The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

787

Pii. II. Comment. viii. p. 391.

788

Two tournaments must be distinguished, Lorenzo’s in 1468 and Guiliano’s in 1475 (a third in 1481?). See Reumont, L. M. i. 264 sqq. 361, 267, note 1; ii. 55, 67, and the works there quoted, which settle the old dispute on these points. The first tournament is treated in the poem of Luca Pulci, ed. Ciriffo Calvaneo di Luca Pulci Gentilhuomo Fiorentino, con la Giostra del Magnifico Lorenzo de’ Medici. Florence, 1572, pp. 75, 91; the second in an unfinished poem of Ang. Poliziano, best ed. Carducci, Le Stanze, l’Orfeo e le Rime di M. A. P. Florence, 1863. The description of Politian breaks off at the setting out of Guiliano for the tournament. Pulci gives a detailed account of the combatants and the manner of fighting. The description of Lorenzo is particularly good (p. 82).

789

This so-called ‘Caccia’ is printed in the Commentary to Castiglione’s Eclogue from a Roman MS. Lettere del conte B. Castiglione, ed. Pierantonio Lerassi (Padua, 1771), ii. p. 269.

790

See the Serventese of Giannozzo of Florence, in Trucchi, Poesie italiane inedite, ii. p. 99. The words are many of them quite unintelligible, borrowed really or apparently from the languages of the foreign mercenaries. Macchiavelli’s description of Florence during the plague of 1527 belongs, to certain extent, to this class of works. It is a series of living, speaking pictures of a frightful calamity.

791

According to Boccaccio (Vita di Dante, p. 77), Dante was the author of two eclogues, probably written in Latin. They are addressed to Joh. de Virgiliis. Comp. Fraticelli, Opp. min. di Dante, i. 417. Petrarch’s bucolic poem in P. Carmina minora, ed. Bossetti, i. Comp. L. Geiger, Petr. 120-122 and 270, note 6, especially A. Hortis, Scritti inediti di F. P. Triest, 1874.

792

Boccaccio gives in his Ameto (above, p. 344) a kind of mythical Decameron, and sometimes fails ludicrously to keep up the character. One of his nymphs is a good Catholic, and prelates shoot glances of unholy love at her in Rome. Another marries. In the Ninfale fiesolano the nymph Mensola, who finds herself pregnant, takes counsel of an ‘old and wise nymph.’

793

In general the prosperity of the Italian peasants was greater then than that of the peasantry anywhere else in Europe. Comp. Sacchetti, nov. 88 and 222; L. Pulci in the Beca da Dicamano (Villari, Macchiavelli, i. 198, note 2).

794

‘Nullum est hominum genus aptius urbi,’ says Battista Mantovano (Ecl. viii.) of the inhabitants of the Monte Baldo and the Val. Cassina, who could turn their hands to anything. Some country populations, as is well known, have even now privileges with regard to certain occupations in the great cities.

795

Perhaps one of the strongest passages, Orlandino, cap. v. str. 54-58. The tranquil and unlearned Vesp. Bisticci says (Comm. sulla vita di Giov. Manetti, p. 96): ‘Sono due ispezie di uomini difficili a supportare per la loro ignoranza; l’una sono i servi, la seconda i contadini.’

796

In Lombardy, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the nobles did not shrink from dancing, wrestling, leaping, and racing with the peasants. Il Cortigiano, l. ii. fol. 54. A. Pandolfini (L. B. Alberti) in the Trattato del governo della famiglia, p. 86, is an instance of a land-owner who consoles himself for the greed and fraud of his peasant tenantry with the reflection that he is thereby taught to bear and deal with his fellow-creatures.

797

Jovian. Pontan. De fortitudine, lib. ii.

798

The famous peasant-woman of the Valtellina—Bona Lombarda, wife of the Condottiere Pietro Brunoro—is known to us from Jacobus Bergomensis and from Porcellius, in Murat. xxv. col. 43.

799

On the condition of the Italian peasantry in general, and especially of the details of that condition in several provinces, we are unable to particularise more fully. The proportions between freehold and leasehold property, and the burdens laid on each in comparison with those borne at the present time, must be gathered from special works which we have not had the opportunity of consulting. In stormy times the country people were apt to have appalling relapses into savagery (Arch. Stor. xvi. i. pp. 451 sqq., ad. a. 1440; Corio, fol. 259; Annales Foroliv. in Murat. xxii. col. 227, though nothing in the shape of a general peasants’ war occurred. The rising near Piacenza in 1462 was of some importance and interest. Comp. Corio, Storia di Milano, fol. 409; Annales Placent. in Murat. xx. col. 907; Sismondi, x. p. 138. See below, part vi. cap. 1.

