The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

Both of these extraordinary cases occur in Sabellicus, Opera, fol. 61-82. De Origine et Auctu Religionis, delivered at Verona from the pulpit before the barefoot friars; and De Sacerdotii Laudibus, delivered at Venice.

559

Jac. Volaterrani. Diar. Roman. in Murat. xxiii. passim. In col. 173 a remarkable sermon before the court, though in the absence of Sixtus IV., is mentioned. Pater Paolo Toscanella thundered against the Pope, his family, and the cardinals. When Sixtus heard of it, he smiled.

560

Fil. Villani, Vitae, ed. Galetti, p. 30.

561

See above, p. 237, note 3.

562

Georg. Trapezunt, Rhetorica, the first complete system of instruction. Æn. Sylvius, Artis Rhetoricae Praecepta, in the Opera, p. 992. treats purposely only of the construction of sentences and the position of words. It is characteristic as an instance of the routine which was followed. He names several other theoretical writers who are some of them no longer known. Comp. C. Voigt, ii. 262 sqq.

563

His life in Murat. xx. is full of the triumphs of his eloquence. Comp. Vespas. Fior. 592 sqq., and Commentario, p. 30. On us these speeches make no great impression, e.g. that at the coronation of Frederick III. in Freher-Struve, Script. Rer. Germ. iii. 4-19. Of Manetti’s oration at the burial of Lion. Aretino, Shepherd-Tonelli says (Poggio, ii. 67 sqq.): ‘L’orazione ch’ei compose, è ben la cosa la più meschina che potesse udirsi, piena di puerilità volgare nello stile, irrelevante negli argomenti e d’una prolissità insopportabile.’

564

Annales Placentini, in Murat. xx. col. 918.

565

E.g. Manetti. Comp. Vesp. Commentario, p. 30; so, too, Savonarola Comp. Perrens, Vie de Savonarole, i. p. 163. The shorthand writers, however, could not always follow him, or, indeed, any rapid ‘Improvisatori.’ Savonarola preached in Italian. See Pasq. Villari: Vita di Savonarola.

566

It was by no means one of the best (Opuscula Beroaldi, Basel, 1509, fol. xviii.-xxi). The most remarkable thing in it is the flourish at the end: ‘Esto tibi ipsi archetypon et exemplar, teipsum imitare,’ etc.

567

Letters and speeches of this kind were written by Alberto di Ripalta; comp. the Annales Placentini, written by his father Antonius and continued by himself, in Murat. xx. col. 914 sqq., where the pedant gives an instructive account of his own literary career.

568

Pauli Jovii Dialogus de Viris Litteris Illustribus, in Tiraboschi, tom. vii. parte iv. Yet he says some ten years later, at the close of the Elogia Litteraria: ‘Tenemus adhuc (after the leadership in philology had passed to the Germans) sincerae et constantis eloquentiae munitam arcem,’ etc. The whole passage, given in German in Gregorovius, viii. 217 sqq. is important, as showing the view taken of Germany by an Italian, and is again quoted below in this connection.

569

A special class is formed by the semi-satirical dialogues, which Collenuccio, and still more Pontano, copied from Lucian. Their example stimulated Erasmus and Hutten. For the treatises properly so-called parts of the ethical writings of Plutarch may have served as models.

570

See below, part iv. chap. 5.

571

Comp. the epigram of Sannazaro:

‘Dum patriam laudat, damnat dum Poggius hostem,Nec malus est civis, nec bonus historicus.’

572

Benedictus: Caroli VIII. Hist. in Eccard, Scriptt. vi. col. 1577.

573

Petrus Crinitus deplores this contempt, De honesta disciplina, l. xviii. cap. 9. The humanists here resemble the writers in the decline of antiquity, who also severed themselves from their own age. Comp. Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantin’s des Grossen. See for the other side several declarations of Poggio in Voigt, Wiederbelebung, p. 443 sqq.

574

Lorenzo Valla, in the preface to the Historia Ferdinandi Regis Arag.; in opposition to him, Giacomo Zeno in the Vita Caroli Zeni, Murat. xix. p. 204. See, too, Guarino, in Rosmini, ii. 62 sqq., 177 sqq.

575

In the letter to Pizinga, Opere Volgari, vol. xvi. p. 38. With Raph. Volaterranus, l. xxi. the intellectual world begins in the fourteenth century. He is the same writer whose early books contain so many notices—excellent for his time—of the history of all countries.

