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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-03-26 16:21:03 -0700 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-03-26 16:21:03 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75723-0.txt b/75723-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a483b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/75723-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3304 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75723 *** + +=Transcriber’s Note:= Since the original book did not have headings in the +text, selected page headers have been used as sidenotes to indicate the +sections set out in the table of contents. + +The Italian and English versions of the ‘Zinquanta Cortexie’ on pp. 16-31 +were originally printed on alternating pages, which is impractical to +display in an ebook, so the Italian is here presented first in full followed +by the English in full. Line numbers assist with comparing the two versions. + + + + + ITALIAN COURTESY-BOOKS. + + FRA BONVICINO DA RIVA’S + Fifty Courtesies for the Table + (ITALIAN AND ENGLISH) + + WITH OTHER + TRANSLATIONS AND ELUCIDATIONS + + BY + WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI. + + + + + TO THE ENGLISH PAINTER + WHO HAS MADE CIVILIZED MANKIND HIS DEBTOR + BY RECOVERING THE PORTRAIT OF + Dante BY Giotto, + THE TWO DII MAJORES OF ITALIAN MEDIÆVALISM, + TO THE + BARONE KIRKUP, + MY FATHER’S HONOURED FRIEND AND MY OWN, + I AM PERMITTED TO DEDICATE + THIS SLIGHT ATTEMPT IN A BRANCH OF ITALIAN STUDY + LONG FAMILIAR TO HIMSELF. + + W. M. R. + +_June 1869._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + ITALY AND COURTESY 7 + + BRUNETTO LATINI 8 + THE TESORETTO:—EXTRACT 10 + + FRA BONVICINO DA RIVA 14 + THE ZINQUANTA CORTEXIE DA TAVOLA—ITALIAN AND ENGLISH 16 + SUMMARY OF THE CORTEXIE 32 + + FRANCESCO DA BARBERINO 35 + THE DOCUMENTI D’AMORE:—EXTRACT 38 + THE REGGIMENTO E COSTUMI DELLE DONNE:—EXTRACT 45 + + SANDRO DI PIPPOZZO, GRAZIOLO DE’ BOMBAGLIOLI, AND UGOLINO BRUCOLA 56 + + AGNOLO PANDOLFINI 57 + THE GOVERNO DELLA FAMIGLIA:—EXTRACT 57 + + MATTEO PALMIERI 58 + THE VITA CIVILE:—EXTRACT 58 + + BALDASSAR CASTIGLIONE 60 + THE CORTIGIANO:—EXTRACT 61 + + GIOVANNI BATTISTA POSSEVINI 65 + THE DIALOGO DELL’ ONORE:—EXTRACT 66 + + MONSIGNOR GIOVANNI DELLA CASA 66 + THE GALATEO:—EXTRACT 68 + THE TRATTATO DEGLI UFFICI COMMUNI:—EXTRACT 74 + + +[Sidenote: EARLY REFINEMENT IN ITALY.] + +In connection with the many samples of English and some French and +Latin Courtesy-Books which the pains of other Editors have set before +the members of the Early English Text Society, I have been asked to do +something to exhibit what Italian literature has to show for itself +in the same line. The request is one which I gladly close with; only +cautioning the reader at starting that he must not expect to find in +my brief essay any deep or exhaustive knowledge of the subject, or +anything beyond specimens of the works under consideration, picked out +one here and one there. Italy, it is tolerably well known, was, together +with Provence, in the forefront of civilization—or ‘civility,’ as it +might here be more aptly phrased—in the middle ages; and I should not +be surprised to learn that, in the refinements of life and niceties +of method, the Italy of the thirteenth century, as traceable in her +Courtesy-Books, was quite on a par with the France or Germany[1] of the +fourteenth, or the England of the fifteenth, and so progressively on. +This, however, is a matter which I must leave to be determined by more +diligent and more learned researches than my own. The materials for the +comparison are now, to some extent, fairly before the editing and reading +members of our Society. + +As regards date, at all events, Italy is greatly in advance. What is the +date of the earliest French Courtesy-Book included in our series? Not +far, I presume, from the close of the fourteenth century. What of the +earliest English one? About 1450. Against these we can set an Italian +Courtesy-Book—or rather a Courtesy section of an Italian book—dating +about 1265. Of a date prior to this (the birth-year of Dante), there is +little of either prose or poetry in Italian. + +[Sidenote: BRUNETTO LATINI.] + +The author of our specimen is a man illustrious in the literature of +Italy, though comparatively little read for some centuries past—Brunetto +Latini; remembered chiefly among miscellaneous readers as the preceptor +of Dante, and as consigned by that affectionate but unaccommodating +pupil to a very ugly circle of his Hell. There, if we may believe the +‘Poet of Rectitude,’ Ser Brunetto, with a ‘baked aspect,’ is at this +moment unremittingly walking under an unremitting rain of fire: were he +to pause, he would remain moveless for a century, and the torture of +the flames would persecute him in aggravated proportion. On the same +authority (which it is futile to fence with), I am compelled to say +that Brunetto is the last person from whom one need wish to learn the +practice, or as a consequence the theory, of modern or European morals. + +However, Brunetto seems to have considered that he had a gift that way. +Both his leading works may be termed moral-scientific treatises. The +longer of the two, the _Tesoro_, was written in French prose, and is +much of a compilation from classic authors in some sections. It had +hitherto only been preserved to the public in an old Italian translation, +but quite recently the French text has been printed. Sacred, profane, +and natural history, geography, oratory, politics, and morals, are the +main subject-matter of this encyclopædic labour; than which probably no +contemporary produced anything more widely learned, according to the +standard of that age. The _Tesoretto_ is a shorter performance, written +in Italian verse; shorter, yet still of substantial length, numbering, +even in its extant incomplete state, 22 sections or ‘_capitoli_.’ This +is the work upon which I shall draw for our first specimen of an Italian +Courtesy-Book. Something bearing upon the like questions might also be +gleaned from the _Tesoro_, but, as that is properly a French book, I +leave it aside. + +The _Tesoretto_ sets forth that its author, being at Roncesvalles on +his return from an embassy in Spain, received the bad news of the battle +of Montaperti. Getting astray in a forest,[2] he finds himself in the +presence of no less a personage than Dame Nature, who proceeds to +give him practical and theoretic demonstrations on all sorts of lofty +subjects. She then tells him to explore the forest, where he would find +Philosophy, the four Moral Virtues (Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, +and Justice), Love, Fortune, and Over-reaching (Baratteria). He follows +her instructions, searching out these personages from Philosophy on to +Love: the four Virtues are attended by many ladies, among whom Brunetto +specifies particularly Liberality, _Courtesy_, Good-faith, and Valour. +After his interview with Love, he resolves to reconcile himself with God, +and makes a full confession at Montpélier. Having received absolution, +he does not return after Fortune and Over-reaching, but goes back to the +forest, and thence reaches the summit of Mount Olympus. Here he sees +Ptolemy, who is about to harangue him, when suddenly the _Tesoretto_ +comes to an end. Its best editor, the Abate Zannoni, supposes that +the concluding portion of the poem was written, but has been lost to +posterity. + +A few words must be added as to the incidents of the author’s life. He +was born (probably) not much later than 1220 in the Florentine state, and +died in 1294. After the great defeat of the Guelphs by the Ghibellines +at Montaperti in 1260, Brunetto, with others of the Guelph party, which +was almost uninterruptedly uppermost in Florence, found it expedient to +emigrate from that capital. He went to Paris, and there wrote both the +_Tesoro_ and _Tesoretto_. Towards 1265 he was again re-established in his +native country, exercising with great credit his profession of a notary, +and also (by or before the year 1273) holding the post of secretary to +the Commune of Florence. He became, as already mentioned, the preceptor +of Dante. As the pupil has damned him to all time at any rate, if not in +effect to all eternity, for one offence, let us at least preserve some +memory of his countervailing merits, as set forth by Giovanni and Filippo +Villani. The former affirms that Brunetto ‘was the initiator and master +in refining the Florentines, and cultivating their use of language; +and in regulating the justice and rule of our Republic according to +policy.’ And, according to Filippo, ‘Brunetto Latini was by profession a +philosopher, by occupation a notary, and of great name and celebrity. He +showed forth how much of rhetoric he could add to the gifts of nature: a +man, if it be permitted to say so, worthy of being reckoned along with +those skilled and ancient orators. He was facetious, learned, and acute, +and abounded in certain pleasantries of speech; yet not without gravity, +and the reserve of modesty, which bespoke a most cordial acceptance for +his humour: of agreeable discourse, which often moved to laughter. He was +obliging and decorous, and by nature serviceable, reserved, and grave; +and most happy in the habit of all virtues, had he been wisely able to +endure with a more steadfast mind the outrages of his infuriated country.’ + +[Sidenote: EXTRACT FROM B. LATINI'S _TESORETTO_.] + +The _Tesoretto_ is of course a mine of curiosities of various kinds, +tempting to the literary explorer. To call it distinctly a fine poem, or +even the performance of a strictly poetic mind, might be the exaggeration +of an enthusiast; but at all events it contains much sound matter well +put, and by no means destitute of entertainment. The section that falls +in best with our present purpose is the speech assigned to Lady Courtesy: +I present it in its entirety. + + ‘Be sure that Liberality is the head and greatness[3] + Of my mystery; so that I am little worth, + And, if she aids me not, I should find scant acceptance. + She is my foundation; and I am her gilding, + And colour, and varnish. But, to say the very truth, + If we have two names, we are well-nigh one thing. + + But to thee, gentle friend, I say first + That in thy speech thou be circumspect. + Be not too great a talker, and think aforehand + What thou wouldst be saying; for never + Doth the word that is spoken return,—like the arrow + Which goes and returns not. He who has a goodly tongue, + Little sense suffices him, if by folly he spoils it not. + Be thy speech gentle; and see it be not harsh + In any position of command, for thou canst not + Give people any graver annoy. I advise that he should die + Who displeases by harshness, for he never conquers the habit: + And he who has no moderation, if he acts well, he filches that. + Be not exasperating; neither be a tell-tale + Of what another person has spoken in thy presence; + Nor yet use contumely; nor tell any one a lie, + Nor slander of any,—for in sooth there is no one + Of whom one might not say something offensive offhand. + Neither be so self-sufficient as that even one hard word + Affecting another person should issue from thy mouth; + For too much self-sufficiency is contrary to good usage. + And let him who is on the highway beware of speaking folly. + + But thou knowest that I command thee, and put it as a strict precept, + That thou honour to the utmost thy good friend + On foot and on horseback: and be sure that for a small fault + Thou bear no grudge—let not love fail on thy part. + And have it always in mind to associate with people of honour, + And from others hold aloof; so that (as with the crafts[4]) + Thou mayst not acquire any vice, whereof, before thou couldst amend it, + Thou shalt have scathe and shame. Therefore at all hours + Hold fast to good usage; for that advances thee + In credit and honour, and makes thee better, + And gives fair seeming,—for a good nature + Becomes the clearer and more polished if it follows good habits. + But see none the less that, if thou shouldst appear tedious + To such or such a company, thou venture to frequent it no more, + But procure thyself some other to which thy ways are pleasing. + Friend, heed this well: with one richer than thyself + Seek not to associate,—for thou shalt be as their merry-maker, + Or else thou wilt spend as much as they; for, if thou didst not this, + Thou wouldst be mean,—and reflect always + That a costly beginning demands perseverance. + Therefore thou must provide, if thy means allow it, + That thou do this openly. If not, then mind + Not to make such expenditure as shall afterwards be reproved; + But adopt such a system as to be consistent with thyself. + And, if thou art a little better off [than thy comrades], do not get + away, + But spend on the same scale; take no advantage:— + And at all times take heed, if there is in thy company + A man, in thine opinion, of inferior means, + That, for God’s sake, thou force him not into more than he can meet; + For, if, for thy convenience, he spends his money amiss, + And comes to poverty, thou wilt be blamed therefor. + + And in sooth there are persons of high condition + Who call themselves “noble”: all others they hold cheap + Because of this nobility. And, in that conceit, + They will call a man “tradesman”[5] who would sooner spend a bushel + Of florins than _they_ of halfpence,[6]— + Although the means of both might be of like amount. + And he who holds himself noble, without doing any other good + Save of the name, fancies he is making the cross to himself, + But he _does_ make the fig to himself.[7] He who endures not toil + For honour’s sake, let him not imagine that he comes + Among men of worth, because he is of lofty race; + For I hold him noble who shows that he follows the path + Of great valour and of gentle nurture,— + So that, besides his lineage, he does deeds of worth, + And lives honourably so as to make himself beloved. + I admit indeed that, if the one and other are equal in good deeds, + He who is the better born is esteemed the higher: + Not through any teaching of mine, but it seems to be the usage, + Which conquers and overthrows many of my ways, + So that I can no otherwise; for this world is so dense + That the right is even judged of according to a little talking, + For the great and the lesser live therein by rumour. + + Therefore be heedful to keep among them so silent + That they may have nothing to laugh at. Adopt their modes, + For I rather advise thee to follow their wrongfulness.[8] + For, though thou shouldst be in the right, yet, as soon as it pleases + not them, + It avails thee nothing to speak well, nor yet ill. + Therefore recount no tale, unless it appears good and fair + To all who hear it; for somebody will censure thee for it, + And add lies thereto when thou art gone, + Which must assuredly grieve thee. So thou must know, + In such company, to play the prudent part, + And be heedful to say what will please. + And as for the good, if thou knowest it, thou wilt tell it to others + Where thou art known and held dear; + For thou wilt find among people many fools + Who take greater pleasure in hearing something scurrilous + Than what is profitable. Pass on, and heed not, + And be circumspect. + If a man of great repute + Should at any time do something that is out of bounds + In street or church, follow not the example: + For he has no excuse who conforms to the wrong-doing of others. + And see that thou err not if thou art staying or going + With a lady or lord, or other superior,— + Also that, although he be but thine equal, thou observe to honour him, + Each according to his condition. Be so heedful of this, + Both of less and more, that thou lose not self-restraint. + To thine inferior, however, render not more honour + Than beseems him, nor such that he should hold thee cheap for it: + And so, if he is the inferior, always walk a step in advance. + And, if thou art on horseback, avoid every fault; + And, if thou goest through the city, I counsel thee to go + Very courteously. Ride decorously, + With head a little bowed, for to go in that loose-reined way + Looks most boorish; and stare not up at the height + Of every house thou comest to. Mind that thou move not about + Like a man from the country—wriggle not like an eel: + But go steadily along the road and among the people. + + When thou art asked for a loan, delay not. + If thou art willing to lend, make not the man linger so long + That the favour shall be lost before it is rendered. + + And, when thou art in company, always follow + Their modes and their liking; for thou must not want + To be just suiting thine own taste, nor to be at odds with them. + + And always be heedful that thou give not any gross glances + At any woman living, in house or street; + For he who does thus, and calls himself a lover, + Is esteemed a blackguard.[9] And I have seen before now + A man lose position by a single act of levity;[10] + For in this country such goings-on are not admired. + And take heed in every case that Love, with his arts, + Inflame not thy heart. With severest pain + Wouldst thou consume thy life; nor couldst thou be numbered + In my following, wert thou in his power.[11] + + Now return in-doors, for it is the time; + And be liberal and courteous, so that in every country + All thy belongings be deemed pleasurable.’ + +[Sidenote: BONVICINO DA RIVA.] + +We now pass from Florence to Lombardy—from Ser Brunetto Latini to +Fra Bonvicino da Riva—from the lawyer and official to the friar and +professor. The poem of Fra Bonvicino, _The Fifty Courtesies for the +Table_, will be our principal _pièce de résistance_, and presented +accordingly in its own garnishing of old Italian as well as in English. +Not that it is by any means the best or most important piece of work +that we have to bring forward; but its rarity, its dialectic interest +for students of old Italian, and its precision and detail with regard to +one of the essentials of courtesy—the art of dining—give it exceptional +value for our direct purpose. The poem is supposed to have been written +about 1290. + +Unpolished as he is in poetic development, Fra Bonvicino is not to be +altogether slighted from a literary point of view. Tiraboschi (_Storia +della Letteratura Italiana_) believes that Bonvicino and one other were +the two sole verse-writers of the Lombard or Milanese State in this +opening period of Italian poesy; and Signor Biondelli, whom we have +to thank for the publication of Bonvicino’s production after so many +centuries of its hybernation in MS, can point to the choiceness of the +old Friar’s vocabulary. In one couplet that well-qualified editor is +able to find five expressions ‘which, for propriety and purity, would +even at the present day beseem the most careful of writers;’ and hence +he pronounces Bonvicino ‘the elegant writer of his time.’ It should +be understood, however, that the MS reproduced by Signor Biondelli, +and now again in the present volume, gives but an inadequate idea of +the primitiveness of Bonvicino’s own actual idiom. Tiraboschi cites a +harsher version of the first stanza from an earlier MS then existing +in the Library of Santa Maria Incoronata in Milan, but which is now +undiscoverable: the MS used by Signor Biondelli is of a much later date, +the fifteenth century. It pertains to the Ambrosian Library in Milan. + +Bonvicino belonged to the third order of the Friars named Umiliati, and +lived (as he himself informs us) in Legnano, a town of the Milanese +district. Hence he went to Milan, and became a distinguished professor of +grammar in the Palatine schools. The only other poem of his published in +Signor Biondelli’s volume[12] is _On the dignity of the Glorious Virgin +Mary_: but Tiraboschi specifies other productions in verse—Dialogues in +praise of Almsgiving, between the Virgin and Satan, between the Virgin +and the Sinner, between the Creator and the Soul, between the Soul and +the Body, between the Violet and the Rose, between the Fly and the Ant; +also the Legends of Job and of St Alexius; and various works in Latin, of +which some have been published. + + +DE LE ZINQUANTA CORTEXIE DA TAVOLA + +DE FRA BONVEXINO DA RIVA + + Fra bon Vexino da Riva, che stete in borgo Legniano + De le cortexie da descho ne dixe primano; + De le cortexie cinquanta che se den servare a descho + Fra bon Vexino da Riva ne parla mo’ de frescho. 4 + + La primiera è questa: che quando tu è a mensa, + Del povero bexognoxo imprimamente inpensa; + Che quando tu pasci lo povero, tu pasci lo tó Segnore, + Che te passerà, poxe la toa morte, in lo eternal dolzore. 8 + + La cortexia segonda: se tu sporze aqua alle man, + Adornamente la sporze; guarda no sia vilan; + Asay ghe ne sporze, no tropo, quando el è tempo d’estae; + D’inverno per lo fregio in pizina quantitae. 12 + + La terza cortexia si è: no sì tropo presto + De corre senza parola per asetare al descho; + Se alchun te invida a noxe, anze che tu sie asetato, + Per ti no prende quello axio, d’onde tu fuzi deschazato. 16 + + L’ oltra è: Anze che tu prendi lo cibo aparegiao + Per ti, over per tò mayore, fa sì ch’ el sie segniao. + Tropo è gordo e vilan, e incontra Cristo malegna + Lo quale alli oltri guarda, ni lo sò condugio no segna. 20 + + La cortexia zinquena: sta aconzamente al descho, + Cortexe, adorno, alegro, e confortoxo e frescho; + No di’ sta convitoroxo, ni gramo, ni travachao; + Ni con le gambe in croxe, ni torto, ni apodiao. 24 + + La cortexia sexena: da poy che l’ omo se fiada, + Sia cortexe no apodiasse sovra la mensa bandia; + Chi fa dra mensa podio, quello homo non è cortexe, + Quando el gh’apodia le gambe, over ghe ten le braze destexe. 28 + + La cortexia setena si è: in tuta zente + No tropo mangiare, ni pocho; ma temperadamente; + Quello homo en ch’ el se sia, che mangia tropo, ni pocho, + No vego quentro pro ghe sia al’anima, ni al corpo. 32 + + La cortexia ogena si è: che Deo n’ acrescha, + No tropo imple la bocha, ni tropo mangia inpressa; + Lo gordo che mangia inpressa, e che mangia a bocha piena, + Quando el fisse apellavo, no ve responde apena. 36 + + La cortexia novena si è: a pocho parlare, + Et a tenire pox quello che l’ à tolegio a fare; + Che l’ omo tan fin ch’ el mangia, s’ el usa tropo a dire, + Le ferguie fora dra bocha sovenzo pon insire. 40 + + La cortexia dexena si è: quando tu è sede, + Travonde inanze lo cibo, e furbe la bocha, e beve. + Lo gordo che beve inpressa, inanze ch’ el voja la chana; + Al’ oltro fa fastidio che beve sego in compagnia. 44 + + E la undexena è questa: no sporze la copa al’ oltro, + Quando el ghe pò atenze, s’ el no te fesse acorto; + Zaschuno homo prenda la copa quando ghe plaxe; + E quando el l’ à beudo, l’ à de mete zoxo in paxe. 48 + + La dodexena è questa: quando tu di’ prende la copa, + Con dove mane la rezeve, e ben te furbe la bocha; + Con l’una conzamente no se pò la ben receve; + Azò ch’ el vino no se spanda, con doe mane di’ beve. 52 + + La tredexena è questa: se ben tu no voy beve, + S’ alchun te sporze la copa, sempre la di’ rezeve; + Quando tu l’à receuda, ben tosto la pò mete via; + Over sporze a un’ altro ch’ è tego in compagnia. 56 + + L’ oltra che segue è questa: quando tu è alli convivi, + Onde si à bon vin in descho, guarda che tu no t’ invrie; + Che se invria matamente, in tre maynere offende; + El noxe al corpo e al’ anima, e perde lo vin ch’ el spende. 60 + + La quindexena è questa: seben verun ariva, + No leva in pè dal descho, se grande cason no ghe sia; + Tan fin tu mangi al descho, non di’ moverse inlora, + Per amore de fare careze a quilli che te veraveno sovra. 64 + + La sedexena apresso con veritae: + No sorbilar dra bocha quando tu mangi con cugial; + Quello fa sicom bestia, chi con cugial sorbilia; + Chi doncha à questa usanza, ben fa s’ el se dispolia. 68 + + La desetena apresso si è: quando tu stranude, + Over ch’ el te prende la tosse, guarda con tu làvori + In oltra parte te volze, ed è cortexia inpensa, + Azò che dra sariva no zesse sor la mensa. 72 + + La desogena è questa: quando l’ omo sente ben sano, + No faza onde el se sia del companadego pan; + Quello ch’ è lechardo de carne, over d’ove, over de formagio, + Anche n’ abielo d’avanzo, perzò no de ’l fa stragio. 76 + + La dexnovena è questa: no blasma li condugi + Quando tu è alli convivi; ma dì, che l’in bon tugi. + In questa rea usanza multi homini ò za trovao, + Digando: _questo è mal cogio, o questo è mal salao_. 80 + + E la XX.ª è questa: ale toe menestre atende; + Entre altru’ no guarda, se no forse per imprende + Lo menistrante, s’ el ghe manca ben de guardà per tuto; + Mal s’ el no menestresse clave e se lovo è bruto. 84 + + La XXI.ª è questa: no mastrulare per tuto + Como avesse carne, over ove, over semiante condugio; + Chi volze, over chi mastrulia sur lo taliere zerchando, + È bruto, e fa fastidio al compagnon mangiando. 88 + + La XXII.ª è questa: no te reze vilanamente; + Se tu mangi con verun d’uno pan comunamente, + Talia lo pan per ordine, no va taliando per tuto; + No va taliando da le parte, se tu no voy essere bruto. 92 + + La XXIII.ª: no di’ metere pan in vino, + Se tego d’un napo medesmo bevesse Fra Bon Vexino; + Chi vole peschare entro vin, bevando d’un napo conmego, + Per meo grao, se eyo poesse, no bevereve consego. 96 + + La XXIIII.ª è: no mete in parte per mezo lo compagnon + Ni grelin, ni squela, se no ghe fosse gran raxon; + Over grelin, over squela se tu voy mete inparte, + Per mezo ti lo di’ mete pur da la toa parte. 100 + + La XXV.ª è: chi fosse con femene sovra un talier mangiando, + La carne a se e a lor ghe debia esser taliata; + Lo homo de’ plu esse intento, plu presto e honoreure, + Che no de’ per raxon la femena agonzente. 104 + + La XXVI.ª è questa: de grande bontà inpensa, + Quando lo tò bon amigo mangia alla toa mensa; + Se tu talie carne, over pesso, over oltre bone pitanze, + De la plu bella parte ghe debie cerne inanze. 108 + + La XXVII.ª è questa: no di’ tropo agrezare + L’amigo a caxa tova de beve, ni de mangiare; + Ben di’ tu receve l’amigo e farghe bella cera, + E darghe ben da spende e consolare voluntera. 112 + + La XXVIII.ª è questa: apresso grande homo mangiando, + Astalete de mangiare tan fin che l’ è bevando; + Mangiando apresso d’un vescho, tan fin ch’ el beve dra copa, + Usanza drita prende; no mastegare dra bocha. 116 + + La XXVIIII.ª è questa: se grande homo è da provo, + No di’ beve sego a una hora, anze ghe di’ dà logo; + Chi fosse a provo d’un vescho, tan fin ch’ el beverave, + No di’ levà lo sò napo, over ch’ el vargarave. 120 + + E la trentena è questa: che serve, abia neteza; + No faza in lo prexente ni spuda, ni bruteza; + Al’ homo tan fin ch’ el mangia, plu tosto fa fastidio; + No pò tropo esse neto chi serve a uno convivio. 124 + + Pox la XXX.ª è questa: zaschun cortese donzello + Che se vore mondà lo naxo, con li drapi se faza bello; + Chi mangia, over chi menestra, no de’ sofià con le die; + Con li drapi da pey se monda vostra cortexia. 128 + + L’ oltra che ven è questa; le toe man siano nete; + Ni le die entro le oregie, ni le man sul cho di’ mete; + No de’ l’omo che mangia habere nudritura, + A berdugare con le die in parte, onde sia sozura. 132 + + La terza poxe la XXX.ª: no brancorar con le man, + Tan fin tu mangi al descho, ni gate, ni can; + No è lecito allo cortexe a brancorare li bruti + Con le man, con le que al tocha li condugi. 136 + + L’ oltra è: tan fin tu mangi con homini cognosenti, + No mete le die in bocha per descolzare li dingi. + Chi caza le die in bocha, anze che l’abia mangiao, + Sur lo talier conmego no mangia per mè grao. 140 + + La quinta poxe la trenta: tu no di’ lenze le die; + Le die chi le caza in bocha brutamente furbe; + Quello homo che se caza in bocha le die inpastruliate, + Le die no én plu nete, anze son plu brute. 144 + + La sesta cortexia poxe la trenta: + S’ el te fa mestere parlà, no parla a bocha plena; + Chi parla, e chi responde, se l’ à plena la bocha, + Apena ch’ el possa laniare negota. 148 + + Poxe questa ven quest’ oltra: tan fin ch’ el compagno + Avrà lo napo alla bocha, no ghe fa domando, + Se ben tu lo vo’ apelare; de zò te fazo avezudo; + No l’impagià, daghe logo tan fin che l’avrà beudo. 152 + + La XXXVIII.ª è questa: no recuntare ree novelle, + Azò che quilli ch’ în tego, no mangiano con recore; + Tan fin che li oltri mangiano, no dì nove angosoxe; + Ma taxe, over dì parole che siano confortoxe. 156 + + L’ oltra che segue è questa: se tu mangi con persone, + No fa remore, ni tapie, se ben gh’ avise raxone; + S’ alchun de li toy vargasse, passa oltra fin a tempo, + Azò che quilli ch’ ìn tego, no abiano turbamento. 160 + + L’ oltra è: se dolia te prende de qualche infirmitade, + Al più tu poy conprime la toa necesitade; + Se mal te senti al descho, no demostrà la pena; + Che tu no fazi recore a quilli che mangiano tego insema. 164 + + Pox quella ven quest’ oltra: se entro mangial vegisse + Qualche sghivosa cossa, ai oltri no desisse; + Over moscha, over qual sozura entro mangial vezando, + Taxe, ch’eli no abiano sghivo al descho mangiando. 168 + + L’ oltra è: se tu porte squelle al descho per servire, + Sur la riva dra squella le porexe di’ tenire: + Se tu apili le squelle cor porexe sur la riva, + Tu le poy mete zoxo in sò logo senza oltro che t’ ayda. 172 + + La terza poxe la quaranta è: se tu sporzi la copa, + La sumità del napo col polexe may no tocha; + Apilia lo napo de soto, e sporze con una man; + Chi ten per altra via, pò fi digio, che sia vilan. 176 + + La quarta poxe la quaranta si è: chi vol odire: + Ni grelin, ni squelle, ni ’l napo no di’ trop’ inplire; + Mesura e modo de’ esse in tute le cosse che sia; + Chi oltra zò vargasse, no ave fà cortexia. 180 + + L’ oltra che segue è questa: reten a ti lo cugiale, + Se te fi tolegio la squella per azonzere de lo mangiale; + Se l’ è lo cugial entro la squella, lo ministrante inpilia; + In tute le cortexie ben fa chi s’ asetilia. 184 + + L’ oltra è questa: se tu mangi con cugial, + No debie infolcire tropo pan entro mangiare; + Quello che fa impiastro entro mangià da fogo, + El fa fastidio a quilli che ghe mangiano da provo. 188 + + L’ oltra che segue è questa: s’ el tò amigo è tego, + Tan fin ch’ el mangia al descho, sempre bochona sego; + Se forse t’ astalasse, ni fosse sazio anchora, + Forse anchora s’ astalarave per vergonza inlora. 192 + + L’ oltra è: mangiando con oltri a qualche inviamento, + No mete entr’ a guayna lo tò cortelo anze tempo; + No guerna lo cortello anze ch’ alo compagno; + Forse oltro ven in descho d’onde tu no fè raxon. 196 + + La cortexia seguente è: quando tu è mangiao, + Fa sì che Jesu Xristo ne sia glorificao. + Quel che rezeve servixio d’alchun obediente, + S’elo no lo regratia, tropo è deschognosente. 200 + + La cinquantena per la darera: + Lavare le man, poy beve dro bon vino dra carera: + Le man poxe lo convivio per pocho pòn si lavae, + Da grassa e da sozura e l’in netezae. 204 + + +THE FIFTY COURTESIES FOR THE TABLE, + +OF FRA BONVESINO[13] DA RIVA. + + Fra Bonvesino da Riva, who lived in the town of Legnano, + First treated of the Courtesies for the Table. + Of the Fifty Courtesies which should be observed at the board + Fra Bonvesino da Riva now speaks afresh.[14] 4 + + The first is this: that, when thou art at table, + Thou think first of the poor and needy; + For, when thou feedest the poor, thou feedest thy Lord, + Who will feed thee, after thy death, in the eternal bliss. 8 + + The second Courtesy. If thou offerest water for the hands, + Offer it neatly: see thou be not rude. + Offer enough water, not too much, when it is summer-time: + In winter, for the cold, in small quantity. 12 + + The third Courtesy is—Be not too quick + To run without a word to sit down at the board. + If any one invites thee to a wedding,[15] before thou art seated, + Take not for thyself a place from which thou wouldst be turned out. 16 + + The next is—Before thou takest the food prepared, + See that it be signed [with the cross] by thyself or thy better. + Too greedy and churlish is he, and he offends against Christ, + Who looks about at others, and signs not his dish.[16] 20 + + The fifth Courtesy. Sit properly at the board, + Courteous, well-dressed, cheerful, and obliging and fresh. + Thou must not sit anxious, nor dismal, nor lolling, + Nor with thy legs crossed, nor awry, nor leaning forward. 24 + + The sixth Courtesy. When people are at a pause, + Be careful not to lean forward on the laid-out table. + He who uses the table as a prop, that man is not courteous, + When he tilts his legs upon it, or stretches out his arms along it. 28 + + The seventh Courtesy is—For all people + Not to eat too much nor little, but temperately. + That man, whoever he may be, who eats too much or little, + I see not what good it can be to his soul or his body. 32 + + The eighth Courtesy is—So may God favour us, + Fill not thy mouth too much, nor eat in too great a hurry. + The glutton who eats in a hurry, and who eats with his mouth stuffed, + If he were addressed, he scarcely answers you. 36 + + The ninth Courtesy is—To speak little, + And stick to that which one has set-to at doing; + For a man, as long as he is eating, if he has the habit of talking + too much, + Scraps may often spurt out of his mouth. 40 + + The tenth Courtesy is—When thou art thirsty, + First swallow down thy food, and wipe thy mouth, and drink. + The glutton who drinks in a hurry, before he has emptied his gullet, + Makes himself disagreeable to the other who is drinking in his + company. 44 + + And the eleventh is this: Do not offer the cup to another + When he can himself reach it, unless he asks thee for it. + Let every man take the cup when he pleases; + And, when he has drunk, he should set it down quietly. 48 + + The twelfth is this: When thou hast to take the cup, + Hold it with both hands, and wipe thy mouth well. + With one [hand] it cannot well be held properly: + In order that the wine be not spilled, thou must drink using both + hands. 52 + + The thirteenth is this: If even thou dost not want to drink, + If anybody offers thee the cup, thou must always accept it. + When thou hast accepted it, thou mayst very soon set it down, + Or else offer it to another who is in company with thee. 56 + + The next that follows is this: When thou art at entertainments + Where there is good wine on the board, see that thou get not drunk. + He who gets mad-drunk offends in three ways: + He harms his body and his soul, and loses the wine which he consumes. 60 + + The fifteenth is this: If any one arrives, + Rise not up from the board unless there be great reason therefor. + As long as thou eatest at the board, thou shouldst not then move + For the sake of making much of those who may come in to thee. 64 + + The sixteenth next in good sooth. + Suck not with the mouth when thou eatest with a spoon.[17] + He acts like a beast who sucks with a spoon: + Therefore whoever has this habit does well in ridding himself of it. 68 + + The seventeenth afterwards is this: When thou dost sneeze, + Or if a cough seizes thee, mind thy lips: + Turn aside, and reflect that that is courtesy, + So that no saliva may get on the table. 72 + + The eighteenth is this: When a man feels himself quite comfortable, + Let him not leave bread over after the victuals.[18] + He who has a taste for meat, or for eggs, or for cheese, + Even though he should have a residue, he should not on that account + waste it. 76 + + The nineteenth is this: Blame not the dishes + When thou art at entertainments, but say that they are all good. + I have detected many men erewhile in this vile habit, + Saying ‘This is ill cooked,’ or ‘this is ill salted.’ 80 + + And the twentieth is this: Attend to thine own sops; + Peer not into those of others, unless perchance to apprize + The attendant if anything is wanting. He must look well all round: + Things would go much amiss if he were not to attend.[19] 84 + + The twenty-first is this: Do not poke about everywhere, + When thou hast meat, or eggs, or some such dish. + He who turns and pokes about on the platter, searching,[20] + Is unpleasant, and annoys his companion at dinner. 88 + + The twenty-second is this: Do not behave rudely. + If thou art eating from one loaf in common with any one, + Cut the loaf as it comes, do not go cutting all about; + Do not go cutting one part and then another, if thou wouldst not be + uncouth. 92 + + The twenty-third. Thou must not dip bread into wine + If Fra Bonvesino has to drink out of the same bowl with thee. + He who _will_ fish in the wine, drinking in one bowl with me, + I for my own liking, if so I could, would not drink with him. 96 + + The twenty-fourth is—Set not down right before thy companion + Either pan or pot, unless there be great reason therefor. + If thou wantest to introduce either pan or pot, + Thou must set it down at thine own side, before thyself. 100 + + The twenty-fifth is—One who may be eating from a platter with women, + The meat has to be carved for himself and for them. + The man must be more attentive, more prompt in honouring, + Than the woman, in reason, has to reciprocate. 104 + + The twenty-sixth is this: Count it as a great kindness + When thy good friend eats at thy table. + If thou carvest meat, or fish, or other good viands, + Thou must choose of the best part for him. 108 + + The twenty-seventh is this: Thou must not overmuch press + Thy friend in thy house to drink or to eat. + Thou must receive thy friend well, and make him welcome, + And heartily give him plenty to eat and enjoy himself with. 112 + + The twenty-eighth is this: Dining with a great man, + Abstain from eating so long as he is drinking. + Dining with a Bishop, so long as he is drinking from the cup, + Right usage requires thou shouldst not be chewing with the mouth. 116 + + The twenty-ninth is this: If a great man is beside thee, + Thou must not drink at the same time with him, but give him precedence. + Who may be beside a Bishop, so long as he is drinking + Or pouring out, must not raise his bowl. 120 + + And the thirtieth is this: He who serves, let him be cleanly. + Let him not make in presence [of the guests] any spitting or nastiness: + To a man as long as he is eating, this is all the more offensive. + He who serves at an entertainment cannot be too nice. 124 + + Next after the thirtieth is this: Every courteous donzel[21] + Who wants to wipe his nose, let him embellish himself with a cloth. + He who eats, or who is serving, must not blow through the fingers. + Be so obliging as to clean yourselves with the foot-cloths.[22] 128 + + The next that comes is this: Let thy hands be clean. + Thou must not put either thy fingers into thine ears, or thy hands + on thy head. + The man who is eating must not be cleaning + By scraping with his fingers at any foul part. 132 + + The third after the thirtieth. Stroke not with hands, + As long as thou eatest at the board, cat or dog. + A courteous man is not warranted in stroking brutes + With the hands with which he touches the dishes. 136 + + The next is—As long as thou art eating with men of breeding, + Put not thy fingers into thy mouth to pick thy teeth. + He who sticks his fingers in his mouth, before he has done eating, + Eats not, with my good-will, on the platter with me. 140 + + The fifth after the thirtieth. Thou must not lick thy fingers. + He who thrusts his fingers into his mouth cleans them nastily. + That man who thrusts into his mouth his besmeared fingers, + His fingers are none the cleaner, but rather the nastier. 144 + + The sixth Courtesy after the thirtieth. + If thou hast occasion to speak, speak not with thy mouth full. + He who speaks, and he who answers, if he has his mouth full, + Scarcely can he chop out a word. 148 + + After this comes this other: As long as thy companion + Has the bowl to his mouth, ask him no questions + If thou wouldst address him: of this I give thee notice. + Disturb him not: pause until he has drunk. 152 + + The thirty-eighth is this: Tell no bad news, + In order that those who are with thee may not eat out of spirits. + As long as the others are eating, give no painful news; + But keep silence, or else speak in cheerful terms. 156 + + The next that follows is this: If thou art eating with others, + Make no uproar or disturbance, even though thou shouldst have + reason therefor. + If any of thy companions should transgress, pass it by till the + time comes, + So that those who are with thee may not be put out. 160 + + The next is—If the pain of any ill-health seizes thee, + Keep down thy distress as much as thou canst. + If thou feelest ill at the board, show not the pain, + That thou mayst not cause discomfort to those who are eating along + with thee. 164 + + After that comes this other: Shouldst thou see in the viands + Any disagreeable thing, tell it not to the others. + Seeing in the viands either a fly or any uncleanliness, + Keep silence, that they may not feel disgust, eating at the board. 168 + + The next is—If thou bringest dishes to the board in serving, + Thou must keep thy thumbs on the rim of the dish. + If thou takest hold with the thumb on the rim of the dishes, + Thou canst set them down in their place without any one else to + help thee. 172 + + The third after the fortieth is—If thou offerest the cup, + Never touch with the thumb the upper edge of the bowl. + Hold the bowl at the under end, and present it with one hand: + He who holds it otherwise may be called boorish. 176 + + The fourth after the fortieth is—hear who will— + Neither frying-pan nor dishes nor bowl should be overfilled. + Measure and moderation should be in all things that are: + He who should transcend this will not have done courtesy. 180 + + The next which follows is this: Keep thy spoon, + If thy plate is removed for the adding of some viands. + If the spoon is in the plate, it puts out the helper. + In all courtesies he does well who is heedful.[23] 184 + + The next is this: If thou art eating with a spoon, + Thou must not stuff too much bread into the victuals. + He who lays it on thick upon the cooked meats, + Is distasteful to those who are eating beside him. 188 + + The next that follows is this: If thy friend is with thee, + As long as he eats at the board, always keep up with him. + If thou perchance wert to leave off, and he were not yet satisfied, + Maybe he also would then leave off through bashfulness. 192 + + The next is—Dining with others by some invitation, + Put not back thy knife into the sheath before the time: + Deposit not thy knife ere thy companion. + Perhaps something else is coming to table which thou dost not + reckon for. 196 + + The succeeding Courtesy is—When thou hast eaten, + So do as that Jesus Christ be glorified therein. + He who receives service from any that obeys,[24] + If he thanks him not, is too ungrateful. 200 + + The fiftieth for the last. + Wash hands, then drink of the good and choice wine.[25] + After the meal, the hands may be a little washed, + And cleansed from grease and impurity. 204 + +[Sidenote: SUMMARY OF BONVICINO.] + +As far as I know (though I cannot affect to speak with authority) this +poem by Fra Bonvicino, and those by Francesco da Barberino of which we +shall next take cognisance, are considerably the oldest still extant +Courtesy-Books (expressly to be so termed) of Christianized Europe;[26] +except one, partly coming under the same definition, which has been +mentioned to me by a well-read friend, Dr Heimann (of University +College), but of which I have no direct personal knowledge.[27] This +also, though written in the German language, is the production of an +Italian. It is entitled _Der Wälsche Gast_ (_the Italian Guest_), and +dates about 1210. The author’s name is given as Tomasin von Zirclaria, +born in Friuli. The book supplies various rules of etiquette, in a very +serious and well-intentioned tone, as I am informed.—Fra Bonvicino would, +on the ground of his antiquity alone, be well deserving of study. His +precepts moreover (with comparatively few exceptions) cannot even yet be +called obsolete, though some of them are unsophisticated to the extent of +being superfluous. In order that the reader may see in one _coup d’œil_ +the whole of this curious old monument I subjoin a classified abridgment +of the injunctions:— + +1. _Moral and Religious._ + + To think of the poor first of all. + + To remember grace before meat. + + To eat enough, and not too much. + + Not to get drunk. + + To pass over for the time any cause of quarrel. + + To say grace after meat. + +2. _Practical Rules still fairly operative._ + + To offer water for washing the hands before dinner. + + Not to plump into a seat at table at haphazard. + + To sit at table decorously and in good humour. + + Not to tilt oneself forward on the table. + + Not to gorge or bolt one’s food. + + To subordinate talking to eating. + + Not to drink with one’s mouth full. + + To remain seated at table, even though fresh guests should + arrive. + + Not to suck at solid food eaten with a spoon. + + To use up one’s bread. + + To abstain from raising objections to the dinner. + + Not to scrutinize one’s neighbour’s plate. + + To cut bread as it comes, not in all sorts of ways. + + To carve for the ladies. + + To give the guests prime cuts. + + To make the guests thoroughly welcome, without oppressive + urgencies. + + To abstain at dinner from stroking cats and dogs. + + Not to speak with one’s mouth full. + + To abstain from imparting bad news at dinner. + + To keep down any symptoms of pain or illness. + + To avoid calling attention to anything disagreeable which may + accidentally be in the dishes. + + The attendants to hold the dishes by their rims. + + Not to hand round the bowl by its upper edge. + + Not to overload the dishes, goblets, &c. + + Not to hurry through with one’s eating, so that others, who are + left behind, would feel uncomfortable. + + To wash hands and drink the best wine after dinner. + +3. _Rules equally true and primitive._ + + Not to tilt one’s legs on the table between-whiles. + + To turn aside if one sneezes or coughs. + + Not to set down before the guests utensils fresh from the + kitchen. + + The attendants to be clean—not to spit, &c. + + To blow one’s nose on ‘foot-cloths,’ not through the fingers. + + Not to scratch at one’s head or elsewhere. + + Not to pick one’s teeth with the fingers. + + Not to lick one’s fingers clean. + +4. _Rules which may be regarded as over-punctilious or obsolete._ + + Not to sit at table with one’s legs crossed. + + To offer the cup to others only when they want it. (The rules + as to drinking seem throughout to contemplate that two or more + guests are using one cup or vessel.) + + To use both hands in drinking. + + Never to decline the cup when another offers it, but to drink + no more than one wishes. (This rule still has its analogue at + tables where the custom lingers of requesting ‘the pleasure of + taking wine with’ some one else.) + + Not to rummage about in the dish from which one is eating along + with others. + + Not to dip bread into the wine of which one is drinking along + with others. + + To suspend eating while a man of importance is drinking. + + To postpone drinking till the man of importance has finished. + + Not to speak to a man who is in the act of drinking. (This rule + seems to contemplate ‘potations pottle-deep,’ such as engage + all one’s energies for some little while together: for a mere + modern sip at a wine-glass such a rule would be superfluous.) + + To retain one’s spoon when one’s plate is removed for another + help, (_One_ spoon, it may be inferred, is to last all through + the meal, serving as a fork.) + + Not to eat an excessive quantity of bread with the viands. + + Not to re-place one’s knife in its sheath prematurely. (It may + be presumed that each guest brings his own knife.) + +The reader who considers these rules in their several categories, and +with due allowance for difference of times, manners, and ‘properties,’ +will, I think, agree with me in seeing that the essentials of courtesy +at table in Lombardy in the thirteenth century, and in England in the +nineteenth, are, after all, closely related; and that, while some of our +Friar’s tutorings would now happily be supererogatory, and others are +inapplicable to present dining conveniences, not one is ill-bred in any +correct use of that word. The details of etiquette vary indefinitely: the +sense of courtesy is substantially one and the same. In Fra Bonvicino’s +manual, it appears constantly in its genuine aspect, and prompted by its +truest spirit—not so much that of personal correctness, each man for his +own credit, as of uniform consideration for others. + +[Sidenote: FRANCESCO DA BARBERINO.] + +The same is eminently the case with some of the precepts given by our +next author, Francesco da Barberino. Nothing, for instance, can go beyond +the true _rationale_ of courtesy conveyed in the following injunction[28] +(which we must not here degrade from its grace of Tuscan speech and +verse): + + ‘Colli minor sì taci, + E prendi il loco che ti danno; e pensa + Che, per far qui difensa, + Faresti lor, per tuo vizio, villani.’ + +Or this:[29] + + ‘E credo che fa male + Colui che taglia essendo a suo maggiore: + Chè non v’ è servitore + S’ el non dimanda prima la licenza.’ + +Indeed, I think that the tone prevalent throughout Barberino’s maxims +of courtesy on all sorts of points is fairly to be called exquisite. +Our extract from him brings us (it may be well to remember) into the +closest contact with the social usages which Dante in his youth must +have been cognisant of and conforming to; for, in passing from Bonvicino +to Barberino, we have passed from Lombardy to Tuscany—the latter poet +being a native of the Val d’Elsa, in the same district as Boccaccio’s +birth-place, Certaldo. The date assigned to Barberino’s work, the +_Documenti d’Amore_, is just about the same as that of Bonvicino’s, or +from 1290 to 1296. Yet I apprehend we must receive this early date with +some hesitation. In 1290 Barberino was but twenty-six years of age; +whereas the _Documenti d’Amore_, a lengthy and systematic treatise on all +kinds of moral and social duties and proprieties, seems to be rich with +the hoarded experience of years. That so young a man should even have +sketched out for himself a work of such axiomatic oracularity seems _à +priori_ unlikely, though one has to accept the fact on authority: that +he should towards that age have completed the poem as we now possess it +appears to me barely compatible with possibility. His other long poem, +still more singular on the like account, is referred to nearly the same +date. I observe in it, however, one passage (Part 6) which _must_ have +been written after 1308, and probably after 1312. It refers to a story +which had been narrated to Barberino ‘one time that he was in Paris.’ Now +his journey on a mission to Provence and France began in 1309, and ended +in 1313. + +I shall here give place to my brother, and extract _verbatim_ the notice +of Barberino contained in his book of translations, _The Early Italian +Poets_.[30] + + ‘Francesco da Barberino: born 1264, died 1348. + + ‘With the exception of Brunetto Latini (whose poems are neither + very poetical nor well adapted for extract), Francesco da + Barberino shows by far the most sustained productiveness among + the poets who preceded Dante, or were contemporaries of his + youth. Though born only one year in advance of Dante, Barberino + seems to have undertaken, if not completed, his two long poetic + treatises some years before the commencement of the _Commedia_. + + ‘This poet was born at Barberino di Valdelsa, of a noble + family, his father being Neri di Ranuccio da Barberino. Up to + the year of his father’s death, 1296, he pursued the study + of law chiefly in Bologna and Padua; but afterwards removed + to Florence for the same purpose, and became one of the many + distinguished disciples of Brunetto Latini,[31] who probably + had more influence than any other one man in forming the youth + of his time to the great things they accomplished. After this + he travelled in France and elsewhere; and on his return to + Italy in 1313, was the first who, by special favour of Pope + Clement V., received the grade of Doctor of Laws in Florence. + Both as lawyer and as citizen, he held great trusts, and + discharged them honourably. He was twice married, the name of + his second wife being Barna di Tano, and had several children. + At the age of eighty-four he died in the great plague of + Florence. Of the two works which Barberino has left, one bears + the title of _Documenti d’Amore_, literally _Documents[32] + of Love_, but perhaps more properly rendered as _Laws of + Courtesy_; while the other is called _Del Reggimento e dei + Costumi delle Donne_,—_of the Government and Conduct of Women_. + They may be described, in the main, as manuals of good breeding + or social chivalry—the one for men, and the other for women. + Mixed with vagueness, tediousness, and not seldom with artless + absurdity, they contain much simple wisdom, much curious + record of manners, and (as my specimens show) occasional + poetic sweetness or power—though these last are far from + being their most prominent merits. The first-named treatise, + however, has much more of such qualities than the second, and + contains moreover passages of homely humour which startle by + their truth, as if written yesterday. At the same time, the + second book is quite as well worth reading, for the sake of its + authoritative minuteness in matters which ladies now-a-days + would probably consider their own undisputed region, and also + for the quaint gravity of certain surprising prose anecdotes + of real life with which it is interspersed. Both these works + remained long unprinted; the first edition of the _Documenti + d’Amore_ being that edited by Ubaldini in 1640, at which time + he reports the _Reggimento_ &c. to be only possessed by his age + “in name and in desire.” This treatise was afterwards brought + to light, but never printed till 1815. I should not forget to + state that Barberino attained some knowledge of drawing; and + that Ubaldini had seen his original MS of the _Documenti_, + containing, as he says, skilful miniatures by the author. + + ‘Barberino never appears to have taken a very active part + in politics, but he inclined to the Imperial and Ghibelline + party. This contributes with other things to render it rather + singular that we find no poetic correspondence or apparent + communication of any kind between him and his many great + countrymen, contemporaries of his long life, and with whom he + had more than one bond of sympathy. His career stretched from + Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, and Cino da Pistoia, to Petrarca and + Boccaccio: yet only in one respectful but not enthusiastic + notice of him by the last-named writer (_Genealogia degli Dei_) + do we ever meet with an allusion to him by any of the greatest + men of his time. Nor in his own writings, as far as I remember, + are _they_ ever referred to. His epitaph is said to have been + written by Boccaccio, but this is doubtful. On reviewing the + present series, I am sorry, on the whole, not to have included + more specimens of Barberino; whose writings, though not very + easy to tackle in the mass, would afford an excellent field for + selection and summary.’ + +Thus far my brother. I will only add to his biographical details that, +at the very end of Francesco da Barberino’s life, he and one of his sons +were elected the Priori, or joint chief-magistrates of the Florentine +Republic; and that the Barberini who came to the papal chair in 1623 +as Urban VIII. was of the same family. His patronymic is enshrined to +many loose memories in the epigram ‘_Quod non fecere Barbari fecere +Barberini_.’ To all that my brother has said of the qualities, and +especially the merits, of Francesco, I cordially subscribe. The +_Documenti d’Amore_ is really a most capital book,—I should suppose, +unsurpassed of its kind, and also in its interest for students of the +early mediæval manners, and modes of thought. Its diction is remarkably +condensed—(Italian scholars say that it shows strong traces of the +author’s Provençal studies and predilections)—and it is proportionately +stiff work to hasty readers. Those who will peruse it deliberately, and +weigh its words, find many niceties of laconism, and much terse and +sententious good sense as well—lengthy as is the entire book. This is +indeed no slight matter—twelve sections, and something like 8500 lines. +It is exactly the sort of work to elicit and to account for editorial +enthusiasm. + +[Sidenote: THE DOCUMENTI D'AMORE.] + +I extract in full the stanzas bearing directly upon that which (following +the impulsion of Fra Bonvicino) has become our more immediate subject—the +Courtesies of the Table. The tone of society which we find here is +visibly in advance of the Lombard Friar’s, though the express precepts of +the two writers have a good deal of general resemblance: the superiority +in this respect is very much the same as in the language. Barberino’s +diction seems quite worthy of a Tuscan contemporary of Dante, and his +works are still drawn upon as a ‘_testo di lingua_.’ + + ‘The third point of good manners + Which thou art to observe at table + Thou mayst receive thus; + Thinking out for thyself the other details from these few. + + And, in entering to table, + If he who says to thee “Go in” is a man of distinction, + On account of his dignity + It behoves thee not to dispute the going. + + With thine equals, it beseems to decline + For awhile, and then to conform to their wish: + With superiors, affect + Just the least demur, and then acquiesce. + + With inferiors, keep silence, + And take the place which they give thee: and reflect + That, by resisting here, + Thou, by thy default, wouldst be making _them_ rude. + + In thine own house, remain + Behind, if they are thy superiors or equals: + And, if thine inferiors, thou shalt seem + No other than correct if thou dost the same. + + Understand the like, if thou givest + To eat to any persons out of thine own home: + Also remain behind when it happens + That thou art entertaining women. + + Next consider about placing + Each person in the post that befits him. + Between relatives it behoves + To place others midway sometimes. + + And, in this, honour the more + Those who are strangers, and retain the others by thyself: + And keep cheerful + Thy face and demeanour, and forbear with all. + + Now I speak for every one. + He who is helping, let him help in equal portions. + He who is helped, let him not manœuvre + For the best, but take the less good. + + They must not be pressed; + For this is their own affair, and choice is free, + And one forces the preference + Of him who was abstaining, perhaps purposely. + + He makes a fool of himself who prematurely lays aside + His plate, while the others are still eating; + And he who untidily + Turns the table into a receptacle for scraps; + + And he who sneers + At what he does not like; and he who hurries; + And he who picks and chooses + Out of the viands which are in common; + + And those who seem more hungry + At the end than at the beginning; + And also he who sets to + At fortifying himself,[33] or exploring the bottom of the platter. + + Nor do I think it looks quite well + To gnaw the bone with the teeth, and still worse + To drop it into the saucepan;[34] + Nor is salt well deposited on the dish. + + And I think that he does amiss + Who carves, being at the table of his superior; + For none can perform service + If he does not first ask leave. + + With thine equal, begin, + If the knife lies at thy right hand: + If not, leave it to him. + With fruit, thou canst not fitly help thy companion. + + With women, I need not tell thee: + But thou must help them to everything, + If there is not some one who undertakes + Both the carving and other details. + + But always look to it + That thou approach not too close to any of them. + And, if one of them is a relative of thine, + Thou wilt give more room to the other. + + And, in short, thou wilt then + Do and render honour to thine utmost: + And here always mind + That thou soil not their dress. + + Look them in the face but little, + Still less at their hands while eating, + For they are apt to be bashful: + And with respect to them, thou mayst well say “Do eat.” + + When sometimes there come + Dishes or fruits, I praise him who thinks of avoiding + To take of those + Which cannot with cleanliness be handled. + + Ill does the hand which hurries + To take a larger help out of a dish in common; + And worse he who does not well avoid + To loll, or set leg upon leg. + + And be it observed + That here thou shouldst speak little and briefly: + Nor here must there be speech + Of aught save elegant and cheerful pleasantness. + + I have shown thee above + Concerning the respect due to [thy lord], and saluting him. + I will now tell thee + More than I before said concerning service. + + Take care that, in every operation + Or service that thou dost before him, + Thou must think steadily + Of what thou art about, for it goes ill if thou art absent-minded. + + Thou shouldst keep thine eye, + When thou servest him, on that which he likes. + The silent tongue is aright, + Always without questioning, during service; + + Also that thou keep thyself, + Thou who hast to serve, clean in dress and hands. + And I would have thee also serve strangers, + If they are at the meal with him. + + Likewise have an eye to it + That thou keep things clean before him thou servest. + And thou dost well if thou keepest + The slice entire, if thou canst, in carving; + + And amiss if neglectfully + Thou makest too great a lump of the carved viands; + And worse if thou art so long about it + That they have nothing to eat. + + And, when there may be + Viands which make the hands uncleanly, + In some unobtrusive way + Get them washed by the time the next come on. + + Thou shalt always be observant of the same + In bringing forward the fruits: + For to offer these about, + As I said before, befits not the guests. + + Also I much complain + Of thee who wouldst then be correcting others: + For the present it must suffice thee, + In this case, to do right for thyself only. + + He puts me out who has + So awkward a manner in cutting + That, in peeling a pear, + He takes up from three to nine o’clock; + + And also he who keeps not good guard + Over his hand, and slips in cutting; + For he is prevented from serving, + And his lord sometimes has no one to serve him. + + I dislike that he who serves + Should, in serving, speak of the doctor; + Unless maybe by way of obeying, + When he has it in command from him. + + In giving water thou shalt be careful, + Considering the time and place: + Where there is little, little; + In the cold time, less cold—and, if very cold, warm. + + When the sun is very hot, + Bring it abundantly, but mind the people’s clothes. + Observe the station and the ages, + With regard to whom thou shalt begin with, if there is none to tell + thee.[35] + + At table it behoves + Not to give bad or offensive news; + Unless delay might produce + Danger—and then only to the person concerned. + + Be thy mouth abstinent + From eating while the first table is set. + In drinking do likewise, + So far as gratification goes, but thirst excuses thee: + + Which if thou feelest, accustom thyself + Not to drink underhand, nor of the best. + Neither is a servant liked + Who afterwards is long over his eating, + + If he is where he _can_ do this; + And still less he who sulks if he is called + When he has not yet done eating; + For he serves best who serves other than his gullet.’ + +Before parting from the _Documenti d’Amore_, I will summarize a few more +of Barberino’s dicta on points of courtesy and demeanour in general. + +There are seven offences in speaking: 1. Prolixity; 2. Curtness; 3. +Audacity; 4. Mauvaise Honte; 5. Stuttering; 6. Beating about the bush; +7. Restlessness of gesture, and this is the least supportable of all. +Remedies against all these evils are assigned. For the 6th, as we are +told, the (then) modern usage is to speak out what you have to say with +little or no proem. As to the 7th, the moving about, as a child would do, +the hands, feet, or head, or the using action in speech, shows deficient +firmness. See that you stand firm. Yet all this is to be modified +according to place, time, and the auditory. (It is amusing to find the +dignified Tuscan of the thirteenth to fourteenth century reprobating +that luxuriance of gesture which is one of the first things to strike an +English eye in Italy down to our own day—more especially in the southern +parts of the country. To have striven to obey Barberino’s precept, under +pain of being pronounced bad company, must have proved hard lines to some +of his contemporaries and catechumens.) + +If you chance into uncongenial company, take the first opportune occasion +for getting away, with some parting words that shall not bewray your +antipathy. + +To casual companions speak on their own respective subjects; as of God +to the clergy, health to doctors, design to painters. ‘With ladies of +refinement and breeding, laud and uphold their honour and state by +pleasant stories not oftentimes told already. And, if any one is contrary +and froward, reply in excuse and defence; for it is derogatory to contend +against those the overcoming of whom is loss.’ + +If you come into the company of a great lord, or of persons who are all +your superiors, and if they invite you to speak, inquire what the topic +shall be. If you find nothing to say, wait for some one else to start +you; and at worst be silent. In such company, be there no gesturing +(again!). + +If you are walking with a great lord in any country, conform in a measure +to the usages there prevalent. + +Following your superior, be respectful; to your equal, complaisant, and +treat him as superior; and, even with your inferior, tend towards the +same line of conduct. This, however, does not apply to your own servant. +Better exceed than fall short in showing respect to unknown persons. If +your superior, in walking with you, wants to have you by his side, go to +his left as a general rule, so that he may have the full use of his sword +hand. If it rains, and he has no cloak, offer him yours; and, even if he +declines, you must still dispense with it yourself. The like with your +hat. Pay similar attentions to your equal, or to one that is a little +your inferior: and even to your positive inferiors you must rather overdo +courtesy than fall short. Thus also with women: you must explore the way +for them, and attend on them, and in danger defend them with your life. + +In church, do not pray aloud, but silently. + +Wait not to be saluted. Be first in saluting; but do not overdo this, and +never reiterate a salutation. Your own lord you must not salute, unless +he comes from afar. You should uncover to him: then, if he is covered, +cover again. Do not exceed in saluting an intimate, but enter at once +into conversation; and do not hug him, unless he and you are indeed +one.[36] Bow to ladies without much speaking: and in towns ascertain the +ordinary practice in such cases, and observe it. If you see a female +relative in your own town, she being alone, or in company with only one +person, _and if she is handsome_, accost her as though she were not your +relative, unless your relationship is a fact known to the bystanders, +(This is a master-touch: and here is another, of a nearly similar sort)— + +In serving a man of distinction, if you meet his wife, affect not to +observe her; and, if she gives you any commission to fulfil, don’t show +that it gratifies you. + +The 16th ‘_Documento_’ sets forth ‘the method of making presents so +that the gift be acceptable.’ It is so admirable in point of both sense +and expression that I quote the original in a note, secure that _that_ +will be a gift acceptable to all such readers of these pages as may be +readers of Italian also.[37] What can be more perfect than the censure +awarded to those who are in a chafe until, by reciprocating any service +rendered to them, they shall have wiped it out? + + ‘Be all aware + That it is no small flaw to mislike + Remaining under an obligation: + Nay, it then seems that one is liberal by compulsion.’ + +[Sidenote: THE REGGIMENTO DELLE DONNE.] + +Barberino’s second work, _Del Reggimento e dei Costumi delle Donne_, +furnishes, strange to say, hardly any express rules for conduct, at +table; but some details may, for our general purpose, be picked out of an +emporium whose abundance can be surmised from the following programme. + + ‘I will divide this work into 20 parts: + And each part + Shall present certain distinct grades, + As the foregoing reading shows, + The 1st will relate how a girl + Should conduct herself + When she begins to appreciate right and wrong, + And to fear shame. + 2nd, How, when + She comes to a marriageable age. + 3rd, How, when she has passed. + The period for marriage. + 4th, if, after she has given up the hope of ever + Obtaining a husband, it happens + That yet she gets one, and remains + At home awhile before going to him. + The 5th, How, after she is married; + And how the first, and how + The second and third, + Up to fifteen days; and the first month, + And the second and third; + And how on to her end: + Both before having children, and afterwards, and if she + Has none: and how in old age. + The 6th, How, if she loses her husband: + And how if she is old; + And how if she is of middle age; + And how if she is left young; + And how if she has children; + And how if she is a grandmother; + And how if she still + Remains mistress of her husband’s property; + And if she, being a widow, takes + The garb of religion. + The 7th sets forth + How she should comport herself + If she marries again; + And how if to a better [husband], + And how if to a worse + And less wealthy one; + And how if she yet goes to a third; + And how, after she has become a widow, + And has again taken a husband, + She remains awhile at home + Before going to him; + And how far re-marrying is praised or blamed. + 8th, How, she + Who assumes the habit + Of a religious order at home; + And how this is praised or no. + 9th, How, being shut up in a monastery + In perpetual reclusion; + And how the Abbess, Superior, and Prioress, + And every other Portress or Nun. + 10th, How she + Who secludes herself alone + Is named a Hermitess; and wherein this is to blame. + 11th, How + The maid who is + In companionship with a lady; + And how if she is alone, + And how if one among others in the like office. + 12th, How + Every serving-woman shall conduct herself, + Whether serving a lady alone, or a lady along + With the master; and also if any, by herself, + Serves a master; and how + This is to be praised, and how not. + 13th, How, + A nurse in the house, and how apart. + 14th, How, + The female serf or slave;[38] + And how, being a serf, + She may afterwards, through her conduct, obtain her liberty. + 15th, How + Every kind of woman + Of the common sort should behave, + And of a lower and poorer sort; and all + Save the bad ones of dissolute life + Who sell their honour for money,— + Whom I do not purpose + To put in writing, + Nor to make any mention of them, + For they are not worthy to be named. + 16th treats + Of certain general precepts + To all women; and of their ornaments, + And their adventures. + 17th, of their consolations. + 18th, because sometimes + They must know how to speak and converse + And answer, and be in company, + Here will be treated upon questions of love + And courtesy and breeding. + 19th treats + Of certain motetts and messages[39] + Of ladies to knights, + And of other sorts + Of women and men. + The 20th treats + Of certain orisons. + And in this part is the conclusion + Of the book; and how I carry this book + To the Lady who is above-named,[40] + And how she receives it; + And how the Virtues + Come before her.’ + +The promise here is rich indeed, and the performance also is rich; though +it may fairly be said that various sections fall considerably below +one’s expectations, and some of them are jejune enough. But, after every +deduction has been made, the work fills a niche of its own, and without +competitor. + +I add a few of the details most germane to our purpose. + + A young girl should drink but little, and that diluted. She + must not loll at table, nor prop her arms thereon. Here she + should speak even less than at other times. The daughters of + Knights (Cavalier da Scudo), Judges, Physicians, or others of + similar condition, had better learn the art of cooking, though + possibly circumstances will not call upon them to put it in + practice. + + A Princess approaching the marriageable age should not go out + to church; as she ought, as far as possible, to avoid being + seen about. (The marriageable age, be it understood, is very + early by Barberino’s reckoning, being twelve years.) A woman + should never go out alone. + + An unmarried young lady had better wear a topaz, which is + proved by experience to be an antidote to carnal desire. + + A Provençal gentleman, who was praising his wife for her + extreme simplicity in attire, was asked, ‘Why then does she + comb her hair?’ He replied: ‘To show that she is a woman, whose + very nature it is to be trim in person.’ + + A Lady’s-maid should not tell tales to her mistress of any + peccadilloes of the husband: still less should she report to + the husband anything against his wife, unless it be a grave and + open misdoing. + + The section concerning Nurses (Part 13) contains much curious + matter: especially as showing how much reliance was placed + upon swaddling and other details of infant management, for + the improvement of good looks, and correction of blemishes. + Here we find also that the system against which Rousseau waged + such earnest war, of mothers’ not suckling their own children, + was already in full vigour in Barberino’s time. He enters no + protest against it; but does recommend mothers to follow the + more natural plan, if they can, and so please God, and earn the + children’s love.[41] + + A she-Barber must not ogle or flirt with her customers, but + attend to her washes and razors. A Fruiteress must not put + green leaves with old fruits, nor the best fruits uppermost, + to take her customers in. A Landlady must not sell re-cooked + victuals. + + A shrew earns the stick sometimes; nor should that form + of correction be spared to women who gad about after + fortune-tellers. + + Beware of a Doctor who scrutinizes your pretty face more than + your symptoms. Also of a Tailor who wants to serve you gratis, + or who is over-officious in trying on your clothes: and beware + still more of a Tailor who is tremulous. If you go to any balls + where men are present, let it be by day, or at any rate with + abundance of light. + + The use of thick unguents is uncleanly, especially in hot + weather; it makes the teeth black, the lips green, and the skin + prematurely old-looking. Baths of soft water, not in excess, + keep the skin young and fresh: but those in which hot herbs + are boiled scorch and blacken it. Dark hair becomes lighter by + being kept uncovered, especially in moonlight. + + ‘Courtesy is liberal magnificence, which suffers not violence, + nor ingenuity, nor obligation, but pleases of itself alone.’ + +To these brief jottings I subjoin one extract of some length, descriptive +of the marriage-festivity of a Queen. To abridge its details would be to +strip it of its value: but I apprehend that some of these details require +to be taken _cum grano salis_, Barberino having allowed himself a certain +poetical license. + + Now it behoves to dine. + The trumpets sound, and all the instruments, + Sweet songs and diversions around. + Boughs, with flowers, tapestries, and satins, + Strewn on the ground; and great lengths of silk + With fine fringes and broiderings on the walls. + Silver and gold, and the tables set out, + Covered couches, and the joyous chambers, + Full kitchens and various dishes; + Donzels deft in serving, + And among them damsels still more so. + Tourneying in the cloisters and pathways; + Closed balconies and covered loggias; + Many cavaliers and people of worth, + Ladies and damsels of great beauty. + Old women hidden in prayer to God, + Be they served there where they stay. + Wines come in, and abundant comfits; + There are the fruits of various kinds. + The birds sing in cages, and on the roofs: + The stags leap, and fawns, and deer. + Open gardens, and their scent spreads. + There greyhounds and braches run in the leash. + Pretty spaniel pets with the ladies: + Several parrots go about the tables. + Falcons, ger-falcons, hawks, and sparrow-hawks, + Carry various snakes all about. + The palfreys houselled at the doors; + The doors open, and the halls partitioned + As suits the people that have come. + Expert seneschals and other officers. + Bread of manna only, and the weather splendid. + Fountains rise up from new springs: + They sprinkle where they are wanted, and are beautiful. + + The trumpet sounds, and the bridegroom with his following + Chooses his company as he likes. + Ladies amorous, joyous, and lovely, + Trained, and noble, and of like age, + Take the bride, and usher her as befits: + They give her place to sit at table. + Now damsels and donzels around, + The many ladies who have taken their seats, + All prattle of love and joy. + + A gentle wind which keeps off the flies + Tempers the air, and refreshes hearts. + From the sun spring laughs in the fields: + Nowhere can the eye settle. + At your foot run delightful rills: + At times the fish leap from the water. + Jongleurs[42] clad by gift: + Here vestments of fashion unprecedented, + There with pearls and precious stones + Upon their heads, and solemn garb: + Here are rings which emit a splendour + Like that of the sun outside. + Now all the men and all the ladies have washed, + And then the water is given to the bride: + And I resume speaking of her deportment. + + Let her have washed her hands aforetime, + So that she may then not greatly bedim the water. + Let her not much set-to at washing in the basin, + Nor touch mouth or teeth in washing: + For she can do this afterwards in her chamber, + When it shall be needful and fitting. + Of the savoury and nicest viands + Let her accept, but little, and avoid eating many: + And let her, several days before, have noted + The other customs above written; + Here let her observe those which beseem the place. + Let her not intervene to reprehend the servitors, + Nor yet speak, unless occasion requires. + Let it appear that she hardly minds any diversion, + But that only timidity quenches her pleasure: + But let her, in eating, so manage her hands + That, in washing, the clear water may remain. + The table being removed, let her stay with the ladies + Somewhat more freely than at her arrival: + Yet for this day let her, I pray, + Abstain from laughing as far as she can, keeping + Her countenance so as not to appear out of humour, + But only timid, as has often been said. + If the other ladies sleep that day, + Let her also repose among them, + And prepare herself the better for keeping awake. + Let her drinking be small. I approve a light collation, + Eating little: and in like wise at supper + Let her avoid too many comfits or fruits: + Let her make it rather slight than heavy. + + Some ladies make ready to go, + And some others to retire to their chambers. + Those remain who are in charge of her: + All approach to cheer her. + She embraces her intimates: + Let her make the kindest demonstrations to all— + ‘Adieu, adieu’—tearful at parting. + They all cheer her up, and beg her to be + Confident, and many vouch + That her husband has gone to a distance: + Her guardians say the same. + They bring her inwards to a new chamber, + Whose walls are so draped + That nothing is seen save silk and gold; + The coverlets starred, and with moons. + The stones shine as it were the sun: + At the corners four rubies lift up a flame + So lovely that it touches the heart: + Here a man kindles inside and out. + Richest cambrics cover the floor. + Here baldaquins and the benches around + All covered with woven pearls; + Pillows all of smooth samite, + With the down of griffin-birds[43] inside; + Many topazes, sapphires, and emeralds, + With various stones, as buttons to these. + Beds loaded on beds with no bedstead, + Draped all with foreign cloths:[44] + Above the others the chiefest and soft, + With a new covering of byssus.[45] + Of this the down is from the phœnix-bird:[46] + It has one bolster and no more, + Not too large, but of fine form. + Over it sheets of worked silk, + Soft, yielding, delicate, and durable: + A superb quilt, and cuttings-out[47] within; + And, traced with the needle and of various cutting, + Fishes and birds and all animals, + A vine goes round the whole, + The twigs of pearls, and the foliage of gems, + Among which are those of all virtues, + Written of or named as excellent, + In the midst of it turns a wheel + Which represents the figure of the world; + Wherein birds, in windows of glass, + Sing if you will, and if not they are all mute. + There puppies of various kinds, + Not troublesome, and they make no noise: + If you call them, they make much of you. + On the benches flowers heaped and strewn— + Great is the odour, but not excessive: + Much balsam in vessels of crystal. + + A nurse says: ‘All things are yours. + You will lie by yourself in that bed: + We will all be sleeping here.’ + They show her the wardrobe at one side, + Wherein they say that they remain keeping watch. + They wash the Lady’s face and hands + With rose-water mixed with violets, + For in that country such is the wont. + They dress her hair, wind up her tresses, + Stand round about her, help her to disrobe. + Who takes her shoes off, happy she! + Her shoes are by no means of leather. + They look her in the face whether she is timorous: + She prays them to stay. + They tell her that they will sleep outside the bed, + At her feet, on the cloths I have spoken of. + ‘They make-believe to do so, and the Lady smiles. + They put her to bed: first they hold her,— + They turn the quilt over: and, her face being displayed, + All the shows of gems and draperies + Wane before that amorous beauty + Which issues from the eyes she turns around. + Her visage shines: the nurses disappear: + The Lady closes her eyes, and sleeps. + + Then these nurses trick the Lady. + They leave by the door which they had not shown her: + They go to the bridegroom who is waiting outside. + Him they tell of the trick. + There come around the new knight, + Young lord, puissant crown, + Many donzels and knights who wait + Solely for his chamber-service. + They give him water, as to the Lady: + His blond head each adorns, + Bright his countenance. Every one + Has gladness and joy, glad in his happiness. + They leave him in his jerkin, they bring him within: + They take off his shoes at the draped entry. + They all without, and the nurses at one side, + Stay quiet. A réveillée begins, + And so far off that it gives no annoy. + + The comely King crosses himself, and looks: + The Lady and the gems make a great splendour, + And it seems to him that this Queen is asleep. + He enters softly, and wholly undresses: + It appears that the Lady heaves a sigh. + The King is scared: he covers himself up in the bed. + He signals to the birds to sing: + They all begin, one by one, and low.[48] + The signal tells them to raise their note: + Higher they rise in singing—and perchance + This noise may wake the Lady up. + Again he signals that they should all trill louder. + + The Lady heaves a sigh, and asks, + ‘Who is there?’—Says the King: ‘I am one + Whom thy beauties have brought hither.’ + She is troubled, and calls the nurses. + The King replies: ‘I have turned them all out.’ + She moves, wanting to get up: + She finds no clothes, for they have carried them away. + The King remains quiet, and waits to see + In what way he may be able to please her, + And says to her: ‘I have only come hither + To speak to thee a few words: + Listen a little, and then I will go.’ + +An elaborate dialogue ensues, conducted on the most high-paced footing +of enamoured courtesy. It contains the strangely beautiful passage +translated in my brother’s _Early Italian Poets_, and which I reproduce +here; taking therewith my leave both of this singular specimen of +how Kings and Queens might, would, could, or should confer on their +bridal-night, and also of Francesco da Barberino himself. The Queen is +the speaker. + + ‘Do not conceive that I shall here recount + All my own beauty: yet I promise you + That you, by what I tell, shall understand + All that befits and that is well to know. + My bosom, which is very softly made, + Of a white even colour without stain, + Bears two fair apples, fragrant, sweetly savoured, + Gathered together from the Tree of Life + The which is in the midst of Paradise. + And these no person ever yet has touched; + For out of nurse’s and of mother’s hands + I was when God in secret gave them me. + These ere I yield I must know well to whom; + And, for that I would not be robbed of them, + I speak not all the virtue that they have: + Yet thus far speaking— Blessed were the man + Who once should touch them, were it but a little; + See them I say not, for that might not be. + My girdle, clipping pleasure round-about, + Over my clear dress even unto my knees + Hangs down with sweet precision tenderly; + And under it Virginity abides. + Faithful and simple and of plain belief + She is, with her fair garland bright like gold, + And very fearful if she overhears + Speech of herself; the wherefore ye perceive + That I speak soft lest she be made ashamed. + Lo! this is she who hath for company + The Son of God, and Mother of the Son. + Lo! this is she who sits with many in heaven: + Lo! this is she with whom are few on earth.’ + +[Sidenote: SANDRO DI PIPPOZZO. GRAZIOLO DE’ BOMBAGLIOLI. UGOLINO BRUCOLA.] + +Tiraboschi mentions a book which might perhaps be useful in further +illustrating Italian manners at the end of the 13th century: but I have +no direct knowledge of it,—a Treatise on the Governing of a Family, +written by Sandro di Pippozzo in 1299. A treatise on Moral Virtues +(_Sopra le Virtù Morali_) was composed by Graziolo de’ Bombaglioli, a +Bolognese, in Italian verse, with a comment in Latin, the date being +about the middle of the 14th century; and was published in 1642, being +at that time mistakenly attributed to King Robert of Naples. It is not +a Courtesy-Book; but, referring back to what has been said (on p. 12) +regarding the definitions of nobility given by Brunetto Latini, Dante, +and Barberino, I may cite part of what Bombaglioli says on the same +subject: + + ‘Neither long-standing wealth nor blood confers nobility; + But virtue makes a man noble (_gentile_); + And it lifts from a vile place + A man who makes himself lofty by his goodness.’ + +A third and older book, no doubt very much to our purpose, would be one +which Ubaldini (in his edition of Barberino’s _Reggimento_) refers to +as having been laid under contribution by that poet in compiling his +_Documenti d’Amore_—viz. a rhymed composition, in the Romagnole dialect, +on Methods of Salutation, by Ugolino Brucola (or Bruzola). This work, +again, is unknown to me; and, as I can trace no mention of it even in +Tiraboschi, a writer of most omnivorous digestion, I infer that it may +not improbably have perished. + +Skipping therefore about a century and a quarter, within which Italian +literature was made for ever illustrious by the _Commedia_ of Dante, and +the writings of Petrarca and Boccaccio, not to speak of others, we come +to the early 15th century, still in Florence. + +[Sidenote: AGNOLO PANDOLFINI.] + +Agnolo Pandolfini wrote on the same subject as Sandro di Pippozzo, +the Governing of a Family (_Del Governo della Famiglia_). He died in +1446, aged about 86; and the date of his treatise seems to be towards +1425-30. This work must not be confounded with one bearing the same +title, frequently cited in the Dizionario della Crusca, and which deals +more particularly with morals and religion. Pandolfini, both by birth +and doings, was a very illustrious son of Florence: in 1414, 1420, and +1431, he held the highest dignity of the state, that of Gonfalonier of +Justice. He opposed the banishment of Cosmo de’ Medici, and was treated +with distinguished honour by that great though dangerous citizen on +his return. His treatise takes the form of a dialogue, wherein Agnolo +holds forth _ore rotundo_ to his sons and grandsons. The old gentleman +is indeed fearfully oracular, and possessed with a fathomless belief in +himself. He writes well, and with plenty of good sense. His book is not, +in the straitest acceptation of the term, a Courtesy-Book, but rather a +cross between the moral and the prudential—a dissertation of Œconomics. +Here are some samples of his lore. + +[Sidenote: THE GOVERNO DELLA FAMIGLIA.] + + To choose a house wherein one can settle comfortably for life + is a great consideration. A locality with good air and good + wine should be sought out: better to buy it than to rent it. + The whole family should have one roof, one entrance-door, one + fire, and one dining-table: this subserves the purposes both of + affection and of thrift. + + The family and household should be well dressed. Even when + living a country life, they should keep on the town dress: good + cloth and cheerful colours, but without fancy-ornaments save + for the women. + + The head of the family should commit to his wife the immediate + care of the household goods: men, however careful, should not + be poking and prying into every corner, and looking whether the + candles have too thick a wick. ‘It is well for every lady to + know how to cook, and prepare all choice viands; to learn this + from cooks when they come to the house for banquets; to see + them at work, ask questions, learn, and bear in mind, so that, + when guests come who ought to be received with welcome, the + ladies may know and order all the best things—and so not have + to send every time for cooks. This cannot be done at a moment’s + notice, and especially when one is in the country, where good + cooks are not to be had, and strangers are more in the way + of being asked. Not indeed that the lady is to cook; but she + should order, teach, and show the less skilful servants to do + everything in the best way, and make the best dishes suitable + to the season and the guests.’ + + ‘I [the infallible Agnolo Pandolfini] always liked so to order + the household that, at whatever hour of day or night, there + should always be some one at home to look after all casualties + that might happen to the inmates. And I always kept in the + house a goose and a dog—wakeful animals, and, as we see, + suspicious and attached; so that, one of them rousing the + other, and calling up the household, the house might always be + secure.’ + + Always buy of the best—food, clothes, &c., &c. ‘Good things + cost less than the not good.’ + +[Sidenote: MATTEO PALMIERI.] + +That Agnolo Pandolfini was regarded as a great authority not by himself +alone is proved by the fact that Matteo Palmieri, the author of a +Dialogue on Civil Life (_Della Vita Civile_), makes him the principal +speaker. And this was perhaps even during Agnolo’s lifetime: the +assumed date of the colloquy being 1430 (very much the same as that of +Pandolfini’s own book), and the actual date of composition being probably +enough not many years later. Palmieri was born in Florence in 1405, and +died in 1475, honoured for conspicuous integrity, and distinguished +by many public employments. The _Vita Civile_ is regarded as his most +important literary work. The interlocutors, besides Pandolfini, are +a Sacchetti and a Guicciardini. The subject-matter is more grave and +weighty than that of a Courtesy-Book strictly so called, though we may +dip into it for a detail or two. The following is Palmieri’s own account +of the work: + + ‘The whole performance is divided into four books. In the 1st + the new-born boy is diligently conducted up to the perfect age + of man; showing by what nurture and according to what arts he + should prove more excellent than others. The following two + books are written concerning Uprightness; and express in what + manner the man of perfect age should act, in private and in + public, according to every moral virtue. Whence, in the former + of these, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence, are treated of + at large—also other virtues comprised in these. The next is 3rd + in order, and is all devoted to Justice, which is the noblest + part of men, and above all others necessary for maintaining + every well-ordered commonwealth. Wherefore here is diffusely + treated of Civil Justice; how people should conduct themselves + in peace; and how wars are managed; how, within the city by + those who hold the magistracies, and beyond the walls by the + public officials, the general well-being is provided for. The + last book alone is written concerning Utility, and provides + for the plenty, ornament, property, and abundant riches, of + the whole body politic. Then in the final portion, as last + conclusion, is shown, not without true doctrine, what is the + state of the souls which in the world, intent upon public good, + have lived according to the precepts of life here set forth + by us; in reward whereof they have been by God received into + heaven, to be happy eternally in glory with his saints.’ + +[Sidenote: THE VITA CIVILE.] + +Palmieri would have boys eschew any sedentary pastimes. They may jump, +run, and play at ball; and music is highly suitable for them. To beat +them is a barbarism. This may indeed, sometimes and perhaps, be necessary +with boys ‘who are to follow mechanical and servile arts,’ but not with +those who are carefully brought up by father and preceptor. Begin with +encouragements to the well-behaved, and admonitions to the naughty: and +the severer punishments should be ‘to shut him in; to withhold such food +and other things as he best likes, to take away his clothing, and so on; +to make him ponder long while over his misdoing.’ (This is singularly +gentle discipline for A.D. 1430: indeed Palmieri intimates that ‘almost +all people’ advocated manual correction in his time. Had any other +writer, of so early a date, discovered that ‘spare the rod and spoil the +child’ is not the sum-total of management for minors?) + +A dinner-party is considered well made up, in point of numbers, if the +persons present are not less than three, nor more than nine. A larger +number than the latter cannot all join together in united conversation. + +‘The expenses of a munificent man should be in things that bring honour +and distinction; not private, but public—as in buildings, and ornaments +of churches, theatres, loggias, public feasts, games, entertainments; and +in such like magnificences he should not compute nor reckon how much he +spends, but by what means the works may be to the utmost wonderful and +‘beautiful.’ (Nice doctrine this for some of our conscript fathers in +England, whose perennial diligence is, as Carlyle says, ‘preserving their +game.’ But the Florentine Republic was in that outcast condition that the +noblemen were not only not hereditary legislators, but were _ipso facto_ +excluded from all public employment, unless they enrolled themselves in +the commonalty by belonging to one of the legislating guilds.) + +[Sidenote: BALDASSAR CASTIGLIONE.] + +Both Pandolfini and Palmieri are authors of good repute in Italian +literature: but by no means equal to the writer next on our list, +Baldassar Castiglione, with his book named _The Courtier_ (_Il +Cortigiano_). This is a remarkably choice example of Italian prose; +which is the more satisfactory because Castiglione was not a Tuscan, but +a Mantuan, and a proclaimed enemy of that narrow literary creed, the +palladium of pedants and ever-recurring bane of strong individualism +among Italian writers, that, save in the Florentine-Tuscan language (or +dialect) of the ‘_buon secolo_,’ the days of Petrarca and Boccaccio, +there is no orthodoxy of diction. Some noticeable details on this point +are to be found in the _Cortigiano_: showing that the ultra-purists of +that time insisted upon the use by writers, whether Tuscan or belonging +to other parts of Italy, of words occurring in Petrarca and Boccaccio +already quite obsolete and hardly intelligible even in Tuscany—and also +upon the use of corrupt forms of words framed from the Latin, because +these pertained to the Tuscan idiom, even although correct forms of the +same words were in current use in other Italian regions. In all such +regards Castiglione claims for himself unfettered latitude of choice: +the verbal precisian, scared at his theoretic license, is surprised and +relieved to find that after all the book is not only endurable in style, +even to his own punctilious ears, but particularly elegant. + +Baldassar Castiglione was born on the 6th of December 1478[49] at +Casatico, in the Mantuan territory. Noble and handsome, he grew up almost +universally accomplished and learned; a distinguished connoisseur; and +valued by all the most eminent men of his time. His full-length portrait +appears in one of the frescoes of Raphael in the Stanze of the Vatican. +He went on many embassies—among others, to England. Henry VIII., of whose +youthful promise he speaks in the most rapturous terms, knighted him: the +Emperor Charles V. said that by Castiglione’s death chivalry lost its +brightest luminary. His career closed at Toledo on the 2nd of February +1529. Among his writings are poems in Latin and Italian, but his chief +work is the _Cortigiano_. This was composed between the years 1508 and +1518; and published in 1528, in a state which its author regarded as +somewhat hurried and incomplete. It is written in the narrative form, but +consisting principally of dialogue, or indeed of successive monologues; +and purports to relate certain _conversazioni_ (rightly to be so called) +which were held in 1506 in the court of Urbino, for the delectation of +the Duchess Elisabetta della Rovere (by birth a Gonzaga) and her ladies. +The topic proposed for treatment is—what should a perfectly qualified +Courtier be like? The principal speakers on the general subject are +the Conte Lodovico da Canossa, Federico Fregoso, and Ottavian Fregoso; +Bernardo Bibiena takes up the special question of _facetiæ_, and Giuliano +de’ Medici speaks of the Court Lady, and generally in honour of women. + +The term Courtier has not a very exalted sound to a modern or English +ear: but Castiglione’s ideal Courtier is a truly noble and gallant +gentleman, furnished with all sorts of solid no less than splendid +qualities. His ultimate _raison d’être_ is that he should always, through +good and evil report, tell his sovereign the strict truth of all things +which it behoves him to know—certainly a sufficiently honourable and +handsomely unfulfilled duty. The tone throughout is lofty, and of more +than conventional or courtly rectitude:[50] indeed, the book as a whole +is hardly what one associates mentally with the era of Pagan Popes,—of a +Cæsar Borgia just cleared off from Romagna, and an Alessandro de’ Medici +impending over Florence. + +[Sidenote: THE CORTIGIANO.] + +Almost the only illustration which Castiglione supplies of the art of +dining is the following anecdote: + + ‘The Marquis Federico of Mantua, father of our Lady Duchess, + being at table with many gentlemen, one of them, after he had + eaten a whole stew, said, “My Lord Marquis, pardon me;” and, so + saying, he began to suck up the broth that was left. Forthwith + then said the Marquis: “You should ask pardon of the pigs, for + to me there is no harm done at all!”’ + +Some other points I take as they come. + + ‘Having many a time reflected wherefrom Grace arises (not + to speak of those who derive it from the stars), I find one + most universal rule, which seems to me to hold good, in this + regard, in all human things done and said, more than aught + else; and this is—to avoid affectation as much as one can, and + as a most bristling and perilous rock, and (to use perhaps a + new-coined word) to do everything with a certain slightingness + [_sprezzatura_], which shall conceal art, and show that what + is done and said comes to one without trouble and almost + without thinking.’ Yet there may be as much affectation in + slightingness itself as in punctilio. Instances adduced of the + latter, as regards the care of the person, are the setting a + scrap of looking-glass in a recess of one’s cap, and a comb + in one’s sleeve, and keeping a page to follow one perpetually + about with a sponge and a clothes-brush. Female affectations + were ‘the plucking out the hair of eyebrows and forehead, and + undergoing all those inconveniences which you ladies fancy to + be altogether occult from men, and which nevertheless are all + known.’ + + The perfect Courtier ought to know music—sing at sight, and + play on various instruments; he ought also to have a practical + knowledge of drawing and painting. Better even than singing at + sight is singing solo to the viol, and most especially thus + singing in recitative [_per recitare_], ‘which adds to the + words so much grace and force that great marvel it is.’ All + stringed instruments are well suited for the Courtier; not so + wind-instruments, ‘which Minerva interdicted to Alcibiades, + because they have an unseemly air.’ The Court Lady also ought + to have knowledge of letters, music, and painting, as well + as of dancing, and how to bear her part in entertainments + [_festeggiare_]. + + ‘Old men blame in us many things which, of themselves, are + neither good nor bad, but only because _they_ used not to do + them: and they say that it is unbefitting for young men to go + through the city riding, especially on mules; to wear in the + winter fur linings and long robes; to wear a cap [_berretta_], + at any rate until the man has reached eighteen years of + age,—and other the like things. Wherein in sooth they mistake: + for these customs, besides being convenient and serviceable, + are introduced by fashion, and universally accepted,—as + aforetime to dress in the open tunic [_giornea_], with open + hose and polished shoes, and for gallantry to carry all day a + hawk on the fist for no reason, and to dance without touching + the lady’s hand, and to adopt many other modes which, as they + would now be most awkward, so then were they highly prized.’ + + Federico Fregoso, the chief speaker of the second evening, is + of opinion that a man of rank ought not to honour with his + presence a village feast, where the spectators and company + would be coarse people. To this Gaspar Pallavicino demurs; + saying that, in his native Lombardy, many young noblemen will + dance all day under the sun with country people, and play with + them at wrestling, running, leaping, and so on—exercises of + strength and dexterity in which the countrymen are often the + winners. Fregoso rejoins that this, if done at all, should + be not by way of emulation but of complaisance, and when the + nobleman feels tolerably sure of conquering; and generally, in + all sorts of exercises save feats of arms, he should stop short + of anything like professional zeal or excellence. [A concluding + hint worth consideration in these days of ‘Athletic Clubs.’] + +The discourse of Bernardo Bibiena on _facetiæ_ is a magazine of good +things, both anecdotic, epigrammatic, and critical. The speaker is +particularly severe on ‘funny men’ and ‘jolly dogs’; concerning whom I +venture to introduce one consecutive extract of some little length. + + ‘The Courtier should be very heedful of his beginnings, so as + to leave a pleasing impression, and should consider how baneful + and fatal it is to fall into the contrary. And this danger do + they more than others run who make it their business to be + amusing, and assume with these their quips a certain liberty + authorizing and licensing them to do and say whatever strikes + them, without any consideration. Thus these people start off on + matters whence, not knowing their way out again, they try to + help themselves off by raising a laugh: and this also they do + so scurvily that it fails; so that they occasion the severest + tedium to those who see and hear them, and they themselves + remain most crestfallen. Sometimes, thinking thus to be witty + and lively, in the presence of ladies of honour, and often even + in speaking to them, they set-to at uttering most nasty and + indecent words: and, the more they see them blush, so much the + more do they account themselves good courtiers: and ever and + anon they laugh and plume themselves at so bright a gift which + they think their own. But for no purpose do they commit so many + imbecilities as in order to be thought “boon companions.” This + is that only name which appears to them worthy of praise, and + which they vaunt more than any other; and, to acquire it, they + bandy the most blundering and vile blackguardisms in the world. + Often will they shove one another down-stairs; knock ribs with + bludgeons and bricks; throw handfuls of dust into the eyes; + and bring down people’s horses upon them in ditches, or on the + slope of a hill. Then, at table, soups, sauces, jellies, all + do they flop in one another’s face: and then they laugh! And + he who can do the most of these things accounts himself the + best and most gallant courtier, and fancies he has gained great + glory. And, if sometimes they invite a gentleman to these their + pleasantries, and he abstains from such horse-play, forthwith + they say that he makes himself too sage and grand, and is not a + “boon companion.” But worse remains to tell. There are some who + vie and wager which of them can eat and drink the most nauseous + and fetid things; and these they hunt up so abhorrent to human + senses that it is impossible to mention them without the + utmost disgust.—“And what may these be?” said Signor Lodovico + Pio.—Messer Federico replied: “Let the Marquis Febus [da Ceva] + tell you, as he has often seen them in France; and perhaps the + thing has happened to himself.”—The Marquis Febus replied: “I + have seen nothing of the sort done in France that is not also + done in Italy. But, on the other hand, what is praiseworthy in + Italian habits of dress, festivities, banqueting, fighting, + and whatever else becomes a courtier, is all derived from the + French.”—“I deny not,” answered Messer Federico, “that there + are among the French also most noble and unassuming cavaliers: + and I for my part have known many truly worthy of all praise. + Yet some are to be found by no means well-bred: and, speaking + generally, it appears to me that the Spaniards get on better + in manner with the Italians than the French do; since that + calm gravity peculiar to the Spaniards seems to me much more + conformable to us than the rapid liveliness which is to be + recognized almost in every movement of the French race—which + in them is not derogatory, and even has grace, because to + themselves it is so natural and appropriate that it indicates + no sort of affectation in them. There are indeed many Italians + who would fain force themselves to imitate that manner; and + they can manage nothing else than jogging the head in speaking, + and bowing sideways with a bad grace, and, when they are + walking about, going so fast that the grooms cannot keep up + with them. And with these modes they fancy they are good French + people, and partake of their offhand ways: a thing indeed which + seldom succeeds save with those who have been brought up in + France, and have got into these habits from childhood upwards.” + +The reader will probably agree with me in thinking that Castiglione’s own +opinion is expressed here rather in the speech of Federico Fregoso than +of the Marquis Febus; and that the all-accomplished Italian patrician +of the opening sixteenth century by no means regarded the French as the +courteous nation _par excellence_. Elsewhere it is remarked that the +French recognize nobility in arms only, and utterly despise letters and +literary men; and that presumption is a leading trait in the national +character. + +Castiglione does not seem to have entertained the same objection to +gesturing that Francesco da Barberino did. In amusing narration or +story-telling, at any rate, he approves of this accompaniment; speaking +of people who ‘relate and express so pleasantly something which may have +happened to them, or which they have seen or heard, that with gestures +and words they set it before your eyes, and make you almost lay your hand +upon it.’ + +The banefulness of a wicked Courtier is set forth in strong terms. + + ‘No punishment has yet been invented horrid and tremendous + enough for chastising those wicked Courtiers who direct to a + bad end their elegant and pleasant manners and good breeding, + and by these means creep into the good graces of their + sovereigns, to corrupt them, and divert them from the path of + virtue, and lead them into vice: for such people may be said + to infect with mortal poison, not a vessel of which one only + person has to drink, but the public fountain which the whole + population uses.’ + +[Sidenote: GIOVANNI BATTISTA POSSEVINI.] + +The last two authors on our list, Giovanni Battista Possevini and +Giovanni della Casa, will bring us to about the middle of the sixteenth +century; beyond which I do not propose to pursue the subject of Italian +Courtesy-Books. We are now fairly out of the middle ages, and in the +full career of transition from the old to the new. Indeed, were it not +that Della Casa’s work, _Il Galateo_, is so peculiarly apposite to our +purpose, I might have been disposed to leave both these writers aside as +a trifle too modern in date: but, coming closer as that does to the exact +definition of a Courtesy-Book than any other of the compositions which we +have been considering, it must perforce find admission here,—and a few +words may at the same time be spared to Possevini, who introduces us to a +special department of manners. And first of Possevini. + +This writer was (like Castiglione) a Mantuan, and died young—perhaps +barely aged thirty. A famous man of letters, Paolo Giovio, found him to +be ‘a son of melancholy, and so learned, according to the title of Christ +on the cross,[51] as to make one marvel: he is a good poet.’ The book +we have to deal with is of considerable size, a _Dialogue concerning +Honour_ (_Dialogo dell’ Onore_): it was published in 1553, after the +author’s death, which seems to have occurred towards 1550. Possevini is +charged with having borrowed freely from another writer, who devoted +himself to the denunciation of duelling, Antonio Bernardi; although +indeed the _publication_ of Bernardi’s book did not take place till some +years after the posthumous work of Possevini was in print. The special +subject of the latter, as we have said, is honour—the quality and laws +of honour, with a leading though not exclusive reference to the duelling +system. Many other Italian writers of this period discussed that latter +question, some upholding and some reprobating the institution. Possevini +is certainly not one of its adversaries, but debates many of the +ancillary points with the particularity of a casuist. The few items which +I shall extract are cited more as curiosities than as fairly representing +the substance of the book. + +[Sidenote: THE DIALOGO DELL’ ONORE.] + + A man of letters affronted by a military man is not—so + Possevini lays it down—bound to call him out, for the duel + is not his vocation. If he is depreciated in his literary + character, it is in writing that he should respond: if he is + otherwise damnified, let him appeal to the magistrate. But this + latter course is not permitted to a soldier: fighting is his + business, and he must have recourse to the sword. The maxim + that, in duel, one is bound either to slay one’s adversary, + or take him prisoner, is barbarous: it should suffice to make + him recant or apologize, or to wound him, or to reduce him to + surrender and humiliation. + + A man who marries a professional courtesan lowers himself; yet + not so far as that he can properly be refused as a duellist, or + as a magistrate, or in other matters pertaining to honour. A + husband who connives at his own dishonour, either by positive + intention or by stupidity exceeding a certain limit, should + be refused as above; not so a betrayed husband who has taken + any ordinary precautions. The husband who detects his wife in + adultery, without resenting it, is a dishonoured man: yet to + kill her is beyond the mark,—to divorce her, contrary to canon + law. He should obtain a legal abrogation of the wife’s dowry, + or else, as a milder course, send her back to her own people, + and have no sort of knowledge of her thenceforth. + +[Sidenote: GIOVANNI DELLA CASA.] + +Monsignor Giovanni della Casa, created Archbishop of Benevento in 1544, +was born of noble Florentine parentage on the 28th of June 1503, and +died on the 14th of November 1556. He ranks as one of the best Latin +and Italian poets of his century; but some of his poems are noted for +licentiousness, and are even reputed to have damaged his ecclesiastical +career, and lost him a Cardinal’s hat. The works thus impugned appear all +to belong to his youth. He had already obtained some church-preferment, +and was settled in Rome, by the year 1538. On the election of Pope Julius +III., in 1550, Della Casa lived privately in the city or territory of +Venice, in great state, and distinguished for courteous and charitable +munificence. Paul IV., who succeeded to the papacy in 1555, recalled him +to Rome, and created him Secretary of State. + +[Sidenote: THE GALATEO.] + +The _Galateo_ (written, I presume, somewhere about 1550) has always been +a very famous book in Italy; and of that sort of fame which includes +great general as well as literary acceptance. It is a model of strong +sententious Tuscan; approaching the pedantic, yet racily idiomatic at +the same time. The title in full runs _Galateo, or concerning Manners; +wherein, in the Character of an Elderly Man [Vecchio Idiota] instructing +a Youth, are set forth the things which ought to be observed and avoided +in ordinary intercourse_. The paragraphs are numbered, and amount to +180.[52] The name _Galateo_ is given to the book in consequence of a +little anecdote which it introduces, apparently from real life. There +was once a Bishop of Verona named Giovanni Matteo Giberti, noted for +liberality. He entertained at his house a certain Count Ricciardo—a +highly accomplished nobleman, but addicted (_proh pudor!_) to eating +his victuals with ‘an uncouth action of lips and mouth, masticating at +table with a novel noise very unpleasing to hear.’ The Bishop therefore +deemed it the kindest thing he could do to have the Count escorted on +his homeward way by a remarkably discreet, well-bred, and experienced +gentleman of the episcopal household, named Galateo, who wound up a +handsome compliment at parting with a plain exposition of the guest’s +peccadillo. His own misdoing was news to the Count: but he took the +information altogether in good part, and seriously promised amendment. + +Let us now dip into the _Galateo_ for a few axioms; first on dining, and +afterwards on other points of manners. + + You must not smell at the wine-cup or the platter of any one, + not even at your own; nor hand the wine which you have tasted + to another, unless your very intimate friend; still less offer + him any fruit at which you have bitten. Some monsters thrust + their snouts, like pigs, into their broth, and never raise + their eyes or hands from the victuals, and gorge rather than + eat with swollen cheeks, as if they were blowing at a trumpet + or a fire; and, soiling their arms almost to the elbows, make + a fearful mess of their napkins.[53] And these same napkins + they will use to wipe off perspiration, and even to blow + their noses. You must not so soil your fingers as to make + the napkin nasty in wiping them: neither clean them upon the + bread which you are to eat: [we should hope not]. In company, + and most especially at table, you should not bully nor beat + any servants; nor must you express anger, whatever may occur + to excite it; nor talk of any distressful matters—wounds, + illnesses, deaths, or pestilence. If any one falls into this + mistake, the conversation should be dexterously changed: + ‘although, as I once heard said by a worthy man our neighbour, + people often would be as much eased by crying as by laughing. + And he affirmed that with this motive had the mournful fictions + termed tragedies been first invented: so that, being set forth + in theatres, as was then the practice, they might bring tears + to the eyes of those who had need of this, and thus they, + weeping, might be cured of their discomfort. But, be this as + it may, for us it is not befitting to sadden the minds of + those with whom we converse, especially on occasions when + people have met for refreshment and recreation, and not to cry: + and, if any one languishes with a longing to weep, right easy + will it be to relieve him with strong mustard, or to set him + somewhere over the smoke.’ You should not scratch yourself at + table, nor spit; or, if spit you must, do it in a seemly way. + Some nations have been so self-controlling as not to spit at + all.[54] ‘We must also beware of eating so greedily that hence + comes hiccupping or other disagreeable act; as he does who + hurries so that he has to puff and blow, to the annoyance of + the whole company.’ Rub not your teeth with the napkin—still + less with your fingers: nor rinse out your mouth, nor spit + forth wine. ‘Nor, on rising from table, is it a nice habit to + carry your toothpick[55] in your mouth, like a bird which is + in nest-building,—or behind the ear, like a barber.’ You must + not hang the toothpick round your neck: it shows that you are + ‘overmuch prepared and provided for the service of the gullet,’ + and you might as well hang your spoon in the same way. Neither + must you loll on the table; nor by gesture or sound symbolize + your great relish of viands or wine—a habit fit only for + tavern-keepers and topers. Also you should not put people out + of countenance by pressing them to eat or drink. + + ‘To present to another something from the plate before oneself + does not seem to me well, unless he who presents is of much + the higher grade, so that the recipient is thereby honoured. + For, among equals in condition, it looks as if he who offers + the gift were setting himself up somehow as the superior: and + sometimes that which a man gives is not to the taste of him + it is given to. Besides, it implies that the dinner has no + abundance of dishes, or is not well distributed, when one has + too much, and another too little: and the master of the house + might take it as an affront. However, in this one should do as + others do, and not as it might be best to do in the abstract: + and in such fashions it is better to err along with others than + to be alone in well-doing. But, whatever may be the best course + in this, you must not refuse what is offered you; for it would + seem as if you slighted or reproved the donor.’ + + For one man to pledge another in the wine-cup is not an + Italian usage, nor yet rightly nationalized, and should be + avoided. Decline such an invitation; or confess yourself the + worse drinker, and give but one sip to your wine. ‘Thank God, + among the many pests which have come to us from beyond the + mountains, this vilest one has not yet reached us, of regarding + drunkenness as not merely a laughing-matter, but even a merit.’ + The only time when you should wash hands in company is before + going to table: you should do it then even though your hands + be quite clean, ‘so that he who dips with you into the same + platter may know that for certain.’ + + Well-bred servitors, serving at table, must on no account + scratch their heads or any other part of the body, nor thrust + their hands anywhere under their clothes out of sight, but + keep them ‘visible and beyond all suspicion,’ and scrupulously + clean. Those who hand about plates or cups must abstain from + spitting or coughing, and most especially from sneezing. If a + pear or bread has been set to toast, the attendant must not + blow off any ash-dust, but jog or otherwise nick it off. He + must not offer his pocket-handkerchief to any one, though it + be clean from the wash; for the person to whom it is offered + has no assurance of that fact, and may find it distasteful. The + usher must not take it upon himself to invite strangers, or to + retain them to dine with his lord: if he does so, no one who + knows his place will act on the invitation. + + Scraping the teeth together, whistling, screaming, grinding + stones, and rubbing iron, are grievous noises: and a man who + has a bad voice should eschew singing, especially a solo. + Coughing and sneezing must not be done loud. ‘And there is + also to be found such a person as, in yawning, will howl and + bray like an ass; and another who, with his mouth still agape, + _will_ go on with his talk, and emits that voice, or rather + that noise, which a mute produces when he tries to speak.’ + Indeed, much yawning should be altogether avoided: it shows + that your company does not amuse you, and that you are in a + vacant mood. ‘And thus, when a man yawns among others who are + idle and unoccupied, all they, as you may often have observed, + yawn forthwith in response; as if the man had recalled to + their memory the thing which they would have done before, if + only they had recollected it.’ Other acts discourteous to the + company you are in are—to fall asleep; to pace about the room, + while others are seated in conversation; to take a letter out + of your pouch, and read it; to set about paring your nails; or + to hum between your teeth, play the devil’s tattoo, or swing + your legs. Also you must not nudge a man with your elbow in + talking to him. Let us have no showing of tongue, nor overmuch + stroking of beard, nor rubbing-together of hands, nor heaving + of long-drawn sighs, nor shaking oneself up with a start, nor + stretching, and singing-out of ‘Dear me!’ + + Having used your pocket-handkerchief, don’t open it out to + inspect it. + + ‘They are in the wrong whose mouths are always full of + their babies, and their wife, and their nurse. “My little + boy yesterday made me laugh so—only hear.” “You never saw + a sweeter child than my Momus.” “My wife is so-and-so.” + “Said Cecchina:[56] and could you ever believe it of such a + scatterbrain?” There is no man so unoccupied that he can either + reply or attend to such nonsense: and the speaker becomes a + nuisance to everybody.’ + + In walking, you should not indulge in too much action, as by + sawing with your arms; nor should you stare other passers-by in + the face, as if there were some marvel there. + + ‘Now what shall I say of those who issue from the desk into + company with a pen behind the ear? or those who hold a + handkerchief in the mouth? or who lay one leg along the table? + or who spit on their fingers?’ + + Some people offend by affected humility, which is indeed + a practical lying. ‘With these the company has a bad + bargain whenever they come to a door; for they will for no + consideration in the world pass on first, but they step across, + and return back,—and so fence and resist with hands and arms + that at every third step it becomes necessary to battle with + them, and this destroys all peace and comfort, and sometimes + the business which is in hand.’ + +This last caveat leads on the author to a passage of importance regarding +ceremoniousness in general; from which we learn that that extreme of +etiquette was still almost an innovation in Italy in the middle of the +sixteenth century, and contrary to the national bias. This may surprise +some readers; for certainly the courteous Italian of the later period, +for all his characteristic ‘naturalness,’ has not been wanting in +ceremony, and the elaboration of politeness of phrase in his writing +is something observable—at least to Englishmen, the least ceremonious +nation, I suppose, under heaven (and that is by no means a term of +disparagement). I subjoin the passage from Della Casa, not a little +condensed; followed by another, still more abridged, concerning the +essence and right of elegant manners. + + ‘And therefore ceremonies (which we name, as you hear, by a + foreign word, as not having one of our own—which shows that our + ancestors knew them not, so that they could not give them any + name)—ceremonies, I say, differ little, to my thinking, from + lies and dreams, on account of their emptiness. As a worthy man + has more than once shown me, those solemnities which the clergy + use in relation to altars and the divine offices, and towards + God and sacred things, are properly called “ceremonies.” + But, as soon as men began to reverence one the other with + artificial fashions beyond what is fitting, and to call each + other “master” and “lord,” bowing and cringeing and bending in + sign of reverence, and uncovering, and naming one another by + far-sought titles, and kissing hands, as if theirs were sacred + like those of priests,—somebody, as this new and silly usage + had as yet no name, termed it “ceremoniousness”: I think, by + way of ridicule. Which usage, beyond a doubt, is not native to + us but foreign and barbarous, and imported, whencesoever it be, + only of late into Italy,—which, unhappy, abased, and spiritless + in her doings and influence, has grown and gloried only in vain + words and superfluous titles. Ceremonies, then,—if we refer to + the intention of those who practise them—are a vain indication + of honour and reverence towards the person to whom they are + addressed, set forth in words and shows, and concerned with + titles and proffers. I say “vain” in so far as we honour in + seeming those whom we hold in no reverence, and do sometimes + despise. And yet, that we may not depart from the customs + of others, we term them “Illustrissimo Signor” so-and-so, + and “Eccellentissimo Signor” such-a-one: and in like wise we + sometimes profess ourselves “most devoted servants” to some one + whom we would rather dis-serve than serve. This usage, however, + it is not for us individually to change—nay, we are compelled + (as it is not our own fault, but that of the time) to second + it; but this has to be done with discretion. Wherefore it is to + be considered that ceremonies are practised either for profit, + or for vanity, or by obligation. And every lie which is uttered + for our own profit is a fraud and sin and a dishonest thing + (as indeed one cannot in any sort of case lie with honour): + and this sin do flatterers commit. And, if ceremonies are, as + we said, lies and false flatteries, whenever we practise them + with a view to gain we act like false and bad men: wherefore, + with that view, no ceremony ought to be practised. Those which + are practised by obligation must in no wise be omitted; for he + who omits them is not only disliked but injurious. And thus + he who addresses a single person as “_You_” (if it is not a + person of the very lowest condition) does him no favour: nay, + were he to say “_Thou_,” he would derogate from his due, and + act insultingly and injuriously, naming him by the word which + is usually reserved for poltroons and clodhoppers. And these I + call “ceremonies of obligation”: since they do not proceed from + our own will, nor freely of our own choice, but are imposed + upon us by the law—that is, by common usage. And he who is wont + to be termed “Signore” by others, and himself in like manner + to address others as “Signore,” assumes that you contemn him + or speak affrontingly when you call him simply by his name, or + speak to him as “Messere,” or blurt out a “_You_.”[57] However, + in these ceremonies of obligation, certain points should be + observed, so that one may not seem either vain or haughty. And + first, one should have regard to the country one lives in; + for every usage is not apposite in every country. And perhaps + that which is adopted by the Neapolitans, whose city abounds + in men of great lineage, and in barons of lofty station, would + not suit the Lucchese or Florentines, who for the most part + are merchants and simply gentlemen, having among them neither + princes nor marquises nor any baron. Besides this, regard must + be paid to the occasion, to the age and condition of the person + towards whom we practise ceremony, and to our own; and, with + busy people, one should cut them off altogether, or at any + rate shorten them as much as one can, and rather imply than + express them: which the courtiers in Rome are very expert in. + Neither are men of great virtue and excellence in the habit + of practising many; nor do they like or seek that many be + practised towards them, not being minded to waste much thought + over futilities. Nor yet should artisans and persons of low + condition care to practise very elaborate ceremonies towards + great men and lords: for these rather than otherwise dislike + such demonstrations at their hands—for their way is to seek and + expect obedience more than civilities. And thus the servant who + proffers his service to his master makes a mistake: for the + master takes it amiss, and esteems that the servant wants to + call in question his mastership,—as if his right were not to + dictate and command. If you show a little suitable abundance + of politeness to those who are your inferiors, you will be + called courteous. And, if you do the same to your superiors, + you will be termed well-bred and agreeable. But he who should + in this matter be excessive and profuse would be blamed as vain + and frivolous; and perhaps even worse would befall him, for he + might be held evil and sycophantic. And this is the third kind + of ceremonies, which does indeed proceed from our will, and not + from usage. Let us then recollect that ceremonies (as I said + from the first) were naturally not necessary,—on the contrary, + people got on perfectly well without them: as our own nation, + not long ago, did almost wholly. But the illnesses of others + have infected us also with this and many other infirmities. For + which reasons, when we have submitted to usage, all the residue + in this matter that is superfluous is a kind of licit lying: or + rather, from that point onwards, not licit but forbidden—and + therefore a displeasing and tedious thing to noble souls, which + will not live on baubles and appearances. Vain and elaborate + and superabundant ceremonies are flatteries but little covert, + and indeed open and recognized by all. But there is another + sort of ceremonious persons who make an art and trade of this, + and keep book and document of it. To such a class of persons, + a giggle; and to such another, a smile. And the more noble + shall sit upon the chair, and the less noble upon the settle. + Which ceremonies I think were imported from Spain into Italy. + But our country has given them a poor reception, and they have + taken little root here; for this so punctilious distinction of + nobility is a vexation to us:[58] and therefore no one ought to + set himself up as judge, to decide who is more noble, and who + less so.—To speak generally, ceremoniousness annoys most men; + because by it people are prevented from living in their own + way—that is, prevented from liberty, which every man desires + before all things else.’ + + ‘Agreeable manners are those which afford delight, or at least + do not produce any vexation, to the feelings, appetite, or + imagination, of those with whom we have to do. A man should + not be content with doing that which is right, but should also + study to do it with grace. And grace [_leggiadria_] is as it + were a light which shines from the fittingness of things that + are well composed and well assorted the one with the other, + and all of them together; without which measure even the good + is not beautiful, and beauty is not pleasurable. Therefore + well-bred persons should have regard to this measure, both in + walking, standing, and sitting, in gesture, demeanour, and + clothing, in words and in silence, and in rest and in action.’ + +[Sidenote: THE TRATTATO DEGLI UFFICI COMUNI.] + +Besides the _Galateo_, Monsignor della Casa has left another and shorter +_Tractate on Amicable Intercourse between Superiors and Inferiors_ +(_Trattato degli Uffici Comuni tra gli Amici Superiori e Inferiori_). +This deals not so much with the relation between those who are rich and +those who are poor in the gifts of fortune, taken simply on that footing, +as with the connection between master and servant, patron and client, +magnate and dependent. The tone is grave and humane, with an adequate +share of worldly wisdom interspersed. The opening is interesting and +suggestive; and shows that the great ‘Servant Controversy,’ of which +the pages of English daily newspapers are now almost annually conscious +in the dull season, was by no means unknown to Italy in the sixteenth +century:— + + ‘I apprehend that the ancients were free from a great and + continual trouble; having their households composed, not of + free men, as is our usage, but of slaves, of whose labour they + availed themselves, both for the comforts of life, and to + maintain their repute, and for the other demands of society. + For, as the nature of man is noble, copious, and erect, and far + more apt to commanding than obeying, a hard and odious task do + those undertake who assume to exercise masterdom over it, while + still bold and of undiminished strength, as is done now-a-days. + To the ancients, in my judgment, it was no difficult or + troublesome thing to command those who were already quelled + and almost domesticated—people whom either chains, or long + fatigues, or a soul servile from very childhood, had bereaved + of pride and force. We on the contrary have to do with souls + robust, spirited, and almost unbending; which, through the + vigour of their nature, refuse and hate to be in subjection, + and, knowing themselves free, resist their masters, or at least + seek and demand (often with reason, but sometimes also without) + that in commanding them some measure be observed. Whence it + arises that every house is full of complaints, wranglings, + and questionings. And certainly this is the fact; because we + are unjust judges in our own cause,—and, as it is true that + everybody unfairly prizes his own affairs higher than those + of others, albeit of equal value, and consequently always + persuades himself that he has given more than he has received, + the thing cannot go on _pari passu_. Hence comes the wearisome + complaint of the one, “I have worn myself out in your house;” + and the rebuke of the other, “I have maintained and fed you, + and treated you well.”’ + +I can afford only one more extract from this treatise; which indeed +handles its general subject-matter more on the ground of fairness, +good-feeling, and expedient compromise of conflicting claims, than as a +question of courtesy—though neither is that left out of view. + + ‘In giving orders and assigning duties which have to be + fulfilled, let regard be paid to the condition of the + individuals; so that, if anything uncleanly is to be done, + that be allotted to the lowest, and it come not to pass (as + some perverse-natured people will have it) that noblemen[59] + should sweep the house, and carry slops out of the chambers. + Let not things of much labour be committed to the weak, nor the + degrading to the well-mannered, nor the frivolous and sportful + to the aged. Moreover let the masters be heedful not to impose + upon any one anything of uncommon difficulty or labour or + painstaking, unless of necessity or for some great cause; for + the laws of humanity command us not to make a call upon a man’s + diligence and solicitude beyond what is reasonable, or as if in + levity—especially if it exceeds the ordinary bounds.’ + +With this I shut up Della Casa’s volume, and take final leave of my +reader—trusting that, after perusing, skimming, or skipping, so much +matter concerning Courtesy, he will part from me on the terms of (at +lowest) a ‘courteous reader,’ in more than the merely conventional sense. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[1] As mentioned below, the first German work including something by way +of Courtesy-Book, ab. 1210 A.D., _Der Wälsche Gast_, was written by an +Italian, Tomasin von Zirclaria. + +[2] Possibly this notion prompted Dante to represent himself, in the +opening of the _Commedia_, as also lost in a forest. + +[3] The line here translated as one forms two in the Italian, and the +like with our sequel; Brunetto’s metre being an ungracefully short +one—thus: + + ‘Sie certo che Larghezza + È’l capo e la grandezza,’ &c. + +Indeed the metre keeps up such a perpetual jingling as almost to reduce +to doggerel what might, in a different rhythmical form, be accepted as +very fair rhyme and reason indeed. I have thrown the several couplets +into single lines, in the translation, simply with a view to saving space. + +[4] The original runs + + ‘Che, siccome dell’ arti, + Qualche vizio non prendi.’ + +This phrase is not quite clear to me; but I suppose the word ‘_arti_’ +is to be understood as meaning ‘crafts, trades, or professions,’ and +that Brunetto had been sharp enough to see that people become ‘shoppy’ +according to their respective shops. ‘Vous êtes orfèvre, Monsieur Josse.’ + +[5] ‘_Mercennaio_’—literally, mercenary or hireling. + +[6] ‘_Picciolini._’ These were, I gather, coins of a particular +denomination, but I have not been able to ascertain their precise value. + +[7] + + ‘Credesi far la croce, + Ma e’ si fa la fica.’ + +I have translated literally; but that of course makes something very +like nonsense in English. To ‘make the fig’ is a gesture of the thumb +and fingers, understood as gross and insulting in the highest degree. +The general sense of the passage is therefore—‘He fancies he is thus +testifying in his own honour, whereas it really does redound to his own +extreme shame.’ Readers of Dante, remembering the splendid canzone + + ‘Le dolci rime d’amor ch’ io solia,’ + +in which he refutes the false and defines the true bases of ‘nobility’ +(_gentilezza_), will perceive that the illustrious pupil had been to +a great extent anticipated by the teaching of his early instructor. +Francesco da Barberino (_Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne_) adopts a +middle course, discriminating ‘_gentilezza_’ thus: ‘Nobility is twoform +in quality and in origin. The first is a state of the human soul +contented in virtue, hostile to vice, exulting in the good of others, and +pitiful in their adversity. The second is mastery over men or riches, +derived from of old, sensitive to shame when brought low.’ + +[8] Here, on the contrary, we come to a precept the reverse of Dantesque. +Yet, on combining this passage with that which opens the ensuing +paragraph, it would seem that Brunetto does not mean to recommend +connivance with anything that is positively evil, but only with current +habits and fashions, objectionable though they may be, in matters +essentially indifferent—as of speech and deportment. + +[9] ‘_Briccon_’—the colloquial term still in daily use among Italians. + +[10] ‘_Solo d’una canzone_:’ literally, ‘merely for one song.’ The Abate +Zannoni understands this to mean ‘_per aver una sola volta canzonato +femmina_.’ He admits that this sense of the phrase is not discoverable in +that fetish of the Italian pedant, the Dizionario della Crusca; but as +I have no superior authority to oppose to that of Abate Zannoni, I have +followed his interpretation. + +[11] This seems strange doctrine—that love of courtesy and love of women +cannot co-exist in the same man—if we are to accept it in its amplest +sense. Perhaps, however, we are to understand that the speaker is still +confining his censures to miscellaneous and unsanctioned amours or +flirtations, especially with married women. + +[12] Poesie Lombarde Inedite del Secolo 13, publicate ed illustrate +da B. Biondelli. Milano: Bernardoni. 1856. We are indebted to Signor +Biondelli’s courtesy for a copy of this curious and interesting work. + +[13] Bonvexino (pronounced Bonv_es_ino) is, in modern Italian, +Bonvicino—i.e. good neighbour. + +[14] ‘Afresh’ represents the Italian ‘de frescho.’ Signor Biondelli +considers that the phrase means ‘afresh,’ indicating that Fra Bonvesino +had written his Courtesies in Latin before turning them into Italian. +Signor Biondelli, however, admits that ‘de frescho’ may also mean ‘now +recently,’ ‘just now’; and, but for his contrary preference, I should +attribute that meaning to the word in the present instance. + +[15] ‘Noxe.’ I _suppose_ this must represent the modern-Italian word +‘nozze,’ nuptials, though the incident of a wedding seems rather suddenly +introduced at this point, and does not re-appear afterwards. + +[16] Signor Biondelli understands this stanza in a somewhat different +sense, as applying to the _assigning_ of dishes, not the _signing_ of +the cross as a grace before meat. The reference to Christ seems to me to +create a strong presumption in favour of my interpretation. + +[17] It is clear from the general context that the victuals here spoken +of as to be eaten with a spoon are solid edibles—not merely soups or the +like: the spoon corresponding to the modern fork. The word translated +‘suck’ is ‘sorbilar:’ perhaps ‘mumble’ would convey the force of the +precept more fully though less literally. + +[18] I feel some doubt as to the meaning of this passage. + +[19] This appears to be the general sense of the last two lines. In the +final one Signor Biondelli gives up two words as unintelligible: he +infers that they must be miscopied. + +[20] This seems to contemplate the plan of the several guests helping +themselves off the dish brought to table. At any rate, so Signor +Biondelli understands it. + +[21] ‘Donzello.’ This precept seems to be especially addressed to the +servitors. Uguccione Pisano, quoted by Muratori, says: ‘Donnicelli +et Domicellæ dicuntur quando pulchri juvenes magnatum sunt sicut +servientes.’ Such Donzelli were not allowed to sit at table with the +knights; or, if allowed, had to sit apart on a lower seat. + +[22] ‘Drapi da pey.’ I confess to some uncertainty as to what sort of +thing these ‘foot-cloths’ may have been. Signor Biondelli terms them ‘the +cloths wherewith the feet were wrapped round and dried.’ He adds: ‘This +precept apprizes us that at that time the use of a pocket-handkerchief +was not yet introduced, and perhaps not even the use of stockings.’ One +would fain hope that the summit of Lombardic good breeding in 1290 was +not the wiping of noses on cloths actually and at the moment serving +for the feet. Possibly _drapi da pey_ is here a generic term; cloths or +napkins at hand for use, and which _might have_ served for foot-cloths. +Thus the word ‘duster’ might be employed in a similar connection, without +our being compelled to suppose that the individual duster had first been +used on the spot for dusting the tables or floors, and then for wiping +the nose. Or indeed, we moderns, who wipe our noses on _hand_-kerchiefs, +do not first use said kerchiefs for wiping our _hands_, nor yet for +_covering our heads_ (‘_couvre chef_’).—Reverting to Signor Biondelli’s +observation as to ‘the use of stockings,’ I may observe that Francesco +da Barberino, in a passage of his _Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne_, +speaks of ‘the beautiful foot shod in silk’—‘_calzato in seta_’—which +_may_ imply either a stocking or else a shoe. This poem, as we shall see +further on, is but little later than Bonvicino’s.—The reader may also +observe, at p. 68, the horror with which a much later writer, Della Casa, +contemplated the use of a dinner-napkin as a pocket-handkerchief. + +[23] ‘Chi s’ asetilia.’ Signor Biondelli cannot assign the exact sense of +this verb. I should suppose it to be either a form of ‘Assettarsi,’ to +settle oneself, to keep one’s place, or a corruption of ‘Assottigliarsi,’ +to subtilize, to be punctilious, to ‘look sharp.’ + +[24] ‘D’alchun obediente.’ This phrase, if directly connected with the +‘Jesu Xristo’ of the previous line, seems peculiar. I am not quite clear +whether the whole stanza is to be understood as an injunction to render +grace after meat, in thankfulness for what Christ has given one—or to +thank the _servants_ who have been waiting at table, and so to glorify +Christ by an act of humility. + +[25] ‘Dro bon vino dra carera.’ The general sense is evidently near what +the translation gives: but Signor Biondelli is unable to assign the +_precise_ sense. No wonder therefore that I am unable. + +[26] Several others must nevertheless have been written before or about +the same time; for Barberino himself, in the exordium to his _Reggimento +e Costumi delle Donne_, says— + + ‘There have been many who wrote books + Concerning the elegant manners of men, but not of women.’ + +[27] A full account of it by Mr Eugene Oswald follows the present Essay. + +[28] This injunction forms stanza 4 in our extract from Barberino +beginning at p. 38. + +[29] See at p. 40, the stanza beginning ‘And I think that he does amiss.’ + +[30] _The Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo d’Alcamo to Dante Alighieri +(1100-1200-1300), in the Original Metres: together with Dante’s Vita +Nuova. Translated by D. G. Rossetti. Smith and Elder, 1862._ + +[31] There is evidently something erroneous in this statement: Brunetto +died in 1294. The Editor of a collection of Italian Poets (_Lirici del +Secolo secondo, & c.—Venezia, Antonelli, 1841_) says: ‘Francesco went +through his _first_ studies under Brunetto Latini. _Hence he passed_ to +the Universities of Padua and of Bologna.’ Barberino being a Tuscan, this +seems the natural course for him to adopt, rather than to have gone to +Padua and Bologna _before_ Florence. My brother’s remark, as to the death +of Neri in 1296, and as to Francesco’s _subsequent_ sojourn in Florence, +agrees, however, with the statement made by Tiraboschi: apparently we +should understand that Francesco had been in Florence both before and +after his stay in Padua and Bologna, and that his studies under Brunetto +pertain to the earlier period. + +[32] _Teachings_ or _Lessonings of Love_ might probably express the sense +more exactly to an English ear. + +[33] ‘Chi vuol fare merli.’ The phrase means literally ‘he who wants to +make battlements’—or possibly ‘to make thrushes,’ I can only _guess_ +at its bearing in the present passage, having searched for a distinct +explanation in vain. It seems to be one of the myriad ‘_vezzi di lingua_’ +of old Italian, and especially old Tuscan, idiom. + +[34] ‘Di mandar a laveggio.’ I am far from certain as to the real meaning. + +[35] This precept, and especially a preceding one (p. 39) which enjoins +the host to place the guests in their appropriate seats, keeping by +himself those of less account, would seem to show that at this period the +seats at the right and left of the host (or hostess) were by no means +understood to be posts of honour. The absence of all mention, either in +Bonvicino or in Barberino, of the hostess or her especial duties, strikes +one as a singularity. That the hostess is nevertheless understood to be +present may be fairly inferred from the clearly expressed presence of +other ladies. + +[36] Prettily worded in the Italian: + + ‘Nè abbracciar stringendo, + Se non sei ben una cosa con quello.’ + +[37] + + Ancor c’ è molta gente + Ch’ han certi vizj in dono ed in servire, + Sì che poco gradire + Vediamo in lor quando ne fanno altrui: + + Chè non pensano a cui, + Nè che nè come, nè tanto nè quanto. + Altri fanno un procanto + Di sue bisogne, e poi pur fanno il dono. + + Ed altri certi sono + Che danno indugio, e credon far maggiore. + E molti che colore + Pongon a scusa, e poi pur fanno e danno. + + Ed altri che, com’ hanno + Servigio ricevuto, affrettan troppo + Disobbligar lo groppo + Col qual eran legati alli serventi: + + Onde sien tutti attenti + Che non è picciol vizio non volere + Obbligato manere; + Anzi par poi che sforzato sia largo. + + Dicemi alcuno: ‘Io spargo + Li don, per mia libertate tenere; + Non per altrui piacere.’ + Questo è gran vizio: ed è virtù maggiore, + + E più porta d’onore, + Saver donar la sua persona altrui, + Ricevendo da lui, + E star apparecchiato a meritaro. + + E non ti vo’ lassare + Lo vizio di colui che colla faccia + Non vuol dar sì che piaccia, + Ma turba tutto, e sta gran pezza mutto. + +[38] The mention of a slave in a Florentine household of the late 13th or +early 14th century may startle some readers. I translate the note which +Signor Guglielmo Manzi, the editor of the _Reggimento_, supplies on this +subject. ‘Slavery, which abases mankind, and revolts humanity and reason, +diminished greatly when the Christian religion was introduced into the +Roman Empire—that religion being in manifest opposition to so barbarous a +system. The more the one progressed in the world, the more did the other +wane; and, as Bodino observes in his book _De Republicâ_, slavery had +ceased in Europe, to a great extent, by 1200. I shall follow this author, +who is the only one to afford us some degree of light amid so great +obscurity. In the year 1212 there were still, according to him, slaves +in Italy; as may be seen from the ordinances of William, King of Sicily, +and of the Emperor Frederick II. for the kingdom of Naples, and from the +decretals of the Popes Alexander III., Urban III., and Innocent III., +concerning the marriages of slaves. The first of these Popes was elected +in 1158, the second in 1185, and the third in 1198; so that the principle +of liberty cannot be dated earlier than in or about 1250—Bartolo, +who lived in the year 1300, writing (_Hostes de Captivis_, I.) that +in his time there were no slaves, and that, according to the laws of +Christendom, men were no longer put up to sale. This assertion, however, +conflicts with the words of our author, who affirms that in his time—that +is, at the commencement of the 14th century—the custom existed. But, in +elucidation of Bartolo, it should be said that he implied that men were +no longer sold, on the ground that this was prohibited by the laws of +Christendom, and the edicts of sovereigns. In France it can be shown +that in 1430 Charles VII. gave their liberty to some persons of servile +condition; and even in the year 1548 King Henri II. liberated, by letters +patent, those of the Bourbonnais: and the like was done throughout +all his states by the Duke of Savoy in 1561. In the Hundred Tales of +Boccaccio we have also various instances showing that the sale of free +men was practised in Italy. These are in the 6th Tale of the 2nd Day, +the story of Madonna Beritola, whose sons remained in Genoa in serfdom; +and in the 6th of the 5th Day, the story of Frederick, King of Sicily; +and in the 7th of the same Day, the story of Theodore and Violante. It +is therefore clear, from all this evidence, that, in the time of Messer +Francesco, so execrable a practice was still prevalent; and, summing up +all we have said, it must be concluded that serfdom, in non-barbarian +Europe, was not entirely extinguished till the 16th century.’ + +[39] ‘Mottetti e parlari.’ Only a few specimens of these are given, and +they are all sufficiently occult. Here is one. ‘Grande a morte, o la +morte. Di molte se grava morte. [Responde Madonna] Dolci amorme, quel +camorme, dunque amorme conveniarme.’ + +[40] This Lady is an ideal or symbolic personage—presumably Wisdom. + +[41] Matteo Palmieri (see p. 58) indicates that the state of things was +the same in his time, about 1430: he is more decided than Barberino in +condemning it. + +[42] ‘Uomin di corte.’ This term was first applied to heralds, +chamberlains, and the like court-officials: subsequently to the +entertainers of a court, ‘giullari,’ jesters, and buffoons: and in +process of time it came to include courtiers of whatever class. In the +early writers—such as Barberino, Boccaccio, &c.—it is not always easy +for a translator to pitch upon the precise equivalent: the reader should +understand a personage who might be as romantic as a Troubadour, or as +quaint as a Touchstone—but tending rather towards the latter extreme. + +[43] ‘Uccelli grifoni.’ This seems a daring suggestion: possibly, as a +griffin is a compound of eagle and lion, we are to understand that the +eagle is the griffin-_bird_. + +[44] ‘Drappi oltramarin’—which _may_ mean foreign (from beyond sea), or +else of ultramarine colour: I rather suppose the former. + +[45] ‘Lana di pesce’—literally, fish’s wool. The term is new to me, nor +do I find it explained in dictionaries: I can only therefore surmise that +it designates the silky filaments of certain sea-mollusks, such as the +pinna of the Mediterranean. This byssus is still made use of in Italy for +gloves and similar articles. + +[46] !! + +[47] ‘Intaglj;’ and the next line gives the word ‘Scolture.’ Giovanni +Villani notes that in 1330 a prohibition was issued against ‘dresses +cut-out or painted:’ the fashion having run into the extravagance of +‘dresses cut-out with different sorts of cloth, and made of stuffs +trimmed variously with silks.’ + +[48] These seem to be very obedient birds: and their position, behind +glass windows in a globe figuring the world, was rather an odd one to +modern notions. The reader will keep me company in guessing whether or +not we are to take the whole description _au pied de la lettre_. + +[49] Tiraboschi says 1468; but that, as far as I can trace, is a mistake. + +[50] It may be fair to state that the work, as first published, was put +in the Roman index of prohibited books; and that the reissues (including +no doubt the edition known to me) have omitted the inculpated passages. +Whether these were objected to on moral or rather on ecclesiastical +grounds I cannot affirm: the book as now printed is not only quite free +from immoralities, but is decidedly moral, whereas there remains at least +one passage of a tone such as churchmen resent _ex officio_. + +[51] A noticeable proverbial phrase. It is new to me; but I suppose it +means either ‘learned in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin’ (the three languages +in which the inscription over the cross was written), or else perhaps +‘learned in languages generally.’ + +[52] That most capital and characteristic book, the Autobiography of the +tragedian Alfieri, contains a reference to the _Galateo_, which, longish +as it is, I am tempted to extract. ‘My worthy Paciaudi was wont to advise +me not to neglect, amid my laborious readings, works in prose, which he +learnedly termed the nurse of poetry. As regards this, I remember that +one day he brought me the _Galateo_ of Della Casa; recommending me to +ponder it well with respect to the turn of speech, which assuredly is +pure Tuscan, and the reverse of all Frenchifying. I, who in boyhood had +(as we all have) read it loosely, understood it little, and relished +it not at all, felt almost offended at this schoolboyish and pedantic +advice. Full of venom against the said _Galateo_, I opened it. And, at +the sight of that first _Conciossiacosachè_, to which is trailed-on +that long sentence so pompous and so wanting in pith, such an impulse +of rage seized me that, hurling the book out of window, I cried like a +maniac: “Surely a hard and disgusting necessity, that, in order to write +tragedies at the age of twenty-seven, I must swallow down again this +childish chatter, and relax my brain with such pedantries!” He smiled at +my uneducated poetic _furor_; and prophesied that I would yet read the +_Galateo_, and that more than once. And so it turned out; but several +years afterwards, when I had thoroughly hardened my neck and shoulders to +bear the grammatical yoke. And I read not only the _Galateo_, but almost +all our prose writers of the fourteenth century, and annotated them too: +with what profit I cannot say. But true it is that, were any one to +give them a good reading as regards their turn of phrase, and to manage +availing himself with judgment and skill of their array, rejecting the +cast clothes of their ideas, he might perhaps afterwards, in his writings +as well philosophic as poetic or historic, or of any other class, give a +richness, brevity, propriety, and force of colour, to his style, which +I have not as yet seen fully gracing any Italian writer.’ A word or two +may be spared to the formidable-looking vocable _Conciossiacosachè_ +which so excited Alfieri’s bile. It might be translated literally as +‘Herewith-be-something-that;’ and corresponds in practice to the English +‘Forasmuch as’—or more briefly ‘since,’ or ‘as.’ The Italian word +_poichè_ serves all the same uses, save that of longwindedness. But +_Conciossiacosachè_ itself is not lengthy enough for some Italian lips: +and I believe that even the phrase into which it has sometimes been +prolonged—‘Con ciò sia cosa fosse massimamente che’—has been used for +other than burlesquing purposes. + +[53] The comparison whereby our Archbishop illustrates the condition of +the napkins must perfume our page only in its native Italian—‘Che le +pezze degli agiamenti sono più nette.’ + +[54] This is affirmed by Xenophon of the Persians: he says in the +_Cyropædia_ that, both of old and in his own time, they did without +either spitting or blowing the nose—a proof of temperance, and of +energetic exercise which carried off the moisture of the body. + +[55] _Stecco._ ‘Toothpick’ is the only appropriate technical sense for +stecco given in the dictionaries; and I suppose it is correct here, +although Della Casa’s very next sentence, denouncing the carrying of this +implement round the neck, designates it by the word _stuzzicadenti_, and +it seems odd that the two terms should be thus juxta-posed or opposed. If +_stecco_ does not in this passage really mean ‘toothpick,’ I should infer +that it indicates some skewer-like object, used possibly as a fork—i.e. +to secure the viands on the plate, while they are severed with a spoon, +and by that conveyed to the mouth (see pp. 21 and 34 as to the use of +spoon instead of fork in Bonvicino’s time). This would in fact be a sort +of chop-stick. Such an inference is quite compatible with the _general_ +sense of the word _stecco_—any stake or splint of wood. + +[56] Cecchina is a double diminutive of Francesca; corresponding to +‘Fannikin’ or ‘Fan.’ + +[57] The English reader may fancy that this passage conflicts with that +which immediately precedes: but such is not the case. In the earlier +passage, the use of _You_ was recommended as more civil than _Thou_: in +the later passage, the use of _Vossignoria_ (or other the like impersonal +term, where appropriate) as more respectful than _You_. + +[58] This is, I think, still a national trait among Italians, and a +most creditable one: the endless grades and sub-grades, shades and +demi-shades, of good society, as maintained in England (with an instinct +comparable to the marvellous power of a bat to wing its dark way amid +any number of impediments, and to be impeded by none of them), are +unintelligible to ordinary Italians—or, where intelligible, detestable. +Long may they remain so! + +[59] _Nobili._ I presume this is to be understood literally; the +household in which noblemen could be thus employed being of course one of +exalted position. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75723 *** diff --git a/75723-h/75723-h.htm b/75723-h/75723-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e8244e --- /dev/null +++ b/75723-h/75723-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4156 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Italian Courtesy-Books | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +a { + text-decoration: none; +} + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h2.nobreak { + page-break-before: avoid; +} + +hr.chap { + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + clear: both; + width: 65%; + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; +} + +div.chapter { + page-break-before: always; +} + +p { + margin-top: 0.5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +table { + margin: 1em auto 1em auto; + max-width: 30em; + border-collapse: collapse; +} + +td { + padding-left: 2.25em; + padding-right: 0.25em; + vertical-align: top; + text-indent: -2em; +} + +.sub { + padding-left: 4.25em; + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; + text-transform: lowercase; +} + +.tdpg { + vertical-align: bottom; + text-align: right; +} + +.blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 10%; +} + +.center { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.dedication { + text-align: center; + line-height: 2em; + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.footnotes { + margin-top: 1em; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.footnote { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 0.9em; +} + +.footnote .label { + position: absolute; + right: 84%; + text-align: right; +} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none; +} + +.gothic { + font-family: 'Old English Text MT', 'Old English', serif; +} + +.larger { + font-size: 150%; +} + +.max25 { + margin: auto; + max-width: 25em; +} + +.noindent { + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + right: 4%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; +} + +.poetry-container { + text-align: center; +} + +.poetry { + display: inline-block; + text-align: left; +} + +.poetry .stanza { + margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; +} + +.poetry .verse { + padding-left: 3em; +} + +.poetry .indent0 { + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poetry .indent6 { + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.poetry .indent20 { + text-indent: 7em; +} + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + right: 15%; + padding: 0; + text-indent: 0; + text-align: right; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding: 0.5em; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + float: left; + clear: left; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.right { + text-align: right; +} + +.smaller { + font-size: 80%; +} + +.allsmcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; + text-transform: lowercase; +} + +.titlepage { + text-align: center; + line-height: 2em; + margin-top: 3em; + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.transnote { + background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + text-align: center; + font-size: smaller; + padding: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry { + display: block; + margin-left: 1.5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 5%; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75723 ***</div> + +<div class="transnote"> +<p><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b> Since the original book did not have headings in the +text, selected page headers have been used as sidenotes to indicate the +sections set out in the table of contents.</p> +<p>The Italian and English versions of the ‘Zinquanta Cortexie’ on <a href="#Page_16">pp. 16-31</a> +were originally printed on alternating pages, which is impractical to +display in an ebook, so the Italian is here presented first in full followed +by the English in full. Line numbers assist with comparing the two versions.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p> + +<h1>ITALIAN COURTESY-BOOKS.</h1> + +<p class="titlepage">FRA BONVICINO DA RIVA’S<br> +<span class="larger gothic">Fifty Courtesies for the Table</span><br> +<span class="smaller">(ITALIAN AND ENGLISH)</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">WITH OTHER</span><br> +TRANSLATIONS AND ELUCIDATIONS</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br> +WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter max25"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p> + +<p class="dedication"><span class="allsmcap">TO THE ENGLISH PAINTER<br> +WHO HAS MADE CIVILIZED MANKIND HIS DEBTOR<br> +BY RECOVERING THE PORTRAIT OF</span><br> +<span class="larger gothic">Dante</span> <span class="allsmcap">BY</span> <span class="larger gothic">Giotto</span>,<br> +<span class="allsmcap">THE TWO DII MAJORES OF ITALIAN MEDIÆVALISM,<br> +TO THE</span><br> +<span class="larger">BARONE KIRKUP,</span><br> +<span class="allsmcap">MY FATHER’S HONOURED FRIEND AND MY OWN,<br> +I AM PERMITTED TO DEDICATE<br> +THIS SLIGHT ATTEMPT IN A BRANCH OF ITALIAN STUDY<br> +LONG FAMILIAR TO HIMSELF.</span></p> + +<p class="right">W. M. R.</p> + +<p class="smaller"><i>June 1869.</i></p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> + +</div> + +<table> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="allsmcap">ITALY AND COURTESY</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading1">7</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>BRUNETTO LATINI</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading2">8</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE TESORETTO:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading3">10</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>FRA BONVICINO DA RIVA</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading4">14</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE ZINQUANTA CORTEXIE DA TAVOLA—ITALIAN AND ENGLISH</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading5">16</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">SUMMARY OF THE CORTEXIE</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading6">32</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>FRANCESCO DA BARBERINO</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading7">35</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE DOCUMENTI D’AMORE:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading8">38</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE REGGIMENTO E COSTUMI DELLE DONNE:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading9">45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>SANDRO DI PIPPOZZO, GRAZIOLO DE’ BOMBAGLIOLI, AND UGOLINO BRUCOLA</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading10">56</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>AGNOLO PANDOLFINI</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading11">57</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE GOVERNO DELLA FAMIGLIA:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading12">57</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>MATTEO PALMIERI</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading13">58</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE VITA CIVILE:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading14">58</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>BALDASSAR CASTIGLIONE</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading15">60</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE CORTIGIANO:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading16">61</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>GIOVANNI BATTISTA POSSEVINI</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading17">65</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE DIALOGO DELL’ ONORE:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading18">66</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>MONSIGNOR GIOVANNI DELLA CASA</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading19">66</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE GALATEO:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading20">68</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">THE TRATTATO DEGLI UFFICI COMMUNI:—EXTRACT</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#heading21">74</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span></p> + +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading1">EARLY REFINEMENT IN ITALY.</div> + +<p>In connection with the many samples of English and some French +and Latin Courtesy-Books which the pains of other Editors have set +before the members of the Early English Text Society, I have been +asked to do something to exhibit what Italian literature has to show +for itself in the same line. The request is one which I gladly close +with; only cautioning the reader at starting that he must not expect +to find in my brief essay any deep or exhaustive knowledge of the +subject, or anything beyond specimens of the works under consideration, +picked out one here and one there. Italy, it is tolerably well +known, was, together with Provence, in the forefront of civilization—or +‘civility,’ as it might here be more aptly phrased—in the middle +ages; and I should not be surprised to learn that, in the refinements +of life and niceties of method, the Italy of the thirteenth century, +as traceable in her Courtesy-Books, was quite on a par with the +France or Germany<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> of the fourteenth, or the England of the fifteenth, +and so progressively on. This, however, is a matter which I +must leave to be determined by more diligent and more learned researches +than my own. The materials for the comparison are now, +to some extent, fairly before the editing and reading members of our +Society.</p> + +<p>As regards date, at all events, Italy is greatly in advance. What +is the date of the earliest French Courtesy-Book included in our<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span> +series? Not far, I presume, from the close of the fourteenth century. +What of the earliest English one? About 1450. Against +these we can set an Italian Courtesy-Book—or rather a Courtesy section +of an Italian book—dating about 1265. Of a date prior to this +(the birth-year of Dante), there is little of either prose or poetry in +Italian.</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading2">BRUNETTO LATINI.</div> + +<p>The author of our specimen is a man illustrious in the literature +of Italy, though comparatively little read for some centuries past—Brunetto +Latini; remembered chiefly among miscellaneous readers as +the preceptor of Dante, and as consigned by that affectionate but +unaccommodating pupil to a very ugly circle of his Hell. There, if +we may believe the ‘Poet of Rectitude,’ Ser Brunetto, with a ‘baked +aspect,’ is at this moment unremittingly walking under an unremitting +rain of fire: were he to pause, he would remain moveless for a +century, and the torture of the flames would persecute him in aggravated +proportion. On the same authority (which it is futile to fence +with), I am compelled to say that Brunetto is the last person from +whom one need wish to learn the practice, or as a consequence the +theory, of modern or European morals.</p> + +<p>However, Brunetto seems to have considered that he had a gift +that way. Both his leading works may be termed moral-scientific +treatises. The longer of the two, the <i>Tesoro</i>, was written in French +prose, and is much of a compilation from classic authors in some sections. +It had hitherto only been preserved to the public in an old +Italian translation, but quite recently the French text has been printed. +Sacred, profane, and natural history, geography, oratory, politics, +and morals, are the main subject-matter of this encyclopædic labour; +than which probably no contemporary produced anything more widely +learned, according to the standard of that age. The <i>Tesoretto</i> is a +shorter performance, written in Italian verse; shorter, yet still of +substantial length, numbering, even in its extant incomplete state, +22 sections or ‘<i>capitoli</i>.’ This is the work upon which I shall draw +for our first specimen of an Italian Courtesy-Book. Something bearing +upon the like questions might also be gleaned from the <i>Tesoro</i>, +but, as that is properly a French book, I leave it aside.</p> + +<p>The <i>Tesoretto</i> sets forth that its author, being at Roncesvalles on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span> +his return from an embassy in Spain, received the bad news of the +battle of Montaperti. Getting astray in a forest,<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> he finds himself in +the presence of no less a personage than Dame Nature, who proceeds +to give him practical and theoretic demonstrations on all sorts of lofty +subjects. She then tells him to explore the forest, where he would +find Philosophy, the four Moral Virtues (Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, +and Justice), Love, Fortune, and Over-reaching (Baratteria). +He follows her instructions, searching out these personages from +Philosophy on to Love: the four Virtues are attended by many ladies, +among whom Brunetto specifies particularly Liberality, <i>Courtesy</i>, +Good-faith, and Valour. After his interview with Love, he resolves +to reconcile himself with God, and makes a full confession at Montpélier. +Having received absolution, he does not return after Fortune +and Over-reaching, but goes back to the forest, and thence reaches +the summit of Mount Olympus. Here he sees Ptolemy, who is about +to harangue him, when suddenly the <i>Tesoretto</i> comes to an end. Its +best editor, the Abate Zannoni, supposes that the concluding portion +of the poem was written, but has been lost to posterity.</p> + +<p>A few words must be added as to the incidents of the author’s +life. He was born (probably) not much later than 1220 in the +Florentine state, and died in 1294. After the great defeat of the +Guelphs by the Ghibellines at Montaperti in 1260, Brunetto, with +others of the Guelph party, which was almost uninterruptedly uppermost +in Florence, found it expedient to emigrate from that capital. +He went to Paris, and there wrote both the <i>Tesoro</i> and <i>Tesoretto</i>. +Towards 1265 he was again re-established in his native country, exercising +with great credit his profession of a notary, and also (by or +before the year 1273) holding the post of secretary to the Commune +of Florence. He became, as already mentioned, the preceptor of +Dante. As the pupil has damned him to all time at any rate, if not +in effect to all eternity, for one offence, let us at least preserve some +memory of his countervailing merits, as set forth by Giovanni and +Filippo Villani. The former affirms that Brunetto ‘was the initiator +and master in refining the Florentines, and cultivating their use of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> +language; and in regulating the justice and rule of our Republic according +to policy.’ And, according to Filippo, ‘Brunetto Latini was +by profession a philosopher, by occupation a notary, and of great +name and celebrity. He showed forth how much of rhetoric he +could add to the gifts of nature: a man, if it be permitted to say so, +worthy of being reckoned along with those skilled and ancient +orators. He was facetious, learned, and acute, and abounded in certain +pleasantries of speech; yet not without gravity, and the reserve +of modesty, which bespoke a most cordial acceptance for his humour: +of agreeable discourse, which often moved to laughter. He was +obliging and decorous, and by nature serviceable, reserved, and +grave; and most happy in the habit of all virtues, had he been +wisely able to endure with a more steadfast mind the outrages of his +infuriated country.’</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading3">EXTRACT FROM B. LATINI'S <i>TESORETTO</i>.</div> + +<p>The <i>Tesoretto</i> is of course a mine of curiosities of various kinds, +tempting to the literary explorer. To call it distinctly a fine poem, or +even the performance of a strictly poetic mind, might be the exaggeration +of an enthusiast; but at all events it contains much sound +matter well put, and by no means destitute of entertainment. The +section that falls in best with our present purpose is the speech +assigned to Lady Courtesy: I present it in its entirety.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Be sure that Liberality is the head and greatness<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of my mystery; so that I am little worth,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, if she aids me not, I should find scant acceptance.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She is my foundation; and I am her gilding,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And colour, and varnish. But, to say the very truth,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If we have two names, we are well-nigh one thing.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">But to thee, gentle friend, I say first</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That in thy speech thou be circumspect.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Be not too great a talker, and think aforehand</div> + <div class="verse indent0">What thou wouldst be saying; for never</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">Doth the word that is spoken return,—like the arrow</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which goes and returns not. He who has a goodly tongue,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Little sense suffices him, if by folly he spoils it not.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Be thy speech gentle; and see it be not harsh</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In any position of command, for thou canst not</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Give people any graver annoy. I advise that he should die</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who displeases by harshness, for he never conquers the habit:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And he who has no moderation, if he acts well, he filches that.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Be not exasperating; neither be a tell-tale</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of what another person has spoken in thy presence;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor yet use contumely; nor tell any one a lie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor slander of any,—for in sooth there is no one</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of whom one might not say something offensive offhand.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Neither be so self-sufficient as that even one hard word</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Affecting another person should issue from thy mouth;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For too much self-sufficiency is contrary to good usage.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And let him who is on the highway beware of speaking folly.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">But thou knowest that I command thee, and put it as a strict precept,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That thou honour to the utmost thy good friend</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On foot and on horseback: and be sure that for a small fault</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou bear no grudge—let not love fail on thy part.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And have it always in mind to associate with people of honour,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And from others hold aloof; so that (as with the crafts<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou mayst not acquire any vice, whereof, before thou couldst amend it,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt have scathe and shame. Therefore at all hours</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hold fast to good usage; for that advances thee</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In credit and honour, and makes thee better,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And gives fair seeming,—for a good nature</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Becomes the clearer and more polished if it follows good habits.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But see none the less that, if thou shouldst appear tedious</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To such or such a company, thou venture to frequent it no more,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But procure thyself some other to which thy ways are pleasing.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Friend, heed this well: with one richer than thyself</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seek not to associate,—for thou shalt be as their merry-maker,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or else thou wilt spend as much as they; for, if thou didst not this,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou wouldst be mean,—and reflect always</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That a costly beginning demands perseverance.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Therefore thou must provide, if thy means allow it,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">That thou do this openly. If not, then mind</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not to make such expenditure as shall afterwards be reproved;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But adopt such a system as to be consistent with thyself.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, if thou art a little better off [than thy comrades], do not get away,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But spend on the same scale; take no advantage:—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And at all times take heed, if there is in thy company</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A man, in thine opinion, of inferior means,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That, for God’s sake, thou force him not into more than he can meet;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For, if, for thy convenience, he spends his money amiss,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And comes to poverty, thou wilt be blamed therefor.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And in sooth there are persons of high condition</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who call themselves “noble”: all others they hold cheap</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Because of this nobility. And, in that conceit,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They will call a man “tradesman”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> who would sooner spend a bushel</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of florins than <i>they</i> of halfpence,<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Although the means of both might be of like amount.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And he who holds himself noble, without doing any other good</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Save of the name, fancies he is making the cross to himself,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But he <i>does</i> make the fig to himself.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> He who endures not toil</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For honour’s sake, let him not imagine that he comes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Among men of worth, because he is of lofty race;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I hold him noble who shows that he follows the path</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of great valour and of gentle nurture,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So that, besides his lineage, he does deeds of worth,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And lives honourably so as to make himself beloved.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I admit indeed that, if the one and other are equal in good deeds,</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">He who is the better born is esteemed the higher:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not through any teaching of mine, but it seems to be the usage,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which conquers and overthrows many of my ways,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So that I can no otherwise; for this world is so dense</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That the right is even judged of according to a little talking,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For the great and the lesser live therein by rumour.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Therefore be heedful to keep among them so silent</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That they may have nothing to laugh at. Adopt their modes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I rather advise thee to follow their wrongfulness.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">For, though thou shouldst be in the right, yet, as soon as it pleases not them,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It avails thee nothing to speak well, nor yet ill.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Therefore recount no tale, unless it appears good and fair</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To all who hear it; for somebody will censure thee for it,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And add lies thereto when thou art gone,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which must assuredly grieve thee. So thou must know,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In such company, to play the prudent part,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And be heedful to say what will please.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And as for the good, if thou knowest it, thou wilt tell it to others</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where thou art known and held dear;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For thou wilt find among people many fools</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who take greater pleasure in hearing something scurrilous</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Than what is profitable. Pass on, and heed not,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And be circumspect.</div> + <div class="verse indent20">If a man of great repute</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Should at any time do something that is out of bounds</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In street or church, follow not the example:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For he has no excuse who conforms to the wrong-doing of others.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And see that thou err not if thou art staying or going</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With a lady or lord, or other superior,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Also that, although he be but thine equal, thou observe to honour him,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Each according to his condition. Be so heedful of this,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Both of less and more, that thou lose not self-restraint.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To thine inferior, however, render not more honour</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Than beseems him, nor such that he should hold thee cheap for it:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And so, if he is the inferior, always walk a step in advance.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, if thou art on horseback, avoid every fault;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, if thou goest through the city, I counsel thee to go</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Very courteously. Ride decorously,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With head a little bowed, for to go in that loose-reined way</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">Looks most boorish; and stare not up at the height</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of every house thou comest to. Mind that thou move not about</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Like a man from the country—wriggle not like an eel:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But go steadily along the road and among the people.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When thou art asked for a loan, delay not.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou art willing to lend, make not the man linger so long</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That the favour shall be lost before it is rendered.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And, when thou art in company, always follow</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Their modes and their liking; for thou must not want</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To be just suiting thine own taste, nor to be at odds with them.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And always be heedful that thou give not any gross glances</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At any woman living, in house or street;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For he who does thus, and calls himself a lover,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is esteemed a blackguard.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> And I have seen before now</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A man lose position by a single act of levity;<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">For in this country such goings-on are not admired.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And take heed in every case that Love, with his arts,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Inflame not thy heart. With severest pain</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wouldst thou consume thy life; nor couldst thou be numbered</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In my following, wert thou in his power.<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Now return in-doors, for it is the time;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And be liberal and courteous, so that in every country</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All thy belongings be deemed pleasurable.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading4">BONVICINO DA RIVA.</div> + +<p>We now pass from Florence to Lombardy—from Ser Brunetto +Latini to Fra Bonvicino da Riva—from the lawyer and official to the +friar and professor. The poem of Fra Bonvicino, <i>The Fifty Courtesies +for the Table</i>, will be our principal <i>pièce de résistance</i>, and presented +accordingly in its own garnishing of old Italian as well as in +English. Not that it is by any means the best or most important +piece of work that we have to bring forward; but its rarity, its dialectic +interest for students of old Italian, and its precision and detail +with regard to one of the essentials of courtesy—the art of dining—give<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span> +it exceptional value for our direct purpose. The poem is supposed +to have been written about 1290.</p> + +<p>Unpolished as he is in poetic development, Fra Bonvicino is not +to be altogether slighted from a literary point of view. Tiraboschi +(<i>Storia della Letteratura Italiana</i>) believes that Bonvicino and one +other were the two sole verse-writers of the Lombard or Milanese +State in this opening period of Italian poesy; and Signor Biondelli, +whom we have to thank for the publication of Bonvicino’s production +after so many centuries of its hybernation in MS, can point to the +choiceness of the old Friar’s vocabulary. In one couplet that well-qualified +editor is able to find five expressions ‘which, for propriety +and purity, would even at the present day beseem the most careful of +writers;’ and hence he pronounces Bonvicino ‘the elegant writer of +his time.’ It should be understood, however, that the MS reproduced +by Signor Biondelli, and now again in the present volume, +gives but an inadequate idea of the primitiveness of Bonvicino’s own +actual idiom. Tiraboschi cites a harsher version of the first stanza +from an earlier MS then existing in the Library of Santa Maria Incoronata +in Milan, but which is now undiscoverable: the MS used +by Signor Biondelli is of a much later date, the fifteenth century. It +pertains to the Ambrosian Library in Milan.</p> + +<p>Bonvicino belonged to the third order of the Friars named Umiliati, +and lived (as he himself informs us) in Legnano, a town of the +Milanese district. Hence he went to Milan, and became a distinguished +professor of grammar in the Palatine schools. The only other +poem of his published in Signor Biondelli’s volume<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> is <i>On the dignity +of the Glorious Virgin Mary</i>: but Tiraboschi specifies other productions +in verse—Dialogues in praise of Almsgiving, between the Virgin +and Satan, between the Virgin and the Sinner, between the Creator +and the Soul, between the Soul and the Body, between the Violet +and the Rose, between the Fly and the Ant; also the Legends of Job +and of St Alexius; and various works in Latin, of which some have +been published.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span></p> + +<h2 id="heading5"><span class="smaller">DE LE</span><br> +ZINQUANTA CORTEXIE DA TAVOLA<br> +<span class="smaller">DE FRA BONVEXINO DA RIVA</span></h2> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Fra bon Vexino da Riva, che stete in borgo Legniano</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De le cortexie da descho ne dixe primano;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De le cortexie cinquanta che se den servare a descho</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fra bon Vexino da Riva ne parla mo’ de frescho.<span class="linenum">4</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La primiera è questa: che quando tu è a mensa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Del povero bexognoxo imprimamente inpensa;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che quando tu pasci lo povero, tu pasci lo tó Segnore,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che te passerà, poxe la toa morte, in lo eternal dolzore.<span class="linenum">8</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cortexia segonda: se tu sporze aqua alle man,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Adornamente la sporze; guarda no sia vilan;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Asay ghe ne sporze, no tropo, quando el è tempo d’estae;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’inverno per lo fregio in pizina quantitae.<span class="linenum">12</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La terza cortexia si è: no sì tropo presto</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De corre senza parola per asetare al descho;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se alchun te invida a noxe, anze che tu sie asetato,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Per ti no prende quello axio, d’onde tu fuzi deschazato.<span class="linenum">16</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra è: Anze che tu prendi lo cibo aparegiao</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Per ti, over per tò mayore, fa sì ch’ el sie segniao.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tropo è gordo e vilan, e incontra Cristo malegna</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo quale alli oltri guarda, ni lo sò condugio no segna.<span class="linenum">20</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cortexia zinquena: sta aconzamente al descho,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cortexe, adorno, alegro, e confortoxo e frescho;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No di’ sta convitoroxo, ni gramo, ni travachao;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ni con le gambe in croxe, ni torto, ni apodiao.