800

F. Bapt. Mantuani Bucolica seu Adolescentia in decem Eclogas divisa; often printed, e.g. Strasburg, 1504. The date of composition is indicated by the preface, written in 1498, from which it also appears that the ninth and tenth eclogues were added later. In the heading to the tenth are the words, ‘post religionis ingressum;’ in that of the seventh, ‘cum jam autor ad religionem aspiraret.’ The eclogues by no means deal exclusively with peasant life; in fact, only two of them do so—the sixth, ‘disceptatione rusticorum et civium,’ in which the writer sides with the rustics; and the eighth, ‘de rusticorum religione.’ The others speak of love, of the relations between poets and wealthy men, of conversion to religion, and of the manners of the Roman court.

801

Poesie di Lorenzo Magnifico, i. p. 37 sqq. The remarkable poems belonging to the period of the German ‘Minnesänger,’ which bear the name of Neithard von Reuenthal, only depict peasant life in so far as the knight chooses to mix with it for his amusement. The peasants reply to the ridicule of Reuenthal in songs of their own. Comp. Karl Schroder, Die höfische Dorfpoesie des deutschen Mittelalters in Rich. Gosche, Jahrb. für Literaturgesch. 1 vol. Berlin, 1875, pp. 45-98, esp. 75 sqq.

802

Poesie di Lor. Magn. ii. 149.

803

In the Deliciae poetar. ital., and in the works of Politian. First separate ed. Florence, 1493. The didactic poem of Rucellai, Le Api, first printed 1519, and La coltivazione, Paris, 1546, contain something of the same kind.

804

Poesie di Lor. Magnifico, ii. 75.

805

The imitation of different dialects and of the manners of different districts spring from the same tendency. Comp. p. 155.

806

Jo. Pici oratio de hominis dignitate. The passage is as follows: ‘Statuit tandem optimus opifex ut cui dari nihil proprium poterat commune esset quidquid privatum singulis fuerat. Igitur hominem accepit indiscretae opus imaginis atque in mundi posito meditullio sic est allocutus; Nec certam sedem, nec propriam faciem, nec munus ullum peculiare tibi dedimus, O Adam, ut quam sedem, quam faciem, quae munera tute optaveris, ea pro voto pro tua sententia habeas et possideas. Definita caeteris natura inter praescriptas a nobis leges coercetur, tu nullis augustiis coercitus pro tuo arbitrio, in cujus manus te posui, tibi illam praefinies. Medium te mundi posui ut circumspiceres inde commodius quidquid est in mundo. Nec te caelestem neque terrenum, neque mortalem neque immortalem fecimus, ut tui ipsius quasi arbitrarius honorariusque plastes et fictor in quam malueris tute formam effingas. Poteris in inferiora quae sunt bruta degenerare, poteris in superiora quae sunt divina ex tui animi sententia regenerari. O summam dei patris liberalitatem, summam et admirandam hominis felicitatem. Cui datum id habere quod optat, id esse quod velit. Bruta simulatque nascuntur id secum afferunt, ut ait Lucilius, e bulga matris quod possessura sunt; supremi spiritus aut ab initio aut paulo mox id fuerunt quod sunt futuri in perpetuas aeternitates. Nascenti homini omnifaria semina et omnigenae vitæ germina indidit pater; quæ quisque excoluerit illa adolescent et fructus suos ferent in illo. Si vegetalia, planta fiet, si sensualia, obbrutescet, si rationalia, coeleste evadet animal, si intellectualia, angelus erit et dei filius, et si nulla creaturarum sorte contentus in unitatis centrum suae se receperit, unus cum deo spiritus factus in solitaria patris caligine qui est super omnia constitutus omnibus antestabit.’

The speech first appears in the commentationes of Jo. Picus without any special title; the heading ‘de hominis dignitate’ was added later. It is not altogether suitable, since a great part of the discourse is devoted to the defence of the peculiar philosophy of Pico, and the praise of, the Jewish Cabbalah. On Pico, see above, p. 202 sqq.; and below; part. vi. chap. 4. More than two hundred years before, Brunetto Latini (Tesoro, lib. i. cap. 13, ed. Chabaille, p. 20) had said: ‘Toutes choses dou ciel en aval sont faites pour l’ome; mais li hom at faiz pour lui meisme.’ The words seemed to a contemporary to have too much human pride in them, and he added: ‘e por Dieu amer et servir et por avoir la joie pardurable.’

807

An allusion to the fall of Lucifer and his followers.

