The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

1031

It is to be noticed that the novelists and satirists scarcely ever mention the bishops, although they might, under altered names, have attacked them like the rest. They do so, however, e.g. in Bandello, ii. nov. 45; yet in ii. 40, he describes a virtuous bishop. Gioviano Pontano in the Charon introduces the ghost of a luxurious bishop with a ‘duck’s walk.’

1032

Foscolo, Discorso sul testo del Decamerone, ‘Ma dei preti in dignità niuno poteva far motto senza pericolo; onde ogni frate fu l’irco delle iniquita d’Israele,’ &c. Timotheus Maffeus dedicates a book against the monks to Pope Nicholas V.; Facius, De Vir. Ill. p. 24. There are specially strong passages against the monks and clergy in the work of Palingenius already mentioned iv. 289, v. 184 sqq., 586 sqq.

1033

Bandello prefaces ii. nov. i. with the statement that the vice of avarice was more discreditable to priests than to any other class of men, since they had no families to provide for. On this ground he justifies the disgraceful attack made on a parsonage by two soldiers or brigands at the orders of a young gentleman, on which occasion a sheep was stolen from the stingy and gouty old priest. A single story of this kind illustrates the ideas in which men lived and acted better than all the dissertations in the world.

1034

Giov. Villani, iii. 29, says this clearly a century later.

1035

L’Ordine. Probably the tablet with the inscription I. H. S. is meant.

1036

He adds, ‘and in the seggi,’ i.e. the clubs into which the Neapolitan nobility was divided. The rivalry of the two orders is often ridiculed, e.g. Bandello, iii. nov. 14.

1037

Nov. 6, ed. Settembrini, p. 83, where it is remarked that in the Index of 1564 a book is mentioned, Matrimonio delli Preti e delle Monache.

1038

For what follows, see Jovian. Pontan. De Sermone, l. ii. cap. 17, and Bandello, parte i. nov. 32. The fury of brother Franciscus, who attempted to work upon the king by a vision of St. Cataldus, was so great at his failure, and the talk on the subject so universal, ‘ut Italia ferme omnis ipse in primis Romanus pontifex de tabulæ hujus fuerit inventione sollicitus atque anxius.’

1039

Alexander VI. and Julius II., whose cruel measures, however, did not appear to the Venetian ambassadors Giustiniani and Soderini as anything but a means of extorting money. Comp. M. Brosch, Hist. Zeitscher. bd. 37.

1040

Panormita, De Dictis et Factis Alphonsi, lib. ii. Æneas Sylvius in his commentary to it (Opp. ed. 1651, p. 79) tells of the detection of a pretended faster, who was said to have eaten nothing for four years.

1041

For which reason they could be openly denounced in the neighbourhood of the court. See Jovian. Pontan. Antonius and Charon. One of the stories is the same as in Massuccio, nov. ii.

1042

See for one example the eighth canto of the Macaroneide.

1043

The story in Vasari, v. p. 120, Vita di Sandro Botticelli shows that the Inquisition was sometimes treated jocularly. It is true that the ‘Vicario’ here mentioned may have been the archbishop’s deputy instead of the inquisitor’s.

1044

Bursellis, Ann. Bonon. ap. Murat. xxiii. col. 886, cf. 896. Malv. died 1468; his ‘beneficium’ passed to his nephew.

1045

See p. 88 sqq. He was abbot at Vallombrosa. The passage, of which we give a free translation, is to be found Opere, vol. ii. p. 209, in the tenth novel. See an inviting description of the comfortable life of the Carthusians in the Commentario d’Italia, fol. 32 sqq. quoted at p. 84.

1046

Pius II. was on principle in favour of the abolition of the celibacy of the clergy. One of his favourite sentences was, ‘Sacerdotibus magna ratione sublatus nuptias majori restituendas videri.’ Platina, Vitae Pontiff. p. 311.

1047

Ricordi, n. 28, in the Opere inedite, vol. i.

1048

Ricordi, n. i. 123, 125.

1049

See the Orlandino, cap. vi. str. 40 sqq.; cap. vii. str. 57; cap. viii. str. 3 sqq., especially 75.

1050

Diaria Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 362.

1051

He had with him a German and a Slavonian interpreter. St. Bernard had to use the same means when he preached in the Rhineland.

