relations of things, apart
+from traditional estimates, are alone regarded; talent and audacity win
+the great prizes. The petty despots, to secure a trustworthy support,
+begin to enter the service of the larger states, and become themselves
+Condottieri, receiving in return for their services money and impunity
+for their misdeeds, if not an increase of territory. All, whether small
+or great, must exert themselves more, must act with greater caution and
+calculation, and must learn to refrain from too wholesale barbarities;
+only so much wrong is permitted by public opinion as is necessary for
+the end in view, and this the impartial bystander certainly finds no
+fault with. No trace is here visible of that half-religious loyalty by
+which the legitimate princes of the West were supported; personal
+popularity is the nearest approach we can find to it. Talent and
+calculation are the only means of advancement. A character like that of
+Charles the Bold, which wore itself out in the passionate pursuit of
+impracticable ends, was a riddle to the Italian. 'The Swiss were only
+peasants, and if they were all killed, that would be no satisfaction for
+the Burgundian nobles who might fall in the war. If the Duke got
+possession of all Switzerland without a struggle, his income would not
+be 5,000 ducats the greater.'[29] The mediæval features in the
+character of Charles, his chivalrous aspirations and ideals, had long
+become unintelligible to the Italian. The diplomatists of the South,
+when they saw him strike his officers and yet keep them in his service,
+when he maltreated his troops to punish them for a defeat, and then
+threw the blame on his counsellors in the presence of the same troops,
+gave him up for lost.[30] Louis XI., on the other hand, whose policy
+surpasses that of the Italian princes in their own style, and who was an
+avowed admirer of Francesco Sforza, must be placed in all that regards
+culture and refinement far below these rulers.
+
+Good and evil lie strangely mixed together in the Italian States of the
+fifteenth century. The personality of the ruler is so highly developed,
+often of such deep significance, and so characteristic of the conditions
+and needs of the time, that to form an adequate moral judgment on it is
+no easy task.[31]
+
+The foundation of the system was and remained illegitimate, and nothing
+could remove the curse which rested upon it. The imperial approval or
+investiture made no change in the matter, since the people attached
+little weight to the fact, that the despot had bought a piece of
+parchment somewhere in foreign countries, or from some stranger passing
+through his territory.[32] If the Emperor had been good for anything--so
+ran the logic of uncritical common sense--he would never have let the
+tyrant rise at all. Since the Roman expedition of Charles IV., the
+emperors had done nothing more in Italy than sanction a tyranny which
+had arisen without their help; they could give it no other practical
+authority than what might flow from an imperial charter. The whole
+conduct of Charles in Italy was a scandalous political comedy. Matteo
+Villani[33] relates how the Visconti escorted him round their territory,
+and at last out of it; how he went about like a hawker selling his wares
+(privileges, etc.) for money; what a mean appearance he made in Rome,
+and how at the end, without even drawing the sword, he returned with
+replenished coffers across the Alps. Nevertheless, patriotic enthusiasts
+and poets, full of the greatness of the past, conceived high hopes at
+his coming, which were afterwards dissipated by his pitiful conduct.
+Petrarch, who had written frequent letters exhorting the Emperor to
+cross the Alps, to give back to Rome its departed greatness, and to set
+up a new universal empire, now, when the Emperor, careless of these
+high-flying projects, had come at last, still hoped to see his dreams
+realized, strove unweariedly, by speech and writing, to impress the
+Emperor with them, but was at length driven away from him with disgust
+when he saw the imperial authority dishonoured by the submission of
+Charles to the Pope.[34] Sigismund came, on the first occasion at least
+(1414), with the good intention of persuading John XXIII. to take part
+in his council; it was on that journey, when Pope and Emperor were
+gazing from the lofty tower of Cremona on the panorama of Lombardy, that
+their host, the tyrant Gabino Fondolo, was seized with the desire to
+throw them both over. On his second visit Sigismund came as a mere
+adventurer, giving no proof whatever of his imperial prerogative, except
+by crowning Beccadelli as a poet; for more than half a year he remained
+shut up in Siena, like a debtor in gaol, and only with difficulty, and
+at a later period, succeeded in being crowned in Rome. And what can be
+thought of Frederick III.? His journeys to Italy have the air of
+holiday-trips or pleasure-tours made at the expense of those who wanted
+him to confirm their prerogatives, or whose vanity it flattered to
+entertain an emperor. The latter was the case with Alfonso of Naples,
+who paid 150,000 florins for the honour of an imperial visit.[35] At
+Ferrara,[36] on his second return from Rome (1469), Frederick spent a
+whole day without leaving his chamber, distributing no less than eighty
+titles; he created knights, counts, doctors, notaries--counts, indeed,
+of different degrees, as, for instance, counts palatine, counts with the
+right to create doctors up to the number of five, counts with the right
+to legitimatise bastards, to appoint notaries, and so forth. The
+Chancellor, however, expected in return for the patents in question a
+gratuity which was thought excessive at Ferrara.[37] The opinion of
+Borso, himself created Duke of Modena and Reggio in return for an annual
+payment of 4,000 gold florins, when his imperial patron was distributing
+titles and diplomas to all the little court, is not mentioned. The
+humanists, then the chief spokesmen of the age, were divided in opinion
+according to their personal interests, while the Emperor was greeted by
+some[38] of them with the conventional acclamations of the poets of
+imperial Rome. Poggio[39] confessed that he no longer knew what the
+coronation meant; in the old times only the victorious Inperator was
+crowned, and then he was crowned with laurel.[40]
+
+With Maximilian I. begins not only the general intervention of foreign
+nations, but a new imperial policy with regard to Italy. The first
+step--the investiture of Ludovico Moro with the duchy of Milan and the
+exclusion of his unhappy nephew--was not of a kind to bear good fruits.
+According to the modern theory of intervention, when two parties are
+tearing a country to pieces, a third may step in and take its share, and
+on this principle the empire acted. But right and justice were appealed
+to no longer. When Louis XII. was expected in Genoa (1502), and the
+imperial eagle was removed from the hall of the ducal palace and
+replaced by painted lilies, the historian, Senarega[41] asked what after
+all, was the meaning of the eagle which so many revolutions had spared,
+and what claims the empire had upon Genoa. No one knew more about the
+matter than the old phrase that Genoa was a _camera imperii_. In fact,
+nobody in Italy could give a clear answer to any such questions. At
+length, when Charles V. held Spain and the empire together, he was able
+by means of Spanish forces to make good imperial claims; but it is
+notorious that what he thereby gained turned to the profit, not of the
+empire, but of the Spanish monarchy.
+
+Closely connected with the political illegitimacy of the dynasties of
+the fifteenth century, was the public indifference to legitimate birth,
+which to foreigners--for example, to Comines--appeared so remarkable.
+The two things went naturally together. In northern countries, as in
+Burgundy, the illegitimate offspring were provided for by a distinct
+class of appanages, such as bishoprics and the like; in Portugal an
+illegitimate line maintained itself on the throne only by constant
+effort; in Italy, on the contrary, there no longer existed a princely
+house where, even in the direct line of descent, bastards were not
+patiently tolerated. The Aragonese monarchs of Naples belonged to the
+illegitimate line, Aragon itself falling to the lot of the brother of
+Alfonso I. The great Frederick of Urbino was, perhaps, no Montefeltro at
+all. When Pius II. was on his way to the Congress of Mantua (1459),
+eight bastards of the house of Este rode to meet him at Ferrara, among
+them the reigning duke Borso himself and two illegitimate sons of his
+illegitimate brother and predecessor Leonello.[42] The latter had also
+had a lawful wife, herself an illegitimate daughter of Alfonso I. of
+Naples by an African woman.[43] The bastards were often admitted to the
+succession where the lawful children were minors and the dangers of the
+situation were pressing; and a rule of seniority became recognised,
+which took no account of pure or impure birth. The fitness of the
+individual, his worth and his capacity, were of more weight than all the
+laws and usages which prevailed elsewhere in the West. It was the age,
+indeed, in which the sons of the Popes were founding dynasties. In the
+sixteenth century, through the influence of foreign ideas and of the
+counter-reformation which then began, the whole question was judged more
+strictly: Varchi discovers that the succession of the legitimate
+children 'is ordered by reason, and is the will of heaven from
+eternity.'[44] Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici founded his claim to the
+lordship of Florence on the fact that he was perhaps the fruit of a
+lawful marriage, and at all events son of a gentlewoman, and not, like
+Duke Alessandro, of a servant girl.[45] At this time began those
+morganatic marriages of affection which in the fifteenth century, on
+grounds either of policy or morality, would have had no meaning at all.
+
+But the highest and the most admired form of illegitimacy in the
+fifteenth century was presented by the Condottiere, who, whatever may
+have been his origin, raised himself to the position of an independent
+ruler. At bottom, the occupation of Lower Italy by the Normans in the
+eleventh century was of this character. Such attempts now began to keep
+the peninsula in a constant ferment.
+
+It was possible for a Condottiere to obtain the lordship of a district
+even without usurpation, in the case when his employer, through want of
+money or troops, provided for him in this way;[46] under any
+circumstances the Condottiere, even when he dismissed for the time the
+greater part of his forces, needed a safe place where he could establish
+his winter quarters, and lay up his stores and provisions. The first
+example of a captain thus portioned is John Hawkwood, who was invested
+by Gregory XI. with the lordship of Bagnacavallo and Cotignola.[47] When
+with Alberigo da Barbiano Italian armies and leaders appeared upon the
+scene, the chances of founding a principality, or of increasing one
+already acquired, became more frequent. The first great bacchanalian
+outbreak of military ambition took place in the duchy of Milan after the
+death of Giangaleazzo (1402). The policy of his two sons was chiefly
+aimed at the destruction of the new despotisms founded by the
+Condottieri; and from the greatest of them, Facino Cane, the house of
+Visconti inherited, together with his widow, a long list of cities, and
+400,000 golden florins, not to speak of the soldiers of her first
+husband whom Beatrice di Tenda brought with her.[48] From henceforth
+that thoroughly immoral relation between the governments and their
+Condottieri, which is characteristic of the fifteenth century, became
+more and more common. An old story[49]--one of those which are true and
+not true, everywhere and nowhere--describes it as follows: The citizens
+of a certain town (Siena seems to be meant) had once an officer in their
+service who had freed them from foreign aggression; daily they took
+counsel how to recompense him, and concluded that no reward in their
+power was great enough, not even if they made him lord of the city. At
+last one of them rose and said, 'Let us kill him and then worship him as
+our patron saint.' And so they did, following the example set by the
+Roman senate with Romulus. In fact, the Condottieri had reason to fear
+none so much as their employers; if they were successful, they became
+dangerous, and were put out of the way like Robert Malatesta just after
+the victory he had won for Sixtus IV. (1482); if they failed, the
+vengeance of the Venetians on Carmagnola[50] showed to what risks they
+were exposed (1432). It is characteristic of the moral aspect of the
+situation, that the Condottieri had often to give their wives and
+children as hostages, and notwithstanding this, neither felt nor
+inspired confidence. They must have been heroes of abnegation, natures
+like Belisarius himself, not to be cankered by hatred and bitterness;
+only the most perfect goodness could save them from the most monstrous
+iniquity. No wonder then if we find them full of contempt for all sacred
+things, cruel and treacherous to their fellows--men who cared nothing
+whether or no they died under the ban of the Church. At the same time,
+and through the force of the same conditions, the genius and capacity
+of many among them attained the highest conceivable development, and won
+for them the admiring devotion of their followers; their armies are the
+first in modern history in which the personal credit of the leader is
+the one moving power. A brilliant example is shown in the life of
+Francesco Sforza;[51] no prejudice of birth could prevent him from
+winning and turning to account when he needed it a boundless devotion
+from each individual with whom he had to deal; it happened more than
+once that his enemies laid down their arms at the sight of him, greeting
+him reverently with uncovered heads, each honouring in him 'the common
+father of the men-at-arms.' The race of the Sforza has this special
+interest, that from the very beginning of its history we seem able to
+trace its endeavours after the crown.[52] The foundation of its fortune
+lay in the remarkable fruitfulness of the family; Francesco's father,
+Jacopo, himself a celebrated man, had twenty brothers and sisters, all
+brought up roughly at Cotignola, near Faenza, amid the perils of one of
+the endless Romagnole 'vendette' between their own house and that of the
+Pasolini. The family dwelling was a mere arsenal and fortress; the
+mother and daughters were as warlike as their kinsmen. In his thirteenth
+year Jacopo ran away and fled to Panicale to the Papal Condottiere
+Boldrino--the man who even in death continued to lead his troops, the
+word of order being given from the bannered tent in which the embalmed
+body lay, till at last a fit leader was found to succeed him. Jacopo,
+when he had at length made himself a name in the service of different
+Condottieri, sent for his relations, and obtained through them the same
+advantages that a prince derives from a numerous dynasty. It was these
+relations who kept the army together when he lay a captive in the Castel
+dell'Uovo at Naples; his sister took the royal envoys prisoners with her
+own hands, and saved him by this reprisal from death. It was an
+indication of the breadth and the range of his plans that in monetary
+affairs Jacopo was thoroughly trustworthy; even in his defeats he
+consequently found credit with the bankers. He habitually protected the
+peasants against the licence of his troops, and reluctantly destroyed or
+injured a conquered city. He gave his well-known mistress, Lucia, the
+mother of Francesco, in marriage to another in order to be free from a
+princely alliance. Even the marriages of his relations were arranged on
+a definite plan. He kept clear of the impious and profligate life of his
+contemporaries, and brought up his son Francesco to the three rules:
+'Let other men's wives alone; strike none of your followers, or, if you
+do, send the injured man far away; don't ride a hard-mouthed horse, or
+one that drops his shoe.' But his chief source of influence lay in the
+qualities, if not of a great general, at least of a great soldier. His
+frame was powerful, and developed by every kind of exercise; his
+peasant's face and frank manners won general popularity; his memory was
+marvellous, and after the lapse of years could recall the names of his
+followers, the number of their horses, and the amount of their pay. His
+education was purely Italian: he devoted his leisure to the study of
+history, and had Greek and Latin authors translated for his use.
+Francesco, his still more famous son, set his mind from the first on
+founding a powerful state, and through brilliant generalship and a
+faithlessness which hesitated at nothing, got possession of the great
+city of Milan (1447-1450).
+
+His example was contagious. Æneas Sylvius wrote about this time:[53] 'In
+our change-loving Italy, where nothing stands firm, and where no ancient
+dynasty exists, a servant can easily become a king.' One man in
+particular, who styled himself 'the man of fortune,' filled the
+imagination of the whole country: Giacomo Piccinino, the son of Niccolò.
+It was a burning question of the day if he, too, would succeed in
+founding a princely house. The greater states had an obvious interest in
+hindering it, and even Francesco Sforza thought it would be all the
+better if the list of self-made sovereigns were not enlarged. But the
+troops and captains sent against him, at the time, for instance, when
+he was aiming at the lordship of Siena, recognised their interest in
+supporting him:[54] 'If it were all over with him, we should have to go
+back and plough our fields.' Even while besieging him at Orbetello, they
+supplied him with provisions; and he got out of his straits with honour.
+But at last fate overtook him. All Italy was betting on the result, when
+(1465), after a visit to Sforza at Milan, he went to King Ferrante at
+Naples. In spite of the pledges given, and of his high connections, he
+was murdered in the Castel dell'Uovo.[55] Even the Condottieri, who had
+obtained their dominions by inheritance, never felt themselves safe.
+When Roberto Malatesta and Frederick of Urbino died on the same day
+(1482), the one at Rome, the other at Bologna, it was found[56] that
+each had recommended his state to the care of the other. Against a class
+of men who themselves stuck at nothing, everything was held to be
+permissible. Francesco Sforza, when quite young, had married a rich
+Calabrian heiress, Polissena Russa, Countess of Montalto, who bore him a
+daughter; an aunt poisoned both mother and child, and seized the
+inheritance.[57]
+
+From the death of Piccinino onwards, the foundations of new States by
+the Condottieri became a scandal not to be tolerated. The four great
+Powers, Naples, Milan, the Papacy, and Venice, formed among themselves a
+political equilibrium which refused to allow of any disturbance. In the
+States of the Church, which swarmed with petty tyrants, who in part
+were, or had been, Condottieri, the nephews of the Popes, since the time
+of Sixtus IV., monopolised the right to all such undertakings. But at
+the first sign of a political crisis, the soldiers of fortune appeared
+again upon the scene. Under the wretched administration of Innocent
+VIII. it was near happening that a certain Boccalino, who had formerly
+served in the Burgundian army, gave himself and the town of Osimo, of
+which he was master, up to the Turkish forces;[58] fortunately, through
+the intervention of Lorenzo the Magnificent, he proved willing to be
+paid off, and took himself away. In the year 1495, when the wars of
+Charles VIII. had turned Italy upside down, the Condottiere Vidovero, of
+Brescia, made trial of his strength:[59] he had already seized the town
+of Cesena and murdered many of the nobles and the burghers; but the
+citadel held out, and he was forced to withdraw. He then, at the head of
+a band lent him by another scoundrel, Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, son
+of the Roberto already spoken of, and Venetian Condottiere, wrested the
+town of Castelnuovo from the Archbishop of Ravenna. The Venetians,
+fearing that worse would follow, and urged also by the Pope, ordered
+Pandolfo, 'with the kindest intentions,' to take an opportunity of
+arresting his good friend: the arrest was made, though 'with great
+regret,' whereupon the order came to bring the prisoner to the gallows.
+Pandolfo was considerate enough to strangle him in prison, and then show
+his corpse to the people. The last notable example of such usurpers is
+the famous Castellan of Musso, who during the confusion in the Milanese
+territory which followed the battle of Pavia (1525), improvised a
+sovereignty on the Lake of Como.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE PETTY TYRANNIES.
+
+
+It may be said in general of the despotisms of the fifteenth century
+that the greatest crimes are most frequent in the smallest states. In
+these, where the family was numerous and all the members wished to live
+in a manner befitting their rank, disputes respecting the inheritance
+were unavoidable. Bernardo Varano of Camerino put (1434) two of his
+brothers to death,[60] wishing to divide their property among his sons.
+Where the ruler of a single town was distinguished by a wise, moderate,
+and humane government, and by zeal for intellectual culture, he was
+generally a member of some great family, or politically dependent on it.
+This was the case, for example, with Alessandro Sforza,[61] Prince of
+Pesaro, brother of the great Francesco, and stepfather of Frederick of
+Urbino (d. 1473). Prudent in administration, just and affable in his
+rule, he enjoyed, after years of warfare, a tranquil reign, collected a
+noble library, and passed his leisure in learned or religious
+conversation. A man of the same class was Giovanni II., Bentivoglio of
+Bologna (1462-1506), whose policy was determined by that of the Este and
+the Sforza. What ferocity and bloodthirstiness is found, on the other
+hand, among the Varani of Camerino, the Malatesta of Rimini, the
+Manfreddi of Faenza, and above all among the Baglioni of Perugia. We
+find a striking picture of the events in the last-named family towards
+the close of the fifteenth century, in the admirable historical
+narratives of Graziani and Materazzo.[62]
+
+The Baglioni were one of those families whose rule never took the shape
+of an avowed despotism. It was rather a leadership exercised by means
+of their vast wealth and of their practical influence in the choice of
+public officers. Within the family one man was recognised as head; but
+deep and secret jealousy prevailed among the members of the different
+branches. Opposed to the Baglioni stood another aristocratic party, led
+by the family of the Oddi. In 1487 the city was turned into a camp, and
+the houses of the leading citizens swarmed with bravos; scenes of
+violence were of daily occurrence. At the burial of a German student,
+who had been assassinated, two colleges took arms against one another;
+sometimes the bravos of the different houses even joined battle in the
+public square. The complaints of the merchants and artisans were vain;
+the Papal Governors and _Nipoti_ held their tongues, or took themselves
+off on the first opportunity. At last the Oddi were forced to abandon
+Perugia, and the city became a beleaguered fortress under the absolute
+despotism of the Baglioni, who used even the cathedral as barracks.
+Plots and surprises were met with cruel vengeance; in the year 1491,
+after 130 conspirators, who had forced their way into the city, were
+killed and hung up at the Palazzo Comunale, thirty-five altars were
+erected in the square, and for three days mass was performed and
+processions held, to take away the curse which rested on the spot. A
+nephew of Innocent VIII. was in open day run through in the street. A
+nephew of Alexander VI., who was sent to smooth matters over, was
+dismissed with public contempt. All the while the two leaders of the
+ruling house, Guido and Ridolfo, were holding frequent interviews with
+Suor Colomba of Rieti, a Dominican nun of saintly reputation and
+miraculous powers, who under penalty of some great disaster ordered them
+to make peace--naturally in vain. Nevertheless the chronicle takes the
+opportunity to point out the devotion and piety of the better men in
+Perugia during this reign of terror. When in 1494 Charles VIII.
+approached, the Baglioni from Perugia and the exiles encamped in and
+near Assisi conducted the war with such ferocity, that every house in
+the valley was levelled to the ground. The fields lay untilled, the
+peasants were turned into plundering and murdering savages, the
+fresh-grown bushes were filled with stags and wolves, and the beasts
+grew fat on the bodies of the slain, on so-called 'Christian flesh.'
+When Alexander VI. withdrew (1495) into Umbria before Charles VIII.,
+then returning from Naples, it occurred to him, when at Perugia, that he
+might now rid himself of the Baglioni once for all; he proposed to Guido
+a festival or tournament, or something else of the same kind, which
+would bring the whole family together. Guido, however, was of opinion,
+'that the most impressive spectacle of all would be to see the whole
+military force of Perugia collected in a body,' whereupon the Pope
+abandoned his project. Soon after, the exiles made another attack, in
+which nothing but the personal heroism of the Baglioni won them the
+victory. It was then that Simonetto Baglione, a lad of scarcely
+eighteen, fought in the square with a handful of followers against
+hundreds of the enemy: he fell at last with more than twenty wounds, but
+recovered himself when Astorre Baglione came to his help, and mounting
+on horseback in gilded armour with a falcon on his helmet, 'like Mars in
+bearing and in deeds, plunged into the struggle.'
+
+At that time Raphael, a boy of twelve years of age, was at school under
+Pietro Perugino. The impressions of these days are perhaps immortalised
+in the small, early pictures of St. Michael and St. George: something of
+them, it may be, lives eternally in the great painting of St. Michael:
+and if Astorre Baglione has anywhere found his apotheosis, it is in the
+figure of the heavenly horseman in the Heliodorus.
+
+The opponents of the Baglioni were partly destroyed, partly scattered in
+terror, and were henceforth incapable of another enterprise of the kind.
+After a time a partial reconciliation took place, and some of the exiles
+were allowed to return. But Perugia became none the safer or more
+tranquil: the inward discord of the ruling family broke out in frightful
+excesses. An opposition was formed against Guido and Ridolfo and their
+sons Gianpaolo, Simonetto, Astorre, Gismondo, Gentile, Marcantonio and
+others, by two great-nephews, Grifone and Carlo Barciglia; the latter of
+the two was also nephew of Varano, Prince of Camerino, and brother of
+one of the former exiles, Ieronimo della Penna. In vain did Simonetto,
+warned by sinister presentiment, entreat his uncle on his knees to allow
+him to put Penna to death: Guido refused. The plot ripened suddenly on
+the occasion of the marriage of Astorre with Lavinia Colonna, at
+Midsummer 1500. The festival began and lasted several days amid gloomy
+forebodings, whose deepening effect is admirably described by Matarazzo.
+Varano fed and encouraged them with devilish ingenuity: he worked upon
+Grifone by the prospect of undivided authority, and by stories of an
+imaginary intrigue of his wife Zenobia with Gianpaolo. Finally each
+conspirator was provided with a victim. (The Baglioni lived all of them
+in separate houses, mostly on the site of the present castle.) Each
+received fifteen of the bravos at hand; the remainder were set on the
+watch. In the night of July 15 the doors were forced, and Guido,
+Astorre, Simonetto, and Gismondo were murdered; the others succeeded in
+escaping.
+
+As the corpse of Astorre lay by that of Simonetto in the street, the
+spectators, 'and especially the foreign students,' compared him to an
+ancient Roman, so great and imposing did he seem. In the features of
+Simonetto could still be traced the audacity and defiance which death
+itself had not tamed. The victors went round among the friends of the
+family, and did their best to recommend themselves; they found all in
+tears and preparing to leave for the country. Meantime the escaped
+Baglioni collected forces without the city, and on the following day
+forced their way in, Gianpaolo at their head, and speedily found
+adherents among others whom Barciglia had been threatening with death.
+When Grifone fell into their hands near S. Ercolono. Gianpaolo handed
+him over for execution to his followers. Barciglia and Penna fled to
+Varano, the chief author of the tragedy, at Camerino; and in a moment,
+almost without loss, Gianpaolo became master of the city.
+
+Atalanta, the still young and beautiful mother of Grifone, who the day
+before had withdrawn to a country house with the latter's wife Zenobia
+and two children of Gianpaolo, and more than once had repulsed her son
+with a mother's curse, now returned with her step-daughter in search of
+the dying man. All stood aside as the two women approached, each man
+shrinking from being recognised as the slayer of Grifone, and dreading
+the malediction of the mother. But they were deceived: she herself
+besought her son to pardon him who had dealt the fatal blow, and he died
+with her blessing. The eyes of the crowd followed the two women
+reverently as they crossed the square with blood-stained garments. It
+was Atalanta for whom Raphael afterwards painted the world-famed
+'Deposition,' with which she laid her own maternal sorrows at the feet
+of a yet higher and holier suffering.
+
+The cathedral, in the immediate neighbourhood of which the greater part
+of this tragedy had been enacted, was washed with wine and consecrated
+afresh. The triumphal arch, erected for the wedding, still remained
+standing, painted with the deeds of Astorre and with the laudatory
+verses of the narrator of these events, the worthy Matarazzo.
+
+A legendary history, which is simply the reflection of these atrocities,
+arose out of the early days of the Baglioni. All the members of this
+family from the beginning were reported to have died an evil
+death--twenty-seven on one occasion together; their houses were said to
+have been once before levelled to the ground, and the streets of Perugia
+paved with the bricks--and more of the same kind. Under Paul III. the
+destruction of their palaces really took place.[63]
+
+For a time they seem to have formed good resolutions, to have brought
+their own party into order, and to have protected the public officials
+against the arbitrary acts of the nobility. But the old curse broke out
+again like a smouldering fire. Gianpaolo was enticed to Rome under Leo
+X., and there beheaded; one of his sons, Orazio, who ruled in Perugia
+for a short time only, and by the most violent means, as the partisan of
+the Duke of Urbino (himself threatened by the Pope), once more repeated
+in his own family the horrors of the past. His uncle and three cousins
+were murdered, whereupon the Duke sent him word that enough had been
+done.[64] His brother, Malatesta Baglione, the Florentine general, has
+made himself immortal by the treason of 1530; and Malatesta's son
+Ridolfo, the last of the house, attained, by the murder of the legate
+and the public officers in the year 1534, a brief but sanguinary
+authority.
+
+Here and there we meet with the names of the rulers of Rimini.
+Unscrupulousness, impiety, military skill, and high culture, have been
+seldom so combined in one individual as in Sigismondo Malatesta (d.
+1467).[65] But the accumulated crimes of such a family must at last
+outweigh all talent, however great, and drag the tyrant into the abyss.
+Pandolfo, Sigismondo's nephew, who has been mentioned already, succeeded
+in holding his ground, for the sole reason that the Venetians refused to
+abandon their Condottiere, whatever guilt he might be chargeable with;
+when his subjects (1497), after ample provocation,[66] bombarded him in
+his castle at Rimini, and afterwards allowed him to escape, a Venetian
+commissioner brought him back, stained as he was with fratricide and
+every other abomination. Thirty years later the Malatesta were penniless
+exiles. In the year 1527, as in the time of Cæsar Borgia, a sort of
+epidemic fell on the petty tyrants: few of them outlived this date, and
+none to their own good. At Mirandola, which was governed by
+insignificant princes of the house of Pico, lived in the year 1533 a
+poor scholar, Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, who had fled from the sack of Rome
+to the hospitable hearth of the aged Giovanni Francesco Pico, nephew of
+the famous Giovanni; the discussions as to the sepulchral monument which
+the prince was constructing for himself gave rise to a treatise, the
+dedication of which bears the date of April in this year. The postscript
+is a sad one.[67]--'In October of the same year the unhappy prince was
+attacked in the night and robbed of life and throne by his brother's
+son; and I myself escaped narrowly, and am now in the deepest misery.'
+
+A pseudo-despotism without characteristic features, such as Pandolfo
+Petrucci exercised from the year 1490 in Siena, then torn by faction, is
+hardly worth a closer consideration. Insignificant and malicious, he
+governed with the help of a professor of jurisprudence and of an
+astrologer, and frightened his people by an occasional murder. His
+pastime in the summer months was to roll blocks of stone from the top of
+Monte Amiata, without caring what or whom they hit. After succeeding,
+where the most prudent failed, in escaping from the devices of Cæsar
+Borgia, he died at last forsaken and despised. His sons maintained a
+qualified supremacy for many years afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE GREATER DYNASTIES.
+
+
+In treating of the chief dynasties of Italy, it is convenient to discuss
+the Aragonese, on account of its special character, apart from the rest.
+The feudal system, which from the days of the Normans had survived in
+the form of a territorial supremacy of the Barons, gave a distinctive
+colour to the political constitution of Naples; while elsewhere in
+Italy, excepting only in the southern part of the ecclesiastical
+dominion, and in a few other districts, a direct tenure of land
+prevailed, and no hereditary powers were permitted by the law. The great
+Alfonso, who reigned in Naples from 1435 onwards (d. 1458), was a man of
+another kind than his real or alleged descendants. Brilliant in his
+whole existence, fearless in mixing with his people, mild and generous
+towards his enemies, dignified and affable in intercourse, modest
+notwithstanding his legitimate royal descent, admired rather than blamed
+even for his old man's passion for Lucrezia d'Alagna, he had the one bad
+quality of extravagance,[68] from which, however, the natural
+consequence followed. Unscrupulous financiers were long omnipotent at
+Court, till the bankrupt king robbed them of their spoils; a crusade was
+preached, as a pretext for taxing the clergy; the Jews were forced to
+save themselves from conversion and other oppressive measures by
+presents and the payment of regular taxes; when a great earthquake
+happening in the Abruzzi, the survivors were compelled to make good the
+contributions of the dead. On the other hand, he abolished unreasonable
+taxes, like that on dice, and aimed at relieving his poorer subjects
+from the imposts which pressed most heavily upon them. By such means
+Alfonso was able to entertain distinguished guests with unrivalled
+splendour; he found pleasure in ceaseless expense, even for the benefit
+of his enemies, and in rewarding literary work knew absolutely no
+measure. Poggio received 500 pieces of gold for translating Xenophon's
+'Cyropædeia.'
+
+Ferrante,[69] who succeeded him, passed as his illegitimate son by a
+Spanish lady, but was not improbably the son of a half-caste Moor of
+Valentia. Whether it was his blood or the plots formed against his life
+by the barons which embittered and darkened his nature, it is certain
+that he was equalled in ferocity by none among the princes of his time.
+Restlessly active, recognised as one of the most powerful political
+minds of the day, and free from the vices of the profligate, he
+concentrated all his powers, among which must be reckoned profound
+dissimulation and an irreconcileable spirit of vengeance, on the
+destruction of his opponents. He had been wounded in every point in
+which a ruler is open to offence; for the leaders of the barons, though
+related to him by marriage, were yet the allies of his foreign enemies.
+Extreme measures became part of his daily policy. The means for this
+struggle with his barons, and for his external wars, were exacted in the
+same Mohammedan fashion which Frederick II. had introduced: the
+Government alone dealt in oil and wine; the whole commerce of the
+country was put by Ferrante into the hands of a wealthy merchant,
+Francesco Coppola, who had entire control of the anchorage on the coast,
+and shared the profits with the King. Deficits were made up by forced
+loans, by executions and confiscations, by open simony, and by
+contributions levied on the ecclesiastical corporations. Besides
+hunting, which he practised regardless of all rights of property, his
+pleasures were of two kinds: he liked to have his opponents near him,
+either alive in well-guarded prisons, or dead and embalmed, dressed in
+the costume which they wore in their lifetime.[70] He would chuckle in
+talking of the captives with his friends, and made no secret whatever of
+the museum of mummies. His victims were mostly men whom he had got into
+his power by treachery; some were even seized while guests at the royal
+table. His conduct to his first minister, Antonello Petrucci, who had
+grown sick and grey in his service, and from whose increasing fear of
+death he extorted present after present, was literally devilish. At
+length the suspicion of complicity with the last conspiracy of the
+barons gave the pretext for his arrest and execution. With him died
+Coppola. The way in which all this is narrated in Caracciolo and Porzio
+makes one's hair stand on end. The elder of the King's sons, Alfonso,
+Duke of Calabria, enjoyed in later years a kind of co-regency with his
+father. He was a savage, brutal profligate--described by Comines as 'the
+cruelest, worst, most vicious and basest man ever seen'--who in point of
+frankness alone had the advantage of Ferrante, and who openly avowed his
+contempt for religion and its usages.[71] The better and nobler features
+of the Italian despotisms are not to be found among the princes of this
+line; all that they possessed of the art and culture of their time
+served the purposes of luxury or display. Even the genuine Spaniards
+seem to have almost always degenerated in Italy; but the end of this
+cross-bred house (1494 and 1503) gives clear proof of a want of blood.
+Ferrante died of mental care and trouble; Alfonso accused his brother
+Federigo, the only honest member of the family, of treason, and insulted
+him in the vilest manner. At length, though he had hitherto passed for
+one of the ablest generals in Italy, he lost his head and fled to
+Sicily, leaving his son, the younger Ferrante, a prey to the French and
+to domestic treason. A dynasty which had ruled as this had done must at
+least have sold its life dear, if its children were ever to hope for a
+restoration. But, as Comines one-sidedly, and yet on the whole rightly
+observes on this occasion, '_Jamais homme cruel ne fut hardi_.'
+
+The despotism of the Dukes of Milan, whose government from the time of
+Giangaleazzo onwards was an absolute monarchy of the most thorough-going
+sort, shows the genuine Italian character of the fifteenth century. The
+last of the Visconti, Filippo Maria (1412-1447), is a character of
+peculiar interest, and of which fortunately an admirable description[72]
+has been left us. What a man of uncommon gifts and high position can be
+made by the passion of fear, is here shown with what may be called a
+mathematical completeness. All the resources of the State were devoted
+to the one end of securing his personal safety, though happily his cruel
+egoism did not degenerate into a purposeless thirst for blood. He lived
+in the Citadel of Milan, surrounded by magnificent gardens, arbours, and
+lawns. For years he never set foot in the city, making his excursions
+only in the country, where lay several of his splendid castles; the
+flotilla which, drawn by the swiftest horses, conducted him to them
+along canals constructed for the purpose, was so arranged as to allow of
+the application of the most rigorous etiquette. Whoever entered the
+citadel was watched by a hundred eyes; it was forbidden even to stand at
+the window, lest signs should be given to those without. All who were
+admitted among the personal followers of the Prince were subjected to a
+series of the strictest examinations; then, once accepted, were charged
+with the highest diplomatic commissions, as well as with the humblest
+personal services--both in this Court being alike honourable. And this
+was the man who conducted long and difficult wars, who dealt habitually
+with political affairs of the first importance, and every day sent his
+plenipotentiaries to all parts of Italy. His safety lay in the fact that
+none of his servants trusted the others, that his Condottieri were
+watched and misled by spies, and that the ambassadors and higher
+officials were baffled and kept apart by artificially nourished
+jealousies, and in particular by the device of coupling an honest man
+with a knave. His inward faith, too, rested upon opposed and
+contradictory systems; he believed in blind necessity, and in the
+influence of the stars, and offering prayers at one and the same time to
+helpers of every sort;[73] he was a student of the ancient authors, as
+well as of French tales of chivalry. And yet the same man, who would
+never suffer death to be mentioned in his presence,[74] and caused his
+dying favourites to be removed from the castle, that no shadow might
+fall on the abode of happiness, deliberately hastened his own death by
+closing up a wound, and, refusing to be bled, died at last with dignity
+and grace.
+
+His step-son and successor, the fortunate Condottiere Francesco Sforza
+(1450-1466, see p. 24), was perhaps of all the Italians of the fifteenth
+century the man most after the heart of his age. Never was the triumph
+of genius and individual power more brilliantly displayed than in him;
+and those who would not recognise his merit were at least forced to
+wonder at him as the spoilt child of fortune. The Milanese claimed it
+openly as an honour to be governed by so distinguished a master; when he
+entered the city the thronging populace bore him on horseback into the
+cathedral, without giving him the chance to dismount.[75] Let us listen
+to the balance-sheet of his life, in the estimate of Pope Pius II., a
+judge in such matters:[76] 'In the year 1459, when the Duke came to the
+congress at Mantua, he was 60 (really 58) years old; on horseback he
+looked like a young man; of a lofty and imposing figure, with serious
+features, calm and affable in conversation, princely in his whole
+bearing, with a combination of bodily and intellectual gifts unrivalled
+in our time, unconquered on the field of battle,--such was the man who
+raised himself from a humble position to the control of an empire. His
+wife was beautiful and virtuous, his children were like the angels of
+heaven; he was seldom ill, and all his chief wishes were fulfilled. And
+yet he was not without misfortune. His wife, out of jealousy, killed his
+mistress; his old comrades and friends, Troilo and Brunoro, abandoned
+him and went over to King Alfonso; another, Ciarpollone, he was forced
+to hang for treason; he had to suffer it that his brother Alessandro set
+the French upon him; one of his sons formed intrigues against him, and
+was imprisoned; the March of Ancona, which he had won in war, he lost
+again in the same way. No man enjoys so unclouded a fortune, that he has
+not somewhere to struggle with adversity. He is happy who has but few
+troubles.' With this negative definition of happiness the learned Pope
+dismisses the reader. Had he been able to see into the future, or been
+willing to stop and discuss the consequences of an uncontrolled
+despotism, one prevading fact would not have escaped his notice--the
+absence of all guarantee for the future. Those children, beautiful as
+angels, carefully and thoroughly educated as they were, fell victims,
+when they grew up, to the corruption of a measureless egoism. Galeazzo
+Maria (1466-1476), solicitous only of outward effect, took pride in the
+beauty of his hands, in the high salaries he paid, in the financial
+credit he enjoyed, in his treasure of two million pieces of gold, in the
+distinguished people who surrounded him, and in the army and birds of
+chase which he maintained. He was fond of the sound of his own voice,
+and spoke well, most fluently, perhaps, when he had the chance of
+insulting a Venetian ambassador.[77] He was subject to caprices, such as
+having a room painted with figures in a single night; and, what was
+worse, to fits of senseless debauchery and of revolting cruelty to his
+nearest friends. To a handful of enthusiasts, at whose head stood Giov.
+Andrea di Lampugnano, he seemed a tyrant too bad to live; they murdered
+him,[78] and thereby delivered the State into the power of his brothers,
+one of whom, Ludovico il Moro, threw his nephew into prison, and took
+the government into his own hands. From this usurpation followed the
+French intervention, and the disasters which befell the whole of Italy.
+
+The Moor is the most perfect type of the despot of that age, and, as a
+kind of natural product, almost disarms our moral judgment.
+Notwithstanding the profound immorality of the means he employed, he
+used them with perfect ingenuousness; no one would probably have been
+more astonished than himself to learn, that for the choice of means as
+well as of ends a human being is morally responsible; he would rather
+have reckoned it as a singular virtue that, so far as possible, he had
+abstained from too free a use of the punishment of death. He accepted as
+no more than his due the almost fabulous respect of the Italians for his
+political genius.[79] In 1496 he boasted that the Pope Alexander was his
+chaplain, the Emperor Maximilian his Condottiere, Venice his
+chamberlain, and the King of France his courier, who must come and go at
+his bidding.[80] With marvellous presence of mind he weighed, even in
+his last extremity, all possible means of escape, and at length decided,
+to his honour, to trust to the goodness of human nature; he rejected the
+proposal of his brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, who wished to remain in
+the Citadel of Milan, on the ground of a former quarrel: 'Monsignore,
+take it not ill, but I trust you not, brother though you be;' and
+appointed to the command of the castle, 'that pledge of his return,' a
+man to whom he had always done good, but who nevertheless betrayed
+him.[81] At home the Moor was a good and useful ruler, and to the last
+he reckoned on his popularity both in Milan and in Como. In former years
+(after 1496) he had overstrained the resources of his State, and at
+Cremona had ordered, out of pure expediency, a respectable citizen, who
+had spoken against the new taxes, to be quietly strangled. Since that
+time, in holding audiences, he kept his visitors away from his person by
+means of a bar, so that in conversing with him they were compelled to
+speak at the top of their voices.[82] At his court, the most brilliant
+in Europe, since that of Burgundy had ceased to exist, immorality of the
+worst kind was prevalent: the daughter was sold by the father, the wife
+by the husband, the sister by the brother.[83] The Prince himself was
+incessantly active, and, as son of his own deeds, claimed relationship
+with all who, like himself, stood on their personal merits--with
+scholars, poets, artists, and musicians. The academy which he
+founded[84] served rather for his own purposes than for the instruction
+of scholars; nor was it the fame of the distinguished men who surrounded
+him which he heeded, so much as their society and their services. It is
+certain that Bramante was scantily paid at first;[85] Lionardo, on the
+other hand, was up to 1496 suitably remunerated--and besides, what kept
+him at the court, if not his own free will? The world lay open to him,
+as perhaps to no other mortal man of that day; and if proof were wanting
+of the loftier element in the nature of Ludovico Moro, it is found in
+the long stay of the enigmatic master at his court. That afterwards
+Lionardo entered the service of Cæsar Borgia and Francis I. was probably
+due to the interest he felt in the unusual and striking character of the
+two men.
+
+After the fall of the Moor--he was captured in April 1500 by the French,
+after his return from his flight to Germany--his sons were badly brought
+up among strangers, and showed no capacity for carrying out his
+political testament. The elder, Massimiliano, had no resemblance to him;
+the younger, Francesco, was at all events not without spirit. Milan,
+which in those years changed its rulers so often, and suffered so
+unspeakably in the change, endeavoured to secure itself against a
+reaction. In the year 1512 the French, retreating before the arms of
+Maximilian and the Spaniards, were induced to make a declaration that
+the Milanese had taken no part in their expulsion, and, without being
+guilty of rebellion, might yield themselves to a new conqueror.[86] It
+is a fact of some political importance that in such moments of
+transition the unhappy city, like Naples at the flight of the Aragonese,
+was apt to fall a prey to gangs of (often highly aristocratic)
+scoundrels.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The house of Gonzaga at Mantua and that of Montefeltro of Urbino were
+among the best ordered and richest in men of ability during the second
+half of the fifteenth century. The Gonzaga were a tolerably harmonious
+family; for a long period no murder had been known among them, and their
+dead could be shown to the world without fear. The Marquis Francesco
+Gonzaga[87] and his wife, Isabella of Este, in spite of some few
+irregularities, were a united and respectable couple, and brought up
+their sons to be successful and remarkable men at a time when their
+small but most important State was exposed to incessant danger. That
+Francesco, either as statesman or as soldier, should adopt a policy of
+exceptional honesty, was what neither the Emperor, nor Venice, nor the
+King of France could have expected or desired; but certainly since the
+battle at Taro (1495), so far as military honour was concerned, he felt
+and acted as an Italian patriot, and imparted the same spirit to his
+wife. Every deed of loyalty and heroism, such as the defence of Faenza
+against Cæsar Borgia, she felt as a vindication of the honour of Italy.
+Our judgment of her does not need to rest on the praises of the artists
+and writers who made the fair princess a rich return for her patronage;
+her own letters show her to us as a woman of unshaken firmness, full of
+kindliness and humorous observation. Bembo, Bandello, Ariosto, and
+Bernardo Tasso sent their works to this court, small and powerless as it
+was, and empty as they found its treasury. A more polished and charming
+circle was not to be seen in Italy, since the dissolution (1508) of the
+old Court of Urbino; and in one respect, in freedom of movement, the
+society of Ferrara was inferior to that of Mantua. In artistic matters
+Isabella had an accurate knowledge, and the catalogue of her small but
+choice collection can be read by no lover of art without emotion.
+
+In the great Federigo (1444-1482), whether he were a genuine Montefeltro
+or not, Urbino possessed a brilliant representative of the princely
+order. As a Condottiere--and in this capacity he served kings and popes
+for thirty years after he became prince--he shared the political
+morality of soldiers of fortune, a morality of which the fault does not
+rest with them alone; as ruler of his little territory he adopted the
+plan of spending at home the money he had earned abroad, and taxing his
+people as lightly as possible. Of him and his two successors, Guidobaldo
+and Francesco Maria, we read: 'They erected buildings, furthered the
+cultivation of the land, lived at home, and gave employment to a large
+number of people: their subjects loved them.'[88] But not only the
+state, but the court too, was a work of art and organization, and this
+in every sense of the word. Federigo had 500 persons in his service; the
+arrangements of the court were as complete as in the capitals of the
+greatest monarchs, but nothing was wasted; all had its object, and all
+was carefully watched and controlled. The court was no scene of vice and
+dissipation: it served as a school of military education for the sons of
+other great houses, the thoroughness of whose culture and instruction
+was made a point of honour by the Duke. The palace which he built, if
+not one of the most splendid, was classical in the perfection of its
+plan; there was placed the greatest of his treasures, the celebrated
+library.[89] Feeling secure in a land where all gained profit or
+employment from his rule, and where none were beggars, he habitually
+went unarmed and almost unaccompanied; alone among the princes of his
+time he ventured to walk in an open park, and to take his frugal meals
+in an open chamber, while Livy, or in time of fasting, some devotional
+work, was read to him. In the course of the same afternoon he would
+listen to a lecture on some classical subject, and thence would go to
+the monastery of the Clarisse and talk of sacred things through the
+grating with the abbess. In the evening he would overlook the martial
+exercises of the young people of his court on the meadow of St.
+Francesco, known for its magnificent view, and saw to it well that all
+the feats were done in the most perfect manner. He strove always to be
+affable and accessible to the utmost degree, visiting the artisans who
+worked for him in their shops, holding frequent audiences, and, if
+possible, attending to the requests of each individual on the same day
+that they were presented. No wonder that the people, as he walked along
+the street, knelt down and cried: 'Dio ti mantenga, signore!' He was
+called by thinking people 'the light of Italy.'[90] His gifted son
+Guidobaldo,[91] visited by sickness and misfortune of every kind, was
+able at the last (1508) to give his state into the safe hands of his
+nephew Francesco Maria (nephew also of Pope Julius II.), who, at least,
+succeeded in preserving the territory from any permanent foreign
+occupation. It is remarkable with what confidence Guidobaldo yielded and
+fled before Cæsar Borgia and Francesco before the troops of Leo X.; each
+knew that his restoration would be all the easier and the more popular
+the less the country suffered through a fruitless defence. When Ludovico
+made the same calculation at Milan, he forgot the many grounds of hatred
+which existed against him. The court of Guidobaldo has been made
+immortal as the high school of polished manners by Baldassar
+Castiglione, who represented his eclogue Thyrsis before, and in honour
+of that society (1506), and who afterwards (1518) laid the scena of the
+dialogue of his 'Cortigiano' in the circle of the accomplished Duchess
+Elisabetta Gonzaga.
+
+The government of the family of Este at Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio
+displays curious contrasts of violence and popularity.[92] Within the
+palace frightful deeds were perpetrated; a princess was beheaded (1425)
+for alleged adultery with a step-son;[93] legitimate and illegitimate
+children fled from the court, and even abroad their lives were
+threatened by assassins sent in pursuit of them (1471). Plots from
+without were incessant; the bastard of a bastard tried to wrest the
+crown from the lawful heir, Hercules I.: this latter is said afterwards
+(1493) to have poisoned his wife on discovering that she, at the
+instigation of her brother Ferrante of Naples, was going to poison him.
+This list of tragedies is closed by the plot of two bastards against
+their brothers, the ruling Duke Alfonso I. and the Cardinal Ippolito
+(1506), which was discovered in time, and punished with imprisonment for
+life. The financial system in this State was of the most perfect kind,
+and necessarily so, since none of the large or second-rate powers of
+Italy were exposed to such danger and stood in such constant need of
+armaments and fortifications. It was the hope of the rulers that the
+increasing prosperity of the people would keep pace with the increasing
+weight of taxation, and the Marquis Niccolò (d. 1441) used to express
+the wish that his subjects might be richer than the people of other
+countries. If the rapid increase of the population be a measure of the
+prosperity actually attained, it is certainly a fact of importance that
+in the year 1497, notwithstanding the wonderful extension of the
+capital, no houses were to be let.[94] Ferrara is the first really
+modern city in Europe; large and well-built quarters sprang up at the
+bidding of the ruler: here, by the concentration of the official classes
+and the active promotion of trade, was formed for the first time a true
+capital; wealthy fugitives from all parts of Italy, Florentines
+especially, settled and built their palaces at Ferrara. But the indirect
+taxation, at all events, must have reached a point at which it could
+only just be borne. The Government, it is true, took measures of
+alleviation which were also adopted by other Italian despots, such as
+Galeazzo Maria Sforza: in time of famine corn was brought from a
+distance and seems to have been distributed gratuitously;[95] but in
+ordinary times it compensated itself by the monopoly, if not of corn, of
+many other of the necessaries of life--fish, salt meat, fruit, and
+vegetables, which last were carefully planted on and near the walls of
+the city. The most considerable source of income, however, was the
+annual sale of public offices, a usage which was common throughout
+Italy, and about the working of which at Ferrara we have more precise
+information. We read, for example, that at the new year 1502 the
+majority of the officials bought their places at 'prezzi salati;' public
+servants of the most various kinds, custom-house officers, bailiffs
+(massari), notaries, 'podestà,' judges, and even captains, _i.e._,
+lieutenant-governors of provincial towns, are quoted by name. As one of
+the 'devourers of the people' who paid dearly for their places, and who
+were 'hated worse than the devil,' Tito Strozza--let us hope not the
+famous Latin poet--is mentioned. About the same time every year the
+dukes were accustomed to make a round of visits in Ferrara, the so
+called 'andar per ventura,' in which they took presents from, at any
+rate, the more wealthy citizens. The gifts, however, did not consist of
+money, but of natural products.
+
+It was the pride of the duke[96] for all Italy to know that at Ferrara
+the soldiers received their pay and the professors of the University
+their salary not a day later than it was due; that the soldiers never
+dared lay arbitrary hands on citizen or peasant; that the town was
+impregnable to assault; and that vast sums of coined money were stored
+up in the citadel. To keep two sets of accounts seemed unnecessary; the
+Minister of Finance was at the same time manager of the ducal household.
+The buildings erected by Borso (1430-1471), by Hercules I. (till 1505),
+and by Alfonso I. (till 1534), were very numerous, but of small size:
+they are characteristic of a princely house which, with all its love of
+splendour--Borso never appeared but in embroidery and jewels--indulged
+in no ill-considered expense. Alfonso may perhaps have foreseen the fate
+which was in store for his charming little villas, the Belvedere with
+its shady gardens, and Montana with its fountains and beautiful
+frescoes.
+
+It is undeniable that the dangers to which these princes were constantly
+exposed developed in them capacities of a remarkable kind. In so
+artificial a world only a man of consummate address could hope to
+succeed; each candidate for distinction was forced to make good his
+claims by personal merit and show himself worthy of the crown he sought.
+Their characters are not without dark sides; but in all of them lives
+something of those qualities which Italy then pursued as its ideal. What
+European monarch of the time so laboured for his own culture as, for
+instance, Alfonso I.? His travels in France, England, and the
+Netherlands were undertaken for the purpose of study: by means of them
+he gained an accurate knowledge of the industry and commerce of these
+countries.[97] It is ridiculous to reproach him with the turner's work
+which he practised in his leisure hours, connected as it was with his
+skill in the casting of cannon, and with the unprejudiced freedom with
+which he surrounded himself by masters of every art. The Italian princes
+were not, like their contemporaries in the North, dependent on the
+society of an aristocracy which held itself to be the only class worth
+consideration, and which infected the monarch with the same conceit. In
+Italy the prince was permitted and compelled to know and to use men of
+every grade in society; and the nobility, though by birth a caste, were
+forced in social intercourse to stand upon their personal qualifications
+alone. But this is a point which we shall discuss more fully in the
+sequel.
+
+The feeling of the Ferrarese towards the ruling house was a strange
+compound of silent dread, of the truly Italian sense of well-calculated
+interest, and of the loyalty of the modern subject: personal admiration
+was transformed into a new sentiment of duty. The city of Ferrara raised
+in 1451 a bronze equestrian statue to their Prince Niccolò, who had died
+ten years earlier; Borso (1454) did not scruple to place his own statue,
+also of bronze, but in a sitting posture, hard by in the market; in
+addition to which the city, at the beginning of his reign, decreed to
+him a 'marble triumphal pillar.' And when he was buried the whole people
+felt as if God himself had died a second time.[98] A citizen, who, when
+abroad from Venice, had spoken ill of Borso in public, was informed on
+his return home, and condemned to banishment and the confiscation of his
+goods; a loyal subject was with difficulty restrained from cutting him
+down before the tribunal itself, and with a rope round his neck the
+offender went to the duke and begged for a full pardon. The government
+was well provided with spies, and the duke inspected personally the
+daily list of travellers which the innkeepers were strictly ordered to
+present. Under Borso,[99] who was anxious to leave no distinguished
+stranger unhonoured, this regulation served a hospitable purpose;
+Hercules I.[100] used it simply as a measure of precaution. In Bologna,
+too, it was then the rule, under Giovanni II. Bentivoglio, that every
+passing traveller who entered at one gate must obtain a ticket in order
+to go out at another.[101] An unfailing means of popularity was the
+sudden dismissal of oppressive officials. When Borso arrested in person
+his chief and confidential counsellors, when Hercules I. removed and
+disgraced a tax-gatherer, who for years had been sucking the blood of
+the people, bonfires were lighted and the bells were pealed in their
+honour. With one of his servants, however, Hercules let things go too
+far. The director of the police, or by whatever name we should choose to
+call him (Capitano di Giustizia), was Gregorio Zampante of Lucca--a
+native being unsuited for an office of this kind. Even the sons and
+brothers of the duke trembled before this man; the fines he inflicted
+amounted to hundreds and thousands of ducats, and torture was applied
+even before the hearing of a case: bribes were accepted from wealthy
+criminals, and their pardon obtained from the duke by false
+representations. Gladly would the people have paid any sum to this ruler
+for sending away the 'enemy of God and man.' But Hercules had knighted
+him and made him godfather to his children; and year by year Zampante
+laid by 2,000 ducats. He dared only eat pigeons bred in his own house,
+and could not cross the street without a band of archers and bravos. It
+was time to get rid of him; in 1490 two students and a converted Jew
+whom he had mortally offended, killed him in his house while taking his
+siesta, and then rode through the town on horses held in waiting,
+raising the cry, 'Come out! come out! we have slain Zampante!' The
+pursuers came too late, and found them already safe across the frontier.
+Of course it now rained satires--some of them in the form of sonnets,
+others of odes.
+
+It was wholly in the spirit of this system that the sovereign imposed
+his own respect for useful servants on the court and on the people. When
+in 1469 Borso's privy councillor Ludovico Casella died, no court of law
+or place of business in the city, and no lecture-room at the University,
+was allowed to be open: all had to follow the body to S. Domenico, since
+the duke intended to be present. And, in fact, 'the first of the house
+of Este who attended the corpse of a subject' walked, clad in black,
+after the coffin, weeping, while behind him came the relatives of
+Casella, each conducted by one of the gentlemen of the Court: the body
+of the plain citizen was carried by nobles from the church into the
+cloister, where it was buried. Indeed this official sympathy with
+princely emotion first came up in the Italian States.[102] At the root
+of the practice may be a beautiful, humane sentiment; the utterance of
+it, especially in the poets, is, as a rule, of equivocal sincerity. One
+of the youthful poems of Ariosto,[103] on the Death of Lionora of
+Aragon, wife of Hercules I., contains besides the inevitable graveyard
+flowers, which are scattered in the elegies of all ages, some thoroughly
+modern features: 'This death had given Ferrara a blow which it would not
+get over for years: its benefactress was now its advocate in heaven,
+since earth was not worthy of her; truly, the angel of Death did not
+come to her, as to us common mortals, with blood-stained scythe, but
+fair to behold (onesta), and with so kind a face that every fear was
+allayed.' But we meet, also, with a sympathy of a different kind.
+Novelists, depending wholly on the favour of their patrons, tell us the
+love-stories of the prince, even before his death, in a way which, to
+later times, would seem the height of indiscretion, but which then
+passed simply as an innocent compliment. Lyrical poets even went so far
+as to sing the illicit flames of their lawfully married lords, _e.g._
+Angelo Poliziano, those of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Gioviano
+Pontano, with a singular gusto, those of Alfonso of Calabria. The poem
+in question[105] betrays unconsciously the odious disposition of the
+Aragonese ruler; in these things too, he must needs be the most
+fortunate, else woe be to those who are more successful! That the
+greatest artists, for example Lionardo, should paint the mistresses of
+their patrons was no more than a matter of course.
+
+But the house of Este was not satisfied with the praises of others; it
+undertook to celebrate them itself. In the Palazzo Schifanoja Borso
+caused himself to be painted in a series of historical representations,
+and Hercules kept the anniversary of his accession to the throne by a
+procession which was compared to the feast of Corpus Christi; shops were
+closed as on Sunday; in the centre of the line walked all the members of
+the princely house (bastards included) clad in embroidered robes. That
+the crown was the fountain of honour and authority, that all personal
+distinction flowed from it alone, had been long[106] expressed at this
+court by the Order of the Golden Spur--an order which had nothing in
+common with mediæval chivalry. Hercules I. added to the spur a sword, a
+gold-laced mantle, and a grant of money, in return for which there is no
+doubt that regular service was required.
+
+The patronage of art and letters for which this court has obtained a
+world-wide reputation, was exercised through the University, which was
+one of the most perfect in Italy, and by the gift of places in the
+personal or official service of the prince; it involved consequently no
+additional expense. Bojardo, as a wealthy country gentleman and high
+official, belonged to this class. At the time when Ariosto began to
+distinguish himself, there existed no court, in the true sense of the
+word, either at Milan or Florence, and soon there was none either at
+Urbino or at Naples. He had to content himself with a place among the
+musicians and jugglers of Cardinal Ippolito till Alfonso took him into
+his service. It was otherwise at a later time with Torquato Tasso, whose
+presence at court was jealously sought after.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE OPPONENTS OF TYRANNY.
+
+
+In face of this centralised authority, all legal opposition within the
+borders of the state was futile. The elements needed for the restoration
+of a republic had been for ever destroyed, and the field prepared for
+violence and despotism. The nobles, destitute of political rights, even
+where they held feudal possessions, might call themselves Guelphs or
+Ghibellines at will, might dress up their bravos in padded hose and
+feathered caps[107] or how else they pleased; thoughtful men like
+Macchiavelli[108] knew well enough that Milan and Naples were too
+'corrupt' for a republic. Strange judgments fall on these two so-called
+parties, which now served only to give an official sanction to personal
+and family disputes. An Italian prince, whom Agrippa of Nettesheim[109]
+advised to put them down, replied that their quarrels brought him in
+more than 12,000 ducats a year in fines. And when in the year 1500,
+during the brief return of Ludovico Moro to his States, the Guelphs of
+Tortona summoned a part of the neighbouring French army into the city,
+in order to make an end once for all of their opponents, the French
+certainly began by plundering and ruining the Ghibellines, but finished
+by doing the same to their hosts, till Tortona was utterly laid
+waste.[110] In Romagna, the hotbed of every ferocious passion, these two
+names had long lost all political meaning. It was a sign of the
+political delusion of the people that they not seldom believed the
+Guelphs to be the natural allies of the French and the Ghibellines of
+the Spaniards. It is hard to see that those who tried to profit by this
+error got much by doing so. France, after all her interventions, had to
+abandon the peninsula at last, and what became of Spain, after she had
+destroyed Italy, is known to every reader.
+
+But to return to the despots of the Renaissance. A pure and simple mind,
+we might think, would perhaps have argued that, since all power is
+derived from God, these princes, if they were loyally and honestly
+supported by all their subjects, must in time themselves improve and
+lose all traces of their violent origin. But from characters and
+imaginations inflamed by passion and ambition, reasoning of this kind
+could not be expected. Like bad physicians, they thought to cure the
+disease by removing the symptoms, and fancied that if the tyrant were
+put to death, freedom would follow of itself. Or else, without
+reflecting even to this extent, they sought only to give a vent to the
+universal hatred, or to take vengeance for some family misfortune or
+personal affront. Since the governments were absolute, and free from all
+legal restraints, the opposition chose its weapons with equal freedom.
+Boccaccio declares openly[111] 'Shall I call the tyrant king or prince,
+and obey him loyally as my lord? No, for he is the enemy of the
+commonwealth. Against him I may use arms, conspiracies, spies, ambushes
+and fraud; to do so is a sacred and necessary work. There is no more
+acceptable sacrifice than the blood of a tyrant.' We need not occupy
+ourselves with individual cases; Macchiavelli,[112] in a famous chapter
+of his 'Discorsi,' treats of the conspiracies of ancient and modern
+times from the days of the Greek tyrants downwards, and classifies them
+with cold-blooded indifference according to their various plans and
+results. We need make but two observations, first on the murders
+committed in church, and next on the influence of classical antiquity.
+So well was the tyrant guarded that it was almost impossible to lay
+hands upon him elsewhere than at solemn religious services; and on no
+other occasion was the whole family to be found assembled together. It
+was thus that the Fabrianese[113] murdered (1435) the members of their
+ruling house, the Chiavistelli, during high mass, the signal being given
+by the words of the Creed, 'Et incarnatus est.' At Milan the Duke Giovan
+Maria Visconti (1412) was assassinated at the entrance of the church of
+San Gottardo, Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1476) in the church of Santo
+Stefano, and Ludovico Moro only escaped (1484) the daggers of the
+adherents of the widowed Duchess Bona, through entering the church of
+Sant' Ambrogio by another door than that by which he was expected. There
+was no intentional impiety in the act; the assassins of Galeazzo did not
+fail to pray before the murder to the patron saint of the church, and to
+listen devoutly to the first mass. It was, however, one cause of the
+partial failure of the conspiracy of the Pazzi against Lorenzo and
+Guiliano Medici (1478), that the brigand Montesecco, who had bargained
+to commit the murder at a banquet, declined to undertake it in the
+Cathedral of Florence. Certain of the clergy 'who were familiar with the
+sacred place, and consequently had no fear' were induced to act in his
+stead.[114]
+
+As to the imitation of antiquity, the influence of which on moral, and
+more especially on political, questions we shall often refer to, the
+example was set by the rulers themselves, who, both in their conception
+of the state and in their personal conduct, took the old Roman empire
+avowedly as their model. In like manner their opponents, when they set
+to work with a deliberate theory, took pattern by the ancient
+tyrannicides. It may be hard to prove that in the main point--in forming
+the resolve itself--they consciously followed a classical example; but
+the appeal to antiquity was no mere phrase. The most striking
+disclosures have been left us with respect to the murderers of Galeazzo
+Sforza--Lampugnani, Olgiati, and Visconti.[115] Though all three had
+personal ends to serve, yet their enterprise may be partly ascribed to a
+more general reason. About this time Cola de' Montani, a humanist and
+professor of eloquence, had awakened among many of the young Milanese
+nobility a vague passion for glory and patriotic achievements, and had
+mentioned to Lampugnani and Olgiati his hope of delivering Milan.
+Suspicion was soon aroused against him: he was banished from the city,
+and his pupils were abandoned to the fanaticism he had excited. Some ten
+days before the deed they met together and took a solemn oath in the
+monastery of Sant' Ambrogio. 'Then,' says Olgiati, 'in a remote corner I
+raised my eyes before the picture of the patron saint, and implored his
+help for ourselves and for all _his_ people.' The heavenly protector of
+the city was called on to bless the undertaking, as was afterwards St.
+Stephen, in whose church it was fulfilled. Many of their comrades were
+now informed of the plot, nightly meetings were held in the house of
+Lampugnani, and the conspirators practised for the murder with the
+sheaths of their daggers. The attempt was successful, but Lampugnani was
+killed on the spot by the attendants of the duke; the others were
+captured: Visconti was penitent, but Olgiati through all his tortures
+maintained that the deed was an acceptable offering to God, and
+exclaimed while the executioner was breaking his ribs, 'Courage,
+Girolamo! thou wilt long be remembered; death is bitter, but glory is
+eternal.'[116]
+
+But however idealistic the object and purpose of such conspiracies may
+appear, the manner in which they were conducted betrays the influence of
+that worst of all conspirators, Catiline--a man in whose thoughts
+freedom had no place whatever. The annals of Siena tells us expressly
+that the conspirators were students of Sallust, and the fact is
+indirectly confirmed by the confession of Olgiati.[117] Elsewhere, too,
+we meet with the name of Catiline, and a more attractive pattern of the
+conspirator, apart from the end he followed, could hardly be discovered.
+
+Among the Florentines, whenever they got rid of, or tried to get rid of,
+the Medici, tyrannicide was a practice universally accepted and
+approved. After the flight of the Medici in 1494, the bronze group of
+Donatello[118]--Judith with the dead Holofernes--was taken from their
+collection and placed before the Palazzo della Signoria, on the spot
+where the 'David' of Michael Angelo now stands, with the inscription,
+'Exemplum salutis publicæ cives posuere 1495.'[119] No example was more
+popular than that of the younger Brutus, who, in Dante,[120] lies with
+Cassius and Judas Iscariot in the lowest pit of hell, because of his
+treason to the empire. Pietro Paolo Boscoli, whose plot against
+Guiliano, Giovanni, and Guilio Medici failed (1513), was an enthusiastic
+admirer of Brutus, and in order to follow his steps, only waited to find
+a Cassius. Such a partner he met with in Agostino Capponi. His last
+utterances in prison[121]--a striking evidence of the religious feeling
+of the time--show with what an effort he rid his mind of these classical
+imaginations, in order to die like a Christian. A friend and the
+confessor both had to assure him that St. Thomas Aquinas condemned
+conspirators absolutely; but the confessor afterwards admitted to the
+same friend that St. Thomas drew a distinction and permitted
+conspiracies against a tyrant who had forced himself on a people against
+their will. After Lorenzino Medici had murdered the Duke Alessandro
+(1537), and then escaped, an apology for the deed appeared,[122] which
+is probably his own work, and certainly composed in his interest, and in
+which he praises tyrannicide as an act of the highest merit; on the
+supposition that Alessandro was a legitimate Medici, and, therefore,
+related to him, if only distantly, he boldly compares himself with
+Timoleon, who slew his brother for his country's sake. Others, on the
+same occasion, made use of the comparison with Brutus, and that Michael
+Angelo himself, even late in life, was not unfriendly to ideas of this
+kind, may be inferred from his bust of Brutus in the Uffizi. He left it
+unfinished, like nearly all his works, but certainly not because the
+murder of Cæsar was repugnant to his feeling, as the couplet beneath
+declares.
+
+A popular radicalism in the form in which it is opposed to the
+monarchies of later times, is not to be found in the despotic states of
+the Renaissance. Each individual protested inwardly against despotism,
+but was rather disposed to make tolerable or profitable terms with it,
+than to combine with others for its destruction. Things must have been
+as bad as at Camerino, Fabriano, or Rimini (p. 28), before the citizens
+united to destroy or expel the ruling house. They knew in most cases
+only too well that this would but mean a change of masters. The star of
+the Republics was certainly on the decline.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE REPUBLICS: VENICE AND FLORENCE.
+
+
+The Italian municipalities had, in earlier days, given signal proof of
+that force which transforms the city into the state. It remained only
+that these cities should combine in a great confederation; and this idea
+was constantly recurring to Italian statesmen, whatever differences of
+form it might from time to time display. In fact, during the struggles
+of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, great and formidable leagues
+actually were formed by the cities; and Sismondi (ii. 174) is of opinion
+that the time of the final armaments of the Lombard confederation
+against Barbarossa was the moment when a universal Italian league was
+possible. But the more powerful states had already developed
+characteristic features which made any such scheme impracticable. In
+their commercial dealings they shrank from no measures, however extreme,
+which might damage their competitors; they held their weaker neighbours
+in a condition of helpless dependence--in short, they each fancied they
+could get on by themselves without the assistance of the rest, and thus
+paved the way for future usurpation. The usurper was forthcoming when
+long conflicts between the nobility and the people, and between the
+different factions of the nobility, had awakened the desire for a strong
+government, and when bands of mercenaries ready and willing to sell
+their aid to the highest bidder had superseded the general levy of the
+citizens which party leaders now found unsuited to their purposes.[123]
+The tyrants destroyed the freedom of most of the cities; here and there
+they were expelled, but not thoroughly, or only for a short time; and
+they were always restored, since the inward conditions were favourable
+to them, and the opposing forces were exhausted.
+
+Among the cities which maintained their independence are two of deep
+significance for the history of the human race: Florence, the city of
+incessant movement, which has left us a record of the thoughts and
+aspirations of each and all who, for three centuries, took part in this
+movement, and Venice, the city of apparent stagnation and of political
+secrecy. No contrast can be imagined stronger than that which is offered
+us by these two, and neither can be compared to anything else which the
+world has hitherto produced.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Venice recognised itself from the first as a strange and mysterious
+creation--the fruits of a higher power than human ingenuity. The solemn
+foundation of the city was the subject of a legend. On March 25, 413, at
+mid-day the emigrants from Padua laid the first stone at the Rialto,
+that they might have a sacred, inviolable asylum amid the devastations
+of the barbarians. Later writers attributed to the founders the
+presentiment of the future greatness of the city; M. Antonio Sabellico,
+who has celebrated the event in the dignified flow of his hexameters,
+makes the priest, who completes the act of consecration, cry to heaven,
+'When we hereafter attempt great things, grant us prosperity! Now we
+kneel before a poor altar; but if our vows are not made in vain, a
+hundred temples, O God, of gold and marble shall arise to Thee.'[124]
+The island city at the end of the fifteenth century was the jewel-casket
+of the world. It is so described by the same Sabellico,[125] with its
+ancient cupolas, its leaning towers, its inlaid marble façades, its
+compressed splendour, where the richest decoration did not hinder the
+practical employment of every corner of space. He takes us to the
+crowded Piazza before S. Giacometto at the Rialto, where the business of
+the world is transacted, not amid shouting and confusion, but with the
+subdued hum of many voices; where in the porticos round the square[126]
+and in those of the adjoining streets sit hundreds of money-changers and
+goldsmiths, with endless rows of shops and warehouses above their heads.
+He describes the great Fondaco of the Germans beyond the bridge, where
+their goods and their dwellings lay, and before which their ships are
+drawn up side by side in the canal; higher up is a whole fleet laden
+with wine and oil, and parallel with it, on the shore swarming with
+porters, are the vaults of the merchants; then from the Rialto to the
+square of St. Mark come the inns and the perfumers' cabinets. So he
+conducts the reader from one quarter of the city to another till he
+comes at last to the two hospitals which were among those institutions
+of public utility nowhere so numerous as at Venice. Care for the people,
+in peace as well as in war, was characteristic of this government, and
+its attention to the wounded, even to those of the enemy, excited the
+admiration of other states.[127] Public institutions of every kind found
+in Venice their pattern; the pensioning of retired servants was carried
+out systematically, and included a provision for widows and orphans.
+Wealth, political security, and acquaintance with other countries, had
+matured the understanding of such questions. These slender fair-haired
+men,[128] with quiet cautious steps, and deliberate speech, differed but
+slightly in costume and bearing from one another; ornaments, especially
+pearls, were reserved for the women and girls. At that time the general
+prosperity, notwithstanding the losses sustained from the Turks, was
+still dazzling; the stores of energy which the city possessed and the
+prejudice in its favour diffused throughout Europe, enabled it at a much
+later time to survive the heavy blows which were inflicted by the
+discovery of the sea route to the Indies, by the fall of the Mamelukes
+in Egypt, and by the war of the League of Cambray.
+
+Sabellico, born in the neighbourhood of Tivoli, and accustomed to the
+frank loquacity of the scholars of his day, remarks elsewhere[129] with
+some astonishment, that the young nobles who came of a morning to hear
+his lectures could not be prevailed on to enter into political
+discussions: 'When I ask them what people think, say, and expect about
+this or that movement in Italy, they all answer with one voice that they
+know nothing about the matter.' Still, in spite of the strict
+inquisition of the state, much was to be learned from the more corrupt
+members of the aristocracy by those who were willing to pay enough for
+it. In the last quarter of the fifteenth century there were traitors
+among the highest officials;[130] the popes, the Italian princes, and
+even second-rate Condottieri in the service of the government had
+informers in their pay, sometimes with regular salaries; things went so
+far that the Council of Ten found it prudent to conceal important
+political news from the Council of the Pregadi, and it was even supposed
+that Ludovico Moro had control of a definite number of votes among the
+latter. Whether the hanging of single offenders and the high
+rewards--such as a life-pension of sixty ducats paid to those who
+informed against them--were of much avail, it is hard to decide; one of
+the chief causes of this evil, the poverty of many of the nobility,
+could not be removed in a day. In the year 1492 a proposal was urged by
+two of that order, that the state should annually spend 70,000 ducats
+for the relief of those poorer nobles who held no public office; the
+matter was near coming before the Great Council, in which it might have
+had a majority, when the Council of Ten interfered in time and banished
+the two proposers for life to Nicosia in Cyprus.[131] About this time a
+Soranzo was hung, though not at Venice itself, for sacrilege, and a
+Contarini put in chains for burglary; another of the same family came in
+1499 before the Signory, and complained that for many years he had been
+without an office, that he had only sixteen ducats a year and nine
+children, that his debts amounted to sixty ducats, that he knew no trade
+and had lately been turned on to the streets. We can understand why some
+of the wealthier nobles built houses, sometimes whole rows of them, to
+provide free lodging for their needy comrades. Such works figure in
+wills among deeds of charity.[132]
+
+But if the enemies of Venice ever founded serious hopes upon abuses of
+this kind, they were greatly in error. It might be thought that the
+commercial activity of the city, which put within reach of the humblest
+a rich reward for their labour, and the colonies on the Eastern shores
+of the Mediterranean, would have diverted from political affairs the
+dangerous elements of society. But had not the political history of
+Genoa, notwithstanding similar advantages, been of the stormiest? The
+cause of the stability of Venice lies rather in a combination of
+circumstances which were found in union nowhere else. Unassailable from
+its position, it had been able from the beginning to treat of foreign
+affairs with the fullest and calmest reflection, and ignore nearly
+altogether the parties which divided the rest of Italy, to escape the
+entanglement of permanent alliances, and to set the highest price on
+those which it thought fit to make. The keynote of the Venetian
+character was, consequently, a spirit of proud and contemptuous
+isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city by the other
+states of Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity within. The
+inhabitants meanwhile were united by the most powerful ties of interest
+in dealing both with the colonies and with the possessions on the
+mainland, forcing the population of the latter, that is, of all the
+towns up to Bergamo, to buy and sell in Venice alone. A power which
+rested on means so artificial could only be maintained by internal
+harmony and unity; and this conviction was so widely diffused among the
+citizens that the conspirator found few elements to work upon. And the
+discontented, if there were such, were held so far apart by the division
+between the noble and the burgher, that a mutual understanding was not
+easy. On the other hand, within the ranks of the nobility itself,
+travel, commercial enterprise, and the incessant wars with the Turks
+saved the wealthy and dangerous from that fruitful source of
+conspiracies--idleness. In these wars they were spared, often to a
+criminal extent, by the general in command, and the fall of the city was
+predicted by a Venetian Cato, if this fear of the nobles 'to give one
+another pain' should continue at the expense of justice.[133]
+Nevertheless this free movement in the open air gave the Venetian
+aristocracy, as a whole, a healthy bias.
+
+And when envy and ambition called for satisfaction an official victim
+was forthcoming, and legal means and authorities were ready. The moral
+torture, which for years the Doge Francesco Foscari (d. 1457) suffered
+before the eyes of all Venice, is a frightful example of a vengeance
+possible only in an aristocracy. The Council of Ten, which had a hand in
+everything, which disposed without appeal of life and death, of
+financial affairs and military appointments, which included the
+Inquisitors among its number, and which overthrew Foscari, as it had
+overthrown so many powerful men before,--this Council was yearly chosen
+afresh from the whole governing body, the Gran Consilio, and was
+consequently the most direct expression of its will. It is not probable
+that serious intrigues occurred at these elections, as the short
+duration of the office and the accountability which followed rendered it
+an object of no great desire. But violent and mysterious as the
+proceedings of this and other authorities might be, the genuine Venetian
+courted rather than fled their sentence, not only because the Republic
+had long arms, and if it could not catch him might punish his family,
+but because in most cases it acted from rational motives and not from a
+thirst for blood.[134] No state, indeed, has ever exercised a greater
+moral influence over its subjects, whether abroad or at home. If
+traitors were to be found among the Pregadi, there was ample
+compensation for this in the fact that every Venetian away from home was
+a born spy for his government. It was a matter of course that the
+Venetian cardinals at Rome sent home news of the transactions of the
+secret papal consistories. The Cardinal Domenico Grimani had the
+despatches intercepted in the neighbourhood of Rome (1500) which Ascanio
+Sforza was sending to his brother Ludovico Moro, and forwarded them to
+Venice; his father, then exposed to a serious accusation, claimed public
+credit for this service of his son before the Gran Consilio; in other
+words, before all the world.[135]
+
+The conduct of the Venetian government to the Condottieri in its pay has
+been spoken of already. The only further guarantee of their fidelity
+which could be obtained lay in their great number, by which treachery
+was made as difficult as its discovery was easy. In looking at the
+Venetian army list, one is only surprised that among forces of such
+miscellaneous composition any common action was possible. In the
+catalogue for the campaign of 1495 we find 15,526 horsemen, broken up
+into a number of small divisions.[136] Gonzaga of Mantua alone had as
+many as 1,200, and Gioffredo Borgia 740; then follow six officers with a
+contingent of 600 to 700, ten with 400, twelve with 400 to 200, fourteen
+or thereabouts with 200 to 100, nine with 80, six with 50 to 60, and so
+forth. These forces were partly composed of old Venetian troops, partly
+of veterans led by Venetian city or country nobles; the majority of the
+leaders were, however, princes and rulers of cities or their relatives.
+To these forces must be added 24,000 infantry--we are not told how they
+were raised or commanded--with 3,300 additional troops, who probably
+belonged to the special services. In time of peace the cities of the
+mainland were wholly unprotected or occupied by insignificant garrisons.
+Venice relied, if not exactly on the loyalty, at least on the good sense
+of its subjects; in the war of the League of Cambray (1509) it absolved
+them, as is well known, from their oath of allegiance, and let them
+compare the amenities of a foreign occupation with the mild government
+to which they had been accustomed. As there had been no treason in their
+desertion of St. Mark, and consequently no punishment was to be feared,
+they returned to their old masters with the utmost eagerness. This war,
+we may remark parenthetically, was the result of a century's outcry
+against the Venetian desire for aggrandisement. The Venetians, in fact,
+were not free from the mistake of those over-clever people who will
+credit their opponents with no irrational and inconsiderate
+conduct.[137] Misled by this optimism, which is, perhaps, a peculiar
+weakness of aristocracies, they had utterly ignored not only the
+preparations of Mohammed II. for the capture of Constantinople, but even
+the armaments of Charles VIII., till the unexpected blow fell at
+last.[138] The League of Cambray was an event of the same character, in
+so far as it was clearly opposed to the interest of the two chief
+members, Louis XII. and Julius II. The hatred of all Italy against the
+victorious city seemed to be concentrated in the mind of the Pope, and
+to have blinded him to the evils of foreign intervention; and as to the
+policy of Cardinal Amboise and his king, Venice ought long before to
+have recognised it as a piece of malicious imbecility, and to have been
+thoroughly on its guard. The other members of the League took part in it
+from that envy which may be a salutary corrective to great wealth and
+power, but which in itself is a beggarly sentiment. Venice came out of
+the conflict with honour, but not without lasting damage.
+
+A power, whose foundations were so complicated, whose activity and
+interests filled so wide a stage, cannot be imagined without a
+systematic oversight of the whole, without a regular estimate of means
+and burdens, of profits and losses. Venice can fairly make good its
+claim to be the birthplace of statistical science, together, perhaps,
+with Florence, and followed by the more enlightened despotisms. The
+feudal state of the Middle Ages knew of nothing more than catalogues of
+signorial rights and possessions (Urbaria); it looked on production as a
+fixed quantity, which it approximately is, so long as we have to do with
+landed property only. The towns, on the other hand, throughout the West
+must from very early times have treated production, which with them
+depended on industry and commerce, as exceedingly variable; but, even in
+the most flourishing times of the Hanseatic League, they never got
+beyond a simple commercial balance-sheet. Fleets, armies, political
+power and influence fall under the debit and credit of a trader's
+ledger. In the Italian States a clear political consciousness, the
+pattern of Mohammedan administration, and the long and active exercise
+of trade and commerce, combined to produce for the first time a true
+science of statistics.[139] The absolute monarchy of Frederick II. in
+Lower Italy was organised with the sole object of securing a
+concentrated power for the death-struggle in which he was engaged. In
+Venice, on the contrary, the supreme objects were the enjoyment of life
+and power, the increase of inherited advantages, the creation of the
+most lucrative forms of industry, and the opening of new channels for
+commerce.
+
+The writers of the time speak of these things with the greatest
+freedom.[140] We learn that the population of the city amounted in the
+year 1422 to 190,000 souls; the Italians were, perhaps, the first to
+reckon, not according to hearths, or men able to bear arms, or people
+able to walk, and so forth, but according to 'animæ,' and thus to get
+the most neutral basis for further calculation. About this time,[141]
+when the Florentines wished to form an alliance with Venice against
+Filippo Maria Visconti, they were for the moment refused, in the belief,
+resting on accurate commercial returns, that a war between Venice and
+Milan, that is, between seller and buyer, was foolish. Even if the duke
+simply increased his army, the Milanese, through the heavier taxation
+they must pay, would become worse customers. 'Better let the Florentines
+be defeated, and then, used as they are to the life of a free city, they
+will settle with us and bring their silk and woollen industry with them,
+as the Lucchese did in their distress.' The speech of the dying Doge
+Mocenigo (1423) to a few of the senators whom he had sent for to his
+bedside[142] is still more remarkable. It contains the chief elements of
+a statistical account of the whole resources of Venice. I cannot say
+whether or where a thorough elucidation of this perplexing document
+exists; by way of illustration, the following facts may be quoted. After
+repaying a war-loan of four million ducats, the public debt ('il monte')
+still amounted to six million ducats; the current trade reached (so it
+seems) ten millions, which yielded, the text informs us, a profit of
+four millions. The 3,000 'navigli,' the 300 'navi,' and the 45 galleys
+were manned respectively by 17,000, 8,000, and 11,000 seamen (more than
+200 for each galley). To these must be added 16,000 shipwrights. The
+houses in Venice were valued at seven millions, and brought in a rent of
+half a million.[143] There were 1,000 nobles whose income ranged from 70
+to 4,000 ducats. In another passage the ordinary income of the state in
+that same year is put at 1,100,000 ducats; through the disturbance of
+trade caused by the wars it sank about the middle of the century to
+800,000 ducats.[144]
+
+If Venice, by this spirit of calculation, and by the practical turn
+which she gave it, was the first fully to represent one important side
+of modern political life, in that culture, on the other hand, which
+Italy then prized most highly she did not stand in the front rank. The
+literary impulse, in general, was here wanting, and especially that
+enthusiasm for classical antiquity which prevailed elsewhere.[145] The
+aptitude of the Venetians, says Sabellico, for philosophy and eloquence
+was in itself not less remarkable than for commerce and politics; but
+this aptitude was neither developed in themselves nor rewarded in
+strangers as it was rewarded elsewhere in Italy. Filelfo, summoned to
+Venice not by the state, but by private individuals, soon found his
+expectations deceived; and George of Trebizond, who, in 1459, laid the
+Latin translation of Plato's Laws at the feet of the Doge, and was
+appointed professor of philology with a yearly salary of 150 ducats, and
+finally dedicated his 'Rhetoric' to the Signoria,[146] soon left the
+city in dissatisfaction. Literature, in fact, like the rest at Venice,
+had mostly a practical end in view. If, accordingly, we look through the
+history of Venetian literature which Francesco Sansovino has appended to
+his well-known book,[147] we shall find in the fourteenth century almost
+nothing but history, and special works on theology, jurisprudence, and
+medicine; and in the fifteenth century, till we come to Ermolao Barbaro
+and Aldo Manucci, humanistic culture is, for a city of such importance,
+most scantily represented. Similarly we find comparatively few traces of
+the passion, elsewhere so strong, for collecting books and manuscripts;
+and the valuable texts which formed part of Petrarch's legacies were so
+badly preserved that soon all traces of them were lost. The library
+which Cardinal Bessarion bequeathed to the state (1468) narrowly escaped
+dispersion and destruction. Learning was certainly cultivated at the
+University of Padua, where, however, the physicians and the jurists--the
+latter as the authors of legal opinions--received by far the highest
+pay. The share of Venice in the poetical creations of the country was
+long insignificant, till, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, her
+deficiences were made good.[148] Even the art of the Renaissance was
+imported into the city from without, and it was not before the end of
+the fifteenth century that she learned to move in this field with
+independent freedom and strength. But we find more striking instances
+still of intellectual backwardness. This Government, which had the
+clergy so thoroughly in its control, which reserved to itself the
+appointment to all important ecclesiastical offices, and which, one time
+after another, dared to defy the court of Rome, displayed an official
+piety of a most singular kind.[149] The bodies of saints and other
+reliques imported from Greece after the Turkish conquest were bought at
+the greatest sacrifices and received by the Doge in solemn
+procession.[150] For the coat without a seam it was decided (1455) to
+offer 10,000 ducats, but it was not to be had. These measures were not
+the fruit of any popular excitement, but of the tranquil resolutions of
+the heads of the Government, and might have been omitted without
+attracting any comment, and at Florence, under similar circumstances,
+would certainly have been omitted. We shall say nothing of the piety of
+the masses, and of their firm belief in the indulgences of an Alexander
+VI. But the state itself, after absorbing the Church to a degree unknown
+elsewhere, had in truth a certain ecclesiastical element in its
+composition, and the Doge, the symbol of the state, appeared in twelve
+great processions ('andate')[151] in a half-clerical character. They
+were almost all festivals in memory of political events, and competed in
+splendour with the great feasts of the Church; the most brilliant of
+all, the famous marriage with the sea, fell on Ascension Day.
+
+The most elevated political thought and the most varied forms of human
+development are found united in the history of Florence, which in this
+sense deserves the name of the first modern state in the world. Here the
+whole people are busied with what in the despotic cities is the affair
+of a single family. That wondrous Florentine spirit, at once keenly
+critical and artistically creative, was incessantly transforming the
+social and political condition of the state, and as incessantly
+describing and judging the change. Florence thus became the home of
+political doctrines and theories, of experiments and sudden changes, but
+also, like Venice, the home of statistical science, and alone and above
+all other states in the world, the home of historical representation in
+the modern sense of the phrase. The spectacle of ancient Rome and a
+familiarity with its leading writers were not without influence;
+Giovanni Villani[152] confesses that he received the first impulse to
+his great work at the jubilee of the year 1300, and began it immediately
+on his return home. Yet how many among the 200,000 pilgrims of that year
+may have been like him in gifts and tendencies and still did not write
+the history of their native cities! For not all of them could encourage
+themselves with the thought: 'Rome is sinking; my native city is rising,
+and ready to achieve great things, and therefore I wish to relate its
+past history, and hope to continue the story to the present time, and
+as long as my life shall last.' And besides the witness to its past,
+Florence obtained through its historians something further--a greater
+fame than fell to the lot of any other city of Italy.[153]
+
+Our present task is not to write the history of this remarkable state,
+but merely to give a few indications of the intellectual freedom and
+independence for which the Florentines were indebted to this
+history.[154]
+
+In no other city of Italy were the struggles of political parties so
+bitter, of such early origin, and so permanent. The descriptions of
+them, which belong, it is true, to a somewhat later period, give clear
+evidence of the superiority of Florentine criticism.
+
+And what a politician is the great victim of these crises, Dante
+Alighieri, matured alike by home and by exile! He uttered his scorn of
+the incessant changes and experiments in the constitution of his native
+city in verses of adamant, which will remain proverbial so long as
+political events of the same kind recur;[155] he addressed his home in
+words of defiance and yearning which must have stirred the hearts of his
+countrymen. But his thoughts ranged over Italy and the whole world; and
+if his passion for the Empire, as he conceived it, was no more than an
+illusion, it must yet be admitted that the youthful dreams of a new-born
+political speculation are in his case not without a poetical grandeur.
+He is proud to be the first who had trod this path,[156] certainly in
+the footsteps of Aristotle, but in his own way independently. His ideal
+emperor is a just and humane judge, dependent on God only, the heir of
+the universal sway of Rome to which belonged the sanction of nature, of
+right and of the will of God. The conquest of the world was, according
+to this view, rightful, resting on a divine judgment between Rome and
+the other nations of the earth, and God gave his approval to this
+empire, since under it he became Man, submitting at his birth to the
+census of the Emperor Augustus, and at his death to the judgment of
+Pontius Pilate. We may find it hard to appreciate these and other
+arguments of the same kind, but Dante's passion never fails to carry us
+with him. In his letters he appears as one of the earliest
+publicists,[157] and is perhaps the first layman to publish political
+tracts in this form. He began early. Soon after the death of Beatrice he
+addressed a pamphlet on the state of Florence 'to the Great ones of the
+Earth,' and the public utterances of his later years, dating from the
+time of his banishment, are all directed to emperors, princes, and
+cardinals. In these letters and in his book 'De Vulgari Eloquio' the
+feeling, bought with such bitter pains, is constantly recurring that
+the exile may find elsewhere than in his native place an intellectual
+home in language and culture, which cannot be taken from him. On this
+point we shall have more to say in the sequel.
+
+To the two Villani, Giovanni as well as Matteo, we owe not so much deep
+political reflexion as fresh and practical observations, together with
+the elements of Florentine statistics and important notices of other
+states. Here too trade and commerce had given the impulse to economical
+as well as political science. Nowhere else in the world was such
+accurate information to be had on financial affairs. The wealth of the
+Papal court at Avignon, which at the death of John XXII. amounted to
+twenty-five millions of gold florins, would be incredible on any less
+trustworthy authority.[158] Here only, at Florence, do we meet with
+colossal loans like that which the King of England contracted from the
+Florentine houses of Bardi and Peruzzi, who lost to his Majesty the sum
+of 1,365,000 gold florins (1338)--their own money and that of their
+partners--and nevertheless recovered from the shock.[159] Most important
+facts are here recorded as to the condition of Florence at this
+time:[160] the public income (over 300,000 gold florins) and
+expenditure; the population of the city, here only roughly estimated,
+according to the consumption of bread, in 'bocche,' _i.e._ mouths, put
+at 90,000, and the population of the whole territory; the excess of 300
+to 500 male children among the 5,800 to 6,000 annually baptized;[161]
+the school-children, of whom 8,000 to 10,000 learned reading, 1,000 to
+1,200 in six schools arithmetic; and besides these, 600 scholars who
+were taught Latin grammar and logic in four schools. Then follow the
+statistics of the churches and monasteries; of the hospitals, which held
+more than a thousand beds; of the wool-trade, with its most valuable
+details; of the mint, the provisioning of the city, the public
+officials, and so on.[162] Incidentally we learn many curious facts;
+how, for instance, when the public funds ('monte') were first
+established, in the year 1353, the Franciscans spoke from the pulpit in
+favour of the measure, the Dominicans and Augustinians against it.[163]
+The economical results of the black death were and could be observed and
+described nowhere else in all Europe as in this city.[164] Only a
+Florentine could have left it on record how it was expected that the
+scanty population would have made everything cheap, and how instead of
+that labour and commodities doubled in price; how the common people at
+first would do no work at all, but simply give themselves up to
+enjoyment; how in the city itself servants and maids were not to be had
+except at extravagant wages; how the peasants would only till the best
+lands, and left the rest uncultivated; and how the enormous legacies
+bequeathed to the poor at the time of the plague seemed afterwards
+useless, since the poor had either died or had ceased to be poor.
+Lastly, on the occasion of a great bequest, by which a childless
+philanthropist left six 'danari' to every beggar in the city, the
+attempt is made to give a comprehensive statistical account of
+Florentine mendicancy.[165]
+
+This statistical view of things was at a later time still more highly
+cultivated at Florence. The noteworthy point about it is that, as a
+rule, we can perceive its connection with the higher aspects of history,
+with art, and with culture in general. An inventory of the year
+1422[166] mentions, within the compass of the same document, the
+seventy-two exchange offices which surrounded the 'Mercato Nuovo;' the
+amount of coined money in circulation (two million golden florins); the
+then new industry of gold spinning; the silk wares; Filippo Brunellesco,
+then busy in digging classical architecture from its grave; and Lionardo
+Aretino, secretary of the republic, at work at the revival of ancient
+literature and eloquence; lastly, it speaks of the general prosperity of
+the city, then free from political conflicts, and of the good fortune of
+Italy, which had rid itself of foreign mercenaries. The Venetian
+statistics quoted above (p. 70), which date from about the same year,
+certainly give evidence of larger property and profits and of a more
+extensive scene of action; Venice had long been mistress of the seas
+before Florence sent out its first galleys (1422) to Alexandria. But no
+reader can fail to recognise the higher spirit of the Florentine
+documents. These and similar lists recur at intervals of ten years,
+systematically arranged and tabulated, while elsewhere we find at best
+occasional notices. We can form an approximate estimate of the property
+and the business of the first Medici; they paid for charities, public
+buildings, and taxes from 1434 to 1471 no less than 663,755 gold
+florins, of which more than 400,000 fell on Cosimo alone, and Lorenzo
+Magnifico was delighted that the money had been so well spent.[167] In
+1472 we have again a most important and in its way complete view of the
+commerce and trades of this city,[168] some of which may be wholly or
+partly reckoned among the fine arts--such as those which had to do with
+damasks and gold or silver embroidery, with woodcarving and 'intarsia,'
+with the sculpture of arabesques in marble and sandstone, with portraits
+in wax, and with jewellery and work in gold. The inborn talent of the
+Florentines for the systematisation of outward life is shown by their
+books on agriculture, business, and domestic economy, which are markedly
+superior to those of other European people in the fifteenth century. It
+has been rightly decided to publish selections of these works,[169]
+although no little study will be needed to extract clear and definite
+results from them. At all events, we have no difficulty in recognising
+the city, where dying parents begged the Government in their wills to
+fine their sons 1,000 florins if they declined to practise a regular
+profession.[170]
+
+For the first half of the sixteenth century probably no state in the
+world possesses a document like the magnificent description of Florence
+by Varchi.[171] In descriptive statistics, as in so many things besides,
+yet another model is left to us, before the freedom and greatness of the
+city sank into the grave.[172]
+
+This statistical estimate of outward life is, however, uniformly
+accompanied by the narrative of political events to which we have
+already referred.
+
+Florence not only existed under political forms more varied than those
+of the free states of Italy and of Europe generally, but it reflected
+upon them far more deeply. It is a faithful mirror of the relations of
+individuals and classes to a variable whole. The pictures of the great
+civic democracies in France and in Flanders, as they are delineated in
+Froissart, and the narratives of the German chroniclers of the
+fourteenth century, are in truth of high importance; but in
+comprehensiveness of thought and in the rational development of the
+story, none will bear comparison with the Florentines. The rule of the
+nobility, the tyrannies, the struggles of the middle class with the
+proletariate, limited and unlimited democracy, pseudo-democracy, the
+primacy of a single house, the theocracy of Savonarola, and the mixed
+forms of government which prepared the way for the Medicean
+despotism--all are so described that the inmost motives of the actors
+are laid bare to the light.[173] At length Macchiavelli in his
+Florentine history (down to 1492) represents his native city as a living
+organism and its development as a natural and individual process; he is
+the first of the moderns who has risen to such a conception. It lies
+without our province to determine whether and in what points
+Macchiavelli may have done violence to history, as is notoriously the
+case in his life of Castruccio Castracane--a fancy picture of the
+typical despot. We might find something to say against every line of the
+'Istorie Fiorentine,' and yet the great and unique value of the whole
+would remain unaffected. And his contemporaries and successors, Jacopo
+Pitti, Guicciardini, Segni, Varchi, Vettori, what a circle of
+illustrious names! And what a story it is which these masters tell us!
+The great and memorable drama of the last decades of the Florentine
+republic is here unfolded. The voluminous record of the collapse of the
+highest and most original life which the world could then show may
+appear to one but as a collection of curiosities, may awaken in another
+a devilish delight at the shipwreck of so much nobility and grandeur, to
+a third may seem like a great historical assize; for all it will be an
+object of thought and study to the end of time. The evil, which was for
+ever troubling the peace of the city, was its rule over once powerful
+and now conquered rivals like Pisa--a rule of which the necessary
+consequence was a chronic state of violence. The only remedy, certainly
+an extreme one and which none but Savonarola could have persuaded
+Florence to accept, and that only with the help of favourable chances,
+would have been the well-timed resolution of Tuscany into a federal
+union of free cities. At a later period this scheme, then no more than
+the dream of a past age, brought (1548) a patriotic citizen of Lucca to
+the scaffold.[174] From this evil and from the ill-starred Guelph
+sympathies of Florence for a foreign prince, which familiarised it with
+foreign intervention, came all the disasters which followed. But who
+does not admire the people, which was wrought up by its venerated
+preacher to a mood of such sustained loftiness, that for the first time
+in Italy it set the example of sparing a conquered foe, while the whole
+history of its past taught nothing but vengeance and extermination? The
+glow which melted patriotism into one with moral regeneration may seem,
+when looked at from a distance, to have soon passed away; but its best
+results shine forth again in the memorable siege of 1529-30. They were
+'fools,' as Guicciardini then wrote, who drew down this storm upon
+Florence, but he confesses himself that they achieved things which
+seemed incredible; and when he declares that sensible people would have
+got out of the way of the danger, he means no more than that Florence
+ought to have yielded itself silently and ingloriously into the hands of
+its enemies. It would no doubt have preserved its splendid suburbs and
+gardens, and the lives and prosperity of countless citizens; but it
+would have been the poorer by one of its greatest and most ennobling
+memories.
+
+In many of their chief merits the Florentines are the pattern and the
+earliest type of Italians and modern Europeans generally; they are so
+also in many of their defects. When Dante compares the city which was
+always mending its constitution with the sick man who is continually
+changing his posture to escape from pain, he touches with the comparison
+a permanent feature of the political life of Florence. The great modern
+fallacy that a constitution can be made, can be manufactured by a
+combination of existing forces and tendencies,[175] was constantly
+cropping up in stormy times; even Macchiavelli is not wholly free from
+it. Constitutional artists were never wanting who by an ingenious
+distribution and division of political power, by indirect elections of
+the most complicated kind, by the establishment of nominal offices,
+sought to found a lasting order of things, and to satisfy or to deceive
+the rich and the poor alike. They naïvely fetch their examples from
+classical antiquity, and borrow the party names 'ottimati,'
+'aristocrazia,'[176] as a matter of course. The world since then has
+become used to these expressions and given them a conventional European
+sense, whereas all former party names were purely national, and either
+characterised the cause at issue or sprang from the caprice of accident.
+But how a name colours or discolours a political cause!
+
+But of all who thought it possible to construct a state, the greatest
+beyond all comparison was Macchiavelli.[177] He treats existing forces
+as living and active, takes a large and an accurate view of alternative
+possibilities, and seeks to mislead neither himself nor others. No man
+could be freer from vanity or ostentation; indeed, he does not write for
+the public, but either for princes and administrators or for personal
+friends. The danger for him does not lie in an affectation of genius or
+in a false order of ideas, but rather in a powerful imagination which he
+evidently controls with difficulty. The objectivity of his political
+judgment is sometimes appalling in its sincerity; but it is the sign of
+a time of no ordinary need and peril, when it was a hard matter to
+believe in right, or to credit others with just dealing. Virtuous
+indignation at his expense is thrown away upon us who have seen in what
+sense political morality is understood by the statesmen of our own
+century. Macchiavelli was at all events able to forget himself in his
+cause. In truth, although his writings, with the exception of very few
+words, are altogether destitute of enthusiasm, and although the
+Florentines themselves treated him at last as a criminal,[178] he was a
+patriot in the fullest meaning of the word. But free as he was, like
+most of his contemporaries, in speech and morals, the welfare of the
+state was yet his first and last thought.
+
+His most complete programme for the construction of a new political
+system at Florence is set forth in the memorial to Leo X.,[179] composed
+after the death of the younger Lorenzo Medici, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519),
+to whom he had dedicated his 'Prince.' The state was by that time in
+extremities and utterly corrupt, and the remedies proposed are not
+always morally justifiable; but it is most interesting to see how he
+hopes to set up the republic in the form of a moderate democracy, as
+heiress to the Medici. A more ingenious scheme of concessions to the
+Pope, to the Pope's various adherents, and to the different Florentine
+interests, cannot be imagined; we might fancy ourselves looking into the
+works of a clock. Principles, observations, comparisons, political
+forecasts, and the like are to be found in numbers in the 'Discorsi,'
+among them flashes of wonderful insight. He recognises, for example, the
+law of a continuous though not uniform development in republican
+institutions, and requires the constitution to be flexible and capable
+of change, as the only means of dispensing with bloodshed and
+banishments. For a like reason, in order to guard against private
+violence and foreign interference--'the death of all freedom'--he wishes
+to see introduced a judicial procedure ('accusa') against hated
+citizens, in place of which Florence had hitherto had nothing but the
+court of scandal. With a masterly hand the tardy and involuntary
+decisions are characterised, which at critical moments play so important
+a part in republican states. Once, it is true, he is misled by his
+imagination and the pressure of events into unqualified praise of the
+people, which chooses its officers, he says, better than any prince, and
+which can be cured of its errors by 'good advice.'[180] With regard to
+the government of Tuscany, he has no doubt that it belongs to his native
+city, and maintains, in a special 'Discorso' that the reconquest of Pisa
+is a question of life or death; he deplores that Arezzo, after the
+rebellion of 1502, was not razed to the ground; he admits in general
+that Italian republics must be allowed to expand freely and add to their
+territory in order to enjoy peace at home, and not to be themselves
+attacked by others, but declares that Florence had always begun at the
+wrong end, and from the first made deadly enemies of Pisa, Lucca, and
+Siena, while Pistoja, 'treated like a brother,' had voluntarily
+submitted to her.[181]
+
+It would be unreasonable to draw a parallel between the few other
+republics which still existed in the fifteenth century and this unique
+city--the most important workshop of the Italian, and indeed of the
+modern European spirit. Siena suffered from the gravest organic
+maladies, and its relative prosperity in art and industry must not
+mislead us on this point. Æneas Sylvius[182] looks with longing from his
+native town over to the 'merry' German imperial cities, where life is
+embittered by no confiscations of land and goods, by no arbitrary
+officials, and by no political factions.[183] Genoa scarcely comes
+within range of our task, as before the time of Andrea Doria it took
+almost no part in the Renaissance. Indeed, the inhabitant of the Riviera
+was proverbial among Italians for his contempt of all higher
+culture.[184] Party conflicts here assumed so fierce a character, and
+disturbed so violently the whole course of life, that we can hardly
+understand how, after so many revolutions and invasions, the Genoese
+ever contrived to return to an endurable condition. Perhaps it was owing
+to the fact that nearly all who took part in public affairs were at the
+same time almost without exception active men of business.[185] The
+example of Genoa shows in a striking manner with what insecurity wealth
+and vast commerce, and with what internal disorder the possession of
+distant colonies, are compatible.
+
+Lucca is of small significance in the fifteenth century.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ITALIAN STATES.
+
+
+As the majority of the Italian states were in their internal
+constitution works of art, that is, the fruit of reflection and careful
+adaptation, so was their relation to one another and to foreign
+countries also a work of art. That nearly all of them were the result of
+recent usurpations, was a fact which exercised as fatal an influence in
+their foreign as in their internal policy. Not one of them recognised
+another without reserve; the same play of chance which had helped to
+found and consolidate one dynasty might upset another. Nor was it always
+a matter of choice with the despot whether to keep quiet or not. The
+necessity of movement and aggrandisement is common to all illegitimate
+powers. Thus Italy became the scene of a 'foreign policy' which
+gradually, as in other countries also, acquired the position of a
+recognised system of public law. The purely objective treatment of
+international affairs, as free from prejudice as from moral scruples,
+attained a perfection which sometimes is not without a certain beauty
+and grandeur of its own. But as a whole it gives us the impression of a
+bottomless abyss.
+
+Intrigues, armaments, leagues, corruption and treason make up the
+outward history of Italy at this period. Venice in particular was long
+accused on all hands of seeking to conquer the whole peninsula, or
+gradually so to reduce its strength that one state after another must
+fall into her hands.[186] But on a closer view it is evident that this
+complaint did not come from the people, but rather from the courts and
+official classes, which were commonly abhorred by their subjects, while
+the mild government of Venice had secured for it general confidence.
+Even Florence,[187] with its restive subject cities, found itself in a
+false position with regard to Venice, apart from all commercial jealousy
+and from the progress of Venice in Romagna. At last the League of
+Cambray actually did strike a serious blow at the state (p. 68), which
+all Italy ought to have supported with united strength.
+
+The other states, also, were animated by feelings no less unfriendly,
+and were at all times ready to use against one another any weapon which
+their evil conscience might suggest. Ludovico Moro, the Aragonese kings
+of Naples, and Sixtus IV.--to say nothing of the smaller powers--kept
+Italy in a state of constant and perilous agitation. It would have been
+well if the atrocious game had been confined to Italy; but it lay in the
+nature of the case that intervention and help should at last be sought
+from abroad--in particular from the French and the Turks.
+
+The sympathies of the people at large were throughout on the side of
+France. Florence had never ceased to confess with shocking _naïveté_ its
+old Guelph preference for the French.[188] And when Charles VIII.
+actually appeared on the south of the Alps, all Italy accepted him with
+an enthusiasm which to himself and his followers seemed
+unaccountable.[189] In the imagination of the Italians, to take
+Savonarola for an example, the ideal picture of a wise, just, and
+powerful saviour and ruler was still living, with the difference that he
+was no longer the emperor invoked by Dante, but the Capetian king of
+France. With his departure the illusion was broken; but it was long
+before all understood how completely Charles VIII., Louis XII., and
+Francis I. had mistaken their true relation to Italy, and by what
+inferior motives they were led. The princes, for their part, tried to
+make use of France in a wholly different way. When the Franco-English
+wars came to an end, when Louis XI. began to cast about his diplomatic
+nets on all sides, and Charles of Burgundy to embark on his foolish
+adventures, the Italian Cabinets came to meet them at every point. It
+became clear that the intervention of France was only a question of
+time, even though the claims on Naples and Milan had never existed, and
+that the old interference with Genoa and Piedmont was only a type of
+what was to follow. The Venetians, in fact, expected it as early as
+1642.[190] The mortal terror of the Duke Galeazzo Maria of Milan during
+the Burgundian war, in which he was apparently the ally of Charles as
+well as of Louis, and consequently had reason to dread an attack from
+both, is strikingly shown in his correspondence.[191] The plan of an
+equilibrium of the four chief Italian powers, as understood by Lorenzo
+the Magnificent, was but the assumption of a cheerful optimistic spirit,
+which had outgrown both the recklessness of an experimental policy and
+the superstitions of Florentine Guelphism, and persisted in hoping the
+best. When Louis XI. offered him aid in the war against Ferrante of
+Naples and Sixtus IV., he replied, 'I cannot set my own advantage above
+the safety of all Italy; would to God it never came into the mind of the
+French kings to try their strength in this country! Should they ever do
+so, Italy is lost.'[192] For the other princes, the King of France was
+alternately a bugbear to themselves and their enemies, and they
+threatened to call him in whenever they saw no more convenient way out
+of their difficulties. The Popes, in their turn, fancied that they could
+make use of France without any danger to themselves, and even Innocent
+VIII. imagined that he could withdraw to sulk in the North, and return
+as a conqueror to Italy at the head of a French army.[193]
+
+Thoughtful men, indeed, foresaw the foreign conquest long before the
+expedition of Charles VIII.[194] And when Charles was back again on the
+other side of the Alps, it was plain to every eye that an era of
+intervention had begun. Misfortune now followed on misfortune; it was
+understood too late that France and Spain, the two chief invaders, had
+become great European powers, that they would be no longer satisfied
+with verbal homage, but would fight to the death for influence and
+territory in Italy. They had begun to resemble the centralised Italian
+states, and indeed to copy them, only on a gigantic scale. Schemes of
+annexation or exchange of territory were for a time indefinitely
+multiplied. The end, as is well known, was the complete victory of
+Spain, which, as sword and shield of the counter-reformation, long held
+the Papacy among its other subjects. The melancholy reflections of the
+philosophers could only show them how those who had called in the
+barbarians all came to a bad end.
+
+Alliances were at the same time formed with the Turks too, with as
+little scruple or disguise; they were reckoned no worse than any other
+political expedients. The belief in the unity of Western Christendom had
+at various times in the course of the Crusades been seriously shaken,
+and Frederick II. had probably outgrown it. But the fresh advance of the
+Oriental nations, the need and the ruin of the Greek Empire, had revived
+the old feeling, though not in its former strength, throughout Western
+Europe. Italy, however, was a striking exception to this rule. Great as
+was the terror felt for the Turks, and the actual danger from them,
+there was yet scarcely a government of any consequence which did not
+conspire against other Italian states with Mohammed II. and his
+successors. And when they did not do so, they still had the credit of
+it; nor was it worse than the sending of emissaries to poison the
+cisterns of Venice, which was the charge brought against the heirs of
+Alfonso King of Naples.[195] From a scoundrel like Sigismondo Malatesta
+nothing better could be expected than that he should call the Turks
+into Italy.[196] But the Aragonese monarchs of Naples, from whom
+Mohammed--at the instigation, we read, of other Italian governments,
+especially of Venice[197]--had once wrested Otranto (1480), afterwards
+hounded on the Sultan Bajazet II. against the Venetians.[198] The same
+charge was brought against Ludovico Moro. 'The blood of the slain, and
+the misery of the prisoners in the hands of the Turks, cry to God for
+vengeance against him,' says the state historian. In Venice, where the
+government was informed of everything, it was known that Giovanni
+Sforza, ruler of Pesaro, the cousin of the Moor, had entertained the
+Turkish ambassadors on their way to Milan.[199] The two most respectable
+among the Popes of the fifteenth century, Nicholas V. and Pius II., died
+in the deepest grief at the progress of the Turks, the latter indeed
+amid the preparations for a crusade which he was hoping to lead in
+person; their successors embezzled the contributions sent for this
+purpose from all parts of Christendom, and degraded the indulgences
+granted in return for them into a private commercial speculation.[200]
+Innocent VIII. consented to be gaoler to the fugitive Prince Djem, for a
+salary paid by the prisoner's brother Bajazet II., and Alexander VI.
+supported the steps taken by Ludovico Moro in Constantinople to further
+a Turkish assault upon Venice (1498), whereupon the latter threatened
+him with a Council.[201] It is clear that the notorious alliance
+between Francis I. and Soliman II. was nothing new or unheard of.
+
+Indeed, we find instances of whole populations to whom it seemed no
+particular crime to go over bodily to the Turks. Even if it were only
+held out as a threat to oppressive governments, this is at least a proof
+that the idea had become familiar. As early as 1480 Battista Mantovano
+gives us clearly to understand that most of the inhabitants of the
+Adriatic coast foresaw something of this kind, and that Ancona in
+particular desired it.[202] When Romagna was suffering from the
+oppressive government of Leo X., a deputy from Ravenna said openly to
+the Legate, Cardinal Guilio Medici: 'Monsignore, the honourable Republic
+of Venice will not have us, for fear of a dispute with the Holy See; but
+if the Turk comes to Ragusa we will put ourselves into his hands.'[203]
+
+It was a poor but not wholly groundless consolation for the enslavement
+of Italy then begun by the Spaniards, that the country was at least
+secured from the relapse into barbarism which would have awaited it
+under the Turkish rule.[204] By itself, divided as it was, it could
+hardly have escaped this fate.
+
+If, with all these drawbacks, the Italian statesmanship of this period
+deserves our praise, it is only on the ground of its practical and
+unprejudiced treatment of those questions which were not affected by
+fear, passion, or malice. Here was no feudal system after the northern
+fashion, with its artificial scheme of rights; but the power which each
+possessed he held in practice as in theory. Here was no attendant
+nobility to foster in the mind of the prince the mediæval sense of
+honour, with all its strange consequences; but princes and counsellors
+were agreed in acting according to the exigencies of the particular case
+and to the end they had in view. Towards the men whose services were
+used and towards allies, come from what quarter they might, no pride of
+caste was felt which could possibly estrange a supporter; and the class
+of the Condottieri, in which birth was a matter of indifference, shows
+clearly enough in what sort of hands the real power lay; and lastly, the
+Government, in the hands of an enlightened despot, had an incomparably
+more accurate acquaintance with its own country and that of its
+neighbours, than was possessed by northern contemporaries, and estimated
+the economical and moral capacities of friend and foe down to the
+smallest particular. The rulers were, notwithstanding grave errors, born
+masters of statistical science. With such men negotiation was possible;
+it might be presumed that they would be convinced and their opinion
+modified when practical reasons were laid before them. When the great
+Alfonso of Naples was (1434) a prisoner of Filippo Maria Visconti, he
+was able to satisfy his gaoler that the rule of the House of Anjou
+instead of his own at Naples would make the French masters of Italy;
+Filippo Maria set him free without ransom and made an alliance with
+him.[205] A northern prince would scarcely have acted in the same way,
+certainly not one whose morality in other respects was like that of
+Visconti. What confidence was felt in the power of self-interest is
+shown by the celebrated visit which Lorenzo the Magnificent, to the
+universal astonishment of the Florentines, paid the faithless Ferrante
+at Naples--a man who would be certainly tempted to keep him a prisoner,
+and was by no means too scrupulous to do so.[206] For to arrest a
+powerful monarch, and then to let him go alive, after extorting his
+signature and otherwise insulting him, as Charles the Bold did to Louis
+XI. at Péronne (1468), seemed madness to the Italians;[207] so that
+Lorenzo was expected to come back covered with glory, or else not to
+come back at all. The art of political persuasion was at this time
+raised to a point--especially by the Venetian ambassadors--of which
+northern nations first obtained a conception from the Italians, and of
+which the official addresses give a most imperfect idea. These are mere
+pieces of humanistic rhetoric. Nor, in spite of an otherwise ceremonious
+etiquette, was there in case of need any lack of rough and frank
+speaking in diplomatic intercourse.[208] A man like Macchiavelli appears
+in his 'Legazioni' in an almost pathetic light. Furnished with scanty
+instructions, shabbily equipped, and treated as an agent of inferior
+rank, he never loses his gift of free and wide observation or his
+pleasure in picturesque description. From that time Italy was and
+remained the country of political 'Istruzioni' and 'Relazioni.' There
+was doubtless plenty of diplomatic ability in other states, but Italy
+alone at so early a period has preserved documentary evidence of it in
+considerable quantity. The long despatch on the last period of the life
+of Ferrante of Naples (January 17, 1494), written by the hand of Pontano
+and addressed to the Cabinet of Alexander VI., gives us the highest
+opinion of this class of political writing, although it is only quoted
+incidentally and as one of many written. And how many other despatches,
+as important and as vigorously written, in the diplomatic intercourse of
+this and later times, still remain unknown or unedited![209]
+
+A special division of this work will treat of the study of man
+individually and nationally, which among the Italians went hand in hand
+with the study of the outward conditions of human life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+WAR AS A WORK OF ART.
+
+
+It must here be briefly indicated by what steps the art of war assumed
+the character of a product of reflection.[210] Throughout the countries
+of the West the education of the individual soldier in the middle ages
+was perfect within the limits of the then prevalent system of defence
+and attack: nor was there any want of ingenious inventors in the arts of
+besieging and of fortification. But the development both of strategy and
+of tactics was hindered by the character and duration of military
+service, and by the ambition of the nobles, who disputed questions of
+precedence in the face of the enemy, and through simple want of
+discipline caused the loss of great battles like Crécy and Maupertuis.
+Italy, on the contrary, was the first country to adopt the system of
+mercenary troops, which demanded a wholly different organisation; and
+the early introduction of fire-arms did its part in making war a
+democratic pursuit, not only because the strongest castles were unable
+to withstand a bombardment, but because the skill of the engineer, of
+the gun-founder, and of the artillerist--men belonging to another class
+than the nobility--was now of the first importance in a campaign. It was
+felt, with regret, that the value of the individual, which had been the
+soul of the small and admirably-organised bands of mercenaries, would
+suffer from these novel means of destruction, which did their work at a
+distance; and there were Condottieri who opposed to the utmost the
+introduction at least of the musket, which had been lately invented in
+Germany.[211] We read that Paolo Vitelli,[212] while recognising and
+himself adopting the cannon, put out the eyes and cut off the hands of
+the captured 'schioppettieri,' of the enemy, because he held it unworthy
+that a gallant, and it might be noble, knight should be wounded and laid
+low by a common, despised foot soldier. On the whole, however, the new
+discoveries were accepted and turned to useful account, till the
+Italians became the teachers of all Europe, both in the building of
+fortifications and in the means of attacking them.[213] Princes like
+Federigo of Urbino and Alfonso of Ferrara acquired a mastery of the
+subject compared to which the knowledge even of Maximilian I. appears
+superficial. In Italy, earlier than elsewhere, there existed a
+comprehensive science and art of military affairs; here, for the first
+time, that impartial delight is taken in able generalship for its own
+sake, which might, indeed, be expected from the frequent change of party
+and from the wholly unsentimental mode of action of the Condottieri.
+During the Milano-Venetian war of 1451 and 1452, between Francesco
+Sforza and Jacopo Piccinino, the headquarters of the latter were
+attended by the scholar Gian Antonio Porcello dei Pandoni, commissioned
+by Alfonso of Naples to write a report of the campaign.[214] It is
+written, not in the purest, but in a fluent Latin, a little too much in
+the style of the humanistic bombast of the day, is modelled on Cæsar's
+Commentaries, and interspersed with speeches, prodigies, and the like.
+Since for the past hundred years it had been seriously disputed whether
+Scipio Africanus or Hannibal was the greater,[215] Piccinino through
+the whole book must needs be called Scipio and Sforza Hannibal. But
+something positive had to be reported too respecting the Milanese army;
+the sophist presented himself to Sforza, was led along the ranks,
+praised highly all that he saw, and promised to hand it down to
+posterity.[216] Apart from him the Italian literature of the day is rich
+in descriptions of wars and strategic devices, written for the use of
+educated men in general as well as of specialists, while the
+contemporary narratives of northerners, such as the 'Burgundian War' by
+Diebold Schelling, still retain the shapelessness and matter-of-fact
+dryness of a mere chronicle. The greatest _dilettante_ who has ever
+treated in that character[217] of military affairs, was then busy
+writing his 'Arte della Guerra.' But the development of the individual
+soldier found its most complete expression in those public and solemn
+conflicts between one or more pairs of combatants which were practised
+long before the famous 'Challenge of Barletta'[218] (1503). The victor
+was assured of the praises of poets and scholars, which were denied to
+the Northern warrior. The result of these combats was no longer regarded
+as a Divine judgment, but as a triumph of personal merit, and to the
+minds of the spectators seemed to be both the decision of an exciting
+competition and a satisfaction for the honour of the army or the
+nation.[219]
+
+It is obvious that this purely rational treatment of warlike affairs
+allowed, under certain circumstances, of the worst atrocities, even in
+the absence of a strong political hatred, as, for instance, when the
+plunder of a city had been promised to the troops. After the four days'
+devastation of Piacenza, which Sforza was compelled to permit to his
+soldiers (1447), the town long stood empty, and at last had to be
+peopled by force.[220] Yet outrages like these were nothing compared
+with the misery which was afterwards brought upon Italy by foreign
+troops, and most of all by the Spaniards, in whom perhaps a touch of
+Oriental blood, perhaps familiarity with the spectacles of the
+Inquisition, had unloosed the devilish element of human nature. After
+seeing them at work at Prato, Rome, and elsewhere, it is not easy to
+take any interest of the higher sort in Ferdinand the Catholic and
+Charles V., who knew what these hordes were, and yet unchained them. The
+mass of documents which are gradually brought to light from the cabinets
+of these rulers will always remain an important source of historical
+information; but from such men no fruitful political conception can be
+looked for.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PAPACY AND ITS DANGERS.
+
+
+The Papacy and the dominions of the Church[221] are creations of so
+peculiar a kind, that we have hitherto, in determining the general
+characteristics of Italian states, referred to them only occasionally.
+The deliberate choice and adaptation of political expedients, which
+gives so great an interest to the other states, is what we find least of
+all at Rome, since here the spiritual power could constantly conceal or
+supply the defects of the temporal. And what fiery trials did this state
+undergo in the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century,
+when the Papacy was led captive to Avignon! All, at first, was thrown
+into confusion; but the Pope had money, troops, and a great statesman
+and general, the Spaniard Alboronoz, who again brought the
+ecclesiastical state into complete subjection. The danger of a final
+dissolution was still greater at the time of the schism, when neither
+the Roman nor the French Pope was rich enough to reconquer the
+newly-lost state; but this was done under Martin V., after the unity of
+the Church was restored, and done again under Eugenius IV., when the
+same danger was renewed. But the ecclesiastical state was and remained a
+thorough anomaly among the powers of Italy; in and near Rome itself, the
+Papacy was defied by the great families of the Colonna, Orsini, Savelli,
+and Anguillara; in Umbria, in the Marches, and in Romagna, those civic
+republics had almost ceased to exist, for whose devotion the Papacy had
+showed so little gratitude; their place had been taken by a crowd of
+princely dynasties, great or small, whose loyalty and obedience
+signified little. As self-dependent powers, standing on their own
+merits, they have an interest of their own; and from this point of view
+the most important of them have been already discussed (pp. 28 sqq., 44
+sqq.).
+
+Nevertheless, a few general remarks on the Papacy can hardly be
+dispensed with. New and strange perils and trials came upon it in the
+course of the fifteenth century, as the political spirit of the nation
+began to lay hold upon it on various sides, and to draw it within the
+sphere of its action. The least of these dangers came from the populace
+or from abroad; the most serious had their ground in the characters of
+the Popes themselves.
+
+Let us, for this moment, leave out of consideration the countries beyond
+the Alps. At the time when the Papacy was exposed to mortal danger in
+Italy, it neither received nor could receive the slightest assistance
+either from France, then under Louis XI., or from England, distracted by
+the wars of the Roses, or from the then disorganized Spanish monarchy,
+or from Germany, but lately betrayed at the Council of Basel. In Italy
+itself there were a certain number of instructed and even uninstructed
+people, whose national vanity was flattered by the Italian character of
+the Papacy; the personal interests of very many depended on its having
+and retaining this character; and vast masses of the people still
+believed in the virtue of the Papal blessing and consecration;[222]
+among them notorious transgressors like that Vitellozzo Vitelli, who
+still prayed to be absolved by Alexander VI., when the Pope's son had
+him slaughtered.[223] But all these grounds of sympathy put together
+would not have sufficed to save the Papacy from its enemies, had the
+latter been really in earnest, and had they known how to take advantage
+of the envy and hatred with which the institution was regarded.
+
+And at the very time when the prospect of help from without was so
+small, the most dangerous symptoms appeared within the Papacy itself.
+Living, as it now did, and acting in the spirit of the secular Italian
+principalities, it was compelled to go through the same dark experiences
+as they; but its own exceptional nature gave a peculiar colour to the
+shadows.
+
+As far as the city of Rome itself is concerned, small account was taken
+of its internal agitations, so many were the Popes who had returned
+after being expelled by popular tumult, and so greatly did the presence
+of the Curia minister to the interests of the Roman people. But Rome not
+only displayed at times a specific anti-papal radicalism,[224] but in
+the most serious plots which were then contrived, gave proof of the
+working of unseen hands from without. It was so in the case of the
+conspiracy of Stefano Porcaro against Nicholas V. (1453), the very Pope
+who had done most for the prosperity of the city, but who, by enriching
+the cardinals, and transforming Rome into a papal fortress, had aroused
+the discontent of the people.[225] Porcaro aimed at the complete
+overthrow of the papal authority, and had distinguished accomplices,
+who, though their names are not handed down to us,[226] are certainly
+to be looked for among the Italian governments of the time. Under the
+pontificate of the same man, Lorenzo Valla concluded his famous
+declamation against the gift of Constantine, with the wish for the
+speedy secularisation of the States of the Church.[227]
+
+The Catilinarian gang, with which Pius II. had to contend[228] (1460),
+avowed with equal frankness their resolution to overthrow the government
+of the priests, and its leader, Tiburzio, threw the blame on the
+soothsayers, who had fixed the accomplishment of his wishes for this
+very year. Several of the chief men of Rome, the Prince of Tarentum, and
+the Condottiere Jacopo Piccinino, were accomplices and supporters of
+Tiburzio. Indeed, when we think of the booty which was accumulated in
+the palaces of wealthy prelates--the conspirators had the Cardinal of
+Aquileia especially in view--we are surprised that, in an almost
+unguarded city, such attempts were not more frequent and more
+successful. It was not without reason that Pius II. preferred to reside
+anywhere rather than in Rome, and even Paul II.[229] was exposed to no
+small anxiety through a plot formed by some discharged abbreviators,
+who, under the command of Platina, besieged the Vatican for twenty days.
+The Papacy must sooner or later have fallen a victim to such
+enterprises, if it had not stamped out the aristocratic factions under
+whose protection these bands of robbers grew to a head.
+
+This task was undertaken by the terrible Sixtus IV. He was the first
+Pope who had Rome and the neighbourhood thoroughly under his control,
+especially after his successful attack on the House of Colonna, and
+consequently, both in his Italian policy and in the internal affairs of
+the Church, he could venture to act with a defiant audacity, and to set
+at nought the complaints and threats to summon a council which arose
+from all parts of Europe. He supplied himself with the necessary funds
+by simony, which suddenly grew to unheard-of proportions, and which
+extended from the appointment of cardinals down to the granting of the
+smallest favours.[230] Sixtus himself had not obtained the papal dignity
+without recourse to the same means.
+
+A corruption so universal might sooner or later bring disastrous
+consequences on the Holy See, but they lay in the uncertain future. It
+was otherwise with nepotism, which threatened at one time to destroy the
+Papacy altogether. Of all the 'nipoti,' Cardinal Pietro Riario enjoyed
+at first the chief and almost exclusive favour of Sixtus. He soon drew
+upon him the eyes of all Italy,[231] partly by the fabulous luxury of
+his life, partly through the reports which were current of his
+irreligion and his political plans. He bargained with Duke Galeazzo
+Maria of Milan (1473), that the latter should become King of Lombardy,
+and then aid him with money and troops to return to Rome and ascend the
+papal throne; Sixtus, it appears, would have voluntarily yielded it to
+him.[232] This plan, which, by making the Papacy hereditary, would have
+ended in the secularization of the papal state, failed through the
+sudden death of Pietro. The second 'nipote,' Girolamo Riario, remained a
+layman, and did not seek the Pontificate. From this time the 'nipoti,'
+by their endeavours to found principalities for themselves, became a new
+source of confusion to Italy. It had already happened that the Popes
+tried to make good their feudal claims on Naples in favour of their
+relatives;[233] but since the failure of Calixtus III. such a scheme was
+no longer practicable, and Girolamo Riario, after the attempt to conquer
+Florence (and who knows how many other places) had failed, was forced to
+content himself with founding a state within the limits of the papal
+dominions themselves. This was, in so far, justifiable, as Romagna, with
+its princes and civic despots, threatened to shake off the papal
+supremacy altogether, and ran the risk of shortly falling a prey to
+Sforza or the Venetians, when Rome interfered to prevent it. But who, at
+times and in circumstances like these, could guarantee the continued
+obedience of 'nipoti' and their descendants, now turned into sovereign
+rulers, to Popes with whom they had no further concern? Even in his
+lifetime the Pope was not always sure of his own son or nephew, and the
+temptation was strong to expel the 'nipote' of a predecessor and replace
+him by one of his own. The reaction of the whole system on the Papacy
+itself was of the most serious character; all means of compulsion,
+whether temporal or spiritual, were used without scruple for the most
+questionable ends, and to these all the other objects of the Apostolic
+See were made subordinate. And when they were attained, at whatever cost
+of revolutions and proscriptions, a dynasty was founded which had no
+stronger interest than the destruction of the Papacy.
+
+At the death of Sixtus, Girolamo was only able to maintain himself in
+his usurped principality of Forli and Imola by the utmost exertions of
+his own, and by the aid of the House of Sforza. He was murdered in 1488.
+In the conclave (1484) which followed the death of Sixtus--that in which
+Innocent VIII. was elected--an incident occurred which seemed to furnish
+the Papacy with a new external guarantee. Two cardinals, who, at the
+same time, were princes of ruling houses, Giovanni d'Aragona, son of
+King Ferrante, and Ascanio Sforza, brother of the Moor, sold their votes
+with the most shameless effrontery;[234] so that, at any rate, the
+ruling houses of Naples and Milan became interested, by their
+participation in the booty, in the continuance of the papal system. Once
+again, in the following Conclave, when all the cardinals but five sold
+themselves, Ascanio received enormous sums in bribes, not without
+cherishing the hope that at the next election he would himself be the
+favoured candidate.[235]
+
+Lorenzo the Magnificent, on his part, was anxious that the House of
+Medici should not be sent away with empty hands. He married his daughter
+Maddalena to the son of the new Pope--the first who publicly
+acknowledged his children--Franceschetto Cybò, and expected not only
+favours of all kinds for his own son, Cardinal Giovanni, afterwards Leo
+X., but also the rapid promotion of his son-in-law.[236] But with
+respect to the latter, he demanded impossibilities. Under Innocent VIII.
+there was no opportunity for the audacious nepotism by which states had
+been founded, since Franceschetto himself was a poor creature who, like
+his father the Pope, sought power only for the lowest purpose of
+all--the acquisition and accumulation of money.[237] The manner,
+however, in which father and son practised this occupation must have led
+sooner or later to a final catastrophe--the dissolution of the state. If
+Sixtus had filled his treasury by the rule of spiritual dignities and
+favours, Innocent and his son, for their part, established an office for
+the sale of secular favours, in which pardons for murder and
+manslaughter were sold for large sums of money. Out of every fine 150
+ducats were paid into the papal exchequer, and what was over to
+Franceschetto. Rome, during the latter part of this pontificate, swarmed
+with licensed and unlicensed assassins; the factions, which Sixtus had
+begun to put down, were again as active as ever; the Pope, well guarded
+in the Vatican, was satisfied with now and then laying a trap, in which
+a wealthy misdoer was occasionally caught. For Franceschetto the chief
+point was to know by what means, when the Pope died, he could escape
+with well-filled coffers. He betrayed himself at last, on the occasion
+of a false report (1490) of his father's death; he endeavoured to carry
+off all the money in the papal treasury, and when this proved
+impossible, insisted that, at all events, the Turkish prince, Djem,
+should go with him, and serve as a living capital, to be advantageously
+disposed of, perhaps to Ferrante of Naples.[238] It is hard to estimate
+the political possibilities of remote periods, but we cannot help asking
+ourselves the question, if Rome could have survived two or three
+pontificates of this kind. Even with reference to the believing
+countries of Europe, it was imprudent to let matters go so far that not
+only travellers and pilgrims, but a whole embassy of Maximilian, King of
+the Romans, were stripped to their shirts in the neighbourhood of Rome,
+and that envoys had constantly to turn back without setting foot within
+the city.
+
+Such a condition of things was incompatible with the conception of power
+and its pleasures which inspired the gifted Alexander VI. (1492-1503),
+and the first event that happened was the restoration, at least
+provisionally, of public order, and the punctual payment of every
+salary.
+
+Strictly speaking, as we are now discussing phases of Italian
+civilization, this pontificate might be passed over, since the Borgias
+are no more Italian than the House of Naples. Alexander spoke Spanish in
+public with Cæsar; Lucretia, at her entrance to Ferrara, where she wore
+a Spanish costume, was sung to by Spanish buffoons; their confidential
+servants consisted of Spaniards, as did also the most ill-famed company
+of the troops of Cæsar in the war of 1500; and even his hangman, Don
+Micheletto, and his poisoner, Sebastian Pinzon,[239] seem to have been
+of the same nation. Among his other achievements, Cæsar, in true Spanish
+fashion, killed, according to the rules of the craft, six wild bulls in
+an enclosed court. But the Roman corruption, which seemed to culminate
+in this family, was already far advanced when they came to the city.
+
+What they were and what they did has been often and fully
+described.[240] Their immediate purpose, which, in fact, they attained,
+was the complete subjugation of the pontifical state. All the petty
+despots,[241] who were mostly more or less refractory vassals of the
+Church, were expelled or destroyed; and in Rome itself the two great
+factions were annihilated, the so-called Guelph Orsini as well as the
+so-called Ghibelline Colonna. But the means employed were of so
+frightful a character, that they must certainly have ended in the ruin
+of the Papacy, had not the contemporaneous death of both father and son
+by poison suddenly intervened to alter the whole aspect of the
+situation. The moral indignation of Christendom was certainly no great
+source of danger to Alexander; at home he was strong enough to extort
+terror and obedience; foreign rulers were won over to his side, and
+Louis XII. even aided him to the utmost of his power. The mass of the
+people throughout Europe had hardly a conception of what was passing in
+Central Italy. The only moment which was really fraught with
+danger--when Charles VIII. was in Italy--went by with unexpected
+fortune, and even then it was not the Papacy as such that was in peril,
+but Alexander, who risked being supplanted by a more respectable
+Pope.[242] The great, permanent, and increasing danger for the Papacy
+lay in Alexander himself, and, above all, in his son Cæsar Borgia.
+
+In the nature of the father, ambition, avarice, and sensuality were
+combined with strong and brilliant qualities. All the pleasures of power
+and luxury he granted himself from the first day of his pontificate in
+the fullest measure. In the choice of means to this end he was wholly
+without scruple; it was known at once that he would more than compensate
+himself for the sacrifices which his election had involved,[243] and
+that the simony of the seller would far exceed the simony of the buyer.
+It must be remembered that the vice-chancellorship and other offices
+which Alexander had formerly held had taught him to know better and turn
+to more practical account the various sources of revenue than any other
+member of the Curia. As early as 1494, a Carmelite, Adam of Genoa, who
+had preached at Rome against simony, was found murdered in his bed with
+twenty wounds. Hardly a single cardinal was appointed without the
+payment of enormous sums of money.
+
+But when the Pope in course of time fell under the influence of his son
+Cæsar Borgia, his violent measures assumed that character of devilish
+wickedness which necessarily reacts upon the ends pursued. What was done
+in the struggle with the Roman nobles and with the tyrants of Romagna
+exceeded in faithlessness and barbarity even that measure to which the
+Aragonese rulers of Naples had already accustomed the world; and the
+genius for deception was also greater. The manner in which Cæsar
+isolated his father, murdering brother, brother-in-law, and other
+relations or courtiers, whenever their favour with the Pope or their
+position in any other respect became inconvenient to him, is literally
+appalling. Alexander was forced to acquiesce in the murder of his
+best-loved son, the Duke of Gandia, since he himself lived in hourly
+dread of Cæsar.[244]
+
+What were the final aims of the latter? Even in the last months of his
+tyranny, when he had murdered the Condottieri at Sinigaglia, and was to
+all intents and purposes master of the ecclesiastical state (1503) those
+who stood near him gave the modest reply, that the Duke merely wished to
+put down the factions and the despots, and all for the good of the
+Church only; that for himself he desired nothing more than the lordship
+of the Romagna, and that he had earned the gratitude of all the
+following Popes by ridding them of the Orsini and Colonna.[245] But no
+one will accept this as his ultimate design. The Pope Alexander himself,
+in his discussions with the Venetian ambassador, went farther than this,
+when committing his son to the protection of Venice: 'I will see to it,'
+he said, 'that one day the Papacy shall belong either to him or to
+you.'[246] Cæsar certainly added that no one could become Pope without
+the consent of Venice, and for this end the Venetian cardinals had only
+to keep well together. Whether he referred to himself or not we are
+unable to say; at all events, the declaration of his father is
+sufficient to prove his designs on the pontifical throne. We further
+obtain from Lucrezia Borgia a certain amount of indirect evidence, in so
+far as certain passages in the poems of Ercole Strozza may be the echo
+of expressions which she as Duchess of Ferrara may easily have permitted
+herself to use. Here too Cæsar's hopes of the Papacy are chiefly spoken
+of;[247] but now and then a supremacy over all Italy is hinted at,[248]
+and finally we are given to understand that as temporal ruler Cæsar's
+projects were of the greatest, and that for their sake he had formerly
+surrendered his cardinalate.[249] In fact, there can be no doubt
+whatever that Cæsar, whether chosen Pope or not after the death of
+Alexander, meant to keep possession of the pontifical state at any cost,
+and that this, after all the enormities he had committed, he could not
+as Pope have succeeded in doing permanently. He, if anybody, could have
+secularised the States of the Church, and he would have been forced to
+do so in order to keep them.[250] Unless we are much deceived, this is
+the real reason of the secret sympathy with which Macchiavelli treats
+the great criminal; from Cæsar, or from nobody, could it be hoped that
+he 'would draw the steel from the wound,' in other words, annihilate the
+Papacy--the source of all foreign intervention and of all the divisions
+of Italy. The intriguers who thought to divine Cæsar's aims, when
+holding out to him hopes of the kingdom of Tuscany, seem to have been
+dismissed with contempt.[251]
+
+But all logical conclusions from his premisses are idle, not because of
+the unaccountable genius which in fact characterized him as little as it
+did the Duke of Friedland, but because the means which he employed were
+not compatible with any large and consistent course of action. Perhaps,
+indeed, in the very excess of his wickedness some prospect of salvation
+for the Papacy may have existed even without the accident which put an
+end to his rule.
+
+Even if we assume that the destruction of the petty despots in the
+pontifical state had gained for him nothing but sympathy, even if we
+take as proof of his great projects the army, composed of the best
+soldiers and officers in Italy, with Lionardo da Vinci as chief
+engineer, which followed his fortunes in 1503, other facts nevertheless
+wear such a character of unreason that our judgment, like that of
+contemporary observers, is wholly at a loss to explain them. One fact of
+this kind is the devastation and maltreatment of the newly won state,
+which Cæsar still intended to keep and to rule over.[252] Another is
+the condition of Rome and of the Curia in the last decades of the
+pontificate. Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal
+list of proscribed persons,[253] or that the murders were resolved upon
+one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent on the secret
+destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they
+coveted. Of this money and movable goods formed the smallest part; it
+was a much greater source of profit for the Pope that the incomes of the
+clerical dignitaries in question were suspended by their death, and that
+he received the revenues of their offices while vacant, and the price of
+these offices when they were filled by the successors of the murdered
+men. The Venetian ambassador, Paolo Capello[254] announces in the year
+1500: 'Every night four or five murdered men are discovered--bishops,
+prelates and others--so that all Rome is trembling for fear of being
+destroyed by the Duke (Cæsar).' He himself used to wander about Rome in
+the night time with his guards,[255] and there is every reason to
+believe that he did so not only because, like Tiberius, he shrank from
+showing his now repulsive features by daylight, but also to gratify his
+insane thirst for blood, perhaps even on the persons of those unknown to
+him.
+
+As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that
+many of the Papal guards were waylaid and put to death.[256] But those
+whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence, fell victims to
+their poison. For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion
+seemed requisite, a white powder[257] of an agreeable taste was made use
+of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which
+could be mixed without notice in any dish or goblet. Prince Djem had
+taken some of it in a sweet draught, before Alexander surrendered him to
+Charles VIII. (1495), and at the end of their career father and son
+poisoned themselves with the same powder by accidentally tasting a
+sweetmeat intended for a wealthy cardinal, probably Adrian of
+Corneto.[258] The official epitomiser of the history of the Popes,
+Onufrio Panvinio,[259] mentions three cardinals, Orsini, Ferrerio, and
+Michiel, whom Alexander caused to be poisoned, and hints at a fourth,
+Giovanni Borgia, whom Cæsar took into his own charge--though probably
+wealthy prelates seldom died in Rome at that time without giving rise to
+suspicions of this sort. Even tranquil students who had withdrawn to
+some provincial town were not out of reach of the merciless poison. A
+secret horror seemed to hang about the Pope; storms and thunderbolts,
+crushing in walls and chambers, had in earlier times often visited and
+alarmed him; in the year 1500,[260] when these phenomena were repeated,
+they were held to be 'cosa diabolica.' The report of these events seems
+at last, through the well-attended jubilee[261] of 1500, to have been
+carried far and wide throughout the countries of Europe, and the
+infamous traffic in indulgences did what else was needed to draw all
+eyes upon Rome.[262] Besides the returning pilgrims, strange white-robed
+penitents came from Italy to the North, among them disguised fugitives
+from the Papal State, who are not likely to have been silent. Yet none
+can calculate how far the scandal and indignation of Christendom might
+have gone, before they became a source of pressing danger to Alexander.
+'He would,' says Panvinio elsewhere,[263] 'have put all the other rich
+cardinals and prelates out of the way, to get their property, had he
+not, in the midst of his great plans for his son, been struck down by
+death.' And what might not Cæsar have achieved if, at the moment when
+his father died, he had not himself been laid upon a sick-bed! What a
+conclave would that have been, in which, armed with all his weapons, he
+had extorted his election from a college whose numbers he had
+judiciously reduced by poison--and this at a time when there was no
+French army at hand! In pursuing such a hypothesis the imagination loses
+itself in an abyss.
+
+Instead of this followed the conclave in which Pius III. was elected,
+and, after his speedy death, that which chose Julius II.--both elections
+the fruits of a general reaction.
+
+Whatever may have been the private morals of Julius II. in all essential
+respects he was the saviour of the Papacy. His familiarity with the
+course of events since the pontificate of his uncle Sixtus had given him
+a profound insight into the grounds and conditions of the Papal
+authority. On these he founded his own policy, and devoted to it the
+whole force and passion of his unshaken soul. He ascended the steps of
+St. Peter's chair without simony and amid general applause, and with him
+ceased, at all events, the undisguised traffic in the highest offices of
+the Church. Julius had favourites, and among them were some the reverse
+of worthy, but a special fortune put him above the temptation to
+nepotism. His brother, Giovanni della Rovere, was the husband of the
+heiress of Urbino, sister of the last Montefeltro Guidobaldo, and from
+this marriage was born, in 1491, a son, Francesco Maria della Rovere,
+who was at the same time Papal 'nipote' and lawful heir to the duchy of
+Urbino. What Julius elsewhere acquired, either on the field of battle or
+by diplomatic means, he proudly bestowed on the Church, not on his
+family; the ecclesiastical territory, which he found in a state of
+dissolution, he bequeathed to his successor completely subdued, and
+increased by Parma and Piacenza. It was not his fault that Ferrara too
+was not added to the dominions of the Church. The 700,000 ducats, which
+were stored up in the castle of St. Angelo, were to be delivered by the
+governor to none but the future Pope. He made himself heir of the
+cardinals, and, indeed, of all the clergy who died in Rome, and this by
+the most despotic means; but he murdered or poisoned none of them.[264]
+That he should himself lead his forces to battle was for him an
+unavoidable necessity, and certainly did him nothing but good at a time
+when a man in Italy was forced to be either hammer or anvil, and when
+personality was a greater power than the most indisputable right. If,
+despite all his high-sounding 'Away with the barbarians!' he
+nevertheless contributed more than any man to the firm settlement of the
+Spaniards in Italy, he may have thought it a matter of indifference to
+the Papacy, or even, as things stood, a relative advantage. And to whom,
+sooner than to Spain, could the Church look for a sincere and lasting
+respect,[265] in an age when the princes of Italy cherished none but
+sacrilegious projects against her? Be this as it may, the powerful,
+original nature, which could swallow no anger and conceal no genuine
+good-will, made on the whole the impression most desirable in his
+situation--that of the 'Pontefice terribile.' He could even, with a
+comparatively clear conscience, venture to summon a council to Rome, and
+so bid defiance to that outcry for a council which was raised by the
+opposition all over Europe. A ruler of this stamp needed some great
+outward symbol of his conceptions; Julius found it in the reconstruction
+of St. Peter's. The plan of it, as Bramante wished to have it, is
+perhaps the grandest expression of power in unity which can be imagined.