576

Here, too, Petrarch cleared the way. See especially his critical investigation of the Austrian Charter, claiming to descend from Cæsar. Epp. Sen. xvi. 1.

577

Like that of Giannozzo Manetti in the presence of Nicholas V., of the whole Papal court, and of a great concourse of strangers from all parts. Comp. Vespas. Fior. p. 591, and more fully in the Commentario, pp. 37-40.

578

In fact, it was already said that Homer alone contained the whole of the arts and sciences—that he was an encyclopædia. Comp. Codri Urcei Opera, Sermo xiii. at the end. It is true that we met with a similar opinion in several ancient writers. The words of C. U. (Sermo xiii., habitus in laudem liberalium artium; Opera, ed. Ven. 1506, fol. xxxviii. b) are as follows: ‘Eia ergo bono animo esto; ego graecas litteras tibi exponam; et praecipue divinum Homerum, a quo ceu fonte perenni, ut scribit Naso, vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. Ab Homero grammaticum dicere poteris, ab Homero rhetoricam, ab Homero medicinam, ab Homero astrologiam, ab Homero fabulas, ab Homero historias, ab Homero mores, ab Homero philosophorum dogmata, ab Homero artem militarem, ab Homero coquinariam, ab Homero architecturam, ab Homero regendarum urbium modum percipies; et in summa, quidquid boni quidquid honesti animus hominis discendi cupidus optare potest, in Homero facile poteris invenire.’ To the same effect ‘Sermo’ vii. and viii. Opera, fol. xxvi. sqq., which treat of Homer only.

579

A cardinal under Paul II. had his cooks instructed in the Ethics of Aristotle. Comp. Gaspar. Veron. Vita Pauli II. in Muratori, iii. ii. col. 1034.

580

For the study of Aristotle in general, a speech of Hermolaus Barbarus is specially instructive.

581

Bursellis, Ann. Bonon. in Murat. xxiii. col. 898.

582

Vasari, xi. pp. 189, 257. Vite di Sodoma e di Garofalo. It is not surprising that the profligate women at Rome took the most harmonious ancient names—Julia, Lucretia, Cassandra, Portia, Virginia, Penthesilea, under which they appear in Aretino. It was, perhaps, then that the Jews took the names of the great Semitic enemies of the Romans—Hannibal, Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, which even now they commonly bear in Rome. [This last assertion cannot be maintained. Neither Zunz, Namen der Juden, Leipzig, 1837, reprinted in Zunz Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1876, nor Steinschneider in his collection in Il Buonarotti, ser. ii. vol. vi. 1871, pp. 196-199, speaks of any Jew of that period who bore these names, and even now, according to the enquiries of Prince Buoncompagni from Signer Tagliacapo, in charge of the Jewish archives in Rome, there are only a few who are named Asdrubale, and none Amilcare or Annibale. L. G.] Burckhardt, 352. A careful choice of names is recommended by L. B. Alberti, Della familia, opp. ii. p. 171. Maffeo Vegio (De educatione liberorum. lib. i. c. x.) warns his readers against the use of nomina indecora barbara aut nova, aut quae gentilium deorum sunt. Names like ‘Nero’ disgrace the bearer; while others such as Cicero, Brutus, Naso, Maro, can be used qualiter per se parum venusta propter tamen eximiam illorum virtutem.

583

‘Quasi che ‘l nome i buon giudici inganni,E che quel meglio t’ abbia a far poeta,Che non farà lo studio di molt’ anni!’

So jests Ariosto, to whom fortune had certainly given a harmonious name, in the Seventh Satire, vs. 64.

584

Or after those of Bojardo, which are in part the same as his.

585

The soldiers of the French army in 1512 were ‘omnibus diris ad inferos devocati!’ The honest canon, Tizio, who, in all seriousness, pronounced a curse from Macrobius against foreign troops, will be spoken of further on.

586

De infelicitate principum, in Poggii Opera, fol. 152: ‘Cujus (Dantis) exstat poema praeclarum, neque, si literis Latinis constaret, ullâ ex parte poetis superioribus (the ancients) postponendum.’ According to Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 74, ‘Many wise men’ even then discussed the question why Dante had not written in Latin. Cortesius (De hominibus doctis, p. 7) complains: ‘Utinam tam bene cogitationes suas Latinus litteris mandare potuisset, quam bene patrium sermonem illustravit!’ He makes the same complaint in speaking of Petrarch and Boccaccio.

