The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

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:

‘Non externis advecta BritannisLana erat in pretio, non concha aut coccus in usu.’

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.

846

Comp. La Nencia di Barberino, str. 20 and 40. The lover promises to bring his beloved cosmetics from the town (see on this poem of Lorenzo dei Medici, above, p. 101).

847

Agnolo Pandolfini, Trattato della Governo della Famiglia, p. 118. He condemns this practice most energetically.

848

Tristan. Caracciolo, in Murat. xxii. col. 87. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 47.

849

Cap. i. to Cosimo: “Quei cento scudi nuovi e profumati che l’altro di mi mandaste a donare.” Some objects which date from that period have not yet lost their odour.

850

Vespasiano Fiorent. p. 453, in the life of Donato Acciajuoli, and p. 625, in the life of Niccoli. See above, vol. i. p. 303 sqq.

851

Giraldi, Hecatommithi, Introduz. nov. 6. A few notices on the Germans in Italy may not here be out of place. On the fear of German invasion, see p. 91, note 2; on Germans as copyists and printers, p. 193 sqq. and the notes; on the ridicule of Hadrian VI. as a German, p. 227 and notes. The Italians were in general ill-disposed to the Germans, and showed their ill-will by ridicule. Boccaccio (Decam. viii. 1) says: ‘Un Tedesco in soldo prò della persona è assai leale a coloro ne’ cui servigi si mattea; il che rade volte suole de’ Tedeschi avenire.’ The tale is given as an instance of German cunning. The Italian humanists are full of attacks on the German barbarians, and especially those who, like Poggio, had seen Germany. Comp. Voigt, Wiederbelebung, 374 sqq.; Geiger, Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Italien Zeit des Humanismus in Zeitschrift für deutsche Culturgeschichte, 1875, pp. 104-124; see also Janssen, Gesch. der deutschen Volkes, i. 262. One of the chief opponents of the Germans was Joh. Ant. Campanus. See his works, ed. Mencken, who delivered a discourse ‘De Campani odio in Germanos.’ The hatred of the Germans was strengthened by the conduct of Hadrian VI., and still more by the conduct of the troops at the sack of Rome (Gregorovius, viii. 548, note). Bandello III. nov. 30, chooses the German as the type of the dirty and foolish man (see iii. 51, for another German). When an Italian wishes to praise a German he says, as Petrus Alcyonius in the dedication to his dialogue De Exilio, to Nicolaus Schomberg, p. 9: ‘Itaque etsi in Misnensi clarissima Germaniæ provincia illustribus natalibus ortus es, tamen in Italiae luce cognosceris.’ Unqualified praise is rare, e.g. of German women at the time of Marius, Cortigiano, iii. cap. 33.

It must be added that the Italians of the Renaissance, like the Greeks of antiquity, were filled with aversion for all barbarians. Boccaccio, De claris Mulieribus, in the article ‘Carmenta,’ speaks of ‘German barbarism, French savagery, English craft, and Spanish coarseness.’

852

Paul. Jov. Elogia, p. 289, who, however, makes no mention of the German education. Maximilian could not be induced, even by celebrated women, to change his underclothing.

853

Æneas Sylvius (Vitae Paparum, ap. Murat. iii. ii. col. 880) says, in speaking of Baccano: ‘Pauca sunt mapalia, eaque hospitia faciunt Theutonici; hoc hominum genus totam fere Italiam hospitalem facit; ubi non repereris hos, neque diversorium quaeras.’

854

Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 21. Padua, about the year 1450, boasted of a great inn—the ‘Ox’—like a palace, containing stabling for two hundred horses. Michele Savonarola, in Mur. xxiv. col. 1175. At Florence, outside the Porta San Gallo, there was one of the largest and most splendid inns then known, but which served, it seems, only as a place of amusement for the people of the city. Varchi, Stor. Fior. iii. p. 86. At the time of Alexander VI. the best inn at Rome was kept by a German. See the remarkable notices taken from the MS. of Burcardus in Gregorovius, vii. 361, note 2. Comp. ibid. p. 93, notes 2 and 3.