+In other arts besides architecture the face and the memory of the Pope
+live on in their most ideal form, and it is not without significance
+that even the Latin poetry of those days gives proof of a wholly
+different enthusiasm for Julius than that shown for his predecessors.
+The entrance into Bologna, at the end of the 'Iter Julii Secundi,' by
+the Cardinal Adriano da Corneto, has a splendour of its own, and Giovan
+Antonio Flaminio,[266] in one of the finest elegies, appealed to the
+patriot in the Pope to grant his protection to Italy.
+
+In a constitution of his Lateran Council, Julius had solemnly denounced
+the simony of the Papal elections.[267] After his death in 1513, the
+money-loving cardinals tried to evade the prohibition by proposing that
+the endowments and offices hitherto held by the chosen candidate should
+be equally divided among themselves, in which case they would have
+elected the best-endowed cardinal, the incompetent Rafael Riario.[268]
+But a reaction, chiefly arising from the younger members of the Sacred
+College, who, above all things, desired a liberal Pope, rendered the
+miserable combination futile; Giovanni Medici was elected--the famous
+Leo X.
+
+We shall often meet with him in treating of the noonday of the
+Renaissance; here we wish only to point out that under him the Papacy
+was again exposed to great inward and outward dangers. Among these we
+do not reckon the conspiracy of the Cardinals Petrucci, De Saulis,
+Riario, and Corneto (1517) which at most could have occasioned a change
+of persons, and to which Leo found the true antidote in the unheard-of
+creation of thirty-nine new cardinals, a measure which had the
+additional advantage of rewarding, in some cases at least, real
+merit.[269]
+
+But some of the paths which Leo allowed himself to tread during the
+first two years of his office were perilous to the last degree. He
+seriously endeavoured to secure, by negotiation, the kingdom of Naples
+for his brother Giuliano, and for his nephew Lorenzo a powerful North
+Italian state, to comprise Milan, Tuscany, Urbino, and Ferrara.[270] It
+is clear that the Pontifical State, thus hemmed in on all sides, would
+have become a mere Medicean appanage, and that, in fact, there would
+have been no further need to secularise it.
+
+The plan found an insuperable obstacle in the political conditions of
+the time. Giuliano died early. To provide for Lorenzo, Leo undertook to
+expel the Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere from Urbino, but reaped from
+the war nothing but hatred and poverty, and was forced, when in 1519
+Lorenzo followed his uncle to the grave, to hand over the hardly-won
+conquests to the Church.[271] He did on compulsion and without credit
+what, if it had been done voluntarily, would have been to his lasting
+honour. What, partly alone, and partly in alternate negotiations with
+Francis I. and Charles V., he attempted against Alfonso of Ferrara, and
+actually achieved against a few petty despots and Condottieri, was
+assuredly not of a kind to raise his reputation. And this was at a time
+when the monarchs of the West were yearly growing more and more
+accustomed to political gambling on a colossal scale, of which the
+stakes were this or that province of Italy.[272] Who could guarantee
+that, since the last decades had seen so great an increase of their
+power at home, their ambition could stop short of the States of the
+Church? Leo himself witnessed the prelude of what was fulfilled in the
+year 1527; a few bands of Spanish infantry appeared--of their own
+accord, it seems--at the end of 1520, on the borders of the Pontifical
+territory, with a view of laying the Pope under contribution,[273] but
+were driven back by the Papal forces. The public feeling, too, against
+the corruptions of the hierarchy had of late years been drawing rapidly
+to a head, and men with an eye for the future, like the younger Pico
+della Mirandola, called urgently for reform.[274] Meantime Luther had
+already appeared upon the scene.
+
+Under Adrian VI. (1522-1523), the few and timid improvements, carried
+out in the face of the great German Reformation, came too late. He could
+do little more than proclaim his horror of the course which things had
+taken hitherto, of simony, nepotism, prodigality, brigandage, and
+profligacy. The danger from the side of the Lutherans was by no means
+the greatest; an acute observer from Venice, Girolamo Negro, uttered his
+fears that a speedy and terrible disaster would befall the city of Rome
+itself.[275]
+
+Under Clement VII. the whole horizon of Rome was filled with vapours,
+like that leaden veil which the scirocco draws over the Campagna, and
+which makes the last months of summer so deadly. The Pope was no less
+detested at home than abroad. Thoughtful people were filled with
+anxiety,[276] hermits appeared upon the streets and squares of Rome,
+foretelling the fate of Italy and of the world, and calling the Pope by
+the name of Antichrist;[277] the faction of the Colonna raised its head
+defiantly; the indomitable Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, whose mere
+existence[278] was a permanent menace to the Papacy, ventured to
+surprise the city in 1526, hoping with the help of Charles V., to become
+Pope then and there, as soon as Clement was killed or captured. It was
+no piece of good fortune for Rome that the latter was able to escape to
+the Castle of St. Angelo, and the fate for which himself was reserved
+may well be called worse than death.
+
+By a series of those falsehoods, which only the powerful can venture on,
+but which bring ruin upon the weak, Clement brought about the advance of
+the Germano-Spanish army under Bourbon and Frundsberg (1527). It is
+certain[279] that the Cabinet of Charles V. intended to inflict on him a
+severe castigation, and that it could not calculate beforehand how far
+the zeal of its unpaid hordes would carry them. It would have been vain
+to attempt to enlist men in Germany without paying any bounty, if it had
+not been well known that Rome was the object of the expedition. It may
+be that the written orders to Bourbon will be found some day or other,
+and it is not improbable that they will prove to be worded mildly. But
+historical criticism will not allow itself to be led astray. The
+Catholic King and Emperor owed it to his luck and nothing else, that
+Pope and cardinals were not murdered by his troops. Had this happened,
+no sophistry in the world could clear him of his share in the guilt. The
+massacre of countless people of less consequence, the plunder of the
+rest, and all the horrors of torture and traffic in human life, show
+clearly enough what was possible in the 'Sacco di Roma.'
+
+Charles seems to have wished to bring the Pope, who had fled a second
+time to the Castle of St. Angelo, to Naples, after extorting from him
+vast sums of money, and Clement's flight to Orvieto must have happened
+without any connivance on the part of Spain.[280] Whether the Emperor
+ever thought seriously of the secularisation of the States of the
+Church,[281] for which everybody was quite prepared, and whether he was
+really dissuaded from it by the representations of Henry VIII. of
+England, will probably never be made clear.
+
+But if such projects really existed, they cannot have lasted long: from
+the devastated city arose a new spirit of reform both in Church and
+State. It made itself felt in a moment. Cardinal Sadoleto, one witness
+of many, thus writes: 'If through our suffering a satisfaction is made
+to the wrath and justice of God, if these fearful punishments again open
+the way to better laws and morals, then is our misfortune perhaps not of
+the greatest.... What belongs to God He will take care of; before us
+lies a life of reformation, which no violence can take from us. Let us
+so rule our deeds and thoughts as to seek in God only the true glory of
+the priesthood and our own true greatness and power.'[282]
+
+In point of fact, this critical year, 1527, so far bore fruit, that the
+voices of serious men could again make themselves heard. Rome had
+suffered too much to return, even under a Paul III., to the gay
+corruption of Leo X.
+
+The Papacy, too, when its sufferings became so great, began to excite a
+sympathy half religious and half political. The kings could not tolerate
+that one of their number should arrogate to himself the rights of Papal
+gaoler, and concluded (August 18, 1527) the Treaty of Amiens, one of the
+objects of which was the deliverance of Clement. They thus, at all
+events, turned to their own account the unpopularity which the deeds of
+the Imperial troops had excited. At the same time the Emperor became
+seriously embarrassed, even in Spain, where the prelates and grandees
+never saw him without making the most urgent remonstrances. When a
+general deputation of the clergy and laity, all clothed in mourning, was
+projected, Charles, fearing that troubles might arise out of it, like
+those of the insurrection quelled a few years before, forbad the
+scheme.[283] Not only did he not dare to prolong the maltreatment of the
+Pope, but he was absolutely compelled, even apart from all
+considerations of foreign politics, to be reconciled with the Papacy
+which he had so grievously wounded. For the temper of the German people,
+which certainly pointed to a different course, seemed to him, like
+German affairs generally, to afford no foundation for a policy. It is
+possible, too, as a Venetian maintains,[284] that the memory of the sack
+of Rome lay heavy on his conscience, and tended to hasten that expiation
+which was sealed by the permanent subjection of the Florentines to the
+Medicean family of which the Pope was a member. The 'nipote' and new
+Duke, Alessandro Medici, was married to the natural daughter of the
+Emperor.
+
+In the following years the plan of a Council enabled Charles to keep the
+Papacy in all essential points under his control, and at one and the
+same time to protect and to oppress it. The greatest danger of
+all--secularisation--the danger which came from within, from the Popes
+themselves and their 'nipoti,' was adjourned for centuries by the German
+Reformation. Just as this alone had made the expedition against Rome
+(1527) possible and successful, so did it compel the Papacy to become
+once more the expression of a world-wide spiritual power, to raise
+itself from the soulless debasement in which it lay, and to place itself
+at the head of all the enemies of this reformation. The institution thus
+developed during the latter years of Clement VII., and under Paul III.,
+Paul IV., and their successors, in the face of the defection of half
+Europe, was a new, regenerated hierarchy, which avoided all the great
+and dangerous scandals of former times, particularly nepotism, with its
+attempts at territorial aggrandisement,[285] and which, in alliance with
+the Catholic princes, and impelled by a new-born spiritual force, found
+its chief work in the recovery of what had been lost. It only existed
+and is only intelligible in opposition to the seceders. In this sense it
+can be said with perfect truth that, the moral salvation of the Papacy
+is due to its mortal enemies. And now its political position, too,
+though certainly under the permanent tutelage of Spain, became
+impregnable; almost without effort it inherited, on the extinction of
+its vassals, the legitimate line of Este and the house of Della Rovere,
+the duchies of Ferrara and Urbino. But without the Reformation--if,
+indeed, it is possible to think it away--the whole ecclesiastical State
+would long ago have passed into secular hands.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In conclusion, let us briefly consider the effect of these political
+circumstances on the spirit of the nation at large.
+
+It is evident that the general political uncertainty in Italy during the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was of a kind to excite in the
+better spirits of the time a patriotic disgust and opposition. Dante and
+Petrarch,[286] in their day, proclaimed loudly a common Italy, the
+object of the highest efforts of all her children. It may be objected
+that this was only the enthusiasm of a few highly-instructed men, in
+which the mass of the people had no share; but it can hardly have been
+otherwise even in Germany, although in name at least that country was
+united, and recognised in the Emperor one supreme head. The first
+patriotic utterances of German Literature, if we except some verses of
+the 'Minnesänger,' belong to the humanists of the time of Maximilian
+I.[287] and after, and read like an echo of Italian declamations, or
+like a reply to Italian criticism on the intellectual immaturity of
+Germany. And yet, as a matter of fact, Germany had been long a nation in
+a truer sense than Italy ever was since the Roman days. France owes the
+consciousness of its national unity mainly to its conflicts with the
+English, and Spain has never permanently succeeded in absorbing
+Portugal, closely related as the two countries are. For Italy, the
+existence of the ecclesiastical State, and the conditions under which
+alone it could continue, were a permanent obstacle to national unity, an
+obstacle whose removal seemed hopeless. When, therefore, in the
+political intercourse of the fifteenth century, the common fatherland is
+sometimes emphatically named, it is done in most cases to annoy some
+other Italian State.[288] The first decades of the sixteenth century,
+the years when the Renaissance attained its fullest bloom, were not
+favourable to a revival of patriotism; the enjoyment of intellectual and
+artistic pleasures, the comforts and elegancies of life, and the supreme
+interests of self-development, destroyed or hampered the love of
+country. But those deeply serious and sorrowful appeals to national
+sentiment were not heard again till later, when the time for unity had
+gone by, when the country was inundated with Frenchmen and Spaniards,
+and when a German army had conquered Rome. The sense of local patriotism
+may be said in some measure to have taken the place of this feeling,
+though it was but a poor equivalent for it.
+
+
+
+
+_PART II._
+
+THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ITALIAN STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+
+In the character of these states, whether republics or despotisms, lies,
+not the only, but the chief reason for the early development of the
+Italian. To this it is due that he was the first-born among the sons of
+modern Europe.
+
+In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness--that which was
+turned within as that which was turned without--lay dreaming or half
+awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and
+childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen
+clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as member of a
+race, people, party, family, or corporation--only through some general
+category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an _objective_
+treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this
+world became possible. The _subjective_ side at the same time asserted
+itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual
+_individual_,[289] and recognised himself as such. In the same way the
+Greek had once distinguished himself from the barbarian, and the Arabian
+had felt himself an individual at a time when other Asiatics knew
+themselves only as members of a race. It will not be difficult to show
+that this result was owing above all to the political circumstances of
+Italy.
+
+In far earlier times we can here and there detect a development of free
+personality which in Northern Europe either did not occur at all, or
+could not display itself in the same manner. The band of audacious
+wrongdoers in the sixteenth century described to us by Luidprand, some
+of the contemporaries of Gregory VII., and a few of the opponents of the
+first Hohenstaufen, show us characters of this kind. But at the close of
+the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the
+charm laid upon human personality was dissolved; and a thousand figures
+meet us each in its own special shape and dress. Dante's great poem
+would have been impossible in any other country of Europe, if only for
+the reason that they all still lay under the spell of race. For Italy
+the august poet, through the wealth of individuality which he set forth,
+was the most national herald of his time. But this unfolding of the
+treasures of human nature in literature and art--this many-sided
+representation and criticism--will be discussed in separate chapters;
+here we have to deal only with the psychological fact itself. This fact
+appears in the most decisive and unmistakeable form. The Italians of the
+fourteenth century knew little of false modesty or of hypocrisy in any
+shape; not one of them was afraid of singularity, of being and
+seeming[290] unlike his neighbours.[291]
+
+Despotism, as we have already seen, fostered in the highest degree the
+individuality not only of the tyrant or Condottiere himself,[292] but
+also of the men whom he protected or used as his tools--the secretary,
+minister, poet, and companion. These people were forced to know all the
+inward resources of their own nature, passing or permanent; and their
+enjoyment of life was enhanced and concentrated by the desire to obtain
+the greatest satisfaction from a possibly very brief period of power and
+influence.
+
+But even the subjects whom they ruled over were not free from the same
+impulse. Leaving out of account those who wasted their lives in secret
+opposition and conspiracies, we speak of the majority who were content
+with a strictly private station, like most of the urban population of
+the Byzantine empire and the Mohammedan states. No doubt it was often
+hard for the subjects of a Visconti to maintain the dignity of their
+persons and families, and multitudes must have lost in moral character
+through the servitude they lived under. But this was not the case with
+regard to individuality; for political impotence does not hinder the
+different tendencies and manifestations of private life from thriving in
+the fullest vigour and variety. Wealth and culture, so far as display
+and rivalry were not forbidden to them, a municipal freedom which did
+not cease to be considerable, and a Church which, unlike that of the
+Byzantine or of the Mohammedan world, was not identical with the
+State--all these conditions undoubtedly favoured the growth of
+individual thought, for which the necessary leisure was furnished by the
+cessation of party conflicts. The private man, indifferent to politics,
+and busied partly with serious pursuits, partly with the interests of a
+_dilettante_, seems to have been first fully formed in these despotisms
+of the fourteenth century. Documentary evidence cannot, of course, be
+required on such a point. The novelists, from whom we might expect
+information, describe to us oddities in plenty, but only from one point
+of view and in so far as the needs of the story demand. Their scene,
+too, lies chiefly in the republican cities.
+
+In the latter, circumstances were also, but in another way, favourable
+to the growth of individual character. The more frequently the governing
+party was changed, the more the individual was led to make the utmost of
+the exercise and enjoyment of power. The statesmen and popular leaders,
+especially in Florentine history,[293] acquired so marked a personal
+character, that we can scarcely find, even exceptionally, a parallel to
+them in contemporary history, hardly even in Jacob von Arteveldt.
+
+The members of the defeated parties, on the other hand, often came into
+a position like that of the subjects of the despotic States, with the
+difference that the freedom or power already enjoyed, and in some cases
+the hope of recovering them, gave a higher energy to their
+individuality. Among these men of involuntary leisure we find, for
+instance, an Agnolo Pandolfini (d. 1446), whose work on domestic
+economy[294] is the first complete programme of a developed private
+life. His estimate of the duties of the individual as against the
+dangers and thanklessness of public life[295] is in its way a true
+monument of the age.
+
+Banishment, too, has this effect above all, that it either wears the
+exile out or develops whatever is greatest in him. 'In all our more
+populous cities,' says Giovanni Pontano,[296] 'we see a crowd of people
+who have left their homes of their own free-will; but a man takes his
+virtues with him wherever he goes.' And, in fact, they were by no means
+only men who had been actually exiled, but thousands left their native
+place voluntarily, because they found its political or economical
+condition intolerable. The Florentine emigrants at Ferrara and the
+Lucchese in Venice formed whole colonies by themselves.
+
+The cosmopolitanism which grew up in the most gifted circles is in
+itself a high stage of individualism. Dante, as we have already said,
+finds a new home in the language and culture of Italy, but goes beyond
+even this in the words, 'My country is the whole world.'[297] And when
+his recall to Florence was offered him on unworthy conditions, he wrote
+back: 'Can I not everywhere behold the light of the sun and the stars;
+everywhere meditate on the noblest truths, without appearing
+ingloriously and shamefully before the city and the people. Even my
+bread will not fail me.'[298] The artists exult no less defiantly in
+their freedom from the constraints of fixed residence. 'Only he who has
+learned everything,' says Ghiberti,[299] 'is nowhere a stranger; robbed
+of his fortune and without friends, he is yet the citizen of every
+country, and can fearlessly despise the changes of fortune.' In the same
+strain an exiled humanist writes: 'Wherever a learned man fixes his
+seat, there is home.[300]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE PERFECTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+
+An acute and practised eye might be able to trace, step by step, the
+increase in the number of complete men during the fifteenth century.
+Whether they had before them as a conscious object the harmonious
+development of their spiritual and material existence, is hard to say;
+but several of them attained it, so far as is consistent with the
+imperfection of all that is earthly. It may be better to renounce the
+attempt at an estimate of the share which fortune, character, and talent
+had in the life of Lorenzo Magnifico. But look at a personality like
+that of Ariosto, especially as shown in his satires. In what harmony are
+there expressed the pride of the man and the poet, the irony with which
+he treats his own enjoyments, the most delicate satire, and the deepest
+goodwill!
+
+When this impulse to the highest individual development[301] was
+combined with a powerful and varied nature, which had mastered all the
+elements of the culture of the age, then arose the 'all-sided
+man'--'l'uomo universale'--who belonged to Italy alone. Men there were
+of encyclopædic knowledge in many countries during the Middle Ages, for
+this knowledge was confined within narrow limits; and even in the
+twelfth century there were universal artists, but the problems of
+architecture were comparatively simple and uniform, and in sculpture and
+painting the matter was of more importance than the form. But in Italy
+at the time of the Renaissance, we find artists who in every branch
+created new and perfect works, and who also made the greatest
+impression as men. Others, outside the arts they practised, were masters
+of a vast circle of spiritual interests.
+
+Dante, who, even in his lifetime, was called by some a poet, by others a
+philosopher, by others a theologian,[302] pours forth in all his
+writings a stream of personal force by which the reader, apart from the
+interest of the subject, feels himself carried away. What power of will
+must the steady, unbroken elaboration of the 'Divine Comedy' have
+required! And if we look at the matter of the poem, we find that in the
+whole spiritual or physical world there is hardly an important subject
+which the poet has not fathomed, and on which his utterances--often only
+a few words--are not the most weighty of his time. For the plastic arts
+he is of the first importance, and this for better reasons than the few
+references to contemporary artists--he soon became himself the source of
+inspiration.[303]
+
+The fifteenth century is, above all, that of the many-sided men. There
+is no biography which does not, besides the chief work of its hero,
+speak of other pursuits all passing beyond the limits of dilettantism.
+The Florentine merchant and statesman was often learned in both the
+classical languages; the most famous humanists read the ethics and
+politics of Aristotle to him and his sons;[304] even the daughters of
+the house were highly educated. It is in these circles that private
+education was first treated seriously. The humanist, on his side, was
+compelled to the most varied attainments, since his philological
+learning was not limited, as it now is, to the theoretical knowledge of
+classical antiquity, but had to serve the practical needs of daily life.
+While studying Pliny,[305] he made collections of natural history; the
+geography of the ancients was his guide in treating of modern geography,
+their history was his pattern in writing contemporary chronicles, even
+when composed in Italian; he not only translated the comedies of
+Plautus, but acted as manager when they were put on the stage; every
+effective form of ancient literature down to the dialogues of Lucian he
+did his best to imitate; and besides all this, he acted as magistrate,
+secretary, and diplomatist--not always to his own advantage.
+
+But among these many-sided men, some who may truly be called all-sided,
+tower above the rest. Before analysing the general phases of life and
+culture of this period, we may here, on the threshold of the fifteenth
+century, consider for a moment the figure of one of these giants--Leon
+Battista Alberti (b. 1404? d. 1472).[306] His biography,[307] which is
+only a fragment, speaks of him but little as an artist, and makes no
+mention at all of his great significance in the history of architecture.
+We shall now see what he was, apart from these special claims to
+distinction.
+
+In all by which praise is won, Leon Battista was from his childhood the
+first. Of his various gymnastic feats and exercises we read with
+astonishment how, with his feet together, he could spring over a man's
+head; how, in the cathedral, he threw a coin in the air till it was
+heard to ring against the distant roof; how the wildest horses trembled
+under him. In three things he desired to appear faultless to others, in
+walking, in riding, and in speaking. He learned music without a master,
+and yet his compositions were admired by professional judges. Under the
+pressure of poverty, he studied both civil and canonical law for many
+years, till exhaustion brought on a severe illness. In his
+twenty-fourth year, finding his memory for words weakened, but his sense
+of facts unimpaired, he set to work at physics and mathematics. And all
+the while he acquired every sort of accomplishment and dexterity,
+cross-examining artists, scholars, and artisans of all descriptions,
+down to the cobblers, about the secrets and peculiarities of their
+craft. Painting and modelling he practised by the way, and especially
+excelled in admirable likenesses from memory. Great admiration was
+excited by his mysterious 'camera obscura,'[308] in which he showed at
+one time the stars and the moon rising over rocky hills, at another wide
+landscapes with mountains and gulfs receding into dim perspective, and
+with fleets advancing on the waters in shade or sunshine. And that which
+others created he welcomed joyfully, and held every human achievement
+which followed the laws of beauty for something almost divine.[309] To
+all this must be added his literary works, first of all those on art,
+which are landmarks and authorities of the first order for the
+Renaissance of Form, especially in architecture; then his Latin prose
+writings--novels and other works--of which some have been taken for
+productions of antiquity; his elegies, eclogues, and humorous
+dinner-speeches. He also wrote an Italian treatise on domestic life[310]
+in four books; various moral, philosophical, and historical works; and
+many speeches and poems, including a funeral oration on his dog.
+Notwithstanding his admiration for the Latin language, he wrote in
+Italian, and encouraged others to do the same; himself a disciple of
+Greek science, he maintained the doctrine, that without Christianity the
+world would wander in a labyrinth of error. His serious and witty
+sayings were thought worth collecting, and specimens of them, many
+columns long, are quoted in his biography. And all that he had and knew
+he imparted, as rich natures always do, without the least reserve,
+giving away his chief discoveries for nothing. But the deepest spring of
+his nature has yet to be spoken of--the sympathetic intensity with which
+he entered into the whole life around him. At the sight of noble trees
+and waving corn-fields he shed tears; handsome and dignified old men he
+honoured as 'a delight of nature,' and could never look at them enough.
+Perfectly-formed animals won his goodwill as being specially favoured by
+nature; and more than once, when he was ill, the sight of a beautiful
+landscape cured him.[311] No wonder that those who saw him in this close
+and mysterious communion with the world ascribed to him the gift of
+prophecy. He was said to have foretold a bloody catastrophe in the
+family of Este, the fate of Florence, and the death of the Popes years
+before they happened, and to be able to read into the countenances and
+the hearts of men. It need not be added that an iron will pervaded and
+sustained his whole personality; like all the great men of the
+Renaissance, he said, 'Men can do all things if they will.'
+
+And Lionardo da Vinci was to Alberti as the finisher to the beginner, as
+the master to the _dilettante_. Would only that Vasari's work were here
+supplemented by a description like that of Alberti! The colossal
+outlines of Lionardo's nature can never be more than dimly and distantly
+conceived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE MODERN IDEA OF FAME.
+
+
+To this inward development of the individual corresponds a new sort of
+outward distinction--the modern form of glory.[312]
+
+In the other countries of Europe the different classes of society lived
+apart, each with its own mediæval caste sense of honour. The poetical
+fame of the Troubadours and Minnesänger was peculiar to the knightly
+order. But in Italy social equality had appeared before the time of the
+tyrannies or the democracies. We there find early traces of a general
+society, having, as will be shown more fully later on, a common ground
+in Latin and Italian literature; and such a ground was needed for this
+new element in life to grow in. To this must be added that the Roman
+authors, who were now zealously studied, and especially Cicero, the most
+read and admired of all, are filled and saturated with the conception of
+fame, and that their subject itself--the universal empire of Rome--stood
+as a permanent ideal before the minds of Italians. From henceforth all
+the aspirations and achievements of the people were governed by a moral
+postulate, which was still unknown elsewhere in Europe.
+
+Here, again, as in all essential points, the first witness to be called
+is Dante. He strove for the poet's garland[313] with all the power of
+his soul. As publicist and man of letters, he laid stress on the fact
+that what he did was new, and that he wished not only to be, but to be
+esteemed the first in his own walks.[314] But even in his prose writings
+he touches on the inconveniences of fame; he knows how often personal
+acquaintance with famous men is disappointing, and explains how this is
+due partly to the childish fancy of men, partly to envy, and partly to
+the imperfections of the hero himself.[315] And in his great poem he
+firmly maintains the emptiness of fame, although in a manner which
+betrays that his heart was not set free from the longing for it. In
+Paradise the sphere of Mercury is the seat of such blessed ones[316] as
+on earth strove after glory and thereby dimmed 'the beams of true love.'
+It is characteristic that the lost souls in hell beg of Dante to keep
+alive for them their memory and fame on earth,[317] while those in
+Purgatory only entreat his prayers and those of others for their
+deliverance.[318] And in a famous passage,[319] the passion for
+fame--'lo gran desio dell'eccellenza'--is reproved for the reason that
+intellectual glory is not absolute, but relative to the times, and may
+be surpassed and eclipsed by greater successors.
+
+The new race of poet-scholars which arose soon after Dante quickly made
+themselves masters of this fresh tendency. They did so in a double
+sense, being themselves the most acknowledged celebrities of Italy, and
+at the same time, as poets and historians, consciously disposing of the
+reputation of others. An outward symbol of this sort of fame was the
+coronation of the poets, of which we shall speak later on.
+
+A contemporary of Dante, Albertinus Musattus or Mussattus, crowned poet
+at Padua by the bishop and rector, enjoyed a fame which fell little
+short of deification. Every Christmas Day the doctors and students of
+both colleges at the University came in solemn procession before his
+house with trumpets and, as it seems, with burning tapers, to salute
+him[320] and bring him presents. His reputation lasted till, in 1318, he
+fell into disgrace with the ruling tyrant of the House of Carrara.
+
+This new incense, which once was offered only to saints and heroes, was
+given in clouds to Petrarch, who persuaded himself in his later years
+that it was but a foolish and troublesome thing. His letter 'To
+Posterity'[321] is the confession of an old and famous man, who is
+forced to gratify the public curiosity. He admits that he wishes for
+fame in the times to come, but would rather be without it in his own
+day.[322] In his dialogue on fortune and misfortune,[323] the
+interlocutor, who maintains the futility of glory, has the best of the
+contest. But, at the same time, Petrarch is pleased that the autocrat of
+Byzantium[324] knows him as well by his writings as Charles IV.[325]
+knows him. And in fact, even in his lifetime, his fame extended far
+beyond Italy. And the emotion which he felt was natural when his
+friends, on the occasion of a visit to his native Arezzo (1350), took
+him to the house where he was born, and told him how the city had
+provided that no change should be made in it.[326] In former times the
+dwellings of certain great saints were preserved and revered in this
+way, like the cell of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Dominican convent at
+Naples, and the Portiuncula of St. Francis near Assisi; and one or two
+great jurists also enjoyed the half-mythical reputation which led to
+this honour. Towards the close of the fourteenth century the people at
+Bagnolo, near Florence, called an old building the 'Studio' of Accursius
+(b. about 1150), but, nevertheless, suffered it to be destroyed.[327] It
+is probable that the great incomes and the political influence which
+some jurists obtained as consulting lawyers made a lasting impression on
+the popular imagination.
+
+To the cultus of the birthplaces of famous men must be added that of
+their graves,[328] and, in the case of Petrarch, of the spot where he
+died. In memory of him Arquà became a favourite resort of the Paduans,
+and was dotted with graceful little villas.[329] At this time there were
+no 'classic spots' in Northern Europe, and pilgrimages were only made to
+pictures and relics. It was a point of honour for the different cities
+to possess the bones of their own and foreign celebrities; and it is
+most remarkable how seriously the Florentines, even in the fourteenth
+century--long before the building of Santa Croce--laboured to make their
+cathedral a Pantheon. Accorso, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the
+jurist Zanobi della Strada were to have had magnificent tombs there
+erected to them.[330] Late in the fifteenth century, Lorenzo Magnifico
+applied in person to the Spoletans, asking them to give up the corpse of
+the painter Fra Filippo Lippi for the cathedral, and received the answer
+that they had none too many ornaments to the city, especially in the
+shape of distinguished people, for which reason they begged him to spare
+them; and, in fact, he had to be contented with erecting a
+cenotaph.[331] And even Dante, in spite of all the applications to which
+Boccaccio urged the Florentines with bitter emphasis,[332] remained
+sleeping tranquilly by the side of San Francesco at Ravenna, 'among
+ancient tombs of emperors and vaults of saints, in more honourable
+company than thou, O Home, couldst offer him.' It even happened that a
+man once took away unpunished the lights from the altar on which the
+crucifix stood, and set them by the grave, with the words, 'Take them;
+thou art more worthy of them than He, the Crucified One!'[333]
+
+And now the Italian cities began again to remember their ancient
+citizens and inhabitants. Naples, perhaps, had never forgotten its tomb
+of Virgil, since a kind of mythical halo had become attached to the
+name, and the memory of it had been revived by Petrarch and Boccaccio,
+who both stayed in the city.
+
+The Paduans, even in the sixteenth century, firmly believed that they
+possessed not only the genuine bones of their founder Antenor, but also
+those of the historian Livy.[334] 'Sulmona,' says Boccaccio,[335]
+'bewails that Ovid lies buried far away in exile; and Parma rejoices
+that Cassius sleeps within its walls.' The Mantuans coined a medal in
+1257 with the bust of Virgil, and raised a statue to represent him. In
+a fit of aristocratic insolence,[336] the guardian of the young Gonzaga,
+Carlo Malatesta, caused it to be pulled down in 1392, and was
+afterwards forced, when he found the fame of the old poet too strong
+for him, to set it up again. Even then, perhaps, the grotto, a couple of
+miles from the town, where Virgil was said to have meditated,[337] was
+shown to strangers, like the 'Scuola di Virgilio' at Naples. Como
+claimed both the Plinys[338] for its own, and at the end of the
+fifteenth century erected statues in their honour, sitting under
+graceful baldachins on the façade of the cathedral.
+
+History and the new topography were now careful to leave no local
+celebrity unnoticed. At the same period the northern chronicles only
+here and there, among the list of popes, emperors, earthquakes, and
+comets, put in the remark, that at such a time this or that famous man
+'flourished.' We shall elsewhere have to show how, mainly under the
+influence of this idea of fame, an admirable biographical literature was
+developed. We must here limit ourselves to the local patriotism of the
+topographers who recorded the claims of their native cities to
+distinction.
+
+In the Middle Ages, the cities were proud of their saints and of the
+bones and relics in their churches.[339] With these the panegyrist of
+Padua in 1440, Michele Savonarola,[340] begins his list; from them he
+passes to 'the famous men who were no saints, but who, by their great
+intellect and force (_virtus_) deserve to be added (_adnecti_) to the
+saints'--just as in classical antiquity the distinguished man came close
+upon the hero.[341] The further enumeration is most characteristic of
+the time. First comes Antenor, the brother of Priam, who founded Padua
+with a band of Trojan fugitives; King Dardanus, who defeated Attila in
+the Euganean hills, followed him in pursuit, and struck him dead at
+Rimini with a chess-board; the Emperor Henry IV., who built the
+cathedral; a King Marcus, whose head was preserved in Monselice (_monte
+silicis arce_); then a couple of cardinals and prelates as founders of
+colleges, churches, and so forth; the famous Augustinian theologian, Fra
+Alberto; a string of philosophers beginning with Paolo Veneto and the
+celebrated Pietro of Albano; the jurist Paolo Padovano; then Livy and
+the poets Petrarch, Mussato, Lovato. If there is any want of military
+celebrities in the list, the poet consoles himself for it by the
+abundance of learned men whom he has to show, and by the more durable
+character of intellectual glory; while the fame of the soldier is buried
+with his body, or, if it lasts, owes its permanence only to the
+scholar.[342] It is nevertheless honourable to the city that foreign
+warriors lie buried here by their own wish, like Pietro de Rossi of
+Parma, Filippo Arcelli of Piacenza, and especially Gattamelata of Narni
+(d. 1642),[343] whose brazen equestrian statue, 'like a Cæsar in
+triumph,' already stood by the church of the Santo. The author then
+names a crowd of jurists and physicians, among the latter two friends of
+Petrarch, Johannes ab Horologio and Jacob de Dondis, nobles 'who had not
+only, like so many others, received, but deserved, the honour of
+knighthood.' Then follows a list of famous mechanicians, painters, and
+musicians, which is closed by the name of a fencing-master Michele
+Rosso, who, as the most distinguished man in his profession, was to be
+seen painted in many places.
+
+By the side of these local temples of fame, which myth, legend, popular
+admiration, and literary tradition combined to create, the poet-scholars
+built up a great Pantheon of worldwide celebrity. They made collections
+of famous men and famous women, often in direct imitation of Cornelius
+Nepos, the pseudo-Suetonius, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch (_Mulierum_
+_virtutes_), Hieronymus (_De Viris Illustribus_), and others: or they
+wrote of imaginary triumphal processions and Olympian assemblies, as was
+done by Petrarch in his 'Trionfo della Fama,' and Boccaccio in the
+'Amorosa Visione,' with hundreds of names, of which three-fourths at
+least belong to antiquity and the rest to the Middle Ages.[344]
+By-and-by this new and comparatively modern element was treated with
+greater emphasis; the historians began to insert descriptions of
+character, and collections arose of the biographies of distinguished
+contemporaries, like those of Filippo Villani, Vespasiano Fiorentino,
+Bartolommeo Facio, Paolo Cortese,[345] and lastly of Paolo Giovio.[346]
+
+The North of Europe, until Italian influence began to tell upon its
+writers--for instance, on Trithemius, the first German who wrote the
+lives of famous men--possessed only either legends of the saints, or
+descriptions of princes and churchmen partaking largely of the character
+of legends and showing no traces of the idea of fame, that is, of
+distinction won by a man's personal efforts. Poetical glory was still
+confined to certain classes of society, and the names of northern
+artists are only known to us at this period in so far as they were
+members of certain guilds or corporations.
+
+The poet-scholar in Italy had, as we have already said, the fullest
+consciousness that he was the giver of fame and immortality, or, if he
+chose, of oblivion.[347] Petrarch, notwithstanding all the idealism of
+his love to Laura, gives utterance to the feeling, that his sonnets
+confer immortality on his beloved as well as on himself.[348] Boccaccio
+complains of a fair one to whom he had done homage, and who remained
+hard-hearted in order that he might go on praising her and making her
+famous, and he gives her a hint that he will try the effect of a little
+blame.[349] Sannazaro, in two magnificent sonnets, threatens Alfonso of
+Naples with eternal obscurity on account of his cowardly flight before
+Charles VIII.[350] Angelo Poliziano seriously exhorts (1491) King John
+of Portugal[351] to think betimes of his immortality in reference to the
+new discoveries in Africa, and to send him materials to Florence, there
+to be put into shape (_operosius excolenda_), otherwise it would befall
+him as it had befallen all the others whose deeds, unsupported by the
+help of the learned, 'lie hidden in the vast heap of human frailty.' The
+king, or his humanistic chancellor, agreed to this, and promised that at
+least the Portuguese chronicles of African affairs should be translated
+into Italian, and sent to Florence to be done into Latin. Whether the
+promise was kept is not known. These pretensions are by no means so
+groundless as they may appear at first sight; for the form in which
+events, even the greatest, are told to the living and to posterity is
+anything but a matter of indifference. The Italian humanists, with their
+mode of exposition and their Latin style, had long the complete control
+of the reading world of Europe, and till last century the Italian poets
+were more widely known and studied than those of any other nation. The
+baptismal name of the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci was given, on account
+of his book of travels--certainly at the proposal of its German
+translator into Latin, Martin Waldseemüller (Hylacomylus)[352]--to a new
+quarter of the globe, and if Paolo Giovio, with all his superficiality
+and graceful caprice, promised himself immortality,[353] his expectation
+has not altogether been disappointed.
+
+Amid all these preparations outwardly to win and secure fame, the
+curtain is now and then drawn aside, and we see with frightful evidence
+a boundless ambition and thirst after greatness, independent of all
+means and consequences. Thus, in the preface to Macchiavelli's
+Florentine history, in which he blames his predecessors Lionardo Aretino
+and Poggio for their too considerate reticence with regard to the
+political parties in the city: 'They erred greatly and showed that they
+understood little the ambition of men and the desire to perpetuate a
+name. How many who could distinguish themselves by nothing praiseworthy,
+strove to do so by infamous deeds! Those writers did not consider that
+actions which are great in themselves, as is the case with the actions
+of rulers and of states, always seem to bring more glory than blame, of
+whatever kind they are and whatever the result of them may be.'[354] In
+more than one remarkable and dreadful undertaking the motive assigned by
+serious writers is the burning desire to achieve something great and
+memorable. This motive is not a mere extreme case of ordinary vanity,
+but something demonic, involving a surrender of the will, the use of any
+means, however atrocious, and even an indifference to success itself. In
+this sense, for example, Macchiavelli conceives the character of Stefano
+Porcaro (p. 104);[355] of the murderers of Galeazzo Maria Sforza (p.
+57), the documents tell us about the same; and the assassination of Duke
+Alessandro of Florence (1537) is ascribed by Varchi himself to the
+thirst for fame which tormented the murderer Lorenzino Medici (p. 60).
+Still more stress is laid on this motive by Paolo Giovio.[356]
+Lorenzino, according to him, pilloried by a pamphlet of Molza on
+account of the mutilation of some ancient statues at Rome, broods over
+a deed whose novelty shall make his disgrace forgotten, and ends by
+murdering his kinsman and prince. These are characteristic features of
+this age of overstrained and despairing passions and forces, and remind
+us of the burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus in the time of
+Philip of Macedon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MODERN WIT AND SATIRE.
+
+
+The corrective, not only of this modern desire for fame, but of all
+highly developed individuality, is found in ridicule, especially when
+expressed in the victorious form of wit.[357] We read in the Middle Ages
+how hostile armies, princes, and nobles, provoked one another with
+symbolical insult, and how the defeated party was loaded with symbolical
+outrage. Here and there, too, under the influence of classical
+literature, wit began to be used as a weapon in theological disputes,
+and the poetry of Provence produced a whole class of satirical
+compositions. Even the Minnesänger, as their political poems show, could
+adopt this tone when necessary.[358] But wit could not be an independent
+element in life till its appropriate victim, the developed individual
+with personal pretentions, had appeared. Its weapons were then by no
+means limited to the tongue and the pen, but included tricks and
+practical jokes--the so-called 'burle' and 'beffe'--which form a chief
+subject of many collections of novels.
+
+The 'Hundred Old Novels,' which must have been composed about the end of
+the thirteenth century, have as yet neither wit, the fruit of contrast,
+nor the 'burla,' for their subject;[359] their aim is merely to give
+simple and elegant expression to wise sayings and pretty stories or
+fables. But if anything proves the great antiquity of the collection, it
+is precisely this absence of satire. For with the fourteenth century
+comes Dante, who, in the utterance of scorn, leaves all other poets in
+the world far behind, and who, if only on account of his great picture
+of the deceivers,[360] must be called the chief master of colossal
+comedy. With Petrarch[361] begin the collections of witty sayings after
+the pattern of Plutarch (Apophthegmata, etc.).
+
+What stores of wit were concentrated in Florence during this century, is
+most characteristically shown in the novels of Franco Sacchetti. These
+are, for the most part, not stories but answers, given under certain
+circumstances--shocking pieces of _naïveté_, with which silly folks,
+court-jesters, rogues, and profligate women make their retort. The
+comedy of the tale lies in the startling contrast of this real or
+assumed _naïveté_ with conventional morality and the ordinary relations
+of the world--things are made to stand on their heads. All means of
+picturesque representation are made use of, including the introduction
+of certain North Italian dialects. Often the place of wit is taken by
+mere insolence, clumsy trickery, blasphemy, and obscenity; one or two
+jokes told of Condottieri[362] are among the most brutal and malicious
+which are recorded. Many of the 'burle' are thoroughly comic, but many
+are only real or supposed evidence of personal superiority, of triumph
+over another. How much people were willing to put up with, how often the
+victim was satisfied with getting the laugh on his side by a retaliatory
+trick, cannot be said; there was much heartless and pointless malice
+mixed up with it all, and life in Florence was no doubt often made
+unpleasant enough from this cause.[363] The inventors and retailers of
+jokes soon became inevitable figures,[364] and among them there must
+have been some who were classical--far superior to all the mere
+court-jesters, to whom competition, a changing public, and the quick
+apprehension of the audience, all advantages of life in Florence, were
+wanting. Some Florentine wits went starring among the despotic courts of
+Lombardy and Romagna,[365] and found themselves much better rewarded
+than at home, where their talent was cheap and plentiful. The better
+type of these people is the amusing man (l'uomo piacevole), the worse is
+the buffoon and the vulgar parasite who presents himself at weddings and
+banquets with the argument, 'If I am not invited, the fault is not
+mine.' Now and then the latter combine to pluck a young
+spendthrift,[366] but in general they are treated and despised as
+parasites, while wits of higher position bear themselves like princes,
+and consider their talent as something sovereign. Dolcibene, whom
+Charles IV., 'Imperator di Buem,' had pronounced to be the 'king of
+Italian jesters,' said to him at Ferrara: 'You will conquer the world,
+since you are my friend and the Pope's; you fight with the sword, the
+Pope with his bulls, and I with my tongue.'[367] This is no mere jest,
+but a foreshadowing of Pietro Aretino.
+
+The two most famous jesters about the middle of the fifteenth century
+were a priest near Florence, Arlotto (1483), for more refined wit
+('facezie'), and the court-fool of Ferrara, Gonnella, for buffoonery.
+We can hardly compare their stories with those of the Parson of
+Kalenberg and Till Eulenspiegel, since the latter arose in a different
+and half-mythical manner, as fruits of the imagination of a whole
+people, and touch rather on what is general and intelligible to all,
+while Arlotto and Gonnella were historical beings, coloured and shaped
+by local influences. But if the comparison be allowed, and extended to
+the jests of the non-Italian nations, we shall find in general that the
+joke in the French _fabliaux_,[368] as among the Germans, is chiefly
+directed to the attainment of some advantage or enjoyment; while the wit
+of Arlotto and the practical jokes of Gonnella are an end in themselves,
+and exist simply for the sake of the triumph of production. (Till
+Eulenspiegel again forms a class by himself, as the personified quiz,
+mostly pointless enough, of particular classes and professions). The
+court-fool of the Este saved himself more than once by his keen satire
+and refined modes of vengeance.[369]
+
+The type of the 'uomo piacevole' and the 'buffone' long survived the
+freedom of Florence. Under Duke Cosimo flourished Barlacchia, and at the
+beginning of the seventeenth century Francesco Ruspoli and Curzio
+Marignolli. In Pope Leo X., the genuine Florentine love of jesters
+showed itself strikingly. This prince, whose taste for the most refined
+intellectual pleasures was insatiable, endured and desired at his table
+a number of witty buffoons and jack-puddings, among them two monks and a
+cripple;[370] at public feasts he treated them with deliberate scorn as
+parasites, setting before them monkeys and crows in the place of savoury
+meats. Leo, indeed, showed a peculiar fondness for the 'burla'; it
+belonged to his nature sometimes to treat his own favourite
+pursuits--music and poetry--ironically, parodying them with his
+factotum, Cardinal Bibbiena.[371] Neither of them found it beneath him
+to fool an honest old secretary till he thought himself a master of the
+art of music. The Improvisatore, Baraballo of Gaeta, was brought so far
+by Leo's flattery, that he applied in all seriousness for the poet's
+coronation on the Capitol. On the anniversary of S. Cosmas and S.
+Damian, the patrons of the House of Medici, he was first compelled,
+adorned with laurel and purple, to amuse the papal guests with his
+recitations, and at last, when all were ready to split with laughter, to
+mount a gold-harnessed elephant in the court of the Vatican, sent as a
+present to Rome by Emanuel the Great of Portugal, while the Pope looked
+down from above through his eye-glass.[372] The brute, however, was so
+terrified by the noise of the trumpets and kettle-drums, and the cheers
+of the crowd, that there was no getting him over the bridge of S.
+Angelo.
+
+The parody of what is solemn or sublime, which here meets us in the case
+of a procession, had already taken an important place in poetry.[373] It
+was naturally compelled to choose victims of another kind than those of
+Aristophanes, who introduced the great tragedian into his plays. But the
+same maturity of culture which at a certain period produced parody among
+the Greeks, did the same in Italy. By the close of the fourteenth
+century, the love-lorn wailings of Petrarch's sonnets and others of the
+same kind were taken off by caricaturists; and the solemn air of this
+form of verse was parodied in lines of mystic twaddle. A constant
+invitation to parody was offered by the 'Divine Comedy,' and Lorenzo
+Magnifico wrote the most admirable travesty in the style of the
+'Inferno' ('Simposio' or 'I Beoni'). Luigi Pulei obviously imitates the
+Improvisatori in his 'Morgante,' and both his poetry and Bojardo's are
+in part, at least, a half-conscious parody of the chivalrous poetry of
+the Middle Ages. Such a caricature was deliberately undertaken by the
+great parodist Teofilo Folengo (about 1520). Under the name of Limerno
+Pitocco, he composed the 'Orlandino,' in which chivalry appears only as
+a ludicrous setting for a crowd of modern figures and ideas. Under the
+name of Merlinus Coccajus he described the journeys and exploits of his
+phantastic vagabonds (also in the same spirit of parody) in half-Latin
+hexameters, with all the affected pomp of the learned Epos of the day.
+('Opus Macaronicorum'). Since then caricature has been constantly, and
+often brilliantly, represented on the Italian Parnassus.
+
+About the middle period of the Renaissance a theoretical analysis of wit
+was undertaken, and its practical application in good society was
+regulated more precisely. The theorist was Gioviano Pontano.[374] In his
+work on speaking, especially in the third and fourth books, he tries by
+means of the comparison of numerous jokes or 'facetiæ' to arrive at a
+general principle. How wit should be used among people of position is
+taught by Baldassar Castiglione in his 'Cortigiano.'[375] Its chief
+function is naturally to enliven those present by the repetition of
+comic or graceful stories and sayings; personal jokes, on the contrary,
+are discouraged on the ground that they wound unhappy people, show too
+much honour to wrong-doers, and make enemies of the powerful and the
+spoiled children of fortune;[376] and even in repetition, a wide reserve
+in the use of dramatic gestures is recommended to the gentleman. Then
+follows, not only for purposes of quotation, but as patterns for future
+jesters, a large collection of puns and witty sayings, methodically
+arranged according to their species, among them some that are admirable.
+The doctrine of Giovanni della Casa, some twenty years later, in his
+guide to good manners, is much stricter and more cautious;[377] with a
+view to the consequences, he wishes to see the desire of triumph
+banished altogether from jokes and 'burle.' He is the herald of a
+reaction, which was certain sooner or later to appear.
+
+Italy had, in fact, become a school for scandal, the like of which the
+world cannot show, not even in France at the time of Voltaire. In him
+and his comrades there was assuredly no lack of the spirit of negation;
+but where, in the eighteenth century, was to be found the crowd of
+suitable victims, that countless assembly of highly and
+characteristically-developed human beings, celebrities of every kind,
+statesmen, churchmen, inventors, and discoverers, men of letters, poets
+and artists, all of whom then gave the fullest and freest play to their
+individuality? This host existed in the fifteenth and sixteenth
+centuries, and by its side the general culture of the time had educated
+a poisonous brood of impotent wits, of born critics and railers, whose
+envy called for hecatombs of victims; and to all this was added the envy
+of the famous men among themselves. In this the philologists notoriously
+led the way--Filelfo, Poggio, Lorenzo Valla, and others--while the
+artists of the fifteenth century lived in peaceful and friendly
+competition with one another. The history of art may take note of the
+fact.
+
+Florence, the great market of fame, was in this point, as we have said,
+in advance of other cities. 'Sharp eyes and bad tongues' is the
+description given of the inhabitants.[378] An easy-going contempt of
+everything and everybody was probably the prevailing tone of society.
+Macchiavelli, in the remarkable prologue to his 'Mandragola,' refers
+rightly or wrongly the visible decline of moral force to the general
+habit of evil speaking, and threatens his detractors with the news that
+he can say sharp things as well as they. Next to Florence comes the
+Papal court, which had long been a rendezvous of the bitterest and
+wittiest tongues. Poggio's 'Facetiæ' are dated from the Chamber of Lies
+(_bugiale_) of the apostolic notaries; and when we remember the number
+of disappointed place-hunters, of hopeless competitors and enemies of
+the favourites, of idle, profligate prelates there assembled, it is
+intelligible how Rome became the home of the savage pasquinade as well
+as of more philosophical satire. If we add to this the wide-spread
+hatred borne to the priests, and the well-known instinct of the mob to
+lay any horror to the charge of the great, there results an untold mass
+of infamy.[379] Those who were able protected themselves best by
+contempt both of the false and true accusations, and by brilliant and
+joyous display.[380] More sensitive natures sank into utter despair when
+they found themselves deeply involved in guilt, and still more deeply in
+slander.[381] In course of time calumny became universal, and the
+strictest virtue was most certain of all to challenge the attacks of
+malice. Of the great pulpit orator, Fra Egidio of Viterbo, whom Leo made
+a cardinal on account of his merits, and who showed himself a man of the
+people and a brave monk in the calamity of 1527,[382] Giovio gives us to
+understand that he preserved his ascetic pallor by the smoke of wet
+straw and other means of the same kind. Giovio is a genuine Curial in
+these matters.[383] He generally begins by telling his story, then adds
+that he does not believe it, and then hints at the end that perhaps
+after all there may be something in it. But the true scape-goat of Roman
+scorn was the pious and moral Adrian VI. A general agreement seemed to
+be made to take him only on the comic side. Adrian had contemptuously
+referred to the Laöcoon group as 'idola antiquorum,' had shut up the
+entrance to the Belvedere, had left the works of Raphael unfinished, and
+had banished the poets and players from the court; it was even feared
+that he would burn some ancient statues to lime for the new church of
+St. Peter. He fell out from the first with the formidable Francesco
+Berni, threatening to have thrown into the Tiber not, as people
+said,[384] the statue of Pasquino, but the writers of the satires
+themselves. The vengeance for this was the famous 'Capitolo' against
+Pope Adriano, inspired not exactly by hatred, but by contempt for the
+comical Dutch barbarian;[385] the more savage menaces were reserved for
+the cardinals who had elected him. The plague, which then was prevalent
+in Rome, was ascribed to him;[386] Berni and others[387] sketch the
+environment of the Pope--the Germans by whom he was governed[388]--with
+the same sparkling untruthfulness with which the modern _feuilletoniste_
+turns black into white, and everything into anything. The biography
+which Paolo Giovio was commissioned to write by the Cardinal of Tortosa,
+and which was to have been a eulogy, is for any one who can read between
+the lines an unexampled piece of satire. It sounds ridiculous--at least
+for the Italians of that time--to hear how Adrian applied to the Chapter
+of Saragossa for the jaw-bone of St. Lambert; how the devout Spaniards
+decked him out till he looked 'like a right well-dressed Pope;' how he
+came in a confused and tasteless procession from Ostia to Rome, took
+counsel about burning or drowning Pasquino, would suddenly break off the
+most important business when dinner was announced; and lastly, at the
+end of an unhappy reign, how he died of drinking too much
+beer--whereupon the house of his physician was hung with garlands by
+midnight revellers, and adorned with the inscription, 'Liberatori Patriæ
+S. P. Q. R.' It is true that Giovio had lost his money in the general
+confiscation of public funds, and had only received a benefice by way of
+compensation because he was 'no poet,' that is to say. no pagan.[389]
+But it was decreed that Adrian should be the last great victim. After
+the disaster which befell Rome in 1527, slander visibly declined along
+with the unrestrained wickedness of private life.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But while it was still flourishing was developed, chiefly in Rome, the
+greatest railer of modern times, Pietro Aretino. A glance at his life
+and character will save us the trouble of noticing many less
+distinguished members of his class.
+
+We know him chiefly in the last thirty years of his life (1527-1557),
+which he passed in Venice, the only asylum possible for him. From hence
+he kept all that was famous in Italy in a kind of state of siege, and
+here were delivered the presents of the foreign princes who needed or
+dreaded his pen. Charles V. and Francis I. both pensioned him at the
+same time, each hoping that Aretino would do some mischief to the other.
+Aretino flattered both, but naturally attached himself more closely to
+Charles, because he remained master in Italy. After the Emperor's
+victory at Tunis in 1535, this tone of adulation passed into the most
+ludicrous worship, in observing which it must not be forgotten that
+Aretino constantly cherished the hope that Charles would help him to a
+cardinal's hat. It is probable that he enjoyed special protection as
+Spanish agent, as his speech or silence could have no small effect on
+the smaller Italian courts and on public opinion in Italy. He affected
+utterly to despise the Papal court because he knew it so well; the true
+reason was that Rome neither could nor would pay him any longer.[390]
+Venice, which sheltered him, he was wise enough to leave unassailed. The
+rest of his relations with the great is mere beggary and vulgar
+extortion.
+
+Aretino affords the first great instance of the abuse of publicity to
+such ends. The polemical writings which a hundred years earlier Poggio
+and his opponents interchanged, are just as infamous in their tone and
+purpose, but they were not composed for the press, but for a sort of
+private circulation. Aretino made all his profit out of a complete
+publicity, and in a certain sense may be considered the father of modern
+journalism. His letters and miscellaneous articles were printed
+periodically, after they had already been circulated among a tolerably
+extensive public.[391]
+
+Compared with the sharp pens of the eighteenth century, Aretino had the
+advantage that he was not burdened with principles, neither with
+liberalism nor philanthropy nor any other virtue, nor even with science;
+his whole baggage consisted of the well-known motto, 'Veritas odium
+parit.' He never, consequently, found himself in the false position of
+Voltaire, who was forced to disown his 'Pucelle' and conceal all his
+life the authorship of other works. Aretino put his name to all he
+wrote, and openly gloried in his notorious 'Ragionamenti.' His literary
+talent, his clear and sparkling style, his varied observation of men and
+things, would have made him a considerable writer under any
+circumstances destitute as he was of the power of conceiving a genuine
+work of art, such as a true dramatic comedy; and to the coarsest as well
+as the most refined malice he added a grotesque wit so brilliant that in
+some cases it does not fall short of that of Rabelais.[392]
+
+In such circumstances, and with such objects and means, he set to work
+to attack or circumvent his prey. The tone in which he appealed to
+Clement VII. not to complain or to think of vengeance,[393] but to
+forgive, at the moment when the wailings of the devastated city were
+ascending to the Castle of St. Angelo, where the Pope himself was a
+prisoner, is the mockery of a devil or a monkey. Sometimes, when he is
+forced to give up all hope of presents, his fury breaks out into a
+savage howl, as in the 'Capitolo' to the Prince of Salerno, who after
+paying him for some time refused to do so any longer. On the other
+hand, it seems that the terrible Pierluigi Farnese, Duke of Parma,
+never took any notice of him at all. As this gentleman had probably
+renounced altogether the pleasures of a good reputation, it was not easy
+to cause him any annoyance; Aretino tried to do so by comparing his
+personal appearance to that of a constable, a miller, and a baker.[394]
+Aretino is most comical of all in the expression of whining mendicancy,
+as in the 'Capitolo' to Francis I.; but the letters and poems made up of
+menaces and flattery cannot, notwithstanding all that is ludicrous in
+them, be read without the deepest disgust. A letter like that one of his
+written to Michelangelo in November 1545[395] is alone of its kind;
+along with all the admiration he expresses for the 'Last Judgment' he
+charges him with irreligion, indecency, and theft from the heirs of
+Julius II., and adds in a conciliating postscript, 'I only want to show
+you that if you are "divino," I am not "d'acqua."' Aretino laid great
+stress upon it--whether from the insanity of conceit or by way of
+caricaturing famous men--that he himself should be called divine, as one
+of his flatterers had already begun to do; and he certainly attained so
+much personal celebrity that his house at Arezzo passed for one of the
+sights of the place.[396] There were indeed whole months during which he
+never ventured to cross his threshold at Venice, lest he should fall in
+with some incensed Florentine like the younger Strozzi. Nor did he
+escape the cudgels and the daggers of his enemies,[397] although they
+failed to have the effect which Berni prophesied him in a famous sonnet.
+Aretino died in his house, of apoplexy.
+
+The differences he made in his modes of flattery are remarkable: in
+dealing with non-Italians he was grossly fulsome;[398] people like Duke
+Cosimo of Florence he treated very differently. He praised the beauty of
+the then youthful prince, who in fact did share this quality with
+Augustus in no ordinary degree; he praised his moral conduct, with an
+oblique reference to the financial pursuits of Cosimo's mother Maria
+Salviati, and concluded with a mendicant whine about the bad times and
+so forth. When Cosimo pensioned him,[399] which he did liberally,
+considering his habitual parsimony--to the extent, at last, of 160
+ducats a year--he had doubtless an eye to Aretino's dangerous character
+as Spanish agent. Aretino could ridicule and revile Cosimo, and in the
+same breath threaten the Florentine agent that he would obtain from the
+Duke his immediate recall; and if the Medicean prince felt himself at
+last to be seen through by Charles V. he would naturally not be anxious
+that Aretino's jokes and rhymes against him should circulate at the
+Imperial court. A curiously qualified piece of flattery was that
+addressed to the notorious Marquis of Marignano, who as Castellan of
+Musso (p. 27) had attempted to found an independent state. Thanking him
+for the gift of a hundred crowns, Aretino writes: 'All the qualities
+which a prince should have are present in you, and all men would think
+so, were it not that the acts of violence inevitable at the beginning of
+all undertakings cause you to appear a trifle rough (_aspro_).'[400]
+
+It has often been noticed as something singular that Aretino only
+reviled the world, and not God also. The religious belief of a man who
+lived as he did is a matter of perfect indifference, as are also the
+edifying writings which he composed for reasons of his own.[401] It is
+in fact hard to say why he should have been a blasphemer. He was no
+professor, or theoretical thinker or writer; and he could extort no
+money from God by threats or flattery, and was consequently never goaded
+into blasphemy by a refusal. A man like him does not take trouble for
+nothing.
+
+It is a good sign of the present spirit of Italy that such a character
+and such a career have become a thousand times impossible. But
+historical criticism will always find in Aretino an important study.
+
+
+
+
+_PART III._
+
+THE REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
+
+
+Now that this point in our historical view of Italian civilization has
+been reached, it is time to speak of the influence of antiquity, the
+'new birth' of which has been one-sidedly chosen as the name to sum up
+the whole period. The conditions which have been hitherto described
+would have sufficed, apart from antiquity, to upturn and to mature the
+national mind; and most of the intellectual tendencies which yet remain
+to be noticed would be conceivable without it. But both what has gone
+before and what we have still to discuss are coloured in a thousand ways
+by the influence of the ancient world; and though the essence of the
+phenomena might still have been the same without the classical revival,
+it is only with and through this revival that they are actually
+manifested to us. The Renaissance would not have been the process of
+worldwide significance which it is, if its elements could be so easily
+separated from one another. We must insist upon it, as one of the chief
+propositions of this book, that it was not the revival of antiquity
+alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people, which
+achieved the conquest of the western world. The amount of independence
+which the national spirit maintained in this union varied according to
+circumstances. In the modern Latin literature of the period, it is very
+small, while in plastic art, as well as in other spheres, it is
+remarkably great; and hence the alliance between two distant epochs in
+the civilisation of the same people, because concluded on equal terms,
+proved justifiable and fruitful. The rest of Europe was free either to
+repel or else partly or wholly to accept the mighty impulse which came
+forth from Italy. Where the latter was the case we may as well be spared
+the complaints over the early decay of mediæval faith and civilisation.
+Had these been strong enough to hold their ground, they would be alive
+to this day. If those elegiac natures which long to see them return
+could pass but one hour in the midst of them, they would gasp to be back
+in modern air. That in a great historical process of this kind flowers
+of exquisite beauty may perish, without being made immortal in poetry or
+tradition is undoubtedly true; nevertheless, we cannot wish the process
+undone. The general result of it consists in this--that by the side of
+the Church which had hitherto held the countries of the West together
+(though it was unable to do so much longer) there arose a new spiritual
+influence which, spreading itself abroad from Italy, became the breath
+of life for all the more instructed minds in Europe. The worst that can
+be said of the movement is, that it was anti-popular, that through it
+Europe became for the first time sharply divided into the cultivated and
+uncultivated classes. The reproach will appear groundless when we
+reflect that even now the fact, though clearly recognised, cannot be
+altered. The separation, too, is by no means so cruel and absolute in
+Italy as elsewhere. The most artistic of her poets, Tasso, is in the
+hands of even the poorest.
+
+The civilisation of Greece and Rome, which, ever since the fourteenth
+century, obtained so powerful a hold on Italian life, as the source and
+basis of culture, as the object and ideal of existence, partly also as
+an avowed reaction against preceding tendencies--this civilisation had
+long been exerting a partial influence on mediæval Europe, even beyond
+the boundaries of Italy. The culture of which Charles the Great was a
+representative was, in face of the barbarism of the seventh and eighth
+centuries, essentially a Renaissance, and could appear under no other
+form. Just as in the Romanesque architecture of the North, beside the
+general outlines inherited from antiquity, remarkable direct imitations
+of the antique also occur, so too monastic scholarship had not only
+gradually absorbed an immense mass of materials from Roman writers, but
+the style of it, from the days of Eginhard onwards shows traces of
+conscious imitations.
+
+But the resuscitation of antiquity took a different form in Italy from
+that which it assumed in the North. The wave of barbarism had scarcely
+gone by before the people, in whom the former life was but half effaced,
+showed a consciousness of its past and a wish to reproduce it. Elsewhere
+in Europe men deliberately and with reflection borrowed this or the
+other element of classical civilisation; in Italy the sympathies both of
+the learned and of the people were naturally engaged on the side of
+antiquity as a whole, which stood to them as a symbol of past greatness.
+The Latin language, too, was easy to an Italian, and the numerous
+monuments and documents in which the country abounded facilitated a
+return to the past. With this tendency other elements--the popular
+character which time had now greatly modified, the political
+institutions imported by the Lombards from Germany, chivalry and other
+northern forms of civilisation, and the influence of religion and the
+Church--combined to produce the modern Italian spirit, which was
+destined to serve as the model and ideal for the whole western world.
+
+How antiquity began to work in plastic art, as soon as the flood of
+barbarism had subsided, is clearly shown in the Tuscan buildings of the
+twelfth and in the sculptures of the thirteenth centuries. In poetry,
+too, there will appear no want of similar analogies to those who hold
+that the greatest Latin poet of the twelfth century, the writer who
+struck the key-note of a whole class of Latin poems, was an Italian. We
+mean the author of the best pieces in the so-called 'Carmina Burana.' A
+frank enjoyment of life and its pleasures, as whose patrons the gods of
+heathendom are invoked, while Catos and Scipios hold the place of the
+saints and heroes of Christianity, flows in full current through the
+rhymed verses. Reading them through at a stretch, we can scarcely help
+coming to the conclusion that an Italian, probably a Lombard, is
+speaking; in fact, there are positive grounds for thinking so.[402] To a
+certain degree these Latin poems of the 'Clerici vagantes' of the
+twelfth century, with all their remarkable frivolity, are, doubtless, a
+product in which the whole of Europe had a share; but the writer of the
+song 'De Phyllide et Flora'[403] and the 'Æstuans Interius' can have
+been a northerner as little as the polished Epicurean observer to whom
+we owe 'Dum Dianæ vitrea sero lampas oritur.' Here, in truth, is a
+reproduction of the whole ancient view of life, which is all the more
+striking from the mediæval form of the verse in which it is set forth.
+There are many works of this and the following centuries, in which a
+careful imitation of the antique appears both in the hexameter and
+pentameter of the metre in the classical, often mythological, character
+of the subject, and which yet have not anything like the same spirit of
+antiquity about them. In the hexameter chronicles and other works of
+Gulielmus Apuliensis and his successors (from about 1100), we find
+frequent traces of a diligent study of Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, and
+Claudian; but this classical form is after all here a mere matter of
+archæology, as is the classical subject in collectors like Vincent of
+Beauvais, or in the mythological and allegorical writer, Alanus ab
+Insulis. The Renaissance is not a mere fragmentary imitation or
+compilation, but a new birth; and the signs of this are visible in the
+poems of the unknown 'Clericus' of the twelfth century.
+
+But the great and general enthusiasm of the Italians for classical
+antiquity did not display itself before the fourteenth century. For this
+a development of civic life was required, which took place only in
+Italy, and there not till then. It was needful that noble and burgher
+should first learn to dwell together on equal terms, and that a social
+world should arise (see p. 139) which felt the want of culture, and had
+the leisure and the means to obtain it. But culture, as soon as it freed
+itself from the fantastic bonds of the Middle Ages, could not at once
+and without help find its way to the understanding of the physical and
+intellectual world. It needed a guide, and found one in the ancient
+civilisation, with its wealth of truth and knowledge in every spiritual
+interest. Both the form and the substance of this civilisation were
+adopted with admiring gratitude; it became the chief part of the culture
+of the age.[404] The general condition of the country was favourable to
+this transformation. The mediæval empire, since the fall of the
+Hohenstaufen, had either renounced, or was unable to make good, its
+claims on Italy. The Popes had migrated to Avignon. Most of the
+political powers actually in existence owed their origin to violent and
+illegitimate means. The spirit of the people, now awakened to
+self-consciousness, sought for some new and stable ideal on which to
+rest. And thus the vision of the world-wide empire of Italy and Rome so
+possessed the popular mind, that Cola di Rienzi could actually attempt
+to put it in practice. The conception he formed of his task,
+particularly when tribune for the first time, could only end in some
+extravagant comedy; nevertheless, the memory of ancient Rome was no
+slight support to the national sentiment. Armed afresh with its culture,
+the Italian soon felt himself in truth citizen of the most advanced
+nation in the world.
+
+It is now our task to sketch this spiritual movement, not indeed in all
+its fulness, but in its most salient features, and especially in its
+first beginnings.[405]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ROME, THE CITY OF RUINS.
+
+
+Rome itself, the city of ruins, now became the object of a wholly
+different sort of piety from that of the time when the 'Mirabilia Romæ'
+and the collection of William of Malmesbury were composed. The
+imaginations of the devout pilgrim, or of the seeker after marvels[406]
+and treasures, are supplanted in contemporary records by the interests
+of the patriot and the historian. In this sense we must understand
+Dante's words,[407] that the stones of the walls of Rome deserve
+reverence, and that the ground on which the city is built is more worthy
+than men say. The jubilees, incessant as they were, have scarcely left a
+single devout record in literature properly so called. The best thing
+that Giovanni Villani (p. 73) brought back from the jubilee of the year
+1300 was the resolution to write his history which had been awakened in
+him by the sight of the ruins of Rome. Petrarch gives evidence of a
+taste divided between classical and Christian antiquity. He tells us how
+often with Giovanni Colonna he ascended the mighty vaults of the Baths
+of Diocletian,[408] and there in the transparent air, amid the wide
+silence, with the broad panorama stretching far around them, they spoke,
+not of business, or political affairs, but of the history which the
+ruins beneath their feet suggested, Petrarch appearing in their
+dialogues as the partisan of classical, Giovanni of Christian antiquity;
+then they would discourse of philosophy and of the inventors of the
+arts. How often since that time, down to the days of Gibbon and Niebuhr,
+have the same ruins stirred men's minds to the same reflections!
+
+This double current of feeling is also recognisable in the 'Dittamondo'
+of Fazio degli Uberti, composed about the year 1360--a description of
+visionary travels, in which the author is accompanied by the old
+geographer Solinus, as Dante was by Virgil. They visit Bari in memory of
+St. Nicholas, and Monte Gargano of the archangel Michael, and in Rome
+the legends of Araceli and of Santa Maria in Trastevere are mentioned.
+Still, the pagan splendour of ancient Rome unmistakably exercises a
+greater charm upon them. A venerable matron in torn garments--Rome
+herself is meant--tells them of the glorious past, and gives them a
+minute description of the old triumphs;[409] she then leads the
+strangers through the city, and points out to them the seven hills and
+many of the chief ruins--'che comprender potrai, quanto fui bella.'
+
+Unfortunately this Rome of the schismatic and Avignonese popes was no
+longer, in respect of classical remains, what it had been some
+generations earlier. The destruction of 140 fortified houses of the
+Roman nobles by the senator Brancaleone in 1257 must have wholly altered
+the character of the most important buildings then standing; for the
+nobles had no doubt ensconced themselves in the loftiest and
+best-preserved of the ruins.[410] Nevertheless, far more was left than
+we now find, and probably many of the remains had still their marble
+incrustation, their pillared entrances, and their other ornaments, where
+we now see nothing but the skeleton of brickwork. In this state of
+things, the first beginnings of a topographical study of the old city
+were made.
+
+In Poggio's walks through Rome[411] the study of the remains themselves
+is for the first time more intimately combined with that of the ancient
+authors and inscriptions--the latter he sought out from among all the
+vegetation in which they were imbedded[412]--the writer's imagination is
+severely restrained, and the memories of Christian Rome carefully
+excluded. The only pity is that Poggio's work was not fuller and was not
+illustrated with sketches. Far more was left in his time than was found
+by Raphael eighty years later. He saw the tomb of Cæcilia Metella and
+the columns in front of one of the temples on the slope of the Capitol
+first in full preservation, and then afterwards half destroyed, owing to
+that unfortunate quality which marble possesses of being easily burnt
+into lime. A vast colonnade near the Minerva fell piecemeal a victim to
+the same fate. A witness in the year 1443 tells us that this manufacture
+of lime still went on; 'which is a shame, for the new buildings are
+pitiful, and the beauty of Rome is in its ruins.'[413] The inhabitants
+of that day, in their peasants' cloaks and boots, looked to foreigners
+like cowherds; and in fact the cattle were pastured in the city up to
+the Banchi. The only opportunities for social gatherings were the
+services at church, on which occasion it was possible to get a sight of
+the beautiful women.
+
+In the last years of Eugenius IV. (d. 1447) Blondus of Forli wrote his
+'Roma Instaurata,' making use of Frontinus and of the old 'Libri
+Regionali,' as well as, it seems, of Anastasius. His object is not only
+the description of what existed, but still more the recovery of what was
+lost. In accordance with the dedication to the Pope, he consoles himself
+for the general ruin by the thought of the precious relics of the saints
+in which Rome was so rich.[414]
+
+With Nicholas V. (1447-1455) that new monumental spirit which was
+distinctive of the age of the Renaissance appeared on the papal throne.
+The new passion for embellishing the city brought with it on the one
+hand a fresh danger for the ruins, on the other a respect for them, as
+forming one of Rome's claims to distinction. Pius II. was wholly
+possessed by antiquarian enthusiasm, and if he speaks little of the
+antiquities of Rome,[415] he closely studied those of all other parts of
+Italy, and was the first to know and describe accurately the remains
+which abounded in the districts for miles around the capital.[416] It is
+true that, both as priest and cosmographer, he is interested alike in
+classical and Christian monuments and in the marvels of nature. Or was
+he doing violence to himself when he wrote that Nola was more highly
+honoured by the memory of St. Paulinus than by all its classical
+reminiscences and by the heroic struggle of Marcellus? Not, indeed, that
+his faith in relics was assumed; but his mind was evidently rather
+disposed to an inquiring interest in nature and antiquity, to a zeal for
+monumental works, to a keen and delicate observation of human life. In
+the last years of his Papacy, afflicted with the gout and yet in the
+most cheerful mood, he was borne in his litter over hill and dale to
+Tusculum, Alba, Tibur, Ostia, Falerii, and Ocriculum, and whatever he
+saw he noted down. He followed the line of the Roman roads and
+aqueducts, and tried to fix the boundaries of the old tribes who dwelt
+round the city. On an excursion to Tivoli with the great Federigo of
+Urbino the time was happily spent in talk on the military system of the
+ancients, and particularly on the Trojan war. Even on his journey to the
+Congress of Mantua (1459) he searched, though unsuccessfully, for the
+labyrinth of Clusium mentioned by Pliny, and visited the so-called villa
+of Virgil on the Mincio. That such a Pope should demand a classical
+Latin style from his abbreviators, is no more than might be expected. It
+was he who, in the war with Naples, granted an amnesty to the men of
+Arpinum, as countrymen of Cicero and Marius, after whom many of them
+were named. It was to him alone, as both judge and patron, that Blondus
+could dedicate his 'Roma Triumphans,' the first great attempt at a
+complete exposition of Roman antiquity.[417]
+
+Nor was the enthusiasm for the classical past of Italy confined at this
+period to the capital. Boccaccio[418] had already called the vast ruins
+of Baiæ 'old walls, yet new for modern spirits;' and since this time
+they were held to be the most interesting sight near Naples. Collections
+of antiquities of all sorts now became common. Ciriaco of Ancona (d.
+1457), who explained (1433) the Roman monuments to the Emperor
+Sigismund, travelled, not only through Italy, but through other
+countries of the old world, Hellas, and the islands of the Archipelago,
+and even parts of Asia and Africa, and brought back with him countless
+inscriptions and sketches. When asked why he took all this trouble, he
+replied, 'To wake the dead.'[419] The histories of the various cities of
+Italy had from the earliest times laid claim to some true or imagined
+connection with Rome, had alleged some settlement or colonisation which
+started from the capital;[420] and the obliging manufacturers of
+pedigrees seem constantly to have derived various families from the
+oldest and most famous blood of Rome. So highly was the distinction
+valued, that men clung to it even in the light of the dawning criticism
+of the fifteenth century. When Pius II. was at Viterbo[421] he said
+frankly to the Roman deputies who begged him to return, 'Rome is as much
+at home as Siena, for my House, the Piccolomini, came in early times
+from the capital to Siena, as is proved by the constant use of the names
+Æneas and Sylvius in my family.' He would probably have had no objection
+to be held a descendant of the Julii. Paul II., a Barbo of Venice, found
+his vanity flattered by deducing his House, notwithstanding an adverse
+pedigree, according to which it came from Germany, from the Roman
+Ahenobarbus, who led a colony to Parma, and whose successors were driven
+by party conflicts to migrate to Venice.[421A] That the Massimi claimed
+descent from Q. Fabius Maximus, and the Cornaro from the Cornelii,
+cannot surprise us. On the other hand, it is a strikingly exceptional
+fact for the sixteenth century that the novellist Bandello tried to
+connect his blood with a noble family of Ostrogoths (i. nov. 23).
+
+To return to Rome. The inhabitants, 'who then called themselves Romans,'
+accepted greedily the homage which was offered them by the rest of
+Italy. Under Paul II., Sixtus IV., and Alexander VI. magnificent
+processions formed part of the Carnival, representing the scene most
+attractive to the imagination of the time--the triumph of the Roman
+Imperator. The sentiment of the people expressed itself naturally in
+this shape and others like it. In this mood of public feeling, a report
+arose, that on April 15, 1485, the corpse of a young Roman lady of the
+classical period--wonderfully beautiful and in perfect preservation--had
+been discovered.[422] Some Lombard masons digging out an ancient tomb on
+an estate of the convent of Santa Maria Novella, on the Appian Way
+beyond the Cæcilia Metella, were said to have found a marble sarcophagus
+with the inscription, 'Julia, daughter of Claudius.' On this basis the
+following story was built. The Lombards disappeared with the jewels and
+treasure which were found with the corpse in the sarcophagus. The body
+had been coated with an antiseptic essence, and was as fresh and
+flexible as that of a girl of fifteen the hour after death. It was said
+that she still kept the colours of life, with eyes and mouth half open.
+She was taken to the palace of the 'Conservatori' on the Capitol; and
+then a pilgrimage to see her began. Among the crowd were many who came
+to paint her; 'for she was more beautiful than can be said or written,
+and, were it said or written, it would not be believed by those who had
+not seen her.' By the order of Innocent VIII. she was secretly buried
+one night outside the Pincian Gate; the empty sarcophagus remained in
+the court of the 'Conservatori.' Probably a coloured mask of wax or some
+other material was modelled in the classical style on the face of the
+corpse, with which the gilded hair of which we read would harmonise
+admirably. The touching point in the story is not the fact itself, but
+the firm belief that an ancient body, which was now thought to be at
+last really before men's eyes, must of necessity be far more beautiful
+than anything of modern date.
+
+Meanwhile the material knowledge of old Rome was increased by
+excavations. Under Alexander VI. the so-called 'Grotesques,' that is,
+the mural decorations of the ancients, were discovered, and the Apollo
+of the Belvedere was found at Porto d'Anzo. Under Julius II. followed
+the memorable discoveries of the Laöcoon, of the Venus of the Vatican,
+of the Torso, of the Cleopatra.[423] The palaces of the nobles and the
+cardinals began to be filled with ancient statues and fragments. Raphael
+undertook for Leo X. that ideal restoration of the whole ancient city
+which his celebrated letter (1518 or 1519) speaks of.[424] After a
+bitter complaint over the devastations which had not even then ceased,
+and which had been particularly frequent under Julius II., he beseeches
+the Pope to protect the few relics which were left to testify to the
+power and greatness of that divine soul of antiquity whose memory was
+inspiration to all who were capable of higher things. He then goes on
+with penetrating judgment to lay the foundations of a comparative
+history of art, and concludes by giving the definition of an
+architectural survey which has been accepted since his time; he requires
+the ground plan, section, and elevation separately of every building
+that remained. How archæology devoted itself after his day to the study
+of the venerated city and grew into a special science, and how the
+Vitruvian Academy at all events proposed to itself great aims,[425]
+cannot here be related. Let us rather pause at the days of Leo X., under
+whom the enjoyment of antiquity combined with all other pleasures to
+give to Roman life a unique stamp and consecration.[426] The Vatican
+resounded with song and music, and their echoes were heard through the
+city as a call to joy and gladness, though Leo did not succeed thereby
+in banishing care and pain from his own life, and his deliberate
+calculation to prolong his days by cheerfulness was frustrated by an
+early death.[427] The Rome of Leo, as described by Paolo Giovio, forms a
+picture too splendid to turn away from, unmistakable as are also its
+darker aspects--the slavery of those who were struggling to rise; the
+secret misery of the prelates, who, notwithstanding heavy debts, were
+forced to live in a style befitting their rank; the system of literary
+patronage, which drove men to be parasites or adventurers; and, lastly,
+the scandalous maladministration of the finances of the state.[428] Yet
+the same Ariosto who knew and ridiculed all this so well, gives in the
+sixth satire a longing picture of his expected intercourse with the
+accomplished poets who would conduct him through the city of ruins, of
+the learned counsel which he would there find for his own literary
+efforts, and of the treasures of the Vatican library. These, he says,
+and not the long-abandoned hope of Medicean protection, were the real
+baits which attracted him, when he was asked to go as Ferrarese
+ambassador to Rome.
+
+But the ruins within and outside Rome awakened not only archæological
+zeal and patriotic enthusiasm, but an elegiac or sentimental melancholy.
+In Petrarch and Boccaccio we find touches of this feeling (pp. 177,
+181). Poggio (p. 181) often visited the temple of Venus and Rome, in the
+belief that it was that of Castor and Pollux, where the senate used so
+often to meet, and would lose himself in memories of the great orators
+Crassus, Hortensius, Cicero. The language of Pius II., especially in
+describing Tivoli, has a thoroughly sentimental ring,[429] and soon
+afterwards (1467) appeared the first pictures of ruins, with, a
+commentary by Polifilo.[430] Ruins of mighty arches and colonnades, half
+hid in plane-trees, laurels, cypresses, and brushwood, figure in his
+pages. In the sacred legends it became the custom, we can hardly say
+how, to lay the scene of the birth of Christ in the ruins of a
+magnificent palace.[431] That artificial ruins became afterwards a
+necessity of landscape gardening, is only a practical consequence of
+this feeling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE OLD AUTHORS.
+
+
+But the literary bequests of antiquity, Greek as well as Latin, were of
+far more importance than the architectural, and indeed than all the
+artistic remains which it had left. They were held in the most absolute
+sense to be the springs of all knowledge. The literary conditions of
+that age of great discoveries have been often set forth; no more can be
+here attempted than to point out a few less-known features of the
+picture.[432]
+
+Great as was the influence of the old writers on the Italian mind in the
+fourteenth century and before, yet that influence was due rather to the
+wide diffusion of what had long been known, than to the discovery of
+much that was new. The most popular Latin poets, historians, orators,
+and letter-writers, together with a number of Latin translations of
+single works of Aristotle, Plutarch, and a few other Greek authors,
+constituted the treasure from which a few favoured individuals in the
+time of Petrarch and Boccaccio drew their inspiration. The former, as is
+well known, owned and kept with religious care a Greek Homer, which he
+was unable to read. A complete Latin translation of the 'Iliad' and
+'Odyssey,' though a very bad one, was made at Petrarch's suggestion and
+with Boccaccio's help by a Calabrian Greek, Leonzio Pilato.[433] But
+with the fifteenth century began the long list of new discoveries, the
+systematic creation of libraries by means of copies, and the rapid
+multiplication of translations from the Greek.[434]
+
+Had it not been for the enthusiasm of a few collectors of that age, who
+shrank from no effort or privation in their researches, we should
+certainly possess only a small part of the literature, especially that
+of the Greeks, which is now in our hands. Pope Nicholas V., when only a
+simple monk, ran deeply into debt through buying manuscripts or having
+them copied. Even then he made no secret of his passion for the two
+great interests of the Renaissance, books and buildings.[435] As Pope he
+kept his word. Copyists wrote and spies searched for him through half
+the world. Perotto received 500 ducats for the Latin translation of
+Polybius; Guarino, 1,000 gold florins for that of Strabo, and he would
+have been paid 500 more but for the death of the Pope. Filelfo was to
+have received 10,000 gold florins for a metrical translation of Homer,
+and was only prevented by the Pope's death from coming from Milan to
+Rome. Nicholas left a collection of 5,000, or, according to another way
+of calculating, of 9,000 volumes,[436] for the use of the members of the
+Curia, which became the foundation of the library of the Vatican. It was
+to be preserved in the palace itself, as its noblest ornament, like the
+library of Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alexandria. When the plague (1450)
+drove him and his court to Fabriano, whence then, as now, the best paper
+was procured, he took his translators and compilers with him, that he
+might run no risk of losing them.
+
+The Florentine Niccolò Niccoli,[437] a member of that accomplished
+circle of friends which surrounded the elder Cosimo de Medici, spent his
+whole fortune in buying books. At last, when his money was all gone, the
+Medici put their purse at his disposal for any sum which his purpose
+might require. We owe to him the completion of Ammianus Marcellinus, of
+the 'De Oratore' of Cicero, the text of Lucretius which still has most
+authority, and other works; he persuaded Cosimo to buy the best
+manuscript of Pliny from a monastery at Lübeck. With noble confidence he
+lent his books to those who asked for them, allowed all comers to study
+them in his own house, and was ready to converse with the students on
+what they had read. His collection of 800 volumes, valued at 6,000 gold
+florins, passed after his death, through Cosimo's intervention, to the
+monastery of San Marco, on the condition that it should be accessible to
+the public, and is now one of the jewels of the Laurentian library.
+
+Of the two great book-finders, Guarino and Poggio, the latter,[438] on
+the occasion of the Council of Constanz and acting partly as the agent
+of Niccoli, searched industriously among the abbeys of South Germany. He
+there discovered six orations of Cicero, and the first complete
+Quintilian, that of St. Gall, now at Zürich; in thirty-two days he is
+said to have copied the whole of it in a beautiful handwriting. He was
+able to make important additions to Silius Italicus, Manilius,
+Lucretius, Valerius, Flaccus, Asconius, Pedianus, Columella, Celsus,
+Aulus, Gellius, Statius, and others; and with the help of Lionardo
+Aretino he unearthed the last twelve comedies of Plautus, as well as the
+Verrine orations, the 'Brutus' and the 'De Oratore' of Cicero.
+
+The famous Greek, Cardinal Bessarion,[439] in whom patriotism was
+mingled with a zeal for letters, collected, at a great sacrifice (30,000
+gold florins), 600 manuscripts of pagan and Christian authors. He then
+looked round for some receptacle where they could safely lie until his
+unhappy country, if she ever regained her freedom, could reclaim her
+lost literature. The Venetian government declared itself ready to erect
+a suitable building, and to this day the library of St. Mark retains a
+part of these treasures.[440]
+
+The formation of the celebrated Medicean library has a history of its
+own, into which we cannot here enter. The chief collector for Lorenzo
+Magnifico was Johannes Lascaris. It is well known that the collection,
+after the plundering in the year 1494, had to be recovered piecemeal by
+the Cardinal Giovanni Medici, afterwards Leo X.
+
+The library of Urbino,[441] now in the Vatican, was wholly the work of
+the great Frederick of Montefeltro (p. 44 sqq.). As a boy he had begun
+to collect; in after years he kept thirty or forty 'scrittori' employed
+in various places, and spent in the course of time no less than 30,000
+ducats on the collection. It was systematically extended and completed,
+chiefly by the help of Vespasiano, and his account of it forms an ideal
+picture of a library of the Renaissance. At Urbino there were catalogues
+of the libraries of the Vatican, of St. Mark at Florence, of the
+Visconti at Pavia, and even of the library at Oxford. It was noted with
+pride that in richness and completeness none could rival Urbino.
+Theology and the Middle Ages were perhaps most fully represented. There
+was a complete Thomas Aquinas, a complete Albertus Magnus, a complete
+Buenaventura. The collection, however, was a many-sided one, and
+included every work on medicine which was then to be had. Among the
+'moderns' the great writers of the fourteenth century--Dante and
+Boccaccio, with their complete works--occupied the first place. Then
+followed twenty-five select humanists, invariably with both their Latin
+and Italian writings and with all their translations. Among the Greek
+manuscripts the Fathers of the Church far outnumbered the rest; yet in
+the list of the classics we find all the works of Sophocles, all of
+Pindar, and all of Menander. The last must have quickly disappeared from
+Urbino,[442] else the philologists would have soon edited it. There were
+men, however, in this book-collecting age who raised a warning voice
+against the vagaries of the passion. These were not the enemies of
+learning, but its friends, who feared that harm would come from a
+pursuit which had become a mania. Petrarch himself protested against the
+fashionable folly of a useless heaping up of books; and in the same
+century Giovanni Manzini ridiculed Andreolo de Ochis, a septuagenarian
+from Brescia, who was ready to sacrifice house and land, his wife and
+himself, to add to the stores of his library.
+
+We have, further, a good deal of information as to the way in which
+manuscripts and libraries were multiplied.[443] The purchase of an
+ancient manuscript, which contained a rare, or the only complete, or the
+only existing text of an old writer, was naturally a lucky accident of
+which we need take no further account. Among the professional copyists
+those who understood Greek took the highest place, and it was they
+especially who bore the honourable name of 'scrittori.' Their number was
+always limited, and the pay they received very large.[444] The rest,
+simply called 'copisti,' were partly mere clerks who made their living
+by such work, partly schoolmasters and needy men of learning, who
+desired an addition to their income, partly monks, or even nuns, who
+regarded the pursuit as a work pleasing to God. In the early stages of
+the Renaissance the professional copyists were few and untrustworthy;
+their ignorant and dilatory ways were bitterly complained of by
+Petrarch. In the fifteenth century they were more numerous, and brought
+more knowledge to their calling, but in accuracy of work they never
+attained the conscientious precision of the old monks. They seem to have
+done their work in a sulky and perfunctory fashion, seldom putting their
+signatures at the foot of the codices, and showed no traces of that
+cheerful humour, or of that proud consciousness of a beneficent
+activity, which often surprises us in the French and German manuscripts
+of the same period. This is more curious, as the copyists at Rome in the
+time of Nicholas V. were mostly Germans or Frenchmen[445]--'barbarians'
+as the Italian humanists called them, probably men who were in search of
+favours at the papal court, and who kept themselves alive meanwhile by
+this means. When Cosimo de' Medici was in a hurry to form a library for
+his favourite foundation, the Badia below Fiesole, he sent for
+Vespasiano, and received from him the advice to give up all thoughts of
+purchasing books, since those which were worth getting could not be had
+easily, but rather to make use of the copyists; whereupon Cosimo
+bargained to pay him so much a day, and Vespasiano, with forty-five
+writers under him, delivered 200 volumes in twenty-two months.[446] The
+catalogue of the works to be copied was sent to Cosimo by Nicholas
+V.[447] who wrote it with his own hand. Ecclesiastical literature and
+the books needed for the choral services naturally held the chief place
+in the list.
+
+The handwriting was that beautiful modern Italian which was already in
+use in the preceding century, and which makes the sight of one of the
+books of that time a pleasure. Pope Nicholas V., Poggio, Giannozzo
+Manetti, Niccolò Niccoli, and other distinguished scholars, themselves
+wrote a beautiful hand, and desired and tolerated none other. The
+decorative adjuncts, even when miniatures formed no part of them, were
+full of taste, as may be seen especially in the Laurentian manuscripts,
+with the light and graceful scrolls which begin and end the lines. The
+material used to write on, when the work was ordered by great or wealthy
+people, was always parchment; the binding, both in the Vatican and at
+Urbino, was a uniform crimson velvet with silver clasps. Where there was
+so much care to show honour to the contents of a book by the beauty of
+its outward form, it is intelligible that the sudden appearance of
+printed books was greeted at first with anything but favour. The envoys
+of Cardinal Bessarion, when they saw for the first time a printed book
+in the house of Constantino Lascaris, laughed at the discovery 'made
+among the barbarians in some German city,' and Frederick of Urbino
+'would have been ashamed to own a printed book.'[448]
+
+But the weary copyists--not those who lived by the trade, but the many
+who were forced to copy a book in order to have it--rejoiced at the
+German invention,[449] 'notwithstanding the praises and encouragements
+which the poets awarded to caligraphy.' It was soon applied in Italy to
+the multiplication first of the Latin and then of the Greek authors, and
+for a long period nowhere but in Italy, yet it spread with by no means
+the rapidity which might have been expected from the general enthusiasm
+for these works. After a while the modern relation between author and
+publisher began to develop itself,[450] and under Alexander VI., when it
+was no longer easy to destroy a book, as Cosimo could make Filelfo
+promise to do,[451] the prohibitive censorship made its appearance.
+
+The growth of textual criticism which accompanied the advancing study of
+languages and antiquity, belongs as little to the subject of this book
+as the history of scholarship in general. We are here occupied, not with
+the learning of the Italians in itself, but with the reproduction of
+antiquity in literature and life. One word more on the studies
+themselves may still be permissible.
+
+Greek scholarship was chiefly confined to Florence and to the fifteenth
+and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. It was never so general as
+Latin scholarship, partly because of the far greater difficulties which
+it involved, partly and still more because of the consciousness of Roman
+supremacy and an instinctive hatred of the Greeks more than
+counterbalanced the attractions which Greek literature had for the
+Italians.[452]
+
+The impulse which proceeded from Petrarch and Boccaccio, superficial as
+was their own acquaintance with Greek, was powerful, but did not tell
+immediately on their contemporaries;[453] on the other hand, the study
+of Greek literature died out about the year 1520[454] with the last of
+the colony of learned Greek exiles, and it was a singular piece of
+fortune that northerners like Agricola, Reuchlin, Erasmus, the Stephani,
+and Budæus had meanwhile made themselves masters of the language. That
+colony had begun with Manuel Chrysoloras and his relation John, and with
+George of Trebizond. Then followed, about and after the time of the
+conquest of Constantinople, John Argyropulos, Theodore Gaza, Demetrios
+Chalcondylas, who brought up his sons Theophilos and Basilios to be
+excellent Hellenists, Andronikos Kallistos, Marcos Musuros and the
+family of the Lascaris, not to mention others. But after the subjection
+of Greece by the Turks was completed, the succession of scholars was
+maintained only by the sons of the fugitives and perhaps here and there
+by some Candian or Cyprian refugee. That the decay of Hellenistic
+studies began about the time of the death of Leo X. was owing partly to
+a general change of intellectual attitude,[455] and to a certain satiety
+of classical influences which now made itself felt; but its coincidence
+with the death of the Greek fugitives was not wholly a matter of
+accident. The study of Greek among the Italians appears, if we take the
+year 1500 as our standard, to have been pursued with extraordinary zeal.
+The youths of that day learned to speak the language, and half a century
+later, like the Popes Paul III. and Paul IV., they could still do so in
+their old age.[456] But this sort of mastery of the study presupposes
+intercourse with native Greeks.
+
+Besides Florence, Rome and Padua nearly always maintained paid teachers
+of Greek, and Verona, Ferrara, Venice, Perugia, Pavia and other cities
+occasional teachers.[457] Hellenistic studies owed a priceless debt to
+the press of Aldo Manucci at Venice, where the most important and
+voluminous writers were for the first time printed in the original. Aldo
+ventured his all in the enterprise; he was an editor and publisher whose
+like the world has rarely seen.[458]
+
+Along with this classical revival, Oriental studies now assumed
+considerable proportions.[459] Dante himself set a high value on Hebrew,
+though we cannot suppose that he understood it. From the fifteenth
+century onwards scholars were no longer content merely to speak of it
+with respect, but applied themselves to a thorough study of it. This
+scientific interest in the language was, however, from the beginning
+either furthered or hindered by religious considerations. Poggio, when
+resting from the labours of the Council of Constance, learnt Hebrew at
+that place and at Baden from a baptized Jew, whom he describes as
+'stupid, peevish, and ignorant, like most converted Jews;' but he had to
+defend his conduct against Lionardo Bruni, who endeavoured to prove to
+him that Hebrew was useless or even injurious. The controversial
+writings of the great Florentine statesman and scholar, Giannozzo
+Manetti[460] (d. 1459) against the Jews afford an early instance of a
+complete mastery of their language and science. His son Agnolo was from
+his childhood instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The father, at the
+bidding of Nicholas V., translated the Psalms, but had to defend the
+principles of his translation in a work addressed to Alfonso.
+Commissioned by the same Pope, who had offered a reward of 5,000 ducats
+for the discovery of the original Hebrew text of the Evangelist Matthew,
+he made a collection of Hebrew manuscripts, which is still preserved in
+the Vatican, and began a great apologetic work against the Jews.[461]
+The study of Hebrew was thus enlisted in the service of the Church. The
+Camaldolese monk Ambrogio Traversari learnt the language,[462] and Pope
+Sixtus IV., who erected the building for the Vatican library, and added
+to the collection extensive purchases of his own, took into his service
+'scrittori' (_librarios_) for Hebrew as well as for Greek and
+Latin.[463] The study of the language now became more general; Hebrew
+manuscripts were collected, and in some libraries, like that of Urbino,
+formed a specially valuable part of the rich treasure there stored up;
+the printing of Hebrew books began in Italy in 1475, and made the study
+easier both to the Italians themselves and to the other nations of
+Europe, who for many years drew their supply from Italy. Soon there was
+no good-sized town where there were not individuals who were masters of
+the language and many anxious to learn it, and in 1488 a chair for
+Hebrew was founded at Bologna, and another in 1514 at Rome. The study
+became so popular that it was even preferred to Greek.[464][465]
+
+Among all those who busied themselves with Hebrew in the fifteenth
+century, no one was of more importance than Pico della Mirandola. He was
+not satisfied with a knowledge of the Hebrew grammar and Scriptures, but
+penetrated into the Jewish Cabbalah and even made himself familiar with
+the literature of the Talmud. That such pursuits, though they may not
+have gone very far, were at all possible to him, he owed to his Jewish
+teachers. Most of the instruction in Hebrew was in fact given by Jews,
+some of whom, though generally not till after conversion to
+Christianity, became distinguished University professors and
+much-esteemed writers.[466]
+
+Among the Oriental languages, Arabic was studied as well as Hebrew. The
+science of medicine, no longer satisfied with the older Latin
+translations of the great Arabian physicians, had constant recourse to
+the originals, to which an easy access was offered by the Venetian
+consulates in the East, where Italian doctors were regularly kept. But
+the Arabian scholarship of the Renaissance is only a feeble echo of the
+influence which Arabian civilisation in the Middle Ages exercised over
+Italy and the whole cultivated world--an influence which not only
+preceded that of the Renaissance, but in some respects was hostile to
+it, and which did not surrender without a struggle the place which it
+had long and vigorously asserted. Hieronimo Ramusio, a Venetian
+physician, translated a great part of Avicenna from the Arabic and died
+at Damascus in 1486. Andrea Mongajo of Belluno,[467] a disciple of the
+same Avicenna, lived long at Damascus, learnt Arabic, and improved on
+his master. The Venetian government afterwards appointed him as
+professor of this subject at Padua. The example set by Venice was
+followed by other governments. Princes and wealthy men rivalled one
+another in collecting Arabic manuscripts. The first Arabian
+printing-press was begun at Fano under Julius II. and consecrated in
+1514 under Leo X.[468]
+
+We must here linger for a moment over Pico della Mirandola, before
+passing on to the general effects of humanism. He was the only man who
+loudly and vigorously defended the truth and science of all ages against
+the one-sided worship of classical antiquity.[469] He knew how to value
+not only Averroes and the Jewish investigators, but also the scholastic
+writers of the Middle Ages, according to the matter of their writings.
+He seems to hear them say, 'We shall live for ever, not in the schools
+of word-catchers, but in the circle of the wise, where they talk not of
+the mother of Andromache or of the sons of Niobe, but of the deeper
+causes of things human and divine; he who looks closely will see that
+even the barbarians had intelligence (_mercurium_), not on the tongue
+but in the breast.' Himself writing a vigorous and not inelegant Latin,
+and a master of clear exposition, he despised the purism of pedants and
+the current over-estimate of borrowed forms, especially when joined, as
+they often are, with one-sidedness, and involving indifference to the
+wider truth of the things themselves. Looking at Pico, we can guess at
+the lofty flight which Italian philosophy would have taken had not the
+counter-reformation annihilated the higher spiritual life of the
+people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HUMANISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+Who now were those who acted as mediators between their own age and a
+venerated antiquity, and made the latter a chief element in the culture
+of the former?
+
+They were a crowd of the most miscellaneous sort, wearing one face
+to-day and another to-morrow; but they clearly felt themselves, and it
+was fully recognised by their time, that they formed a wholly new
+element in society. The 'clerici vagantes' of the twelfth century, whose
+poetry we have already referred to (p. 174), may perhaps be taken as
+their forerunner--the same unstable existence, the same free and more
+than free views of life, and the germs at all events of the same pagan
+tendencies in their poetry. But now, as competitor with the whole
+culture of the Middle Ages, which was essentially clerical and was
+fostered by the Church, there appeared a new civilisation, founding
+itself on that which lay on the other side of the Middle Ages. Its
+active representatives became influential[470] because they knew what
+the ancients knew, because they tried to write as the ancients wrote,
+because they began to think, and soon to feel, as the ancients thought
+and felt. The tradition to which they devoted themselves passed at a
+thousand points into genuine reproduction.
+
+Some modern writers deplore the fact that the germs of a far more
+independent and essentially national culture, such as appeared in
+Florence about the year 1300, were afterwards so completely swamped by
+the humanists.[471] There was then, we are told, nobody in Florence who
+could not read; even the donkey-men sang the verses of Dante; the best
+Italian manuscripts which we possess belonged originally to Florentine
+artisans; the publication of a popular encyclopædia, like the 'Tesoro'
+of Brunette Latini, was then possible; and all this was founded on a
+strength and soundness of character due to the universal participation
+in public affairs, to commerce and travel, and to the systematic
+reprobation of idleness. The Florentines, it is urged, were at that time
+respected and influential throughout the whole world, and were called in
+that year, not without reason, by Pope Boniface VIII., 'the fifth
+element.' The rapid progress of humanism after the year 1400 paralysed
+native impulses. Henceforth men looked to antiquity only for the
+solution of every problem, and consequently allowed literature to sink
+into mere quotation. Nay, the very fall of civil freedom is partly to be
+ascribed to all this, since the new learning rested on obedience to
+authority, sacrificed municipal rights to Roman law, and thereby both
+sought and found the favour of the despots.
+
+These charges will occupy us now and then at a later stage of our
+inquiry, when we shall attempt to reduce them to their true value, and
+to weigh the losses against the gains of this movement. For the present
+we must confine ourselves to showing how the civilisation even of the
+vigorous fourteenth century necessarily prepared the way for the
+complete victory of humanism, and how precisely the greatest
+representatives of the national Italian spirit were themselves the men
+who opened wide the gate for the measureless devotion to antiquity in
+the fifteenth century.
+
+To begin with Dante. If a succession of men of equal genius had presided
+over Italian culture, whatever elements their natures might have
+absorbed from the antique, they still could not fail to retain a
+characteristic and strongly-marked national stamp. But neither Italy nor
+Western Europe produced another Dante, and he was and remained the man
+who first thrust antiquity into the foreground of national culture. In
+the 'Divine Comedy' he treats the ancient and the Christian worlds, not
+indeed as of equal authority, but as parallel to one another. Just as,
+at an earlier period of the Middle Ages types and antitypes were sought
+in the history of the Old and New Testaments, so does Dante constantly
+bring together a Christian and a pagan illustration of the same
+fact.[472] It must be remembered that the Christian cycle of history and
+legend was familiar, while the ancient was relatively unknown, was full
+of promise and of interest, and must necessarily have gained the upper
+hand in the competition for public sympathy when there was no longer a
+Dante to hold the balance between the two.
+
+Petrarch, who lives in the memory of most people nowadays chiefly as a
+great Italian poet, owed his fame among his contemporaries far rather to
+the fact that he was a kind of living representative of antiquity, that
+he imitated all styles of Latin poetry, endeavoured by his voluminous
+historical and philosophical writings not to supplant but to make known
+the works of the ancients, and wrote letters that, as treatises on
+matters of antiquarian interest, obtained a reputation which to us is
+unintelligible, but which was natural enough in an age without
+handbooks. Petrarch himself trusted and hoped that his Latin writings
+would bring him fame with his contemporaries and with posterity, and
+thought so little of his Italian poems that, as he often tell us, he
+would gladly have destroyed them if he could have succeeded thereby in
+blotting them out from the memory of men.
+
+It was the same with Boccaccio. For two centuries, when but little was
+known of the 'Decameron'[473] north of the Alps, he was famous all over
+Europe simply on account of his Latin compilations on mythology,
+geography, and biography.[474] One of these, 'De Genealogia Deorum,'
+contains in the fourteenth and fifteenth books a remarkable appendix, in
+which he discusses the position of the then youthful humanism with
+regard to the age. We must not be misled by his exclusive references to
+'poesia,' as closer observation shows that he means thereby the whole
+mental activity of the poet-scholars.[475] This it is whose enemies he
+so vigorously combats--the frivolous ignoramuses who have no soul for
+anything but debauchery; the sophistical theologian, to whom Helicon,
+the Castalian fountain, and the grove of Apollo were foolishness; the
+greedy lawyers, to whom poetry was a superfluity, since no money was to
+be made by it; finally the mendicant friars, described periphrastically,
+but clearly enough, who made free with their charges of paganism and
+immorality.[476] Then follows the defence of poetry, the proof that the
+poetry of the ancients and of their modern followers contains nothing
+mendacious, the praise of it, and especially of the deeper and
+allegorical meanings which we must always attribute to it, and of that
+calculated obscurity which is intended to repel the dull minds of the
+ignorant.
+
+And finally, with a clear reference to his own scholarly work,[477] the
+writer justifies the new relation in which his age stood to paganism.
+The case was wholly different, he pleads, when the Early Church had to
+fight its way among the heathen. Now--praised be Jesus Christ!--true
+religion was strengthened, paganism destroyed, and the victorious Church
+in possession of the hostile camp. It was now possible to touch and
+study paganism almost (_fere_) without danger. Boccaccio, however, did
+not hold this liberal view consistently. The ground of his apostasy lay
+partly in the mobility of his character, partly in the still powerful
+and widespread prejudice that classical pursuits were unbecoming in a
+theologian. To these reasons must be added the warning given him in the
+name of the dead Pietro Petroni by the monk Gioacchino Ciani to give up
+his pagan studies under pain of early death. He accordingly determined
+to abandon them, and was only brought back from this cowardly resolve by
+the earnest exhortations of Petrarch, and by the latter's able
+demonstration that humanism was reconcileable with religion.[478]
+
+There was thus a new cause in the world and a new class of men to
+maintain it. It is idle to ask if this cause ought not to have stopped
+short in its career of victory, to have restrained itself deliberately,
+and conceded the first place to purely national elements of culture. No
+conviction was more firmly rooted in the popular mind, than that
+antiquity was the highest title to glory which Italy possessed.
+
+There was a symbolical ceremony familiar to this generation of
+poet-scholars which lasted on into the fifteenth and sixteenth
+centuries, though losing the higher sentiment which inspired it--the
+coronation of the poets with the laurel wreath. The origin of this
+system in the Middle Ages is obscure, and the ritual of the ceremony
+never became fixed. It was a public demonstration, an outward and
+visible expression of literary enthusiasm,[479] and naturally its form
+was variable. Dante, for instance, seems to have understood it in the
+sense of a half-religious consecration; he desired to assume the wreath
+in the baptistery of San Giovanni, where, like thousands of other
+Florentine children, he had received baptism.[480] He could, says his
+biographer, have anywhere received the crown in virtue of his fame, but
+desired it nowhere but in his native city, and therefore died uncrowned.
+From the same source we learn that the usage was till then uncommon, and
+was held to be inherited by the ancient Romans from the Greeks. The
+most recent source to which the practices could be referred is to be
+found in the Capitoline contests of musicians, poets, and other artists,
+founded by Domitian in imitation of the Greeks and celebrated every five
+years, which may possibly have survived for a time the fall of the Roman
+Empire; but as few other men would venture to crown themselves, as Dante
+desired to do, the question arises, to whom did this office belong?
+Albertino Mussato (p. 140) was crowned at Padua in 1310 by the bishop
+and the rector of the University. The University of Paris, the rector of
+which was then a Florentine (1341), and the municipal authorities of
+Rome, competed for the honour of crowning Petrarch. His self-elected
+examiner, King Robert of Anjou, would gladly have performed the ceremony
+at Naples, but Petrarch preferred to be crowned on the Capitol by the
+senator of Rome. This honour was long the highest object of ambition,
+and so it seemed to Jacobus Pizinga, an illustrious Sicilian
+magistrate.[481] Then came the Italian journey of Charles IV., whom it
+amused to flatter the vanity of ambitious men, and impress the ignorant
+multitude by means of gorgeous ceremonies. Starting from the fiction
+that the coronation of poets was a prerogative of the old Roman
+emperors, and consequently was no less his own, he crowned (May 15,
+1355) the Florentine scholar, Zanobi della Strada, at Pisa, to the
+annoyance of Petrarch, who complained that 'the barbarian laurel had
+dared adorn the man loved by the Ausonian Muses,' and to the great
+disgust of Boccaccio, who declined to recognise this 'laurea Pisana' as
+legitimate.[482] Indeed it might be fairly asked with what right this
+stranger, half Slavonic by birth, came to sit in judgment on the merits
+of Italian poets. But from henceforth the emperors crowned poets
+wherever they went on their travels; and in the fifteenth century the
+popes and other princes assumed the same right, till at last no regard
+whatever was paid to place or circumstances. In Rome, under Sixtus IV.,
+the academy[483] of Pomponius Lætus gave the wreath on its own
+authority. The Florentines had the good taste not to crown their famous
+humanists till after death. Carlo Aretino and Lionardo Aretino were thus
+crowned; the eulogy of the first was pronounced by Matteo Palmieri, of
+the latter by Giannozzo Manetti, before the members of the council and
+the whole people, the orator standing at the head of the bier, on which
+the corpse lay clad in a silken robe.[484] Carlo Aretino was further
+honoured by a tomb in Santa Croce, which is among the most beautiful in
+the whole course of the Renaissance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS.
+
+
+The influence of antiquity on culture, of which we have now to speak,
+presupposes that the new learning had gained possession of the
+universities. This was so, but by no means to the extent and with the
+results which might have been expected.
+
+Few of the Italian universities[485] show themselves in their full
+vigour till the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the increase
+of wealth rendered a more systematic care for education possible. At
+first there were generally three sorts of professorships--one for civil
+law, another for canonical law, the third for medicine; in course of
+time professorships of rhetoric, of philosophy, and of astronomy were
+added, the last commonly, though not always, identical with astrology.
+The salaries varied greatly in different cases. Sometimes a capital sum
+was paid down. With the spread of culture competition became so active
+that the different universities tried to entice away distinguished
+teachers from one another, under which circumstances Bologna is said to
+have sometimes devoted the half of its public income (20,000 ducats) to
+the university. The appointments were as a rule made only for a certain
+time,[486] sometimes for only half a year, so that the teachers were
+forced to lead a wandering life, like actors. Appointments for life
+were, however, not unknown. Sometimes the promise was exacted not to
+teach elsewhere what had already been taught at one place. There were
+also voluntary, unpaid professors.
+
+Of the chairs which have been mentioned, that of rhetoric was especially
+sought by the humanist; yet it depended only on his familiarity with the
+matter of ancient learning whether or no he could aspire to those of
+law, medicine, philosophy, or astronomy. The inward conditions of the
+science of the day were as variable as the outward conditions of the
+teacher. Certain jurists and physicians received by far the largest
+salaries of all, the former chiefly as consulting lawyers for the suits
+and claims of the state which employed them. In Padua a lawyer of the
+fifteenth century received a salary of 1,000 ducats,[487] and it was
+proposed to appoint a celebrated physician with a yearly payment of
+2,000 ducats, and the right of private practice,[488] the same man
+having previously received 700 gold florins at Pisa. When the jurist
+Bartolommeo Socini, professor at Pisa, accepted a Venetian appointment
+at Padua, and was on the point of starting on his journey, he was
+arrested by the Florentine government and only released on payment of
+bail to the amount of 18,000 gold florins.[489] The high estimation in
+which these branches of science were held makes it intelligible why
+distinguished philologists turned their attention to law and medicine,
+while on the other hand specialists were more and more compelled to
+acquire something of a wide literary culture. We shall presently have
+occasion to speak of the work of the humanists in other departments of
+practical life.
+
+Nevertheless, the position of the philologists, as such, even where the
+salary was large,[490] and did not exclude other sources of income, was
+on the whole uncertain and temporary, so that one and the same teacher
+could be connected with a great variety of institutions. It is evident
+that change was desired for its own sake, and something fresh expected
+from each new comer, as was natural at a time when science was in the
+making, and consequently depended to no small degree on the personal
+influence of the teacher. Nor was it always the case that a lecturer on
+classical authors really belonged to the university of the town where he
+taught. Communication was so easy, and the supply of suitable
+accommodation, in monasteries and elsewhere, was so abundant, that a
+private undertaking was often practicable. In the first decades of the
+fifteenth century,[491] when the University of Florence was at its
+greatest brilliance, when the courtiers of Eugenius IV., and perhaps
+even of Martin V. thronged to the lecture-rooms, when Carlo Aretino and
+Filelfo were competing for the largest audience, there existed, not only
+an almost complete university among the Augustinians of Santo Spirito,
+not only an association of scholars among the Camaldolesi of the Angeli,
+but individuals of mark, either singly or in common, arranged to provide
+philosophical and philological teaching for themselves and others.
+Linguistic and antiquarian studies in Rome had next to no connection
+with the university (Sapienza), and depended almost exclusively either
+on the favour of individual popes and prelates, or on the appointments
+made in the Papal chancery. It was not till Leo X. (1513) that the great
+reorganisation of the Sapienza took place, with its eighty-eight
+lecturers, among whom there were able men, though none of the first
+rank, at the head of the archæological department. But this new
+brilliancy was of short duration. We have already spoken briefly of the
+Greek and Hebrew professorships in Italy (pp. 195 sqq.).
+
+To form an accurate picture of the method of scientific instruction,
+then pursued, we must turn away our eyes as far as possible from our
+present academic system. Personal intercourse between the teachers and
+the taught, public disputations, the constant use of Latin and often of
+Greek, the frequent changes of lecturers and the scarcity of books, gave
+the studies of that time a colour which we cannot represent to
+ourselves without effort.
+
+There were Latin schools in every town of the least importance, not by
+any means merely as preparatory to higher education, but because, next
+to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the knowledge of Latin was a
+necessity; and after Latin came logic. It is to be noted particularly
+that these schools did not depend on the Church, but on the
+municipality; some of them, too, were merely private enterprises.
+
+This school system, directed by a few distinguished humanists, not only
+attained a remarkable perfection of organisation, but became an
+instrument of higher education in the modern sense of the phrase. With
+the education of the children of two princely houses in North Italy
+institutions were connected which may be called unique of their kind.
+
+At the court of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua (reg. 1407 to 1444)
+appeared the illustrious Vittorino da Feltre[492] (b. 1397, d. 1446),
+otherwise Vittore dai Rambaldoni--he preferred to be called a Mantuan
+rather than a Feltrese--one of those men who devote their whole life to
+an object for which their natural gifts constitute a special vocation.
+He wrote almost nothing, and finally destroyed the few poems of his
+youth which he had long kept by him. He studied with unwearied industry;
+he never sought after titles, which, like all outward distinctions, he
+scorned; and he lived on terms of the closest friendship with teachers,
+companions, and pupils, whose goodwill he knew how to preserve. He
+excelled in bodily no less than in mental exercises, was an admirable
+rider, dancer, and fencer, wore the same clothes in winter as in summer,
+walked in nothing but sandals even during the severest frost, and lived
+so that till his old age he was never ill. He so restrained his
+passions, his natural inclination to sensuality and anger, that he
+remained chaste his whole life through, and hardly ever hurt any one by
+a hard word.
+
+He directed the education of the sons and daughters of the princely
+house, and one of the latter became under his care a woman of learning.
+When his reputation extended far and wide over Italy, and members of
+great and wealthy families came from long distances, even from Germany,
+in search of his instructions, Gonzaga was not only willing that they
+should be received, but seems to have held it an honour for Mantua to be
+the chosen school of the aristocratic world. Here for the first time
+gymnastics and all noble bodily exercises were treated along with
+scientific instruction as indispensable to a liberal education. Besides
+these pupils came others, whose instruction Vittorino probably held to
+be his highest earthly aim, the gifted poor, often as many as seventy
+together, whom he supported in his house and educated, 'per l'amore di
+Dio,' along with the high-born youths who here learned to live under the
+same roof with untitled genius. The greater the crowd of pupils who
+flocked to Mantua, the more teachers were needed to impart the
+instruction which Vittorino only directed--an instruction which aimed at
+giving each pupil that sort of learning which he was most fitted to
+receive. Gonzaga paid him a yearly salary of 240 gold florins, built him
+besides a splendid house, 'La Giocosa,' in which the master lived with
+his scholars, and contributed to the expenses caused by the poorer
+pupils. What was still further needed Vittorino begged from princes and
+wealthy people, who did not always, it is true, give a ready ear to his
+entreaties, and forced him by their hardheartedness to run into debt.
+Yet in the end he found himself in comfortable circumstances, owned a
+small property in town and an estate in the country, where he stayed
+with his pupils during the holidays, and possessed a famous collection
+of books which he gladly lent or gave away, though he was not a little
+angry when they were taken without leave. In the early morning he read
+religious books, then scourged himself and went to church; his pupils
+were also compelled to go to church, like him, to confess once a month,
+and to observe fast days most strictly. His pupils respected him, but
+trembled before his glance. When they did anything wrong, they were
+punished immediately after the offence. He was honoured by all
+contemporaries no less than by his pupils, and people took the journey
+to Mantua merely to see him.
+
+More stress was laid on pure scholarship by Guarino of Verona[493]
+(1370-1460), who in the year 1429 was called to Ferrara by Niccolò
+d'Este to educate his son Lionello, and who, when his pupil was nearly
+grown up in 1436, began to teach at the university as professor of
+eloquence and of the ancient languages. While still acting as tutor to
+Lionello, he had many other pupils from various parts of the country,
+and in his own house a select class of poor scholars, whom he partly or
+wholly supported. His evening hours till far into the night were devoted
+to hearing lessons or to instructive conversation. His house, too, was
+the home of a strict religion and morality. Guarino was a student of the
+Bible, and lived in friendly intercourse with pious contemporaries,
+though he did not hesitate to write a defence of pagan literature
+against them. It signified little to him or to Vittorino that most of
+the humanists of their day deserved small praise in the matter of morals
+or religion. It is inconceivable how Guarino, with all the daily work
+which fell upon him, still found time to write translations from the
+Greek and voluminous original works.[494] He was wanting in that wise
+self-restraint and kindly sweetness which graced the character of
+Vittorino, and was easily betrayed into a violence of temper which led
+to frequent quarrels with his learned contemporaries.
+
+Not only in these two courts, but generally throughout Italy, the
+education of the princely families was in part and for certain years in
+the hands of the humanists, who thereby mounted a step higher in the
+aristocratic world. The writing of treatises on the education of
+princes, formerly the business of theologians, fell now within their
+province.
+
+From the time of Pier Paolo Vergerio the Italian princes were well taken
+care of in this respect, and the custom was transplanted into Germany by
+Æneas Sylvius, who addressed detailed exhortations to two young German
+princes of the House of Habsburg[495] on the subject of their further
+education, in which they are both urged, as might be expected, to
+cultivate and nurture humanism, but are chiefly bidden to make
+themselves able rulers and vigorous, hardy warriors. Perhaps Æneas was
+aware that in addressing these youths he was talking in the air, and
+therefore took measures to put his treatise into public circulation. But
+the relations of the humanists to the rulers will be discussed
+separately.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE FURTHERERS OF HUMANISM.
+
+
+We have here first to speak of those citizens, mostly Florentines, who
+made antiquarian interests one of the chief objects of their lives, and
+who were themselves either distinguished scholars, or else distinguished
+_dilettanti_ who maintained the scholars. (Comp. pp. 193 sqq.) They were
+of peculiar significance during the period of transition at the
+beginning of the fifteenth century, since it was in them that humanism
+first showed itself practically as an indispensable element in daily
+life. It was not till after this time that the popes and princes began
+seriously to occupy themselves with it.
+
+Niccolò Niccoli and Giannozzo Manetti have been already spoken of more
+than once. Niccoli is described to us by Vespasiano[496] as a man who
+would tolerate nothing around him out of harmony with his own classical
+spirit. His handsome long-robed figure, his kindly speech, his house
+adorned with the noblest remains of antiquity, made a singular
+impression. He was scrupulously cleanly in everything, most of all at
+table, where ancient vases and crystal goblets stood before him on the
+whitest linen.[497] The way in which he won over a pleasure-loving young
+Florentine to intellectual interests is too charming not to be here
+described.[498] Piero de' Pazzi, son of a distinguished merchant, and
+himself destined to the same calling, fair to behold, and much given to
+the pleasures of the world, thought about anything rather than
+literature. One day, as he was passing the Palazzo del Podestà,[499]
+Niccolò called the young man to him, and although they had never before
+exchanged a word, the youth obeyed the call of one so respected. Niccolò
+asked him who his father was. He answered, 'Messer Andrea de' Pazzi.'
+When he was further asked what his pursuit was, Piero replied, as young
+people are wont to do, 'I enjoy myself' ('attendo a darmi buon tempo').
+Niccolò said to him, 'As son of such a father, and so fair to look upon,
+it is a shame that thou knowest nothing of the Latin language, which
+would be so great an ornament to thee. If thou learnest it not, thou
+wilt be good for nothing, and as soon as the flower of youth is over,
+wilt be a man of no consequence' (_virtù_). When Piero heard this, he
+straightway perceived that it was true, and said that he would gladly
+take pains to learn, if only he had a teacher. Whereupon Niccolò
+answered that he would see to that. And he found him a learned man for
+Latin and Greek, named Pontano, whom Piero treated as one of his own
+house, and to whom he paid 100 gold florins a year. Quitting all the
+pleasures in which he had hitherto lived, he studied day and night, and
+became a friend of all learned men and a noble-minded statesman. He
+learned by heart the whole 'Æneid' and many speeches of Livy, chiefly on
+the way between Florence and his country house at Trebbio.[500]
+Antiquity was represented in another and higher sense by Giannozzo
+Manetti (1393-1459).[501] Precocious from his first years, he was
+hardly more than a child when he had finished his apprenticeship in
+commerce, and became book-keeper in a bank. But soon the life he led
+seemed to him empty and perishable, and he began to yearn after science,
+through which alone man can secure immortality. He then busied himself
+with books as few laymen had done before him, and became, as has been
+said (p. 209), one of the most profound scholars of his time. When
+appointed by the government as its representative magistrate and
+tax-collector at Pescia and Pistoja, he fulfilled his duties in
+accordance with the lofty ideal with which his religious feeling and
+humanistic studies combined to inspire him. He succeeded in collecting
+the most unpopular taxes which the Florentine state imposed, and
+declined payment for his services. As provincial governor he refused all
+presents, abhorred all bribes, checked gambling, kept the country well
+supplied with corn, required from his subordinates strict obedience and
+thorough disinterestedness, was indefatigable in settling law-suits
+amicably, and did wonders in calming inflamed passions by his goodness.
+The Pistojese loved and reverenced him as a saint, and were never able
+to discover to which of the two political parties he leaned; when his
+term of office was over, both sent ambassadors to Florence to beg that
+it might be prolonged. As if to symbolise the common rights and
+interests of all, he spent his leisure hours in writing the history of
+the city, which was preserved, bound in a purple cover, as a sacred
+relic in the town-hall.[502] When he took his leave the city presented
+him with a banner bearing the municipal arms and a splendid silver
+helmet. On diplomatic missions to Venice, Rome, and King Alfonso,
+Manetti represented, as at Pistoja, the interests of his native city,
+watching vigilantly over its honour, but declining the distinctions
+which were offered to him, obtained great glory by his speeches and
+negotiations, and acquired by his prudence and foresight the name of a
+prophet.
+
+For further information as to the learned citizens of Florence at this
+period the reader must all the more be referred to Vespasiano, who knew
+them all personally, because the tone and atmosphere in which he writes,
+and the terms and conditions on which he mixed in their society, are of
+even more importance than the facts which he records. Even in a
+translation, and still more in the brief indications to which we are
+here compelled to limit ourselves, this chief merit of his book is lost.
+Without being a great writer, he was thoroughly familiar with the
+subject he wrote on, and had a deep sense of its intellectual
+significance.
+
+If we seek to analyse the charm which the Medici of the fifteenth
+century, especially Cosimo the Elder (d. 1464) and Lorenzo the
+Magnificent (d. 1492) exercised over Florence and over all their
+contemporaries, we shall find that it lay less in their political
+capacity than in their leadership in the culture of the age. A man in
+Cosimo's position--a great merchant and party leader, who also had on
+his side all the thinkers, writers, and investigators, a man who was the
+first of the Florentines by birth and the first of the Italians by
+culture--such a man was to all intents and purposes already a prince. To
+Cosimo belongs the special glory of recognising in the Platonic
+philosophy the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought,[503] of
+inspiring his friends with the same belief, and thus of fostering within
+humanistic circles themselves another and a higher resuscitation of
+antiquity. The story is known to us minutely.[504] It all hangs on the
+calling of the learned Johannes Argyropulos, and on the personal
+enthusiasm of Cosimo himself in his last years, which was such, that the
+great Marsilio Ficino could style himself, as far as Platonism was
+concerned, the spiritual son of Cosimo. Under Pietro Medici, Ficino was
+already at the head of a school; to him Pietro's son and Cosimo's
+grandson, the illustrious Lorenzo, came over from the Peripatetics.
+Among his most distinguished fellow-scholars were Bartolommeo Valori,
+Donato Acciajuoli, and Pierfilippo Pandolfini. The enthusiastic teacher
+declares in several passages of his writings that Lorenzo had sounded
+all the depths of the Platonic philosophy, and had uttered his
+conviction that without Plato it would be hard to be a good Christian or
+a good citizen. The famous band of scholars which surrounded Lorenzo was
+united together, and distinguished from all other circles of the kind,
+by this passion for a higher and idealistic philosophy. Only in such a
+world could a man like Pico della Mirandola feel happy. But perhaps the
+best thing of all that can be said about it is, that, with all this
+worship of antiquity, Italian poetry found here a sacred refuge, and
+that of all the rays of light which streamed from the circle of which
+Lorenzo was the centre, none was more powerful than this. As a
+statesman, let each man judge him as he pleases; a foreigner will
+hesitate to pronounce what was due to human guilt and what to
+circumstances in the fate of Florence, but no more unjust charge was
+ever made than that in the field of culture Lorenzo was the protector of
+Mediocrity, that through his fault Lionardo da Vinci and the
+mathematician Fra Luca Pacciolo lived abroad, and that Toscanella,
+Vespucci, and others at least remained unsupported. He was not, indeed,
+a man of universal mind; but of all the great men who have striven to
+favour and promote spiritual interests, few certainly have been so
+many-sided, and in none probably was the inward need to do so equally
+deep.
+
+The age in which we live is loud enough in proclaiming the worth of
+culture, and especially of the culture of antiquity. But the
+enthusiastic devotion to it, the recognition that the need of it is the
+first and greatest of all needs, is nowhere to be found but among the
+Florentines of the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth
+centuries. On this point we have indirect proof which precludes all
+doubt. It would not have been so common to give the daughters of the
+house a share in the same studies, had they not been held to be the
+noblest of earthly pursuits; exile would not have been turned into a
+happy retreat, as was done by Palla Strozzi; nor would men who indulged
+in every conceivable excess have retained the strength and the spirit to
+write critical treatises on the 'Natural History' of Pliny like Filippo
+Strozzi.[505] Our business here is not to deal out either praise or
+blame, but to understand the spirit of the age in all its vigorous
+individuality.
+
+Besides Florence, there were many cities of Italy where individuals and
+social circles devoted all their energies to the support of humanism and
+the protection of the scholars who lived among them. The correspondence
+of that period is full of references to personal relations of this
+kind.[506] The feeling of the instructed classes set strongly and almost
+exclusively in this direction.
+
+But it is now time to speak of humanism at the Italian courts. The
+natural alliance between the despot and the scholar, each relying solely
+on his personal talent, has already been touched upon (p. 9); that the
+latter should avowedly prefer the princely courts to the free cities,
+was only to be expected from the higher pay which they there received.
+At a time when the great Alfonso of Aragon seemed likely to become
+master of all Italy, Æneas Sylvius wrote to another citizen of
+Siena:[507] 'I had rather that Italy attained peace under his rule than
+under that of the free cities, for kingly generosity rewards excellence
+of every kind.[508] Too much stress has latterly been laid on the
+unworthy side of this relation, and the mercenary flattery to which it
+gave rise, just as formerly the eulogies of the humanists led to a too
+favourable judgment on their patrons. Taking all things together, it is
+greatly to the honour of the latter that they felt bound to place
+themselves at the head of the culture of their age and country,
+one-sided though this culture was. In some of the popes,[509] the
+fearlessness of the consequences to which the new learning might lead
+strikes us as something truly, but unconsciously, imposing. Nicholas V.
+was confident of the future of the Church, since thousands of learned
+men supported her. Pius II. was far from making such splendid sacrifices
+for humanism as were made by Nicholas, and the poets who frequented his
+court were few in number; but he himself was much more the personal head
+of the republic of letters than his predecessor, and enjoyed his
+position without the least misgiving. Paul II. was the first to dread
+and mistrust the culture of his secretaries, and his three successors,
+Sixtus, Innocent, and Alexander, accepted dedications and allowed
+themselves to be sung to the hearts' content of the poets--there even
+existed a 'Borgiad,' probably in hexameters[510]--but were too busy
+elsewhere, and too occupied in seeking other foundations for their
+power, to trouble themselves much about the poet-scholars. Julius II.
+found poets to eulogise him, because he himself was no mean subject for
+poetry (p. 117), but he does not seem to have troubled himself much
+about them. He was followed by Leo X., 'as Romulus by Numa'--in other
+words after the warlike turmoil of the first pontificate, a new one was
+hoped for wholly given to the muses. The enjoyment of elegant Latin
+prose and melodious verse was part of the programme of Leo's life, and
+his patronage certainly had the result that his Latin poets have left us
+a living picture of that joyous and brilliant spirit of the Leonine
+days, with which the biography of Jovius is filled, in countless
+epigrams, elegies, odes, and orations.[511] Probably in all European
+history there is no prince who, in proportion to the few striking events
+of his life, has received such manifold homage. The poets had access to
+him chiefly about noon, when the musicians had ceased playing;[512] but
+one of the best among them[513] tells us how they also pursued him when
+he walked in his garden or withdrew to the privacy of his chamber, and
+if they failed to catch him there, would try to win him with a mendicant
+ode or elegy, filled, as usual, with the whole population of
+Olympus.[514] For Leo, prodigal of his money, and disliking to be
+surrounded by any but cheerful faces, displayed a generosity in his
+gifts which was fabulously exaggerated in the hard times that
+followed.[515] His reorganisation of the Sapienza (p. 212) has been
+already spoken of. In order not to underrate Leo's influence on humanism
+we must guard against being misled by the toy-work that was mixed up
+with it, and must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the apparent
+irony with which he himself sometimes treated these matters (p. 157).
+Our judgment must rather dwell on the countless spiritual possibilities
+which are included in the word 'stimulus,' and which, though they cannot
+be measured as a whole, can still, on closer study, be actually followed
+out in particular cases. Whatever influence in Europe the Italian
+humanists have had since 1520 depends in some way or other on the
+impulse which was given by Leo. He was the Pope who in granting
+permission to print the newly found Tacitus,[516] could say that the
+great writers were a rule of life and a consolation in misfortune; that
+helping learned men and obtaining excellent books had ever been one of
+his highest aims; and that he now thanked heaven that he could benefit
+the human race by furthering the publication of this book.
+
+The sack of Rome in the year 1527 scattered the scholars no less than
+the artists in every direction, and spread the fame of the great
+departed Mæcenas to the furthest boundaries of Italy.
+
+Among the secular princes of the fifteenth century, none displayed such
+enthusiasm for antiquity as Alfonso the Great of Aragon, King of Naples
+(see p. 35). It appears that his zeal was thoroughly unaffected, and
+that the monuments and writings of the ancient world made upon him, from
+the time of his arrival in Italy, an impression deep and powerful enough
+to reshape his life. Possibly he was influenced by the example of his
+ancestor Robert, Petrarch's great patron, whom he may have wished to
+rival or surpass. With strange readiness he surrendered the stubborn
+Aragon to his brother, and devoted himself wholly to his new
+possessions. He had in his service,[517] either successively or
+together, George of Trebizond, the younger Chrysoloras, Lorenzo Valla,
+Bartolommeo Facio and Antonio Panormita, of whom the two latter were his
+historians; Panormita daily instructed the King and his court in Livy,
+even during military expeditions. These men cost him yearly 20,000 gold
+florins. He gave Panormita 1,000 for his work: Facio received for the
+'Historia Alfonsi,' besides a yearly income of 500 ducats, a present of
+1,500 more when it was finished, with the words, 'It is not given to pay
+you, for your work would not be paid for if I gave you the fairest of my
+cities; but in time I hope to satisfy you.'[518] When he took Giannozzo
+Manetti as his secretary on the most brilliant conditions, he said to
+him, 'My last crust I will share with you.' When Giannozzo first came to
+bring the congratulations of the Florentine government on the marriage
+of Prince Ferrante, the impression he made was so great, that the King
+sat motionless on the throne, 'like a brazen statue, and did not even
+brush away a fly, which had settled on his nose at the beginning of the
+oration.' In restoring the castle, he took Vitruvius as his guide;
+wherever he went, he had the ancient classics with him; he looked on a
+day as lost in which he had read nothing; when he was reading, he
+suffered no disturbance, not even the sound of music; and he despised
+all contemporary princes who were not either scholars or the patrons of
+learning. His favourite haunt seems to have been the library of the
+castle at Naples, which he opened himself if the librarian was absent,
+and where he would sit at a window overlooking the bay, and listen to
+learned debates on the Trinity. For he was profoundly religious, and had
+the Bible, as well as Livy and Seneca, read to him, till after fourteen
+perusals he knew it almost by heart. He gave to those who wished to be
+nuns the money for their entrance to the monastery, was a zealous
+churchgoer, and listened with great attention to the sermon. Who can
+fully understand the feeling with which he regarded the supposititious
+remains (p. 143) of Livy at Padua? When, by dint of great entreaties, he
+obtained an arm-bone of the skeleton from the Venetians, and received it
+with solemn pomp at Naples, how strangely Christian and pagan sentiment
+must have been blended in his heart! During a campaign in the Abruzzi,
+when the distant Sulmona, the birthplace of Ovid, was pointed out to
+him, he saluted the spot and returned thanks to its tutelary genius. It
+gladdened him to make good the prophecy of the great poet as to his
+future fame.[519] Once indeed, at his famous entry into the conquered
+city of Naples (1443), he himself chose to appear before the world in
+ancient style. Not far from the market a breach forty ells wide was made
+in the wall, and through this he drove in a gilded chariot like a Roman
+Triumphator.[520] The memory of the scene is preserved by a noble
+triumphal arch of marble in the Castello Nuovo. His Neapolitan
+successors (p. 37) inherited as little of this passion for antiquity as
+of his other good qualities.
+
+Alfonso was far surpassed in learning by Frederick of Urbino[521]--the
+great pupil of the great teacher Vittorino da Feltre--who had but few
+courtiers around him, squandered nothing, and in his appropriation of
+antiquity, as in all other things, went to work considerately. It was
+for him and for Nicholas V. that most of the translations from the
+Greek, and a number of the best commentaries and other such works, were
+written. He spent much on the scholars whose services he used, but spent
+it to good purpose. There were no traces of the official poet at Urbino,
+where the Duke himself was the most learned in the whole court.
+Classical antiquity, indeed, only formed a part of his culture. An
+accomplished ruler, captain, and gentleman, he had mastered the greater
+part of the science of the day, and this with a view to its practical
+application. As a theologian, he was able to compare Scotus with
+Aquinas, and was familiar with the writings of the old fathers of the
+Eastern and Western Churches, the former in Latin translations. In
+philosophy, he seems to have left Plato altogether to his contemporary
+Cosimo, but he knew thoroughly not only the 'Ethics' and 'Politics' of
+Aristotle but the 'Physics' and some other works. The rest of his
+reading lay chiefly among the ancient historians, all of whom he
+possessed; these, and not the poets, 'he was always reading and having
+read to him.'
+
+The Sforza,[522] too, were all of them men of more or less learning and
+patrons of literature; they have been already referred to in passing
+(pp. 38 sqq.). Duke Francesco probably looked on humanistic culture as a
+matter of course in the education of his children, if only for
+political reasons. It was felt universally to be an advantage if the
+Prince could mix with the most instructed men of his time on an equal
+footing. Ludovico Moro, himself an excellent Latin scholar, showed an
+interest in intellectual matters which extended far beyond classical
+antiquity (p. 41 sqq.).
+
+Even the petty despots strove after similar distinctions, and we do them
+injustice by thinking that they only supported the scholars at their
+courts as a means of diffusing their own fame. A ruler like Borso of
+Ferrara (p. 49), with all his vanity, seems by no means to have looked
+for immortality from the poets, eager as they were to propitiate him
+with a 'Borseid' and the like. He had far too proud a sense of his own
+position as a ruler for that. But intercourse with learned men, interest
+in antiquarian matters, and the passion for elegant Latin correspondence
+were a necessity for the princes of that age. What bitter complaints are
+those of Duke Alfonso, competent as he was in practical matters, that
+his weakliness in youth had forced him to seek recreation in manual
+pursuits only![523] or was this merely an excuse to keep the humanists
+at a distance? A nature like his was not intelligible even to
+contemporaries.
+
+Even the most insignificant despots of Romagna found it hard to do
+without one or two men of letters about them. The tutor and secretary
+were often one and the same person, who sometimes, indeed, acted as a
+kind of court factotum.[524] We are apt to treat the small scale of
+these courts as a reason for dismissing them with a too ready contempt,
+forgetting that the highest spiritual things are not precisely matters
+of measurement.
+
+Life and manners at the court of Rimini must have been a singular
+spectacle under the bold pagan Condottiere Sigismondo Malatesta. He had
+a number of scholars around him, some of whom he provided for liberally,
+even giving them landed estates, while others earned at least a
+livelihood as officers in his army.[525] In his citadel--'arx
+Sismundea'--they used to hold discussions, often of a very venomous
+kind, in the presence of the 'rex,' as they termed him. In their Latin
+poems they sing his praises and celebrate his amour with the fair
+Isotta, in whose honour and as whose monument the famous rebuilding of
+San Francesco at Rimini took place--'Divæ Isottæ Sacrum.' When the
+humanists themselves came to die, they were laid in or under the
+sarcophagi with which the niches of the outside walls of the church were
+adorned, with an inscription testifying that they were laid here at the
+time when Sigismundus, the son of Pandulfus, ruled.[526] It is hard for
+us nowadays to believe that a monster like this prince felt learning and
+the friendship of cultivated people to be a necessity of life; and yet
+the man who excommunicated him, made war upon him, and burnt him in
+effigy, Pope Pius II., says: 'Sigismund knew history and had a great
+store of philosophy; he seemed born to all that he undertook.[527]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY: LATIN CORRESPONDENCE AND ORATIONS.
+
+
+There were two purposes, however, for which the humanist was as
+indispensable to the republics as to princes or popes, namely, the
+official correspondence of the state, and the making of speeches on
+public and solemn occasions.
+
+Not only was the secretary required to be a competent Latinist, but
+conversely, only a humanist was credited with the knowledge and ability
+necessary for the post of secretary. And thus the greatest men in the
+sphere of science during the fifteenth century mostly devoted a
+considerable part of their lives to serve the state in this capacity. No
+importance was attached to a man's home or origin. Of the four great
+Florentine secretaries who filled the office between 1427 and 1465,[528]
+three belonged to the subject city of Arezzo, namely, Lionardo (Bruni),
+Carlo (Marsuppini), and Benedetto Accolti; Poggio was from Terra Nuova,
+also in Florentine territory. For a long period, indeed, many of the
+highest officers of state were on principle given to foreigners.
+Lionardo, Poggio, and Giannozzo Manetti were at one time or another
+private secretaries to the popes, and Carlo Aretino was to have been so.
+Blondus of Forli, and, in spite of everything, at last even Lorenzo
+Valla, filled the same office. From the time of Nicholas V. and Pius II.
+onwards,[529] the Papal chancery continued more and more to attract the
+ablest men, and this was still the case even under the last popes of
+the fifteenth century, little as they cared for letters. In Platina's
+'History of the Popes,' the life of Paul II. is a charming piece of
+vengeance taken by a humanist on the one Pope who did not know how to
+behave to his chancery--to that circle 'of poets and orators who
+bestowed on the Papal court as much glory as they received from it.' It
+is delightful to see the indignation of these haughty and wealthy
+gentlemen, who knew as well as the Pope himself how to use their
+position to plunder foreigners,[530] when some squabble about precedence
+happened, when, for instance, the 'Advocati consistoriales' claimed
+equal or superior rank to theirs.[531] The Apostle John, to whom the
+'Secreta coelestia' were revealed; the secretary of Porsenna, whom Mucius
+Scævola mistook for the king; Mæcenas, who was private secretary to
+Augustus; the archbishops, who in Germany were called chancellors, are
+all appealed to in turn.[532] 'The apostolic secretaries have the most
+weighty business of the world in their hands. For who but they decide on
+matters of the Catholic faith, who else combat heresy, re-establish
+peace, and mediate between great monarchs? who but they write the
+statistical accounts of Christendom? It is they who astonish kings,
+princes, and nations by what comes forth from the Pope. They write
+commands and instructions for the legates, and receive their orders only
+from the Pope, on whom they wait day and night.' But the highest summit
+of glory was only attained by the two famous secretaries and stylists of
+Leo X.: Pietro Bembo and Jacopo Sadoleto.[533]
+
+All the chanceries did not turn out equally elegant documents. A
+leathern official style, in the impurest of Latin, was very common. In
+the Milanese documents preserved by Corio there is a remarkable contrast
+between this sort of composition and the few letters written by members
+of the princely house, which must have been written, too, in moments of
+critical importance.[534] They are models of pure Latinity. To maintain
+a faultless style under all circumstances was a rule of good breeding,
+and a result of habit. Besides these officials, private scholars of all
+kinds naturally had correspondence of their own. The object of
+letter-writing was seldom what it is nowadays, to give information as to
+the circumstances of the writer, or news of other people; it was rather
+treated as a literary work done to give evidence of scholarship and to
+win the consideration of those to whom it was addressed. These letters
+began early to serve the purpose of learned disquisition; and Petrarch,
+who introduced this form of letter-writing, revived the forms of the old
+epistolary style, putting the classical 'thou' in place of the 'you' of
+mediæval Latin. At a later period letters became collections of
+neatly-turned phrases, by which subjects were encouraged or humiliated,
+colleagues flattered or insulted, and patrons eulogised or begged
+from.[535]
+
+The letters of Cicero, Pliny, and others, were at this time diligently
+studied as models. As early as the fifteenth century a mass of forms and
+instructions for Latin correspondence had appeared, as accessory to the
+great grammatical and lexicographic works, the mass of which is
+astounding to us even now when we look at them in the libraries. But
+just as the existence of these helps tempted many to undertake a task to
+which they had no vocation, so were the really capable men stimulated to
+a more faultless excellence, till at length the letters of Politian, and
+at the beginning of the sixteenth century those of Pietro Bembo,
+appeared, and took their place as unrivalled masterpieces, not only of
+Latin style in general, but also of the more special art of
+letter-writing.
+
+Together with these there appeared in the sixteenth century the
+classical style of Italian correspondence, at the head of which stands
+Bembo again.[536] Its form is wholly modern, and deliberately kept free
+from Latin influence, and yet its spirit is thoroughly penetrated and
+possessed by the ideas of antiquity. These letters, though partly of a
+confidential nature, are mostly written with a view to possible
+publication in the future, and always on the supposition that they might
+be worth showing on account of their elegance. After the year 1530,
+printed collections began to appear, either the letters of miscellaneous
+correspondents in irregular succession, or of single writers; and the
+same Bembo whose fame was so great as a Latin correspondent won as high
+a position in his own language.[537]
+
+But, at a time and among a people where 'listening' was among the chief
+pleasures of life, and where every imagination was filled with the
+memory of the Roman senate and its great speakers, the orator occupied a
+far more brilliant place than the letter-writer.[538] Eloquence had
+shaken off the influence of the Church, in which it had found a refuge
+during the Middle Ages, and now became an indispensable element and
+ornament of all elevated lives. Many of the social hours which are now
+filled with music were then given to Latin or Italian oratory; and yet
+Bartolommeo Fazio complained that the orators of his time were at a
+disadvantage compared with those of antiquity; of three kinds of oratory
+which were open to the latter, one only was left to the former, since
+forensic oratory was abandoned to the jurists, and the speeches in the
+councils of the government had to be delivered in Italian.[539]
+
+The social position of the speaker was a matter of perfect indifference;
+what was desired was simply the most cultivated humanistic talent. At
+the court of Borso of Ferrara, the Duke's physician, Jeronimo da
+Castello, was chosen to deliver the congratulatory address on the visits
+of Frederick III. and of Pius II.[540] Married laymen ascended the
+pulpits of the churches at any scene of festivity or mourning, and even
+on the feast-days of the saints. It struck the non-Italian members of
+the Council of Basel as something strange, that the Archbishop of Milan
+should summon Æneas Sylvius, who was then unordained, to deliver a
+public discourse at the feast of Saint Ambrogius; but they suffered it
+in spite of the murmurs of the theologians, and listened to the speaker
+with the greatest curiosity.[541]
+
+Let us glance for a moment at the most frequent and important occasions
+of public speaking.
