XIV. BURLESQUE POETRY AND SATIRE…

XIV. BURLESQUE POETRY AND SATIRE

Relation of Satiric to Serious Literature--Italy has more Parody and Caricature than Satire or Comedy--Life of Folengo--His Orlandino--Critique of Previous Romances--Lutheran Doctrines--Orlando's Boyhood--Griffarosto--Invective against Friars--Maccaronic Poetry--The Travesty of Humanism--Pedantesque Poetry--Glottogrysio Ludimagistro--Tifi Odassi of Padua--The Pedant Vigonca--Evangelista Fossa--Giorgio Alione--Folengo employs the Maccaronic Style for an Epic--His Address to the Muses--His Hero Baldus--Boyhood and Youth--Cingar--The Travels of the Barons--Gulfora--Witchcraft in Italy--Folengo's Conception of Witchcraft--Entrance into Hell--The Zany and the Pumpkin--Nature of Folengo's Satire--His Relation to Rabelais--The Moscheis--The Zanitonella--Maccaronic Poetry was Lombard--Another and Tuscan Type of Burlesque--Capitoli--Their Popular Growth--Berni--His Life--His Mysterious Death--His Character and Style--Three Classes of Capitoli--The pure Bernesque Manner--Berni's Imitators--The Indecency of this Burlesque--Such Humor was Indigenous--Terza Rima--Berni's Satires on Adrian VI. and Clement VII.--His Caricatures--His Sonnet on Aretino--The Rifacimento of Boiardo's Orlando--The Mystery of its Publication--Albicante and Aretino--The Publishers Giunta and Calvi--Berni's Protestant Opinions--Eighteen Stanzas of the Rifacimento printed by Vergerio--Hypothesis respecting the Mutilation of the Rifacimento--Satire in Italy.

In all classical epochs of literature comedy and satire have presented their antithesis to ideal poetry, by setting the actual against the imagined world, or by travestying the forms of serious art. Thus the Titanic farce of Aristophanes was counterposed to AEschylean tragedy; and Moliere portrayed men as they are, before an audience which welcomed Racine's pictures of men as the age conceived they ought to be. It is the mark of really great literature when both thesis and antithesis, the aspiration after the ideal and the critique of actual existence, exhibit an equality of scale. The comic and satiric species of poetry attain to grandeur only by contact with impassioned art of a high quality, or else by contrast with a natural greatness in the nation that produces them. Both mask and anti-mask reveal the mental stature of the people. Both issue from the conscience of society, and bear its impress.

If so much be admitted, we can easily understand why burlesque poetry formed the inevitable pendent to polite literature in Italy. There was no national tragedy; therefore there could be no great comedy. The best work of the age, typified by Ariosto's epic, was so steeped in irony that it offered no vantage-ground for humorous counterpoise. There was nothing left but to exaggerate its salient qualities, and to caricature its form. Such exaggeration was burlesque; such caricature was parody. In like manner, satire found no adequate sphere. The nation's life was not on so grand a scale as to evolve the elements of satire from the contrast between faculties and foibles. Nor again could a society, corrupt and satisfied with corruption, anxious to live and let live, apply the lash with earnestness to its own shoulders. Facit indignatio versus, was Juvenal's motto; and indignation tore the heart of Swift. But in Italy there was no indignation. All men were agreed to tolerate, condone, and compromise. When vices come to be laughingly admitted, when discords between practice and profession furnish themes for tales and epigrams, the moral conscience is extinct. But without an appeal to conscience the satirist has no locus standi. Therefore, in Italy there was no great satire, as in Italy there was no great comedy.

The burlesque rhymsters portrayed their own and their neighbors' immorality with self-complacent humor, calling upon the public to make merry over the spectacle. This poetry, obscene, equivocal, frivolous, horribly sincere, supplied a natural antithesis to the pseudo-platonic, pedantic, artificial mannerism of the purists. In point of intrinsic value, there is not much to choose between the Petrarchistic and the burlesque styles. Many burlesque poets piqued themselves with justice on their elegance, and clothed gross thoughts in diction of elaborate polish. Meanwhile they laid the affectations, conventions and ideals of the age impartially under contribution. The sonneteers suggested parodies to Aretino, who celebrated vice and deformity in women with hyperboles adapted from the sentimental school.[384] The age of gold was ridiculed by Romolo Bertini.[385] The idyl found its travesty in Berni's pictures of crude village loves and in Folengo's Zanitonella. Chivalry became absurd by the simple process of enforcing the prosaic elements in Ariosto, reducing his heroes to the level of plebeian life, and exaggerating the extravagance of his romance. The ironical smile which played upon his lips, expands into broad grins and horse-laughter. Yet, though the burlesque poets turned everything they touched into ridicule, these buffoons were not unfrequently possessed of excellent good sense. Not a few of them, as we shall see, were among the freest thinkers of their age. Like Court jesters they dared to utter truths which would have sent a serious writer to the stake. Lucidity of intellectual vision was granted at this time in Italy to none but positive and materialistic thinkers--to analysts like Machiavelli and Pomponazzi, critics like Pietro Aretino, poets with feet firmly planted on the earth like Berni and Folengo. The two last-named artists in the burlesque style may be selected as the leaders of two different but cognate schools, the one flourishing in Lombardy, the other in Florence.