587

His work De vulgari eloquio was for long almost unknown, and, valuable as it is to us, could never have exercised the influence of the Divina Commedia.

588

To know how far this fanaticism went, we have only to refer to Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De poetis nostri temporis, passim. Vespasiano Bisticci is one of the few Latin writers of that time who openly confessed that they knew little of Latin (Commentario della vita di G. Manetti, p. 2), but he knew enough to introduce Latin sentences here and there in his writings, and to read Latin letters (ibid. 96, 165). In reference to this exclusive regard for Latin, the following passage may be quoted from Petr. Alcyonius, De exilio, ed. Menken, p. 213. He says that if Cicero could rise up and behold Rome, ‘Omnium maxime illum credo perturbarent ineptiae quorumdam qui, amisso studio veteris linguae quae eadem hujus urbis et universae Italiae propria erat, dies noctesque incumbunt in linguam Geticam aut Dacicam discendam eandemque omni ratione ampliendam, cum Goti, Visigothi et Vandali (qui erant olim Getae et Daci) eam in Italos invexerant, ut artes et linguam et nomen Romanum delerent.’

589

There were regular stylistic exercises, as in the Orationes of the elder Beroaldus, where there are two tales of Boccaccio, and even a ‘Canzone’ of Petrarch translated into Latin.

590

Comp. Petrarch’s letter from the earth to illustrious shades below. Opera, p. 704 sqq. See also p. 372 in the work De rep. optime administranda: ‘Sic esse doleo, sed sic est.’

591

A burlesque picture of the fanatical purism prevalent in Rome is given by Jovian. Pontanus in his Antonius.

592

Hadriani (Cornetani) Card. S. Chrysogoni de sermone latino liber, especially the introduction. He finds in Cicero and his contemporaries Latinity in its absolute form (an sich). The same Codrus Urceus, who found in Homer the sum of all science (see above, p. 249, note 1) says (Opp. ed. 1506, fol. lxv.): ‘Quidquid temporibus meis aut vidi aut studui libens omne illud Cicero mihi felici dedit omine,’ and goes so far as to say in another poem (ibid.): ‘Non habet huic similem doctrinae Graecia mater.’

593

Paul. Jov. Elogia doct. vir. p. 187 sqq., speaking of Bapt. Pius.

594

Paul Jov. Elogia, on Naugerius. Their ideal, he says, was: ‘Aliquid in stylo proprium, quod peculiarem ex certâ notâ mentis effigiem referret, ex naturae genio effinxisse.’ Politian, when in a hurry, objected to write his letters in Latin. Comp. Raph. Volat. Comment. urban. l. xxi. Politian to Cortesius (Epist. lib. viii. ep. 16): ‘Mihi vero longe honestior tauri facies, aut item leonis, quam simiae videtur;’ to which Cortesius replied: ‘Ego malo esse assecla et simia Ciceronis quam alumnus.’ For Pico’s opinion on the Latin language, see the letter quoted above, p. 202.

595

Paul. Jov. Dialogus de viris literis illustribus, in Tiraboschi, ed. Venez. 1766, tom. vii. p. iv. It is well known that Giovio was long anxious to undertake the great work which Vasari accomplished. In the dialogue mentioned above it is foreseen and deplored that Latin would now altogether lose its supremacy.

596

In the ‘Breve’ of 1517 to Franc. de’ Rosi, composed by Sadoleto, in Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, vi. p. 172.

597

Gasp. Veronens. Vita Pauli II. in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1031. The plays of Seneca and Latin translations of Greek dramas were also performed.

598

At Ferrara, Plautus was played chiefly in the Italian adaptations of Collenuccio, the younger Guarino, and others, and principally for the sake of the plots. Isabella Gonzaga took the liberty of finding him dull. For Latin comedy in general, see R. Peiper in Fleckeisen and Masius, Neue Jahrb. für Phil. u. Pädag., Lpzg. 1874, xx. 131-138, and Archiv für Literaturgesch. v. 541 sqq. On Pomp. Laetus, see Sabellici Opera, Epist. l. xi. fol. 56 sqq., and below, at the close of Part III.

599

Comp. Burckhardt. Gesch. der Renaissance in Italien, 38-41.

600

For what follows see Deliciae poetarum Italorum; Paul. Jov. Elogia; Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De poetis nostri temporis; and the Appendices to Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi.