<span class="linenum">24</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cortexia sexena: da poy che l’ omo se fiada,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sia cortexe no apodiasse sovra la mensa bandia;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi fa dra mensa podio, quello homo non è cortexe,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quando el gh’apodia le gambe, over ghe ten le braze destexe.<span class="linenum">28</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cortexia setena si è: in tuta zente</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No tropo mangiare, ni pocho; ma temperadamente;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quello homo en ch’ el se sia, che mangia tropo, ni pocho,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No vego quentro pro ghe sia al’anima, ni al corpo.<span class="linenum">32</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cortexia ogena si è: che Deo n’ acrescha,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No tropo imple la bocha, ni tropo mangia inpressa;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo gordo che mangia inpressa, e che mangia a bocha piena,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quando el fisse apellavo, no ve responde apena.<span class="linenum">36</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cortexia novena si è: a pocho parlare,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et a tenire pox quello che l’ à tolegio a fare;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che l’ omo tan fin ch’ el mangia, s’ el usa tropo a dire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le ferguie fora dra bocha sovenzo pon insire.<span class="linenum">40</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cortexia dexena si è: quando tu è sede,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Travonde inanze lo cibo, e furbe la bocha, e beve.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo gordo che beve inpressa, inanze ch’ el voja la chana;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Al’ oltro fa fastidio che beve sego in compagnia.<span class="linenum">44</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">E la undexena è questa: no sporze la copa al’ oltro,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quando el ghe pò atenze, s’ el no te fesse acorto;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Zaschuno homo prenda la copa quando ghe plaxe;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">E quando el l’ à beudo, l’ à de mete zoxo in paxe.<span class="linenum">48</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La dodexena è questa: quando tu di’ prende la copa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Con dove mane la rezeve, e ben te furbe la bocha;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Con l’una conzamente no se pò la ben receve;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Azò ch’ el vino no se spanda, con doe mane di’ beve.<span class="linenum">52</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La tredexena è questa: se ben tu no voy beve,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">S’ alchun te sporze la copa, sempre la di’ rezeve;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quando tu l’à receuda, ben tosto la pò mete via;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Over sporze a un’ altro ch’ è tego in compagnia.<span class="linenum">56</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra che segue è questa: quando tu è alli convivi,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Onde si à bon vin in descho, guarda che tu no t’ invrie;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che se invria matamente, in tre maynere offende;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">El noxe al corpo e al’ anima, e perde lo vin ch’ el spende.<span class="linenum">60</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La quindexena è questa: seben verun ariva,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No leva in pè dal descho, se grande cason no ghe sia;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tan fin tu mangi al descho, non di’ moverse inlora,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Per amore de fare careze a quilli che te veraveno sovra.<span class="linenum">64</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La sedexena apresso con veritae:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No sorbilar dra bocha quando tu mangi con cugial;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quello fa sicom bestia, chi con cugial sorbilia;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi doncha à questa usanza, ben fa s’ el se dispolia.<span class="linenum">68</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La desetena apresso si è: quando tu stranude,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Over ch’ el te prende la tosse, guarda con tu làvori</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In oltra parte te volze, ed è cortexia inpensa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Azò che dra sariva no zesse sor la mensa.<span class="linenum">72</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La desogena è questa: quando l’ omo sente ben sano,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No faza onde el se sia del companadego pan;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quello ch’ è lechardo de carne, over d’ove, over de formagio,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Anche n’ abielo d’avanzo, perzò no de ’l fa stragio.<span class="linenum">76</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La dexnovena è questa: no blasma li condugi</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quando tu è alli convivi; ma dì, che l’in bon tugi.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In questa rea usanza multi homini ò za trovao,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Digando: <i>questo è mal cogio, o questo è mal salao</i>.<span class="linenum">80</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">E la XX.ª è questa: ale toe menestre atende;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Entre altru’ no guarda, se no forse per imprende</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo menistrante, s’ el ghe manca ben de guardà per tuto;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mal s’ el no menestresse clave e se lovo è bruto.<span class="linenum">84</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXI.ª è questa: no mastrulare per tuto</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Como avesse carne, over ove, over semiante condugio;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi volze, over chi mastrulia sur lo taliere zerchando,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">È bruto, e fa fastidio al compagnon mangiando.<span class="linenum">88</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXII.ª è questa: no te reze vilanamente;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se tu mangi con verun d’uno pan comunamente,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Talia lo pan per ordine, no va taliando per tuto;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No va taliando da le parte, se tu no voy essere bruto.<span class="linenum">92</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXIII.ª: no di’ metere pan in vino,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se tego d’un napo medesmo bevesse Fra Bon Vexino;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi vole peschare entro vin, bevando d’un napo conmego,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Per meo grao, se eyo poesse, no bevereve consego.<span class="linenum">96</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXIIII.ª è: no mete in parte per mezo lo compagnon</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ni grelin, ni squela, se no ghe fosse gran raxon;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Over grelin, over squela se tu voy mete inparte,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Per mezo ti lo di’ mete pur da la toa parte.<span class="linenum">100</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXV.ª è: chi fosse con femene sovra un talier mangiando,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La carne a se e a lor ghe debia esser taliata;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo homo de’ plu esse intento, plu presto e honoreure,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che no de’ per raxon la femena agonzente.<span class="linenum">104</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXVI.ª è questa: de grande bontà inpensa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quando lo tò bon amigo mangia alla toa mensa;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se tu talie carne, over pesso, over oltre bone pitanze,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De la plu bella parte ghe debie cerne inanze.<span class="linenum">108</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXVII.ª è questa: no di’ tropo agrezare</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’amigo a caxa tova de beve, ni de mangiare;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ben di’ tu receve l’amigo e farghe bella cera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">E darghe ben da spende e consolare voluntera.<span class="linenum">112</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXVIII.ª è questa: apresso grande homo mangiando,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Astalete de mangiare tan fin che l’ è bevando;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mangiando apresso d’un vescho, tan fin ch’ el beve dra copa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Usanza drita prende; no mastegare dra bocha.<span class="linenum">116</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXVIIII.ª è questa: se grande homo è da provo,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No di’ beve sego a una hora, anze ghe di’ dà logo;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi fosse a provo d’un vescho, tan fin ch’ el beverave,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No di’ levà lo sò napo, over ch’ el vargarave.<span class="linenum">120</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">E la trentena è questa: che serve, abia neteza;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No faza in lo prexente ni spuda, ni bruteza;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Al’ homo tan fin ch’ el mangia, plu tosto fa fastidio;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No pò tropo esse neto chi serve a uno convivio.<span class="linenum">124</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Pox la XXX.ª è questa: zaschun cortese donzello</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che se vore mondà lo naxo, con li drapi se faza bello;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi mangia, over chi menestra, no de’ sofià con le die;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Con li drapi da pey se monda vostra cortexia.<span class="linenum">128</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra che ven è questa; le toe man siano nete;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ni le die entro le oregie, ni le man sul cho di’ mete;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No de’ l’omo che mangia habere nudritura,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A berdugare con le die in parte, onde sia sozura.<span class="linenum">132</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La terza poxe la XXX.ª: no brancorar con le man,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tan fin tu mangi al descho, ni gate, ni can;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No è lecito allo cortexe a brancorare li bruti</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Con le man, con le que al tocha li condugi.<span class="linenum">136</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra è: tan fin tu mangi con homini cognosenti,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No mete le die in bocha per descolzare li dingi.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi caza le die in bocha, anze che l’abia mangiao,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sur lo talier conmego no mangia per mè grao.<span class="linenum">140</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La quinta poxe la trenta: tu no di’ lenze le die;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le die chi le caza in bocha brutamente furbe;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quello homo che se caza in bocha le die inpastruliate,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le die no én plu nete, anze son plu brute.<span class="linenum">144</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La sesta cortexia poxe la trenta:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">S’ el te fa mestere parlà, no parla a bocha plena;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi parla, e chi responde, se l’ à plena la bocha,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Apena ch’ el possa laniare negota.<span class="linenum">148</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Poxe questa ven quest’ oltra: tan fin ch’ el compagno</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Avrà lo napo alla bocha, no ghe fa domando,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se ben tu lo vo’ apelare; de zò te fazo avezudo;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No l’impagià, daghe logo tan fin che l’avrà beudo.<span class="linenum">152</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La XXXVIII.ª è questa: no recuntare ree novelle,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Azò che quilli ch’ în tego, no mangiano con recore;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tan fin che li oltri mangiano, no dì nove angosoxe;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ma taxe, over dì parole che siano confortoxe.<span class="linenum">156</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra che segue è questa: se tu mangi con persone,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No fa remore, ni tapie, se ben gh’ avise raxone;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">S’ alchun de li toy vargasse, passa oltra fin a tempo,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Azò che quilli ch’ ìn tego, no abiano turbamento.<span class="linenum">160</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra è: se dolia te prende de qualche infirmitade,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Al più tu poy conprime la toa necesitade;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se mal te senti al descho, no demostrà la pena;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che tu no fazi recore a quilli che mangiano tego insema.<span class="linenum">164</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Pox quella ven quest’ oltra: se entro mangial vegisse</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qualche sghivosa cossa, ai oltri no desisse;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Over moscha, over qual sozura entro mangial vezando,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Taxe, ch’eli no abiano sghivo al descho mangiando.<span class="linenum">168</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra è: se tu porte squelle al descho per servire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sur la riva dra squella le porexe di’ tenire:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se tu apili le squelle cor porexe sur la riva,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tu le poy mete zoxo in sò logo senza oltro che t’ ayda.<span class="linenum">172</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La terza poxe la quaranta è: se tu sporzi la copa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La sumità del napo col polexe may no tocha;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Apilia lo napo de soto, e sporze con una man;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi ten per altra via, pò fi digio, che sia vilan.<span class="linenum">176</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La quarta poxe la quaranta si è: chi vol odire:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ni grelin, ni squelle, ni ’l napo no di’ trop’ inplire;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mesura e modo de’ esse in tute le cosse che sia;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chi oltra zò vargasse, no ave fà cortexia.<span class="linenum">180</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra che segue è questa: reten a ti lo cugiale,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se te fi tolegio la squella per azonzere de lo mangiale;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se l’ è lo cugial entro la squella, lo ministrante inpilia;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In tute le cortexie ben fa chi s’ asetilia.<span class="linenum">184</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra è questa: se tu mangi con cugial,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No debie infolcire tropo pan entro mangiare;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quello che fa impiastro entro mangià da fogo,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">El fa fastidio a quilli che ghe mangiano da provo.<span class="linenum">188</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra che segue è questa: s’ el tò amigo è tego,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tan fin ch’ el mangia al descho, sempre bochona sego;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se forse t’ astalasse, ni fosse sazio anchora,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Forse anchora s’ astalarave per vergonza inlora.<span class="linenum">192</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’ oltra è: mangiando con oltri a qualche inviamento,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No mete entr’ a guayna lo tò cortelo anze tempo;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No guerna lo cortello anze ch’ alo compagno;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Forse oltro ven in descho d’onde tu no fè raxon.<span class="linenum">196</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cortexia seguente è: quando tu è mangiao,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fa sì che Jesu Xristo ne sia glorificao.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quel che rezeve servixio d’alchun obediente,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">S’elo no lo regratia, tropo è deschognosente.<span class="linenum">200</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La cinquantena per la darera:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lavare le man, poy beve dro bon vino dra carera:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le man poxe lo convivio per pocho pòn si lavae,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Da grassa e da sozura e l’in netezae.<span class="linenum">204</span></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span></p> + +<h2><span class="smaller">THE</span><br> +FIFTY COURTESIES FOR THE TABLE,<br> +<span class="smaller">OF FRA BONVESINO<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> DA RIVA.</span></h2> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Fra Bonvesino da Riva, who lived in the town of Legnano,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">First treated of the Courtesies for the Table.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of the Fifty Courtesies which should be observed at the board</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fra Bonvesino da Riva now speaks afresh.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a><span class="linenum">4</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The first is this: that, when thou art at table,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou think first of the poor and needy;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For, when thou feedest the poor, thou feedest thy Lord,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who will feed thee, after thy death, in the eternal bliss.<span class="linenum">8</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The second Courtesy. If thou offerest water for the hands,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Offer it neatly: see thou be not rude.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Offer enough water, not too much, when it is summer-time:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In winter, for the cold, in small quantity.<span class="linenum">12</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The third Courtesy is—Be not too quick</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To run without a word to sit down at the board.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If any one invites thee to a wedding,<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> before thou art seated,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Take not for thyself a place from which thou wouldst be turned out.<span class="linenum">16</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next is—Before thou takest the food prepared,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">See that it be signed [with the cross] by thyself or thy better.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Too greedy and churlish is he, and he offends against Christ,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who looks about at others, and signs not his dish.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><span class="linenum">20</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The fifth Courtesy. Sit properly at the board,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Courteous, well-dressed, cheerful, and obliging and fresh.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must not sit anxious, nor dismal, nor lolling,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor with thy legs crossed, nor awry, nor leaning forward.<span class="linenum">24</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The sixth Courtesy. When people are at a pause,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Be careful not to lean forward on the laid-out table.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who uses the table as a prop, that man is not courteous,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When he tilts his legs upon it, or stretches out his arms along it.<span class="linenum">28</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The seventh Courtesy is—For all people</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not to eat too much nor little, but temperately.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That man, whoever he may be, who eats too much or little,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I see not what good it can be to his soul or his body.<span class="linenum">32</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The eighth Courtesy is—So may God favour us,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fill not thy mouth too much, nor eat in too great a hurry.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The glutton who eats in a hurry, and who eats with his mouth stuffed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If he were addressed, he scarcely answers you.<span class="linenum">36</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The ninth Courtesy is—To speak little,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And stick to that which one has set-to at doing;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For a man, as long as he is eating, if he has the habit of talking too much,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Scraps may often spurt out of his mouth.<span class="linenum">40</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The tenth Courtesy is—When thou art thirsty,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">First swallow down thy food, and wipe thy mouth, and drink.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The glutton who drinks in a hurry, before he has emptied his gullet,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Makes himself disagreeable to the other who is drinking in his company.<span class="linenum">44</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And the eleventh is this: Do not offer the cup to another</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When he can himself reach it, unless he asks thee for it.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let every man take the cup when he pleases;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, when he has drunk, he should set it down quietly.<span class="linenum">48</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twelfth is this: When thou hast to take the cup,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hold it with both hands, and wipe thy mouth well.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With one [hand] it cannot well be held properly:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In order that the wine be not spilled, thou must drink using both hands.<span class="linenum">52</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The thirteenth is this: If even thou dost not want to drink,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If anybody offers thee the cup, thou must always accept it.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When thou hast accepted it, thou mayst very soon set it down,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or else offer it to another who is in company with thee.<span class="linenum">56</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next that follows is this: When thou art at entertainments</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where there is good wine on the board, see that thou get not drunk.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who gets mad-drunk offends in three ways:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He harms his body and his soul, and loses the wine which he consumes.<span class="linenum">60</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The fifteenth is this: If any one arrives,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rise not up from the board unless there be great reason therefor.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As long as thou eatest at the board, thou shouldst not then move</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For the sake of making much of those who may come in to thee.<span class="linenum">64</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The sixteenth next in good sooth.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Suck not with the mouth when thou eatest with a spoon.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">He acts like a beast who sucks with a spoon:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Therefore whoever has this habit does well in ridding himself of it.<span class="linenum">68</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The seventeenth afterwards is this: When thou dost sneeze,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or if a cough seizes thee, mind thy lips:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Turn aside, and reflect that that is courtesy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So that no saliva may get on the table.<span class="linenum">72</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The eighteenth is this: When a man feels himself quite comfortable,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let him not leave bread over after the victuals.<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who has a taste for meat, or for eggs, or for cheese,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Even though he should have a residue, he should not on that account waste it.<span class="linenum">76</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The nineteenth is this: Blame not the dishes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When thou art at entertainments, but say that they are all good.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I have detected many men erewhile in this vile habit,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Saying ‘This is ill cooked,’ or ‘this is ill salted.’<span class="linenum">80</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And the twentieth is this: Attend to thine own sops;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Peer not into those of others, unless perchance to apprize</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The attendant if anything is wanting. He must look well all round:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Things would go much amiss if he were not to attend.<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a><span class="linenum">84</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-first is this: Do not poke about everywhere,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When thou hast meat, or eggs, or some such dish.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who turns and pokes about on the platter, searching,<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is unpleasant, and annoys his companion at dinner.<span class="linenum">88</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-second is this: Do not behave rudely.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou art eating from one loaf in common with any one,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cut the loaf as it comes, do not go cutting all about;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Do not go cutting one part and then another, if thou wouldst not be uncouth.<span class="linenum">92</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-third. Thou must not dip bread into wine</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If Fra Bonvesino has to drink out of the same bowl with thee.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who <i>will</i> fish in the wine, drinking in one bowl with me,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I for my own liking, if so I could, would not drink with him.<span class="linenum">96</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-fourth is—Set not down right before thy companion</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Either pan or pot, unless there be great reason therefor.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou wantest to introduce either pan or pot,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must set it down at thine own side, before thyself.<span class="linenum">100</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-fifth is—One who may be eating from a platter with women,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The meat has to be carved for himself and for them.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The man must be more attentive, more prompt in honouring,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Than the woman, in reason, has to reciprocate.<span class="linenum">104</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-sixth is this: Count it as a great kindness</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When thy good friend eats at thy table.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou carvest meat, or fish, or other good viands,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must choose of the best part for him.<span class="linenum">108</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-seventh is this: Thou must not overmuch press</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thy friend in thy house to drink or to eat.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must receive thy friend well, and make him welcome,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And heartily give him plenty to eat and enjoy himself with.<span class="linenum">112</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-eighth is this: Dining with a great man,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Abstain from eating so long as he is drinking.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dining with a Bishop, so long as he is drinking from the cup,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Right usage requires thou shouldst not be chewing with the mouth.<span class="linenum">116</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twenty-ninth is this: If a great man is beside thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must not drink at the same time with him, but give him precedence.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who may be beside a Bishop, so long as he is drinking</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or pouring out, must not raise his bowl.<span class="linenum">120</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And the thirtieth is this: He who serves, let him be cleanly.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let him not make in presence [of the guests] any spitting or nastiness:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To a man as long as he is eating, this is all the more offensive.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who serves at an entertainment cannot be too nice.<span class="linenum">124</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Next after the thirtieth is this: Every courteous donzel<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who wants to wipe his nose, let him embellish himself with a cloth.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who eats, or who is serving, must not blow through the fingers.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Be so obliging as to clean yourselves with the foot-cloths.<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a><span class="linenum">128</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next that comes is this: Let thy hands be clean.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must not put either thy fingers into thine ears, or thy hands on thy head.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The man who is eating must not be cleaning</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By scraping with his fingers at any foul part.<span class="linenum">132</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The third after the thirtieth. Stroke not with hands,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As long as thou eatest at the board, cat or dog.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A courteous man is not warranted in stroking brutes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With the hands with which he touches the dishes.<span class="linenum">136</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next is—As long as thou art eating with men of breeding,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Put not thy fingers into thy mouth to pick thy teeth.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who sticks his fingers in his mouth, before he has done eating,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Eats not, with my good-will, on the platter with me.<span class="linenum">140</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The fifth after the thirtieth. Thou must not lick thy fingers.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who thrusts his fingers into his mouth cleans them nastily.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That man who thrusts into his mouth his besmeared fingers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His fingers are none the cleaner, but rather the nastier.<span class="linenum">144</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The sixth Courtesy after the thirtieth.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou hast occasion to speak, speak not with thy mouth full.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who speaks, and he who answers, if he has his mouth full,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Scarcely can he chop out a word.<span class="linenum">148</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">After this comes this other: As long as thy companion</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Has the bowl to his mouth, ask him no questions</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou wouldst address him: of this I give thee notice.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Disturb him not: pause until he has drunk.<span class="linenum">152</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The thirty-eighth is this: Tell no bad news,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In order that those who are with thee may not eat out of spirits.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As long as the others are eating, give no painful news;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But keep silence, or else speak in cheerful terms.<span class="linenum">156</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next that follows is this: If thou art eating with others,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Make no uproar or disturbance, even though thou shouldst have reason therefor.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If any of thy companions should transgress, pass it by till the time comes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So that those who are with thee may not be put out.<span class="linenum">160</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next is—If the pain of any ill-health seizes thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Keep down thy distress as much as thou canst.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou feelest ill at the board, show not the pain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That thou mayst not cause discomfort to those who are eating along with thee.<span class="linenum">164</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">After that comes this other: Shouldst thou see in the viands</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Any disagreeable thing, tell it not to the others.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seeing in the viands either a fly or any uncleanliness,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Keep silence, that they may not feel disgust, eating at the board.<span class="linenum">168</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next is—If thou bringest dishes to the board in serving,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must keep thy thumbs on the rim of the dish.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou takest hold with the thumb on the rim of the dishes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou canst set them down in their place without any one else to help thee.<span class="linenum">172</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The third after the fortieth is—If thou offerest the cup,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Never touch with the thumb the upper edge of the bowl.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hold the bowl at the under end, and present it with one hand:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who holds it otherwise may be called boorish.<span class="linenum">176</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The fourth after the fortieth is—hear who will—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Neither frying-pan nor dishes nor bowl should be overfilled.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Measure and moderation should be in all things that are:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who should transcend this will not have done courtesy.<span class="linenum">180</span><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next which follows is this: Keep thy spoon,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thy plate is removed for the adding of some viands.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If the spoon is in the plate, it puts out the helper.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In all courtesies he does well who is heedful.<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a><span class="linenum">184</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next is this: If thou art eating with a spoon,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must not stuff too much bread into the victuals.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who lays it on thick upon the cooked meats,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is distasteful to those who are eating beside him.<span class="linenum">188</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next that follows is this: If thy friend is with thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As long as he eats at the board, always keep up with him.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou perchance wert to leave off, and he were not yet satisfied,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Maybe he also would then leave off through bashfulness.<span class="linenum">192</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The next is—Dining with others by some invitation,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Put not back thy knife into the sheath before the time:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Deposit not thy knife ere thy companion.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps something else is coming to table which thou dost not reckon for.<span class="linenum">196</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The succeeding Courtesy is—When thou hast eaten,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So do as that Jesus Christ be glorified therein.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who receives service from any that obeys,<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">If he thanks him not, is too ungrateful.<span class="linenum">200</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The fiftieth for the last.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wash hands, then drink of the good and choice wine.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">After the meal, the hands may be a little washed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And cleansed from grease and impurity.<span class="linenum">204</span></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span></p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading6">SUMMARY OF BONVICINO.</div> + +<p>As far as I know (though I cannot affect to speak with authority) +this poem by Fra Bonvicino, and those by Francesco da Barberino +of which we shall next take cognisance, are considerably the oldest +still extant Courtesy-Books (expressly to be so termed) of Christianized +Europe;<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> except one, partly coming under the same definition, +which has been mentioned to me by a well-read friend, Dr +Heimann (of University College), but of which I have no direct +personal knowledge.<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> This also, though written in the German +language, is the production of an Italian. It is entitled <i>Der Wälsche +Gast</i> (<i>the Italian Guest</i>), and dates about 1210. The author’s name +is given as Tomasin von Zirclaria, born in Friuli. The book supplies +various rules of etiquette, in a very serious and well-intentioned tone, +as I am informed.—Fra Bonvicino would, on the ground of his +antiquity alone, be well deserving of study. His precepts moreover +(with comparatively few exceptions) cannot even yet be called obsolete, +though some of them are unsophisticated to the extent of being +superfluous. In order that the reader may see in one <i>coup d’œil</i> the +whole of this curious old monument I subjoin a classified abridgment +of the injunctions:—</p> + +<p class="center">1. <i>Moral and Religious.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>To think of the poor first of all.</p> + +<p>To remember grace before meat.</p> + +<p>To eat enough, and not too much.</p> + +<p>Not to get drunk.</p> + +<p>To pass over for the time any cause of quarrel.</p> + +<p>To say grace after meat.</p> + +</div> + +<p class="center">2. <i>Practical Rules still fairly operative.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>To offer water for washing the hands before dinner.</p> + +<p>Not to plump into a seat at table at haphazard.</p> + +<p>To sit at table decorously and in good humour.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span></p> + +<p>Not to tilt oneself forward on the table.</p> + +<p>Not to gorge or bolt one’s food.</p> + +<p>To subordinate talking to eating.</p> + +<p>Not to drink with one’s mouth full.</p> + +<p>To remain seated at table, even though fresh guests should arrive.</p> + +<p>Not to suck at solid food eaten with a spoon.</p> + +<p>To use up one’s bread.</p> + +<p>To abstain from raising objections to the dinner.</p> + +<p>Not to scrutinize one’s neighbour’s plate.</p> + +<p>To cut bread as it comes, not in all sorts of ways.</p> + +<p>To carve for the ladies.</p> + +<p>To give the guests prime cuts.</p> + +<p>To make the guests thoroughly welcome, without oppressive +urgencies.</p> + +<p>To abstain at dinner from stroking cats and dogs.</p> + +<p>Not to speak with one’s mouth full.</p> + +<p>To abstain from imparting bad news at dinner.</p> + +<p>To keep down any symptoms of pain or illness.</p> + +<p>To avoid calling attention to anything disagreeable which may +accidentally be in the dishes.</p> + +<p>The attendants to hold the dishes by their rims.</p> + +<p>Not to hand round the bowl by its upper edge.</p> + +<p>Not to overload the dishes, goblets, &c.</p> + +<p>Not to hurry through with one’s eating, so that others, who are +left behind, would feel uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>To wash hands and drink the best wine after dinner.</p> + +</div> + +<p class="center">3. <i>Rules equally true and primitive.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>Not to tilt one’s legs on the table between-whiles.</p> + +<p>To turn aside if one sneezes or coughs.</p> + +<p>Not to set down before the guests utensils fresh from the kitchen.</p> + +<p>The attendants to be clean—not to spit, &c.</p> + +<p>To blow one’s nose on ‘foot-cloths,’ not through the fingers.</p> + +<p>Not to scratch at one’s head or elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Not to pick one’s teeth with the fingers.</p> + +<p>Not to lick one’s fingers clean.</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span></p> + +<p class="center">4. <i>Rules which may be regarded as over-punctilious or obsolete.</i></p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>Not to sit at table with one’s legs crossed.</p> + +<p>To offer the cup to others only when they want it. (The rules +as to drinking seem throughout to contemplate that two or more +guests are using one cup or vessel.)</p> + +<p>To use both hands in drinking.</p> + +<p>Never to decline the cup when another offers it, but to drink no +more than one wishes. (This rule still has its analogue at tables +where the custom lingers of requesting ‘the pleasure of taking wine +with’ some one else.)</p> + +<p>Not to rummage about in the dish from which one is eating along +with others.</p> + +<p>Not to dip bread into the wine of which one is drinking along +with others.</p> + +<p>To suspend eating while a man of importance is drinking.</p> + +<p>To postpone drinking till the man of importance has finished.</p> + +<p>Not to speak to a man who is in the act of drinking. (This rule +seems to contemplate ‘potations pottle-deep,’ such as engage all +one’s energies for some little while together: for a mere modern sip +at a wine-glass such a rule would be superfluous.)</p> + +<p>To retain one’s spoon when one’s plate is removed for another +help, (<i>One</i> spoon, it may be inferred, is to last all through the +meal, serving as a fork.)</p> + +<p>Not to eat an excessive quantity of bread with the viands.</p> + +<p>Not to re-place one’s knife in its sheath prematurely. (It may +be presumed that each guest brings his own knife.)</p> + +</div> + +<p>The reader who considers these rules in their several categories, +and with due allowance for difference of times, manners, and ‘properties,’ +will, I think, agree with me in seeing that the essentials of +courtesy at table in Lombardy in the thirteenth century, and in +England in the nineteenth, are, after all, closely related; and that, +while some of our Friar’s tutorings would now happily be supererogatory, +and others are inapplicable to present dining conveniences, +not one is ill-bred in any correct use of that word. The details of +etiquette vary indefinitely: the sense of courtesy is substantially one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span> +and the same. In Fra Bonvicino’s manual, it appears constantly in +its genuine aspect, and prompted by its truest spirit—not so much +that of personal correctness, each man for his own credit, as of +uniform consideration for others.