+
+It was not for nothing, in the first place, that the ambassadors from
+one state to another received the title of orators. Whatever else might
+be done in the way of secret negotiation, the envoy never failed to make
+a public appearance and deliver a public speech, under circumstances of
+the greatest possible pomp and ceremony.[542] As a rule, however
+numerous the embassy might be, one individual spake for all; but it
+happened to Pius II., a critic before whom all were glad to be heard, to
+be forced to sit and listen to a whole deputation, one after
+another.[543] Learned princes who had the gift of speech were themselves
+fond of discoursing in Latin or Italian. The children of the House of
+Sforza were trained to this exercise. The boy Galeazzo Maria delivered
+in 1455 a fluent speech before the Great Council at Venice,[544] and his
+sister Ippolita saluted Pope Pius II. with a graceful address at the
+Congress of Mantua.[545] Pius himself through all his life did much by
+his oratory to prepare the way for his final elevation to the Papal
+chair. Great as he was both as scholar and diplomatist, he would
+probably never have become Pope without the fame and the charm of his
+eloquence. 'For nothing was more lofty than the dignity of his
+oratory.'[546] Without doubt this was a reason why multitudes held him
+to be the fittest man for the office, even before his election.
+
+Princes were also commonly received on public occasions with speeches,
+which sometimes lasted for hours. This happened of course only when the
+prince was known as a lover of eloquence,[547] or wished to pass for
+such, and when a competent speaker was present, whether university
+professor, official, ecclesiastic, physician, or court-scholar.
+
+Every other political opportunity was seized with the same eagerness,
+and according to the reputation of the speaker, the concourse of the
+lovers of culture was great or small. At the yearly change of public
+officers, and even at the consecration of new bishops, a humanist was
+sure to come forward, and sometimes addressed his audience in hexameters
+or Sapphic verses.[548] Often a newly appointed official was himself
+forced to deliver a speech more or less relevant to his department, as
+for instance, on justice; and lucky for him if he were well up in his
+part! At Florence even the Condottieri, whatever their origin or
+education might be, were compelled to accommodate themselves to the
+popular sentiment, and on receiving the insignia of their office, were
+harangued before the assembled people by the most learned secretary of
+state.[549] It seems that beneath or close to the Loggia dei Lanzi--the
+porch where the government was wont to appear solemnly before the
+people--a tribune or platform (_rostra ringhiera_) was erected for such
+purposes.
+
+Anniversaries, especially those of the death of princes, were commonly
+celebrated by memorial speeches. Even the funeral oration strictly
+so-called was generally entrusted to a humanist, who delivered it in
+church, clothed in a secular dress; nor was it only princes, but
+officials, or persons otherwise distinguished, to whom this honour was
+paid.[550] This was also the case with the speeches delivered at
+weddings or betrothals, with the difference that they seem to have been
+made in the palace, instead of in church, like that of Filelfo at the
+betrothal of Anna Sforza with Alfonso of Este in the castle of Milan. It
+is still possible that the ceremony may have taken place in the chapel
+of the castle. Private families of distinction no doubt also employed
+such wedding orators as one of the luxuries of high life. At Ferrara,
+Guarino was requested on these occasions to send some one or other of
+his pupils.[551] The church simply took charge of the religious
+ceremonies at weddings and funerals.
+
+The academical speeches, both those made at the installation of a new
+teacher and at the opening of a new course of lectures,[552] were
+delivered by the professor himself, and treated as occasions of great
+rhetorical display. The ordinary university lectures also usually had an
+oratorical character.[553]
+
+With regard to forensic eloquence, the quality of the audience
+determined the form of speech. In case of need it was enriched with all
+sorts of philosophical and antiquarian learning.
+
+As a special class of speeches we may mention the addresses made in
+Italian on the battle-field, either before or after the combat.
+Frederick of Urbino[554] was esteemed a classic in this style; he used
+to pass round among his squadrons as they stood drawn up in order of
+battle, inspiring them in turn with pride and enthusiasm. Many of the
+speeches in the military historians of the fifteenth century, as for
+instance in Porcellius (p. 99), may be, in fact at least, imaginary, but
+may be also in part faithful representations of words actually spoken.
+The addresses again which were delivered to the Florentine Militia,[555]
+organised in 1506 chiefly through the influence of Macchiavelli, and
+which were spoken first at reviews, and afterwards at special annual
+festivals, were of another kind. They were simply general appeals to the
+patriotism of the hearers, and were addressed to the assembled troops in
+the church of each quarter of the city by a citizen in armour, sword in
+hand.
+
+Finally, the oratory of the pulpit began in the fifteenth century to
+lose its distinctive peculiarities. Many of the clergy had entered into
+the circle of classical culture, and were ambitious of success in it.
+The street-preacher Bernardino da Siena, who even in his lifetime passed
+for a saint and who was worshipped by the populace, was not above taking
+lessons in rhetoric from the famous Guarino, although he had only to
+preach in Italian. Never indeed was more expected from preachers than at
+that time--especially from the Lenten preachers; and there were not a
+few audiences which could not only tolerate, but which demanded a strong
+dose of philosophy from the pulpit.[556] But we have here especially to
+speak of the distinguished occasional preachers in Latin. Many of their
+opportunities had been taken away from them, as has been observed, by
+learned laymen. Speeches on particular saints' days, at weddings and
+funerals, or at the installation of a bishop, and even the introductory
+speech at the first mass of a clerical friend, or the address at the
+festival of some religious order, were all left to laymen.[557] But at
+all events at the Papal court in the fifteenth century, whatever the
+occasion might be, the preachers were generally monks. Under Sixtus IV.,
+Giacomo da Volterra regularly enumerates these preachers, and criticises
+them according to the rules of the art.[558] Fedra Inghirami, famous as
+an orator under Julius II., had at least received holy orders and was
+canon at St. John Lateran; and besides him, elegant Latinists were now
+common enough among the prelates. In this matter, as in others, the
+exaggerated privileges of the profane humanists appear lessened in the
+sixteenth century--on which point we shall presently speak more fully.
+
+What now was the subject and general character of these speeches? The
+national gift of eloquence was not wanting to the Italians of the Middle
+Ages, and a so-called 'rhetoric' belonged from the first to the seven
+liberal arts; but so far as the revival of the ancient methods is
+concerned, this merit must be ascribed, according to Filippo
+Villani,[559] to the Florentine Bruno Casini, who died of the plague in
+1348. With the practical purpose of fitting his countrymen to speak with
+ease and effect in public, he treated, after the pattern of the
+ancients, invention, declamation, bearing, and gesticulation, each in
+its proper connection. Elsewhere too we read of an oratorical training
+directed solely to practical application. No accomplishment was more
+highly esteemed than the power of elegant improvisation in Latin.[560]
+The growing study of Cicero's speeches and theoretical writings, of
+Quintilian and of the imperial panegyrists, the appearance of new and
+original treatises,[561] the general progress of antiquarian learning,
+and the stores of ancient matter and thought which now could and must
+be drawn from--all combined to shape the character of the new eloquence.
+
+This character nevertheless differed widely according to the individual.
+Many speeches breathe a spirit of true eloquence, especially those which
+keep to the matter treated of; of this kind is the mass of what is left
+to us of Pius II. The miraculous effects produced by Giannozzo
+Manetti[562] point to an orator the like of whom has not been often
+seen. His great audiences as envoy before Nicholas V. and before the
+Doge and Council of Venice were events not to be soon forgotten. Many
+orators, on the contrary, would seize the opportunity, not only to
+flatter the vanity of distinguished hearers, but to load their speeches
+with an enormous mass of antiquarian rubbish. How it was possible to
+endure this infliction for two and even three hours, can only be
+understood when we take into account the intense interest then felt in
+everything connected with antiquity, and the rarity and defectiveness of
+treatises on the subject at a time when printing was but little
+diffused. Such orations had at least the value which we have claimed (p.
+232) for many of Petrarch's letters. But some speakers went too far.
+Most of Filelfo's speeches are an atrocious patchwork of classical and
+biblical quotations, tacked on to a string of commonplaces, among which
+the great people he wishes to flatter are arranged under the head of the
+cardinal virtues, or some such category, and it is only with the
+greatest trouble, in his case and in that of many others, that we can
+extricate the few historical notices of value which they really contain.
+The speech, for instance, of a scholar and professor of Piacenza at the
+reception of the Duke Galeazzo Maria, in 1467, begins with Julius Cæsar,
+then proceeds to mix up a mass of classical quotations with a number
+from an allegorical work by the speaker himself, and concludes with
+some exceedingly indiscreet advice to the ruler.[563] Fortunately it was
+late at night, and the orator had to be satisfied with handing his
+written panegyric to the prince. Filelfo begins a speech at a betrothal
+with the words: 'Aristotle, the peripatetic.' Others start with P.
+Cornelius Scipio, and the like, as though neither they nor their hearers
+could wait a moment for a quotation. At the end of the fifteenth century
+public taste suddenly improved, chiefly through Florentine influence,
+and the practice of quotation was restricted within due limits. Many
+works of reference were now in existence, in which the first comer could
+find as much as he wanted of what had hitherto been the admiration of
+princes and people.
+
+As most of the speeches were written out beforehand in the study, the
+manuscripts served as a means of further publicity afterwards. The great
+extemporaneous speakers, on the other hand, were attended by shorthand
+writers.[564] We must further remember, that all the orations which have
+come down to us were not intended to be actually delivered. The
+panegyric, for example, of the elder Beroaldus on Ludovico Moro was
+presented to him in manuscript.[565] In fact, just as letters were
+written addressed to all conceivable persons and parts of the world as
+exercises, as formularies, or even to serve a controversial end, so
+there were speeches for imaginary occasions[566] to be used as models
+for the reception of princes, bishops, and other dignitaries.
+
+For oratory, as for the other arts, the death of Leo X. (1521) and the
+sack of Rome (1527) mark the epoch of decadence. Giovio,[567] but just
+escaped from the desolation of the eternal city, describes, not
+exhaustively, but on the whole truly, the causes of this decline.
+
+'The plays of Plautus and Terence, once a school of Latin style for the
+educated Romans, are banished to make room for Italian comedies.
+Graceful speakers no longer find the recognition and reward which they
+once did. The Consistorial advocates no longer prepare anything but the
+introductions to their speeches, and deliver the rest--a confused
+muddle--on the inspiration of the moment. Sermons and occasional
+speeches have sunk to the same level. If a funeral oration is wanted for
+a cardinal or other great personage, the executors do not apply to the
+best orators in the city, to whom they would have to pay a hundred
+pieces of gold, but they hire for a trifle the first impudent pedant
+whom they come across, and who only wants to be talked of whether for
+good or ill. The dead, they say, is none the wiser if an ape stands in a
+black dress in the pulpit, and beginning with a hoarse, whimpering
+mumble, passes little by little into a loud howling. Even the sermons
+preached at great papal ceremonies are no longer profitable, as they
+used to be. Monks of all orders have again got them into their hands,
+and preach as if they were speaking to the mob. Only a few years ago a
+sermon at mass before the Pope, might easily lead the way to a
+bishopric.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+LATIN TREATISES AND HISTORY.
+
+
+From the oratory and the epistolary writings of the humanists, we shall
+here pass on to their other creations, which were all, to a greater or
+less extent, reproductions of antiquity.
+
+Among these must be placed the treatise, which often took the shape of a
+dialogue.[568] In this case it was borrowed directly from Cicero. In
+order to do anything like justice to this class of literature--in order
+not to throw it aside at first sight as a bore--two things must be taken
+into consideration. The century which escaped from the influence of the
+Middle Ages felt the need of something to mediate between itself and
+antiquity in many questions of morals and philosophy; and this need was
+met by the writer of treatises and dialogues. Much which appears to us
+as mere commonplace in their writings, was for them and their
+contemporaries a new and hardly-won view of things upon which mankind
+had been silent since the days of antiquity. The language too, in this
+form of writing, whether Italian or Latin, moved more freely and
+flexibly than in historical narrative, in letters, or in oratory, and
+thus became in itself the source of a special pleasure. Several Italian
+compositions of this kind still hold their place as patterns of style.
+Many of these works have been, or will be mentioned on account of their
+contents; we here refer to them as a class. From the time of Petrarch's
+letters and treatises down to near the end of the fifteenth century, the
+heaping up of learned quotations, as in the case of the orators, is the
+main business oi most of these writers. The whole style, especially in
+Italian, was then suddenly clarified, till, in the 'Asolani,' of Bembo,
+and the 'Vita Sobria,' of Luigi Cornaro,[569] a classical perfection was
+reached. Here too the decisive fact was, that antiquarian matter of
+every kind had meantime begun to be deposited in encyclopædic works (now
+printed), and no longer stood in the way of the essayist.
+
+It was inevitable too that the humanistic spirit should control the
+writing of history. A superficial comparison of the histories of this
+period with the earlier chronicles, especially with works so full of
+life, colour, and brilliancy as those of the Villani, will lead us
+loudly to deplore the change. How insipid and conventional appear by
+their side the best of the humanists, and particularly their immediate
+and most famous successors among the historians of Florence, Lionardo
+Aretino and Poggio![570] The enjoyment of the reader is incessantly
+marred by the sense that, in the classical phrases of Facius,
+Sabellicus, Folieta, Senarega, Platina in the chronicles of Mantua,
+Bembo in the annals of Venice, and even of Giovio in his histories, the
+best local and individual colouring and the full sincerity of interest
+in the truth of events have been lost. Our mistrust is increased when we
+hear that Livy, the pattern of this school of writers, was copied just
+where he is least worthy of imitation--on the ground, namely,[571] 'that
+he turned a dry and naked tradition into grace and richness.' In the
+same place we meet with the suspicious declaration, that it is the
+function of the historian--just as if he were one with the poet--to
+excite, charm, or overwhelm the reader. We must further remember that
+many humanistic historians knew but little of what happened outside
+their own sphere, and this little they were often compelled to adapt to
+the taste of their patrons and employers. We ask ourselves finally,
+whether the contempt for modern things, which these same humanists
+sometimes avowed openly[572] must not necessarily have had an
+unfortunate influence on their treatment of them. Unconsciously the
+reader finds himself looking with more interest and confidence on the
+unpretending Latin and Italian annalists, like those of Bologna and
+Ferrara, who remained true to the old style, and still more grateful
+does he feel to the best of the genuine chroniclers who wrote in
+Italian--to Marin Sanudo, Corio, and Infessura--who were followed at the
+beginning of the sixteenth century by that new and illustrious band of
+great national historians who wrote in their mother tongue.
+
+Contemporary history, no doubt, was written far better in the language
+of the day than when forced into Latin. Whether Italian was also more
+suitable for the narrative of events long past, or for historical
+research, is a question which admits, for that period, of more answers
+than one. Latin was, at that time, the 'Lingua franca' of instructed
+people, not only in an international sense, as a means of intercourse
+between Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Italians, but also in an
+interprovincial sense. The Lombard, the Venetian, and the Neapolitan
+modes of writing, though long modelled on the Tuscan, and bearing but
+slight traces of the dialect, were still not recognised by the
+Florentines. This was of less consequence in local contemporary
+histories, which were sure of readers at the place where they were
+written, than in the narratives of the past, for which a larger public
+was desired. In these the local interests of the people had to be
+sacrificed to the general interests of the learned. How far would the
+influence of a man like Blondus of Forli have reached if he had written
+his great monuments of learning in the dialect of the Romagna? They
+would have assuredly sunk into neglect, if only through the contempt of
+the Florentines, while written in Latin they exercised the profoundest
+influence on the whole European world of learning. And even the
+Florentines in the fifteenth century wrote Latin, not only because their
+minds were imbued with humanism, but in order to be more widely read.
+
+Finally, there exist certain Latin essays in contemporary history, which
+stand on a level with the best Italian works of the kind. When the
+continuous narrative after the manner of Livy--that Procrustean bed of
+so many writers--is abandoned, the change is marvellous. The same
+Platina and Giovio, whose great histories we only read because and so
+far as we must, suddenly come forward as masters in the biographical
+style. We have already spoken of Tristan Caracciolo, of the biographical
+works of Facius and of the Venetian topography of Sabellico, and others
+will be mentioned in the sequel. Historical composition, like letters
+and oratory, soon had its theory. Following the example of Cicero, it
+proclaims with pride the worth and dignity of history, boldly claims
+Moses and the Evangelists as simple historians, and concludes with
+earnest exhortations to strict impartiality and love of truth.[573]
+
+The Latin treatises on past history were naturally concerned, for the
+most part, with classical antiquity. What we are more surprised to find
+among these humanists are some considerable works on the history of the
+Middle Ages. The first of this kind was the chronicle of Matteo Palmieri
+(449-1449), beginning where Prosper Aquitanus ceases, the style of which
+was certainly an offence to later critics like Paolo Cortese. On opening
+the 'Decades' of Blondus of Forli, we are surprised to find a universal
+history, 'ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii,' as in Gibbon, full of
+original studies on the authors of each century, and occupied, through
+the first 300 folio pages, with early mediæval history down to the death
+of Frederick II. And this when in Northern countries nothing more was
+wanted than chronicles of the popes and emperors, and the 'Fasciculus
+temporum.' We cannot here stay to show what writings Blondus made use
+of, and where he found his materials, though this justice will some day
+be done to him by the historians of literature. This book alone would
+entitle us to say that it was the study of antiquity which made the
+study of the Middle Ages possible, by first training the mind to habits
+of impartial historical criticism. To this must be added, that the
+Middle Ages were now over for Italy, and that the Italian mind could the
+better appreciate them, because it stood outside them. It cannot,
+nevertheless, be said that it at once judged them fairly, and still less
+that it judged them with piety. In art a fixed prejudice showed itself
+against all that those centuries had created, and the humanists date the
+new era from the time of their own appearance. 'I begin,' says
+Boccaccio,[574] 'to hope and believe that God has had mercy on the
+Italian name, since I see that His infinite goodness puts souls into the
+breasts of the Italians like those of the ancients--souls which seek
+fame by other means than robbery and violence, but rather, on the path
+of poetry, which makes men immortal.' But this narrow and unjust temper
+did not preclude investigation in the minds of the more gifted men, at a
+time, too, when elsewhere in Europe any such investigation would have
+been out of the question. A historical criticism[575] of the Middle Ages
+was practicable, just because the rational treatment of all subjects by
+the humanists had trained the historical spirit. In the fifteenth
+century this spirit had so far penetrated the history even of the
+individual cities of Italy, that the stupid fairy tales about the origin
+of Florence, Venice, and Milan vanished, while at the same time, and
+long after, the chronicles of the North were stuffed with this fantastic
+rubbish, destitute for the most part of all poetical value, and invented
+as late as the fourteenth century.
+
+The close connection between local history and the sentiment of glory
+has already been touched on in reference to Florence (part i. chap.
+vii.). Venice would not be behind-hand. Just as a great rhetorical
+triumph of the Florentines[576] would cause a Venetian embassy to write
+home post-haste for an orator to be sent after them, so too the
+Venetians felt the need of a history which would bear comparison with
+those of Lionardo Aretino and Poggio. And it was to satisfy this
+feeling that, in the fifteenth century, after negotiations with Giovanni
+Maria Filelfo and others had failed, the 'Decades' of Sabellico
+appeared, and in the sixteenth the 'Historia rerum Venetarum' of Pietro
+Bembo, both written at the express charge of the republic, the latter a
+continuation of the former.
+
+The great Florentine historians at the beginning of the sixteenth
+century (pp. 81 sqq.) were men of a wholly different kind from the
+Latinists Bembo and Giovio. They wrote Italian, not only because they
+could not vie with the Ciceronian elegance of the philologists, but
+because, like Macchiavelli, they could only record in a living tongue
+the living results of their own immediate observations--and we may add
+in the case of Macchiavelli, of his observation of the past--and
+because, as in the case of Guicciardini, Varchi, and many others, what
+they most desired was, that their view of the course of events should
+have as wide and deep a practical effect as possible. Even when they
+only write for a few friends, like Francesco Vettori, they feel an
+inward need to utter their testimony on men and events, and to explain
+and justify their share in the latter.
+
+And yet, with all that is characteristic in their language and style,
+they were powerfully affected by antiquity, and, without its influence,
+would be inconceivable. They were not humanists, but they had passed
+through the school of humanism, and they have in them more of the spirit
+of the ancient historians than most of the imitators of Livy. Like the
+ancients, they were citizens who wrote for citizens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+GENERAL LATINISATION OF CULTURE.
+
+
+We cannot attempt to trace the influence of humanism in the special
+sciences. Each has its own history, in which the Italian investigators
+of this period, chiefly through their rediscovery of the results
+attained by antiquity,[577] mark a new epoch, with which the modern
+period of the science in question begins with more or less distinctness.
+With regard to philosophy, too, we must refer the reader to the special
+historical works on the subject. The influence of the old philosophers
+on Italian culture will appear at times immense, at times
+inconsiderable; the former, when we consider how the doctrines of
+Aristotle, chiefly drawn from the Ethics[578] and Politics--both widely
+diffused at an early period--became the common property of educated
+Italians, and how the whole method of abstract thought was governed by
+him;[579] the latter, when we remember how slight was the dogmatic
+influence of the old philosophies, and even of the enthusiastic
+Florentine Platonists, on the spirit of the people at large. What looks
+like such an influence is generally no more than a consequence of the
+new culture in general, and of the special growth and development of the
+Italian mind. When we come to speak of religion, we shall have more to
+say on this head. But in by far the greater number of cases, we have to
+do, not with the general culture of the people, but with the utterances
+of individuals or of learned circles; and here, too, a distinction must
+be drawn between the true assimilation of ancient doctrines and
+fashionable make-believe. For with many antiquity was only a fashion,
+even among very learned people.
+
+Nevertheless, all that looks like affectation to our age, need not then
+have been actually so. The giving of Greek and Latin names to children,
+for example, is better and more respectable than the present practice of
+taking them, especially the female names, from novels. When the
+enthusiasm for the ancient world was greater than for the saints, it was
+simple and natural enough that noble families called their sons
+Agamemnon, Tydeus, and Achilles,[580] and that a painter named his son
+Apelles and his daughter Minerva.[581] Nor will it appear unreasonable
+that, instead of a family name, which people were often glad to get rid
+of, a well-sounding ancient name was chosen. A local name, shared by all
+residents in the place, and not yet transformed into a family name, was
+willingly given up, especially when its religious associations made it
+inconvenient; Filippo da San Gemignano called himself Callimachus. The
+man, misunderstood and insulted by his family, who made his fortune as a
+scholar in foreign cities, could afford, even if he were a Sanseverino,
+to change his name to Julius Pomponius Laetus. Even the simple
+translation of a name into Latin or Greek, as was almost uniformly the
+custom in Germany, may be excused to a generation which spoke and wrote
+Latin, and which needed names that could be not only declined, but used
+with facility in verse and prose. What was blameworthy and ridiculous
+was, the change of half a name, baptismal or family, to give it a
+classical sound and a new sense. Thus Giovanni was turned into Jovianus
+or Janus, Pietro to Petreius or Pierius, Antonio to Aonius, Sannazzaro
+to Syncerus, Luca Grasso to Lucius Crassus. Ariosto, who speaks with
+such derision of all this,[582] lived to see children called after his
+own heroes and heroines.[583]
+
+Nor must we judge too severely the Latinisation of many usages of social
+life, such as the titles of officials, of ceremonies, and the like, in
+the writers of the period. As long as people were satisfied with a
+simple, fluent Latin style, as was the case with most writers from
+Petrarch to Æneas Sylvius, this practice was not so frequent and
+striking; it became inevitable when a faultless, Ciceronian Latin was
+demanded. Modern names and things no longer harmonised with the style,
+unless they were first artificially changed. Pedants found a pleasure in
+addressing municipal counsellors as 'Patres Conscripti,' nuns as
+'Virgines Vestales,' and entitling every saint 'Divus' or 'Deus;' but
+men of better taste, such as Paolo Giovio, only did so when and because
+they could not help it. But as Giovio does it naturally, and lays no
+special stress upon it, we are not offended if, in his melodious
+language, the cardinals appear as 'Senatores,' their dean as 'Princeps
+Senatus,' excommunication as 'Dirae,'[584] and the carnival as
+'Lupercalia.' This example of this author alone is enough to warn us
+against drawing a hasty inference from these peculiarities of style as
+to the writer's whole mode of thinking.
+
+The history of Latin composition cannot here be traced in detail. For
+fully two centuries the humanists acted as if Latin were, and must
+remain, the only language worthy to be written. Poggio[585] deplores
+that Dante wrote his great poem in Italian; and Dante, as is well known,
+actually made the attempt in Latin, and wrote the beginning of the
+'Inferno' first in hexameters. The whole future of Italian poetry hung
+on his not continuing in the same style,[586] but even Petrarch relied
+more on his Latin poetry than on the Sonnets and 'Canzoni,' and Ariosto
+himself was desired by some to write his poem in Latin. A stronger
+coercion never existed in literature;[587] but poetry shook it off for
+the most part, and it may be said, without the risk of too great
+optimism, that it was well for Italian poetry to have had both means of
+expressing itself. In both something great and characteristic was
+achieved, and in each we can see the reason why Latin or Italian was
+chosen. Perhaps the same may be said of prose. The position and
+influence of Italian culture throughout the world depended on the fact
+that certain subjects were treated in Latin[588]--'urbi et orbi'--while
+Italian prose was written best of all by those to whom it cost an inward
+struggle not to write in Latin.
+
+From the fourteenth century Cicero was recognised universally as the
+purest model of prose. This was by no means due solely to a
+dispassionate opinion in favour of his choice of language, of the
+structure of his sentences, and of his style of composition, but rather
+to the fact that the Italian spirit responded fully and instinctively to
+the amiability of the letter-writer, to the brilliancy of the orator,
+and to the lucid exposition of the philosophical thinker. Even Petrarch
+recognised clearly the weakness of Cicero as a man and a statesman,[589]
+though he respected him too much to rejoice over them. After Petrarch's
+time, the epistolary style was formed entirely on the pattern of Cicero;
+and the rest, with the exception of the narrative style, followed the
+same influence. Yet the true Ciceronianism, which rejected every phrase
+which could not be justified out of the great authority, did not appear
+till the end of the fifteenth century, when the grammatical writings of
+Lorenzo Valla had begun to tell on all Italy, and when the opinions of
+the Roman historians of literature had been sifted and compared.[590]
+Then every shade of difference in the style of the ancients was studied
+with closer and closer attention, till the consoling conclusion was at
+last reached, that in Cicero alone was the perfect model to be found,
+or, if all forms of literature were to be embraced, in 'that immortal
+and almost heavenly age of Cicero.'[591] Men like Pietro Bembo and
+Pierio Valeriano now turned all their energies to this one object. Even
+those who had long resisted the tendency, and had formed for themselves
+an archaic style from the earlier authors,[592] yielded at last, and
+joined in the worship of Cicero. Longolius, at Bembo's advice,
+determined to read nothing but Cicero for five years long, and finally
+took an oath to use no word which did not occur in this author. It was
+this temper which broke out at last in the great war among the scholars,
+in which Erasmus and the elder Scaliger led the battle.
+
+For all the admirers of Cicero were by no means so one-sided as to
+consider him the only source of language. In the fifteenth century,
+Politian and Ermolao Barbaro made a conscious and deliberate effort to
+form a style of their own,[593] naturally on the basis of their
+'overflowing' learning, though they failed to inspire their pupils with
+a similar desire for independence; and our informant of this fact, Paolo
+Giovio, pursued the same end. He first attempted, not always
+successfully, but often with remarkable power and elegance, and at no
+small cost of effort, to reproduce in Latin a number of modern,
+particularly of æsthetic, ideas. His Latin characteristics of the great
+painters and sculptors of his time contain a mixture of the most
+intelligent and of the most blundering interpretation.[594] Even Leo X.,
+who placed his glory in the fact, 'ut lingua latina nostra pontificatu
+dicatur factu auctior,'[595] was inclined to a liberal and not too
+exclusive Latinity, which, indeed, was in harmony with his
+pleasure-loving nature. He was satisfied when the Latin which he had to
+read and hear was lively, elegant, and idiomatic. Then, too, Cicero
+offered no model for Latin conversation, so that here other gods had to
+be worshipped beside him. The want was supplied by representations of
+the comedies of Plautus and Terence, frequent both in and out of Rome,
+which for the actors were an incomparable exercise in Latin as the
+language of daily life. The impulse to the study of the old Latin
+comedies and to modern imitations of them was given by the discovery of
+plays by Plautus in the 'Cod. Ursinianus,' which was brought to Rome in
+1428 or 1429. A few years later, in the pontificate of Paul II., the
+learned Cardinal of Teano[596] (probably Niccolò Forteguerra of Pistoja)
+became famous for his critical labours in this branch of scholarship. He
+set to work upon the most defective plays of Plautus, which were
+destitute even of the list of the characters, and went carefully through
+the whole remains of this author, chiefly with an eye to the language.
+Possibly it was he who gave the first impulse for the public
+representations of these plays. Afterwards Pomponius Laetus took up the
+same subject, and acted as manager when Plautus was put on the stage in
+the houses of great churchmen.[597] That these representations became
+less common after 1520, is mentioned by Giovio, as we have seen (p.
+242), among the causes of the decline of eloquence.
+
+We may mention, in conclusion, the analogy between Ciceronianism in
+literature and the revival of Vitruvius by the architects in the sphere
+of art.[598] And here, too, the law holds good which prevails elsewhere
+in the history of the Renaissance, that each artistic movement is
+preceded by a corresponding movement in the general culture of the age.
+In this case, the interval is not more than about twenty years, if we
+reckon from Cardinal Hadrian of Corneto (1505?) to the first avowed
+Vitruvians.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MODERN LATIN POETRY.
+
+
+The chief pride of the humanists is, however, their modern Latin poetry.
+It lies within the limits of our task to treat of it, at least in so far
+as it serves to characterise the humanistic movement.
+
+How favourable public opinion was to that form of poetry, and how nearly
+it supplanted all others, has been already shown (p. 252). We may be
+very sure that the most gifted and highly developed nation then existing
+in the world did not renounce the use of a language such as the Italian
+out of mere folly and without knowing what they were doing. It must have
+been a weighty reason which led them to do so.
+
+This cause was the devotion to antiquity. Like all ardent and genuine
+devotion it necessarily prompted men to imitation. At other times and
+among other nations we find many isolated attempts of the same kind. But
+only in Italy were the two chief conditions present which were needful
+for the continuance and development of neo-Latin poetry: a general
+interest in the subject among the instructed classes, and a partial
+reawakening of the old Italian genius among the poets themselves--the
+wondrous echo of a far-off strain. The best of what is produced under
+these conditions is not imitation, but free production. If we decline to
+tolerate any borrowed forms in art, if we either set no value on
+antiquity at all, or attribute to it some magical and unapproachable
+virtue, or if we will pardon no slips in poets who were forced, for
+instance, to guess or to discover a multitude of syllabic quantities,
+then we had better let this class of literature alone. Its best works
+were not created in order to defy criticism, but to give pleasure to the
+poet and to thousands of his contemporaries.[599]
+
+The least success of all was attained by the epic narratives drawn from
+the history or legends of antiquity. The essential conditions of a
+living epic poetry were denied, not only to the Romans who now served as
+models, but even to the Greeks after Homer. They could not be looked for
+among the Latins of the Renaissance. And yet the 'Africa' of
+Petrarch[600] probably found as many and as enthusiastic readers and
+hearers as any epos of modern times. The purpose and origin of the poem
+are not without interest. The fourteenth century recognised with sound
+historical tact the time of the second Punic war as the noon-day of
+Roman greatness; and Petrarch could not resist writing of this time. Had
+Silius Italicus been then discovered, Petrarch would probably have
+chosen another subject; but, as it was, the glorification of Scipio
+Africanus the Elder was so much in accordance with the spirit of the
+fourteenth century, that another poet, Zanobi di Strada, also proposed
+to himself the same task, and only from respect for Petrarch withdrew
+the poem with which he had already made great progress.[601] If any
+justification were needed for the 'Africa,' it lies in the fact that in
+Petrarch's time and afterwards Scipio was as much an object of public
+interest as if he were then alive, and that he was held by many to be a
+greater man than Alexander, Pompey, and Cæsar.[602] How many modern
+epics treat of a subject at once so popular, so historical in its basis,
+and so striking to the imagination? For us, it is true, the poem is
+unreadable. For other themes of the same kind the reader may be referred
+to the histories of literature.
+
+A richer and more fruitful vein was discovered in expanding and
+completing the Greco-Roman mythology. In this too Italian poetry began
+early to take a part, beginning with the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, which
+passes for his best poetical work. Under Martin V. Maffeo Vegio wrote in
+Latin a thirteenth book to the Æneid; besides which we meet with many
+less considerable attempts, especially in the style of Claudian--a
+'Meleagris,' a 'Hesperis,' and so forth. Still more curious were the
+newly-invented myths, which peopled the fairest regions of Italy with a
+primæval race of gods, nymphs, genii, and even shepherds, the epic and
+bucolic styles here passing into one another. In the narrative or
+conversational eclogue after the time of Petrarch, pastoral life was
+treated in a purely conventional manner,[603] as a vehicle of all
+possible feelings and fancies; and this point will be touched on again
+in the sequel. For the moment, we have only to do with the new myths. In
+them, more clearly than anywhere else, we see the double significance of
+the old gods to the men of the Renaissance. On the one hand, they
+replace abstract terms in poetry, and render allegorical figures
+superfluous; and, on the other, they serve as free and independent
+elements in art, as forms of beauty which can be turned to some account
+in any and every poem. The example was boldly set by Boccaccio, with his
+fanciful world of gods and shepherds who people the country round
+Florence in his 'Ninfale d'Ameto' and 'Ninfale Fiesolano.' Both these
+poems were written in Italian. But the masterpiece in this style was the
+'Sarca' of Pietro Bembo,[604] which tells how the rivergod of that name
+wooed the nymph Garda; of the brilliant marriage feast in a cave of
+Monte Baldo; of the prophecies of Manto, daughter of Tiresias; of the
+birth of the child Mincius; of the founding of Mantua; and of the future
+glory of Virgil, son of Mincius and of Maia, nymph of Andes. This
+humanistic rococo is set forth by Bembo in verses of great beauty,
+concluding with an address to Virgil, which any poet might envy him.
+Such works are often slighted as mere declamation. This is a matter of
+taste on which we are all free to form our own opinion.
+
+Further, we find long epic poems in hexameters on biblical or
+ecclesiastical subjects. The authors were by no means always in search
+of preferment or of papal favour. With the best of them, and even with
+less gifted writers, like Battista Mantovano, the author of the
+'Parthenice,' there was probably an honest desire to serve religion by
+their Latin verses--a desire with which their half-pagan conception of
+Catholicism harmonised well enough. Gyraldus goes through a list of
+these poets, among whom Vida, with his 'Christiad' and Sannazaro, with
+his three books, 'De partu Virginis,'[605] hold the first place.
+Sannazaro (b. 1458, d. 1530) is impressive by the steady and powerful
+flow of his verse, in which Christian and pagan elements are mingled
+without scruple, by the plastic vigour of his description, and by the
+perfection of his workmanship. He could venture to introduce Virgil's
+fourth eclogue into his song of the shepherds at the manger (III. 200
+sqq.) without fearing a comparison. In treating of the unseen world, he
+sometimes gives proofs of a boldness worthy of Dante, as when King David
+in the Limbo of the Patriarchs rises up to sing and prophesy (I. 236
+sqq.), or when the Eternal, sitting on the throne clad in a mantle
+shining with pictures of all the elements, addresses the heavenly host
+(III. 17 sqq). At other times he does not hesitate to weave the whole
+classical mythology into his subject, yet without spoiling the harmony
+of the whole, since the pagan deities are only accessory figures, and
+play no important part in the story. To appreciate the artistic genius
+of that age in all its bearings, we must not refuse to notice such works
+as these. The merit of Sannazaro will appear the greater, when we
+consider that the mixture of Christian and pagan elements is apt to
+disturb us much more in poetry than in the plastic arts. The latter can
+still satisfy the eye by beauty of form and colour, and in general are
+much more independent of the significance of the subject than poetry.
+With them, the imagination is interested chiefly in the form, with
+poetry, in the matter. Honest Battista Mantovano in his calendar of the
+festivals,[606] tried another expedient. Instead of making the gods and
+demigods serve the purposes of sacred history, he put them, as the
+Fathers of the Church did, in active opposition to it. When the angel
+Gabriel salutes the Virgin at Nazareth, Mercury flies after him from
+Carmel, and listens at the door. He then announces the result of his
+eavesdropping to the assembled gods, and stimulates them thereby to
+desperate resolutions. Elsewhere,[607] it is true, in his writings,
+Thetis, Ceres, Æolus, and other pagan deities pay willing homage to the
+glory of the Madonna.
+
+The fame of Sannazaro, the number of his imitators, the enthusiastic
+homage which was paid to him by the greatest men--by Bembo, who wrote
+his epitaph, and by Titian, who painted his portrait--all show how dear
+and necessary he was to his age. On the threshold of the Reformation he
+solved for the Church the problem, whether it were possible for a poet
+to be a Christian as well as a classic; and both Leo and Clement were
+loud in their thanks for his achievements.
+
+And, finally, contemporary history was now treated in hexameters or
+distichs, sometimes in a narrative and sometimes in a panegyrical style,
+but most commonly to the honour of some prince or princely family. We
+thus meet with a Sforziad,[608] a Borseid, a Laurentiad, a Borgiad (see
+p. 223), a Triulziad, and the like. The object sought after was
+certainly not attained; for those who became famous and are now immortal
+owe it to anything rather than to this sort of poems, to which the world
+has always had an ineradicable dislike, even when they happen to be
+written by good poets. A wholly different effect is produced by smaller,
+simpler and more unpretentious scenes from the lives of distinguished
+men, such as the beautiful poem on Leo X.'s 'Hunt at Palo,'[609] or the
+'Journey of Julius II.' by Hadrian of Corneto (p. 119). Brilliant
+descriptions of hunting-parties are found in Ercole Strozza, in the
+above-mentioned Hadrian, and in others; and it is a pity that the modern
+reader should allow himself to be irritated or repelled by the adulation
+with which they are doubtless filled. The masterly treatment and the
+considerable historical value of many of these most graceful poems,
+guarantee to them a longer existence than many popular works of our own
+day are likely to attain.
+
+In general, these poems are good in proportion to the sparing use of the
+sentimental and the general. Some of the smaller epic poems, even of
+recognised masters, unintentionally produce, by the ill-timed
+introduction of mythological elements, an impression that is
+indescribably ludicrous. Such, for instance, is the lament of Ercole
+Strozza[610] on Cæsar Borgia. We there listen to the complaint of Rome,
+who had set all her hopes on the Spanish Popes Calixtus III. and
+Alexander VI., and who saw her promised deliverer in Cæsar. His history
+is related down to the catastrophe of 1503. The poet then asks the Muse
+what were the counsels of the gods at that moment,[611] and Crato tells
+how, upon Olympus, Pallas took the part of the Spaniards, Venus of the
+Italians, how both then embrace the knees of Jupiter, how thereupon he
+kisses them, soothes them, and explains to them that he can do nothing
+against the fate woven by the Parcæ, but that the divine promises will
+be fulfilled by the child of the House of Este-Borgia.[612] After
+relating the fabulous origin of both families, he declares that he can
+confer immortality on Cæsar as little as he could once, in spite of all
+entreaties, on Memnon or Achilles; and concludes with the consoling
+assurance that Cæsar, before his own death, will destroy many people in
+war. Mars then hastens to Naples to stir up war and confusion, while
+Pallas goes to Nepi, and there appears to the dying Cæsar under the form
+of Alexander VI. After giving him the good advice to submit to his fate
+and be satisfied with the glory of his name, the papal goddess vanishes
+'like a bird.'
+
+Yet we should needlessly deprive ourselves of an enjoyment, which is
+sometimes very great, if we threw aside everything in which classical
+mythology plays a more or less appropriate part. Here, as in painting
+and sculpture, art has often ennobled what is in itself purely
+conventional. The beginnings of parody are also to be found by lovers of
+that class of literature (pp. 159 sqq.) _e.g._ in the Macaroneid--to
+which the comic Feast of the Gods, by Giovanni Bellini, forms an early
+parallel.
+
+Many, too, of the narrative poems in hexameters are merely exercises, or
+adaptations of histories in prose, which latter the reader will prefer,
+where he can find them. At last, everything--every quarrel and every
+ceremony--came to be put into verse, and this even by the German
+humanists of the Reformation.[613] And yet it would be unfair to
+attribute this to mere want of occupation, or to an excessive facility
+in stringing verses together. In Italy, at all events, it was rather due
+to an abundant sense of style, as is further proved by the mass of
+contemporary reports, histories, and even pamphlets, in the 'terza
+rima.' Just as Niccolò da Uzzano published his scheme for a new
+constitution, Macchiavelli his view of the history of his own time, a
+third, the life of Savonarola, and a fourth, the siege of Piombino by
+Alfonso the Great,[614] in this difficult metre, in order to produce a
+stronger effect, so did many others feel the need of hexameters, in
+order to win their special public. What was then tolerated and demanded,
+in this shape, is best shown by the didactic poetry of the time. Its
+popularity in the fifteenth century is something astounding. The most
+distinguished humanists were ready to celebrate in Latin hexameters the
+most commonplace, ridiculous, or disgusting themes, such as the making
+of gold, the game of chess, the management of silkworms, astrology, and
+venereal diseases (_morbus gallicus_), to say nothing of many long
+Italian poems of the same kind. Nowadays this class of poems is
+condemned unread, and how far, as a matter of fact, they are really
+worth the reading, we are unable to say.[615] One thing is certain, that
+epochs far above our own in the sense of beauty--the Renaissance and the
+Greco-Roman world--could not dispense with this form of poetry. It may
+be urged in reply, that it is not the lack of a sense of beauty, but the
+greater seriousness and the altered method of scientific treatment which
+renders the poetical form inappropriate, on which point it is
+unnecessary to enter.
+
+One of these didactic works has of late years been occasionally
+republished[616]--the 'Zodiac of Life,' by Marcellus Palingenius (Pier
+Angello Manzolli), a secret adherent of Protestantism at Ferrara,
+written about 1528. With the loftiest speculations on God, virtue, and
+immortality, the writer connects the discussion of many questions of
+practical life, and is, on this account, an authority of some weight in
+the history of morals. On the whole, however, his work must be
+considered as lying outside the boundaries of the Renaissance, as is
+further indicated by the fact that, in harmony with the serious didactic
+purpose of the poem, allegory tends to supplant mythology.
+
+But it was in lyric, and more particularly in elegiac poetry, that the
+poet-scholar came nearest to antiquity; and next to this, in epigram.
+
+In the lighter style, Catullus exercised a perfect fascination over the
+Italians. Not a few elegant Latin madrigals, not a few little satires
+and malicious epistles, are mere adaptations from him; and the death of
+parrots and lapdogs is bewailed, even where there is no verbal
+imitation, in precisely the tone and style of the verses on Lesbia's
+Sparrow. There are short poems of this sort, the date of which even a
+critic would be unable to fix,[617] in the absence of positive evidence
+that they are works of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
+
+On the other hand, we can find scarcely an ode in the Sapphic or Alcaic
+metre, which does not clearly betray its modern origin. This is shown
+mostly by a rhetorical verbosity, rare in antiquity before the time of
+Statius, and by a singular want of the lyrical concentration which is
+indispensable to this style of poetry. Single passages in an ode,
+sometimes two or three strophes together, may look like an ancient
+fragment; but a longer extract will seldom keep this character
+throughout. And where it does so, as, for instance, in the fine Ode to
+Venus, by Andrea Navagero, it is easy to detect a simple paraphrase of
+ancient masterpieces.[618] Some of the ode-writers take the saints for
+their subject, and invoke them in verses tastefully modelled after the
+pattern of analogous odes of Horace and Catullus. This is the manner of
+Navagero, in the Ode to the Archangel Gabriel, and particularly of
+Sannazaro (p. 260), who goes still further in his appropriation of pagan
+sentiment. He celebrates above all his patron saint,[619] whose chapel
+was attached to his lovely villa on the shores of Posilippo, 'there
+where the waves of the sea drink up the stream from the rocks, and surge
+against the walls of the little sanctuary.' His delight is in the annual
+feast of S. Nazzaro, and the branches and garlands with which the chapel
+is hung on this day, seem to him like sacrificial gifts. Full of sorrow,
+and far off in exile, at St. Nazaire, on the banks of the Loire, with
+the banished Frederick of Aragon, he brings wreaths of box and oak
+leaves to his patron saint on the same anniversary, thinking of former
+years, when all the youth of Posilippo used to come forth to greet him
+on flower-hung boats, and praying that he may return home.[620]
+
+Perhaps the most deceptive likeness to the classical style is borne by a
+class of poems in elegiacs or hexameters, whose subject ranges from
+elegy, strictly so-called, to epigram. As the humanists dealt most
+freely of all with the text of the Roman elegiac poets, so they felt
+themselves most at home in imitating them. The elegy of Navagero
+addressed to the night, like other poems of the same age and kind, is
+full of points which remind us of his models; but it has the finest
+antique ring about it. Indeed Navagero[621] always begins by choosing a
+truly poetical subject, which he then treats, not with servile
+imitation, but with masterly freedom, in the style of the Anthology, of
+Ovid, of Catullus, or of the Virgilian eclogues. He makes a sparing use
+of mythology, only, for instance, to introduce a sketch of country life,
+in a prayer to Ceres and other rural divinities. An address to his
+country, on his return from an embassy to Spain, though left unfinished,
+might have been worthy of a place beside the 'Bella Italia, amate
+sponde' of Vincenzo Monti, if the rest had been equal to this beginning:
+
+ 'Salve, cura Deûm, mundi felicior ora,
+ Formosae Veneris dulces salvete recessus;
+ Ut vos post tantos animi mentisque labores
+ Aspicio lustroque libens, ut munere vestro
+ Sollicitas toto depello e pectore curas!'[622]
+
+The elegiac or hexametral form was that in which all higher sentiment
+found expression, both the noblest patriotic enthusiasm (see p. 119, the
+elegy on Julius II.) and the most elaborate eulogies on the ruling
+houses,[623] as well as the tender melancholy of a Tibullus. Francesco
+Mario Molza, who rivals Statius and Martial in his flattery of Clement
+VII. and the Farnesi, gives us in his elegy to his 'comrades,' written
+from a sick-bed, thoughts on death as beautiful and genuinely antique as
+can be found in any of the poets of antiquity, and this without
+borrowing anything worth speaking of from them.[624] The spirit and
+range of the Roman elegy were best understood and reproduced by
+Sannazaro, and no other writer of his time offers us so varied a choice
+of good poems in this style as he. We shall have occasion now and then
+to speak of some of these elegies in reference to the matter they treat
+of.
+
+The Latin epigram finally became in those days an affair of serious
+importance, since a few clever lines, engraved on a monument or quoted
+with laughter in society, could lay the foundation of a scholar's
+celebrity. This tendency showed itself early in Italy. When it was known
+that Guido della Polenta wished to erect a monument at Dante's grave,
+epitaphs poured in from all directions,[625] 'written by such as wished
+to _show themselves_, or to honour the dead poet, or to win the favour
+of Polenta.' On the tomb of the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti (d. 1354),
+in the Cathedral at Milan, we read at the foot of 36 hexameters: 'Master
+Gabrius de Zamoreis of Parma, Doctor of Laws, wrote these verses.' In
+course of time, chiefly under the influence of Martial, and partly of
+Catullus, an extensive literature of this sort was formed. It was held
+the greatest of all triumphs, when an epigram was mistaken for a genuine
+copy from some old marble,[626] or when it was so good that all Italy
+learned it by heart, as happened in the case of some of Bembo's. When
+the Venetian government paid Sannazaro 600 ducats for a eulogy in three
+distichs,[627] no one thought it an act of generous prodigality. The
+epigram was prized for what it was, in truth, to all the educated
+classes of that age--the concentrated essence of fame. Nor, on the other
+hand, was any man then so powerful as to be above the reach of a
+satirical epigram, and even the most powerful needed, for every
+inscription which they set before the public eye, the aid of careful and
+learned scholars, lest some blunder or other should qualify it for a
+place in the collections of ludicrous epitaphs.[628] The epigraph and
+the epigram were branches of the same pursuit; the reproduction of the
+former was based on a diligent study of ancient monuments.
+
+The city of epigrams and inscriptions was, above all others, Rome. In
+this state without hereditary honours, each man had to look after his
+own immortality, and at the same time found the epigram an effective
+weapon against his competitors. Pius II. counts with satisfaction the
+distichs which his chief poet Campanus wrote on any event of his
+government which could be turned to poetical account. Under the
+following popes satirical epigrams came into fashion, and reached, in
+the opposition to Alexander VI. and his family, the highest pitch of
+defiant invective. Sannazaro, it is true, wrote his verses in a place of
+comparative safety, but others in the immediate neighbourhood of the
+court ventured on the most reckless attacks (p. 112). On one occasion
+when eight threatening distichs were found fastened to the door of the
+library,[629] Alexander strengthened his guard by 800 men; we can
+imagine what he would have done to the poet if he had caught him. Under
+Leo X., Latin epigrams were like daily bread. For complimenting or for
+reviling the pope, for punishing enemies and victims, named or unnamed,
+for real or imaginary subjects of wit, malice, grief, or contemplation,
+no form was held more suitable. On the famous group of the Virgin with
+Saint Anna and the Child, which Andrea Sansovino carved for S. Agostino,
+no less than 120 persons wrote Latin verses, not so much, it is true,
+from devotion, as from regard for the patron who ordered the work.[630]
+This man, Johann Goritz of Luxemburg, papal referendary of petitions,
+not only held a religious service on the feast of Saint Anna, but gave a
+great literary dinner in his garden on the slopes of the Capitol. It was
+then worth while to pass in review, in a long poem 'De poetis urbanis,'
+the whole crowd of singers who sought their fortune at the court of Leo.
+This was done by Franciscus Arsillus[631]--a man who needed the
+patronage neither of pope nor prince, and who dared to speak his mind,
+even against his colleagues. The epigram survived the pontificate of
+Paul III. only in a few rare echoes, while the epigraph continued to
+flourish till the seventeenth century, when it perished finally of
+bombast.
+
+In Venice, also, this form of poetry had a history of its own, which we
+are able to trace with the help of the 'Venezia' of Francesco Sansovino.
+A standing task for the epigram-writers was offered by the mottos
+(Brievi) on the pictures of the Doges in the great hall of the ducal
+palace--two or four hexameters, setting forth the most noteworthy facts
+in the government of each.[632] In addition to this, the tombs of the
+Doges in the fourteenth century bore short inscriptions in prose,
+recording merely facts, and beside them turgid hexameters or leonine
+verses. In the fifteenth century more care was taken with the style; in
+the sixteenth century it is seen at its best; and then soon after came
+pointless antithesis, prosopopoeia, false pathos, praise of abstract
+qualities--in a word, affectation and bombast. A good many traces of
+satire can be detected, and veiled criticism of the living is implied in
+open praise of the dead. At a much later period we find a few instances
+of a deliberate recurrence to the old, simple style.
+
+Architectural works and decorative works in general were constructed
+with a view to receiving inscriptions, often in frequent repetition;
+while the Northern Gothic seldom, and with difficulty, offered a
+suitable place for them, and in sepulchral monuments, for example, left
+free only the most exposed parts--namely the edges.
+
+By what has been said hitherto we have, perhaps, failed to convince the
+reader of the characteristic value of this Latin poetry of the Italians.
+Our task was rather to indicate its position and necessity in the
+history of civilisation. In its own day, a caricature of it
+appeared[633]--the so-called maccaronic poetry. The masterpiece of this
+style, the 'opus maccaronicorum,' was written by Merlinus Coccaius
+(Teofilo Folengo of Mantua). We shall now and then have occasion to
+refer to the matter of this poem. As to the form--hexameter and other
+verses, made up of Latin words and Italian words with Latin endings--its
+comic effect lies chiefly in the fact that these combinations sound
+like so many slips of the tongue, or the effusions of an over-hasty
+Latin 'improvisatore.' The German imitations do not give the smallest
+notion of this effect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+FALL OF THE HUMANISTS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+After a brilliant succession of poet-scholars had, since the beginning
+of the fourteenth century, filled Italy and the world with the worship
+of antiquity, had determined the forms of education and culture, had
+often taken the lead in political affairs and had, to no small extent,
+reproduced ancient literature--at length in the sixteenth century,
+before their doctrines and scholarship had lost hold of the public mind,
+the whole class fell into deep and general disgrace. Though they still
+served as models to the poets, historians, and orators, personally no
+one would consent to be reckoned of their number. To the two chief
+accusations against them--that of malicious self-conceit, and that of
+abominable profligacy--a third charge of irreligion was now loudly added
+by the rising powers of the Counter-reformation.
+
+Why, it may be asked, were not these reproaches, whether true or false,
+heard sooner? As a matter of fact, they were heard at a very early
+period, but the effect they produced was insignificant, for the plain
+reason that men were far too dependent on the scholars for their
+knowledge of antiquity--that the scholars were personally the possessors
+and diffusers of ancient culture. But the spread of printed editions of
+the classics,[634] and of large and well-arranged hand-books and
+dictionaries, went far to free the people from the necessity of personal
+intercourse with the humanists, and, as soon as they could be but partly
+dispensed with, the change in popular feeling became manifest. It was a
+change under which the good and bad suffered indiscriminately.
+
+The first to make these charges were certainly the humanists
+themselves. Of all men who ever formed a class, they had the least sense
+of their common interests, and least respected what there was of this
+sense. All means were held lawful, if one of them saw a chance of
+supplanting another. From literary discussion they passed with
+astonishing suddenness to the fiercest and the most groundless
+vituperation. Not satisfied with refuting, they sought to annihilate an
+opponent. Something of this must be put to the account of their position
+and circumstances; we have seen how fiercely the age, whose loudest
+spokesmen they were, was borne to and fro by the passion for glory and
+the passion for satire. Their position, too, in practical life was one
+that they had continually to fight for. In such a temper they wrote and
+spoke and described one another. Poggio's works alone contain dirt
+enough to create a prejudice against the whole class--and these 'Opera
+Poggii' were just those most often printed, on the north, as well as on
+the south, side of the Alps. We must take care not to rejoice too soon,
+when we meet among these men a figure which seems immaculate; on further
+inquiry there is always a danger of meeting with some foul charge,
+which, even when it is incredible, still discolours the picture. The
+mass of indecent Latin poems in circulation, and such things as the
+ribaldry on the subject of his own family, in Pontano's dialogue,
+'Antonius,' did the rest to discredit the class. The sixteenth century
+was not only familiar with all these ugly symptoms, but had also grown
+tired of the type of the humanist. These men had to pay both for the
+misdeeds they had done, and for the excess of honour which had hitherto
+fallen to their lot. Their evil fate willed it that the greatest poet of
+the nation wrote of them in a tone of calm and sovereign contempt.[635]
+
+Of the reproaches which combined to excite so much hatred, many were
+only too well founded. Yet a clear and unmistakable tendency to
+strictness in matters of religion and morality was alive in many of the
+philologists, and it is a proof of small knowledge of the period, if the
+whole class is condemned. Yet many, and among them the loudest speakers,
+were guilty.
+
+Three facts explain, and perhaps diminish their guilt: the overflowing
+excess of favour and fortune, when the luck was on their side: the
+uncertainty of the future, in which luxury or misery depended on the
+caprice of a patron or the malice of an enemy; and finally, the
+misleading influence of antiquity. This undermined their morality,
+without giving them its own instead; and in religious matters, since
+they could never think of accepting the positive belief in the old gods,
+it affected them only on the negative and sceptical side. Just because
+they conceived of antiquity dogmatically--that is, took it as the model
+for all thought and action--its influence was here pernicious. But that
+an age existed, which idolised the ancient world and its products with
+an exclusive devotion, was not the fault of individuals. It was the work
+of a historical providence, and all the culture of the ages which have
+followed, and of the ages to come, rests upon the fact that it was so,
+and that all the ends of life but this one were then deliberately put
+aside.
+
+The career of the humanists was, as a rule, of such a kind that only the
+strongest characters could pass through it unscathed. The first danger
+came, in some cases, from the parents, who sought to turn a precocious
+child into a miracle of learning,[636] with an eye to his future
+position in that class which then was supreme. Youthful prodigies,
+however, seldom rise above a certain level; or, if they do, are forced
+to achieve their further progress and development at the cost of the
+bitterest trials. For an ambitious youth, the fame and the brilliant
+position of the humanists were a perilous temptation; it seemed to him
+that he too 'through inborn pride could no longer regard the low and
+common things of life.' He was thus led to plunge into a life of
+excitement and vicissitude, in which exhausting studies, tutorships,
+secretaryships, professorships, offices in princely households, mortal
+enmities and perils, luxury and beggary, boundless admiration and
+boundless contempt, followed confusedly one upon the other, and in which
+the most solid worth and learning were often pushed aside by superficial
+impudence. But the worst of all was, that the position of the humanist
+was almost incompatible with a fixed home, since it either made frequent
+changes of dwelling necessary for a livelihood, or so affected the mind
+of the individual that he could never be happy for long in one place. He
+grew tired of the people, and had no peace among the enmities which he
+excited, while the people themselves in their turn demanded something
+new (p. 211). Much as this life reminds us of the Greek sophists of the
+Empire, as described to us by Philostratus, yet the position of the
+sophists was more favourable. They often had money, or could more easily
+do without it than the humanists, and as professional teachers of
+rhetoric, rather than men of learning, their life was freer and simpler.
+But the scholar of the Renaissance was forced to combine great learning
+with the power of resisting the influence of ever-changing pursuits and
+situations. Add to this the deadening effect of licentious excess,
+and--since do what he might, the worst was believed of him--a total
+indifference to the moral laws recognised by others. Such men can hardly
+be conceived to exist without an inordinate pride. They needed it, if
+only to keep their heads above water, and were confirmed in it by the
+admiration which alternated with hatred in the treatment they received
+from the world. They are the most striking examples and victims of an
+unbridled subjectivity.
+
+The attacks and the satirical pictures began, as we have said, at an
+early period. For all strongly marked individuality, for every kind of
+distinction, a corrective was at hand in the national taste for
+ridicule. And in this case the men themselves offered abundant and
+terrible materials which satire had but to make use of. In the fifteenth
+century, Battista Mantovano, in discoursing of the seven monsters,[637]
+includes the humanists, with many others, under the head 'Superbia.' He
+describes how, fancying themselves children of Apollo, they walk along
+with affected solemnity and with sullen, malicious looks, now gazing at
+their own shadow, now brooding over the popular praise they hunted
+after, like cranes in search of food. But in the sixteenth century the
+indictment was presented in full. Besides Ariosto, their own historian
+Gyraldus[638] gives evidence of this, whose treatise, written under Leo
+X., was probably revised about the year 1540. Warning examples from
+ancient and modern times of the moral disorder and the wretched
+existence of the scholars meet us in astonishing abundance, and along
+with these accusations of the most serious nature are brought formally
+against them. Among these are anger, vanity, obstinacy, self-adoration,
+a dissolute private life, immorality of all descriptions, heresy,
+atheism; further, the habit of speaking without conviction, a sinister
+influence on government, pedantry of speech, thanklessness towards
+teachers, and abject flattery of the great, who first give the scholar a
+taste of their favours and then leave him to starve. The description is
+closed by a reference to the golden age, when no such thing as science
+existed on the earth. Of these charges, that of heresy soon became the
+most dangerous, and Gyraldus himself, when he afterwards republished a
+perfectly harmless youthful work,[639] was compelled to take refuge
+beneath the mantle of Duke Hercules II. of Ferrara,[640] since men now
+had the upper hand who held that people had better spend their time on
+Christian themes than on mythological researches. He justifies himself
+on the ground that the latter, on the contrary, were at such a time
+almost the only harmless branches of study, as they deal with subjects
+of a perfectly neutral character.
+
+But if it is the duty of the historian to seek for evidence in which
+moral judgment is tempered by human sympathy, he will find no authority
+comparable in value to the work so often quoted of Pierio
+Valeriano,[641] 'On the Infelicity of the Scholar.' It was written
+under the gloomy impressions left by the sack of Rome, which seems to
+the writer, not only the direct cause of untold misery to the men of
+learning, but, as it were, the fulfilment of an evil destiny which had
+long pursued them. Pierio is here led by a simple and, on the whole,
+just feeling. He does not introduce a special power, which plagued the
+men of genius on account of their genius, but he states facts, in which
+an unlucky chance often wears the aspect of fatality. Not wishing to
+write a tragedy or to refer events to the conflict of higher powers, he
+is content to lay before us the scenes of every-day life. We are
+introduced to men, who in times of trouble lose, first their incomes,
+and then their places; to others, who in trying to get two appointments,
+miss both; to unsociable misers, who carry about their money sewn into
+their clothes, and die mad when they are robbed of it; to others, who
+accept well-paid offices, and then sicken with a melancholy, longing for
+their lost freedom. We read how some died young of a plague or fever,
+and how the writings which had cost them so much toil were burnt with
+their bed and clothes; how others lived in terror of the murderous
+threats of their colleagues; how one was slain by a covetous servant,
+and another caught by highwaymen on a journey, and left to pine in a
+dungeon, because unable to pay his ransom. Many died of unspoken grief
+for the insults they received and the prizes of which they were
+defrauded. We are told of the death of a Venetian, because his son, a
+youthful prodigy, was dead; and the mother and brothers followed, as if
+the lost child drew them all after him. Many, especially Florentines,
+ended their lives by suicide;[642] others through the secret justice of
+a tyrant. Who, after all, is happy?--and by what means? By blunting all
+feeling for such misery? One of the speakers in the dialogue in which
+Pierio clothed his argument, can give an answer to these questions--the
+illustrious Gasparo Contarini, at the mention of whose name we turn with
+the expectation to hear at least something of the truest and deepest
+which was then thought on such matters. As a type of the happy scholar,
+he mentions Fra Urbano Valeriano of Belluno,[643] who was for years
+teacher of Greek at Venice, who visited Greece and the East, and towards
+the close of his life travelled, now through this country, now through
+that, without ever mounting a horse; who never had a penny of his own,
+rejected all honours and distinctions, and after a gay old age, died in
+his eighty-fourth year, without, if we except a fall from a ladder,
+having ever known an hour of sickness. And what was the difference
+between such a man and the humanists? The latter had more free will,
+more subjectivity, than they could turn to purposes of happiness. The
+mendicant friar, who had lived from his boyhood in the monastery, and
+never eaten or slept except by rule, ceased to feel the compulsion under
+which he lived. Through the power of this habit he led, amid all outward
+hardships, a life of inward peace, by which he impressed his hearers far
+more than by his teaching. Looking at him, they could believe that it
+depends on ourselves whether we bear up against misfortune or surrender
+to it. 'Amid want and toil he was happy, because he willed to be so,
+because he had contracted no evil habits, was not capricious,
+inconstant, immoderate; but was always contented with little or
+nothing.' If we heard Contarini himself, religious motives would no
+doubt play a part in the argument--but the practical philosopher in
+sandals speaks plainly enough. An allied character, but placed in other
+circumstances, is that of Fabio Calvi of Ravenna, the commentator of
+Hippocrates.[644] He lived to a great age in Rome, eating only pulse
+'like the Pythagoreans,' and dwelt in a hovel little better than the tub
+of Diogenes. Of the pension, which Pope Leo gave him, he spent enough to
+keep body and soul together, and gave the rest away. He was not a
+healthy man, like Fra Urbano, nor is it likely that, like him, he died
+with a smile on his lips. At the age of ninety, in the sack of Rome, he
+was dragged away by the Spaniards, who hoped for a ransom, and died of
+hunger in a hospital. But his name has passed into the kingdom of the
+immortals, for Raphael loved the old man like a father, and honoured him
+as a teacher, and came to him for advice in all things. Perhaps they
+discoursed chiefly of the projected restoration of ancient Rome (p.
+184), perhaps of still higher matters. Who can tell what a share Fabio
+may have had in the conception of the School of Athens, and in other
+great works of the master?
+
+We would gladly close this part of our essay with the picture of some
+pleasing and winning character. Pomponius Laetus, of whom we shall
+briefly speak, is known to us principally through the letter of his
+pupil Sabellicus,[645] in which an antique colouring is purposely given
+to his character. Yet many of its features are clearly recognisable. He
+was (p. 251) a bastard of the House of the Neapolitan Sanseverini,
+princes of Salerno, whom he nevertheless refused to recognise, writing,
+in reply to an invitation to live with them, the famous letter:
+'Pomponius Laetus cognatis et propinquis suis, salutem. Quod petitis
+fieri non potest. Valete.' An insignificant little figure, with small,
+quick eyes, and quaint dress, he lived during the last decades of the
+fifteenth century, as professor in the University of Rome, either in his
+cottage in a garden on the Esquiline hill, or in his vineyard on the
+Quirinal. In the one he bred his ducks and fowls; the other he
+cultivated according to the strictest precepts of Cato, Varro, and
+Columella. He spent his holidays in fishing or bird-catching in the
+Campagna, or in feasting by some shady spring or on the banks of the
+Tiber. Wealth and luxury he despised. Free himself from envy and
+uncharitable speech, he would not suffer them in others. It was only
+against the hierarchy that he gave his tongue free play, and passed,
+till his latter years, for a scorner of religion altogether. He was
+involved in the persecution of the humanists begun by Pope Paul II., and
+surrendered to this pontiff by the Venetians; but no means could be
+found to wring unworthy confessions from him. He was afterwards
+befriended and supported by popes and prelates, and when his house was
+plundered in the disturbances under Sixtus IV., more was collected for
+him than he had lost. No teacher was more conscientious. Before daybreak
+he was to be seen descending the Esquiline with his lantern, and on
+reaching his lecture-room found it always filled to overflowing with
+pupils who had come at midnight to secure a place. A stutter compelled
+him to speak with care, but his delivery was even and effective. His few
+works give evidence of careful writing. No scholar treated the text of
+ancient authors more soberly and accurately. The remains of antiquity
+which surrounded him in Rome touched him so deeply, that he would stand
+before them as if entranced, or would suddenly burst into tears at the
+sight of them. As he was ready to lay aside his own studies in order to
+help others, he was much loved and had many friends; and at his death,
+even Alexander VI. sent his courtiers to follow the corpse, which was
+carried by the most distinguished of his pupils. The funeral service in
+the Araceli was attended by forty bishops and by all the foreign
+ambassadors.
+
+It was Laetus who introduced and conducted the representations of
+ancient, chiefly Plautine, plays in Rome (p. 255). Every year, he
+celebrated the anniversary of the foundation of the city by a festival,
+at which his friends and pupils recited speeches and poems. Such
+meetings were the origin of what acquired, and long retained, the name
+of the Roman Academy. It was simply a free union of individuals, and was
+connected with no fixed institution. Besides the occasions mentioned, it
+met[646] at the invitation of a patron, or to celebrate the memory of a
+deceased member, as of Platina. At such times, a prelate belonging to
+the academy would first say mass; Pomponio would then ascend the pulpit
+and deliver a speech; some one else would then follow him and recite an
+elegy. The customary banquet, with declamations and recitations,
+concluded the festival, whether joyous or serious, and the academicians,
+notably Platina himself, early acquired the reputation of epicures.[647]
+At other times, the guests performed farces in the old Atellan style. As
+a free association of very varied elements, the academy lasted in its
+original form down to the sack of Rome, and included among its guests
+Angelus Coloccius, Joh. Corycius (p. 269) and others. Its precise value
+as an element in the intellectual life of the people is as hard to
+estimate as that of any other social union of the same kind; yet a man
+like Sadoleto[648] reckoned it among the most precious memories of his
+youth. A large number of other academies appeared and passed away in
+many Italian cities, according to the number and significance of the
+humanists living in them, and to the patronage bestowed by the great and
+wealthy. Of these we may mention the Academy of Naples, of which
+Jovianus Pontanus was the centre, and which sent out a colony to
+Lecce,[649] and that of Pordenone, which formed the court of the
+Condottiere Alviano. The circle of Ludovico Moro, and its peculiar
+importance for that prince, has been already spoken of (p. 42).
+
+About the middle of the sixteenth century, these associations seem to
+have undergone a complete change. The humanists, driven in other spheres
+from their commanding position, and viewed askance by the men of the
+Counter-reformation, lost the control of the academies: and here, as
+elsewhere, Latin poetry was replaced by Italian. Before long every town
+of the least importance had its academy, with some strange, fantastic
+name,[650] and its own endowment and subscriptions. Besides the
+recitation of verses, the new institutions inherited from their
+predecessors the regular banquets and the representation of plays,
+sometimes acted by the members themselves, sometimes under their
+direction by young amateurs, and sometimes by paid players. The fate of
+the Italian stage, and afterwards of the opera, was long in the hands of
+these associations.
+
+
+
+
+_PART IV._
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+JOURNEYS OF THE ITALIANS.
+
+
+Freed from the countless bonds which elsewhere in Europe checked
+progress, having reached a high degree of individual development and
+been schooled by the teachings of antiquity, the Italian mind now turned
+to the discovery of the outward universe, and to the representation of
+it in speech and in form.
+
+On the journeys of the Italians to distant parts of the world, we can
+here make but a few general observations. The crusades had opened
+unknown distances to the European mind, and awakened in all the passion
+for travel and adventure. It may be hard to indicate precisely the point
+where this passion allied itself with, or became the servant of, the
+thirst for knowledge; but it was in Italy that this was first and most
+completely the case. Even in the crusades the interest of the Italians
+was wider than that of other nations, since they already were a naval
+power and had commercial relations with the East. From time immemorial
+the Mediterranean sea had given to the nations that dwelt on its shores
+mental impulses different from those which governed the peoples of the
+North; and never, from the very structure of their character, could the
+Italians be adventurers in the sense which the word bore among the
+Teutons. After they were once at home in all the eastern harbours of the
+Mediterranean, it was natural that the most enterprising among them
+should be led to join that vast international movement of the
+Mohammedans which there found its outlet. A new half of the world lay,
+as it were, freshly discovered before them. Or, like Polo of Venice,
+they were caught in the current of the Mongolian peoples, and carried on
+to the steps of the throne of the Great Khan. At an early period, we
+find Italians sharing in the discoveries made in the Atlantic ocean; it
+was the Genoese who, in the 13th century, found the Canary
+Islands.[651] In the same year, 1291, when Ptolemais, the last remnant
+of the Christian East, was lost, it was again the Genoese who made the
+first known attempt to find a sea-passage to the East Indies.[652]
+Columbus himself is but the greatest of a long list of Italians who, in
+the service of the western nations, sailed into distant seas. The true
+discoverer, however, is not the man who first chances to stumble upon
+anything, but the man who finds what he has sought. Such a one alone
+stands in a link with the thoughts and interests of his predecessors,
+and this relationship will also determine the account he gives of his
+search. For which reason the Italians, although their claim to be the
+first comers on this or that shore may be disputed, will yet retain
+their title to be pre-eminently the nation of discoverers for the whole
+latter part of the Middle Ages. The fuller proof of this assertion
+belongs to the special history of discoveries.[653] Yet ever and again
+we turn with admiration to the august figure of the great Genoese, by
+whom a new continent beyond the ocean was demanded, sought and found;
+and who was the first to be able to say: 'il mondo è poco'--the world is
+not so large as men have thought. At the time when Spain gave Alexander
+VI. to the Italians, Italy gave Columbus to the Spaniards. Only a few
+weeks before the death of that pope (July 7th, 1503), Columbus wrote
+from Jamaica his noble letter to the thankless Catholic kings, which the
+ages to come can never read without profound emotion. In a codicil to
+his will, dated Valladolid, May 4th, 1506, he bequeathed to 'his beloved
+home, the Republic of Genoa, the prayer-book which Pope Alexander had
+given him, and which in prison, in conflict, and in every kind of
+adversity had been to him the greatest of comforts.' It seems as if
+these words cast upon the abhorred name of Borgia one last gleam of
+grace and mercy.
+
+The development of geographical and the allied sciences among the
+Italians must, like the history of their voyages, be touched upon but
+very briefly. A superficial comparison of their achievements with those
+of other nations shows an early and striking superiority on their part.
+Where, in the middle of the fifteenth century, could be found, anywhere
+but in Italy, such an union of geographical, statistical, and historical
+knowledge as was found in Æneas Sylvius? Not only in his great
+geographical work, but in his letters and commentaries, he describes
+with equal mastery landscapes, cities, manners, industries and products,
+political conditions and constitutions, wherever he can use his own
+observation or the evidence of eye-witnesses. What he takes from books
+is naturally of less moment. Even the short sketch[654] of that valley
+in the Tyrolese Alps, where Frederick III. had given him a benefice, and
+still more his description of Scotland, leaves untouched none of the
+relations of human life, and displays a power and method of unbiassed
+observation and comparison impossible in any but a countryman of
+Columbus, trained in the school of the ancients. Thousands saw and, in
+part, knew what he did, but they felt no impulse to draw a picture of
+it, and were unconscious that the world desired such pictures.
+
+In geography[655] as in other matters, it is vain to attempt to
+distinguish how much is to be attributed to the study of the ancients,
+and how much to the special genius of the Italians. They saw and treated
+the things of this world from an objective point of view, even before
+they were familiar with ancient literature, partly because they were
+themselves a half-ancient people, and partly because their political
+circumstances predisposed them to it; but they would not so rapidly have
+attained to such perfection had not the old geographers showed them the
+way. The influence of the existing Italian geographies on the spirit and
+tendencies of the travellers and discoverers was also inestimable. Even
+the simple 'dilettante' of a science--if in the present case we should
+assign to Æneas Sylvius so low a rank--can diffuse just that sort of
+general interest in the subject which prepares for new pioneers the
+indispensable groundwork of a favourable predisposition in the public
+mind. True discoverers in any science know well what they owe to such
+mediation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+NATURAL SCIENCE IN ITALY.
+
+
+For the position of the Italians in the sphere of the natural sciences,
+we must refer the reader to the special treatises on the subject, of
+which the only one with which we are familiar is the superficial and
+depreciatory work of Libri.[656] The dispute as to the priority of
+particular discoveries concerns us all the less, since we hold that, at
+any time, and among any civilised people, a man may appear who, starting
+with very scanty preparation, is driven by an irresistible impulse into
+the path of scientific investigation, and through his native gifts
+achieves the most astonishing success. Such men were Gerbert of Rheims
+and Roger Bacon. That they were masters of the whole knowledge of the
+age in their several departments, was a natural consequence of the
+spirit in which they worked. When once the veil of illusion was torn
+asunder, when once the dread of nature and the slavery to books and
+tradition were overcome, countless problems lay before them for
+solution. It is another matter when a whole people takes a natural
+delight in the study and investigation of nature, at a time when other
+nations are indifferent, that is to say, when the discoverer is not
+threatened or wholly ignored, but can count on the friendly support
+of congenial spirits. That this was the case in Italy, is
+unquestionable.[657] The Italian students of nature trace with pride in
+the 'Divine Comedy' the hints and proofs of Dante's scientific interest
+in nature.[658] On his claim to priority in this or that discovery or
+reference, we must leave the men of science to decide; but every layman
+must be struck by the wealth of his observations on the external world,
+shown merely in his pictures and comparisons. He, more than any other
+modern poet, takes them from reality, whether in nature or human life,
+and uses them, never as mere ornament, but in order to give the reader
+the fullest and most adequate sense of his meaning. It is in astronomy
+that he appears chiefly as a scientific specialist, though it must not
+be forgotten that many astronomical allusions in his great poem, which
+now appear to us learned, must then have been intelligible to the
+general reader. Dante, learning apart, appeals to a popular knowledge of
+the heavens, which the Italians of his day, from the mere fact that they
+were a nautical people, had in common with the ancients. This knowledge
+of the rising and setting of the constellations has been rendered
+superfluous to the modern world by calendars and clocks, and with it has
+gone whatever interest in astronomy the people may once have had.
+Nowadays, with our schools and hand-books, every child knows--what Dante
+did not know--that the earth moves round the sun; but the interest once
+taken in the subject itself has given place, except in the case of
+astronomical specialists, to the most absolute indifference.
+
+The pseudo-science, which also dealt with the stars, proves nothing
+against the inductive spirit of the Italians of that day. That spirit
+was but crossed, and at times overcome, by the passionate desire to
+penetrate the future. We shall recur to the subject of astrology when we
+come to speak of the moral and religious character of the people.
+
+The Church treated this and other pseudo-sciences nearly always with
+toleration; and showed itself actually hostile even to genuine science
+only when a charge of heresy or necromancy was also in question--which
+certainly was often the case. A point which it would be interesting to
+decide is this: whether, and in what cases, the Dominican (and also the
+Franciscan) Inquisitors in Italy, were conscious of the falsehood of the
+charges, and yet condemned the accused, either to oblige some enemy of
+the prisoner or from hatred to natural science, and particularly to
+experiments. The latter doubtless occurred, but it is not easy to prove
+the fact. What helped to cause such persecutions in the North, namely,
+the opposition made to the innovators by the upholders of the received
+official, scholastic system of nature, was of little or no weight in
+Italy. Pietro of Albano, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, is
+well known to have fallen a victim to the envy of another physician, who
+accused him before the Inquisition of heresy and magic;[659] and
+something of the same kind may have happened in the case of his Paduan
+contemporary, Giovannino Sanguinnacci, who was known as an innovator in
+medical practice. He escaped, however, with banishment. Nor must it be
+forgotten that the inquisitorial power of the Dominicans was exercised
+less uniformly in Italy than in the North. Tyrants and free cities in
+the fourteenth century treated the clergy at times with such sovereign
+contempt, that very different matters from natural science went
+unpunished.[660] But when, with the fifteenth century, antiquity became
+the leading power in Italy, the breach it made in the old system was
+turned to account by every branch of secular science. Humanism,
+nevertheless, attracted to itself the best strength of the nation, and
+thereby, no doubt, did injury to the inductive investigation of
+nature.[661] Here and there the Inquisition suddenly started into life,
+and punished or burned physicians as blasphemers or magicians. In such
+cases it is hard to discover what was the true motive underlying the
+condemnation. And after all, Italy, at the close of the fifteenth
+century, with Paolo Toscanelli, Luca Paccioli and Lionardo da Vinci,
+held incomparably the highest place among European nations in
+mathematics and the natural sciences, and the learned men of every
+country, even Regiomontanus and Copernicus, confessed themselves its
+pupils.[662]
+
+A significant proof of the wide-spread interest in natural history is
+found in the zeal which showed itself at an early period for the
+collection and comparative study of plants and animals. Italy claims to
+be the first creator of botanical gardens, though possibly they may have
+served a chiefly practical end, and the claim to priority may be itself
+disputed.[663] It is of far greater importance that princes and wealthy
+men in laying out their pleasure-gardens, instinctively made a point of
+collecting the greatest possible number of different plants in all their
+species and varieties. Thus in the fifteenth century the noble grounds
+of the Medicean Villa Careggi appear from the descriptions we have of
+them to have been almost a botanical garden,[664] with countless
+specimens of different trees and shrubs. Of the same kind was a villa of
+the Cardinal Triulzio, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, in the
+Roman Campagna towards Tivoli,[665] with hedges made up of various
+species of roses, with trees of every description--the fruit-trees
+especially showing an astonishing variety--with twenty different sorts
+of vines and a large kitchen-garden. This is evidently something very
+different from the score or two of familiar medicinal plants, which were
+to be found in the garden of any castle or monastery in Western Europe.
+Along with a careful cultivation of fruit for the purposes of the table,
+we find an interest in the plant for its own sake, on account of the
+pleasure it gives to the eye. We learn from the history of art at how
+late a period this passion for botanical collections was laid aside, and
+gave place to what was considered the picturesque style of
+landscape-gardening.
+
+The collections, too, of foreign animals not only gratified curiosity,
+but served also the higher purposes of observation. The facility of
+transport from the southern and eastern harbours of the Mediterranean
+and the mildness of the Italian climate, made it practicable to buy the
+largest animals of the south, or to accept them as presents from the
+Sultans.[666] The cities and princes were especially anxious to keep
+live lions, even when the lion was not, as in Florence, the emblem of
+the state.[667] The lions' den was generally in or near the government
+palace, as in Perugia and Florence; in Rome, it lay on the slope of the
+Capitol. The beasts sometimes served as executioners of political
+judgments,[668] and no doubt, apart from this, they kept alive a certain
+terror in the popular mind. Their condition was also held to be ominous
+of good or evil. Their fertility, especially, was considered a sign of
+public prosperity, and no less a man than Giovanni Villani thought it
+worth recording that he was present at the delivery of a lioness.[669]
+The cubs were often given to allied states and princes, or to
+Condottieri, as a reward of valour.[670] In addition to the lions, the
+Florentines began very early to keep leopards, for which a special
+keeper was appointed.[671] Borso[672] of Ferrara used to set his lions
+to fight with bulls, bears, and wild boars.
+
+By the end of the fifteenth century, however, true menageries
+(serragli), now reckoned part of the suitable appointments of a court,
+were kept by many of the princes. 'It belongs to the position of the
+great,' says Matarazzo,[673] 'to keep horses, dogs, mules, falcons, and
+other birds, court-jesters, singers, and foreign animals.' The menagerie
+at Naples, in the time of Ferrante and others, contained a giraffe and a
+zebra, presented, it seems, by the ruler of Bagdad.[674] Filippo Maria
+Visconti possessed not only horses which cost him each 500 or 1,000
+pieces of gold, and valuable English dogs, but a number of leopards
+brought from all parts of the East; the expense of his hunting-birds
+which were collected from the countries of Northern Europe, amounted to
+3,000 pieces of gold a month.[675] 'The Cremonese say that the Emperor
+Frederick II. brought an elephant into their city, sent him from India
+by Prester John,' we read in Brunetto Latini; Petrarch records the dying
+out of the elephants in Italy.[676] King Emanuel the Great of Portugal
+knew well what he was about when he presented Leo X. with an elephant
+and a rhinoceros.[677] It was under such circumstances that the
+foundations of a scientific zoology and botany were laid.
+
+A practical fruit of these zoological studies was the establishment of
+studs, of which the Mantuan, under Francesco Gonzaga, was esteemed the
+first in Europe.[678] All interest in, and knowledge of the different
+breeds of horses is as old, no doubt, as riding itself, and the
+crossing of the European with the Asiatic must have been common from the
+time of the crusades. In Italy, a special inducement to perfect the
+breed was offered by the prizes at the horse-races held in every
+considerable town in the peninsula. In the Mantuan stables were found
+the infallible winners in these contests, as well as the best military
+chargers, and the horses best suited by their stately appearance for
+presents to great people. Gonzaga kept stallions and mares from Spain,
+Ireland, Africa, Thrace, and Cilicia, and for the sake of the last he
+cultivated the friendship of the Sultan. All possible experiments were
+here tried, in order to produce the most perfect animals.
+
+Even human menageries were not wanting. The famous Cardinal Ippolito
+Medici,[679] bastard of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, kept at his strange
+court a troop of barbarians who talked no less than twenty different
+languages, and who were all of them perfect specimens of their races.
+Among them were incomparable _voltigeurs_ of the best blood of the North
+African Moors, Tartar bowmen, Negro wrestlers, Indian divers, and Turks,
+who generally accompanied the Cardinal on his hunting expeditions. When
+he was overtaken by an early death (1535), this motley band carried the
+corpse on their shoulders from Itri to Rome, and mingled with the
+general mourning for the open-handed Cardinal their medley of tongues
+and violent gesticulations.[680]
+
+These scattered notices of the relations of the Italians to natural
+science, and their interest in the wealth and variety of the products of
+nature, are only fragments of a great subject. No one is more conscious
+than the author of the defects in his knowledge on this point. Of the
+multitude of special works in which the subject is adequately treated,
+even the names are but imperfectly known to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF NATURAL BEAUTY.
+
+
+But, outside the sphere of scientific investigation, there is another
+way to draw near to nature. The Italians are the first among modern
+peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something
+beautiful.[681]
+
+The power to do so is always the result of a long and complicated
+development, and its origin is not easily detected, since a dim feeling
+of this kind may exist long before it shows itself in poetry and
+painting, and thereby becomes conscious of itself. Among the ancients,
+for example, art and poetry had gone through the whole circle of human
+interests, before they turned to the representation of nature, and even
+then the latter filled always a limited and subordinate place. And yet,
+from the time of Homer downwards, the powerful impression made by nature
+upon man is shown by countless verses and chance expressions. The
+Germanic races, which founded their states on the ruins of the Roman
+Empire, were thoroughly and specially fitted to understand the spirit of
+natural scenery; and though Christianity compelled them for a while to
+see in the springs and mountains, in the lakes and woods, which they had
+till then revered, the working of evil demons, yet this transitional
+conception was soon outgrown. By the year 1200, at the height of the
+Middle Ages, a genuine, hearty enjoyment of the external world was again
+in existence, and found lively expression in the minstrelsy of different
+nations,[682] which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the
+simple phenomena of nature--spring with its flowers, the green fields
+and the woods. But these pictures are all foreground without
+perspective. Even the crusaders, who travelled so far and saw so much,
+are not recognisable as such in these poems. The epic poetry, which
+describes armour and costumes so fully, does not attempt more than a
+sketch of outward nature; and even the great Wolfram von Eschenbach
+scarcely anywhere gives us an adequate picture of the scene on which his
+heroes move. From these poems it would never be guessed that their noble
+authors in all countries inhabited or visited lofty castles, commanding
+distant prospects. Even in the Latin poems of the wandering clerks (p.
+174), we find no traces of a distant view--of landscape properly so
+called--but what lies near is sometimes described with a glow and
+splendour which none of the knightly minstrels can surpass. What picture
+of the Grove of Love can equal that of the Italian poet--for such we
+take him to be--of the twelfth century?
+
+ 'Immortalis fieret
+ Ibi manens homo;
+ Arbor ibi quaelibet
+ Suo gaudet pomo;
+ Viae myrrha, cinnamo
+ Fragrant, et amomo--
+ Conjectari poterat
+ Dominus ex domo,'[683] etc.
+
+To the Italian mind, at all events, nature had by this time lost its
+taint of sin, and had shaken off all trace of demoniacal powers. Saint
+Francis of Assisi, in his Hymn to the Sun, frankly praises the Lord for
+creating the heavenly bodies and the four elements.
+
+But the unmistakable proofs of a deepening effect of nature on the human
+spirit begin with Dante. Not only does he awaken in us by a few vigorous
+lines the sense of the morning airs and the trembling light on the
+distant ocean, or of the grandeur of the storm-beaten forest, but he
+makes the ascent of lofty peaks, with the only possible object of
+enjoying the view[684]--the first man, perhaps, since the days of
+antiquity who did so. In Boccaccio we can do little more than infer how
+country scenery affected him;[685] yet his pastoral romances show his
+imagination to have been filled with it. But the significance of nature
+for a receptive spirit is fully and clearly displayed by Petrarch--one
+of the first truly modern men. That clear soul--who first collected from
+the literature of all countries evidence of the origin and progress of
+the sense of natural beauty, and himself, in his 'Ansichten der Natur,'
+achieved the noblest masterpiece of description--Alexander von Humboldt,
+has not done full justice to Petrarch; and, following in the steps of
+the great reaper, we may still hope to glean a few ears of interest and
+value.
+
+Petrarch was not only a distinguished geographer--the first map of Italy
+is said to have been drawn by his direction[686]--and not only a
+reproducer of the sayings of the ancients,[687] but felt himself the
+influence of natural beauty. The enjoyment of nature is, for him, the
+favourite accompaniment of intellectual pursuits; it was to combine the
+two that he lived in learned retirement at Vaucluse and elsewhere, that
+he from time to time fled from the world and from his age.[688] We
+should do him wrong by inferring from his weak and undeveloped power of
+describing natural scenery that he did not feel it deeply. His picture,
+for instance, of the lovely Gulf of Spezzia and Porto Venere, which he
+inserts at the end of the sixth book of the 'Africa,' for the reason
+that none of the ancients or moderns had sung of it,[689] is no more
+than a simple enumeration, but the descriptions in letters to his
+friends of Rome, Naples, and other Italian cities in which he willingly
+lingered, are picturesque and worthy of the subject. Petrarch is also
+conscious of the beauty of rock scenery, and is perfectly able to
+distinguish the picturesqueness from the utility of nature.[690] During
+his stay among the woods of Reggio, the sudden sight of an impressive
+landscape so affected him that he resumed a poem which he had long laid
+aside.[691] But the deepest impression of all was made upon him by the
+ascent of Mont Ventoux, near Avignon.[692] An indefinable longing for a
+distant panorama grew stronger and stronger in him, till at length the
+accidental sight of a passage in Livy, where King Philip, the enemy of
+Rome, ascends the Hæmus, decided him. He thought that what was not
+blamed in a grey-headed monarch, might be well _excused_ in a young man
+of private station. The ascent of a mountain for its own sake was
+unheard of, and there could be no thought of the companionship of
+friends or acquaintances. Petrarch took with him only his younger
+brother and two country people from the last place where he halted. At
+the foot of the mountain an old herdsman besought him to turn back,
+saying that he himself had attempted to climb it fifty years before, and
+had brought home nothing but repentance, broken bones, and torn clothes,
+and that neither before nor after had anyone ventured to do the same.
+Nevertheless, they struggled forward and upward, till the clouds lay
+beneath their feet, and at last they reached the top. A description of
+the view from the summit would be looked for in vain, not because the
+poet was insensible to it, but, on the contrary, because the impression
+was too over-whelming. His whole past life, with all its follies, rose
+before his mind; he remembered that ten years ago that day he had
+quitted Bologna a young man, and turned a longing gaze towards his
+native country; he opened a book which then was his constant companion,
+the 'Confessions of St. Augustine,' and his eye fell on the passage in
+the tenth chapter, 'and men go forth, and admire lofty mountains and
+broad seas, and roaring torrents, and the ocean, and the course of the
+stars, and forget their own selves while doing so.' His brother, to whom
+he read these words, could not understand why he closed the book and
+said no more.
+
+Some decades later, about 1360, Fazio degli Uberti describes in his
+rhyming geography[693] (p. 178), the wide panorama from the mountains of
+Auvergne, with the interest, it is true, of the geographer and
+antiquarian only, but still showing clearly that he himself had seen it.
+He must, however, have ascended far higher peaks, since he is familiar
+with facts which only occur at a height of 10,000 feet or more above the
+sea--mountain-sickness and its accompaniments--of which his imaginary
+comrade Solinus tries to cure him with a sponge dipped in an essence.
+The ascents of Parnassus and Olympus,[694] of which he speaks, are
+perhaps only fictions.
+
+In the fifteenth century, the great masters of the Flemish school,
+Hubert and Johann van Eyck, suddenly lifted the veil from nature. Their
+landscapes are not merely the fruit of an endeavour to reflect the real
+world in art, but have, even if expressed conventionally, a certain
+poetical meaning--in short, a soul. Their influence on the whole art of
+the West is undeniable, and extended to the landscape-painting of the
+Italians, but without preventing the characteristic interest of the
+Italian eye for nature from finding its own expression.
+
+On this point, as in the scientific description of nature, Æneas Sylvius
+is again one of the most weighty voices of his time. Even if we grant
+the justice of all that has been said against his character, we must
+nevertheless admit that in few other men was the picture of the age and
+its culture so fully reflected, and that few came nearer to the normal
+type of the men of the early Renaissance. It may be added
+parenthetically, that even in respect to his moral character he will not
+be fairly judged, if we listen solely to the complaints of the German
+Church, which his fickleness helped to baulk of the Council it so
+ardently desired.[695]
+
+He here claims our attention as the first who not only enjoyed the
+magnificence of the Italian landscape, but described it with enthusiasm
+down to its minutest details. The ecclesiastical State and the south of
+Tuscany--his native home--he knew thoroughly, and after he became pope
+he spent his leisure during the favourable season chiefly in excursions
+to the country. Then at last the gouty man was rich enough to have
+himself carried in a litter through the mountains and valleys; and when
+we compare his enjoyments with those of the popes who succeeded him,
+Pius, whose chief delight was in nature, antiquity, and simple, but
+noble, architecture, appears almost a saint. In the elegant and flowing
+Latin of his 'Commentaries' he freely tells us of his happiness.[696]
+
+His eye seems as keen and practised as that of any modern observer. He
+enjoys with rapture the panoramic splendour of the view from the summit
+of the Alban Hills--from the Monte Cavo--whence he could see the shores
+of St. Peter from Terracina and the promontory of Circe as far as Monte
+Argentaro, and the wide expanse of country round about, with the ruined
+cities of the past, and with the mountain-chains of central Italy
+beyond; and then his eye would turn to the green woods in the hollows
+beneath and the mountain-lakes among them. He feels the beauty of the
+position of Todi, crowning the vineyards and olive-clad slopes, looking
+down upon distant woods and upon the valley of the Tiber, where towns
+and castles rise above the winding river. The lovely hills about Siena,
+with villas and monasteries on every height, are his own home, and his
+descriptions of them are touched with a peculiar feeling. Single
+picturesque glimpses charm him too, like the little promontory of Capo
+di Monte that stretches out into the Lake of Bolsena. 'Rocky steps,' we
+read, 'shaded by vines, descend to the water's edge, where the evergreen
+oaks stand between the cliffs, alive with the song of thrushes.' On the
+path round the Lake of Nemi, beneath the chestnuts and fruit-trees, he
+feels that here, if anywhere, a poet's soul must awake--here in the
+hiding-place of Diana! He often held consistories or received
+ambassadors under huge old chestnut-trees, or beneath the olives on the
+green sward by some gurgling spring. A view like that of a narrowing
+gorge, with a bridge arched boldly over it, awakens at once his artistic
+sense. Even the smallest details give him delight through something
+beautiful, or perfect, or characteristic in them--the blue fields of
+waving flax, the yellow gorse which covers the hills, even tangled
+thickets, or single trees, or springs, which seem to him like wonders of
+nature.
+
+The height of his enthusiasm for natural beauty was reached during his
+stay on Monte Amiata, in the summer of 1462, when plague and heat made
+the lowlands uninhabitable. Half-way up the mountain, in the old Lombard
+monastery of San Salvatore, he and his court took up their quarters.
+There, between the chestnuts which clothe the steep declivity, the eye
+may wander over all southern Tuscany, with the towers of Siena in the
+distance. The ascent of the highest peak he left to his companions, who
+were joined by the Venetian envoy; they found at the top two vast blocks
+of stone one upon the other--perhaps the sacrificial altar of a
+pre-historical people--and fancied that in the far distance they saw
+Corsica and Sardinia[697] rising above the sea. In the cool air of the
+hills, among the old oaks and chestnuts, on the green meadows where
+there were no thorns to wound the feet, and no snakes or insects to hurt
+or to annoy, the pope passed days of unclouded happiness. For the
+'Segnatura,' which took place on certain days of the week, he selected
+on each occasion some new shady retreat[698] 'novas in convallibus
+fontes et novas inveniens umbras, quæ dubiam facerent electionem.' At
+such times the dogs would perhaps start a great stag from his lair, who,
+after defending himself a while with hoofs and antlers, would fly at
+last up the mountain. In the evening the pope was accustomed to sit
+before the monastery on the spot from which the whole valley of the
+Paglia was visible, holding lively conversations with the cardinals. The
+courtiers, who ventured down from the heights on their hunting
+expeditions, found the heat below intolerable, and the scorched plains
+like a very hell, while the monastery, with its cool, shady woods,
+seemed like an abode of the blessed.
+
+All this is genuine modern enjoyment, not a reflection of antiquity. As
+surely as the ancients themselves felt in the same manner, so surely,
+nevertheless, were the scanty expressions of the writers whom Pius knew
+insufficient to awaken in him such enthusiasm.[699]
+
+The second great age of Italian poetry, which now followed at the end of
+the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, as well as
+the Latin poetry of the same period, is rich in proofs of the powerful
+effect of nature on the human mind. The first glance at the lyric poets
+of that time will suffice to convince us. Elaborate descriptions, it is
+true, of natural scenery, are very rare, for the reason that, in this
+energetic age, the novels and the lyric or epic poetry had something
+else to deal with. Bojardo and Ariosto paint nature vigorously, but as
+briefly as possible, and with no effort to appeal by their descriptions
+to the feelings of the reader,[700] which they endeavour to reach solely
+by their narrative and characters. Letter-writers and the authors of
+philosophical dialogues are, in fact, better evidence of the growing
+love of nature than the poets. The novelist Bandello, for example,
+observes rigorously the rules of his department of literature; he gives
+us in his novels themselves not a word more than is necessary on the
+natural scenery amid which the action of his tales takes place,[701] but
+in the dedications which always precede them we meet with charming
+descriptions of nature as the setting for his dialogues and social
+pictures. Among letter-writers, Aretino[702] unfortunately must be named
+as the first who has fully painted in words the splendid effect of light
+and shadow in an Italian sunset.
+
+We sometimes find the feeling of the poets, also, attaching itself with
+tenderness to graceful scenes of country life. Tito Strozza, about the
+year 1480, describes in a Latin elegy[703] the dwelling of his mistress.
+We are shown an old ivy-clad house, half hidden in trees, and adorned
+with weather-stained frescoes of the saints, and near it a chapel, much
+damaged by the violence of the river Po, which flowed hard by; not far
+off, the priest ploughs his few barren roods with borrowed cattle. This
+is no reminiscence of the Roman elegists, but true modern sentiment; and
+the parallel to it--a sincere, unartificial description of country life
+in general--will be found at the end of this part of our work.
+
+It may be objected that the German painters at the beginning of the
+sixteenth century succeed in representing with perfect mastery these
+scenes of country life, as, for instance, Albrecht Dürer, in his
+engraving of the Prodigal Son.[704] But it is one thing if a painter,
+brought up in a school of realism, introduces such scenes, and quite
+another thing if a poet, accustomed to an ideal or mythological
+framework, is driven by inward impulse into realism. Besides which,
+priority in point of time is here, as in the descriptions of country
+life, on the side of the Italian poets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF MAN. SPIRITUAL DESCRIPTION IN POETRY.
+
+
+To the discovery of the outward world the Renaissance added a still
+greater achievement, by first discerning and bringing to light the full,
+whole nature of man.[705]
+
+This period, as we have seen, first gave the highest development to
+individuality, and then led the individual to the most zealous and
+thorough study of himself in all forms and under all conditions. Indeed,
+the development of personality is essentially involved in the
+recognition of it in oneself and in others. Between these two great
+processes our narrative has placed the influence of ancient literature,
+because the mode of conceiving and representing both the individual and
+human nature in general was defined and coloured by that influence. But
+the power of conception and representation lay in the age and in the
+people.
+
+The facts which we shall quote in evidence of our thesis will be few in
+number. Here, if anywhere in the course of this discussion, the author
+is conscious that he is treading on the perilous ground of conjecture,
+and that what seems to him a clear, if delicate and gradual, transition
+in the intellectual movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
+may not be equally plain to others. The gradual awakening of the soul of
+a people is a phenomenon which may produce a different impression on
+each spectator. Time will judge which impression is the most faithful.
+
+Happily the study of the intellectual side of human nature began, not
+with the search after a theoretical psychology--for that, Aristotle
+still sufficed--but with the endeavour to observe and to describe. The
+indispensable ballast of theory was limited to the popular doctrine of
+the four temperaments, in its then habitual union with the belief in the
+influence of the planets. Such conceptions may remain ineradicable in
+the minds of individuals, without hindering the general progress of the
+age. It certainly makes on us a singular impression, when we meet them
+at a time when human nature in its deepest essence and in all its
+characteristic expressions was not only known by exact observation, but
+represented by an immortal poetry and art. It sounds almost ludicrous
+when an otherwise competent observer considers Clement VII. to be of a
+melancholy temperament, but defers his judgment to that of the
+physicians, who declare the pope of a sanguine-choleric nature;[706] or
+when we read that the same Gaston de Foix, the victor of Ravenna, whom
+Giorgione painted and Bambaja carved, and whom all the historians
+describe, had the saturnine temperament.[707] No doubt those who use
+these expressions mean something by them; but the terms in which they
+tell us their meaning are strangely out of date in the Italy of the
+sixteenth century.
+
+As examples of the free delineation of the human spirit, we shall first
+speak of the great poets of the fourteenth century.
+
+If we were to collect the pearls from the courtly and knightly poetry of
+all the countries of the West during the two preceding centuries, we
+should have a mass of wonderful divinations and single pictures of the
+inward life, which at first sight would seem to rival the poetry of the
+Italians. Leaving lyrical poetry out of account, Godfrey of Strasburg
+gives us, in 'Tristram and Isolt,' a representation of human passion,
+some features of which are immortal. But these pearls lie scattered in
+the ocean of artificial convention, and they are altogether something
+very different from a complete objective picture of the inward man and
+his spiritual wealth.
+
+Italy, too, in the thirteenth century had, through the 'Trovatori,' its
+share in the poetry of the courts and of chivalry. To them is mainly due
+the 'Canzone,' whose construction is as difficult and artificial as that
+of the songs of any northern minstrel. Their subject and mode of thought
+represents simply the conventional tone of the courts, be the poet a
+burgher or a scholar.
+
+But two new paths at length showed themselves, along which Italian
+poetry could advance to another and a characteristic future. They are
+not the less important for being concerned only with the formal and
+external side of the art.
+
+To the same Brunetto Latini--the teacher of Dante--who, in his
+'Canzoni,' adopts the customary manner of the 'Trovatori,' we owe the
+first-known 'Versi Sciolti,' or blank hendecasyllabic verses,[708] and
+in his apparent absence of form, a true and genuine passion suddenly
+showed itself. The same voluntary renunciation of outward effect,
+through confidence in the power of the inward conception, can be
+observed some years later in fresco-painting, and later still in
+painting of all kinds, which began to cease to rely on colour for its
+effect, using simply a lighter or darker shade. For an age which laid so
+much stress on artificial form in poetry, these verses of Brunetto mark
+the beginning of a new epoch.[709]
+
+About the same time, or even in the first half of the thirteenth
+century, one of the many strictly-balanced forms of metre, in which
+Europe was then so fruitful, became a normal and recognised form in
+Italy--the sonnet. The order of rhymes and even the number of the lines
+varied for a whole century,[710] till Petrarch fixed them permanently.
+In this form all higher lyrical or meditative subjects, and at a later
+time subjects of every possible description, were treated, and the
+madrigals, the sestine, and even the 'Canzoni' were reduced to a
+subordinate place. Later Italian writers complain, half jestingly, half
+resentfully, of this inevitable mould, this Procrustean bed, to which
+they were compelled to make their thoughts and feelings fit. Others
+were, and still are, quite satisfied with this particular form of verse,
+which they freely use to express any personal reminiscence or idle
+sing-song without necessity or serious purpose. For which reason there
+are many more bad or insignificant sonnets than good ones.
+
+Nevertheless, the sonnet must be held to have been an unspeakable
+blessing for Italian poetry. The clearness and beauty of its structure,
+the invitation it gave to elevate the thought in the second and more
+rapidly moving half, and the ease with which it could be learned by
+heart, made it valued even by the greatest masters. In fact, they would
+not have kept it in use down to our own century, had they not been
+penetrated with a sense of its singular worth. These masters could have
+given us the same thoughts in other and wholly different forms. But when
+once they had made the sonnet the normal type of lyrical poetry, many
+other writers of great, if not the highest, gifts, who otherwise would
+have lost themselves in a sea of diffusiveness, were forced to
+concentrate their feelings. The sonnet became for Italian literature a
+condenser of thoughts and emotions such as was possessed by the poetry
+of no other modern people.
+
+Thus the world of Italian sentiment comes before us in a series of
+pictures, clear, concise, and most effective in their brevity. Had other
+nations possessed a form of expression of the same kind, we should
+perhaps have known more of their inward life; we might have had a number
+of pictures of inward and outward situations--reflexions of the national
+character and temper--and should not be dependent for such knowledge on
+the so-called lyrical poets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
+who can hardly ever be read with any serious enjoyment. In Italy we can
+trace an undoubted progress from the time when the sonnet came into
+existence. In the second half of the thirteenth century the 'Trovatori
+della transizione,' as they have been recently named,[711] mark the
+passage from the Troubadours to the poets--that is, to those who wrote
+under the influence of antiquity. The simplicity and strength of their
+feeling, the vigorous delineation of fact, the precise expression and
+rounding off of their sonnets and other poems, herald the coming of a
+Dante. Some political sonnets of the Guelphs and Ghibellines (1260-1270)
+have about them the ring of his passion, and others remind us of his
+sweetest lyrical notes.
+
+Of his own theoretical view of the sonnet, we are unfortunately
+ignorant, since the last books of his work, 'De vulgari eloquio,' in
+which he proposed to treat of ballads and sonnets, either remained
+unwritten or have been lost. But, as a matter of fact, he has left us in
+his Sonnets and 'Canzoni,' a treasure of inward experience. And in what
+a framework he has set them! The prose of the 'Vita Nuova,' in which he
+gives an account of the origin of each poem, is as wonderful as the
+verses themselves, and forms with them a uniform whole, inspired with
+the deepest glow of passion. With unflinching frankness and sincerity he
+lays bare every shade of his joy and his sorrow, and moulds it
+resolutely into the strictest forms of art. Reading attentively these
+Sonnets and 'Canzoni,' and the marvellous fragments of the diary of his
+youth which lie between them, we fancy that throughout the Middle Ages
+the poets have been purposely fleeing from themselves, and that he was
+the first to seek his own soul. Before his time we meet with many an
+artistic verse; but he is the first artist in the full sense of the
+word--the first who consciously cast immortal matter into an immortal
+form. Subjective feeling has here a full objective truth and greatness,
+and most of it is so set forth that all ages and peoples can make it
+their own.[712] Where he writes in a thoroughly objective spirit, and
+lets the force of his sentiment be guessed at only by some outward fact,
+as in the magnificent sonnets 'Tanto gentile,' etc., and 'Vedi
+perfettamente,' etc., he seems to feel the need of excusing
+himself.[713] The most beautiful of these poems really belongs to this
+class--the 'Deh peregrini che pensosi andate.'
+
+Even apart from the 'Divine Comedy,' Dante would have marked by these
+youthful poems the boundary between mediævalism and modern times. The
+human spirit had taken a mighty step towards the consciousness of its
+own secret life.
+
+The revelations in this matter which are contained in the 'Divine
+Comedy' itself are simply immeasurable; and it would be necessary to go
+through the whole poem, one canto after another, in order to do justice
+to its value from this point of view. Happily we have no need to do
+this, as it has long been a daily food of all the countries of the West.
+Its plan, and the ideas on which it is based, belong to the Middle Ages,
+and appeal to our interest only historically; but it is nevertheless the
+beginning of all modern poetry, through the power and richness shown in
+the description of human nature in every shape and attitude.[714]
+
+From this time forwards poetry may have experienced unequal fortunes,
+and may show, for half a century together, a so-called relapse. But its
+nobler and more vital principle was saved for ever; and whenever in the
+fourteenth, fifteenth, and in the beginning of the sixteenth centuries,
+an original mind devotes himself to it, he represents a more advanced
+stage than any poet out of Italy, given--what is certainly not always
+easy to settle satisfactorily--an equality of natural gifts to start
+with.
+
+Here, as in other things, in Italy, culture--to which poetry
+belongs--precedes the plastic arts and, in fact, gives them their chief
+impulse. More than a century elapsed before the spiritual element in
+painting and sculpture attained a power of expression in any way
+analogous to that of the 'Divine Comedy.' How far the same rule holds
+good for the artistic development of other nations,[715] and of what
+importance the whole question may be, does not concern us here. For
+Italian civilisation it is of decisive weight.
+
+The position to be assigned to Petrarch in this respect must be settled
+by the many readers of the poet. Those who come to him in the spirit of
+a cross-examiner, and busy themselves in detecting the contradictions
+between the poet and the man, his infidelities in love, and the other
+weak sides of his character, may perhaps, after sufficient effort, end
+by losing all taste for his poetry. In place, then, of artistic
+enjoyment, we may acquire a knowledge of the man in his 'totality.' What
+a pity that Petrarch's letters from Avignon contain so little gossip to
+take hold of, and that the letters of his acquaintances and of the
+friends of these acquaintances have either been lost or never existed!
+Instead of Heaven being thanked when we are not forced to enquire how
+and through what struggles a poet has rescued something immortal from
+his own poor life and lot, a biography has been stitched together for
+Petrarch out of these so-called 'remains,' which reads like an
+indictment. But the poet may take comfort. If the printing and editing
+of the correspondence of celebrated people goes on for another
+half-century as it has begun in England and Germany, he will have
+illustrious company enough sitting with him on the stool of repentance.
+
+Without shutting our eyes to much that is forced and artificial in his
+poetry, where the writer is merely imitating himself and singing on in
+the old strain, we cannot fail to admire the marvellous abundance of
+pictures of the inmost soul--descriptions of moments of joy and sorrow
+which must have been thoroughly his own, since no one before him gives
+us anything of the kind, and on which his significance rests for his
+country and for the world. His verse is not in all places equally
+transparent; by the side of his most beautiful thoughts, stand at times
+some allegorical conceit, or some sophistical trick of logic, altogether
+foreign to our present taste. But the balance is on the side of
+excellence.
+
+Boccaccio, too, in his imperfectly-known Sonnets,[716] succeeds
+sometimes in giving a most powerful and effective picture of his
+feeling. The return to a spot consecrated by love (Son. 22), the
+melancholy of spring (Son. 33), the sadness of the poet who feels
+himself growing old (Son. 65), are admirably treated by him. And in the
+'Ameto' he has described the ennobling and transfiguring power of love
+in a manner which would hardly be expected from the author of the
+'Decamerone.'[717] In the 'Fiammetta' we have another great and
+minutely-painted picture of the human soul, full of the keenest
+observation, though executed with anything but uniform power, and in
+parts marred by the passion for high-sounding language and by an unlucky
+mixture of mythological allusions and learned quotations. The
+'Fiammetta,' if we are not mistaken, is a sort of feminine counterpart
+to the 'Vita Nuova' of Dante, or at any rate owes its origin to it.
+
+That the ancient poets, particularly the elegists, and Virgil, in the
+fourth book of the Æneid, were not without influence[718] on the
+Italians of this and the following generation is beyond a doubt; but the
+spring of sentiment within the latter was nevertheless powerful and
+original. If we compare them in this respect with their contemporaries
+in other countries, we shall find in them the earliest complete
+expression of modern European feeling. The question, be it remembered,
+is not to know whether eminent men of other nations did not feel as
+deeply and as nobly, but who first gave documentary proof of the widest
+knowledge of the movements of the human heart.
+
+Why did the Italians of the Renaissance do nothing above the second rank
+in tragedy? That was the field on which to display human character,
+intellect, and passion, in the thousand forms of their growth, their
+struggles, and their decline. In other words: why did Italy produce no
+Shakespeare? For with the stage of other northern countries besides
+England the Italians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had no
+reason to fear a comparison; and with the Spaniards they could not enter
+into competition, since Italy had long lost all traces of religious
+fanaticism, treated the chivalrous code of honour only as a form, and
+was both too proud and too intelligent to bow down before its tyrannical
+and illegitimate masters.[719] We have therefore only to consider the
+English stage in the period of its brief splendour.
+
+It is an obvious reply that all Europe produced but one Shakespeare, and
+that such a mind is the rarest of Heaven's gifts. It is further possible
+that the Italian stage was on the way to something great when the
+Counter-reformation broke in upon it, and, aided by the Spanish rule
+over Naples and Milan, and indirectly over the whole peninsula, withered
+the best flowers of the Italian spirit. It would be hard to conceive of
+Shakespeare himself under a Spanish viceroy, or in the neighbourhood of
+the Holy Inquisition at Rome, or even in his own country a few decades
+later, at the time of the English Revolution. The stage, which in its
+perfection is a late product of every civilisation, must wait for its
+own time and fortune.
+
+We must not, however, quit this subject without mentioning certain
+circumstances, which were of a character to hinder or retard a high
+development of the drama in Italy, till the time for it had gone by.
+
+As the most weighty of these causes we must mention without doubt that
+the scenic tastes of the people were occupied elsewhere, and chiefly in
+the mysteries and religious processions. Throughout all Europe dramatic
+representations of sacred history and legend form the origin of the
+secular drama; but Italy, as it will be shown more fully in the sequel,
+had spent on the mysteries such a wealth of decorative splendour as
+could not but be unfavourable to the dramatic element. Out of all the
+countless and costly representations, there sprang not even a branch of
+poetry like the 'Autos Sagramentales' of Calderon and other Spanish
+poets, much less any advantage or foundation for the legitimate
+drama.[720]
+
+And when the latter did at length appear, it at once gave itself up to
+magnificence of scenic effects, to which the mysteries had already
+accustomed the public taste to far too great an extent. We learn with
+astonishment how rich and splendid the scenes in Italy were, at a time
+when in the North the simplest indication of the place was thought
+sufficient. This alone might have had no such unfavourable effect on the
+drama, if the attention of the audience had not been drawn away from the
+poetical conception of the play partly by the splendour of the costumes,
+partly and chiefly by fantastic interludes (Intermezzi).
+
+That in many places, particularly in Rome and Ferrara, Plautus and
+Terence, as well as pieces by the old tragedians, were given in Latin or
+in Italian (pp. 242, 255), that the academies (p. 280) of which we have
+already spoken, made this one of their chief objects, and that the poets
+of the Renaissance followed these models too servilely, were all
+untoward conditions for the Italian stage at the period in
+question. Yet I hold them to be of secondary importance. Had not the
+Counter-reformation and the rule of foreigners intervened, these very
+disadvantages might have been turned into useful means of transition. At
+all events, by the year 1520 the victory of the mother-tongue in tragedy
+and comedy was, to the great disgust of the humanists, as good as
+won.[721] On this side, then, no obstacle stood in the way of the most
+developed people in Europe, to hinder them from raising the drama, in
+its noblest forms, to be a true reflexion of human life and destiny. It
+was the Inquisitors and Spaniards who cowed the Italian spirit, and
+rendered impossible the representation of the greatest and most sublime
+themes, most of all when they were associated with patriotic memories.
+At the same time, there is no doubt that the distracting 'Intermezzi'
+did serious harm to the drama. We must now consider them a little more
+closely.
+
+When the marriage of Alfonso of Ferrara with Lucrezia Borgia was
+celebrated, Duke Hercules in person showed his illustrious guests the
+110 costumes which were to serve at the representation of five comedies
+of Plautus, in order that all might see that not one of them was used
+twice.[722] But all this display of silk and camlet was nothing to the
+ballets and pantomimes which served as interludes between the acts of
+the Plautine dramas. That in comparison, Plautus himself seemed mortally
+dull to a lively young lady like Isabella Gonzaga, and that while the
+play was going on everybody was longing for the interludes, is quite
+intelligible, when we think of the picturesque brilliancy with which
+they were put on the stage. There were to be seen combats of Roman
+warriors, who brandished their weapons to the sound of music,
+torch-dances executed by Moors, a dance of savages with horns of plenty,
+out of which streamed waves of fire--all as the ballet of a pantomime in
+which a maiden was delivered from a dragon. Then came a dance of fools,
+got up as punches, beating one another with pigs' bladders, with more of
+the same kind. At the Court of Ferrara they never gave a comedy without
+'its' ballet (Moresca).[723] In what style the 'Amphitryo' of Plautus
+was there represented (1491, at the first marriage of Alfonso with Anna
+Sforza), is doubtful. Possibly it was given rather as a pantomime with
+music, than as a drama.[724] In any case, the accessories were more
+considerable than the play itself. There was a choral dance of ivy-clad
+youths, moving in intricate figures, done to the music of a ringing
+orchestra; then came Apollo, striking the lyre with the plectrum, and
+singing an ode to the praise of the House of Este; then followed, as an
+interlude within an interlude, a kind of rustic farce, after which the
+stage was again occupied by classical mythology--Venus, Bacchus and
+their followers--and by a pantomime representing the judgment of Paris.
+Not till then was the second half of the fable of Amphitryo performed,
+with unmistakable references to the future birth of a Hercules of the
+House of Este. At a former representation of the same piece in the
+courtyard of the palace (1487), 'a paradise with stars and other
+wheels,' was constantly burning, by which is probably meant an
+illumination with fireworks, that, no doubt, absorbed most of the
+attention of the spectators. It was certainly better when such
+performances were given separately, as was the case at other courts. We
+shall have to speak of the entertainments given by the Cardinal Pietro
+Riario, by the Bentivogli at Bologna, and by others, when we come to
+treat of the festivals in general.
+
+This scenic magnificence, now become universal, had a disastrous effect
+on Italian tragedy. 'In Venice formerly,' writes Francesco
+Sansovino,[725] 'besides comedies, tragedies by ancient and modern
+writers were put on the stage with great pomp. The fame of the scenic
+arrangements (_apparati_) brought spectators from far and near.
+Nowadays, performances are given by private individuals in their own
+houses, and the custom has long been fixed of passing the carnival in
+comedies and other cheerful entertainments.' In other words, scenic
+display had helped to kill tragedy.
+
+The various starts or attempts of these modern tragedians, among which
+the 'Sofonisba' of Trissino was the most celebrated, belong to the
+history of literature. The same may be said of genteel comedy, modelled
+on Plautus and Terence. Even Ariosto could do nothing of the first
+order in this style. On the other hand, popular prose-comedy, as treated
+by Macchiavelli, Bibiena, and Aretino, might have had a future, if its
+matter had not condemned it to destruction. This was, on the one hand,
+licentious to the last degree, and on the other, aimed at certain
+classes in society, which, after the middle of the sixteenth century,
+ceased to afford a ground for public attacks. If in the 'Sofonisba' the
+portrayal of character gave place to brilliant declamation, the latter,
+with its half-sister caricature, was used far too freely in comedy also.
+Nevertheless, these Italian comedies, if we are not mistaken, were the
+first written in prose and copied from real life, and for this reason
+deserve mention in the history of European literature.
+
+The writing of tragedies and comedies, and the practice of putting both
+ancient and modern plays on the stage, continued without intermission;
+but they served only as occasions for display. The national genius
+turned elsewhere for living interest. When the opera and the pastoral
+fable came up, these attempts were at length wholly abandoned.
+
+One form of comedy only was and remained national--the unwritten,
+improvised 'Commedia dell'Arte.' It was of no great service in the
+delineation of character, since the masks used were few in number and
+familiar to everybody. But the talent of the nation had such an affinity
+for this style, that often in the middle of written comedies the actors
+would throw themselves on their own inspiration,[726] so that a new
+mixed form of comedy came into existence in some places. The plays given
+in Venice by Burchiello, and afterwards by the company of Armonio, Val.
+Zuccato, Lod. Dolce, and others, were perhaps of this character.[727] Of
+Burchiello we know expressly that he used to heighten the comic effect
+by mixing Greek and Sclavonic words with the Venetian dialect. A
+complete 'Commedia dell'Arte,' or very nearly so, was represented by
+Angelo Beolco, known as 'Il Ruzzante' (1502-1542), who enjoyed the
+highest reputation as poet and actor, was compared as poet to Plautus,
+and as actor to Roscius, and who formed a company with several of his
+friends, who appeared in his pieces as Paduan peasants, with the names
+Menato, Vezzo, Billora, &c. He studied their dialect when spending the
+summer at the villa of his patron Luigi Cornaro (Aloysius Cornelius) at
+Codevico.[728] Gradually all the famous local masks made their
+appearance, whose remains still delight the Italian populace at our day:
+Pantalone, the Doctor, Brighella, Pulcinella, Arlecchino, and the rest.
+Most of them are of great antiquity, and possibly are historically
+connected with the masks in the old Roman farces; but it was not till
+the sixteenth century that several of them were combined in one piece.
+At the present time this is less often the case; but every great city
+still keeps to its local mask--Naples to the Pulcinella, Florence to the
+Stentorello, Milan to its often so admirable Meneghino.[729]
+
+This is indeed scanty compensation for a people which possessed the
+power, perhaps to a greater degree than any other, to reflect and
+contemplate its own highest qualities in the mirror of the drama. But
+this power was destined to be marred for centuries by hostile forces,
+for whose predominance the Italians were only in part responsible. The
+universal talent for dramatic representation could not indeed be
+uprooted, and in music Italy long made good its claim to supremacy in
+Europe. Those who can find in this world of sound a compensation for the
+drama, to which all future was denied, have, at all events, no meagre
+source of consolation.
+
+But perhaps we can find in epic poetry what the stage fails to offer us.
+Yet the chief reproach made against the heroic poetry of Italy is
+precisely on the score of the insignificance and imperfect
+representation of its characters.
+
+Other merits are allowed to belong to it, among the rest, that for three
+centuries it has been actually read and constantly reprinted, while
+nearly the whole of the epic poetry of other nations has become a mere
+matter of literary or historical curiosity. Does this perhaps lie in the
+taste of the readers, who demand something different from what would
+satisfy a northern public? Certainly, without the power of entering to
+some degree into Italian sentiment, it is impossible to appreciate the
+characteristic excellence of these poems, and many distinguished men
+declare that they can make nothing of them. And in truth, if we
+criticise Pulci, Bojardo, Ariosto, and Berni solely with an eye to their
+thought and matter, we shall fail to do them justice. They are artists
+of a peculiar kind, who write for a people which is distinctly and
+eminently artistic.
+
+The mediæval legends had lived on after the gradual extinction of the
+poetry of chivalry, partly in the form of rhyming adaptations and
+collections, and partly of novels in prose. The latter was the case in
+Italy during the fourteenth century; but the newly-awakened memories of
+antiquity were rapidly growing up to a gigantic size, and soon cast into
+the shade all the fantastic creations of the Middle Ages. Boccaccio, for
+example, in his 'Visione Amorosa,' names among the heroes in his
+enchanted palace Tristram, Arthur, Galeotto, and others, but briefly, as
+if he were ashamed to speak of them (p. 206); and following writers
+either do not name them at all, or name them only for purposes of
+ridicule. But the people kept them in its memory, and from the people
+they passed into the hands of the poets of the fifteenth century. These
+were now able to conceive and represent their subject in a wholly new
+manner. But they did more. They introduced into it a multitude of fresh
+elements, and in fact recast it from beginning to end. It must not be
+expected of them that they should treat such subjects with the respect
+once felt for them. All other countries must envy them the advantage of
+having a popular interest of this kind to appeal to; but they could not
+without hypocrisy treat these myths with any respect.[730]
+
+Instead of this, they moved with victorious freedom in the new field
+which poetry had won. What they chiefly aimed at seems to have been that
+their poems, when recited, should produce the most harmonious and
+exhilarating effect. These works indeed gain immensely when they are
+repeated, not as a whole, but piecemeal, and with a slight touch of
+comedy in voice and gesture. A deeper and more detailed portrayal of
+character would do little to enhance this effect; though the reader may
+desire it, the hearer, who sees the rhapsodist standing before him, and
+who hears only one piece at a time, does not think about it at all. With
+respect to the figures which the poet found ready made for him, his
+feeling was of a double kind; his humanistic culture protested against
+their mediæval character, and their combats as counterparts of the
+battles and tournaments of the poet's own age exercised all his
+knowledge and artistic power, while at the same time they called forth
+all the highest qualities in the reciter. Even in Pulci,[731]
+accordingly, we find no parody, strictly speaking, of chivalry, nearly
+as the rough humour of his paladins at times approaches it. By their
+side stands the ideal of pugnacity--the droll and jovial Morgante--who
+masters whole armies with his bell-clapper, and who is himself thrown
+into relief by contrast with the grotesque and most interesting monster
+Margutte. Yet Pulci lays no special stress on these two rough and
+vigorous characters, and his story, long after they had disappeared from
+it, maintains its singular course. Bojardo[732] treats his characters
+with the same mastery, using them for serious or comic purposes as he
+pleases; he has his fun even out of supernatural beings, whom he
+sometimes intentionally depicts as louts. But there is one artistic aim
+which he pursues as earnestly as Pulci, namely, the lively and exact
+description of all that goes forward. Pulci recited his poem, as one
+book after another was finished, before the society of Lorenzo
+Magnifico, and in the same way Bojardo recited his at the court of
+Hercules of Ferrara. It may be easily imagined what sort of excellence
+such an audience demanded, and how little thanks a profound exposition
+of character would have earned for the poet. Under these circumstances
+the poems naturally formed no complete whole, and might just as well be
+half or twice as long as they now are. Their composition is not that of
+a great historical picture, but rather that of a frieze, or of some rich
+festoon entwined among groups of picturesque figures. And precisely as
+in the figures or tendrils of a frieze we do not look for minuteness of
+execution in the individual forms, or for distant perspectives and
+different planes, so we must as little expect anything of the kind from
+these poems.
+
+The varied richness of invention which continually astonishes us, most
+of all in the case of Bojardo, turns to ridicule all our school
+definitions as to the essence of epic poetry. For that age, this form of
+literature was the most agreeable diversion from archæological studies,
+and, indeed, the only possible means of re-establishing an independent
+class of narrative poetry. For the versification of ancient history
+could only lead to the false tracks which were trodden by Petrarch in
+his 'Africa,' written in Latin hexameters, and a hundred and fifty years
+later by Trissino in his 'Italy delivered from the Goths,' composed in
+'versi sciolti'--a never-ending poem of faultless language and
+versification, which only makes us doubt whether an unlucky alliance has
+been most disastrous to history or to poetry.[733]
+
+And whither did the example of Dante beguile those who imitated him? The
+visionary 'Trionfi' of Petrarch were the last of the works written under
+this influence which satisfy our taste. The 'Amorosa Visione' of
+Boccaccio is at bottom no more than an enumeration of historical or
+fabulous characters, arranged under allegorical categories.[734] Others
+preface what they have to tell with a baroque imitation of Dante's
+first canto, and provide themselves with some allegorical comparison, to
+take the place of Virgil. Uberti, for example, chose Solinus for his
+geographical poem--the 'Dittamondo'--and Giovanni Santi, Plutarch for
+his encomium on Frederick of Urbino.[735] The only salvation of the time
+from these false tendencies lay in the new epic poetry which was
+represented by Pulci and Bojardo. The admiration and curiosity with
+which it was received, and the like of which will perhaps never fall
+again to the lot of epic poetry to the end of time, is a brilliant proof
+how great was the need of it. It is idle to ask whether that epic ideal
+which our own day has formed from Homer and the 'Nibelungenlied' is or
+is not realised in these works; an ideal of their own age certainly was.
+By their endless descriptions of combats, which to us are the most
+fatiguing part of these poems, they satisfied, as we have already said,
+a practical interest of which it is hard for us to form a just
+conception[736]--as hard, indeed, as of the esteem in which a lively and
+faithful reflection of the passing moment was then held.
+
+Nor can a more inappropriate test be applied to Ariosto than the degree
+in which his 'Orlando Furioso'[737] serves for the representation of
+character. Characters, indeed, there are, and drawn with an affectionate
+care; but the poem does not depend on these for its effect, and would
+lose, rather than gain, if more stress were laid upon them. But the
+demand for them is part of a wider and more general desire which Ariosto
+fails to satisfy as our day would wish it satisfied. From a poet of such
+fame and such mighty gifts we would gladly receive something better than
+the adventures of Orlando. From him we might have hoped for a work
+expressing the deepest conflicts of the human soul, the highest thoughts
+of his time on human and divine things--in a word, one of those supreme
+syntheses like the 'Divine Comedy' or 'Faust.' Instead of which he goes
+to work like the plastic artists of his own day, not caring for
+originality in our sense of the word, simply reproducing a familiar
+circle of figures, and even, when it suits his purpose, making use of
+the details left him by his predecessors. The excellence which, in spite
+of all this, can nevertheless be attained, will be the more
+incomprehensible to people born without the artistic sense, the more
+learned and intelligent in other respects they are. The artistic aim of
+Ariosto is brilliant, living action, which he distributes equally
+through the whole of his great poem. For this end he needs to be
+excused, not only from all deeper expression of character, but also from
+maintaining any strict connection in his narrative. He must be allowed
+to take up lost and forgotten threads when and where he pleases; his
+heroes must come and go, not because their character, but because the
+story requires it. Yet in this apparently irrational and arbitrary style
+of composition he displays a harmonious beauty, never losing himself in
+description, but giving only such a sketch of scenes and persons as does
+not hinder the flowing movement of the narrative. Still less does he
+lose himself in conversation and monologue,[738] but maintains the lofty
+privilege of the true epos, by transforming all into living narrative.
+His pathos does not lie in the words,[739] not even in the famous
+twenty-third and following cantos, where Roland's madness is described.
+That the love-stories in the heroic poem are without all lyrical
+tenderness, must be reckoned a merit, though from a moral point of view
+they cannot be always approved. Yet at times they are of such truth and
+reality, notwithstanding all the magic and romance which surrounds them,
+that we might think them personal affairs of the poet himself. In the
+full consciousness of his own genius, he does not scruple to interweave
+the events of his own day into the poem, and to celebrate the fame of
+the house of Este in visions and prophecies. The wonderful stream of his
+octaves bears it all forwards in even and dignified movement.
+
+With Teofilo Folengo, or, as he here calls himself, Limerno Pitocco, the
+parody of the whole system of chivalry attained the end it had so long
+desired.[740] But here comedy, with its realism, demanded of necessity a
+stricter delineation of character. Exposed to all the rough usage of
+the half-savage street-lads in a Roman country town, Sutri, the little
+Orlando grows up before our eyes into the hero, the priest-hater, and
+the disputant. The conventional world which had been recognised since
+the time of Pulci and had served as framework for the epos, falls here
+to pieces. The origin and position of the paladins is openly ridiculed,
+as in the tournament of donkeys in the second book, where the knights
+appear with the most ludicrous armament. The poet utters his ironical
+regrets over the inexplicable faithlessness which seems implanted in the
+house of Gano of Mainz, over the toilsome acquisition of the sword
+Durindana, and so forth. Tradition, in fact, serves him only as a
+substratum for episodes, ludicrous fancies, allusions to events of the
+time (among which some, like the close of cap. vi. are exceedingly
+fine), and indecent jokes. Mixed with all this, a certain derision of
+Ariosto is unmistakable, and it was fortunate for the 'Orlando Furioso'
+that the 'Orlandino,' with its Lutheran heresies, was soon put out of
+the way by the Inquisition. The parody is evident when (cap. v. str. 28)
+the house of Gonzaga is deduced from the paladin Guidone, since the
+Colonna claimed Orlando, the Orsini Rinaldo, and the house of
+Este--according to Ariosto--Ruggiero as their ancestors. Perhaps
+Ferrante Gonzaga, the patron of the poet, was a party to this sarcasm on
+the house of Este.
+
+That in the 'Jerusalem Delivered' of Torquato Tasso the delineation of
+character is one of the chief tasks of the poet, proves only how far his
+mode of thought differed from that prevalent half a century before. His
+admirable work is a true monument of the Counter-reformation which had
+been meanwhile accomplished, and of the spirit and tendency of that
+movement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Outside the sphere of poetry also, the Italians were the first of all
+European nations who displayed any remarkable power and inclination
+accurately to describe man as shown in history, according to his inward
+and outward characteristics.
+
+It is true that in the Middle Ages considerable attempts were made in
+the same direction; and the legends of the Church, as a kind of standing
+biographical task, must, to some extent, have kept alive the interest
+and the gift for such descriptions. In the annals of the monasteries and
+cathedrals, many of the churchmen, such as Meinwerk of Paderborn,
+Godehard of Kildesheim, and others, are brought vividly before our eyes;
+and descriptions exist of several of the German emperors, modelled after
+old authors--particularly Suetonius--which contain admirable features.
+Indeed these and other profane 'vitae' came in time to form a continuous
+counterpart to the sacred legends. Yet neither Einhard nor
+Radevicus[741] can be named by the side of Joinville's picture of St.
+Louis, which certainly stands almost alone as the first complete
+spiritual portrait of a modern European nature. Characters like St.
+Louis are rare at all times, and his was favoured by the rare good
+fortune that a sincere and naïve observer caught the spirit of all the
+events and actions of his life, and represented it admirably. From what
+scanty sources are we left to guess at the inward nature of Frederick
+II. or of Philip the Fair. Much of what, till the close of the Middle
+Ages, passed for biography, is properly speaking nothing but
+contemporary narrative, written without any sense of what is individual
+in the subject of the memoir.
+
+Among the Italians, on the contrary, the search for the characteristic
+features of remarkable men was a prevailing tendency; and this it is
+which separates them from the other western peoples, among whom the same
+thing happens but seldom, and in exceptional cases. This keen eye for
+individuality belongs only to those who have emerged from the
+half-conscious life of the race and become themselves individuals.
+
+Under the influence of the prevailing conception of fame (p. 139, sqq.),
+an art of comparative biography arose which no longer found it
+necessary, like Anastasius,[742] Agnellus,[743] and their successors, or
+like the biographers of the Venetian doges, to adhere to a dynastic or
+ecclesiastical succession. It felt itself free to describe a man if and
+because he was remarkable. It took as models Suetonius, Nepos (the 'viri
+illustres'), and Plutarch, so far as he was known and translated; for
+sketches of literary history, the lives of the grammarians,
+rhetoricians, and poets, known to us as the 'Appendices' to
+Suetonius,[744] seem to have served as patterns, as well as the
+widely-read life of Virgil by Donatus.
+
+It has been already mentioned that biographical collections--lives of
+famous men and famous women--began to appear in the fourteenth century
+(p. 146). Where they do not describe contemporaries, they are naturally
+dependent on earlier narratives. The first great original effort is the
+life of Dante by Boccaccio. Lightly and rhetorically written, and full,
+as it is, of arbitrary fancies, this work nevertheless gives us a lively
+sense of the extraordinary features in Dante's nature.[745] Then follow,
+at the end of the fourteenth century, the 'vite' of illustrious
+Florentines, by Filippo Villani. They are men of every calling: poets,
+jurists, physicians, scholars, artists, statesmen, and soldiers, some of
+them then still living. Florence is here treated like a gifted family,
+in which all the members are noticed in whom the spirit of the house
+expresses itself vigorously. The descriptions are brief, but show a
+remarkable eye for what is characteristic, and are noteworthy for
+including the inward and outward physiognomy in the same sketch.[746]
+From that time forward,[747] the Tuscans never ceased to consider the
+description of man as lying within their special competence, and to them
+we owe the most valuable portraits of the Italians of the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries. Giovanni Cavalcanti, in the appendices to his
+Florentine history, written before the year 1450,[748] collects
+instances of civil virtue and abnegation, of political discernment and
+of military valour, all shown by Florentines. Pius II. gives us in his
+'Commentaries' valuable portraits of famous contemporaries; and not long
+ago a separate work of his earlier years,[749] which seems preparatory
+to these portraits, but which has colours and features that are very
+singular, was reprinted. To Jacob of Volterra we owe piquant sketches of
+members of the Curia[750] in the time of Sixtus IV. Vespasiano
+Fiorentino has been often referred to already, and as a historical
+authority a high place must be assigned to him; but his gift as a
+painter of character is not to be compared with that of Macchiavelli,
+Niccolò Valori, Guicciardini, Varchi, Francesco Vettori, and others, by
+whom European history has been probably as much influenced in this
+direction as by the ancients. It must not be forgotten that some of
+these authors soon found their way into northern countries by means of
+Latin translations. And without Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo and his
+all-important work, we should perhaps to this day have no history of
+northern art, or of the art of modern Europe, at all.[751]
+
+Among the biographers of North Italy in the fifteenth century,
+Bartolommeo Facio of Spezzia holds a high rank (p. 147). Platina, born
+in the territory of Cremona, gives us, in his 'Life of Paul II.' (p.
+231), examples of biographical caricatures. The description of the last
+Visconti,[752] written by Piercandido Decembrio--an enlarged imitation
+of Suetonius--is of special importance. Sismondi regrets that so much
+trouble has been spent on so unworthy an object, but the author would
+hardly have been equal to deal with a greater man, while he was
+thoroughly competent to describe the mixed nature of Filippo Maria, and
+in and through it to represent with accuracy the conditions, the forms,
+and the consequences of this particular kind of despotism. The picture
+of the fifteenth century would be incomplete without this unique
+biography, which is characteristic down to its minutest details. Milan
+afterwards possessed, in the historian Corio, an excellent
+portrait-painter; and after him came Paolo Giovio of Como, whose larger
+biographies and shorter 'Elogia' have achieved a world-wide reputation,
+and become models for future writers in all countries. It is easy to
+prove by a hundred passages how superficial and even dishonest he was;
+nor from a man like him can any high and serious purpose be expected.
+But the breath of the age moves in his pages, and his Leo, his Alfonso,
+his Pompeo Colonna, live and act before us with such perfect truth and
+reality, that we seem admitted to the deepest recesses of their nature.
+
+Among Neapolitan writers, Tristano Caracciolo (p. 36), so far as we are
+able to judge, holds indisputably the first place in this respect,
+although his purpose was not strictly biographical. In the figures which
+he brings before us, guilt and destiny are wondrously mingled. He is a
+kind of unconscious tragedian. That genuine tragedy which then found no
+place on the stage, 'swept by' in the palace, the street, and the public
+square. The 'Words and Deeds of Alfonso the Great,' written by Antonio
+Panormita[753] during the lifetime of the king, and consequently showing
+more of the spirit of flattery than is consistent with historical truth,
+are remarkable as one of the first of such collections of anecdotes and
+of wise and witty sayings.
+
+The rest of Europe followed the example of Italy in this respect but
+slowly,[754] although great political and religious movements had broken
+so many bands, and had awakened so many thousands to new spiritual life.
+Italians, whether scholars or diplomatists, still remained, on the
+whole, the best source of information for the characters of the leading
+men all over Europe. It is well known how speedily and unanimously in
+recent times the reports of the Venetian embassies in the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries have been recognised as authorities of the first
+order for personal description.[755] Even autobiography takes here and
+there in Italy a bold and vigorous flight, and puts before us, together
+with the most varied incidents of external life, striking revelations of
+the inner man. Among other nations, even in Germany at the time of the
+Reformation, it deals only with outward experiences, and leaves us to
+guess at the spirit within from the style of the narrative.[756] It
+seems as though Dante's 'Vita Nuova,' with the inexorable truthfulness
+which runs through it, had shown his people the way.
+
+The beginnings of autobiography are to be traced in the family histories
+of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which are said to be not
+uncommon as manuscripts in the Florentine libraries--unaffected
+narratives written for the sake of the individual or of his family, like
+that of Buonaccorso Pitti.
+
+A profound self-analysis is not to be looked for in the 'Commentaries'
+of Pius II. What we here learn of him as a man seems at first sight to
+be chiefly confined to the account which he gives of the different steps
+in his career. But further reflexion will lead us to a different
+conclusion with regard to this remarkable book. There are men who are by
+nature mirrors of what surrounds them. It would be irrelevant to ask
+incessantly after their convictions, their spiritual struggles, their
+inmost victories and achievements. Æneas Sylvius lived wholly in the
+interest which lay near, without troubling himself about the problems
+and contradictions of life. His Catholic orthodoxy gave him all the help
+of this kind which he needed. And at all events, after taking part in
+every intellectual movement which interested his age, and notably
+furthering some of them, he still at the close of his earthly course
+retained character enough to preach a crusade against the Turks, and to
+die of grief when it came to nothing.
+
+Nor is the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, any more than that of
+Pius II., founded on introspection. And yet it describes the whole
+man--not always willingly--with marvellous truth and completeness. It is
+no small matter that Benvenuto, whose most important works have perished
+half finished, and who, as an artist, is perfect only in his little
+decorative specialty, but in other respects, if judged by the works of
+him which remain, is surpassed by so many of his greater
+contemporaries--that Benvenuto as a man will interest mankind to the end
+of time. It does not spoil the impression when the reader often detects
+him bragging or lying; the stamp of a mighty, energetic, and thoroughly
+developed nature remains. By his side our northern autobiographers,
+though their tendency and moral character may stand much higher, appear
+incomplete beings. He is a man who can do all and dares do all, and who
+carries his measure in himself.[757] Whether we like him or not, he
+lives, such as he was, as a significant type of the modern spirit.
+
+Another man deserves a brief mention in connection with this subject--a
+man who, like Benvenuto, was not a model of veracity: Girolamo Cardano
+of Milan (b. 1500). His little book, 'De propria vita'[758] will outlive
+and eclipse his fame in philosophy and natural science, just as
+Benvenuto's life, though its value is of another kind, has thrown his
+works into the shade. Cardano is a physician who feels his own pulse,
+and describes his own physical, moral, and intellectual nature, together
+with all the conditions under which it had developed, and this, to the
+best of his ability, honestly and sincerely. The work which he avowedly
+took as his model--the 'Confessions' of Marcus Aurelius--he was able,
+hampered as he was by no stoical maxims, to surpass in this particular.
+He desires to spare neither himself nor others, and begins the narrative
+of his career with the statement that his mother tried, and failed, to
+procure abortion. It is worth remark that he attributes to the stars
+which presided over his birth only the events of his life and his
+intellectual gifts, but not his moral qualities; he confesses (cap. 10)
+that the astrological prediction that he would not live to the age of
+forty or fifty years did him much harm in his youth. But there is no
+need to quote from so well-known and accessible a book; whoever opens it
+will not lay it down till the last page. Cardano admits that he cheated
+at play, that he was vindictive, incapable of all compunction,
+purposely cruel in his speech. He confesses it without impudence and
+without feigned contrition, without even wishing to make himself an
+object of interest, but with the same simple and sincere love of fact
+which guided him in his scientific researches. And, what is to us the
+most repulsive of all, the old man, after the most shocking
+experiences[759] and with his confidence in his fellow-men gone, finds
+himself after all tolerably happy and comfortable. He has still left him
+a grandson, immense learning, the fame of his works, money, rank and
+credit, powerful friends, the knowledge of many secrets, and, best of
+all, belief in God. After this, he counts the teeth in his head, and
+finds that he has fifteen.
+
+Yet when Cardano wrote, Inquisitors and Spaniards were already busy in
+Italy, either hindering the production of such natures, or, where they
+existed, by some means or other putting them out of the way. There lies
+a gulf between this book and the memoirs of Alfieri.
+
+Yet it would be unjust to close this list of autobiographers without
+listening to a word from one man who was both worthy and happy. This is
+the well-known philosopher of practical life, Luigi Cornaro, whose
+dwelling at Padua, classical as an architectural work, was at the same
+time the home of all the muses. In his famous treatise 'On the Sober
+Life,'[760] he describes the strict regimen by which he succeeded, after
+a sickly youth, in reaching an advanced and healthy age, then of
+eighty-three years. He goes on to answer those who despise life after
+the age of sixty-five as a living death, showing them that his own life
+had nothing deadly about it. 'Let them come and see, and wonder at my
+good health, how I mount on horseback without help, how I run upstairs
+and up hills, how cheerful, amusing, and contented I am, how free from
+care and disagreeable thoughts. Peace and joy never quit me.... My
+friends are wise, learned, and distinguished people of good position,
+and when they are not with me I read and write, and try thereby, as by
+all other means, to be useful to others. Each of these things I do at
+the proper time, and at my ease, in my dwelling, which is beautiful and
+lies in the best part of Padua, and is arranged both for summer and
+winter with all the resources of architecture, and provided with a
+garden by the running water. In the spring and autumn, I go for a while
+to my hill in the most beautiful part of the Euganean mountains, where I
+have fountains and gardens, and a comfortable dwelling; and there I
+amuse myself with some easy and pleasant chase, which is suitable to my
+years. At other times I go to my villa on the plain;[761] there all the
+paths lead to an open space, in the middle of which stands a pretty
+church; an arm of the Brenta flows through the plantations--fruitful,
+well-cultivated fields, now fully peopled, which the marshes and the
+foul air once made fitter for snakes than for men. It was I who drained
+the country; then the air became good, and people settled there and
+multiplied, and the land became cultivated as it now is, so that I can
+truly say: "On this spot I gave to God an altar and a temple, and souls
+to worship Him." This is my consolation and my happiness whenever I come
+here. In the spring and autumn, I also visit the neighbouring towns, to
+see and converse with my friends, through whom I make the acquaintance
+of other distinguished men, architects, painters, sculptors, musicians,
+and cultivators of the soil. I see what new things they have done, I
+look again at what I know already, and learn much that is of use to me.
