The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

927

More properly 1454. See Olivier de la Marche, Mémoires, chap. 29.

928

For other French festivals, see e.g. Juvénal des Ursins (Paris, 1614), ad. a. 1389 (entrance of Queen Isabella); John de Troyes, ad. a. 1461) (often printed) (entrance of Louis XI.). Here, too, we meet with living statues, machines for raising bodies, and so forth; but the whole is confused and disconnected, and the allegories are mostly unintelligible. The festivals at Lisbon in 1452, held at the departure of the Infanta Eleonora, the bride of the Emperor Frederick III., lasted several days and were remarkable for their magnificence. See Freher-Struve, Rer. German. Script. ii. fol. 51—the report of Nic. Lauckmann.

929

A great advantage for those poets and artists who knew how to use it.

930

Comp. Bartol. Gambia, Notizie intorno alle Opere di Feo Belcari, Milano, 1808; and especially the introduction to the work, Le Rappresentazioni di Feo Belcari ed altre di lui Poesie, Firenze, 1833. As a parallel, see the introduction of the bibliophile Jacob to his edition of Pathelin (Paris, 1859).

931

It is true that a Mystery at Siena on the subject of the Massacre of the Innocents closed with a scene in which the disconsolate mothers seized one another by the hair. Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi, iii. p. 53. It was one of the chief aims of Feo Belcari (d. 1484), of whom we have spoken, to free the Mysteries from these monstrosities.

932

Franco Sacchetti, nov. 72.

933

Vasari, iii. 232 sqq.: Vita di Brunellesco; v. 36 sqq.: Vita del Cecca. Comp. v. 32, Vita di Don Bartolommeo.

934

Arch. Stor. append. ii. p. 310. The Mystery of the Annunciation at Ferrara, on the occasion of the wedding of Alfonso, with fireworks and flying apparatus. For an account of the representation of Susanna, John the Baptist, and of a legend, at the house of the Cardinal Riario, see Corio, fol. 417. For the Mystery of Constantine the Great in the Papal Palace at the Carnival, 1484, see Jac. Volaterran. (Murat. xxiii. col. 194). The chief actor was a Genoese born and educated at Constantinople.

935

Graziani, Cronaca di Perugia, Arch. Stor. xvi. 1. p. 598. At the Crucifixion, a figure was kept ready and put in the place of the actor.

936

For this, see Graziani, l. c. and Pii II. Comment. l. viii. pp. 383, 386. The poetry of the fifteenth century sometimes shows the same coarseness. A ‘canzone’ of Andrea da Basso traces in detail the corruption of the corpse of a hard-hearted fair one. In a monkish drama of the twelfth century King Herod was put on the stage with the worms eating him (Carmina Burana, pp. 80 sqq.). Many of the German dramas of the seventeenth century offer parallel instances.

937

Allegretto, Diarii Sanesi, in Murat. xxiii. col. 767.

938

Matarazzo, Arch. Stor. xvi. ii. p. 36. The monk had previously undertaken a voyage to Rome to make the necessary studies for the festival.

939

Extracts from the ‘Vergier d’honneur,’ in Roscoe, Leone X., ed. Bossi, i. p. 220, and iii. p. 263.

940

Pii II. Comment. l. viii. pp. 382 sqq. Another gorgeous celebration of the ‘Corpus Domini’ is mentioned by Bursellis, Annal. Bonon. in Murat. xxiii. col. 911, for the year 1492. The representations were from the Old and New Testaments.

941

On such occasions we read, ‘Nulla di muro si potea vedere.’

942

The same is true of many such descriptions.

943

Five kings with an armed retinue, and a savage who fought with a (tamed?) lion; the latter, perhaps, with an allusion to the name of the Pope—Sylvius.

944

Instances under Sixtus IV., Jac. Volaterr. in Murat. xxiii. col. 135 (bombardorum et sclopulorum crepitus), 139. At the accession of Alexander VI. there were great salvos of artillery. Fireworks, a beautiful invention due to Italy, belong, like festive decorations generally, rather to the history of art than to our present work. So, too, the brilliant illuminations we read of in connexion with many festivals, and the hunting-trophies and table-ornaments. (See p. 319. The elevation of Julius II. to the Papal throne was celebrated at Venice by three days’ illumination. Brosch, Julius II. p. 325, note 17.)