1052

Capistrano, for instance, contented himself with making the sign of the cross over the thousands of sick persons brought to him, and with blessing them in the name of the Trinity and of his master San Bernadino, after which some of them not unnaturally got well. The Brescian chronicle puts it in this way, ‘He worked fine miracles, yet not so many as were told of him’ (Murat. xxi.).

1053

So e.g. Poggio, De Avaritia, in the Opera, fol. 2. He says they had an easy matter of it, since they said the same thing in every city, and sent the people away more stupid than they came. Poggio elsewhere (Epist. ed. Tonelli i. 281) speaks of Albert of Sarteano as ‘doctus’ and ‘perhumanus.’ Filelfo defended Bernadino of Siena and a certain Nicolaus, probably out of opposition to Poggio (Sat. ii. 3, vi. 5) rather than from liking for the preachers. Filelfo was a correspondent of A. of Sarteano. He also praises Roberto da Lecce in some respects, but blames him for not using suitable gestures and expressions, for looking miserable when he ought to look cheerful, and for weeping too much and thus offending the ears and tastes of his audience. Fil. Epist. Venet. 1502, fol. 96 b.

1054

Franco Sacchetti, nov. 72. Preachers who fail are a constant subject of ridicule in all the novels.

1055

Compare the well-known story in the Decamerone vi. nov. 10.

1056

In which case the sermons took a special colour. See Malipiero, Ann. Venet. Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 18. Chron. Venet. in Murat. xxiv. col. 114. Storia Bresciana, in Murat. xxi. col. 898. Absolution was freely promised to those who took part in, or contributed money for the crusade.

1057

Storia Bresciana, in Murat. xxiii. col. 865 sqq. On the first day 10,000 persons were present, 2,000 of them strangers.

1058

Allegretto, Diari Sanesi, in Murat. xxiii. col. 819 sqq. (July 13 to 18, 1486); the preacher was Pietro dell’Osservanza di S. Francesco.

1059

Infessura (in Eccard, Scriptores, ii. col. 1874) says: ‘Canti, brevi, sorti.’ The first may refer to song-books, which actually were burnt by Savonarola. But Graziani (Cron. di Perugia, Arch. Stor. xvi. i., p. 314) says on a similar occasion, ‘brieve incanti,’ when we must without doubt read ‘brevi e incanti,’ and perhaps the same emendation is desirable in Infessura, whose ‘sorti’ point to some instrument of superstition, perhaps a pack of cards for fortune-telling. Similarly after the introduction of printing, collections were made of all the attainable copies of Martial, which then were burnt. Bandello, iii. 10.

1060

See his remarkable biography in Vespasiano Fiorent. p. 244 sqq., and that by Æneas Sylvius, De Viris Illustr. p. 24. In the latter we read: ‘Is quoque in tabella pictum nomen Jesus deferebat, hominibusque adorandum ostendebat multumque suadebat ante ostia domorum hoc nomen depingi.’

1061

Allegretto, l. c. col. 823. A preacher excited the people against the judges (if instead of ‘giudici’ we are not to read ‘giudei’), upon which they narrowly escaped being burnt in their houses. The opposite party threatened the life of the preacher in return.

1062

Infessura, l. c. In the date of the witch’s death there seems to be a clerical error. How the same saint caused an ill-famed wood near Arezzo to be cut down, is told in Vasari, iii. 148, Vita di Parri Spinelli. Often, no doubt, the penitential zeal of the hearers went no further than such outward sacrifices.

1063

‘Pareva che l’aria si fendesse,’ we read somewhere.

1064

Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 166 sqq. It is not expressly said that he interfered with this feud, but it can hardly be doubted that he did so. Once (1445), when Jacopo della Marca had but just quitted Perugia after an extraordinary success, a frightful vendetta broke out in the family of the Ranieri. Comp. Graziani, l. c. p. 565 sqq. We may here remark that Perugia was visited by these preachers remarkably often, comp. pp. 597, 626, 631, 637, 647.

1065

Capistrano admitted fifty soldiers after one sermon, Stor. Bresciana, l. c. Graziani, l. c. p. 565 sqq. Æn. Sylvius (De Viris Illustr. p. 25), when a young man, was once so affected by a sermon of San Bernadino as to be on the point of joining his Order. We read in Graziani of a convert quitting the order; he married, ‘e fu magiore ribaldo, che non era prima.’