+I see palaces, gardens, antiquities, public grounds, churches, and
+fortifications. But what most of all delights me when I travel, is the
+beauty of the country and the cities, lying now on the plain, now on the
+slopes of the hills, or on the banks of rivers and streams, surrounded
+by gardens and villas. And these enjoyments are not diminished through
+weakness of the eyes or the ears; all my senses (thank God!) are in the
+best condition, including the sense of taste; for I enjoy more the
+simple food which I now take in moderation, than all the delicacies
+which I ate in my years of disorder.'
+
+After mentioning the works he had undertaken on behalf of the republic
+for draining the marshes, and the projects which he had constantly
+advocated for preserving the lagunes, he thus concludes:--
+
+'These are the true recreations of an old age which God has permitted to
+be healthy, and which is free from those mental and bodily sufferings to
+which so many young people and so many sickly older people succumb. And
+if it be allowable to add the little to the great, to add jest to
+earnest, it may be mentioned as a result of my moderate life, that in my
+eighty-third year I have written a most amusing comedy, full of
+blameless wit. Such works are generally the business of youth, as
+tragedy is the business of old age. If it is reckoned to the credit of
+the famous Greek that he wrote a tragedy in his seventy-third year, must
+I not, with my ten years more, be more cheerful and healthy than he ever
+was? And that no consolation may be wanting in the overflowing cup of my
+old age, I see before my eyes a sort of bodily immortality in the
+persons of my descendants. When I come home I see before me, not one or
+two, but eleven grandchildren, between the ages of two and eighteen, all
+from the same father and mother, all healthy, and, so far as can already
+be judged, all gifted with the talent and disposition for learning and a
+good life. One of the younger I have as my playmate (buffoncello), since
+children from the third to the fifth year are born to tricks; the elder
+ones I treat as my companions, and, as they have admirable voices, I
+take delight in hearing them sing and play on different instruments. And
+I sing myself, and find my voice better, clearer, and louder than ever.
+These are the pleasures of my last years. My life, therefore, is alive,
+and not dead; nor would I exchange my age for the youth of such as live
+in the service of their passions.
+
+In the 'Exhortation' which Cornaro added at a much later time, in his
+ninety-fifth year, he reckons it among the elements of his happiness
+that his 'Treatise' had made many converts. He died at Padua in 1565, at
+the age of over a hundred years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE DESCRIPTION OF NATIONS AND CITIES.
+
+
+This national gift did not, however, confine itself to the criticism and
+description of individuals, but felt itself competent to deal with the
+qualities and characteristics of whole peoples. Throughout the Middle
+Ages the cities, families, and nations of all Europe were in the habit
+of making insulting and derisive attacks on one another, which, with
+much caricature, contained commonly a kernel of truth. But from the
+first the Italians surpassed all others in their quick apprehension of
+the mental differences among cities and populations. Their local
+patriotism, stronger probably than in any other mediæval people, soon
+found expression in literature, and allied itself with the current
+conception of 'Fame.' Topography became the counterpart of biography (p.
+145); while all the more important cities began to celebrate their own
+praises in prose and verse,[762] writers appeared who made the chief
+towns and districts the subject partly of a serious comparative
+description, partly of satire, and sometimes of notices in which jest
+and earnest are not easy to be distinguished. Brunetto Latini must first
+be mentioned. Besides his own country, he knew France from a residence
+of seven years, and gives a long list of the characteristic differences
+in costume and modes of life between Frenchmen and Italians, noticing
+the distinction between the monarchical government of France and the
+republican constitution of the Italian cities.[763] After this, next to
+some famous passages in the 'Divine Comedy,' comes the 'Dittamondo' of
+Uberti (about 1360). As a rule, only single remarkable facts and
+characteristics are here mentioned: the Feast of the Crows at Sant'
+Apollinare in Ravenna, the springs at Treviso, the great cellar near
+Vicenza, the high duties at Mantua, the forest of towers at Lucca. Yet
+mixed up with all this, we find laudatory and satirical criticisms of
+every kind. Arezzo figures with the crafty disposition of its citizens,
+Genoa with the artificially blackened eyes and teeth (?) of its women,
+Bologna with its prodigality, Bergamo with its coarse dialect and
+hard-headed people.[764] In the fifteenth century the fashion was to
+belaud one's own city even at the expense of others. Michele Savonarola
+allows that, in comparison with his native Padua, only Rome and Venice
+are more splendid, and Florence perhaps more joyous[765]--by which our
+knowledge is naturally not much extended. At the end of the century,
+Jovianus Pontanus, in his 'Antonius,' writes an imaginary journey
+through Italy, simply as a vehicle for malicious observations. But in
+the sixteenth century we meet with a series of exact and profound
+studies of national characteristics, such as no other people of that
+time could rival.[766] Macchiavelli sets forth in some of his valuable
+essays the character and the political condition of the Germans and
+French in such a way, that the born northerner, familiar with the
+history of his own country, is grateful to the Florentine thinker for
+his flashes of insight. The Florentines (p. 71 sqq.) begin to take
+pleasure in describing themselves;[767] and basking in the well-earned
+sunshine of their intellectual glory, their pride seems to attain its
+height when they derive the artistic pre-eminence of Tuscany among
+Italians, not from any special gifts of nature, but from hard patient
+work.[768] The homage of famous men from other parts of Italy, of which
+the sixteenth Capitolo of Ariosto is a splendid example, they accepted
+as a merited tribute to their excellence.
+
+An admirable description of the Italians, with their various pursuits
+and characteristics, though in few words and with special stress laid on
+the Lucchese, to whom the work was dedicated, was given by Ortensio
+Landi, who, however, is so fond of playing hide-and-seek with his own
+name, and fast-and-loose with historical facts, that even when he seems
+to be most in earnest, he must be accepted with caution and only after
+close examination.[769] The same Landi published an anonymous
+'Commentario' some ten years later,[770] which contains among many
+follies not a few valuable hints on the unhappy ruined condition of
+Italy in the middle of the century.[771] Leandro Alberti[772] is not so
+fruitful as might be expected in his description of the character of the
+different cities.
+
+To what extent this comparative study of national and local
+characteristics may, by means of Italian humanism, have influenced the
+rest of Europe, we cannot say with precision. To Italy, at all events,
+belongs the priority in this respect, as in the description of the world
+in general.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTWARD MAN.
+
+
+But the discoveries made with regard to man were not confined to the
+spiritual characteristics of individuals and nations; his outward
+appearance was in Italy the subject of an entirely different interest
+from that shown in it by northern peoples.[773]
+
+Of the position held by the great Italian physicians with respect to the
+progress of physiology, we cannot venture to speak; and the artistic
+study of the human figure belongs, not to a work like the present, but
+to the history of art. But something must here be said of that universal
+education of the eye, which rendered the judgment of the Italians as to
+bodily beauty or ugliness perfect and final.
+
+On reading the Italian authors of that period attentively, we are
+astounded at the keenness and accuracy with which outward features are
+seized, and at the completeness with which personal appearance in
+general is described.[774] Even to-day the Italians, and especially the
+Romans, have the art of sketching a man's picture in a couple of words.
+This rapid apprehension of what is characteristic is an essential
+condition for detecting and representing the beautiful. In poetry, it is
+true, circumstantial description may be a fault, not a merit, since a
+single feature, suggested by deep passion or insight, will often awaken
+in the reader a far more powerful impression of the figure described.
+Dante gives us nowhere a more splendid idea of his Beatrice than where
+he only describes the influence which goes forth from her upon all
+around. But here we have not to treat particularly of poetry, which
+follows its own laws and pursues its own ends, but rather of the general
+capacity to paint in words real or imaginary forms.
+
+In this Boccaccio is a master--not in the 'Decameron,' where the
+character of the tales forbids lengthy description, but in the romances,
+where he is free to take his time. In his 'Ameto'[775] he describes a
+blonde and a brunette much as an artist a hundred years later would have
+painted them--for here, too, culture long precedes art. In the account
+of the brunette--or, strictly speaking, of the less blonde of the
+two--there are touches which deserve to be called classical. In the
+words 'la spaziosa testa e distesa' lies the feeling for grander forms,
+which go beyond a graceful prettiness; the eyebrows with him no longer
+resemble two bows, as in the Byzantine ideal, but a single wavy line;
+the nose seems to have been meant to be aquiline;[776] the broad, full
+breast, the arms of moderate length, the effect of the beautiful hand,
+as it lies on the purple mantle--all both foretells the sense of beauty
+of a coming time, and unconsciously approaches to that of classical
+antiquity. In other descriptions Boccaccio mentions a flat (not
+mediævally rounded) brow, a long, earnest, brown eye, and round, not
+hollowed neck, as well as--in a very modern tone--the 'little feet' and
+the 'two roguish eyes' of a black-haired nymph.[777]
+
+Whether the fifteenth century has left any written account of its ideal
+of beauty, I am not able to say. The works of the painters and sculptors
+do not render such an account as unnecessary as might appear at first
+sight, since possibly, as opposed to their realism, a more ideal type
+might have been favoured and preserved by the writers.[778] In the
+sixteenth century Firenzuola came forward with his remarkable work on
+female beauty.[779] We must clearly distinguish in it what he had
+learned from old authors or from artists, such as the fixing of
+proportions according to the length of the head, and certain abstract
+conceptions. What remains, is his own genuine observation, illustrated
+with examples of women and girls from Prato. As his little work is a
+kind of lecture, delivered before the women of this city--that is to
+say, before very severe critics--he must have kept pretty closely to the
+truth. His principle is avowedly that of Zeuxis and of Lucian--to piece
+together an ideal beauty out of a number of beautiful parts. He defines
+the shades of colour which occur in the hair and skin, and gives to the
+'biondo' the preference, as the most beautiful colour for the hair,[780]
+understanding by it a soft yellow, inclining to brown. He requires that
+the hair should be thick, long, and locky; the forehead serene, and
+twice as broad as high; the skin bright and clear (candida), but not of
+a dead white (bianchezza); the eyebrows dark, silky, most strongly
+marked in the middle, and shading off towards the ears and the nose; the
+white of the eye faintly touched with blue, the iris not actually black,
+though all the poets praise 'occhi neri' as a gift of Venus, despite
+that even goddesses were known for their eyes of heavenly blue, and that
+soft, joyous, brown eyes were admired by everybody. The eye itself
+should be large and full, and brought well forward; the lids white, and
+marked with almost invisible tiny red veins; the lashes neither too
+long, nor too thick, nor too dark. The hollow round the eye should have
+the same colour as the cheek.[781] The ear, neither too large nor too
+small, firmly and neatly fitted on, should show a stronger colour in the
+winding than in the even parts, with an edge of the transparent
+ruddiness of the pomegranate. The temples must be white and even, and
+for the most perfect beauty ought not to be too narrow. The red should
+grow deeper as the cheek gets rounder. The nose, which chiefly
+determines the value of the profile, must recede gently and uniformly in
+the direction of the eyes; where the cartilage ceases, there may be a
+slight elevation, but not so marked as to make the nose aquiline, which
+is not pleasing in women; the lower part must be less strongly coloured
+than the ears, but not of a chilly whiteness, and the middle partition
+above the lips lightly tinted with red. The mouth, our author would have
+rather small, and neither projecting to a point, nor quite flat, with
+the lips not too thin, and fitting neatly together; an accidental
+opening, that is, when the woman is neither speaking nor laughing,
+should not display more than six upper teeth. As delicacies of detail,
+he mentions a dimple in the upper lip, a certain fulness of the under
+lip, and a tempting smile in the left corner of the mouth--and so on.
+The teeth should not be too small, regular, well marked off from one
+another, and of the colour of ivory; and the gums must not be too dark
+or even like red velvet. The chin is to be round, neither pointed nor
+curved outwards, and growing slightly red as it rises; its glory is the
+dimple. The neck should be white and round and rather long than short,
+with the hollow and the Adam's apple but faintly marked; and the skin at
+every movement must show pleasing lines. The shoulders he desires broad,
+and in the breadth of the bosom sees the first condition of its beauty.
+No bone may be visible upon it, its fall and swell must be gentle and
+gradual, its colour 'candidissimo.' The leg should be long and not too
+hard in the lower parts, but still not without flesh on the shin, which
+must be provided with white, full calves. He likes the foot small, but
+not bony, the instep (it seems) high, and the colour white as alabaster.
+The arms are to be white, and in the upper parts tinted with red; in
+their consistence fleshy and muscular, but still soft as those of
+Pallas, when she stood before the shepherd on Mount Ida--in a word,
+ripe, fresh, and firm. The hand should be white, especially towards the
+wrist, but large and plump, feeling soft as silk, the rosy palm marked
+with a few, but distinct and not intricate lines; the elevations in it
+should be not too great, the space between thumb and forefinger brightly
+coloured and without wrinkles, the fingers long, delicate, and scarcely
+at all thinner towards the tips, with nails clear, even, not too long
+nor too square, and cut so as to show a white margin about the breadth
+of a knife's back.
+
+Æsthetic principles of a general character occupy a very subordinate
+place to these particulars. The ultimate principles of beauty, according
+to which the eye judges 'senza appello,' are for Firenzuola a secret, as
+he frankly confesses; and his definitions of 'Leggiadria,' 'Grazia,'
+'Vaghezza,' 'Venustà,' 'Aria,' 'Maestà,' are partly, as has been
+remarked, philological, and partly vain attempts to utter the
+unutterable. Laughter he prettily defines, probably following some old
+author, as a radiance of the soul.
+
+The literature of all countries can, at the close of the Middle Ages,
+show single attempts to lay down theoretic principles of beauty;[782]
+but no other work can be compared to that of Firenzuola. Brantome, who
+came a good half-century later, is a bungling critic by his side,
+because governed by lasciviousness and not by a sense of beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+DESCRIPTIONS OF LIFE IN MOVEMENT.
+
+
+Among the new discoveries made with regard to man, we must reckon, in
+conclusion, the interest taken in descriptions of the daily course of
+human life.
+
+The comical and satirical literature of the Middle Ages could not
+dispense with pictures of every-day events. But it is another thing,
+when the Italians of the Renaissance dwelt on this picture for its own
+sake--for its inherent interest--and because it forms part of that
+great, universal life of the world whose magic breath they felt
+everywhere around them. Instead of and together with the satirical
+comedy, which wanders through houses, villages, and streets, seeking
+food for its derision in parson, peasant, and burgher, we now see in
+literature the beginnings of a true _genre_, long before it found any
+expression in painting. That _genre_ and satire are often met with in
+union, does not prevent them from being wholly different things.
+
+How much of earthly business must Dante have watched with attentive
+interest, before he was able to make us see with our own eyes all that
+happened in his spiritual world.[783] The famous pictures of the busy
+movement in the arsenal at Venice, of the blind men laid side by side
+before the church door,[784] and the like, are by no means the only
+instances of this kind: for the art, in which he is a master, of
+expressing the inmost soul by the outward gesture, cannot exist without
+a close and incessant study of human life.
+
+The poets who followed rarely came near him in this respect, and the
+novelists were forbidden by the first laws of their literary style to
+linger over details. Their prefaces and narratives might be as long as
+they pleased, but what we understand by _genre_ was outside their
+province. The taste for this class of description was not fully awakened
+till the time of the revival of antiquity.
+
+And here we are again met by the man who had a heart for
+everything--Æneas Sylvius. Not only natural beauty, not only that which
+has an antiquarian or a geographical interest, finds a place in his
+descriptions (p. 248; ii. p. 28), but any living scene of daily
+life.[785] Among the numerous passages in his memoirs in which scenes
+are described which hardly one of his contemporaries would have thought
+worth a line of notice, we will here only mention the boat-race on the
+Lake of Bolsena.[786] We are not able to detect from what old
+letter-writer or story-teller the impulse was derived to which we owe
+such life-like pictures. Indeed, the whole spiritual communion between
+antiquity and the Renaissance is full of delicacy and of mystery.
+
+To this class belong those descriptive Latin poems of which we have
+already spoken (p. 262)--hunting-scenes, journeys, ceremonies, and so
+forth. In Italian we also find something of the same kind, as, for
+example, the descriptions of the famous Medicean tournament by Politian
+and Luca Pulci.[787] The true epic poets, Luigi Pulci, Bojardo, and
+Ariosto, are carried on more rapidly by the stream of their narrative;
+yet in all of them we must recognise the lightness and precision of
+their descriptive touch, as one of the chief elements of their
+greatness. Franco Sacchetti amuses himself with repeating the short
+speeches of a troop of pretty women caught in the woods by a shower of
+rain.[788]
+
+Other scenes of moving life are to be looked for in the military
+historians (p. 99). In a lengthy poem,[789] dating from an earlier
+period, we find a faithful picture of a combat of mercenary soldiers in
+the fourteenth century, chiefly in the shape of the orders, cries of
+battle, and dialogue with which it is accompanied.
+
+But the most remarkable productions of this kind are the realistic
+descriptions of country life, which are found most abundantly in Lorenzo
+Magnifico and the poets of his circle.
+
+Since the time of Petrarch,[790] an unreal and conventional style of
+bucolic poetry had been in vogue, which, whether written in Latin or
+Italian, was essentially a copy of Virgil. Parallel to this, we find the
+pastoral novel of Boccaccio (p. 259) and other works of the same kind
+down to the 'Arcadia' of Sannazaro, and later still, the pastoral comedy
+of Tasso and Guarini. They are works whose style, whether poetry or
+prose, is admirably finished and perfect, but in which pastoral life is
+only an ideal dress for sentiments which belong to a wholly different
+sphere of culture.[791]
+
+But by the side of all this there appeared in Italian poetry, towards
+the close of the fifteenth century, signs of a more realistic treatment
+of rustic life. This was not possible out of Italy; for here only did
+the peasant, whether labourer or proprietor, possess human dignity,
+personal freedom, and the right of settlement, hard as his lot might
+sometimes be in other respects.[792] The difference between town and
+country is far from being so marked here as in northern countries. Many
+of the smaller towns are peopled almost exclusively by peasants who, on
+coming home at nightfall from their work, are transformed into
+townsfolk. The masons of Como wandered over nearly all Italy; the child
+Giotto was free to leave his sheep and join a guild at Florence;
+everywhere there was a human stream flowing from the country into the
+cities, and some mountain populations seemed born to supply this
+current.[793] It is true that the pride and local conceit supplied poets
+and novelists with abundant motives for making game of the
+'villano,'[794] and what they left undone was taken charge of by the
+comic improvisers (p. 320 sqq.). But nowhere do we find a trace of that
+brutal and contemptuous class-hatred against the 'vilains' which
+inspired the aristocratic poets of Provence, and often, too, the French
+chroniclers. On the contrary,[795] Italian authors of every sort gladly
+recognise and accentuate what is great or remarkable in the life of the
+peasant. Gioviano Pontano mentions with admiration instances of the
+fortitude of the savage inhabitants of the Abruzzi;[796] in the
+biographical collections and in the novelists we meet with the figure of
+the heroic peasant-maiden[797] who hazards her life to defend her family
+and her honour.[798]
+
+Such conditions made the poetical treatment of country-life possible.
+The first instance we shall mention is that of Battista Mantovano, whose
+eclogues, once much read and still worth reading, appeared among his
+earliest works about 1480. They are a mixture of real and conventional
+rusticity, but the former tends to prevail. They represent the mode of
+thought of a well-meaning village clergyman, not without a certain
+leaning to liberal ideas. As Carmelite monk, the writer may have had
+occasion to mix freely with the peasantry.[799]
+
+But it is with a power of a wholly different kind that Lorenzo
+Magnifico transports himself into the peasant's world His 'Nencia di
+Barberino'[800] reads like a crowd of genuine extracts from the popular
+songs of the Florentine country, fused into a great stream of octaves.
+The objectivity of the writer is such that we are in doubt whether the
+speaker--the young peasant Vallera, who declares his love to
+Nencia--awakens his sympathy or ridicule. The deliberate contrast to the
+conventional eclogue is unmistakable. Lorenzo surrenders himself
+purposely to the realism of simple, rough country-life, and yet his work
+makes upon us the impression of true poetry.
+
+The 'Beca da Dicomano' of Luigi Pulci[801] is an admitted counterpart to
+the 'Nencia' of Lorenzo. But the deeper purpose is wanting. The 'Beca'
+is written not so much from the inward need to give a picture of popular
+life, as from the desire to win the approbation of the educated
+Florentine world by a successful poem. Hence the greater and more
+deliberate coarseness of the scenes, and the indecent jokes.
+Nevertheless, the point of view of the rustic lover is admirably
+maintained.
+
+Third in this company of poets comes Angelo Poliziano, with his
+'Rusticus'[802] in Latin hexameters. Keeping clear of all imitation of
+Virgil's Georgics, he describes the year of the Tuscan peasant,
+beginning with the late autumn, when the countryman gets ready his new
+plough and prepares the seed for the winter. The picture of the meadows
+in spring is full and beautiful, and the 'Summer' has fine passages; but
+the vintage-feast in autumn is one of the gems of modern Latin poetry.
+Politian wrote poems in Italian as well as Latin, from which we may
+infer that in Lorenzo's circle it was possible to give a realistic
+picture of the passionate life of the lower classes. His gipsy's
+love-song[803] is one of the earliest products of that wholly modern
+tendency to put oneself with poetic consciousness into the position of
+another class. This had probably been attempted for ages with a view to
+satire,[804] and the opportunity for it was offered in Florence at every
+carnival by the songs of the maskers. But the sympathetic understanding
+of the feelings of another class was new; and with it the 'Nencia' and
+this 'Canzone zingaresca' mark a new starting-point in the history of
+poetry.
+
+Here, too, we must briefly indicate how culture prepared the way for
+artistic development. From the time of the 'Nencia,' a period of eighty
+years elapses to the rustic genre-painting of Jacopo Bassano and his
+school.
+
+In the next part of this work we shall show how differences of birth had
+lost their significance in Italy. Much of this was doubtless owing to
+the fact that men and man were here first thoroughly and profoundly
+understood. This one single result of the Renaissance is enough to fill
+us with everlasting thankfulness. The logical notion of humanity was old
+enough--but here the notion became a fact.
+
+The loftiest conceptions on this subject were uttered by Pico della
+Mirandola in his speech on the dignity of man,[805] which may justly be
+called one of the noblest bequests of that great age. God, he tells us,
+made man at the close of the creation, to know the laws of the universe,
+to love its beauty, to admire its greatness. He bound him to no fixed
+place, to no prescribed form of work, and by no iron necessity, but gave
+him freedom to will and to move. 'I have set thee,' says the Creator to
+Adam, 'in the midst of the world, that thou mayst the more easily behold
+and see all that is therein. I created thee a being neither heavenly nor
+earthly, neither mortal nor immortal only, that thou mightest be free to
+shape and to overcome thyself. Thou mayst sink into a beast, and be born
+anew to the divine likeness. The brutes bring from their mother's body
+what they will carry with them as long as they live; the higher spirits
+are from the beginning, or soon after,[806] what they will be for ever.
+To thee alone is given a growth and a development depending on thine own
+free will. Thou bearest in thee the germs of a universal life.'
+
+
+
+
+_PART V._
+
+SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE EQUALISATION OF CLASSES.
+
+
+Every period of civilisation, which forms a complete and consistent
+whole, manifests itself not only in political life, in religion, art,
+and science, but also sets its characteristic stamp on social life. Thus
+the Middle Ages had their courtly and aristocratic manners and
+etiquette, differing but little in the various countries of Europe, as
+well as their peculiar forms of middle-class life.
+
+Italian customs at the time of the Renaissance offer in these respects
+the sharpest contrast to mediævalism. The foundation on which they rest
+is wholly different. Social intercourse in its highest and most perfect
+form now ignored all distinctions of caste, and was based simply on the
+existence of an educated class as we now understand the word. Birth and
+origin were without influence, unless combined with leisure and
+inherited wealth. Yet this assertion must not be taken in an absolute
+and unqualified sense, since mediæval distinctions still sometimes made
+themselves felt to a greater or less degree, if only as a means of
+maintaining equality with the aristocratic pretensions of the less
+advanced countries of Europe. But the main current of the time went
+steadily towards the fusion of classes in the modern sense of the
+phrase.
+
+The fact was of vital importance that, from certainly the twelfth
+century onwards, the nobles and the burghers dwelt together within the
+walls of the cities.[807] The interests and pleasures of both classes
+were thus identified, and the feudal lord learned to look at society
+from another point of view than that of his mountain-castle. The
+Church, too, in Italy never suffered itself, as in northern countries,
+to be used as a means of providing for the younger sons of noble
+families. Bishoprics, abbacies, and canonries were often given from the
+most unworthy motives, but still not according to the pedigrees of the
+applicants; and if the bishops in Italy were more numerous, poorer, and,
+as a rule, destitute of all sovereign rights, they still lived in the
+cities where their cathedrals stood, and formed, together with their
+chapters, an important element in the cultivated society of the place.
+In the age of despots and absolute princes which followed, the nobility
+in most of the cities had the motives and the leisure to give themselves
+up to a private life (p. 131) free from political danger and adorned
+with all that was elegant and enjoyable, but at the same time hardly
+distinguishable from that of the wealthy burgher. And after the time of
+Dante, when the new poetry and literature were in the hands of all
+Italy,[808] when to this was added the revival of ancient culture and
+the new interest in man as such, when the successful Condottiere became
+a prince, and not only good birth, but legitimate birth, ceased to be
+indispensable for a throne (p. 21), it might well seem that the age of
+equality had dawned, and the belief in nobility vanished for ever.
+
+From a theoretical point of view, when the appeal was made to antiquity,
+the conception of nobility could be both justified and condemned from
+Aristotle alone. Dante, for example,[809] adapts from the Aristotelian
+definition, 'Nobility rests on excellence and inherited wealth,' his own
+saying, 'Nobility rests on personal excellence or on that of
+predecessors.' But elsewhere he is not satisfied with this conclusion.
+He blames himself,[810] because even in Paradise, while talking with his
+ancestor Cacciaguida, he made mention of his noble origin, which is but
+as a mantle from which time is ever cutting something away, unless we
+ourselves add daily fresh worth to it. And in the 'Convito'[811] he
+disconnects 'nobile' and 'nobiltà' from every condition of birth, and
+identifies the idea with the capacity for moral and intellectual
+eminence, laying a special stress on high culture by calling 'nobiltà'
+the sister of 'filosofia.'
+
+And as time went on, the greater the influence of humanism on the
+Italian mind, the firmer and more widespread became the conviction that
+birth decides nothing as to the goodness or badness of a man. In the
+fifteenth century this was the prevailing opinion. Poggio, in his
+dialogue 'On nobility,'[812] agrees with his interlocutors--Niccolò
+Niccoli, and Lorenzo Medici, brother of the great Cosimo--that there is
+no other nobility than that of personal merit. The keenest shafts of his
+ridicule are directed against much of what vulgar prejudice thinks
+indispensable to an aristocratic life. 'A man is all the farther removed
+from true nobility, the longer his forefathers have plied the trade of
+brigands. The taste for hawking and hunting savours no more of nobility
+than the nests and lairs of the hunted creatures of spikenard. The
+cultivation of the soil, as practised by the ancients, would be much
+nobler than this senseless wandering through the hills and woods, by
+which men make themselves liker to the brutes than to the reasonable
+creatures. It may serve well enough as a recreation, but not as the
+business of a lifetime.' The life of the English and French chivalry in
+the country or in the woody fastnesses seems to him thoroughly ignoble,
+and worst of all the doings of the robber-knights of Germany. Lorenzo
+here begins to take the part of the nobility, but not--which is
+characteristic--appealing to any natural sentiment in its favour, but
+because Aristotle in the fifth book of the 'Politics' recognises the
+nobility as existent, and defines it as resting on excellence and
+inherited wealth. To this Niccoli retorts that Aristotle gives this not
+as his own conviction, but as the popular impression; in his 'Ethics,'
+where he speaks as he thinks, he calls him noble who strives after that
+which is truly good. Lorenzo urges upon him vainly that the Greek word
+for nobility means good birth; Niccoli thinks the Roman word 'nobilis'
+(_i.e._ remarkable) a better one, since it makes nobility depend on a
+man's deeds.[813] Together with these discussions, we find a sketch of
+the condition of the nobles in various parts of Italy. In Naples they
+will not work, and busy themselves neither with their own estates nor
+with trade and commerce, which they hold to be discreditable; they
+either loiter at home or ride about on horseback.[814] The Roman
+nobility also despise trade, but farm their own property; the
+cultivation of the land even opens the way to a title;[815] 'it is a
+respectable but boorish nobility.' In Lombardy the nobles live upon the
+rent of their inherited estates; descent and the abstinence from any
+regular calling constitute nobility.[816] In Venice, the 'nobili,' the
+ruling caste, were all merchants. Similarly in Genoa the nobles and
+non-nobles were alike merchants and sailors, and only separated by their
+birth; some few of the former, it is true, still lurked as brigands in
+their mountain-castles. In Florence a part of the old nobility had
+devoted themselves to trade; another, and certainly by far the smaller
+part, enjoyed the satisfaction of their titles, and spent their time,
+either in nothing at all, or else in hunting and hawking.[817]
+
+The decisive fact was, that nearly everywhere in Italy, even those who
+might be disposed to pride themselves on their birth could not make good
+the claims against the power of culture and of wealth, and that their
+privileges in politics and at court were not sufficient to encourage any
+strong feeling of caste. Venice offers only an apparent exception to
+this rule, for there the 'nobili' led the same life as their
+fellow-citizens, and were distinguished by few honorary privileges. The
+case was certainly different at Naples, which the strict isolation and
+the ostentatious vanity of its nobility excluded, above all other
+causes, from the spiritual movement of the Renaissance. The traditions
+of mediæval Lombardy and Normandy, and the French aristocratic
+influences which followed, all tended in this direction; and the
+Aragonese government, which was established by the middle of the
+fifteenth century, completed the work, and accomplished in Naples what
+followed a hundred years later in the rest of Italy--a social
+transformation in obedience to Spanish ideas, of which the chief
+features were the contempt for work and the passion for titles. The
+effect of this new influence was evident, even in the smaller towns,
+before the year 1500. We hear complaints from La Cava that the place had
+been proverbially rich, as long at it was filled with masons and
+weavers; whilst now, since instead of looms and trowels nothing but
+spurs, stirrups and gilded belts was to be seen, since everybody was
+trying to become Doctor of Laws or of Medicine, Notary, Officer or
+Knight, the most intolerable poverty prevailed.[818] In Florence an
+analogous change appears to have taken place by the time of Cosimo, the
+first Grand Duke; he is thanked for adopting the young people, who now
+despise trade and commerce, as knights of his order of St. Stephen.[819]
+This goes straight in the teeth of the good old Florentine custom,[820]
+by which fathers left property to their children on the condition that
+they should have some occupation (p. 79). But a mania for title of a
+curious and ludicrous sort sometimes crossed and thwarted, especially
+among the Florentines, the levelling influence of art and culture. This
+was the passion for knighthood, which became one of the most striking
+follies of the day, at a time when the dignity itself had lost every
+shadow of significance.
+
+'A few years ago,' writes Franco Sacchetti,[821] towards the end of the
+fourteenth century, 'everybody saw how all the work-people down to the
+bakers, how all the wool-carders, usurers, money-changers and
+blackguards of all descriptions, became knights. Why should an official
+need knighthood when he goes to preside over some little provincial
+town? What has this title to do with any ordinary bread-winning pursuit?
+How art thou sunken, unhappy dignity! Of all the long list of knightly
+duties, what single one do these knights of ours discharge? I wished to
+speak of these things that the reader might see that knighthood is
+dead.[822] And as we have gone so far as to confer the honour upon dead
+men, why not upon figures of wood and stone, and why not upon an ox?'
+The stories which Sacchetti tells by way of illustration speak plainly
+enough. There we read how Bernabò Visconti knighted the victor in a
+drunken brawl, and then did the same derisively to the vanquished; how
+German knights with their decorated helmets and devices were
+ridiculed--and more of the same kind. At a later period Poggio[823]
+makes merry over the many knights of his day without a horse and
+without military training. Those who wished to assert the privilege of
+the order, and ride out with lance and colours, found in Florence that
+they might have to face the government as well as the jokers.[824]
+
+On considering the matter more closely, we shall find that this belated
+chivalry, independent of all nobility of birth, though partly the fruit
+of an insane passion for title, had nevertheless another and a better
+side. Tournaments had not yet ceased to be practised, and no one could
+take part in them who was not a knight. But the combat in the lists, and
+especially the difficult and perilous tilting with the lance, offered a
+favourable opportunity for the display of strength, skill, and courage,
+which no one, whatever might be his origin, would willingly neglect in
+an age which laid such stress on personal merit.[825]
+
+It was in vain that from the time of Petrarch downwards the tournament
+was denounced as a dangerous folly. No one was converted by the pathetic
+appeal of the poet: 'In what book do we read that Scipio and Cæsar were
+skilled at the joust?'[826] The practice became more and more popular
+in Florence. Every honest citizen came to consider his tournament--now,
+no doubt, less dangerous than formerly--as a fashionable sport. Franco
+Sacchetti[827] has left us a ludicrous picture of one of these holiday
+cavaliers--a notary seventy years old. He rides out on horseback to
+Peretola, where the tournament was cheap, on a jade hired from a dyer. A
+thistle is stuck by some wag under the tail of the steed, who takes
+fright, runs away, and carries the helmeted rider, bruised and shaken,
+back into the city. The inevitable conclusion of the story is a severe
+curtain-lecture from the wife, who is not a little enraged at these
+break-neck follies of her husband.[828]
+
+It may be mentioned in conclusion that a passionate interest in this
+sport was displayed by the Medici, as if they wished to show--private
+citizens as they were, without noble blood in their veins--that the
+society which surrounded them was in no respects inferior to a
+Court.[829] Even under Cosimo (1459), and afterwards under the elder
+Pietro, brilliant tournaments were held at Florence. The younger Pietro
+neglected the duties of government for these amusements, and would never
+suffer himself to be painted except clad in armour. The same practice
+prevailed at the Court of Alexander VI., and when the Cardinal Ascanio
+Sforza asked the Turkish Prince Djem (pp. 109, 115) how he liked the
+spectacle, the barbarian replied with much discretion that such combats
+in his country only took place among slaves, since then, in the case of
+accident, nobody was the worse for it. The oriental was unconsciously in
+accord with the old Romans in condemning the manners of the Middle Ages.
+
+Apart, however, from this particular prop of knighthood, we find here
+and there in Italy, for example at Ferrara (p. 46 sqq.), orders of court
+service, whose members had a right to the title.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But, great as were individual ambitions and the vanities of nobles and
+knights, it remains a fact that the Italian nobility took its place in
+the centre of social life, and not at the extremity. We find it
+habitually mixing with other classes on a footing of perfect equality,
+and seeking its natural allies in culture and intelligence. It is true
+that for the courtier a certain rank of nobility was required,[830] but
+this exigence is expressly declared to be caused by a prejudice rooted
+in the public mind--'per l'oppenion universale'--and never was held to
+imply the belief that the personal worth of one who was not of noble
+blood was in any degree lessened thereby, nor did it follow from this
+rule that the prince was limited to the nobility for his society. It was
+meant simply that the perfect man--the true courtier--should not be
+wanting in any conceivable advantage, and therefore not in this. If in
+all the relations of life he was specially bound to maintain a
+dignified and reserved demeanour, the reason was not found in the blood
+which flowed in his veins, but in the perfection of manner which was
+demanded from him. We are here in the presence of a modern distinction,
+based on culture and on wealth, but on the latter solely because it
+enables men to devote their life to the former, and effectually to
+promote its interests and advancement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE OUTWARD REFINEMENT OF LIFE.
+
+
+But in proportion as distinctions of birth ceased to confer any special
+privilege, was the individual himself compelled to make the most of his
+personal qualities, and society to find its worth and charm in itself.
+The demeanour of individuals, and all the higher forms of social
+intercourse, became ends pursued with a deliberate and artistic purpose.
+
+Even the outward appearance of men and women and the habits of daily
+life were more perfect, more beautiful, and more polished than among the
+other nations of Europe. The dwellings of the upper classes fall rather
+within the province of the history of art; but we may note how far the
+castle and the city mansion in Italy surpassed in comfort, order, and
+harmony the dwellings of the northern noble. The style of dress varied
+so continually that it is impossible to make any complete comparison
+with the fashions of other countries, all the more because since the
+close of the fifteenth century imitations of the latter were frequent.
+The costumes of the time, as given us by the Italian painters, are the
+most convenient and the most pleasing to the eye which were then to be
+found in Europe; but we cannot be sure if they represent the prevalent
+fashion, or if they are faithfully reproduced by the artist. It is
+nevertheless beyond a doubt that nowhere was so much importance attached
+to dress as in Italy. The people was, and is, vain; and even serious men
+among it looked on a handsome and becoming costume as an element in the
+perfection of the individual. At Florence, indeed, there was a brief
+period, when dress was a purely personal matter, and every man set the
+fashion for himself (p. 130, note 1), and till far into the sixteenth
+century there were exceptional people who still had the courage to do
+so;[831] and the majority at all events showed themselves capable of
+varying the fashion according to their individual tastes. It is a
+symptom of decline when Giovanni della Casa warns his readers not to be
+singular or to depart from existing fashions.[832] Our own age, which,
+in men's dress at any rate, treats uniformity as the supreme law, gives
+up by so doing far more than it is itself aware of. But it saves itself
+much time, and this, according to our notions of business, outweighs all
+other disadvantages.
+
+In Venice[833] and Florence at the time of the Renaissance there were
+rules and regulations prescribing the dress of the men and restraining
+the luxury of the women. Where the fashions were less free, as in
+Naples, the moralists confess with regret that no difference can be
+observed between noble and burgher.[834] They further deplore the rapid
+changes of fashion, and--if we rightly understand their words--the
+senseless idolatry of whatever comes from France, though in many cases
+the fashions which were received back from the French were originally
+Italian. It does not further concern us, how far these frequent changes,
+and the adoption of French and Spanish ways,[835] contributed to the
+national passion for external display; but we find in them additional
+evidence of the rapid movement of life in Italy in the decades before
+and after the year 1500. The occupation of different parts of Italy by
+foreigners caused the inhabitants not only to adopt foreign fashions,
+but sometimes to abandon all luxury in matters of dress. Such a change
+in public feeling at Milan is recorded by Landi. But the differences, he
+tells us, in costume continued to exist, Naples distinguishing itself by
+splendour, and Florence, to the eye of the writer, by absurdity.[836]
+
+We may note in particular the efforts of the women to alter their
+appearance by all the means which the toilette could afford. In no
+country of Europe since the fall of the Roman empire was so much trouble
+taken to modify the face, the colour of skin and the growth of the
+hair, as in Italy at this time.[837] All tended to the formation of a
+conventional type, at the cost of the most striking and transparent
+deceptions. Leaving out of account costume in general, which in the
+fourteenth century[838] was in the highest degree varied in colour and
+loaded with ornament, and at a later period assumed a character of more
+harmonious richness, we here limit ourselves more particularly to the
+toilette in the narrower sense.
+
+No sort of ornament was more in use than false hair, often made of white
+or yellow silk.[839] The law denounced and forbade it in vain, till some
+preacher of repentance touched the worldly minds of the wearers. Then
+was seen, in the middle of the public square, a lofty pyre (talamo), on
+which, beside lutes, dice-boxes, masks, magical charms, song-books, and
+other vanities, lay masses of false hair,[840] which the purging fires
+soon turned into a heap of ashes. The ideal colour sought for both in
+natural and artificial hair, was blond. And as the sun was supposed to
+have the power of making the hair of this colour,[841] many ladies would
+pass their whole time in the open air on sunshiny days.[842] Dyes and
+other mixtures were also used freely for the same purpose. Besides all
+these, we meet with an endless list of beautifying waters, plasters, and
+paints for every single part of the face--even for the teeth and
+eyelids--of which in our day we can form no conception. The ridicule of
+the poets,[843] the invectives of the preachers, and the experience of
+the baneful effects of these cosmetics on the skin, were powerless to
+hinder women from giving their faces an unnatural form and colour. It is
+possible that the frequent and splendid representations of
+Mysteries,[844] at which hundreds of people appeared painted and masked,
+helped to further this practice in daily life. It is certain that it was
+widely spread, and that the countrywomen vied in this respect with their
+sisters in the towns.[845] It was vain to preach that such decorations
+were the mark of the courtesan; the most honourable matrons, who all the
+year round never touched paint, used it nevertheless on holidays when
+they showed themselves in public.[846] But whether we look on this bad
+habit as a remnant of barbarism, to which the painting of savages is a
+parallel, or as a consequence of the desire for perfect youthful beauty
+in features and in colour, as the art and complexity of the toilette
+would lead us to think--in either case there was no lack of good advice
+on the part of the men.
+
+The use of perfumes, too, went beyond all reasonable limits. They were
+applied to everything with which human beings came into contact. At
+festivals even the mules were treated with scents and ointments,[847]
+Pietro Aretino thanks Cosimo I. for a perfumed roll of money.[848]
+
+The Italians of that day lived in the belief that they were more cleanly
+than other nations. There are in fact general reasons which speak rather
+for than against this claim. Cleanliness is indispensable to our modern
+notion of social perfection, which was developed in Italy earlier than
+elsewhere. That the Italians were one of the richest of existing
+peoples, is another presumption in their favour. Proof, either for or
+against these pretensions, can of course never be forthcoming, and if
+the question were one of priority in establishing rules of cleanliness,
+the chivalrous poetry of the Middle Ages is perhaps in advance of
+anything that Italy can produce. It is nevertheless certain that the
+singular neatness and cleanliness of some distinguished representatives
+of the Renaissance, especially in their behaviour at meals, was noticed
+expressly,[849] and that 'German' was the synonym in Italy for all that
+is filthy.[850] The dirty habits which Massimiliano Sforza picked up in
+the course of his German education, and the notice they attracted on his
+return to Italy, are recorded by Giovio.[851] It is at the same time
+very curious that, at least in the fifteenth century, the inns and
+hotels were left chiefly in the hands of Germans,[852] who probably,
+however, made their profit mostly out of the pilgrims journeying to
+Rome. Yet the statements on this point may refer rather to the country
+districts, since it is notorious that in the great cities Italian hotels
+held the first place.[853] The want of decent inns in the country may
+also be explained by the general insecurity of life and property.
+
+To the first half of the sixteenth century belongs the manual of
+politeness which Giovanni della Casa, a Florentine by birth, published
+under the title 'Il Galateo.' Not only cleanliness in the strict sense
+of the word, but the dropping of all the tricks and habits which we
+consider unbecoming, is here prescribed with the same unfailing tact
+with which the moralist discerns the highest ethical truths. In the
+literature of other countries the same lessons are taught, though less
+systematically, by the indirect influence of repulsive descriptions.[854]
+
+In other respects also, the 'Galateo' is a graceful and intelligent
+guide to good manners--a school of tact and delicacy. Even now it may be
+read with no small profit by people of all classes, and the politeness
+of European nations is not likely to outgrow its precepts. So far as
+tact is an affair of the heart, it has been inborn in some men from the
+dawn of civilization, and acquired through force of will by others; but
+the Italian first recognised it as a universal social duty and a mark of
+culture and education. And Italy itself had altered much in the course
+of two centuries. We feel at their close that the time for practical
+jokes between friends and acquaintances--for 'burle' and 'beffe' (p. 155
+sqq.)--was over in good society,[855] that the people had emerged from
+the walls of the cities and had learned a cosmopolitan politeness and
+consideration. We shall speak later on of the intercourse of society in
+the narrower sense.
+
+Outward life, indeed, in the fifteenth and the early part of the
+sixteenth centuries was polished and ennobled as among no other people
+in the world. A countless number of those small things and great things
+which combine to make up what we mean by comfort, we know to have first
+appeared in Italy. In the well-paved streets of the Italian cities,[856]
+driving was universal, while elsewhere in Europe walking or riding was
+the customs, and at all events no one drove for amusement. We read in
+the novelists of soft, elastic beds, of costly carpets and bedroom
+furniture, of which we hear nothing in other countries.[857] We often
+hear especially of the abundance and beauty of the linen. Much of all
+this is drawn within the sphere of art. We note with admiration the
+thousand ways in which art ennobles luxury, not only adorning the
+massive sideboard or the light brackets with noble vases and clothing
+the walls with the moving splendour of tapestry, and covering the
+toilet-table with numberless graceful trifles, but absorbing whole
+branches of mechanical work--especially carpentering--into its province.
+All western Europe, as soon as its wealth enabled it to do so, set to
+work in the same way at the close of the Middle Ages. But its efforts
+produced either childish and fantastic toy-work, or were bound by the
+chains of a narrow and purely Gothic art, while the Renaissance moved
+freely, entering into the spirit of every task it undertook and working
+for a far larger circle of patrons and admirers than the northern
+artist. The rapid victory of Italian decorative art over northern in the
+course of the sixteenth century is due partly to this fact, though
+partly the result of wider and more general causes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+LANGUAGE AS THE BASIS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
+
+
+The higher forms of social intercourse, which here meet us as a work of
+art--as a conscious product and one of the highest products of national
+life--have no more important foundation and condition than language.
+
+In the most flourishing period of the Middle Ages, the nobility of
+Western Europe had sought to establish a 'courtly' speech for social
+intercourse as well as for poetry. In Italy, too, where the dialects
+differed so greatly from one another, we find in the thirteenth century
+a so-called 'Curiale,' which was common to the courts and to the poets.
+It is of decisive importance for Italy that the attempt was there
+seriously and deliberately made to turn this into the language of
+literature and society. The introduction to the 'Cento Novelle Antiche,'
+which were put into their present shape before 1300, avow this object
+openly. Language is here considered apart from its uses in poetry; its
+highest function is clear, simple, intelligent utterance in short
+speeches, epigrams, and answers. This faculty was admired in Italy, as
+nowhere else but among the Greeks and Arabians: 'how many in the course
+of a long life have scarcely produced a single "bel parlare."'
+
+But the matter was rendered more difficult by the diversity of the
+aspects under which it was considered. The writings of Dante transport
+us into the midst of the struggle. His work on 'the Italian
+language'[858] is not only of the utmost importance for the subject
+itself, but is also the first complete treatise on any modern language.
+His method and results belong to the history of linguistic science, in
+which they will always hold a high place. We must here content
+ourselves with the remark that long before the appearance of this book
+the subject must have been one of daily and pressing importance, that
+the various dialects of Italy had long been the objects of eager study
+and dispute, and that the birth of the one classical language was not
+accomplished without many throes.[859]
+
+Nothing certainly contributed so much to this end as the great poem of
+Dante. The Tuscan dialect became the basis of the new national
+speech.[860] If this assertion may seem to some to go too far, as
+foreigners we may be excused, in a matter on which much difference of
+opinion prevails, for following the general belief.
+
+Literature and poetry probably lost more than they gained by the
+contentious purism which was long prevalent in Italy, and which marred
+the freshness and vigour of many an able writer. Others, again, who felt
+themselves masters of this magnificent language, were tempted to rely
+upon its harmony and flow, apart from the thought which it expressed. A
+very insignificant melody, played upon such an instrument, can produce a
+very great effect. But however this may be, it is certain that socially
+the language had great value. It was, as it were, the crown of a noble
+and dignified behaviour, and compelled the gentleman, both in his
+ordinary bearing and in exceptional moments to observe external
+propriety. No doubt this classical garment, like the language of Attic
+society, served to drape much that was foul and malicious; but it was
+also the adequate expression of all that is noblest and most refined.
+But politically and nationally it was of supreme importance, serving as
+an ideal home for the educated classes in all the states of the divided
+peninsula.[861] Nor was it the special property of the nobles or of any
+one class, but the poorest and humblest might learn it if they would.
+Even now--and perhaps more than ever--in those parts of Italy where, as
+a rule, the most unintelligible dialect prevails, the stranger is often
+astonished at hearing pure and well-spoken Italian from the mouths of
+peasants or artisans, and looks in vain for anything analogous in France
+or in Germany, where even the educated classes retain traces of a
+provincial speech. There are certainly a larger number of people able to
+read in Italy than we should be led to expect from the condition of many
+parts of the country--as for instance, the States of the Church--in
+other respects; but what is of more importance is the general and
+undisputed respect for pure language and pronunciation as something
+precious and sacred. One part of the country after another came to adopt
+the classical dialect officially. Venice, Milan, and Naples did so at
+the noontime of Italian literature, and partly through its influences.
+It was not till the present century that Piedmont became of its own free
+will a genuine Italian province by sharing in this chief treasure of the
+people--pure speech.[862] The dialects were from the beginning of the
+sixteenth century purposely left to deal with a certain class of
+subjects, serious as well as comic,[863] and the style which was thus
+developed proved equal to all its tasks. Among other nations a conscious
+separation of this kind did not occur till a much later period.
+
+The opinion of educated people as to the social value of language, is
+fully set forth in the 'Cortigiano.'[864] There were then persons, at
+the beginning of the sixteenth century, who purposely kept to the
+antiquated expressions of Dante and the other Tuscan writers of his
+time, simply because they were old. Our author forbids the use of them
+altogether in speech, and is unwilling to permit them even in writing,
+which he considers a form of speech. Upon this follows the admission
+that the best style of speech is that which most resembles good writing.
+We can clearly recognise the author's feeling that people who have
+anything of importance to say must shape their own speech, and that
+language is something flexible and changing because it is something
+living. It is allowable to make use of any expression, however ornate,
+as long as it is used by the people; nor are non-Tuscan words, or even
+French and Spanish words forbidden, if custom has once applied them to
+definite purposes.[865] Thus care and intelligence will produce a
+language, which, if not the pure old Tuscan, is still Italian, rich in
+flowers and fruit like a well-kept garden. It belongs to the
+completeness of the 'Cortigiano' that his wit, his polished manners, and
+his poetry, must be clothed in this perfect dress.
+
+When style and language had once become the property of a living
+society, all the efforts of purists and archaists failed to secure their
+end. Tuscany itself was rich in writers and talkers of the first order,
+who ignored and ridiculed these endeavours. Ridicule in abundance
+awaited the foreign scholar who explained to the Tuscans how little they
+understood their own language.[866] The life and influence of a writer
+like Macchiavelli was enough to sweep away all these cobwebs. His
+vigorous thoughts, his clear and simple mode of expression wore a form
+which had any merit but that of the 'Trecentisti.' And on the other hand
+there were too many North Italians, Romans, and Neapolitans, who were
+thankful if the demand for purity of style in literature and
+conversation was not pressed too far. They repudiated, indeed, the forms
+and idioms of their dialect; and Bandello, with what a foreigner might
+suspect to be false modesty, is never tired of declaring: 'I have no
+style; I do not write like a Florentine, but like a barbarian; I am not
+ambitious of giving new graces to my language; I am a Lombard, and from
+the Ligurian border into the bargain.'[867] But the claims of the
+purists were most successfully met by the express renunciation of the
+higher qualities of style, and the adoption of a vigorous, popular
+language in their stead. Few could hope to rival Pietro Bembo who,
+though born in Venice, nevertheless wrote the purest Tuscan, which to
+him was a foreign language, or the Neapolitan Sannazaro, who did the
+same. But the essential point was that language, whether spoken or
+written, was held to be an object of respect. As long as this feeling
+was prevalent, the fanaticism of the purists--their linguistic
+congresses and the rest of it[868]--did little harm. Their bad influence
+was not felt till much later, when the original power of Italian
+literature relaxed, and yielded to other and far worse influences. At
+last it became possible for the Accademia della Crusca to treat Italian
+like a dead language. But this association proved so helpless that it
+could not even hinder the invasion of Gallicism in the eighteenth
+century.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+This language--loved, tended, and trained to every use--now served as
+the basis of social intercourse. In northern countries, the nobles and
+the princes passed their leisure either in solitude, or in hunting,
+fighting, drinking, and the like; the burghers in games and bodily
+exercises, with a mixture of literary or festive amusement. In Italy
+there existed a neutral ground, where people of every origin, if they
+had the needful talent and culture, spent their time in conversation and
+the polished interchange of jest and earnest. As eating and drinking
+formed a small part of such entertainments,[869] it was not difficult to
+keep at a distance those who sought society for these objects. If we are
+to take the writers of dialogues literally, the loftiest problems of
+human existence were not excluded from the conversation of thinking men,
+and the production of noble thoughts was not, as was commonly the case
+in the North, the work of solitude, but of society. But we must here
+limit ourselves to the less serious side of social intercourse--to the
+side which existed only for the sake of amusement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE HIGHER FORMS OF SOCIETY.
+
+
+This society, at all events at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
+was a matter of art; and had, and rested on, tacit or avowed rules of
+good sense and propriety, which are the exact reverse of all mere
+etiquette. In less polished circles, where society took the form of a
+permanent corporation, we meet with a system of formal rules and a
+prescribed mode of entrance, as was the case with those wild sets of
+Florentine artists of whom Vasari tells us that they were capable of
+giving representations of the best comedies of the day.[870] In the
+easier intercourse of society it was not unusual to select some
+distinguished lady as president, whose word was law for the evening.
+Everybody knows the introduction to Boccaccio's 'Decameron,' and looks
+on the presidency of Pampinea as a graceful fiction. That it was so in
+this particular case is a matter of course; but the fiction was
+nevertheless based on a practice which often occurred in reality.
+Firenzuola, who nearly two centuries later (1523) prefaces his
+collection of tales in a similar manner, with express reference to
+Boccaccio, comes assuredly nearer to the truth when he puts into the
+mouth of the queen of the society a formal speech on the mode of
+spending the hours during the stay which the company proposed to make in
+the country. The day was to begin with a stroll among the hills passed
+in philosophical talk; then followed breakfast,[871] with music and
+singing, after which came the recitation, in some cool, shady spot, of
+a new poem, the subject of which had been given the night before; in the
+evening the whole party walked to a spring of water where they all sat
+down and each one told a tale; last of all came supper and lively
+conversation 'of such a kind that the women might listen to it without
+shame and the men might not seem to be speaking under the influence of
+wine.' Bandello, in the introductions and dedications to single novels,
+does not give us, it is true, such inaugural discourses as this, since
+the circles before which the stories are told are represented as already
+formed; but he gives us to understand in other ways how rich, how
+manifold, and how charming the conditions of society must have been.
+Some readers may be of opinion that no good was to be got from a world
+which was willing to be amused by such immoral literature. It would be
+juster to wonder at the secure foundations of a society which,
+notwithstanding these tales, still observed the rules of order and
+decency, and which knew how to vary such pastimes with serious and solid
+discussion. The need of noble forms of social intercourse was felt to be
+stronger than all others. To convince ourselves of it, we are not
+obliged to take as our standard the idealised society which Castiglione
+depicts as discussing the loftiest sentiments and aims of human life at
+the court of Guidobaldo of Urbino, and Pietro Bembo at the castle of
+Asolo. The society described by Bandello, with all the frivolities which
+may be laid to its charge, enables us to form the best notion of the
+easy and polished dignity, of the urbane kindliness, of the intellectual
+freedom, of the wit and the graceful dilettantism which distinguished
+these circles. A significant proof of the value of such circles lies in
+the fact that the women who were the centres of them could become famous
+and illustrious without in any way compromising their reputation. Among
+the patronesses of Bandello, for example, Isabella Gonzaga (born an
+Este, p. 44) was talked of unfavourably not through any fault of her
+own, but on account of the too free-lived young ladies who filled her
+court.[872] Giulia Gonzaga Colonna, Ippolita Sforza married to a
+Bentivoglio, Bianca Rangona, Cecilia Gallerana, Camilla Scarampa, and
+others were either altogether irreproachable, or their social fame threw
+into the shade whatever they may have done amiss. The most famous woman
+of Italia, Vittoria Colonna[873] (b. 1490, d. 1547), the friend of
+Castiglione and Michelangelo, enjoyed the reputation of a saint. It is
+hard to give such a picture of the unconstrained intercourse of these
+circles in the city, at the baths, or in the country, as will furnish
+literal proof of the superiority of Italy in this respect over the rest
+of Europe. But let us read Bandello,[874] and then ask ourselves if
+anything of the same kind would have been then possible, say, in France,
+before this kind of society was there introduced by people like himself.
+No doubt the supreme achievements of the human mind were then produced
+independently of the helps of the drawing-room. Yet it would be unjust
+to rate the influence of the latter on art and poetry too low, if only
+for the reason that society helped to shape that which existed in no
+other country--a widespread interest in artistic production and an
+intelligent and critical public opinion. And apart from this, society of
+the kind we have described was in itself a natural flower of that life
+and culture which then was purely Italian, and which since then has
+extended to the rest of Europe.
+
+In Florence society was powerfully affected by literature and politics.
+Lorenzo the Magnificent was supreme over his circle, not, as we might be
+led to believe, through the princely position which he occupied, but
+rather through the wonderful tact he displayed in giving perfect freedom
+of action to the many and varied natures which surrounded him.[875] We
+see how gently he dealt with his great tutor Politian, and how the
+sovereignty of the poet and scholar was reconciled, though not without
+difficulty, with the inevitable reserve prescribed by the approaching
+change in the position of the house of Medici and by consideration for
+the sensitiveness of the wife. In return for the treatment he received,
+Politian became the herald and the living symbol of Medicean glory.
+Lorenzo, after the fashion of a true Medici, delighted in giving an
+outward and artistic expression to his social amusements. In his
+brilliant improvisation--the Hawking Party--he gives us a humorous
+description of his comrades, and in the Symposium a burlesque of them,
+but in both cases in such a manner that we clearly feel his capacity for
+more serious companionship.[876] Of this intercourse his correspondence
+and the records of his literary and philosophical conversation give
+ample proof. Some of the social unions which were afterwards formed in
+Florence were in part political clubs, though not without a certain
+poetical and philosophical character also. Of this kind was the
+so-called Platonic Academy which met after Lorenzo's death in the
+gardens of the Ruccellai.[877]
+
+At the courts of the princes, society naturally depended on the
+character of the ruler. After the beginning of the sixteenth century
+they became few in number, and these few soon lost their importance.
+Rome, however, possessed in the unique court of Leo X. a society to
+which the history of the world offers no parallel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE PERFECT MAN OF SOCIETY.
+
+
+It was for this society--or rather for his own sake--that the
+'Cortigiano,' as described to us by Castiglione, educated himself. He
+was the ideal man of society, and was regarded by the civilisation of
+that age as its choicest flower; and the court existed for him far
+rather than he for the court. Indeed, such a man would have been out of
+place at any court, since he himself possessed all the gifts and the
+bearing of an accomplished ruler, and because his calm supremacy in all
+things, both outward and spiritual, implied a too independent nature.
+The inner impulse which inspired him was directed, though our author
+does not acknowledge the fact, not to the service of the prince, but to
+his own perfection. One instance will make this clear.[878] In time of
+war the courtier refuses even useful and perilous tasks, if they are not
+beautiful and dignified in themselves, such as for instance the capture
+of a herd of cattle; what urges him to take part in war is not duty, but
+'l'onore.' The moral relation to the prince, as prescribed in the fourth
+book, is singularly free and independent. The theory of well-bred
+love-making, set forth in the third book, is full of delicate
+psychological observation, which perhaps would be more in place in a
+treatise on human nature generally; and the magnificent praise of ideal
+love, which occurs at the end of the fourth book, and which rises to a
+lyrical elevation of feeling, has no connection whatever with the
+special object of the work. Yet here, as in the 'Asolani' of Bembo, the
+culture of the time shows itself in the delicacy with which this
+sentiment is represented and analysed. It is true that these writers are
+not in all cases to be taken literally; but that the discourses they
+give us were actually frequent in good society, cannot be doubted, and
+that it was no affectation, but genuine passion, which appeared in this
+dress, we shall see further on.
+
+Among outward accomplishments, the so-called knightly exercises were
+expected in thorough perfection from the courtier, and besides these
+much that could only exist at courts highly organised and based on
+personal emulation, such as were not to be found out of Italy. Other
+points obviously rest on an abstract notion of individual perfection.
+The courtier must be at home in all noble sports, among them running,
+leaping, swimming, and wrestling; he must, above all things, be a good
+dancer and, as a matter of course, an accomplished rider. He must be
+master of several languages; at all events of Latin and Italian; he must
+be familiar with literature and have some knowledge of the fine arts. In
+music a certain practical skill was expected of him, which he was bound,
+nevertheless, to keep as secret as possible. All this is not to be taken
+too seriously, except what relates to the use of arms. The mutual
+interaction of these gifts and accomplishments results in the perfect
+man, in whom no one quality usurps the place of the rest.
+
+So much is certain, that in the sixteenth century the Italians had all
+Europe for their pupils both theoretically and practically in every
+noble bodily exercise and in the habits and manners of good society.
+Their instructions and their illustrated books on riding, fencing, and
+dancing served as the model to other countries. Gymnastics as an art,
+apart both from military training and from mere amusement, was probably
+first taught by Vittorino da Feltre (p. 213) and after his time became
+essential to a complete education.[879] The important fact is that they
+were taught systematically, though what exercises were most in favour,
+and whether they resembled those now in use, we are unable to say. But
+we may infer, not only from the general character of the people, but
+from positive evidence which has been left for us, that not only
+strength and skill, but grace of movement was one of the main objects of
+physical training. It is enough to remind the reader of the great
+Frederick of Urbino (p. 44) directing the evening games of the young
+people committed to his care.
+
+The games and contests of the popular classes did not differ essentially
+from those which prevailed elsewhere in Europe. In the maritime cities
+boat-racing was among the number, and the Venetian regattas were famous
+at an early period.[880] The classical game of Italy was and is the
+ball; and this was probably played at the time of the Renaissance with
+more zeal and brilliancy than elsewhere. But on this point no distinct
+evidence is forthcoming.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A few words on music will not be out of place in this part of our
+work.[881] Musical composition down to the year 1500 was chiefly in the
+hands of the Flemish school, whose originality and artistic dexterity
+were greatly admired. Side by side with this, there nevertheless existed
+an Italian school, which probably stood nearer to our present taste.
+Half a century later came Palestrina, whose genius still works
+powerfully among us. We learn among other facts that he was a great
+innovator; but whether he or others took the decisive part in shaping
+the musical language of the modern world lies beyond the judgment of the
+unprofessional critic. Leaving on one side the history of musical
+composition, we shall confine ourselves to the position which music held
+in the social life of the day.
+
+A fact most characteristic of the Renaissance and of Italy is the
+specialisation of the orchestra, the search for new instruments and
+modes of sound, and, in close connection with this tendency, the
+formation of a class of 'virtuosi,' who devoted their whole attention to
+particular instruments or particular branches of music.
+
+Of the more complex instruments, which were perfected and widely
+diffused at a very early period, we find not only the organ, but a
+corresponding string-instrument, the 'gravicembalo' or 'clavicembalo.'
+Fragments of these, dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century,
+have come down to our own days, adorned with paintings from the hands of
+the greatest masters. Among other instruments the first place was held
+by the violin, which even then conferred great celebrity on the
+successful player. At the court of Leo X., who, when cardinal, had
+filled his house with singers and musicians, and who enjoyed the
+reputation of a critic and performer, the Jew Giovan Maria and Jacopo
+Sansecondo were among the most famous. The former received from Leo the
+title of count and a small town;[882] the latter has been taken to be
+the Apollo in the Parnassus of Raphael. In the course of the sixteenth
+century, celebrities in every branch of music appeared in abundance, and
+Lomazzo (about the year 1580) names the then most distinguished masters
+of the art of singing, of the organ, the lute, the lyre, the 'viola da
+gamba,' the harp, the cithern, the horn, and the trumpet, and wishes
+that their portraits might be painted on the instruments
+themselves.[883] Such many-sided comparative criticism would have been
+impossible anywhere but in Italy, although the same instruments were to
+be found in other countries.
+
+The number and variety of these instruments is shown by the fact that
+collections of them were now made from curiosity. In Venice, which was
+one of the most musical cities of Italy,[884] there were several such
+collections, and when a sufficient number of performers happened to be
+on the spot, a concert was at once improvised. In one of these museums
+there were a large number of instruments, made after ancient pictures
+and descriptions, but we are not told if anybody could play them, or how
+they sounded. It must not be forgotten that such instruments were often
+beautifully decorated, and could be arranged in a manner pleasing to the
+eye. We thus meet with them in collections of other rarities and works
+of art.
+
+The players, apart from the professional performers, were either single
+amateurs, or whole orchestras of them, organised into a corporate
+Academy.[885] Many artists in other branches were at home in music, and
+often masters of the art. People of position were averse to
+wind-instruments, for the same reason[886] which made them distasteful
+to Alcibiades and Pallas Athene. In good society singing, either alone
+or accompanied with the violin, was usual; but quartettes of
+string-instruments were also common,[887] and the 'clavicembalo' was
+liked on account of its varied effects. In singing the solo only was
+permitted, 'for a single voice is heard, enjoyed, and judged far
+better.' In other words, as singing, notwithstanding all conventional
+modesty, is an exhibition of the individual man of society, it is better
+that each should be seen and heard separately. The tender feelings
+produced in the fair listeners are taken for granted, and elderly people
+are therefore recommended to abstain from such forms of art, even though
+they excel in them. It was held important that the effect of the song
+should be enhanced by the impression made on the sight. We hear nothing
+however of the treatment in these circles of musical composition as an
+independent branch of art. On the other hand it happened sometimes that
+the subject of the song was some terrible event which had befallen the
+singer himself.[888]
+
+This dilettantism, which pervaded the middle as well as the upper
+classes, was in Italy both more widely spread and more genuinely
+artistic than in any other country of Europe. Wherever we meet with a
+description of social intercourse, there music and singing are always
+and expressly mentioned. Hundreds of portraits show us men and women,
+often several together, playing or holding some musical instrument, and
+the angelic concerts represented in the ecclesiastical pictures prove
+how familiar the painters were with the living effects of music. We read
+of the lute-player Antonio Rota, at Padua (d. 1549), who became a rich
+man by his lessons, and published a handbook to the practice of the
+lute.[889]
+
+At a time when there was no opera to concentrate and monopolise musical
+talent, this general cultivation of the art must have been something
+wonderfully varied, intelligent, and original. It is another question
+how much we should find to satisfy us in these forms of music, could
+they now be reproduced for us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE POSITION OF WOMEN.
+
+
+To understand the higher forms of social intercourse at this period, we
+must keep before our minds the fact that women stood on a footing of
+perfect equality with men.[890] We must not suffer ourselves to be
+misled by the sophistical and often malicious talk about the assumed
+inferiority of the female sex, which we meet with now and then in the
+dialogues of this time,[891] nor by such satires as the third of
+Ariosto,[892] who treats woman as a dangerous grown-up child, whom a man
+must learn how to manage, in spite of the great gulf between them.
+There is, indeed, a certain amount of truth in what he says. Just
+because the educated woman was on a level with the man, that communion
+of mind and heart which comes from the sense of mutual dependence and
+completion, could not be developed in marriage at this time, as it has
+been developed later in the cultivated society of the North.
+
+The education given to women in the upper classes was essentially the
+same as that given to men. The Italian, at the time of the Renaissance,
+felt no scruple in putting sons and daughters alike under the same
+course of literary and even philological instruction (p. 222). Indeed,
+looking at this ancient culture as the chief treasure of life, he was
+glad that his girls should have a share in it. We have seen what
+perfection was attained by the daughters of princely houses in writing
+and speaking Latin (p. 234).[893] Many others must at least have been
+able to read it, in order to follow the conversation of the day, which
+turned largely on classical subjects. An active interest was taken by
+many in Italian poetry, in which, whether prepared or improvised, a
+large number of Italian women, from the time of the Venetian Cassandra
+Fedele onwards (about the close of the fifteenth century), made
+themselves famous.[894] One, indeed, Vittoria Colonna, may be called
+immortal. If any proof were needed of the assertion made above, it would
+be found in the manly tone of this poetry. Even the love-sonnets and
+religious poems are so precise and definite in their character, and so
+far removed from the tender twilight of sentiment, and from all the
+dilettantism which we commonly find in the poetry of women, that we
+should not hesitate to attribute them to male authors, if we had not
+clear external evidence to prove the contrary.
+
+For, with education, the individuality of women in the upper classes
+was developed in the same way as that of men. Till the time of the
+Reformation, the personality of women out of Italy, even of the highest
+rank, comes forward but little. Exceptions like Isabella of Bavaria,
+Margaret of Anjou, and Isabella of Castille, are the forced result of
+very unusual circumstances. In Italy, throughout the whole of the
+fifteenth century, the wives of the rulers, and still more those of the
+Condottieri, have nearly all a distinct, recognisable personality, and
+take their share of notoriety and glory. To these came gradually to be
+added a crowd of famous women of the most varied kind (i. p. 147, note
+1); among them those whose distinction consisted in the fact that their
+beauty, disposition, education, virtue, and piety, combined to render
+them harmonious human beings.[895] There was no question of 'woman's
+rights' or female emancipation, simply because the thing itself was a
+matter of course. The educated woman, no less than the man, strove
+naturally after a characteristic and complete individuality. The same
+intellectual and emotional development which perfected the man, was
+demanded for the perfection of the woman. Active literary work,
+nevertheless, was not expected from her, and if she were a poet, some
+powerful utterance of feeling, rather than the confidences of the novel
+or the diary, was looked for. These women had no thought of the
+public;[896] their function was to influence distinguished men, and to
+moderate male impulse and caprice.
+
+The highest praise which could then be given to the great Italian women
+was that they had the mind and the courage of men. We have only to
+observe the thoroughly manly bearing of most of the women in the heroic
+poems, especially those of Bojardo and Ariosto, to convince ourselves
+that we have before us the ideal of the time. The title 'virago,' which
+is an equivocal compliment in the present day, then implied nothing but
+praise. It was borne in all its glory by Caterina Sforza, wife and
+afterwards widow of Giroloma Riario, whose hereditary possession, Forli,
+she gallantly defended first against his murderers, and then against
+Cæsar Borgia. Though finally vanquished, she retained the admiration of
+her countrymen and the title 'prima donna d'Italia.'[897] This heroic
+vein can be detected in many of the women of the Renaissance, though
+none found the same opportunity of showing their heroism to the world.
+In Isabella Gonzaga this type is clearly recognisable, and not less in
+Clarice, of the House of Medici, the wife of Filippo Strozzi.[898]
+
+Women of this stamp could listen to novels like those of Bandello,
+without social intercourse suffering from it. The ruling genius of
+society was not, as now, womanhood, or the respect for certain
+presuppositions, mysteries, and susceptibilities, but the consciousness
+of energy, of beauty, and of a social state full of danger and
+opportunity. And for this reason we find, side by side with the most
+measured and polished social forms, something our age would call
+immodesty,[899] forgetting that by which it was corrected and
+counterbalanced--the powerful characters of the women who were exposed
+to it.
+
+That in all the dialogues and treatises together we can find no absolute
+evidence on these points is only natural, however freely the nature of
+love and the position and capacities of women were discussed.
+
+What seems to have been wanting in this society were the young
+girls,[900] who, even when not brought up in the monasteries, were still
+carefully kept away from it. It is not easy to say whether their absence
+was the cause of the greater freedom of conversation, or whether they
+were removed on account of it.
+
+Even the intercourse with courtesans seems to have assumed a more
+elevated character, reminding us of the position of the Hetairae in
+Classical Athens. The famous Roman courtesan Imperia was a woman of
+intelligence and culture, had learned from a certain Domenico
+Campana the art of making sonnets, and was not without musical
+accomplishments.[901] The beautiful Isabella de Luna, of Spanish
+extraction, who was reckoned amusing company, seems to have been an odd
+compound of a kind heart with a shockingly foul tongue, which latter
+sometimes brought her into trouble.[902] At Milan, Bandello knew the
+majestic Caterina di San Celso,[903] who played and sang and recited
+superbly. It is clear from all we read on the subject that the
+distinguished people who visited these women, and from time to time
+lived with them, demanded from them a considerable degree of
+intelligence and instruction, and that the famous courtesans were
+treated with no slight respect and consideration. Even when relations
+with them were broken off, their good opinion was still desired,[904]
+which shows that departed passion had left permanent traces behind. But
+on the whole this intellectual intercourse is not worth mentioning by
+the side of that sanctioned by the recognised forms of social life, and
+the traces which it has left in poetry and literature are for the most
+part of a scandalous nature. We may well be astonished that among the
+6,800 persons of this class, who were to be found in Rome in
+1490[905]--that is, before the appearance of syphilis--scarcely a
+single woman seems to have been remarkable for any higher gifts. These
+whom we have mentioned all belong to the period which immediately
+followed. The mode of life, the morals and the philosophy of the public
+women, who with all their sensuality and greed were not always incapable
+of deeper passions, as well as the hypocrisy and devilish malice shown
+by some in their later years, are best set forth by Giraldi, in the
+novels which form the introduction to the 'Hecatommithi.' Pietro
+Aretino, in his 'Ragionamenti,' gives us rather a picture of his own
+depraved character than of this unhappy class of women as they really
+were.
+
+The mistresses of the princes, as has already been pointed out (p. 53),
+were sung by poets and painted by artists, and in consequence have been
+personally familiar to their contemporaries and to posterity. We hardly
+know more than the name of Alice Perrers and of Clara Dettin, the
+mistress of Frederick the Victorious, and of Agnes Sorel have only a
+half-legendary story. With the monarchs of the age of the
+Renaissance--Francis I. and Henry II.--the case is different.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+DOMESTIC ECONOMY.
+
+
+After treating of the intercourse of society, let us glance for a moment
+at the domestic life of this period. We are commonly disposed to look on
+the family life of the Italians at this time as hopelessly ruined by the
+national immorality, and this side of the question will be more fully
+discussed in the sequel. For the moment we must content ourselves with
+pointing out that conjugal infidelity has by no means so disastrous an
+influence on family life in Italy as in the North, so long at least as
+certain limits are not overstepped.
+
+The domestic life of the Middle Ages was a product of popular morals, or
+if we prefer to put it otherwise, a result of the inborn tendencies of
+national life, modified by the varied circumstances which affected them.
+Chivalry at the time of its splendour left domestic economy untouched.
+The knight wandered from court to court, and from one battle-field to
+another. His homage was given systematically to some other woman than
+his own wife, and things went how they might at home in the castle.[906]
+The spirit of the Renaissance first brought order into domestic life,
+treating it as a work of deliberate contrivance. Intelligent economical
+views (p. 77), and a rational style of domestic architecture served to
+promote this end. But the chief cause of the change was the thoughtful
+study of all questions relating to social intercourse, to education, to
+domestic service and organisation.
+
+The most precious document on this subject is the treatise on the
+management of the home by Agnolo Pandolfini (L. B. Alberti).[907] He
+represents a father speaking to his grown-up sons, and initiating them
+into his method of administration. We are introduced into a large and
+wealthy household, which if governed with moderation and reasonable
+economy, promises happiness and prosperity for generations to come. A
+considerable landed estate, whose produce furnishes the table of the
+house, and serves as the basis of the family fortune, is combined with
+some industrial pursuit, such as the weaving of wool or silk. The
+dwelling is solid and the food good. All that has to do with the plan
+and arrangement of the house is great, durable, and costly, but the
+daily life within it is as simple as possible. All other expenses, from
+the largest in which the family honour is at stake, down to the
+pocket-money of the younger sons, stand to one another in a rational,
+not a conventional relation. Nothing is considered of so much importance
+as education, which the head of the house gives not only to the
+children, but to the whole household. He first develops his wife from a
+shy girl, brought up in careful seclusion, to the true woman of the
+house, capable of commanding and guiding the servants. The sons are
+brought up without any undue severity,[908] carefully watched and
+counselled, and controlled 'rather by authority than by force.' And
+finally the servants are chosen and treated on such principles that
+they gladly and faithfully hold by the family.
+
+One feature of this book must be referred to, which is by no means
+peculiar to it, but which it treats with special warmth--the love of the
+educated Italian for country life.[909] In northern countries the nobles
+lived in the country in their castles, and the monks of the higher
+orders in their well-guarded monasteries, while the wealthiest burghers
+dwelt from one year's end to another in the cities. But in Italy, so far
+as the neighbourhood of certain towns at all events was concerned,[910]
+the security of life and property was so great, and the passion for a
+country residence was so strong, that men were willing to risk a loss in
+time of war. Thus arose the villa, the country-house of the well-to-do
+citizen. This precious inheritance of the old Roman world was thus
+revived, as soon as the wealth and culture of the people were
+sufficiently advanced.
+
+One author finds at his villa a peace and happiness, for an account of
+which the reader must hear him speak himself: 'While every other
+possession causes work and danger, fear and disappointment, the villa
+brings a great and honourable advantage; the villa is always true and
+kind; if you dwell in it at the right time and with love, it will not
+only satisfy you, but add reward to reward. In spring the green trees
+and the song of the birds will make you joyful and hopeful; in autumn a
+moderate exertion will bring forth fruit a hundredfold; all through the
+year melancholy will be banished from you. The villa is the spot where
+good and honest men love to congregate. Nothing secret, nothing
+treacherous, is done here; all see all; here is no need of judges or
+witnesses, for all are kindly and peaceably disposed one to another.
+Hasten hither, and fly away from the pride of the rich, and the
+dishonour of the bad. O blessed life in the villa, O unknown fortune!'
+The economical side of the matter is that one and the same property
+must, if possible, contain everything--corn, wine, oil, pasture-land and
+woods, and that in such cases the property was paid for well, since
+nothing needed then to be got from the market. But the higher enjoyment
+derived from the villa is shown by some words of the introduction:
+'Round about Florence lie many villas in a transparent atmosphere, amid
+cheerful scenery, and with a splendid view; there is little fog, and no
+injurious winds; all is good, and the water pure and healthy. Of the
+numerous buildings many are like palaces, many like castles, costly and
+beautiful to behold.' He is speaking of those unrivalled villas, of
+which the greater number were sacrificed, though vainly, by the
+Florentines themselves in the defence of their city in the year
+1529.[911]
+
+In these villas, as in those on the Brenta, on the Lombard hills, at
+Posilippo and on the Vomero, social life assumed a freer and more rural
+character than in the palaces within the city. We meet with charming
+descriptions of the intercourse of the guests, the hunting-parties, and
+all the open-air pursuits and amusements.[912] But the noblest
+achievements of poetry and thought are sometimes also dated from these
+scenes of rural peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE FESTIVALS.
+
+
+It is by no arbitrary choice that in discussing the social life of this
+period, we are led to treat of the processions and shows which formed
+part of the popular festivals.[913] The artistic power of which the
+Italians of the Renaissance gave proof on such occasions,[914] was
+attained only by means of that free intercourse of all classes which
+formed the basis of Italian society. In Northern Europe the monasteries,
+the courts, and the burghers had their special feasts and shows as in
+Italy; but in the one case the form and substance of these displays
+differed according to the class which took part in them, in the other an
+art and culture common to the whole nation stamped them with both a
+higher and a more popular character. The decorative architecture, which
+served to aid in these festivals, deserves a chapter to itself in the
+history of art, although our imagination can only form a picture of it
+from the descriptions which have been left to us. We are here more
+especially concerned with the festival as a higher phase in the life of
+the people, in which its religious, moral, and poetical ideas took
+visible shape. The Italian festivals in their best form mark the point
+of transition from real life into the world of art.
+
+The two chief forms of festal display were originally here, as elsewhere
+in the West, the Mystery, or the dramatisation of sacred history and
+legend, and the Procession, the motive and character of which was also
+purely ecclesiastical.
+
+The performances of the Mysteries in Italy were from the first more
+frequent and splendid than elsewhere, and were most favourably affected
+by the progress of poetry and of the other arts. In the course of time
+not only did the farce and the secular drama branch off from the
+Mystery, as in other countries of Europe, but the pantomime also, with
+its accompaniments of singing and dancing, the effect of which depended
+on the richness and beauty of the spectacle.
+
+The Procession, in the broad, level, and well-paved streets of the
+Italian cities,[915] was soon developed into the 'Trionfo,' or train of
+masked figures on foot and in chariots, the ecclesiastical character of
+which gradually gave way to the secular. The processions at the Carnival
+and at the feast of Corpus Christi[916] were alike in the pomp and
+brilliancy with which they were conducted, and set the pattern
+afterwards followed by the royal or princely progresses. Other nations
+were willing to spend vast sums of money on these shows, but in Italy
+alone do we find an artistic method of treatment which arranged the
+procession as a harmonious and significative whole.
+
+What is left of these festivals is but a poor remnant of what once
+existed. Both religious and secular displays of this kind have abandoned
+the dramatic element--the costumes--partly from dread of ridicule, and
+partly because the cultivated classes, who formerly gave their whole
+energies to these things, have for several reasons lost their interest
+in them. Even at the Carnival, the great processions of masks are out of
+fashion. What still remains, such as the costumes adopted in imitation
+of certain religious confraternities, or even the brilliant festival of
+Santa Rosalia at Palermo, shows clearly how far the higher culture of
+the country has withdrawn from such interests.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The festivals did not reach their full development till after the
+decisive victory of the modern spirit in the fifteenth century,[917]
+unless perhaps Florence was here, as in other things, in advance of the
+rest of Italy. In Florence, the several quarters of the city were, in
+early times, organized with a view to such exhibitions, which demanded
+no small expenditure of artistic effort. Of this kind was the
+representation of Hell, with a scaffold and boats in the Arno, on the
+1st of May, 1304, when the Ponte alla Carraja broke down under the
+weight of the spectators.[918] That at a later time Florentines used to
+travel through Italy as directors of festivals (festaiuoli), shows that
+the art was early perfected at home.[919]
+
+In setting forth the chief points of superiority in the Italian
+festivals over those of other countries, the first that we shall have to
+remark is the developed sense of individual characteristics, in other
+words, the capacity to invent a given mask, and to act the part with
+dramatic propriety. Painters and sculptors not merely did their part
+towards the decoration of the place where the festival was held, but
+helped in getting up the characters themselves, and prescribed the
+dress, the paints (p. 373), and the other ornaments to be used. The
+second fact to be pointed out is the universal familiarity of the people
+with the poetical basis of the show. The Mysteries, indeed, were equally
+well understood all over Europe, since the biblical story and the
+legends of the saints were the common property of Christendom; but in
+all other respects the advantage was on the side of Italy. For the
+recitations, whether of religious or secular heroes, she possessed a
+lyrical poetry so rich and harmonious that none could resist its
+charm.[920] The majority, too, of the spectators--at least in the
+cities--understood the meaning of mythological figures, and could guess
+without much difficulty at the allegorical and historical, which were
+drawn from sources familiar to the mass of Italians.
+
+This point needs to be more fully discussed. The Middle Ages were
+essentially the ages of allegory. Theology and philosophy treated their
+categories as independent beings,[921] and poetry and art had but little
+to add, in order to give them personality. Here all the countries of the
+West were on the same level. Their world of ideas was rich enough in
+types and figures, but when these were put into concrete shape, the
+costume and attributes were likely to be unintelligible and unsuited to
+the popular taste. This, even in Italy, was often the case, and not only
+so during the whole period of the Renaissance, but down to a still later
+time. To produce the confusion, it was enough if a predicate of the
+allegorical figures was wrongly translated by an attribute. Even Dante
+is not wholly free from such errors,[922] and, indeed, he prides himself
+on the obscurity of his allegories in general.[923] Petrarch, in his
+'Trionfi,' attempts to give clear, if short, descriptions of at all
+events the figures of Love, of Chastity, of Death, and of Fame. Others
+again load their allegories with inappropriate attributes. In the
+Satires of Vinciguerra,[924] for example, Envy is depicted with rough,
+iron teeth, Gluttony as biting its own lips, and with a shock of tangled
+hair, the latter probably to show its indifference to all that is not
+meat and drink. We cannot here discuss the bad influence of these
+misunderstandings on the plastic arts. They, like poetry, might think
+themselves fortunate if allegory could be expressed by a mythological
+figure--by a figure which antiquity saved from absurdity--if Mars might
+stand for war, and Diana[925] for the love of the chase.
+
+Nevertheless art and poetry had better allegories than these to offer,
+and we may assume with regard to such figures of this kind as appeared
+in the Italian festivals, that the public required them to be clearly
+and vividly characteristic, since its previous training had fitted it to
+be a competent critic. Elsewhere, particularly at the Burgundian court,
+the most inexpressive figures, and even mere symbols, were allowed to
+pass, since to understand, or to seem to understand them, was a part of
+aristocratic breeding. On the occasion of the famous 'Oath of the
+Pheasant' in the year 1453,[926] the beautiful young horsewoman, who
+appears as 'Queen of Pleasure,' is the only pleasing allegory. The huge
+dishes, with automatic or even living figures within them, are either
+mere curiosities or are intended to convey some clumsy moral lesson. A
+naked female statue guarding a live lion was supposed to represent
+Constantinople and its future saviour, the Duke of Burgundy. The rest,
+with the exception of a Pantomime--Jason in Colchis--seems either too
+recondite to be understood or to have no sense at all. Olivier himself,
+to whom we owe the description of the scene, appeared costumed as 'The
+Church,' in a tower on the back of an elephant, and sang a long elegy on
+the victory of the unbelievers.[927]
+
+But although the allegorical element in the poetry, the art, and the
+festivals of Italy is superior both in good taste and in unity of
+conception to what we find in other countries, yet it is not in these
+qualities that it is most characteristic and unique. The decisive point
+of superiority[928] lay rather in the fact, that besides the
+personifications of abstract qualities, historical representatives of
+them were introduced in great number--that both poetry and plastic art
+were accustomed to represent famous men and women. The 'Divine Comedy,'
+the 'Trionfi' of Petrarch, the 'Amorosa Visione' of Boccaccio--all of
+them works constructed on this principle--and the great diffusion of
+culture which took place under the influence of antiquity, had made the
+nation familiar with this historical element. These figures now appeared
+at festivals, either individualised, as definite masks, or in groups, as
+characteristic attendants on some leading allegorical figure. The art of
+grouping and composition was thus learnt in Italy at a time when the
+most splendid exhibitions in other countries were made up of
+unintelligible symbolism or unmeaning puerilities.
+
+Let us begin with that kind of festival which is perhaps the oldest of
+all--the Mysteries.[929] They resembled in their main features those
+performed in the rest of Europe. In the public squares, in the churches,
+and in the cloisters extensive scaffolds were constructed, the upper
+story of which served as a Paradise to open and shut at will, and the
+ground-floor often as a Hell, while between the two lay the stage
+properly so called, representing the scene of all the earthly events of
+the drama. In Italy, as elsewhere, the biblical or legendary play often
+began with an introductory dialogue between Apostles, Prophets, Sibyls,
+Virtues, and Fathers of the Church, and sometimes ended with a dance. As
+a matter of course the half-comic 'Intermezzi' of secondary characters
+were not wanting in Italy, yet this feature was hardly so broadly marked
+as in northern countries.[930] The artificial means by which figures
+were made to rise and float in the air--one of the chief delights of
+these representations--were probably much better understood in Italy
+than elsewhere; and at Florence in the fourteenth century the hitches
+in these performances were a stock subject of ridicule.[931] Soon after
+Brunellesco invented for the Feast of the Annunciation in the Piazza San
+Felice a marvellous apparatus consisting of a heavenly globe surrounded
+by two circles of angels, out of which Gabriel flew down in a machine
+shaped like an almond. Cecca, too, devised the mechanism for such
+displays.[932] The spiritual corporations or the quarters of the city
+which undertook the charge and in part the performance of these plays
+spared, at all events in the larger towns, no trouble and expense to
+render them as perfect and artistic as possible. The same was no doubt
+the case at the great court festivals, when Mysteries were acted as well
+as pantomimes and secular dramas. The court of Pietro Riario (p. 106),
+and that of Ferrara were assuredly not wanting in all that human
+invention could produce.[933] When we picture to ourselves the
+theatrical talent and the splendid costumes of the actors, the scenes
+constructed in the style of the architecture of the period, and hung
+with garlands and tapestry, and in the background the noble buildings of
+an Italian piazza, or the slender columns of some great courtyard or
+cloister, the effect is one of great brilliance. But just as the secular
+drama suffered from this passion for display, so the higher poetical
+development of the Mystery was arrested by the same cause. In the texts
+which are left we find for the most part the poorest dramatic
+groundwork, relieved now and then by a fine lyrical or rhetorical
+passage, but no trace of the grand symbolic enthusiasm which
+distinguishes the 'Autos Sagramentales' of Calderon.
+
+In the smaller towns, where the scenic display was less, the effect of
+these spiritual plays on the character of the spectators may have been
+greater. We read[934] that one of the great preachers of repentance of
+whom more will be said later on, Roberto da Lecce, closed his Lenten
+sermons during the plague of 1448, at Perugia, with a representation of
+the Passion. The piece followed the New Testament closely. The actors
+were few, but the whole people wept aloud. It is true that on such
+occasions emotional stimulants were resorted to which were borrowed from
+the crudest realism. We are reminded of the pictures of Matteo da Siena,
+or of the groups of clay-figures by Guido Mazzoni, when we read that the
+actor who took the part of Christ appeared covered with wales and
+apparently sweating blood, and even bleeding from a wound in the
+side.[935]
+
+The special occasions on which these mysteries were performed, apart
+from the great festivals of the Church, from princely weddings, and the
+like, were of various kinds. When, for example, S. Bernardino of Siena
+was canonised by the Pope (1450), a sort of dramatic imitation of the
+ceremony took place (rappresentazione), probably on the great square of
+his native city, and for two days there was feasting with meat and drink
+for all comers.[936] We are told that a learned monk celebrated his
+promotion to the degree of Doctor of Theology, by giving a
+representation of the legend about the patron saint of the city.[937]
+Charles VIII. had scarcely entered Italy before he was welcomed at Turin
+by the widowed Duchess Bianca of Savoy with a sort of half-religious
+pantomime,[938] in which a pastoral scene first symbolised the Law of
+Nature, and then a procession of patriarchs the Law of Grace.
+Afterwards followed the story of Lancelot of the Lake, and that 'of
+Athens.' And no sooner had the King reached Chieri, than he was received
+with another pantomime, in which a woman in childbed was shown,
+surrounded by distinguished visitors.
+
+If any church festival was held by universal consent to call for
+exceptional efforts, it was the feast of Corpus Christi, which in Spain
+(p. 413) gave rise to a special class of poetry. We possess a splendid
+description of the manner in which that feast was celebrated at Viterbo
+by Pius II. in 1482.[939] The procession itself, which advanced from a
+vast and gorgeous tent in front of S. Francesco along the main street to
+the Cathedral, was the least part of the ceremony. The cardinals and
+wealthy prelates had divided the whole distance into parts, over which
+they severally presided, and which they decorated with curtains,
+tapestry, and garlands.[940] Each of them had also erected a stage of
+his own, on which, as the procession passed by, short historical and
+allegorical scenes were represented. It is not clear from the account
+whether all the characters were living beings or some merely draped
+figures;[941] the expense was certainly very great. There was a
+suffering Christ amid singing cherubs, the Last Supper with a figure of
+St. Thomas Aquinas, the combat between the Archangel Michael and the
+devils, fountains of wine and orchestras of angels, the grave of Christ
+with all the scene of the Resurrection, and finally, on the square
+before the Cathedral, the tomb of the Virgin. It opened after High Mass
+and the benediction, and the Mother of God ascended singing to Paradise,
+where she was crowned by her Son, and led into the presence of the
+Eternal Father.
+
+Among these representations in the public street, that given by the
+Cardinal Vice-Chancellor Roderigo Borgia, afterwards Pope Alexander VI.,
+was remarkable for its splendour and obscure symbolism.[942] It offers
+an early instance of the fondness for salvos of artillery[943] which was
+characteristic of the house of Borgia.
+
+The account is briefer which Pius II. gives us of the procession held
+the same year in Rome on the arrival of the skull of St. Andrew from
+Greece. There, too, Roderigo Borgia distinguished himself by his
+magnificence; but this festival had a more secular character than the
+other, as, besides the customary choirs of angels, other masks were
+exhibited, as well as 'strong men,' who seemed to have performed various
+feats of muscular prowess.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Such representations as were wholly or chiefly secular in their
+character were arranged, especially at the more important princely
+courts, mainly with a view to splendid and striking scenic effects. The
+subjects were mythological or allegorical, and the interpretation
+commonly lay on the surface. Extravagancies, indeed, were not
+wanting--gigantic animals from which a crowd of masked figures suddenly
+emerged, as at Siena[944] in the year 1465, when at a public reception a
+ballet of twelve persons came out of a golden wolf; living table
+ornaments, not always, however, showing the tasteless exaggeration of
+the Burgundian Court (p. 182)--and the like. Most of them showed some
+artistic or poetical feeling. The mixture of pantomime and the drama at
+the Court of Ferrara has been already referred to in the treating of
+poetry (p. 318). The entertainments given in 1473 by the Cardinal Pietro
+Riario at Rome when Leonora of Aragon, the destined bride of Prince
+Hercules of Ferrara, was passing through the city, were famous far
+beyond the limits of Italy.[945] The plays acted were mysteries on some
+ecclesiastical subject, the pantomimes on the contrary, were
+mythological. There were represented Orpheus with the beasts, Perseus
+and Andromeda, Ceres drawn by dragons, Bacchus and Ariadne by panthers,
+and finally the education of Achilles. Then followed a ballet of the
+famous lovers of ancient times, with a troop of nymphs, which was
+interrupted by an attack of predatory centaurs, who in their turn were
+vanquished and put to flight by Hercules. The fact, in itself a trifle,
+may be mentioned, as characteristic of the taste of the time, that the
+human beings who at all the festivals appeared as statues in niches or
+on pillars and triumphal arches, and then showed themselves to be alive
+by singing or speaking, wore their natural complexion and a natural
+costume, and thus the sense of incongruity was removed; while in the
+house of Riario there was exhibited a living child, gilt from head to
+foot, who showered water round him from a spring.[946]
+
+Brilliant pantomimes of the same kind were given at Bologna, at the
+marriage of Annibale Bentivoglio with Lucrezia of Este.[947] Instead of
+the orchestra, choral songs were sung, while the fairest of Diana's
+nymphs flew over to the Juno Pronuba, and while Venus walked with a
+lion--which in this case was a disguised man--among a troop of savages.
+The decorations were a faithful representation of a forest. At Venice,
+in 1491, the princesses of the house of Este[948] were met and welcomed
+by the Bucentaur, and entertained by boat-races and a splendid
+pantomime, called 'Meleager,' in the court of the ducal palace. At Milan
+Lionardo da Vinci[949] directed the festivals of the Duke and of some
+leading citizens. One of his machines, which must have rivalled that of
+Brunellesco (p. 411), represented the heavenly bodies with all their
+movements on a colossal scale. Whenever a planet approached Isabella,
+the bride of the young Duke, the divinity whose name it bore stepped
+forth from the globe,[950] and sang some verses written by the
+court-poet Bellincioni (1489). At another festival (1493) the model of
+the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza appeared with other objects
+under a triumphal arch on the square before the castle. We read in
+Vasari of the ingenious automata which Lionardo invented to welcome the
+French kings as masters of Milan. Even in the smaller cities great
+efforts were sometimes made on these occasions. When Duke Borso came in
+1453 to Reggio[951] to receive the homage of the city, he was met at
+the door by a great machine, on which S. Prospero, the patron saint of
+the town, appeared to float, shaded by a baldachino held by angels,
+while below him was a revolving disc with eight singing cherubs, two of
+whom received from the saint the sceptre and keys of the city, which
+they then delivered to the Duke, while saints and angels held forth in
+his praise. A chariot drawn by concealed horses now advanced, bearing an
+empty throne, behind which stood a figure of Justice attended by a
+genius. At the corners of the chariot sat four grey-headed lawgivers,
+encircled by angels with banners; by its side rode standard-bearers in
+complete armour. It need hardly be added that the goddess and the genius
+did not suffer the Duke to pass by without an address. A second car,
+drawn by an unicorn, bore a Caritas with a burning torch; between the
+two came the classical spectacle of a car in the form of a ship, moved
+by men concealed within it. The whole procession now advanced before the
+Duke. In front of the Church of S. Pietro, a halt was again made. The
+saint, attended by two angels, descended in an aureole from the façade,
+placed a wreath of laurel on the head of the Duke, and then floated back
+to his former position.[952] The clergy provided another allegory of a
+purely religious kind. Idolatry and Faith stood on two lofty pillars,
+and after Faith, represented by a beautiful girl, had uttered her
+welcome, the other column fell to pieces with the lay figure upon it.
+Further on, Borso was met by Cæsar with seven beautiful women, who were
+presented to him as the seven Virtues which he was exhorted to pursue.
+At last the Cathedral was reached, but after the service the Duke again
+took his seat on a lofty golden throne, and a second time received the
+homage of some of the masks already mentioned. To conclude all, three
+angels flew down from an adjacent building, and, amid songs of joy,
+delivered to him branches of palm, as symbols of peace.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Let us now give a glance at those festivals the chief feature of which
+was the procession itself.
+
+There is no doubt that from an early period of the Middle Ages the
+religious processions gave rise to the use of masks. Little angels
+accompanied the sacrament or the sacred pictures and reliques on their
+way through the streets; or characters in the Passion--such as Christ
+with the cross, the thieves and the soldiers, or the faithful
+women--were represented for public edification. But the great feasts of
+the Church were from an early time accompanied by a civic procession,
+and the naïveté of the Middle Ages found nothing unfitting in the many
+secular elements which it contained. We may mention especially the naval
+car (_carrus navalis_), which had been inherited from pagan times,[953]
+and which, as an instance already quoted shows, was admissible at
+festivals of very various kinds, and has permanently left its name on
+one of them in particular--the Carnival. Such ships, decorated with all
+possible splendour, delighted the eyes of spectators long after the
+original meaning of them was forgotten. When Isabella of England met her
+bridegroom, the Emperor Frederick II., at Cologne, she was met by a
+number of such chariots, drawn by invisible horses, and filled with a
+crowd of priests who welcomed her with music and singing.
+
+But the religious processions were not only mingled with secular
+accessories of all kinds, but were often replaced by processions of
+clerical masks. Their origin is perhaps to be found in the parties of
+actors who wound their way through the streets of the city to the place
+where they were about to act the mystery; but it is possible that at an
+early period the clerical procession may have constituted itself as a
+distinct species. Dante[954] describes the 'Trionfo' of Beatrice, with
+the twenty-four Elders of the Apocalypse, with the four mystical Beasts,
+with the three Christian and four Cardinal Virtues, and with Saint Luke,
+Saint Paul, and other Apostles, in a way which almost forces us to
+conclude that such processions actually occurred before his time. We
+are chiefly led to this conclusion by the chariot in which Beatrice
+drives, and which in the miraculous forest of the vision would have been
+unnecessary or rather out of place. It is possible, on the other hand,
+that Dante looked on the chariot as a symbol of victory and triumph, and
+that his poem rather served to give rise to these processions, the form
+of which was borrowed from the triumph of the Roman Emperors. However
+this may be, poetry and theology continued to make free use of the
+symbol. Savonarola[955] in his 'Triumph of the Cross' represents Christ
+on a Chariot of Victory, above his head the shining sphere of the
+Trinity, in his left hand the Cross, in his right the Old and New
+Testaments; below him the Virgin Mary; on both sides the Martyrs and
+Doctors of the Church with open books; behind him all the multitude of
+the saved; and in the distance the countless host of his
+enemies--emperors, princes, philosophers, heretics--all vanquished,
+their idols broken, and their books burned. A great picture of Titian,
+which is known only as a woodcut, has a good deal in common with this
+description. The ninth and tenth of Sabellico's (p. 62) thirteen Elegies
+on the Mother of God contain a minute account of her triumph, richly
+adorned with allegories, and especially interesting from that
+matter-of-fact air which also characterises the realistic painting of
+the fifteenth century.
+
+Nevertheless, the secular 'Trionfi' were far more frequent than the
+religious. They were modelled on the procession of the Roman Imperator,
+as it was known from the old reliefs and from the writings of ancient
+authors.[956] The historical conceptions then prevalent in Italy, with
+which these shows were closely connected, have been already discussed
+(p. 139).
+
+We now and then read of the actual triumphal entrance of a victorious
+general, which was organised as far as possible on the ancient pattern,
+even against the will of the hero himself. Francesco Sforza had the
+courage (1450) to refuse the triumphal chariot which had been prepared
+for his return to Milan, on the ground that such things were monarchical
+superstitions.[957] Alfonso the Great, on his entrance into Naples
+(1443), declined the wreath of laurel,[958] which Napoleon did not
+disdain to wear at his coronation in Notre-Dame. For the rest, Alfonso's
+procession, which passed by a breach in the wall through the city to the
+cathedral, was a strange mixture of antique, allegorical, and purely
+comic elements. The car, drawn by four white horses, on which he sat
+enthroned, was lofty and covered with gilding; twenty patricians carried
+the poles of the canopy of cloth of gold which shaded his head. The part
+of the procession which the Florentines then present in Naples had
+undertaken was composed of elegant young cavaliers, skilfully
+brandishing their lances, of a chariot with the figure of Fortune, and
+of seven Virtues on horseback. The goddess herself,[959] in accordance
+with the inexorable logic of allegory to which even the painters at that
+time conformed, wore hair only on the front part of her head, while the
+back part was bald, and the genius who sat on the lower steps of the
+car, and who symbolised the fugitive character of fortune, had his feet
+immersed (?) in a basin of water. Then followed, equipped by the same
+Florentines, a troop of horsemen in the costumes of various nations,
+dressed as foreign princes and nobles, and then, crowned with laurel and
+standing above a revolving globe, a Julius Cæsar,[960] who explained to
+the king in Italian verse the meaning of the allegories, and then took
+his place in the procession. Sixty Florentines, all in purple and
+scarlet, closed this splendid display of what their home could achieve.
+Then a band of Catalans advanced on foot, with lay figures of horses
+fastened on to them before and behind, and engaged in a mock combat with
+a body of Turks, as though in derision of the Florentine sentimentalism.
+Last of all came a gigantic tower, the door of which was guarded by an
+angel with a drawn sword; on it stood four Virtues, who each addressed
+the king with a song. The rest of the show had nothing specially
+characteristic about it.
+
+At the entrance of Louis XII. into Milan in the year 1507[961] we find,
+besides the inevitable chariot with Virtues, a living group representing
+Jupiter, Mars, and a figure of Italy caught in a net. After which came a
+car laden with trophies, and so forth.
+
+And when there were in reality no triumphs to celebrate, the poets found
+a compensation for themselves and their patrons. Petrarch and Boccaccio
+had described the representation of every sort of fame as attendants
+each of an allegorical figure (p. 409); the celebrities of past ages
+were now made attendants of the prince. The poetess Cleofe Gabrielli of
+Gubbio paid this honour to Borso of Ferrara.[962] She gave him seven
+queens--the seven liberal arts--as his handmaids, with whom he mounted a
+chariot; further, a crowd of heroes, distinguished by names written on
+their foreheads; then followed all the famous poets; and after them the
+gods driving in their chariots. There is, in fact, at this time simply
+no end to the mythological and allegorical charioteering, and the most
+important work of art of Borso's time--the frescoes in the Palazzo
+Schifanoja--shows us a whole frieze filled with these motives.[963]
+Raphael, when he had to paint the Camera della Segnatura, found this
+mode of artistic thought completely vulgarised and worn out. The new and
+final consecration which he gave to it will remain a wonder to all ages.
+
+The triumphal processions, strictly speaking, of victorious generals,
+formed the exception. But all the festive processions, whether they
+celebrated any special event or were mainly held for their own sakes,
+assumed more or less the character and nearly always the name of a
+'Trionfo.' It is a wonder that funerals were not also treated in the
+same way.[964]
+
+It was the practice, both at the Carnival and on other occasions, to
+represent the triumphs of ancient Roman commanders, such as that of
+Paulus Æmilius under Lorenzo the Magnificent at Florence, and that of
+Camillus on the visit of Leo X. Both were conducted by the painter
+Francesco Gronacci.[965] In Rome, the first complete exhibition of this
+kind was the triumph of Augustus after the victory over Cleopatra,[966]
+under Paul II., where, besides the comic and mythological masks, which,
+as a matter of fact, were not wanting in the ancient triumphs, all the
+other requisites were to be found--kings in chains, tablets with decrees
+of the senate and people, a senate clothed in the ancient costume,
+praetors, aediles, and quaestors, four chariots filled with singing
+masks, and, doubtless, cars laden with trophies. Other processions
+rather aimed at setting forth, in a general way, the universal empire of
+ancient Rome; and in answer to the very real danger which threatened
+Europe from the side of the Turks, a cavalcade of camels bearing masks
+representing Ottoman prisoners, appeared before the people. Later, at
+the Carnival of the year 1500, Cæsar Borgia, with a bold allusion to
+himself, celebrated the triumph of Julius Cæsar, with a procession of
+eleven magnificent chariots,[967] doubtless to the scandal of the
+pilgrims who had come for the Jubilee (vol. i. p. 116). Two 'Trionfi,'
+famous for their taste and beauty, were given by rival companies in
+Florence, on the election of Leo X. to the Papacy.[968] One of them
+represented the three Ages of Man, the other the four Ages of the World,
+ingeniously set forth in five scenes of Roman history, and in two
+allegories of the golden age of Saturn and of its final return. The
+imagination displayed in the adornment of the chariots, when the great
+Florentine artists undertook the work, made the scene so impressive that
+such representations became in time a permanent element in the popular
+life. Hitherto the subject cities had been satisfied merely to present
+their symbolical gifts--costly stuffs and wax-candles--on the day when
+they annually did homage. The guild of merchants now built ten chariots,
+to which others were afterwards to be added, not so much to carry as to
+symbolise the tribute, and Andrea del Sarto, who painted some of them,
+no doubt did his work to perfection.[969] These cars, whether used to
+hold tribute or trophies, now formed a part of all such celebrations,
+even when there was not much money to be laid out. The Sienese
+announced, in 1477, the alliance between Ferrante and Sixtus IV., with
+which they themselves were associated, by driving a chariot round the
+city, with 'one clad as the goddess of peace standing on a hauberk and
+other arms.'[970]
+
+At the Venetian festivals the processions, not on land but on water,
+were marvellous in their fantastic splendour. The sailing of the
+Bucentaur to meet the Princess of Ferrara in the year 1491 (p. 136)
+seems to have been something belonging to fairyland.[971] Countless
+vessels with garlands and hangings, filled with the richly-dressed youth
+of the city, moved in front; genii with attributes symbolising the
+various gods, floated on machines hung in the air; below stood others
+grouped as tritons and nymphs; the air was filled with music, sweet
+odours, and the fluttering of embroidered banners. The Bucentaur was
+followed by such a crowd of boats of every sort that for a mile all
+round (_octo stadia_) the water could not be seen. With regard to the
+rest of the festivities, besides the pantomime mentioned above, we may
+notice as something new, a boat-race of fifty powerful girls. In the
+sixteenth century,[972] the nobility were divided into corporations with
+a view to these festivals, whose most noteworthy feature was some
+extraordinary machine placed on a ship. So, for instance, in the year
+1541, at the festival of the 'Sempiterni,' a round 'universe' floated
+along the Grand Canal, and a splendid ball was given inside it. The
+Carnival, too, in this city was famous for its dances, processions, and
+exhibitions of every kind. The Square of St. Mark was found to give
+space enough not only for tournaments (p. 390), but for 'Trionfi,'
+similar to those common on the mainland. At a festival held on the
+conclusion of peace,[973] the pious brotherhoods ('scuole') took each
+its part in the procession. There, among golden chandeliers with red
+candles, among crowds of musicians and winged boys with golden bowls and
+horns of plenty, was seen a car on which Noah and David sat together
+enthroned; then came Abigail, leading a camel laden with treasures, and
+a second car with a group of political figures--Italy sitting between
+Venice and Liguria, the two last with their coats of arms, the former
+with a stork, the symbol of unity--and on a raised step three female
+symbolical figures with the arms of the allied princes. This was
+followed by a great globe with the constellations, as it seems, round
+it. The princes themselves, or rather their bodily representatives,
+appeared on other chariots with their servants and their coats of arms,
+if we have rightly interpreted our author.[974] There was also music at
+these and all other similar processions.
+
+The Carnival, properly so called, apart from these great triumphal
+marches, had nowhere, perhaps, in the fifteenth century, so varied a
+character as in Rome.[975] There were races of every kind--of horses,
+asses, buffalos, old men, young men, Jews, and so on. Paul II.
+entertained the people in crowds before the Palazzo di Venezia, in which
+he lived. The games in the Piazza Navona, which had probably never
+altogether ceased since the classical times, were remarkable for their
+warlike splendour. We read of a sham fight of cavalry, and a review of
+all the citizens in arms. The greatest freedom existed with regard to
+the use of masks, which were sometimes allowed for several months
+together.[976] Sixtus IV. ventured, in the most populous part of the
+city--at the Campofiore and near the Banchi--to make his way through
+crowds of masks, though he declined to receive them as visitors in the
+Vatican. Under Innocent VIII., a discreditable usage, which had already
+appeared among the Cardinals, attained its height. In the Carnival of
+1491, they sent one another chariots full of splendid masks, of singers,
+and of buffoons, chanting scandalous verses. They were accompanied by
+men on horseback.[977] Apart from the Carnival, the Romans seem to have
+been the first to discover the effect of a great procession by
+torchlight. When Pius II. came back from the Congress of Mantua in
+1459,[978] the people waited on him with a squadron of horsemen bearing
+torches, who rode in shining circles before his palace. Sixtus IV.,
+however, thought it better to decline a nocturnal visit of the people,
+who proposed to wait on him with torches and olive-branches.[979]
+
+But the Florentine Carnival surpassed the Roman in a certain class of
+processions, which have left their mark even in literature.[980] Among a
+crowd of masks on foot and on horseback appeared some huge, fantastic
+chariot, and upon it an allegorical figure or group of figures with the
+proper accompaniments, such as Jealousy with four spectacled faces on
+one head; the four temperaments (p. 309) with the planets belonging to
+them; the three Fates; Prudence enthroned above Hope and Fear, which lay
+bound before her; the four Elements, Ages, Winds, Seasons, and so on; as
+well as the famous chariot of Death with the coffins, which presently
+opened. Sometimes we meet with a splendid scene from classical
+mythology--Bacchus and Ariadne, Paris and Helen, and others. Or else a
+chorus of figures forming some single class or category, as the beggars,
+the hunters and nymphs, the lost souls, who in their lifetime were
+hard-hearted women, the hermits, the astrologers, the vagabonds, the
+devils, the sellers of various kinds of wares, and even on one occasion
+'il popolo,' the people as such, who all reviled one another in their
+songs. The songs, which still remain and have been collected, give the
+explanation of the masquerade sometimes in a pathetic, sometimes in a
+humorous, and sometimes in an excessively indecent tone. Some of the
+worst in this respect are attributed to Lorenzo the Magnificent,
+probably because the real author did not venture to declare himself.
+However this may be, we must certainly ascribe to him the beautiful song
+which accompanied the masque of Bacchus and Ariadne, whose refrain still
+echoes to us from the fifteenth century, like a regretful presentiment
+of the brief splendour of the Renaissance itself:--
+
+ 'Quanto è bella giovinezza,
+ Che si fugge tuttavia!
+ Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
+ Di doman non c'è certezza.'
+
+
+
+
+_PART VI._
+
+MORALITY AND RELIGION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+MORALITY.
+
+
+The relation of the various peoples of the earth to the supreme
+interests of life, to God, virtue, and immortality, may be investigated
+up to a certain point, but can never be compared to one another with
+absolute strictness and certainty. The more plainly in these matters our
+evidence seems to speak, the more carefully must we refrain from
+unqualified assumptions and rash generalisations.
+
+This remark is especially true with regard to our judgment on questions
+of morality. It may be possible to indicate many contrasts and shades of
+difference among different nations, but to strike the balance of the
+whole is not given to human insight. The ultimate truth with respect to
+the character, the conscience, and the guilt of a people remains for
+ever a secret; if only for the reason that its defects have another
+side, where they reappear as peculiarities or even as virtues. We must
+leave those who find a pleasure in passing sweeping censures on whole
+nations, to do so as they like. The peoples of Europe can maltreat, but
+happily not judge one another. A great nation, interwoven by its
+civilisation, its achievements, and its fortunes with the whole life of
+the modern world, can afford to ignore both its advocates and its
+accusers. It lives on with or without the approval of theorists.
+
+Accordingly, what here follows is no judgment, but rather a string of
+marginal notes, suggested by a study of the Italian Renaissance
+extending over some years. The value to be attached to them is all the
+more qualified as they mostly touch on the life of the upper classes,
+with respect to which we are far better informed in Italy than in any
+other country in Europe at that period. But though both fame and infamy
+sound louder here than elsewhere, we are not helped thereby in forming
+an adequate moral estimate of the people.
+
+What eye can pierce the depths in which the character and fate of
+nations are determined?--in which that which is inborn and that which
+has been experienced combine to form a new whole and a fresh nature?--in
+which even those intellectual capacities, which at first sight we should
+take to be most original, are in fact evolved late and slowly? Who can
+tell if the Italian before the thirteenth century possessed that
+flexible activity and certainty in his whole being--that play of power
+in shaping whatever subject he dealt with in word or in form, which was
+peculiar to him later? And if no answer can be found to these questions,
+how can we possibly judge of the infinite and infinitely intricate
+channels through which character and intellect are incessantly pouring
+their influence one upon the other. A tribunal there is for each one of
+us, whose voice is our conscience; but let us have done with these
+generalities about nations. For the people that seems to be most sick
+the cure may be at hand; and one that appears to be healthy may bear
+within it the ripening germs of death, which the hour of danger will
+bring forth from their hiding-place.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the civilisation of the
+Renaissance had reached its highest pitch, and at the same time the
+political ruin of the nation seemed inevitable, there were not wanting
+serious thinkers who saw a connexion between this ruin and the prevalent
+immorality. It was not one of those methodistical moralists who in every
+age think themselves called to declaim against the wickedness of the
+time, but it was Macchiavelli, who, in one of his most well-considered
+works,[981] said openly: 'We Italians are irreligious and corrupt above
+others.' Another man had perhaps said, 'We are individually highly
+developed; we have outgrown the limits of morality and religion which
+were natural to us in our undeveloped state, and we despise outward law,
+because our rulers are illegitimate, and their judges and officers
+wicked men.' Macchiavelli adds, 'because the Church and her
+representatives set us the worst example.'
+
+Shall we add also, 'because the influence exercised by antiquity was in
+this respect unfavourable'? The statement can only be received with many
+qualifications. It may possibly be true of the humanists (p. 272 sqq.),
+especially as regards the profligacy of their lives. Of the rest it may
+perhaps be said with some approach to accuracy, that, after they became
+familiar with antiquity, they substituted for holiness--the Christian
+ideal of life--the cultus of historical greatness (see Part II. chap.
+iii.). We can understand, therefore, how easily they would be tempted to
+consider those faults and vices to be matters of indifference, in spite
+of which their heroes were great. They were probably scarcely conscious
+of this themselves, for if we are summoned to quote any statement of
+doctrine on this subject, we are again forced to appeal to humanists
+like Paolo Giovio, who excuses the perjury of Giangaleazzo Visconti,
+through which he was enabled to found an empire, by the example of
+Julius Cæsar.[982] The great Florentine historians and statesmen never
+stoop to these slavish quotations, and what seems antique in their deeds
+and their judgments is so because the nature of their political life
+necessarily fostered in them a mode of thought which has some analogy
+with that of antiquity.
+
+Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Italy at the beginning of the
+sixteenth century found itself in the midst of a grave moral crisis, out
+of which the best men saw hardly any escape.
+
+Let us begin by saying a few words about that moral force which was then
+the strongest bulwark against evil. The highly gifted men of that day
+thought to find it in the sentiment of honour. This is that enigmatic
+mixture of conscience and egoism which often survives in the modern man
+after he has lost, whether by his own fault or not, faith, love, and
+hope. This sense of honour is compatible with much selfishness and great
+vices, and may be the victim of astonishing illusions; yet,
+nevertheless, all the noble elements that are left in the wreck of a
+character may gather around it, and from this fountain may draw new
+strength. It has become, in a far wider sense than is commonly believed,
+a decisive test of conduct in the minds of the cultivated Europeans of
+our own day, and many of those who yet hold faithfully by religion and
+morality are unconsciously guided by this feeling in the gravest
+decisions of their lives.[983]
+
+It lies without the limits of our task to show how the men of antiquity
+also experienced this feeling in a peculiar form, and how, afterwards,
+in the Middle Ages, a special sense of honour became the mark of a
+particular class. Nor can we here dispute with those who hold that
+conscience, rather than honour, is the motive power. It would indeed be
+better and nobler if it were so; but since it must be granted that even
+our worthier resolutions result from 'a conscience more or less dimmed
+by selfishness,' it is better to call the mixture by its right
+name.[984] It is certainly not always easy, in treating of the Italian
+of this period, to distinguish this sense of honour from the passion for
+fame, into which, indeed, it easily passes. Yet the two sentiments are
+essentially different.
+
+There is no lack of witnesses on this subject. One who speaks plainly
+may here be quoted as a representative of the rest. We read in the
+recently-published 'Aphorisms' of Guicciardini:[985] 'He who esteems
+honour highly, succeeds in all that he undertakes, since he fears
+neither trouble, danger, nor expense; I have found it so in my own case,
+and may say it and write it; vain and dead are the deeds of men which
+have not this as their motive.' It is necessary to add that, from what
+is known of the life of the writer, he can here be only speaking of
+honour, and not of fame. Rabelais has put the matter more clearly than
+perhaps any Italian. We quote him, indeed, unwillingly in these pages.
+What the great, baroque Frenchman gives us, is a picture of what the
+Renaissance would be without form and without beauty.[986] But his
+description of an ideal state of things in the Thelemite monastery is
+decisive as historical evidence. In speaking of his gentlemen and ladies
+of the Order of Free Will,[987] he tells us as follows:--
+
+'En leur reigle n'estoit que ceste clause: Fay ce que vouldras. Parce
+que gens liberes, bien nayz,[988] bien instruictz, conversans en
+compaignies honnestes, ont par nature ung instinct et aguillon qui
+toujours les poulse à faitz vertueux, et retire de vice; lequel ilz
+nommoyent honneur.'
+
+This is that same faith in the goodness of human nature which inspired
+the men of the second half of the eighteenth century, and helped to
+prepare the way for the French Revolution. Among the Italians, too, each
+man appeals to this noble instinct within him, and though with regard to
+the people as a whole--chiefly in consequence of the national
+disasters--judgments of a more pessimistic sort became prevalent, the
+importance of this sense of honour must still be rated highly. If the
+boundless development of individuality, stronger than the will of the
+individual, be the work of a historical providence, not less so is the
+opposing force which then manifested itself in Italy. How often, and
+against what passionate attacks of selfishness it won the day, we cannot
+tell, and therefore no human judgment can estimate with certainty the
+absolute moral value of the nation.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A force which we must constantly take into account in judging of the
+morality of the more highly-developed Italian of this period, is that
+of the imagination. It gives to his virtues and vices a peculiar colour,
+and under its influence his unbridled egoism shows itself in its most
+terrible shape.
+
+The force of his imagination explains, for example, the fact that he was
+the first gambler on a large scale in modern times. Pictures of future
+wealth and enjoyment rose in such life-like colours before his eyes,
+that he was ready to hazard everything to reach them. The Mohammedan
+nations would doubtless have anticipated him in this respect, had not
+the Koran, from the beginning, set up the prohibition against gambling
+as a chief safeguard of public morals, and directed the imagination of
+its followers to the search after buried treasures. In Italy, the
+passion for play reached an intensity which often threatened or
+altogether broke up the existence of the gambler. Florence had already,
+at the end of the fourteenth century, its Casanova--a certain
+Buonaccorso Pitti,[989] who, in the course of his incessant journeys as
+merchant, political agent, diplomatist and professional gambler, won and
+lost sums so enormous that none but princes like the Dukes of Brabant,
+Bavaria, and Savoy, were able to compete with him. That great
+lottery-bank, which was called the Court of Rome, accustomed people to a
+need of excitement, which found its satisfaction in games of hazard
+during the intervals between one intrigue and another. We read, for
+example, how Franceschetto Cybò, in two games with the Cardinal
+Raffaello Riario, lost no less than 14,000 ducats, and afterwards
+complained to the Pope that his opponent had cheated him.[990] Italy has
+since that time been the home of the lottery.
+
+It was to the imagination of the Italians that the peculiar character of
+their vengeance was due. The sense of justice was, indeed, one and the
+same throughout Europe, and any violation of it, so long as no
+punishment was inflicted, must have been felt in the same manner. But
+other nations, though they found it no easier to forgive, nevertheless
+forgot more easily, while the Italian imagination kept the picture of
+the wrong alive with frightful vividness.[991] The fact that, according
+to the popular morality, the avenging of blood is a duty--a duty often
+performed in a way to make us shudder--gives to this passion a peculiar
+and still firmer basis. The government and the tribunals recognise its
+existence and justification, and only attempt to keep it within certain
+limits. Even among the peasantry, we read of Thyestean banquets and
+mutual assassination on the widest scale. Let us look at an
+instance.[992]
+
+In the district of Aquapendente three boys were watching cattle, and one
+of them said: 'Let us find out the way how people are hung.' While one
+was sitting on the shoulders of the other, and the third, after
+fastening the rope round the neck of the first, was tying it to an oak,
+a wolf came, and the two who were free ran away and left the other
+hanging. Afterwards they found him dead, and buried him. On the Sunday
+his father came to bring him bread, and one of the two confessed what
+had happened, and showed him the grave. The old man then killed him with
+a knife, cut him up, brought away the liver, and entertained the boy's
+father with it at home. After dinner, he told him whose liver it was.
+Hereupon began a series of reciprocal murders between the two families,
+and within a month thirty-six persons were killed, women as well as men.
+
+And such 'vendette,' handed down from father to son, and extending to
+friends and distant relations, were not limited to the lower classes,
+but reached to the highest. The chronicles and novels of the period are
+full of such instances, especially of vengeance taken for the violation
+of women. The classic land for these feuds was Romagna, where the
+'vendetta' was interwoven with intrigues and party divisions of every
+conceivable sort. The popular legends present an awful picture of the
+savagery into which this brave and energetic people had relapsed. We are
+told, for instance, of a nobleman at Ravenna, who had got all his
+enemies together in a tower, and might have burned them; instead of
+which he let them out, embraced them, and entertained them sumptuously;
+whereupon shame drove them mad, and they conspired against him.[993]
+Pious and saintly monks exhorted unceasingly to reconciliation, but they
+can scarcely have done more than restrain to a certain extent the feuds
+already established; their influence hardly prevented the growth of new
+ones. The novelists sometimes describe to us this effect of
+religion--how sentiments of generosity and forgiveness were suddenly
+awakened, and then again paralysed by the force of what had once been
+done and could never be undone. The Pope himself was not always lucky as
+a peacemaker. 'Pope Paul II. desired that the quarrel between Antonio
+Caffarello and the family of Alberino should cease, and ordered Giovanni
+Alberino and Antonio Caffarello to come before him, and bade them kiss
+one another, and promised them a fine of 2,000 ducats in case they
+renewed this strife, and two days after Antonio was stabbed by the same
+Giacomo Alberino, son of Giovanni, who had wounded him once before; and
+the Pope was full of anger, and confiscated the goods of Alberino, and
+destroyed his houses, and banished father and son from Rome.'[994] The
+oaths and ceremonies by which reconciled enemies attempted to guard
+themselves against a relapse, are sometimes utterly horrible. When the
+parties of the 'Nove' and the 'Popolari' met and kissed one another by
+twos in the cathedral at Siena on Christmas Eve, 1494,[995] an oath was
+read by which all salvation in time and eternity was denied to the
+future violator of the treaty--'an oath more astonishing and dreadful
+than had ever yet been heard.' The last consolations of religion in the
+hour of death were to turn to the damnation of the man who should break
+it. It is clear, however, that such a ceremony rather represents the
+despairing mood of the mediators than offers any real guarantee of
+peace, inasmuch as the truest reconciliation is just that one which has
+least need of it.
+
+This personal need of vengeance felt by the cultivated and highly placed
+Italian, resting on the solid basis of an analogous popular custom,
+naturally displays itself under a thousand different aspects, and
+receives the unqualified approval of public opinion, as reflected in the
+works of the novelists.[996] All are at one on the point, that, in the
+case of those injuries and insults for which Italian justice offered no
+redress, and all the more in the case of those against which no human
+law can ever adequately provide, each man is free to take the law into
+his own hands. Only there must be art in the vengeance, and the
+satisfaction must be compounded of the material injury and moral
+humiliation of the offender. A mere brutal, clumsy triumph of force was
+held by public opinion to be no satisfaction. The whole man with his
+sense of fame and of scorn, not only his fist, must be victorious.
+
+The Italian of that time shrank, it is true, from no dissimulation in
+order to attain his ends, but was wholly free from hypocrisy in matters
+of principle. In these he attempted to deceive neither himself nor
+others. Accordingly, revenge was declared with perfect frankness to be a
+necessity of human nature. Cool-headed people declared that it was then
+most worthy of praise, when it was disengaged from passion, and worked
+simply from motives of expedience, 'in order that other men may learn to
+leave us unharmed.'[997] Yet such instances must have formed only a
+small minority in comparison with those in which passion sought an
+outlet. This sort of revenge differs clearly from the avenging of blood,
+which has been already spoken of; while the latter keeps more or less
+within the limits of retaliation--the 'jus talionis'--the former
+necessarily goes much farther, not only requiring the sanction of the
+sense of justice, but craving admiration, and even striving to get the
+laugh on its own side.
+
+Here lies the reason why men were willing to wait so long for their
+revenge. A 'bella vendetta' demanded as a rule a combination of
+circumstances for which it was necessary to wait patiently. The gradual
+ripening of such opportunities is described by the novelists with
+heartfelt delight.
+
+There is no need to discuss the morality of actions in which plaintiff
+and judge are one and the same person. If this Italian thirst for
+vengeance is to be palliated at all, it must be by proving the existence
+of a corresponding national virtue, namely gratitude. The same force of
+imagination which retains and magnifies wrong once suffered, might be
+expected also to keep alive the memory of kindness received.[998] It is
+not possible, however, to prove this with regard to the nation as a
+whole, though traces of it may be seen in the Italian character of
+to-day. The gratitude shown by the inferior classes for kind treatment,
+and the good memory of the upper for politeness in social life, are
+instances of this.
+
+This connexion between the imagination and the moral qualities of the
+Italian repeats itself continually. If, nevertheless, we find more cold
+calculation in cases where the Northerner rather follows his impulses,
+the reason is that individual development in Italy was not only more
+marked and earlier in point of time, but also far more frequent. Where
+this is the case in other countries, the results are also analogous. We
+find, for example, that the early emancipation of the young from
+domestic and paternal authority is common to North America with Italy.
+Later on, in the more generous natures, a tie of freer affection grows
+up between parents and children.
+
+It is in fact a matter of extreme difficulty to judge fairly of other
+nations in the sphere of character and feeling. In these respects a
+people may be developed highly, and yet in a manner so strange that a
+foreigner is utterly unable to understand it. Perhaps all the nations of
+the West are in this point equally favoured.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But where the imagination has exercised the most powerful and despotic
+influence on morals is in the illicit intercourse of the two sexes. It
+is well known that prostitution was freely practised in the Middle Ages,
+before the appearance of syphilis. A discussion, however, on these
+questions does not belong to our present work. What seems characteristic
+of Italy at this time, is that here marriage and its rights were more
+often and more deliberately trampled under foot than anywhere else. The
+girls of the higher classes were carefully secluded, and of them we do
+not speak. All passion was directed to the married women.
+
+Under these circumstances it is remarkable that, so far as we know,
+there was no diminution in the number of marriages, and that family life
+by no means underwent that disorganisation which a similar state of
+things would have produced in the North. Men wished to live as they
+pleased, but by no means to renounce the family, even when they were not
+sure that it was all their own. Nor did the race sink, either physically
+or mentally, on this account; for that apparent intellectual decline
+which showed itself towards the middle of the sixteenth century may be
+certainly accounted for by political and ecclesiastical causes, even if
+we are not to assume that the circle of achievements possible to the
+Renaissance had been completed. Notwithstanding their profligacy, the
+Italians continued to be, physically and mentally, one of the healthiest
+and best-born populations in Europe,[999] and have retained this
+position, with improved morals, down to our own time.
+
+When we come to look more closely at the ethics of love at the time of
+the Renaissance, we are struck by a remarkable contrast. The novelists
+and comic poets give us to understand that love consists only in sensual
+enjoyment, and that to win this, all means, tragic or comic, are not
+only permitted, but are interesting in proportion to their audacity and
+unscrupulousness. But if we turn to the best of the lyric poets and
+writers of dialogues, we find in them a deep and spiritual passion of
+the noblest kind, whose last and highest expression is a revival of the
+ancient belief in an original unity of souls in the Divine Being. And
+both modes of feeling were then genuine, and could co-exist in the same
+individual. It is not exactly a matter of glory, but it is a fact, that
+in the cultivated man of modern times, this sentiment can be not merely
+unconsciously present in both its highest and lowest stages, but may
+thus manifest itself openly, and even artistically. The modern man,
+like the man of antiquity, is in this respect too a microcosm, which the
+mediæval man was not and could not be.
+
+To begin with the morality of the novelists. They treat chiefly, as we
+have said, of married women, and consequently of adultery.
+
+The opinion mentioned above (p. 395) of the equality of the two sexes is
+of great importance in relation to this subject. The highly developed
+and cultivated woman disposes of herself with a freedom unknown in
+Northern countries; and her unfaithfulness does not break up her life in
+the same terrible manner, so long as no outward consequence follow from
+it. The husband's claim on her fidelity has not that firm foundation
+which it acquires in the North through the poetry and passion of
+courtship and betrothal. After the briefest acquaintance with her future
+husband, the young wife quits the convent or the paternal roof to enter
+upon a world in which her character begins rapidly to develop. The
+rights of the husband are for this reason conditional, and even the man
+who regards them in the light of a 'jus quaesitum' thinks only of the
+outward conditions of the contract, not of the affections. The beautiful
+young wife of an old man sends back the presents and letters of a
+youthful lover, in the firm resolve to keep her honour (honesta). 'But
+she rejoices in the love of the youth for the sake of his great
+excellence; and she perceives that a noble woman may love a man of merit
+without loss to her honour.'[1000] But the way is short from such a
+distinction to a complete surrender.
+
+The latter seems indeed as good as justified, when there is
+unfaithfulness on the part of the husband. The woman, conscious of her
+own dignity, feels this not only as a pain, but also as a humiliation
+and deceit, and sets to work, often with the calmest consciousness of
+what she is about, to devise the vengeance which the husband deserves.
+Her tact must decide as to the measure of punishment which is suited to
+the particular case. The deepest wound, for example, may prepare the way
+for a reconciliation and a peaceful life in the future, if only it
+remain secret. The novelists, who themselves undergo such experiences or
+invent them according to the spirit of the age, are full of admiration
+when the vengeance is skilfully adapted to the particular case, in fact,
+when it is a work of art. As a matter of course, the husband never at
+bottom recognises this right of retaliation, and only submits to it from
+fear or prudence. Where these motives are absent, where his wife's
+unfaithfulness exposes him or may expose him to the derision of
+outsiders, the affair becomes tragical, and not seldom ends in murder or
+other vengeance of a violent sort. It is characteristic of the real
+motive from which these deeds arise, that not only the husbands, but the
+brothers[1001] and the father of the woman feel themselves not only
+justified in taking vengeance, but bound to take it. Jealousy,
+therefore, has nothing to do with the matter, moral reprobation but
+little; the real reason is the wish to spoil the triumph of others.
+'Nowadays,' says Bandello,[1002] 'we see a woman poison her husband to
+gratify her lusts, thinking that a widow may do whatever she desires.
+Another, fearing the discovery of an illicit amour, has her husband
+murdered by her lover. And though fathers, brothers, and husbands arise
+to extirpate the shame with poison, with the sword, and by every other
+means, women still continue to follow their passions, careless of their
+honour and their lives.' Another time, in a milder strain, he exclaims:
+'Would that we were not daily forced to hear that one man has murdered
+his wife because he suspected her of infidelity; that another has killed
+his daughter, on account of a secret marriage; that a third has caused
+his sister to be murdered, because she would not marry as he wished! It
+is great cruelty that we claim the right to do whatever we list, and
+will not suffer women to do the same. If they do anything which does not
+please us, there we are at once with cords and daggers and poison. What
+folly it is of men to suppose their own and their house's honour depends
+on the appetite of a woman!' The tragedy in which such affairs commonly
+ended was so well known that the novelist looked on the threatened
+gallant as a dead man, even while he went about alive and merry. The
+physician and lute-player Antonio Bologna[1003] had made a secret
+marriage with the widowed Duchess of Amalfi, of the house of Aragon.
+Soon afterwards her brother succeeded in securing both her and her
+children, and murdered them in a castle. Antonio, ignorant of their
+fate, and still cherishing the hope of seeing them again, was staying at
+Milan, closely watched by hired assassins, and one day in the society of
+Ippolita Sforza sang to the lute the story of his misfortunes. A friend
+of the house, Delio, 'told the story up to this point to Scipione
+Attelano, and added that he would make it the subject of a novel, as he
+was sure that Antonio would be murdered.' The manner in which this took
+place, almost under the eyes of Delio and Attelano, is thrillingly
+described by Bandello (i. 26).
+
+Nevertheless, the novelists habitually show a sympathy for all the
+ingenious, comic, and cunning features which may happen to attend
+adultery. They describe with delight how the lover manages to hide
+himself in the house, all the means and devices by which he communicates
+with his mistress, the boxes with cushions and sweetmeats in which he
+can be hidden and carried out of danger. The deceived husband is
+described sometimes as a fool to be laughed at, sometimes as a
+blood-thirsty avenger of his honour; there is no third situation except
+when the woman is painted as wicked and cruel, and the husband or lover
+is the innocent victim. It may be remarked, however, that narratives of
+the latter kind are not strictly speaking novels, but rather warning
+examples taken from real life.[1004]
+
+When in the course of the sixteenth century Italian life fell more and
+more under Spanish influence, the violence of the means to which
+jealousy had recourse perhaps increased. But this new phase must be
+distinguished from the punishment of infidelity which existed before,
+and which was founded in the spirit of the Renaissance itself. As the
+influence of Spain declined, these excesses of jealousy declined also,
+till towards the close of the seventeenth century they had wholly
+disappeared, and their place was taken by that indifference which
+regarded the 'Cicisbeo' as an indispensable figure in every household,
+and took no offence at one or two supernumerary lovers ('Patiti').
+
+But who can undertake to compare the vast sum of wickedness which all
+these facts imply, with what happened in other countries? Was the
+marriage-tie, for instance, really more sacred in France during the
+fifteenth century than in Italy? The 'fabliaux' and farces would lead us
+to doubt it, and rather incline us to think that unfaithfulness was
+equally common, though its tragic consequences were less frequent,
+because the individual was less developed and his claims were less
+consciously felt than in Italy. More evidence, however, in favour of the
+Germanic peoples lies in the fact of the social freedom enjoyed among
+them by girls and women, which impressed Italian travellers so
+pleasantly in England and in the Netherlands (p. 399, note 2). And yet
+we must not attach too much importance to this fact. Unfaithfulness was
+doubtless very frequent, and in certain cases led to a sanguinary
+vengeance. We have only to remember how the northern princes of that
+time dealt with their wives on the first suspicion of infidelity.
+
+But it was not merely the sensual desire, not merely the vulgar appetite
+of the ordinary man, which trespassed upon forbidden ground among the
+Italians of that day, but also the passion of the best and noblest; and
+this, not only because the unmarried girl did not appear in society, but
+also because the man, in proportion to the completeness of his own
+nature, felt himself most strongly attracted by the woman whom marriage
+had developed. These are the men who struck the loftiest notes of
+lyrical poetry, and who have attempted in their treatises and dialogues
+to give us an idealised image of the devouring passion--'l'amor divino.'
+When they complain of the cruelty of the winged god, they are not only
+thinking of the coyness or hard-heartedness of the beloved one, but also
+of the unlawfulness of the passion itself. They seek to raise
+themselves above this painful consciousness by that spiritualisation of
+love which found a support in the Platonic doctrine of the soul, and of
+which Pietro Bembo is the most famous representative. His thoughts on
+this subject are set forth by himself in the third book of the
+'Asolani,' and indirectly by Castiglione, who puts in his mouth the
+splendid speech with which the fourth book of the 'Cortigiano'
+concludes; neither of these writers was a stoic in his conduct, but at
+that time it meant something to be at once a famous and a good man, and
+this praise must be accorded to both of them; their contemporaries took
+what these men said to be a true expression of their feeling, and we
+have not the right to despise it as affectation. Those who take the
+trouble to study the speech in the 'Cortigiano' will see how poor an
+idea of it can be given by an extract. There were then living in Italy
+several distinguished women, who owed their celebrity chiefly to
+relations of this kind, such as Giulia Gonzaga, Veronica da Coreggio,
+and, above all, Vittoria Colonna. The land of profligates and scoffers
+respected these women and this sort of love--and what more can be said
+in their favour? We cannot tell how far vanity had to do with the
+matter, how far Vittoria was flattered to hear around her the sublimated
+utterances of hopeless love from the most famous men in Italy. If the
+thing was here and there a fashion, it was still no trifling praise for
+Vittoria that she, at least, never went out of fashion, and in her
+latest years produced the most profound impressions. It was long before
+other countries had anything similar to show.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In the imagination then, which governed this people more than any other,
+lies one general reason why the course of every passion was violent, and
+why the means used for the gratification of passion were often criminal.
+There is a violence which cannot control itself because it is born of
+weakness; but in Italy what we find is the corruption of powerful
+natures. Sometimes this corruption assumes a colossal shape, and crime
+seems to acquire almost a personal existence of its own.
+
+The restraints of which men were conscious were but few. Each
+individual, even among the lowest of the people, felt himself inwardly
+emancipated from the control of the State and its police, whose title to
+respect was illegitimate, and itself founded on violence; and no man
+believed any longer in the justice of the law. When a murder was
+committed, the sympathies of the people, before the circumstances of the
+case were known, ranged themselves instinctively on the side of the
+murderer.[1005] A proud, manly bearing before and at the execution
+excited such admiration that the narrator often forgets to tell us for
+what offence the criminal was put to death.[1006] But when we add to
+this inward contempt of law and to the countless grudges and enmities
+which called for satisfaction, the impunity which crime enjoyed during
+times of political disturbance, we can only wonder that the state and
+society were not utterly dissolved. Crises of this kind occurred at
+Naples during the transition from the Aragonese to the French and
+Spanish rule, and at Milan, on the repeated expulsions and returns of
+the Sforzas; at such times those men who have never in their hearts
+recognised the bonds of law and society, come forward and give free play
+to their instincts of murder and rapine. Let us take, by way of example,
+a picture drawn from a humbler sphere.
+
+When the Duchy of Milan was suffering from the disorders which followed
+the death of Giangaleazzo Sforza, about the year 1480 (pp. 40, 126), all
+safety came to an end in the provincial cities. This was the case in
+Parma,[1007] where the Milanese Governor, terrified by threats of
+murder, and after vainly offering rewards for the discovery of the
+offenders, consented to throw open the gaols and let loose the most
+abandoned criminals. Burglary, the demolition of houses, shameless
+offences against decency, public assassination and murders, especially
+of Jews, were events of everyday occurrence. At first the authors of
+these deeds prowled about singly, and masked; soon large gangs of armed
+men went to work every night without disguise. Threatening letters,
+satires, and scandalous jests circulated freely; and a sonnet in
+ridicule of the Government seems to have roused its indignation far more
+than the frightful condition of the city. In many churches the sacred
+vessels with the host were stolen, and this fact is characteristic of
+the temper which prompted these outrages. It is impossible to say what
+would happen now in any country of the world, if the government and
+police ceased to act, and yet hindered by their presence the
+establishment of a provisional authority; but what then occurred in
+Italy wears a character of its own, through the great share which
+personal hatred and revenge had in it. The impression, indeed, which
+Italy at this period makes on us is, that even in quiet times great
+crimes were commoner than in other countries. We may, it is true, be
+misled by the fact that we have far fuller details on such matters here
+than elsewhere, and that the same force of imagination, which gives a
+special character to crimes actually committed, causes much to be
+invented which never really happened. The amount of violence was perhaps
+as great elsewhere. It is hard to say for certain, whether in the year
+1500 men were any safer, whether human life was after all better
+protected, in powerful, wealthy Germany, with its robber knights,
+extortionate beggars, and daring highwaymen. But one thing is certain,
+that premeditated crimes, committed professionally and for hire by third
+parties, occurred in Italy with great and appalling frequency.
+
+So far as regards brigandage, Italy, especially in the more fortunate
+provinces, such as Tuscany, was certainly not more, and probably less,
+troubled than the countries of the North. But the figures which do meet
+us are characteristic of the country. It would be hard, for instance, to
+find elsewhere the case of a priest, gradually driven by passion from
+one excess to another, till at last he came to head a band of robbers.
+That age offers us this example among others.[1008] On August 12, 1495,
+the priest Don Niccolò de' Pelegati of Figarolo was shut up in an iron
+cage outside the tower of San Giuliano at Ferrara. He had twice
+celebrated his first mass; the first time he had the same day committed
+murder, but afterwards received absolution at Rome; he then killed four
+people and married two wives, with whom he travelled about. He
+afterwards took part in many assassinations, violated women, carried
+others away by force, plundered far and wide, and infested the territory
+of Ferrara with a band of followers in uniform, extorting food and
+shelter by every sort of violence. When we think of what all this
+implies, the mass of guilt on the head of this one man is something
+tremendous. The clergy and monks had many privileges and little
+supervision, and among them were doubtless plenty of murderers and other
+malefactors--but hardly a second Pelegati. It is another matter, though
+by no means creditable, when ruined characters sheltered themselves in
+the cowl in order to escape the arm of the law, like the corsair whom
+Massuccio knew in a convent at Naples.[1009] What the real truth was
+with regard to Pope John XXIII. in this respect, is not known with
+certainty.[1010]
+
+The age of the famous brigand chief did not begin till later, in the
+seventeenth century, when the political strife of Guelph and Ghibelline,
+of Frenchman and Spaniard, no longer agitated the country. The robber
+then took the place of the partisan.
+
+In certain districts of Italy, where civilization had made little
+progress, the country people were disposed to murder any stranger who
+fell into their hands. This was especially the case in the more remote
+parts of the Kingdom of Naples, where the barbarism dated probably from
+the days of the Roman 'latifundia,' and when the stranger and the enemy
+('hospes' and 'hostis') were in all good faith held to be one and the
+same. These people were far from being irreligious. A herdsman once
+appeared in great trouble at the confessional, avowing that, while
+making cheese during Lent, a few drops of milk had found their way into
+his mouth. The confessor, skilled in the customs of the country,
+discovered in the course of his examination that the penitent and his
+friends were in the practice of robbing and murdering travellers, but
+that, through the force of habit, this usage gave rise to no twinges of
+conscience within them.[1011] We have already mentioned (p. 352, note 3)
+to what a degree of barbarism the peasants elsewhere could sink in times
+of political confusion.
+
+A worse symptom than brigandage of the morality of that time was the
+frequency of paid assassination. In that respect Naples was admitted to
+stand at the head of all the cities of Italy. 'Nothing,' says
+Pontano,[1012] 'is cheaper here than human life.' But other districts
+could also show a terrible list of these crimes. It is hard, of course,
+to classify them according to the motives by which they were prompted,
+since political expediency, personal hatred, party hostility, fear, and
+revenge, all play into one another. It is no small honour to the
+Florentines, the most highly-developed people of Italy, that offences of
+this kind occurred more rarely among them than anywhere else,[1013]
+perhaps because there was a justice at hand for legitimate grievances
+which was recognised by all, or because the higher culture of the
+individual gave him different views as to the right of men to interfere
+with the decrees of fate. In Florence, if anywhere, men were able to
+feel the incalculable consequences of a deed of blood, and to
+understand how insecure the author of a so-called profitable crime is of
+any true and lasting gain. After the fall of Florentine liberty,
+assassination, especially by hired agents, seems to have rapidly
+increased, and continued till the government of Cosimo I. had attained
+such strength that the police[1014] was at last able to repress it.