808

The habit among the Piedmontese nobility of living in their castles in the country struck the other Italians as exceptional. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 7 (?).

809

This was the case long before printing. A large number of manuscripts, and among them the best, belonged to Florentine artisans. If it had not been for Savonarola’s great bonfire, many more of them would be left.

810

Dante, De monarchia, l. ii. cap. 3.

811

Paradiso, xvi. at the beginning.

812

Dante, Convito, nearly the whole Trattato, iv., and elsewhere. Brunetto Latini says (Il tesoro, lib. i. p. ii. cap. 50, ed. Chabaille, p. 343): ‘De ce (la vertu) nasqui premierement la nobleté de gentil gent, non pas de ses ancêtres;’ and he warns men (lib. ii. p. ii. cap. 196, p. 440) that they may lose true nobility by bad actions. Similarly Petrarch, de rem. utr. fort. lib. i. dial. xvii.: ‘Verus nobilis non nascitur, sed fit.’

813

Poggi Opera, Dial. de nobilitate. Aristotle’s view is expressly combatted by B. Platina, De vera nobilitate.

814

This contempt of noble birth is common among the humanists. See the severe passages in Æn. Sylvius, Opera, pp. 84 (Hist. bohem. cap. 2) and 640. (Stories of Lucretia and Euryalus.)

815

This is the case in the capital itself. See Bandello, parte ii. nov. 7; Joviani Pontani Antonius, where the decline of energy in the nobility is dated from the coming of the Aragonese dynasty.

816

Throughout Italy it was universal that the owner of large landed property stood on an equality with the nobles. It is only flattery when J. A. Campanus adds to the statement of Pius II. (Commentarii, p. 1), that as a boy he had helped his poor parents in their rustic labours, the further assertion that he only did so for his amusement, and that this was the custom of the young nobles (Voigt, ii. 339).

817

For an estimate of the nobility in North Italy, Bandello, with his repeated rebukes of mésalliances, is of importance (parte i. nov. 4, 26; parte iii. nov. 60). For the participation of the nobles in the games of the peasants, see above.

818

The severe judgment of Macchiavelli, Discorsi, i. 55, refers only to those of the nobility who still retained feudal rights, and who were thoroughly idle and politically mischievous. Agrippa of Nettesheim, who owes his most remarkable ideas chiefly to his life in Italy, has a chapter on the nobility and princes (De Incert. et Vanit. Scient. cap, 80), the bitterness of which exceeds anything to be met with elsewhere, and is due to the social ferment then prevailing in the North. A passage at p. 213 is as follows: ‘Si … nobilitatis primordia requiramus, comperiemus hanc nefaria perfidia et crudelitate partam, si ingressum spectemus, reperiemus hanc mercenaria militia et latrociniis auctam. Nobilitas revera nihil aliud est quam robusta improbitas atque dignitas non nisi scelere quaesita benedictio et hereditas pessimorom quorumcunque filiorum.’ In giving the history of the nobility he makes a passing reference to Italy (p. 227).

819

Massuccio, nov. 19 (ed. Settembrini, Nap. 1874, p. 220). The first ed. of the novels appeared in 1476.

820

Jacopo Pitti to Cosimo I., Archiv. Stor. iv. ii. p. 99. In North Italy the Spanish rule brought about the same results. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 40, dates from this period.

821

When, in the fifteenth century, Vespasiano Fiorentino (pp. 518, 632) implies that the rich should not try to increase their inherited fortune, but should spend their whole annual income, this can only, in the mouth of a Florentine, refer to the great landowners.

822

Franco Sacchetti, nov. 153. Comp. nov. 82 and 150.

823

‘Che la cavalleria è morta.’

824

Poggius, De Nobilitate, fol. 27. See above, p. 19. Ænea Silvio (Hist. Fried. III. ed. Kollar, p. 294) finds fault with the readiness with which Frederick conferred knighthood in Italy.

825

Vasari, iii. 49, and note. Vita di Dello. The city of Florence claimed the right of conferring knighthood. On the ceremonies of this kind in 1378 and 1389, see Reumont, Lorenzo, ii. 444 sqq.

826

Senarega, De Reb. Gen. in Murat. xxiv. col. 525. At a wedding of Joh. Adurnus with Leonora di Sanseverino, ‘certamina equestria in Sarzano edita sunt … proposita et data victoribus praemia. Ludi multiformes in palatio celebrati a quibus tanquam a re nova pendebat plebs et integros dies illis spectantibus impendebat.’ Politian writes to Joh. Picus of the cavalry exercise of his pupils (Aug. Pol. Epist. lib. xii. ep. 6): ‘Tu tamen a me solos fieri poetas aut oratores putas, at ego non minus facio bellatores.’ Ortensio Landi in the Commentario, fol. 180, tells of a duel between two soldiers at Correggio with a fatal result, reminding one of the old gladiatorial combats. The writer, whose imagination is generally active, gives us here the impression of truthfulness. The passages quoted show that knighthood was not absolutely necessary for these public contests.