1066

That there was no want of disputes between the famous Observantine preachers and their Dominican rivals is shown by the quarrel about the blood of Christ which was said to have fallen from the cross to the earth (1462). See Voigt. Enea Silvio iii. 591 sqq. Fra Jacopo della Marca, who would not yield to the Dominican Inquisitor, is criticised by Pius II. in his detailed account (Comment. l. xi. p. 511), with delicate irony: ‘Pauperiem pati, et famam et sitim et corporis cruciatum et mortem pro Christi nomine nonnulli possunt; jacturam nominis vel minimam ferre recusant tanquam sua deficiente fama Dei quoque gloria pereat.’

1067

Their reputation oscillated even then between two extremes. They must be distinguished from the hermit-monks. The line was not always clearly drawn in this respect. The Spoletans, who travelled about working miracles, took St. Anthony and St. Paul as their patrons, the latter on account of the snakes which they carried with them. We read of the money they got from the peasantry even in the thirteenth century by a sort of clerical conjuring. Their horses were trained to kneel down at the name of St. Anthony. They pretended to collect for hospitals (Massuccio, nov. 18; Bandello iii., nov. 17). Firenzuola in his Asino d’Oro makes them play the part of the begging priests in Apulejus.

1068

Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 357. Burigozzo, ibid. p. 431 sqq.

1069

Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 856 sqq. The quotation was: ‘Ecce venio cito et velociter. Estote parati.’

1070

Matteo Villani, viii. cap. 2 sqq. He first preached against tyranny in general, and then, when the ruling house of the Beccaria tried to have him murdered, he began to preach a change of government and constitution, and forced the Beccaria to fly from Pavia (1357). See Petrarch, Epp. Fam. xix. 18, and A. Hortis, Scritti Inediti di F. P. 174-181.

1071

Sometimes at critical moments the ruling house itself used the services of monks to exhort the people to loyalty. For an instance of this kind at Ferrara, see Sanudo (Murat. xxii. col. 1218). A preacher from Bologna reminded the people of the benefits they had received from the House of Este, and of the fate that awaited them at the hands of the victorious Venetians.

1072

Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 251. Other fanatical anti-French preachers, who appeared after the expulsion of the French, are mentioned by Burigozzo, ibid. pp. 443, 449, 485; ad a. 1523, 1526, 1529.

1073

Jac. Pitti, Storia Fior. l. ii. p. 112.

1074

Perrens, Jérôme Savonarole, two vols. Perhaps the most systematic and sober of all the many works on the subject. P. Villari, La Storia di Girol. Savonarola (two vols. 8vo. Firenze, Lemonnier). The view taken by the latter writer differs considerably from that maintained in the text. Comp. also Ranke in Historisch-biographische Studien, Lpzg. 1878, pp. 181-358. On Genaz. see Vill. i. 57 sqq. ii. 343 sqq. Reumont, Lorenzo, ii. 522-526, 533 sqq.

1075

Sermons on Haggai; close of sermon 6.

1076

Savonarola was perhaps the only man who could have made the subject cities free and yet kept Tuscany together. But he never seems to have thought of doing so. Pisa he hated like a genuine Florentine.

1077

A remarkable contrast to the Sienese who in 1483 solemnly dedicated their distracted city to the Madonna. Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 815.

1078

He says of the ‘impii astrologi’: ‘non è dar disputar (con loro) altrimenti che col fuoco.’

1079

See Villari on this point.

1080

See the passage in the fourteenth sermon on Ezechiel, in Perrens, o. c. vol. i. 30 note.

1081

With the title, De Rusticorum Religione. See above p. 352.

1082

Franco Sacchetti, nov. 109, where there is more of the same kind.

1083

Bapt. Mantuan. De Sacris Diebus, l. ii. exclaims:—

Ista superstitio, ducens a Manibus ortumTartareis, sancta de religione facessatChristigenûm! vivis epulas date, sacra sepultis.

A century earlier, when the army of John XXII. entered the Marches to attack the Ghibellines, the pretext was avowedly ‘eresia’ and ‘idolatria.’ Recanti, which surrendered voluntarily, was nevertheless burnt, ‘because idols had been worshipped there,’ in reality, as a revenge for those whom the citizens had killed. Giov. Villani, ix. 139, 141. Under Pius II. we read of an obstinate sun-worshipper, born at Urbino. Æn. Sylv. Opera, p. 289. Hist. Rer. ubique Gestar. c. 12. More wonderful still was what happened in the Forum in Rome under Leo X. (more properly in the interregnum between Hadrian and Leo. June 1522, Gregorovius, viii. 388). To stay the plague, a bull was solemnly offered up with pagan rites. Paul. Jov. Hist. xxi. 8.