+
+Elsewhere in Italy paid crimes were probably more or less frequent in
+proportion to the number of powerful and solvent buyers. Impossible as
+it is to make any statistical estimate of their amount, yet if only a
+fraction of the deaths which public report attributed to violence were
+really murders, the crime must have been terribly frequent. The worst
+example of all was set by princes and governments, who without the
+faintest scruple reckoned murder as one of the instruments of their
+power. And this, without being in the same category with Cæsar Borgia.
+The Sforzas, the Aragonese monarchs, the Republic of Venice,[1015] and
+later on, the agents of Charles V. resorted to it whenever it suited
+their purpose. The imagination of the people at last became so
+accustomed to facts of this kind, that the death of any powerful man was
+seldom or never attributed to natural causes.[1016] There were certainly
+absurd notions current with regard to the effect of various poisons.
+There may be some truth in the story of that terrible white powder used
+by the Borgias, which did its work at the end of a definite period (p.
+116), and it is possible that it was really a 'velenum atterminatum'
+which the Prince of Salerno handed to the Cardinal of Aragon, with the
+words: 'In a few days you will die, because your father, King Ferrante,
+wished to trample upon us all.'[1017] But the poisoned letter which
+Caterina Riario sent to Pope Alexander VI.[1018] would hardly have
+caused his death even if he had read it; and when Alfonso the Great was
+warned by his physicians not to read in the 'Livy' which Cosimo de'
+Medici had presented to him, he told them with justice not to talk like
+fools.[1019] Nor can that poison, with which the secretary of Piccinino
+wished to anoint the sedan-chair of Pius II.,[1020] have affected any
+other organ than the imagination. The proportion which mineral and
+vegetable poisons bore to one another cannot be ascertained precisely.
+The poison with which the painter Rosso Fiorentino destroyed himself
+(1541) was evidently a powerful acid,[1021] which it would have been
+impossible to administer to another person without his knowledge. The
+secret use of weapons, especially of the dagger, in the service of
+powerful individuals, was habitual in Milan, Naples, and other cities.
+Indeed, among the crowds of armed retainers who were necessary for the
+personal safety of the great, and who lived in idleness, it was natural
+that outbreaks of this mania for blood should from time to time occur.
+Many a deed of horror would never have been committed, had not the
+master known that he needed but to give a sign to one or other of his
+followers.
+
+Among the means used for the secret destruction of others--so far, that
+is, as the intention goes--we find magic,[1022] practised, however,
+sparingly. Where 'maleficii,' 'malie,' and so forth, are mentioned, they
+appear rather as a means of heaping up additional terror on the head of
+some hated enemy. At the courts of France and England in the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries, magic, practised with a view to the death of an
+opponent, plays a far more important part in Italy.
+
+In this country, finally, where individuality of every sort attained its
+highest development, we find instances of that ideal and absolute
+wickedness which delights in crimes for their own sake, and not as means
+to an end, or at any rate as means to ends for which our psychology has
+no measure.
+
+Among these appalling figures we may first notice certain of the
+'Condottieri,'[1023] such as Braccio di Montone, Tiberto Brandolino, and
+that Werner von Urslingen whose silver hauberk bore the inscription:
+'The enemy of God, of pity and of mercy.' This class of men offers us
+some of the earliest instances of criminals deliberately repudiating
+every moral restraint. Yet we shall be more reserved in our judgment of
+them when we remember that the worst part of their guilt--in the
+estimate of those who record it--lay in their defiance of spiritual
+threats and penalties, and that to this fact is due that air of horror
+with which they are represented as surrounded. In the case of Braccio,
+the hatred of the Church went so far that he was infuriated at the sight
+of monks at their psalms, and had thrown them down from the top of a
+tower;[1024] but at the same time 'he was loyal to his soldiers and a
+great general.' As a rule, the crimes of the 'Condottieri' were
+committed for the sake of some definite advantage, and must be
+attributed to a position in which men could not fail to be demoralised.
+Even their apparently gratuitous cruelty had commonly a purpose, if it
+were only to strike terror. The barbarities of the House of Aragon, as
+we have seen, were mainly due to fear and to the desire for vengeance.
+The thirst for blood on its own account, the devilish delight in
+destruction, is most clearly exemplified in the case of the Spaniard
+Cæsar Borgia, whose cruelties were certainly out of all proportion to
+the end which he had in view (p. 114 sqq.). In Sigismondo Malatesta,
+tyrant of Rimini (pp. 32, 228), the same disinterested love of evil may
+also be detected. It is not only the Court of Rome,[1025] but the
+verdict of history, which convicts him of murder, rape, adultery,
+incest, sacrilege, perjury and treason, committed not once but often.
+The most shocking crime of all--the unnatural attempt on his own son
+Roberto, who frustrated it with his drawn dagger,[1026]--may have been
+the result, not merely of moral corruption, but perhaps of some magical
+or astrological superstition. The same conjecture has been made to
+account for the rape of the Bishop of Fano[1027] by Pierluigi Farnese of
+Parma, son of Paul III.
+
+If we now attempt to sum up the principal features in the Italian
+character of that time, as we know it from a study of the life of the
+upper classes, we shall obtain something like the following result. The
+fundamental vice of this character was at the same time a condition of
+its greatness, namely, excessive individualism. The individual first
+inwardly casts off the authority of a state which, as a fact, is in
+most cases tyrannical and illegitimate, and what he thinks and does is,
+rightly or wrongly, now called treason. The sight of victorious egoism
+in others drives him to defend his own right by his own arm. And, while
+thinking to restore his inward equilibrium, he falls, through the
+vengeance which he executes, into the hands of the powers of darkness.
+His love, too, turns mostly for satisfaction to another individuality
+equally developed, namely, to his neighbour's wife. In face of all
+objective facts, of laws and restraints of whatever kind, he retains the
+feeling of his own sovereignty, and in each single instance forms his
+decision independently, according as honour or interest, passion or
+calculation, revenge or renunciation, gain the upper hand in his own
+mind.
+
+If therefore egoism in its wider as well as narrower sense is the root
+and fountain of all evil, the more highly developed Italian was for this
+reason more inclined to wickedness than the member of other nations of
+that time.
+
+But this individual development did not come upon him through any fault
+of his own, but rather through an historical necessity. It did not come
+upon him alone, but also, and chiefly by means of Italian culture, upon
+the other nations of Europe, and has constituted since then the higher
+atmosphere which they breathe. In itself it is neither good nor bad, but
+necessary; within it has grown up a modern standard of good and evil--a
+sense of moral responsibility--which is essentially different from that
+which was familiar to the Middle Ages.
+
+But the Italian of the Renaissance had to bear the first mighty surging
+of a new age. Through his gifts and his passions, he has become the most
+characteristic representative of all the heights and all the depths of
+his time. By the side of profound corruption appeared human
+personalities of the noblest harmony, and an artistic splendour which
+shed upon the life of man a lustre which neither antiquity nor
+mediævalism either could or would bestow upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+RELIGION IN DAILY LIFE.
+
+
+The morality of a people stands in the closest connection with its
+consciousness of God, that is to say, with its firmer or weaker faith in
+the divine government of the world, whether this faith looks on
+the world as destined to happiness or to misery and speedy
+destruction.[1028] The infidelity then prevalent in Italy is notorious,
+and whoever takes the trouble to look about for proofs, will find them
+by the hundred. Our present task, here as elsewhere, is to separate and
+discriminate; refraining from an absolute and final verdict.
+
+The belief in God at earlier times had its source and chief support in
+Christianity and the outward symbol of Christianity, the Church. When
+the Church became corrupt, men ought to have drawn a distinction, and
+kept their religion in spite of all. But this is more easily said than
+done. It is not every people which is calm enough, or dull enough, to
+tolerate a lasting contradiction between a principle and its outward
+expression. But history does not record a heavier responsibility than
+that which rests upon the decaying Church. She set up as absolute truth
+and by the most violent means, a doctrine which she had distorted to
+serve her own aggrandisement. Safe in the sense of her inviolability,
+she abandoned herself to the most scandalous profligacy, and, in order
+to maintain herself in this state, she levelled mortal blows against the
+conscience and the intellect of nations, and drove multitudes of the
+noblest spirits, whom she had inwardly estranged, into the arms of
+unbelief and despair.
+
+Here we are met by the question: Why did not Italy, intellectually so
+great, react more energetically against the hierarchy; why did she not
+accomplish a reformation like that which occurred in Germany, and
+accomplish it at an earlier date?
+
+A plausible answer has been given to this question. The Italian mind, we
+are told, never went further than the denial of the hierarchy, while the
+origin and the vigour of the German Reformation was due to its positive
+religious doctrines, most of all to the doctrines of justification by
+faith and of the inefficacy of good works.
+
+It is certain that these doctrines only worked upon Italy through
+Germany, and this not till the power of Spain was sufficiently great to
+root them out without difficulty, partly by itself and partly by means
+of the Papacy, and its instruments.[1029] Nevertheless, in the earlier
+religious movements of Italy, from the Mystics of the thirteenth century
+down to Savonarola, there was a large amount of positive religious
+doctrine which, like the very definite Christianity of the Huguenots,
+failed to achieve success only because circumstances were against it.
+Mighty events like the Reformation elude, as respects their details,
+their outbreak and their development, the deductions of the
+philosophers, however clearly the necessity of them as a whole may be
+demonstrated. The movements of the human spirit, its sudden flashes, its
+expansions and its pauses, must for ever remain a mystery to our eyes,
+since we can but know this or that of the forces at work in it, never
+all of them together.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The feeling of the upper and middle classes in Italy with regard to the
+Church at the time when the Renaissance culminated, was compounded of
+deep and contemptuous aversion, of acquiescence in the outward
+ecclesiastical customs which entered into daily life, and of a sense of
+dependence on sacraments and ceremonies. The great personal influence of
+religious preachers may be added as a fact characteristic of Italy.
+
+That hostility to the hierarchy, which displays itself more especially
+from the time of Dante onwards in Italian literature and history, has
+been fully treated by several writers. We have already (p. 223) said
+something of the attitude of public opinion with regard to the Papacy.
+Those who wish for the strongest evidence which the best authorities
+offer us, can find it in the famous passages of Macchiavelli's
+'Discorsi,' and in the unmutilated edition of Guicciardini. Outside the
+Roman Curia, some respect seems to have been felt for the best men among
+the bishops,[1030] and for many of the parochial clergy. On the other
+hand, the mere holders of benefices, the canons, and the monks were held
+in almost universal suspicion, and were often the objects of the most
+scandalous aspersions, extending to the whole of their order.
+
+It has been said that the monks were made the scapegoats for the whole
+clergy, for the reason that none but they could be ridiculed without
+danger.[1031] But this is certainly incorrect. They are introduced so
+frequently in the novels and comedies, because these forms of literature
+need fixed and well-known types where the imagination of the reader can
+easily fill up an outline. Besides which, the novelists do not as a fact
+spare the secular clergy.[1032] In the third place, we have abundant
+proof in the rest of Italian literature that men could speak boldly
+enough about the Papacy and the Court of Rome. In works of imagination
+we cannot expect to find criticism of this kind. Fourthly, the monks,
+when attacked, were sometimes able to take a terrible vengeance.
+
+It is nevertheless true that the monks were the most unpopular class of
+all, and that they were reckoned a living proof of the worthlessness of
+conventual life, of the whole ecclesiastical organisation, of the system
+of dogma, and of religion altogether, according as men pleased, rightly
+or wrongly, to draw their conclusions. We may also assume that Italy
+retained a clearer recollection of the origin of the two great mendicant
+orders than other countries, and had not forgotten that they were the
+chief agents in the reaction[1033] against what is called the heresy of
+the thirteenth century, that is to say, against an early and vigorous
+movement of the modern Italian spirit. And that spiritual police which
+was permanently entrusted to the Dominicans certainly never excited any
+other feeling than secret hatred and contempt.
+
+After reading the 'Decameron' and the novels of Franco Sacchetti, we
+might imagine that the vocabulary of abuse directed at the monks and
+nuns was exhausted. But towards the time of the Reformation this abuse
+became still fiercer. To say nothing of Aretino, who in the
+'Ragionamenti' uses conventual life merely as a pretext for giving free
+play to his own poisonous nature, we may quote one author as typical of
+the rest--Massuccio, in the first ten of his fifty novels. They are
+written in a tone of the deepest indignation, and with this purpose to
+make the indignation general; and are dedicated to men in the highest
+position, such as King Ferrante and Prince Alfonso of Naples. The
+stories are many of them old, and some of them familiar to readers of
+Boccaccio. But others reflect, with a frightful realism, the actual
+state of things at Naples. The way in which the priests befool and
+plunder the people by means of spurious miracles, added to their own
+scandalous lives, is enough to drive any thoughtful observer to despair.
+We read of the Minorite friars who travelled to collect alms: 'They
+cheat, steal, and fornicate, and when they are at the end of their
+resources, they set up as saints and work miracles, one displaying the
+cloak of St. Vincent, another the handwriting[1034] of St. Bernadino, a
+third the bridle of Capistrano's donkey.' Others 'bring with them
+confederates who pretend to be blind or afflicted with some mortal
+disease, and after touching the hem of the monk's cowl, or the reliques
+which he carried, are healed before the eyes of the multitude. All then
+shout "Misericordia," the bells are rung, and the miracle is recorded in
+a solemn protocol.' Or else a monk in the pulpit is denounced as a liar
+by another who stands below among the audience; the accuser is
+immediately possessed by the devil, and then healed by the preacher. The
+whole thing was a pre-arranged comedy, in which, however, the principal
+with his assistant made so much money that he was able to buy a
+bishopric from a Cardinal, on which the two confederates lived
+comfortably to the end of their days. Massuccio makes no great
+distinction between Franciscans and Dominicans, finding the one worth as
+much as the other. 'And yet the foolish people lets itself be drawn into
+their hatreds and divisions, and quarrels about them in public
+places,[1035] and calls itself "franceschino" or "domenichino."' The
+nuns are the exclusive property of the monks. Those of the former who
+have anything to do with the laity, are prosecuted and put in prison,
+while others are wedded in due form to the monks, with the
+accompaniments of mass, a marriage-contract, and a liberal indulgence in
+food and wine. 'I myself,' says the author, 'have been there not once,
+but several times, and seen it all with my own eyes. The nuns afterwards
+bring forth pretty little monks or else use means to hinder that result.
+And if any one charges me with falsehood, let him search the nunneries
+well, and he will find there as many little bones as in Bethlehem at
+Herod's time.'[1036] These things, and the like, are among the secrets
+of monastic life. The monks are by no means too strict with one another
+in the confessional, and impose a Paternoster in cases where they would
+refuse all absolution to a layman as if he were a heretic. 'Therefore
+may the earth open and swallow up the wretches alive, with those who
+protect them!' In another place Massuccio, speaking of the fact that the
+influence of the monks depends chiefly on the dread of another world,
+utters the following remarkable wish: 'The best punishment for them
+would be for God to abolish Purgatory; they would then receive no more
+alms, and would be forced to go back to their spades.'
+
+If men were free to write, in the time of Ferrante, and to him, in this
+strain, the reason is perhaps to be found in the fact that the king
+himself had been incensed by a false miracle which had been palmed off
+on him.[1037] An attempt had been made to urge him to a persecution of
+the Jews, like that carried out in Spain and imitated by the
+Popes,[1038] by producing a tablet with an inscription bearing the name
+of St. Cataldus, said to have been buried at Tarentum, and afterwards
+dug up again. When he discovered the fraud, the monks defied him. He had
+also managed to detect and expose a pretended instance of fasting, as
+his father Alfonso had done before him.[1039] The Court, certainly, was
+no accomplice in maintaining these blind superstitions.[1040]
+
+We have been quoting from an author who wrote in earnest, and who by no
+means stands alone in his judgment. All the Italian literature of that
+time is full of ridicule and invective aimed at the begging
+friars.[1041] It can hardly have been doubted that the Renaissance would
+soon have destroyed these two Orders, had it not been for the German
+Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation which that provoked. Their
+saints and popular preachers could hardly have saved them. It would only
+have been necessary to come to an understanding at a favourable moment
+with a Pope like Leo X., who despised the Mendicant Orders. If the
+spirit of the age found them ridiculous or repulsive, they could no
+longer be anything but an embarrassment to the Church. And who can say
+what fate was in store for the Papacy itself, if the Reformation had not
+saved it?
+
+The influence which the Father Inquisitor of a Dominican monastery was
+able habitually to exercise in the city where it was situated, was in
+the latter part of the fifteenth century just considerable enough to
+hamper and irritate cultivated people, but not strong enough to extort
+any lasting fear or obedience.[1042] It was no longer possible to punish
+men for their thoughts, as it once was (p. 290 sqq.), and those whose
+tongues wagged most impudently against the clergy could easily keep
+clear of heretical doctrine. Except when some powerful party had an end
+to serve, as in the case of Savonarola, or when there was a question of
+the use of magical arts, as was often the case in the cities of North
+Italy, we seldom read at this time of men being burnt at the stake. The
+Inquisitors were in some instances satisfied with the most superficial
+retractation, in others it even happened that the victim was saved out
+of their hands on the way to the place of execution. In Bologna (1452)
+the priest Niccolò da Verona had been publicly degraded on a wooden
+scaffold in front of San Domenico as a wizard and profaner of the
+sacraments, and was about to be led away to the stake, when he was set
+free by a gang of armed men, sent by Achille Malvezzi, a noted friend of
+heretics and violator of nuns. The legate, Cardinal Bessarion, was only
+able to catch and hang one of the party; Malvezzi lived on in
+peace.[1043]
+
+It deserves to be noticed that the higher monastic orders--the
+Benedictines, with their many branches--were, notwithstanding their
+great wealth and easy lives, far less disliked than the mendicant
+friars. For ten novels which treat of 'frati,' hardly one can be found
+in which a 'monaco' is the subject and the victim. It was no small
+advantage to this order that it was founded earlier, and not as an
+instrument of police, and that it did not interfere with private life.
+It contained men of learning, wit, and piety, but the average has been
+described by a member of it, Firenzuola,[1044] who says: 'These well-fed
+gentlemen with the capacious cowls do not pass their time in barefooted
+journeys and in sermons, but sit in elegant slippers with their hands
+crossed over their paunches, in charming cells wainscotted with
+cyprus-wood. And when they are obliged to quit the house, they ride
+comfortably, as if for their amusement, on mules and sleek, quiet
+horses. They do not overstrain their minds with the study of many books,
+for fear lest knowledge might put the pride of Lucifer in the place of
+monkish simplicity.'
+
+Those who are familiar with the literature of the time, will see that we
+have only brought forward what is absolutely necessary for the
+understanding of the subject.[1045] That the reputation attaching to the
+monks and the secular clergy must have shattered the faith of
+multitudes in all that is sacred is, of course obvious.
+
+And some of the judgments which we read are terrible; we will quote one
+of them in conclusion, which has been published only lately and is but
+little known. The historian Guicciardini, who was for many years in the
+service of the Medicean Popes says (1529) in his 'Aphorisms'[1046]: 'No
+man is more disgusted than I am with the ambition, the avarice, and the
+profligacy of the priests, not only because each of these vices is
+hateful in itself, but because each and all of them are most unbecoming
+in those who declare themselves to be men in special relations with God,
+and also because they are vices so opposed to one another, that they can
+only co-exist in very singular natures. Nevertheless, my position at the
+Court of several Popes forced me to desire their greatness for the sake
+of my own interest. But, had it been for this, I should have loved
+Martin Luther as myself, not in order to free myself from the laws which
+Christianity, as generally understood and explained, lays upon us, but
+in order to see this swarm of scoundrels ('questa caterva di
+scellerati') put back into their proper place, so that they may be
+forced to live either without vices or without power.'[1047]
+
+The same Guicciardini is of opinion that we are in the dark as to all
+that is supernatural, that philosophers and theologians have nothing but
+nonsense to tell us about it, that miracles occur in every religion and
+prove the truth of none in particular, and that all of them may be
+explained as unknown phenomena of nature. The faith which moves
+mountains, then common among the followers of Savonarola, is mentioned
+by Guicciardini as a curious fact, but without any bitter remark.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Notwithstanding this hostile public opinion, the clergy and the monks
+had the great advantage that the people was used to them, and that their
+existence was interwoven with the everyday existence of all. This is the
+advantage which every old and powerful institution possesses. Everybody
+had some cowled or frocked relative, some prospect of assistance or
+future gain from the treasure of the Church; and in the centre of Italy
+stood the Court of Rome, where men sometimes became rich in a moment.
+Yet it must never be forgotten that all this did not hinder people from
+writing and speaking freely. The authors of the most scandalous satires
+were themselves mostly monks or beneficed priests. Poggio, who wrote the
+'Facetiae,' was a clergyman; Francesco Berni, the satirist, held a
+canonry; Teofilo Folengo, the author of the 'Orlandino,' was a
+Benedictine, certainly by no means a faithful one; Matteo Bandello, who
+held up his own order to ridicule, was a Dominican, and nephew of a
+general of this order. Were they encouraged to write by the sense that
+they ran no risk? Or did they feel an inward need to clear themselves
+personally from the infamy which attached to their order? Or were they
+moved by that selfish pessimism which takes for its maxim, 'it will last
+our time'? Perhaps all of these motives were more or less at work. In
+the case of Folengo, the unmistakable influence of Lutheranism must be
+added.[1048]
+
+The sense of dependence on rites and sacraments, which we have already
+touched upon in speaking of the Papacy (p. 103), is not surprising among
+that part of the people which still believed in the Church. Among those
+who were more emancipated, it testifies to the strength of youthful
+impressions, and to the magical force of traditional symbols. The
+universal desire of dying men for priestly absolution shows that the
+last remnants of the dread of hell had not, even in the case of one like
+Vitellozzo, been altogether extinguished. It would hardly be possible to
+find a more instructive instance than this. The doctrine taught by the
+Church of the 'character indelibilis' of the priesthood, independently
+of the personality of the priest, had so far borne fruit that it was
+possible to loathe the individual and still desire his spiritual gifts.
+It is true, nevertheless, that there were defiant natures like Galeotto
+of Mirandola,[1049] who died unabsolved in 1499, after living for
+sixteen years under the ban of the Church. All this time the city lay
+under an interdict on his account, so that no mass was celebrated and
+no Christian burial took place.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A splendid contrast to all this is offered by the power exercised over
+the nation by its great Preachers of Repentance. Other countries of
+Europe were from time to time moved by the words of saintly monks, but
+only superficially, in comparison with the periodical upheaval of the
+Italian conscience. The only man, in fact, who produced a similar effect
+in Germany during the fifteenth century,[1050] was an Italian, born in
+the Abruzzi, named Giovanni Capistrano. Those natures which bear within
+them this religious vocation and this commanding earnestness, wore then
+in Northern countries an intuitive and mystical aspect. In the South
+they were practical and expansive, and shared in the national gift of
+language and oratorical skill. The North produced an 'Imitation of
+Christ,' which worked silently, at first only within the walls of the
+monastery, but worked for the ages; the South produced men who made on
+their fellows a mighty but passing impression.
+
+This impression consisted chiefly in the awakening of the conscience.
+The sermons were moral exhortations, free from abstract notions and full
+of practical application, rendered more impressive by the saintly and
+ascetic character of the preacher, and by the miracles which, even
+against his will, the inflamed imagination of the people attributed to
+him.[1051] The most powerful argument used was not the threat of Hell
+and Purgatory, but rather the living results of the 'maledizione,' the
+temporal ruin wrought on the individual by the curse which clings to
+wrong-doing. The grieving of Christ and the Saints has its consequences
+in this life. And only thus could men, sunk in passion and guilt, be
+brought to repentance and amendment--which was the chief object of these
+sermons.
+
+Among these preachers were Bernadino da Siena, and his two pupils,
+Alberto da Sarteano and Jacopo della Marca, Giovanni Capistrano, Roberto
+da Lecce (p. 413), and finally, Girolamo Savonarola. No prejudice of the
+day was stronger than that against the mendicant friar, and this they
+overcame. They were criticised and ridiculed by a scornful
+humanism;[1052] but when they raised their voices, no one gave heed to
+the humanists. The thing was no novelty, and the scoffing Florentines
+had already in the fourteenth century learned to caricature it whenever
+it appeared in the pulpit.[1053] But no sooner did Savonarola come
+forward than he carried the people so triumphantly with him, that soon
+all their beloved art and culture melted away in the furnace which he
+lighted. Even the grossest profanation done to the cause by hypocritical
+monks, who got up an effect in the audience by means of confederates (p.
+460), could not bring the thing itself into discredit. Men kept on
+laughing at the ordinary monkish sermons, with their spurious miracles
+and manufactured reliques;[1054] but did not cease to honour the great
+and genuine prophets. These are a true Italian specialty of the
+fifteenth century.
+
+The Order--generally that of St. Francis, and more particularly the
+so-called Observantines--sent them out according as they were wanted.
+This was commonly the case when there was some important public or
+private feud in a city, or some alarming outbreak of violence,
+immorality, or disease. When once the reputation of a preacher was
+made, the cities were all anxious to hear him even without any special
+occasion. He went wherever his superiors sent him. A special form of
+this work was the preaching of a Crusade against the Turks;[1055] but
+here we have to speak more particularly of the exhortations to
+repentance.
+
+The order of these, when they were treated methodically, seems to have
+followed the customary list of the deadly sins. The more pressing,
+however, the occasion is, the more directly does the preacher make for
+his main point. He begins perhaps in one of the great churches of the
+Order, or in the cathedral. Soon the largest piazza is too small for the
+crowds which throng from every side to hear him, and he himself can
+hardly move without risking his life.[1056] The sermon is commonly
+followed by a great procession; but the first magistrates of the city,
+who take him in their midst, can hardly save him from the multitude of
+women who throng to kiss his hands and feet, and cut off fragments from
+his cowl.[1057]
+
+The most immediate consequences which follow from the preacher's
+denunciations of usury, luxury, and scandalous fashions, are the opening
+of the gaols--which meant no more than the discharge of the poorer
+creditors--and the burning of various instruments of luxury and
+amusement, whether innocent or not. Among these are dice, cards, games
+of all kinds, written incantations,[1058] masks, musical instruments,
+song-books, false hair, and so forth. All these would then be
+gracefully arranged on a scaffold ('talamo'), a figure of the devil
+fastened to the top, and then the whole set on fire (comp. p. 372).
+
+Then came the turn of the more hardened consciences. Men who had long
+never been near the confessional, now acknowledged their sins.
+Ill-gotten gains were restored, and insults which might have borne fruit
+in blood retracted. Orators like Bernadino of Siena[1059] entered
+diligently into all the details of the daily life of men, and the moral
+laws which are involved in it. Few theologians nowadays would feel
+tempted to give a morning sermon 'on contracts, restitutions, the public
+debt ("monte"), and the portioning of daughters,' like that which he
+once delivered in the Cathedral at Florence. Imprudent speakers easily
+fell into the mistake of attacking particular classes, professions, or
+offices, with such energy that the enraged hearers proceeded to violence
+against those whom the preacher had denounced.[1060] A sermon which
+Bernadino once preached in Rome (1424) had another consequence besides a
+bonfire of vanities on the Capitol: 'after this,'[1061] we read, 'the
+witch Finicella was burnt, because by her diabolical arts she had killed
+many children and bewitched many other persons; and all Rome went to see
+the sight.'
+
+But the most important aim of the preacher was, as has been already
+said, to reconcile enemies and persuade them to give up thoughts of
+vengeance. Probably this end was seldom attained till towards the close
+of a course of sermons, when the tide of penitence flooded the city,
+and when the air resounded[1062] with the cry of the whole people:
+'Misericordia!' Then followed those solemn embracings and treaties of
+peace, which even previous bloodshed on both sides could not hinder.
+Banished men were recalled to the city to take part in these sacred
+transactions. It appears that these 'Paci' were on the whole faithfully
+observed, even after the mood which prompted them was over; and then the
+memory of the monk was blessed from generation to generation. But there
+were sometimes terrible crises like those in the families Della Valle
+and Croce in Rome (1482), where even the great Roberto da Lecce raised
+his voice in vain.[1063] Shortly before Holy Week he had preached to
+immense crowds in the square before the Minerva. But on the night before
+Maunday Thursday a terrible combat took place in front of the Palazzo
+della Valle, near the Ghetto. In the morning Pope Sixtus gave orders for
+its destruction, and then performed the customary ceremonies of the day.
+On Good Friday Roberto preached again with a crucifix in his hand; but
+he and his hearers could do nothing but weep.
+
+Violent natures, which had fallen into contradiction with themselves,
+often resolved to enter a convent, under the impression made by these
+men. Among such were not only brigands and criminals of every sort, but
+soldiers without employment.[1064] This resolve was stimulated by their
+admiration of the holy man, and by the desire to copy at least his
+outward position.
+
+The concluding sermon is a general benediction, summed up in the words:
+'la pace sia con voi!' Throngs of hearers accompany the preacher to the
+next city, and there listen for a second time to the whole course of
+sermons.
+
+The enormous influence exercised by these preachers made it important,
+both for the clergy and for the government, at least not to have them as
+opponents; one means to this end was to permit only monks[1065] or
+priests who had received at all events the lesser consecration, to enter
+the pulpit, so that the Order or Corporation to which they belonged was,
+to some extent, responsible for them. But it was not easy to make the
+rule absolute, since the Church and pulpit had long been used as a means
+of publicity in many ways, judicial, educational, and others, and since
+even sermons were sometimes delivered by humanists and other laymen (p.
+234 sqq.). There existed, too, in Italy a dubious class of
+persons,[1066] who were neither monks nor priests, and who yet had
+renounced the world--that is to say, the numerous class of hermits who
+appeared from time to time in the pulpit on their own authority, and
+often carried the people with them. A case of this kind occurred at
+Milan in 1516, after the second French conquest, certainly at a time
+when public order was much disturbed. A Tuscan hermit Hieronymus of
+Siena, possibly an adherent of Savonarola, maintained his place for
+months together in the pulpit of the Cathedral, denounced the hierarchy
+with great violence, caused a new chandelier and a new altar to be set
+up in the church, worked miracles, and only abandoned the field after a
+long and desperate struggle.[1067] During the decades in which the fate
+of Italy was decided, the spirit of prophecy was unusually active, and
+nowhere where it displayed itself was it confined to any one particular
+class. We know with what a tone of true prophetic defiance the hermits
+came forward before the sack of Rome (p. 122). In default of any
+eloquence of their own, these men made use of messengers with symbols of
+one kind or another, like the ascetic near Siena (1429), who sent a
+'little hermit,' that is a pupil, into the terrified city with a skull
+upon a pole, to which was attached a paper with a threatening text from
+the Bible.[1068]
+
+Nor did the monks themselves scruple to attack princes, governments, the
+clergy, or even their own order. A direct exhortation to overthrow a
+despotic house, like that uttered by Jacopo Bussolaro at Pavia in the
+fourteenth century,[1069] hardly occurs again in the following period;
+but there is no want of courageous reproofs, addressed even to the Pope
+in his own chapel (p. 239, note 1), and of naïve political advice given
+in the presence of rulers who by no means held themselves in need of
+it.[1070] In the Piazza del Castello at Milan, a blind preacher from the
+Incoronata--consequently an Augustinian--ventured in 1494 to exhort
+Ludovico Moro from the pulpit: 'My lord, beware of showing the French
+the way, else you will repent it.'[1071] There were further prophetic
+monks, who, without exactly preaching political sermons, drew such
+appalling pictures of the future that the hearers almost lost their
+senses. After the election of Leo X. in the year 1513, a whole
+association of these men, twelve Franciscan monks in all, journeyed
+through the various districts of Italy, of which one or other was
+assigned to each preacher. The one who appeared in Florence,[1072] Fra
+Francesco di Montepulciano, struck terror into the whole people. The
+alarm was not diminished by the exaggerated reports of his prophecies
+which reached those who were too far off to hear him. After one of his
+sermons he suddenly died 'of pain in the chest.' The people thronged in
+such numbers to kiss the feet of the corpse that it had to be secretly
+buried in the night. But the newly awakened spirit of prophecy, which
+seized upon even women and peasants, could not be controlled without
+great difficulty. 'In order to restore to the people their cheerful
+humour, the Medici--Giuliano, Leo's brother, and Lorenzo--gave on St.
+John's Day, 1514, those splendid festivals, tournaments, processions,
+and hunting-parties, which were attended by many distinguished persons
+from Rome, and among them, though disguised, by no less than six
+cardinals.'
+
+But the greatest of the prophets and apostles had been already burnt in
+Florence in the year 1498--Fra Giorolamo Savonarola of Ferrara. We must
+content ourselves with saying a few words respecting him.[1073]
+
+The instrument by means of which he transformed and ruled the city of
+Florence (1494-8) was his eloquence. Of this the meagre reports that
+are left to us, which were taken down mostly on the spot, give us
+evidently a very imperfect notion. It was not that he possessed any
+striking outward advantages, for voice, accent, and rhetorical skill
+constituted precisely his weakest side; and those who required the
+preacher to be a stylist, went to his rival Fra Mariano da Genazzano.
+The eloquence of Savonarola was the expression of a lofty and commanding
+personality, the like of which was not seen again till the time of
+Luther. He himself held his own influence to be the result of a divine
+illumination, and could therefore, without presumption, assign a very
+high place to the office of the preacher, who, in the great hierarchy of
+spirits, occupies the next place below the angels.
+
+This man, whose nature seemed made of fire, worked another and greater
+miracle than any of his oratorical triumphs. His own Dominican monastery
+of San Marco, and then all the Dominican monasteries of Tuscany, became
+like-minded with himself, and undertook voluntarily the work of inward
+reform. When we reflect what the monasteries then were, and what
+measureless difficulty attends the least change where monks are
+concerned, we are doubly astonished at so complete a revolution. While
+the reform was still in progress large numbers of Savonarola's followers
+entered the Order, and thereby greatly facilitated his plans. Sons of
+the first houses in Florence entered San Marco as novices.
+
+This reform of the Order in a particular province was the first step to
+a national Church, in which, had the reformer himself lived longer, it
+must infallibly have ended. Savonarola, indeed, desired the regeneration
+of the whole Church, and near the end of his career sent pressing
+exhortations to the great powers urging them to call together a Council.
+But in Tuscany his Order and party were the only organs of his
+spirit--the salt of the earth--while the neighbouring provinces remained
+in their old condition. Fancy and asceticism tended more and more to
+produce in him a state of mind to which Florence appeared as the scene
+of the kingdom of God upon earth.
+
+The prophecies, whose partial fulfilment conferred on Savonarola a
+supernatural credit, were the means by which the ever-active Italian
+imagination seized control of the soundest and most cautious natures. At
+first the Franciscans of the Osservanza, trusting in the reputation
+which had been bequeathed to them by San Bernadino of Siena, fancied
+that they could compete with the great Dominican. They put one of their
+own men into the Cathedral pulpit, and outbid the Jeremiads of
+Savonarola by still more terrible warnings, till Pietro de'Medici, who
+then still ruled over Florence, forced them both to be silent. Soon
+after, when Charles VIII. came into Italy and the Medici were expelled,
+as Savonarola had clearly foretold, he alone was believed in.
+
+It must be frankly confessed that he never judged his own premonitions
+and visions critically, as he did those of others. In the funeral
+oration on Pico della Mirandola, he deals somewhat harshly with his dead
+friend. Since Pico, notwithstanding an inner voice which came from God,
+would not enter the Order, he had himself prayed to God to chasten him
+for his disobedience. He certainly had not desired his death, and alms
+and prayers had obtained the favour that Pico's soul was safe in
+Purgatory. With regard to a comforting vision which Pico had upon his
+sick-bed, in which the Virgin appeared and promised him that he should
+not die, Savonarola confessed that he had long regarded it as a deceit
+of the Devil, till it was revealed to him that the Madonna meant the
+second and eternal death.[1074] If these things and the like are proofs
+of presumption, it must be admitted that this great soul at all events
+paid a bitter penalty for his fault. In his last days Savonarola seems
+to have recognised the vanity of his visions and prophecies. And yet
+enough inward peace was left him to enable him to meet death like a
+Christian. His partisans held to his doctrine and predictions for thirty
+years longer.
+
+He only undertook the reorganisation of the state for the reason that
+otherwise his enemies would have got the government into their own
+hands. It is unfair to judge him by the semi-democratic constitution (p.
+83, note 1) of the beginning of the year 1495. Nor is it either better
+or worse than other Florentine constitutions.[1075]
+
+He was at bottom the most unsuitable man who could be found for such a
+work. His ideal was a theocracy, in which all men were to bow in blessed
+humility before the Unseen, and all conflicts of passion were not even
+to be able to arise. His whole mind is written in that inscription on
+the Palazzo della Signoria, the substance of which was his maxim[1076]
+as early as 1495, and which was solemnly renewed by his partisans in
+1527: 'Jesus Christus Rex populi Florentini S. P. Q. decreto creatus.'
+He stood in no more relation to mundane affairs and their actual
+conditions than any other inhabitant of a monastery. Man, according to
+him, has only to attend to those things which make directly for his
+salvation.
+
+This temper comes out clearly in his opinions on ancient literature:
+'The only good thing which we owe to Plato and Aristotle, is that they
+brought forward many arguments which we can use against the heretics.
+Yet they and other philosophers are now in Hell. An old woman knows more
+about the Faith than Plato. It would be good for religion if many books
+that seem useful were destroyed. When there were not so many books and
+not so many arguments ("ragioni naturali") and disputes, religion grew
+more quickly than it has done since.' He wished to limit the classical
+instruction of the schools to Homer, Virgil, and Cicero, and to supply
+the rest from Jerome and Augustine. Not only Ovid and Catullus, but
+Terence and Tibullus, were to be banished. This may be no more than the
+expression of a nervous morality, but elsewhere in a special work he
+admits that science as a whole is harmful. He holds that only a few
+people should have to do with it, in order that the tradition of human
+knowledge may not perish, and particularly that there may be no want of
+intellectual athletes to confute the sophisms of the heretics. For all
+others, grammar, morals, and religious teaching ('litterae sacrae')
+suffice. Culture and education would thus return wholly into the charge
+of the monks, and as, in his opinion, the 'most learned and the most
+pious' are to rule over the states and empires, these rulers would also
+be monks. Whether he really foresaw this conclusion, we need not
+inquire.
+
+A more childish method of reasoning cannot be imagined. The simple
+reflection that the new-born antiquity and the boundless enlargement of
+human thought and knowledge which was due to it, might give splendid
+confirmation to a religion able to adapt itself thereto, seems never
+even to have occurred to the good man. He wanted to forbid what he could
+not deal with by any other means. In fact, he was anything but liberal,
+and was ready, for example, to send the astrologers to the same stake at
+which he afterwards himself died.[1077]
+
+How mighty must have been the soul which dwelt side by side with this
+narrow intellect! And what a flame must have glowed within him before he
+could constrain the Florentines, possessed as they were by the passion
+for culture, to surrender themselves to a man who could thus reason!
+
+How much of their heart and their worldliness they were ready to
+sacrifice for his sake is shown by those famous bonfires by the side of
+which all the 'talami' of Bernadino da Siena and others were certainly
+of small account.
+
+All this could not, however, be effected without the agency of a
+tyrannical police. He did not shrink from the most vexatious
+interferences with the much-prized freedom of Italian private life,
+using the espionage of servants on their masters as a means of carrying
+out his moral reforms. That transformation of public and private life
+which the iron Calvin was but just able to effect at Geneva with the aid
+of a permanent state of siege necessarily proved impossible at Florence,
+and the attempt only served to drive the enemies of Savonarola to a more
+implacable hostility. Among his most unpopular measures may be mentioned
+those organised parties of boys, who forced their way into the houses
+and laid violent hands on any objects which seemed suitable for the
+bonfire. As it happened that they were sometimes sent away with a
+beating, they were afterwards attended, in order to keep up the figment
+of a pious 'rising generation,' by a body-guard of grown-up persons.
+
+On the last day of the Carnival in the year 1497, and on the same day
+the year after, the great 'Auto da Fé' took place on the Piazza della
+Signoria. In the centre of it rose a great pyramidal flight of stairs
+like the 'rogus' on which the Roman Emperors were commonly burned. On
+the lowest tier were arranged false beards, masks, and carnival
+disguises; above came volumes of the Latin and Italian poets, among
+others Boccaccio, the 'Morgante' of Pulci, and Petrarch, partly in the
+form of valuable printed parchments and illuminated manuscripts; then
+women's ornaments and toilette articles, scents, mirrors, veils, and
+false hair; higher up, lutes, harps, chess-boards, playing-cards; and
+finally, on the two uppermost tiers, paintings only, especially of
+female beauties, partly fancy-pictures, bearing the classical names of
+Lucretia, Cleopatra, or Faustina, partly portraits of the beautiful
+Bencina, Lena Morella, Bina, and Maria de'Lenzi; all the pictures of
+Bartolommeo della Porta, who brought them of his own accord; and, as it
+seems, some female heads--masterpieces of ancient sculptors. On the
+first occasion a Venetian merchant who happened to be present offered
+the Signoria 22,000 gold florins for the objects on the pyramid; but the
+only answer he received was that his portrait, too, was taken, and
+burned along with the rest. When the pile was lighted, the Signoria
+appeared on the balcony, and the air echoed with song, the sound of
+trumpets, and the pealing of bells. The people then adjourned to the
+Piazza di San Marco, where they danced round in three concentric
+circles. The innermost was composed of monks of the monastery,
+alternating with boys, dressed as angels; then came young laymen and
+ecclesiastics; and on the outside old men, citizens, and priests, the
+latter crowned with wreaths of olive.[1078]
+
+All the ridicule of his victorious enemies, who in truth had no lack of
+justification or of talent for ridicule, was unable to discredit the
+memory of Savonarola. The more tragic the fortunes of Italy became, the
+brighter grew the halo which in the recollection of the survivors
+surrounded the figure of the great monk and prophet. Though his
+predictions may not have been confirmed in detail, the great and
+general calamity which he foretold was fulfilled with appalling truth.
+
+Great, however, as the influence of all these preachers may have been,
+and brilliantly as Savonarola justified the claim of the monks to this
+office,[1079] nevertheless the order as a whole could not escape the
+contempt and condemnation of the people. Italy showed that she could
+give her enthusiasm only to individuals.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+If, apart from all that concerns the priests and the monks, we attempt
+to measure the strength of the old faith, it will be found great or
+small according to the light in which it is considered. We have spoken
+already of the need felt for the Sacraments as something indispensable
+(pp. 103, 464). Let us now glance for a moment at the position of faith
+and worship in daily life. Both were determined partly by the habits of
+the people and partly by the policy and example of the rulers.
+
+All that has to do with penitence and the attainment of salvation by
+means of good works was in much the same stage of development or
+corruption as in the North of Europe, both among the peasantry and among
+the poorer inhabitants of the cities. The instructed classes were here
+and there influenced by the same motives. Those sides of popular
+Catholicism which had their origin in the old pagan ways of addressing,
+rewarding, and reconciling the gods have fixed themselves ineradicably
+in the consciousness of the people. The eighth eclogue of Battista
+Mantovano,[1080] which has been already quoted elsewhere, contains the
+prayer of a peasant to the Madonna, in which she is called upon as the
+special patroness of all rustic and agricultural interests. And what
+conceptions they were which the people formed of their protectress in
+heaven! What was in the mind of the Florentine woman[1081] who gave 'ex
+voto' a keg of wax to the Annunziata, because her lover, a monk, had
+gradually emptied a barrel of wine without her absent husband finding it
+out! Then, too, as still in our own days, different departments of human
+life were presided over by their respective patrons. The attempt has
+often been made to explain a number of the commonest rites of the
+Catholic Church as remnants of pagan ceremonies, and no one doubts that
+many local and popular usages, which are associated with religious
+festivals, are forgotten fragments of the old pre-christian faiths of
+Europe. In Italy, on the contrary, we find instances in which the
+affiliation of the new faith on the old seems consciously recognised.
+So, for example, the custom of setting out food for the dead four days
+before the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, that is to say, on February
+18, the date of the ancient Feralia.[1082] Many other practices of this
+kind may then have prevailed and have since then been extirpated.
+Perhaps the paradox is only apparent if we say that the popular faith in
+Italy had a solid foundation just in proportion as it was pagan.
+
+The extent to which this form of belief prevailed in the upper classes
+can to a certain point be shown in detail. It had, as we have said in
+speaking of the influence of the clergy, the power of custom and early
+impressions on its side. The love for ecclesiastical pomp and display
+helped to confirm it, and now and then there came one of those epidemics
+of revivalism, which few even among the scoffers and the sceptics were
+able to withstand.
+
+But in questions of this kind it is perilous to grasp too hastily at
+absolute results. We might fancy, for example, that the feeling of
+educated men towards the reliques of the saints would be a key by which
+some chambers of their religious consciousness might be opened. And in
+fact, some difference of degree may be demonstrable, though by no means
+as clearly as might be wished. The Government of Venice in the fifteenth
+century seems to have fully shared in the reverence felt throughout the
+rest of Europe for the remains of the bodies of the saints (p. 72). Even
+strangers who lived in Venice found it well to adapt themselves to this
+superstition.[1083] If we can judge of scholarly Padua from the
+testimony of its topographer Michele Savonarola (p. 145), things must
+have been much the same there. With a mixture of pride and pious awe,
+Michele tells us how in times of great danger the saints were heard to
+sigh at night along the streets of the city, how the hair and nails on
+the corpse of a holy nun in Santa Chiara kept on continually growing,
+and how the same corpse, when any disaster was impending, used to make a
+noise and lift up the arms.[1084] When he sets to work to describe the
+chapel of St. Anthony in the Santo, the writer loses himself in
+ejaculations and fantastic dreams. In Milan the people at least showed a
+fanatical devotion to relics; and when once, in the year 1517, the monks
+of San Simpliciano were careless enough to expose six holy corpses
+during certain alterations of the high altar, which event was followed
+by heavy floods of rain, the people[1085] attributed the visitation to
+this sacrilege, and gave the monks a sound beating whenever they met
+them in the street. In other parts of Italy, and even in the case of the
+Popes themselves, the sincerity of this feeling is much more dubious,
+though here, too, a positive conclusion is hardly attainable. It is
+well known amid what general enthusiasm Pius II. solemnly deposited the
+head of the Apostle Andrew, which had been brought from Greece, and then
+from Santa Maura, in the Church of St. Peter (1462); but we gather from
+his own narrative that he only did it from a kind of shame, as so many
+princes were competing for the relic. It was not till afterwards that
+the idea struck him of making Rome the common refuge for all the remains
+of the saints which had been driven from their own churches.[1086] Under
+Sixtus IV. the population of the city was still more zealous in this
+cause than the Pope himself, and the magistracy (1483) complained
+bitterly that Sixtus had sent to Louis XI., the dying king of France,
+some specimens of the Lateran relics.[1087] A courageous voice was
+raised about this time at Bologna, advising the sale of the skull of St.
+Dominic to the king of Spain, and the application of the money to some
+useful public object.[1088] But those who had the least reverence of all
+for the relics were the Florentines. Between the decision to honour
+their saint S. Zanobi with a new sarcophagus and the final execution of
+the project by Ghiberti nineteen years elapsed (1409-28), and then it
+only happened by chance, because the master had executed a smaller order
+of the same kind with great skill.[1089]
+
+Perhaps through being tricked by a cunning Neapolitan abbess (1352), who
+sent them a spurious arm of the patroness of the Cathedral, Santa
+Reparata, made of wood and plaster, they began to get tired of
+relics.[1090] Or perhaps it would be truer to say that their æsthetic
+sense turned them away in disgust from dismembered corpses and mouldy
+clothes. Or perhaps their feeling was rather due to that sense for
+glory which thought Dante and Petrarch worthier of a splendid grave than
+all the twelve apostles put together. It is probable that throughout
+Italy, apart from Venice and from Rome, the condition of which latter
+city was exceptional, the worship of relics had been long giving way to
+the adoration of the Madonna,[1091] at all events to a greater extent
+than elsewhere in Europe; and in this fact lies indirect evidence of an
+early development of the æsthetic sense.
+
+It may be questioned whether in the North, where the vastest cathedrals
+are nearly all dedicated to Our Lady, and where an extensive branch of
+Latin and indigenous poetry sang the praises of the Mother of God, a
+greater devotion to her was possible. In Italy, however, the number of
+miraculous pictures of the Virgin was far greater, and the part they
+played in the daily life of the people much more important. Every town
+of any size contained a quantity of them, from the ancient, or
+ostensibly ancient, paintings by St. Luke, down to the works of
+contemporaries, who not seldom lived to see the miracles wrought by
+their own handiwork. The work of art was in these cases by no means as
+harmless as Battista Mantovano[1092] thinks; sometimes it suddenly
+acquired a magical virtue. The popular craving for the miraculous,
+especially strong in women, may have been fully satisfied by these
+pictures, and for this reason the relics been less regarded. It cannot
+be said with certainty how far the respect for genuine relics suffered
+from the ridicule which the novelists aimed at the spurious.[1093]
+
+The attitude of the educated classes towards Mariolatry is more clearly
+recognisable than towards the worship of images. One cannot but be
+struck with the fact that in Italian literature Dante's 'Paradise'[1094]
+is the last poem in honour of the Virgin, while among the people hymns
+in her praise have been constantly produced down to our own day. The
+names of Sannazaro and Sabellico[1095] and other writers of Latin poems
+prove little on the other side, since the object with which they wrote
+was chiefly literary. The poems written in Italian in the
+fifteenth[1096] and at the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, in
+which we meet with genuine religious feeling, such as the hymns of
+Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the sonnets of Vittoria Colonna and of
+Michelangelo, might have been just as well composed by Protestants.
+Besides the lyrical expression of faith in God, we chiefly notice in
+them the sense of sin, the consciousness of deliverance through the
+death of Christ, the longing for a better world. The intercession of the
+Mother of God is only mentioned by the way.[1097] The same phenomenon is
+repeated in the classical literature of the French at the time of Louis
+XIV. Not till the time of the Counter-Reformation did Mariolatry
+reappear in the higher Italian poetry. Meanwhile the plastic arts had
+certainly done their utmost to glorify the Madonna. It may be added that
+the worship of the saints among the educated classes often took an
+essentially pagan form (p. 260).
+
+We might thus critically examine the various sides of Italian
+Catholicism at this period, and so establish with a certain degree of
+probability the attitude of the instructed classes toward popular faith.
+Yet an absolute and positive result cannot be reached. We meet with
+contrasts hard to explain. While architects, painters, and sculptors
+were working with restless activity in and for the churches, we hear at
+the beginning of the sixteenth century the bitterest complaints of the
+neglect of public worship and of these churches themselves.
+
+ Templa ruunt, passim sordent altaria, cultus
+ Paulatim divinus abit.[1098]
+
+It is well known how Luther was scandalised by the irreverence with
+which the priests in Rome said Mass. And at the same time the feasts of
+the Church were celebrated with a taste and magnificence of which
+Northern countries had no conception. It looks as if this most
+imaginative of nations was easily tempted to neglect every-day things,
+and as easily captivated by anything extraordinary.
+
+It is to this excess of imagination that we must attribute the epidemic
+religious revivals, upon which we shall again say a few words. They must
+be clearly distinguished from the excitement called forth by the great
+preachers. They were rather due to general public calamities, or to the
+dread of such.
+
+In the Middle Ages all Europe was from time to time flooded by these
+great tides, which carried away whole peoples in their waves. The
+Crusades and the Flagellant revival are instances. Italy took part in
+both of these movements. The first great companies of Flagellants
+appeared, immediately after the fall of Ezzelino and his house, in the
+neighbourhood of the same Perugia[1099] which has been already spoken
+of (p. 482, note 2), as the head-quarters of the revivalist preachers.
+Then followed the Flagellants of 1310 and 1334,[1100] and then the great
+pilgrimage without scourging in the year 1399, which Corio has
+recorded.[1101] It is not impossible that the Jubilees were founded
+partly in order to regulate and render harmless this sinister passion
+for vagabondage which seized on whole populations at times of religious
+excitement. The great sanctuaries of Italy, such as Loreto and others,
+had meantime become famous, and no doubt diverted a certain part of this
+enthusiasm.[1102]
+
+But terrible crises had still at a much later time the power to reawaken
+the glow of mediæval penitence, and the conscience-stricken people,
+often still further appalled by signs and wonders, sought to move the
+pity of Heaven by wailings and scourgings, by fasts, processions, and
+moral enactments. So it was at Bologna when the plague came in
+1457,[1103] so in 1496 at a time of internal discord at Siena,[1104] to
+mention two only out of countless instances. No more moving scene can be
+imagined than that we read of at Milan in 1529, when famine, plague, and
+war conspired with Spanish extortion to reduce the city to the lowest
+depths of despair.[1105] It chanced that the monk who had the ear of the
+people, Fra Tommaso Nieto, was himself a Spaniard. The Host was borne
+along in a novel fashion, amid barefooted crowds of old and young. It
+was placed on a decorated bier, which rested on the shoulders of four
+priests in linen garments--an imitation of the Ark of the Covenant[1106]
+which the children of Israel once carried round the walls of Jericho.
+Thus did the afflicted people of Milan remind their ancient God of His
+old covenant with man; and when the procession again entered the
+cathedral, and it seemed as if the vast building must fall in with the
+agonised cry of 'Misericordia!' many who stood there may have believed
+that the Almighty would indeed subvert the laws of nature and of
+history, and send down upon them a miraculous deliverance.
+
+There was one government in Italy, that of Duke Ercole I. of
+Ferrara,[1107] which assumed the direction of public feeling, and
+compelled the popular revivals to move in regular channels. At the time
+when Savonarola was powerful in Florence, and the movement which he
+began spread far and wide among the population of central Italy, the
+people of Ferrara voluntarily entered on a general fast (at the
+beginning of 1496). A Lazarist announced from the pulpit the approach of
+a season of war and famine such as the world had never seen; but the
+Madonna had assured some pious people[1108] that these evils might be
+avoided by fasting. Upon this, the court itself had no choice but to
+fast, but it took the conduct of the public devotions into its own
+hands. On Easter Day, the 3rd of April, a proclamation on morals and
+religion was published, forbidding blasphemy, prohibited games, sodomy,
+concubinage, the letting of houses to prostitutes or panders, and the
+opening of all shops on feast-days, excepting those of the bakers and
+greengrocers. The Jews and Moors, who had taken refuge from the
+Spaniards at Ferrara, were now compelled again to wear the yellow O upon
+the breast. Contraveners were threatened, not only with the punishments
+already provided by law, but also 'with such severer penalties as the
+Duke might think good to inflict,' of which one-fourth in case of a
+pecuniary fine was to be paid to the Duke, and the other three-fourths
+were to go to some public institution. After this, the Duke and the
+court went several days in succession to hear sermons in church, and on
+the 10th of April all the Jews in Ferrara were compelled to do the
+same.[1109] On the 3rd of May the director of police--that Zampante who
+has been already referred to (p. 50)--sent the crier to announce that
+whoever had given money to the police-officers in order not to be
+informed against as a blasphemer, might, if he came forward, have it
+back with a further indemnification. These wicked officers, he said, had
+extorted as much as two or three ducats from innocent persons by
+threatening to lodge an information against them. They had then mutually
+informed against one another, and so had all found their way into
+prison. But as the money had been paid precisely in order not to have to
+do with Zampante, it is probable that his proclamation induced few
+people to come forward. In the year 1500, after the fall of Ludovico
+Moro, when a similar outbreak of popular feeling took place,
+Ercole[1110] ordered a series of nine processions, in which there were
+4,000 children dressed in white, bearing the standard of Jesus. He
+himself rode on horseback, as he could not walk without difficulty. An
+edict was afterwards published of the same kind as that of 1496. It is
+well known how many churches and monasteries were built by this ruler.
+He even sent for a live saint, the Suor Colomba, shortly before he
+married his son Alfonso to Lucrezia Borgia (1502). A special
+messenger[1111] fetched the saint with fifteen other nuns from Viterbo,
+and the Duke himself conducted her on her arrival at Ferrara into a
+convent prepared for her reception. We shall probably do him no
+injustice if we attribute all these measures very largely to political
+calculation. To the conception of government formed by the House of
+Este, as indicated above (p. 46, sqq.), this employment of religion for
+the ends of statecraft belongs by a kind of logical necessity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+RELIGION AND THE SPIRIT OF THE RENAISSANCE.
+
+
+But in order to reach a definite conclusion with regard to the religious
+sense of the men of this period, we must adopt a different method. From
+their intellectual attitude in general, we can infer their relation both
+to the Divine idea and to the existing religion of their age.
+
+These modern men, the representatives of the culture of Italy, were born
+with the same religious instincts as other mediæval Europeans. But their
+powerful individuality made them in religion, as in other matters,
+altogether subjective, and the intense charm which the discovery of the
+inner and outer universe exercised upon them rendered them markedly
+worldly. In the rest of Europe religion remained, till a much later
+period, something given from without, and in practical life egoism and
+sensuality alternated with devotion and repentance. The latter had no
+spiritual competitors, as in Italy, or only to a far smaller extent.
+
+Further, the close and frequent relations of Italy with Byzantium and
+the Mohammedan peoples had produced a dispassionate tolerance which
+weakened the ethnographical conception of a privileged Christendom. And
+when classical antiquity with its men and institutions became an ideal
+of life, as well as the greatest of historical memories, ancient
+speculation and scepticism obtained in many cases a complete mastery
+over the minds of Italians.
+
+Since, again, the Italians were the first modern people of Europe who
+gave themselves boldly to speculations on freedom and necessity, and
+since they did so under violent and lawless political circumstances, in
+which evil seemed often to win a splendid and lasting victory, their
+belief in God began to waver, and their view of the government of the
+world became fatalistic. And when their passionate natures refused to
+rest in the sense of uncertainty, they made a shift to help themselves
+out with ancient, oriental, or mediæval superstition. They took to
+astrology and magic.
+
+Finally, these intellectual giants, these representatives of the
+Renaissance, show, in respect to religion, a quality which is common in
+youthful natures. Distinguishing keenly between good and evil, they yet
+are conscious of no sin. Every disturbance of their inward harmony they
+feel themselves able to make good out of the plastic resources of their
+own nature, and therefore they feel no repentance. The need of salvation
+thus becomes felt more and more dimly, while the ambitions and the
+intellectual activity of the present either shut out altogether every
+thought of a world to come, or else cause it to assume a poetic instead
+of a dogmatic form.
+
+When we look on all this as pervaded and often perverted by the
+all-powerful Italian imagination, we obtain a picture of that time which
+is certainly more in accordance with truth than are vague declamations
+against modern paganism. And closer investigation often reveals to us
+that underneath this outward shell much genuine religion could still
+survive.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The fuller discussion of these points must be limited to a few of the
+most essential explanations.
+
+That religion should again become an affair of the individual and of his
+own personal feeling was inevitable when the Church became corrupt in
+doctrine and tyrannous in practice, and is a proof that the European
+mind was still alive. It is true that this showed itself in many
+different ways. While the mystical and ascetical sects of the North lost
+no time in creating new outward forms for their new modes of thought and
+feeling, each individual in Italy went his own way, and thousands
+wandered on the sea of life without any religious guidance whatever. All
+the more must we admire those who attained and held fast to a personal
+religion. They were not to blame for being unable to have any part or
+lot in the old Church, as she then was; nor would it be reasonable to
+expect that they should all of them go through that mighty spiritual
+labour which was appointed to the German reformers. The form and aim of
+this personal faith, as it showed itself in the better minds, will be
+set forth at the close of our work.
+
+The worldliness, through which the Renaissance seems to offer so
+striking a contrast to the Middle Ages, owed its first origin to the
+flood of new thoughts, purposes, and views, which transformed the
+mediæval conception of nature and man. This spirit is not in itself more
+hostile to religion than that 'culture' which now holds its place, but
+which can give us only a feeble notion of the universal ferment which
+the discovery of a new world of greatness then called forth. This
+worldliness was not frivolous, but earnest, and was ennobled by art and
+poetry. It is a lofty necessity of the modern spirit that this attitude,
+once gained, can never again be lost, that an irresistible impulse
+forces us to the investigation of men and things, and that we must hold
+this enquiry to be our proper end and work.[1112] How soon and by what
+paths this search will lead us back to God, and in what ways the
+religious temper of the individual will be affected by it, are questions
+which cannot be met by any general answer. The Middle Ages, which spared
+themselves the trouble of induction and free enquiry, can have no right
+to impose upon us their dogmatical verdict in a matter of such vast
+importance.
+
+To the study of man, among many other causes, was due the tolerance and
+indifference with which the Mohammedan religion was regarded. The
+knowledge and admiration of the remarkable civilisation which Islam,
+particularly before the Mongol inundation, had attained, was peculiar to
+Italy from the time of the Crusades. This sympathy was fostered by the
+half-Mohammedan government of some Italian princes, by dislike and even
+contempt for the existing Church, and by constant commercial intercourse
+with the harbours of the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean.[1113] It
+can be shown that in the thirteenth century the Italians recognised a
+Mohammedan ideal of nobleness, dignity, and pride, which they loved to
+connect with the person of a Sultan. A Mameluke Sultan is commonly
+meant; if any name is mentioned, it is the name of Saladin.[1114] Even
+the Osmanli Turks, whose destructive tendencies were no secret, gave the
+Italians, as we have shown above (p. 92, sqq.), only half a fright, and
+a peaceable accord with them was looked upon as no impossibility. Along
+with this tolerance, however, appeared the bitterest religious
+opposition to Mohammedanism; the clergy, says Filelfo, should come
+forward against it, since it prevailed over a great part of the world
+and was more dangerous to Christendom than Judaism was;[1115] along with
+the readiness to compromise with the Turks, appeared the passionate
+desire for a war against them which possessed Pius II. during the whole
+of his pontificate, and which many of the humanists expressed in
+high-flown declamations.
+
+The truest and most characteristic expression of this religious
+indifference is the famous story of the Three Rings, which Lessing has
+put into the mouth of his Nathan, after it had been already told
+centuries earlier, though with some reserve, in the 'Hundred Old Novels'
+(nov. 72 or 73), and more boldly in Boccaccio.[1116] In what language
+and in what corner of the Mediterranean it was first told, can never be
+known; most likely the original was much more plain-spoken than the two
+Italian adaptations. The religious postulate on which it rests, namely
+Deism, will be discussed later on in its wider significance for this
+period. The same idea is repeated, though in a clumsy caricature, in the
+famous proverb of the 'three who have deceived the world, that is,
+Moses, Christ, and Mohammed.'[1117] If the Emperor Frederick II., in
+whom this saying is said to have originated, really thought so, he
+probably expressed himself with more wit. Ideas of the same kind were
+also current in Islam.
+
+At the height of the Renaissance, towards the close of the fifteenth
+century, Luigi Pulci offers us an example of the same mode of thought in
+the 'Morgante Maggiore.' The imaginary world of which his story treats
+is divided, as in all heroic poems of romance, into a Christian and a
+Mohammedan camp. In accordance with the mediæval temper, the victory of
+the Christian and the final reconciliation among the combatants was
+attended by the baptism of the defeated Islamites, and the
+Improvisatori, who preceded Pulci in the treatment of these subjects,
+must have made free use of this stock incident. It was Pulci's object to
+parody his predecessors, particularly the worst among them, and this he
+does by those appeals to God, Christ, and the Madonna, with which each
+canto begins; and still more clearly by the sudden conversions and
+baptisms, the utter senselessness of which must have struck every reader
+or hearer. This ridicule leads him further to the confession of his
+faith in the relative goodness of all religions,[1118] which faith,
+notwithstanding his professions of orthodoxy,[1119] rests on an
+essentially theistic basis. In another point too he departs widely from
+mediæval conceptions. The alternatives in past centuries were:
+Christian, or else Pagan and Mohammedan; orthodox believer or heretic.
+Pulci draws a picture of the Giant Margutte[1120] who, disregarding each
+and every religion, jovially confesses to every form of vice and
+sensuality, and only reserves to himself the merit of having never
+broken faith. Perhaps the poet intended to make something of this--in
+his way--honest monster, possibly to have led him into virtuous paths by
+Morgante, but he soon got tired of his own creation, and in the next
+canto brought him to a comic end.[1121] Margutte has been brought
+forward as a proof of Pulci's frivolity; but he is needed to complete
+the picture of the poetry of the fifteenth century. It was natural that
+it should somewhere present in grotesque proportions the figure of an
+untamed egoism, insensible to all established rule, and yet with a
+remnant of honourable feeling left. In other poems sentiments are put
+into the mouths of giants, fiends, infidels, and Mohammedans which no
+Christian knight would venture to utter.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Antiquity exercised an influence of another kind than that of Islam, and
+this not through its religion, which was but too much like the
+Catholicism of this period, but through its philosophy. Ancient
+literature, now worshipped as something incomparable, is full of the
+victory of philosophy over religious tradition. An endless number of
+systems and fragments of systems were suddenly presented to the Italian
+mind, not as curiosities or even as heresies, but almost with the
+authority of dogmas, which had now to be reconciled rather than
+discriminated. In nearly all these various opinions and doctrines a
+certain kind of belief in God was implied; but taken altogether they
+formed a marked contrast to the Christian faith in a Divine government
+of the world. And there was one central question, which mediæval
+theology had striven in vain to solve, and which now urgently demanded
+an answer from the wisdom of the ancients, namely, the relation of
+Providence to the freedom or necessity of the human will. To write the
+history of this question even superficially from the fourteenth century
+onwards, would require a whole volume. A few hints must here suffice.
+
+If we take Dante and his contemporaries as evidence, we shall find that
+ancient philosophy first came into contact with Italian life in the form
+which offered the most marked contrast to Christianity, that is to say,
+Epicureanism. The writings of Epicurus were no longer preserved, and
+even at the close of the classical age a more or less one-sided
+conception had been formed of his philosophy. Nevertheless, that phase
+of Epicureanism which can be studied in Lucretius, and especially in
+Cicero, is quite sufficient to make men familiar with a godless
+universe. To what extent his teaching was actually understood, and
+whether the name of the problematic Greek sage was not rather a
+catchword for the multitude, it is hard to say. It is probable that the
+Dominican Inquisition used it against men who could not be reached by a
+more definite accusation. In the case of sceptics born before the time
+was ripe, whom it was yet hard to convict of positive heretical
+utterances, a moderate degree of luxurious living may have sufficed to
+provoke the charge. The word is used in this conventional sense by
+Giovanni Villani,[1122] when he explains the Florentine fires of 1115
+and 1117 as a Divine judgment on heresies, among others, 'on the
+luxurious and gluttonous sect of Epicureans.' The same writer says of
+Manfred, 'His life was Epicurean, since he believed neither in God, nor
+in the Saints, but only in bodily pleasure.'
+
+Dante speaks still more clearly in the ninth and tenth cantos of the
+'Inferno.' That terrible fiery field covered with half-opened tombs,
+from which issued cries of hopeless agony, was peopled by the two great
+classes of those whom the Church had vanquished or expelled in the
+thirteenth century. The one were heretics who opposed the Church by
+deliberately spreading false doctrine; the other were Epicureans, and
+their sin against the Church lay in their general disposition, which was
+summed up in the belief that the soul dies with the body.[1123] The
+Church was well aware that this one doctrine, if it gained ground, must
+be more ruinous to her authority than all the teachings of the
+Manichaeans and Paterini, since it took away all reason for her
+interference in the affairs of men after death. That the means which she
+used in her struggles were precisely what had driven the most gifted
+natures to unbelief and despair was what she naturally would not herself
+admit.
+
+Dante's loathing of Epicurus, or of what he took to be his doctrine, was
+certainly sincere. The poet of the life to come could not but detest the
+denier of immortality; and a world neither made nor ruled by God, no
+less than the vulgar objects of earthly life which the system appeared
+to countenance, could not but be intensely repugnant to a nature like
+his. But if we look closer, we find that certain doctrines of the
+ancients made even on him an impression which forced the biblical
+doctrine of the Divine government into the background, unless, indeed,
+it was his own reflection, the influence of opinions then prevalent, or
+loathing for the injustice that seemed to rule this world, which made
+him give up the belief in a special Providence.[1124] His God leaves all
+the details of the world's government to a deputy, Fortune, whose sole
+work it is to change and change again all earthly things, and who can
+disregard the wailings of men in unalterable beatitude. Nevertheless,
+Dante does not for a moment loose his hold on the moral responsibility
+of man; he believes in free will.
+
+The belief in the freedom of the will, in the popular sense of the
+words, has always prevailed in Western countries. At all times men have
+been held responsible for their actions, as though this freedom were a
+matter of course. The case is otherwise with the religious and
+philosophical doctrine, which labours under the difficulty of
+harmonising the nature of the will with the laws of the universe at
+large. We have here to do with a question of more or less, which every
+moral estimate must take into account. Dante is not wholly free from
+those astrological superstitions which illumined the horizon of his time
+with deceptive light, but they do not hinder him from rising to a worthy
+conception of human nature. 'The stars,' he makes his Marco Lombardo
+say,[1125] 'the stars give the first impulse to your actions,' but
+
+ Light has been given you for good and evil
+ And free volition; which, if some fatigue
+ In the first battles with the heavens it suffers,
+ Afterwards conquers all, if well 'tis nurtured.
+
+Others might seek the necessity which annulled human freedom in another
+power than the stars, but the question was henceforth an open and
+inevitable one. So far as it was a question for the schools or the
+pursuit of isolated thinkers, its treatment belongs to the historian of
+philosophy. But inasmuch as it entered into the consciousness of a wider
+public, it is necessary for us to say a few words respecting it.
+
+The fourteenth century was chiefly stimulated by the writings of Cicero,
+who, though in fact an eclectic, yet, by his habit of setting forth the
+opinions of different schools, without coming to a decision between
+them, exercised the influence of a sceptic. Next in importance came
+Seneca, and the few works of Aristotle which had been translated into
+Latin. The immediate fruit of these studies was the capacity to reflect
+on great subjects, if not in direct opposition to the authority of the
+Church, at all events independently of it.
+
+In the course of the fifteenth century the works of antiquity were
+discovered and diffused with extraordinary rapidity. All the writings of
+the Greek philosophers which we ourselves possess were now, at least in
+the form of Latin translations, in everybody's hands. It is a curious
+fact that some of the most zealous apostles of this new culture were men
+of the strictest piety, or even ascetics (p. 273). Fra Ambrogio
+Camaldolese, as a spiritual dignitary chiefly occupied with
+ecclesiastical affairs, and as a literary man with the translation of
+the Greek Fathers of the Church, could not repress the humanistic
+impulse, and at the request of Cosimo de'Medici, undertook to translate
+Diogenes Laertius into Latin.[1126] His contemporaries, Niccolò Niccoli,
+Griannozzo Manetti, Donato Acciajuoli, and Pope Nicholas V.,[1127]
+united to a many-sided humanism profound biblical scholarship and deep
+piety. In Vittorino da Feltre the same temper has been already noticed
+(p. 213 sqq.). The same Matthew Vegio, who added a thirteenth book to
+the 'Æneid,' had an enthusiasm for the memory of St. Augustine and his
+mother Monica which cannot have been without a deeper influence upon
+him. The result of all these tendencies was that the Platonic Academy at
+Florence deliberately chose for its object the reconciliation of the
+spirit of antiquity with that of Christianity. It was a remarkable oasis
+in the humanism of the period.[1128]
+
+This humanism was in fact pagan, and became more and more so as its
+sphere widened in the fifteenth century. Its representatives, whom we
+have already described as the advanced guard of an unbridled
+individualism, display as a rule such a character that even their
+religion, which is sometimes professed very definitely, becomes a matter
+of indifference to us. They easily got the name of atheists, if they
+showed themselves indifferent to religion, and spoke freely against the
+Church; but not one of them ever professed, or dared to profess, a
+formal, philosophical atheism.[1129] If they sought for any leading
+principle, it must have been a kind of superficial rationalism--a
+careless inference from the many and contradictory opinions of antiquity
+with which they busied themselves, and from the discredit into which the
+Church and her doctrines had fallen. This was the sort of reasoning
+which was near bringing Galeottus Martius[1130] to the stake, had not
+his former pupil, Pope Sixtus IV., perhaps at the request of Lorenzo
+de'Medici, saved him from the hands of the Inquisition. Galeotto had
+ventured to write that the man who walked uprightly, and acted according
+to the natural law born within him, would go to heaven, whatever nation
+he belonged to.
+
+Let us take, by way of example, the religious attitude of one of the
+smaller men in the great army. Codrus Urceus[1131] was first the tutor
+of the last Ordelaffo, Prince of Forlì, and afterwards for many years
+professor at Bologna. Against the Church and the monks his language is
+as abusive as that of the rest. His tone in general is reckless to the
+last degree, and he constantly introduces himself in all his local
+history and gossip. But he knows how to speak to edification of the true
+God-Man, Jesus Christ, and to commend himself by letter to the prayers
+of a saintly priest.[1132] On one occasion, after enumerating the
+follies of the pagan religions, he thus goes on: 'Our theologians, too,
+fight and quarrel "de lana caprina," about the Immaculate Conception,
+Antichrist, Sacraments, Predestination, and other things, which were
+better let alone than talked of publicly.' Once, when he was not at
+home, his room and manuscripts were burnt. When he heard the news he
+stood opposite a figure of the Madonna in the street, and cried to it:
+'Listen to what I tell you; I am not mad, I am saying what I mean. If I
+ever call upon you in the hour of my death, you need not hear me or take
+me among your own, for I will go and spend eternity with the
+devil.'[1133] After which speech he found it desirable to spend six
+months in retirement at the house of a wood-cutter. With all this, he
+was so superstitious that prodigies and omens gave him incessant
+frights, leaving him no belief to spare for the immortality of the soul.
+When his hearers questioned him on the matter, he answered that no one
+knew what became of a man, of his soul or his body, after death, and the
+talk about another life was only fit to frighten old women. But when he
+came to die, he commended in his will his soul or his spirit[1134] to
+Almighty God, exhorted his weeping pupils to fear the Lord, and
+especially to believe in immortality and future retribution, and
+received the Sacrament with much fervour. We have no guarantee that more
+famous men in the same calling, however significant their opinions may
+be, were in practical life any more consistent. It is probable that most
+of them wavered inwardly between incredulity and a remnant of the faith
+in which they were brought up, and outwardly held for prudential reasons
+to the Church.
+
+Through the connexion of rationalism with the newly born science of
+historical investigation, some timid attempts at biblical criticism may
+here and there have been made. A saying of Pius II.[1135] has been
+recorded, which seems intended to prepare the way for such criticism:
+'Even if Christianity were not confirmed by miracles, it ought still to
+be accepted on account of its morality.' When Lorenzo Valla calls Moses
+and the Evangelists historians, he does not seek to diminish their
+dignity and reputation; but is nevertheless conscious that in these
+words lies as decided a contradiction to the traditional view taken by
+the Church, as in the denial that the Apostles' Creed was the work of
+all the Apostles, or that the letter of Abgarus to Christ was
+genuine.[1136] The legends of the Church, in so far as they contained
+arbitrary versions of the biblical miracles, were freely
+ridiculed,[1137] and this reacted on the religious sense of the people.
+Where Judaising heretics are mentioned, we must understand chiefly those
+who denied the Divinity of Christ, which was probably the offence for
+which Giorgio da Novara was burnt at Bologna about the year 1500.[1138]
+But again at Bologna in the year 1497 the Dominican Inquisitor was
+forced to let the physician Gabrielle da Salò, who had powerful patrons,
+escape with a simple expression of penitence,[1139] although he was in
+the habit of maintaining that Christ was not God, but son of Joseph and
+Mary, and conceived in the usual way; that by his cunning he had
+deceived the world to its ruin; that he may have died on the cross on
+account of crimes which he had committed; that his religion would soon
+come to an end; that his body was not really contained in the sacrament,
+and that he performed his miracles, not through any divine power, but
+through the influence of the heavenly bodies. This latter statement is
+most characteristic of the time, Faith is gone, but magic still holds
+its ground.[1140]
+
+A worse fate befell a Canon of Bergamo, Zanino de Solcia, a few years
+earlier (1459), who had asserted that Christ did not suffer from love to
+man, but under the influence of the stars, and who advanced other
+curious scientific and moral ideas. He was forced to abjure his errors,
+and paid for them by perpetual imprisonment.[1141]
+
+With respect to the moral government of the world, the humanists seldom
+get beyond a cold and resigned consideration of the prevalent violence
+and misrule. In this mood the many works 'On Fate,' or whatever name
+they bear, are written. They tell of the turning of the wheel of
+Fortune, and of the instability of earthly, especially political,
+things. Providence is only brought in because the writers would still be
+ashamed of undisguised fatalism, of the avowal of their ignorance, or of
+useless complaints. Gioviano Pontano[1142] ingeniously illustrates the
+nature of that mysterious something which men call Fortune by a hundred
+incidents, most of which belonged to his own experience. The subject is
+treated more humorously by Æneas Sylvius, in the form of a vision seen
+in a dream.[1143] The aim of Poggio, on the other hand, in a work
+written in his old age,[1144] is to represent the world as a vale of
+tears, and to fix the happiness of various classes as low as possible.
+This tone became in future the prevalent one. Distinguished men drew up
+a debit and credit of the happiness and unhappiness of their lives, and
+generally found that the latter outweighed the former. The fate of Italy
+and the Italians, so far as it could be told in the year 1510, has been
+described with dignity and an almost elegiac pathos by Tristano
+Caracciolo.[1145] Applying this general tone of feeling to the
+humanists themselves, Pierio Valeriano afterwards composed his famous
+treatise (pp. 276-279). Some of these themes, such as the fortunes of
+Leo, were most suggestive. All the good that can be said of him
+politically has been briefly and admirably summed up by Francesco
+Vettori; the picture of Leo's pleasures is given by Paolo Giovio and in
+the anonymous biography;[1146] and the shadows which attended his
+prosperity are drawn with inexorable truth by the same Pierio Valeriano.
+
+We cannot, on the other hand, read without a kind of awe how men
+sometimes boasted of their fortune in public inscriptions. Giovanni II.
+Bentivoglio, ruler of Bologna, ventured to carve in stone on the newly
+built tower by his palace, that his merit and his fortune had given him
+richly of all that could be desired[1147]--and this a few years before
+his expulsion. The ancients, when they spoke in this tone, had
+nevertheless a sense of the envy of the gods. In Italy it was probably
+the Condottieri (p. 22) who first ventured to boast so loudly of their
+fortune.
+
+But the way in which resuscitated antiquity affected religion most
+powerfully, was not through any doctrines or philosophical system, but
+through a general tendency which it fostered. The men, and in some
+respects the institutions of antiquity were preferred to those of the
+Middle Ages, and in the eager attempt to imitate and reproduce them,
+religion was left to take care of itself. All was absorbed in the
+admiration for historical greatness (part ii. chap. iii., and above,
+_passim_). To this the philologians added many special follies of their
+own, by which they became the mark for general attention. How far Paul
+II. was justified in calling his Abbreviators and their friends to
+account for their paganism, is certainly a matter of great doubt, as his
+biographer and chief victim, Platina, (pp. 231, 331) has shown a
+masterly skill in explaining his vindictiveness on other grounds, and
+especially in making him play a ludicrous figure. The charges of
+infidelity, paganism,[1148] denial of immortality, and so forth, were
+not made against the accused till the charge of high treason had broken
+down. Paul, indeed, if we are correctly informed about him, was by no
+means the man to judge of intellectual things. He knew little Latin, and
+spoke Italian at Consistories and in diplomatic negotiations. It was he
+who exhorted the Romans to teach their children nothing beyond reading
+and writing. His priestly narrowness of view reminds us of Savonarola
+(p. 476), with the difference that Paul might fairly have been told that
+he and his like were in great part to blame if culture made men hostile
+to religion. It cannot, nevertheless, be doubted that he felt a real
+anxiety about the pagan tendencies which surrounded him. And what, in
+truth, may not the humanists have allowed themselves at the court of the
+profligate pagan, Sigismondo Malatesta? How far these men, destitute for
+the most part of fixed principle, ventured to go, depended assuredly on
+the sort of influences they were exposed to. Nor could they treat of
+Christianity without paganising it (part iii. chap. x.). It is curious,
+for instance, to notice how far Gioviano Pontano carried this confusion.
+He speaks of a saint not only as 'divus,' but as 'deus;' the angels he
+holds to be identical with the genii of antiquity;[1149] and his notion
+of immortality reminds us of the old kingdom of the shades. This spirit
+occasionally appears in the most extravagant shapes. In 1526, when Siena
+was attacked by the exiled party,[1150] the worthy canon Tizio, who
+tells us the story himself, rose from his bed on the 22nd July, called
+to mind what is written in the third book of Macrobius,'[1151]
+celebrated mass, and then pronounced against the enemy the curse with
+which his author had supplied him, only altering 'Tellus mater teque
+Juppiter obtestor' into 'Tellus teque Christe Deus obtestor.' After he
+had done this for three days, the enemy retreated. On the one side,
+these things strike us an affair of mere style and fashion; on the
+other, as a symptom of religious decadence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MIXTURE OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SUPERSTITION.
+
+
+But in another way, and that dogmatically, antiquity exercised a
+perilous influence. It imparted to the Renaissance its own forms of
+superstition. Some fragments of this had survived in Italy all through
+the Middle Ages, and the resuscitation of the whole was thereby made so
+much the more easy. The part played by the imagination in the process
+need not be dwelt upon. This only could have silenced the critical
+intellect of the Italians.
+
+The belief in a Divine government of the world was in many minds
+destroyed by the spectacle of so much injustice and misery. Others, like
+Dante, surrendered at all events this life to the caprices of chance,
+and if they nevertheless retained a sturdy faith, it was because they
+held that the higher destiny of man would be accomplished in the life to
+come. But when the belief in immortality began to waver, then Fatalism
+got the upper hand, or sometimes the latter came first and had the
+former as its consequence.
+
+The gap thus opened was in the first place filled by the astrology of
+antiquity, or even of the Arabians. From the relations of the planets
+among themselves and to the signs of the zodiac, future events and the
+course of whole lives were inferred, and the most weighty decisions were
+taken in consequence. In many cases the line of action thus adopted at
+the suggestion of the stars may not have been more immoral than that
+which would otherwise have been followed. But too often the decision
+must have been made at the cost of honour and conscience. It is
+profoundly instructive to observe how powerless culture and
+enlightenment were against this delusion; since the latter had its
+support in the ardent imagination of the people, in the passionate wish
+to penetrate and determine the future. Antiquity, too, was on the side
+of astrology.
+
+At the beginning of the thirteenth century this superstition suddenly
+appeared in the foreground of Italian life. The Emperor Frederick II.
+always travelled with his astrologer Theodorus; and Ezzelino da
+Romano[1152] with a large, well-paid court of such people, among them
+the famous Guido Bonatto and the long-bearded Saracen, Paul of Bagdad.
+In all important undertakings they fixed for him the day and the hour,
+and the gigantic atrocities of which he was guilty may have been in part
+practical inferences from their prophecies. Soon all scruples about
+consulting the stars ceased. Not only princes, but free cities[1153] had
+their regular astrologers, and at the universities,[1154] from the
+fourteenth to the sixteenth century, professors of this pseudo-science
+were appointed, and lectured side by side with the astronomers. It was
+well known that Augustine and other Fathers of the Church had combated
+astrology, but their old-fashioned notions were dismissed with easy
+contempt.[1155] The Popes[1156] commonly made no secret of their
+star-gazing, though Pius II., who also despised magic, omens, and the
+interpretation of dreams, is an honourable exception.[1157] Julius II.,
+on the other hand, had the day for his coronation and the day for his
+return from Bologna calculated by the astrologers.[1158] Even Leo X.
+seems to have thought the flourishing condition of astrology a credit to
+his pontificate,[1159] and Paul III. never held a Consistory till the
+star-gazers had fixed the hour.[1160]
+
+It may fairly be assumed that the better natures did not allow their
+actions to be determined by the stars beyond a certain point, and that
+there was a limit where conscience and religion made them pause. In
+fact, not only did pious and excellent people share the delusion, but
+they actually came forward to profess it publicly. One of these was
+Maestro Pagolo of Florence,[1161] in whom we can detect the same desire
+to turn astrology to moral account which meets us in the late Roman
+Firmicus Maternus.[1162] His life was that of a saintly ascetic. He ate
+almost nothing, despised all temporal goods, and only collected books. A
+skilled physician, he only practised among his friends, and made it a
+condition of his treatment that they should confess their sins. He
+frequented the small but famous circle which assembled in the Monastery
+of the Angeli around Fra Ambrogio Camaldolese (p. 463). He also saw much
+of Cosimo the Elder, especially in his last years; for Cosimo accepted
+and used astrology, though probably only for objects of lesser
+importance. As a rule, however, Pagolo only interpreted the stars to his
+most confidential friends. But even without this severity of morals, the
+astrologers might be highly respected and show themselves everywhere.
+There were also far more of them in Italy than in other European
+countries, where they only appeared at the great courts, and there not
+always. All the great householders in Italy, when the fashion was once
+established, kept an astrologer, who, it must be added, was not always
+sure of his dinner.[1163] Through the literature of this science, which
+was widely diffused even before the invention of printing, a
+dilettantism also grew up which as far as possible followed in the steps
+of the masters. The worst class of astrologers were those who used the
+stars either as an aid or a cloak to magical arts.
+
+Yet apart from the latter, astrology is a miserable feature in the life
+of that time. What a figure do all these highly gifted, many-sided,
+original characters play, when the blind passion for knowing and
+determining the future dethrones their powerful will and resolution! Now
+and then, when the stars send them too cruel a message, they manage to
+brace themselves up, act for themselves, and say boldly: 'Vir sapiens
+dominabitur astris'--the wise man is master of the stars,[1164] and then
+again relapse into the old delusion.
+
+In all the better families the horoscope of the children was drawn as a
+matter of course, and it sometimes happened that for half a lifetime men
+were haunted by the idle expectation of events which never occurred. The
+stars[1165] were questioned whenever a great man had to come to any
+important decision, and even consulted as to the hour at which any
+undertaking was to be begun. The journeys of princes, the reception of
+foreign ambassadors,[1166] the laying of the foundation-stone of public
+buildings, depended on the answer. A striking instance of the latter
+occurs in the life of the aforenamed Guido Bonatto, who by his personal
+activity and by his great systematic work on the subject[1167] deserves
+to be called the restorer of astrology in the thirteenth century. In
+order to put an end to the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines at
+Forli, he persuaded the inhabitants to rebuild the city walls and to
+begin the works under a constellation indicated by himself. If then two
+men, one from each party, at the same moment put a stone into the
+foundation, there would henceforth and for ever be no more party
+divisions in Forli. A Guelph and a Ghibelline were selected for this
+office; the solemn moment arrived, each held the stone in his hands, the
+workmen stood ready with their implements, Bonatto gave the signal and
+the Ghibelline threw down his stone on to the foundation. But the Guelph
+hesitated, and at last refused to do anything at all, on the ground that
+Bonatto himself had the reputation of a Ghibelline and might be
+devising some mysterious mischief against the Guelphs. Upon which the
+astrologer addressed him: 'God damn thee and the Guelph party, with your
+distrustful malice! This constellation will not appear above our city
+for 500 years to come.' In fact God soon afterwards did destroy the
+Guelphs of Forli, but now, writes the chronicler about 1480, the two
+parties are thoroughly reconciled, and their very names are heard no
+longer.[1168]
+
+Nothing that depended upon the stars was more important than decisions
+in time of war. The same Bonatto procured for the great Ghibelline
+leader Guido da Montefeltro a series of victories, by telling him the
+propitious hour for marching.[1169] When Montefeltro was no longer
+accompanied by him[1170] he lost the courage to maintain his despotism,
+and entered a Minorite monastery, where he lived as a monk for many
+years till his death. In the war with Pisa in 1362, the Florentines
+commissioned their astrologer to fix the hour for the march,[1171] and
+almost came too late through suddenly receiving orders to take a
+circuitous route through the city. On former occasions they had marched
+out by the Via di Borgo S. Apostolo, and the campaign had been
+unsuccessful. It was clear that there was some bad omen connected with
+the exit through this street against Pisa, and consequently the army was
+now led out by the Porta Rossa. But as the tents stretched out there to
+dry had not been taken away, the flags--another bad omen--had to be
+lowered. The influence of astrology in war was confirmed by the fact
+that nearly all the Condottieri believed in it. Jacopo Caldora was
+cheerful in the most serious illness, knowing that he was fated to fall
+in battle, which in fact happened.[1172] Bartolommeo Alviano was
+convinced that his wounds in the head were as much a gift of the stars
+as his military command.[1173] Niccolò Orsini Pitigliano asked the
+physicist and astrologer Alessandro Benedetto[1174] to fix a favourable
+hour for the conclusion of his bargain with Venice (1495). When the
+Florentines on June 1, 1498, solemnly invested their new Condottiere
+Paolo Vitelli with his office, the Marshal's staff which they handed
+him was, at his own wish, decorated with pictures of the
+constellations.[1175] There were nevertheless generals like Alphonso the
+Great of Naples who did not allow their march to be settled by the
+prophets.[1176]
+
+Sometimes it is not easy to make out whether in important political
+events the stars were questioned beforehand, or whether the astrologers
+were simply impelled afterwards by curiosity to find out the
+constellation which decided the result. When Giangaleazzo Visconti (p.
+12) by a master-stroke of policy took prisoners his uncle Bernabò, with
+the latter's family (1385), we are told by a contemporary, that Jupiter,
+Saturn, and Mars stood in the house of the Twins,[1177] but we cannot
+say if the deed was resolved on in consequence. It is also probable that
+the advice of the astrologers was often determined by political
+calculation not less than by the course of the planets.[1178]
+
+All Europe, through the latter part of the Middle Ages, had allowed
+itself to be terrified by predictions of plagues, wars, floods, and
+earthquakes, and in this respect Italy was by no means behind other
+countries. The unlucky year 1494, which for ever opened the gates of
+Italy to the stranger, was undeniably ushered in by many prophecies of
+misfortune[1179]--only we cannot say whether such prophecies were not
+ready for each and every year.
+
+This mode of thought was extended with thorough consistency into regions
+where we should hardly expect to meet with it. If the whole outward and
+spiritual life of the individual is determined by the facts of his
+birth, the same law also governs groups of individuals and historical
+products--that is to say, nations and religions; and as the
+constellation of these things changes, so do the things themselves. The
+idea that each religion has its day, first came into Italian culture in
+connexion with these astrological beliefs, chiefly from Jewish and
+Arabian sources.[1180] The conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn brought
+forth, we are told,[1181] the faith of Israel; that of Jupiter and Mars,
+the Chaldean; with the Sun, the Egyptian; with Venus, the Mohammedan;
+with Mercury, the Christian; and the conjunction of Jupiter with the
+Moon will one day bring forth the religion of Antichrist. Checco
+d'Ascoli had already blasphemously calculated the nativity of Christ,
+and deduced from it his death upon the cross. For this he was burnt at
+the stake in 1327, at Florence.[1182] Doctrines of this sort ended by
+simply darkening men's whole perceptions of spiritual things.
+
+So much more worthy then of recognition is the warfare which the clear
+Italian spirit waged against this army of delusions. Notwithstanding the
+great monumental glorification of astrology, as in the frescos in the
+Salone at Padua,[1183] and those in Borso's summer palace (Schifanoja),
+at Ferrara, notwithstanding the shameless praises of even such a man as
+the elder Beroaldus,[1184] there was no want of thoughtful and
+independent minds to protest against it. Here, too, the way had been
+prepared by antiquity, but it was their own common sense and observation
+which taught them what to say. Petrarch's attitude towards the
+astrologers, whom he knew by personal intercourse, is one of bitter
+contempt;[1185] and no one saw through their system of lies more clearly
+than he. The novels, from the time when they first began to appear--from
+the time of the 'Cento novelle antiche,' are almost always hostile to
+the astrologers.[1186] The Florentine chroniclers bravely keep
+themselves free from the delusions which, as part of historical
+tradition, they are compelled to record. Giovanni Villani says more than
+once,[1187] 'No constellation can subjugate either the free will of man,
+or the counsels of God.' Matteo Villani[1188] declares astrology to be a
+vice which the Florentines had inherited, along with other
+superstitions, from their pagan ancestors, the Romans. The question,
+however, did not remain one for mere literary discussion, but the
+parties for and against disputed publicly. After the terrible floods of
+1333, and again in 1345, astrologers and theologians discussed with
+great minuteness the influence of the stars, the will of God, and the
+justice of his punishments.[1189] These struggles never ceased
+throughout the whole time of the Renaissance,[1190] and we may conclude
+that the protestors were in earnest, since it was easier for them to
+recommend themselves to the great by defending, than by opposing
+astrology.
+
+In the circle of Lorenzo the Magnificent, among his most distinguished
+Platonists, opinions were divided on this question. That Marsilio Ficino
+defended astrology, and drew the horoscope of the children of the house,
+promising the little Giovanni, afterwards Leo X., that he would one day
+be Pope,[1191] as Giovio would have us believe, is an invention--but
+other academicians accepted astrology. Pico della Mirandola,[1192] on
+the other hand, made an epoch in the subject by his famous refutation.
+He detects in this belief the root of all impiety and immorality. If the
+astrologer, he maintains, believes in anything at all, he must worship
+not God, but the planets, from which all good and evil are derived. All
+other superstitions find a ready instrument in astrology, which serves
+as handmaid to geomancy, chiromancy, and magic of every kind. As to
+morality, he maintains that nothing can more foster evil than the
+opinion that heaven itself is the cause of it, in which case the faith
+in eternal happiness and punishment must also disappear. Pico even took
+the trouble to check off the astrologers inductively, and found that in
+the course of a month three-fourths of their weather prophecies turned
+out false. But his main achievement was to set forth, in the Fourth
+Book--a positive Christian doctrine of the freedom of the will and the
+government of the universe, which seems to have made a greater
+impression on the educated classes throughout Italy than all the
+revivalist preachers put together. The latter, in fact, often failed to
+reach these classes.
+
+The first result of his book was that the astrologers ceased to publish
+their doctrines,[1193] and those who had already printed them were more
+or less ashamed of what they had done. Gioviano Pontano, for example, in
+his book on Fate (p. 503), had recognised the science, and in a great
+work of his own,[1194] the several parts of which were dedicated to his
+highly-placed friends and fellow-believers, Aldo Manucci, P. Bembo, and
+Sandazaro, had expounded the whole theory of it in the style of the old
+Firmicus, ascribing to the stars the growth of every bodily and
+spiritual quality. He now in his dialogue 'Ægidius,' surrendered, if not
+astrology, at least certain astrologers, and sounded the praises of free
+will, by which man is enabled to know God.[1195] Astrology remained more
+or less in fashion, but seems not to have governed human life in the way
+it formerly had done. The art of painting, which in the fifteenth
+century had done its best to foster the delusion, now expressed the
+altered tone of thought. Raphael, in the cupola of the Cappella
+Chigi,[1196] represents the gods of the different planets and the starry
+firmament, watched, however, and guided by beautiful angel-figures, and
+receiving from above the blessing of the Eternal Father. There was also
+another cause which now began to tell against astrology in Italy. The
+Spaniards took no interest in it, not even the generals, and those who
+wished to gain their favour[1197] declared open war against the
+half-heretical, half-Mohammedan science. It is true that
+Guicciardini[1198] writes in the year 1529: 'How happy are the
+astrologers, who are believed if they tell one truth to a hundred lies,
+while other people lose all credit if they tell one lie to a hundred
+truths.' But the contempt for astrology did not necessarily lead to a
+return to the belief in Providence. It could as easily lead to an
+indefinite Fatalism.
+
+In this respect, as in others, Italy was unable to make its own way
+healthily through the ferment of the Renaissance, because the foreign
+invasion and the Counter-Reformation came upon it in the middle. Without
+such interfering causes its own strength would have enabled it
+thoroughly to get rid of these fantastic illusions. Those who hold that
+the onslaught of the strangers and the Catholic reactions were
+necessities for which the Italian people was itself solely responsible,
+will look on the spiritual bankruptcy which they produced as a just
+retribution. But it is a pity that the rest of Europe had indirectly to
+pay so large a part of the penalty.
+
+The beliefs in omens seems a much more innocent matter than astrology.
+The Middle Ages had everywhere inherited them in abundance from the
+various pagan religions; and Italy did not differ in this respect from
+other countries. What is characteristic of Italy is the support lent by
+humanism to the popular superstition. The pagan inheritance was here
+backed up by a pagan literary development.
+
+The popular superstition of the Italians rested largely on premonitions
+and inferences drawn from ominous occurrences,[1199] with which a good
+deal of magic, mostly of an innocent sort, was connected. There was,
+however, no lack of learned humanists who boldly ridiculed these
+delusions, and to whose attacks we partly owe the knowledge of them.
+Gioviano Pontano; the author of the great astrological work already
+mentioned (p. 280), enumerates with pity in his 'Charon,' a long string
+of Neapolitan superstitions--the grief of the women when a fowl or a
+goose caught the pip; the deep anxiety of the nobility if a hunting
+falcon did not come home, or if a horse sprained his foot; the magical
+formulæ of the Apulian peasants, recited on three Saturday evenings,
+when mad dogs were at large. The animal kingdom, as in antiquity, was
+regarded as specially significant in this respect, and the behaviour of
+the lions, leopards, and other beasts kept by the State (p. 293 sqq.)
+gave the people all the more food for reflection, because they had come
+to be considered as living symbols of the State. During the siege of
+Florence, in 1529, an eagle which had been shot at fled into the city,
+and the Signoria gave the bearer four ducats, because the omen was
+good.[1200] Certain times and places were favourable or unfavourable, or
+even decisive one way or the other, for certain actions. The
+Florentines, so Varchi tells us, held Saturday to be the fateful day on
+which all important events, good as well as bad, commonly happened.
+Their prejudice against marching out to war through a particular street
+has been already mentioned (p. 512). At Perugia one of the gates, the
+'Porta eburnea,' was thought lucky, and the Baglioni always went out to
+fight through it.[1201] Meteors and the appearance of the heavens were
+as significant in Italy as elsewhere in the Middle Ages, and the popular
+imagination saw warring armies in an unusual formation of clouds, and
+heard the clash of their collision high in the air.[1202] The
+superstition became a more serious matter when it attached itself to
+sacred things, when figures of the Virgin wept or moved the eyes,[1203]
+or when public calamities were associated with some alleged act of
+impiety, for which the people demanded expiation. In 1478, when
+Piacenza was visited with a violent and prolonged rainfall, it was said
+that there would be no dry weather till a certain usurer, who had been
+lately buried at San Francesco, had ceased to rest in consecrated earth.
+As the bishop was not obliging enough to have the corpse dug up, the
+young fellows of the town took it by force, dragged it round the streets
+amid frightful confusion, offered it to be insulted and maltreated by
+former creditors, and at last threw it into the Po.[1204] Even Politian
+accepted this point of view in speaking of Giacomo Pazzi, one of the
+chief of the conspiracy of 1478, in Florence, which is called after his
+name. When he was put to death, he devoted his soul to Satan with
+fearful words. Here, too, rain followed and threatened to ruin the
+harvest; here, too, a party of men, mostly peasants, dug up the body in
+the church, and immediately the clouds departed and the sun shone--'so
+gracious was fortune to the opinion of the people,' adds the great
+scholar.[1205] The corpse was first cast into unhallowed ground, the
+next day again dug up, and after a horrible procession through the city,
+thrown into the Arno.
+
+These facts and the like bear a popular character, and might have
+occurred in the tenth, just as well as in the sixteenth century. But now
+comes the literary influence of antiquity. We know positively that the
+humanists were peculiarly accessible to prodigies and auguries, and
+instances of this have been already quoted. If further evidence were
+needed, it would be found in Poggio. The same radical thinker who denied
+the rights of noble birth and the inequality of men (p. 361 sqq.), not
+only believed in all the mediæval stories of ghosts and devils (fol.
+167, 179), but also in prodigies after the ancient pattern, like those
+said to have occurred on the last visit of Eugenius IV. to
+Florence.[1206] 'Near Como there was seen one evening 4,000 dogs, who
+took the road to Germany; these were followed by a great herd of cattle,
+and these by an army on foot and horseback, some with no heads and some
+with almost invisible heads, and then a gigantic horseman with another
+herd of cattle behind him.' Poggio also believes in a battle of magpies
+and jackdaws (fol. 180). He even relates, perhaps without being aware of
+it, a well-preserved piece of ancient mythology. On the Dalmatian coast
+a Triton had appeared, bearded and horned, a genuine sea-satyr, ending
+in fins and a tail; he carried away women and children from the shore,
+till five stout-hearted washer-women killed him with sticks and
+stones.[1207] A wooden model of the monster, which was exhibited at
+Ferrara, makes the whole story credible to Poggio. Though there were no
+more oracles, and it was no longer possible to take counsel of the gods,
+yet it became again the fashion to open Virgil at hazard, and take the
+passage hit upon as an omen[1208] ('Sortes Virgilianae'). Nor can the
+belief in dæmons current in the later period of antiquity have been
+without influence on the Renaissance. The work of Jamblichus or Abammon
+on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, which may have contributed to this
+result, was printed in a Latin translation at the end of the fifteenth
+century. The Platonic Academy at Florence was not free from these and
+other neo-platonic dreams of the Roman decadence. A few words must here
+be given to the belief in dæmons and to the magic which was connected
+with this belief.
+
+The popular faith in what is called the spirit-world was nearly the
+same in Italy as elsewhere in Europe.[1209] In Italy as elsewhere there
+were ghosts, that is, reappearances of deceased persons; and if the view
+taken of them differed in any respect from that which prevailed in the
+North, the difference betrayed itself only in the ancient name 'ombra.'
+Nowadays if such a shade presents itself, a couple of masses are said
+for its repose. That the spirits of bad men appear in a dreadful shape,
+is a matter of course, but along with this we find the notion that the
+ghosts of the departed are universally malicious. The dead, says the
+priest in Bandello,[1210] kill the little children. It seems as if a
+certain shade was here thought of as separate from the soul, since the
+latter suffers in Purgatory, and when it appears, does nothing but wail
+and pray. To lay the ghost, the tomb was opened, the corpse pulled to
+pieces, the heart burned and the ashes scattered to the four
+winds.[1211] At other times what appears is not the ghost of a man, but
+of an event--of a past condition of things. So the neighbours explained
+the diabolical appearances in the old palace of the Visconti near San
+Giovanni in Conca, at Milan, since here it was that Bernabò Visconti had
+caused countless victims of his tyranny to be tortured and strangled,
+and no wonder if there were strange things to be seen.[1212] One evening
+a swarm of poor people with candles in their hands appeared to a
+dishonest guardian of the poor at Perugia, and danced round about him; a
+great figure spoke in threatening tones on their behalf--it was St.
+Alò, the patron saint of the poor-house.[1213] These modes of belief
+were so much a matter of course that the poets could make use of them as
+something which every reader would understand. The appearance of the
+slain Ludovico Pico under the walls of the besieged Mirandola is finely
+represented by Castiglione.[1214] It is true that poetry made the freest
+use of these conceptions when the poet himself had outgrown them.
+
+Italy, too, shared the belief in dæmons with the other nations of the
+Middle Ages. Men were convinced that God sometimes allowed bad spirits
+of every class to exercise a destructive influence on parts of the world
+and of human life. The only reservation made was that the man to whom
+the Evil One came as tempter, could use his free will to resist.[1215]
+In Italy the dæmonic influence, especially as shown in natural events,
+easily assumed a character of poetical greatness. In the night before
+the great inundation of the Val d'Arno in 1333, a pious hermit above
+Vallombrosa heard a diabolical tumult in his cell, crossed himself,
+stepped to the door, and saw a crowd of black and terrible knights
+gallop by in armour. When conjured to stand, one of them said: 'We go to
+drown the city of Florence on account of its sins, if God will let
+us.'[1216] With this, the nearly contemporary vision at Venice (1340)
+may be compared, out of which a great master of the Venetian school,
+probably Giorgione, made the marvellous picture of a galley full of
+dæmons, which speeds with the swiftness of a bird over the stormy lagune
+to destroy the sinful island-city, till the three saints, who have
+stepped unobserved into a poor boatman's skiff, exorcised the fiends and
+sent them and their vessel to the bottom of the waters.[1217]
+
+To this belief the illusion was now added that by means of magical arts
+it was possible to enter into relations with the evil ones, and use
+their help to further the purposes of greed, ambition, and sensuality.
+Many persons were probably accused of doing so before the time when it
+was actually attempted by many; but when the so-called magicians and
+witches began to be burned, the deliberate practice of the black art
+became more frequent. With the smoke of the fires in which the suspected
+victims were sacrificed, were spread the narcotic fumes by which numbers
+of ruined characters were drugged into magic; and with them many
+calculating impostors became associated.
+
+The primitive and popular form in which the superstition had probably
+lived on uninterruptedly from the time of the Romans,[1218] was the art
+of the witch (Strega). The witch, so long as she limited herself to mere
+divination,[1219] might be innocent enough, were it not that the
+transition from prophecy to active help could easily, though often
+imperceptibly, be a fatal downward step. She was credited in such a case
+not only with the power of exciting love or hatred between man and
+woman, but also with purely destructive and malignant arts, and was
+especially charged with the sickness of little children, even when the
+malady obviously came from the neglect and stupidity of the parents. It
+is still questionable how far she was supposed to act by mere magical
+ceremonies and formulæ, or by a conscious alliance with the fiends,
+apart from the poisons and drugs which she administered with a full
+knowledge of their effect.
+
+The more innocent form of the superstition, in which the mendicant friar
+could venture to appear as the competitor of the witch, is shown in the
+case of the witch of Gaeta whom we read of in Pontano.[1220] His
+traveller Suppatius reaches her dwelling while she is giving audience to
+a girl and a servant-maid, who come to her with a black hen, nine eggs
+laid on a Friday, a duck, and some white thread--for it is the third day
+since the new moon. They are then sent away, and bidden to come again at
+twilight. It is to be hoped that nothing worse than divination is
+intended. The mistress of the servant-maid is pregnant by a monk; the
+girl's lover has proved untrue and has gone into a monastery. The witch
+complains: 'Since my husband's death I support myself in this way, and
+should make a good thing of it, since the Gaetan women have plenty of
+faith, were it not that the monks baulk me of my gains by explaining
+dreams, appeasing the anger of the saints for money, promising husbands
+to the girls, men-children to the pregnant women, offspring to the
+barren, and besides all this visiting the women at night when their
+husbands are away fishing, in accordance with the assignations made in
+day-time at church.' Suppatius warns her against the envy of the
+monastery, but she has no fear, since the guardian of it is an old
+acquaintance of hers.[1221]
+
+But the superstition further gave rise to a worse sort of witches,
+namely those who deprived men of their health and life. In these cases
+the mischief, when not sufficiently accounted for by the evil eye and
+the like, was naturally attributed to the aid of powerful spirits. The
+punishment, as we have seen in the case of Finicella (p. 469), was the
+stake; and yet a compromise with fanaticism was sometimes practicable.
+According to the laws of Perugia, for example, a witch could settle the
+affair by paying down 400 pounds.[1222] The matter was not then treated
+with the seriousness and consistency of later times. In the territories
+of the Church, at Norcia (Nursia), the home of St. Benedict, in the
+upper Apennines, there was a perfect nest of witches and sorcerers, and
+no secret was made of it. It is spoken of in one of the most remarkable
+letters of Æneas Sylvius,[1223] belonging to his earlier period. He
+writes to his brother: 'The bearer of this came to me to ask if I knew
+of a Mount of Venus in Italy, for in such a place magical arts were
+taught, and his master, a Saxon and a great astronomer,[1224] was
+anxious to learn them. I told him that I knew of a Porto Venere not far
+from Carrara, on the rocky coast of Liguria, where I spent three nights
+on the way to Basel; I also found that there was a mountain called Eryx
+in Sicily, which was dedicated to Venus, but I did not know whether
+magic was taught there. But it came into my mind while talking that in
+Umbria, in the old Duchy (Spoleto), near the town of Nursia, there is a
+cave beneath a steep rock, in which water flows. There, as I remember to
+have heard, are witches (striges), dæmons, and nightly shades, and he
+that has the courage can see and speak to ghosts (spiritus), and learn
+magical arts.[1225] I have not seen it, nor taken any trouble about it,
+for that which is learned with sin is better not learned at all.' He
+nevertheless names his informant, and begs his brother to take the
+bearer of the letter to him, should he be still alive. Æneas goes far
+enough here in his politeness to a man of position, but personally he
+was not only freer from superstition than his contemporaries (pp. 481,
+508), but he also stood a test on the subject which not every educated
+man of our own day could endure. At the time of the Council of Basel,
+when he lay sick of the fever for seventy-five days at Milan, he could
+never be persuaded to listen to the magic doctors, though a man was
+brought to his bedside who a short time before had marvellously cured
+2,000 soldiers of fever in the camp of Piccinino. While still an
+invalid, Æneas rode over the mountains to Basel, and got well on the
+journey.[1226]
+
+We learn something more about the neighbourhood of Norcia through the
+necromancer who tried to get Benvenuto Cellini into his power. A new
+book of magic was to be consecrated,[1227] and the best place for the
+ceremony was among the mountains in that district. The master of the
+magician had once, it is true, done the same thing near the Abbey of
+Farfa, but had there found difficulties which did not present themselves
+at Norcia; further, the peasants in the latter neighbourhood were
+trustworthy people who had practice in the matter, and who could afford
+considerable help in case of need. The expedition did not take place,
+else Benvenuto would probably have been able to tell us something of the
+impostor's assistants. The whole neighbourhood was then proverbial.
+Aretino says somewhere of an enchanted well, 'there dwell the sisters of
+the sibyl of Norcia and the aunt of the Fata Morgana.' And about the
+same time Trissino could still celebrate the place in his great
+epic[1228] with all the resources of poetry and allegory as the home of
+authentic prophecy.
+
+After the famous Bull of Innocent VIII. (1484),[1229] witchcraft and the
+persecution of witches grew into a great and revolting system. The chief
+representatives of this system of persecution were German Dominicans;
+and Germany and, curiously enough, those parts of Italy nearest Germany
+were the countries most afflicted by this plague. The bulls and
+injunctions of the Popes themselves[1230] refer, for example, to the
+Dominican Province of Lombardy, to Cremona, to the dioceses of Brescia
+and Bergamo. We learn from Sprenger's famous theoretico-practical guide,
+the 'Malleus Maleficarum,' that forty-one witches were burnt at Como in
+the first year after the publication of the bull; crowds of Italian
+women took refuge in the territory of the Archduke Sigismund, where they
+believed themselves to be still safe. Witchcraft ended by taking firm
+root in a few unlucky Alpine valleys, especially in the Val
+Camonica;[1231] the system of persecution had succeeded in permanently
+infecting with the delusion those populations which were in any way
+predisposed for it. This essentially German form of witchcraft is what
+we should think of when reading the stories and novels of Milan or
+Bologna.[1232] That it did not make further progress in Italy is
+probably due to the fact that elsewhere a highly developed 'Stregheria'
+was already in existence, resting on a different set of ideas. The
+Italian witch practised a trade, and needed for it money and, above all,
+sense. We find nothing about her of the hysterical dreams of the
+Northern witch, of marvellous journeys through the air, of Incubus and
+Succubus; the business of the 'Strega' was to provide for other people's
+pleasure. If she was credited with the power of assuming different
+shapes, or of transporting herself suddenly to distant places, she was
+so far content to accept this reputation, as her influence was thereby
+increased; on the other hand, it was perilous for her when the fear of
+her malice and vengeance, and especially of her power for enchanting
+children, cattle, and crops, became general. Inquisitors and magistrates
+were then thoroughly in accord with popular wishes if they burnt her.
+
+By far the most important field for the activity of the 'Strega' lay, as
+has been said, in love-affairs, and included the stirring up of love and
+of hatred, the producing of abortion, the pretended murder of the
+unfaithful man or woman by magical arts, and even the manufacture of
+poisons.[1233] Owing to the unwillingness of many persons to have to do
+with these women, a class of occasional practitioners arose who secretly
+learned from them some one or other of their arts, and then used this
+knowledge on their own account. The Roman prostitutes, for example,
+tried to enhance their personal attractions by charms of another
+description in the style of Horatian Canidia. Aretino[1234] may not only
+have known, but have also told the truth about them in this particular.
+He gives a list of the loathsome messes which were to be found in their
+boxes--hair, skulls, ribs, teeth, dead men's eyes, human skin, the
+navels of little children, the soles of shoes and pieces of clothing
+from tombs. They even went themselves to the graveyard and fetched bits
+of rotten flesh, which they slily gave their lovers to eat--with more
+that is still worse. Pieces of the hair and nails of the lover were
+boiled in oil stolen from the ever-burning lamps in the church. The most
+innocuous of their charms was to make a heart of glowing ashes, and then
+to pierce it while singing--
+
+ Prima che'l fuoco spenghi,
+ Fa ch'a mia porta venghi;
+ Tal ti punga mio amore
+ Quale io fo questo cuore.
+
+There were other charms practised by moonshine, with drawings on the
+ground, and figures of wax or bronze, which doubtless represented the
+lover, and were treated according to circumstances.
+
+These things were so customary that a woman who, without youth and
+beauty, nevertheless exercised a powerful charm on men, naturally became
+suspected of witchcraft. The mother of Sanga,[1235] secretary to Clement
+VII., poisoned her son's mistress, who was a woman of this kind.
+Unfortunately the son died too, as well as a party of friends who had
+eaten of the poisoned salad.
+
+Next come, not as helper, but as competitor to the witch, the magician
+or enchanter--'incantatore'--who was still more familiar with the most
+perilous business of the craft. Sometimes he was as much or more of an
+astrologer than of a magician; he probably often gave himself out as an
+astrologer in order not to be prosecuted as a magician, and a certain
+astrology was essential in order to find out the favourable hour for a
+magical process.[1236] But since many spirits are good[1237] or
+indifferent, the magician could sometimes maintain a very tolerable
+reputation, and Sixtus IV. in the year 1474, had to proceed expressly
+against some Bolognese Carmelites,[1238] who asserted in the pulpit that
+there was no harm in seeking information from the dæmons. Very many
+people believed in the possibility of the thing itself; an indirect
+proof of this lies in the fact that the most pious men believed that by
+prayer they could obtain visions of good spirits. Savonarola's mind was
+filled with these things; the Florentine Platonists speak of a mystic
+union with God; and Marcellus Palingenius (p. 264), gives us to
+understand clearly enough that he had to do with consecrated
+spirits.[1239] The same writer is convinced of the existence of a whole
+hierarchy of bad dæmons, who have their seat from the moon downwards,
+and are ever on the watch to do some mischief to nature and human
+life.[1240] He even tells of his own personal acquaintance with some of
+them, and as the scope of the present work does not allow of a
+systematic exposition of the then prevalent belief in spirits, the
+narrative of Palingenius may be given as one instance out of many.[1241]
+
+At S. Silvestro, on Soracte, he had been receiving instruction from a
+pious hermit on the nothingness of earthly things and the worthlessness
+of human life; and when the night drew near he set out on his way back
+to Rome. On the road, in the full light of the moon, he was joined by
+three men, one of whom called him by name, and asked him whence he came.
+Palingenius made answer: 'From the wise man on the mountain.' 'O fool,'
+replied the stranger, 'dost thou in truth believe that anyone on earth
+is wise? Only higher beings (Divi) have wisdom, and such are we three,
+although we wear the shapes of men. I am named Saracil, and these two
+Sathiel and Jana. Our kingdom lies near the moon, where dwell that
+multitude of intermediate beings who have sway over earth and sea.'
+Palingenius then asked, not without an inward tremor, what they were
+going to do at Rome. The answer was: 'One of our comrades, Ammon, is
+kept in servitude by the magic arts of a youth from Narni, one of the
+attendants of Cardinal Orsini; for mark it, O men, there is proof of
+your own immortality therein, that you can control one of us; I myself,
+shut up in crystal, was once forced to serve a German, till a bearded
+monk set me free. This is the service which we wish to render at Rome to
+our friend, and we shall also take the opportunity of sending one or two
+distinguished Romans to the nether world.' At these words a light breeze
+arose, and Sathiel said: 'Listen, our messenger is coming back from
+Rome, and this wind announces him.' And then another being appeared,
+whom they greeted joyfully and then asked about Rome. His utterances are
+strongly anti-papal: Clement VII. was again allied with the Spaniards
+and hoped to root out Luther's doctrines, not with arguments, but by the
+Spanish sword. This is wholly in the interest of the dæmons, whom the
+impending bloodshed would enable to carry away the souls of thousands
+into hell. At the close of this conversation, in which Rome with all its
+guilt is represented as wholly given over to the Evil One, the
+apparitions vanish, and leave the poet sorrowfully to pursue his way
+alone.[1242]
+
+Those who would form a conception of the extent of the belief in those
+relations to the dæmons which could be openly avowed in spite of the
+penalties attaching to witchcraft, may be referred to the much read work
+of Agrippa of Nettesheim on 'Secret Philosophy.' He seems originally to
+have written it before he was in Italy,[1243] but in the dedication to
+Trithemius he mentions Italian authorities among others, if only by way
+of disparagement. In the case of equivocal persons like Agrippa, or of
+the knaves and fools into whom the majority of the rest may be divided,
+there is little that is interesting in the system they profess, with its
+formulæ, fumigations, ointments, and the rest of it.[1244] But this
+system was filled with quotations from the superstitions of antiquity,
+the influence of which on the life and the passions of Italians is at
+times most remarkable and fruitful. We might think that a great mind
+must be thoroughly ruined, before it surrendered itself to such
+influences; but the violence of hope and desire led even vigorous and
+original men of all classes to have recourse to the magician, and the
+belief that the thing was feasible at all weakened to some extent the
+faith, even of those who kept at a distance, in the moral order of the
+world. At the cost of a little money and danger it seemed possible to
+defy with impunity the universal reason and morality of mankind, and to
+spare oneself the intermediate steps which otherwise lie between a man
+and his lawful or unlawful ends.
+
+Let us here glance for a moment at an older and now decaying form of
+superstition. From the darkest period of the Middle Ages, or even from
+the days of antiquity, many cities of Italy had kept the remembrance of
+the connexion of their fate with certain buildings, statues, or other
+material objects. The ancients had left records of consecrating priests
+or Telestæ, who were present at the solemn foundation of cities, and
+magically guaranteed their prosperity by erecting certain monuments or
+by burying certain objects (Telesmata). Traditions of this sort were
+more likely than anything else to live on in the form of popular,
+unwritten legend; but in the course of centuries the priest naturally
+became transformed into the magician, since the religious side of his
+function was no longer understood. In some of his Virgilian miracles at
+Naples,[1245] the ancient remembrance of one of these Telestæ is clearly
+preserved, his name being in course of time supplanted by that of
+Virgil. The enclosing of the mysterious picture of the city in a vessel
+is neither more nor less than a genuine, ancient Telesma; and Virgil the
+founder of Naples is only the officiating priest, who took part in the
+ceremony, presented in another dress. The popular imagination went on
+working at these themes, till Virgil became also responsible for the
+brazen horse, for the heads at the Nolan gate, for the brazen fly over
+another gate, and even for the Grotto of Posilippo--all of them things
+which in one respect or other served to put a magical constraint upon
+fate, and the first two of which seemed to determine the whole fortune
+of the city. Mediæval Rome also preserved confused recollections of the
+same kind. At the church of S. Ambrogio at Milan, there was an ancient
+marble Hercules; so long, it was said, as this stood in its place, so
+long would the Empire last. That of the Germans is probably meant, as
+the coronation of their Emperors at Milan took place in this
+church.[1246] The Florentines[1247] were convinced that the temple of
+Mars, afterwards transformed into the Baptistry, would stand to the end
+of time, according to the constellation under which it had been built;
+they had, as Christians, removed from it the marble equestrian statue;
+but since the destruction of the latter would have brought some great
+calamity on the city--also according to a constellation--they set it
+upon a tower by the Arno. When Totila conquered Florence, the statue
+fell into the river, and was not fished out again till Charles the Great
+refounded the city. It was then placed on a pillar at the entrance to
+the Ponte Vecchio, and on this spot Buondelmente was slain in 1215. The
+origin of the great feud between Guelph and Ghibelline was thus
+associated with the dreaded idol. During the inundation of 1333 the
+statue vanished forever.[1248]
+
+But the same Telesma reappears elsewhere. Guido Bonatto, already
+mentioned, was not satisfied, at the refounding of the walls of Forli,
+with requiring certain symbolic acts of reconciliation from the two
+parties (p. 511). By burying a bronze or stone equestrian statue,[1249]
+which he had produced by astro logical or magical arts, he believed
+that he had defended the city from ruin, and even from capture and
+plunder. When Cardinal Albornoz (p. 102) was governor of Romagna some
+sixty years later, the statue was accidentally dug up and then shown to
+the people, probably by the order of the Cardinal, that it might be
+known by what means the cruel Montefeltro had defended himself against
+the Roman Church. And again, half a century later, when an attempt to
+surprise Forli had failed, men began to talk afresh of the virtue of the
+statue, which had perhaps been saved and reburied. It was the last time
+that they could do so; for a year later Forli was really taken. The
+foundation of buildings all through the fifteenth century was associated
+not only with astrology (p. 511) but also with magic. The large number
+of gold and silver medals which Paul II. buried in the foundations of
+his buildings[1250] was noticed, and Platina was by no means displeased
+to recognise an old pagan Telesma in the fact. Neither Paul nor his
+biographer were in any way conscious of the mediæval religious
+significance of such an offering.[1251]
+
+But this official magic, which in many cases only rests on hearsay, was
+comparatively unimportant by the side of the secret arts practised for
+personal ends.
+
+The form which these most often took in daily life is shown by Ariosto
+in his comedy of the necromancers.[1252] His hero is one of the many
+Jewish exiles from Spain, although he also gives himself out for a
+Greek, an Egyptian, and an African, and is constantly changing his name
+and costume. He pretends that his incantations can darken the day and
+lighten the darkness, that he can move the earth, make himself
+invisible, and change men into beasts; but these vaunts are only an
+advertisement. His true object is to make his account out of unhappy and
+troubled marriages, and the traces which he leaves behind him in his
+course are like the slime of a snail, or often like the ruin wrought by
+a hail-storm. To attain his ends he can persuade people that the box in
+which a lover is hidden is full of ghosts, or that he can make a corpse
+talk. It is at all events a good sign that poets and novelists could
+reckon on popular applause in holding up this class of men to ridicule.
+Bandello not only treats the sorcery of a Lombard monk as a miserable,
+and in its consequences terrible, piece of knavery,[1253] but he also
+describes with unaffected indignation[1254] the disasters which never
+cease to pursue the credulous fool. 'A man hopes with "Solomon's Key"
+and other magical books to find the treasures hidden in the bosom of the
+earth, to force his lady to do his will, to find out the secrets of
+princes, and to transport himself in the twinkling of an eye from Milan
+to Rome. The more often he is deceived, the more steadfastly he
+believes.... Do you remember the time, Signor Carlo, when a friend of
+ours, in order to win the favour of his beloved, filled his room with
+skulls and bones like a churchyard?' The most loathsome tasks were
+prescribed--to draw three teeth from a corpse or a nail from its finger,
+and the like; and while the hocus-pocus of the incantation was going on,
+the unhappy participants sometimes died of terror.
+
+Benvenuto Cellini did not die during the well-known incantation (1532)
+in the Coliseum at Rome,[1255] although both he and his companions
+witnessed no ordinary horrors; the Sicilian priest, who probably
+expected to find him a useful coadjutor in the future, paid him the
+compliment as they went home of saying that he had never met a man of so
+sturdy a courage. Every reader will make his own reflections on the
+proceedings themselves. The narcotic fumes and the fact that the
+imaginations of the spectators were predisposed for all possible
+terrors, are the chief points to be noticed, and explain why the lad who
+formed one of the party, and on whom they made most impression, saw
+much more than the others. But it may be inferred that Benvenuto himself
+was the one whom it was wished to impress, since the dangerous beginning
+of the incantation can have had no other aim than to arouse curiosity.
+For Benvenuto had to think before the fair Angelica occurred to him; and
+the magician told him afterwards that love-making was folly compared
+with the finding of treasures. Further, it must not be forgotten that it
+flattered his vanity to be able to say, 'The dæmons have kept their
+word, and Angelica came into my hands, as they promised, just a month
+later' (cap. 68). Even on the supposition that Benvenuto gradually lied
+himself into believing the whole story, it would still be permanently
+valuable as evidence of the mode of thought then prevalent.
+
+As a rule, however, the Italian artists, even 'the odd, capricious, and
+eccentric' among them, had little to do with magic. One of them, in his
+anatomical studies, may have cut himself a jacket out of the skin of a
+corpse, but at the advice of his confessor he put it again into the
+grave.[1256] Indeed the frequent study of anatomy probably did more than
+anything else to destroy the belief in the magical influence of various
+parts of the body, while at the same time the incessant observation and
+representation of the human form made the artist familiar with a magic
+of a wholly different sort.
+
+In general, notwithstanding the instances which have been quoted, magic
+seems to have been markedly on the decline at the beginning of the
+sixteenth century,--that is to say, at a time when it first began to
+flourish vigorously out of Italy; and thus the tours of Italian
+sorcerers and astrologers in the North seem not to have begun till their
+credit at home was thoroughly impaired. In the fourteenth century it was
+thought necessary carefully to watch the lake on Mount Pilatus, near
+Scariotto, to hinder the magicians from there consecrating their
+books.[1257] In the fifteenth century we find, for example, that the
+offer was made to produce a storm of rain, in order to frighten away a
+besieged army; and even then the commander of the besieged town--Nicolò
+Vitelli in Città di Castello--had the good sense to dismiss the
+sorcerers as godless persons.[1258] In the sixteenth century no more
+instances of this official kind appear, although in private life the
+magicians were still active. To this time belongs the classic figure of
+German sorcery, Dr. Johann Faust; the Italian ideal, on the other hand,
+Guido Bonatto, dates back to the thirteenth century.
+
+It must nevertheless be added that the decrease of the belief in magic
+was not necessarily accompanied by an increase of the belief in a moral
+order, but that in many cases, like the decaying faith in astrology, the
+delusion left behind it nothing but a stupid fatalism.
+
+One or two minor forms of this superstition, pyromancy, chiromancy[1259]
+and others, which obtained some credit as the belief in sorcery and
+astrology were declining, may be here passed over, and even the
+pseudo-science of physiognomy has by no means the interest which the
+name might lead us to expect. For it did not appear as the sister and
+ally of art and psychology, but as a new form of fatalistic
+superstition, and, what it may have been among the Arabians, as the
+rival of astrology. The author of a physiognomical treatise, Bartolommeo
+Cocle, who styled himself a 'metoposcopist,'[1260] and whose science,
+according to Giovio, seemed like one of the most respectable of the free
+arts, was not content with the prophecies which he made to the many
+clever people who daily consulted him, but wrote also a most serious
+'catalogue of such whom great dangers to life were awaiting.' Giovio,
+although grown old in the free thought of Rome--'in hac luce romana'--is
+of opinion that the predictions contained therein had only too much
+truth in them.[1261] We learn from the same source how the people aimed
+at in these and similar prophecies took vengeance on the seer. Giovanni
+Bentivoglio caused Lucas Gauricus to be five times swung to and fro
+against the wall, on a rope hanging from a lofty winding staircase,
+because Lucas had foretold to him the loss of his authority.[1262] Ermes
+Bentivoglio sent an assassin after Cocle, because the unlucky
+metoposcopist had unwillingly prophesied to him that he would die an
+exile in battle. The murderer seems to have derided the dying man in his
+last moments, saying that the prophet had foretold to him that he would
+shortly commit an infamous murder. The reviver of chiromancy, Antioco
+Tiberto of Cesena,[1263] came by an equally miserable end at the hands
+of Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, to whom he had prophesied the worst
+that a tyrant can imagine, namely, death in exile and in the most
+grievous poverty. Tiberto was a man of intelligence, who was supposed to
+give his answers less according to any methodical chiromancy than by
+means of his shrewd knowledge of mankind; and his high culture won for
+him the respect of those scholars who thought little of his
+divination.[1264]
+
+Alchemy, in conclusion, which is not mentioned in antiquity till quite
+late under Diocletian, played only a very subordinate part at the best
+period of the Renaissance.[1265] Italy went through the disease earlier,
+when Petrarch in the fourteenth century confessed, in his polemic
+against it, that gold-making was a general practice.[1266] Since then
+that particular kind of faith, devotion, and isolation which the
+practice of alchemy required became more and more rare in Italy, just
+when Italian and other adepts began to make their full profit out of the
+great lords in the North.[1267] Under Leo X. the few Italians who busied
+themselves with it were called 'ingenia curiosa,'[1268] and Aurelio
+Augurelli, who dedicated to Leo X., the great despiser of gold, his
+didactic poem on the making of the metal, is said to have received in
+return a beautiful but empty purse. The mystic science which besides
+gold sought for the omnipotent philosopher's stone, is a late northern
+growth, which had its rise in the theories of Paracelsus and others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GENERAL DISINTEGRATION OF BELIEF.
+
+
+With these superstitions, as with ancient modes of thought generally,
+the decline in the belief of immortality stands in the closest
+connection.[1269] This question has the widest and deepest relations
+with the whole development of the modern spirit.
+
+One great source of doubt in immortality was the inward wish to be under
+no obligations to the hated Church. We have seen that the Church branded
+those who thus felt as Epicureans (p. 496 sqq.). In the hour of death
+many doubtless called for the sacraments, but multitudes during their
+whole lives, and especially during their most vigorous years, lived and
+acted on the negative supposition. That unbelief on this particular
+point must often have led to a general scepticism, is evident of itself,
+and is attested by abundant historical proof. These are the men of whom
+Ariosto says: 'Their faith goes no higher than the roof.'[1270] In
+Italy, and especially in Florence, it was possible to live as an open
+and notorious unbeliever, if a man only refrained from direct acts of
+hostility against the Church.[1271] The confessor, for instance, who was
+sent to prepare a political offender for death, began by inquiring
+whether the prisoner was a believer, 'for there was a false report that
+he had no belief at all.'[1272]
+
+The unhappy transgressor here referred to--the same Pierpaolo Boscoli
+who has been already mentioned (p. 59)--who in 1513 took part in an
+attempt against the newly restored family of the Medici, is a faithful
+mirror of the religious confusion then prevalent. Beginning as a
+partisan of Savonarola, he became afterwards possessed with an
+enthusiasm for the ancient ideals of liberty, and for paganism in
+general; but when he was in prison his early friends regained the
+control of his mind, and secured for him what they considered a pious
+ending. The tender witness and narrator of his last hours is one of the
+artistic family of the Delia Robbia, the learned philologist Luca. 'Ah,'
+sighs Boscoli, 'get Brutus out of my head for me, that I may go my way
+as a Christian.' 'If you will,' answers Luca, 'the thing is not
+difficult; for you know that these deeds of the Romans are not handed
+down to us as they were, but idealised (con arte accresciute).' The
+penitent now forces his understanding to believe, and bewails his
+inability to believe voluntarily. If he could only live for a month with
+pious monks, he would truly become spiritually minded. It comes out that
+these partisans of Savonarola knew their Bible very imperfectly; Boscoli
+can only say the Paternoster and Avemaria, and earnestly begs Luca to
+exhort his friends to study the sacred writings, for only what a man has
+learned in life does he possess in death. Luca then reads and explains
+to him the story of the Passion according to the Gospel of St. Matthew;
+the poor listener, strange to say, can perceive clearly the Godhead of
+Christ, but is perplexed at his manhood; he wishes to get as firm a hold
+of it 'as if Christ came to meet him out of a wood.' His friend
+thereupon exhorts him to be humble, since this was only a doubt sent him
+by the Devil. Soon after it occurs to the penitent that he has not
+fulfilled a vow made in his youth to go on pilgrimage to the Impruneta;
+his friend promises to do it in his stead. Meantime the confessor--a
+monk, as was desired, from Savonarola's monastery--arrives, and after
+giving him the explanation quoted above of the opinion of St. Thomas
+Aquinas on tyrannicide, exhorts him to bear death manfully. Boscoli
+makes answer: 'Father, waste no time on this; the philosophers have
+taught it me already; help me to bear death out of love to Christ.' What
+follows--the communion, the leave-taking and the execution--is very
+touchingly described, one point deserves special mention. When Boscoli
+laid his head on the block, he begged the executioner to delay the
+stroke for a moment: 'During the whole time since the announcement of
+the sentence he had been striving after a close union with God, without
+attaining it as he wished, and now in this supreme moment he thought
+that by a strong effort he could give himself wholly to God.' It is
+clearly some half-understood expression of Savonarola which was
+troubling him.
+
+If we had more confessions of this character the spiritual picture of
+the time would be the richer by many important features which no poem or
+treatise has preserved for us. We should see more clearly how strong the
+inborn religious instinct was, how subjective and how variable the
+relation of the individual to religion, and what powerful enemies and
+competitors religion had. That men whose inward condition is of this
+nature, are not the men to found a new church, is evident; but the
+history of the Western spirit would be imperfect without a view of that
+fermenting period among the Italians, while other nations, who have had
+no share in the evolution of thought, may be passed over without loss.
+But we must return to the question of immortality.
+
+If unbelief in this respect made such progress among the more highly
+cultivated natures, the reason lay partly in the fact that the great
+earthly task of discovering the world and representing it in word and
+form, absorbed most of the higher spiritual faculties. We have already
+spoken (p. 490) of the inevitable worldliness of the Renaissance. But
+this investigation and this art were necessarily accompanied by a
+general spirit of doubt and inquiry. If this spirit shows itself but
+little in literature, if we find, for example, only isolated instances
+of the beginnings of biblical criticism (p. 465), we are not therefore
+to infer that it had no existence. The sound of it was only
+over-powered by the need of representation and creation in all
+departments--that is, by the artistic instinct; and it was further
+checked, whenever it tried to express itself theoretically, by the
+already existing despotism of the Church. This spirit of doubt must, for
+reasons too obvious to need discussion, have inevitably and chiefly
+busied itself with the question of the state of man after death.
+
+And here came in the influence of antiquity, and worked in a twofold
+fashion on the argument. In the first place men set themselves to master
+the psychology of the ancients, and tortured the letter of Aristotle for
+a decisive answer. In one of the Lucianic dialogues of the time[1273]
+Charon tells Mercury how he questioned Aristotle on his belief in
+immortality, when the philosopher crossed in the Stygian boat; but the
+prudent sage, although dead in the body and nevertheless living on,
+declined to compromise himself by a definite answer--and centuries later
+how was it likely to fare with the interpretation of his writings? All
+the more eagerly did men dispute about his opinion and that of others on
+the true nature of the soul, its origin, its pre-existence, its unity in
+all men, its absolute eternity, even its transformations; and there were
+men who treated of these things in the pulpit.[1274] The dispute was
+warmly carried on even in the fifteenth century; some proved that
+Aristotle taught the doctrine of an immortal soul;[1275] others
+complained of the hardness of men's hearts, who would not believe that
+there was a soul at all, till they saw it sitting down on a chair before
+them;[1276] Filelfo in his funeral oration on Francesco Sforza brings
+forward a long list of opinions of ancient and even of Arabian
+philosophers in favour of immortality, and closes the mixture, which
+covers a folio page and a half of print,[1277] with the words, 'Besides
+all this we have the Old and New Testaments, which are above all truth.'
+Then came the Florentine Platonists with their master's doctrine of the
+soul, supplemented at times, as in the case of Pico, by Christian
+teaching. But the opposite opinion prevailed in the instructed world. At
+the beginning of the sixteenth century the stumbling-block which it put
+in the way of the Church was so serious that Leo X. set forth a
+Constitution[1278] at the Lateran Council in 1513, in defence of the
+immortality and individuality of the soul, the latter against those who
+asserted that there was but one soul in all men. A few years later
+appeared the work of Pomponazzo, in which the impossibility of a
+philosophical proof of immortality is maintained; and the contest was
+now waged incessantly with replies and apologies, till it was silenced
+by the Catholic reaction. The pre-existence of the soul in God,
+conceived more or less in accordance with Plato's theory of ideas, long
+remained a common belief, and proved of service even to the poets.[1279]
+The consequences which followed from it as to the mode of the soul's
+continued existence after death, were not more closely considered.
+
+There was a second way in which the influence of antiquity made itself
+felt, chiefly by means of that remarkable fragment of the sixth book of
+Cicero's 'Republic' known by the name of Scipio's Dream. Without the
+commentary of Macrobius it would probably have perished like the rest of
+the second part of the work; it was now diffused in countless manuscript
+copies,[1280] and, after the discovery of typography, in a printed form,
+and edited afresh by various commentators. It is the description of a
+transfigured hereafter for great men, pervaded by the harmony of the
+spheres. This pagan heaven, for which many other testimonies were
+gradually extracted from the writings of the ancients, came step by step
+to supplant the Christian heaven in proportion as the ideal of fame and
+historical greatness threw into the shade the ideal of the Christian
+life, without, nevertheless, the public feeling being thereby offended
+as it was by the doctrine of personal annihilation after death. Even
+Petrarch founds his hope chiefly on this Dream of Scipio, on the
+declarations found in other Ciceronian works, and on Plato's 'Phædo,'
+without making any mention of the Bible.[1281] 'Why,' he asks elsewhere,
+'should not I as a Catholic share a hope which was demonstrably
+cherished by the heathen?' Soon afterwards Coluccio Salutati wrote his
+'Labours of Hercules' (still existing in manuscript), in which it is
+proved at the end that the valorous man, who has well endured the great
+labours of earthly life, is justly entitled to a dwelling among the
+stars.[1282] If Dante still firmly maintained that the great pagans,
+whom he would have gladly welcomed in Paradise, nevertheless must not
+come beyond the Limbo at the entrance to Hell,[1283] the poetry of a
+later time accepted joyfully the new liberal ideas of a future life.
+Cosimo the Elder, according to Bernardo Pulci's poem on his death, was
+received in heaven by Cicero, who had also been called the 'Father of
+his country,' by the Fabii, by Curius, Fabricius and many others; with
+them he would adorn the choir where only blameless spirits sing.[1284]
+
+But in the old writers there was another and less pleasing picture of
+the world to come--the shadowy realms of Homer and of those poets who
+had not sweetened and humanised the conception. This made an impression
+on certain temperaments. Gioviano Pontano somewhere attributes to
+Sannazaro the story of a vision, which he beheld one morning early while
+half awake.[1285] He seemed to see a departed friend, Ferrandus
+Januarius, with whom he had often discoursed on the immortality of the
+soul, and whom he now asked whether it was true that the pains of Hell
+were really dreadful and eternal. The shadow gave an answer like that of
+Achilles when Odysseus questioned him. 'So much I tell and aver to thee,
+that we who are parted from earthly life have the strongest desire to
+return to it again.' He then saluted his friend and disappeared.
+
+It cannot but be recognised that such views of the state of man after
+death partly presuppose and partly promote the dissolution of the most
+essential dogmas of Christianity. The notion of sin and of salvation
+must have almost entirely evaporated. We must not be misled by the
+effects of the great preachers of repentance or by the epidemic revivals
+which have been described above (part vi. cap. 2). For even granting
+that the individually developed classes had shared in them like the
+rest, the cause of their participation was rather the need of emotional
+excitement, the rebound of passionate natures, the horror felt at great
+national calamities, the cry to heaven for help. The awakening of the
+conscience had by no means necessarily the sense of sin and the felt
+need of salvation as its consequence, and even a very severe outward
+penance did not perforce involve any repentance in the Christian meaning
+of the word. When the powerful natures of the Renaissance tell us that
+their principle is to repent of nothing,[1286] they may have in their
+minds only matters that are morally indifferent, faults of unreason or
+imprudence; but in the nature of the case this contempt for repentance
+must extend to the sphere of morals, because its origin, namely the
+consciousness of individual force, is common to both sides of human
+nature. The passive and contemplative form of Christianity, with its
+constant reference to a higher world beyond the grave, could no longer
+control these men. Macchiavelli ventured still farther, and maintained
+that it could not be serviceable to the state and to the maintenance of
+public freedom.[1287]
+
+The form assumed by the strong religious instinct which, notwithstanding
+all, survived in many natures, was Theism or Deism, as we may please to
+call it. The latter name may be applied to that mode of thought which
+simply wiped away the Christian element out of religion, without either
+seeking or finding any other substitute for the feelings to rest upon.
+Theism may be considered that definite heightened devotion to the one
+Supreme Being which the Middle Ages were not acquainted with. This mode
+of faith does not exclude Christianity, and can either ally itself with
+the Christian doctrines of sin, redemption, and immortality, or else
+exist and flourish without them.
+
+Sometimes this belief presents itself with childish naïveté and even
+with a half-pagan air, God appearing as the almighty fulfiller of human
+wishes. Agnolo Pandolfini[1288] tells us how, after his wedding, he shut
+himself in with his wife, and knelt down before the family altar with
+the picture of the Madonna, and prayed, not to her, but to God that he
+would vouchsafe to them the right use of their property, a long life in
+joy and unity with one another, and many male descendants: 'for myself I
+prayed for wealth, honour, and friends, for her blamelessness, honesty,
+and that she might be a good housekeeper.' When the language used has a
+strong antique flavour, it is not always easy to keep apart the pagan
+style and the theistic belief.[1289]
+
+This temper sometimes manifests itself in times of misfortune with a
+striking sincerity. Some addresses to God are left us from the latter
+period of Firenzuola, when for years he lay ill of fever, in which,
+though he expressly declares himself a believing Christian, he shows
+that his religious consciousness is essentially theistic.[1290] His
+sufferings seem to him neither as the punishment of sin, nor as
+preparation for a higher world; they are an affair between him and God
+only, who has put the strong love of life between man and his despair.
+'I curse, but only curse Nature, since thy greatness forbids me to utter
+thy name.... Give me death, Lord, I beseech thee, give it me now!'
+
+In these utterances and the like, it would be vain to look for a
+conscious and consistent Theism; the speakers partly believed themselves
+to be still Christians, and for various other reasons respected the
+existing doctrines of the Church. But at the time of the Reformation,
+when men were driven to come to a distinct conclusion on such points,
+this mode of thought was accepted with a fuller consciousness; a number
+of the Italian Protestants came forward as Anti-Trinitarians and
+Socinians, and even as exiles in distant countries made the memorable
+attempt to found a church on these principles. From the foregoing
+exposition it will be clear that, apart from humanistic rationalism,
+other spirits were at work in this field.
+
+One chief centre of theistic modes of thought lay in the Platonic
+Academy at Florence, and especially in Lorenzo Magnifico himself. The
+theoretical works and even the letters of these men show us only half
+their nature. It is true that Lorenzo, from his youth till he died,
+expressed himself dogmatically as a Christian,[1291] and that Pico was
+drawn by Savonarola's influence to accept the point of view of a monkish
+ascetic.[1292] But in the hymns of Lorenzo,[1293] which we are tempted
+to regard as the highest product of the spirit of this school, an
+unreserved Theism is set forth--a Theism which strives to treat the
+world as a great moral and physical Cosmos. While the men of the Middle
+Ages look on the world as a vale of tears, which Pope and Emperor are
+set to guard against the coming of Antichrist; while the fatalists of
+the Renaissance oscillate between seasons of overflowing energy and
+seasons of superstition or of stupid resignation, here, in this circle
+of chosen spirits,[1294] the doctrine is upheld that the visible world
+was created by God in love, that it is the copy of a pattern
+pre-existing in Him, and that He will ever remain its eternal mover and
+restorer. The soul of man can by recognising God draw Him into its
+narrow boundaries, but also by love to Him itself expand into the
+Infinite--and this is blessedness on earth.
+
+Echoes of mediæval mysticism here flow into one current with Platonic
+doctrines, and with a characteristically modern spirit. One of the most
+precious fruits of the knowledge of the world and of man here comes to
+maturity, on whose account alone the Italian Renaissance must be called
+the leader of modern ages.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+A.
+
+Academies, educational, 281.
+
+Adrian VI., Pope, 121;
+ satires against, 162-164.
+
+'_Africa_,' the, of Petrarch, 258.
+
+Aguello of Pisa, 11.
+
+Alberto da Sarteano, 467.
+
+Alberti, Leon Battista, 136-138.
+
+Albertinus, Musattus, fame of, 140-141.
+
+Alboronoz, 102.
+
+Alchemy, 539, 540.
+
+Alexander VI., Pope, 109-117;
+ death of, 117.
+
+Alfonso I., 49.
+
+Alfonso of Ferrara, 99.
+
+Alfonso the Great of Naples, 35, 95, 459-461;
+ contempt for astrology, 513;
+ enthusiasm for antiquity, 225-227, 228.
+
+Alighieri Dante.--_See Dante._
+
+Allegorical representations, 415.