[Footnote 384: See the Madrigals in Opere Burlesche, vol. iii. pp. 36-38.]

[Footnote 385: Ibid. p. 290.]

Girolamo Folengo was born in 1491 of noble parents at Cipada, a village of the Mantuan district. He made his first studies under his father's roof, and in due time proceeded to Bologna. Here he attended the lectures of Pomponazzi, and threw himself with ardor into the pleasures and perils of the academical career. Francesco Gonzaga, a fantastical and high-spirited libertine from Mantua, was the recognized leader of the students at that moment. Duels, challenges, intrigues and street-quarrels formed the staple of their life. It was an exciting and romantic round of gayety and danger, of which the novelists have left us many an animated picture. Folengo by his extravagant conduct soon exhausted the easy patience of the university authorities. He was obliged to quit Bologna, and his father refused to receive him. In this emergency he took refuge in a Benedictine convent at Brescia. When he made himself a monk, Folengo changed his Christian name to Teofilo, by which he is now best known in literature. But he did not long endure the confinement of a cloister. After six years spent among the Benedictines, he threw the cowl aside, and ran off with a woman, Girolama Dieda, for whom he had conceived an insane passion.[386] This was in the year 1515. During the next eleven years he gave himself to the composition of burlesque poetry. His Maccaronea appeared at Venice in 1519, and his Orlandino in 1526. The former was published under he pseudonym of Merlinus Cocaius, compounded of a slang word in the Mantuan dialect, and of the famous wizard's title of romance.[387] The latter bore the nom de plume of Limerno Pitocco--an anagram of Merlino, with the addition of an epithet pointing to the poet's indigence. These works brought Folengo fame but little wealth, and he was fain to return at last to his old refuge.[388] Resuming the cowl, he now retired to a monastery in the kingdom of Naples, visited Sicily, and died at last near Padua, in the convent of S. Croce di Campese. This was in 1544. The last years of his life had been devoted to religious poetry, which is not read with the same curiosity as his burlesque productions.

[Footnote 386: In Mac. xx. (p. 152 of Mantuan edition, 1771), he darkly alludes to this episode of his early life, where he makes an exposed witch exclaim:

Nocentina vocor magicis tam dedita chartis, Decepique mea juvenem cum fraude Folengum.]

[Footnote 387: I cannot find sufficient authority for the story of Folengo's having had a grammar-master named Cocaius, from whom he borrowed part of his pseudonym. The explanation given by his Mantuan editor, which I have adopted in the text, seems the more probable. Cocaj in Mantuan dialect means a cork for a bottle; and the phrase ch'al fa di cocaj is used to indicate some extravagant absurdity or blunder.]

[Footnote 388: There seems good reason, from many passages in his Maccaronea, to believe that his repentance was sincere. I may here take occasion to remark that, though his poems are gross in the extreme, their moral tone is not unhealthy. He never makes obscenity or vice attractive.]

Teofilo Folengo, or Merlinus Cocaius, or Limerno Pitocco, was, when he wrote his burlesque poems, what the French would call a declasse. He had compromised his character in early youth and had been refused the shelter of his father's home. He had taken monastic vows in a moment of pique, or with the baser object of getting daily bread in idleness. His elopement from the convent with a paramour had brought scandal on religion. Each of these steps contributed to place him beyond the pale of respectability. Driven to bay and forced to earn his living, he now turned round upon society; and spoke his mind out with a freedom born of bile and cynical indifference. If he had learned nothing else at Bologna, he had imbibed the materialistic philosophy of Pomponazzi together with Gonzaga's lessons in libertinage. Brutalized, degraded in his own eyes, rejected by the world of honest or decorous citizens, but with a keen sense of the follies, vices and hypocrisies of his age, he resolved to retaliate by a work of art that should attract attention and force the public to listen to his comments on their shame. In his humorous poetry there is, therefore, a deliberate if not a very dignified intention. He does not merely laugh, but mixes satire with ribaldry, and points buffoonery with biting sarcasm. Since the burlesque style had by its nature to be parasitical and needed an external motive, Folengo chose for the subject of his parody the romance of Orlando, which was fashionable to the point of extravagance in Italy after the appearance of the Furioso. But he was not satisfied with turning a tale of Paladins to ridicule. He used it as the shield behind which he knew that he might safely shoot his arrows at the clergy and the princes of his native land, attack the fortresses of orthodoxy, and vent his spleen upon society by dragging its depraved ideals in the mire of his own powerful but vulgar scorn.