1084

See Sabellico, De Situ Venetae Urbis. He mentions the names of the saints, after the manner of many philologists, without the addition of ‘sanctus’ or ‘divus,’ but speaks frequently of different relics, and in the most respectful tone, and even boasts that he kissed several of them.

1085

De Laudibus Patavii, in Murat. xxiv. col. 1149 to 1151.

1086

Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. pp. 408 sqq. Though he is by no means a freethinker, he still protests against the causal nexus.

1087

Pii II. Comment. l. viii. pp. 352 sqq. ‘Verebatur Pontifex, ne in honore tanti apostoli diminute agere videretur,’ &c.

1088

Jac. Volaterran. in Murat. xxiii. col. 187. The Pope excused himself on the ground of Louis’ great services to the Church, and by the example of other Popes, e.g. St. Gregory, who had done the like. Louis was able to pay his devotion to the relic, but died after all. The Catacombs were at that time forgotten, yet even Savonarola (l. c. col. 1150) says of Rome: ‘Velut ager Aceldama Sanctorum habita est.’

1089

Bursellis, Annal. Bonon. in Murat. xxiii. col. 905. It was one of the sixteen patricians, Bartol. della Volta, d. 1485 or 1486.

1090

Vasari, iii. 111 sqq. note. Vita di Ghiberti.

1091

Matteo Villani, iii. 15 and 16.

1092

We must make a further distinction between the Italian cultus of the bodies of historical saints of recent date, and the northern practice of collecting bones and relics of a sacred antiquity. Such remains were preserved in great abundance in the Lateran, which, for that reason, was of special importance for pilgrims. But on the tombs of St. Dominic and St. Anthony of Padua rested, not only the halo of sanctity, but the splendour of historical fame.

1093

The remarkable judgment in his De Sacris Diebus, the work of his later years, refers both to sacred and profane art (l. i.). Among the Jews, he says, there was a good reason for prohibiting all graven images, else they would have relapsed into the idolatry or devil-worship of the nations around them:

Nunc autem, postquam penitus natura SatanumCognita, et antiqua sine majestate relicta est,Nulla ferunt nobis statuae discrimina, nullosFert pictura dolos; jam sunt innoxia signa;Sunt modo virtutum testes monimentaque laudumMarmora, et aeternae decora immortalia famae.

1094

Battista Mantovano complains of certain ‘nebulones’ (De Sacris Diebus, l. v.) who would not believe in the genuineness of the Sacred Blood at Mantua. The same criticism which called in question the Donation of Constantine was also, though indirectly, hostile to the belief in relics.

1095

Especially the famous prayer of St. Bernard, Paradiso, xxxiii. 1, ‘Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio.’

1096

Perhaps we may add Pius II., whose elegy on the Virgin is printed in the Opera, p. 964, and who from his youth believed himself to be under her special protection. Jac. Card. Papiens. ‘De Morte Pii,’ Opp. p. 656.

1097

That is, at the time when Sixtus IV. was so zealous for the Immaculate Conception. Extravag. Commun. l. iii. tit. xii. He founded, too, the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, and the Feasts of St. Anne and St. Joseph. See Trithem. Ann. Hirsaug. ii. p. 518.

1098

The few frigid sonnets of Vittoria on the Madonna are most instructive in this respect (n. 85 sqq. ed. P. Visconti, Rome, 1840).

1099

Bapt. Mantuan. De Sacris Diebus, l. v., and especially the speech of the younger Pico, which was intended for the Lateran Council, in Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, viii. p. 115. Comp. p. 121, note 3.

1100

Monach. Paduani Chron. l. iii. at the beginning. We there read of this revival: ‘Invasit primitus Perusinos, Romanes postmodum, deinde fere Italiæ populos universos.’ Guil. Ventura (Fragmenta de Gestis Astensium in Mon. Hist. Patr. SS. tom. iii. col. 701) calls the Flagellant pilgrimage ‘admirabilis Lombardorum commotio;’ hermits came forth from their cells and summoned the cities to repent.

1101

G. Villani, viii. 122, xi. 23. The former were not received in Florence, the latter were welcomed all the more readily.

1102

Corio, fol. 281. Leon. Aretinus, Hist. Flor. lib. xii. (at the beginning) mentions a sudden revival called forth by the processions of the ‘dealbati’ from the Alps to Lucca, Florence, and still farther.