+
+Allegory, age of, 408-410;
+ superiority of Italian, 410-411.
+
+Amiens, treaty of, 123.
+
+'_Amorosá Visione_,' the, of Boccaccio, 324.
+
+Antiquity, importance of, Dante on, 204-205;
+ reproduction of, 230-242.
+
+Anti-Trinitarians, 549.
+
+Apollo Belvedere, discovery of the, 184.
+
+Aquinas, St. Thomas, 6, 7, 60.
+
+Arabic, study of, 200-202.
+
+Aragonese Dynasty, 16, 35.
+
+Aretino, Pietro, the railer, 164-168;
+ father of modern journalism, 165.
+
+Ariosto, 134;
+ and the Humanists, 273;
+ his artistic aim in epic, 326;
+ his picture of Roman society, 185;
+ '_Orlando Furioso_,' the, of, 325, 326, 327;
+ position as a Dramatist, 320;
+ style, 306;
+ satire on sorcery, 535-536.
+
+Arlotto (jester), 156.
+
+Army list, Venetian, 67.
+
+'_Asolani_,' the, of Bembo, 243.
+
+Assassination, paid, 450, 457.
+
+Assassins in Rome, 109.
+
+Astrology, belief in, 507-518;
+ protest against, 515.
+
+Auguries, belief in, 520, 521.
+
+Authors, the old, 187-202.
+
+Autobiography in Italy, 332, 333.
+
+
+B.
+
+Bacchus and Ariadne, song of, by Lorenzo de Medici, 427-428.
+
+Baglioni of Perugia, the, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32;
+ and the Oddi, disputes between, 29.
+
+Bandello, as novelist, 306;
+ on infidelity, 443-444;
+ style of writing, 382.
+
+Baraballe, comic procession of, 158.
+
+Bassano, Jacopo, rustic paintings of, 354.
+
+Belief, general disintegration of, 541-550.
+
+Bembo, Pietro, 231;
+ epigrams of, 267;
+ his '_Historia rerum Venetarum_,' 248;
+ letters of, 233;
+ the '_Sacra_' of, 259.
+
+Benedictines, the, 463.
+
+Bernabö, boar hounds of, 13.
+
+Bernadino da Siena, 235, 467, 469.
+
+Bessarion, Cardinal, his collection of Greek MSS., 189.
+
+Biblical criticism, 501.
+
+Biographies, Collective, 330 sqq.
+
+Biography, 328-337;
+ comparative, art of, 329.
+
+Blondus of Forli, historical writings of, 245, 246.
+
+Boar-hounds of Bernabö, 13.
+
+Boccaccio, 151;
+ life of Dante, 329;
+ master of personal description, 344;
+ on 'tyranny,' 56;
+ representative of antiquity, 205;
+ sonnets of, 314.
+
+Bojardo, as epic poet, 325;
+ inventiveness of, 324;
+ style of, 306.
+
+Borgias, the crimes of the, 109-117.
+
+Borgia, Cæsar, 109-117;
+ death of, 117.
+
+Borso of Este, 49, 50, 51;
+ created duke of Modena and Reggio, 19;
+ welcome of, to Reggio, 417, 418.
+
+Boscoli, Pierpaolo, death of, 542-543.
+
+Botanical Gardens, 292.
+
+Brigandage, 449-450.
+
+Burchiello as Comedian, 320.
+
+
+C.
+
+Calumny at Papal Court, 161.
+
+Calvi Fabio, of Ravenna, 278-279.
+
+Cambray, League of, 68, 89.
+
+Can Grande della Scala, Court of, 9.
+
+Canzone, the, 310.
+
+'_Canzone Zingaresca_,' of Politian, 354.
+
+Capistrano, Giovanni, 467.
+
+'_Capitolo_,' the, 162-163.
+
+Cardano, Girolamo, of Milan, autobiography of, 334.
+
+Caricaturists, 159.
+
+'_Carmina Burana_,' the, 173.
+
+Carnival, the, 407, 425-427.
+
+Castiglione, 388.
+
+Catalogues of Libraries, 190, 191.
+
+Cathedral, Milan, founding of, 14.
+
+Catilinarians, the, 105.
+
+Catullus, as model, 264-265.
+
+Cellini, Benvenuto, autobiography of, 333-334.
+
+Celso, Caterina di San, 400.
+
+Certosa, Convent of, founding of, 13.
+
+Charles V., Emperor, action of, 123, 124.
+
+Charles IV., Emperor, 17, 18.
+
+Charles VIII. in Italy, 89, 90;
+ entry into Italy, 413.
+
+Children, naming of, 250-251.
+
+Chroniclers, Italian, 245;
+ Florentine, condemn astrology, 515.
+
+Church dignities, not bestowed according to pedigree, 360;
+ the corruption of, 456;
+ held in contempt, 457-458;
+ regeneration of, 125;
+ secularization of, proposed by Emperor Charles V., 123;
+ spirit of reform in, 123.
+
+Cicero, taken as model for style, 253-54.
+
+Ciceronianism and revival of Vitruvius, analogy between, 256.
+
+Ciriaco of Ancona, an antiquarian, 181.
+
+Class distinction ignored, 359-368.
+
+Clement VII., Pope, detested, 122;
+ flight of, 123;
+ temperament of, 309.
+
+Cleopatra, the discovery of, 184.
+
+Clubs, political, 387.
+
+Colonna, Giovanne, 177-178;
+ Giulia Gonzaga, 385;
+ Vittoria, 386, 446.
+
+'_Commedia dell'Arte_,' 320, 321.
+
+_Commentaries_, the, of Pius II., 333.
+
+Composition, Latin, history of, 252-253.
+
+Condottieri, the, despotisms founded by, 22, 23, 24.
+
+Convent of Certosa of Pavia, founding of, 13.
+
+Cornaro, Luigi, Autobiography of, 335-337;
+ _Vita Sobria_ of, 244.
+
+Corpse of girl, discovery of, 183.
+
+Corpus Christi, feast of, celebration of, 414.
+
+Corruption in Papacy, 106, 107.
+
+'_Cortigiano_,' the, by Castiglione, 381, 388, 446.
+
+Cosmetics, use of, 373-374.
+
+Council of Ten, 66.
+
+Country life, descriptions of, 306;
+ love of, 404-405.
+
+Crime, for its own sake, 453-454;
+ prevalence of, among priests, 448-449.
+
+Criticism, Biblical, 501.
+
+Crusades, the, 485-486;
+ influence of, 285.
+
+Culture, general Latinization of, 249-256.
+
+'_Curiale_,' the, 378.
+
+Cybò, Franceschetto, 108-109;
+ as gambler, 436.
+
+
+D.
+
+Daemons, belief in, 521-524, 531.
+
+Dagger, use of the, 452.
+
+Dante, Alighieri, 75, 76, 83, 130, 133, 135;
+ as advocate of antiquity, 204-205;
+ satirist, 155;
+ belief in freedom of the will, 498;
+ burial place of, 143;
+ desire for fame, his, 139;
+ influence of, 324;
+ influence of nature shown in works, 299;
+ life of, by Boccaccio, 329;
+ on Epicureanism, 496-497;
+ the Italian language, 378-379;
+ nobility, 360-361;
+ view of the sonnet, 312;
+ '_Vita Nuova_' of, 333.
+
+Decadence of oratory, 241, 242.
+
+'_Decades_,' the, of Sabellico, 248.
+
+'_Decameron_,' the, 459.
+
+'_De Genealogia Deorum_,' 205-207.
+
+Demeanour of individuals, 369.
+
+Descriptions of life in movement, 348-355.
+
+Description of nations and cities, 338-342;
+ outward man, 343-347.
+
+Difference of birth, loss of significance of, 354.
+
+Dignities, Church, not bestowed according to pedigree, 360.
+
+'_Discorsi_,' the, of Macchiavelli, 458.
+
+Domestic comfort, 376-377;
+ economy, 132, 402-405.
+
+Dress, importance attached to, 369-370;
+ regulations relating to, 370-371.
+
+
+E.
+
+Ecloques of Battista Mantovano, 352, 479.
+
+Economy, domestic, 132, 402-405.
+
+Education, equal, of sexes, 396;
+ private, 135.
+
+Emperor Charles IV., 17;
+ submission to the Pope, 18;
+ Frederick II., 5-7, 69;
+ III., 19;
+ Sigismund, 18, 19.
+
+Epicureanism, 496.
+
+Epigram, 264, 267, 268, 269, 270.
+
+Epigraph, the, 268, 269.
+
+Equalization of classes, 359-368.
+
+Erasmus, 254.
+
+Ercole I., Duke of Ferrara, 487-489.
+
+Este, House of, government of the, 46, 48;
+ Isabella of, 43, 44;
+ novels relating to, 51, 52, 53;
+ popular feeling towards, 49, 50.
+
+Van Eyck, Hubert, 302, 303;
+ Johann, 302, 303.
+
+Ezzelino da Romano, 6, 7.
+
+
+F.
+
+Fame, modern idea of, 139-153;
+ thirst for, evils of, 152-153.
+
+Federigo of Urbino, 99.
+
+Feltre, Vittorino da, 213-214.
+
+Female beauty, Firenzuola on, 345-347.
+
+Ferrante of Naples, 36, 37, 459-461.
+
+Ferrara, flourishing state of, 47;
+ sale of public offices at, 47, 48.
+
+Festivals, 406-428;
+ full development of, 407;
+ higher phase in life of people, 406.
+
+Fire-arms, adoption of, 98-99.
+
+Firenzuola on female beauty, 345-347.
+
+Flagellants, the, 485-486.
+
+Flogging, 403.
+
+Florence, 61-87;
+ general statistics of, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80;
+ home of scandal-mongers, 161;
+ life more secure in, 440-451;
+ and Venice, birthplaces of science of statistics, 69-72.
+
+Florentines, the, as perfectors of festivals, 408.
+
+Foscari, Francesco, torture of, 66.
+
+France, changed attitude of, 91, 92.
+
+Frederick II., Emperor, 5-7, 69;
+ III., 19.
+
+Frederick of Urbino, learning of, 227;
+ oratory of, 237.
+
+Freedom of will, belief in, 497.
+
+Friars, mendicant, 462.
+
+
+G.
+
+Gallerana, Cecilia, 386.
+
+Gamblers, professional, 436.
+
+Gambling on large scale, 436.
+
+Gaston de Foix, 309.
+
+Genoa, 86-87.
+
+Germano-Spanish army, advance of, 122.
+
+Ghibellines and Guelphs, political sonnets of, 312.
+
+Ghosts, 521-523.
+
+Giangaleazzo, 13-14.
+
+Girls, in society, absence of, 399.
+
+Girolamo Savonarola (see Savonarola).
+
+Godfrey of Strasburg, 309.
+
+Golden Spur, order of the, 53.
+
+Gonnella (jester), 157.
+
+Gonzaga, House of, of Mantua, 43;
+ Francesco, 43, 44;
+ Giovan Francesco, 213-214;
+ Isabella, 385.
+
+Government, divine, belief in, destroyed, 507.
+
+'_Gran Consilio_,' the, 66.
+
+Gratitude as an Italian virtue, 440.
+
+Greater dynasties, 35-54.
+
+Greek, the study of, 195-197.
+
+Guarino of Verono, 215.
+
+Guelphs and Ghibellines, political sonnets of, 312.
+
+Guicciardini, his opinion of the priesthood, 464.
+
+Gymnastics first taught as an art, 389.
+
+Gyraldus, historian of the humanists, 276.
+
+
+H.
+
+Hair, false, 372.
+
+Hermits, 471.
+
+Hierarchy, hostility to the, 458.
+
+Hieronymus of Siena, 471-472.
+
+'_Historia rerum Venetarum_,' the, of Bembo, 248.
+
+History, treated of in poetry, 261.
+
+Honour, the sentiment of, 433-435.
+
+Horses, breeding of, 295-296.
+
+Humanism in the Fourteenth Century, 203;
+ furtherers of, 217-229.
+
+Humanists, fall of, in 16th century, 272-281;
+ faults of, 276;
+ historian of, 276;
+ temptations of, 275-276.
+
+Human Nature, study of intellectual side of, 308-309.
+
+Husband, rights of, 442.
+
+Hypocrisy, freedom of Italians from, 439.
+
+
+I.
+
+'_Il Galateo_' of G. della Casa, 375-376.
+
+Illegitimacy, indifference to, 21, 22.
+
+Immorality, prevalent at beginning of 16th century, 432.
+
+Immortality, decline of belief in, 541.
+
+Individual, the, assertion of, 129, 130, 131;
+ the, and the Italian State, 129-138;
+ the perfecting of, 134-138.
+
+Individuality, keen perception of Italians for, 329.
+
+Infidelity in marriage, 440-441, 456.
+
+Inn-keepers, German, 375.
+
+Innocent VIII., Pope, election of, 107.
+
+Inquisitors and Science, 291;
+ detrimental to development of drama, 317.
+
+Instruments, musical, collections of 393.
+
+Intolerance, religious, 6.
+
+Isabella of Este, 43, 44.
+
+Italians, cleanliness of, 374;
+ discoverers of the Middle Ages, 286;
+ journeys of, 285-288;
+ judges as to personal beauty, 342;
+ supremacy of, in literary world, 151;
+ writing of, 193.
+
+Italy, a school for scandal, 160;
+ subject to Spain, 94.
+
+
+J.
+
+Jacopo della Marca, 467.
+
+'_Jerusalem delivered_' of Tasso, delineation of character in, 327.
+
+Jesting, a profession, 156.
+
+Jews, literary activity of the, 199-201.
+
+Journeys of the Italians, 285-288.
+
+Julius II., Pope, character of, 118;
+ election of, 117.
+
+
+K.
+
+Knighthood, passion for, 364.
+
+
+L.
+
+Laetus Pomponus, life of, 279-281.
+
+'_L'amor, diveno_,' 445, 446.
+
+Language as basis of social intercourse, 378-383.
+
+Laöcoon, the, discovery of, 148.
+
+Latin composition, history of, 252-253;
+ treatises, and History, 243-248.
+
+Latini, Brunetto, originator of new epoch in poetry, 310.
+
+Laurel wreath, the, coronation of poets with, 207-209.
+
+Law, absence of belief in, 447.
+
+League of Cambray, 68, 89.
+
+Leo X., Pope, buffoonery of, 157-158;
+ influence on humanism, 224-225;
+ love of jesters, 157;
+ policy of, 119, 120, 121.
+
+Letter-writing, object of, 232.
+
+Library Catalogues, 190, 191.
+
+Life, outward refinement of, 369-377.
+
+Lionardo da Vinci, 114.
+
+Lorenzo the Magnificent, 90, 95, 108;
+ as describer of country life, 350, 353;
+ parody of '_Inferno_' by, 159;
+ song of Bacchus and Ariadne, 427-428;
+ tact of, 386-387;
+ theistic belief of, 549-550.
+
+Ludovico Casella, death of, 57.
+
+Ludovico il Moro, 41, 42, 64, 93.
+
+Lutherans, danger from the, 121.
+
+Luther, Martin, 121.
+
+
+M.
+
+Macchiavelli, 81, 82, 84-86, 96;
+ as comedian, 320;
+ '_Discorsi il_' of, 458;
+ metrical history by, 263;
+ on Italian immorality, 432.
+
+Madonna, the worship of, 483-485.
+
+Magicians, 530-533;
+ burning of, 524.
+
+Magic, decline of, 537;
+ official, 533-535, 538;
+ practice of, 453.
+
+Malatesta, Pandolfo, 27;
+ Robert, 23, 26;
+ Sigismondo, 33, 228-229.
+
+Man, the discovery of, 308-327.
+
+Manetti, Giannozzo, 197, 225;
+ high character of, 218-220;
+ eloquence of, 240.
+
+Mantovano, Battista, eclogues of, 352, 479.
+
+Manucci, Aldo, 197.
+
+Mayia, Galeazzo, of Milan, 40, 41, 106;
+ Filippo, of Milan, 38-39.
+
+Mariolatry, 484-485.
+
+Massuccio, novels of, 459-460.
+
+Maximilian I., commencement of new Imperial policy under, 20.
+
+Medici, House of, charm over Florence, 220-221;
+ passion for tournaments, 366-367.
+
+Medici Giovanni, 119-121;
+ Lorenzo, on 'nobility,' 361, 362;
+ the younger, 85.
+
+Menageries, 296;
+ human, 293-295.
+
+'_Meneghino_,' the, Mask of Milan, 321.
+
+Mercenary troops, introduction of, 98.
+
+Middle Ages, works on, by humanists, 246, 247.
+
+Milano-Venetian War, 99.
+
+Mirandola, Pico della, 198-199, 202;
+ death of, 465;
+ on dignity of man, 354-355;
+ free will, 516;
+ refutation of astrology, 516.
+
+Mohammedanism, opposition to, 493.
+
+Monks, abuse of, in '_Decameron_,' 459;
+ as satirists, 465;
+ scandalous lives of, 460-461;
+ unpopularity of, 459.
+
+Montefeltro, House of, of Urbino, 43;
+ Federigo, 44-46;
+ Guido, in relation to astrology, 512.
+
+Montepulciano, Fra Francesco di, 473.
+
+Morality, 431-455.
+
+'_Morgante Maggiore_,' the, of Luigi Pulci, 323-324, 494-495.
+
+Murder, public sympathy on side of, 447.
+
+Music, 390-394.
+
+Mystery plays, 406-407, 411-413, 416.
+
+Mythological representations, 415, 416.
+
+Myths, new, 259.
+
+
+N.
+
+Naming of children, 250-251.
+
+Natural Science in Italy, 289-297.
+
+Nature, beauty in, discovery of, 298-307.
+
+Navagero, style of, 265.
+
+'_Nencia_,' the, of Politian, 354.
+
+'_Nipoti_,' the, 106, 107.
+
+Niccoli, Niccolo, 188-189, 217;
+ on 'nobility,' 361-362.
+
+Nicholas V., Pope, faith in higher learning of, 223.
+
+Novels of Bandello, 306;
+ of Massuccio, 459, 460.
+
+
+O.
+
+Oddi, the, and the Baglioni of Perugia, disputes between, 29.
+
+Old writers, influence of, on Italian mind, 187.
+
+Omens, belief in, 518-521.
+
+'_On the infelicity of the Scholar_,' by Piero Valeriano, 276-277.
+
+Orator, the, important position of, 233, 234-238.
+
+Oratory, Pulpit, 238.
+
+Oriental Studies, revival of, 197.
+
+'_Orlando Furioso_,' the, of Ariosto, 325, 326, 327.
+
+Outward refinement of life, 369-377.
+
+
+P.
+
+Palingenius, Marcellus, '_Zodiac of Life_,' of, 264.
+
+Painting, rustic, of Jacopo Bassano, 354.
+
+Pandolfini, Agnolo, 132;
+ on home management, 402-404.
+
+Pantomime, the, 407, 416, 417.
+
+Papacy, the, and its dangers, 102-125;
+ corruption in, 106, 107, 109.
+
+Papal Court, calumny rife at, 161;
+ State, spirit of reform in, 123;
+ subjection of, 110.
+
+Pardons, sale of, 108.
+
+Parody, beginnings of, 263.
+
+Peasant life, poetical treatment of, 351-352.
+
+Perfect man of society, the, 388-394.
+
+Personal faith, 491-492.
+
+Petrarch and Laura, 151;
+ ascent of Mount Ventoux by, 301-302;
+ as geographer, 300;
+ contempt of astrologers, his, 515;
+ fixer of form of sonnet, 310;
+ ideal prince of, 9-10;
+ influence of nature on, 300, 301;
+ in Rome, 177-178;
+ life of, 313-314;
+ objection to fame, his, 141-142;
+ on tournaments, 365;
+ representative of antiquity, the, 205.
+
+Petty tyrannies, 28-34.
+
+Piacenza, devastation of, 101.
+
+Piccinino, Giacomo, 25, 26;
+ Jacopo, 99.
+
+Plautus, plays of, representations of, 255, 317-319.
+
+Poems, didactic, 264.
+
+Poetry, elegiac, 264, 266, 267;
+ epic, 321-323, 325;
+ Italian, second great age of, 305-306;
+ Latin modern, 257-271;
+ lyric, 306;
+ Maccaronic, 270, 271;
+ precursor of plastic arts, the, 312.
+
+Poggio, on '_Knighthood_,' 365;
+ on '_Nobility_,' 361-362.
+
+Policy, Foreign, of Italian states, 88-97.
+
+Politeness, Manual of, by G. della Casa, 375-376.
+
+Politics, Florentine, 73-74.
+
+Politian, as letter writer, 233;
+ '_Canzone Zingaresca_' of, 354.
+
+Pope Adrian VI., satires against, 162-164.
+
+Pope Alexander VI., 109-117;
+ death of, 117.
+
+Pope Clement VII., deliverance of, 123.
+
+Pope Innocent VIII., election of, 107.
+
+Pope Nicholas V., 188.
+
+Pope Paul II., 105;
+ attempts as peacemaker, 438;
+ personal head of republic of letters, 223;
+ priestly narrowness of, 505.
+
+Pope Paul III., 123.
+
+Pope Pius II., 105;
+ as antiquarian, 180-181;
+ as descriptive writer, 349;
+ believer in witches, 526-527;
+ celebration of feast of Corpus Christi by, 414;
+ contempt for astrology and magic, 508;
+ eloquence of, 235, 240;
+ love of nature, 303-305;
+ views on miracles, 501.
+
+Pope Sixtus IV., 105, 106, 107.
+
+Porcaro, Stefano, conspiracy of, 104.
+
+Porcello, Gian, Antonio dei Pandori, 99, 100.
+
+Poggio, walks through Rome of, 176.
+
+Preachers of repentance, 466-479;
+ personal influence of, 458.
+
+Printing, discovery of, reception of, 194.
+
+Processions, 406-407, 418-425.
+
+Prodigies, belief in, 520-521.
+
+Prophets, honour accorded to genuine, 467.
+
+Public worship, neglect of, 485.
+
+Pulci, epic poet, 323-325.
+
+'_Pulcinell_,' the mask of Naples, 321.
+
+
+R.
+
+Rambaldoni, Vittore dai, 213-214.
+
+Rangona, Bianca, 336.
+
+Raphael, 30;
+ appeal of, for restoration of ancient Rome, 184;
+ original subject of his picture, '_Deposition_,' 32.
+
+Rationalism, 500, 501.
+
+Reformation, German, 122;
+ effects on Papacy, 124.
+
+Regattas, Venetian, 390.
+
+Relics, pride taken in, 142-145.
+
+Religion in daily life, 456-489;
+ spirit of the Renaissance, and, 491-506.
+
+Religious tolerance, 490, 492, 493;
+ revivals, epidemics of, 485.
+
+Renaissance, the, a new birth, 175;
+ and the spirit of religion, 491-506.
+
+Repentance, preachers of, 466-479.
+
+Reproduction of antiquity: Latin correspondence and orations, 230-242.
+
+Republics, the, 61-87.
+
+Revivals, epidemics of religious, 485.
+
+Riario, Girolamo, 107;
+ Pietro, Cardinal, 106.
+
+Rienzi, Cola di, 15, 176.
+
+Rimini, House of, the, 29;
+ fall of, 33.
+
+Rites, Church, sense of dependence on, 465.
+
+Roberto da Lecce, 467, 470.
+
+Rome, assassins in, 109;
+ city of ruins, 177-186;
+ first topographical study of, 179;
+ Poggio's walks through, 176.
+
+Ruins in landscape gardening result of Christian legend, 186.
+
+
+S.
+
+'_Sacra_,' the, of Pietro Bembo, 259.
+
+Sadoleto, Jacopo, 231.
+
+Saints, reverence for relics of, 481-482;
+ worship of, 485.
+
+Salò, Gabriella da, belief of, 502.
+
+Sannazaro, 151, 260, 265-267;
+ fame of, 261, 268.
+
+Sanctuaries of Italy, 486.
+
+Sansecondo, Giovan Maria, 392;
+ Jacopo, 392.
+
+Satires, Monks the authors of, 465.
+
+Savonarola, Girolamo, 467, 473-479;
+ belief in dæmons, 531;
+ eloquence of, 474;
+ funeral oration on, 475;
+ reform of Dominican monasteries due to, 474.
+
+Scaliger, 254.
+
+Scarampa, Camilla, 386.
+
+Science, national sympathy with, 289-292;
+ natural, in Italy, 289-297.
+
+'_Scrittori_' (copyists), 192-193.
+
+Secretaries, papal, important position of, 231.
+
+Sforza, house of, 24;
+ Alessandro, 28;
+ Francesco, 24, 25, 26, 39, 40, 99;
+ Galeazzo Maria, assassination of, 57-58.
+
+Sforza, Ippolita, 385;
+ Jacopo, 24, 25.
+
+Shakespeare, William, 316.
+
+Siena, 86.
+
+Sigismund, Emperor, 18, 19.
+
+Sixtus IV., Pope, 105, 106, 107.
+
+Slavery in Italy, 296.
+
+Society, higher forms of, 384-387;
+ ideal man of, 388-394;
+ in, Italian models to other countries, 389.
+
+Sociniaris, 549.
+
+Sonnet, the, 310-311, 312.
+
+Sonnets of Boccaccio, 314;
+ of Dante, 312.
+
+Spain, changed attitude of, 91, 92.
+
+Spaniards, detrimental to development of drama, 317.
+
+Spanish-Germano Army, advance of, 122.
+
+Spanish influence, jealousy under, 445.
+
+Speeches, subject of public, 239-241.
+
+Spur, golden, order of, 53.
+
+Spiritual description in poetry, 308-327.
+
+Statistics, science of, birthplace of, 69-72.
+
+St. Peter's at Rome, reconstruction of., 119.
+
+Stentorello, the mask of Florence, 321.
+
+Superstition, mixture of ancient and modern, 507-540.
+
+Sylvius Æneas, see Pope Pius II.
+
+
+T.
+
+Taxation, 5, 8, 13, 35, 36, 47.
+
+Teano, Cardinal, 255.
+
+'_Telesma_,' the, 533-535.
+
+'_Telestae_,' the, 533-535.
+
+Terence, plays of, representation of, 255.
+
+'_Teseide_,' the, of Boccaccio, 259.
+
+Tiburzio, 105.
+
+Tolerance, religious, 490, 492, 493.
+
+Torso, the, discovery of, 184.
+
+Tragedy in time of Renaissance, 315-316, 317.
+
+Treatise, the, 243.
+
+'_Trionfo_,' the, 407, 419, 420, 423;
+ of Beatrice, 419-420.
+
+'_Trionfi_,' the, of Petrarch, 324.
+
+'_Trovatori_,' the, 310.
+
+_Trovatori della transizione_, the, 311.
+
+Turks, conspiracies with the, 92, 93.
+
+Tuscan dialect basis of new national speech, 379.
+
+Tyranny, opponents of, 55-60.
+
+Tyrannies, petty, 28-34.
+
+
+U.
+
+Uberti, Fazio degli, vision of, 178.
+
+Universities and Schools, 210-216.
+
+
+V.
+
+Valeriano, P., on the infelicity of the scholar, 276-277.
+
+Vatican, Library of, founding of, 188.
+
+'_Vendetta_,' the, 437-440.
+
+Vengeance, Italian, 436-400.
+
+Venetian-Milano war, 99.
+
+Venice, 61-87;
+ and Florence, birthplace of science of statistics, 69-72.
+
+Venice, processions in, 73;
+ public institutions in, 63;
+ relation of, to literature, 70;
+ stability of, cause of, 65-66;
+ statistics, general of, 69, 70, 71, 78.
+
+Villani, Giovanni, 73;
+ Matteo, 76.
+
+Vinci, Lionardo da, 138.
+
+Violin, the, 392.
+
+Visconti, the, 10, 15, 18, 22, 38, 40;
+ Giangaleazzo, 513;
+ Giovan Maria, assassination of, 57, 58.
+
+'_Vita Nuova_,' the, of Dante, 333.
+
+'_Vita Sobria_,' the, of Luigi Cornaro, 244.
+
+Vitelli, Paolo, 99.
+
+Vitruvius, revival of, and Ciceronianism, analogy between, 156.
+
+Venus of the Vatican, discovery of, 184.
+
+'_Versi Sciolti_,' the, origin of, 310.
+
+
+W.
+
+War as a work of art, 98-101.
+
+Wit, analysis of, 159-160;
+ first appearance of, in literature, 154;
+ modern, and satire, 154-168.
+
+Witch of Gaeta, the, 525.
+
+Witchcraft, 524-530.
+
+Witches, 524, 525, 526;
+ burning of, 524, 526, 528.
+
+Women, Ariosto on, 395;
+ equality of, with men, 395;
+ function of, 398;
+ heroism of, 398;
+ ideal for, 398;
+ position of, 395-401.
+
+Worship, public, neglect of, 485.
+
+
+Z.
+
+Zampante of Lucca, director of police, 50.
+
+'_Zodiac of Life_,' of Marcellus Palingenius, 264.
+
+
+ GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
+ LONDON: 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1
+ CAPE TOWN: 73 ST. GEORGE'S STREET
+ SYDNEY, N.S.W.: 218-222 CLARENCE STREET
+ WELLINGTON, N.Z.: 110-112 LAMBTON QUAY
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _History of Architecture_, by Franz Kugler. (The first half of the
+fourth volume, containing the 'Architecture and Decoration of the
+Italian Renaissance,' is by the Author.)
+
+[2] Macchiavelli, _Discorsi_, 1. i. c. 12. 'E la cagione, che la Italia
+non sia in quel medesimo termine, ne habbia anch' ella ò una republica ò
+un prencipe che la governi, è solamente la Chiesa; perchè havendovi
+habitato e tenuto imperio temporale non è stata si potente ne di tal
+virtè, che l'habbia potuto occupare il restante d'Italia e farsene
+prencipe.'
+
+[3] The rulers and their dependents were together called 'lo stato,' and
+this name afterwards acquired the meaning of the collective existence of
+a territory.
+
+[4] C. Winckelmann, _De Regni Siculi Administratione qualis fuerit
+regnante Friderico II._, Berlin. 1859. A. del Vecchio, _La legislazione
+di Federico II. imperatore_. Turin, 1874. Frederick II. has been fully
+and thoroughly discussed by Winckelmann and Schirrmacher.
+
+[5] Baumann, _Staatslehre des Thomas von Aquino_. Leipzig, 1873, esp.
+pp. 136 sqq.
+
+[6] _Cento Novelle Antiche_, ed. 1525. For Frederick, Nov. 2, 21, 22,
+23, 24, 30, 53, 59, 90, 100; for Ezzelino, Nov. 31, and esp. 84.
+
+[7] Scardeonius, _De Urbis Patav. Antiqu. in Grævius_, Thesaurus, vi.
+iii. p. 259.
+
+[8] Sismondi, _Hist. de Rép. Italiennes_, iv. p. 420; viii. pp. 1 sqq.
+
+[9] Franco Sacchetti, _Novelle_ (61, 62).
+
+[10] Dante, it is true, is said to have lost the favour of this prince,
+which impostors knew how to keep. See the important account in Petrarch,
+_De Rerum Memorandarum_, lib. ii. 3, 46.
+
+[11] Petrarca, _Epistolæ Seniles_, lib. xiv. 1, to Francesco di Carrara
+(Nov. 28, 1373). The letter is sometimes printed separately with the
+title, 'De Republica optime administranda,' e.g. Bern, 1602.
+
+[12] It is not till a hundred years later that the princess is spoken of
+as the mother of the people. Comp. Hieron. Crivelli's funeral oration on
+Bianca Maria Visconti, in Muratori, _Scriptores Rerum Italicarum_, xxv.
+col. 429. It was by way of parody of this phrase that a sister of Sixtus
+IV. is called in Jac Volateranus (Murat., xxiii. col. 109) 'mater
+ecclesiæ.'
+
+[13] With the parenthetical request, in reference to a previous
+conversation, that the prince would again forbid the keeping of pigs in
+the streets of Padua, as the sight of them was unpleasing, especially
+for strangers, and apt to frighten the horses.
+
+[14] Petrarca, _Rerum Memorandar._, lib. iii. 2, 66.--Matteo I. Visconti
+and Guido della Torre, then ruling in Milan, are the persons referred
+to.
+
+[15] Matteo Villani, v. 81: the secret murder of Matteo II. (Maffiolo)
+Visconti by his brother.
+
+[16] Filippo Villani, _Istorie_, xi. 101. Petrarch speaks in the same
+tone of the tyrants dressed out 'like altars at a festival.'--The
+triumphal procession of Castracane at Lucca is described minutely in his
+life by Tegrimo, in Murat., xi., col, 1340.
+
+[17] _De Vulgari Eloqui_, i. c. 12: ... 'qui non heroico more, sed
+plebeo sequuntur superbiam.'
+
+[18] This we find first in the fifteenth century, but their
+representations are certainly based on the beliefs of earlier times: L.
+B. Alberti, _De re ædif._, v. 3.--Franc. di Giorgio, 'Trattato,' in
+Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi, iii. 121.
+
+[19] Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 61.
+
+[20] Matteo Villani, vi. 1.
+
+[21] The Paduan passport office about the middle of the fourteenth
+century is referred to by Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 117, in the words,
+'quelli delle bullete.' In the last ten years of the reign of Frederick
+II., when the strictest control was exercised on the personal conduct of
+his subjects, this system must have been very highly developed.
+
+[22] Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 247 sqq. Recent Italian writers
+have observed that the Visconti have still to find a historian who,
+keeping the just mean between the exaggerated praises of contemporaries
+(_e.g._ Petrarch) and the violent denunciations of later political
+(Guelph) opponents, will pronounce a final judgment upon them.
+
+[23] E.g. of Paolo Giovio: _Elogia Virorum bellicâ virtute illustrium_,
+Basel, 1575, p. 85, in the life of Bernabò. Giangal. (_Vita_, pp. 86
+sqq.) is for Giovio 'post Theodoricum omnium præstantissimus.' Comp.
+also Jovius, _Vitæ xii. Vicecomitum Mediolani principum_, Paris, 1549.
+pp. 165 sqq.
+
+[24] Corio, fol. 272, 285.
+
+[25] Cagnola, in the _Archiv. Stor._, iii. p. 23.
+
+[26] So Corio, fol. 286, and Poggio, _Hist. Florent._ iv. in Murat. xx.
+col 290.--Cagnola (loc. cit.) speaks of his designs on the imperial
+crown. See too the sonnet in Trucchi, _Poesie Ital. ined._, ii. p. 118:
+
+ "Stan le città lombarde con le chiave
+ In man per darle a voi ... etc.
+ Roma vi chiamo: Cesar mio novello
+ Io sono ignuda, e l'anima pur vive:
+ Or mi coprite col vostro mantello," etc.
+
+
+[27] Corio, fol. 301 and sqq. Comp. Ammian. Marcellin., xxix. 3.
+
+[28] So Paul. Jovius, _Elogia_, pp. 88-92, Jo. Maria Philippus.
+
+[29] De Gingins, _Dépêches des Ambassadeurs Milanais_, Paris and Geneva
+1858, ii. pp. 200 sqq. (N. 213). Comp. ii. 3 (N. 144) and ii. 212 sqq.
+(N. 218).
+
+[30] Paul. Jovius, _Elogia_, pp. 156 sqq. Carolus, Burg. dux.
+
+[31] This compound of force and intellect is called by Macchiavelli
+_Virtù_, and is quite compatible with _scelleratezza_. E.g. _Discorsi_,
+i. 10. in speaking of Sep. Severus.
+
+[32] On this point Franc. Vettori, _Arch. Stor._ vi. p. 29. 3 sqq.: 'The
+investiture at the hands of a man who lives in Germany, and has nothing
+of the Roman Emperor about him but the empty name, cannot turn a
+scoundrel into the real lord of a city.'
+
+[33] M. Villani, iv. 38, 39, 44, 56, 74, 76, 92; v. 1, 2, 14-16, 21, 22,
+36, 51, 54. It is only fair to consider that dislike of the Visconti may
+have led to worse representations than the facts justified. Charles IV.
+is once (iv. 74) highly praised by Villani.
+
+[34] It was an Italian, Fazio degli Uberti (_Dittamondo_, l. vi. cap.
+5--about 1360) who recommended to Charles IV. a crusade to the Holy
+Land. The passage is one of the best in this poem, and in other respects
+characteristic. The poet is dismissed from the Holy Sepulchre by an
+insolent Turk:
+
+ 'Con passi lunghi e con la testa bassa
+ Oltre passai e dissi: ecco vergogna
+ Del cristian che'l saracin qui lassa!
+ Poscia al Pastor (the Pope) mi volsi far rampogna
+ E tu ti stai, che sei vicar di Cristo,
+ Co' frati tuoi a ingrassar la carogna?
+
+ Similimente dissi a quel sofisto (Charles IV.)
+ Che sta in Buemme (Bohemia) a piantar vigne e fichi
+ E che non cura di si caro acquisto:
+ Che fai? Perchè non segui i primi antichi
+ Cesari de' Romani, e che non segui,
+ Dico, gli Otti, i Corradi, i Federichi?
+ E che pur tieni questo imperio in tregui?
+ E se non hai lo cuor d'esser Augusto,
+ Che non rifiuti? o che non ti dilegui?' etc.
+
+Some eight years earlier, about 1352, Petrarch had written (to Charles
+IV., _Epist. Fam._, lib. xii. ep. 1, ed. Fracassetti, vol. ii. p. 160):
+'Simpliciter igitur et aperte ... pro maturando negotio terræ sanctæ ...
+oro tuo egentem auxilio quam primum invisere velis Ausoniam.'
+
+[35] See for details Vespasiano Fiorent. ed. Mai, _Specilegium Romanum_,
+vol. i. p. 54. Comp. 150 and Panormita, _De Dictis et Factis Alfonsi_,
+lib. iv. nro. 4.
+
+[36] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 217 sqq.
+
+[37] 'Haveria voluto scortigare la brigata.' Giov. Maria Filelfo, then
+staying at Bergamo, wrote a violent satire 'in vulgus equitum auro
+notatorum.' See his biography in Favre, _Mélanges d'Histoire
+littéraire_, 1856, i. p. 10.
+
+[38] _Annales Estenses_, in Murat. xx. col. 41.
+
+[39] Poggii, _Hist. Florent. pop._ l. vii. in Murat. col. 381. This view
+is in accordance with the anti-monarchical sentiments of many of the
+humanists of that day. Comp. the evidence given by Bezold, 'Lehre von
+der Volkssouverainität während des Mittelalters,' _Hist. Ztschr._ bd.
+36, s. 365.
+
+[40] Some years later the Venetian Lionardo Giustiniani blames the word
+'imperator' as unclassical and therefore unbecoming the German emperor,
+and calls the Germans barbarians, on account of their ignorance of the
+language and manners of antiquity. The cause of the Germans was defended
+by the humanist H. Bebel. See L. Geiger, in the _Allgem. Deutsche
+Biogr._ ii. 196.
+
+[41] Senarega, _De reb. Genuens_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 575.
+
+[42] Enumerated in the _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 203.
+Comp. Pic. ii. _Comment._ ii. p. 102, ed. Rome, 1584.
+
+[43] Marin Sanudo, _Vita de' Duchi di Venezia_, in Murat. xxii. col.
+1113.
+
+[44] Varchi, _Stor. Fiorent._ i. p. 8.
+
+[45] Soriano, _Relazione di Roma_, 1533, in Tommaso Gar. _Relaz. della
+Corte di Roma_, (in Alberi, _Relaz. degli ambasc. Veneti_, ii. ser.
+iii.).
+
+[46] For what follows, see Canestrini, in the Introduction to vol. xv.
+of the _Archiv. Stor._
+
+[47] For him, see Shepherd-Tonelli, _Vita di Piggio_, App. pp.
+viii.-xvi.
+
+[48] Cagnola, _Archiv. Stor._ iii. p. 28: 'Et (Filippo Maria) da lei
+(Beatr.) ebbe molto tesoro e dinari, e tutte le giente d'arme del dicto
+Facino, che obedivano a lei.'
+
+[49] Inpressura, in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1911. For the
+alternatives which Macchiavelli puts before the victorious Condottiere,
+see _Discorsi_, i. 30. After the victory he is either to hand over the
+army to his employer and wait quietly for his reward, or else to win the
+soldiers to his own side to occupy the fortresses and to punish the
+prince 'di quella ingratitudine che esso gli userebbe.'
+
+[50] Comp. Barth. Facius, _De Viv. Ill._ p. 64, who tells us that C.
+commanded an army of 60,000 men. It is uncertain whether the Venetians
+did not poison Alviano in 1516, because he, as Prato says in _Arch.
+Stor._ iii. p. 348, aided the French too zealously in the battle of S.
+Donato. The Republic made itself Colleoni's heir, and after his death in
+1475 formally confiscated his property. Comp. Malipiero, _Annali
+Veneti_, in _Arch. Stor._ vii. i. 244. It was liked when the Condottieri
+invested their money in Venice, ibid. p. 351.
+
+[51] Cagnola, in _Arch. Stor._ iii. pp. 121 sqq.
+
+[52] At all events in Paul Jovius, _Vita Magni Sfortiæ_, Rom. 1539,
+(dedicated to the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza), one of the most attractive
+of his biographies.
+
+[53] Æn. Sylv. _Comment. de Dictis et Factis Alfonsi_, Opera, ed. 1538,
+p. 251: Novitate gaudens Italia nihil habet stabile, nullum in eâ vetus
+regnum, facile hic ex servis reges videmus.'
+
+[54] Pii, ii. _Comment._ i. 46; comp. 69.
+
+[55] Sismondi, x. 258; Corio. fol. 412, where Sforza is accused of
+complicity, as he feared danger to his own son from P.'s popularity.
+_Storia Bresciana_, in Murat. xxi. col. 209. How the Venetian
+Condottiere Colleoni was tempted in 1466, is told by Malipiero _Annali
+Veneti, Arch. Stor._ vii. i. p. 210. The Florentine exiles offered to
+make him Duke of Milan if he would expel from Florence their enemy,
+Piero de' Medici.
+
+[56] Allegretti, _Diari Sanesi_, in Murat. xxiii. p. 811.
+
+[57] _Orationes Philelphi_, ed. Venet. 1492, fol. 9, in the funeral
+oration on Francesco.
+
+[58] Marin Sanudo, _Vita del Duchi di Venezia_, in Murat. xxii. col.
+1241. See Reumont, _Lorenzo von Medici_ (Lpz. 1874), ii. pp. 324-7, and
+the authorities there quoted.
+
+[59] Malipiero, _Ann. Venet., Arch. Stor._ vii. i. p. 407.
+
+[60] _Chron. Eugubinum_, in Murat. xxi. col. 972.
+
+[61] _Vespas. Fiorent._ p. 148.
+
+[62] _Archiv. Stor._ xvi., parte i. et ii., ed. Bonaini, Fabretti,
+Polidori.
+
+[63] Julius II. conquered Perugia with ease in 1506, and compelled
+Gianpaolo Baglione to submit. The latter, as Macchiavelli (_Discorsi_,
+i. c. 27) tells us, missed the chance of immortality by not murdering
+the Pope.
+
+[64] Varelin _Stor. Fiorent._ i. pp. 242 sqq.
+
+[65] Comp. (inter. al.) Jovian. Pontan. _De Immanitate_, cap. 17.
+
+[66] Malipiero, _Ann. Venet., Archiv. Stor._ vii. i. pp. 498 sqq. After
+vainly searching for his beloved, whose father had shut her up in a
+monastery he threatened the father, burnt the monastery and other
+buildings, and committed many acts of violence.
+
+[67] Lil. Greg. Giraldus, _De Sepulchris ac vario Sepeliendi Ritu_.
+_Opera_ ed. Bas. 1580, i. pp. 640 sqq. Later edition by J. Faes,
+Helmstädt, 1676 Dedication and postscript of Gir. 'ad Carolum Miltz
+Germanum,' in these editions without date; neither contains the passage
+given in the text.--In 1470 a catastrophe in miniature had already
+occurred in the same family (Galeotto had had his brother Antonio Maria
+thrown into prison). Comp. _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 225.
+
+[68] Jovian. Pontan. Opp. ed. Basileæ, 1538, t. i. _De Liberalitate_,
+cap. 19, 29, and _De Obedientia_, l. 4. Comp. Sismondi, x. p. 78, and
+Panormita, _De Dictis et Factis Alphonsi_, lib. i. nro. 61, iv. nro. 42.
+
+[69] Tristano Caracciolo. 'De Fernando qui postea rex Aragonum fuit,
+ejusque posteris,' in Muratori XXII.; Jovian Pontanus, _De Prudentia_,
+l. iv.; _De Magnanimitate_, l. i.; _De Liberalitate_, cap. 29, 36; _De
+Immanitate_, cap. 8. Cam. Porzio, _Congiura dei Baroni del Regno de
+Napoli contro il re Ferdinando I._, Pisa, 1818, cap. 29, 36, new
+edition, Naples, 1859, _passim_; Comines, Charles VIII., with the
+general characteristics of the Arragonese. See for further information
+as to Ferrante's works for his people, the _Regis Ferdinandi primi
+Instructionum liber_, 1486-87, edited by Scipione Vopicella, which would
+dispose us to moderate to some extent the harsh judgment which has been
+passed upon him.
+
+[70] Paul. Jovius. _Histor._ i. p. 14. in the speech of a Milanese
+ambassador; _Diario Ferrarese_, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 294.
+
+[71] He lived in the closest intimacy with Jews, e.g. Isaac Abranavel,
+who fled with him to Messina. Comp. Zunz, _Zur. Gesch. und Lit._
+(Berlin, 1845) s. 529.
+
+[72] Petri Candidi Decembrii Vita Phil. Mariæ Vicecomitis, in Murat.
+xx., of which however Jovius (_Vitæ xii. Vicecomitum_ p. 186) says not
+without reason: 'Quum omissis laudibus quæ in Philippo celebrandæ
+fuerant, vitia, notaret.' Guarino praises this prince highly. Rosmino
+Guarini, ii. p. 75. Jovius, in the above-mentioned work (p. 186), and
+Jov. Pontanus, _De Liberalitate_, ii. cap. 28 and 31, take special
+notice of his generous conduct to the captive Alfonso.
+
+[73] Were the fourteen marble statues of the saints in the Citadel of
+Milan executed by him? See _History of the Frundsbergs_, fol. 27.
+
+[74] It troubled him: _quod aliquando 'non esse' necesse esset_.
+
+[75] Corio, fol. 400; Cagnola, in _Archiv. Stor._ iii. p. 125.
+
+[76] _Pii II. Comment._ iii. p. 130. Comp. ii. 87. 106. Another and
+rather darker estimate of Sforza's fortune is given by Caracciolo, _De
+Varietate Fortunæ_, in Murat. xxii. col. 74. See for the opposite view
+the praises of Sforza's luck in the _Oratio parentalis de divi Francesci
+Sphortiæ felicitate_, by Filelfo (the ready eulogist of any master who
+paid him), who sung, without publishing, the exploits of Francesco in
+the Sforziad. Even Decembrio, the moral and literary opponent of
+Filelfo, celebrates Sforza's fortune in his biography (_Vita Franc.
+Sphortiæ_, in Murat. xx.). The astrologers said: 'Francesco Sforza's
+star brings good luck to a man, but ruin to his descendants.' Arluni,
+_De Bello Veneto_, libri vi. in Grævius, _Thes. Antiqu. et Hist.
+Italicæ_, v. pars iii. Comp. also Barth. Facius, _De Vir. III._ p. 67.
+
+[77] Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor._ vii. i. pp. 216 sqq. 221-4.
+
+[78] Important documents as to the murder of Galeazzo Maria Sforza are
+published by G. D'Adda in the _Archivio Storico Lombardo Giornale della
+Società Lombarda_, vol. ii. (1875), pp. 284-94. 1. A Latin epitaph on
+the murderer Lampugnano, who lost his life in the attempt, and whom the
+writer represents as saying: 'Hic lubens quiesco, æternum inquam facinus
+monumentumque ducibus, principibus, regibus, qui modo sunt quique mox
+futura trahantur ne quid adversus justitiam faciant dicantve; 2. A Latin
+letter of Domenico de' Belli, who, when eleven years old, was present at
+the murder; 3. The 'lamento' of Galeazzo Maria, in which, after calling
+upon the Virgin Mary and relating the outrage committed upon him, he
+summons his wife and children, his servants and the Italian cities which
+obeyed him, to bewail his fate, and sends forth his entreaty to all the
+nations of the earth, to the nine muses and the gods of antiquity, to
+set up a universal cry of grief.
+
+[79] _Chron. Venetum_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 65.
+
+[80] Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor._ vii. i. p. 492. Comp. 482,
+562.
+
+[81] His last words to the same man, Bernardino da Corte, are to be
+found, certainty with oratorical decorations, but perhaps agreeing in
+the main with the thoughts of the Moor, in Senarega, Murat. xxiv. col.
+567.
+
+[82] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 336, 367, 369. The people
+believed he was forming a treasure.
+
+[83] Corio, fol. 448. The after effects of this state of things are
+clearly recognisable in those of the novels and introductions of
+Bandello which relate to Milan.
+
+[84] Amoretti, _Memorie Storiche sulla Vita Ecc. di Lionardo da Vinci_,
+pp. 35 sqq., pp. 83 sqq. Here we may also mention the Moor's efforts for
+the improvement of the university of Pavia.
+
+[85] See his sonnets in Trucchi, _Poesie inedite_.
+
+[86] Prato, in the _Arch. Stor._ iii. 298. Comp. 302.
+
+[87] Born 1466, betrothed to Isabella, herself six years of age, in
+1480, suc. 1484; m. 1490, d. 1519. Isabella's death, 1539. Her sons,
+Federigo (1519-1540), made Duke in 1530, and the famous Ferrante
+Gonzaga. What follows is taken from the correspondence of Isabella, with
+Appendices, _Archiv. Stor._, append., tom. ii. communicated by d'Arco.
+See the same writer, _Delle Arti e degli Artifici di Mantova_, Mant.
+1857-59, 2 vols. The catalogue of the collection has been repeatedly
+printed. Portrait and biography of Isabella in Didot, _Alde Manuce_,
+Paris, 1875, pp. lxi-lxviii. See also below, part ii. chapter 2.
+
+[88] Franc. Vettori, in the _Arch. Stor._ Append., tom. vi. p. 321. For
+Federigo, see _Vespas. Fiorent._ pp. 132 sqq. and Prendilacqua, _Vita di
+Vittorino da Feltre_, pp. 48-52. V. endeavoured to calm the ambitious
+youth Federigo, then his scholar, with the words: 'Tu quoque Cæsar
+eris.' There is much literary information respecting him in, e.g.,
+Favre, _Mélanges d'Hist. Lit._ i. p. 125, note 1.
+
+[89] See below, part iii. chapter 3.
+
+[90] Castiglione, _Cortigiano_, l. i.
+
+[91] Petr. Bembus, _De Guido Ubaldo Feretrio deque Elizabetha Gonzaga
+Urbini ducibus_, Venetis, 1530. Also in Bembo's Works, Basel, 1566, i.
+pp. 529-624. In the form of a dialogue; contains among other things, the
+letter of Frid. Fregosus and the speech of Odaxius on Guido's life and
+death.
+
+[92] What follows is chiefly taken from the _Annales Estenses_, in
+Murat. xx. and the _Diario Ferrarese_, Murat. xxiv
+
+[93] See Bandello, i. nov. 32.
+
+[94] _Diario Ferrar._ l. c. col. 347.
+
+[95] Paul. Jov. _Vita Alfonsi ducis_, ed. Flor. 1550, also an Italian by
+Giovanbattista Gelli, Flor. 1553.
+
+[96] Paulus Jovius, l. c.
+
+[97] The journey of Leo X. when Cardinal, may be also mentioned here.
+Comp. Paul. Jov. _Vita Leonis X._ lib. i. His purpose was less serious,
+and directed rather to amusement and knowledge of the world; but the
+spirit is wholly modern. No Northerner then travelled with such objects.
+
+[98] _Diar. Ferr._ in Murat. xxiv. col. 232 and 240.
+
+[99] Jovian. Pontan. _De Liberalitate_, cap. 28.
+
+[100] Giraldi, _Hecatomithi_, vi. nov. 1 (ed. 1565, fol. 223 _a_).
+
+[101] Vasari, xii. 166, _Vita di Michelangelo_.
+
+[102] As early as 1446 the members of the House of Gonzaga followed the
+corpse of Vittorino da Feltre.
+
+[103] Capitolo 19, and in the _Opere Minore_, ed. Lemonnier, vol. i. p.
+425, entitled Elegia 17. Doubtless the cause of this death (above, p.
+46) was unknown to the young poet, then 19 years old.
+
+[104] The novels in the _Hecatomithi_ of Giraldi relating to the House
+of Este are to be found, with one exception (i. nov. 8), in the 6th
+book, dedicated to Francesco of Este, Marchese della Massa, at the
+beginning of the second part of the whole work, which is inscribed to
+Alfonso II. 'the fifth Duke of Ferrara.' The 10th book, too, is
+specially dedicated to him, but none of the novels refer to him
+personally, and only one to his predecessor Hercules I.; the rest to
+Hercules I. 'the second Duke,' and Alfonso I. 'the third Duke of
+Ferrara.' But the stories told of these princes are for the most part
+not love tales. One of them (i. nov. 8) tells of the failure of an
+attempt made by the King of Naples to induce Hercules of Este to deprive
+Borso of the government of Ferrara; another (vi. nov. 10) describes
+Ercole's high-spirited treatment of conspirators. The two novels that
+treat of Alfonso I. (vi. nov. 2, 4), in the latter of which he only
+plays a subordinate part, are also, as the title of the book shows and
+as the dedication to the above-named Francesco explains more fully,
+accounts of 'atti di cortesía' towards knights and prisoners, but not
+towards women, and only the two remaining tales are love-stories. They
+are of such a kind as can be told during the lifetime of the prince;
+they set forth his nobleness and generosity, his virtue and
+self-restraint. Only one of them (vi. nov. 1) refers to Hercules I., who
+was dead long before the novels were compiled, and only one to the
+Hercules II. then alive (b. 1508, d. 1568) son of Lucrezia Borgia,
+husband of Renata, of whom the poet says: 'Il giovane, che non meno ha
+benigno l'animo, che cortese l'aspetto, come già il vedemmo in Roma, nel
+tempo, ch'egli, in vece del padre, venne à Papa Hadriano.' The tale
+about him is briefly as follows:--Lucilla, the beautiful daughter of a
+poor but noble widow, loves Nicandro, but cannot marry him, as the
+lover's father forbids him to wed a portionless maiden. Hercules, who
+sees the girl and is captivated by her beauty, finds his way, through
+the connivance of her mother, into her bedchamber, but is so touched by
+her beseeching appeal that he respects her innocence, and, giving her a
+dowry, enables her to marry Nicandro.
+
+In Bandello, ii. nov. 8 and 9 refer to Alessandro Medici, 26 to Mary of
+Aragon, iii. 26, iv. 13 to Galeazzo Sforza, iii. 36, 37 to Henry VIII.
+of England, ii. 27 to the German Emperor Maximilian. The emperor, 'whose
+natural goodness and more than imperial generosity are praised by all
+writers,' while chasing a stag is separated from his followers, loses
+his way, and at last emerging from the wood, enquires the way from a
+countryman. The latter, busied with lading wood, begs the emperor, whom
+he does not know, to help him, and receives willing assistance. While
+still at work, Maximilian is rejoined, and, in spite of his signs to the
+contrary, respectfully saluted by his followers, and thus recognised by
+the peasant, who implores forgiveness for the freedom he has unwittingly
+taken. The emperor raises the kneeling suppliant, gives him presents,
+appoints him as his attendant, and confers upon him distinguished
+privileges. The narrator concludes: 'Dimostrò Cesare nello smontar da
+cavallo e con allegra ciera aiutar il bisognoso contadino, una
+indicibile e degna d'ogni lode humanità, e in sollevarlo con danari e
+privilegii dalla sua faticosa vita, aperse il suo veramente animo
+Cesareo' (ii. 415). A story in the _Hecatomithi_ (viii. nov. 5) also
+treats of Maximilian. It is the same tale which has acquired a
+world-wide celebrity through Shakespeare's _Measure for Measure_ (for
+its diffusion see Kirchhof's _Wendunmuth_, ed. Oesterley, bd. v. s. 152
+sqq.), and the scene of which is transferred by Giraldi to Innsbruck.
+Maximilian is the hero, and here too receives the highest eulogies.
+After being first called 'Massimiliano il Grande,' he is designated as
+one 'che fu raro esempio di cortesia, di magnanimità, e di singolare
+giustizia.'
+
+[105] In the _Deliciæ Poet. Italorum_ (1608), ii. pp. 455 sqq.: ad
+Alfonsum ducem Calabriæ. (Yet I do not believe that the above remark
+fairly applies to this poem, which clearly expresses the joys which
+Alfonso has with Drusula, and describes the sensations of the happy
+lover, who in his transports thinks that the gods themselves must envy
+him.--L.G.).
+
+[106] Mentioned as early as 1367, in the _Polistore_, in Murat. xxiv.
+col. 848, in reference to Niccolò the Elder, who makes twelve persons
+knights in honour of the twelve Apostles.
+
+[107] Burigozzo, in the _Archiv. Stor._ iii. p. 432.
+
+[108] _Discorsi_, i. 17, on Milan after the death of Filippo Visconti.
+
+[109] _De Incert. et Vanitate Scientiar._ cap. 55.
+
+[110] Prato, _Archiv. Stor._ iii. p. 241.
+
+[111] _De Casibus Virorum Illustrium_, l. ii. cap. 15.
+
+[112] _Discorsi_, iii. 6; comp. _Storie Fiorent._ l. viii. The
+description of conspiracies has been a favourite theme of Italian
+writers from a very remote period. Luitprand (of Cremona, _Mon. Germ._,
+ss. iii. 264-363) gives us a few, which are more circumstantial than
+those of any other contemporary writer of the tenth century; in the
+eleventh the deliverance of Messina from the Saracens, accomplished by
+calling in Norman Roger (Baluz. _Miscell._ i. p. 184), gives occasion to
+a characteristic narrative of this kind (1060); we need hardly speak of
+the dramatic colouring given to the stories of the Sicilian Vespers
+(1282). The same tendency is well known in the Greek writers.
+
+[113] Corio, fol. 333. For what follows, ibid. fol. 305, 422 sqq. 440.
+
+[114] So in the quotations from Gallus, in Sismondi, xi. 93. For the
+whole subject see Reumont, _Lorenzo dei Medici_, pp. 387-97, especially
+396.
+
+[115] Corio, fol. 422. Allegretto, _Diari Sanesi_, in Murat. xxiii. col.
+777. See above, p. 41.
+
+[116] The enthusiasm with which the Florentine Alamanno Rinuccini (b.
+1419) speaks in his _Ricordi_ (ed. by G. Aiazzi, Florence, 1840) of
+murderers and their deeds is very remarkable. For a contemporary, though
+not Italian, apology for tyrannicide, see Kervyn de Lettenhove, _Jean
+sans Peur et l'Apologie du Tyrannicide_, in the _Bulletin de l'Académie
+de Bruxelles_, xi. (1861), pp. 558-71. A century later opinion in Italy
+had changed altogether. See the condemnation of Lampugnani's deed in
+Egnatius, _De Exemplis Ill. Vir._, Ven. fol. 99 _b_; comp. also 318 _b_.
+
+Petr. Crinitus, also (_De honestâ disciplinâ_, Paris, 1510, fol. 134
+_b_), writes a poem _De virtute Jo. Andr. Lamponiani tyrannicidæ_, in
+which Lampugnani's deed is highly praised, and he himself is represented
+as a worthy companion of Brutus.
+
+Comp. also the Latin poem: _Bonini Mombritii poetæ Mediol. trenodiæ in
+funere illustrissimi D. Gal. Marie Sfor_ (2 Books--Milan, 1504), edited
+by Ascalon Vallis (_sic_), who in his dedication to the jurist Jac.
+Balsamus praises the poet and names other poems equally worthy to be
+printed. In this work, in which Megæra and Mars, Calliope and the poet,
+appear as interlocutors, the assassin--not Lampugnano, but a man from a
+humble family of artisans--is severely blamed, and he with his fellow
+conspirators are treated as ordinary criminals; they are charged with
+high treason on account of a projected alliance with Charles of
+Burgundy. No less than ten prognostics of the death of Duke Galeazzo are
+enumerated. The murder of the Prince, and the punishment of the assassin
+are vividly described; the close consists of pious consolations
+addressed to the widowed Princess, and of religious meditations.
+
+[117] 'Con studiare el Catalinario,' says Allegretto. Comp. (in Corio) a
+sentence like the following in the desposition of Olgiati: 'Quisque
+nostrum magis socios potissime et infinitos alios sollicitare,
+infestare, alter alteri benevolos se facere coepit. Aliquid aliquibus
+parum donare: simul magis noctu edere, bibere, vigilare, nostra omnia
+bona polliceri,' etc.
+
+[118] Vasari, iii. 251, note to _V. di Donatello_.
+
+[119] It now has been removed to a newly constructed building.
+
+[120] _Inferno_, xxxiv. 64.
+
+[121] Related by a hearer, Luca della Robbia, _Archiv. Stor._ i. 273.
+Comp. Paul. Jovius, _Vita Leonis X._ iii. in the _Viri Illustres_.
+
+[122] First printed in 1723, as appendix to Varchi's History, then in
+Roscoe, _Vita di Lorenzo de' Medici_, vol. iv. app. 12, and often
+besides. Comp. Reumont, _Gesch. Toscana's seit dem Ende des Florent.
+Freistaates_, Gotha, 1876, i. p. 67, note. See also the report in the
+_Lettere de' Principi_ (ed. Venez. 1577), iii. fol. 162 sqq.
+
+[123] On the latter point see Jac. Nardi, _Vita di Ant. Giacomini_,
+Lucca (1818), p. 18.
+
+[124] 'Genethliacum Venetæ urbis,' in the _Carmina_ of Ant. Sabellicus.
+The 25th of March was chosen 'essendo il cielo in singolar disposizione,
+si come da gli astronomi è stato calcolato più volte.' Comp. Sansovino,
+_Venezia città nobilissima e singolare, descritta in 14 libri_, Venezia,
+1581, fol. 203. For the whole chapter see _Johannis Baptistæ Egnatii
+viri doctissimi de exemplis Illustrium Virorum Venetæ civitatis atque
+aliarum gentium_, Paris, 1554. The eldest Venetian chronicler, Joh.
+Diaconi, _Chron. Venetum_ in Pertz, _Monum._ S.S. vii. pp. 5, 6, places
+the occupation of the islands in the time of the Lombards and the
+foundation of the Rialto later.
+
+[125] 'De Venetæ urbis apparatu panagiricum carmen quod oraculum
+inscribitur.'
+
+[126] The whole quarter was altered in the reconstructions of the
+sixteenth century.
+
+[127] Benedictus _Carol. VIII._ in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1597,
+1601, 1621. In the _Chron. Venetum_, Murat. xxiv. col. 26, the political
+virtues of the Venetians are enumerated: 'bontà, innocenza, zelo di
+carità, pietà, misericordia.'
+
+[128] Many of the nobles cropped their hair. See _Erasmi Colloquia_, ed.
+Tiguri, a. 1553: miles et carthusianus.
+
+[129] _Epistolæ_, lib. v. fol. 28.
+
+[130] Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor._ vii. i. pp. 377, 431, 481,
+493, 530; ii. pp. 661, 668, 679. _Chron. Venetum_, in Muratori, xxiv.
+col. 57. _Diario Ferrarese_, ib. col. 240. See also _Dispacci di Antonio
+Giustiniani_ (Flor. 1876), i. p. 392.
+
+[131] Malipiero, in the _Archiv. Stor._ vii. ii. p. 691. Comp. 694, 713,
+and i. 535.
+
+[132] Marin Sanudo, _Vite dei Duchi_, Murat. xxii. col. 1194.
+
+[133] _Chron. Venetum_, Murat. xxiv. col. 105.
+
+[134] _Chron. Venetum_, Murat. xxiv. col. 123 sqq. and Malipiero, l. c.
+vii. i. pp. 175, 187 sqq. relate the significant fall of the Admiral
+Antonio Grimani, who, when accused on account of his refusal to
+surrender the command in chief to another, himself put irons on his feet
+before his arrival at Venice, and presented himself in this condition to
+the Senate. For him and his future lot, see Egnatius, fol. 183 _a_ sqq.,
+198 _b_ sqq.
+
+[135] _Chron. Ven._ l. c. col. 166.
+
+[136] Malipiero, l. c. vii. i. 349. For other lists of the same kind see
+Marin Sanudo, _Vite dei Duchi_, Murat. xxii. col. 990 (year 1426), col.
+1088 (year 1440), in Corio, fol. 435-438 (1483), in Guazzo _Historie_,
+fol. 151 sqq.
+
+[137] Guicciardini (_Ricordi_, n. 150) is one of the first to remark
+that the passion for vengeance can drown the clearest voice of
+self-interest.
+
+[138] Malipiero, l. c. vii. i., p. 328.
+
+[139] The statistical view of Milan, in the 'Manipulus Florum' (in
+Murat. xi. 711 sqq.) for the year 1288, is important, though not
+extensive. It includes house-doors, population, men of military age,
+'loggie' of the nobles, wells, bakeries, wine-shops, butchers'-shops,
+fishmongers, the consumption of corn, dogs, birds of chase, the price of
+salt, wood, hay, and wines; also the judges, notaries, doctors,
+schoolmasters, copying clerks, armourers, smiths, hospitals,
+monasteries, endowments, and religious corporations. A list perhaps
+still older is found in the 'Liber de magnalibus Mediolani,' in _Heinr.
+de Hervordia_, ed. Potthast, p. 165. See also the statistical account of
+Asti about the year 1250 in Ogerius Alpherius (Alfieri), _De Gestis
+Astensium, Histor. patr. Monumenta, Scriptorum_, tom. iii. col. 684.
+sqq.
+
+[140] Especially Marin Sanudo, in the _Vite dei Duchi di Venezia_,
+Murat. xxii. _passim_.
+
+[141] See for the marked difference between Venice and Florence, an
+important pamphlet addressed 1472 to Lorenzo de' Medici by certain
+Venetians, and the answer to it by Benedetto Dei, in Paganini, _Della
+Decima_, Florence, 1763, iii. pp. 135 sqq.
+
+[142] In Sanudo, l. c. col. 958. What relates to trade is extracted in
+Scherer, _Allgem. Gesch. des Welthandels_, i. 326, note.
+
+[143] Here all the houses, not merely those owned by the state, are
+meant. The latter, however, sometimes yielded enormous rents. See
+Vasari, xiii. 83. V. d. Jac. Sansovino.
+
+[144] See Sanudo, col. 963. In the same place a list of the incomes of
+the other Italian and European powers is given. An estimate for 1490 is
+to be found, col. 1245 sqq.
+
+[145] This dislike seems to have amounted to positive hatred in Paul II.
+who called the humanists one and all heretics. Platina, _Vita Pauli_,
+ii. p. 323. See also for the subject in general, Voigt, _Wiederbelebung
+des classischen Alterthums_, Berlin, 1859, pp. 207-213. The neglect of
+the sciences is given as a reason for the flourishing condition of
+Venice by Lil. Greg. Giraldus, _Opera_, ii. p. 439.
+
+[146] Sanudo, l. c. col. 1167.
+
+[147] Sansovina, _Venezia_, lib. xiii. It contains the biographies of
+the Doges in chronological order, and, following these lives one by one
+(regularly from the year 1312, under the heading _Scrittori Veneti_),
+short notices of contemporary writers.
+
+[148] Venice was then one of the chief seats of the Petrarchists. See G.
+Crespan, _Del Petrarchismo_, in _Petrarca e Venezia_, 1874, pp. 187-253.
+
+[149] See Heinric. de Hervordia ad a. 1293, p. 213, ed. Potthast, who
+says: 'The Venetians wished to obtain the body of Jacob of Forli from
+the inhabitants of that place, as many miracles were wrought by it. They
+promised many things in return, among others to bear all the expense of
+canonising the defunct, but without obtaining their request.'
+
+[150] Sanudo, l. c. col. 1158, 1171, 1177. When the body of St. Luke was
+brought from Bosnia, a dispute arose with the Benedictines of S.
+Giustina at Padua, who claimed to possess it already, and the Pope had
+to decide between the two parties. Comp. Guicciardini, _Ricordi_, n.
+401.
+
+[151] Sansovino, _Venezia_, lib. xii. 'dell'andate publiche del
+principe.' Egnatius, fol. 50_a_. For the dread felt at the papal
+interdict see Egnatius, fol. 12 _a_ sqq.
+
+[152] G. Villani, viii. 36. The year 1300 is also a fixed date in the
+_Divine Comedy_.
+
+[153] Stated about 1470 in _Vespas. Fiorent._ p. 554.
+
+[154] The passage which followed in former editions referring to the
+_Chronicle of Dino Compagni_ is here omitted, since the genuineness of
+the _Chronicle_ has been disproved by Paul Scheffer-Boichhorst
+(_Florentiner Studien_, Leipzig, 1874, pp. 45-210), and the disproof
+maintained (_Die Chronik des D. C._, Leipzig, 1875) against a
+distinguished authority (C. Hegel, _Die Chronik des D. C., Versuch einer
+Rettung_, Leipzig, 1875). Scheffer's view is generally received in
+Germany (see W. Bernhardi, _Der Stand der Dino-Frage, Hist. Zeitschr.
+N.F._, 1877, bd. i.), and even Hegel assumes that the text as we have it
+is a later manipulation of an unfinished work of Dino. Even in Italy,
+though the majority of scholars have wished to ignore this critical
+onslaught, as they have done other earlier ones of the same kind, some
+voices have been raised to recognise the spuriousness of the document.
+(See especially P. Fanfani in his periodical _Il Borghini_, and in the
+book _Dino Campagni Vendicato_, Milano, 1875). On the earliest
+Florentine histories in general see Hartwig, _Forschungen_, Marburg,
+1876, and C. Hegel in H. von Sybel's _Historischer Zeitschrift_, b.
+xxxv. Since then Isidore del Lungo, who with remarkable decision asserts
+its genuineness, has completed his great edition of Dino, and furnished
+it with a detailed introduction: _Dino Campagni e la sua cronaca_, 2
+vols. Firenze, 1879-80. A manuscript of the history, dating back to the
+beginning of the fifteenth century, and consequently earlier than all
+the hitherto known references and editions, has been lately found. In
+consequence of the discovery of this MS. and of the researches
+undertaken by C. Hegel, and especially of the evidence that the style of
+the work does not differ from that of the fourteenth century, the
+prevailing view of the subject is essentially this, that the Chronicle
+contains an important kernel, which is genuine, which, however, perhaps
+even in the fourteenth century, was remodelled on the ground-plan of
+Villani's Chronicle. Comp. Gaspary, _Geschichte der italienischen
+Literatur_. Berlin, 1885, i. pp. 361-9, 531 sqq.
+
+[155] _Purgatorio_, vi. at the end.
+
+[156] _De Monarchia_, i. 1. (New critical edition by Witte, Halle, 1863,
+71; German translation by O. Hubatsch, Berlin, 1872).
+
+[157] _Dantis Alligherii Epistolæ_, cum notis C. Witte, Padua, 1827. He
+wished to keep the Pope as well as the Emperor always in Italy. See his
+letter, p. 35, during the conclave of Carpentras, 1314. On the first
+letter see _Vitæ Nuova_, cap. 31, and _Epist._ p. 9.
+
+[158] Giov. Villani, xi. 20. Comp. Matt. Villani, ix. 93, who says that
+John XXII. 'astuto in tutte sue cose e massime in fare il danaio,' left
+behind him 18 million florins in cash and 6 millions in jewels.
+
+[159] See for this and similar facts Giov. Villani, xi. 87, xii. 54. He
+lost his own money in the crash and was imprisoned for debt. See also
+Kervyn de Lettenhove, _L'Europe au Siècle de Philippe le Bel, Les
+Argentiers Florentins_ in _Bulletin de l'Académie de Bruxelles_ (1861),
+vol. xii. pp. 123 sqq.
+
+[160] Giov. Villani, xi. 92, 93. In Macchiavelli, _Stor. Fiorent._ lib.
+ii. cap. 42, we read that 96,000 persons died of the plague in 1348.
+
+[161] The priest put aside a black bean for every boy and a white one
+for every girl. This was the only means of registration.
+
+[162] There was already a permanent fire brigade in Florence.
+
+[163] Matteo Villani, iii. 106.
+
+[164] Matteo Villani, i. 2-7, comp. 58. The best authority for the
+plague itself is the famous description by Boccaccio at the beginning of
+the _Decameron_.
+
+[165] Giov. Villani, x. 164.
+
+[166] _Ex Annalibus Ceretani_, in Fabroni, _Magni Cormi Vita_, Adnot.
+34. vol. ii. p. 63.
+
+[167] _Ricordi_ of Lorenzo, in Fabroni. _Laur. Med. Magnifici Vita_,
+Adnot. 2 and 25. Paul. Jovius, _Elogia_, pp. 131 sqq. Cosmus.
+
+[168] Given by Benedetto Dei, in the passage quoted above (p. 70, note
+1). It must be remembered that the account was intended to serve as a
+warning to assailants. For the whole subject see Reumont, _Lor. dei
+Medici_, ii. p. 419. The financial project of a certain Ludovico Ghetti,
+with important facts, is given in Roscoe, _Vita di Lor. Med._ ii.
+Append, i.
+
+[169] E. g. in the _Arch. Stor._ iv.(?) See as a contrast the very
+simple ledger of Ott. Nuland, 1455-1462 (Stuttg. 1843), and for a rather
+later period the day-book of Lukas Rem, 1494-1541, ed. by B. Greiff,
+Augsb., 1861.
+
+[170] Libri, _Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques_, ii. 163 sqq.
+
+[171] Varchi, _Stor. Fiorent._ iii. p. 56 and sqq. up to the end of the
+9th book. Some obviously erroneous figures are probably no more than
+clerical or typographical blunders.
+
+[172] In respect of prices and of wealth in Italy, I am only able, in
+default of further means of investigation, to bring together some
+scattered facts, which I have picked up here and there. Obvious
+exaggerations must be put aside. The gold coins which are worth
+referring to are the ducat, the sequin, the 'fiorino d'oro,' and the
+'scudo d'oro.' The value of all is nearly the same, 11 to 12 francs of
+our money.
+
+In Venice, for example, the Doge Andrea Vendramin (1476) with 170,000
+ducats passed for an exceedingly rich man (Malipiero, l. c. vii. ii. p.
+666. The confiscated fortune of Colleoni amounted to 216,000 florins, l.
+c. p. 244.
+
+About 1460 the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ludovico Patavino, with 200,000
+ducats, was called 'perhaps the richest of all Italians.' (Gasp.
+Veroneus _Vita Pauli II._, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1027.) Elsewhere
+fabulous statements.
+
+Antonio Grimani paid 30,000 ducats for his son's election as Cardinal.
+His ready money alone was put at 100,000 ducats. (_Chron. Venetum_,
+Murat. xxiv. col. 125.)
+
+For notices as to the grain in commerce and on the market at Venice, see
+in particular Malipiero, l. c. vii. ii. p. 709 sqq. Date 1498.
+
+In 1522 it is no longer Venice, but Genoa, next to Rome, which ranks as
+the richest city in Italy (only credible on the authority of Francesco.
+Vettori. See his history in the _Archiv. Stor._ Append. tom. vi. p.
+343). Bandello, _parte_ ii. _novello_ 34 and 42, names as the richest
+Genoese merchant of his time Ansaldo Grimaldi.
+
+Between 1400 and 1580 Franc. Sansovino assumes a depreciation of 50 per
+cent. in the value of money. (_Venezia_, fol. 151 bis.)
+
+In Lombardy it is believed that the relation between the price of corn
+about the middle of the fifteenth and that at the middle of the present
+century is as 3 to 8. (Sacco di Piacenza, in _Archiv. Stor._ Append.
+tom. v. Note of editor Scarabelli.)
+
+At Ferrara there were people at the time of Duke Borso with 50,000 to
+60,000 ducats (_Diario Ferrarese_, Murat. xxiv. col. 207, 214, 218; an
+extravagant statement, col. 187). In Florence the data are exceptional
+and do not justify a conclusion as to averages. Of this kind are the
+loans to foreign princes, in which the names of one or two houses only
+appear, but which were in fact the work of great companies. So too the
+enormous fines levied on defeated parties; we read, e.g. that from 1430
+to 1453 seventy-seven families paid 4,875,000 gold florins (Varchi, iii.
+p. 115 sqq.), and that Giannozzo Mannetti alone, of whom we shall have
+occasion to speak hereafter, was forced to pay a sum of 135,000 gold
+florins, and was reduced thereby to beggary (Reumont, i. 157).
+
+The fortune of Giovanni Medici amounted at his death (1428) to 179,221
+gold florins, but the latter alone of his two sons Cosimo and Lorenzo
+left at his death (1440) as much as 235,137 (Fabroni, _Laur. Med._
+Adnot. 2). Cosimo's son Piero left (1469) 237,982 scudi (Reumont,
+_Lorenzo de' Medici_, i. 286).
+
+It is a proof of the general activity of trade that the forty-four
+goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio paid in the fourteenth century a rent of
+800 florins to the Government (Vasari, ii. 114, _Vita di Taddeo Gaddi_).
+The diary of Buonaccorso Pitti (in Delécluze, _Florence et ses
+Vicissitudes_, vol. ii.) is full of figures, which, however, only prove
+in general the high price of commodities and the low value of money.
+
+For Rome, the income of the Curia, which was derived from all Europe,
+gives us no criterion; nor are statements about papal treasures and the
+fortunes of cardinals very trustworthy. The well-known banker Agostino
+Chigi left (1520) a fortune of in all 800,000 ducats (_Lettere
+Pittoriche_, i. Append. 48).
+
+During the high prices of the year 1505 the value of the _staro
+ferrarrese del grano_, which commonly weighed from 68 to 70 pounds
+(German), rose to 1-1/3 ducats. The _semola_ or _remolo_ was sold at
+_venti soldi lo staro_; in the following fruitful years the _staro_
+fetched six _soldi_. Bonaventura Pistofilo, p. 494. At Ferrara the rent
+of a house yearly in 1455 was 25 _Lire_; comp. _Atti e memorie_, Parma,
+vi. 250; see 265 sqq. for a documentary statement of the prices which
+were paid to artists and amanuenses.
+
+From the inventory of the Medici (extracts in Muntz, _Prècurseurs_, 158
+sqq.) it appears that the jewels were valued at 12,205 ducats; the rings
+at 1,792; the pearls (apparently distinguished from other jewels,
+S.G.C.M.) at 3,512; the medallions, cameos and mosaics at 2,579; the
+vases at 4,850; the reliquaries and the like at 3,600; the library at
+2,700; the silver at 7,000. Giov. Rucellai reckons that in 1473(?) he
+has paid 60,000 gold florins in taxes, 10,000 for the dowries of his
+five daughters, 2,000 for the improvement of the church of Santa Maria
+Novella. In 1474 he lost 20,000 gold florins through the intrigues of an
+enemy. (_Autografo dallo Tibaldone di G.R._, Florence, 1872). The
+marriage of Barnardo Rucellai with Nannina, the sister of Lorenzo de'
+Medici, cost 3,686 florins (Muntz, _Précurseurs_, 244, i).
+
+[173] So far as Cosimo (1433-1465) and his grandson Lorenzo Magnifico
+(d. 1492) are concerned, the author refrains from any criticism on their
+internal policy. The exaltation of both, particularly of Lorenzo, by
+William Roscoe (_Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent_,
+1st ed. Liverpool, 1795; 10th ed. London, 1851), seems to have been a
+principal cause of the reaction of feeling against them. This reaction
+appeared first in Sismondi (_Hist. des Rép. Italiennes_, xi.), in reply
+to whose strictures, sometimes unreasonably severe, Roscoe again came
+forward (_Illustrations, Historical and Critical, of the Life of Lor. d.
+Med._, London, 1822); later in Gino Capponi (_Archiv. Stor. Ital._ i.
+(1842), pp. 315 sqq.), who afterwards (_Storia della Rep. di Firenze_, 2
+vols. Florence, 1875) gave further proofs and explanations of his
+judgment. See also the work of Von Reumont (_Lor. d. Med. il Magn._), 2
+vols. Leipzig, 1874, distinguished no less by the judicial calmness of
+its views than by the mastery it displays of the extensive materials
+used. See also A. Castelman: _Les Medicis_, 2 vols. Paris, 1879. The
+subject here is only casually touched upon. Comp. two works of B. Buser
+(Leipzig, 1879) devoted to the home and foreign policy of the Medici.
+(1) _Die Beziehungen der Medicus zu Frankreich._ 1434-1494, &c. (2)
+_Lorenzo de' Medici als italienischen Staatsman_, &c., 2nd ed., 1883.
+
+[174] Franc. Burlamacchi, father of the head of the Lucchese
+Protestants, Michele B. See _Arch. Stor. Ital._ ser. i. tom. x., pp.
+435-599; Documenti, pp. 146 sqq.; further Carlo Minutoli, _Storia di Fr.
+B._, Lucca, 1844, and the important additions of Leone del Prete in the
+_Giornale Storico degli Archiv. Toscani_, iv. (1860), pp. 309 sqq. It is
+well known how Milan, by its hard treatment of the neighbouring cities
+from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, prepared the way for the
+foundation of a great despotic state. Even at the time of the extinction
+of the Visconti in 1447, Milan frustrated the deliverance of Upper
+Italy, principally through not accepting the plan of a confederation of
+equal cities. Comp. Corio, fol. 358 sqq.
+
+[175] On the third Sunday in Advent, 1494, Savonarola preached as
+follows on the method of bringing about a new constitution: The sixteen
+companies of the city were each to work out a plan, the Gonfalonieri to
+choose the four best of these, and the Signory to name the best of all
+on the reduced list. Things, however, took a different turn, under the
+influence indeed of the preacher himself. See P. Villari, _Savonarola_.
+Besides this sermon, S. had written a remarkable _Trattato circa il
+regimento di Ferenze_ (reprinted at Lucca, 1817).
+
+[176] The latter first in 1527, after the expulsion of the Medici. See
+Varchi, i. 121, &c.
+
+[177] Macchiavelli, _Storie Fior._ l. iii. cap. 1: 'Un Savio dator di
+leggi,' could save Florence.
+
+[178] Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ i. p. 210.
+
+[179] 'Discorso sopra il riformar lo Stato di Firenze,' in the _Opere
+Minori_, p. 207.
+
+[180] The same view, doubtless borrowed from here, occurs in
+Montesquieu.
+
+[181] Belonging to a rather later period (1532?). Compare the opinion of
+Guicciardini, terrible in its frankness, on the condition and inevitable
+organisation of the Medicean party. _Lettere di Principi_, iii. fol.
+124, (ediz. Venez. 1577).
+
+[182] Æn. Sylvii, _Apologia ad Martinum Mayer_, p. 701. To the same
+effect Macchiavelli, _Discorsi_, i. 55, and elsewhere.
+
+[183] How strangely modern half-culture affected political life is shown
+by the party struggles of 1535. Della Valle, _Lettere Sanesi_, iii. p.
+317. A number of small shopkeepers, excited by the study of Livy and of
+Macchiavelli's _Discorsi_, call in all seriousness for tribunes of the
+people and other Roman magistrates against the misgovernment of the
+nobles and the official classes.
+
+[184] Piero Valeriano, _De Infelicitate Literator._, speaking of
+Bartolommeo della Rovere. (The work of P. V. written 1527 is quoted
+according to the edition by Menken, _Analecta de Calamitate
+Literatorum_, Leipz. 1707.) The passage here meant can only be that at
+p. 384, from which we cannot infer what is stated in the text, but in
+which we read that B. d. R. wished to make his son abandon a taste for
+study which he had conceived and put him into business.
+
+[185] Senarega, _De reb. Genuens_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 548. For the
+insecurity of the time see esp. col. 519, 525, 528, &c. For the frank
+language of the envoy on the occasion of the surrender of the state to
+Francesco Sforza (1464), when the envoy told him that Genoa surrendered
+in the hope of now living safely and comfortably, see Cagnola, _Archiv.
+Stor._ iii. p. 165 sqq. The figures of the Archbishop, Doge, Corsair,
+and (later) Cardinal Paolo Fregoso form a notable contrast to the
+general picture of the condition of Italy.
+
+[186] So Varchi, at a much later time. _Stor. Fiorent._ i. 57.
+
+[187] Galeazzo Maria Sforza, indeed, declared the contrary (1467) to the
+Venetian agent, namely, that Venetian subjects had offered to join him
+in making war on Venice; but this is only vapouring. Comp. Malipiero,
+_Annali Veneti, Archiv. Stor._ vii. i. p. 216 sqq. On every occasion
+cities and villages voluntarily surrendered to Venice, chiefly, it is
+true, those that escaped from the hands of some despot, while Florence
+had to keep down the neighbouring republics, which were used to
+independence, by force of arms, as Guicciardini (_Ricordi_, n. 29)
+observes.
+
+[188] Most strongly, perhaps, in an instruction to the ambassadors going
+to Charles VII. in the year 1452. (See Fabroni, _Cosmus_, Adnot. 107,
+fol. ii. pp. 200 sqq.) The Florentine envoys were instructed to remind
+the king of the centuries of friendly relations which had subsisted
+between France and their native city, and to recall to him that Charles
+the Great had delivered Florence and Italy from the barbarians
+(Lombards), and that Charles I. and the Romish Church were 'fondatori
+della parte Guelfa. Il qual fundamento fa cagione della ruina della
+contraria parte e introdusse lo stato di felicità, in che noi siamo.'
+When the young Lorenzo visited the Duke of Anjou, then staying at
+Florence, he put on a French dress. Fabroni, ii. p. 9.
+
+[189] Comines, _Charles VIII._ chap. x. The French were considered
+'comme saints.' Comp. chap. 17; _Chron. Venetum_, in Murat. xxiv. col.
+5, 10, 14, 15; Matarazzo, _Cron. di Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p.
+23, not to speak of countless other proofs. See especially the documents
+in Desjardins, op. cit. p. 127, note 1.
+
+[190] _Pii II. Commentarii_, x. p. 492.
+
+[191] Gingins, _Dépêches des Ambassadeurs Milanais_, _etc._ i. pp. 26,
+153, 279, 283, 285, 327, 331, 345, 359; ii. pp. 29, 37, 101, 217, 306.
+Charles once spoke of giving Milan to the young Duke of Orleans.
+
+[192] Niccolò Valori, _Vita di Lorenzo_, Flor. 1568. Italian translation
+of the Latin original, first printed in 1749 (later in Galletti, _Phil.
+Villani, Liber de Civit. Flor. famosis Civibus_, Florence, 1847, pp.
+161-183; passage here referred to p. 171). It must not, however, be
+forgotten that this earliest biography, written soon after the death of
+Lorenzo, is a flattering rather than a faithful portrait, and that the
+words here attributed to Lorenzo are not mentioned by the French
+reporter, and can, in fact, hardly have been uttered. Comines, who was
+commissioned by Louis XI. to go to Rome and Florence, says (_Mémoires_,
+l. vi. chap. 5): 'I could not offer him an army, and had nothing with me
+but my suite.' (Comp. Reumont, _Lorenzo_, i. p. 197, 429; ii. 598). In a
+letter from Florence to Louis XI. we read (Aug. 23, 1478: 'Omnis spes
+nostra reposita est in favoribus suæ majestatis.' A. Desjardins,
+_Négociations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane_ (Paris, 1859),
+i. p. 173. Similarly Lorenzo himself in Kervyn de Lettenhove, _Lettres
+et Négotiations de Philippe de Comines_, i. p. 190. Lorenzo, we see, is
+in fact the one who humbly begs for help, not who proudly declines it.
+
+Dr. Geiger in his appendix maintains that Dr. Burchhardt's view as to
+Lorenzo's national Italian policy is not borne out by evidence. Into
+this discussion the translator cannot enter. It would need strong proof
+to convince him that the masterly historical perception of Dr.
+Burchhardt was in error as to a subject which he has studied with minute
+care. In an age when diplomatic lying and political treachery were
+matters of course, documentary evidence loses much of its weight, and
+cannot be taken without qualification as representing the real feelings
+of the persons concerned, who fenced, turned about, and lied, first on
+one side and then on another, with an agility surprising to those
+accustomed to live among truth-telling people (S.G.C.M.)
+
+Authorities quoted by Dr. Geiger are: Reumont, _Lorenzo_, 2nd ed., i.
+310; ii. 450. Desjardins: _Négociations Diplomatiques de la France avec
+la Toscane_ (Paris, 1859), i. 173. Kervyn de Lettenhove, _Lettres et
+Négociations de Philippe de Comines_, i. 180.
+
+[193] Fabroni, _Laurentius Magnificus_, Adnot. 205 sqq. In one of his
+Briefs it was said literally, 'Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta
+movebo;' but it is to be hoped that he did not allude to the Turks.
+(Villari, _Storia di Savonarola_, ii. p. 48 of the 'Documenti.')
+
+[194] E.g. Jovian. Pontan. in his _Charon_. In the dialogue between
+Æcus, Minos, and Mercurius (_Op._ ed. Bas. ii. p. 1167) the first says:
+'Vel quod haud multis post sæculis futurum auguror, ut Italia, cujus
+intestina te odia male habent Minos, in unius redacta ditionem resumat
+imperii majestatem.' And in reply to Mercury's warning against the
+Turks, Æcus answers: 'Quamquam timenda hæc sunt, tamen si vetera
+respicimus, non ab Asia aut Græcia, verum a Gallis Germanisque timendum
+Italiæ semper fuit.'
+
+[195] Comines, _Charles VIII._, chap. 7. How Alfonso once tried in time
+of war to seize his opponents at a conference, is told by Nantiporto, in
+Murat. iii. ii. col. 1073. He was a genuine predecessor of Cæsar Borgia.
+
+[196] _Pii II. Commentarii_, x. p. 492. See a letter of Malatesta in
+which he recommends to Mohammed II. a portrait-painter, Matteo Passo of
+Verona, and announces the despatch of a book on the art of war, probably
+in the year 1463, in Baluz. _Miscell._ iii. 113. What Galeazzo Maria of
+Milan told in 1467 to a Venetian envoy, namely, that he and his allies
+would join with the Turks to destroy Venice, was said merely by way of
+threat. Comp. Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor._ vii. i. p. 222.
+For Boccalino, see page 36.
+
+[197] Porzio, _Congiura dei Baroni_, l. i. p. 5. That Lorenzo, as Porzio
+hints, really had a hand in it, is not credible. On the other hand, it
+seems only too certain that Venice prompted the Sultan to the deed. See
+Romanin, _Storia Documentata di Venezia_, lib. xi. cap. 3. After Otranto
+was taken, Vespasiano Bisticci uttered his 'Lamento d'Italia, _Archiv.
+Stor. Ital._ iv. pp. 452 sqq.
+
+[198] _Chron. Venet._ in Murat. xxiv. col. 14 and 76.
+
+[199] Malipiero, l. c. p. 565, 568.
+
+[200] Trithem. _Annales Hirsaug_, ad. a. 1490, tom. ii. pp. 535 sqq.
+
+[201] Malipiero, l. c. 161; comp. p. 152. For the surrender of Djem to
+Charles VIII. see p. 145, from which it is clear that a connection of
+the most shameful kind existed between Alexander and Bajazet, even if
+the documents in Burcardus be spurious. See on the subject Ranke, _Zur
+Kritik neuerer Geschichtschreiber_, 2 Auflage, Leipzig, 1874, p. 99, and
+Gregorovius, bd. vii. 353, note 1. _Ibid._ p. 353, note 2, a declaration
+of the Pope that he was not allied with the Turks.
+
+[202] Bapt. Mantuanus, _De Calamitatibus Temporum_, at the end of the
+second book, in the song of the Nereid Doris to the Turkish fleet.
+
+[203] Tommaso Gar, _Relaz. della Corte di Roma_, i. p. 55.
+
+[204] Ranke, _Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker_. The
+opinion of Michelet (_Reforme_, p. 467), that the Turks would have
+adopted Western civilisation in Italy, does not satisfy me. This mission
+of Spain is hinted at, perhaps for the first time, in the speech
+delivered by Fedra Inghirami in 1510 before Julius II., at the
+celebration of the capture of Bugia by the fleet of Ferdinand the
+Catholic. See _Anecdota Litteraria_, ii. p. 419.
+
+[205] Among others Corio, fol. 333. Jov. Pontanus, in his treatise, _De
+Liberalitate_, cap. 28, considers the free dismissal of Alfonso as a
+proof of the 'liberalitas' of Filippo Maria. (See above, p. 38, note 1.)
+Compare the line of conduct adopted with regard to Sforza, fol. 329.
+
+[206] Nic. Valori, _Vita di Lorenzo_; Paul Jovius, _Vita Leonis X._ l.
+i. The latter certainly upon good authority, though not without
+rhetorical embellishment. Comp. Reumont, i. 487, and the passage there
+quoted.
+
+[207] If Comines on this and many other occasions observes and judges as
+objectively as any Italian, his intercourse with Italians, particularly
+with Angelo Catto, must be taken into account.
+
+[208] Comp. e.g. Malipiero, pp. 216, 221, 236, 237, 468, &c., and above
+pp. 88, note 2, and 93, note 1. Comp. Egnatius, fol. 321 _a_. The Pope
+curses an ambassador; a Venetian envoy insults the Pope; another, to win
+over his hearers, tells a fable.
+
+[209] In Villari, _Storia di Savonarola_, vol. ii. p. xliii. of the
+'Documenti,' among which are to be found other important political
+letters. Other documents, particularly of the end of the fifteenth
+century in Baluzius, _Miscellanea_, ed. Mansi, vol. i. See especially
+the collected despatches of Florentine and Venetian ambassadors at the
+end of the fifteenth and beginning of sixteenth centuries in Desjardins,
+_Négotiations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane_. vols. i. ii.
+Paris. 1859, 1861.
+
+[210] The subject has been lately treated more fully by Max Jähns, _Die
+Kriegskunst als Kunst_, Leipzig, 1874.
+
+[211] _Pii II. Comment._ iv. p. 190, ad. a. 1459.
+
+[212] The Cremonese prided themselves on their skill in this department.
+See _Cronaca di Cremona_ in the _Bibliotheca Historica Italica_, vol. i.
+Milan, 1876, p. 214, and note. The Venetians did the same, Egnatius,
+fol. 300 sqq.
+
+[213] To this effect Paul Jovius (_Elogia_, p. 184) who adds: 'Nondum
+enim invecto externarum gentium cruento more, Italia milites sanguinarii
+et multæ cædis avidi esse didicerant.' We are reminded of Frederick of
+Urbino, who would have been 'ashamed' to tolerate a printed book in his
+library. See _Vespas. Fiorent._
+
+[214] _Porcellii Commentaria Jac. Picinini_, in Murat. xx. A
+continuation for the war of 1453, _ibid._ xxv. Paul Cortesius (_De
+Hominibus Doctis_, p. 33, Florence, 1734) criticises the book severely
+on account of the wretched hexameters.
+
+[215] Porcello calls Scipio Æmilianus by mistake, meaning Africanus
+Major.
+
+[216] Simonetta, _Hist. Fr. Sfortiæ_, in Murat. xxi. col. 630.
+
+[217] So he was considered. Comp. Bandello, parte i. nov. 40.
+
+[218] Comp. e.g. _De Obsidione Tiphernatium_, in vol. 2, of the _Rer.
+Italic. Scriptores excodd. Florent._ col. 690. The duel of Marshal
+Boucicault with Galeazzo Gonzaga (1406) in Cagnola, _Arch. Stor._ iii.
+p. 25. Infessura tells us of the honour paid by Sixtus IV. to the
+duellists among his guards. His successors issued bulls against
+duelling.
+
+[219] We may here notice parenthetically (see Jähns, pp. 26, sqq.) the
+less favourable side of the tactics of the Condottieri. The combat was
+often a mere sham-fight, in which the enemy was forced to withdraw by
+harmless manoeuvres. The object of the combatants was to avoid bloodshed,
+at the worst to make prisoners with a view to the ransom. According to
+Macchiavelli, the Florentines lost in a great battle in the year 1440
+one man only.
+
+[220] For details, see _Arch. Stor._ Append. tom. v.
+
+[221] Here once for all we refer our readers to Ranke's _Popes_, vol.
+i., and to Sugenheim, _Geschichte der Entstehung und Ausbildung des
+Kirchenstaates_. The still later works of Gregorovius and Reumont have
+also been made use of, and when they offer new facts or views, are
+quoted. See also _Geschichte der römischen Papstthums_, W. Wattenbach,
+Berlin, 1876.
+
+[222] For the impression made by the blessing of Eugenius IV. in
+Florence, see _Vespasiano Fiorent_, p. 18. See also the passage quoted
+in Reumont, _Lorenzo_, i. 171. For the impressive offices of Nicholas
+V., see Infessura (Eccard, ii. col. 1883 sqq.) and J. Manetti, _Vita
+Nicolai V._ (Murat. iii. ii. col. 923). For the homage given to Pius
+II., see _Diario Ferrarese_ (Murat. xxiv. col. 205), and _Pii II.
+Commentarii_, _passim_, esp. iv. 201, 204, and xi. 562. For Florence,
+see _Delizie degli Eruditi_, xx. 368. Even professional murderers
+respect the person of the Pope.
+
+The great offices in church were treated as matters of much importance
+by the pomp-loving Paul II. (Platina, l. c. 321) and by Sixtus IV., who,
+in spite of the gout, conducted mass at Easter in a sitting posture.
+(_Jac. Volaterran. Diarium_, Murat. xxiii. col. 131.) It is curious to
+notice how the people distinguished between the magical efficacy of the
+blessing and the unworthiness of the man who gave it; when he was unable
+to give the benediction on Ascension Day, 1481, the populace murmured
+and cursed him. (_Ibid._ col. 133.)
+
+[223] Macchiavelli, _Scritti Minori_, p. 142, in the well-known essay on
+the catastrophe of Sinigaglia. It is true that the French and Spanish
+soldiers were still more zealous than the Italians. Comp. in Paul. Jov.
+_Vita Leonis X._ (l. ii.) the scene before the battle of Ravenna, in
+which the Legate, weeping for joy, was surrounded by the Spanish troops,
+and besought for absolution. See further (_ibid._) the statements
+respecting the French in Milan.
+
+[224] In the case of the heretics of Poli, in the Campagna, who held the
+doctrine that a genuine Pope must show the poverty of Christ as the mark
+of his calling, we have simply a kind of Waldensian doctrine. Their
+imprisonment under Paul II. is related by Infessura (Eccard, ii. col.
+1893), Platina, p. 317, &c.
+
+[225] As an illustration of this feeling see the poem addressed to the
+Pope, quoted in Gregorovius, vii. 136.
+
+[226] _Dialogus de Conjuratione Stephani de Porcariis_, by his
+contemporary Petrus Godes de Vicenza, quoted and used by Gregorovius,
+viii. 130. L. B. Alberti, _De Porcaria Conjuratione_, in Murat. xxv.
+col. 309. Porcari was desirous 'omnem pontificiam turbam funditus
+exstinguere.' The author concludes: 'Video sane, quo stent loco res
+Italiæ; intelligo qui sint, quibus hic perturbata esse omnia
+conducat....' He names them 'Extrinsecus impulsores,' and is of opinion
+that Porcari will find successors in his misdeeds. The dreams of Porcari
+certainly bore some resemblance to those of Cola Rienzi. He also
+referred to himself the poem 'Spirto Gentil,' addressed by Petrarch to
+Rienzi.
+
+[227] 'Ut Papa tantum vicarius Christi sit et non etiam Cæsaris.... Tunc
+Papa et dicetur et erit pater sanctus, pater omnium, pater ecclesiæ,'
+&c. Valla's work was written rather earlier, and was aimed at Eugenius
+IV. See Vahlen, _Lor. Valla_ (Berlin, 1870), pp. 25 sqq., esp. 32.
+Nicholas V., on the other hand, is praised by Valla, Gregorovius, vii.
+136.
+
+[228] _Pii II. Comment._ iv. pp. 208 sqq. Voigt, _Enea Silvio_, iii. pp.
+151 sqq.
+
+[229] Platina, _Vita Pauli II._
+
+[230] Battista Mantovano, _De Calamitatibus Temporum_, l. iii. The
+Arabian sells incense, the Tyrian purple, the Indian ivory: 'Venalia
+nobis templa, sacerdotes, altaria sacra, coronæ, ignes, thura, preces,
+cælum est venale Deusque.' _Opera_, ed. Paris, 1507, fol. 302 _b_. Then
+follows an exhortation to Pope Sixtus, whose previous efforts are
+praised, to put an end to these evils.
+
+[231] See e.g. the _Annales Placentini_, in Murat. xx. col. 943.
+
+[232] Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 416-420. Pietro had already helped
+at the election of Sixtus. See Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii.
+col. 1895. It is curious that in 1469 it had been prophesied that
+deliverance would come from Savona (home of Sixtus, elected in 1471)
+within three years. See the letter and date in Baluz. _Miscell._ iii. p.
+181. According to Macchiavelli, _Storie Fiorent._ l. vii. the Venetians
+poisoned the cardinal. Certainly they were not without motives to do so.
+
+[233] Honorius II. wished, after the death of William I. (1127), to
+annex Apulia, as a feof reverted to St. Peter.
+
+[234] Fabroni, _Laurentius Mag._ Adnot. 130. An informer, Vespucci,
+sends word of both, 'Hanno in ogni elezione a mettere a sacco questa
+corte, e sono i maggior ribaldi del mondo.'
+
+[235] Corio, fol. 450. Details, partly from unpublished documents, of
+these acts of bribery in Gregorovius, vii. 310 sqq.
+
+[236] A most characteristic letter of exhortation by Lorenzo in Fabroni,
+_Laurentius Magn._ Adnot. 217, and extracts in Ranke, _Popes_, i. p. 45,
+and in Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. pp. 482 sqq.
+
+[237] And perhaps of certain Neapolitan feofs, for the sake of which
+Innocent called in the Angevins afresh against the immovable Ferrante.
+The conduct of the Pope in this affair and his participation in the
+second conspiracy of the barons, were equally foolish and dishonest. For
+his method of treating with foreign powers, see above p. 127, note 2.
+
+[238] Comp. in particular Infessura, in Eccard. _Scriptores_, ii.
+_passim_.
+
+[239] According to the _Dispacci di Antonio Giustiniani_, i. p. 60, and
+iii. p. 309, Seb. Pinzon was a native of Cremona.
+
+[240] Recently by Gregorovius, _Lucrezia Borgia_, 2 Bände 3 Aufl.,
+Stuttgart, 1875.
+
+[241] Except the Bentivoglio at Bologna, and the House of Este at
+Ferrara. The latter was compelled to form a family relationship,
+Lucrezia marrying Prince Alfonso.
+
+[242] According to Corio (fol. 479) Charles had thoughts of a Council,
+of deposing the Pope, and even of carrying him away to France, this upon
+his return from Naples. According to Benedictus, _Carolus VIII._ (in
+Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1584), Charles, while in Naples, when
+Pope and cardinals refused to recognise his new crown, had certainly
+entertained the thought 'de Italiæ imperio deque pontificis statu
+mutando,' but soon after made up his mind to be satisfied with the
+personal humiliation of Alexander. The Pope, nevertheless, escaped him.
+Particulars in Pilorgerie, _Campagne et Bulletins de la Grande Armée
+d'Italie_, 1494, 1495 (Paris, 1866, 8vo.), where the degree of
+Alexander's danger at different moments is discussed (pp. 111, 117,
+&c.). In a letter, there printed, of the Archbishop of St. Malo to Queen
+Anne, it is expressly stated: 'Si nostre roy eust voulu obtemperer à la
+plupart des Messeigneurs les Cardinaulx, ilz eussent fait ung autre
+pappe en intention de refformer l'église ainsi qu'ilz disaient. Le roy
+désire bien la reformacion, mais il ne veult point entreprandre de sa
+depposicion.'
+
+[243] Corio, fol. 450. Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor._ vii. i. p.
+318. The rapacity of the whole family can be seen in Malipiero, among
+other authorities, l. c. p. 565. A 'nipote' was splendidly entertained
+in Venice as papal legate, and made an enormous sum of money by selling
+dispensations; his servants, when they went away, stole whatever they
+could lay their hands on, including a piece of embroidered cloth from
+the high altar of a church at Murano.
+
+[244] This in Panvinio alone among contemporary historians (Contin.
+Platinæ, p. 339), 'insidiis Cæsaris fratris interfectus ... connivente
+... ad scelus patre,' and to the same effect Jovius, _Elog. Vir. Ill._
+p. 302. The profound emotion of Alexander looks like a sign of
+complicity. After the corpse was drawn out of the Tiber, Sannazaro wrote
+(_Opera Omnia Latine Scripta_ 1535, fol. 41 _a_):
+
+ 'Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sixte, putemus
+ Piscaris natum retibus, ecce, tuum.'
+
+Besides the epigram quoted there are others (fol. 36 _b_, 42 _b_, 47
+_b_, 51 _a_, _b_--in the last passage 5) in Sannazaro on, i.e. against,
+Alexander. Among them is a famous one, referred to in Gregorovius i.
+314, on Lucrezia Borgia:
+
+ Ergo te semper cupiet Lucretia Sextus?
+ O fatum diri nominis: hic pater est?
+
+Others execrate his cruelty and celebrate his death as the beginning of
+an era of peace. On the Jubilee (see below, p. 108, note 1), there is
+another epigram, fol. 43 _b_. There are others no less severe (fol. 34
+_b_, 35 _a_, _b_, 42 _b_, 43 _a_) against Cæsar Borgia, among which we
+find in one of the strongest:
+
+ Aut nihil aut Cæsar vult dici Borgia; quidni?
+ Cum simul et Cæsar possit, et esse nihil.
+
+(made use of by Bandello, iv. nov. 11). On the murder of the Duke of
+Gandia, see especially the admirable collection of the most original
+sources of evidence in Gregorovius, vii. 399-407, according to which
+Cæsar's guilt is clear, but it seems very doubtful whether Alexander
+knew, or approved, of the intended assassination.
+
+[245] Macchiavelli, _Opere_, ed. Milan, vol. v. pp. 387, 393, 395, in
+the _Legazione al Duca Valentino_.
+
+[246] Tommaso Gar, _Relazioni della Corte di Roma_, i. p. 12, in the
+_Rel. of P. Capello_. Literally: 'The Pope has more respect for Venice
+than for any other power in the world.' 'E però desidera, che ella
+(Signoria di Venezia) protegga il figliuolo, e dice voler fare tale
+ordine, che il papato o sia suo, ovvero della signoria nostra.' The word
+'suo' can only refer to Cæsar. An instance of the uncertainty caused by
+this usage is found in the still lively controversy respecting the words
+used by Vasari in the _Vita di Raffaello_: 'A Bindo Altoviti fece il
+ritratto suo, &c.'
+
+[247] _Strozzii Poetae_, p. 19, in the 'Venatio' of Ercole Strozza: '
+... cui triplicem fata invidere coronam.' And in the Elegy on Cæsar's
+death, p. 31 sqq.: 'Speraretque olim solii decora alta paterni.'
+
+[248] _Ibid._ Jupiter had once promised
+
+ 'Affore Alexandri sobolem, quæ poneret olim
+ Italiæ leges, atque aurea sæcla referret,' etc.
+
+
+[249] _Ibid._
+
+ 'Sacrumque decus majora parantem deposuisse.'
+
+
+[250] He was married, as is well known, to a French princess of the
+family of Albret, and had a daughter by her; in some way or other he
+would have attempted to found a dynasty. It is not known that he took
+steps to regain the cardinal's hat, although (acc. to Macchiavelli, l.
+c. p. 285) he must have counted on the speedy death of his father.
+
+[251] Macchiavelli, l. c. p. 334. Designs on Siena and eventually on all
+Tuscany certainly existed, but were not yet ripe; the consent of France
+was indispensable.
+
+[252] Macchiavelli, l. c. pp. 326, 351, 414; Matarazzo, _Cronaca di
+Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. pp. 157 and 221. He wished his soldiers
+to quarter themselves where they pleased, so that they gained more in
+time of peace than of war. Petrus Alcyonius, _De Exilio_ (1522), ed.
+Mencken, p. 19, says of the style of conducting war: 'Ea scelera et
+flagitia a nostris militibus patrata sunt quæ ne Scythæ quidem aut
+Turcæ, aut Poeni in Italia commisissent.' The same writer (p. 65) blames
+Alexander as a Spaniard: 'Hispani generis hominem, cujus proprium est,
+rationibus et commodis Hispanorum consultum velle, non Italorum.' See
+above, p. 109.
+
+[253] To this effect Pierio Valeriano, _De Infelicitate Literat._ ed.
+Mencken, p. 282, in speaking of Giovanni Regio: 'In arcano proscriptorum
+albo positus.'
+
+[254] Tommaso Gar, l. c. p. 11. From May 22, 1502, onwards the
+_Despatches of Giustiniani_, 3 vols. Florence, 1876, edited by Pasquale
+Villari, offer valuable information.
+
+[255] Paulus Jovius, _Elogia_, Cæsar Borgia. In the _Commentarii Urbani_
+of Ralph. Volaterianus, lib. xxii. there is a description of Alexander
+VI., composed under Julius II., and still written very guardedly. We
+here read: 'Roma ... nobilis jam carneficina facta erat.'
+
+[256] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 362.
+
+[257] Paul. Jovius, _Histor._ ii. fol. 47.
+
+[258] See the passages in Ranke, _Röm. Päpste_; Sämmtl. Werke, Bd.
+xxxvii. 35, and xxxix. Anh. Abschn. 1, Nro. 4, and Gregorovius, vii.
+497, sqq. Giustiniani does not believe in the Pope's being poisoned. See
+his _Dispacci_, vol. ii. pp. 107 sqq.; Villari's Note, pp. 120 sqq., and
+App. pp. 458 sqq.
+
+[259] Panvinius, _Epitome Pontificum_, p. 359. For the attempt to poison
+Alexander's successor, Julius II., see p. 363. According to Sismondi,
+xiii. p. 246, it was in this way that Lopez, Cardinal of Capua, for
+years the partner of all the Pope's secrets, came by his end; according
+to Sanuto (in Ranke, _Popes_, i. p. 52, note), the Cardinal of Verona
+also. When Cardinal Orsini died, the Pope obtained a certificate of
+natural death from a college of physicians.
+
+[260] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 254; comp. Attilio Alessio, in Baluz.
+_Miscell._, iv. p. 518 sqq.
+
+[261] And turned to the most profitable account by the Pope. Comp.
+_Chron. Venetum_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 133, given only as a report: 'E
+si giudiceva, che il Pontefice dovesse cavare assai danari di questo
+Giubileo, che gli tornerà molto a proposito.
+
+[262] Anshelm, _Berner Chronik_, iii. pp. 146-156. Trithem. _Annales
+Hirsaug._ tom. ii. pp. 579, 584, 586.
+
+[263] Panvin. _Contin. Platinae_, p. 341.
+
+[264] Hence the splendour of the tombs of the prelates erected during
+their lifetime. A part of the plunder was in this way saved from the
+hands of the Popes.
+
+[265] Whether Julius really hoped that Ferdinand the Catholic would be
+induced to restore to the throne of Naples the expelled Aragonese
+dynasty, remains, in spite of Giovio's declaration (_Vita Alfonsi
+Ducis_), very doubtful.
+
+[266] Both poems in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, iv. 257 and 297. Of
+his death the _Cronaca di Cremona_ says: 'quale fu grande danno per la
+Italia, perchè era homo che non voleva tramontani in Italia, ed haveva
+cazato Francesi, e l'animo era de cazar le altri.' _Bibl. Hist. Ital._
+(1876) i. 217. It is true that when Julius, in August, 1511, lay one day
+for hours in a fainting fit, and was thought to be dead, the more
+restless members of the noblest families--Pompeo Colonna and Antimo
+Savelli--ventured to call 'the people' to the Capitol, and to urge them
+to throw off the Papal yoke--'a vendicarsi in libertà ... a publica
+ribellione,' as Guicciardini tells us in his tenth book. See, too, Paul.
+Jov. in the _Vita Pompeji Columnae_, and Gregorovius, viii. 71-75.
+
+[267] _Septimo decretal._ l. i. tit. 3, cap. 1-3.
+
+[268] Franc. Vettori, in the _Arch. Stor._ vi. 297.
+
+[269] Besides which it is said (Paul. Lang. _Chronicon Cilicense_) to
+have produced not less than 500,000 gold florins; the order of the
+Franciscans alone, whose general was made a cardinal, paid 30,000. For a
+notice of the various sums paid, see Sanuto, xxiv. fol. 227; for the
+whole subject see Gregorovius, viii. 214 sqq.
+
+[270] Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 301. _Arch. Stor._ Append. i. p. 293 sqq.
+Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, vi. p. 232 sqq. Tommaso Gar, l. c. p. 42.
+
+[271] Ariosto, Sat. vi. v. 106. 'Tutti morrete, ed è fatal che muoja
+Leone appresso.' Sat. 3 and 7 ridicule the hangers on at Leo's Court.
+
+[272] One of several instances of such combinations is given in the
+_Lettere dei Principi_, i. 65, in a despatch of the Cardinal Bibbiena
+from Paris of the year 1518.
+
+[273] Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 333.
+
+[274] At the time of the Lateran Council, in 1512, Pico wrote an
+address: _J. E. P. Oratio ad Leonem X. et Concilium Lateranense de
+Reformandis Ecclesiæ Moribus_ (ed. Hagenau, 1512, frequently printed in
+editions of his works). The address was dedicated to Pirckheimer and was
+again sent to him in 1517. Comp. _Vir. Doct. Epist. ad Pirck._, ed.
+Freytag, Leipz. 1838, p. 8. Pico fears that under Leo evil may
+definitely triumph over good, 'et in te bellum a nostræ religionis
+hostibus ante audias geri quam pariri.'
+
+[275] _Lettere dei Principi_, i. (Rome. 17th March, 1523): 'This city
+stands on a needle's point, and God grant that we are not soon driven to
+Avignon or to the end of the Ocean. I foresee the early fall of this
+spiritual monarchy.... Unless God helps us we are lost.' Whether Adrian
+were really poisoned or not, cannot be gathered with certainty from Blas
+Ortiz, _Itinerar. Hadriani_ (Baluz. _Miscell._ ed. Mansi, i. p. 386
+sqq.); the worst of it was that everybody believed it.
+
+[276] Negro, l.c. on Oct. 24 (should be Sept.) and Nov. 9, 1526, April
+11, 1527. It is true that he found admirers and flatterers. The dialogue
+of Petrus Alcyonus 'De Exilio' was written in his praise, shortly before
+he became Pope.
+
+[277] Varchi, _Stor. Fiorent._ i. 43, 46 sqq.
+
+[278] Paul. Jov., _Vita Pomp. Columnae_.
+
+[279] Ranke, _Deutsche Geschichte_ (4 Aufl.) ii. 262 sqq.
+
+[280] Varchi, _Stor. Fiorent._ ii. 43 sqq.
+
+[281] _Ibid._ and Ranke, _Deutsche Gesch._ ii. 278, note, and iii. 6
+sqq. It was thought that Charles would transfer his seat of government
+to Rome.
+
+[282] See his letter to the Pope, dated Carpentras, Sept. 1, 1527, in
+the _Anecdota litt._ iv. p. 335.
+
+[283] _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 72. Castiglione to the Pope, Burgos,
+Dec. 10, 1527.
+
+[284] Tommaso Gar, _Relaz. della Corte di Roma_, i. 299.
+
+[285] The Farnese succeeded in something of the kind, the Caraffa were
+ruined.
+
+[286] Petrarca, _Epist. Fam._ i. 3. p. 574, when he thanks God that he
+was born an Italian. And again in the _Apologia contra cujusdam anonymi
+Galli Calumnias_ of the year 1367 (_Opp._ ed. Bas. 1581) p. 1068 sqq.
+See L. Geiger, _Petrarca_, 129-145.
+
+[287] Particularly those in vol. i. of Schardius, _Scriptores rerum
+Germanicarum_, Basel, 1574. For an earlier period, Felix Faber,
+_Historia Suevorum_, libri duo (in Goldast, _Script. rer. Suev._ 1605);
+for a later, Irenicus, _Exegesis Germaniæ_, Hagenau, 1518. On the latter
+work and the patriotic histories of that time, see various studies of A.
+Horawitz, _Hist. Zeitschrift_, bd. xxxiii. 118, anm. 1.
+
+[288] One instance out of many: _The Answers of the Doge of Venice to a
+Florentine Agent respecting Pisa_, 1496, in Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti.
+Arch. Stor._ vii. i. p. 427.
+
+[289] Observe the expressions 'uomo singolare' and 'uomo unico' for the
+higher and highest stages of individual development.
+
+[290] By the year 1390 there was no longer any prevailing fashion of
+dress for men at Florence, each preferring to clothe himself in his own
+way. See the _Canzone_ of Franco Sacchetti: 'Contro alle nuove foggie'
+in the _Rime_, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 52.
+
+[291] At the close of the sixteenth century Montaigne draws the
+following parallel (_Essais_, l. iii. chap. 5, vol. iii. p. 367 of the
+Paris ed. 1816): 'Ils (les Italiens) ont plus communement des belles
+femmes et moins de laides que nous; mais des rares et excellentes
+beautés j'estime que nous allons à pair. Et j'en juge autant des
+esprits; de ceux de la commune façon, ils en ont beaucoup plus et
+evidemment; la brutalité y est sans comparaison plus rare; d'ames
+singulières et du plus hault estage, nous ne leur en debvons rien.'
+
+[292] And also of their wives, as is seen in the family of Sforza and
+among other North Italian rulers. Comp. in the work of Jacobus Phil.
+Bergomensis, _De Plurimis Claris Selectisque Mulieribus_, Ferrara, 1497,
+the lives of Battista Malatesta, Paola Gonzaga, Bona Lombarda, Riccarda
+of Este, and the chief women of the House of Sforza, Beatrice and
+others. Among them are more than one genuine virago, and in several
+cases natural gifts are supplemented by great humanistic culture. (See
+below, chap. 3 and part v.)
+
+[293] Franco Sacchetti, in his 'Capitolo' (_Rime_, publ. dal Poggiali,
+p. 56), enumerates about 1390 the names of over a hundred distinguished
+people in the ruling parties who had died within his memory. However
+many mediocrities there may have been among them, the list is still
+remarkable as evidence of the awakening of individuality. On the 'Vite'
+of Filippo Villani, see below.
+
+[294] _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_ forms a part of the work:
+_La Cura della Famiglia_ (_Opere Volg. di Leon Batt. Alberti_, publ. da
+Anicio Bonucci, Flor. 1844, vol. ii.). See there vol. i. pp. xxx.-xl.,
+vol. ii. pp. xxxv. sqq. and vol. v. pp. 1-127. Formerly the work was
+generally, as in the text, attributed to Agnolo Pandolfini (d. 1446; see
+on him _Vesp. Fiorent._, pp. 291 and 379); the recent investigations of
+Fr. Palermo (Florence 1871), have shown Alberti to be the author. The
+work is quoted from the ed. Torino, Pomba, 1828.
+
+[295] Trattato, p. 65 sqq.
+
+[296] Jov. Pontanus, _De Fortitudine_, l. ii. cap. 4, 'De tolerando
+Exilio,' Seventy years later, Cardanus (_De Vitâ Propriâ_, cap. 32)
+could ask bitterly: 'Quid est patria nisi consensus tyrannorum minutorum
+ad opprimendos imbelles timidos et qui plerumque sunt innoxii?'
+
+[297] _De Vulgari Eloquio_, lib. i. cap. 6. On the ideal Italian
+language, cap. 17. The spiritual unity of cultivated men, cap. 18. On
+home-sickness, comp. the famous passages, _Purg._ viii. 1 sqq., and
+_Parad._ xxv. 1 sqq.
+
+[298] _Dantis Alligherii Epistolae_, ed. Carolus Witte, p. 65.
+
+[299] Ghiberti, _Secondo Commentario_, cap. xv. (Vasari ed Lemonnier, i.
+p. xxix.).
+
+[300] _Codri Urcei Vita_, at the end of his works, first pub. Bologna
+1502. This certainly comes near the old saying: 'ubi bene, ibi patria.'
+C. U. was not called after the place of his birth, but after Forli,
+where he lived long; see Malagola, _Codro Urceo_, Bologna, 1877, cap. v.
+and app. xi. The abundance of neutral intellectual pleasure, which is
+independent of local circumstances, and of which the educated Italians
+became more and more capable, rendered exile more tolerable to them.
+Cosmopolitanism is further a sign of an epoch in which new worlds are
+discovered, and men feel no longer at home in the old. We see it among
+the Greeks after the Peloponnesian war; Plato, as Niebuhr says, was not
+a good citizen, and Xenophon was a bad one; Diogenes went so far as to
+proclaim homelessness a pleasure, and calls himself, Laertius tells us,
+[Greek: apolis]. Here another remarkable work may be mentioned.
+Petrus Alcyonius in his book: _Medices Legatus de Exilio lib. duo_, Ven.
+1522 (printed in Mencken, _Analecta de Calam. Literatorum_, Leipzig,
+1707, pp. 1-250) devotes to the subject of exile a long and prolix
+discussion. He tries logically and historically to refute the three
+reasons for which banishment is held to be an evil, viz. 1. Because the
+exile must live away from his fatherland. 2. Because he loses the
+honours given him at home. 3. Because he must do without his friends and
+relatives; and comes finally to the conclusion that banishment is not an
+evil. His dissertation culminates in the words, 'Sapientissimus quisque
+omnem orbem terrarum unam urbem esse ducit. Atque etiam illam veram sibi
+esse patriam arbitratur quæ se perigrinantem exciperit, quæ pudorem,
+probitatem, virtutem colit, quæ optima studia, liberales disciplinas
+amplectitur, quæ etiam facit ut peregrini omnes honesto otio teneant
+statum et famam dignitatis suæ.'
+
+[301] This awakening of personality is also shown in the great stress
+laid on the independent growth of character, in the claim to shape the
+spiritual life for oneself, apart from parents and ancestors. Boccaccio
+(_De Cas. Vir. Ill._ Paris, s. a. fol. xxix. _b_) points out that
+Socrates came of uneducated, Euripides and Demosthenes of unknown,
+parents, and exclaims: 'Quasi animos a gignentibus habeamus!'
+
+[302] Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 16.
+
+[303] The angels which he drew on tablets at the anniversary of the
+death of Beatrice (_Vita Nuova_, p. 61) may have been more than the work
+of a dilettante. Lion. Aretino says he drew 'egregiamente,' and was a
+great lover of music.
+
+[304] For this and what follows, see esp. _Vespasiano Fiorentino_, an
+authority of the first order for Florentine culture in the fifteenth
+century Comp. pp. 359, 379, 401, etc. See, also, the charming and
+instructive _Vita Jannoctii Manetti_ (b. 1396), by Naldus Naldius, in
+Murat. xx. pp. 529-608.
+
+[305] What follows is taken, e.g., from Perticari's account of Pandolfo
+Collenuccio, in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi iii. pp. 197 sqq., and from
+the _Opere del Conte Perticari_, Mil. 1823, vol. ii.
+
+[306] For what follows compare Burckhardt, _Geschichte der Renaissance
+in Italien_, Stuttg. 1868, esp. p. 41 sqq., and A. Springer,
+_Abhandlungen zur neueren Kunstgeschichte_, Bonn, 1867, pp. 69-102. A
+new biography of Alberti is in course of preparation by Hub. Janitschek.
+
+[307] In Murat. xxv. col. 295 sqq., with the Italian translation in the
+_Opere Volgari di L. B. Alberti_, vol. i. pp. lxxxix-cix, where the
+conjecture is made and shown to be probable that this 'Vita' is by
+Alberti himself. See, further, Vasari, iv. 52 sqq. Mariano Socini, if we
+can believe what we read of him in Æn. Sylvius (_Opera_, p. 622,
+_Epist._ 112) was a universal dilettante, and at the same time a master
+in several subjects.
+
+[308] Similar attempts, especially an attempt at a flying-machine, had
+been made about 880 by the Andalusian Abul Abbas Kasim ibn Firnas. Comp.
+Gyangos, _The History of the Muhammedan Dynasties in Spain_ (London,
+1840), i. 148 sqq. and 425-7; extracts in Hammer, _Literaturgesch. der
+Araber_, i. Introd. p. li.
+
+[309] Quidquid ingenio esset hominum cum quadam effectum elegantia, id
+prope divinum ducebat.
+
+[310] This is the book (comp. p. 185, note 2) of which one part, often
+printed alone, long passed for a work of Pandolfini.
+
+[311] In his work, _De Re Ædificatoria_, l. viii. cap. i., there is a
+definition of a beautiful road: 'Si modo mare, modo montes, modo lacum
+fluentem fontesve, modo aridam rupem aut planitiem, modo nemus vallemque
+exhibebit.'
+
+[312] One writer among many: Blondus, _Roma Triumphans_, l. v. pp. 117
+sqq., where the definitions of glory are collected from the ancients,
+and the desire of it is expressly allowed to the Christian. Cicero's
+work, _De Gloria_, which Petrarch claimed to own, was stolen from him by
+his teacher Convenevole, and has never since been seen. Alberti, in a
+youthful composition when he was only twenty years of age, praises the
+desire of fame. _Opere_, vol. i. pp. cxxvii-clxvi.
+
+[313] _Paradiso_, xxv. at the beginning: 'Se mai continga,' &c. See
+above, p. 133, note 2. Comp. Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 49.
+'Vaghissimo fu e d'onore e di pompa, e per avventura più che alla sua
+inclita virtù non si sarebbe richiesto.'
+
+[314] _De Vulgari Eloquio_, l. i. cap. i. and esp. _De Monarchia_, l. i.
+cap. i., where he wishes to set forth the idea of monarchy not only in
+order to be useful to the world but also 'ut palmam tanti bravii primus
+in meam gloriam adipiscar.'
+
+[315] _Convito_, ed. Venezia, 1529, fol. 5 and 6.
+
+[316] _Paradiso_, vi. 112 sqq.
+
+[317] E.g. _Inferno_, vi. 89; xiii. 53; xvi. 85; xxxi. 127.
+
+[318] _Purgatorio_, v. 70, 87, 133; vi. 26; viii. 71; xi. 31; xiii. 147.
+
+[319] _Purgatorio_, xi. 85-117. Besides 'gloria' we here find close
+together 'grido, fama, rumore, nominanza, onore' all different names for
+the same thing. Boccaccio wrote, as he admits in his letter to Joh.
+Pizinga (_Op. Volg._ xvi. 30 sqq.) 'perpetuandi nominis desiderio'.
+
+[320] Scardeonius, _De Urb. Patav. Antiqu._ (Græv. _Thesaur._ vi. iii.
+col. 260). Whether 'cereis' or 'certis muneribus' should be the reading,
+cannot be said. The somewhat solemn nature of Mussatus can be recognised
+in the tone of his history of Henry VII.
+
+[321] Franc. Petrarca, _Posteritati_, or _Ad Posteros_, at the beginning
+of the editions of his works, or the only letter of Book xviii. of the
+_Epp. Seniles_; also in Fracassetti, _Petr. Epistolæ Familiares_, 1859,
+i. 1-11. Some modern critics of Petrarch's vanity would hardly have
+shown as much kindness and frankness had they been in his place.
+
+[322] _Opera_, ed. 1581, p. 177: 'De celebritate nominis importuna.'
+Fame among the mass of people was specially offensive to him. _Epp.
+Fam._ i. 337, 340. In Petrarch, as in many humanists of the older
+generation, we can observe the conflict between the desire for glory and
+the claims of Christian humility.
+
+[323] 'De Remediis Utriusque Fortunæ' in the editions of the works.
+Often printed separately, e.g. Bern, 1600. Compare Petrarch's famous
+dialogue, 'De Contemptu Mundi' or 'De Conflictu Curarum Suarum,' in
+which the interlocutor Augustinus blames the love of fame as a damnable
+fault.
+
+[324] _Epp. Fam._ lib. xviii. (ed. Fracassetti) 2. A measure of
+Petrarch's fame is given a hundred years later by the assertion of
+Blondus (_Italia Illustrata_, p. 416) that hardly even a learned man
+would know anything of Robert the Good if Petrarch had not spoken of him
+so often and so kindly.
+
+[325] It is to be noted that even Charles IV., perhaps influenced by
+Petrarch, speaks in a letter to the historian Marignola of fame as the
+object of every striving man. H. Friedjung, _Kaiser Karl IV. und sein
+Antheil am geistigen Leben seiner Zeit_, Vienna, 1876, p. 221.
+
+[326] _Epist. Seniles_, xiii. 3, to Giovanni Aretino, Sept. 9, 1370.
+
+[327] Filippo Villani, _Vite_, p. 19
+
+[328] Both together in the epitaph on Boccaccio: 'Nacqui in Firenze al
+Pozzo Toscanelli; Di fuor sepolto a Certaldo giaccio,' &c. Comp. _Op.
+Volg. di Boccaccio_, xvi. 44.
+
+[329] Mich. Savonarola, _De Laudibus Patavii_, in Murat. xxiv. col.
+1157. Arquà remained from thenceforth the object of special veneration
+(comp. Ettore Conte Macola, _I Codici di Arquà_, Padua, 1874), and was
+the scene of great solemnities at the fifth centenary of Petrarch's
+death. His dwelling is said to have been lately given to the city of
+Padua by the last owner, Cardinal Silvestri.
+
+[330] The decree of 1396 and its grounds in Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. 123.
+
+[331] Reumont, _Lorenzo de' Medici_, ii. 180.
+
+[332] Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 39.
+
+[333] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 121.
+
+[334] The former in the well-known sarcophagus near San Lorenzo, the
+latter over a door in the Palazzo della Ragione. For details as to their
+discovery in 1413, see Misson, _Voyage en Italie_, vol. i., and Michele
+Savonarola, col. 1157.
+
+[335] _Vita di Dante_, l. c. How came the body of Cassius from Philippi
+back to Parma?
+
+[336] 'Nobilitatis fastu' and 'sub obtentu religionis,' says Pius II.
+(_Comment._ x. p. 473). The new sort of fame must have been inconvenient
+to those who were accustomed to the old.
+
+That Carlo Malatesta caused the statue of Virgil to be pulled down and
+thrown into the Mincio, and this, as he alleged, from anger at the
+veneration paid to it by the people of Mantua, is a well-authenticated
+fact, specially attested by an invective written in 1397 by P. P.
+Vergerio against C. M., _De dirutâ Statuâ Virgilii P. P. V.
+eloquentissimi Oratoris Epistola ex Tugurio Blondi sub Apolline_, ed. by
+Marco Mantova Benavides (publ. certainly before 1560 at Padua). From
+this work it is clear that till then the statue had not been set up
+again. Did this happen in consequence of the invective? Bartholomæus
+Facius (_De Vir. Ill._ p. 9 sqq. in the Life of P. P. V. 1456) says it
+did, 'Carolum Malatestam invectus Virgilii statua, quam ille Mantuæ in
+foro everterat, quoniam gentilis fuerat, ut ibidem restitueretur,
+effecit;' but his evidence stands alone. It is true that, so far as we
+know, there are no contemporary chronicles for the history of Mantua at
+that period (Platina, _Hist. Mant._ in Murat. xx. contains nothing about
+the matter), but later historians are agreed that the statue was not
+restored. See for evidence, Prendilacqua, _Vita di Vitt. da Feltre_,
+written soon after 1446 (ed. 1871, p. 78), where the destruction but not
+the restoration of the statue is spoken of, and the work of Ant.
+Possevini, jun. (_Gonzaga_, Mantua, 1628), where, p. 486, the pulling
+down of the statue, the murmurings and violent opposition of the people,
+and the promise given in consequence by the prince that he _would_
+restore it, are all mentioned, with the addition: 'Nec tamen restitutus
+est Virgilius.' Further, on March 17, 1499, Jacopo d'Hatry writes to
+Isabella of Este, that he has spoken with Pontano about a plan of the
+princess to raise a statue to Virgil at Mantua, and that Pontano cried
+out with delight that Vergerio, if he were alive, would be even more
+pleased 'che non se attristò quando el Conte Carola Malatesta persuase
+abuttare la statua di Virgilio nel flume.' The writer then goes on to
+speak of the manner of setting it up, of the inscription 'P. Virgilius
+Mantuanus' and 'Isabella Marchionissa Mantuæ restituit,' and suggests
+that Andrea Mantegna would be the right man to be charged with the work.
+Mantegna did in fact make the drawings for it. (The drawing and the
+letter in question are given in Baschet, _Recherches de documents d'art
+et d'histoire dans les Archives de Mantoue; documents inédits concernant
+la personne et les oeuvres d'Andrea Mantegna_, in the _Gazette des
+Beaux-Arts_, xx. (1866) 478-492, esp. 486 sqq.) It is clear from this
+letter that Carlo Malatesta did not have the statue restored. In
+Comparetti's work on Virgil in the Middle Ages, the story is told after
+Burckhardt, but without authorities. Dr. Geiger, on the authority of
+Professor Paul of Berlin, distinguishes between C. Cassius Longinus and
+Cassius Parmensis, the poet, both among the assassins of Cæsar.
+
+[337] Comp. Keyssler's _Neueste Reisen_, p. 1016.
+
+[338] The elder was notoriously a native of Verona.
+
+[339] This is the tone of the remarkable work, _De Laudibus Papiæ_, in
+Murat. xx., dating from the fourteenth century--much municipal pride,
+but no idea of personal fame.
+
+[340] _De Laudibus Patavii_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1138 sqq. Only three
+cities, in his opinion--could be compared with Padua--Florence, Venice
+and Rome.
+
+[341] 'Nam et veteres nostri tales aut divos aut æternâ memoriâ dignos
+non immerito prædicabant, quum virtus summa sanctitatis sit consocia et
+pari ematur pretio.' What follows is most characteristic: 'Hos itaque
+meo facili judicio æternos facio.'
+
+[342] Similar ideas occur in many contemporary writers. Codrus Urceus,
+_Sermo_ xiii. (_Opp._ 1506, fol. xxxviii. _b_), speaking of Galeazzo
+Bentivoglio, who was both a scholar and a warrior, 'Cognoscens artem
+militarem esse quidem excellentem, sed literas multo certe
+excellentiores.'
+
+[343] What follows immediately is not, as the editor remarks (Murat.
+xxiv col. 1059, note), from the pen of Mich. Savonarola.
+
+[344] Petrarch, in the 'Triumph' here quoted, only dwells on characters
+of antiquity, and in his collection, _De Rebus Memorandis_, has little
+to say of contemporaries. In the _Casus Virorum Illustrium_ of Boccaccio
+(among the men a number of women, besides Philippa Catinensis treated of
+at the end, are included, and even the goddess Juno is described), only
+the close of the eighth book and the last book--the ninth--deal with
+non-classical times. Boccaccio's remarkable work, _De Claris
+Mulieribus_, treats also almost exclusively of antiquity. It begins with
+Eve, speaks then of ninety-seven women of antiquity, and seven of the
+Middle ages, beginning with Pope Joan and ending with Queen Johanna of
+Naples. And so at a much later time in the _Commentarii Urbani_ of
+Ralph. Volaterranus. In the work _De Claris Mulieribus_ of the
+Augustinian Jacobus Bergomensis (printed 1497, but probably published
+earlier) antiquity and legend hold the chief place, but there are still
+some valuable biographies of Italian women. There are one or two lives
+of contemporary women by Vespasiano da Bisticci (_Arch. Stor. Ital._ iv.
+i. pp. 430 sqq.). In Scardeonius (_De Urb. Patav. Antiqu. Græv.
+Thesaur._ vi. iii. col. 405 sqq.,) only famous Paduan women are
+mentioned. First comes a legend or tradition from the time of the fall
+of the empire, then tragical stories of the party struggles of the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; then notices of several heroic
+women; then the foundress of nunneries, the political woman, the female
+doctor, the mother of many and distinguished sons, the learned woman,
+the peasant girl who dies defending her chastity; then the cultivated
+beauty of the sixteenth century, on whom everybody writes sonnets; and
+lastly, the female novelist and poet at Padua. A century later the
+woman-professor would have been added to these. For the famous woman of
+the House of Este, see Ariosto, _Orl._ xiii.
+
+[345] Bartolommeo Facio and Paolo Cortese. B. F. _De Viris Illustribus
+Liber_, was first published by L. Mehus (Florence, 1745). The book was
+begun by the author (known by other historical works, and resident at
+the court of Alfonso of Naples) after he had finished the history of
+that king (1455), and ended, as references to the struggles of Hungary
+and the writer's ignorance of the elevation of Æneas Silvius to the
+cardinalate show, in 1456. (See, nevertheless, Wahlen, _Laurentii Vallæ
+Opuscula Tria_, Vienna, 1869, p. 67, note 1.) It is never quoted by
+contemporaries, and seldom by later writers. The author wishes in this
+book to describe the famous men, 'ætatis memoriæque nostræ,' and
+consequently only mentions such as were born in the last quarter of the
+fourteenth century, and were still living in, or had died shortly
+before, the middle of the fifteenth. He chiefly limits himself to
+Italians, except in the case of artists or princes, among the latter of
+whom he includes the Emperor Sigismund and Albrecht Achilles of
+Brandenburg; and in arranging the various biographies he neither follows
+chronological order nor the distinction which the subject of each
+attained, but puts them down 'ut quisque mihi occurrerit,' intending to
+treat in a second part of those whom he might have left out in the
+first. He divides the famous men into nine classes, nearly all of them
+prefaced by remarks on their distinctive qualities: 1. Poets; 2.
+Orators; 3. Jurists; 4. Physicians (with a few philosophers and
+theologians, as an appendix); 5. Painters; 6. Sculptors; 7. Eminent
+citizens; 8. Generals; 9. Princes and kings. Among the latter he treats
+with special fulness and care of Pope Nicholas V. and King Alfonso of
+Naples. In general he gives only short and mostly eulogistic
+biographies, confined in the case of princes and soldiers to the list of
+their deeds, and of artists and writers to the enumeration of their
+works. No attempt is made at a detailed description or criticism of
+these; only with regard to a few works of art which he had himself seen
+he writes more fully. Nor is any attempt made at an estimate of
+individuals; his heroes either receive a few general words of praise, or
+must be satisfied with the mere mention of their names. Of himself the
+author says next to nothing. He states only that Guarino was his
+teacher, that Manetti wrote a book on a subject which he himself had
+treated, that Bracellius was his countryman, and that the painter Pisano
+of Verona was known to him (pp. 17, 18, 19, 48; but says nothing in
+speaking of Laurentius Valla of his own violent quarrels with this
+scholar. On the other hand, he does not fail to express his piety and
+his hatred to the Turks (p. 64), to relieve his Italian patriotism by
+calling the Swiss barbarians (p. 60), and to say of P. P. Vergerius,
+'dignus qui totam in Italia vitam scribens exegisset' (p. 9).
+
+Of all celebrities he evidently sets most store by the scholars, and
+among these by the 'oratores,' to whom he devotes nearly a third of his
+book. He nevertheless has great respect for the jurists, and shows a
+special fondness for the physicians, among whom he well distinguishes
+the theoretical from the practical, relating the successful diagnoses
+and operations of the latter. That he treats of theologians and
+philosophers in connection with the physicians, is as curious as that he
+should put the painters immediately after the physicians, although, as
+he says, they are most allied to the poets. In spite of his reverence
+for learning, which shows itself in the praise given to the princes who
+patronised it, he is too much of a courtier not to register the tokens
+of princely favour received by the scholars he speaks of, and to
+characterise the princes in the introduction to the chapters devoted to
+them as those who 'veluti corpus membra, ita omnia genera quæ supra
+memoravimus, regunt ac tuentur.'
+
+The style of the book is simple and unadorned, and the matter of it full
+of instruction, notwithstanding its brevity. It is a pity that Facius
+did not enter more fully into the personal relations and circumstances
+of the men whom he described, and did not add to the list of their
+writings some notice of the contents and the value of them.
+
+The work of Paolo Cortese (b. 1645, d. 1510), _De Hominibus Doctis
+Dialogus_ (first ed. Florence, 1734), is much more limited in its
+character. This work, written about 1490, since it mentions Antonius
+Geraldinus as dead, who died in 1488, and was dedicated to Lorenzo de'
+Medici, who died in 1492, is distinguished from that of Facius, written
+a generation earlier, not only by the exclusion of all who are not
+learned men, but by various inward and outward characteristics. First by
+the form, which is that of a dialogue between the author and his two
+companions, Alexander Farnese and Antonius, and by the digressions and
+unequal treatment of the various characters caused thereby; and secondly
+by the manner of the treatment itself. While Facius only speaks of the
+men of his own time, Cortese treats only of the dead, and in part of
+those long dead, by which he enlarges his circle more than he narrows it
+by exclusion of the living; while Facius merely chronicles works and
+deeds, as if they were unknown, Cortese criticises the literary activity
+of his heroes as if the reader were already familiar with it. This
+criticism is shaped by the humanistic estimate of eloquence, according
+to which no man could be considered of importance unless he had achieved
+something remarkable in eloquence, _i.e._ in the classical, Ciceronian
+treatment of the Latin language. On this principle Dante and Petrarch
+are only moderately praised, and are blamed for having diverted so much
+of their powers from Latin to Italian; Guarino is described as one who
+had beheld perfect eloquence at least through a cloud; Lionardo Aretino
+as one who had offered his contemporaries 'aliquid splendidius;' and
+Enea Silvio as he 'in quo primum apparuit mutati sæculi signum.' This
+point of view prevailed over all others; never perhaps was it held so
+one-sidedly as by Cortese. To get a notion of his way of thinking we
+have only to hear his remarks on a predecessor, also the compiler of a
+great biographical collection, Sicco Polentone: 'Ejus sunt viginti ad
+filium libri scripti de claris scriptoribus, utiles admodum qui jam fere
+ab omnibus legi sent desiti. Est enim in judicando parum acer, nec
+servit aurium voluptati quum tractat res ab aliis ante tractatas; sed
+hoc ferendum. Illud certe molestum est, dum alienis verbis sententiisque
+scripta infarcit et explet sua; ex quo nascitur maxime vitiosum
+scribendi genus, quum modo lenis et candidus, modo durus et asper
+apparcat, et sic in toto genere tanquam in unum agrum plura inter se
+inimicissima sparsa semina.'
+
+All are not treated with so much detail; most are disposed of in a few
+brief sentences; some are merely named without a word being added. Much
+is nevertheless to be learned from his judgments, though we may not be
+able always to agree with them. We cannot here discuss him more fully,
+especially as many of his most characteristic remarks have been already
+made use of; on the whole, they give us a clear picture of the way in
+which a later time, outwardly more developed, looked down with critical
+scorn upon an earlier age, inwardly perhaps richer, but externally less
+perfect.
+
+Facius, the author of the first-mentioned biographical work, is spoken
+of, but not his book. Like Facius, Cortese is the humble courtier,
+looking on Lorenzo de' Medici as Facius looked on Alfonso of Naples;
+like him, he is a patriot who only praises foreign excellence
+unwillingly and because he must; adding the assurance that he does not
+wish to oppose his own country (p. 48, speaking of Janus Pannonius).
+
+Information as to Cortese has been collected by Bernardus Paperinius,
+the editor of his work; we may add that his Latin translation of the
+novel of L. B. Alberti, _Hippolytus and Dejanira_, is printed for the
+first time in the _Opere di L. B. A._ vol. iii. pp. 439-463.
+
+[346] How great the fame of the humanists was is shown by the fact that
+impostors attempted to make capital out of the use of their names. There
+thus appeared at Verona a man strangely clad and using strange gestures,
+who, when brought before the mayor, recited with great energy passages
+of Latin verse and prose, taken from the works of Panormita, answered in
+reply to the questions put to him that he was himself Panormita, and was
+able to give so many small and commonly unknown details about the life
+of this scholar, that his statement obtained general credit. He was then
+treated with great honour by the authorities and the learned men of the
+city, and played his assumed part successfully for a considerable time,
+until Guarino and others who knew Panormita personally discovered the
+fraud. Comp. Rosmini, _Vita di Guarino_, ii. 44 sqq., 171 sqq. Few of
+the humanists were free from the habit of boasting. Codrus Urceus
+(_Vita_, at the end of the _Opera_, 1506, fol. lxx.), when asked for his
+opinion about this or that famous man, used to answer: 'Sibi scire
+videntur.' Barth. Facius, _De Vir. Ill._ p. 31, tells of the jurist
+Antonius Butriensis: 'Id unum in eo viro notandum est, quod neminem
+unquam, adeo excellere homines in eo studio volebat, ut doctoratu dignum
+in examine comprobavit.'