601

There are two new editions of the poem, that of Pingaud (Paris, 1872), and that of Corradini (Padua, 1874). In 1874 two Italian translations also appeared by G. B. Gaudo and A. Palesa. On the Africa, compare L. Geiger: Petrarca, pp. 122 sqq., and p. 270, note 7.

602

Filippo Villani, Vite, ed. Galetti, p. 16.

603

Franc. Aleardi Oratio in laudem Franc. Sfortiae, in Marat. xxv. col. 384. In comparing Scipio with Caesar, Guarino and Cyriacus Anconitanus held the latter, Poggio (Opera, epp. fol. 125, 134 sqq.) the former, to be the greater. For Scipio and Hannibal in the miniatures of Attavante, see Vasari, iv. 41. Vita di Fiesole. The names of both used for Picinino and Sforza. See p. 99. There were great disputes as to the relative greatness of the two. Shepherd-Tonelli, i. 262 sqq. and Rosmini: Guarino, ii. 97-111.

604

The brilliant exceptions, where rural life is treated realistically, will also be mentioned below.

605

Printed in Mai, Spicilegium Romanum, vol. viii. pp. 488-504; about 500 hexameter verses. Pierio Valeriano followed out the myth in his poetry. See his Carpio, in the Deliciae poetarum Italorum. The frescoes of Brusasorci in the Pal. Murari at Verona represent the subject of the Sarca.

606

Newly edited and translated by Th. A. Fassnacht in Drei Perlen der neulateinischen Poesie. Leutkirch and Leipzig, 1875. See further, Goethe’s Werke (Hempel’sche Ausgabe), vol. xxxii. pp. 157 and 411.

607

De sacris diebus.

608

E.g. in his eighth eclogue.

609

There are two unfinished and unprinted Sforziads, one by the elder, the other by the younger Filelfo. On the latter, see Favre, Mélanges d’Hist. Lit. i. 156; on the former, see Rosmini, Filelfo, ii. 157-175. It is said to be 12,800 lines long, and contains the passage: ‘The sun falls in love with Bianca.’

610

Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, viii. 184. A poem in a similar style, xii. 130. The poem of Angilbert on the Court of Charles the Great curiously reminds us of the Renaissance. Comp. Pertz. Monum. ii.

611

Strozzi, Poetae, p. 31 sqq. ‘Caesaris Borgiae ducis epicedium.’

612

‘Pontificem addiderat, flammis lustralibus omneisCorporis ablutum labes, Dis Juppiter ipsis,’ etc.

613

This was Ercole II. of Ferrara, b. April 4, 1508, probably either shortly before or shortly after the composition of this poem. ‘Nascere, magne puer, matri expectate patrique,’ is said near the end.

614

Comp. the collections of the Scriptores by Schardius, Freher, &c., and see above p. 126, note 1.

615

Uzzano, see Archiv. iv. i. 296. Macchiavelli, i Decennali. The life of Savonarola, under the title Cedrus Libani, by Fra Benedetto. Assedio di Piombino, Murat. xxv. We may quote as a parallel the Teuerdank and other northern works in rhyme (new ed. of that by Haltaus, Quedlinb. and Leipzig, 1836). The popular historical songs of the Germans, which were produced in great abundance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, may be compared with these Italian poems.

616

We may remark of the Coltivazione of L. Alamanni, written in Italian ‘versi sciolti,’ that all the really poetical and enjoyable passages are directly or indirectly borrowed from the ancients (an old ed., Paris, 1540; new ed. of the works of A., 2 vols., Florence, 1867).

617

E.g. by C. G. Weise, Leipzig, 1832. The work, divided into twelve books, named after the twelve constellations, is dedicated to Hercules II. of Ferrara. In the dedication occur the remarkable words: ‘Nam quem alium patronum in totâ Italiâ invenire possum, cui musae cordisunt, qui carmen sibi oblatum aut intelligat, aut examine recto expendere sciat?’ Palingenius uses ‘Juppiter’ and ‘Deus’ indiscriminately.

618

L. B. Alberti’s first comic poem, which purported to be by an author Lepidus, was long considered as a work of antiquity.

619

In this case (see below, p. 266, note 2) of the introduction to Lucretius, and of Horace, Od. iv. 1.

620

The invocation of a patron saint is an essentially pagan undertaking, as has been noticed at p. 57. On a more serious occasion, comp. Sannazaro’s Elegy: ‘In festo die divi Nazarii martyris.’ Sann. Elegiae, 1535, fol. 166 sqq.