945

Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 772. See, besides, col. 770, for the reception of Pius II. in 1459. A paradise, or choir of angels, was represented, out of which came an angel and sang to the Pope, ‘in modo che il Papa si commosse a lagrime per gran tenerezza da si dolci parole.’

946

See the authorities quoted in Favre, Mélanges d’Hist. Lit. i. 138; Corio, fol. 417 sqq. The menu fills almost two closely printed pages. ‘Among other dishes a mountain was brought in, out of which stepped a living man, with signs of astonishment to find himself amid this festive splendour; he repeated some verses and then disappeared’ (Gregorovius, vii. 241). Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptt. ii. col. 1896; Strozzii Poetae, fol. 193 sqq. A word or two may here be added on eating and drinking. Leon. Aretino (Epist. lib. iii. ep. 18) complains that he had to spend so much for his wedding feast, garments, and so forth, that on the same day he had concluded a ‘matrimonium’ and squandered a ‘patrimonium.’ Ermolao Barbaro describes, in a letter to Pietro Cara, the bill of fare at a wedding-feast at Trivulzio’s (Angeli Politiani Epist. lib. iii.). The list of meats and drinks in the Appendix to Landi’s Commentario (above) is of special interest. Landi speaks of the great trouble he had taken over it, collecting it from five hundred writers. The passage is too long to be quoted (we there read: ‘Li antropofagi furono i primi che mangiassero carne humana’). Poggio (Opera, 1513, fol. 14 sqq.) discusses the question’: ‘Uter alteri gratias debeat pro convivio impenso, isne qui vocatus est ad convivium an qui vocavit?’ Platina wrote a treatise ‘De Arte Coquinaria,’ said to have been printed several times, and quoted under various titles, but which, according to his own account (Dissert. Vossiane, i. 253 sqq.), contains more warnings against excess than instructions on the art in question.

947

Vasari, ix. p. 37, Vita di Puntormo, tells how a child, during such a festival at Florence in the year 1513, died from the effects of the exertion—or shall we say, of the gilding? The poor boy had to represent the ‘golden age’!

948

Phil. Beroaldi, Nuptiae Bentivolorum, in the Orationes Ph. B. Paris, 1492, c. 3 sqq. The description of the other festivities at this wedding is very remarkable.

949

M. Anton. Sabellici, Epist. l. iii. fol. 17.

950

Amoretti, Memorie, &c. su. Lionardo da Vinci, pp. 38 sqq.

951

To what extent astrology influenced even the festivals of this century is shown by the introduction of the planets (not described with sufficient clearness) at the reception of the ducal brides at Ferrara. Diario Ferrarese, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 248, ad. a. 1473; col. 282, ad. a. 1491. So, too, at Mantua, Arch. Stor. append. ii. p. 233.

952

Annal. Estens. in Murat. xx. col. 468 sqq. The description is unclear and printed from an incorrect transcript.

953

We read that the ropes of the machine used for this purpose were made to imitate garlands.

954

Strictly the ship of Isis, which entered the water on the 5th of March, as a symbol that navigation was reopened. For analogies in the German religion, see Jac. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie.

955

Purgatorio, xxix. 43 to the end, and xxx. at the beginning. According to v. 115, the chariot is more splendid than the triumphal chariot of Scipio, of Augustus, and even of the Sun-God.

956

Ranke, Gesch. der Roman. und German. Völker, ed. 2, p. 95. P. Villari, Savonarola.

957

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo (lib. ii. cap. 3), treats specially ‘del modo del triumphare.’

958

Corio, fol. 401: ‘dicendo tali cose essere superstitioni de’ Re.’ Comp. Cagnola, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 127, who says that the duke declined from modesty.

959

See above, vol. i. p. 315 sqq.; comp. i. p. 15, note 1. ‘Triumphus Alfonsi,’ as appendix to the Dicta et Facta of Panormita, ed. 1538, pp. 129-139, 256 sqq. A dislike to excessive display on such occasions was shown by the gallant Comneni. Comp. Cinnamus, i. 5, vi. 1.

960

The position assigned to Fortune is characteristic of the naïveté of the Renaissance. At the entrance of Massimiliano Sforza into Milan (1512), she stood as the chief figure of a triumphal arch above Fama, Speranza, Audacia, and Penitenza, all represented by living persons. Comp. Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 305.