+
+[347] A Latin poet of the twelfth century, one of the wandering scholars
+who barters his song for a coat, uses this as a threat. _Carmina
+Burana_, p. 76.
+
+[348] Sonnet cli: Lasso ch'i ardo.
+
+[349] Boccaccio, _Opere Volgari_, vol. xvi. in Sonnet 13: Pallido,
+vinto, etc.
+
+[350] Elsewhere, and in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, iv. 203.
+
+[351] _Angeli Politiani Epp._ lib. x.
+
+[352] Quatuor navigationes, etc. Deodatum (_St. Dié_), 1507. Comp. O.
+Peschel, _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, 1859, ed. 2,
+1876.
+
+[353] Paul. Jov. _De Romanis Piscibus_, Præfatio (1825). The first
+decade of his histories would soon be published, 'non sine aliqua spe
+immortalitatis.'
+
+[354] Comp. _Discorsi_, i. 27. 'Tristizia' (crime) can have 'grandezza'
+and be 'in alcuna parte generosa'; 'grandezza' can take away 'infamia'
+from a deed; a man can be 'onorevolmente tristo' in contrast to one who
+is 'perfettamente buono.'
+
+[355] _Storie Fiorentine_, l. vi.
+
+[356] Paul. Jov. _Elog. Vir. Lit. Ill._ p. 192, speaking of Marius
+Molsa.
+
+[357] Mere railing is found very early, in Benzo of Alba, in the
+eleventh century (_Mon. Germ._ ss. xi. 591-681).
+
+[358] The Middle Ages are further rich in so-called satirical poems; but
+the satire is not individual, but aimed at classes, categories, and
+whole populations, and easily passes into the didactic tone. The whole
+spirit of this literature is best represented by _Reineke Fuchs_, in all
+its forms among the different nations of the West. For this branch of
+French literature see a new and admirable work by Lenient, _La Satire en
+France au Moyen-âge_, Paris, 1860, and the equally excellent
+continuation, _La Satire en France, ou la littérature militante, au
+XVIe Siècle_, Paris, 1866.
+
+[359] See above, p. 7 note 2. Occasionally we find an insolent joke,
+nov. 37.
+
+[360] _Inferno_, xxi. xxii. The only possible parallel is with
+Aristophanes.
+
+[361] A modest beginning _Opera_, p. 421, sqq., in _Rerum Memorandarum
+Libri IV._ Again, in _Epp. Seniles_, x. 2. Comp. _Epp. Fam._ ed.
+Fracass. i. 68 sqq., 70, 240, 245. The puns have a flavour of their
+mediæval home, the monasteries. Petrarch's invectives 'contra Gallum,'
+'contra medicum objurgantem,' and his work, _De Sui Ipsius et Multorum
+Ignorantia_; perhaps also his _Epistolæ sine Titulo_,' may be quoted as
+early examples of satirical writing.
+
+[362] Nov. 40, 41; Ridolfo da Camerino is the man.
+
+[363] The well-known jest of Brunellesco and the fat wood-carver,
+Manetto Ammanatini, who is said to have fled into Hungary before the
+ridicule he encountered, is clever but cruel.
+
+[364] The 'Araldo' of the Florentine Signoria. One instance among many,
+_Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi_, iii. 651, 669. The fool as
+necessary to enliven the company after dinner; Alcyonius, _De Exilio_,
+ed. Mencken, p. 129.
+
+[365] Sacchetti, nov. 48. And yet, according to nov. 67, there was an
+impression that a Romagnole was superior to the worst Florentine.
+
+[366] L. B. Alberti, _Del Governo della Famiglia, Opere_, ed. Bonucci,
+v. 171. Comp. above, p. 132, note 1.
+
+[367] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 156; comp. 24 for Dolcibene and the Jews.
+(For Charles IV. and the fools, _Friedjung_, o.c. p. 109.) The _Facetiæ_
+of Poggio resemble Sacchetti's in substance--practical jokes,
+impertinences, refined indecency misunderstood by simple folk; the
+philologist is betrayed by the large number of verbal jokes. On L. A.
+Alberti, see pp. 136, sqq.
+
+[368] And consequently in those novels of the Italians whose subject is
+taken from them.
+
+[369] According to Bandello, iv. nov. 2, Gonnella could twist his
+features into the likeness of other people, and mimic all the dialects
+of Italy.
+
+[370] Paul. Jov. _Vita Leonis X._
+
+[371] 'Erat enim Bibiena mirus artifex hominibus ætate vel professione
+gravibus ad insaniam impellendis.' We are here reminded of the jests of
+Christine of Sweden with her philologists. Comp. the remarkable passage
+of Jovian. Pontanus, _De Sermone_, lib. ii. cap. 9: 'Ferdinandus Alfonsi
+filius, Neapolitanorum rex magnus et ipse fuit artifex et vultus
+componendi et orationes in quem ipse usus vellet. Nam ætatis nostri
+Pontifices maximi fingendis vultibus ac verbis vel histriones ipsos
+anteveniunt.
+
+[372] The eye-glass I not only infer from Rafael's portrait, where it
+can be explained as a magnifier for looking at the miniatures in the
+prayer-book, but from a statement of Pellicanus, according to which Leo
+views an advancing procession of monks through a 'specillum' (comp.
+_Züricher Taschenbuch_ for 1858, p. 177), and from the 'cristallus
+concava,' which, according to Giovio, he used when hunting. (Comp.
+'Leonis X. vita auctore anon, conscripta' in the Appendix to Roscoe.) In
+Attilius Alessius (Baluz. _Miscell._ iv. 518) we read, 'Oculari ex
+gemina (gemma?) utebatur quam manu gestans, signando aliquid videndum
+esset, oculis admovebat.' The shortsightedness in the family of the
+Medici was hereditary. Lorenzo was shortsighted, and replied to the
+Sienese Bartolommeo Soccini, who said that the air of Florence was bad
+for the eyes: 'E quella di Siena al cervello.' The bad sight of Leo X.
+was proverbial. After his election, the Roman wits explained the number
+MCCCCXL. engraved in the Vatican as follows: 'Multi cæci Cardinales
+creaverunt cæcum decimum Leonem.' Comp. Shepherd-Tonelli, _Vita del
+Poggio_, ii. 23, sqq., and the passages there quoted.
+
+[373] We find it also in plastic art, e.g., in the famous plate
+parodying the group of the Laöcoon as three monkeys. But here parody
+seldom went beyond sketches and the like, though much, it is true, may
+have been destroyed. Caricature, again, is something different.
+Lionardo, in the grotesque faces in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana,
+represents what is hideous when and because it is comical, and
+exaggerates the ludicrous element at pleasure.
+
+[374] Jovian. Pontan. _De Sermone_, libri v. He attributes a special
+gift of wit to the Sienese and Peruginese, as well as to the
+Florentines, adding the Spanish court as a matter of politeness.
+
+[375] _Il Cortigiano_, lib. ii. cap. 4 sqq., ed. Baude di Vesme,
+Florence, 1854, pp. 124 sqq. For the explanation of wit as the effect of
+contrast, though not clearly put, see _ibid._ cap. lxxiii. p. 136.
+
+[376] Pontanus, _De Sermone_, lib. iv. cap. 3, also advises people to
+abstain from using 'ridicula' either against the miserable or the
+strong.
+
+[377] _Galateo del Casa_, ed. Venez. 1789, p. 26 sqq. 48.
+
+[378] _Lettere Pittoriche_, i. p. 71, in a letter of Vinc. Borghini,
+1577. Macchiavelli (_Stor. Fior._ vii. cap. 28) says of the young
+gentlemen in Florence soon after the middle of the fifteenth century:
+'Gli studî loro erano apparire col vestire splendidi, e col parlare
+sagaci ed astuti, e quello che più destramente mordeva gli altri, era
+più savio e da più stimato.'
+
+[379] Comp. Fedra Inghirami's funeral oration on Ludovico Podocataro (d.
+Aug. 25, 1504) in the _Anecd. Litt._ i. p. 319. The scandal-monger
+Massaino is mentioned in Paul. Jov. _Dialogues de Viris Litt. Illustr._
+(Tiraboschi, tom. vii. parte iv. p. 1631).
+
+[380] This was the plan followed by Leo X., and his calculations were
+not disappointed. Fearfully as his reputation was mangled after his
+death by the satirists, they were unable to modify the general estimate
+formed of him.
+
+[381] This was probably the case with Cardinal Ardicino della Porta, who
+in 1491 wished to resign his dignity and take refuge in a monastery. See
+Infessura, in Eccard. ii. col. 2000.
+
+[382] See his funeral oration in the _Anecd. Litt._ iv. p. 315. He
+assembled an army of peasants in the March of Aneona, which was only
+hindered from acting by the treason of the Duke of Urbino. For his
+graceful and hopeless love-poems, see Trucchi, _Poesie Inedite_, iii.
+123.
+
+[383] How he used his tongue at the table of Clement VII. is told in
+Giraldi, _Hecatomithi_, vii. nov. 5.
+
+[384] The charge of taking into consideration the proposal to drown
+Pasquino (in Paul. Jov. _Vita Hadriani_), is transferred from Sixtus IV.
+to Hadrian. Comp. _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 114 sqq., letter of Negro,
+dated April 7, 1523. On St. Mark's Day Pasquino had a special
+celebration, which the Pope forbade.
+
+[385] In the passages collected in Gregorovius, viii. 380 note, 381 sqq.
+393 sqq.
+
+[386] Comp. Pier. Valer. _De Infel. Lit._ ed. Mencken, p. 178.
+'Pestilentia quæ cum Adriano VI. invecta Romam invasit.'
+
+[387] E.g. Firenzuola, _Opera_ (Milano 1802), vol. i. p. 116, in the
+_Discorsi degli Animali_.
+
+[388] Comp. the names in Höfler, _Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Academie_
+(1876), vol. 82, p. 435.
+
+[389] The words of Pier. Valerian, _De Infel. Lit._ ed. Mencken, p. 382,
+are most characteristic of the public feeling at Rome: 'Ecce adest
+Musarum et eloquentiæ totiusque nitoris hostis acerrimis, qui literatis
+omnibus inimicitias minitaretur, quoniam, ut ipse dictitabat, Terentiani
+essent, quos quum odisse atque etiam persequi coepisset voluntarium alii
+exilium, alias atque alias alii latebras quærentes tam diu latuere quoad
+Deo beneficio altero imperii anno decessit, qui si aliquanto diutius
+vixisset, Gothica illa tempora adversus bonas literas videbatur
+suscitaturus.' The general hatred of Adrian was also due partly to the
+fact that in the great pecuniary difficulties in which he found himself
+he adopted the expedient of a direct tax. Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 411. It
+may here be mentioned that there were, nevertheless, poets to be found
+who praised Adrian. Comp. various passages in the _Coryciana_ (ed. Rome,
+1524), esp. J. J. 2_b_ sqq.
+
+[390] To the Duke of Ferrara, January 1, 1536 (_Lettere_, ed. 1539, fol.
+39): 'You will now journey from Rome to Naples,' 'ricreando la vista
+avvilita nel mirar le miserie pontificali con la contemplazione delle
+eccellenze imperiali.'
+
+[391] The fear which he caused to men of mark, especially artists, by
+these means, cannot be here described. The publicistic weapon of the
+German Reformation was chiefly the pamphlet dealing with events as they
+occurred; Aretino is a journalist in the sense that he has within
+himself a perpetual occasion for writing.
+
+[392] E.g. in the _Capitolo_ on Albicante, a bad poet; unfortunately the
+passages are unfit for quotation.
+
+[393] _Lettere_, ed. Venez. 1539, fol. 12, dated May 31, 1527.
+
+[394] In the first _Capitolo_ to Cosimo.
+
+[395] Gaye, _Carteggio_, ii. 332.
+
+[396] See the insolent letter of 1536 in the _Lettere Pittor._ i.
+Append. 34. See above, p. 142, for the house where Petrarch was born in
+Arezzo.
+
+[397]
+
+ L'Aretin, per Deo grazia, è vivo e sano,
+ Ma'l mostaccio ha fregiato nobilmente,
+ E più colpi ha, che dita in una mano.'
+ (Mauro, '_Capitolo in lode delle bugie._')
+
+
+[398] See e.g. the letter to the Cardinal of Lorraine, _Lettere_, ed.
+Venez. fol. 29, dated Nov. 21, 1534, and the letters to Charles V., in
+which he says that no man stands nearer to God than Charles.
+
+[399] For what follows, see Gaye, _Carteggio_, ii. 336, 337, 345.
+
+[400] _Lettere_, ed. Venez. 1539, fol. 15, dated June 16, 1529. Comp.
+another remarkable letter to M. A., dated April 15, 1528, fol. 212.
+
+[401] He may have done so either in the hope of obtaining the red hat or
+from fear of the new activity of the Inquisition, which he had ventured
+to attack bitterly in 1535 (l. c. fol. 37), but which, after the
+reorganisation of the institution in 1542, suddenly took a fresh start,
+and soon silenced every opposing voice.
+
+[402] [Carmina Burana, in the _Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins in
+Stuttgart_, vol. xvi. (Stuttg. 1847). The stay in Pavia (p. 68 _bis_),
+the Italian local references in general, the scene with the 'pastorella'
+under the olive-tree (p. 146), the mention of the 'pinus' as a shady
+field tree (p. 156), the frequent use of the word 'bravium' (pp. 137,
+144), and particularly the form Madii for Maji (p. 141), all speak in
+favour of our assumption.]
+
+The conjecture of Dr. Burckhardt that the best pieces of the _Carmina
+Burana_ were written by an Italian, is not tenable. The grounds brought
+forward in its support have little weight (e.g. the mention of Pavia:
+'Quis Paviæ demorans castus habeatur?' which can be explained as a
+proverbial expression, or referred to a short stay of the writer at
+Pavia), cannot, further, hold their own against the reasons on the other
+side, and finally lose all their force in view of the probable
+identification of the author. The arguments of O. Hubatsch _Die
+lateinischen Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters_, Görlitz, 1870, p. 87)
+against the Italian origin of these poems are, among others, the attacks
+on the Italian and praise of the German clergy, the rebukes of the
+southerners as a 'gens proterva,' and the reference to the poet as
+'transmontanus.' Who he actually was, however, is not clearly made out.
+That he bore the name of Walther throws no light upon his origin. He was
+formerly identified with Gualterus de Mapes, a canon of Salisbury and
+chaplain to the English kings at the end of the twelfth century; since,
+by Giesebrecht (_Die Vaganten oder Goliarden und ihre Lieder, Allgemeine
+Monatschrift_, 1855), with Walther of Lille or Chatillon, who passed
+from France into England and Germany, and thence possibly with the
+Archbishop Reinhold of Köln (1164 and 75) to Italy (Pavia, &c.). If this
+hypothesis, against which Hubatsch (l. c.) has brought forward certain
+objections, must be abandoned, it remains beyond a doubt that the origin
+of nearly all these songs is to be looked for in France, from whence
+they were diffused through the regular school which here existed for
+them over Germany, and there expanded and mixed with German phrases;
+while Italy, as Giesebrecht has shown, remained almost unaffected by
+this class of poetry. The Italian translator of Dr. Burckhardt's work,
+Prof. D. Valbusa, in a note to this passage (i. 235), also contests the
+Italian origin of the poem. [L. G.]
+
+[403] _Carm. Bur._ p. 155, only a fragment: the whole in Wright, _Walter
+Mapes_ (1841), p. 258. Comp. Hubatsch, p. 27 sqq., who points to the
+fact that a story often treated of in France is at the foundation. Æst.
+Inter. _Carm. Bur._ p. 67; Dum Dianæ, _Carm. Bur._ p. 124. Additional
+instances: 'Cor patet Jovi;' classical names for the loved one; once,
+when he calls her Blanciflor, he adds, as if to make up for it, the name
+of Helena.
+
+[404] In what way antiquity could serve as guide and teacher in all the
+higher regions of life, is briefly sketched by Æneas Sylvius (_Opera_,
+p. 603, in the _Epist._ 105, to the Archduke Sigismund).
+
+[405] For particulars we must refer the reader to Roscoe, _Lorenzo Mag._
+and _Leo X._, as well as to Voigt, _Enea Silvio_ (Berlin, 1856-63); to
+the works of Reumont and to Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom im
+Mittelalter_.
+
+To form a conception of the extent which studies at the beginning of the
+sixteenth century had reached, we cannot do better than turn to the
+_Commentarii Urbani_ of Raphael Volatterranus (ed. Basil, 1544, fol. 16,
+&c.). Here we see how antiquity formed the introduction and the chief
+matter of study in every branch of knowledge, from geography and local
+history, the lives of great and famous men, popular philosophy, morals
+and the special sciences, down to the analysis of the whole of Aristotle
+with which the work closes. To understand its significance as an
+authority for the history of culture, we must compare it with all the
+earlier encyclopædias. A complete and circumstantial account of the
+matter is given in Voigt's admirable work, _Die Wiederbelebung des
+classischen Alterthums_ oder _Das erste Jahrhundert der Humanismus_,
+Berlin, 1859.
+
+[406] In William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Regum Anglor_. l. ii. § 169, 170,
+205, 206 (ed. Lond. 1840, vol. i. p. 277 sqq. and p. 354 sqq.), we meet
+with the dreams of treasure-hunters, Venus as ghostly love, and the
+discovery of the gigantic body of Pallas, son of Evander, about the
+middle of the eleventh century. Comp. Jac. ab Aquis _Imago Mundi_
+(_Hist. Patr. Monum. Script._ t. iii. col. 1603), on the origin of the
+House of Colonna, with reference to the discovery of hidden treasure.
+Besides the tales of the treasure-seekers, William of Malmesbury
+mentions the elegy of Hildebert of Mans, Bishop of Tours, one of the
+most singular examples of humanistic enthusiasm in the first half of the
+twelfth century.
+
+[407] Dante, _Convito_, tratt. iv. cap. v.
+
+[408] _Epp. Familiares_, vi. 2; references to Rome before he had seen
+it, and expressions of his longing for the city, _Epp. Fam._ ed.
+Fracass. vol. i. pp. 125, 213; vol. ii. pp. 336 sqq. See also the
+collected references in L. Geiger, _Petrarca_, p. 272, note 3. In
+Petrarch we already find complaints of the many ruined and neglected
+buildings, which he enumerates one by one (_De Rem. Utriusque Fort._
+lib. i. dial. 118), adding the remark that many statues were left from
+antiquity, but no paintings (l. c. 41).
+
+[409] _Dittamondo_, ii. cap. 3. The procession reminds one at times of
+the three kings and their suite in the old pictures. The description of
+the city (ii. cap. 31) is not without archæological value (Gregorovius,
+vi. 697, note 1). According to Polistoro (Murat. xxiv. col. 845),
+Niccolò and Ugo of Este journeyed in 1366 to Rome, 'per vedere quelle
+magnificenze antiche, che al presente sipossono vedere in Roma.'
+
+[410] Gregorovius, v. 316 sqq. Parenthetically we may quote foreign
+evidence that Rome in the Middle Ages was looked upon as a quarry. The
+famous Abbot Sugerius, who about 1140 was in search of lofty pillars for
+the rebuilding of St. Denis, thought at first of nothing less then
+getting hold of the granite monoliths of the Baths of Diocletian, but
+afterwards changed his mind. See 'Sugerii Libellus Alter,' in Duchesne,
+_Hist. Franc. Scriptores_, iv. p. 352.
+
+[411] _Poggii Opera_, fol. 50 sqq. 'Ruinarum Urbis Romæ Descriptio,'
+written about 1430, shortly before the death of Martin V. The Baths of
+Caracalla and Diocletian had then their pillars and coating of marble.
+See Gregorovius, vi. 700-705.
+
+[412] Poggio appears as one of the earliest collectors of inscriptions,
+in his letter in the _Vita Poggii_, Muratori, xx. col. 177, and as
+collector of busts, (col. 183, and letter in Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 258).
+See also _Ambros. Traversarii Epistolæ_, xxv. 42. A little book which
+Poggio wrote on inscriptions seems to have been lost. Shepherd, _Life of
+Poggio_, trad. Tonelli, i. 154 sqq.
+
+[413] Fabroni, _Cosmus_, Adnot. 86. From a letter of Alberto degli
+Alberti to Giovanni Medici. See also Gregorovius, vii. 557. For the
+condition of Rome under Martin V., see Platina, p. 227; and during the
+absence of Eugenius IV., see Vespasiano Fiorent., p. 21.
+
+[414] _Roma Instaurata_, written in 1447, and dedicated to the Pope;
+first printed, Rome, 1474.
+
+[415] See, nevertheless, his distichs in Voigt, _Wiederbelebung des
+Alterthums_, p. 275, note 2. He was the first Pope who published a Bull
+for the protection of old monuments (4 Kal. Maj. 1462), with penalties
+in case of disobedience. But these measures were ineffective. Comp.
+Gregorovius, vii. pp. 558 sqq.
+
+[416] What follows is from Jo. Ant. Campanus, _Vita Pii II._, in
+Muratori, iii. ii. col. 980 sqq. _Pii II. Commentarii_, pp. 48, 72 sqq.,
+206, 248 sqq., 501, and elsewhere.
+
+[417] First dated edition, Brixen, 1482.
+
+[418] Boccaccio, _Fiammetta_, cap. 5. _Opere_, ed. Montier, vi. 91.
+
+[419] His work, _Cyriaci Anconitani Itinerarium_, ed. Mehus, Florence,
+1742. Comp. Leandro Alberti, _Descriz. di tutta l'Italia_, fol. 285.
+
+[420] Two instances out of many: the fabulous origin of Milan in
+Manipulus (Murat. xl. col. 552), and that of Florence in Gio. Villani
+(who here, as elsewhere, enlarges on the forged chronicle of Ricardo
+Malespini), according to which Florence, being loyally Roman in its
+sentiments, is always in the right against the anti-Roman rebellious
+Fiesole (i. 9, 38, 41; ii. 2). Dante, _Inf._ xv. 76.
+
+[421] _Commentarii_, p. 206, in the fourth book.
+
+[421A] Mich. Cannesius, _Vita Pauli II._, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 993.
+Towards even Nero, son of Domitius Ahenobarbus, the author will not be
+impolite, on account of his connection with the Pope. He only says of
+him, 'De quo verum Scriptores multa ac diversa commemorant.' The family
+of Plato in Milan went still farther, and nattered itself on its descent
+from the great Athenian. Filelfo in a wedding speech, and in an encomium
+on the jurist Teodoro Plato, ventured to make this assertion; and a
+Giovanantonio Plato put the inscription on a portrait in relief carved
+by him in 1478 (in the court of the Pal. Magenta at Milan): 'Platonem
+suum, a quo originem et ingenium refert.'
+
+[422] See on this point, Nangiporto, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1094;
+Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1951; Matarazzo, in the
+_Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 180. Nangiporto, however, admits that it was
+no longer possible to decide whether the corpse was male or female.
+
+[423] As early as Julius II. excavations were made in the hope of
+finding statues. Vasari, xi. p. 302, _V. di Gio. da Udine_. Comp.
+Gregorovius, viii. 186.
+
+[424] The letter was first attributed to Castiglione, _Lettere di Negozi
+del Conte Bald. Castiglione_, Padua, 1736 and 1769, but proved to be
+from the hand of Raphael by Daniele Francesconi in 1799. It is printed
+from a Munich MS. in Passavant, _Leben Raphael's_, iii. p. 44. Comp.
+Gruyer _Raphael et l'Antiquité_, 1864, i. 435-457.
+
+[425] _Lettere Pittoriche_, ii. 1, Tolomei to Landi, 14 Nov., 1542.
+
+[426] He tried 'curis animique doloribus quacunque ratione aditum
+intercludere;' music and lively conversation charmed him, and he hoped
+by their means to live longer. _Leonis X. Vita Anonyma_, in Roscoe, ed.
+Bossi, xii. p. 169.
+
+[427] This point is referred to in the _Satires_ of Ariosto. See the
+first ('Perc' ho molto,' &c.), and the fourth 'Poiche, Annibale').
+
+[428] Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 408 sqq. '_Lettere dei Principi_, p. 107.
+Letter of Negri, September 1, 1522 ... 'tutti questi cortigiani esausti
+da Papa Leone e falliti.' They avenged themselves after the death of Leo
+by satirical verses and inscriptions.
+
+[429] _Pii II. Commentarii_, p. 251 in the 5th book. Comp. Sannazaro's
+elegy, 'Ad Ruinas Cumarum urbis vetustissimæ' (_Opera_, fol. 236 sqq.).
+
+[430] Polifilo (i.e. Franciscus Columna) 'Hypnerotomachia, ubi humana
+omnia non nisi somnum esse docet atque obiter plurima scita sane quam
+digna commemorat,' Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1499. Comp. on this
+remarkable book and others, A. Didot, _Alde Manuce_, Paris, 1875, pp.
+132-142; and Gruyer, _Raphael et l'Antiquité_, i. pp. 191 sqq.; J.
+Burckhardt, _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien_, pp. 43 sqq., and
+the work of A. Ilg, Vienna, 1872.
+
+[431] While all the Fathers of the Church and all the pilgrims speak
+only of a cave. The poets, too, do without the palace. Comp. Sannazaro,
+_De Partu Virginis_, l. ii.
+
+[432] Chiefly from Vespasiano Fiorentine, in the first vol. of the
+_Spicileg. Romanum_, by Mai, from which edition the quotations in this
+book are made. New edition by Bartoli, Florence, 1859. The author was a
+Florentine bookseller and copying agent, about and after the middle of
+the fifteenth century.
+
+[433] Comp. Petr. _Epist. Fam._ ed. Fracass. l. xviii. 2, xxiv. 12, var.
+25, with the notes of Fracassetti in the Italian translation, vol. iv.
+92-101, v. 196 sqq., where the fragment of a translation of Homer before
+the time of Pilato is also given.
+
+[434] Forgeries, by which the passion for antiquity was turned to the
+profit or amusement of rogues, are well known to have been not uncommon.
+See the articles in the literary histories on Annius of Viterbo.
+
+[435] Vespas. Fiorent. p. 31. 'Tommaso da Serezana usava dire, che dua
+cosa farebbe, se egli potesse mai spendere, ch'era in libri e murare. E
+l'una e l'altra fece nel suo pontificato.' With respect to his
+translation, see Æen. Sylvius, _De Europa_, cap. 58, p. 459, and
+Papencordt, _Ges. der Stadt Rom._ p. 502. See esp. Voigt, op. cit. book
+v.
+
+[436] Vespas. Fior. pp. 48 and 658, 665. Comp. J. Manetti, _Vita Nicolai
+V._, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 925 sqq. On the question whether and how
+Calixtus III. partly dispersed the library again, see Vespas. Fiorent.
+p. 284, with Mai's note.
+
+[437] Vespas. Fior. pp. 617 sqq.
+
+[438] Vespas. Fior. pp. 457 sqq.
+
+[439] Vespas. Fiorent, p. 193. Comp. Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col.
+1185 sqq.
+
+[440] How the matter was provisionally treated is related in Malipiero,
+_Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor._ vii. ii. pp. 653, 655.
+
+[441] Vespas. Fior. pp. 124 sqq., and 'Inventario della Libreria
+Urbinata compilata nel Secolo XV. da Federigo Veterano, bibliotecario di
+Federigo I. da Montefeltro Duca d'Urbino,' given by C. Guasti in tbe
+_Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani_, vi. (1862), 127-147 and vii.
+(1863) 46-55, 130-154. For contemporary opinions on the library, see
+Favre, _Mélanges d'Hist. Lit._ i. 127, note 6. The following is the
+substance of Dr. Geiger's remarks on the subject of the old authors:--
+
+For the Medicean Library comp. _Delle condicioni e delle vicende della
+libreria medicea privata dal 1494 al 1508 ricerche di Enea Piccolomini_,
+Arch. stor. ital., 265 sqq., 3 serie, vol. xix. pp. 101-129,254-281, xx.
+51-94, xxi. 102-112, 282-296. Dr. Geiger does not undertake an estimate
+of the relative values of the various rare and almost unknown works
+contained in the library, nor is he able to state where they are now to
+be found. He remarks that information as to Greece is much fuller than
+as to Italy, which is a characteristic mark of the time. The catalogue
+contains editions of the Bible, of single books of it, with text and
+annotations, also Greek and Roman works in their then most complete
+forms, together with some Hebrew books--_tractatus quidam rabbinorum
+hebr._--with much modern work, chiefly in Latin, and with not a little
+in Italian.
+
+Dr. Geiger doubts the absolute accuracy of Vespasiano Fiorentino's
+catalogue of the library at Urbino. See the German edition, i. 313, 314.
+[S.G.C.M.]
+
+[442] Perhaps at the capture of Urbino by the troops of Cæsar Borgia.
+The existence of the manuscript has been doubted; but I cannot believe
+that Vespasiano would have spoken of the gnomic extracts from Menander,
+which do not amount to more than a couple of hundred verses, as 'tutte
+le opere,' nor have mentioned them in the list of comprehensive
+manuscripts, even though he had before him only our present Pindar and
+Sophocles. It is not inconceivable that this Menander may some day come
+to light.
+
+[The catalogue of the library at Urbino (see foregoing note), which
+dates back to the fifteenth century, is not perfectly in accordance with
+Vespasiano's report, and with the remarks of Dr. Burckhardt upon it. As
+an official document, it deserves greater credit than Vespasiano's
+description, which, like most of his descriptions, cannot be acquitted
+of a certain inaccuracy in detail and tendency to over-colouring. In
+this catalogue no mention is made of the manuscript of Menander. Mai's
+doubt as to its existence is therefore justified. Instead of 'all the
+works of Pindar,' we here find: 'Pindaris Olimpia et Pithia.' The
+catalogue makes no distinction between ancient and modern books,
+contains the works of Dante (among others, _Comoediæ Thusco Carmine_),
+and Boccaccio, in a very imperfect form; those of Petrarch, however, in
+all completeness. It may be added that this catalogue mentions many
+humanistic writings which have hitherto remained unknown and unprinted,
+that it contains collections of the privileges of the princes of
+Montefeltro, and carefully enumerates the dedications offered by
+translators or original writers to Federigo of Urbino.--L. G.]
+
+[443] For what follows and in part for what has gone before,
+see W. Wattenbach, _Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter_, 2nd. ed. Leipzig,
+1875, pp. 392 sqq., 405 sqq., 505. Comp. also the poem, _De Officio
+Scribæ_, of Phil. Beroaldus, who, however, is rather speaking of the
+public scrivener.]
+
+[444] When Piero de' Medici, at the death of Matthias Corvinus,
+the book-loving King of Hungary, declared that the 'scrittori' must now
+lower their charges, since they would otherwise find no further
+employment (Scil. except in Italy), he can only have meant the Greek
+copyists, as the caligraphists, to whom one might be tempted to refer
+his words, continued to be numerous throughout all Italy. Fabroni,
+_Laurent. Magn._ Adnot. 156 Comp. Adnot. 154.]
+
+[445] Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. p. 164. A letter of the year 1455
+under Calixtus III. The famous miniature Bible of Urbino is written by a
+Frenchman, a workman of Vespasiano's. See D'Agincourt, _La Peinture_,
+tab. 78. On German copyists in Italy, see further G. Campori, _Artisti
+Italiani e Stranieri negli Stati Estensi_, Modena, 1855, p. 277, and
+_Giornale di Erudizione Artistica_, vol. ii. pp. 360 sqq. Wattenbach,
+_Schriftwesen_, 411, note 5. For German printers, see below.]
+
+[446] Vespas. Fior. p. 335.]
+
+[447] Ambr. Trav. _Epist._ i. p. 63. The Pope was equally
+serviceable to the libraries of Urbino and Pesaro (that of Aless.
+Sforza, p. 38). Comp. Arch. Stor. ital. xxi. 103-106. The Bible and
+Commentaries on it; the Fathers of the Church; Aristotle, with his
+commentators, including Averroes and Avicenna; Moses Maimonides; Latin
+translations of Greek philosophers; the Latin prose writers; of the
+poets only Virgil, Statius, Ovid, and Lucan are mentioned.]
+
+[448] Vespas. Fior. p. 129.]
+
+[449] 'Artes--Quis Labor est fessis demptus ab Articulis' in a
+poem by Robertus Ursus about 1470, _Rerum Ital. Script, ex Codd.
+Fiorent._ tom, ii. col. 693. He rejoices rather too hastily over the
+rapid spread of classical literature which was hoped for. Comp. Libri,
+_Hist. des Sciences Mathématiques_, ii. 278 sqq. (See also the eulogy of
+Lor. Valla, _Hist. Zeitschr._ xxxii. 62.) For the printers at Rome (the
+first were Germans: Hahn, Pannartz, Schweinheim), see Gaspar. Veron.
+_Vita Pauli II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1046; and Laire, _Spec. Hist.
+Typographiæ Romanae, xv. sec._ Romæ, 1778; Gregorovius, vii. 525-33. For
+the first Privilegium in Venice, see Marin Sanudo, in Muratori, xxii.
+col. 1189.]
+
+[450] Something of the sort had already existed in the age of
+manuscripts. See Vespas. Fior. p. 656, on the _Cronaco del Mondo_ of
+Zembino of Pistoia.]
+
+[451] Fabroni, _Laurent. Magn._ Adnot. 212. It happened in the
+case of the libel. _De Exilio_.]
+
+[452] Even in Petrarch the consciousness of this superiority of
+Italians over Greeks is often to be noticed: _Epp. Fam._ lib. i. ep. 3;
+_Epp. Sen._ lib. xii. ep. 2; he praises the Greeks reluctantly:
+_Carmina_, lib. iii. 30 (ed. Rossetti, vol. ii. p. 342). A century
+later, Æneas Sylvius writes (Comm. to Panormita, 'De Dictis et Factis
+Alfonsi,' Append.): 'Alfonsus tanto est Socrate major quanto gravior
+Romanus homo quam Græcus putatur.' In accordance with this feeling the
+study of Greek was thought little of. From a document made use of below,
+written about 1460, it appears that Porcellio and Tomaso Seneca tried to
+resist the rising influence of Greek. Similarly, Paolo Cortese (1490)
+was averse to Greek, lest the hitherto exclusive authority of Latin
+should be impaired, _De Hominibus Doctis_, p. 20. For Greek studies in
+Italy, see esp. the learned work of Favre, _Mélanges d'Hist. Liter._ i.
+_passim_.]
+
+[453] See above p. 187, and comp. C. Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_,
+323 sqq.]
+
+[454] The dying out of these Greeks is mentioned by Pierius
+Valerian, _De Infelicitate Literat._ in speaking of Lascaris. And Paulus
+Jovius, at the end of his _Elogia Literaria_, says of the Germans, 'Quum
+literæ non latinæ modo cum pudore nostro, sed græcæ et hebraicæ in eorum
+terras fatali commigratione transierint' (about 1450). Similarly, sixty
+years before (1482), Joh. Argyropulos had exclaimed, when he heard young
+Reuchlin translate Thucydides in his lecture-room at Rome, 'Græcia
+nostra exilio transvolavit Alpes.' Geiger, _Reuchlin_ (Lpzg. 1871), pp.
+26 sqq. Burchhardt, 273. A remarkable passage is to be found in Jov.
+Pontanus, _Antonius_, opp. iv. p. 203: 'In Græcia magis nunc Turcaicum
+discas quam Græcum. Quicquid enim doctorum habent Græcæ disciplinæ, in
+Italia nobiscum victitat.]
+
+[455] Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 486 sqq. Comp. the end of this part
+of our work.]
+
+[456] Tommaso Gar, _Relazioni della Corte di Roma_, i. pp. 338,
+379.]
+
+[457] George of Trebizond, teacher of rhetoric at Venice, with
+a salary of 150 ducats a year (see Malipiero, _Arch. Stor._ vii. ii. p.
+653). For the Greek chair at Perugia, see _Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 19
+of the Introduction. In the case of Rimini, there is some doubt whether
+Greek was taught or not. Comp. _Anecd. Litt._ ii. p. 300. At Bologna,
+the centre of juristic studies, Aurispa had but little success. Details
+on the subject in Malagola.]
+
+[458] Exhaustive information on the subject in the admirable
+work of A. F. Didot, _Alde Manuce et l'Héllenisme à Venise_, Paris,
+1875.]
+
+[459] For what follows see A. de Gubernatis, _Matériaux pour
+servir à l'Histoire des Études Orientales en Italie_, Paris, Florence,
+&c., 1876. Additions by Soave in the _Bolletino Italiano degli Studi
+Orientali_, i. 178 sqq. More precise details below.]
+
+[460] See below.]
+
+[461] See _Commentario della Vita di Messer Gianozzo Manetti,
+scritto da Vespasiano Bisticci_, Torino, 1862, esp. pp. 11, 44, 91 sqq.]
+
+[462] Vesp. Fior. p. 320. A. Trav. _Epist._ lib. xi. 16.]
+
+[463] Platina, _Vita Sixti IV._ p. 332.]
+
+[464] Benedictus Faleus, _De Origine Hebraicarum Græcarum
+Latinarumque Literarum_, Naples, 1520.]
+
+[465] For Dante, see Wegele, _Dante_, 2nd ed. p. 268, and
+Lasinio, _Dante e le Lingue semitiche_ in the _Rivista Orientale_ (Flor.
+1867-8). On Poggio, _Opera_, p. 297; Lion. Bruni, _Epist._ lib. ix. 12,
+comp. Gregorovius, vii. 555, and Shepherd-Tonelli, _Vita di Poggio_, i.
+65. The letter of Poggio to Niccoli, in which he treats of Hebrew, has
+been lately published in French and Latin under the title, _Les Bains de
+Bade par Pogge_, by Antony Méray, Paris, 1876. Poggio desired to know on
+what principles Jerome translated the Bible, while Bruni maintained
+that, now that Jerome's translation was in existence, distrust was shown
+to it by learning Hebrew. For Manetti as a collector of Hebrew MSS. see
+Steinschneider, in the work quoted below. In the library at Urbino there
+were in all sixty-one Hebrew manuscripts. Among them a Bible 'opus
+mirabile et integrum, cum glossis mirabiliter scriptus in modo avium,
+arborum et animalium in maximo volumine, ut vix a tribus hominibus
+feratur.' These, as appears from Assemanni's list, are now mostly in the
+Vatican. On the first printing in Hebrew, see Steinschneider and Cassel,
+_Jud. Typographic in Esch. u. Gruber, Realencyclop._ sect. ii. bd. 28,
+p. 34, and _Catal. Bodl._ by Steinschneider, 1852-60, pp. 2821-2866. It
+is characteristic that of the two first printers one belonged to Mantua,
+the other to Reggio in Calabria, so that the printing of Hebrew books
+began almost contemporaneously at the two extremities of Italy. In
+Mantua the printer was a Jewish physician, who was helped by his wife.
+It may be mentioned as a curiosity that in the _Hypnerotomachia_ of
+Polifilo, written 1467, printed 1499, fol. 68 _a_, there is a short
+passage in Hebrew; otherwise no Hebrew occurs in the Aldine editions
+before 1501. The Hebrew scholars in Italy are given by De Gubernatis (p.
+80), but authorities are not quoted for them singly. (Marco Lippomanno
+is omitted; comp. Steinschneider in the book given below.) Paolo de
+Canale is mentioned as a learned Hebraist by Pier. Valerian. _De Infel.
+Literat._ ed. Mencken, p. 296; in 1488 Professor in Bologna, _Mag.
+Vicentius_; comp. _Costituzione, discipline e riforme dell'antico studio
+Bolognese. Memoria del Prof. Luciano Scarabelli_, Piacenza, 1876; in
+1514 Professor in Rome, Agarius Guidacerius, acc. to Gregorovius, viii.
+292, and the passages there quoted. On Guid. see Steinschneider,
+_Bibliogr. Handbuch_, Leipzig, 1859, pp. 56, 157-161.]
+
+[466] The literary activity of the Jews in Italy is too great
+and of too wide an influence to be passed over altogether in silence.
+The following paragraphs, which, not to overload the text, I have
+relegated to the notes, are wholly the substance of communications made
+me by Dr. M. Steinschneider, of Berlin, to whom I [Dr. Ludwig Geiger]
+here take the opportunity of expressing my thanks for his constant and
+friendly help. He has given exhaustive evidence on the subject in his
+profound and instructive treatise, 'Letteratura Italiana dei Giudei,' in
+the review _Il Buonarotti_, vols. vi. viii. xi. xii.; Rome, 1871-77
+(also printed separately); to which, once for all, I refer the reader.
+
+There were many Jews living in Rome at the time of the Second Temple.
+They had so thoroughly adopted the language and civilisation prevailing
+in Italy, that even on their tombs they used not Hebrew, but Latin and
+Greek inscriptions (communicated by Garucci, see Steinschneider, _Hebr.
+Bibliogr._ vi. p. 102, 1863). In Lower Italy, especially, Greek learning
+survived during the Middle Ages among the inhabitants generally, and
+particularly among the Jews, of whom some are said to have taught at the
+University of Salerno, and to have rivalled the Christians in literary
+productiveness (comp. Steinschneider, 'Donnolo,' in Virchow's _Archiv_,
+bd. 39, 40). This supremacy of Greek culture lasted till the Saracens
+conquered Lower Italy. But before this conquest the Jews of Middle Italy
+had been striving to equal or surpass their bretheren of the South.
+Jewish learning centred in Rome, and from there spread, as early as the
+sixteenth century, to Cordova, Kairowan, and South Germany. By means of
+these emigrants, Italian Judaism became the teacher of the whole race.
+Through its works, especially through the work _Aruch_ of Nathan ben
+Jechiel (1101), a great dictionary to the Talmud, the Midraschim, and
+the Thargum, 'which, though not informed by a genuine scientific spirit,
+offers so rich a store of matter and rests on such early authorities,
+that its treasures have even now not been wholly exhausted,' it
+exercised indirectly a great influence (Abraham Geiger, _Das Judenthum
+und seine Geschichte_, Breslau, bd. ii. 1865, p. 170; and the same
+author's _Nachgelassene Schriften_, bd. ii. Berlin, 1875, pp. 129 and
+154). A little later, in the thirteenth century, the Jewish literature
+in Italy brought Jews and Christians into contact, and received through
+Frederick II., and still more perhaps through his son Manfred, a kind of
+official sanction. Of this contact we have evidence in the fact that an
+Italian, Niccolò di Giovinazzo, studied with a Jew, Moses ben Salomo,
+the Latin translation of the famous work of Maimonides, _More Nebuchim_;
+of this sanction, in the fact that the Emperor, who was distinguished
+for his freethinking as much as for his fondness for Oriental studies,
+probably was the cause of this Latin translation being made, and
+summoned the famous Anatoli from Provence into Italy, to translate works
+of Averroes into Hebrew (comp. Steinschneider, _Hebr. Bibliogr._ xv. 86,
+and Renan, _L'Averroes et l'Averroisme_, third edition, Paris, 1866, p.
+290). These measures prove the acquaintance of early Jews with Latin,
+which rendered intercourse possible between them and Christians--an
+intercourse which bore sometimes a friendly and sometimes a polemical
+character. Still more than Anatoli, Hillel b. Samuel, in the latter half
+of the thirteenth century, devoted himself to Latin literature; he
+studied in Spain, returned to Italy, and here made many translations
+from Latin into Hebrew; among them of writings of Hippocrates in a Latin
+version. (This was printed 1647 by Gaiotius, and passed for his own.) In
+this translation he introduced a few Italian words by way of
+explanation, and thus perhaps, or by his whole literary procedure, laid
+himself open to the reproach of despising Jewish doctrines.
+
+But the Jews went further than this. At the end of the thirteenth and in
+the fourteenth centuries, they drew so near to Christian science and to
+the representatives of the culture of the Renaissance, that one of them,
+Giuda Romano, in a series of hitherto unprinted writings, laboured
+zealously at the scholastic philosophy, and in one treatise used Italian
+words to explain Hebrew expressions. He is one of the first to do so
+(Steinschneider, _Giuda Romano_, Rome, 1870). Another, Giuda's cousin
+Manoello, a friend of Dante, wrote in imitation of him a sort of Divine
+Comedy in Hebrew, in which he extols Dante, whose death he also bewailed
+in an Italian sonnet (Abraham Geiger, _Jüd. Zeitsch._ v. 286-331,
+Breslau, 1867). A third, Mose Riete, born towards the end of the
+century, wrote works in Italian (a specimen in the Catalogue of Hebrew
+MSS., Leyden, 1858). In the fifteenth century we can clearly recognise
+the influence of the Renaissance in Messer Leon, a Jewish writer, who,
+in his _Rhetoric_, uses Quintilian and Cicero, as well as Jewish
+authorities. One of the most famous Jewish writers in Italy in the
+fifteenth century was Eliah del Medigo, a philosopher who taught
+publicly as a Jew in Padua and Florence, and was once chosen by the
+Venetian Senate as arbitrator in a philosophical dispute (Abr. Geiger,
+_Nachgelassene Schriften_, Berlin, 1876, bd. iii. 3). Eliah del Medigo
+was the teacher of Pico della Mirandola; besides him, Jochanan Alemanno
+(comp. Steinschneider, _Polem. u. Apolog. Lit._ Lpzg. 1877, anh. 7, §
+25). The list of learned Jews in Italy may be closed by Kalonymos ben
+David and Abraham de Balmes (d. 1523), to whom the greater part of the
+translations of Averroes from Hebrew into Latin is due, which were still
+publicly read at Padua in the seventeenth century. To this scholar may
+be added the Jewish Aldus, Gerson Soncino, who not only made his press
+the centre of Jewish printing, but, by publishing Greek works,
+trespassed on the ground of the great Aldus himself (Steinschneider,
+_Gerson Soncino und Aldus Manutius_, Berlin, 1858).
+
+[467] Pierius Valerian. _De Infelic. Lit._ ed. Mencken, 301, speaking of
+Mongajo. Gubernatis, p. 184, identifies him with Andrea Alpago, of
+Bellemo, said to have also studied Arabian literature, and to have
+travelled in the East. On Arabic studies generally, Gubernatis, pp. 173
+sqq. For a translation made 1341 from Arabic into Italian, comp.
+Narducci, _Intorno ad una tradizione italiana di una composizione
+astronomica di Alfonso X. rè di Castiglia_, Roma 1865. On Ramusio, see
+Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 250.
+
+[468] Gubernatis, p. 188. The first book contains Christian prayers in
+Arabic; the first Italian translations of the Koran appeared in 1547. In
+1499 we meet with a few not very successful Arabic types in the work of
+Polifilo, b. 7 _a_. For the beginnings of Egyptian studies, see
+Gregorovius, viii. p. 304.
+
+[469] Especially in the important letter of the year 1485 to Ermolao
+Barbaro, in _Ang. Politian. Epistolæ_, l. ix. Comp. Jo. Pici, _Oratio de
+Hominis Dignitate_. For this discourse, see the end of part iv.; on Pico
+himself more will be given in part vi. chap. 4.
+
+[470] Their estimate of themselves is indicated by Poggio (_De
+Avaritia_, fol. 2), according to whom only such persons could say that
+they had lived (_se vixisse_) who had written learned and eloquent books
+in Latin or translated Greek into Latin.
+
+[471] Esp. Libri, _Histoires des Sciences Mathém._ ii. 159 sqq., 258
+sqq.
+
+[472] _Purgatorio_, xviii. contains striking instances. Mary hastens
+over the mountains, Cæsar to Spain; Mary is poor and Fabricius
+disinterested. We may here remark on the chronological introduction of
+the Sibyls into the profane history of antiquity as attempted by Uberti
+in his _Dittamondo_ (i. cap. 14, 15), about 1360.
+
+[473] The first German translation of the _Decameron_, by H. Steinhovel,
+was printed in 1472, and soon became popular. The translations of the
+whole _Decameron_ were almost everywhere preceded by those of the story
+of Griselda, written in Latin by Petrarch.
+
+[474] These Latin writings of Boccaccio have been admirably discussed
+recently by Schück, _Zur Characteristik des ital. Hum. im 14 und 15
+Jahrh._ Breslau, 1865; and in an article in Fleckeisen and Masius,
+_Jahrbücher fur Phil. und Pädag._ bd. xx. (1874).
+
+[475] 'Poeta,' even in Dante (_Vita Nuova_, p. 47), means only the
+writer of Latin verses, while for Italian the expressions 'Rimatore,
+Dicitore per rima,' are used. It is true that the names and ideas became
+mixed in course of time.
+
+[476] Petrarch, too, at the height of his fame complained in moments of
+melancholy that his evil star decreed him to pass his last years among
+scoundrels (_extremi fures_). In the imaginary letter to Livy, _Epp.
+Fam._ ed. Fracass. lib. xxiv. ep. 8. That Petrarch defended poetry, and
+how, is well known (comp. Geiger, _Petr._ 113-117). Besides the enemies
+who beset him in common with Boccaccio, he had to face the doctors
+(comp. _Invectivæ in Medicum Objurgantem_, lib. i. and ii.).
+
+[477] Boccaccio, in a later letter to Jacobus Pizinga (_Opere Volgari_,
+vol. xvi.), confines himself more strictly to poetry properly so called.
+And yet he only recognises as poetry that which treated of antiquity,
+and ignores the Troubadours.
+
+[478] Petr. _Epp. Senil._ lib. i. ep. 5.
+
+[479] Boccaccio (_Vita di Dante_, p. 50): 'La quale (laurea) non scienza
+accresce ma è dell'acquistata certissimo testimonio e ornamento.'
+
+[480] _Paradiso_, xxv. 1 sqq. Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 50. 'Sopra
+le fonti di San Giovanni si era disporto di coronare.' Comp. _Paradiso_,
+i. 25.
+
+[481] See Boccaccio's letter to him in the _Opere Volgari_, vol. xvi. p.
+36: 'Si præstet Deus, concedente senatu Romuleo.' ...
+
+[482] Matt. Villani, v. 26. There was a solemn procession on horseback
+round the city, when the followers of the Emperor, his 'baroni,'
+accompanied the poet. Boccaccio, l. c. Petrarch: _Invectivæ contra Med.
+Præf._ See also _Epp. Fam. Volgarizzate da Fracassetti_, iii. 128. For
+the speech of Zanobi at the coronation, Friedjung, l. c. 308 sqq. Fazio
+degli Uberti was also crowned, but it is not known where or by whom.
+
+[483] Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 185.
+
+[484] Vespas. Fiorent. pp. 575, 589. _Vita Jan. Manetti_, in Murat. xx.
+col. 543. The celebrity of Lionardo Aretino was in his lifetime so great
+that people came from all parts merely to see him; a Spaniard fell on
+his knees before him.--Vesp. p. 568. For the monument of Guarino, the
+magistrate of Ferrara allowed, in 1461, the then considerable sum of 100
+ducats. On the coronation of poets in Italy there is a good summary of
+notices in Favre, _Mélanges d'Hist. Lit._ (1856) i. 65 sqq.
+
+[485] Comp. Libri, _Histoire des Sciences Mathém._ ii. p. 92 sqq.
+Bologna, as is well known, was older. Pisa flourished in the fourteenth
+century, fell through the wars with Florence, and was afterwards
+restored by Lorenzo Magnifico, 'ad solatium veteris amissæ libertatis,'
+as Giovio says, _Vita Leonis X._ l. i. The university of Florence (comp.
+Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. p. 461 to 560 _passim_; _Matteo Villani_, i. 8;
+vii. 90), which existed as early as 1321, with compulsory attendance for
+the natives of the city, was founded afresh after the Black Death in
+1848, and endowed with an income of 2,500 gold florins, fell again into
+decay, and was refounded in 1357. The chair for the explanation of
+Dante, established in 1373 at the request of many citizens, was
+afterwards commonly united with the professorship of philology and
+rhetoric, as when Filelfo held it.
+
+[486] This should be noticed in the lists of professors, as in that of
+the University of Pavia in 1400 (Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 290),
+where (among others) no less than twenty jurists appear.
+
+[487] Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 990.
+
+[488] Fabroni, _Laurent. Magn._ Adnot. 52, in the year 1491.
+
+[489] Allegretto, _Diari Sanesi_, in Murat. xiii. col. 824.
+
+[490] Filelfo, when called to the newly founded University of Pisa,
+demanded at least 500 gold florins. Comp. Fabroni, _Laur. Magn._ ii. 75
+sqq. The negotiations were broken off, not only on account of the high
+salary asked for.
+
+[491] Comp. Vespasian. Fiorent. pp. 271, 572, 582, 625. _Vita. Jan.
+Manetti_, in Murat. xx. col. 531 sqq.
+
+[492] Vespas. Fiorent. p. 1460. Prendilacqua (a pupil of Vitt.),
+_Intorno alla Vita di V. da F._, first ed. by Natale dalle Laste, 1774,
+translated by Giuseppe Brambilla, Como, 1871. C. Rosmini, _Idea
+dell'ottimo Precettore nella Vita e Disciplina di Vittorino da Feltre e
+de' suoi Discepoli_, Bassano, 1801. Later works by Racheli (Milan,
+1832), and Venoit (Paris, 1853).
+
+[493] Vespas. Fior. p. 646, of which, however, C. Rosmini, _Vita e
+Disciplina di Guarino Veronese e de' suoi Discepoli_, Brescia, 1856 (3
+vols.), says that it is (ii. 56), 'formicolante di errori di fatto.'
+
+[494] For these and for Guarino generally, see Facius, _De Vir.
+Illustribus_, p. 17 sqq.; and Cortesius, _De Hom. Doctis_, p. 13. Both
+agree that the scholars of the following generation prided themselves on
+having been pupils of Guarino; but while Fazio praises his works,
+Cortese thinks that he would have cared better for his fame if he had
+written nothing. Guarino and Vittorino were friends and helped one
+another in their studies. Their contemporaries were fond of comparing
+them, and in this comparison Guarino commonly held the first place
+(Sabellico, _Dial. de Lingu. Lat. Reparata_, in Rosmini, ii. 112).
+Guarino's attitude with regard to the 'Ermafrodito' is remarkable; see
+Rosmini, ii. 46 sqq. In both these teachers an unusual moderation in
+food and drink was observed; they never drank undiluted wine: in both
+the principles of education were alike; they neither used corporal
+punishment; the hardest penalty which Vittorino inflicted was to make
+the boy kneel and lie upon the ground in the presence of his
+fellow-pupils.
+
+[495] To the Archduke Sigismond, _Epist._ 105, p. 600, and to King
+Ladislaus Postumus, p. 695; the latter as _Tractatus de Liberorum
+Educatione_ (1450).
+
+[496] P. 625. On Niccoli, see further a speech of Poggio, _Opera_, ed.
+1513, fol. 102 sqq.; and a life by Manetti in his book, _De Illustribus
+Longaevis_.
+
+[497] The following words of Vespasiano are untranslatable: 'A vederlo
+in tavola cosi antico come era, era una gentilezza.'
+
+[498] _Ibid._ p. 495.
+
+[499] According to Vespas. p. 271, learned men were in the habit of
+meeting here for discussion.
+
+[500] Of Niccoli it may be further remarked that, like Vittorino, he
+wrote nothing, being convinced that he could not treat of anything in as
+perfect a form as he desired; that his senses were so delicately poised
+that he 'neque rudentem asinum, neque secantem serram, neque muscipulam
+vagientem sentire audireve poterat.' But the less favourable sides of
+Niccoli's character must not be forgotten. He robbed his brother of his
+sweetheart Benvenuta, roused the indignation of Lionardo Aretino by this
+act, and was embittered by the girl against many of his friends. He took
+ill the refusal to lend him books, and had a violent quarrel with
+Guarino on this account. He was not free from a petty jealousy, under
+the influence of which he tried to drive Chrysoloras, Poggio, and
+Filelfo away from Florence.
+
+[501] See his _Vita_, by Naldus Naldi, in Murat. xx. col. 532 sqq. See
+further Vespasiano Bisticci, _Commentario della Vita di Messer Giannozzo
+Manetti_, first published by P. Fanfani in _Collezione di Opere inedite
+o rare_, vol. ii. Torino, 1862. This 'Commentario' must be distinguished
+from the short 'Vita' of Manetti by the same author, in which frequent
+reference is made to the former. Vespasiano was on intimate terms with
+Giannozzo Manetti, and in the biography tried to draw an ideal picture
+of a statesman for the degenerate Florence. Vesp. is Naldi's authority.
+Comp. also the fragment in Galetti, _Phil. Vill. Liber Flor._ 1847, pp.
+129-138. Half a century after his death Manetti was nearly forgotten.
+Comp. Paolo Cortese, p. 21.
+
+[502] The title of the work, in Latin and Italian, is given in Bisticci,
+_Commentario_, pp. 109, 112.
+
+[503] What was known of Plato before can only have been fragmentary. A
+strange discussion on the antagonism of Plato and Aristotle took place
+at Ferrara in 1438, between Ugo of Siena and the Greeks who came to the
+Council. Comp. Æneas Sylvius, _De Europa_, cap. 52 (_Opera_, p. 450).
+
+[504] In Niccolò Valori, _Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent_. Comp.
+Vespas. Fiorent. p. 426. The first supporters of Argyropulos were the
+Acciajuoli. _Ib._ 192: Cardinal Bessarion and his parallels between
+Plato and Aristotle. _Ib._ 223: Cusanus as Platonist. _Ib._ 308: The
+Catalonian Narciso and his disputes with Argyropulos. _Ib._ 571: Single
+Dialogues of Plato, translated by Lionardo Aretino. _Ib._ 298: The
+rising influence of Neoplatonism. On Marsilio Ficino, see Reumont,
+_Lorenzo de' Medici_, ii. 27 sqq.
+
+[505] Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ p. 321. An admirable sketch of character.
+
+[506] The lives of Guarino and Vittorino by Rosmini mentioned above (p.
+213, note 1; and 215, note 1), as well as the life of Poggio by
+Shepherd, especially in the enlarged Italian translation of Tonelli (2
+vols. Florence, 1825); the Correspondence of Poggio, edited by the same
+writer (2 vols. Flor. 1832); and the letters of Poggio in Mai's
+_Spicilegium_, tom. x. Rome, 1844, pp. 221-272, all contain much on this
+subject.
+
+[507] _Epist. 39_; _Opera_, p. 526, to Mariano Socino.
+
+[508] We must not be misled by the fact that along with all this
+complaints were frequently heard of the inadequacy of princely patronage
+and of the indifference of many princes to their fame. See e.g. Bapt.
+Mantan, Eclog. v. as early as the fifteenth century; and Ambrogio
+Traversari, _De Infelicitate Principum_. It was impossible to satisfy
+all.
+
+[509] For the literary and scientific patronage of the popes down to the
+end of the fifteenth century, see Gregorovius, vols. vii. and viii. For
+Pius II., see Voigt, _En. Silvio als Papst Pius II._ bd. iii. (Berlin,
+1863), pp. 406-440.
+
+[510] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De Poetis Nostri Temporis_, speaking of the
+_Sphaerulus_ of Camerino. The worthy man did not finish it in time, and
+his work lay for forty years in his desk. For the scanty payments made
+by Sixtus IV., comp. Pierio Valer. _De Infelic. Lit._ on Theodoras Gaza.
+He received for a translation and commentary of a work of Aristotle
+fifty gold florins, 'ab eo a quo se totum inauratum iri speraverat.' On
+the deliberate exclusion of the humanists from the cardinalate by the
+popes before Leo, comp. Lor. Grana's funeral oration on Cardinal Egidio,
+_Anecdot. Litt._ iv. p. 307.
+
+[511] The best are to be found in the _Deliciae Poetarum Italorum_, and
+in the Appendices to the various editions of Roscoe, _Leo X._ Several
+poets and writers, like Alcyonius, _De Exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 10, say
+frankly that they praise Leo in order themselves to become immortal.
+
+[512] Paul. Jov. _Elogia_ speaking of Guido Posthumus.
+
+[513] Pierio Valeriano in his _Simia_.
+
+[514] See the elegy of Joh. Aurelius Mutius in the _Deliciae Poetarum
+Italorum_.
+
+[515] The well-known story of the purple velvet purse filled with
+packets of gold of various sizes, in which Leo used to thrust his hand
+blindly, is in Giraldi _Hecatommithi_, vi. nov. 8. On the other hand,
+the Latin 'improvisatori,' when their verses were too faulty, were
+whipped. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De Poetis Nostri Temp. Opp._ ii. 398
+(Basil, 1580).
+
+[516] Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi. iv. 181.
+
+[517] Vespas. Fior. p. 68 sqq. For the translations from Greek made by
+Alfonso's orders, see p. 93; _Vita Jan. Manetti_, in Murat. xx. col. 541
+sqq., 450 sqq., 495. Panormita, _Dicta et Facta Alfonsi_, with the notes
+by Æneas Sylvius, ed. by Jacob Spiegel, Basel, 1538.
+
+[518] Even Alfonso was not able to please everybody--Poggio, for
+example. See Shepherd-Tonelli, _Poggio_ ii. 108 sqq. and Poggio's letter
+to Facius in _Fac. de Vir. Ill._ ed. Mehus, p. 88, where he writes of
+Alfonso: 'Ad ostentationem quædam facit quibus videatur doctis viris
+favere;' and Poggio's letter in Mai, _Spicil._ tom. x. p. 241.
+
+[519] Ovid. _Amores_, iii. 11, vs. ii.; Jovian. Pontan. _De Principe_.
+
+[520] _Giorn. Napolet._ in Murat. xxi. col. 1127.
+
+[521] Vespas. Fior. pp. 3, 119 sqq. 'Volle aver piena notizia d'ogni
+cosa, cosi sacra come gentile.'
+
+[522] The last Visconti divided his interest between Livy, the French
+chivalrous romances, Dante, and Petrarch. The humanists who presented
+themselves to him with the promise 'to make him famous,' were generally
+sent away after a few days. Comp. _Decembrio_, in Murat. xx. col. 1114.
+
+[523] Paul. Jov. _Vita Alfonsi Ducis_.
+
+[524] On Collenuccio at the court of Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro (son of
+Alessandro, p. 28), who finally, in 1508, put him to death, see p. 135,
+note 4. At the time of the last Ordelaffi at Forli, the place was
+occupied by Codrus Urceus (1477-80); death-bed complaint of C. U. _Opp._
+Ven. 1506, fol. liv.; for his stay in Forli, _Sermo_, vi. Comp. Carlo
+Malagola, _Della Vita di C. U._ Bologna, 1877, Ap. iv. Among the
+instructed despots, we may mention Galeotto Manfreddi of Faenza,
+murdered in 1488 by his wife, and some of the Bentivoglio family at
+Bologna.
+
+[525] _Anecdota Literar._ ii. pp. 305 sqq., 405. Basinius of Parma
+ridicules Porcellio and Tommaso Seneca; they are needy parasites, and
+must play the soldier in their old age, while he himself was enjoying an
+'ager' and a 'villa.'
+
+[526] For details respecting these graves, see Keyssler, _Neueste
+Reisen_, s. 924.
+
+[527] _Pii II. Comment._ l. ii. p. 92. By history he means all that has
+to do with antiquity. Cortesius also praises him highly, p. 34 sqq.
+
+[528] Fabroni, _Costnus_, Adnot. 118. Vespasian. Fior. _passim_. An
+important passage respecting the demands made by the Florentines on
+their secretaries ('quod honor apud Florentinos magnus habetur,' says B.
+Facius, speaking of Poggio's appointment to the secretaryship, _De Vir.
+Ill._ p. 17), is to be found in Æneas Sylvius, _De Europâ_, cap. 54
+(_Opera_, p. 454).
+
+[529] See Voigt, _En. Silvio als Papst Pius II._ bd. iii. 488 sqq., for
+the often-discussed and often-misunderstood change which Pius II. made
+with respect to the Abbreviators.
+
+[530] Comp. the statement of Jacob Spiegel (1521) given in the reports
+of the Vienna Academy, lxxviii. 333.
+
+[531] _Anecdota Lit._ i. p. 119 sqq. A plea ('Actio ad Cardinales
+Deputatos') of Jacobus Volaterranus in the name of the Secretaries, no
+doubt of the time of Sixtus IV. (Voigt, l. c. 552, note). The humanistic
+claims of the 'advocati consistoriales' rested on their oratory, as that
+of the Secretaries on their correspondence.
+
+[532] The Imperial chancery under Frederick III. was best known to Æneas
+Sylvius. Comp. _Epp._ 23 and 105; _Opera_, pp. 516 and 607.
+
+[533] The letters of Bembo and Sadoleto have been often printed; those
+of the former, e.g. in the _Opera_, Basel, 1556, vol. ii., where the
+letters written in the name of Leo X. are distinguished from private
+letters; those of the latter most fully, 5 vols. Rome, 1760. Some
+additions to both have been given by Carlo Malagola in the review _Il
+Baretti_, Turin, 1875. Bembo's _Asolani_ will be spoken of below;
+Sadoleto's significance for Latin style has been judged as follows by a
+contemporary, Petrus Alcyonius, _De Exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 119: 'Solus
+autem nostrorum temporum aut certe cum paucis animadvertit elocutionem
+emendatam et latinam esse fundamentum oratoris; ad eamque obtinendam
+necesse esse latinam linguam expurgare quam inquinarunt nonnulli
+exquisitarum literarum omnino rudes et nullius judicii homines, qui
+partim a circumpadanis municipiis, partim ex transalpinis provinciis, in
+hanc urbem confluxerunt. Emendavit igitur 'eruditissimus hic vir
+corruptam et vitiosam linguæ latinæ consuetudinem, pura ac integra
+loquendi ratione.'
+
+[534] Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 449, for the letter of Isabella of
+Aragon to her father, Alfonso of Naples; fols. 451, 464, two letters of
+the Moor to Charles VIII. Compare the story in the _Lettere Pittoriche_,
+iii. 86 (Sebastiano del Piombo to Aretino), how Clement VII., during the
+sack of Rome, called his learned men round him, and made each of them
+separately write a letter to Charles V.
+
+[535] For the correspondence of the period in general, see Voigt,
+_Wiederbelebung_, 414-427.
+
+[536] Bembo thought it necessary to excuse himself for writing in
+Italian: 'Ad Sempronium,' _Bembi Opera_, Bas. 1556, vol. iii. 156 sqq.
+
+[537] On the collection of the letters of Aretino, see above, pp. 164
+sqq., and the note. Collections of Latin letters had been printed even
+in the fifteenth century.
+
+[538] Comp. the speeches in the _Opera_ of Philelphus, Sabellicus,
+Beroaldus, &c.; and the writings and lives of Giann. Manetti, Æneas
+Sylvius, and others.
+
+[539] B. F. _De Viris Illustribus_, ed. Mehus, p. 7. Manetti, as Vesp.
+Bisticci, _Commentario_, p. 51, states, delivered many speeches in
+Italian, and then afterwards wrote them out in Latin. The scholars of
+the fifteenth century, e.g. Paolo Cortese, judge the achievements of the
+past solely from the point of view of 'Eloquentia.'
+
+[540] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 198, 205.
+
+[541] _Pii II. Comment._ l. i. p. 10.
+
+[542] The success of the fortunate orator was great, and the humiliation
+of the speaker who broke down before distinguished audiences no less
+great. Examples of the latter in Petrus Crinitus, _De Honestâ
+Disciplinâ_, v. cap. 3. Comp. Vespas. Fior. pp. 319, 430.
+
+[543] _Pii II. Comment._ l. iv. p. 205. There were some Romans, too, who
+awaited him at Viterbo. 'Singuli per se verba facere, ne alius alio
+melior videretur, cum essent eloquentiâ ferme pares.' The fact that the
+Bishop of Arezzo was not allowed to speak in the name of the general
+embassy of the Italian states to the newly chosen Alexander VI., is
+seriously placed by Guicciardini (at the beginning of book i.) among the
+causes which helped to produce the disaster of 1494.
+
+[544] Told by Marin Sanudo, in Murat. xxii. col. 1160.
+
+[545] _Pii II. Comment._ l. ii. p. 107. Comp. p. 87. Another oratorical
+princess, Madonna Battista Montefeltro, married to a Malatesta,
+harangued Sigismund and Martin. Comp. _Arch. Stor._ iv. i. p. 442, note.
+
+[546] _De Expeditione in Turcas_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 68. 'Nihil enim
+Pii concionantis majestate sublimius.' Not to speak of the naïve
+pleasure with which Pius describes his own triumphs, see Campanus, _Vita
+Pii II._, in Murat. iii. ii. _passim_. At a later period these speeches
+were judged less admiringly. Comp. Voigt, _Enea Silvio_, ii. 275 sqq.
+
+[547] Charles V., when unable on one occasion to follow the flourishes
+of a Latin orator at Genoa, replied in the ear of Giovio: 'Ah, my tutor
+Adrian was right, when he told me I should be chastened for my childish
+idleness in learning Latin.' Paul. Jov. _Vita Hadriani VI._ Princes
+replied to these speeches through their official orators; Frederick III.
+through Enea Silvio, in answer to Giannozzo Manetti. Vesp. Bist.
+_Comment._ p. 64.
+
+[548] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis Nostri Temp._ speaking of
+Collenuccio. Filelfo, a married layman, delivered an introductory speech
+in the Cathedral at Como for the Bishop Scarampi, in 1460. Rosmini,
+_Filelfo_, ii. 122, iii. 147.
+
+[549] Fabroni, _Cosmus_, Adnot. 52.
+
+[550] Which, nevertheless, gave some offence to Jac. Volaterranus (in
+Murat. xxiii. col. 171) at the service in memory of Platina.
+
+[551] _Anecdota Lit._ i. p. 299, in Fedra's funeral oration on Lod.
+Podacataro, whom Guarino commonly employed on these occasions. Guarino
+himself delivered over fifty speeches at festivals and funerals, which
+are enumerated in Rosmini, _Guarino_, ii. 139-146. Burckhardt, 332. Dr.
+Geiger here remarks that Venice also had its professional orators. Comp.
+G. Voigt, ii. 425.
+
+[552] Many of these opening lectures have been preserved in the works of
+Sabellicus, Beroaldus Major, Codrus Urceus, &c. In the works of the
+latter there are also some poems which he recited 'in principio studii.'
+
+[553] The fame of Pomponazzo's delivery is preserved in Paul. Jov.
+_Elogia Vir. Doct._ p. 134. In general, it seems that the speeches, the
+form of which was required to be perfect, were learnt by heart. In the
+case of Giannozzo Manetti we know positively that it was so on one
+occasion (_Commentario_, 39). See, however, the account p. 64, with the
+concluding statement that Manetti spoke better _impromptu_ than Aretino
+with preparation. We are told of Codrus Urceus, whose memory was weak,
+that he read his orations (_Vita_, at the end of his works. Ven. 1506,
+fol. lxx.). The following passage will illustrate the exaggerated value
+set on oratory: 'Ausim affirmare perfectum oratorem (si quisquam modo
+sit perfectus orator) ita facile posse nitorem, lætitiam, lumina et
+umbras rebus dare quas oratione exponendas suscipit, ut pictorem suis
+coloribus et pigmentis facere videmus.' (Petr. Alcyonius, _De Exilio_,
+ed. Menken, p. 136.)
+
+[554] Vespas. Fior. p. 103. Comp. p. 598, where he describes how
+Giannozzo Manetti came to him in the camp.
+
+[555] _Archiv. Stor._ xv. pp. 113, 121. Canestrini's Introduction, p. 32
+sqq. Reports of two such speeches to soldiers; the first, by Alamanni,
+is wonderfully fine and worthy of the occasion (1528).
+
+[556] On this point see Faustinus Terdoceus, in his satire _De Triumpho
+Stultitiae_, lib. ii.
+
+[557] Both of these extraordinary cases occur in Sabellicus, _Opera_,
+fol. 61-82. _De Origine et Auctu Religionis_, delivered at Verona from
+the pulpit before the barefoot friars; and _De Sacerdotii Laudibus_,
+delivered at Venice.
+
+[558] Jac. Volaterrani. _Diar. Roman._ in Murat. xxiii. _passim_. In
+col. 173 a remarkable sermon before the court, though in the absence of
+Sixtus IV., is mentioned. Pater Paolo Toscanella thundered against the
+Pope, his family, and the cardinals. When Sixtus heard of it, he smiled.
+
+[559] Fil. Villani, _Vitae_, ed. Galetti, p. 30.
+
+[560] See above, p. 237, note 3.
+
+[561] Georg. Trapezunt, _Rhetorica_, the first complete system of
+instruction. Æn. Sylvius, _Artis Rhetoricae Praecepta_, in the _Opera_,
+p. 992. treats purposely only of the construction of sentences and the
+position of words. It is characteristic as an instance of the routine
+which was followed. He names several other theoretical writers who are
+some of them no longer known. Comp. C. Voigt, ii. 262 sqq.
+
+[562] His life in Murat. xx. is full of the triumphs of his eloquence.
+Comp. Vespas. Fior. 592 sqq., and _Commentario_, p. 30. On us these
+speeches make no great impression, e.g. that at the coronation of
+Frederick III. in Freher-Struve, _Script. Rer. Germ._ iii. 4-19. Of
+Manetti's oration at the burial of Lion. Aretino, Shepherd-Tonelli says
+(_Poggio_, ii. 67 sqq.): 'L'orazione ch'ei compose, è ben la cosa la più
+meschina che potesse udirsi, piena di puerilità volgare nello stile,
+irrelevante negli argomenti e d'una prolissità insopportabile.'
+
+[563] _Annales Placentini_, in Murat. xx. col. 918.
+
+[564] _E.g._ Manetti. Comp. Vesp. _Commentario_, p. 30; so, too,
+Savonarola Comp. Perrens, _Vie de Savonarole_, i. p. 163. The shorthand
+writers, however, could not always follow him, or, indeed, any rapid
+'Improvisatori.' Savonarola preached in Italian. See Pasq. Villari:
+_Vita di Savonarola_.
+
+[565] It was by no means one of the best (_Opuscula Beroaldi_, Basel,
+1509, fol. xviii.-xxi). The most remarkable thing in it is the flourish
+at the end: 'Esto tibi ipsi archetypon et exemplar, teipsum imitare,'
+etc.
+
+[566] Letters and speeches of this kind were written by Alberto di
+Ripalta; comp. the _Annales Placentini_, written by his father Antonius
+and continued by himself, in Murat. xx. col. 914 sqq., where the pedant
+gives an instructive account of his own literary career.
+
+[567] _Pauli Jovii Dialogus de Viris Litteris Illustribus_, in
+Tiraboschi, tom. vii. parte iv. Yet he says some ten years later, at the
+close of the _Elogia Litteraria_: 'Tenemus adhuc (after the leadership
+in philology had passed to the Germans) sincerae et constantis
+eloquentiae munitam arcem,' etc. The whole passage, given in German in
+Gregorovius, viii. 217 sqq. is important, as showing the view taken of
+Germany by an Italian, and is again quoted below in this connection.
+
+[568] A special class is formed by the semi-satirical dialogues, which
+Collenuccio, and still more Pontano, copied from Lucian. Their example
+stimulated Erasmus and Hutten. For the treatises properly so-called
+parts of the ethical writings of Plutarch may have served as models.
+
+[569] See below, part iv. chap. 5.
+
+[570] Comp. the epigram of Sannazaro:
+
+ 'Dum patriam laudat, damnat dum Poggius hostem,
+ Nec malus est civis, nec bonus historicus.'
+
+
+[571] Benedictus: _Caroli VIII. Hist._ in Eccard, Scriptt. vi. col.
+1577.
+
+[572] Petrus Crinitus deplores this contempt, _De honesta disciplina_,
+l. xviii. cap. 9. The humanists here resemble the writers in the decline
+of antiquity, who also severed themselves from their own age. Comp.
+Burckhardt, _Die Zeit Constantin's des Grossen_. See for the other side
+several declarations of Poggio in Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_, p. 443 sqq.
+
+[573] Lorenzo Valla, in the preface to the _Historia Ferdinandi Regis
+Arag._; in opposition to him, Giacomo Zeno in the _Vita Caroli Zeni_,
+Murat. xix. p. 204. See, too, Guarino, in Rosmini, ii. 62 sqq., 177 sqq.
+
+[574] In the letter to Pizinga, _Opere Volgari_, vol. xvi. p. 38. With
+Raph. Volaterranus, l. xxi. the intellectual world begins in the
+fourteenth century. He is the same writer whose early books contain so
+many notices--excellent for his time--of the history of all countries.
+
+[575] Here, too, Petrarch cleared the way. See especially his critical
+investigation of the Austrian Charter, claiming to descend from Cæsar.
+_Epp. Sen._ xvi. 1.
+
+[576] Like that of Giannozzo Manetti in the presence of Nicholas V., of
+the whole Papal court, and of a great concourse of strangers from all
+parts. Comp. Vespas. Fior. p. 591, and more fully in the _Commentario_,
+pp. 37-40.
+
+[577] In fact, it was already said that Homer alone contained the whole
+of the arts and sciences--that he was an encyclopædia. Comp. _Codri
+Urcei Opera_, Sermo xiii. at the end. It is true that we met with a
+similar opinion in several ancient writers. The words of C. U. (Sermo
+xiii., habitus in laudem liberalium artium; _Opera_, ed. Ven. 1506, fol.
+xxxviii. _b_) are as follows: 'Eia ergo bono animo esto; ego graecas
+litteras tibi exponam; et praecipue divinum Homerum, a quo ceu fonte
+perenni, ut scribit Naso, vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. Ab Homero
+grammaticum dicere poteris, ab Homero rhetoricam, ab Homero medicinam,
+ab Homero astrologiam, ab Homero fabulas, ab Homero historias, ab Homero
+mores, ab Homero philosophorum dogmata, ab Homero artem militarem, ab
+Homero coquinariam, ab Homero architecturam, ab Homero regendarum urbium
+modum percipies; et in summa, quidquid boni quidquid honesti animus
+hominis discendi cupidus optare potest, in Homero facile poteris
+invenire.' To the same effect 'Sermo' vii. and viii. _Opera_, fol. xxvi.
+sqq., which treat of Homer only.
+
+[578] A cardinal under Paul II. had his cooks instructed in the Ethics
+of Aristotle. Comp. Gaspar. Veron. _Vita Pauli II._ in Muratori, iii.
+ii. col. 1034.
+
+[579] For the study of Aristotle in general, a speech of Hermolaus
+Barbarus is specially instructive.
+
+[580] Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 898.
+
+[581] Vasari, xi. pp. 189, 257. _Vite di Sodoma e di Garofalo._ It is
+not surprising that the profligate women at Rome took the most
+harmonious ancient names--Julia, Lucretia, Cassandra, Portia, Virginia,
+Penthesilea, under which they appear in Aretino. It was, perhaps, then
+that the Jews took the names of the great Semitic enemies of the
+Romans--Hannibal, Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, which even now they commonly bear
+in Rome. [This last assertion cannot be maintained. Neither Zunz, _Namen
+der Juden_, Leipzig, 1837, reprinted in Zunz _Gesammelte Schriften_,
+Berlin, 1876, nor Steinschneider in his collection in _Il Buonarotti_,
+ser. ii. vol. vi. 1871, pp. 196-199, speaks of any Jew of that period
+who bore these names, and even now, according to the enquiries of Prince
+Buoncompagni from Signer Tagliacapo, in charge of the Jewish archives in
+Rome, there are only a few who are named Asdrubale, and none Amilcare or
+Annibale. L. G.] Burckhardt, 352. A careful choice of names is
+recommended by L. B. Alberti, _Della familia_, opp. ii. p. 171. Maffeo
+Vegio (_De educatione liberorum._ lib. i. c. x.) warns his readers
+against the use of _nomina indecora barbara aut nova, aut quae gentilium
+deorum sunt_. Names like 'Nero' disgrace the bearer; while others such
+as Cicero, Brutus, Naso, Maro, can be used _qualiter per se parum
+venusta propter tamen eximiam illorum virtutem_.
+
+[582]
+
+ 'Quasi che 'l nome i buon giudici inganni,
+ E che quel meglio t' abbia a far poeta,
+ Che non farà lo studio di molt' anni!'
+
+So jests Ariosto, to whom fortune had certainly given a harmonious name,
+in the _Seventh Satire_, vs. 64.
+
+[583] Or after those of Bojardo, which are in part the same as his.
+
+[584] The soldiers of the French army in 1512 were 'omnibus diris ad
+inferos devocati!' The honest canon, Tizio, who, in all seriousness,
+pronounced a curse from Macrobius against foreign troops, will be spoken
+of further on.
+
+[585] _De infelicitate principum_, in Poggii _Opera_, fol. 152: 'Cujus
+(Dantis) exstat poema praeclarum, neque, si literis Latinis constaret,
+ullâ ex parte poetis superioribus (the ancients) postponendum.'
+According to Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 74, 'Many wise men' even
+then discussed the question why Dante had not written in Latin.
+Cortesius (_De hominibus doctis_, p. 7) complains: 'Utinam tam bene
+cogitationes suas Latinus litteris mandare potuisset, quam bene patrium
+sermonem illustravit!' He makes the same complaint in speaking of
+Petrarch and Boccaccio.
+
+[586] His work _De vulgari eloquio_ was for long almost unknown, and,
+valuable as it is to us, could never have exercised the influence of the
+_Divina Commedia_.
+
+[587] To know how far this fanaticism went, we have only to refer to
+Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis nostri temporis_, _passim_. Vespasiano
+Bisticci is one of the few Latin writers of that time who openly
+confessed that they knew little of Latin (_Commentario della vita di G.
+Manetti_, p. 2), but he knew enough to introduce Latin sentences here
+and there in his writings, and to read Latin letters (_ibid._ 96, 165).
+In reference to this exclusive regard for Latin, the following passage
+may be quoted from Petr. Alcyonius, _De exilio_, ed. Menken, p. 213. He
+says that if Cicero could rise up and behold Rome, 'Omnium maxime illum
+credo perturbarent ineptiae quorumdam qui, amisso studio veteris linguae
+quae eadem hujus urbis et universae Italiae propria erat, dies noctesque
+incumbunt in linguam Geticam aut Dacicam discendam eandemque omni
+ratione ampliendam, cum Goti, Visigothi et Vandali (qui erant olim Getae
+et Daci) eam in Italos invexerant, ut artes et linguam et nomen Romanum
+delerent.'
+
+[588] There were regular stylistic exercises, as in the _Orationes_ of
+the elder Beroaldus, where there are two tales of Boccaccio, and even a
+'Canzone' of Petrarch translated into Latin.
+
+[589] Comp. Petrarch's letter from the earth to illustrious shades
+below. _Opera_, p. 704 sqq. See also p. 372 in the work _De rep. optime
+administranda_: 'Sic esse doleo, sed sic est.'
+
+[590] A burlesque picture of the fanatical purism prevalent in Rome is
+given by Jovian. Pontanus in his _Antonius_.
+
+[591] _Hadriani (Cornetani) Card. S. Chrysogoni de sermone latino
+liber_, especially the introduction. He finds in Cicero and his
+contemporaries Latinity in its absolute form (_an sich_). The same
+Codrus Urceus, who found in Homer the sum of all science (see above, p.
+249, note 1) says (_Opp._ ed. 1506, fol. lxv.): 'Quidquid temporibus
+meis aut vidi aut studui libens omne illud Cicero mihi felici dedit
+omine,' and goes so far as to say in another poem (_ibid._): 'Non habet
+huic similem doctrinae Graecia mater.'
+
+[592] Paul. Jov. _Elogia doct. vir._ p. 187 sqq., speaking of Bapt.
+Pius.
+
+[593] Paul Jov. _Elogia_, on Naugerius. Their ideal, he says, was:
+'Aliquid in stylo proprium, quod peculiarem ex certâ notâ mentis
+effigiem referret, ex naturae genio effinxisse.' Politian, when in a
+hurry, objected to write his letters in Latin. Comp. Raph. Volat.
+_Comment. urban._ l. xxi. Politian to Cortesius (_Epist._ lib. viii. ep.
+16): 'Mihi vero longe honestior tauri facies, aut item leonis, quam
+simiae videtur;' to which Cortesius replied: 'Ego malo esse assecla et
+simia Ciceronis quam alumnus.' For Pico's opinion on the Latin language,
+see the letter quoted above, p. 202.
+
+[594] Paul. Jov. _Dialogus de viris literis illustribus_, in Tiraboschi,
+ed. Venez. 1766, tom. vii. p. iv. It is well known that Giovio was long
+anxious to undertake the great work which Vasari accomplished. In the
+dialogue mentioned above it is foreseen and deplored that Latin would
+now altogether lose its supremacy.
+
+[595] In the 'Breve' of 1517 to Franc. de' Rosi, composed by Sadoleto,
+in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, vi. p. 172.
+
+[596] Gasp. Veronens. _Vita Pauli II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1031. The
+plays of Seneca and Latin translations of Greek dramas were also
+performed.
+
+[597] At Ferrara, Plautus was played chiefly in the Italian adaptations
+of Collenuccio, the younger Guarino, and others, and principally for the
+sake of the plots. Isabella Gonzaga took the liberty of finding him
+dull. For Latin comedy in general, see R. Peiper in Fleckeisen and
+Masius, _Neue Jahrb. für Phil. u. Pädag._, Lpzg. 1874, xx. 131-138, and
+_Archiv für Literaturgesch_. v. 541 sqq. On Pomp. Laetus, see _Sabellici
+Opera_, Epist. l. xi. fol. 56 sqq., and below, at the close of Part III.
+
+[598] Comp. Burckhardt. _Gesch. der Renaissance in Italien_, 38-41.
+
+[599] For what follows see _Deliciae poetarum Italorum_; Paul. Jov.
+_Elogia_; Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis nostri temporis_; and the
+Appendices to Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi.
+
+[600] There are two new editions of the poem, that of Pingaud (Paris,
+1872), and that of Corradini (Padua, 1874). In 1874 two Italian
+translations also appeared by G. B. Gaudo and A. Palesa. On the
+_Africa_, compare L. Geiger: _Petrarca_, pp. 122 sqq., and p. 270, note
+7.
+
+[601] Filippo Villani, _Vite_, ed. Galetti, p. 16.
+
+[602] _Franc. Aleardi Oratio in laudem Franc. Sfortiae_, in Marat. xxv.
+col. 384. In comparing Scipio with Caesar, Guarino and Cyriacus
+Anconitanus held the latter, Poggio (_Opera_, epp. fol. 125, 134 sqq.)
+the former, to be the greater. For Scipio and Hannibal in the miniatures
+of Attavante, see Vasari, iv. 41. _Vita di Fiesole_. The names of both
+used for Picinino and Sforza. See p. 99. There were great disputes as to
+the relative greatness of the two. Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 262 sqq. and
+Rosmini: Guarino, ii. 97-111.
+
+[603] The brilliant exceptions, where rural life is treated
+realistically, will also be mentioned below.
+
+[604] Printed in Mai, _Spicilegium Romanum_, vol. viii. pp. 488-504;
+about 500 hexameter verses. Pierio Valeriano followed out the myth in
+his poetry. See his _Carpio_, in the _Deliciae poetarum Italorum_. The
+frescoes of Brusasorci in the Pal. Murari at Verona represent the
+subject of the _Sarca_.
+
+[605] Newly edited and translated by Th. A. Fassnacht in _Drei Perlen
+der neulateinischen Poesie_. Leutkirch and Leipzig, 1875. See further,
+Goethe's _Werke_ (Hempel'sche Ausgabe), vol. xxxii. pp. 157 and 411.
+
+[606] _De sacris diebus._
+
+[607] E.g. in his eighth eclogue.
+
+[608] There are two unfinished and unprinted Sforziads, one by the
+elder, the other by the younger Filelfo. On the latter, see Favre,
+_Mélanges d'Hist. Lit._ i. 156; on the former, see Rosmini, _Filelfo_,
+ii. 157-175. It is said to be 12,800 lines long, and contains the
+passage: 'The sun falls in love with Bianca.'
+
+[609] Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, viii. 184. A poem in a similar
+style, xii. 130. The poem of Angilbert on the Court of Charles the Great
+curiously reminds us of the Renaissance. Comp. Pertz. _Monum._ ii.
+
+[610] Strozzi, _Poetae_, p. 31 sqq. 'Caesaris Borgiae ducis epicedium.'
+
+[611]
+
+ 'Pontificem addiderat, flammis lustralibus omneis
+ Corporis ablutum labes, Dis Juppiter ipsis,' etc.
+
+
+[612] This was Ercole II. of Ferrara, b. April 4, 1508, probably either
+shortly before or shortly after the composition of this poem. 'Nascere,
+magne puer, matri expectate patrique,' is said near the end.
+
+[613] Comp. the collections of the _Scriptores_ by Schardius, Freher,
+&c., and see above p. 126, note 1.
+
+[614] Uzzano, see _Archiv._ iv. i. 296. Macchiavelli, _i Decennali_. The
+life of Savonarola, under the title _Cedrus Libani_, by Fra Benedetto.
+_Assedio di Piombino_, Murat. xxv. We may quote as a parallel the
+_Teuerdank_ and other northern works in rhyme (new ed. of that by
+Haltaus, Quedlinb. and Leipzig, 1836). The popular historical songs of
+the Germans, which were produced in great abundance in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries, may be compared with these Italian poems.
+
+[615] We may remark of the _Coltivazione_ of L. Alamanni, written in
+Italian 'versi sciolti,' that all the really poetical and enjoyable
+passages are directly or indirectly borrowed from the ancients (an old
+ed., Paris, 1540; new ed. of the works of A., 2 vols., Florence, 1867).
+
+[616] E.g. by C. G. Weise, Leipzig, 1832. The work, divided into twelve
+books, named after the twelve constellations, is dedicated to Hercules
+II. of Ferrara. In the dedication occur the remarkable words: 'Nam quem
+alium patronum in totâ Italiâ invenire possum, cui musae cordisunt, qui
+carmen sibi oblatum aut intelligat, aut examine recto expendere sciat?'
+Palingenius uses 'Juppiter' and 'Deus' indiscriminately.
+
+[617] L. B. Alberti's first comic poem, which purported to be by an
+author Lepidus, was long considered as a work of antiquity.
+
+[618] In this case (see below, p. 266, note 2) of the introduction to
+Lucretius, and of Horace, _Od._ iv. 1.
+
+[619] The invocation of a patron saint is an essentially pagan
+undertaking, as has been noticed at p. 57. On a more serious occasion,
+comp. Sannazaro's Elegy: 'In festo die divi Nazarii martyris.' Sann.
+_Elegiae_, 1535, fol. 166 sqq.
+
+[620]
+
+ Si satis ventos tolerasse et imbres
+ Ac minas fatorum hominumque fraudes
+ Da Pater tecto salientem avito
+ Cernere fumum!
+
+
+[621] _Andr. Naugerii, Orationes duae carminaque aliquot_, Venet. 1530,
+4^o. The few 'Carmina' are to be found partly or wholly in the
+_Deliciae_. On N. and his death, see Pier. Val. _De inf. lit._ ed.
+Menken, 326 sqq.
+
+[622] Compare Petrarch's greeting to Italy, written more than a century
+earlier (1353) in _Petr. Carmina Minora_, ed. Rossetti, ii. pp. 266 sqq.
+
+[623] To form a notion of what Leo X. could swallow, see the prayer of
+Guido Postumo Silvestri to Christ, the Virgin, and all the Saints, that
+they would long spare this 'numen' to earth, since heaven had enough of
+such already. Printed in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, v. 337.
+
+[624] Molza's _Poesie volgari e Latine_, ed. by Pierantonio Serassi,
+Bergamo 1747.
+
+[625] Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 36.
+
+[626] Sannazaro ridicules a man who importuned him with such forgeries:
+'Sint vetera haec aliis, mî nova semper erunt.' (Ad Rufum, _Opera_,
+1535, fol. 41 _a_.)
+
+[627] 'De mirabili urbe Venetiis' (_Opera_, fol. 38 b):
+
+ Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis
+ Stare urbem et toto ponere jura mari:
+ Nunc mihi Tarpejas quantum vis Juppiter arceis
+ Objice et illa tui moenia Martis ait,
+ Si pelago Tybrim praefers, urbem aspice utramque
+ Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos.
+
+
+[628] _Lettere de'principi_, i. 88, 98.
+
+[629] Malipiero, _Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor._ vii. i. p. 508. At the end
+we read, in reference to the bull as the arms of the Borgia:
+
+ 'Merge, Tyber, vitulos animosas ultor in undas;
+ Bos cadat inferno victima magna Jovi!'
+
+
+[630] On the whole affair, see Roscoe, _Leone X._, ed. Bossi, vii. 211,
+viii. 214 sqq. The printed collection, now rare, of these _Coryciana_ of
+the year 1524 contains only the Latin poems; Vasari saw another book in
+the possession of the Augustinians in which were sonnets. So contagious
+was the habit of affixing poems, that the group had to be protected by a
+railing, and even hidden altogether. The change of Goritz into 'Corycius
+senex' is suggested by Virgil, _Georg._ iv. 127. For the miserable end
+of the man at the sack of Rome, see Pierio Valeriano, _De infelic.
+literat._ ed. Menken, p. 369.
+
+[631] The work appeared first in the _Coryciana_, with introductions by
+Silvanus and Corycius himself; also reprinted in the Appendices to
+Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, and in the _Deliciae_. Comp. Paul. Jov.
+_Elogia_, speaking of Arsillus. Further, for the great number of the
+epigrammatists, see Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, l. c. One of the most biting
+pens was Marcantonio Casanova. Among the less known, Jo. Thomas
+Muscanius (see _Deliciae_) deserves mention. On Casanova, see Pier.
+Valer. _De infel. lit._ ed. Menken, p. 376 sqq.; and Paul. Jov.
+_Elogia_, p. 142 sqq., who says of him: 'Nemo autem eo simplicitate ac
+innocentiâ vitae melior;' Arsillus (l. c.) speaks of his 'placidos
+sales.' Some few of his poems in the _Coryciana_, J. 3 _a_ sqq. L. 1
+_a_, L. 4 _b_.
+
+[632] Marin Sanudo, in the _Vite de'duchi di Venezia_, Murat. xii.
+quotes them regularly.
+
+[633] Scardeonius, _De urb. Patav. antiq._ (Graev. thes. vi. 11, col.
+270), names as the inventor a certain Odaxius of Padua, living about the
+middle of the fifteenth century. Mixed verses of Latin and the language
+of the country are found much earlier in many parts of Europe.
+
+[634] It must not be forgotten that they were very soon printed with
+both the old Scholia and modern commentaries.
+
+[635] Ariosto, _Satira_, vii. Date 1531.
+
+[636] Of such children we meet with several, yet I cannot give an
+instance in which they were demonstrably so treated. The youthful
+prodigy Giulio Campagnola was not one of those who were forced with an
+ambitious object. Comp. Scardeonius, _De urb. Patav. antiq._ in Graev.
+thes. vi. 3, col. 276. For the similar case of Cecchino Bracci, d. 1445
+in his fifteenth year, comp. Trucchi, _Poesie Ital. inedite_, iii. p.
+229. The father of Cardano tried 'memoriam artificialem instillare,' and
+taught him, when still a child, the astrology of the Arabians. See
+Cardanus, _De propria vita_ cap. 34. Manoello may be added to the list,
+unless we are to take his expression, 'At the age of six years I am as
+good as at eighty,' as a meaningless phrase. Comp. _Litbl. des Orients_,
+1843, p. 21.
+
+[637] Bapt. Mantuan. _De calamitatibus temporum_, l. i.
+
+[638] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _Progymnasma adversus literas et literatos_.
+_Opp._ ed. Basil. 1580, ii. 422-445. Dedications 1540-1541; the work
+itself addressed to Giov. Franc. Pico, and therefore finished before
+1533.
+
+[639] Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _Hercules_. The dedication is a striking
+evidence of the first threatening movements of the Inquisition.
+
+[640] He passed, as we have seen, for the last protector of the
+scholars.
+
+[641] _De infelicitate literatorum._ On the editions, see above, p. 86,
+note 4. Pier. Val., after leaving Rome, lived long in a good position as
+professor at Padua. At the end of his work he expresses the hope that
+Charles V. and Clement VII. would bring about a better time for the
+scholars.
+
+[642] Comp. Dante, _Inferno_, xiii. 58 sqq., especially 93 sqq., where
+Petrus de Vineis speaks of his own suicide.
+
+[643] Pier. Valer. pp. 397 sqq., 402. He was the uncle of the writer.
+
+[644] Coelii Calcagnini, _Opera_, ed. Basil. 1544, p. 101, in the Seventh
+Book of the Epistles, No. 27, letter to Jacob Ziegler. Comp. Pierio Val.
+_De inf. lit._ ed. Menken, p. 369 sqq.
+
+[645] _M. Ant. Sabellici Opera_, Epist. l. xi. fol. 56. See, too, the
+biography in the _Elogia_ of Paolo Giovio, p. 76 sqq. The former
+appeared separately at Strasburg in 1510, under the title Sabellicus:
+_Vita Pomponii Laeti_.
+
+[646] Jac. Volaterran. _Diar. Rom._ in Muratori. xxiii. col. 161, 171,
+185. _Anecdota literaria_, ii. pp. 168 sqq.
+
+[647] Paul. Jov. _De Romanis piscibus_, cap. 17 and 34.
+
+[648] Sadoleti, Epist. 106, of the year 1529.
+
+[649] Anton. Galatei, Epist. 10 and 12, in Mai, _Spicileg. Rom._ vol.
+viii.
+
+[650] This was the case even before the middle of the century. Comp.
+Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis nostri temp._ ii.
+
+[651] Luigi Bossi, _Vita di Cristoforo Colombo_, in which there is a
+sketch of earlier Italian journeys and discoveries, p. 91 sqq.
+
+[652] See on this subject a treatise by Pertz. An inadequate account is
+to be found in Æneas Sylvius, _Europae status sub Frederico III. Imp._
+cap. 44 (in Freher's _Scriptores_, ed. 1624, vol. ii. p. 87). On Æn. S.
+see Peschel o.c. 217 sqq.
+
+[653] Comp. O. Peschel, _Geschichte der Erdkunde_, 2nd edit., by Sophus
+Ruge, Munich, 1877, p. 209 sqq. _et passim_.
+
+[654] _Pii II. Comment._ l. i. p. 14. That he did not always observe
+correctly, and sometimes filled up the picture from his fancy, is
+clearly shown, e.g., by his description of Basel. Yet his merit on the
+whole is nevertheless great. On the description of Basel see G. Voigt;
+Enea Silvio, i. 228; on E. S. as Geographer, ii. 302-309. Comp. i. 91
+sqq.
+
+[655] In the sixteenth century, Italy continued to be the home of
+geographical literature, at a time when the discoverers themselves
+belonged almost exclusively to the countries on the shores of the
+Atlantic. Native geography produced in the middle of the century the
+great and remarkable work of Leandro Alberti, _Descrizione di tutta
+l'Italia_, 1582. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the maps in
+Italy were in advance of those of other countries. See Wieser: _Der
+Portulan des Infanten Philipp II. von Spanien_ in _Sitzungsberichte der
+Wien. Acad. Phil. Hist. Kl._ Bd. 82 (1876), pp. 541 sqq. For the
+different Italian maps and voyages of discovery, see the excellent work
+of Oscar Peschel: _Abhandl. zur Erd-und Völkerkunde_ (Leipzig, 1878).
+Comp. also, _inter alia_: Berchet, _Il planisfero di Giovanni Leandro
+del'anno 1452 fa-simil nella grandezza del' original Nota illustrativa_,
+16 S. 4^o. Venezia, 1879. Comp. Voigt, ii. 516; and G. B. de Rossi,
+_Piante iconogrofiche di Roma anteriori al secolo XVI._ Rome, 1879. For
+Petrarch's attempt to draw out a map of Italy, comp. Flavio Biondo:
+_Italia illustrata_ (ed. Basil.), p. 352 sqq.; also _Petr. Epist. var.
+LXI._ ed. Fracass. iii. 476. A remarkable attempt at a map of Europe,
+Asia and Africa is to be found on the obverse of a medal of Charles IV.
+of Anjou, executed by Francesco da Laurana in 1462.
+
+[656] Libri, _Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques en Italie_. 4 vols.
+Paris, 1838.
+
+[657] To pronounce a conclusive judgment on this point, the growth of
+the habit of collecting observations, in other than the mathematical
+sciences, would need to be illustrated in detail. But this lies outside
+the limits of our task.
+
+[658] Libri, op. cit. ii. p. 174 sqq. See also Dante's treatise, _De
+aqua et terra_; and W. Schmidt, _Dante's Stellung in der Geschichte der
+Cosmographie_, Graz, 1876. The passages bearing on geography and natural
+science from the _Tesoro_ of Brunetto Latini are published separately:
+_Il trattato della Sfera di S. Br. L._, by Bart. Sorio (Milan, 1858),
+who has added B. L.'s system of historical chronology.
+
+[659] Scardeonius, _De urb. Patav. antiq._ in _Graevii Thesaur. ant.
+Ital._ tom. vi. pars iii. col. 227. A. died in 1312 during the
+investigation; his statue was burnt. On Giov. Sang. see op. cit. col.
+228 sqq. Comp. on him, Fabricius, _Bibl. Lat._ s. v. Petrus de Apono.
+Sprenger in _Esch. u. Gruber_, i. 33. He translated (a. 1292-1293)
+astrological works of Abraham ibn Esra, printed 1506.
+
+[660] See below, part vi. chapter 2.
+
+[661] See the exaggerated complaints of Libri, op. cit. ii. p. 258 sqq.
+Regrettable as it may be that a people so highly gifted did not devote
+more of its strength to the natural sciences, we nevertheless believe
+that it pursued, and in part attained, still more important ends.
+
+[662] On the studies of the latter in Italy, comp. the thorough
+investigation by C. Malagola in his work on Codro Urceo (Bologna, 1878,
+cap. vii. 360-366).
+
+[663] Italians also laid out botanical gardens in foreign countries,
+e.g. Angelo, of Florence, a contemporary of Petrarch, in Prag.
+Friedjung: _Carl IV._ p. 311, note 4.
+
+[664] _Alexandri Braccii descriptio horti Laurentii Med._, printed as
+Appendix No. 58 to Roscoe's _Life of Lorenzo_. Also to be found in the
+Appendices to Fabroni's _Laurentius_.
+
+[665] _Mondanarii Villa_, printed in the _Poemata aliquot insignia
+illustr. poetar. recent._
+
+[666] On the zoological garden at Palermo under Henry VI., see Otto de
+S. Blasio ad a. 1194. That of Henry I. of England in the park of
+Woodstock (Guliel. Malmes. p. 638) contained lions, leopards, camels,
+and a porcupine, all gifts of foreign princes.
+
+[667] As such he was called, whether painted or carved in stone,
+'Marzocco.' At Pisa eagles were kept. See the commentators on Dante,
+_Inf._ xxxiii. 22. The falcon in Boccaccio, _Decam._ v. 9. See for the
+whole subject: _Due trattati del governo e delle infermità degli
+uccelli, testi di lingua inediti_. Rome, 1864. They are works of the
+fourteenth century, possibly translated from the Persian.
+
+[668] See the extract from Ægid. Viterb. in Papencordt, _Gesch. der
+Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_, p. 367, note, with an incident of the year
+1328. Combats of wild animals among themselves and with dogs served to
+amuse the people on great occasions. At the reception of Pius II. and of
+Galeazzo Maria Sforza at Florence, in 1459, in an enclosed space on the
+Piazza della Signoria, bulls, horses, boars, dogs, lions, and a giraffe
+were turned out together, but the lions lay down and refused to attack
+the other animals. Comp. _Ricordi di Firenze, Rer. Ital. script. ex
+Florent. codd._ tom. ii. col. 741. A different account in _Vita Pii II._
+Murat. iii. ii. col. 976. A second giraffe was presented to Lorenzo the
+Magnificent by the Mameluke Sultan Kaytbey. Comp. Paul. Jov. _Vita
+Leonis X._ l. i. In Lorenzo's menagerie one magnificent lion was
+especially famous, and his destruction by the other lions was reckoned a
+presage of the death of his owner.
+
+[669] Gio. Villani, x. 185, xi. 66. Matteo Villani, iii. 90, v. 68. It
+was a bad omen if the lions fought, and worse still if they killed one
+another. Com. Varchi, _Stor. fiorent._ iii. p. 143. Matt. V. devotes the
+first of the two chapters quoted to prove (1) that lions were born in
+Italy, and (2) that they came into the world alive.
+
+[670] _Cron. di Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 77, year 1497. A pair
+of lions once escaped from Perugia; _ibid._ xvi. i. p. 382, year 1434.
+Florence, for example, sent to King Wladislaw of Poland (May, 1406), a
+pair of lions _ut utriusque sexus animalia ad procreandos catulos
+haberetis_. The accompanying statement is amusing in a diplomatic
+document: 'Sunt equidem hi leones Florentini, et satis quantum natura
+promittere potuit mansueti, depositâ feritate, quam insitam habent,
+hique in Gætulorum regionibus nascuntur et Indorum, in quibus multitudo
+dictorum animalium evalescit, sicuti prohibent naturales. Et cum leonum
+complexio sit frigoribus inimica, quod natura sagax ostendit, natura in
+regionibus aestu ferventibus generantur, necessarium est, quod vostra
+serenitas, si dictorum animalium vitam et sobolis propagationem, ut
+remur, desiderat, faciat provideri, quod in locis calidis educentur et
+maneant. Conveniunt nempe cum regia majestate leones quoniam leo græce
+latine rex dicitur. Sicut enim rex dignitate potentia, magnanimitate
+ceteros homines antecellit, sic leonis generositas et vigor
+imperterritus animalia cuncta praesit. Et sicut rex, sic leo adversus
+imbecilles et timidos clementissimum se ostendit, et adversus inquietos
+et tumidos terribilem se offert animadversione justissima.' (_Cod.
+epistolaris sæculi. Mon. med. ævi hist. res gestas Poloniæ illustr._
+Krakau, 1876, p. 25.)
+
+[671] Gage, _Carteggio_, i. p. 422, year 1291. The Visconti used trained
+leopards for hunting hares, which were started by little dogs. See v.
+Kobel, _Wildanger_, p. 247, where later instances of hunting with
+leopards are mentioned.
+
+[672] _Strozzii poetae_, p. 146: _De leone Borsii Ducis_. The lion
+spares the hare and the small dog, imitating (so says the poet) his
+master. Comp. the words fol. 188, 'et inclusis condita septa feris,' and
+fol. 193, an epigram of fourteen lines, 'in leporarii ingressu quam
+maximi;' see _ibid._ for the hunting-park.
+
+[673] _Cron. di Perugia_, l. c. xvi. ii. p. 199. Something of the same
+kind is to be found in Petrarch, _De remed. utriusque fortunae_, but
+less clearly expressed. Here Gaudium, in the conversation with Ratio,
+boasts of owning monkeys and 'ludicra animalia.'
+
+[674] Jovian. Pontan. _De magnificentia._ In the zoological garden of
+the Cardinal of Aquileja, at Albano, there were, in 1463, peacocks and
+Indian fowls and Syrian goats with long ears. _Pii II. Comment._ l. xi.
+p. 562 sqq.
+
+[675] _Decembrio_, ap. Muratori, xx. col. 1012.
+
+[676] Brunetti Latini, _Tesor._ (ed. Chabaille, Paris, 1863), lib. i. In
+Petrarch's time there were no elephants in Italy. 'Itaque et in Italia
+avorum memoria unum Frederico Romanorum principi fuisse et nunc Egyptio
+tyranno nonnisi unicum esse fama est.' _De rem. utr. fort._ i. 60.
+
+[677] The details which are most amusing, in Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, on
+Tristanus Acunius. On the porcupines and ostriches in the Pal. Strozzi,
+see Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, iv. chap. 11. Lorenzo the Magnificent
+received a giraffe from Egypt through some merchants, Baluz. _Miscell._
+iv. 416. The elephant sent to Leo was greatly bewailed by the people
+when it died, its portrait was painted, and verses on it were written by
+the younger Beroaldus.
+
+[678] Comp. Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, p. 234, speaking of Francesco Gonzaga.
+For the luxury at Milan in this respect, see Bandello, Parte II. Nov. 3
+and 8. In the narrative poems we also sometimes hear the opinion of a
+judge of horses. Comp. Pulci, _Morgante_, xv. 105 sqq.
+
+[679] Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, speaking of Hipp. Medices.
+
+[680] At this point a few notices on slavery in Italy at the time of the
+Renaissance will not be out of place. A short, but important, passage in
+Jovian. Pontan. _De obedientia_, l. iii. cap. i.: 'An homo, cum liber
+natura sit, domino parere debeat?' In North Italy there were no slaves.
+Elsewhere, even Christians, as well as Circassians and Bulgarians, were
+bought from the Turks, and made to serve till they had earned their
+ransom. The negroes, on the contrary, remained slaves; but it was not
+permitted, at least in the kingdom of Naples, to emasculate them. The
+word 'moro' signifies any dark-skinned man; the negro was called 'moro
+nero.'--Fabroni, _Cosmos_, Adn. 110: Document on the sale of a female
+Circassian slave (1427); Adn. 141: List of the female slaves of
+Cosimo.--Nantiporto, Murat. iii. ii. col. 1106: Innocent VIII. received
+100 Moors as a present from Ferdinand the Catholic, and gave them to
+cardinals and other great men (1488).--Marsuccio, _Novelle_, 14: sale of
+slaves; do. 24 and 25: negro slaves who also (for the benefit of their
+owner?) work as 'facchini,' and gain the love of the women; do. 48 Moors
+from Tunis caught by Catalans and sold at Pisa.--Gaye, _Carteggio_, i.
+360: manumission and reward of a negro slave in a Florentine will
+(1490).--Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, sub Franc. Sfortia; Porzio, _Congiura_,
+iii. 195; and Comines, _Charles VIII._ chap. 18: negroes as gaolers and
+executioners of the House of Aragon in Naples.--Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, sub
+Galeatio: negroes as followers of the prince on his excursions.--Æneæ
+Sylvii, _Opera_, p. 456: a negro slave as a musician.--Paul. Jov. _De
+piscibus_, cap 3: a (free?) negro as diver and swimming-master at
+Genoa.--Alex. Benedictus, _De Carolo VIII._ in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii.
+col. 1608: a negro (Æthiops) as superior officer at Venice, according to
+which we are justified in thinking of Othello as a negro.--Bandello,
+Parte III. Nov. 21: when a slave at Genoa deserved punishment he was
+sold away to Iviza, one of the Balearic isles, to carry salt.
+
+The foregoing remarks, although they make no claim to completeness, may
+be allowed to stand as they are in the new edition, on account of the
+excellent selection of instances they contain, and because they have not
+met with sufficient notice in the works upon the subject. Latterly a
+good deal has been written on the slave-trade in Italy. The very curious
+book of Filippo Zamboni: _Gli Ezzelini, Dante e gli Schiavi, ossia Roma
+e la Schiavitù personale domestica. Con documenti inediti. Seconda
+edizione aumentata_ (Vienna, 1870), does not contain what the title
+promises, but gives, p. 241 sqq., valuable information on the
+slave-trade; p. 270, a remarkable document on the buying and selling of
+a female slave; p. 282, a list of various slaves (with the place were
+they were bought and sold, their home, age, and price) in the thirteenth
+and three following centuries. A treatise by Wattenbach: _Sklavenhandel
+im Mittelalter_ (_Anzeiger für Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit_, 1874, pp.
+37-40) refers only in part to Italy: Clement V. decides in 1309 that the
+Venetian prisoners should be made slaves of; in 1501, after the capture
+of Capua, many Capuan women were sold at Rome for a low price. In the
+_Monum. historica Slavorum meridionalium_, ed. Vinc. Macusceo, tom. i.
+Warsaw, 1874, we read at p. 199 a decision (Ancona, 1458) that the
+'Greci, Turci, Tartari, Sarraceni, Bossinenses, Burgari vel Albanenses,'
+should be and always remain slaves, unless their masters freed them by a
+legal document. Egnatius, _Exempl. ill. vir._ Ven. fol. 246 _a_, praises
+Venice on the ground that 'servorum Venetis ipsis nullum unquam usum
+extitisse;' but, on the other hand, comp. Zamboni, p. 223, and
+especially Vincenzo Lazari: 'Del traffico e delle condizioni degli
+schiavi, in Venezia nel tempo di mezzo,' in _Miscellanea di Stor. Ital._
+Torino, 1862, vol. i. 463-501.
+
+[681] It is hardly necessary to refer the reader to the famous chapters
+on this subject in Humboldt's _Kosmos_.
+
+[682] See on this subject the observations of Wilhelm Grimm, quoted by
+Humboldt in the work referred to.
+
+[683] Carmina Burana, p. 162, _De Phyllide et Flora_, str. 66.
+
+[684] It would be hard to say what else he had to do at the top of the
+Bismantova in the province of Reggio, _Purgat._ iv. 26. The precision
+with which he brings before us all the parts of his supernatural world
+shows a remarkable sense of form and space. That there was a belief in
+the existence of hidden treasures on the tops of mountains, and that
+such spots were regarded with superstitious terror, may be clearly
+inferred from the _Chron. Novaliciense_, ii. 5, in Pertz, _Script._
+vii., and _Monum. hist. patriae, Script._ iii.
+
+[685] Besides the description of Baiæ in the _Fiammetta_, of the grove
+in the Ameto, etc., a passage in the _De genealogia deorum_, xiv. 11, is
+of importance, where he enumerates a number of rural beauties--trees,
+meadows, brooks, flocks and herds, cottages, etc.--and adds that these
+things 'animum mulcent;' their effect is 'mentem in se colligere.'
+
+[686] Flavio Biondo, _Italia Illustrata_ (ed. Basil), p. 352 sqq. Comp.
+_Epist. Var._ ed. Fracass. (lat.) iii. 476. On Petrarch's plan of
+writing a great geographical work, see the proofs given by Attilio
+Hortis, _Accenni alle Scienze Naturali nelle Opere di G. Boccacci_,
+Trieste, 1877, p. 45 sqq.
+
+[687] Although he is fond of referring to them: e.g. _De vita solitaria_
+(_Opera_, ed. Basil, 1581), esp. p. 241, where he quotes the description
+of a vine-arbour from St. Augustine.
+
+[688] _Epist. famil._ vii. 4. 'Interea utinam scire posses, quanta, cum
+voluptate solivagus et liber, inter montes et nemora, inter fontes et
+flumina, inter libros et maximorum hominum ingenia respiro, quamque me
+in ea, quae ante sunt, cum Apostolo extendens et praeterita oblivisci
+nitor et praesentia non videre.' Comp. vi. 3, o. c. 316 sqq. esp. 334
+sqq. Comp. L. Geiger: _Petrarca_, p. 75, note 5, and p. 269.
+
+[689] 'Jacuit sine carmine sacro.' Comp. _Itinerar. Syriacum, Opp._ p.
+558.
+
+[690] He distinguishes in the _Itinerar. Syr._ p. 357, on the Riviera di
+Levante: 'colles asperitate gratissima et mira fertilitate conspicuos.'
+On the port of Gaeta, see his _De remediis utriusque fortunae_, i. 54.
+
+[691] _Letter to Posterity_: 'Subito loco specie percussus.'
+Descriptions of great natural events: A Storm at Naples, 1343: _Epp.
+fam._ i. 263 sqq.; An Earthquake at Basel, 1355, _Epp. seniles_, lib. x.
+2, and _De rem. utr. fort._ ii. 91.
+
+[692] _Epist. fam._ ed. Fracassetti, i. 193 sqq.
+
+[693] _Il Dittamondo_, iii. cap. 9.
+
+[694] _Dittamondo_, iii. cap. 21, iv. cap. 4. Papencordt, _Gesch. der
+Stadt Rom_, says that the Emperor Charles IV. had a strong taste for
+beautiful scenery, and quotes on this point Pelzel, _Carl IV._ p. 456.
+(The two other passages, which he quotes, do not say the same.) It is
+possible that the Emperor took this fancy from intercourse with the
+humanists (see above, pp. 141-2). For the interest taken by Charles in
+natural science see H. Friedjung, op. cit. p. 224, note 1.
+
+[695] We may also compare Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 310: 'Homo fuit
+(Pius II.) verus, integer, apertus; nil habuit ficti, nil simulati'--an
+enemy of hypocrisy and superstition, courageous and consistent. See
+Voigt, ii. 261 sqq. and iii. 724. He does not, however, give an analysis
+of the character of Pius.
+
+[696] The most important passages are the following: _Pii II. P. M.
+Commentarii_, l. iv. p. 183; spring in his native country; l. v. p. 251;
+summer residence at Tivoli; l. vi. p. 306: the meal at the spring of
+Vicovaro; l. viii. p. 378: the neighbourhood of Viterbo; p. 387: the
+mountain monastery of St. Martin; p. 388: the Lake of Bolsena; l. ix. p.
+396: a splendid description of Monte Amiata; l. x. p. 483: the situation
+of Monte Oliveto; p. 497: the view from Todi; l. xi. p. 554: Ostia and
+Porto; p. 562: description of the Alban Hills; l. xii. p. 609: Frascati
+and Grottaferrata; comp. 568-571.
+
+[697] So we must suppose it to have been written, not Sicily.
+
+[698] He calls himself, with an allusion to his name: 'Silvarum amator
+et varia videndi cupidus.'
+
+[699] On Leonbattista Alberti's feeling for landscapes see above, p. 136
+sqq. Alberti, a younger contemporary of Æneas Silvius (_Trattato del
+Governo della Famiglia_, p. 90; see above, p. 132, note 1), is delighted
+when in the country with 'the bushy hills,' 'the fair plains and rushing
+waters.' Mention may here be made of a little work _Ætna_, by P. Bembus,
+first published at Venice, 1495, and often printed since, in which,
+among much that is rambling and prolix, there are remarkable
+geographical descriptions and notices of landscapes.
+
+[700] A most elaborate picture of this kind in Ariosto; his sixth canto
+is all foreground.
+
+[701] He deals differently with his architectural framework, and in this
+modern decorative art can learn something from him even now.
+
+[702] _Lettere Pittoriche_, iii. 36, to Titian, May, 1544.
+
+[703] _Strozzii Poetae_, in the _Erotica_, l. vi. fol. 183; in the poem:
+'Hortatur se ipse, ut ad amicam properet.'
+
+[704] Comp. Thausing: _Dürer_, Leipzig, 1876, p. 166.
+
+[705] These striking expressions are taken from the seventh volume of
+Michelet's _Histoire de France_ (Introd.).
+
+[706] Tomm. Gar, _Relaz. della Corte di Roma_, i. pp. 278 and 279. In
+the Rel. of Soriano, year 1533.
+
+[707] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 295 sqq. The word 'saturnico' means
+'unhappy' as well as 'bringing misfortune.' For the influence of the
+planets on human character in general, see Corn. Agrippa, _De occulta
+philosophia_, c. 52.
+
+[708] See Trucchi, _Poesie Italiane inedite_, i. p 165 sqq.
+
+[709] Blank verse became at a later time the usual form for dramatic
+compositions. Trissino, in the dedication of his _Sofonisba_ to Leo X.,
+expressed the hope that the Pope would recognise this style for what it
+was--as better, nobler, and _less easy_ than it looked. Roscoe, _Leone_
+X., ed. Bossi, viii. 174.
+
+[710] Comp. e.g. the striking forms adopted by Dante, _Vita Nuova_, ed.
+Witte, p. 13 sqq., 16 sqq. Each has twenty irregular lines; in the
+first, one rhyme occurs eight times.
+
+[711] Trucchi, op. cit. i. 181 sqq.
+
+[712] These were the 'Canzoni' and Sonnets which every blacksmith and
+donkey-driver sang and parodied--which made Dante not a little angry.
+(Comp. Franco Sachetti, Nov. 114, 115.) So quickly did these poems find
+their way among the people.
+
+[713] _Vita Nuova_, ed. Witte, pp. 81, 82 sqq. 'Deh peregrini,' _ibid._
+116.
+
+[714] For Dante's psychology, the beginning of _Purg._ iv. is one of the
+most important passages. See also the parts of the _Convito_ bearing on
+the subject.
+
+[715] The portraits of the school of Van Eyck would prove the contrary
+for the North. They remained for a long period far in advance of all
+descriptions in words.
+
+[716] Printed in the sixteenth volume of his _Opere Volgari_. See M.
+Landau, _Giov. Boccaccio_ (Stuttg. 1877), pp. 36-40; he lays special
+stress on B.'s dependence on Dante and Petrarch.
+
+[717] In the song of the shepherd Teogape, after the feast of Venus,
+_Opp._ ed. Montier, vol. xv. 2. p. 67 sqq. Comp. Landau, 58-64; on the
+_Fiammetta_, see Landau, 96-105.
+
+[718] The famous Lionardo Aretino, the leader of the humanists at the
+beginning of the fifteenth century, admits, 'Che gli antichi Greci
+d'umanita e di gentilezza di cuore abbino avanzanto di gran lunga i
+nostri Italiani;' but he says it at the beginning of a novel which
+contains the sentimental story of the invalid Prince Antiochus and his
+step-mother Stratonice--a document of an ambiguous and half-Asiatic
+character. (Printed as an Appendix to the _Cento Novelle Antiche_.)
+
+[719] No doubt the court and prince received flattery enough from their
+occasional poets and dramatists.
+
+[720] Comp. the contrary view taken by Gregorovius, _Gesch. Roms_, vii.
+619.
+
+[721] Paul. Jovius, _Dialog. de viris lit. illustr._, in Tiraboschi,
+tom. vii. iv. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, _De poetis nostri temp._
+
+[722] Isabella Gonzaga to her husband, Feb. 3, 1502, _Arch. Stor._
+Append. ii. p. 306 sqq. Comp. Gregorovius, _Lucrezia Borgia_, i.
+256-266, ed. 3. In the French _Mystères_ the actors themselves first
+marched before the audience in procession, which was called the
+'montre.'
+
+[723] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 404. Other passages
+referring to the stage in that city, cols. 278, 279, 282 to 285, 361,
+380, 381, 393, 397, from which it appears that Plautus was the dramatist
+most popular on these occasions, that the performances sometimes lasted
+till three o'clock in the morning, and were even given in the open air.
+The ballets were without any meaning or reference to the persons present
+and the occasion solemnized. Isabella Gonzaga, who was certainly at the
+time longing for her husband and child, and was dissatisfied with the
+union of her brother with Lucrezia, spoke of the 'coldness and
+frostiness' of the marriage and the festivities which attended it.
+
+[724] _Strozzii Poetæ_, fol. 232, in the fourth book of the _Æolosticha_
+of Tito Strozza. The lines run:
+
+ 'Ecce superveniens rerum argumenta retexit
+ Mimus, et ad populum verba diserta refert.
+ Tum similes habitu formaque et voce Menæchmi
+ Dulcibus oblectant lumina nostra modis.'
+
+The _Menæchmi_ was also given at Ferrara in 1486, at the cost of more
+than 1,000 ducats. Murat. xxiv. 278.
+
+[725] Franc. Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 169. The passage in the original
+is as follows: 'Si sono anco spesso recitate delle tragedie con grandi
+apparecchi, comporte da poeti antichi o da moderni. Alle quali per la
+fama degli apparati concorrevano le genti estere e circonvicine per
+vederle e udirle. Ma hoggi le feste da particolari si fanno fra i
+parenti et essendosi la città regolata per se medesima da certi anni in
+quà, si passano i tempi del Carnovale in comedie e in altri più lieti e
+honorati diletti.' The passage is not thoroughly clear.
+
+[726] This must be the meaning of Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 168, when
+he complains that the 'recitanti' ruined the comedies 'con invenzioni o
+personaggi troppo ridicoli.'
+
+[727] Sansovino, l. c.
+
+[728] Scardeonius, _De urb. Patav. antiq._, in Graevius, Thes. vi. iii.
+col. 288 sqq. An important passage for the literature of the dialects
+generally. One of the passages is as follows: 'Hinc ad recitandas
+comoedias socii scenici et gregales et æmuli fuere nobiles juvenes
+Patavini, Marcus Aurelius Alvarotus quem in comoediis suis Menatum
+appellitabat, et Hieronymus Zanetus quem Vezzam, et Castegnola quem
+Billoram vocitabat, et alii quidam qui sermonem agrestium imitando præ
+ceteris callebant.'
+
+[729] That the latter existed as early as the fifteenth century may be
+inferred from the _Diario Ferrerese_, Feb. 2nd, 1501: 'Il duca Hercole
+fece una festa di Menechino secondo il suo uso.' Murat. xxiv. col. 393.
+There cannot be a confusion with the Menæchmi of Plautus, which is
+correctly written, l. c. col. 278. See above, p. 318, note 2.
+
+[730] Pulci mischievously invents a solemn old-world legend for his
+story of the giant Margutte (_Morgante_, canto xix. str. 153 sqq.). The
+critical introduction of Limerno Pitocco is still droller (_Orlandino_,
+cap. i. str. 12-22).
+
+[731] The _Morgante_ was written in 1460 and the following years, and
+first printed at Venice in 1481. Last ed. by P. Sermolli, Florence,
+1872. For the tournaments, see part v. chap. i. See, for what follows,
+Ranke: _Zur Geschichte der italienischen Poesie_, Berlin, 1837.
+
+[732] The _Orlando inamorato_ was first printed in 1496.
+
+[733] _L'Italia liberata da Goti_, Rome, 1547.
+
+[734] See above, p. 319, and Landau's _Boccaccio_, 64-69. It must,
+nevertheless, be observed that the work of Boccaccio here mentioned was
+written before 1344, while that of Petrarch was written after Laura's
+death, that is, after 1348.
+
+[735] Vasari, viii. 71, in the Commentary to the _Vita di Rafaelle_.
+
+[736] Much of this kind our present taste could dispense with in the
+_Iliad_.
+
+[737] First edition, 1516.
+
+[738] The speeches inserted are themselves narratives.
+
+[739] As was the case with Pulci, _Morgante_, canto xix. str. 20 sqq.
+
+[740] The _Orlandino_, first edition, 1526.
+
+[741] Radevicus, _De gestis Friderici imp._, especially ii. 76. The
+admirable _Vita Henrici IV._ contains very little personal description,
+as is also the case with the _Vita Chuonradi imp._ by Wipo.
+
+[742] The librarian Anastasius (middle of ninth century) is here meant.
+The whole collection of the lives of the Popes (_Liber Pontificalis_)
+was formerly ascribed to him, but erroneously. Comp. Wattenbach,
+_Deutschland's Geschichtsquellen_, i. 223 sqq. 3rd ed.
+
+[743] Lived about the same time as Anastasius; author of a history of
+the bishopric of Ravenna. Wattenbach, l. c. 227.
+
+[744] How early Philostratus was used in the same way, I am unable to
+say. Suetonius was no doubt taken as a model in times still earlier.
+Besides the life of Charles the Great, written by Eginhard, examples
+from the twelfth century are offered by William of Malmesbury in his
+descriptions of William the Conqueror (p. 446 sqq., 452 sqq.), of
+William II. (pp. 494, 504), and of Henry I. (p. 640).
+
+[745] See the admirable criticism in Landau, _Boccaccio_, 180-182.
+
+[746] See above, p. 131. The original (Latin) was first published in
+1847 at Florence, by Galletti, with the title, _Philippi Villani Liber
+de civitatis Florentiae famosis civibus_; an old Italian translation has
+been often printed since 1747, last at Trieste, 1858. The first book,
+which treats of the earliest history of Florence and Rome, has never
+been printed. The chapter in Villani, _De semipoetis_, i.e. those who
+wrote in prose as well as in verse, or those who wrote poems besides
+following some other profession, is specially interesting.
+
+[747] Here we refer the reader to the biography of L. B. Alberti, from
+which extracts are given above (p. 136), and to the numerous Florentine
+biographies in Muratori, in the _Archivio Storico_, and elsewhere. The
+life of Alberti is probably an autobiography, l. c. note 2.
+
+[748] _Storia Fiorentina_, ed. F. L. Polidori, Florence, 1838.
+
+[749] _De viris illustribus_, in the publications of the _Stuttgarter
+liter. Vereins_, No. i. Stuttg. 1839. Comp. C. Voigt, ii. 324. Of the
+sixty-five biographies, twenty-one are lost.
+
+[750] His _Diarium Romanum_ from 1472 to 1484, in Murat. xiii. 81-202.
+
+[751] _Ugolini Verini poetae Florentini_ (a contemporary of Lorenzo, a
+pupil of Landinus, fol. 13, and teacher of Petrus Crinitus, fol. 14),
+_De illustratione urbis Florentinae libri tres_, Paris, 1583, deserves
+mention, esp. lib. 2. Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio are spoken of and
+characterised without a word of blame. For several women, see fol. 11.
+
+[752] _Petri Candidi Decembrii Vita Philippi Mariae Vicecomitis_, in
+Murat. xx. Comp above, p. 38.
+
+[753] See above, p. 225.
+
+[754] On Comines, see above, p. 96, note 1. While Comines, as is there
+indicated, partly owes his power of objective criticism to intercourse
+with Italians, the German humanists and statesmen, notwithstanding the
+prolonged residence of some of them in Italy, and their diligent and
+often most successful study of the classical world, acquired little or
+nothing of the gift of biographical representation or of the analysis of
+character. The travels, biographies, and historical sketches of the
+German humanists in the fifteenth, and often in the early part of the
+sixteenth centuries, are mostly either dry catalogues or empty,
+rhetorical declamations.
+
+[755] See above, p. 96.
+
+[756] Here and there we find exceptions. Letters of Hutten, containing
+autobiographical notices, bits of the chronicle of Barth. Sastrow, and
+the _Sabbata_ of Joh. Kessler, introduce us to the inward conflicts of
+the writers, mostly, however, bearing the specifically religious
+character of the Reformation.
+
+[757] Among northern autobiographies we might, perhaps, select for
+comparison that of Agrippa d'Aubigné (though belonging to a later
+period) as a living and speaking picture of human individuality.
+
+[758] Written in his old age, about 1576. On Cardano as an investigator
+and discoverer, see Libri, _Hist. des Sciences Mathém._ iii. p. 167 sqq.
+
+[759] E.g. the execution of his eldest son, who had taken vengeance for
+his wife's infidelity by poisoning her (cap. 27, 50).
+
+[760] _Discorsi della Vita Sobria_, consisting of the 'trattato,' of a
+'compendio,' of an 'esortazione,' and of a 'lettera' to Daniel Barbaro.
+The book has been often reprinted.
+
+[761] Was this the villa of Codevico mentioned above, p. 321?
+
+[762] In some cases very early; in the Lombard cities as early as the
+twelfth century. Comp. Landulfus senior, _Ricobaldus_, and (in Murat.
+x.) the remarkable anonymous work, _De laudibus Papiae_, of the
+fourteenth century. Also (in Murat. i.) _Liber de Situ urbis Mediol._
+Some notices on Italian local history in O. Lorenzo, _Deutschland's
+Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter seit dem 13ten Jahr_. Berlin, 1877; but
+the author expressly refrains from an original treatment of the subject.
+
+[763] _Li Tresors_, ed. Chabaille, Paris, 1863, pp. 179-180. Comp.
+_ibid._ p. 577 (lib. iii. p. ii. c. 1).
+
+[764] On Paris, which was a much more important place to the mediæval
+Italian than to his successor a hundred years later, see _Dittamondo_,
+iv. cap. 18. The contrast between France and Italy is accentuated by
+Petrarch in his _Invectivae contra Gallum_.
+
+[765] Savonarola, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1186 (above, p. 145). On Venice,
+see above, p. 62 sqq. The oldest description of Rome, by Signorili
+(MS.), was written in the pontificate of Martin V. (1417); see
+Gregorovius, vii. 569; the oldest by a German is that of H. Muffel
+(middle of fifteenth century), ed. by Voigt, Tübingen, 1876.
+
+[766] The character of the restless and energetic Bergamasque, full of
+curiosity and suspicion, is charmingly described in Bandello, parte i.
+nov. 34.
+
+[767] E.g. Varchi, in the ninth book of the _Storie Fiorentine_ (vol.
+iii. p. 56 sqq.).
+
+[768] Vasari, xii. p. 158. _V. di Michelangelo_, at the beginning. At
+other times mother nature is praised loudly enough, as in the sonnet of
+Alfons de' Pazzi to the non-Tuscan Annibal Caro (in Trucchi, l. c. iii.
+p. 187):
+
+ 'Misero il Varchi! e più infelici noi,
+ Se a vostri virtudi accidentali
+ Aggiunto fosse 'l natural, ch'è in noi!'
+
+
+[769] _Forcianae Quaestiones, in quibus varia Italorum ingenia
+explicantur multaque alia scitu non indigna._ Autore Philalette
+Polytopiensi cive. Among them, _Mauritii Scaevae Carmen_.
+
+ 'Quos hominum mores varios quas denique mentes
+ Diverso profert Itala terra solo,
+ Quisve vinis animus, mulierum et strenua virtus
+ Pulchre hoc exili codice lector habes.'
+
+Neapoli excudebat Martinus de Ragusia, Anno MDXXXVI. This little work,
+made use of by Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 385, passes as being from the hand of
+Ortensio Landi (comp. Tiraboschi, vii. 800 to 812), although in the work
+itself no hint is given of the author. The title is explained by the
+circumstance that conversations are reported which were held at Forcium,
+a bath near Lucca, by a large company of men and women, on the question
+whence it comes that there are such great differences among mankind. The
+question receives no answer, but many of the differences among the
+Italians of that day are noticed--in studies, trade, warlike skill (the
+point quoted by Ranke), the manufacture of warlike implements, modes of
+life, distinctions in costume, in language, in intellect, in loving and
+hating, in the way of winning affection, in the manner of receiving
+guests, and in eating. At the close, come some reflections on the
+differences among philosophical systems. A large part of the work is
+devoted to women--their differences in general, the power of their
+beauty, and especially the question whether women are equal or inferior
+to men. The work has been made use of in various passages below. The
+following extract may serve as an example (fol. 7 _b_ sqq.):--'Aperiam
+nunc quæ sint in consilio aut dando aut accipiendo dissimilitudo.
+Præstant consilio Mediolanenses, sed aliorum gratia potius quam sua.
+Sunt nullo consilio Genuenses. Rumor est Venetos abundare. Sunt perutili
+consilio Lucenses, idque aperte indicarunt, cum in tanto totius Italiæ
+ardore, tot hostibus circumsepti suam libertatem, ad quam nati videntur
+semper tutati sint, nulla, quidem, aut capitis aut fortunarum ratione
+habita. Quis porro non vehementer admiretur? Quis callida consilia non
+stupeat? Equidem quotiescunque cogito, quanta prudentia ingruentes
+procellas evitarint, quanta solertia impendentia pericula effugerint,
+adducor in stuporem. Lucanis vero summum est studium, eos deludere qui
+consilii captandi gratia adeunt, ipsi vero omnia inconsulte ac temere
+faciunt. Brutii optimo sunt consilio, sed ut incommodent, aut perniciem
+afferant, in rebus quæ magnæ deliberationis dictu mirum quam stupidi
+sint, eisdem plane dotibus instructi sunt Volsci quod ad cædes et furta
+paulo propensiores sint. Pisani bono quidem sunt consilio, sed parum
+constanti, si quis diversum ab eis senserit, mox acquiescunt, rursus si
+aliter suadeas, mutabunt consilium, illud in caussa fuit quod tam duram
+ac diutinam obsidionem ad extremum usque non pertulerint. Placentini
+utrisque abundant consiliis, scilicet salutaribus ac pernitiosis, non
+facile tamen ab iis impetres pestilens consilium, apud Regienses neque
+consilii copiam invenies. Si sequare Mutinensium consilia, raro cedet
+infeliciter, sunt enim peracutissimo consilio, et voluntate plane bona.
+Providi sunt Florentini (si unumquemque seorsum accipias) si vero simul
+conjuncti sint, non admodum mihi consilia eorum probabuntur; feliciter
+cedunt Senensium consilia, subita sunt Perusinorum; salutaria
+Ferrariensium, fideli sunt consilio Veronenses, semper ambigui sunt in
+consiliis aut dandis aut accipiendis Patavini. Sunt pertinaces in eo
+quod coeperint consilio Bergomates, respuunt omnium consilia Neapolitani,
+sunt consultissimi Bononienses.'
+
+[770] _Commentario delle più notabili e mostruose cose d'Italia et altri
+luoghi, di Lingua Aramea in Italiana tradotta. Con un breve Catalogo
+degli inventori delle cose che si mangiano et beveno, novamente
+ritrovato._ In Venetia 1553 (first printed 1548, based on a journey
+taken by Ortensio Landi through Italy in 1543 and 1544). That Landi was
+really the author of this _Commentario_ is clear from the concluding
+remarks of Nicolo Morra (fol. 46 _a_): 'Il presente commentario nato del
+constantissimo cervello di M. O. L.;' and from the signature of the
+whole (fol. 70 _a_): SVISNETROH SVDNAL, ROTUA TSE, 'Hortensius Landus
+autor est.' After a declaration as to Italy from the mouth of a
+mysterious grey-haired sage, a journey is described from Sicily through
+Italy to the East. All the cities of Italy are more or less fully
+discussed: that Lucca should receive special praise is intelligible from
+the writer's way of thinking. Venice, where he claims to have been much
+with Pietro Aretino (p. 166), and Milan are described in detail, and in
+connexion with the latter the maddest stories are told (fol. 25 sqq.).
+There is no want of such elsewhere--of roses which flower all the year
+round, stars which shine at midday, birds which are changed into men,
+and men with bulls' heads on their shoulders, mermen, and men who spit
+fire from their mouths. Among all these there are often authentic bits
+of information, some of which will be used in the proper place; short
+mention is made of the Lutherans (fol. 32 _a_, 38 _a_), and frequent
+complaints are heard of the wretched times and unhappy state of Italy.
+We there read (fol. 22 _a_): 'Son questi quelli Italiani li quali in un
+fatto d'armi uccisero ducento mila Francesi? sono finalmente quelli che
+di tutto il mondo s'impadronirono? Hai quanto (per quel che io vego)
+degenerati sono. Hai quanto dissimili mi paiono dalli antichi padri
+loro, liquali et singolar virtu di cuore e disciplina militare
+ugualmente monstrarno havere.' On the catalogue of eatables which is
+added, see below.
+
+[771] _Descrizione di tutta l'Italia._
+
+[772] Satirical lists of cities are frequently met with later, e.g.
+Macaroneide, _Phantas._ ii. For France, Rabelais, who knew the
+Macaroneide, is the chief source of all the jests and malicious
+allusions of this local sort.
+
+[773] It is true that many decaying literatures are full of painfully
+minute descriptions. See e.g. in Sidonius Apollinaris the descriptions
+of a Visigoth king (_Epist._ i. 2), of a personal enemy (_Epist._ iii.
+13), and in his poems the types of the different German tribes.
+
+[774] On Filippo Villani, see p. 330.
+
+[775] _Parnasso teatrale_, Lipsia, 1829. Introd. p. vii.
+
+[776] The reading is here evidently corrupt. The passage is as follows
+(_Ameto_, Venezia, 1856, p. 54): 'Del mezo de' quali non camuso naso in
+linea diretta discende, quanto ad aquilineo non essere dimanda il
+dovere.'
+
+[777] 'Due occhi ladri nel loro movimento.' The whole work is rich in
+such descriptions.
+
+[778] The charming book of songs by Giusto dei Conti, _La bella Mano_
+(best ed. Florence, 1715), does not tell us as many details of this
+famous hand of his beloved as Boccaccio in a dozen passages of the
+_Ameto_ of the hands of his nymphs.
+
+[779] 'Della bellezza delle donne,' in the first vol. of the _Opere di
+Firenzuola_, Milano, 1802. For his view of bodily beauty as a sign of
+beauty of soul, comp. vol. ii. pp. 48 to 52, in the 'ragionamenti'
+prefixed to his novels. Among the many who maintain this doctrine,
+partly in the style of the ancients, we may quote one, Castiglione, _Il
+Cortigiana_, l. iv. fol. 176.
+
+[780] This was a universal opinion, not only the professional opinion of
+painters. See below.
+
+[781] This may be an opportunity for a word on the eyes of Lucrezia
+Borgia, taken from the distichs of a Ferrarese court-poet, Ercole
+Strozza (_Strozzii Poetae_, fol. 85-88). The power of her glance is
+described in a manner only explicable in an artistic age, and which
+would not now be permitted. Sometimes it turns the beholder to fire,
+sometimes to stone. He who looks long at the sun, becomes blind; he who
+beheld Medusa, became a stone; but he who looks at the countenance of
+Lucrezia
+
+ 'Fit primo intuitu cæcus et inde lapis.'
+
+Even the marble Cupid sleeping in her halls is said to have been
+petrified by her gaze:
+
+ 'Lumine Borgiado saxificatur Amor.'
+
+Critics may dispute, if they please, whether the so-called Eros of
+Praxiteles or that of Michelangelo is meant, since she was the possessor
+of both.
+
+And the same glance appeared to another poet, Marcello Filosseno, only
+mild and lofty, 'mansueto e altero' (Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, vii.
+p. 306).
+
+Comparisons with ideal figures of antiquity occur (p. 30). Of a boy ten
+years old we read in the _Orlandino_ (ii. str. 47), 'ed ha capo romano.'
+Referring to the fact that the appearance of the temples can be
+altogether changed by the arrangement of the hair, Firenzuola makes a
+comical attack on the overcrowding of the hair with flowers, which
+causes the head to 'look like a pot of pinks or a quarter of goat on the
+spit.' He is, as a rule, thoroughly at home in caricature.
+
+[782] For the ideal of the 'Minnesänger,' see Falke, _Die deutsche
+Trachten- und Modenwelt_, i. pp. 85 sqq.
+
+[783] On the accuracy of his sense of form, p. 290.
+
+[784] _Inferno_, xxi. 7; _Purgat._ xiii. 61.
+
+[785] We must not take it too seriously, if we read (in Platina, _Vitae
+Pontiff._ p. 310) that he kept at his court a sort of buffoon, the
+Florentine Greco, 'hominem certe cujusvis mores, naturam, linguam cum
+maximo omnium qui audiebant risu facile exprimentem.'
+
+[786] _Pii. II. Comment._ viii. p. 391.
+
+[787] Two tournaments must be distinguished, Lorenzo's in 1468 and
+Guiliano's in 1475 (a third in 1481?). See Reumont, _L. M._ i. 264 sqq.
+361, 267, note 1; ii. 55, 67, and the works there quoted, which settle
+the old dispute on these points. The first tournament is treated in the
+poem of Luca Pulci, ed. _Ciriffo Calvaneo di Luca Pulci Gentilhuomo
+Fiorentino, con la Giostra del Magnifico Lorenzo de' Medici_. Florence,
+1572, pp. 75, 91; the second in an unfinished poem of Ang. Poliziano,
+best ed. Carducci, _Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime di M. A. P._ Florence,
+1863. The description of Politian breaks off at the setting out of
+Guiliano for the tournament. Pulci gives a detailed account of the
+combatants and the manner of fighting. The description of Lorenzo is
+particularly good (p. 82).
+
+[788] This so-called 'Caccia' is printed in the Commentary to
+Castiglione's _Eclogue_ from a Roman MS. _Lettere del conte B.
+Castiglione_, ed. Pierantonio Lerassi (Padua, 1771), ii. p. 269.
+
+[789] See the _Serventese_ of Giannozzo of Florence, in Trucchi, _Poesie
+italiane inedite_, ii. p. 99. The words are many of them quite
+unintelligible, borrowed really or apparently from the languages of the
+foreign mercenaries. Macchiavelli's description of Florence during the
+plague of 1527 belongs, to certain extent, to this class of works. It is
+a series of living, speaking pictures of a frightful calamity.
+
+[790] According to Boccaccio (_Vita di Dante_, p. 77), Dante was the
+author of two eclogues, probably written in Latin. They are addressed to
+Joh. de Virgiliis. Comp. Fraticelli, _Opp. min. di Dante_, i. 417.
+Petrarch's bucolic poem in _P. Carmina minora_, ed. Bossetti, i. Comp.
+L. Geiger, _Petr._ 120-122 and 270, note 6, especially A. Hortis,
+_Scritti inediti di F. P._ Triest, 1874.
+
+[791] Boccaccio gives in his _Ameto_ (above, p. 344) a kind of mythical
+Decameron, and sometimes fails ludicrously to keep up the character. One
+of his nymphs is a good Catholic, and prelates shoot glances of unholy
+love at her in Rome. Another marries. In the _Ninfale fiesolano_ the
+nymph Mensola, who finds herself pregnant, takes counsel of an 'old and
+wise nymph.'
+
+[792] In general the prosperity of the Italian peasants was greater then
+than that of the peasantry anywhere else in Europe. Comp. Sacchetti,
+nov. 88 and 222; L. Pulci in the _Beca da Dicamano_ (Villari,
+_Macchiavelli_, i. 198, note 2).
