The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

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.

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.