961

The entrance of Borso of Este into Reggio, described above (p. 417), shows the impression which Alfonso’s triumph had made in all Italy,. On the entrance of Cæsar Borgia into Rome in 1500, see Gregorovius, vii. 439.

962

Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. 260 sqq. The author says expressly, ‘le quali cose da li triumfanti Romani se soliano anticamente usare.’

963

Her three ‘capitoli’ in terzines, Anecd. Litt. iv. 461 sqq.

964

Old paintings of similar scenes are by no means rare, and no doubt often represent masquerades actually performed. The wealthy classes soon became accustomed to drive in chariots at every public solemnity. We read that Annibale Bentivoglio, eldest son of the ruler of Bologna, returned to the palace after presiding as umpire at the regular military exercises, ‘cum triumpho more romano.’ Bursellis, l. c. col. 909. ad. a. 1490.

965

The remarkable funeral of Malatesta Baglione, poisoned at Bologna in 1437 (Graziani, Arch. Stor. xvi. i. p. 413), reminds us of the splendour of an Etruscan funeral. The knights in mourning, however, and other features of the ceremony, were in accordance with the customs of the nobility throughout Europe. See e.g. the funeral of Bertrand Duguesclin, in Juvénal des Ursins, ad. a. 1389. See also Graziani, l. c. p. 360.

966

Vasari, ix. p. 218, Vita di Granacci. On the triumphs and processions in Florence, see Reumont, Lorenzo, ii. 433.

967

Mich. Cannesius, Vita Pauli II. in Murat. iii. ii. col. 118 sqq.

968

Tommasi, Vita di Caesare Borgia, p. 251.

969

Vasari ix. p. 34 sqq., Vita di Puntormo. A most important passage of its kind.

970

Vasari, viii. p. 264, Vita di Andrea del Sarto.

971

Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 783. It was reckoned a bad omen that one of the wheels broke.

972

M. Anton. Sabellici Epist. l. iii. letter to M. Anton. Barbavarus. He says: ‘Vetus est mos civitatis in illustrium hospitum adventu eam navim auro et purpura insternere.’

973

Sansovino, Venezia, fol. 151 sqq. The names of these corporations were: Pavoni, Accessi, Eterni, Reali, Sempiterni. The academies probably had their origin in these guilds.

974

Probably in 1495. Comp. M. Anton. Sabellici Epist. l. v. fol. 28; last letter to M. Ant. Barbavarus.

975

‘Terræ globum socialibus signis circunquaque figuratum,’ and ‘quinis pegmatibus, quorum singula foederatorum regum, principumque suas habuere effigies et cum his ministros signaque in auro affabre caelata.’

976

Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptt. ii. col. 1093, 2000; Mich. Cannesius, Vita Pauli II. in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1012; Platina. Vitae Pontiff. p. 318; Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xiii. col. 163, 194; Paul. Jov. Elogia, sub Juliano Cæsarino. Elsewhere, too, there were races for women, Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 384: comp. Gregorovius, vi. 690 sqq., vii. 219, 616 sqq.

977

Once under Alexander VI. from October till Lent. See Tommasi, l. c. p. 322.

978

Baluz. Miscell. iv. 517 (comp. Gregorovius, vii. 288 sqq.).

979

Pii II. Comment. l. iv. p. 211.

980

Nantiporto, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1080. They wished to thank him for a peace which he had concluded, but found the gates of the palace closed and troops posted in all the open places.

981

‘Tutti i trionfi, carri, mascherate, o canti carnascialeschi.’ Cosmopoli, 1750. Macchiavelli, Opere Minori, p. 505; Vasari, vii. p. 115 sqq. Vita di Piero di Cosimo, to whom a chief part in the development of these festivities is ascribed. Comp. B. Loos (above, p. 154, note 1) p. 12 sqq. and Reumont, Lorenzo, ii. 443 sqq., where the authorities are collected which show that the Carnival was soon restrained. Comp. ibid ii. p. 24.

982

Discorsi, l. i. c. 12. Also c. 55: Italy is more corrupt than all other countries; then come the French and Spaniards.

983

Paul. Jov. Viri Illustres: Jo. Gal. Vicecomes. Comp. p. 12 sqq. and notes.

984

On the part filled by the sense of honour in the modern world, see Prévost-Paradol, La France Nouvelle, liv. iii. chap. 2.

985

Compare what Mr. Darwin says of blushing in the ‘Expression of the Emotions,’ and of the relations between shame and conscience.