</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading7">FRANCESCO DA BARBERINO.</div> + +<p>The same is eminently the case with some of the precepts given +by our next author, Francesco da Barberino. Nothing, for instance, +can go beyond the true <i>rationale</i> of courtesy conveyed in the following +injunction<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> (which we must not here degrade from its grace of +Tuscan speech and verse):</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">‘Colli minor sì taci,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">E prendi il loco che ti danno; e pensa</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Che, per far qui difensa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Faresti lor, per tuo vizio, villani.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Or this:<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">‘E credo che fa male</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Colui che taglia essendo a suo maggiore:</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Chè non v’ è servitore</div> + <div class="verse indent0">S’ el non dimanda prima la licenza.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Indeed, I think that the tone prevalent throughout Barberino’s +maxims of courtesy on all sorts of points is fairly to be called exquisite. +Our extract from him brings us (it may be well to remember) +into the closest contact with the social usages which Dante +in his youth must have been cognisant of and conforming to; for, in +passing from Bonvicino to Barberino, we have passed from Lombardy +to Tuscany—the latter poet being a native of the Val d’Elsa, in the +same district as Boccaccio’s birth-place, Certaldo. The date assigned +to Barberino’s work, the <i>Documenti d’Amore</i>, is just about the same +as that of Bonvicino’s, or from 1290 to 1296. Yet I apprehend we +must receive this early date with some hesitation. In 1290 Barberino +was but twenty-six years of age; whereas the <i>Documenti d’Amore</i>, +a lengthy and systematic treatise on all kinds of moral and +social duties and proprieties, seems to be rich with the hoarded experience +of years. That so young a man should even have sketched +out for himself a work of such axiomatic oracularity seems <i>à priori</i> +unlikely, though one has to accept the fact on authority: that he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span> +should towards that age have completed the poem as we now possess +it appears to me barely compatible with possibility. His other long +poem, still more singular on the like account, is referred to nearly +the same date. I observe in it, however, one passage (Part 6) which +<i>must</i> have been written after 1308, and probably after 1312. It +refers to a story which had been narrated to Barberino ‘one time +that he was in Paris.’ Now his journey on a mission to Provence +and France began in 1309, and ended in 1313.</p> + +<p>I shall here give place to my brother, and extract <i>verbatim</i> the +notice of Barberino contained in his book of translations, <i>The Early +Italian Poets</i>.<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘Francesco da Barberino: born 1264, died 1348.</p> + +<p>‘With the exception of Brunetto Latini (whose poems are neither +very poetical nor well adapted for extract), Francesco da Barberino +shows by far the most sustained productiveness among the poets who +preceded Dante, or were contemporaries of his youth. Though born +only one year in advance of Dante, Barberino seems to have undertaken, +if not completed, his two long poetic treatises some years +before the commencement of the <i>Commedia</i>.</p> + +<p>‘This poet was born at Barberino di Valdelsa, of a noble family, +his father being Neri di Ranuccio da Barberino. Up to the year of +his father’s death, 1296, he pursued the study of law chiefly in +Bologna and Padua; but afterwards removed to Florence for the same +purpose, and became one of the many distinguished disciples of +Brunetto Latini,<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> who probably had more influence than any other +one man in forming the youth of his time to the great things they +accomplished. After this he travelled in France and elsewhere; and +on his return to Italy in 1313, was the first who, by special favour of +Pope Clement V., received the grade of Doctor of Laws in Florence. +Both as lawyer and as citizen, he held great trusts, and discharged<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span> +them honourably. He was twice married, the name of his second +wife being Barna di Tano, and had several children. At the age of +eighty-four he died in the great plague of Florence. Of the two +works which Barberino has left, one bears the title of <i>Documenti +d’Amore</i>, literally <i>Documents<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> of Love</i>, but perhaps more properly +rendered as <i>Laws of Courtesy</i>; while the other is called <i>Del Reggimento +e dei Costumi delle Donne</i>,—<i>of the Government and Conduct +of Women</i>. They may be described, in the main, as manuals of good +breeding or social chivalry—the one for men, and the other for +women. Mixed with vagueness, tediousness, and not seldom with +artless absurdity, they contain much simple wisdom, much curious +record of manners, and (as my specimens show) occasional poetic +sweetness or power—though these last are far from being their most +prominent merits. The first-named treatise, however, has much +more of such qualities than the second, and contains moreover passages +of homely humour which startle by their truth, as if written +yesterday. At the same time, the second book is quite as well worth +reading, for the sake of its authoritative minuteness in matters which +ladies now-a-days would probably consider their own undisputed region, +and also for the quaint gravity of certain surprising prose anecdotes +of real life with which it is interspersed. Both these works +remained long unprinted; the first edition of the <i>Documenti d’Amore</i> +being that edited by Ubaldini in 1640, at which time he reports the +<i>Reggimento</i> &c. to be only possessed by his age “in name and in desire.” +This treatise was afterwards brought to light, but never +printed till 1815. I should not forget to state that Barberino attained +some knowledge of drawing; and that Ubaldini had seen his +original MS of the <i>Documenti</i>, containing, as he says, skilful miniatures +by the author.</p> + +<p>‘Barberino never appears to have taken a very active part in politics, +but he inclined to the Imperial and Ghibelline party. This +contributes with other things to render it rather singular that we find +no poetic correspondence or apparent communication of any kind between +him and his many great countrymen, contemporaries of his +long life, and with whom he had more than one bond of sympathy. +His career stretched from Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, and Cino da Pistoia, +to Petrarca and Boccaccio: yet only in one respectful but not +enthusiastic notice of him by the last-named writer (<i>Genealogia degli +Dei</i>) do we ever meet with an allusion to him by any of the greatest +men of his time. Nor in his own writings, as far as I remember, are +<i>they</i> ever referred to. His epitaph is said to have been written by +Boccaccio, but this is doubtful. On reviewing the present series, I +am sorry, on the whole, not to have included more specimens of Barberino; +whose writings, though not very easy to tackle in the mass, +would afford an excellent field for selection and summary.’</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span></p> + +<p>Thus far my brother. I will only add to his biographical details +that, at the very end of Francesco da Barberino’s life, he and one of +his sons were elected the Priori, or joint chief-magistrates of the Florentine +Republic; and that the Barberini who came to the papal +chair in 1623 as Urban VIII. was of the same family. His patronymic +is enshrined to many loose memories in the epigram ‘<i>Quod non +fecere Barbari fecere Barberini</i>.’ To all that my brother has said of +the qualities, and especially the merits, of Francesco, I cordially subscribe. +The <i>Documenti d’Amore</i> is really a most capital book,—I +should suppose, unsurpassed of its kind, and also in its interest +for students of the early mediæval manners, and modes of thought. +Its diction is remarkably condensed—(Italian scholars say that it +shows strong traces of the author’s Provençal studies and predilections)—and +it is proportionately stiff work to hasty readers. Those +who will peruse it deliberately, and weigh its words, find many +niceties of laconism, and much terse and sententious good sense as +well—lengthy as is the entire book. This is indeed no slight +matter—twelve sections, and something like 8500 lines. It is exactly +the sort of work to elicit and to account for editorial enthusiasm.</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading8">THE DOCUMENTI D'AMORE.</div> + +<p>I extract in full the stanzas bearing directly upon that which +(following the impulsion of Fra Bonvicino) has become our more +immediate subject—the Courtesies of the Table. The tone of society +which we find here is visibly in advance of the Lombard +Friar’s, though the express precepts of the two writers have a good +deal of general resemblance: the superiority in this respect is very +much the same as in the language. Barberino’s diction seems quite +worthy of a Tuscan contemporary of Dante, and his works are still +drawn upon as a ‘<i>testo di lingua</i>.’</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘The third point of good manners</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which thou art to observe at table</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou mayst receive thus;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thinking out for thyself the other details from these few.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And, in entering to table,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If he who says to thee “Go in” is a man of distinction,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On account of his dignity</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It behoves thee not to dispute the going.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">With thine equals, it beseems to decline</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For awhile, and then to conform to their wish:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With superiors, affect</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Just the least demur, and then acquiesce.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">With inferiors, keep silence,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And take the place which they give thee: and reflect</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That, by resisting here,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou, by thy default, wouldst be making <i>them</i> rude.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In thine own house, remain</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Behind, if they are thy superiors or equals:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, if thine inferiors, thou shalt seem</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No other than correct if thou dost the same.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Understand the like, if thou givest</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To eat to any persons out of thine own home:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Also remain behind when it happens</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That thou art entertaining women.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Next consider about placing</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Each person in the post that befits him.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Between relatives it behoves</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To place others midway sometimes.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And, in this, honour the more</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Those who are strangers, and retain the others by thyself:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And keep cheerful</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thy face and demeanour, and forbear with all.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Now I speak for every one.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who is helping, let him help in equal portions.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He who is helped, let him not manœuvre</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For the best, but take the less good.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">They must not be pressed;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For this is their own affair, and choice is free,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And one forces the preference</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of him who was abstaining, perhaps purposely.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He makes a fool of himself who prematurely lays aside</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His plate, while the others are still eating;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And he who untidily</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Turns the table into a receptacle for scraps;</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And he who sneers</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At what he does not like; and he who hurries;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And he who picks and chooses</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Out of the viands which are in common;</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And those who seem more hungry</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At the end than at the beginning;</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">And also he who sets to</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At fortifying himself,<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> or exploring the bottom of the platter.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor do I think it looks quite well</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To gnaw the bone with the teeth, and still worse</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To drop it into the saucepan;<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor is salt well deposited on the dish.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And I think that he does amiss</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who carves, being at the table of his superior;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For none can perform service</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If he does not first ask leave.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">With thine equal, begin,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If the knife lies at thy right hand:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If not, leave it to him.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With fruit, thou canst not fitly help thy companion.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">With women, I need not tell thee:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But thou must help them to everything,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If there is not some one who undertakes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Both the carving and other details.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">But always look to it</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That thou approach not too close to any of them.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, if one of them is a relative of thine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou wilt give more room to the other.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And, in short, thou wilt then</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Do and render honour to thine utmost:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And here always mind</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That thou soil not their dress.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Look them in the face but little,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Still less at their hands while eating,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For they are apt to be bashful:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And with respect to them, thou mayst well say “Do eat.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When sometimes there come</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dishes or fruits, I praise him who thinks of avoiding</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To take of those</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which cannot with cleanliness be handled.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ill does the hand which hurries</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To take a larger help out of a dish in common;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And worse he who does not well avoid</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To loll, or set leg upon leg.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And be it observed</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That here thou shouldst speak little and briefly:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor here must there be speech</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of aught save elegant and cheerful pleasantness.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I have shown thee above</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Concerning the respect due to [thy lord], and saluting him.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I will now tell thee</div> + <div class="verse indent0">More than I before said concerning service.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Take care that, in every operation</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or service that thou dost before him,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou must think steadily</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of what thou art about, for it goes ill if thou art absent-minded.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou shouldst keep thine eye,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When thou servest him, on that which he likes.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The silent tongue is aright,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Always without questioning, during service;</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Also that thou keep thyself,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou who hast to serve, clean in dress and hands.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And I would have thee also serve strangers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If they are at the meal with him.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Likewise have an eye to it</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That thou keep things clean before him thou servest.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And thou dost well if thou keepest</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The slice entire, if thou canst, in carving;</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And amiss if neglectfully</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou makest too great a lump of the carved viands;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And worse if thou art so long about it</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That they have nothing to eat.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And, when there may be</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Viands which make the hands uncleanly,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In some unobtrusive way</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Get them washed by the time the next come on.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt always be observant of the same</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In bringing forward the fruits:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For to offer these about,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As I said before, befits not the guests.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Also I much complain</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of thee who wouldst then be correcting others:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For the present it must suffice thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In this case, to do right for thyself only.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He puts me out who has</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So awkward a manner in cutting</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">That, in peeling a pear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He takes up from three to nine o’clock;</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And also he who keeps not good guard</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Over his hand, and slips in cutting;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For he is prevented from serving,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And his lord sometimes has no one to serve him.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I dislike that he who serves</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Should, in serving, speak of the doctor;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Unless maybe by way of obeying,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When he has it in command from him.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In giving water thou shalt be careful,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Considering the time and place:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where there is little, little;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In the cold time, less cold—and, if very cold, warm.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When the sun is very hot,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bring it abundantly, but mind the people’s clothes.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Observe the station and the ages,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With regard to whom thou shalt begin with, if there is none to tell thee.<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">At table it behoves</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not to give bad or offensive news;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Unless delay might produce</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Danger—and then only to the person concerned.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Be thy mouth abstinent</div> + <div class="verse indent0">From eating while the first table is set.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In drinking do likewise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So far as gratification goes, but thirst excuses thee:</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Which if thou feelest, accustom thyself</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not to drink underhand, nor of the best.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Neither is a servant liked</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who afterwards is long over his eating,</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">If he is where he <i>can</i> do this;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And still less he who sulks if he is called</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When he has not yet done eating;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For he serves best who serves other than his gullet.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span></p> +<p>Before parting from the <i>Documenti d’Amore</i>, I will summarize a +few more of Barberino’s dicta on points of courtesy and demeanour +in general.</p> + +<p>There are seven offences in speaking: 1. Prolixity; 2. Curtness; +3. Audacity; 4. Mauvaise Honte; 5. Stuttering; 6. Beating about +the bush; 7. Restlessness of gesture, and this is the least supportable +of all. Remedies against all these evils are assigned. For the +6th, as we are told, the (then) modern usage is to speak out what +you have to say with little or no proem. As to the 7th, the moving +about, as a child would do, the hands, feet, or head, or the using +action in speech, shows deficient firmness. See that you stand firm. +Yet all this is to be modified according to place, time, and the +auditory. (It is amusing to find the dignified Tuscan of the +thirteenth to fourteenth century reprobating that luxuriance of +gesture which is one of the first things to strike an English eye in +Italy down to our own day—more especially in the southern parts +of the country. To have striven to obey Barberino’s precept, under +pain of being pronounced bad company, must have proved hard lines +to some of his contemporaries and catechumens.)</p> + +<p>If you chance into uncongenial company, take the first opportune +occasion for getting away, with some parting words that shall not +bewray your antipathy.</p> + +<p>To casual companions speak on their own respective subjects; as +of God to the clergy, health to doctors, design to painters. ‘With +ladies of refinement and breeding, laud and uphold their honour and +state by pleasant stories not oftentimes told already. And, if any +one is contrary and froward, reply in excuse and defence; for it is +derogatory to contend against those the overcoming of whom is loss.’</p> + +<p>If you come into the company of a great lord, or of persons who +are all your superiors, and if they invite you to speak, inquire what +the topic shall be. If you find nothing to say, wait for some one +else to start you; and at worst be silent. In such company, be +there no gesturing (again!).</p> + +<p>If you are walking with a great lord in any country, conform in +a measure to the usages there prevalent.</p> + +<p>Following your superior, be respectful; to your equal, complaisant,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> +and treat him as superior; and, even with your inferior, +tend towards the same line of conduct. This, however, does not +apply to your own servant. Better exceed than fall short in showing +respect to unknown persons. If your superior, in walking with you, +wants to have you by his side, go to his left as a general rule, so +that he may have the full use of his sword hand. If it rains, and +he has no cloak, offer him yours; and, even if he declines, you must +still dispense with it yourself. The like with your hat. Pay similar +attentions to your equal, or to one that is a little your inferior: and +even to your positive inferiors you must rather overdo courtesy than +fall short. Thus also with women: you must explore the way for +them, and attend on them, and in danger defend them with your +life.</p> + +<p>In church, do not pray aloud, but silently.</p> + +<p>Wait not to be saluted. Be first in saluting; but do not overdo +this, and never reiterate a salutation. Your own lord you must not +salute, unless he comes from afar. You should uncover to him: +then, if he is covered, cover again. Do not exceed in saluting an +intimate, but enter at once into conversation; and do not hug him, +unless he and you are indeed one.<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Bow to ladies without much +speaking: and in towns ascertain the ordinary practice in such cases, +and observe it. If you see a female relative in your own town, she +being alone, or in company with only one person, <i>and if she is handsome</i>, +accost her as though she were not your relative, unless your +relationship is a fact known to the bystanders, (This is a master-touch: +and here is another, of a nearly similar sort)—</p> + +<p>In serving a man of distinction, if you meet his wife, affect not +to observe her; and, if she gives you any commission to fulfil, don’t +show that it gratifies you.</p> + +<p>The 16th ‘<i>Documento</i>’ sets forth ‘the method of making presents +so that the gift be acceptable.’ It is so admirable in point of +both sense and expression that I quote the original in a note, secure +that <i>that</i> will be a gift acceptable to all such readers of these pages<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span> +as may be readers of Italian also.<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> What can be more perfect than +the censure awarded to those who are in a chafe until, by reciprocating +any service rendered to them, they shall have wiped it out?</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Be all aware</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That it is no small flaw to mislike</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Remaining under an obligation:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nay, it then seems that one is liberal by compulsion.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading9">THE REGGIMENTO DELLE DONNE.</div> + +<p>Barberino’s second work, <i>Del Reggimento e dei Costumi delle +Donne</i>, furnishes, strange to say, hardly any express rules for conduct, +at table; but some details may, for our general purpose, be picked +out of an emporium whose abundance can be surmised from the following +programme.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘I will divide this work into 20 parts:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And each part</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall present certain distinct grades,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As the foregoing reading shows,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The 1st will relate how a girl</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Should conduct herself</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When she begins to appreciate right and wrong,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And to fear shame.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">2nd, How, when</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She comes to a marriageable age.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">3rd, How, when she has passed.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The period for marriage.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">4th, if, after she has given up the hope of ever</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Obtaining a husband, it happens</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That yet she gets one, and remains</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At home awhile before going to him.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The 5th, How, after she is married;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how the first, and how</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The second and third,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Up to fifteen days; and the first month,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the second and third;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how on to her end:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Both before having children, and afterwards, and if she</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Has none: and how in old age.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The 6th, How, if she loses her husband:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if she is old;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if she is of middle age;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if she is left young;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if she has children;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if she is a grandmother;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if she still</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Remains mistress of her husband’s property;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And if she, being a widow, takes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The garb of religion.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The 7th sets forth</div> + <div class="verse indent0">How she should comport herself</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If she marries again;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if to a better [husband],</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if to a worse</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And less wealthy one;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if she yet goes to a third;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how, after she has become a widow,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And has again taken a husband,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She remains awhile at home</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Before going to him;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how far re-marrying is praised or blamed.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">8th, How, she</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">Who assumes the habit</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of a religious order at home;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how this is praised or no.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">9th, How, being shut up in a monastery</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In perpetual reclusion;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how the Abbess, Superior, and Prioress,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And every other Portress or Nun.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">10th, How she</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who secludes herself alone</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is named a Hermitess; and wherein this is to blame.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">11th, How</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The maid who is</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In companionship with a lady;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if she is alone,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how if one among others in the like office.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">12th, How</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Every serving-woman shall conduct herself,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whether serving a lady alone, or a lady along</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With the master; and also if any, by herself,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Serves a master; and how</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This is to be praised, and how not.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">13th, How,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A nurse in the house, and how apart.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">14th, How,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The female serf or slave;<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">And how, being a serf,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She may afterwards, through her conduct, obtain her liberty.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">15th, How</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Every kind of woman</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of the common sort should behave,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And of a lower and poorer sort; and all</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Save the bad ones of dissolute life</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who sell their honour for money,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whom I do not purpose</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To put in writing,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor to make any mention of them,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For they are not worthy to be named.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">16th treats</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of certain general precepts</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To all women; and of their ornaments,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And their adventures.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">17th, of their consolations.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">18th, because sometimes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They must know how to speak and converse</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And answer, and be in company,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Here will be treated upon questions of love</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And courtesy and breeding.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">19th treats</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of certain motetts and messages<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of ladies to knights,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And of other sorts</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of women and men.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The 20th treats</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of certain orisons.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And in this part is the conclusion</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of the book; and how I carry this book</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To the Lady who is above-named,<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">And how she receives it;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how the Virtues</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Come before her.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>The promise here is rich indeed, and the performance also is rich; +though it may fairly be said that various sections fall considerably +below one’s expectations, and some of them are jejune enough. But, +after every deduction has been made, the work fills a niche of its +own, and without competitor.</p> + +<p>I add a few of the details most germane to our purpose.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>A young girl should drink but little, and that diluted. She +must not loll at table, nor prop her arms thereon. Here she +should speak even less than at other times. The daughters of +Knights (Cavalier da Scudo), Judges, Physicians, or others of similar +condition, had better learn the art of cooking, though possibly circumstances +will not call upon them to put it in practice.</p> + +<p>A Princess approaching the marriageable age should not go out to +church; as she ought, as far as possible, to avoid being seen about. +(The marriageable age, be it understood, is very early by Barberino’s +reckoning, being twelve years.) A woman should never go out alone.</p> + +<p>An unmarried young lady had better wear a topaz, which is proved +by experience to be an antidote to carnal desire.</p> + +<p>A Provençal gentleman, who was praising his wife for her extreme +simplicity in attire, was asked, ‘Why then does she comb her +hair?’ He replied: ‘To show that she is a woman, whose very +nature it is to be trim in person.’</p> + +<p>A Lady’s-maid should not tell tales to her mistress of any peccadilloes +of the husband: still less should she report to the husband +anything against his wife, unless it be a grave and open misdoing.</p> + +<p>The section concerning Nurses (Part 13) contains much curious +matter: especially as showing how much reliance was placed upon +swaddling and other details of infant management, for the improvement +of good looks, and correction of blemishes. Here we find also +that the system against which Rousseau waged such earnest war, of +mothers’ not suckling their own children, was already in full vigour +in Barberino’s time. He enters no protest against it; but does recommend +mothers to follow the more natural plan, if they can, and +so please God, and earn the children’s love.<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>A she-Barber must not ogle or flirt with her customers, but attend +to her washes and razors. A Fruiteress must not put green leaves +with old fruits, nor the best fruits uppermost, to take her customers +in. A Landlady must not sell re-cooked victuals.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span></p> + +<p>A shrew earns the stick sometimes; nor should that form of correction +be spared to women who gad about after fortune-tellers.</p> + +<p>Beware of a Doctor who scrutinizes your pretty face more than +your symptoms. Also of a Tailor who wants to serve you gratis, or +who is over-officious in trying on your clothes: and beware still more +of a Tailor who is tremulous. If you go to any balls where men are +present, let it be by day, or at any rate with abundance of light.</p> + +<p>The use of thick unguents is uncleanly, especially in hot weather; +it makes the teeth black, the lips green, and the skin prematurely old-looking. +Baths of soft water, not in excess, keep the skin young and +fresh: but those in which hot herbs are boiled scorch and blacken it. +Dark hair becomes lighter by being kept uncovered, especially in +moonlight.</p> + +<p>‘Courtesy is liberal magnificence, which suffers not violence, nor +ingenuity, nor obligation, but pleases of itself alone.’</p> +</div> + +<p>To these brief jottings I subjoin one extract of some length, descriptive +of the marriage-festivity of a Queen. To abridge its details +would be to strip it of its value: but I apprehend that some of these +details require to be taken <i>cum grano salis</i>, Barberino having allowed +himself a certain poetical license.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Now it behoves to dine.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The trumpets sound, and all the instruments,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sweet songs and diversions around.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Boughs, with flowers, tapestries, and satins,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Strewn on the ground; and great lengths of silk</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With fine fringes and broiderings on the walls.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Silver and gold, and the tables set out,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Covered couches, and the joyous chambers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Full kitchens and various dishes;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Donzels deft in serving,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And among them damsels still more so.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tourneying in the cloisters and pathways;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Closed balconies and covered loggias;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Many cavaliers and people of worth,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ladies and damsels of great beauty.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Old women hidden in prayer to God,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Be they served there where they stay.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wines come in, and abundant comfits;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There are the fruits of various kinds.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The birds sing in cages, and on the roofs:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The stags leap, and fawns, and deer.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Open gardens, and their scent spreads.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There greyhounds and braches run in the leash.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pretty spaniel pets with the ladies:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">Several parrots go about the tables.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Falcons, ger-falcons, hawks, and sparrow-hawks,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Carry various snakes all about.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The palfreys houselled at the doors;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The doors open, and the halls partitioned</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As suits the people that have come.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Expert seneschals and other officers.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bread of manna only, and the weather splendid.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fountains rise up from new springs:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They sprinkle where they are wanted, and are beautiful.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The trumpet sounds, and the bridegroom with his following</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chooses his company as he likes.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ladies amorous, joyous, and lovely,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trained, and noble, and of like age,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Take the bride, and usher her as befits:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They give her place to sit at table.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Now damsels and donzels around,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The many ladies who have taken their seats,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All prattle of love and joy.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A gentle wind which keeps off the flies</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tempers the air, and refreshes hearts.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">From the sun spring laughs in the fields:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nowhere can the eye settle.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At your foot run delightful rills:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At times the fish leap from the water.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Jongleurs<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> clad by gift:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Here vestments of fashion unprecedented,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There with pearls and precious stones</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Upon their heads, and solemn garb:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Here are rings which emit a splendour</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Like that of the sun outside.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Now all the men and all the ladies have washed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And then the water is given to the bride:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And I resume speaking of her deportment.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her have washed her hands aforetime,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So that she may then not greatly bedim the water.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her not much set-to at washing in the basin,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor touch mouth or teeth in washing:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">For she can do this afterwards in her chamber,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When it shall be needful and fitting.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of the savoury and nicest viands</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her accept, but little, and avoid eating many:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And let her, several days before, have noted</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The other customs above written;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Here let her observe those which beseem the place.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her not intervene to reprehend the servitors,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor yet speak, unless occasion requires.