Folengo has told us that the Orlandino was conceived and written before the Maccaronea, though it was published some years later. It is probable that the rude form and plebeian language of this burlesque romance found but little favor with a public educated in the niceties of style. They were ready to accept the bastard Latin dialect invented for his second venture, because it offended no puristic sensibilities. But the coarse Italian of the Orlandino could not be relished by academicians, who had been pampered with the refinements of Berni's wanton Muse.[389] Only eight cantos appeared; nor is there reason to suppose that any more were written, for it may be assumed that the fragment had fulfilled its author's purpose.[390] That purpose was to satirize the vice, hypocrisy and superstition of the clergy, and more particularly of the begging friars. In form the Orlandino pretends to be a romance of chivalry, and it bears the same relation to the Orlando of Boiardo and Ariosto as the Secchia Rapita to the heroic poems of Tasso's school. It begins with a burlesque invocation to Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, in which the poet bluntly describes his poverty and begs for largess. Then Folengo passes to an account of his authorities and to the criticism of his predecessors in romantic poetry. He had recourse, he says, to a witch of Val Camonica, who mounted him upon a ram, and bore him to the country of the Goths. There he found forty decades of Turpin's history among the rubbish of old books stolen from Italy. Of these, three decades had already been discovered and translated by Boiardo; but, after versifying a large portion of the second, the poet left the rest of it to Ariosto. The sixth was stolen from him by Francesco Bello. The last he gave with his own hands to Poliziano, who put it into rhyme and allowed Pulci to have the credit of his labors.[391] Folengo himself took a portion of the first decade, and thus obtained material for treating of the birth and boyhood of Orlando. This exordium is chiefly valuable as a piece of contemporary criticism:

Queste tre Deche dunque sin qua trovo Esser dal fonte di Turpin cavate; Ma Trebisonda, Ancroia, Spagna, e Bovo Coll'altro resto al foco sian donate: Apocrife son tutte, e le riprovo Come nemiche d'ogni veritate; Boiardo, l'Ariosto, Pulci, e'l Cieco Autenticati sono, ed io con seco.

[Footnote 389: Part of Folengo's satire is directed against the purists. See Canto i. 7-9. He confesses himself a Lombard, and shrugs his shoulders at their solemn criticisms:

Non pero, se non nacqui Tosco, i' piango; Che ancora il ciacco gode nel suo fango.

To the reproach of "turnip-eating Lombard" he retorts, "Tuscan chatterbox." Compare vi. 1, 2, on his own style:

Oscuri sensi ed affettate rime, Qual'e chi dica mai compor Limerno?]

[Footnote 390: The first line of the elegy placed upon the edition of 1526 runs thus:

Mensibus istud opus tribus indignatio fecit.

Folengo claims for himself a satiric purpose. The edition used by me is Molini's, Londra, 1775.]

[Footnote 391: See above Part i. p. 455, for the belief that Poliziano was the real author of the Morgante Maggiore.]

If we may accept this stanza as expressing the opinion of Italians in the sixteenth century relative to their romantic poets, we find that it almost exactly agrees with that of posterity. Only the Mambriano of Bello has failed to maintain its place beside the Morgante and Orlando.

Embarking upon the subject of his tale, Folengo describes the Court of Charlemagne, and passes he Paladins in review, intermingling comic touches with exaggerated imitations of the romantic style. The peers of France preserve their well-known features through the distorting medium of caricature; while humorous couplets, detonating here and there like crackers, break the mock-heroical monotony. Gano, for example, is still the arch-traitor of the tribe of Judas:

Figliuol non d'uomo, ne da Dio creato, Ma il gran Diavol ebbelo cacato.

The effect of parody is thus obtained by emphasizing the style of elder poets and suddenly breaking off into a different vein. Next comes the description of Berta's passion for Milone, with a singularly coarse and out-spoken invective against love.[392] Meanwhile Charlemagne has proclaimed a tournament. The peers array themselves, and the Court is in a state of feverish expectation. Parturiunt montes: instead of mailed warriors careering upon fiery chargers, the knights crawl into the lists on limping mules and lean asses, with a ludicrous array of kitchen-gear for armor. The description of this donkey-tournament, is one of Folengo's triumphs.[393] When Milone comes upon the scene and jousts beneath his lady's balcony, the style is heightened to the tone of true romance, and, but for the roughness of the language, we might fancy that a page of the Orlando were beneath our eyes. A banquet follows, after which we are regaled with a Court-ball, and then ensues the comic chain of incidents which bring Milone and Berta to the fruition of their love. They elope, take ship, and are separated by a series of mishaps upon the open sea. Berta is cast ashore alone in Italy, and begs her way to Sutri, where she gives birth to Orlando in a shepherd's cabin. During the course of these adventures, Folengo diverts his readers with many brilliant passages and bits of satire, at one time inveighing against the license of balls, at another describing the mixed company on board a ship of passage; now breaking off into burlesque pedigrees, and then again putting into Berta's mouth a string of Lutheran opinions. Though the personages are romantic, the incidents are copied with realistic fidelity from actual life. We are moving among Italian bourgeois in the masquerade of heroes and princesses.