621

Si satis ventos tolerasse et imbresAc minas fatorum hominumque fraudesDa Pater tecto salientem avitoCernere fumum!

622

Andr. Naugerii, Orationes duae carminaque aliquot, Venet. 1530, 4^o. The few ‘Carmina’ are to be found partly or wholly in the Deliciae. On N. and his death, see Pier. Val. De inf. lit. ed. Menken, 326 sqq.

623

Compare Petrarch’s greeting to Italy, written more than a century earlier (1353) in Petr. Carmina Minora, ed. Rossetti, ii. pp. 266 sqq.

624

To form a notion of what Leo X. could swallow, see the prayer of Guido Postumo Silvestri to Christ, the Virgin, and all the Saints, that they would long spare this ‘numen’ to earth, since heaven had enough of such already. Printed in Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, v. 337.

625

Molza’s Poesie volgari e Latine, ed. by Pierantonio Serassi, Bergamo 1747.

626

Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 36.

627

Sannazaro ridicules a man who importuned him with such forgeries: ‘Sint vetera haec aliis, mî nova semper erunt.’ (Ad Rufum, Opera, 1535, fol. 41 a.)

628

‘De mirabili urbe Venetiis’ (Opera, fol. 38 b):

Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undisStare urbem et toto ponere jura mari:Nunc mihi Tarpejas quantum vis Juppiter arceisObjice et illa tui mœnia Martis ait,Si pelago Tybrim praefers, urbem aspice utramqueIllam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos.

629

Lettere de’principi, i. 88, 98.

630

Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 508. At the end we read, in reference to the bull as the arms of the Borgia:

‘Merge, Tyber, vitulos animosas ultor in undas;Bos cadat inferno victima magna Jovi!’

631

On the whole affair, see Roscoe, Leone X., ed. Bossi, vii. 211, viii. 214 sqq. The printed collection, now rare, of these Coryciana of the year 1524 contains only the Latin poems; Vasari saw another book in the possession of the Augustinians in which were sonnets. So contagious was the habit of affixing poems, that the group had to be protected by a railing, and even hidden altogether. The change of Goritz into ‘Corycius senex’ is suggested by Virgil, Georg. iv. 127. For the miserable end of the man at the sack of Rome, see Pierio Valeriano, De infelic. literat. ed. Menken, p. 369.

632

The work appeared first in the Coryciana, with introductions by Silvanus and Corycius himself; also reprinted in the Appendices to Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, and in the Deliciae. Comp. Paul. Jov. Elogia, speaking of Arsillus. Further, for the great number of the epigrammatists, see Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, l. c. One of the most biting pens was Marcantonio Casanova. Among the less known, Jo. Thomas Muscanius (see Deliciae) deserves mention. On Casanova, see Pier. Valer. De infel. lit. ed. Menken, p. 376 sqq.; and Paul. Jov. Elogia, p. 142 sqq., who says of him: ‘Nemo autem eo simplicitate ac innocentiâ vitae melior;’ Arsillus (l. c.) speaks of his ‘placidos sales.’ Some few of his poems in the Coryciana, J. 3 a sqq. L. 1 a, L. 4 b.

633

Marin Sanudo, in the Vite de’duchi di Venezia, Murat. xii. quotes them regularly.

634

Scardeonius, De urb. Patav. antiq. (Graev. thes. vi. 11, col. 270), names as the inventor a certain Odaxius of Padua, living about the middle of the fifteenth century. Mixed verses of Latin and the language of the country are found much earlier in many parts of Europe.

635

It must not be forgotten that they were very soon printed with both the old Scholia and modern commentaries.

636

Ariosto, Satira, vii. Date 1531.

637

Of such children we meet with several, yet I cannot give an instance in which they were demonstrably so treated. The youthful prodigy Giulio Campagnola was not one of those who were forced with an ambitious object. Comp. Scardeonius, De urb. Patav. antiq. in Graev. thes. vi. 3, col. 276. For the similar case of Cecchino Bracci, d. 1445 in his fifteenth year, comp. Trucchi, Poesie Ital. inedite, iii. p. 229. The father of Cardano tried ‘memoriam artificialem instillare,’ and taught him, when still a child, the astrology of the Arabians. See Cardanus, De propria vita cap. 34. Manoello may be added to the list, unless we are to take his expression, ‘At the age of six years I am as good as at eighty,’ as a meaningless phrase. Comp. Litbl. des Orients, 1843, p. 21.