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let it appear that she hardly minds any diversion,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But that only timidity quenches her pleasure:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But let her, in eating, so manage her hands</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That, in washing, the clear water may remain.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The table being removed, let her stay with the ladies</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Somewhat more freely than at her arrival:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet for this day let her, I pray,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Abstain from laughing as far as she can, keeping</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her countenance so as not to appear out of humour,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But only timid, as has often been said.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If the other ladies sleep that day,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her also repose among them,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And prepare herself the better for keeping awake.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her drinking be small. I approve a light collation,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Eating little: and in like wise at supper</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her avoid too many comfits or fruits:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her make it rather slight than heavy.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Some ladies make ready to go,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And some others to retire to their chambers.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Those remain who are in charge of her:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All approach to cheer her.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She embraces her intimates:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let her make the kindest demonstrations to all—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Adieu, adieu’—tearful at parting.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They all cheer her up, and beg her to be</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Confident, and many vouch</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That her husband has gone to a distance:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her guardians say the same.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They bring her inwards to a new chamber,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whose walls are so draped</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That nothing is seen save silk and gold;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The coverlets starred, and with moons.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The stones shine as it were the sun:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At the corners four rubies lift up a flame</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So lovely that it touches the heart:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Here a man kindles inside and out.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Richest cambrics cover the floor.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">Here baldaquins and the benches around</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All covered with woven pearls;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pillows all of smooth samite,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With the down of griffin-birds<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> inside;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Many topazes, sapphires, and emeralds,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With various stones, as buttons to these.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Beds loaded on beds with no bedstead,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Draped all with foreign cloths:<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">Above the others the chiefest and soft,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With a new covering of byssus.<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of this the down is from the phœnix-bird:<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">It has one bolster and no more,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not too large, but of fine form.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Over it sheets of worked silk,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Soft, yielding, delicate, and durable:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A superb quilt, and cuttings-out<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> within;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, traced with the needle and of various cutting,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fishes and birds and all animals,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A vine goes round the whole,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The twigs of pearls, and the foliage of gems,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Among which are those of all virtues,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Written of or named as excellent,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In the midst of it turns a wheel</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which represents the figure of the world;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wherein birds, in windows of glass,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sing if you will, and if not they are all mute.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There puppies of various kinds,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not troublesome, and they make no noise:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If you call them, they make much of you.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On the benches flowers heaped and strewn—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Great is the odour, but not excessive:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Much balsam in vessels of crystal.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A nurse says: ‘All things are yours.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">You will lie by yourself in that bed:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">We will all be sleeping here.’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They show her the wardrobe at one side,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wherein they say that they remain keeping watch.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They wash the Lady’s face and hands</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With rose-water mixed with violets,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For in that country such is the wont.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They dress her hair, wind up her tresses,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Stand round about her, help her to disrobe.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who takes her shoes off, happy she!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her shoes are by no means of leather.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They look her in the face whether she is timorous:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She prays them to stay.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They tell her that they will sleep outside the bed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At her feet, on the cloths I have spoken of.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">‘They make-believe to do so, and the Lady smiles.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They put her to bed: first they hold her,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They turn the quilt over: and, her face being displayed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All the shows of gems and draperies</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wane before that amorous beauty</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which issues from the eyes she turns around.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her visage shines: the nurses disappear:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Lady closes her eyes, and sleeps.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Then these nurses trick the Lady.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They leave by the door which they had not shown her:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They go to the bridegroom who is waiting outside.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Him they tell of the trick.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There come around the new knight,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Young lord, puissant crown,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Many donzels and knights who wait</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Solely for his chamber-service.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They give him water, as to the Lady:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His blond head each adorns,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bright his countenance. Every one</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Has gladness and joy, glad in his happiness.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They leave him in his jerkin, they bring him within:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They take off his shoes at the draped entry.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They all without, and the nurses at one side,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Stay quiet. A réveillée begins,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And so far off that it gives no annoy.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The comely King crosses himself, and looks:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Lady and the gems make a great splendour,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And it seems to him that this Queen is asleep.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He enters softly, and wholly undresses:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It appears that the Lady heaves a sigh.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">The King is scared: he covers himself up in the bed.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He signals to the birds to sing:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They all begin, one by one, and low.<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent0">The signal tells them to raise their note:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Higher they rise in singing—and perchance</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This noise may wake the Lady up.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Again he signals that they should all trill louder.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The Lady heaves a sigh, and asks,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Who is there?’—Says the King: ‘I am one</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whom thy beauties have brought hither.’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She is troubled, and calls the nurses.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The King replies: ‘I have turned them all out.’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She moves, wanting to get up:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She finds no clothes, for they have carried them away.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The King remains quiet, and waits to see</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In what way he may be able to please her,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And says to her: ‘I have only come hither</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To speak to thee a few words:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Listen a little, and then I will go.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>An elaborate dialogue ensues, conducted on the most high-paced +footing of enamoured courtesy. It contains the strangely beautiful +passage translated in my brother’s <i>Early Italian Poets</i>, and which I +reproduce here; taking therewith my leave both of this singular +specimen of how Kings and Queens might, would, could, or should +confer on their bridal-night, and also of Francesco da Barberino himself. +The Queen is the speaker.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Do not conceive that I shall here recount</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All my own beauty: yet I promise you</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That you, by what I tell, shall understand</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All that befits and that is well to know.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">My bosom, which is very softly made,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of a white even colour without stain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bears two fair apples, fragrant, sweetly savoured,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gathered together from the Tree of Life</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The which is in the midst of Paradise.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And these no person ever yet has touched;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For out of nurse’s and of mother’s hands</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I was when God in secret gave them me.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">These ere I yield I must know well to whom;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, for that I would not be robbed of them,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I speak not all the virtue that they have:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet thus far speaking— Blessed were the man</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who once should touch them, were it but a little;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">See them I say not, for that might not be.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">My girdle, clipping pleasure round-about,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Over my clear dress even unto my knees</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hangs down with sweet precision tenderly;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And under it Virginity abides.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Faithful and simple and of plain belief</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She is, with her fair garland bright like gold,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And very fearful if she overhears</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Speech of herself; the wherefore ye perceive</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That I speak soft lest she be made ashamed.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo! this is she who hath for company</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Son of God, and Mother of the Son.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo! this is she who sits with many in heaven:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo! this is she with whom are few on earth.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading10">SANDRO DI PIPPOZZO. GRAZIOLO DE’ BOMBAGLIOLI. +UGOLINO BRUCOLA.</div> + +<p>Tiraboschi mentions a book which might perhaps be useful in +further illustrating Italian manners at the end of the 13th century: +but I have no direct knowledge of it,—a Treatise on the Governing +of a Family, written by Sandro di Pippozzo in 1299. A treatise on +Moral Virtues (<i>Sopra le Virtù Morali</i>) was composed by Graziolo de’ +Bombaglioli, a Bolognese, in Italian verse, with a comment in Latin, +the date being about the middle of the 14th century; and was published +in 1642, being at that time mistakenly attributed to King +Robert of Naples. It is not a Courtesy-Book; but, referring back to +what has been said (on <a href="#Page_12">p. 12</a>) regarding the definitions of nobility +given by Brunetto Latini, Dante, and Barberino, I may cite part of +what Bombaglioli says on the same subject:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Neither long-standing wealth nor blood confers nobility;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But virtue makes a man noble (<i>gentile</i>);</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And it lifts from a vile place</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A man who makes himself lofty by his goodness.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>A third and older book, no doubt very much to our purpose, would +be one which Ubaldini (in his edition of Barberino’s <i>Reggimento</i>) +refers to as having been laid under contribution by that poet in compiling +his <i>Documenti d’Amore</i>—viz. a rhymed composition, in the +Romagnole dialect, on Methods of Salutation, by Ugolino Brucola<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> +(or Bruzola). This work, again, is unknown to me; and, as I can +trace no mention of it even in Tiraboschi, a writer of most omnivorous +digestion, I infer that it may not improbably have perished.</p> + +<p>Skipping therefore about a century and a quarter, within which +Italian literature was made for ever illustrious by the <i>Commedia</i> of +Dante, and the writings of Petrarca and Boccaccio, not to speak of +others, we come to the early 15th century, still in Florence.</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading11">AGNOLO PANDOLFINI.</div> + +<p>Agnolo Pandolfini wrote on the same subject as Sandro di +Pippozzo, the Governing of a Family (<i>Del Governo della Famiglia</i>). +He died in 1446, aged about 86; and the date of his treatise seems +to be towards 1425-30. This work must not be confounded with +one bearing the same title, frequently cited in the Dizionario della +Crusca, and which deals more particularly with morals and religion. +Pandolfini, both by birth and doings, was a very illustrious son of +Florence: in 1414, 1420, and 1431, he held the highest dignity of +the state, that of Gonfalonier of Justice. He opposed the banishment +of Cosmo de’ Medici, and was treated with distinguished honour by +that great though dangerous citizen on his return. His treatise +takes the form of a dialogue, wherein Agnolo holds forth <i>ore rotundo</i> +to his sons and grandsons. The old gentleman is indeed fearfully +oracular, and possessed with a fathomless belief in himself. He +writes well, and with plenty of good sense. His book is not, in the +straitest acceptation of the term, a Courtesy-Book, but rather a cross +between the moral and the prudential—a dissertation of Œconomics. +Here are some samples of his lore.</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading12">THE GOVERNO DELLA FAMIGLIA.</div> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>To choose a house wherein one can settle comfortably for life is +a great consideration. A locality with good air and good wine +should be sought out: better to buy it than to rent it. The whole +family should have one roof, one entrance-door, one fire, and one +dining-table: this subserves the purposes both of affection and of +thrift.</p> + +<p>The family and household should be well dressed. Even when +living a country life, they should keep on the town dress: good +cloth and cheerful colours, but without fancy-ornaments save for the +women.</p> + +<p>The head of the family should commit to his wife the immediate +care of the household goods: men, however careful, should not be +poking and prying into every corner, and looking whether the +candles have too thick a wick. ‘It is well for every lady to know<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> +how to cook, and prepare all choice viands; to learn this from cooks +when they come to the house for banquets; to see them at work, ask +questions, learn, and bear in mind, so that, when guests come who +ought to be received with welcome, the ladies may know and order +all the best things—and so not have to send every time for cooks. +This cannot be done at a moment’s notice, and especially when one +is in the country, where good cooks are not to be had, and strangers +are more in the way of being asked. Not indeed that the lady is to +cook; but she should order, teach, and show the less skilful servants +to do everything in the best way, and make the best dishes suitable +to the season and the guests.’</p> + +<p>‘I [the infallible Agnolo Pandolfini] always liked so to order the +household that, at whatever hour of day or night, there should +always be some one at home to look after all casualties that might +happen to the inmates. And I always kept in the house a goose +and a dog—wakeful animals, and, as we see, suspicious and attached; +so that, one of them rousing the other, and calling up the household, +the house might always be secure.’</p> + +<p>Always buy of the best—food, clothes, &c., &c. ‘Good things +cost less than the not good.’</p> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading13">MATTEO PALMIERI.</div> + +<p>That Agnolo Pandolfini was regarded as a great authority not +by himself alone is proved by the fact that Matteo Palmieri, the +author of a Dialogue on Civil Life (<i>Della Vita Civile</i>), makes him +the principal speaker. And this was perhaps even during Agnolo’s +lifetime: the assumed date of the colloquy being 1430 (very much +the same as that of Pandolfini’s own book), and the actual date of +composition being probably enough not many years later. Palmieri +was born in Florence in 1405, and died in 1475, honoured for conspicuous +integrity, and distinguished by many public employments. +The <i>Vita Civile</i> is regarded as his most important literary work. +The interlocutors, besides Pandolfini, are a Sacchetti and a Guicciardini. +The subject-matter is more grave and weighty than that of a +Courtesy-Book strictly so called, though we may dip into it for a +detail or two. The following is Palmieri’s own account of the work:</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘The whole performance is divided into four books. In the 1st +the new-born boy is diligently conducted up to the perfect age of +man; showing by what nurture and according to what arts he should +prove more excellent than others. The following two books are +written concerning Uprightness; and express in what manner the +man of perfect age should act, in private and in public, according to +every moral virtue. Whence, in the former of these, Temperance,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span> +Fortitude, and Prudence, are treated of at large—also other virtues +comprised in these. The next is 3rd in order, and is all devoted to +Justice, which is the noblest part of men, and above all others necessary +for maintaining every well-ordered commonwealth. Wherefore +here is diffusely treated of Civil Justice; how people should conduct +themselves in peace; and how wars are managed; how, within the +city by those who hold the magistracies, and beyond the walls by +the public officials, the general well-being is provided for. The last +book alone is written concerning Utility, and provides for the plenty, +ornament, property, and abundant riches, of the whole body politic. +Then in the final portion, as last conclusion, is shown, not without +true doctrine, what is the state of the souls which in the world, +intent upon public good, have lived according to the precepts of life +here set forth by us; in reward whereof they have been by God received +into heaven, to be happy eternally in glory with his saints.’</p> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading14">THE VITA CIVILE.</div> + +<p>Palmieri would have boys eschew any sedentary pastimes. They +may jump, run, and play at ball; and music is highly suitable for +them. To beat them is a barbarism. This may indeed, sometimes +and perhaps, be necessary with boys ‘who are to follow mechanical +and servile arts,’ but not with those who are carefully brought up by +father and preceptor. Begin with encouragements to the well-behaved, +and admonitions to the naughty: and the severer punishments +should be ‘to shut him in; to withhold such food and other +things as he best likes, to take away his clothing, and so on; to +make him ponder long while over his misdoing.’ (This is singularly +gentle discipline for <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 1430: indeed Palmieri intimates that +‘almost all people’ advocated manual correction in his time. Had +any other writer, of so early a date, discovered that ‘spare the rod +and spoil the child’ is not the sum-total of management for minors?)</p> + +<p>A dinner-party is considered well made up, in point of numbers, +if the persons present are not less than three, nor more than nine. +A larger number than the latter cannot all join together in united +conversation.</p> + +<p>‘The expenses of a munificent man should be in things that +bring honour and distinction; not private, but public—as in buildings, +and ornaments of churches, theatres, loggias, public feasts, +games, entertainments; and in such like magnificences he should +not compute nor reckon how much he spends, but by what means +the works may be to the utmost wonderful and ‘beautiful.’ (Nice<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span> +doctrine this for some of our conscript fathers in England, whose +perennial diligence is, as Carlyle says, ‘preserving their game.’ But +the Florentine Republic was in that outcast condition that the +noblemen were not only not hereditary legislators, but were <i>ipso +facto</i> excluded from all public employment, unless they enrolled +themselves in the commonalty by belonging to one of the legislating +guilds.)</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading15">BALDASSAR CASTIGLIONE.</div> + +<p>Both Pandolfini and Palmieri are authors of good repute in +Italian literature: but by no means equal to the writer next on our +list, Baldassar Castiglione, with his book named <i>The Courtier</i> (<i>Il +Cortigiano</i>). This is a remarkably choice example of Italian prose; +which is the more satisfactory because Castiglione was not a Tuscan, +but a Mantuan, and a proclaimed enemy of that narrow literary creed, +the palladium of pedants and ever-recurring bane of strong individualism +among Italian writers, that, save in the Florentine-Tuscan +language (or dialect) of the ‘<i>buon secolo</i>,’ the days of Petrarca +and Boccaccio, there is no orthodoxy of diction. Some noticeable +details on this point are to be found in the <i>Cortigiano</i>: showing +that the ultra-purists of that time insisted upon the use by writers, +whether Tuscan or belonging to other parts of Italy, of words occurring +in Petrarca and Boccaccio already quite obsolete and hardly intelligible +even in Tuscany—and also upon the use of corrupt forms +of words framed from the Latin, because these pertained to the +Tuscan idiom, even although correct forms of the same words were +in current use in other Italian regions. In all such regards Castiglione +claims for himself unfettered latitude of choice: the verbal +precisian, scared at his theoretic license, is surprised and relieved to +find that after all the book is not only endurable in style, even to +his own punctilious ears, but particularly elegant.</p> + +<p>Baldassar Castiglione was born on the 6th of December 1478<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +at Casatico, in the Mantuan territory. Noble and handsome, he +grew up almost universally accomplished and learned; a distinguished +connoisseur; and valued by all the most eminent men of +his time. His full-length portrait appears in one of the frescoes of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span> +Raphael in the Stanze of the Vatican. He went on many embassies—among +others, to England. Henry VIII., of whose youthful promise +he speaks in the most rapturous terms, knighted him: the Emperor +Charles V. said that by Castiglione’s death chivalry lost its brightest +luminary. His career closed at Toledo on the 2nd of February 1529. +Among his writings are poems in Latin and Italian, but his chief work +is the <i>Cortigiano</i>. This was composed between the years 1508 and +1518; and published in 1528, in a state which its author regarded as +somewhat hurried and incomplete. It is written in the narrative form, +but consisting principally of dialogue, or indeed of successive monologues; +and purports to relate certain <i>conversazioni</i> (rightly to be so +called) which were held in 1506 in the court of Urbino, for the delectation +of the Duchess Elisabetta della Rovere (by birth a Gonzaga) +and her ladies. The topic proposed for treatment is—what should a +perfectly qualified Courtier be like? The principal speakers on the +general subject are the Conte Lodovico da Canossa, Federico Fregoso, +and Ottavian Fregoso; Bernardo Bibiena takes up the special question +of <i>facetiæ</i>, and Giuliano de’ Medici speaks of the Court Lady, and +generally in honour of women.</p> + +<p>The term Courtier has not a very exalted sound to a modern or +English ear: but Castiglione’s ideal Courtier is a truly noble and +gallant gentleman, furnished with all sorts of solid no less than +splendid qualities. His ultimate <i>raison d’être</i> is that he should +always, through good and evil report, tell his sovereign the strict +truth of all things which it behoves him to know—certainly a sufficiently +honourable and handsomely unfulfilled duty. The tone +throughout is lofty, and of more than conventional or courtly rectitude:<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> +indeed, the book as a whole is hardly what one associates +mentally with the era of Pagan Popes,—of a Cæsar Borgia just cleared +off from Romagna, and an Alessandro de’ Medici impending over +Florence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span></p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading16">THE CORTIGIANO.</div> + +<p>Almost the only illustration which Castiglione supplies of the art +of dining is the following anecdote:</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘The Marquis Federico of Mantua, father of our Lady Duchess, +being at table with many gentlemen, one of them, after he had eaten +a whole stew, said, “My Lord Marquis, pardon me;” and, so saying, +he began to suck up the broth that was left. Forthwith then said +the Marquis: “You should ask pardon of the pigs, for to me there +is no harm done at all!”’</p> +</div> + +<p>Some other points I take as they come.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘Having many a time reflected wherefrom Grace arises (not to +speak of those who derive it from the stars), I find one most universal +rule, which seems to me to hold good, in this regard, in all +human things done and said, more than aught else; and this is—to +avoid affectation as much as one can, and as a most bristling and +perilous rock, and (to use perhaps a new-coined word) to do everything +with a certain slightingness [<i>sprezzatura</i>], which shall conceal +art, and show that what is done and said comes to one without trouble +and almost without thinking.’ Yet there may be as much affectation +in slightingness itself as in punctilio. Instances adduced of the +latter, as regards the care of the person, are the setting a scrap of +looking-glass in a recess of one’s cap, and a comb in one’s sleeve, and +keeping a page to follow one perpetually about with a sponge and a +clothes-brush. Female affectations were ‘the plucking out the hair of +eyebrows and forehead, and undergoing all those inconveniences +which you ladies fancy to be altogether occult from men, and which +nevertheless are all known.’</p> + +<p>The perfect Courtier ought to know music—sing at sight, and +play on various instruments; he ought also to have a practical knowledge +of drawing and painting. Better even than singing at sight is +singing solo to the viol, and most especially thus singing in recitative +[<i>per recitare</i>], ‘which adds to the words so much grace and force +that great marvel it is.’ All stringed instruments are well suited for +the Courtier; not so wind-instruments, ‘which Minerva interdicted to +Alcibiades, because they have an unseemly air.’ The Court Lady +also ought to have knowledge of letters, music, and painting, as well +as of dancing, and how to bear her part in entertainments [<i>festeggiare</i>].</p> + +<p>‘Old men blame in us many things which, of themselves, are +neither good nor bad, but only because <i>they</i> used not to do them: +and they say that it is unbefitting for young men to go through the +city riding, especially on mules; to wear in the winter fur linings +and long robes; to wear a cap [<i>berretta</i>], at any rate until the man +has reached eighteen years of age,—and other the like things. +Wherein in sooth they mistake: for these customs, besides being convenient +and serviceable, are introduced by fashion, and universally +accepted,—as aforetime to dress in the open tunic [<i>giornea</i>], with open<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> +hose and polished shoes, and for gallantry to carry all day a hawk on +the fist for no reason, and to dance without touching the lady’s hand, +and to adopt many other modes which, as they would now be most +awkward, so then were they highly prized.’</p> + +<p>Federico Fregoso, the chief speaker of the second evening, is of +opinion that a man of rank ought not to honour with his presence a +village feast, where the spectators and company would be coarse +people. To this Gaspar Pallavicino demurs; saying that, in his native +Lombardy, many young noblemen will dance all day under the sun +with country people, and play with them at wrestling, running, leaping, +and so on—exercises of strength and dexterity in which the +countrymen are often the winners. Fregoso rejoins that this, if done +at all, should be not by way of emulation but of complaisance, and +when the nobleman feels tolerably sure of conquering; and generally, +in all sorts of exercises save feats of arms, he should stop short of +anything like professional zeal or excellence. [A concluding hint +worth consideration in these days of ‘Athletic Clubs.’]</p> +</div> + +<p>The discourse of Bernardo Bibiena on <i>facetiæ</i> is a magazine of good +things, both anecdotic, epigrammatic, and critical. The speaker is +particularly severe on ‘funny men’ and ‘jolly dogs’; concerning whom +I venture to introduce one consecutive extract of some little length.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘The Courtier should be very heedful of his beginnings, +so as to leave a pleasing impression, and should consider how +baneful and fatal it is to fall into the contrary. And this danger +do they more than others run who make it their business to be amusing, +and assume with these their quips a certain liberty authorizing +and licensing them to do and say whatever strikes them, without +any consideration. Thus these people start off on matters whence, +not knowing their way out again, they try to help themselves off by +raising a laugh: and this also they do so scurvily that it fails; so that +they occasion the severest tedium to those who see and hear them, +and they themselves remain most crestfallen. Sometimes, thinking +thus to be witty and lively, in the presence of ladies of honour, and +often even in speaking to them, they set-to at uttering most nasty and +indecent words: and, the more they see them blush, so much the +more do they account themselves good courtiers: and ever and anon +they laugh and plume themselves at so bright a gift which they think +their own. But for no purpose do they commit so many imbecilities +as in order to be thought “boon companions.” This is that only +name which appears to them worthy of praise, and which they vaunt +more than any other; and, to acquire it, they bandy the most blundering +and vile blackguardisms in the world. Often will they shove +one another down-stairs; knock ribs with bludgeons and bricks; +throw handfuls of dust into the eyes; and bring down people’s +horses upon them in ditches, or on the slope of a hill. Then, at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span> +table, soups, sauces, jellies, all do they flop in one another’s face: and +then they laugh! And he who can do the most of these things accounts +himself the best and most gallant courtier, and fancies he has +gained great glory. And, if sometimes they invite a gentleman to +these their pleasantries, and he abstains from such horse-play, forthwith +they say that he makes himself too sage and grand, and is not a +“boon companion.” But worse remains to tell. There are some +who vie and wager which of them can eat and drink the most +nauseous and fetid things; and these they hunt up so abhorrent to +human senses that it is impossible to mention them without the utmost +disgust.—“And what may these be?” said Signor Lodovico +Pio.—Messer Federico replied: “Let the Marquis Febus [da Ceva] +tell you, as he has often seen them in France; and perhaps the thing +has happened to himself.”—The Marquis Febus replied: “I have +seen nothing of the sort done in France that is not also done in Italy. +But, on the other hand, what is praiseworthy in Italian habits of dress, +festivities, banqueting, fighting, and whatever else becomes a courtier, +is all derived from the French.”—“I deny not,” answered Messer +Federico, “that there are among the French also most noble and unassuming +cavaliers: and I for my part have known many truly worthy +of all praise. Yet some are to be found by no means well-bred: and, +speaking generally, it appears to me that the Spaniards get on better +in manner with the Italians than the French do; since that calm +gravity peculiar to the Spaniards seems to me much more conformable +to us than the rapid liveliness which is to be recognized almost in +every movement of the French race—which in them is not derogatory, +and even has grace, because to themselves it is so natural and appropriate +that it indicates no sort of affectation in them. There are indeed +many Italians who would fain force themselves to imitate that +manner; and they can manage nothing else than jogging the head in +speaking, and bowing sideways with a bad grace, and, when they are +walking about, going so fast that the grooms cannot keep up with +them. And with these modes they fancy they are good French +people, and partake of their offhand ways: a thing indeed which +seldom succeeds save with those who have been brought up in France, +and have got into these habits from childhood upwards.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The reader will probably agree with me in thinking that Castiglione’s +own opinion is expressed here rather in the speech of Federico +Fregoso than of the Marquis Febus; and that the all-accomplished +Italian patrician of the opening sixteenth century by no means regarded +the French as the courteous nation <i>par excellence</i>. Elsewhere +it is remarked that the French recognize nobility in arms only, and +utterly despise letters and literary men; and that presumption is a +leading trait in the national character.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span></p> + +<p>Castiglione does not seem to have entertained the same objection +to gesturing that Francesco da Barberino did. In amusing narration +or story-telling, at any rate, he approves of this accompaniment; +speaking of people who ‘relate and express so pleasantly something +which may have happened to them, or which they have seen or heard, +that with gestures and words they set it before your eyes, and make +you almost lay your hand upon it.’</p> + +<p>The banefulness of a wicked Courtier is set forth in strong terms.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘No punishment has yet been invented horrid and tremendous enough +for chastising those wicked Courtiers who direct to a bad end their +elegant and pleasant manners and good breeding, and by these means +creep into the good graces of their sovereigns, to corrupt them, and +divert them from the path of virtue, and lead them into vice: for +such people may be said to infect with mortal poison, not a vessel +of which one only person has to drink, but the public fountain which +the whole population uses.’</p> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading17">GIOVANNI BATTISTA POSSEVINI.</div> + +<p>The last two authors on our list, Giovanni Battista Possevini and +Giovanni della Casa, will bring us to about the middle of the sixteenth +century; beyond which I do not propose to pursue the subject +of Italian Courtesy-Books. We are now fairly out of the middle +ages, and in the full career of transition from the old to the new. +Indeed, were it not that Della Casa’s work, <i>Il Galateo</i>, is so peculiarly +apposite to our purpose, I might have been disposed to leave +both these writers aside as a trifle too modern in date: but, coming +closer as that does to the exact definition of a Courtesy-Book than any +other of the compositions which we have been considering, it must +perforce find admission here,—and a few words may at the same time +be spared to Possevini, who introduces us to a special department of +manners. And first of Possevini.</p> + +<p>This writer was (like Castiglione) a Mantuan, and died young—perhaps +barely aged thirty. A famous man of letters, Paolo Giovio, +found him to be ‘a son of melancholy, and so learned, according to +the title of Christ on the cross,<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> as to make one marvel: he is a good +poet.’ The book we have to deal with is of considerable size, a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span> +<i>Dialogue concerning Honour</i> (<i>Dialogo dell’ Onore</i>): it was published +in 1553, after the author’s death, which seems to have occurred +towards 1550. Possevini is charged with having borrowed freely +from another writer, who devoted himself to the denunciation of +duelling, Antonio Bernardi; although indeed the <i>publication</i> of Bernardi’s +book did not take place till some years after the posthumous +work of Possevini was in print. The special subject of the latter, +as we have said, is honour—the quality and laws of honour, with a +leading though not exclusive reference to the duelling system. +Many other Italian writers of this period discussed that latter question, +some upholding and some reprobating the institution. Possevini +is certainly not one of its adversaries, but debates many of the ancillary +points with the particularity of a casuist. The few items which +I shall extract are cited more as curiosities than as fairly representing +the substance of the book.</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading18">THE DIALOGO DELL’ ONORE.</div> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>A man of letters affronted by a military man is not—so Possevini +lays it down—bound to call him out, for the duel is not his vocation. +If he is depreciated in his literary character, it is in writing +that he should respond: if he is otherwise damnified, let him appeal +to the magistrate. But this latter course is not permitted to a soldier: +fighting is his business, and he must have recourse to the sword. The +maxim that, in duel, one is bound either to slay one’s adversary, or +take him prisoner, is barbarous: it should suffice to make him recant +or apologize, or to wound him, or to reduce him to surrender and +humiliation.</p> + +<p>A man who marries a professional courtesan lowers himself; yet +not so far as that he can properly be refused as a duellist, or as a +magistrate, or in other matters pertaining to honour. A husband +who connives at his own dishonour, either by positive intention or by +stupidity exceeding a certain limit, should be refused as above; not +so a betrayed husband who has taken any ordinary precautions. The +husband who detects his wife in adultery, without resenting it, is a +dishonoured man: yet to kill her is beyond the mark,—to divorce her, +contrary to canon law. He should obtain a legal abrogation of the +wife’s dowry, or else, as a milder course, send her back to her own +people, and have no sort of knowledge of her thenceforth.</p> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading19">GIOVANNI DELLA CASA.</div> + +<p>Monsignor Giovanni della Casa, created Archbishop of Benevento +in 1544, was born of noble Florentine parentage on the 28th of +June 1503, and died on the 14th of November 1556. He ranks as +one of the best Latin and Italian poets of his century; but some of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span> +his poems are noted for licentiousness, and are even reputed to have +damaged his ecclesiastical career, and lost him a Cardinal’s hat. +The works thus impugned appear all to belong to his youth. He +had already obtained some church-preferment, and was settled in +Rome, by the year 1538. On the election of Pope Julius III., in +1550, Della Casa lived privately in the city or territory of Venice, +in great state, and distinguished for courteous and charitable +munificence. Paul IV., who succeeded to the papacy in 1555, recalled +him to Rome, and created him Secretary of State.</p> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading20">THE GALATEO.</div> + +<p>The <i>Galateo</i> (written, I presume, somewhere about 1550) has +always been a very famous book in Italy; and of that sort of fame +which includes great general as well as literary acceptance. It is a +model of strong sententious Tuscan; approaching the pedantic, yet +racily idiomatic at the same time. The title in full runs <i>Galateo, or +concerning Manners; wherein, in the Character of an Elderly Man +[Vecchio Idiota] instructing a Youth, are set forth the things which +ought to be observed and avoided in ordinary intercourse</i>. The +paragraphs are numbered, and amount to 180.<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> The name <i>Galateo</i> is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> +given to the book in consequence of a little anecdote which it introduces, +apparently from real life. There was once a Bishop of +Verona named Giovanni Matteo Giberti, noted for liberality. He +entertained at his house a certain Count Ricciardo—a highly accomplished +nobleman, but addicted (<i>proh pudor!</i>) to eating his victuals +with ‘an uncouth action of lips and mouth, masticating at table with +a novel noise very unpleasing to hear.’ The Bishop therefore deemed +it the kindest thing he could do to have the Count escorted on his +homeward way by a remarkably discreet, well-bred, and experienced +gentleman of the episcopal household, named Galateo, who wound +up a handsome compliment at parting with a plain exposition of the +guest’s peccadillo. His own misdoing was news to the Count: but +he took the information altogether in good part, and seriously promised +amendment.</p> + +<p>Let us now dip into the <i>Galateo</i> for a few axioms; first on +dining, and afterwards on other points of manners.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>You must not smell at the wine-cup or the platter of any one, +not even at your own; nor hand the wine which you have tasted to +another, unless your very intimate friend; still less offer him any +fruit at which you have bitten. Some monsters thrust their snouts, +like pigs, into their broth, and never raise their eyes or hands from +the victuals, and gorge rather than eat with swollen cheeks, as if they +were blowing at a trumpet or a fire; and, soiling their arms almost +to the elbows, make a fearful mess of their napkins.<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> And these +same napkins they will use to wipe off perspiration, and even to blow +their noses. You must not so soil your fingers as to make the +napkin nasty in wiping them: neither clean them upon the bread +which you are to eat: [we should hope not]. In company, and +most especially at table, you should not bully nor beat any servants;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span> +nor must you express anger, whatever may occur to excite it; nor +talk of any distressful matters—wounds, illnesses, deaths, or pestilence. +If any one falls into this mistake, the conversation should be +dexterously changed: ‘although, as I once heard said by a worthy +man our neighbour, people often would be as much eased by crying +as by laughing. And he affirmed that with this motive had the +mournful fictions termed tragedies been first invented: so that, being +set forth in theatres, as was then the practice, they might bring tears +to the eyes of those who had need of this, and thus they, weeping, +might be cured of their discomfort. But, be this as it may, for us it +is not befitting to sadden the minds of those with whom we converse, +especially on occasions when people have met for refreshment and +recreation, and not to cry: and, if any one languishes with a longing +to weep, right easy will it be to relieve him with strong mustard, or +to set him somewhere over the smoke.’ You should not scratch +yourself at table, nor spit; or, if spit you must, do it in a seemly +way. Some nations have been so self-controlling as not to spit at +all.<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> ‘We must also beware of eating so greedily that hence comes +hiccupping or other disagreeable act; as he does who hurries so that +he has to puff and blow, to the annoyance of the whole company.’ +Rub not your teeth with the napkin—still less with your fingers: +nor rinse out your mouth, nor spit forth wine. ‘Nor, on rising from +table, is it a nice habit to carry your toothpick<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> in your mouth, like +a bird which is in nest-building,—or behind the ear, like a barber.’ +You must not hang the toothpick round your neck: it shows that +you are ‘overmuch prepared and provided for the service of the +gullet,’ and you might as well hang your spoon in the same way. +Neither must you loll on the table; nor by gesture or sound +symbolize your great relish of viands or wine—a habit fit only for +tavern-keepers and topers. Also you should not put people out of +countenance by pressing them to eat or drink.</p> + +<p>‘To present to another something from the plate before oneself +does not seem to me well, unless he who presents is of much the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span> +higher grade, so that the recipient is thereby honoured. For, among +equals in condition, it looks as if he who offers the gift were setting +himself up somehow as the superior: and sometimes that which a +man gives is not to the taste of him it is given to. Besides, it +implies that the dinner has no abundance of dishes, or is not well +distributed, when one has too much, and another too little: and the +master of the house might take it as an affront. However, in this +one should do as others do, and not as it might be best to do in the +abstract: and in such fashions it is better to err along with others +than to be alone in well-doing. But, whatever may be the best +course in this, you must not refuse what is offered you; for it would +seem as if you slighted or reproved the donor.’</p> + +<p>For one man to pledge another in the wine-cup is not an Italian +usage, nor yet rightly nationalized, and should be avoided. Decline +such an invitation; or confess yourself the worse drinker, and give +but one sip to your wine. ‘Thank God, among the many pests +which have come to us from beyond the mountains, this vilest one +has not yet reached us, of regarding drunkenness as not merely a +laughing-matter, but even a merit.’ The only time when you should +wash hands in company is before going to table: you should do it +then even though your hands be quite clean, ‘so that he who dips +with you into the same platter may know that for certain.’</p> + +<p>Well-bred servitors, serving at table, must on no account scratch +their heads or any other part of the body, nor thrust their hands +anywhere under their clothes out of sight, but keep them ‘visible +and beyond all suspicion,’ and scrupulously clean. Those who +hand about plates or cups must abstain from spitting or coughing, +and most especially from sneezing. If a pear or bread has been +set to toast, the attendant must not blow off any ash-dust, but jog or +otherwise nick it off. He must not offer his pocket-handkerchief to +any one, though it be clean from the wash; for the person to whom +it is offered has no assurance of that fact, and may find it distasteful. +The usher must not take it upon himself to invite strangers, or to +retain them to dine with his lord: if he does so, no one who knows +his place will act on the invitation.</p> + +<p>Scraping the teeth together, whistling, screaming, grinding stones, +and rubbing iron, are grievous noises: and a man who has a bad +voice should eschew singing, especially a solo. Coughing and +sneezing must not be done loud. ‘And there is also to be found +such a person as, in yawning, will howl and bray like an ass; and +another who, with his mouth still agape, <i>will</i> go on with his talk, +and emits that voice, or rather that noise, which a mute produces +when he tries to speak.’ Indeed, much yawning should be altogether +avoided: it shows that your company does not amuse you, and that +you are in a vacant mood. ‘And thus, when a man yawns among +others who are idle and unoccupied, all they, as you may often have +observed, yawn forthwith in response; as if the man had recalled to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span> +their memory the thing which they would have done before, if only +they had recollected it.’ Other acts discourteous to the company +you are in are—to fall asleep; to pace about the room, while others +are seated in conversation; to take a letter out of your pouch, and +read it; to set about paring your nails; or to hum between your +teeth, play the devil’s tattoo, or swing your legs. Also you must +not nudge a man with your elbow in talking to him. Let us have +no showing of tongue, nor overmuch stroking of beard, nor rubbing-together +of hands, nor heaving of long-drawn sighs, nor shaking +oneself up with a start, nor stretching, and singing-out of ‘Dear +me!’</p> + +<p>Having used your pocket-handkerchief, don’t open it out to +inspect it.</p> + +<p>‘They are in the wrong whose mouths are always full of their +babies, and their wife, and their nurse. “My little boy yesterday +made me laugh so—only hear.” “You never saw a sweeter child +than my Momus.” “My wife is so-and-so.” “Said Cecchina:<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> and +could you ever believe it of such a scatterbrain?” There is no man +so unoccupied that he can either reply or attend to such nonsense: +and the speaker becomes a nuisance to everybody.’</p> + +<p>In walking, you should not indulge in too much action, as by +sawing with your arms; nor should you stare other passers-by in the +face, as if there were some marvel there.</p> + +<p>‘Now what shall I say of those who issue from the desk into +company with a pen behind the ear? or those who hold a handkerchief +in the mouth? or who lay one leg along the table? or who spit +on their fingers?’</p> + +<p>Some people offend by affected humility, which is indeed a practical +lying. ‘With these the company has a bad bargain whenever +they come to a door; for they will for no consideration in the world +pass on first, but they step across, and return back,—and so fence and +resist with hands and arms that at every third step it becomes necessary +to battle with them, and this destroys all peace and comfort, +and sometimes the business which is in hand.’</p> +</div> + +<p>This last caveat leads on the author to a passage of importance +regarding ceremoniousness in general; from which we learn that that +extreme of etiquette was still almost an innovation in Italy in the +middle of the sixteenth century, and contrary to the national bias. +This may surprise some readers; for certainly the courteous Italian +of the later period, for all his characteristic ‘naturalness,’ has not +been wanting in ceremony, and the elaboration of politeness of phrase +in his writing is something observable—at least to Englishmen, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span> +least ceremonious nation, I suppose, under heaven (and that is by no +means a term of disparagement). I subjoin the passage from Della +Casa, not a little condensed; followed by another, still more +abridged, concerning the essence and right of elegant manners.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘And therefore ceremonies (which we name, as you hear, by a +foreign word, as not having one of our own—which shows that our +ancestors knew them not, so that they could not give them any name)—ceremonies, +I say, differ little, to my thinking, from lies and dreams, +on account of their emptiness. As a worthy man has more than once +shown me, those solemnities which the clergy use in relation to altars +and the divine offices, and towards God and sacred things, are properly +called “ceremonies.” But, as soon as men began to reverence +one the other with artificial fashions beyond what is fitting, and to +call each other “master” and “lord,” bowing and cringeing and bending +in sign of reverence, and uncovering, and naming one another by +far-sought titles, and kissing hands, as if theirs were sacred like those +of priests,—somebody, as this new and silly usage had as yet no name, +termed it “ceremoniousness”: I think, by way of ridicule. Which +usage, beyond a doubt, is not native to us but foreign and barbarous, +and imported, whencesoever it be, only of late into Italy,—which, +unhappy, abased, and spiritless in her doings and influence, has +grown and gloried only in vain words and superfluous titles. Ceremonies, +then,—if we refer to the intention of those who practise +them—are a vain indication of honour and reverence towards the +person to whom they are addressed, set forth in words and shows, +and concerned with titles and proffers. I say “vain” in so far as we +honour in seeming those whom we hold in no reverence, and do sometimes +despise. And yet, that we may not depart from the customs of +others, we term them “Illustrissimo Signor” so-and-so, and “Eccellentissimo +Signor” such-a-one: and in like wise we sometimes profess +ourselves “most devoted servants” to some one whom we would +rather dis-serve than serve. This usage, however, it is not for us individually +to change—nay, we are compelled (as it is not our own +fault, but that of the time) to second it; but this has to be done with +discretion. Wherefore it is to be considered that ceremonies are +practised either for profit, or for vanity, or by obligation. And every +lie which is uttered for our own profit is a fraud and sin and a dishonest +thing (as indeed one cannot in any sort of case lie with +honour): and this sin do flatterers commit. And, if ceremonies are, +as we said, lies and false flatteries, whenever we practise them with a +view to gain we act like false and bad men: wherefore, with that +view, no ceremony ought to be practised. Those which are practised +by obligation must in no wise be omitted; for he who omits them is +not only disliked but injurious. And thus he who addresses a single +person as “<i>You</i>” (if it is not a person of the very lowest condition)<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span> +does him no favour: nay, were he to say “<i>Thou</i>,” he would derogate +from his due, and act insultingly and injuriously, naming him by the +word which is usually reserved for poltroons and clodhoppers. And +these I call “ceremonies of obligation”: since they do not proceed +from our own will, nor freely of our own choice, but are imposed upon +us by the law—that is, by common usage. And he who is wont to +be termed “Signore” by others, and himself in like manner to address +others as “Signore,” assumes that you contemn him or speak +affrontingly when you call him simply by his name, or speak to him +as “Messere,” or blurt out a “<i>You</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> However, in these ceremonies +of obligation, certain points should be observed, so that one may not +seem either vain or haughty. And first, one should have regard to +the country one lives in; for every usage is not apposite in every +country. And perhaps that which is adopted by the Neapolitans, +whose city abounds in men of great lineage, and in barons of lofty +station, would not suit the Lucchese or Florentines, who for the most +part are merchants and simply gentlemen, having among them neither +princes nor marquises nor any baron. Besides this, regard must be +paid to the occasion, to the age and condition of the person towards +whom we practise ceremony, and to our own; and, with busy people, +one should cut them off altogether, or at any rate shorten them as +much as one can, and rather imply than express them: which the +courtiers in Rome are very expert in. Neither are men of great +virtue and excellence in the habit of practising many; nor do they +like or seek that many be practised towards them, not being minded to +waste much thought over futilities. Nor yet should artisans and persons +of low condition care to practise very elaborate ceremonies +towards great men and lords: for these rather than otherwise dislike +such demonstrations at their hands—for their way is to seek and +expect obedience more than civilities. And thus the servant who +proffers his service to his master makes a mistake: for the master +takes it amiss, and esteems that the servant wants to call in question +his mastership,—as if his right were not to dictate and command. If +you show a little suitable abundance of politeness to those who are +your inferiors, you will be called courteous. And, if you do the +same to your superiors, you will be termed well-bred and agreeable. +But he who should in this matter be excessive and profuse would be +blamed as vain and frivolous; and perhaps even worse would befall +him, for he might be held evil and sycophantic. And this is the +third kind of ceremonies, which does indeed proceed from our will, +and not from usage. Let us then recollect that ceremonies (as I said +from the first) were naturally not necessary,—on the contrary, people<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span> +got on perfectly well without them: as our own nation, not long ago, +did almost wholly. But the illnesses of others have infected us also +with this and many other infirmities. For which reasons, when we +have submitted to usage, all the residue in this matter that is superfluous +is a kind of licit lying: or rather, from that point onwards, not +licit but forbidden—and therefore a displeasing and tedious thing to +noble souls, which will not live on baubles and appearances. Vain +and elaborate and superabundant ceremonies are flatteries but little +covert, and indeed open and recognized by all. But there is another +sort of ceremonious persons who make an art and trade of this, and +keep book and document of it. To such a class of persons, a giggle; +and to such another, a smile. And the more noble shall sit upon +the chair, and the less noble upon the settle. Which ceremonies I +think were imported from Spain into Italy. But our country has +given them a poor reception, and they have taken little root here; +for this so punctilious distinction of nobility is a vexation to us:<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> and +therefore no one ought to set himself up as judge, to decide who is +more noble, and who less so.—To speak generally, ceremoniousness +annoys most men; because by it people are prevented from living in +their own way—that is, prevented from liberty, which every man +desires before all things else.’</p> + +<p>‘Agreeable manners are those which afford delight, or at least do +not produce any vexation, to the feelings, appetite, or imagination, +of those with whom we have to do. A man should not be content +with doing that which is right, but should also study to do it with +grace. And grace [<i>leggiadria</i>] is as it were a light which shines +from the fittingness of things that are well composed and well +assorted the one with the other, and all of them together; without +which measure even the good is not beautiful, and beauty is not +pleasurable. Therefore well-bred persons should have regard to this +measure, both in walking, standing, and sitting, in gesture, demeanour, +and clothing, in words and in silence, and in rest and in +action.’</p> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote" id="heading21">THE TRATTATO DEGLI UFFICI COMUNI.</div> + +<p>Besides the <i>Galateo</i>, Monsignor della Casa has left another and +shorter <i>Tractate on Amicable Intercourse between Superiors and +Inferiors</i> (<i>Trattato degli Uffici Comuni tra gli Amici Superiori e +Inferiori</i>). This deals not so much with the relation between +those who are rich and those who are poor in the gifts of +fortune, taken simply on that footing, as with the connection between<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span> +master and servant, patron and client, magnate and dependent. The +tone is grave and humane, with an adequate share of worldly wisdom +interspersed. The opening is interesting and suggestive; and shows +that the great ‘Servant Controversy,’ of which the pages of English +daily newspapers are now almost annually conscious in the dull season, +was by no means unknown to Italy in the sixteenth century:—</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘I apprehend that the ancients were free from a great and continual +trouble; having their households composed, not of free men, +as is our usage, but of slaves, of whose labour they availed themselves, +both for the comforts of life, and to maintain their repute, +and for the other demands of society. For, as the nature of +man is noble, copious, and erect, and far more apt to commanding +than obeying, a hard and odious task do those undertake who +assume to exercise masterdom over it, while still bold and of undiminished +strength, as is done now-a-days. To the ancients, in my +judgment, it was no difficult or troublesome thing to command those +who were already quelled and almost domesticated—people whom +either chains, or long fatigues, or a soul servile from very childhood, +had bereaved of pride and force. We on the contrary have to do +with souls robust, spirited, and almost unbending; which, through +the vigour of their nature, refuse and hate to be in subjection, and, +knowing themselves free, resist their masters, or at least seek and +demand (often with reason, but sometimes also without) that in commanding +them some measure be observed. Whence it arises that +every house is full of complaints, wranglings, and questionings. And +certainly this is the fact; because we are unjust judges in our own +cause,—and, as it is true that everybody unfairly prizes his own +affairs higher than those of others, albeit of equal value, and consequently +always persuades himself that he has given more than he +has received, the thing cannot go on <i>pari passu</i>. Hence comes the +wearisome complaint of the one, “I have worn myself out in your +house;” and the rebuke of the other, “I have maintained and fed +you, and treated you well.”’</p> +</div> + +<p>I can afford only one more extract from this treatise; which indeed +handles its general subject-matter more on the ground of fairness, +good-feeling, and expedient compromise of conflicting claims, than +as a question of courtesy—though neither is that left out of view.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>‘In giving orders and assigning duties which have to be fulfilled, +let regard be paid to the condition of the individuals; so that, +if anything uncleanly is to be done, that be allotted to the lowest, +and it come not to pass (as some perverse-natured people will have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span> +it) that noblemen<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> should sweep the house, and carry slops out of +the chambers. Let not things of much labour be committed to the +weak, nor the degrading to the well-mannered, nor the frivolous and +sportful to the aged. Moreover let the masters be heedful not to +impose upon any one anything of uncommon difficulty or labour or +painstaking, unless of necessity or for some great cause; for the laws +of humanity command us not to make a call upon a man’s diligence +and solicitude beyond what is reasonable, or as if in levity—especially +if it exceeds the ordinary bounds.’</p> +</div> + +<p>With this I shut up Della Casa’s volume, and take final leave of +my reader—trusting that, after perusing, skimming, or skipping, so +much matter concerning Courtesy, he will part from me on the terms +of (at lowest) a ‘courteous reader,’ in more than the merely conventional +sense.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> As mentioned below, the first German work including something by way +of Courtesy-Book, ab. 1210 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>, <i>Der Wälsche Gast</i>, was written by an Italian, +Tomasin von Zirclaria.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Possibly this notion prompted Dante to represent himself, in the opening +of the <i>Commedia</i>, as also lost in a forest.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> The line here translated as one forms two in the Italian, and the like +with our sequel; Brunetto’s metre being an ungracefully short one—thus:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Sie certo che Larghezza</div> + <div class="verse indent0">È’l capo e la grandezza,’ &c.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Indeed the metre keeps up such a perpetual jingling as almost to reduce to +doggerel what might, in a different rhythmical form, be accepted as very fair +rhyme and reason indeed. I have thrown the several couplets into single lines, +in the translation, simply with a view to saving space.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> The original runs</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Che, siccome dell’ arti,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qualche vizio non prendi.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">This phrase is not quite clear to me; but I suppose the word ‘<i>arti</i>’ is to be +understood as meaning ‘crafts, trades, or professions,’ and that Brunetto had +been sharp enough to see that people become ‘shoppy’ according to their respective +shops. ‘Vous êtes orfèvre, Monsieur Josse.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> ‘<i>Mercennaio</i>’—literally, mercenary or hireling.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> ‘<i>Picciolini.</i>’ These were, I gather, coins of a particular denomination, +but I have not been able to ascertain their precise value.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Credesi far la croce,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ma e’ si fa la fica.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">I have translated literally; but that of course makes something very like nonsense +in English. To ‘make the fig’ is a gesture of the thumb and fingers, +understood as gross and insulting in the highest degree. The general sense of +the passage is therefore—‘He fancies he is thus testifying in his own honour, +whereas it really does redound to his own extreme shame.’ Readers of Dante, +remembering the splendid canzone</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Le dolci rime d’amor ch’ io solia,’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">in which he refutes the false and defines the true bases of ‘nobility’ (<i>gentilezza</i>), +will perceive that the illustrious pupil had been to a great extent anticipated +by the teaching of his early instructor. Francesco da Barberino +(<i>Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne</i>) adopts a middle course, discriminating +‘<i>gentilezza</i>’ thus: ‘Nobility is twoform in quality and in origin. The first is +a state of the human soul contented in virtue, hostile to vice, exulting in the +good of others, and pitiful in their adversity. The second is mastery over +men or riches, derived from of old, sensitive to shame when brought low.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Here, on the contrary, we come to a precept the reverse of Dantesque. +Yet, on combining this passage with that which opens the ensuing paragraph, +it would seem that Brunetto does not mean to recommend connivance with +anything that is positively evil, but only with current habits and fashions, objectionable +though they may be, in matters essentially indifferent—as of +speech and deportment.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> ‘<i>Briccon</i>’—the colloquial term still in daily use among Italians.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> ‘<i>Solo d’una canzone</i>:’ literally, ‘merely for one song.’ The Abate Zannoni +understands this to mean ‘<i>per aver una sola volta canzonato femmina</i>.’ +He admits that this sense of the phrase is not discoverable in that fetish of the +Italian pedant, the Dizionario della Crusca; but as I have no superior authority +to oppose to that of Abate Zannoni, I have followed his interpretation.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> This seems strange doctrine—that love of courtesy and love of women +cannot co-exist in the same man—if we are to accept it in its amplest sense. +Perhaps, however, we are to understand that the speaker is still confining his +censures to miscellaneous and unsanctioned amours or flirtations, especially +with married women.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Poesie Lombarde Inedite del Secolo 13, publicate ed illustrate da B. Biondelli. +Milano: Bernardoni. 1856. We are indebted to Signor Biondelli’s +courtesy for a copy of this curious and interesting work.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Bonvexino (pronounced Bonv<i>es</i>ino) is, in modern Italian, Bonvicino—i.e. +good neighbour.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> ‘Afresh’ represents the Italian ‘de frescho.’ Signor Biondelli considers +that the phrase means ‘afresh,’ indicating that Fra Bonvesino had written +his Courtesies in Latin before turning them into Italian. Signor Biondelli, +however, admits that ‘de frescho’ may also mean ‘now recently,’ ‘just now’; +and, but for his contrary preference, I should attribute that meaning to the +word in the present instance.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> ‘Noxe.’ I <i>suppose</i> this must represent the modern-Italian word ‘nozze,’ +nuptials, though the incident of a wedding seems rather suddenly introduced +at this point, and does not re-appear afterwards.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> Signor Biondelli understands this stanza in a somewhat different sense, as +applying to the <i>assigning</i> of dishes, not the <i>signing</i> of the cross as a grace before +meat. The reference to Christ seems to me to create a strong presumption +in favour of my interpretation.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> It is clear from the general context that the victuals here spoken of as +to be eaten with a spoon are solid edibles—not merely soups or the like: the +spoon corresponding to the modern fork. The word translated ‘suck’ is ‘sorbilar:’ +perhaps ‘mumble’ would convey the force of the precept more fully +though less literally.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> I feel some doubt as to the meaning of this passage.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> This appears to be the general sense of the last two lines. In the final one +Signor Biondelli gives up two words as unintelligible: he infers that they must +be miscopied.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> This seems to contemplate the plan of the several guests helping themselves +off the dish brought to table. At any rate, so Signor Biondelli understands +it.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> ‘Donzello.’ This precept seems to be especially addressed to the servitors. +Uguccione Pisano, quoted by Muratori, says: ‘Donnicelli et Domicellæ dicuntur +quando pulchri juvenes magnatum sunt sicut servientes.’ Such Donzelli +were not allowed to sit at table with the knights; or, if allowed, had to sit +apart on a lower seat.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> ‘Drapi da pey.’ I confess to some uncertainty as to what sort of thing +these ‘foot-cloths’ may have been. Signor Biondelli terms them ‘the cloths +wherewith the feet were wrapped round and dried.’ He adds: ‘This precept +apprizes us that at that time the use of a pocket-handkerchief was not yet +introduced, and perhaps not even the use of stockings.’ One would fain hope +that the summit of Lombardic good breeding in 1290 was not the wiping of +noses on cloths actually and at the moment serving for the feet. Possibly +<i>drapi da pey</i> is here a generic term; cloths or napkins at hand for use, and +which <i>might have</i> served for foot-cloths. Thus the word ‘duster’ might be +employed in a similar connection, without our being compelled to suppose that +the individual duster had first been used on the spot for dusting the tables or +floors, and then for wiping the nose. Or indeed, we moderns, who wipe our +noses on <i>hand</i>-kerchiefs, do not first use said kerchiefs for wiping our <i>hands</i>, +nor yet for <i>covering our heads</i> (‘<i>couvre chef</i>’).—Reverting to Signor Biondelli’s +observation as to ‘the use of stockings,’ I may observe that Francesco da Barberino, +in a passage of his <i>Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne</i>, speaks of ‘the +beautiful foot shod in silk’—‘<i>calzato in seta</i>’—which <i>may</i> imply either a +stocking or else a shoe. This poem, as we shall see further on, is but little +later than Bonvicino’s.—The reader may also observe, at <a href="#Page_68">p. 68</a>, the horror with +which a much later writer, Della Casa, contemplated the use of a dinner-napkin +as a pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> ‘Chi s’ asetilia.’ Signor Biondelli cannot assign the exact sense of this +verb. I should suppose it to be either a form of ‘Assettarsi,’ to settle oneself, +to keep one’s place, or a corruption of ‘Assottigliarsi,’ to subtilize, to be punctilious, +to ‘look sharp.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> ‘D’alchun obediente.’ This phrase, if directly connected with the ‘Jesu +Xristo’ of the previous line, seems peculiar. I am not quite clear whether +the whole stanza is to be understood as an injunction to render grace after +meat, in thankfulness for what Christ has given one—or to thank the <i>servants</i> +who have been waiting at table, and so to glorify Christ by an act of humility.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> ‘Dro bon vino dra carera.’ The general sense is evidently near what +the translation gives: but Signor Biondelli is unable to assign the <i>precise</i> sense. +No wonder therefore that I am unable.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> Several others must nevertheless have been written before or about the +same time; for Barberino himself, in the exordium to his <i>Reggimento e +Costumi delle Donne</i>, says—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘There have been many who wrote books</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Concerning the elegant manners of men, but not of women.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> A full account of it by Mr Eugene Oswald follows the present Essay.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> This injunction forms stanza 4 in our extract from Barberino beginning +at <a href="#Page_38">p. 38</a>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> See at <a href="#Page_40">p. 40</a>, the stanza beginning ‘And I think that he does amiss.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> <i>The Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo d’Alcamo to Dante Alighieri +(1100-1200-1300), in the Original Metres: together with Dante’s Vita Nuova. +Translated by D. G. Rossetti. Smith and Elder, 1862.</i></p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> There is evidently something erroneous in this statement: Brunetto died +in 1294. The Editor of a collection of Italian Poets (<i>Lirici del Secolo +secondo, & c.—Venezia, Antonelli, 1841</i>) says: ‘Francesco went through his +<i>first</i> studies under Brunetto Latini. <i>Hence he passed</i> to the Universities of +Padua and of Bologna.’ Barberino being a Tuscan, this seems the natural +course for him to adopt, rather than to have gone to Padua and Bologna +<i>before</i> Florence. My brother’s remark, as to the death of Neri in 1296, and +as to Francesco’s <i>subsequent</i> sojourn in Florence, agrees, however, with the +statement made by Tiraboschi: apparently we should understand that Francesco +had been in Florence both before and after his stay in Padua and +Bologna, and that his studies under Brunetto pertain to the earlier period.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> <i>Teachings</i> or <i>Lessonings of Love</i> might probably express the sense more +exactly to an English ear.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> ‘Chi vuol fare merli.’ The phrase means literally ‘he who wants to +make battlements’—or possibly ‘to make thrushes,’ I can only <i>guess</i> at its +bearing in the present passage, having searched for a distinct explanation in +vain. It seems to be one of the myriad ‘<i>vezzi di lingua</i>’ of old Italian, and +especially old Tuscan, idiom.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> ‘Di mandar a laveggio.’ I am far from certain as to the real meaning.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> This precept, and especially a preceding one (<a href="#Page_39">p. 39</a>) which enjoins the +host to place the guests in their appropriate seats, keeping by himself those +of less account, would seem to show that at this period the seats at the right +and left of the host (or hostess) were by no means understood to be posts +of honour. The absence of all mention, either in Bonvicino or in Barberino, +of the hostess or her especial duties, strikes one as a singularity. That the +hostess is nevertheless understood to be present may be fairly inferred from +the clearly expressed presence of other ladies.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> Prettily worded in the Italian:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">‘Nè abbracciar stringendo,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se non sei ben una cosa con quello.’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Ancor c’ è molta gente</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ch’ han certi vizj in dono ed in servire,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Sì che poco gradire</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vediamo in lor quando ne fanno altrui:</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Chè non pensano a cui,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nè che nè come, nè tanto nè quanto.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Altri fanno un procanto</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Di sue bisogne, e poi pur fanno il dono.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Ed altri certi sono</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che danno indugio, e credon far maggiore.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">E molti che colore</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pongon a scusa, e poi pur fanno e danno.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Ed altri che, com’ hanno</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Servigio ricevuto, affrettan troppo</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Disobbligar lo groppo</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Col qual eran legati alli serventi:</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Onde sien tutti attenti</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che non è picciol vizio non volere</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Obbligato manere;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Anzi par poi che sforzato sia largo.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Dicemi alcuno: ‘Io spargo</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Li don, per mia libertate tenere;</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Non per altrui piacere.’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Questo è gran vizio: ed è virtù maggiore,</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">E più porta d’onore,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Saver donar la sua persona altrui,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ricevendo da lui,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">E star apparecchiato a meritaro.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">E non ti vo’ lassare</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo vizio di colui che colla faccia</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Non vuol dar sì che piaccia,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ma turba tutto, e sta gran pezza mutto.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> The mention of a slave in a Florentine household of the late 13th or +early 14th century may startle some readers. I translate the note which +Signor Guglielmo Manzi, the editor of the <i>Reggimento</i>, supplies on this subject. +‘Slavery, which abases mankind, and revolts humanity and reason, +diminished greatly when the Christian religion was introduced into the Roman +Empire—that religion being in manifest opposition to so barbarous a system. +The more the one progressed in the world, the more did the other wane; and, +as Bodino observes in his book <i>De Republicâ</i>, slavery had ceased in Europe, to +a great extent, by 1200. I shall follow this author, who is the only one to +afford us some degree of light amid so great obscurity. In the year 1212 +there were still, according to him, slaves in Italy; as may be seen from the +ordinances of William, King of Sicily, and of the Emperor Frederick II. for +the kingdom of Naples, and from the decretals of the Popes Alexander III., +Urban III., and Innocent III., concerning the marriages of slaves. The first +of these Popes was elected in 1158, the second in 1185, and the third in 1198; +so that the principle of liberty cannot be dated earlier than in or about 1250—Bartolo, +who lived in the year 1300, writing (<i>Hostes de Captivis</i>, I.) that in his +time there were no slaves, and that, according to the laws of Christendom, +men were no longer put up to sale. This assertion, however, conflicts with the +words of our author, who affirms that in his time—that is, at the commencement +of the 14th century—the custom existed. But, in elucidation of Bartolo, +it should be said that he implied that men were no longer sold, on the +ground that this was prohibited by the laws of Christendom, and the edicts of +sovereigns. In France it can be shown that in 1430 Charles VII. gave their +liberty to some persons of servile condition; and even in the year 1548 King +Henri II. liberated, by letters patent, those of the Bourbonnais: and the like +was done throughout all his states by the Duke of Savoy in 1561. In the +Hundred Tales of Boccaccio we have also various instances showing that the +sale of free men was practised in Italy. These are in the 6th Tale of the 2nd +Day, the story of Madonna Beritola, whose sons remained in Genoa in serfdom; +and in the 6th of the 5th Day, the story of Frederick, King of Sicily; +and in the 7th of the same Day, the story of Theodore and Violante. It is +therefore clear, from all this evidence, that, in the time of Messer Francesco, +so execrable a practice was still prevalent; and, summing up all we have said, +it must be concluded that serfdom, in non-barbarian Europe, was not entirely +extinguished till the 16th century.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> ‘Mottetti e parlari.’ Only a few specimens of these are given, and they +are all sufficiently occult. Here is one. ‘Grande a morte, o la morte. Di +molte se grava morte. [Responde Madonna] Dolci amorme, quel camorme, +dunque amorme conveniarme.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> This Lady is an ideal or symbolic personage—presumably Wisdom.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> Matteo Palmieri (see <a href="#Page_58">p. 58</a>) indicates that the state of things was the +same in his time, about 1430: he is more decided than Barberino in condemning +it.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> ‘Uomin di corte.’ This term was first applied to heralds, chamberlains, +and the like court-officials: subsequently to the entertainers of a court, +‘giullari,’ jesters, and buffoons: and in process of time it came to include +courtiers of whatever class. In the early writers—such as Barberino, Boccaccio, +&c.—it is not always easy for a translator to pitch upon the precise +equivalent: the reader should understand a personage who might be as +romantic as a Troubadour, or as quaint as a Touchstone—but tending rather +towards the latter extreme.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> ‘Uccelli grifoni.’ This seems a daring suggestion: possibly, as a griffin +is a compound of eagle and lion, we are to understand that the eagle is the +griffin-<i>bird</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> ‘Drappi oltramarin’—which <i>may</i> mean foreign (from beyond sea), or +else of ultramarine colour: I rather suppose the former.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> ‘Lana di pesce’—literally, fish’s wool. The term is new to me, nor do I +find it explained in dictionaries: I can only therefore surmise that it designates +the silky filaments of certain sea-mollusks, such as the pinna of the +Mediterranean. This byssus is still made use of in Italy for gloves and +similar articles.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> !!</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> ‘Intaglj;’ and the next line gives the word ‘Scolture.’ Giovanni +Villani notes that in 1330 a prohibition was issued against ‘dresses cut-out or +painted:’ the fashion having run into the extravagance of ‘dresses cut-out +with different sorts of cloth, and made of stuffs trimmed variously with +silks.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> These seem to be very obedient birds: and their position, behind glass +windows in a globe figuring the world, was rather an odd one to modern +notions. The reader will keep me company in guessing whether or not we are +to take the whole description <i>au pied de la lettre</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> Tiraboschi says 1468; but that, as far as I can trace, is a mistake.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> It may be fair to state that the work, as first published, was put in the +Roman index of prohibited books; and that the reissues (including no doubt +the edition known to me) have omitted the inculpated passages. Whether +these were objected to on moral or rather on ecclesiastical grounds I cannot +affirm: the book as now printed is not only quite free from immoralities, but +is decidedly moral, whereas there remains at least one passage of a tone such +as churchmen resent <i>ex officio</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> A noticeable proverbial phrase. It is new to me; but I suppose it means +either ‘learned in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin’ (the three languages in which +the inscription over the cross was written), or else perhaps ‘learned in languages +generally.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> That most capital and characteristic book, the Autobiography of the +tragedian Alfieri, contains a reference to the <i>Galateo</i>, which, longish as it is, +I am tempted to extract. ‘My worthy Paciaudi was wont to advise me not +to neglect, amid my laborious readings, works in prose, which he learnedly +termed the nurse of poetry. As regards this, I remember that one day he +brought me the <i>Galateo</i> of Della Casa; recommending me to ponder it well +with respect to the turn of speech, which assuredly is pure Tuscan, and the +reverse of all Frenchifying. I, who in boyhood had (as we all have) read it +loosely, understood it little, and relished it not at all, felt almost offended at +this schoolboyish and pedantic advice. Full of venom against the said +<i>Galateo</i>, I opened it. And, at the sight of that first <i>Conciossiacosachè</i>, to +which is trailed-on that long sentence so pompous and so wanting in pith, such +an impulse of rage seized me that, hurling the book out of window, I cried +like a maniac: “Surely a hard and disgusting necessity, that, in order to +write tragedies at the age of twenty-seven, I must swallow down again this +childish chatter, and relax my brain with such pedantries!” He smiled at +my uneducated poetic <i>furor</i>; and prophesied that I would yet read the +<i>Galateo</i>, and that more than once. And so it turned out; but several years +afterwards, when I had thoroughly hardened my neck and shoulders to bear +the grammatical yoke. And I read not only the <i>Galateo</i>, but almost all our +prose writers of the fourteenth century, and annotated them too: with what +profit I cannot say. But true it is that, were any one to give them a good +reading as regards their turn of phrase, and to manage availing himself with +judgment and skill of their array, rejecting the cast clothes of their ideas, he +might perhaps afterwards, in his writings as well philosophic as poetic or +historic, or of any other class, give a richness, brevity, propriety, and force of +colour, to his style, which I have not as yet seen fully gracing any Italian +writer.’ A word or two may be spared to the formidable-looking vocable +<i>Conciossiacosachè</i> which so excited Alfieri’s bile. It might be translated +literally as ‘Herewith-be-something-that;’ and corresponds in practice to the +English ‘Forasmuch as’—or more briefly ‘since,’ or ‘as.’ The Italian word +<i>poichè</i> serves all the same uses, save that of longwindedness. But <i>Conciossiacosachè</i> +itself is not lengthy enough for some Italian lips: and I believe +that even the phrase into which it has sometimes been prolonged—‘Con ciò +sia cosa fosse massimamente che’—has been used for other than burlesquing +purposes.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> The comparison whereby our Archbishop illustrates the condition of the +napkins must perfume our page only in its native Italian—‘Che le pezze degli +agiamenti sono più nette.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> This is affirmed by Xenophon of the Persians: he says in the <i>Cyropædia</i> +that, both of old and in his own time, they did without either spitting or blowing +the nose—a proof of temperance, and of energetic exercise which carried +off the moisture of the body.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> <i>Stecco.</i> ‘Toothpick’ is the only appropriate technical sense for stecco +given in the dictionaries; and I suppose it is correct here, although Della +Casa’s very next sentence, denouncing the carrying of this implement round the +neck, designates it by the word <i>stuzzicadenti</i>, and it seems odd that the two +terms should be thus juxta-posed or opposed. If <i>stecco</i> does not in this passage +really mean ‘toothpick,’ I should infer that it indicates some skewer-like +object, used possibly as a fork—i.e. to secure the viands on the plate, while +they are severed with a spoon, and by that conveyed to the mouth (see pp. <a href="#Page_21">21</a> +and <a href="#Page_34">34</a> as to the use of spoon instead of fork in Bonvicino’s time). This would +in fact be a sort of chop-stick. Such an inference is quite compatible with +the <i>general</i> sense of the word <i>stecco</i>—any stake or splint of wood.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Cecchina is a double diminutive of Francesca; corresponding to +‘Fannikin’ or ‘Fan.’</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> The English reader may fancy that this passage conflicts with that which +immediately precedes: but such is not the case. In the earlier passage, the +use of <i>You</i> was recommended as more civil than <i>Thou</i>: in the later passage, +the use of <i>Vossignoria</i> (or other the like impersonal term, where appropriate) +as more respectful than <i>You</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> This is, I think, still a national trait among Italians, and a most creditable +one: the endless grades and sub-grades, shades and demi-shades, of good +society, as maintained in England (with an instinct comparable to the marvellous +power of a bat to wing its dark way amid any number of impediments, +and to be impeded by none of them), are unintelligible to ordinary +Italians—or, where intelligible, detestable. Long may they remain so!</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> <i>Nobili.</i> I presume this is to be understood literally; the household in +which noblemen could be thus employed being of course one of exalted +position.</p> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75723 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75723-h/images/cover.jpg b/75723-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7907e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/75723-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5dba15 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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