855

Comp. e.g. the passages in Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, in the Colloquies of Erasmus, in the Latin poem of Grobianus, &c., and poems on behaviour at table, where, besides descriptions of bad habits, rules are given for good behaviour. For one of these, see C. Weller, Deutsche Gedichte der Jahrhunderts, Tübingen, 1875.

856

The diminution of the ‘burla’ is evident from the instances in the Cortigiano, l. ii. fol. 96. The Florence practical jokes kept their ground tenaciously. See, for evidence, the tales of Lasca (Ant. Franc. Grazini, b. 1503, d. 1582), which appeared at Florence in 1750.

857

For Milan, see Bandello, parte i. nov. 9. There were more than sixty carriages with four, and numberless others with two, horses, many of them carved and richly gilt and with silken tops. Comp. ibid. nov. 4. Ariosto, Sat. iii. 127.

858

Bandello, parte i. nov. 3, iii. 42, iv. 25.

859

De Vulgari Eloquio, ed. Corbinelli, Parisiis, 1577. According to Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 77, it was written shortly before his death. He mentions in the Convito the rapid and striking changes which took place during his lifetime in the Italian language.

860

See on this subject the investigations of Lionardo Aretino (Epist. ed. Mehus. ii. 62 sqq. lib. vi. 10) and Poggio (Historiae disceptativae convivales tres, in the Opp. fol. 14 sqq.), whether in earlier times the language of the people and of scholars was the same. Lionardo maintains the negative; Poggio expressly maintains the affirmative against his predecessor. See also the detailed argument of L. B. Alberti in the introduction to Della Famiglia, book iii., on the necessity of Italian for social intercourse.

861

The gradual progress which this dialect made in literature and social intercourse could be tabulated without difficulty by a native scholar. It could be shown to what extent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the various dialects kept their places, wholly or partly, in correspondence, in official documents, in historical works, and in literature generally. The relations between the dialects and a more or less impure Latin, which served as the official language, would also be discussed. The modes of speech and pronunciation in the different cities of Italy are noticed in Landi, Forcianae Quaestiones, fol. 7 a. Of the former he says: ‘Hetrusci vero quanquam caeteris excellant, effugere tamen non possunt, quin et ipsi ridiculi sint, aut saltem quin se mutuo lacerent;’ as regards pronunciation, the Sienese, Lucchese, and Florentines are specially praised; but of the Florentines it is said: ‘Plus (jucunditatis) haberet si voces non ingurgitaret aut non ita palato lingua jungeretur.’

862

It is so felt to be by Dante, De Vulgari Eloquio.

863

Tuscan, it is true, was read and written long before this in Piedmont—but very little reading and writing was done at all.

864

The place, too, of the dialect in the usage of daily life was clearly understood. Gioviano Pontano ventured especially to warn the prince of Naples against the use of it (Jov. Pontan. De Principe). The last Bourbons were notoriously less scrupulous in this respect. For the way in which a Milanese Cardinal, who wished to retain his native dialect in Rome was ridiculed, see Bandello, parte ii. nov. 31.

865

Bald. Castiglione, Il Cortigiano, l. i. fol. 27 sqq. Throughout the dialogue we are able to gather the personal opinion of the writer. The opposition to Petrarch and Boccaccio is very curious (Dante is not once mentioned). We read that Politian, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and others were also Tuscans, and as worthy of imitation as they, ‘e forse di non minor dottrina e guidizio.’

866

There was a limit, however, to this. The satirists introduce bits of Spanish, and Folengo (under the pseudonym Limerno Pitocco, in his Orlandino) of French, but only by way of ridicule. It is an exceptional fact that a street in Milan, which at the time of the French (1500 to 1512, 1515 to 1522) was called Rue Belle, now bears the name Rugabella. The long Spanish rule has left almost no traces on the language, and but rarely the name of some governor in streets and public buildings. It was not till the eighteenth century that, together with French modes of thought, many French words and phrases found their way into Italian. The purism of our century is still busy in removing them.

867

Firenzuola, Opera, i. in the preface to the discourse on female beauty, and ii. in the Ragionamenti which precede the novels.