986

Franc. Guicciardini, Ricordi Politici e Civili, n. 118 (Opere inedite, vol. i.).

987

His closest counterpart is Merlinus Coccajus (Teofilo Folengo), whose Opus Maccaronicorum Rabelais certainly knew, and quotes more than once (Pantagruel, l. ii. ch. 1. and ch. 7, at the end). It is possible that Merlinus Coccajus may have given the impulse which resulted in Pantagruel and Gargantua.

988

Gargantua, l. i. cap. 57.

989

That is, well-born in the higher sense of the word, since Rabelais, son of the innkeeper of Chinon, has here no motive for assigning any special privilege to the nobility. The preaching of the Gospel, which is spoken of in the inscription at the entrance to the monastery, would fit in badly with the rest of the life of the inmates; it must be understood in a negative sense, as implying defiance of the Roman Church.

990

See extracts from his diary in Delécluze, Florence et ses Vicissitudes, vol. 2.

991

Infessura, ap. Eccard, Scriptt. ii. col. 1992. On F. C. see above, p. 108.

992

This opinion of Stendhal (La Chartreuse de Parme, ed. Delahays, p. 335) seems to me to rest on profound psychological observation.

993

Graziani, Cronaca di Perugia, for the year 1437 (Arch. Stor. xvi. i. p. 415).

994

Giraldi, Hecatommithi, i. nov. 7.

995

Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptt. ii. col. 1892, for the year 1464.

996

Allegretto, Diari Sanisi, in Murat. xxiii. col. 837. Allegretto was himself present when the oath was taken, and had no doubt of its efficacy.

997

Those who leave vengeance to God are ridiculed by Pulci, Morgante, canto xxi. str. 83 sqq., 104 sqq.

998

Guicciardini, Ricordi, l. c. n. 74.

999

Thus Cardanus (De Propria Vita, cap. 13) describes himself as very revengeful, but also as ‘verax, memor beneficiorum, amans justitiæ.’

1000

It is true that when the Spanish rule was fully established the population fell off to a certain extent. Had this fact been due to the demoralisation of the people, it would have appeared much earlier.

1001

Giraldi, Hecatommithi, iii. nov. 2. In the same strain, Cortigiano, l. iv. fol. 180.

1002

A shocking instance of vengeance taken by a brother at Perugia in the year 1455, is to be found in the chronicle of Graziani (Arch. Stor. xvi. p. 629). The brother forces the gallant to tear out the sister’s eyes, and then beats him from the place. It is true that the family was a branch of the Oddi, and the lover only a cordwainer.

1003

Bandello, parte i. nov. 9 and 26. Sometimes the wife’s confessor is bribed by the husband and betrays the adultery.

1004

See above p. 394, and note 1.

1005

As instance, Bandello, part i. nov. 4.

1006

‘Piaccia al Signore Iddio che non si ritrovi,’ say the women in Giraldi (iii. nov. 10), when they are told that the deed may cost the murderer his head.

1007

This is the case, for example, with Gioviano Pontano (De Fortitudine, l. ii.). His heroic Ascolans, who spend their last night in singing and dancing, the Abruzzian mother, who cheers up her son on his way to the gallows, &c., belong probably to brigand families, but he forgets to say so.

1008

Diarium Parmense, in Murat. xxii. col. 330 to 349 passim. The sonnet, col. 340.

1009

Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 312. We are reminded of the gang led by a priest, which for some time before the year 1837 infested western Lombardy.

1010

Massuccio, nov. 29. As a matter of course, the man has luck in his amours.

1011

If he appeared as a corsair in the war between the two lines of Anjou for the possession of Naples, he may have done so as a political partisan, and this, according to the notions of the time, implied no dishonour. The Archbishop Paolo Fregoso of Genoa, in the second half of the fifteenth century probably allowed himself quite as much freedom, or more. Contemporaries and later writers, e.g. Aretino and Poggio, record much worse things of John. Gregorovius, vi. p. 600.

1012

Poggio, Facetiae, fol. 164. Anyone familiar with Naples at the present time, may have heard things as comical, though bearing on other sides of human life.

1013

Jovian. Pontani Antonius: ‘Nec est quod Neapoli quam hominis vita minoris vendatur.’ It is true he thinks it was not so under the House of Anjou, ‘sicam ab iis (the Aragonese) accepimus.’ The state of things about the year 1534 is described by Benvenuto Cellini, i. 70.