1103

Pilgrimages to distant places had already become very rare. Those of the princes of the House of Este to Jerusalem, St. Jago, and Vienne are enumerated in Murat. xxiv. col. 182, 187, 190, 279. For that of Rinaldo Albizzi to the Holy Land, see Macchiavelli, Stor. Fior. l. v. Here, too, the desire of fame is sometimes the motive. The chronicler Giov. Cavalcanti (Ist. Fiorentine, ed. Polidori, ii. 478) says of Lionardo Fescobaldi, who wanted to go with a companion (about the year 1400) to the Holy Sepulchre: ‘Stimarono di eternarsi nella mente degli uomini futuri.’

1104

Bursellis, Annal. Bon. in Murat. xxiii. col. 890.

1105

Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 855 sqq. The report had got about that it had rained blood outside the gate. All rushed forth, yet ‘gli uomini di guidizio non lo credono.’

1106

Burigozzo, Arch. Stor. iii. 486. For the misery which then prevailed in Lombardy, Galeazzo Capello (De Rebus nuper in Italia Gestis) is the best authority. Milan suffered hardly less than Rome did in the sack of 1527.

1107

It was also called ‘l’arca del testimonio,’ and people told how it was ‘conzado’ (constructed) ‘con gran misterio.’

1108

Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 317, 322, 323, 326, 386, 401.

1109

‘Ad uno santo homo o santa donna,’ says the chronicle. Married men were forbidden to keep concubines.

1110

The sermon was especially addressed to them; after it a Jew was baptised, ‘ma non di quelli’ adds the annalist, ‘che erano stati a udire la predica.’

1111

‘Per buono rispetto a lui noto e perchè sempre è buono a star bene con Iddio,’ says the annalist. After describing the arrangements, he adds resignedly: ‘La cagione perchè sia fatto et si habbia a fare non s’intende, basta che ogni bene è bene.’

1112

He is called ‘Messo del Cancellieri del Duca.’ The whole thing was evidently intended to appear the work of the court only, and not of any ecclesiastical authority.

1113

See the quotations from Pico’s Discourse on the Dignity of Man above, pp. 354-5.

1114

Not to speak of the fact that a similar tolerance or indifference was not uncommon among the Arabians themselves.

1115

So in the Decameron. Sultans without name in Massuccio nov. 46, 48, 49; one called ‘Rè di Fes,’ another ‘Rè di Tunisi.’ In Dittamondo, ii. 25, we read, ‘il buono Saladin.’ For the Venetian alliance with the Sultan of Egypt in the year 1202, see G. Hanotaux in the Revue Historique iv. (1877) pp. 74-102. There were naturally also many attacks on Mohammedanism. For the Turkish woman baptized first in Venice and again in Rome, see Cechetti i. 487.

1116

Philelphi Epistolae, Venet. 1502 fol. 90 b. sqq.

1117

Decamerone i. nov. 3. Boccaccio is the first to name the Christian religion, which the others do not. For an old French authority of the thirteenth century, see Tobler, Li di dou Vrai Aniel, Leipzig, 1871. For the Hebrew story of Abr. Abulafia (b. 1241 in Spain, came to Italy about 1290 in the hope of converting the Pope to Judaism), in which two servants claim each to hold the jewel buried for the son, see Steinschneider, Polem. und Apol. Lit. der Arab. Sprache, pp. 319 and 360. From these and other sources we conclude that the story originally was less definite than as we now have it (in Abul. e.g. it is used polemically against the Christians), and that the doctrine of the equality of the three religions is a later addition. Comp. Reuter, Gesch. der Relig. Aufklärung im M. A. (Berlin, 1877), iii. 302 sqq. 390.

1118

De Tribus Impostoribus, the name of a work attributed to Frederick II. among many other people, and which by no means answers the expectations raised by the title. Latest ed. by Weller, Heilbronn, 1876. The nationality of the author and the date of composition are both disputed. See Reuter, op. cit. ii. 273-302.

1119

In the mouth, nevertheless, of the fiend Astarotte, canto xxv. str. 231 sqq. Comp. str. 141 sqq.

1120

Canto xxviii. str. 38 sqq.

1121

Canto xviii. str. 112 to the end.

1122

Pulci touches, though hastily, on a similar conception in his Prince Chiaristante (canto xxi. str. 101 sqq., 121 sqq., 145 sqq., 163 sqq.), who believes nothing and causes himself and his wife to be worshipped. We are reminded of Sigismondo Malatesta (p. 245).