+
+[793] 'Nullum est hominum genus aptius urbi,' says Battista Mantovano
+(_Ecl._ viii.) of the inhabitants of the Monte Baldo and the Val.
+Cassina, who could turn their hands to anything. Some country
+populations, as is well known, have even now privileges with regard to
+certain occupations in the great cities.
+
+[794] Perhaps one of the strongest passages, _Orlandino_, cap. v. str.
+54-58. The tranquil and unlearned Vesp. Bisticci says (_Comm. sulla vita
+di Giov. Manetti_, p. 96): 'Sono due ispezie di uomini difficili a
+supportare per la loro ignoranza; l'una sono i servi, la seconda i
+contadini.'
+
+[795] In Lombardy, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the nobles
+did not shrink from dancing, wrestling, leaping, and racing with the
+peasants. _Il Cortigiano_, l. ii. fol. 54. A. Pandolfini (L. B. Alberti)
+in the _Trattato del governo della famiglia_, p. 86, is an instance of a
+land-owner who consoles himself for the greed and fraud of his peasant
+tenantry with the reflection that he is thereby taught to bear and deal
+with his fellow-creatures.
+
+[796] Jovian. Pontan. _De fortitudine_, lib. ii.
+
+[797] The famous peasant-woman of the Valtellina--Bona Lombarda, wife of
+the Condottiere Pietro Brunoro--is known to us from Jacobus Bergomensis
+and from Porcellius, in Murat. xxv. col. 43.
+
+[798] On the condition of the Italian peasantry in general, and
+especially of the details of that condition in several provinces, we are
+unable to particularise more fully. The proportions between freehold and
+leasehold property, and the burdens laid on each in comparison with
+those borne at the present time, must be gathered from special works
+which we have not had the opportunity of consulting. In stormy times the
+country people were apt to have appalling relapses into savagery (_Arch.
+Stor._ xvi. i. pp. 451 sqq., ad. a. 1440; Corio, fol. 259; _Annales
+Foroliv._ in Murat. xxii. col. 227, though nothing in the shape of a
+general peasants' war occurred. The rising near Piacenza in 1462 was of
+some importance and interest. Comp. Corio, _Storia di Milano_, fol. 409;
+_Annales Placent._ in Murat. xx. col. 907; Sismondi, x. p. 138. See
+below, part vi. cap. 1.
+
+[799] _F. Bapt. Mantuani Bucolica seu Adolescentia in decem Eclogas
+divisa_; often printed, e.g. Strasburg, 1504. The date of composition is
+indicated by the preface, written in 1498, from which it also appears
+that the ninth and tenth eclogues were added later. In the heading to
+the tenth are the words, 'post religionis ingressum;' in that of the
+seventh, 'cum jam autor ad religionem aspiraret.' The eclogues by no
+means deal exclusively with peasant life; in fact, only two of them do
+so--the sixth, 'disceptatione rusticorum et civium,' in which the writer
+sides with the rustics; and the eighth, 'de rusticorum religione.' The
+others speak of love, of the relations between poets and wealthy men, of
+conversion to religion, and of the manners of the Roman court.
+
+[800] _Poesie di Lorenzo Magnifico_, i. p. 37 sqq. The remarkable poems
+belonging to the period of the German 'Minnesänger,' which bear the name
+of Neithard von Reuenthal, only depict peasant life in so far as the
+knight chooses to mix with it for his amusement. The peasants reply to
+the ridicule of Reuenthal in songs of their own. Comp. Karl Schroder,
+_Die höfische Dorfpoesie des deutschen Mittelalters_ in Rich. Gosche,
+_Jahrb. für Literaturgesch._ 1 vol. Berlin, 1875, pp. 45-98, esp. 75
+sqq.
+
+[801] _Poesie di Lor. Magn._ ii. 149.
+
+[802] In the _Deliciae poetar. ital._, and in the works of Politian.
+First separate ed. Florence, 1493. The didactic poem of Rucellai, _Le
+Api_, first printed 1519, and _La coltivazione_, Paris, 1546, contain
+something of the same kind.
+
+[803] _Poesie di Lor. Magnifico_, ii. 75.
+
+[804] The imitation of different dialects and of the manners of
+different districts spring from the same tendency. Comp. p. 155.
+
+[805] _Jo. Pici oratio de hominis dignitate._ The passage is as follows:
+'Statuit tandem optimus opifex ut cui dari nihil proprium poterat
+commune esset quidquid privatum singulis fuerat. Igitur hominem accepit
+indiscretae opus imaginis atque in mundi posito meditullio sic est
+allocutus; Nec certam sedem, nec propriam faciem, nec munus ullum
+peculiare tibi dedimus, O Adam, ut quam sedem, quam faciem, quae munera
+tute optaveris, ea pro voto pro tua sententia habeas et possideas.
+Definita caeteris natura inter praescriptas a nobis leges coercetur, tu
+nullis augustiis coercitus pro tuo arbitrio, in cujus manus te posui,
+tibi illam praefinies. Medium te mundi posui ut circumspiceres inde
+commodius quidquid est in mundo. Nec te caelestem neque terrenum, neque
+mortalem neque immortalem fecimus, ut tui ipsius quasi arbitrarius
+honorariusque plastes et fictor in quam malueris tute formam effingas.
+Poteris in inferiora quae sunt bruta degenerare, poteris in superiora
+quae sunt divina ex tui animi sententia regenerari. O summam dei patris
+liberalitatem, summam et admirandam hominis felicitatem. Cui datum id
+habere quod optat, id esse quod velit. Bruta simulatque nascuntur id
+secum afferunt, ut ait Lucilius, e bulga matris quod possessura sunt;
+supremi spiritus aut ab initio aut paulo mox id fuerunt quod sunt futuri
+in perpetuas aeternitates. Nascenti homini omnifaria semina et omnigenae
+vitæ germina indidit pater; quæ quisque excoluerit illa adolescent et
+fructus suos ferent in illo. Si vegetalia, planta fiet, si sensualia,
+obbrutescet, si rationalia, coeleste evadet animal, si intellectualia,
+angelus erit et dei filius, et si nulla creaturarum sorte contentus in
+unitatis centrum suae se receperit, unus cum deo spiritus factus in
+solitaria patris caligine qui est super omnia constitutus omnibus
+antestabit.'
+
+The speech first appears in the _commentationes_ of Jo. Picus without
+any special title; the heading 'de hominis dignitate' was added later.
+It is not altogether suitable, since a great part of the discourse is
+devoted to the defence of the peculiar philosophy of Pico, and the
+praise of, the Jewish Cabbalah. On Pico, see above, p. 202 sqq.; and
+below; part. vi. chap. 4. More than two hundred years before, Brunetto
+Latini (_Tesoro_, lib. i. cap. 13, ed. Chabaille, p. 20) had said:
+'Toutes choses dou ciel en aval sont faites pour l'ome; mais li hom at
+faiz pour lui meisme.' The words seemed to a contemporary to have too
+much human pride in them, and he added: 'e por Dieu amer et servir et
+por avoir la joie pardurable.'
+
+[806] An allusion to the fall of Lucifer and his followers.
+
+[807] The habit among the Piedmontese nobility of living in their
+castles in the country struck the other Italians as exceptional.
+Bandello, parte ii. nov. 7 (?).
+
+[808] This was the case long before printing. A large number of
+manuscripts, and among them the best, belonged to Florentine artisans.
+If it had not been for Savonarola's great bonfire, many more of them
+would be left.
+
+[809] Dante, _De monarchia_, l. ii. cap. 3.
+
+[810] _Paradiso_, xvi. at the beginning.
+
+[811] Dante, _Convito_, nearly the whole _Trattato_, iv., and elsewhere.
+Brunetto Latini says (_Il tesoro_, lib. i. p. ii. cap. 50, ed.
+Chabaille, p. 343): 'De ce (la vertu) nasqui premierement la nobleté de
+gentil gent, non pas de ses ancêtres;' and he warns men (lib. ii. p. ii.
+cap. 196, p. 440) that they may lose true nobility by bad actions.
+Similarly Petrarch, _de rem. utr. fort._ lib. i. dial. xvii.: 'Verus
+nobilis non nascitur, sed fit.'
+
+[812] _Poggi Opera, Dial. de nobilitate._ Aristotle's view is expressly
+combatted by B. Platina, _De vera nobilitate_.
+
+[813] This contempt of noble birth is common among the humanists. See
+the severe passages in Æn. Sylvius, _Opera_, pp. 84 (_Hist. bohem._ cap.
+2) and 640. (_Stories of Lucretia and Euryalus._)
+
+[814] This is the case in the capital itself. See Bandello, parte ii.
+nov. 7; _Joviani Pontani Antonius_, where the decline of energy in the
+nobility is dated from the coming of the Aragonese dynasty.
+
+[815] Throughout Italy it was universal that the owner of large landed
+property stood on an equality with the nobles. It is only flattery when
+J. A. Campanus adds to the statement of Pius II. (_Commentarii_, p. 1),
+that as a boy he had helped his poor parents in their rustic labours,
+the further assertion that he only did so for his amusement, and that
+this was the custom of the young nobles (Voigt, ii. 339).
+
+[816] For an estimate of the nobility in North Italy, Bandello, with his
+repeated rebukes of _mésalliances_, is of importance (parte i. nov. 4,
+26; parte iii. nov. 60). For the participation of the nobles in the
+games of the peasants, see above.
+
+[817] The severe judgment of Macchiavelli, _Discorsi_, i. 55, refers
+only to those of the nobility who still retained feudal rights, and who
+were thoroughly idle and politically mischievous. Agrippa of Nettesheim,
+who owes his most remarkable ideas chiefly to his life in Italy, has a
+chapter on the nobility and princes (_De Incert. et Vanit. Scient._ cap,
+80), the bitterness of which exceeds anything to be met with elsewhere,
+and is due to the social ferment then prevailing in the North. A passage
+at p. 213 is as follows: 'Si ... nobilitatis primordia requiramus,
+comperiemus hanc nefaria perfidia et crudelitate partam, si ingressum
+spectemus, reperiemus hanc mercenaria militia et latrociniis auctam.
+Nobilitas revera nihil aliud est quam robusta improbitas atque dignitas
+non nisi scelere quaesita benedictio et hereditas pessimorom
+quorumcunque filiorum.' In giving the history of the nobility he makes a
+passing reference to Italy (p. 227).
+
+[818] Massuccio, nov. 19 (ed. Settembrini, Nap. 1874, p. 220). The first
+ed. of the novels appeared in 1476.
+
+[819] Jacopo Pitti to Cosimo I., _Archiv. Stor._ iv. ii. p. 99. In North
+Italy the Spanish rule brought about the same results. Bandello, parte
+ii. nov. 40, dates from this period.
+
+[820] When, in the fifteenth century, Vespasiano Fiorentino (pp. 518,
+632) implies that the rich should not try to increase their inherited
+fortune, but should spend their whole annual income, this can only, in
+the mouth of a Florentine, refer to the great landowners.
+
+[821] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 153. Comp. nov. 82 and 150.
+
+[822] 'Che la cavalleria è morta.'
+
+[823] Poggius, _De Nobilitate_, fol. 27. See above, p. 19. Ænea Silvio
+(_Hist. Fried. III._ ed. Kollar, p. 294) finds fault with the readiness
+with which Frederick conferred knighthood in Italy.
+
+[824] Vasari, iii. 49, and note. _Vita di Dello._ The city of Florence
+claimed the right of conferring knighthood. On the ceremonies of this
+kind in 1378 and 1389, see Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 444 sqq.
+
+[825] Senarega, _De Reb. Gen._ in Murat. xxiv. col. 525. At a wedding of
+Joh. Adurnus with Leonora di Sanseverino, 'certamina equestria in
+Sarzano edita sunt ... proposita et data victoribus praemia. Ludi
+multiformes in palatio celebrati a quibus tanquam a re nova pendebat
+plebs et integros dies illis spectantibus impendebat.' Politian writes
+to Joh. Picus of the cavalry exercise of his pupils (_Aug. Pol. Epist._
+lib. xii. ep. 6): 'Tu tamen a me solos fieri poetas aut oratores putas,
+at ego non minus facio bellatores.' Ortensio Landi in the _Commentario_,
+fol. 180, tells of a duel between two soldiers at Correggio with a fatal
+result, reminding one of the old gladiatorial combats. The writer, whose
+imagination is generally active, gives us here the impression of
+truthfulness. The passages quoted show that knighthood was not
+absolutely necessary for these public contests.
+
+[826] Petrarch, _Epist. Senil._ xi. 13, to Ugo of Este. Another passage
+in the _Epist. Famil._ lib. v. ep. 6, Dec. 1st, 1343, describes the
+disgust he felt at seeing a knight fall at a tournament in Naples. For
+legal prescriptions as to the tournament at Naples, see Fracassetti's
+Italian translation of Petrarch's letters, Florence, 1864, ii. p. 34. L.
+B. Alberti also points out the danger, uselessness, and expense of
+tournaments. _Della Famiglia, Op. Volg._ ii. 229.
+
+[827] Nov. 64. With reference to this practice, it is said expressly in
+the _Orlandino_ (ii. str. 7), of a tournament under Charlemagne: 'Here
+they were no cooks and scullions, but kings, dukes, and marquises, who
+fought.'
+
+[828] This is one of the oldest parodies of the tournament. Sixty years
+passed before Jacques Coeur, the burgher-minister of finance under
+Charles VII., gave a tournament of donkeys in the courtyard of his
+palace at Bourges (about 1450). The most brilliant of all these
+parodies--the second canto of the _Orlandino_ just quoted--was not
+published till 1526.
+
+[829] Comp. the poetry, already quoted, of Politian and Luca Pulci (p.
+349, note 3). Further, Paul. Jov., _Vita Leonis X._ l. i.; Macchiavelli,
+_Storie Fiorent._, l. vii.; Paul. Jov. _Elog._, speaking of Pietro de'
+Medici, who neglected his public duties for these amusements, and of
+Franc. Borbonius, who lost his life in them; Vasari, ix. 219, _Vita di
+Granacci_. In the _Morgante_ of Pulci, written under the eyes of
+Lorenzo, the knights are comical in their language and actions, but
+their blows are sturdy and scientific. Bojardo, too, writes for those
+who understand the tournament and the art of war. Comp. p. 323. In
+earlier Florentine history we read of a tournament in honour of the king
+of France, c. 1380, in Leon. Aret., _Hist. Flor._ lib. xi. ed. Argent,
+p. 222. The tournaments at Ferrara in 1464 are mentioned in the _Diario
+Ferrar._ in Murat. xxiv. col. 208; at Venice, see Sansovino, _Venezia_,
+fol. 153 sqq.; at Bologna in 1470 and after, see Bursellis, _Annal.
+Bonon._ Muratori xxiii. col. 898, 903, 906, 908, 911, where it is
+curious to note the odd mixture of sentimentalism attaching to the
+celebration of Roman triumphs; 'ut antiquitas Romana renovata
+videretur,' we read in one place. Frederick of Urbino (p. 44 sqq.) lost
+his right eye at a tournament 'ab ictu lanceae.' On the tournament as
+held at that time in northern countries, see Olivier de la Marche,
+_Mémoires_, _passim_, and especially cap. 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, &c.
+
+[830] Bald. Castiglione. _Il Cortigiano_, l. i. fol. 18.
+
+[831] Paul. Jovii, _Elogia_, sub tit. Petrus Gravina, Alex. Achillinus,
+Balth. Castellio, &c. pp. 138 sqq. 112 sqq. 143 sqq.
+
+[832] Casa, _Il Galateo_, p. 78.
+
+[833] See on this point the Venetian books of fashions, and Sansovino,
+_Venezia_, fol. 150 sqq. The bridal dress at the betrothal--white, with
+the hair falling freely on the shoulders--is that of Titian's Flora. The
+'Proveditori alle pompe' at Venice established 1514. Extracts from their
+decisions in Armand Baschet, _Souvenirs d'une Mission_, Paris, 1857.
+Prohibition of gold-embroidered garments in Venice, 1481, which had
+formerly been worn even by the bakers' wives; they were now to be
+decorated 'gemmis unionibus,' so that 'frugalissimus ornatus' cost 4,000
+gold florins. M. Ant. Sabellici, _Epist._ lib. iii. (to M. Anto.
+Barbavarus).
+
+[834] Jovian. Pontan. _De Principe_: 'Utinam autem non eo impudentiae
+perventum esset, ut inter mercatorem et patricium nullum sit in vestitu
+ceteroque ornatu discrimen. Sed haec tanta licentia reprehendi potest,
+coerceri non potest, quanquam mutari vestes sic quotidie videamus, ut
+quas quarto ante mense in deliciis habebamus, nunc repudiemus et tanquam
+veteramenta abjiciamus. Quodque tolerari vix potest, nullum fere
+vestimenti genus probatur, quod e Galliis non fuerit adductum, in quibus
+levia pleraque in pretio sunt, tametsi nostri persaepe homines modum
+illis et quasi formulam quandam praescribant.'
+
+[835] See e.g. the _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 297, 320,
+376, sqq., in which the last German fashions are spoken of; the
+chronicler says, 'Che pareno buffoni tali portatori.'
+
+[836] This interesting passage from a very rare work may be here quoted.
+See above, p. 83 note 1. The historical event referred to is the
+conquest of Milan by Antonio Leiva, the general of Charles V., in 1522.
+'Olim splendidissime vestiebant Mediolanenses. Sed postquam Carolus
+Cæsar in eam urbem tetram et monstruosam Bestiam immisit, it a consumpti
+et exhausti sunt, ut vestimentorum splendorem omnium maxime oderint, et
+quemadmodum ante illa durissima Antoniana tempora nihil aliud fere
+cogitabant quam de mutandis vestibus, nunc alia cogitant ac in mente
+versant. Non potuit tamen illa Leviana rabies tantum perdere, neque illa
+in exhausta depraedandi libidine tantum expilare, quin a re familiari
+adhuc belle parati fiant atque ita vestiant quemadmodum decere
+existimant. Et certe nisi illa Antonii Levae studia egregios quosdam
+imitatores invenisset, meo quidem judicio, nulli cederent. Neapolitani
+nimium exercent in vestitu sumptus. Genuensium vestitum perelegantem
+judico neque sagati sunt neque togati. Ferme oblitus eram Venetorum. Ii
+togati omnes. Decet quidem ille habitus adulta aetate homines, juvenes
+vero (si quid ego judico) minime utuntur panno quem ipsi vulgo Venetum
+appellant, ita probe confecto ut perpetuo durare existimes, saepissime
+vero eas vestes gestant nepotes, quas olim tritavi gestarunt. Noctu
+autem dum scortantur ac potant, Hispanicis palliolis utuntur.
+Ferrarienses ac Mantuani nihil tam diligenter curant, quam ut pileos
+habeant aureis quibusdam frustillis adornatos, atque nutanti capite
+incedunt seque quovis honore dignos existimant, Lucenses neque superbo,
+neque abjecto vestitu. Florentinorum habitus mihi quidem ridiculus
+videtur. Reliquos omitto, ne nimius sim.' Ugolinus Verinus, 'de
+illustratione urbis Florentiae' says of the simplicity of the good old
+time:
+
+ 'Non externis advecta Britannis
+ Lana erat in pretio, non concha aut coccus in usu.'
+
+
+[837] Comp. the passages on the same subject in Falke, _Die deutsche
+Trachten- und Modenwelt_, Leipzig, 1858.
+
+[838] On the Florentine women, see the chief references in Giov.
+Villani, x. 10 and 150 (Regulations as to dress and their repeal);
+Matteo Villani, i. 4 (Extravagant living in consequence of the plague).
+In the celebrated edict on fashions of the year 1330, embroidered
+figures only were allowed on the dresses of women, to the exclusion of
+those which were painted (dipinto). What was the nature of these
+decorations appears doubtful. There is a list of the arts of the
+toilette practised by women in Boccaccio, _De Cas. Vir. Ill._ lib. i.
+cap. 18, 'in mulieres.'
+
+[839] Those of real hair were called 'capelli morti.' Wigs were also
+worn by men, as by Giannozzo Manetti, _Vesp. Bist. Commentario_, p. 103;
+so at least we explain this somewhat obscure passage. For an instance of
+false teeth made of ivory, and worn, though only for the sake of clear
+articulation, by an Italian prelate, see Anshelm, _Berner Chronik_, iv.
+p. 30 (1508). Ivory teeth in Boccaccio, l. c.: 'Dentes casu sublatos
+reformare ebore fuscatos pigmentis gemmisque in albedinem revocare
+pristinam.'
+
+[840] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1874: Allegretto, in
+Murat. xxiii. col. 823. For the writers on Savonarola, see below.
+
+[841] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 152: 'Capelli biondissimi per forza di
+sole.' Comp. p. 89, and the rare works quoted by Yriarte, '_Vie d'un
+Patricien de Venise_' (1874), p. 56.
+
+[842] As was the case in Germany too. _Poesie satiriche_, p. 119. From
+the satire of Bern. Giambullari, 'Per prendere moglie' (pp. 107-126), we
+can form a conception of the chemistry of the toilette, which was
+founded largely on superstition and magic.
+
+[843] The poets spared no pains to show the ugliness, danger, and
+absurdity of these practices. Comp. Ariosto, _Sat._ iii. 202 sqq.;
+Aretino, _Il Marescalco_, atto ii. scena 5; and several passages in the
+_Ragionamenti_; Giambullari, l. c. Phil. Beroald. sen. _Garmina_. Also
+Filelfo in his Satires (Venice, 1502, iv. 2-5 sqq.).
+
+[844] Cennino Cennini, _Trattato della Pittura_, gives in cap. 161 a
+recipe for painting the face, evidently for the purpose of mysteries or
+masquerades, since, in cap. 162, he solemnly warns his readers against
+the general use of cosmetics and the like, which was peculiarly common,
+as he tells us (p. 146 sqq.), in Tuscany.
+
+[845] Comp. _La Nencia di Barberino_, str. 20 and 40. The lover promises
+to bring his beloved cosmetics from the town (see on this poem of
+Lorenzo dei Medici, above, p. 101).
+
+[846] Agnolo Pandolfini, _Trattato della Governo della Famiglia_, p.
+118. He condemns this practice most energetically.
+
+[847] Tristan. Caracciolo, in Murat. xxii. col. 87. Bandello, parte ii.
+nov. 47.
+
+[848] Cap. i. to Cosimo: "Quei cento scudi nuovi e profumati che l'altro
+di mi mandaste a donare." Some objects which date from that period have
+not yet lost their odour.
+
+[849] Vespasiano Fiorent. p. 453, in the life of Donato Acciajuoli, and
+p. 625, in the life of Niccoli. See above, vol. i. p. 303 sqq.
+
+[850] Giraldi, _Hecatommithi_, Introduz. nov. 6. A few notices on the
+Germans in Italy may not here be out of place. On the fear of German
+invasion, see p. 91, note 2; on Germans as copyists and printers, p. 193
+sqq. and the notes; on the ridicule of Hadrian VI. as a German, p. 227
+and notes. The Italians were in general ill-disposed to the Germans, and
+showed their ill-will by ridicule. Boccaccio (_Decam._ viii. 1) says:
+'Un Tedesco in soldo prò della persona è assai leale a coloro ne' cui
+servigi si mattea; il che rade volte suole de' Tedeschi avenire.' The
+tale is given as an instance of German cunning. The Italian humanists
+are full of attacks on the German barbarians, and especially those who,
+like Poggio, had seen Germany. Comp. Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_, 374 sqq.;
+Geiger, _Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Italien Zeit des
+Humanismus_ in _Zeitschrift für deutsche Culturgeschichte_, 1875, pp.
+104-124; see also Janssen, _Gesch. der deutschen Volkes_, i. 262. One of
+the chief opponents of the Germans was Joh. Ant. Campanus. See his
+works, ed. Mencken, who delivered a discourse 'De Campani odio in
+Germanos.' The hatred of the Germans was strengthened by the conduct of
+Hadrian VI., and still more by the conduct of the troops at the sack of
+Rome (Gregorovius, viii. 548, note). Bandello III. nov. 30, chooses the
+German as the type of the dirty and foolish man (see iii. 51, for
+another German). When an Italian wishes to praise a German he says, as
+Petrus Alcyonius in the dedication to his dialogue _De Exilio_, to
+Nicolaus Schomberg, p. 9: 'Itaque etsi in Misnensi clarissima Germaniæ
+provincia illustribus natalibus ortus es, tamen in Italiae luce
+cognosceris.' Unqualified praise is rare, e.g. of German women at the
+time of Marius, _Cortigiano_, iii. cap. 33.
+
+It must be added that the Italians of the Renaissance, like the Greeks
+of antiquity, were filled with aversion for all barbarians. Boccaccio,
+_De claris Mulieribus_, in the article 'Carmenta,' speaks of 'German
+barbarism, French savagery, English craft, and Spanish coarseness.'
+
+[851] Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, p. 289, who, however, makes no mention of the
+German education. Maximilian could not be induced, even by celebrated
+women, to change his underclothing.
+
+[852] Æneas Sylvius (_Vitae Paparum_, ap. Murat. iii. ii. col. 880)
+says, in speaking of Baccano: 'Pauca sunt mapalia, eaque hospitia
+faciunt Theutonici; hoc hominum genus totam fere Italiam hospitalem
+facit; ubi non repereris hos, neque diversorium quaeras.'
+
+[853] Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 21. Padua, about the year 1450, boasted of
+a great inn--the 'Ox'--like a palace, containing stabling for two
+hundred horses. Michele Savonarola, in Mur. xxiv. col. 1175. At
+Florence, outside the Porta San Gallo, there was one of the largest and
+most splendid inns then known, but which served, it seems, only as a
+place of amusement for the people of the city. Varchi, _Stor. Fior._
+iii. p. 86. At the time of Alexander VI. the best inn at Rome was kept
+by a German. See the remarkable notices taken from the MS. of Burcardus
+in Gregorovius, vii. 361, note 2. Comp. _ibid._ p. 93, notes 2 and 3.
+
+[854] Comp. e.g. the passages in Sebastian Brant's _Narrenschiff_, in
+the Colloquies of Erasmus, in the Latin poem of Grobianus, &c., and
+poems on behaviour at table, where, besides descriptions of bad habits,
+rules are given for good behaviour. For one of these, see C. Weller,
+_Deutsche Gedichte der Jahrhunderts_, Tübingen, 1875.
+
+[855] The diminution of the 'burla' is evident from the instances in the
+_Cortigiano_, l. ii. fol. 96. The Florence practical jokes kept their
+ground tenaciously. See, for evidence, the tales of Lasca (Ant. Franc.
+Grazini, b. 1503, d. 1582), which appeared at Florence in 1750.
+
+[856] For Milan, see Bandello, parte i. nov. 9. There were more than
+sixty carriages with four, and numberless others with two, horses, many
+of them carved and richly gilt and with silken tops. Comp. _ibid._ nov.
+4. Ariosto, _Sat._ iii. 127.
+
+[857] Bandello, parte i. nov. 3, iii. 42, iv. 25.
+
+[858] _De Vulgari Eloquio_, ed. Corbinelli, Parisiis, 1577. According to
+Boccaccio, _Vita di Dante_, p. 77, it was written shortly before his
+death. He mentions in the _Convito_ the rapid and striking changes which
+took place during his lifetime in the Italian language.
+
+[859] See on this subject the investigations of Lionardo Aretino
+(_Epist._ ed. Mehus. ii. 62 sqq. lib. vi. 10) and Poggio (_Historiae
+disceptativae convivales tres_, in the _Opp._ fol. 14 sqq.), whether in
+earlier times the language of the people and of scholars was the same.
+Lionardo maintains the negative; Poggio expressly maintains the
+affirmative against his predecessor. See also the detailed argument of
+L. B. Alberti in the introduction to _Della Famiglia_, book iii., on the
+necessity of Italian for social intercourse.
+
+[860] The gradual progress which this dialect made in literature and
+social intercourse could be tabulated without difficulty by a native
+scholar. It could be shown to what extent in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries the various dialects kept their places, wholly or
+partly, in correspondence, in official documents, in historical works,
+and in literature generally. The relations between the dialects and a
+more or less impure Latin, which served as the official language, would
+also be discussed. The modes of speech and pronunciation in the
+different cities of Italy are noticed in Landi, _Forcianae Quaestiones_,
+fol. 7 _a._ Of the former he says: 'Hetrusci vero quanquam caeteris
+excellant, effugere tamen non possunt, quin et ipsi ridiculi sint, aut
+saltem quin se mutuo lacerent;' as regards pronunciation, the Sienese,
+Lucchese, and Florentines are specially praised; but of the Florentines
+it is said: 'Plus (jucunditatis) haberet si voces non ingurgitaret aut
+non ita palato lingua jungeretur.'
+
+[861] It is so felt to be by Dante, _De Vulgari Eloquio_.
+
+[862] Tuscan, it is true, was read and written long before this in
+Piedmont--but very little reading and writing was done at all.
+
+[863] The place, too, of the dialect in the usage of daily life was
+clearly understood. Gioviano Pontano ventured especially to warn the
+prince of Naples against the use of it (Jov. Pontan. _De Principe_). The
+last Bourbons were notoriously less scrupulous in this respect. For the
+way in which a Milanese Cardinal, who wished to retain his native
+dialect in Rome was ridiculed, see Bandello, parte ii. nov. 31.
+
+[864] Bald. Castiglione, _Il Cortigiano_, l. i. fol. 27 sqq. Throughout
+the dialogue we are able to gather the personal opinion of the writer.
+The opposition to Petrarch and Boccaccio is very curious (Dante is not
+once mentioned). We read that Politian, Lorenzo de' Medici, and others
+were also Tuscans, and as worthy of imitation as they, 'e forse di non
+minor dottrina e guidizio.'
+
+[865] There was a limit, however, to this. The satirists introduce bits
+of Spanish, and Folengo (under the pseudonym Limerno Pitocco, in his
+_Orlandino_) of French, but only by way of ridicule. It is an
+exceptional fact that a street in Milan, which at the time of the French
+(1500 to 1512, 1515 to 1522) was called Rue Belle, now bears the name
+Rugabella. The long Spanish rule has left almost no traces on the
+language, and but rarely the name of some governor in streets and public
+buildings. It was not till the eighteenth century that, together with
+French modes of thought, many French words and phrases found their way
+into Italian. The purism of our century is still busy in removing them.
+
+[866] Firenzuola, _Opera_, i. in the preface to the discourse on female
+beauty, and ii. in the _Ragionamenti_ which precede the novels.
+
+[867] Bandello, parte i. _Proemio_, and nov. 1 and 2. Another Lombard,
+the before-mentioned Teofilo Folengo in his _Orlandino_, treats the
+whole matter with ridicule.
+
+[868] Such a congress appears to have been held at Bologna at the end of
+1531 under the presidency of Bembo. See the letter of Claud. Tolomai, in
+Firenzuola, _Opere_, vol. ii. append. p. 231 sqq. But this was not so
+much a matter of purism, but rather the old quarrel between Lombards and
+Tuscans.
+
+[869] Luigi Cornaro complains about 1550 (at the beginning of his
+_Trattato della Vita Sobria_) that latterly Spanish ceremonies and
+compliments, Lutheranism and gluttony had been gaining ground in Italy.
+With moderation in respect to the entertainment offered to guests, the
+freedom and ease of social intercourse disappeared.
+
+[870] Vasari, xii. p. 9 and 11, _Vita di Rustici_. For the School for
+Scandal of needy artists, see xi. 216 sqq., _Vita d'Aristotile_.
+Macchiavelli's _Capitoli_ for a circle of pleasure-seekers (_Opere
+minori_, p. 407) are a ludicrous caricature of these social statutes.
+The well-known description of the evening meeting of artists in Rome in
+Benvenuto Cellini, i. cap. 30 is incomparable.
+
+[871] Which must have been taken about 10 or 11 o'clock. See Bandello,
+parte ii. nov. 10.
+
+[872] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 309, calls the ladies 'alquante
+ministre di Venere.'
+
+[873] Biographical information and some of her letters in A. v.
+Reumont's _Briefe heiliger und gottesfürchtiger Italiener_. Freiburg
+(1877) p. 22 sqq.
+
+[874] Important passages: parte i. nov. 1, 3, 21, 30, 44; ii. 10, 34,
+55; iii. 17, &c.
+
+[875] Comp. _Lorenzo Magn. dei Med., Poesie_, i. 204 (the Symposium);
+291 (the Hawking-Party). Roscoe, _Vita di Lorenzo_, iii. p. 140, and
+append. 17 to 19.
+
+[876] The title 'Simposio' is inaccurate; it should be called, 'The
+return from the Vintage.' Lorenzo, in a parody of Dante's Hell, gives an
+amusing account of his meeting in the Via Faenza all his good friends
+coming back from the country more or less tipsy. There is a most comical
+picture in the eighth chapter of Piovanno Arlotto, who sets out in
+search of his lost thirst, armed with dry meat, a herring, a piece of
+cheese, a sausage, and four sardines, 'e tutte si cocevan nel sudore.'
+
+[877] On Cosimo Ruccellai as centre of this circle at the beginning of
+the sixteenth century, see Macchiavelli, _Arte della Guerra_, l. i.
+
+[878] _Il Cortigiano_, l. ii. fol. 53. See above pp. 121, 139.
+
+[879] Caelius Calcagninus (_Opere_, p. 514) describes the education of a
+young Italian of position about the year 1506, in the funeral speech on
+Antonio Costabili: first, 'artes liberales et ingenuae disciplinae; tum
+adolescentia in iis exercitationibus acta, quæ ad rem militarem corpus
+et animum praemuniunt. Nunc gymnastae (i.e. the teachers of gymnastics)
+operam dare, luctari, excurrere, natare, equitare, venari, aucupari, ad
+palum et apud lanistam ictus inferre aut declinare, caesim punctimve
+hostem ferire, hastam vibrare, sub armis hyemen juxta et aestatem
+traducere, lanceis occursare, veri ac communis Martis simulacra
+imitari.' Cardanus (_De prop. Vita_, c. 7) names among his gymnastic
+exercises the springing on to a wooden horse. Comp. Rabelais,
+_Gargantua_, i. 23, 24, for education in general, and 35 for gymnastic
+art. Even for the philologists, Marsilius Ficinus (_Epist._ iv. 171
+Galeotto) requires gymnastics, and Maffeo Vegio (_De Puerorum
+Educatione_, lib. iii. c. 5) for boys.
+
+[880] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 172 sqq. They are said to have arisen
+through the rowing out to the Lido, where the practice with the crossbow
+took place. The great regatta on the feast of St. Paul was prescribed by
+law from 1315 onwards. In early times there was much riding in Venice,
+before the streets were paved and the level wooden bridges turned into
+arched stone ones. Petrarch (_Epist. Seniles_, iv. 4) describes a
+brilliant tournament held in 1364 on the square of St. Mark, and the
+Doge Steno, about the year 1400, had as fine a stable as any prince in
+Italy. But riding in the neighbourhood of the square was prohibited as a
+rule after the year 1291. At a later time the Venetians naturally had
+the name of bad riders. See Ariosto, _Sat._ v. 208.
+
+[881] See on this subject: _Ueber den Einfluss der Renaissance auf die
+Entwickelung der Musik_, by Bernhard Loos, Basel, 1875, which, however,
+hardly offers for this period more than is given here. On Dante's
+position with regard to music, and on the music to Petrarch's and
+Boccaccio's poems, see Trucchi, _Poesie Ital. inedite_, ii. p. 139. See
+also _Poesie Musicali dei Secoli XIV., XV. e XVI. tratte da vari codici
+per cura di Antonio Cappelli_, Bologna, 1868. For the theorists of the
+fourteenth century, Filippo Villani, _Vite_, p. 46, and Scardeonius, _De
+urb. Pativ. antiq._ in Graev. Thesaur, vi. iii. col. 297. A full account
+of the music at the court of Frederick of Urbino, is to be found in
+_Vespes. Fior._ p. 122. For the children's chapel (ten children 6 to 8
+years old whom F. had educated in his house, and who were taught
+singing), at the court of Hercules I., see _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat.
+xxiv. col. 359. Out of Italy it was still hardly allowable for persons
+of consequence to be musicians; at the Flemish court of the young
+Charles V. a serious dispute took place on the subject. See Hubert.
+Leod. _De Vita Frid. II. Palat._ l. iii. Henry VIII. of England is an
+exception, and also the German Emperor Maximilian, who favoured music as
+well as all other arts. Joh. Cuspinian, in his life of the Emperor,
+calls him 'Musices singularis amator' and adds, 'Quod vel hinc maxime
+patet, quod nostra aetate musicorum principes omnes, in omni genere
+musices omnibusque instrumentis in ejus curia, veluti in fertilissimo
+agro succreverant. Scriberem catalogum musicorum quos novi, nisi
+magnitudinem operis vererer.' In consequence of this, music was much
+cultivated at the University of Vienna. The presence of the musical
+young Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan contributed to this result. See
+Aschbach, _Gesch. der Wiener Universität_ (1877), vol. ii. 79 sqq.
+
+A remarkable and comprehensive passage on music is to be found, where we
+should not expect it, in the Maccaroneide, Phant. xx. It is a comic
+description of a quartette, from which we see that Spanish and French
+songs were often sung, that music already had its enemies (1520), and
+that the chapel of Leo X. and the still earlier composer, Josquin des
+Près, whose principal works are mentioned, were the chief subjects of
+enthusiasm in the musical world of that time. The same writer (Folengo)
+displays in his _Orlandino_ (iii. 23 &c.), published under the name
+Limerno Pitocco, a musical fanaticism of a thoroughly modern sort.
+
+Barth. Facius, _De Vir. Ill._ p. 12, praises Leonardus Justinianus as a
+composer, who produced love-songs in his youth, and religious pieces in
+his old age. J. A. Campanus (_Epist._ i. 4, ed. Mencken) extols the
+musician Zacarus at Teramo and says of him, 'Inventa pro oraculis
+habentur.' Thomas of Forli 'musicien du pape' in _Burchardi Diarium_,
+ed. Leibnitz, pp. 62 sqq.
+
+[882] _Leonis Vita anonyma_, in Roscoe, ed. Bossi, xii. p. 171. May he
+not be the violinist in the Palazzo Sciarra? A certain Giovan Maria da
+Corneto is praised in the _Orlandino_ (Milan, 1584, iii. 27).
+
+[883] Lomazzo, _Trattato dell'Arte della Pittura_, &c. p. 347. The text,
+however, does not bear out the last statement, which perhaps rests on a
+misunderstanding of the final sentence, 'Et insieme vi si possono
+gratiosamente rappresentar convitti et simili abbellimenti, che il
+pittore leggendo i poeti e gli historici può trovare copiosamente et
+anco essendo ingenioso et ricco d'invenzione può per se stesso
+imaginare?' Speaking of the lyre, he mentions Lionardo da Vinci and
+Alfonso (Duke?) of Ferrara. The author includes in his work all the
+celebrities of the age, among them several Jews. The most complete list
+of the famous musicians of the sixteenth century, divided into an
+earlier and a later generation, is to be found in Rabelais, in the 'New
+Prologue' to the fourth book. A virtuoso, the blind Francesco of
+Florence (d. 1390), was crowned at Venice with a wreath of laurel by the
+King of Cyprus.
+
+[884] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 138. The same people naturally
+collected books of music. Sansovino's words are, 'è vera cosa che la
+musica ha la sua propria sede in questa città.'
+
+[885] The 'Academia de' Filarmonici' at Verona is mentioned by Vasari,
+xi. 133, in the life of Sanmichele. Lorenzo Magnifico was in 1480
+already the centre of a School of Harmony consisting of fifteen members,
+among them the famous organist and organ-builder Squarcialupi. See
+Delecluze, _Florence et ses Vicissitudes_, vol. ii. p. 256, and Reumont,
+_L. d. M._ i. 177 sqq., ii. 471-473. Marsilio Ficino took part in these
+exercises and gives in his letters (_Epist._ i. 73, iii. 52, v. 15)
+remarkable rules as to music. Lorenzo seems to have transmitted his
+passion for music to his son Leo X. His eldest son Pietro was also
+musical.
+
+[886] _Il Cortigiano_, fol. 56, comp. fol. 41.
+
+[887] Quatro viole da arco'--a high and, except in Italy, rare
+achievement for amateurs.
+
+[888] Bandello, parte i. nov. 26. The song of Antonio Bologna in the
+House of Ippolita Bentivoglio. Comp. iii. 26. In these delicate days,
+this would be called a profanation of the holiest feelings. (Comp. the
+last song of Britannicus, Tacit. _Annal._ xiii. 15.) Recitations
+accompanied by the lute or 'viola' are not easy to distinguish, in the
+accounts left us, from singing properly so-called.
+
+[889] Scardeonius, l. c.
+
+[890] For biographies of women, see above, p. 147 and note 1. Comp. the
+excellent work of Attilio Hortis: _Le Donne Famose, descritte da
+Giovanni Boccacci_. Trieste, 1877.
+
+[891] E.g. in Castiglione, _Il Cortigiano_. In the same strain Francesco
+Barbaro, _De Re Uxoria_; Poggio, _An Seni sit Uxor ducenda_, in which
+much evil is said of women; the ridicule of Codro Urceo, especially his
+remarkable discourse, _An Uxor sit ducenda_ (_Opera_, 1506, fol.
+xviii.-xxi.), and the sarcasms of many of the epigrammatists. Marcellus
+Palingenius, (vol. i. 304) recommends celibacy in various passages, lib.
+iv. 275 sqq., v. 466-585; as a means of subduing disobedient wives he
+recommends to married people,
+
+ 'Tu verbera misce
+ Tergaque nunc duro resonent pulsata bacillo.'
+
+Italian writers on the woman's side are Benedetto da Cesena, _De Honore
+Mulierum_, Venice, 1500, Dardano, _La defesa della Donna_, Ven. 1554,
+_Per Donne Romane_. ed. Manfredi, Bol. 1575. The defence of, or attack
+on, women, supported by instances of famous or infamous women down to
+the time of the writer, was also treated by the Jews, partly in Italian
+and partly in Hebrew; and in connection with an earlier Jewish
+literature dating from the thirteenth century, we may mention Abr.
+Sarteano and Eliah Gennazzano, the latter of whom defended the former
+against the attacks of Abigdor (for their MS. poems about year 1500,
+comp. Steinschneider, _Hebr. Bibliogr._ vi. 48).
+
+[892] Addressed to Annibale Maleguccio, sometimes numbered as the 5th or
+the 6th.
+
+[893] When the Hungarian Queen Beatrice, a Neapolitan princess, came to
+Vienna in 1485, she was addressed in Latin, and 'arrexit diligentissime
+aures domina regina saepe, cum placide audierat, subridendo.' Aschbach,
+o. c. vol. ii. 10 note.
+
+[894] The share taken by women in the plastic arts was insignificant.
+The learned Isotta Nogarola deserves a word of mention. On her
+intercourse with Guarino, see Rosmini, ii. 67 sqq.; with Pius II. see
+Voigt, iii. 515 sqq.
+
+[895] It is from this point of view that we must judge of the life of
+Allessandra de' Bardi in Vespasiano Fiorentino (Mai, _Spicileg._ rom. i.
+p. 593 sqq.) The author, by the way, is a great 'laudator temporis
+acti,' and it must not be forgotten that nearly a hundred years before
+what he calls the good old time, Boccaccio wrote the _Decameron_. On the
+culture and education of the Italian women of that day, comp. the
+numerous facts quoted in Gregorovius, _Lucrezia Borgia_. There is a
+catalogue of the books possessed by Lucrezia in 1502 and 3 (Gregorovius,
+ed. 3, i. 310, ii. 167), which may be considered characteristic of the
+Italian women of the period. We there find a Breviary; a little book
+with the seven psalms and some prayers; a parchment book with gold
+miniature, called _De Coppelle alla Spagnola_; the printed letters of
+Catherine of Siena; the printed epistles and gospels in Italian; a
+religious book in Spanish; a MS. collection of Spanish odes, with the
+proverbs of Domenico Lopez; a printed book, called _Aquila Volante_; the
+_Mirror of Faith_ printed in Italian; an Italian printed book called
+_The Supplement of Chronicles_; a printed Dante, with commentary; an
+Italian book on philosophy; the legends of the saints in Italian; an old
+book _De Ventura_; a Donatus; a Life of Christ in Spanish; a MS.
+Petrarch, on duodecimo parchment. A second catalogue of the year 1516
+contains no secular books whatever.
+
+[896] Ant. Galateo, _Epist. 3_, to the young Bona Sforza, the future
+wife of Sigismund of Poland: 'Incipe aliquid de viro sapere, quoniam ad
+imperandum viris nata es.... Ita fac, ut sapientibus viris placeas, ut
+te prudentes et graves viri admirentur, et vulgi et muliercularum studia
+et judicia despicias,' &c. A remarkable letter in other respects also
+(Mai. _Spicileg. Rom._ viii. p. 532).
+
+[897] She is so called in the _Chron. Venetum_, in Muratori, xxiv. col.
+121 sqq. (in the account of her heroic defence, _ibid._ col. 121 she is
+called a virago). Comp. Infessura in Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1981,
+and _Arch. Stor._ append. ii. p. 250, and Gregorovius, vii. 437 note 1.
+
+[898] Contemporary historians speak of her more than womanly intellect
+and eloquence. Comp. Ranke's _Filippo Strozzi_, in _Historisch-biographische
+Studien_, p. 371 note 2.
+
+[899] And rightly so, sometimes. How ladies should behave while such
+tales are telling, we learn from _Cortigiano_, l. iii. fol. 107. That
+the ladies who were present at his dialogues must have known how to
+conduct themselves in case of need, is shown by the strong passage, l.
+ii. fol. 100. What is said of the 'Donna di Palazzo'--the counterpart of
+the Cortigiano--that she should neither avoid frivolous company nor use
+unbecoming language, is not decisive, since she was far more the servant
+of the princess than the Cortigiano of the prince. See Bandello, i. nov.
+44. Bianca d'Este tells the terrible love-story of her ancestor, Niccolò
+of Ferrara, and Parisina. The tales put into the mouths of the women in
+the _Decameron_ may also serve as instances of this indelicacy. For
+Bandello, see above, p. 145; and Landau, _Beitr. z. Gesch. der Ital.
+Nov._ Vienna, 1875, p. 102. note 32.
+
+[900] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 152 sqq. How highly the travelled
+Italians valued the freer intercourse with girls in England and the
+Netherlands is shown by Bandello, ii. nov. 44, and iv. nov. 27. For the
+Venetian women and the Italian women generally, see the work of Yriarte,
+pp. 50 sqq.
+
+[901] Paul. Jov. _De Rom. Piscibus_, cap. 5; Bandello, parte iii. nov.
+42. Aretino, in the _Ragionamento del Zoppino_, p. 327, says of a
+courtesan: 'She knows by heart all Petrarch and Boccaccio, and many
+beautiful verses of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and a thousand other authors.'
+
+[902] Bandello, ii. 51, iv. 16.
+
+[903] Bandello, iv. 8.
+
+[904] For a characteristic instance of this, see Giraldi, _Hecatomithi_,
+vi nov. 7.
+
+[905] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1997. The public
+women only, not the kept women, are meant. The number, compared with the
+population of Rome, is certainly enormous, perhaps owing to some
+clerical error. According to Giraldi, vi. 7, Venice was exceptionally
+rich 'di quella sorte di donne che cortigiane son dette;' see also the
+epigram of Pasquinus (Gregor. viii. 279, note 2); but Rome did not stand
+behind Venice (Giraldi, _Introduz._ nov. 2). Comp. the notice of the
+'meretrices' in Rome (1480) who met in a church and were robbed of their
+jewels and ornaments, Murat. xxii. 342 sqq., and the account in
+_Burchardi, Diarium_, ed. Leibnitz, pp. 75-77, &c. Landi (_Commentario_,
+fol. 76) mentions Rome, Naples, and Venice as the chief seats of the
+'cortigiane;' _ibid._ 286, the fame of the women of Chiavenna is to be
+understood ironically. The _Quaestiones Forcianae_, fol. 9, of the same
+author give most interesting information on love and love's delights,
+and the style and position of women in the different cities of Italy. On
+the other hand, Egnatius (_De Exemp. III. Vir._ Ven. fol. 212 _b_ sqq.)
+praises the chastity of the Venetian women, and says that the
+prostitutes come every year from Germany. Corn. Agr. _de van.
+Scientiae_, cap. 63 (_Opp._ ed. Lugd. ii. 158) says: 'Vidi ego nuper
+atque legi sub titulo "Cortosanæ" Italica lingua editum et Venetiis
+typis excusum de arte meretricia dialogum, utriusque Veneris omnium
+flagitiosissimum et dignissimum, qui ipse cum autore suo ardeat.' Ambr.
+Traversari (_Epist._ viii. 2 sqq.) calls the beloved of Niccolò Niccoli
+'foemina fidelissima.' In the _Lettere dei Principi_, i. 108 (report of
+Negro, Sept. 1, 1522) the 'donne Greche' are described as 'fonte di ogni
+cortesia et amorevolezza.' A great authority, esp. for Siena, is the
+_Hermaphroditus_ of Panormitanus. The enumeration of the 'lenae
+lupaeque' in Florence (ii. 37) is hardly fictitious; the line there
+occurs:
+
+ 'Annaque _Theutonico_ tibi si dabit obvia cantu.'
+
+
+[906] Were these wandering knights really married?
+
+[907] _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia._ See above, p. 132, note 1.
+Pandolfini died in 1446, L. B. Alberti, by whom the work was really
+written, in 1472.
+
+[908] A thorough history of 'flogging' among the Germanic and Latin
+races treated with some psychological power, would be worth volumes of
+dispatches and negotiations. (A modest beginning has been made by
+Lichtenberg, _Vermischte Schriften_, v. 276-283.) When, and through what
+influence, did flogging become a daily practice in the German household?
+Not till after Walther sang: 'Nieman kan mit gerten kindes zuht
+beherten.'
+
+In Italy beating ceased early; Maffeo Vegio (d. 1458) recommends (_De
+Educ. Liber._ lib. i. c. 19) moderation in flogging, but adds:
+'Caedendos magis esse filios quam pestilentissmis blanditiis laetandos.'
+At a later time a child of seven was no longer beaten. The little Roland
+(_Orlandino_, cap. vii. str. 42) lays down the principle:
+
+ 'Sol gli asini si ponno bastonare,
+ Se una tal bestia fussi, patirei.'
+
+The German humanists of the Renaissance, like Rudolf Agricola and
+Erasmus, speak decisively against flogging, which the elder
+schoolmasters regarded as an indispensable means of education. In the
+biographies of the _Fahrenden Schüler_ at the close of the fifteenth
+century (_Platter's Lebensbeschriebung_, ed. Fechter, Basel, 1840;
+_Butzbach's Wanderbuch_, ed. Becher, Regensburg, 1869) there are gross
+examples of the corporal punishment of the time.
+
+[909] But the taste was not universal. J. A. Campanus (_Epist._ iv. 4)
+writes vigorously against country life. He admits: 'Ego si rusticus
+natus non essem, facile tangerer voluptate;' but since he was born a
+peasant, 'quod tibi deliciae, mihi satietas est.'
+
+[910] Giovanni Villani, xi. 93, our principal authority for the building
+of villas before the middle of the fourteenth century. The villas were
+more beautiful than the town houses, and great exertions were made by
+the Florentines to have them so, 'onde erano tenuti matti.'
+
+[911] _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_ (Torino, 1829), pp. 84, 88.
+
+[912] See above, part iv. chap. 2. Petrarch was called 'Silvanus,' on
+the ground of his dislike of the town and love of the country. _Epp.
+Fam._ ed. Fracass. ii. 87 sqq. Guarino's description of a villa to
+Gianbattista Candrata, in Rosmini, ii. 13 sqq., 157 sqq. Poggio, in a
+letter to Facius (_De Vir. Ill._ p. 106): 'Sum enim deditior senectutis
+gratia rei rusticæ quam antea.' See also Poggio, _Opp._ (1513), p 112
+sqq.; and Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 255 and 261. Similarly Maffeo Vegio (_De
+Lib. Educ._ vi. 4), and B. Platina at the beginning of his dialogue, 'De
+Vera Nobilitate.' Politian's descriptions of the country-houses of the
+Medici in Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 73, 87. For the Farnesina, see
+Gregorovius, viii. 114.
+
+[913] Comp. J. Burckhardt, _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien_
+(Stuttg. 1868), pp. 320-332.
+
+[914] Compare pp. 47 sqq., where the magnificence of the festivals is
+shown to have been a hindrance to the higher development of the drama.
+
+[915] In comparison with the cities of the North.
+
+[916] The procession at the feast of Corpus Christi was not established
+at Venice until 1407; Cecchetti, _Venezia e la Corte di Roma_, i. 108.
+
+[917] The festivities which took place when Visconti was made Duke of
+Milan, 1395 (Corio, fol. 274), had, with all their splendour, something
+of mediæval coarseness about them, and the dramatic element was wholly
+wanting. Notice, too, the relative insignificance of the processions in
+Pavia during the fourteenth century (_Anonymus de Laudibus Papiae_, in
+Murat. xi. col. 34 sqq.).
+
+[918] Gio. Villani, viii. 70.
+
+[919] See e.g. Infessura, in Eccard, _Scrippt._ ii. col. 1896; Corio,
+fols. 417, 421.
+
+[920] The dialogue in the Mysteries was chiefly in octaves, the
+monologue in 'terzine.' For the Mysteries, see J. L. Klein, _Geschichte
+der Ital. Dramas_, i. 153 sqq.
+
+[921] We have no need to refer to the realism of the schoolmen for proof
+of this. About the year 970 Bishop Wibold of Cambray recommended to his
+clergy, instead of dice, a sort of spiritual bézique, with fifty-six
+abstract names represented by as many combinations of cards. 'Gesta
+Episcopori Cameracens.' in _Mon. Germ._ SS. vii. p. 433.
+
+[922] E.g. when he found pictures on metaphors. At the gate of Purgatory
+the central broken step signifies contrition of heart (_Purg._ ix. 97),
+though the slab through being broken loses its value as a step. And
+again (_Purg._ xviii. 94), the idle in this world have to show their
+penitence by running in the other, though running could be a symbol of
+flight.
+
+[923] _Inferno_, ix. 61; _Purgat._ viii. 19.
+
+[924] _Poesie Satiriche_, ed. Milan, p. 70 sqq. Dating from the end of
+the fourteenth century.
+
+[925] The latter e.g. in the _Venatio_ of the Cardinal Adriano da
+Corneto (Strasburg, 1512; often printed). Ascanio Sforza is there
+supposed to find consolation for the fall of his house in the pleasures
+of the chase. See above, p. 261.
+
+[926] More properly 1454. See Olivier de la Marche, _Mémoires_, chap.
+29.
+
+[927] For other French festivals, see e.g. Juvénal des Ursins (Paris,
+1614), ad. a. 1389 (entrance of Queen Isabella); John de Troyes, ad. a.
+1461) (often printed) (entrance of Louis XI.). Here, too, we meet with
+living statues, machines for raising bodies, and so forth; but the whole
+is confused and disconnected, and the allegories are mostly
+unintelligible. The festivals at Lisbon in 1452, held at the departure
+of the Infanta Eleonora, the bride of the Emperor Frederick III., lasted
+several days and were remarkable for their magnificence. See
+Freher-Struve, _Rer. German. Script._ ii. fol. 51--the report of Nic.
+Lauckmann.
+
+[928] A great advantage for those poets and artists who knew how to use
+it.
+
+[929] Comp. Bartol. Gambia, _Notizie intorno alle Opere di Feo Belcari_,
+Milano, 1808; and especially the introduction to the work, _Le
+Rappresentazioni di Feo Belcari ed altre di lui Poesie_, Firenze, 1833.
+As a parallel, see the introduction of the bibliophile Jacob to his
+edition of Pathelin (Paris, 1859).
+
+[930] It is true that a Mystery at Siena on the subject of the Massacre
+of the Innocents closed with a scene in which the disconsolate mothers
+seized one another by the hair. Della Valle, _Lettere Sanesi_, iii. p.
+53. It was one of the chief aims of Feo Belcari (d. 1484), of whom we
+have spoken, to free the Mysteries from these monstrosities.
+
+[931] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 72.
+
+[932] Vasari, iii. 232 sqq.: _Vita di Brunellesco_; v. 36 sqq.: _Vita
+del Cecca_. Comp. v. 32, _Vita di Don Bartolommeo_.
+
+[933] _Arch. Stor._ append. ii. p. 310. The Mystery of the Annunciation
+at Ferrara, on the occasion of the wedding of Alfonso, with fireworks
+and flying apparatus. For an account of the representation of Susanna,
+John the Baptist, and of a legend, at the house of the Cardinal Riario,
+see Corio, fol. 417. For the Mystery of Constantine the Great in the
+Papal Palace at the Carnival, 1484, see Jac. Volaterran. (Murat. xxiii.
+col. 194). The chief actor was a Genoese born and educated at
+Constantinople.
+
+[934] Graziani, _Cronaca di Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi. 1. p. 598. At the
+Crucifixion, a figure was kept ready and put in the place of the actor.
+
+[935] For this, see Graziani, l. c. and _Pii II. Comment._ l. viii. pp.
+383, 386. The poetry of the fifteenth century sometimes shows the same
+coarseness. A 'canzone' of Andrea da Basso traces in detail the
+corruption of the corpse of a hard-hearted fair one. In a monkish drama
+of the twelfth century King Herod was put on the stage with the worms
+eating him (_Carmina Burana_, pp. 80 sqq.). Many of the German dramas of
+the seventeenth century offer parallel instances.
+
+[936] Allegretto, _Diarii Sanesi_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 767.
+
+[937] Matarazzo, _Arch. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 36. The monk had previously
+undertaken a voyage to Rome to make the necessary studies for the
+festival.
+
+[938] Extracts from the 'Vergier d'honneur,' in Roscoe, _Leone X._, ed.
+Bossi, i. p. 220, and iii. p. 263.
+
+[939] _Pii II. Comment._ l. viii. pp. 382 sqq. Another gorgeous
+celebration of the 'Corpus Domini' is mentioned by Bursellis, _Annal.
+Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 911, for the year 1492. The
+representations were from the Old and New Testaments.
+
+[940] On such occasions we read, 'Nulla di muro si potea vedere.'
+
+[941] The same is true of many such descriptions.
+
+[942] Five kings with an armed retinue, and a savage who fought with a
+(tamed?) lion; the latter, perhaps, with an allusion to the name of the
+Pope--Sylvius.
+
+[943] Instances under Sixtus IV., Jac. Volaterr. in Murat. xxiii. col.
+135 (bombardorum et sclopulorum crepitus), 139. At the accession of
+Alexander VI. there were great salvos of artillery. Fireworks, a
+beautiful invention due to Italy, belong, like festive decorations
+generally, rather to the history of art than to our present work. So,
+too, the brilliant illuminations we read of in connexion with many
+festivals, and the hunting-trophies and table-ornaments. (See p. 319.
+The elevation of Julius II. to the Papal throne was celebrated at Venice
+by three days' illumination. Brosch, _Julius II._ p. 325, note 17.)
+
+[944] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 772. See, besides, col. 770, for
+the reception of Pius II. in 1459. A paradise, or choir of angels, was
+represented, out of which came an angel and sang to the Pope, 'in modo
+che il Papa si commosse a lagrime per gran tenerezza da si dolci
+parole.'
+
+[945] See the authorities quoted in Favre, _Mélanges d'Hist. Lit._ i.
+138; Corio, fol. 417 sqq. The _menu_ fills almost two closely printed
+pages. 'Among other dishes a mountain was brought in, out of which
+stepped a living man, with signs of astonishment to find himself amid
+this festive splendour; he repeated some verses and then disappeared'
+(Gregorovius, vii. 241). Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1896;
+_Strozzii Poetae_, fol. 193 sqq. A word or two may here be added on
+eating and drinking. Leon. Aretino (_Epist._ lib. iii. ep. 18) complains
+that he had to spend so much for his wedding feast, garments, and so
+forth, that on the same day he had concluded a 'matrimonium' and
+squandered a 'patrimonium.' Ermolao Barbaro describes, in a letter to
+Pietro Cara, the bill of fare at a wedding-feast at Trivulzio's (_Angeli
+Politiani Epist._ lib. iii.). The list of meats and drinks in the
+Appendix to Landi's _Commentario_ (above) is of special interest. Landi
+speaks of the great trouble he had taken over it, collecting it from
+five hundred writers. The passage is too long to be quoted (we there
+read: 'Li antropofagi furono i primi che mangiassero carne humana').
+Poggio (_Opera_, 1513, fol. 14 sqq.) discusses the question': 'Uter
+alteri gratias debeat pro convivio impenso, isne qui vocatus est ad
+convivium an qui vocavit?' Platina wrote a treatise 'De Arte
+Coquinaria,' said to have been printed several times, and quoted under
+various titles, but which, according to his own account (_Dissert.
+Vossiane_, i. 253 sqq.), contains more warnings against excess than
+instructions on the art in question.
+
+[946] Vasari, ix. p. 37, _Vita di Puntormo_, tells how a child, during
+such a festival at Florence in the year 1513, died from the effects of
+the exertion--or shall we say, of the gilding? The poor boy had to
+represent the 'golden age'!
+
+[947] Phil. Beroaldi, _Nuptiae Bentivolorum_, in the _Orationes Ph. B._
+Paris, 1492, c. 3 sqq. The description of the other festivities at this
+wedding is very remarkable.
+
+[948] M. Anton. Sabellici, _Epist._ l. iii. fol. 17.
+
+[949] Amoretti, _Memorie, &c. su. Lionardo da Vinci_, pp. 38 sqq.
+
+[950] To what extent astrology influenced even the festivals of this
+century is shown by the introduction of the planets (not described with
+sufficient clearness) at the reception of the ducal brides at Ferrara.
+_Diario Ferrarese_, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 248, ad. a. 1473; col. 282,
+ad. a. 1491. So, too, at Mantua, _Arch. Stor._ append. ii. p. 233.
+
+[951] _Annal. Estens._ in Murat. xx. col. 468 sqq. The description is
+unclear and printed from an incorrect transcript.
+
+[952] We read that the ropes of the machine used for this purpose were
+made to imitate garlands.
+
+[953] Strictly the ship of Isis, which entered the water on the 5th of
+March, as a symbol that navigation was reopened. For analogies in the
+German religion, see Jac. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_.
+
+[954] _Purgatorio_, xxix. 43 to the end, and xxx. at the beginning.
+According to v. 115, the chariot is more splendid than the triumphal
+chariot of Scipio, of Augustus, and even of the Sun-God.
+
+[955] Ranke, _Gesch. der Roman. und German. Völker_, ed. 2, p. 95. P.
+Villari, _Savonarola_.
+
+[956] Fazio degli Uberti, _Dittamondo_ (lib. ii. cap. 3), treats
+specially 'del modo del triumphare.'
+
+[957] Corio, fol. 401: 'dicendo tali cose essere superstitioni de' Re.'
+Comp. Cagnola, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 127, who says that the duke
+declined from modesty.
+
+[958] See above, vol. i. p. 315 sqq.; comp. i. p. 15, note 1. 'Triumphus
+Alfonsi,' as appendix to the _Dicta et Facta_ of Panormita, ed. 1538,
+pp. 129-139, 256 sqq. A dislike to excessive display on such occasions
+was shown by the gallant Comneni. Comp. Cinnamus, i. 5, vi. 1.
+
+[959] The position assigned to Fortune is characteristic of the naïveté
+of the Renaissance. At the entrance of Massimiliano Sforza into Milan
+(1512), she stood as the chief figure of a triumphal arch _above_ Fama,
+Speranza, Audacia, and Penitenza, all represented by living persons.
+Comp. Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 305.
+
+[960] The entrance of Borso of Este into Reggio, described above (p.
+417), shows the impression which Alfonso's triumph had made in all
+Italy,. On the entrance of Cæsar Borgia into Rome in 1500, see
+Gregorovius, vii. 439.
+
+[961] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. 260 sqq. The author says expressly, 'le
+quali cose da li triumfanti Romani se soliano anticamente usare.'
+
+[962] Her three 'capitoli' in terzines, _Anecd. Litt._ iv. 461 sqq.
+
+[963] Old paintings of similar scenes are by no means rare, and no doubt
+often represent masquerades actually performed. The wealthy classes soon
+became accustomed to drive in chariots at every public solemnity. We
+read that Annibale Bentivoglio, eldest son of the ruler of Bologna,
+returned to the palace after presiding as umpire at the regular military
+exercises, 'cum triumpho more romano.' Bursellis, l. c. col. 909. ad. a.
+1490.
+
+[964] The remarkable funeral of Malatesta Baglione, poisoned at Bologna
+in 1437 (Graziani, _Arch. Stor._ xvi. i. p. 413), reminds us of the
+splendour of an Etruscan funeral. The knights in mourning, however, and
+other features of the ceremony, were in accordance with the customs of
+the nobility throughout Europe. See e.g. the funeral of Bertrand
+Duguesclin, in Juvénal des Ursins, ad. a. 1389. See also Graziani, l. c.
+p. 360.
+
+[965] Vasari, ix. p. 218, _Vita di Granacci_. On the triumphs and
+processions in Florence, see Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 433.
+
+[966] Mich. Cannesius, _Vita Pauli II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 118 sqq.
+
+[967] Tommasi, _Vita di Caesare Borgia_, p. 251.
+
+[968] Vasari ix. p. 34 sqq., _Vita di Puntormo_. A most important
+passage of its kind.
+
+[969] Vasari, viii. p. 264, _Vita di Andrea del Sarto_.
+
+[970] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 783. It was reckoned a bad omen
+that one of the wheels broke.
+
+[971] _M. Anton. Sabellici Epist._ l. iii. letter to M. Anton.
+Barbavarus. He says: 'Vetus est mos civitatis in illustrium hospitum
+adventu eam navim auro et purpura insternere.'
+
+[972] Sansovino, _Venezia_, fol. 151 sqq. The names of these
+corporations were: Pavoni, Accessi, Eterni, Reali, Sempiterni. The
+academies probably had their origin in these guilds.
+
+[973] Probably in 1495. Comp. _M. Anton. Sabellici Epist._ l. v. fol.
+28; last letter to M. Ant. Barbavarus.
+
+[974] 'Terræ globum socialibus signis circunquaque figuratum,' and
+'quinis pegmatibus, quorum singula foederatorum regum, principumque suas
+habuere effigies et cum his ministros signaque in auro affabre caelata.'
+
+[975] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1093, 2000; Mich.
+Cannesius, _Vita Pauli II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1012; Platina.
+_Vitae Pontiff._ p. 318; Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xiii. col. 163, 194;
+Paul. Jov. _Elogia_, sub Juliano Cæsarino. Elsewhere, too, there were
+races for women, _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 384: comp.
+Gregorovius, vi. 690 sqq., vii. 219, 616 sqq.
+
+[976] Once under Alexander VI. from October till Lent. See Tommasi, l.
+c. p. 322.
+
+[977] Baluz. _Miscell._ iv. 517 (comp. Gregorovius, vii. 288 sqq.).
+
+[978] _Pii II. Comment._ l. iv. p. 211.
+
+[979] Nantiporto, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1080. They wished to thank him
+for a peace which he had concluded, but found the gates of the palace
+closed and troops posted in all the open places.
+
+[980] 'Tutti i trionfi, carri, mascherate, o canti carnascialeschi.'
+Cosmopoli, 1750. Macchiavelli, _Opere Minori_, p. 505; Vasari, vii. p.
+115 sqq. _Vita di Piero di Cosimo_, to whom a chief part in the
+development of these festivities is ascribed. Comp. B. Loos (above, p.
+154, note 1) p. 12 sqq. and Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 443 sqq., where the
+authorities are collected which show that the Carnival was soon
+restrained. Comp. ibid ii. p. 24.
+
+[981] _Discorsi_, l. i. c. 12. Also c. 55: Italy is more corrupt than
+all other countries; then come the French and Spaniards.
+
+[982] Paul. Jov. _Viri Illustres_: Jo. Gal. Vicecomes. Comp. p. 12 sqq.
+and notes.
+
+[983] On the part filled by the sense of honour in the modern world, see
+Prévost-Paradol, _La France Nouvelle_, liv. iii. chap. 2.
+
+[984] Compare what Mr. Darwin says of blushing in the 'Expression of the
+Emotions,' and of the relations between shame and conscience.
+
+[985] Franc. Guicciardini, _Ricordi Politici e Civili_, n. 118 (_Opere
+inedite_, vol. i.).
+
+[986] His closest counterpart is Merlinus Coccajus (Teofilo Folengo),
+whose _Opus Maccaronicorum_ Rabelais certainly knew, and quotes more
+than once (_Pantagruel_, l. ii. ch. 1. and ch. 7, at the end). It is
+possible that Merlinus Coccajus may have given the impulse which
+resulted in Pantagruel and Gargantua.
+
+[987] _Gargantua_, l. i. cap. 57.
+
+[988] That is, well-born in the higher sense of the word, since
+Rabelais, son of the innkeeper of Chinon, has here no motive for
+assigning any special privilege to the nobility. The preaching of the
+Gospel, which is spoken of in the inscription at the entrance to the
+monastery, would fit in badly with the rest of the life of the inmates;
+it must be understood in a negative sense, as implying defiance of the
+Roman Church.
+
+[989] See extracts from his diary in Delécluze, _Florence et ses
+Vicissitudes_, vol. 2.
+
+[990] Infessura, ap. Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1992. On F. C. see
+above, p. 108.
+
+[991] This opinion of Stendhal (_La Chartreuse de Parme_, ed. Delahays,
+p. 335) seems to me to rest on profound psychological observation.
+
+[992] Graziani, _Cronaca di Perugia_, for the year 1437 (_Arch. Stor._
+xvi. i. p. 415).
+
+[993] Giraldi, _Hecatommithi_, i. nov. 7.
+
+[994] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptt._ ii. col. 1892, for the year 1464.
+
+[995] Allegretto, _Diari Sanisi_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 837. Allegretto
+was himself present when the oath was taken, and had no doubt of its
+efficacy.
+
+[996] Those who leave vengeance to God are ridiculed by Pulci,
+_Morgante_, canto xxi. str. 83 sqq., 104 sqq.
+
+[997] Guicciardini, _Ricordi_, l. c. n. 74.
+
+[998] Thus Cardanus (_De Propria Vita_, cap. 13) describes himself as
+very revengeful, but also as 'verax, memor beneficiorum, amans
+justitiæ.'
+
+[999] It is true that when the Spanish rule was fully established the
+population fell off to a certain extent. Had this fact been due to the
+demoralisation of the people, it would have appeared much earlier.
+
+[1000] Giraldi, _Hecatommithi_, iii. nov. 2. In the same strain,
+_Cortigiano_, l. iv. fol. 180.
+
+[1001] A shocking instance of vengeance taken by a brother at Perugia in
+the year 1455, is to be found in the chronicle of Graziani (_Arch.
+Stor._ xvi. p. 629). The brother forces the gallant to tear out the
+sister's eyes, and then beats him from the place. It is true that the
+family was a branch of the Oddi, and the lover only a cordwainer.
+
+[1002] Bandello, parte i. nov. 9 and 26. Sometimes the wife's confessor
+is bribed by the husband and betrays the adultery.
+
+[1003] See above p. 394, and note 1.
+
+[1004] As instance, Bandello, part i. nov. 4.
+
+[1005] 'Piaccia al Signore Iddio che non si ritrovi,' say the women in
+Giraldi (iii. nov. 10), when they are told that the deed may cost the
+murderer his head.
+
+[1006] This is the case, for example, with Gioviano Pontano (_De
+Fortitudine_, l. ii.). His heroic Ascolans, who spend their last night
+in singing and dancing, the Abruzzian mother, who cheers up her son on
+his way to the gallows, &c., belong probably to brigand families, but he
+forgets to say so.
+
+[1007] _Diarium Parmense_, in Murat. xxii. col. 330 to 349 _passim_. The
+sonnet, col. 340.
+
+[1008] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 312. We are reminded of
+the gang led by a priest, which for some time before the year 1837
+infested western Lombardy.
+
+[1009] Massuccio, nov. 29. As a matter of course, the man has luck in
+his amours.
+
+[1010] If he appeared as a corsair in the war between the two lines of
+Anjou for the possession of Naples, he may have done so as a political
+partisan, and this, according to the notions of the time, implied no
+dishonour. The Archbishop Paolo Fregoso of Genoa, in the second half of
+the fifteenth century probably allowed himself quite as much freedom, or
+more. Contemporaries and later writers, e.g. Aretino and Poggio, record
+much worse things of John. Gregorovius, vi. p. 600.
+
+[1011] Poggio, _Facetiae_, fol. 164. Anyone familiar with Naples at the
+present time, may have heard things as comical, though bearing on other
+sides of human life.
+
+[1012] _Jovian. Pontani Antonius_: 'Nec est quod Neapoli quam hominis
+vita minoris vendatur.' It is true he thinks it was not so under the
+House of Anjou, 'sicam ab iis (the Aragonese) accepimus.' The state of
+things about the year 1534 is described by Benvenuto Cellini, i. 70.
+
+[1013] Absolute proof of this cannot be given, but few murders are
+recorded, and the imagination of the Florentine writers at the best
+period is not filled with the suspicion of them.
+
+[1014] See on this point the report of Fedeli, in Alberi, _Relazioni
+Serie_, ii. vol. i. pp. 353 sqq.
+
+[1015] M. Brosch (_Hist. Zeitschr._ bd. 27, p. 295 sqq.) has collected
+from the Venetian archives five proposals, approved by the council, to
+poison the Sultan (1471-1504), as well as evidence of the plan to murder
+Charles VIII. (1495) and of the order given to the Proveditor at Faenza
+to have Cæsar Borgia put to death (1504).
+
+[1016] Dr. Geiger adds several conjectural statements and references on
+this subject. It may be remarked that the suspicion of poisoning, which
+I believe to be now generally unfounded, is often expressed in certain
+parts of Italy with regard to any death not at once to be accounted
+for.--[The Translator.]
+
+[1017] Infessura, in Eccard, _Scriptor._ ii. col. 1956.
+
+[1018] _Chron. Venetum_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 131. In northern countries
+still more wonderful things were believed as to the art of poisoning in
+Italy. See _Juvénal des Ursins_, ad. ann. 1382 (ed. Buchon, p. 336), for
+the lancet of the poisoner, whom Charles of Durazzo took into his
+service; whoever looked at it steadily, died.
+
+[1019] Petr. Crinitus, _De Honesta Disciplina_, l. xviii. cap. 9.
+
+[1020] _Pii II. Comment._ l. xi. p. 562. Joh. Ant. Campanus, _Vita Pii
+II._ in Murat. iii. ii. col. 988.
+
+[1021] Vasari, ix. 82, _Vita di Rosso_. In the case of unhappy marriages
+it is hard to say whether there were more real or imaginary instances of
+poisoning. Comp. Bandello, ii. nov. 5 and 54: ii. nov. 40 is more
+serious. In one and the same city of Western Lombardy, the name of which
+is not given, lived two poisoners. A husband, wishing to convince
+himself of the genuineness of his wife's despair, made her drink what
+she believed to be poison, but which was really coloured water,
+whereupon they were reconciled. In the family of Cardanus alone four
+cases of poisoning occurred (_De Propria Vita_, cap. 30, 50). Even at a
+banquet given at the coronation of a pope each cardinal brought his own
+cupbearer with him, and his own wine, 'probably because they knew from
+experience that otherwise they would run the risk of being poisoned.'
+And this usage was general at Rome, and practised 'sine injuria
+invitantis!' Blas Ortiz, _Itinerar. Hadriani VI._ ap. Baluz. Miscell.
+ed. Mansi, i. 380.
+
+[1022] For the magic arts used against Leonello of Ferrara, see _Diario
+Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 194, ad a. 1445. When the sentence was
+read in the public square to the author of them, a certain Benato, a man
+in other respects of bad character, a noise was heard in the air and the
+earth shook, so that many people fled away or fell to the ground; this
+happened because Benato 'havea chiamato e scongiurato il diavolo.' What
+Guicciardini (l. i.) says of the wicked arts practised by Ludovico Moro
+against his nephew Giangaleazzo, rests on his own responsibility. On
+magic, see below, cap. 4.
+
+[1023] Ezzelino da Romano might be put first, were it not that he rather
+acted under the influence of ambitious motives and astrological
+delusions.
+
+[1024] _Giornali Napoletani_, in Murat. xxi. col. 1092 ad a. 1425.
+According to the narrative this deed seems to have been committed out of
+mere pleasure in cruelty. Br., it is true, believed neither in God nor
+in the saints, and despised and neglected all the precepts and
+ceremonies of the Church.
+
+[1025] _Pii II. Comment._ l. vii. p. 338.
+
+[1026] Jovian. Pontan. _De Immanitate_, cap. 17, where he relates how
+Malatesta got his own daughter with child--and so forth.
+
+[1027] Varchi, _Storie Fiorentine_, at the end. (When the work is
+published without expurgations, as in the Milanese edition.)
+
+[1028] On which point feeling differs according to the place and the
+people. The Renaissance prevailed in times and cities where the tendency
+was to enjoy life heartily. The general darkening of the spirits of
+thoughtful men did not begin to show itself till the time of the foreign
+supremacy in the sixteenth century.
+
+[1029] What is termed the spirit of the Counter-Reformation was
+developed in Spain some time before the Reformation itself, chiefly
+through the sharp surveillance and partial reorganisation of the Church
+under Ferdinand and Isabella. The principal authority on this subject is
+Gomez, _Life of Cardinal Ximenes_, in Rob. Belus, _Rer. Hispan.
+Scriptores_, 3 vols. 1581.
+
+[1030] It is to be noticed that the novelists and satirists scarcely
+ever mention the bishops, although they might, under altered names, have
+attacked them like the rest. They do so, however, e.g. in Bandello, ii.
+nov. 45; yet in ii. 40, he describes a virtuous bishop. Gioviano Pontano
+in the _Charon_ introduces the ghost of a luxurious bishop with a
+'duck's walk.'
+
+[1031] Foscolo, _Discorso sul testo del Decamerone_, 'Ma dei preti in
+dignità niuno poteva far motto senza pericolo; onde ogni frate fu l'irco
+delle iniquita d'Israele,' &c. Timotheus Maffeus dedicates a book
+against the monks to Pope Nicholas V.; Facius, _De Vir. Ill._ p. 24.
+There are specially strong passages against the monks and clergy in the
+work of Palingenius already mentioned iv. 289, v. 184 sqq., 586 sqq.
+
+[1032] Bandello prefaces ii. nov. i. with the statement that the vice of
+avarice was more discreditable to priests than to any other class of
+men, since they had no families to provide for. On this ground he
+justifies the disgraceful attack made on a parsonage by two soldiers or
+brigands at the orders of a young gentleman, on which occasion a sheep
+was stolen from the stingy and gouty old priest. A single story of this
+kind illustrates the ideas in which men lived and acted better than all
+the dissertations in the world.
+
+[1033] Giov. Villani, iii. 29, says this clearly a century later.
+
+[1034] _L'Ordine._ Probably the tablet with the inscription I. H. S. is
+meant.
+
+[1035] He adds, 'and in the _seggi_,' i.e. the clubs into which the
+Neapolitan nobility was divided. The rivalry of the two orders is often
+ridiculed, e.g. Bandello, iii. nov. 14.
+
+[1036] Nov. 6, ed. Settembrini, p. 83, where it is remarked that in the
+Index of 1564 a book is mentioned, _Matrimonio delli Preti e delle
+Monache_.
+
+[1037] For what follows, see Jovian. Pontan. _De Sermone_, l. ii. cap.
+17, and Bandello, parte i. nov. 32. The fury of brother Franciscus, who
+attempted to work upon the king by a vision of St. Cataldus, was so
+great at his failure, and the talk on the subject so universal, 'ut
+Italia ferme omnis ipse in primis Romanus pontifex de tabulæ hujus
+fuerit inventione sollicitus atque anxius.'
+
+[1038] Alexander VI. and Julius II., whose cruel measures, however, did
+not appear to the Venetian ambassadors Giustiniani and Soderini as
+anything but a means of extorting money. Comp. M. Brosch, _Hist.
+Zeitscher._ bd. 37.
+
+[1039] Panormita, _De Dictis et Factis Alphonsi_, lib. ii. Æneas Sylvius
+in his commentary to it (_Opp._ ed. 1651, p. 79) tells of the detection
+of a pretended faster, who was said to have eaten nothing for four
+years.
+
+[1040] For which reason they could be openly denounced in the
+neighbourhood of the court. See Jovian. Pontan. _Antonius_ and _Charon_.
+One of the stories is the same as in Massuccio, nov. ii.
+
+[1041] See for one example the eighth canto of the _Macaroneide_.
+
+[1042] The story in Vasari, v. p. 120, _Vita di Sandro Botticelli_ shows
+that the Inquisition was sometimes treated jocularly. It is true that
+the 'Vicario' here mentioned may have been the archbishop's deputy
+instead of the inquisitor's.
+
+[1043] Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ ap. Murat. xxiii. col. 886, cf. 896.
+Malv. died 1468; his 'beneficium' passed to his nephew.
+
+[1044] See p. 88 sqq. He was abbot at Vallombrosa. The passage, of which
+we give a free translation, is to be found _Opere_, vol. ii. p. 209, in
+the tenth novel. See an inviting description of the comfortable life of
+the Carthusians in the _Commentario d'Italia_, fol. 32 sqq. quoted at p.
+84.
+
+[1045] Pius II. was on principle in favour of the abolition of the
+celibacy of the clergy. One of his favourite sentences was,
+'Sacerdotibus magna ratione sublatus nuptias majori restituendas
+videri.' Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 311.
+
+[1046] Ricordi, n. 28, in the _Opere inedite_, vol. i.
+
+[1047] Ricordi, n. i. 123, 125.
+
+[1048] See the _Orlandino_, cap. vi. str. 40 sqq.; cap. vii. str. 57;
+cap. viii. str. 3 sqq., especially 75.
+
+[1049] _Diaria Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 362.
+
+[1050] He had with him a German and a Slavonian interpreter. St. Bernard
+had to use the same means when he preached in the Rhineland.
+
+[1051] Capistrano, for instance, contented himself with making the sign
+of the cross over the thousands of sick persons brought to him, and with
+blessing them in the name of the Trinity and of his master San
+Bernadino, after which some of them not unnaturally got well. The
+Brescian chronicle puts it in this way, 'He worked fine miracles, yet
+not so many as were told of him' (Murat. xxi.).
+
+[1052] So e.g. Poggio, _De Avaritia_, in the _Opera_, fol. 2. He says
+they had an easy matter of it, since they said the same thing in every
+city, and sent the people away more stupid than they came. Poggio
+elsewhere (_Epist._ ed. Tonelli i. 281) speaks of Albert of Sarteano as
+'doctus' and 'perhumanus.' Filelfo defended Bernadino of Siena and a
+certain Nicolaus, probably out of opposition to Poggio (_Sat._ ii. 3,
+vi. 5) rather than from liking for the preachers. Filelfo was a
+correspondent of A. of Sarteano. He also praises Roberto da Lecce in
+some respects, but blames him for not using suitable gestures and
+expressions, for looking miserable when he ought to look cheerful, and
+for weeping too much and thus offending the ears and tastes of his
+audience. Fil. _Epist._ Venet. 1502, fol. 96 _b_.
+
+[1053] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 72. Preachers who fail are a constant
+subject of ridicule in all the novels.
+
+[1054] Compare the well-known story in the _Decamerone_ vi. nov. 10.
+
+[1055] In which case the sermons took a special colour. See Malipiero,
+_Ann. Venet. Archiv. Stor._ vii. i. p. 18. _Chron. Venet._ in Murat.
+xxiv. col. 114. _Storia Bresciana_, in Murat. xxi. col. 898. Absolution
+was freely promised to those who took part in, or contributed money for
+the crusade.
+
+[1056] _Storia Bresciana_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 865 sqq. On the first
+day 10,000 persons were present, 2,000 of them strangers.
+
+[1057] Allegretto, _Diari Sanesi_, in Murat. xxiii. col. 819 sqq. (July
+13 to 18, 1486); the preacher was Pietro dell'Osservanza di S.
+Francesco.
+
+[1058] Infessura (in Eccard, _Scriptores_, ii. col. 1874) says: 'Canti,
+brevi, sorti.' The first may refer to song-books, which actually were
+burnt by Savonarola. But Graziani (_Cron. di Perugia, Arch. Stor._ xvi.
+i., p. 314) says on a similar occasion, 'brieve incanti,' when we must
+without doubt read 'brevi e incanti,' and perhaps the same emendation is
+desirable in Infessura, whose 'sorti' point to some instrument of
+superstition, perhaps a pack of cards for fortune-telling. Similarly
+after the introduction of printing, collections were made of all the
+attainable copies of Martial, which then were burnt. Bandello, iii. 10.
+
+[1059] See his remarkable biography in _Vespasiano Fiorent._ p. 244
+sqq., and that by Æneas Sylvius, _De Viris Illustr._ p. 24. In the
+latter we read: 'Is quoque in tabella pictum nomen Jesus deferebat,
+hominibusque adorandum ostendebat multumque suadebat ante ostia domorum
+hoc nomen depingi.'
+
+[1060] Allegretto, l. c. col. 823. A preacher excited the people against
+the judges (if instead of 'giudici' we are not to read 'giudei'), upon
+which they narrowly escaped being burnt in their houses. The opposite
+party threatened the life of the preacher in return.
+
+[1061] Infessura, l. c. In the date of the witch's death there seems to
+be a clerical error. How the same saint caused an ill-famed wood near
+Arezzo to be cut down, is told in Vasari, iii. 148, _Vita di Parri
+Spinelli_. Often, no doubt, the penitential zeal of the hearers went no
+further than such outward sacrifices.
+
+[1062] 'Pareva che l'aria si fendesse,' we read somewhere.
+
+[1063] Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 166 sqq. It is not
+expressly said that he interfered with this feud, but it can hardly be
+doubted that he did so. Once (1445), when Jacopo della Marca had but
+just quitted Perugia after an extraordinary success, a frightful
+_vendetta_ broke out in the family of the Ranieri. Comp. Graziani, l. c.
+p. 565 sqq. We may here remark that Perugia was visited by these
+preachers remarkably often, comp. pp. 597, 626, 631, 637, 647.
+
+[1064] Capistrano admitted fifty soldiers after one sermon, _Stor.
+Bresciana_, l. c. Graziani, l. c. p. 565 sqq. Æn. Sylvius (_De Viris
+Illustr._ p. 25), when a young man, was once so affected by a sermon of
+San Bernadino as to be on the point of joining his Order. We read in
+Graziani of a convert quitting the order; he married, 'e fu magiore
+ribaldo, che non era prima.'
+
+[1065] That there was no want of disputes between the famous
+Observantine preachers and their Dominican rivals is shown by the
+quarrel about the blood of Christ which was said to have fallen from the
+cross to the earth (1462). See Voigt. _Enea Silvio_ iii. 591 sqq. Fra
+Jacopo della Marca, who would not yield to the Dominican Inquisitor, is
+criticised by Pius II. in his detailed account (_Comment._ l. xi. p.
+511), with delicate irony: 'Pauperiem pati, et famam et sitim et
+corporis cruciatum et mortem pro Christi nomine nonnulli possunt;
+jacturam nominis vel minimam ferre recusant tanquam sua deficiente fama
+Dei quoque gloria pereat.'
+
+[1066] Their reputation oscillated even then between two extremes. They
+must be distinguished from the hermit-monks. The line was not always
+clearly drawn in this respect. The Spoletans, who travelled about
+working miracles, took St. Anthony and St. Paul as their patrons, the
+latter on account of the snakes which they carried with them. We read of
+the money they got from the peasantry even in the thirteenth century by
+a sort of clerical conjuring. Their horses were trained to kneel down at
+the name of St. Anthony. They pretended to collect for hospitals
+(Massuccio, nov. 18; Bandello iii., nov. 17). Firenzuola in his _Asino
+d'Oro_ makes them play the part of the begging priests in Apulejus.
+
+[1067] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 357. Burigozzo, _ibid._ p. 431 sqq.
+
+[1068] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 856 sqq. The quotation was:
+'Ecce venio cito et velociter. Estote parati.'
+
+[1069] Matteo Villani, viii. cap. 2 sqq. He first preached against
+tyranny in general, and then, when the ruling house of the Beccaria
+tried to have him murdered, he began to preach a change of government
+and constitution, and forced the Beccaria to fly from Pavia (1357). See
+Petrarch, _Epp. Fam._ xix. 18, and A. _Hortis, Scritti Inediti di F. P._
+174-181.
+
+[1070] Sometimes at critical moments the ruling house itself used the
+services of monks to exhort the people to loyalty. For an instance of
+this kind at Ferrara, see Sanudo (Murat. xxii. col. 1218). A preacher
+from Bologna reminded the people of the benefits they had received from
+the House of Este, and of the fate that awaited them at the hands of the
+victorious Venetians.
+
+[1071] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. p. 251. Other fanatical anti-French
+preachers, who appeared after the expulsion of the French, are mentioned
+by Burigozzo, _ibid._ pp. 443, 449, 485; ad a. 1523, 1526, 1529.
+
+[1072] Jac. Pitti, _Storia Fior._ l. ii. p. 112.
+
+[1073] Perrens, _Jérôme Savonarole_, two vols. Perhaps the most
+systematic and sober of all the many works on the subject. P. Villari,
+_La Storia di Girol. Savonarola_ (two vols. 8vo. Firenze, Lemonnier).
+The view taken by the latter writer differs considerably from that
+maintained in the text. Comp. also Ranke in _Historisch-biographische
+Studien_, Lpzg. 1878, pp. 181-358. On Genaz. see Vill. i. 57 sqq. ii.
+343 sqq. Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 522-526, 533 sqq.
+
+[1074] Sermons on Haggai; close of sermon 6.
+
+[1075] Savonarola was perhaps the only man who could have made the
+subject cities free and yet kept Tuscany together. But he never seems to
+have thought of doing so. Pisa he hated like a genuine Florentine.
+
+[1076] A remarkable contrast to the Sienese who in 1483 solemnly
+dedicated their distracted city to the Madonna. Allegretto, in Murat.
+xxiii. col. 815.
+
+[1077] He says of the 'impii astrologi': 'non è dar disputar (con loro)
+altrimenti che col fuoco.'
+
+[1078] See Villari on this point.
+
+[1079] See the passage in the fourteenth sermon on Ezechiel, in Perrens,
+o. c. vol. i. 30 note.
+
+[1080] With the title, _De Rusticorum Religione_. See above p. 352.
+
+[1081] Franco Sacchetti, nov. 109, where there is more of the same kind.
+
+[1082] Bapt. Mantuan. _De Sacris Diebus_, l. ii. exclaims:--
+
+ Ista superstitio, ducens a Manibus ortum
+ Tartareis, sancta de religione facessat
+ Christigenûm! vivis epulas date, sacra sepultis.
+
+A century earlier, when the army of John XXII. entered the Marches to
+attack the Ghibellines, the pretext was avowedly 'eresia' and
+'idolatria.' Recanti, which surrendered voluntarily, was nevertheless
+burnt, 'because idols had been worshipped there,' in reality, as a
+revenge for those whom the citizens had killed. Giov. Villani, ix. 139,
+141. Under Pius II. we read of an obstinate sun-worshipper, born at
+Urbino. Æn. Sylv. _Opera_, p. 289. _Hist. Rer. ubique Gestar._ c. 12.
+More wonderful still was what happened in the Forum in Rome under Leo X.
+(more properly in the interregnum between Hadrian and Leo. June 1522,
+Gregorovius, viii. 388). To stay the plague, a bull was solemnly offered
+up with pagan rites. Paul. Jov. _Hist._ xxi. 8.
+
+[1083] See Sabellico, _De Situ Venetae Urbis_. He mentions the names of
+the saints, after the manner of many philologists, without the addition
+of 'sanctus' or 'divus,' but speaks frequently of different relics, and
+in the most respectful tone, and even boasts that he kissed several of
+them.
+
+[1084] _De Laudibus Patavii_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1149 to 1151.
+
+[1085] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. pp. 408 sqq. Though he is by no means a
+freethinker, he still protests against the causal nexus.
+
+[1086] _Pii II. Comment._ l. viii. pp. 352 sqq. 'Verebatur Pontifex, ne
+in honore tanti apostoli diminute agere videretur,' &c.
+
+[1087] Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 187. The Pope excused
+himself on the ground of Louis' great services to the Church, and by the
+example of other Popes, e.g. St. Gregory, who had done the like. Louis
+was able to pay his devotion to the relic, but died after all. The
+Catacombs were at that time forgotten, yet even Savonarola (l. c. col.
+1150) says of Rome: 'Velut ager Aceldama Sanctorum habita est.'
+
+[1088] Bursellis, _Annal. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 905. It was one
+of the sixteen patricians, Bartol. della Volta, d. 1485 or 1486.
+
+[1089] Vasari, iii. 111 sqq. note. _Vita di Ghiberti._
+
+[1090] Matteo Villani, iii. 15 and 16.
+
+[1091] We must make a further distinction between the Italian cultus of
+the bodies of historical saints of recent date, and the northern
+practice of collecting bones and relics of a sacred antiquity. Such
+remains were preserved in great abundance in the Lateran, which, for
+that reason, was of special importance for pilgrims. But on the tombs of
+St. Dominic and St. Anthony of Padua rested, not only the halo of
+sanctity, but the splendour of historical fame.
+
+[1092] The remarkable judgment in his _De Sacris Diebus_, the work of
+his later years, refers both to sacred and profane art (l. i.). Among
+the Jews, he says, there was a good reason for prohibiting all graven
+images, else they would have relapsed into the idolatry or devil-worship
+of the nations around them:
+
+ Nunc autem, postquam penitus natura Satanum
+ Cognita, et antiqua sine majestate relicta est,
+ Nulla ferunt nobis statuae discrimina, nullos
+ Fert pictura dolos; jam sunt innoxia signa;
+ Sunt modo virtutum testes monimentaque laudum
+ Marmora, et aeternae decora immortalia famae.
+
+
+[1093] Battista Mantovano complains of certain 'nebulones' (_De Sacris
+Diebus_, l. v.) who would not believe in the genuineness of the Sacred
+Blood at Mantua. The same criticism which called in question the
+Donation of Constantine was also, though indirectly, hostile to the
+belief in relics.
+
+[1094] Especially the famous prayer of St. Bernard, _Paradiso_, xxxiii.
+1, 'Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio.'
+
+[1095] Perhaps we may add Pius II., whose elegy on the Virgin is printed
+in the _Opera_, p. 964, and who from his youth believed himself to be
+under her special protection. Jac. Card. Papiens. 'De Morte Pii,' _Opp._
+p. 656.
+
+[1096] That is, at the time when Sixtus IV. was so zealous for the
+Immaculate Conception. _Extravag. Commun._ l. iii. tit. xii. He founded,
+too, the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, and the
+Feasts of St. Anne and St. Joseph. See Trithem. _Ann. Hirsaug._ ii. p.
+518.
+
+[1097] The few frigid sonnets of Vittoria on the Madonna are most
+instructive in this respect (n. 85 sqq. ed. P. Visconti, Rome, 1840).
+
+[1098] Bapt. Mantuan. _De Sacris Diebus_, l. v., and especially the
+speech of the younger Pico, which was intended for the Lateran Council,
+in Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, viii. p. 115. Comp. p. 121, note 3.
+
+[1099] _Monach. Paduani Chron._ l. iii. at the beginning. We there read
+of this revival: 'Invasit primitus Perusinos, Romanes postmodum, deinde
+fere Italiæ populos universos.' Guil. Ventura (_Fragmenta de Gestis
+Astensium_ in _Mon. Hist. Patr. SS._ tom. iii. col. 701) calls the
+Flagellant pilgrimage 'admirabilis Lombardorum commotio;' hermits came
+forth from their cells and summoned the cities to repent.
+
+[1100] G. Villani, viii. 122, xi. 23. The former were not received in
+Florence, the latter were welcomed all the more readily.
+
+[1101] Corio, fol. 281. Leon. Aretinus, _Hist. Flor._ lib. xii. (at the
+beginning) mentions a sudden revival called forth by the processions of
+the 'dealbati' from the Alps to Lucca, Florence, and still farther.
+
+[1102] Pilgrimages to distant places had already become very rare. Those
+of the princes of the House of Este to Jerusalem, St. Jago, and Vienne
+are enumerated in Murat. xxiv. col. 182, 187, 190, 279. For that of
+Rinaldo Albizzi to the Holy Land, see Macchiavelli, _Stor. Fior._ l. v.
+Here, too, the desire of fame is sometimes the motive. The chronicler
+Giov. Cavalcanti (_Ist. Fiorentine_, ed. Polidori, ii. 478) says of
+Lionardo Fescobaldi, who wanted to go with a companion (about the year
+1400) to the Holy Sepulchre: 'Stimarono di eternarsi nella mente degli
+uomini futuri.'
+
+[1103] Bursellis, _Annal. Bon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 890.
+
+[1104] Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 855 sqq. The report had got
+about that it had rained blood outside the gate. All rushed forth, yet
+'gli uomini di guidizio non lo credono.'
+
+[1105] Burigozzo, _Arch. Stor._ iii. 486. For the misery which then
+prevailed in Lombardy, Galeazzo Capello (_De Rebus nuper in Italia
+Gestis_) is the best authority. Milan suffered hardly less than Rome did
+in the sack of 1527.
+
+[1106] It was also called 'l'arca del testimonio,' and people told how
+it was 'conzado' (constructed) 'con gran misterio.'
+
+[1107] _Diario Ferrarese_, in Murat. xxiv. col. 317, 322, 323, 326, 386,
+401.
+
+[1108] 'Ad uno santo homo o santa donna,' says the chronicle. Married
+men were forbidden to keep concubines.
+
+[1109] The sermon was especially addressed to them; after it a Jew was
+baptised, 'ma non di quelli' adds the annalist, 'che erano stati a udire
+la predica.'
+
+[1110] 'Per buono rispetto a lui noto e perchè sempre è buono a star
+bene con Iddio,' says the annalist. After describing the arrangements,
+he adds resignedly: 'La cagione perchè sia fatto et si habbia a fare non
+s'intende, basta che ogni bene è bene.'
+
+[1111] He is called 'Messo del Cancellieri del Duca.' The whole thing
+was evidently intended to appear the work of the court only, and not of
+any ecclesiastical authority.
+
+[1112] See the quotations from Pico's _Discourse on the Dignity of Man_
+above, pp. 354-5.
+
+[1113] Not to speak of the fact that a similar tolerance or indifference
+was not uncommon among the Arabians themselves.
+
+[1114] So in the _Decameron_. Sultans without name in Massuccio nov. 46,
+48, 49; one called 'Rè di Fes,' another 'Rè di Tunisi.' In _Dittamondo_,
+ii. 25, we read, 'il buono Saladin.' For the Venetian alliance with the
+Sultan of Egypt in the year 1202, see G. Hanotaux in the _Revue
+Historique_ iv. (1877) pp. 74-102. There were naturally also many
+attacks on Mohammedanism. For the Turkish woman baptized first in Venice
+and again in Rome, see Cechetti i. 487.
+
+[1115] _Philelphi Epistolae_, Venet. 1502 fol. 90 _b._ sqq.
+
+[1116] _Decamerone_ i. nov. 3. Boccaccio is the first to name the
+Christian religion, which the others do not. For an old French authority
+of the thirteenth century, see Tobler, _Li di dou Vrai Aniel_, Leipzig,
+1871. For the Hebrew story of Abr. Abulafia (b. 1241 in Spain, came to
+Italy about 1290 in the hope of converting the Pope to Judaism), in
+which two servants claim each to hold the jewel buried for the son, see
+Steinschneider, _Polem. und Apol. Lit. der Arab. Sprache_, pp. 319 and
+360. From these and other sources we conclude that the story originally
+was less definite than as we now have it (in Abul. e.g. it is used
+polemically against the Christians), and that the doctrine of the
+equality of the three religions is a later addition. Comp. Reuter,
+_Gesch. der Relig. Aufklärung im M. A._ (Berlin, 1877), iii. 302 sqq.
+390.
+
+[1117] _De Tribus Impostoribus_, the name of a work attributed to
+Frederick II. among many other people, and which by no means answers the
+expectations raised by the title. Latest ed. by Weller, Heilbronn, 1876.
+The nationality of the author and the date of composition are both
+disputed. See Reuter, op. cit. ii. 273-302.
+
+[1118] In the mouth, nevertheless, of the fiend Astarotte, canto xxv.
+str. 231 sqq. Comp. str. 141 sqq.
+
+[1119] Canto xxviii. str. 38 sqq.
+
+[1120] Canto xviii. str. 112 to the end.
+
+[1121] Pulci touches, though hastily, on a similar conception in his
+Prince Chiaristante (canto xxi. str. 101 sqq., 121 sqq., 145 sqq., 163
+sqq.), who believes nothing and causes himself and his wife to be
+worshipped. We are reminded of Sigismondo Malatesta (p. 245).
+
+[1122] Giov. Villani, iv. 29, vi. 46. The name occurs as early as 1150
+in Northern countries. It is defined by William of Malmesbury (iii. 237,
+ed. Londin, 1840): 'Epicureorum ... qui opinantur animam corpore solutam
+in aerem evanescere, in auras effluere.'
+
+[1123] See the argument in the third book of Lucretius. The name of
+Epicurean was afterwards used as synonymous with freethinker. Lorenzo
+Valla (_Opp._ 795 sqq.) speaks as follows of Epicurus: 'Quis eo parcior,
+quis contentior, quis modestior, et quidem in nullo philosophorum omnium
+minus invenio fuisse vitiorum, plurimique honesti viri cum Graecorum,
+tum Romanorum, Epicurei fuerunt.' Valla was defending himself to
+Eugenius IV. against the attacks of Fra Antonio da Bitonto and others.
+
+[1124] _Inferno_, vii. 67-96.
+
+[1125] _Purgatorio_, xvi. 73. Compare the theory of the influence of the
+planets in the _Convito_. Even the fiend Astarotte in Pulci (_Morgante_,
+xxv. str. 150) attests the freedom of the human will and the justice of
+God.
+
+[1126] Comp. Voigt, _Wiederbelebung_, 165-170.
+
+[1127] _Vespasiano Fiorent._ pp. 26, 320, 435, 626, 651. Murat. xx. col.
+532.
+
+[1128] In Platina's introd. to his Life of Christ the religious
+influence of the Renaissance is curiously exemplified (_Vitæ Paparum_,
+at the beginning): Christ, he says, fully attained the fourfold Platonic
+'nobilitas' according to his 'genus': 'quem enim ex gentilibus habemus
+qui gloria et nomine cum David et Salomone, quique sapientia et doctrina
+cum Christo ipso conferri merito debeat et possit?' Judaism, like
+classical antiquity, was also explained on a Christian hypothesis. Pico
+and Pietro Galatino endeavoured to show that Christian doctrine was
+foreshadowed in the Talmud and other Jewish writings.
+
+[1129] On Pomponazzo, see the special works; among others, Bitter,
+_Geschichte der Philosophie_, bd. ix.
+
+[1130] Paul. Jovii, _Elog. Lit._ p. 90. G. M. was, however, compelled to
+recant publicly. His letter to Lorenzo (May 17, 1478) begging him to
+intercede with the Pope, 'satis enim poenarum dedi,' is given by
+Malagola, Codro Urceo, p. 433.
+
+[1131] _Codri Urcei Opera_, with his life by Bart. Bianchini; and in his
+philological lectures, pp. 65, 151, 278, &c.
+
+[1132] On one occasion he says, 'In Laudem Christi:'
+
+ Phoebum alii vates musasque Jovemque sequuntur,
+ At mihi pro vero nomine Christus erit.
+
+He also (fol. x. _b_) attacks the Bohemians. Huss and Jerome of Prague
+are defended by Poggio in his famous letter to Lion. Aretino, and placed
+on a level with Mucius Scaevola and Socrates.
+
+[1133] 'Audi virgo ea quae tibi mentis compos et ex animo dicam. Si
+forte cum ad ultimum vitae finem pervenero supplex accedam ad te spem
+oratum, ne me audias neve inter tuos accipias oro; cum infernis diis in
+aeternum vitam degere decrevi.'
+
+[1134] 'Animum meum seu animam'--a distinction by which philology used
+then to perplex theology.
+
+[1135] Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 311: 'Christianam fidem si miraculis
+non esset confirmata, honestate sua recipi debuisse.' It may be
+questioned whether all that Platina attributes to the Pope is in fact
+authentic.
+
+[1136] Preface to the _Historia Ferdinandi I._ (_Hist. Ztschr._ xxxiii.
+61) and _Antid. in Pogg._ lib. iv. _Opp._ p. 256 sqq. Pontanus (_De
+Sermone_, i. 18) says that Valla did not hesitate 'dicere profiterique
+palam habere se quoque in Christum spicula.' Pontano, however, was a
+friend of Valla's enemies at Naples.
+
+[1137] Especially when the monks improvised them in the pulpit. But the
+old and recognised miracles did not remain unassailed. Firenzuola
+(_Opere_, vol. ii. p. 208, in the tenth novel) ridicules the Franciscans
+of Novara, who wanted to spend money which they had embezzled, in adding
+a chapel to their church, 'dove fusse dipinta quella bella storia,
+quando S. Francesco predicava agli uccelli nel deserto; e quando ei fece
+la santa zuppa, e che l'agnolo Gabriello gli portò i zoccoli.'
+
+[1138] Some facts about him are to be found in Bapt. Mantuan. _De
+Patientia_, l. iii. cap. 13.
+
+[1139] Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 915.
+
+[1140] How far these blasphemous utterances sometimes went, has been
+shown by Gieseler (_Kirchengeschichte_, ii. iv. § 154, anm.) who quotes
+several striking instances.
+
+[1141] Voigt, _Enea Silvio_, iii. 581. It is not known what happened to
+the Bishop Petro of Aranda who (1500) denied the Divinity of Christ and
+the existence of Hell and Purgatory, and denounced indulgences as a
+device of the popes invented for their private advantage. For him, see
+_Burchardi Diarium_, ed. Leibnitz, p. 63 sqq.
+
+[1142] Jov. Pontanus, _De Fortuna_, _Opp._ i. 792-921. Comp. _Opp._ ii.
+286.
+
+[1143] Æn. Sylvii, _Opera_, p. 611.
+
+[1144] Poggius, _De Miseriis Humanae Conditionis_.
+
+[1145] Caracciolo, _De Varietate Fortunae_, in Murat. xxii., one of the
+most valuable writings of a period rich in such works. On Fortune in
+public processions, see p. 421.
+
+[1146] _Leonis X. Vita Anonyma_, in Roscoe, ed. Bossi, xii. p. 153.
+
+[1147] Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 909: 'Monimentum
+hoc conditum a Joanne Bentivolo secundo patriae rectore, cui virtus et
+fortuna cuncta quæ optari possunt affatim praestiterunt.' It is still
+not quite certain whether this inscription was outside, and visible to
+everybody, or, like another mentioned just before, hidden on one of the
+foundation stones. In the latter case, a fresh idea is involved. By this
+secret inscription, which perhaps only the chronicler knew of, Fortune
+is to be magically bound to the building.
+
+[According to the words of the chronicle, the inscription cannot have
+stood on the walls of the newly built tower. The exact spot is
+uncertain.--L.G.]
+
+[1148] 'Quod nimium gentilitatis amatores essemus.' Paganism, at least
+in externals, certainly went rather far. Inscriptions lately found in
+the Catacombs show that the members of the Academy described themselves
+as 'sacerdotes,' and called Pomponius Lætus 'pontifex maximus;' the
+latter once addressed Platina as 'pater sanctissimus.' Gregorovius, vii.
+578.
+
+[1149] While the plastic arts at all events distinguished between angels
+and 'putti,' and used the former for all serious purposes. In the
+_Annal. Estens._ Murat. xx. col. 468, the 'amorino' is naively called
+'instar Cupidinis angelus.' Comp. the speech made before Leo X. (1521),
+in which the passage occurs: 'Quare et te non jam Juppiter, sed Virgo
+Capitolina Dei parens quæ hujus urbis et collis reliquis præsides,
+Romamque et Capitolium tutaris.' Greg. viii. 294.
+
+[1150] Della Valle, _Lettere Sanesi_, iii. 18.
+
+[1151] Macrob. _Saturnal._ iii. 9. Doubtless the canon did not omit the
+gestures there prescribed. Comp. Gregorovius, viii. 294, for Bembo. For
+the paganism thus prevalent in Rome, see also Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 73
+sqq. Comp. also Gregorovius, viii. 268.
+
+[1152] _Monachus Paduan._ l. ii. ap. Urstisius, _Scriptt._ i. pp. 598,
+599, 602, 607. The last Visconti (p. 37) had also a number of these men
+in his service (Comp. Decembrio, in Murat. xx. col. 1017): he undertook
+nothing without their advice. Among them was a Jew named Helias.
+Gasparino da Barzizzi once addressed him: 'Magna vi astrorum fortuna
+tuas res reget.' G. B. _Opera_, ed. Furietto, p. 38.
+
+[1153] E.g. Florence, where Bonatto filled the office for a long period.
+See too Matteo Villani, xi. 3, where the city astrologer is evidently
+meant.
+
+[1154] Libri, _Hist. des Sciences Mathém._ ii. 52, 193. At Bologna this
+professorship is said to have existed in 1125. Comp. the list of
+professors at Pavia, in Corio, fol. 290. For the professorship at the
+Sapienza under Leo X., see Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, v. p. 283.
+
+[1155] J. A. Campanus lays stress on the value and importance of
+astrology, and concludes with the words: 'Quamquam Augustinus
+sanctissimus ille vir quidem ac doctissimus, sed fortassis ad fidem
+religionemque propensior negat quicquam vel boni vel mali astrorum
+necessitate contingere.' 'Oratio initio studii Perugiæ habita,' compare
+_Opera_, Rome, 1495.
+
+[1156] About 1260 Pope Alexander IV. compelled a Cardinal (and
+shamefaced astrologer) Bianco to bring out a number of political
+prophecies. Giov. Villani, vi. 81.
+
+[1157] _De Dictis, &c. Alfonsi, Opera_, p. 493. He held it to be
+'pulchrius quam utile.' Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 310. For Sixtus IV.
+comp. Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 173, 186. He caused the
+hours for audiences, receptions, and the like, to be fixed by the
+'planetarii.' In the _Europa_, c. 49, Pius II. mentions that Baptista
+Blasius, an astronomer from Cremona, had prophesied the misfortunes of
+Fr. Foscaro 'tanquam prævidisset.'
+
+[1158] Brosch, _Julius II._ (Gotha, 1878), pp. 97 and 323.
+
+[1159] P. Valeriano, _De Infel. Lit._ (318-324) speaks of Fr. Friuli,
+who wrote on Leo's horoscope, and 'abditissima quæque anteactæ ætatis et
+uni ipsi cognita principi explicuerat quæque incumberent quæque futura
+essent ad unguem ut eventus postmodum comprobavit, in singulos fere dies
+prædixerat.'
+
+[1160] Ranke, _Päpste_, i. 247.
+
+[1161] _Vespas. Fiorent._ p. 660, comp. 341. _Ibid._ p. 121, another
+Pagolo is mentioned as court mathematician and astrologer of Federigo of
+Montefeltro. Curiously enough, he was a German.
+
+[1162] Firmicus Maternus, _Matheseos Libri_ viii. at the end of the
+second book.
+
+[1163] In Bandello, iii. nov. 60, the astrologer of Alessandro
+Bentivoglio, in Milan, confessed himself a poor devil before the whole
+company.
+
+[1164] It was in such a moment of resolution that Ludovico Moro had the
+cross with this inscription made, which is now in the Minster at Chur.
+Sixtus IV. too once said that he would try if the proverb was true. On
+this saying of the astrologer Ptolemæus, which B. Fazio took to be
+Virgilian, see Laur. Valla, _Opera_, p. 461.
+
+[1165] The father of Piero Capponi, himself an astrologer, put his son
+into trade lest he should get the dangerous wound in the head which
+threatened him. _Vita di P. Capponi, Arch. Stor._ iv. ii. 15. For an
+instance in the life of Cardanus, see p. 334. The physician and
+astrologer Pierleoni of Spoleto believed that he would be drowned,
+avoided in consequence all watery places, and refused brilliant
+positions offered him at Venice and Padua. Paul. Jov. _Elog. Liter._ pp.
+67 sqq. Finally he threw himself into the water, in despair at the
+charge brought against him of complicity in Lorenzo's death, and was
+actually drowned. Hier. Aliottus had been told to be careful in his
+sixty-second year, as his life would then be in danger. He lived with
+great circumspection, kept clear of the doctors, and the year passed
+safely. H. A. _Opuscula_ (Arezzo, 1769), ii. 72. Marsilio Ficino, who
+despised astrology (_Opp._ p. 772) was written to by a friend (_Epist._
+lib. 17): 'Praeterea me memini a duobus vestrorum astrologis audivisse,
+te ex quadam siderum positione antiquas revocaturum philosophorum
+sententias.'
+
+[1166] For instances in the life of Ludovico Moro, see Senarega, in
+Murat, xxiv. col. 518, 524. Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1623. And
+yet his father, the great Francesco Sforza, had despised astrology, and
+his grandfather Giacomo had not at any rate followed its warnings.
+Corio, fol. 321, 413.
+
+[1167] For the facts here quoted, see _Annal. Foroliviens_. in Murat.
+xxii. col. 233 sqq. (comp. col. 150). Leonbattista Alberti endeavoured
+to give a spiritual meaning to the ceremony of laying the foundation.
+_Opere Volgari_, tom. iv. p. 314 (or _De Re Ædific_. 1. i.). For Bonatto
+see Filippo Villani, _Vite_ and _Delia Vita e delle Opere di Guido
+Bonati, Astrologo e Astronomo del Secolo Decimoterzo, raccolte da E.
+Boncompagni_, Rome 1851. B.'s great work, _De Astronomia_, lib. x. has
+been often printed.
+
+[1168] In the horoscopes of the second foundation of Florence (Giov.
+Villani, iii. 1. under Charles the Great) and of the first of Venice
+(see above, p. 62), an old tradition is perhaps mingled with the poetry
+of the Middle Ages.
+
+[1169] For one of these victories, see the remarkable passage quoted
+from Bonatto in Steinschneider, in the _Zeitschr. d. D. Morg. Ges._ xxv.
+p. 416. On B. comp. _ibid._ xviii. 120 sqq.
+
+[1170] _Ann. Foroliv._ 235-238. Filippo Villani, _Vite._ Macchiavelli,
+_Stor. Fior._ l. i. When constellations which augured victory appeared,
+Bonatto ascended with his book and astrolabe to the tower of San
+Mercuriale above the Piazza, and when the right moment came gave the
+signal for the great bell to be rung. Yet it was admitted that he was
+often wide of the mark, and foresaw neither his own death nor the fate
+of Montefeltro. Not far from Cesena he was killed by robbers, on his way
+back to Forli from Paris and from Italian universities where he had been
+lecturing. As a weather prophet he was once overmatched and made game of
+by a countryman.
+
+[1171] Matteo Villani, xi. 3; see above, p. 508.
+
+[1172] Jovian. Pontan. _De Fortitudine_, l. i. See p. 511 note 1, for
+the honourable exception made by the first Sforza.
+
+[1173] Paul. Jov. _Elog._ sub v. Livianus, p. 219.
+
+[1174] Who tells it us himself. Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1617.
+
+[1175] In this sense we must understand the words of Jac. Nardi, _Vita
+d'Ant. Giacomini_, p. 65. The same pictures were common on clothes and
+household utensils. At the reception of Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara, the
+mule of the Duchess of Urbino wore trappings of black velvet with
+astrological figures in gold. _Arch. Stor. Append._ ii. p. 305.
+
+[1176] Æn. Sylvius, in the passage quoted above p. 508; comp. _Opp._
+481.
+
+[1177] Azario, in Corio, fol. 258.
+
+[1178] Considerations of this kind probably influenced the Turkish
+astrologers who, after the battle of Nicopolis, advised the Sultan
+Bajazet I. to consent to the ransom of John of Burgundy, since 'for his
+sake much Christian blood would be shed.' It was not difficult to
+foresee the further course of the French civil war. _Magn. Chron.
+Belgicum_, p. 358. _Juvénal des Ursins_, ad. a. 1396.
+
+[1179] Benedictus, in Eccard, ii. col. 1579. It was said of King
+Ferrante in 1493 that he would lose his throne 'sine cruore sed sola
+fama'--which actually happened.
+
+[1180] Comp. Steinschneider, _Apokalypsen mit polemischer Tendenz_, D.
+M. G. Z. xxviii. 627 sqq. xxix. 261.
+
+[1181] Bapt. Mantuan. _De Patientia_, l. iii. cap. 12.
+
+[1182] Giov. Villani, x. 39, 40. Other reasons also existed, e.g. the
+jealousy of his colleagues. Bonatto had taught the same, and had
+explained the miracle of Divine Love in St. Francis as the effect of the
+planet Mars. Comp. Jo. Picus, _Adv. Astrol._ ii. 5.
+
+[1183] They were painted by Miretto at the beginning of the fifteenth
+century. Acc. to Scardeonius they were destined 'ad indicandum
+nascentium naturas per gradus et numeros'--a more popular way of
+teaching than we can now well imagine. It was astrology 'à la portèe de
+tout le monde.'
+
+[1184] He says (_Orationes_, fol. 35, 'In Nuptias') of astrology: 'haec
+efficit ut homines parum a Diis distare videantur'! Another enthusiast
+of the same time is Jo. Garzonius, _De Dignitate Urbis Bononiae_, in
+Murat. xxi. col. 1163.
+
+[1185] Petrarca, _Epp. Seniles_, iii. 1 (p. 765) and elsewhere. The
+letter in question was written to Boccaccio. On Petrarch's polemic
+against the astrologers, see Geiger. _Petr._ 87-91 and 267, note 11.
+
+[1186] Franco Sacchetti (nov. 151) ridicules their claims to wisdom.
+
+[1187] Gio. Villani, iii. x. 39. Elsewhere he appears as a devout
+believer in astrology, x. 120, xii. 40.
+
+[1188] In the passage xi. 3.
+
+[1189] Gio. Villani, xi. 2, xii. 58.
+
+[1190] The author of the _Annales Placentini_ (in Murat. xx. col. 931),
+the same Alberto di Ripalta mentioned at p. 241, took part in this
+controversy. The passage is in other respects remarkable, since it
+contains the popular opinion with regard to the nine known comets, their
+colour, origin, and significance. Comp. Gio. Villani, xi. 67. He speaks
+of a comet as the herald of great and generally disastrous events.
+
+[1191] Paul. Jov. _Vita Leonis_ xx. l. iii. where it appears that Leo
+himself was a believer at least in premonitions and the like, see above
+p. 509.
+
+[1192] Jo. Picus Mirand. _Adversus Astrologos_, libri xii.
+
+[1193] Acc. to Paul, Jov. _Elog. Lit._ sub tit. Jo. Picus, the result he
+achieved was 'ut subtilium disciplinarum professores a scribendo
+deterruisse videatur.'
+
+[1194] _De Rebus Caelestibus_, libri xiv. (_Opp._ iii. 1963-2591). In
+the twelfth book, dedicated to Paolo Cortese, he will not admit the
+latter's refutation of astrology. Ægidius, _Opp._ ii. 1455-1514. Pontano
+had dedicated his little work _De Luna_ (_Opp._ iii. 2592) to the same
+hermit Egidio (of Viterbo?)
+
+[1195] For the latter passage, see p. 1486. The difference between
+Pontano and Pico is thus put by Franc. Pudericus, one of the
+interlocutors in the dialogue (p. 1496): 'Pontanus non ut Johannes Picus
+in disciplinam ipsam armis equisque, quod dicitur, irrumpit, cum illam
+tueatur, ut cognitu maxime dignam ac pene divinam, sed astrologos
+quosdam, ut parum cautos minimeque prudentes insectetur et rideat.'
+
+[1196] In S. Maria del Popolo at Rome. The angels remind us of Dante's
+theory at the beginning of the _Convito_.
+
+[1197] This was the case with Antonio Galateo who, in a letter to
+Ferdinand the Catholic (Mai, _Spicileg. Rom._ vol. viii. p. 226, ad a.
+1510), disclaims astrology with violence, and in another letter to the
+Count of Potenza (_ibid._ p. 539) infers from the stars that the Turks
+would attack Rhodes the same year.
+
+[1198] _Ricordi_, l. c. n. 57.
+
+[1199] Many instances of such superstitions in the case of the last
+Visconti are mentioned by Decembrio (Murat. xx. col. 1016 sqq.). Odaxius
+says in his speech at the burial of Guidobaldo (_Bembi Opera_, i. 598
+sqq.), that the gods had announced his approaching death by
+thunderbolts, earthquakes, and other signs and wonders.
+
+[1200] Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ l. iv. (p. 174); prophecies and
+premonitions were then as rife in Florence as at Jerusalem during the
+siege. Comp. _ibid._ iii. 143, 195; iv. 43, 177.
+
+[1201] Matarazzo, _Archiv. Stor._ xvi. ii. p. 208.
+
+[1202] Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. 324, for the year 1514.
+
+[1203] For the Madonna dell'Arbore in the Cathedral at Milan, and what
+she did in 1515, see Prato, l. c. p. 327. He also records the discovery
+of a dead dragon as thick as a horse in the excavations for a mortuary
+chapel near S. Nazaro. The head was taken to the Palace of the Triulzi
+for whom the chapel was built.
+
+[1204] 'Et fuit mirabile quod illico pluvia cessavit.' _Diar. Parmense_
+in Murat. xxii. col. 280. The author shares the popular hatred of the
+usurers. Comp. col. 371.
+
+[1205] _Conjurationis Pactianae Commentarius_, in the appendices to
+Roscoe's _Lorenzo_. Politian was in general an opponent of astrology.
+The saints were naturally able to cause the rain to cease. Comp. Æneas
+Sylvius, in his life of Bernadino da Siena (_De Vir. Ill._ p. 25):
+'jussit in virtute Jesu nubem abire, quo facto solutis absque pluvia
+nubibus, prior serenitas rediit'.
+
+[1206] _Poggi Facetiae_, fol. 174. Æn. Sylvius (_De Europa_, c. 53, 54,
+_Opera_, pp. 451, 455) mentions prodigies which may have really
+happened, such as combats between animals and strange appearances in the
+sky, and mentions them chiefly as curiosities, even when adding the
+results attributed to them. Similarly Antonio Ferrari (il Galateo), _De
+Situ Iapygiae_, p. 121, with the explanation: 'Et hae, ut puto, species
+erant earum rerum quæ longe aberant atque ab eo loco in quo species
+visae sunt minime poterant.'
+
+[1207] _Poggi Facetiae_, fol. 160. Comp. Pausanias, ix. 20.
+
+[1208] Varchi, iii 195. Two suspected persons decided on flight in 1529,
+because they opened the Æneid at book iii. 44. Comp. Rabelais,
+_Pantagruel_, iii. 10.
+
+[1209] The imaginations of the scholars, such as the 'splendor' and the
+'spiritus' of Cardanus, and the 'dæmon familiaris' of his father, may be
+taken for what they are worth. Comp. Cardanus, _De Propria Vita_, cap.
+4, 38, 47. He was himself an opponent of magic; cap. 39. For the
+prodigies and ghosts he met with, see cap. 37, 41. For the terror of
+ghosts felt by the last Visconti, see Decembrio, in Murat. xx. col.
+1016.
+
+[1210] 'Molte fiate i morti guastano le creature.' Bandello, ii. nov. 1.
+We read (Galateo, p. 177) that the 'animæ' of wicked men rise from the
+grave, appear to their friends and acquaintances, 'animalibus vexi,
+pueros sugere ac necare, deinde in sepulcra reverti.'
+
+[1211] Galateo, l. c. We also read (p. 119) of the 'Fata Morgana' and
+other similar appearances.
+
+[1212] Bandello, iii. nov. 20. It is true that the ghost was only a
+lover wishing to frighten the occupier of the palace, who was also the
+husband of the beloved lady. The lover and his accomplices dressed
+themselves up as devils; one of them, who could imitate the cry of
+different animals, had been sent for from a distance.
+
+[1213] Graziani, _Arch. Stor._ xvi. i. p. 640, ad a. 1467. The guardian
+died of fright.
+
+[1214] _Balth. Castilionii Carmina_; Prosopopeja Lud. Pici.
+
+[1215] Alexandri ab Alexandro, _Dierum Genialium_, libri vi. (Colon.
+1539), is an authority of the first rank for these subjects, the more so
+as the author, a friend of Pontanus and a member of his academy, asserts
+that what he records either happened to himself, or was communicated to
+him by thoroughly trustworthy witnesses. Lib. vi. cap. 19: two evil men
+and a monk are attacked by devils, whom they recognise by the shape of
+their feet, and put to flight, partly by force and partly by the sign of
+the cross. Lib. vi. cap. 21: A servant, cast into prison by a cruel
+prince on account of a small offence, calls upon the devil, is
+miraculously brought out of the prison and back again, visits meanwhile
+the nether world, shows the prince his hand scorched by the flames of
+Hell, tells him on behalf of a departed spirit certain secrets which had
+been communicated to the latter, exhorts him to lay aside his cruelty,
+and dies soon after from the effects of the fright. Lib. ii. c. 19, iii.
+15, v. 23: Ghosts of departed friends, of St. Cataldus, and of unknown
+beings in Rome, Arezzo and Naples. Lib. ii. 22, iii. 8: Appearances of
+mermen and mermaids at Naples, in Spain, and in the Peloponnesus; in the
+latter case guaranteed by Theodore Gaza and George of Trebizond.
+
+[1216] Gio. Villani, xi. 2. He had it from the Abbot of Vallombrosa, to
+whom the hermit had communicated it.
+
+[1217] Another view of the Dæmons was given by Gemisthos Pletho, whose
+great philosophical work [Greek: oi nomoi], of which only
+fragments are now left (ed. Alexander, Paris, 1858), was probably known
+more fully to the Italians of the fifteenth century, either by means of
+copies or of tradition, and exercised undoubtedly a great influence on
+the philosophical, political, and religious culture of the time.
+According to him the dæmons, who belong to the third order of the gods,
+are preserved from all error, and are capable of following in the steps
+of the gods who stand above them; they are spirits who bring to men the
+good things 'which come down from Zeus through the other gods in order;
+they purify and watch over man, they raise and strengthen his heart.'
+Comp. Fritz Schultze, _Gesch. der Philosophie der Renaissance_, Jena,
+1874.
+
+[1218] Yet but little remained of the wonders attributed to her. For
+probably the last metamorphosis of a man into an ass, in the eleventh
+century under Leo IX., see Giul. Malmesbur. ii. 171.
+
+[1219] This was probably the case with the possessed woman, who in 1513
+at Ferrara and elsewhere was consulted by distinguished Lombards as to
+future events. Her name was Rodogine. See Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, iv.
+58.
+
+[1220] Jovian. Pontan. Antonius.
+
+[1221] How widespread the belief in witches then was, is shown by the
+fact that in 1483 Politian gave a 'praelectio' 'in priora Aristotelis
+Analytica cui titulus Lamia' (Italian trans. by Isidore del Lungo, Flor.
+1864) Comp. Reumont, _Lorenzo_, ii. 75-77. Fiesole, according to this,
+was, in a certain sense, a witches' nest.
+
+[1222] Graziani, _Arch. Stor._ xvi. i. p. 565, ad a. 1445, speaking of a
+witch at Nocera, who only offered half the sum, and was accordingly
+burnt. The law was aimed at such persons as 'facciono le fature overo
+venefitie overo encantatione d'ommunde spirite a nuocere,' l. c. note 1,
+2.
+
+[1223] Lib. i. ep. 46, _Opera_, p. 531 sqq. For 'umbra' p. 552 read
+'Umbria,' and for 'lacum' read 'locum.'
+
+[1224] He calls him later on: 'Medicus Ducis Saxoniæ, homo tum dives tum
+potens.'
+
+[1225] In the fourteenth century there existed a kind of hell-gate near
+Ansedonia in Tuscany. It was a cave, with footprints of men and animals
+in the sand, which whenever they were effaced, reappeared the next day.
+Uberti. _Il Dittamondo_, l. iii. cap. 9.
+
+[1226] _Pii II. Comment._ l. i. p. 10.
+
+[1227] Benv. Cellini, l. i. cap. 65.
+
+[1228] _L'Italia Liberata da' Goti_, canto xiv. It may be questioned
+whether Trissino himself believed in the possibility of his description,
+or whether he was not rather romancing. The same doubt is permissible in
+the case of his probable model, Lucan (book vi.), who represents the
+Thessalian witch conjuring up a corpse before Sextus Pompejus.
+
+[1229] _Septimo Decretal_, lib. v. tit. xii. It begins: 'Summis
+desiderantes affectibus' &c. I may here remark that a full consideration
+of the subject has convinced me that there are in this case no grounds
+for believing in a survival of pagan beliefs. To satisfy ourselves that
+the imagination of the mendicant friars is solely responsible for this
+delusion, we have only to study, in the Memoirs of Jacques du Clerc, the
+so-called trial of the Waldenses of Arras in the year 1459. A century's
+prosecutions and persecutions brought the popular imagination into such
+a state that witchcraft was accepted as a matter of course and
+reproduced itself naturally.
+
+[1230] Of Alexander VI., Leo X., Hadrian VI.
+
+[1231] Proverbial as the country of witches, e.g. _Orlandino_, i. 12.
+
+[1232] E.g. Bandello, iii. nov. 29, 52. Prato, _Arch. Stor._ iii. 409.
+Bursellis, _Ann. Bon._ in Murat. xxiii. col. 897, mentions the
+condemnation of a prior in 1468, who kept a ghostly brothel: 'cives
+Bononienses coire faciebat cum dæmonibus in specie puellarum.' He
+offered sacrifices to the dæmons. See for a parallel case, Procop.
+_Hist. Arcana_, c. 12, where a real brothel is frequented by a dæmon,
+who turns the other visitors out of doors. The Galateo (p. 116) confirms
+the existence of the belief in witches: 'volare per longinquas regiones,
+choreas per paludes dicere et dæmonibus cnogredi, ingredi et egredi per
+clausa ostia et foramina.'
+
+[1233] For the loathsome apparatus of the witches' kitchens, see
+_Maccaroneide_, Phant. xvi. xxi., where the whole procedure is
+described.
+
+[1234] In the _Ragionamento del Zoppino_. He is of opinion that the
+courtesans learn their arts from certain Jewish women, who are in
+possession of 'malie.' The following passage is very remarkable. Bembo
+says in the life of Guidobaldo (_Opera_, i. 614): 'Guid. constat sive
+corporis et naturae vitio, seu quod vulgo creditum est, actibus magicis
+ab Octaviano patruo propter regni cupiditatem impeditum, quarum omnino
+ille artium expeditissimus habebatur, nulla cum femina coire unquam in
+tota vita potuisse, nec unquam fuisse ad rem uxoriam idoneum.'
+
+[1235] Varchi, _Stor. Fior._ ii. p. 153.
+
+[1236] Curious information is given by Landi, in the _Commentario_, fol.
+36 a and 37 _a_, about two magicians, a Sicilian and a Jew; we read of
+magical mirrors, of a death's-head speaking, and of birds stopped short
+in their flight.
+
+[1237] Stress is laid on this reservation. Corn. Agrippa, _De Occulta
+Philosophia_, cap. 39.
+
+[1238] _Septimo Decretal_, l. c.
+
+[1239] _Zodiacus Vitae_, xv. 363-549, comp. x. 393 sqq.
+
+[1240] _Ibid._ ix. 291 sqq.
+
+[1241] _Ibid._ x. 770 sqq.
+
+[1242] The mythical type of the magician among the poets of the time was
+Malagigi. Speaking of him, Pulci (_Morgante_, canto xxiv. 106 sqq.)
+gives his theoretical view of the limits of dæmonic and magic influence.
+It is hard to say how far he was in earnest. Comp. canto xxi.
+
+[1243] Polydorus Virgilius was an Italian by birth, but his work _De
+Prodigiis_ treats chiefly of superstition in England, where his life was
+passed. Speaking of the prescience of the dæmons, he makes a curious
+reference to the sack of Rome in 1527.
+
+[1244] Yet murder is hardly ever the end, and never, perhaps, the means.
+A monster like Gilles de Retz (about 1440) who sacrificed more than 100
+children to the dæmons has scarcely a distant counterpart in Italy.
+
+[1245] See the treatise of Roth 'Ueber den Zauberer Virgilius' in
+Pfeiffer's _Germania_, iv., and Comparetti's _Virgil in the Middle
+Ages_. That Virgil began to take the place of the older Telestæ may be
+explained partly by the fact that the frequent visits made to his grave
+even in the time of the Empire struck the popular imagination.
+
+[1246] Uberti, _Dittamondo_, 1. iii. cap. 4.
+
+[1247] For what follows, see Gio. Villani, i. 42, 60, ii. 1, iii. v. 38,
+xi. He himself does not believe such godless superstitions. Comp. Dante,
+_Inferno_ xiii. 146.
+
+[1248] According to a fragment given in Baluz. Miscell ix. 119, the
+Perugians had a quarrel in ancient times with the Ravennates, 'et
+militem marmoreum qui juxta Ravennam se continue volvebat ad solem
+usurpaverunt et ad eorum civitatem virtuosissime transtulerunt.'
+
+[1249] The local belief on the matter is given in _Annal. Forolivens_.
+Murat. xxii. col. 207, 238; more fully in Fil. Villani, _Vite_, p 33.
+
+[1250] Platina, _Vitae Pontiff._ p. 320: 'Veteres potius hac in re quam
+Petrum, Anacletum, et Linum imitatus.'
+
+[1251] Which it is easy to recognise e.g. in Sugerius, _De Consecratione
+Ecclesiae_ (Duchesne, _Scriptores_, iv. 355) and in _Chron.
+Petershusanum_, i. 13 and 16.
+
+[1252] Comp. the _Calandra_ of Bibiena.
+
+[1253] Bandello, iii. nov. 52. Fr. Filelfo (_Epist. Venet._ lib. 34,
+fol. 240 sqq.) attacks nercromancy fiercely. He is tolerably free from
+superstition (_Sat._ iv. 4) but believes in the 'mali effectus,' of a
+comet (_Epist._ fol. 246 _b_).
+
+[1254] Bandello, iii. 29. The magician exacts a promise of secrecy
+strengthened by solemn oaths, in this case by an oath at the high altar
+of S. Petronio at Bologna, at a time when no one else was in the church.
+There is a good deal of magic in the _Maccaroneide_, Phant. xviii.
+
+[1255] Benv. Cellini, i. cap. 64.
+
+[1256] Vasari, viii. 143, _Vita di Andrea da Fiesole_. It was Silvio
+Cosini, who also 'went after magical formulæ and other follies.'
+
+[1257] Uberti, _Dittamondo_, iii. cap. 1. In the March of Ancona he
+visits Scariotto, the supposed birthplace of Judas, and observes: 'I
+must not here pass over Mount Pilatus, with its lake, where throughout
+the summer the guards are changed regularly. For he who understands
+magic comes up hither to have his books consecrated, whereupon, as the
+people of the place say, a great storm arises.' (The consecration of
+books, as has been remarked, p. 527, is a special ceremony, distinct
+from the rest.) In the sixteenth century the ascent of Pilatus near
+Luzern was forbidden 'by lib und guot,' as Diebold Schilling records. It
+was believed that a ghost lay in the lake on the mountain, which was the
+spirit of Pilate. When people ascended the mountain or threw anything
+into the lake, fearful storms sprang up.
+
+[1258] _De Obsedione Tiphernatium_, 1474 (Rer. Ital. Scrippt. ex
+Florent. codicibus, tom. ii.).
+
+[1259] This superstition, which was widely spread among the soldiery
+(about 1520), is ridiculed by Limerno Pitocco, in the _Orlandino_, v.
+60.
+
+[1260] Paul. Jov. _Elog. Lit._ p. 106, sub voce 'Cocles.'
+
+[1261] It is the enthusiastic collector of portraits who is here
+speaking.
+
+[1262] From the stars, since Gauricus did not know physiognomy. For his
+own fate he had to refer to the prophecies of Cocle, since his father
+had omitted to draw his horoscope.
+
+[1263] Paul. Jov. l. c. p. 100 sqq. s. v. Tibertus.
+
+[1264] The most essential facts as to these side-branches of divination,
+are given by Corn. Agrippa, _De Occulta Philosophia_, cap. 57.
+
+[1265] Libri, _Hist. des Sciences Mathém._ ii. 122.
+
+[1266] 'Novi nihil narro, mos est publicus' (_Remed. Utr. Fort._ p. 93),
+one of the lively passages of this book, written 'ab irato.'
+
+[1267] Chief passage in Trithem. _Ann. Hirsaug._ ii. 286 sqq.
+
+[1268] 'Neque enim desunt,' Paul. Jov. _Elog. Lit._ p. 150, s. v. 'Pomp,
+Gauricus;' comp. ibid. p. 130, s. v. Aurel. Augurellus, _Maccaroneide_.
+Phant. xii.
+
+[1269] In writing a history of Italian unbelief it would be necessary to
+refer to the so-called Averrhoism, which was prevalent in Italy and
+especially in Venice, about the middle of the fourteenth century. It was
+opposed by Boccaccio and Petrarch in various letters, and by the latter
+in his work: _De Sui Ipsius et Aliorum Ignorantia_. Although Petrarch's
+opposition may have been increased by misunderstanding and exaggeration,
+he was nevertheless fully convinced that the Averrhoists ridiculed and
+rejected the Christian religion.
+
+[1270] Ariosto, _Sonetto_, 34: 'Non credere sopra il tetto.' The poet
+uses the words of an official who had decided against him in a matter of
+property.
+
+[1271] We may here again refer to Gemisthos Plethon, whose disregard of
+Christianity had an important influence on the Italians, and
+particularly on the Florentines of that period.
+
+[1272] _Narrazione del Caso del Boscoli, Arch. Stor._ i. 273 sqq. The
+standing phrase was 'non aver fede;' comp. Vasari, vii. 122, _Vita di
+Piero di Cosimo_.
+
+[1273] Jovian. Pontan. _Charon_, _Opp._ ii. 1128-1195.
+
+[1274] _Faustini Terdocei Triumphus Stultitiae_, l. ii.
+
+[1275] E.g. Borbone Morosini about 1460; comp. Sansovino, _Venezia_ l.
+xiii. p. 243. He wrote 'de immortalite animæ ad mentem Aristotelis.'
+Pomponius Lætus, as a means of effecting his release from prison,
+pointed to the fact that he had written an epistle on the immortality of
+the soul. See the remarkable defence in Gregorovius, vii. 580 sqq. See
+on the other hand Pulci's ridicule of this belief in a sonnet, quoted by
+Galeotti, _Arch. Stor. Ital._ n. s. ix. 49 sqq.
+
+[1276] _Vespas. Fiorent._ p. 260.
+
+[1277] _Orationes Philelphi_, fol. 8.
+
+[1278] _Septimo Decretal._ lib. v. tit. iii. cap. 8.
+
+[1279] Ariosto, _Orlando_, vii. 61. Ridiculed in _Orlandino_, iv. 67,
+68. Cariteo, a member of the Neapolitan Academy of Pontanus, uses the
+idea of the pre-existence of the soul in order to glorify the House of
+Aragon. Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi, ii. 288.
+
+[1280] Orelli, ad Cic. _De Republ._ l. vi. Comp. Lucan, _Pharsalia_, at
+the beginning.
+
+[1281] Petrarca, _Epp. Fam._ iv. 3, iv. 6.
+
+[1282] Fil. Villani, _Vite_, p. 15. This remarkable passage is as
+follows: 'Che agli uomini fortissimi poichè hanno vinto le mostruose
+fatiche della terra, debitamente sieno date le stelle.'
+
+[1283] _Inferno_, iv. 24 sqq. Comp. _Purgatorio_, vii. 28, xxii. 100.
+
+[1284] This pagan heaven is referred to in the epitaph on the artist
+Niccolò dell'Arca:
+
+ 'Nunc te Praxiteles, Phidias, Polycletus adora
+ Miranturque tuas, o Nicolae, manus.'
+
+In Bursellis, _Ann. Bonon._ Murat. xxiii. col. 912.
+
+[1285] In his late work _Actius_.
+
+[1286] Cardanus, _De Propria Vita_, cap. 13: 'Non poenitere ullius rei
+quam voluntarie effecerim, etiam quæ male cessisset;' else I should be
+of all men the most miserable.
+
+[1287] _Discorsi_, ii. cap. 2.
+
+[1288] _Del Governo della Famiglia_, p. 114.
+
+[1289] Comp. the short ode of M. Antonio Flaminio in the _Coryciana_
+(see p. 269):
+
+ Dii quibus tam Corycius venusta
+ Signa, tam dives posuit sacellum,
+ Ulla si vestros animos piorum
+ Gratia tangit,
+
+ Vos jocos risusque senis faceti
+ Sospites servate diu; senectam
+ Vos date et semper viridem et Falerno
+ Usque madentem.
+
+ At simul longo satiatus ævo
+ Liquerit terras, dapibus Deorum
+ Lætus intersit, potiore mutans
+ Nectare Bacchum.
+
+
+[1290] Firenzuola, _Opere_, iv. p. 147 sqq.
+
+[1291] Nic. Valori, _Vita di Lorenzo_, _passim_. For the advice to his
+son Cardinal Giovanni, see Fabroni, _Laurentius_, adnot. 178, and the
+appendices to Roscoe's _Leo X._
+
+[1292] _Jo. Pici Vita_, auct. Jo. Franc. Pico. For his 'Deprecatio ad
+Deum,' see _Deliciae Poetarum Italorum_.
+
+[1293] _Orazione_, Roscoe, _Leone X._ ed. Bossi viii. 120 (Magno Dio per
+la cui costante legge); hymn (oda il sacro inno tutta la natura) in
+Fabroni,' _Laur._ adnot. 9; _L'Altercazione_, in the _Poesie di Lor.
+Magn._ i. 265. The other poems here named are quoted in the same
+collection.
+
+[1294] If Pulci in his _Morgante_ is anywhere in earnest with religion,
+he is so in canto xvi. str. 6. This deistic utterance of the fair pagan
+Antea is perhaps the plainest expression of the mode of thought
+prevalent in Lorenzo's circle, to which tone the words of the dæmon
+Astarotte (quoted above p. 494) form in a certain sense the complement.
+
+
+
+
+Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
+
+belonged orginally to Florentine=> belonged originally to Florentine {pg
+204}
+
+the Citadal of Milan=> the Citadel of Milan {pg 38}
+
+nature of Lndovico Moro=> nature of Ludovico Moro {pg 43}
+
+Die Kriegskunt als Kunst=> Die Kriegskunst als Kunst {pg 98 fn 210}
+
+to to take any interest=> to take any interest {pg 101}
+
+of its vasals, the legitimate=> of its vassals, the legitimate {pg 125}
+
+do so by imfamous deeds=> do so by infamous deeds {pg 152}
+
+forged chroncle of Ricardo Malespini=> forged chronicle of Ricardo
+Malespini {pg 182 fn 420}
+
+fight its way amongt he heathen=> fight its way among the heathen {pg
+206}
+
+to the annoyance of to Petrarch=> to the annoyance of Petrarch {pg 208}
+
+was familar with the writings=> was familiar with the writings {pg 227}
+
+now altogether lose it supremacy=> now altogether lose its supremacy {pg
+255 fn 594}
+
+The plays of Platus and Terence=> The plays of Plautus and Terence {pg
+242}
+
+and minged with the general mourning=> and mingled with the general
+mourning {pg 296}
+
+compelled them for awhile to see=> compelled them for a while to see {pg
+298}
+
+I go for awhile=> I go for a while {pg 336}
+
+Jo. Pici oratio de hominis dignatate=> Jo. Pici oratio de hominis
+dignitate {pg 354 fn 805}
+
+he gives us a humorout description=> he gives us a humorous description
+{pg 387}
+
+Cronaco di Perugia, Arch. Stor.=> Cronaca di Perugia, Arch. Stor. {pg
+413 fn 934}
+
+eyes of Delio and Atellano=> eyes of Delio and Attelano {pg 444}
+
+Guilia Gonzaga, 385;=> Giulia Gonzaga, 385; {pg 552}
+
+futherers of, 217-229.=> furtherers of, 217-229. {pg 554}
+
+Illigitimacy, indifference to, 21, 22.=> Illegitimacy, indifference to,
+21, 22. {pg 554}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Civilisation of the Renaissance in
+Italy, by Jacob Burckhardt
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