1014

Absolute proof of this cannot be given, but few murders are recorded, and the imagination of the Florentine writers at the best period is not filled with the suspicion of them.

1015

See on this point the report of Fedeli, in Alberi, Relazioni Serie, ii. vol. i. pp. 353 sqq.

1016

M. Brosch (Hist. Zeitschr. bd. 27, p. 295 sqq.) has collected from the Venetian archives five proposals, approved by the council, to poison the Sultan (1471-1504), as well as evidence of the plan to murder Charles VIII. (1495) and of the order given to the Proveditor at Faenza to have Cæsar Borgia put to death (1504).

1017

Dr. Geiger adds several conjectural statements and references on this subject. It may be remarked that the suspicion of poisoning, which I believe to be now generally unfounded, is often expressed in certain parts of Italy with regard to any death not at once to be accounted for.—[The Translator.]

1018

Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptor. ii. col. 1956.

1019

Chron. Venetum, in Murat. xxiv. col. 131. In northern countries still more wonderful things were believed as to the art of poisoning in Italy. See Juvénal des Ursins, ad. ann. 1382 (ed. Buchon, p. 336), for the lancet of the poisoner, whom Charles of Durazzo took into his service; whoever looked at it steadily, died.

1020

Petr. Crinitus, De Honesta Disciplina, l. xviii. cap. 9.

1021

Pii II. Comment. l. xi. p. 562. Joh. Ant. Campanus, Vita Pii II. in Murat. iii. ii. col. 988.

1022

Vasari, ix. 82, Vita di Rosso. In the case of unhappy marriages it is hard to say whether there were more real or imaginary instances of poisoning. Comp. Bandello, ii. nov. 5 and 54: ii. nov. 40 is more serious. In one and the same city of Western Lombardy, the name of which is not given, lived two poisoners. A husband, wishing to convince himself of the genuineness of his wife’s despair, made her drink what she believed to be poison, but which was really coloured water, whereupon they were reconciled. In the family of Cardanus alone four cases of poisoning occurred (De Propria Vita, cap. 30, 50). Even at a banquet given at the coronation of a pope each cardinal brought his own cupbearer with him, and his own wine, ‘probably because they knew from experience that otherwise they would run the risk of being poisoned.’ And this usage was general at Rome, and practised ‘sine injuria invitantis!’ Blas Ortiz, Itinerar. Hadriani VI. ap. Baluz. Miscell. ed. Mansi, i. 380.

1023

For the magic arts used against Leonello of Ferrara, see Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 194, ad a. 1445. When the sentence was read in the public square to the author of them, a certain Benato, a man in other respects of bad character, a noise was heard in the air and the earth shook, so that many people fled away or fell to the ground; this happened because Benato ‘havea chiamato e scongiurato il diavolo.’ What Guicciardini (l. i.) says of the wicked arts practised by Ludovico Moro against his nephew Giangaleazzo, rests on his own responsibility. On magic, see below, cap. 4.

1024

Ezzelino da Romano might be put first, were it not that he rather acted under the influence of ambitious motives and astrological delusions.

1025

Giornali Napoletani, in Murat. xxi. col. 1092 ad a. 1425. According to the narrative this deed seems to have been committed out of mere pleasure in cruelty. Br., it is true, believed neither in God nor in the saints, and despised and neglected all the precepts and ceremonies of the Church.

1026

Pii II. Comment. l. vii. p. 338.

1027

Jovian. Pontan. De Immanitate, cap. 17, where he relates how Malatesta got his own daughter with child—and so forth.

1028

Varchi, Storie Fiorentine, at the end. (When the work is published without expurgations, as in the Milanese edition.)

1029

On which point feeling differs according to the place and the people. The Renaissance prevailed in times and cities where the tendency was to enjoy life heartily. The general darkening of the spirits of thoughtful men did not begin to show itself till the time of the foreign supremacy in the sixteenth century.

1030

What is termed the spirit of the Counter-Reformation was developed in Spain some time before the Reformation itself, chiefly through the sharp surveillance and partial reorganisation of the Church under Ferdinand and Isabella. The principal authority on this subject is Gomez, Life of Cardinal Ximenes, in Rob. Belus, Rer. Hispan. Scriptores, 3 vols. 1581.