827

Petrarch, Epist. Senil. xi. 13, to Ugo of Este. Another passage in the Epist. Famil. lib. v. ep. 6, Dec. 1st, 1343, describes the disgust he felt at seeing a knight fall at a tournament in Naples. For legal prescriptions as to the tournament at Naples, see Fracassetti’s Italian translation of Petrarch’s letters, Florence, 1864, ii. p. 34. L. B. Alberti also points out the danger, uselessness, and expense of tournaments. Della Famiglia, Op. Volg. ii. 229.

828

Nov. 64. With reference to this practice, it is said expressly in the Orlandino (ii. str. 7), of a tournament under Charlemagne: ‘Here they were no cooks and scullions, but kings, dukes, and marquises, who fought.’

829

This is one of the oldest parodies of the tournament. Sixty years passed before Jacques Cœur, the burgher-minister of finance under Charles VII., gave a tournament of donkeys in the courtyard of his palace at Bourges (about 1450). The most brilliant of all these parodies—the second canto of the Orlandino just quoted—was not published till 1526.

830

Comp. the poetry, already quoted, of Politian and Luca Pulci (p. 349, note 3). Further, Paul. Jov., Vita Leonis X. l. i.; Macchiavelli, Storie Fiorent., l. vii.; Paul. Jov. Elog., speaking of Pietro de’ Medici, who neglected his public duties for these amusements, and of Franc. Borbonius, who lost his life in them; Vasari, ix. 219, Vita di Granacci. In the Morgante of Pulci, written under the eyes of Lorenzo, the knights are comical in their language and actions, but their blows are sturdy and scientific. Bojardo, too, writes for those who understand the tournament and the art of war. Comp. p. 323. In earlier Florentine history we read of a tournament in honour of the king of France, c. 1380, in Leon. Aret., Hist. Flor. lib. xi. ed. Argent, p. 222. The tournaments at Ferrara in 1464 are mentioned in the Diario Ferrar. in Murat. xxiv. col. 208; at Venice, see Sansovino, Venezia, fol. 153 sqq.; at Bologna in 1470 and after, see Bursellis, Annal. Bonon. Muratori xxiii. col. 898, 903, 906, 908, 911, where it is curious to note the odd mixture of sentimentalism attaching to the celebration of Roman triumphs; ‘ut antiquitas Romana renovata videretur,’ we read in one place. Frederick of Urbino (p. 44 sqq.) lost his right eye at a tournament ‘ab ictu lanceae.’ On the tournament as held at that time in northern countries, see Olivier de la Marche, Mémoires, passim, and especially cap. 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, &c.

831

Bald. Castiglione. Il Cortigiano, l. i. fol. 18.

832

Paul. Jovii, Elogia, sub tit. Petrus Gravina, Alex. Achillinus, Balth. Castellio, &c. pp. 138 sqq. 112 sqq. 143 sqq.

833

Casa, Il Galateo, p. 78.

834

See on this point the Venetian books of fashions, and Sansovino, Venezia, fol. 150 sqq. The bridal dress at the betrothal—white, with the hair falling freely on the shoulders—is that of Titian’s Flora. The ‘Proveditori alle pompe’ at Venice established 1514. Extracts from their decisions in Armand Baschet, Souvenirs d’une Mission, Paris, 1857. Prohibition of gold-embroidered garments in Venice, 1481, which had formerly been worn even by the bakers’ wives; they were now to be decorated ‘gemmis unionibus,’ so that ‘frugalissimus ornatus’ cost 4,000 gold florins. M. Ant. Sabellici, Epist. lib. iii. (to M. Anto. Barbavarus).

835

Jovian. Pontan. De Principe: ‘Utinam autem non eo impudentiae perventum esset, ut inter mercatorem et patricium nullum sit in vestitu ceteroque ornatu discrimen. Sed haec tanta licentia reprehendi potest, coerceri non potest, quanquam mutari vestes sic quotidie videamus, ut quas quarto ante mense in deliciis habebamus, nunc repudiemus et tanquam veteramenta abjiciamus. Quodque tolerari vix potest, nullum fere vestimenti genus probatur, quod e Galliis non fuerit adductum, in quibus levia pleraque in pretio sunt, tametsi nostri persaepe homines modum illis et quasi formulam quandam praescribant.’

836

See e.g. the Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 297, 320, 376, sqq., in which the last German fashions are spoken of; the chronicler says, ‘Che pareno buffoni tali portatori.’

837

This interesting passage from a very rare work may be here quoted. See above, p. 83 note 1. The historical event referred to is the conquest of Milan by Antonio Leiva, the general of Charles V., in 1522. ‘Olim splendidissime vestiebant Mediolanenses. Sed postquam Carolus Cæsar in eam urbem tetram et monstruosam Bestiam immisit, it a consumpti et exhausti sunt, ut vestimentorum splendorem omnium maxime oderint, et quemadmodum ante illa durissima Antoniana tempora nihil aliud fere cogitabant quam de mutandis vestibus, nunc alia cogitant ac in mente versant. Non potuit tamen illa Leviana rabies tantum perdere, neque illa in exhausta depraedandi libidine tantum expilare, quin a re familiari adhuc belle parati fiant atque ita vestiant quemadmodum decere existimant. Et certe nisi illa Antonii Levae studia egregios quosdam imitatores invenisset, meo quidem judicio, nulli cederent. Neapolitani nimium exercent in vestitu sumptus. Genuensium vestitum perelegantem judico neque sagati sunt neque togati. Ferme oblitus eram Venetorum. Ii togati omnes. Decet quidem ille habitus adulta aetate homines, juvenes vero (si quid ego judico) minime utuntur panno quem ipsi vulgo Venetum appellant, ita probe confecto ut perpetuo durare existimes, saepissime vero eas vestes gestant nepotes, quas olim tritavi gestarunt. Noctu autem dum scortantur ac potant, Hispanicis palliolis utuntur. Ferrarienses ac Mantuani nihil tam diligenter curant, quam ut pileos habeant aureis quibusdam frustillis adornatos, atque nutanti capite incedunt seque quovis honore dignos existimant, Lucenses neque superbo, neque abjecto vestitu. Florentinorum habitus mihi quidem ridiculus videtur. Reliquos omitto, ne nimius sim.’ Ugolinus Verinus, ‘de illustratione urbis Florentiae’ says of the simplicity of the good old time:

838

Comp. the passages on the same subject in Falke, Die deutsche Trachten- und Modenwelt, Leipzig, 1858.

839

On the Florentine women, see the chief references in Giov. Villani, x. 10 and 150 (Regulations as to dress and their repeal); Matteo Villani, i. 4 (Extravagant living in consequence of the plague). In the celebrated edict on fashions of the year 1330, embroidered figures only were allowed on the dresses of women, to the exclusion of those which were painted (dipinto). What was the nature of these decorations appears doubtful. There is a list of the arts of the toilette practised by women in Boccaccio, De Cas. Vir. Ill. lib. i. cap. 18, ‘in mulieres.’

840

Those of real hair were called ‘capelli morti.’ Wigs were also worn by men, as by Giannozzo Manetti, Vesp. Bist. Commentario, p. 103; so at least we explain this somewhat obscure passage. For an instance of false teeth made of ivory, and worn, though only for the sake of clear articulation, by an Italian prelate, see Anshelm, Berner Chronik, iv. p. 30 (1508). Ivory teeth in Boccaccio, l. c.: ‘Dentes casu sublatos reformare ebore fuscatos pigmentis gemmisque in albedinem revocare pristinam.’

841

Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptores, ii. col. 1874: Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 823. For the writers on Savonarola, see below.

842

Sansovino, Venezia, fol. 152: ‘Capelli biondissimi per forza di sole.’ Comp. p. 89, and the rare works quoted by Yriarte, ‘Vie d’un Patricien de Venise’ (1874), p. 56.

843

As was the case in Germany too. Poesie satiriche, p. 119. From the satire of Bern. Giambullari, ‘Per prendere moglie’ (pp. 107-126), we can form a conception of the chemistry of the toilette, which was founded largely on superstition and magic.

844

The poets spared no pains to show the ugliness, danger, and absurdity of these practices. Comp. Ariosto, Sat. iii. 202 sqq.; Aretino, Il Marescalco, atto ii. scena 5; and several passages in the Ragionamenti; Giambullari, l. c. Phil. Beroald. sen. Garmina. Also Filelfo in his Satires (Venice, 1502, iv. 2-5 sqq.).

845

Cennino Cennini, Trattato della Pittura, gives in cap. 161 a recipe for painting the face, evidently for the purpose of mysteries or masquerades, since, in cap. 162, he solemnly warns his readers against the general use of cosmetics and the like, which was peculiarly common, as he tells us (p. 146 sqq.), in Tuscany.