[Footnote 392: Canto i. 64, 65; ii. 1-4:

Ed io dico ch'Amor e un bardassola Piu che sua madre non fu mai puttana, etc.

Folengo, of course, has a mistress, to whom he turns at the proper moments of his narrative. This mia diva Caritunga is a caricature of the fashionable Laura. See v. 1, 2:

O donna mia, ch'hai gli occhi, ch'hai l'orecchie, Quelli di pipistrel, queste di bracco, etc.]

[Footnote 393: Canto ii. 9-42.]

Berta's prayer when she found herself alone upon the waters in an open boat, is so characteristic of Folengo's serious intention that it deserves more than a passing comment.[394] She addresses herself to God instead of to any Saints:

A te ricorro, non a Piero, o Andrea, Che l'altrui mezzo non mi fa mestiero: Ben tengo a mente che la Cananea Non supplico ne a Giacomo ne a Piero.

[Footnote 394: Canto vi. 40-46. I have placed a translation of this passage in an Appendix to this chapter.]

It is the hypocrisy of friars, Folengo says, who sacrifice to Moloch, while they use the name of Mary to cloak their crimes--it is this damnable hypocrisy which has blinded simple folk into trusting the invocation of Saints. Avarice is the motive of these false priests: and lust moves them to preach the duty of confession:

E qui trovo ben spesso un Confessore Essere piu ruffiano che Dottore.

Therefore, cries Berta, I make my confession to God alone and from Him seek salvation, and vow that, if I escape the fury of the sea, I will no more lend belief to men who sell indulgences for gold. So far the poet is apparently sincere. In the next stanza he resumes his comic vein:

Cotal preghiere carche d'eresia Berta facea, merce ch'era Tedesca; Perche in quel tempo la Teologia Era fatta Romana e fiandresca; Ma dubito ch'alfin nella Turchia Si trovera vivendo alla Moresca; Perche di Cristo l'inconsutil vesta Squarciata e si che piu non ve ne resta.

The blending of buffoonery and earnestness in Folengo's style might be illustrated by the bizarre myth of the making of peasants, where he introduces Christ and the Apostles:[395]

Transibat Jesus per un gran villaggio Con Pietro, Andrea, Giovanni, e con Taddeo; Trovan ch'un asinello in sul rivaggio Molte pallotte del suo sterco feo. Disse allor Piero al suo Maestro saggio: En, Domine, fac homines ex eo. Surge, Villane, disse Cristo allora; E 'l villan di que' stronzi salto fora.

[Footnote 395: Canto v. 56-58. The contempt for country folk seems unaffected.]

His fantastic humor, half-serious, half-flippant, spares nothing sacred or profane. Even the Last Judgment receives an inconceivably droll treatment on the slender occasion of an allusion to the disasters of Milan.[396] Folengo has just been saying that Italy well deserves her title of barbarorum sepultura.[397]

Che veramente in quell'orribil giorno Che in Giosafatto suonera la tromba, Facendosi sentire al mondo intorno, E i morti salteran fuor d'ogni tomba, Non sara pozzo, cacatojo, o forno, Che mentre il tararan del ciel ribomba, Non getti fuora Svizzeri, Francesi, Tedeschi, Ispani, e d'altri assai paesi; E vederassi una mirabil guerra, Fra loro combattendo gli ossi suoi: Chi un braccio, chi una man, chi un piede afferra; Ma vien chi dice--questi non son tuoi-- Anzi son miei--non sono; e sulla terra Molti di loro avran gambe di buoi, Teste di muli, e d'asini le schiene, Siccome all'opre di ciascun conviene.

[Footnote 396: Canto vi. 55-57. This passage is a caricature of Pulci's burlesque description of the Last Day. See above Part i. p. 449. Folengo's loathing of the strangers who devoured Italy is clear here, as also in i. 43, ii. 4, 59. But there is no force in his invectives or laments.

L'Italia non piu Italia appello, Ma d'ogni strana gente un bel bordello.... Che 'l cancaro mangiasse il Taliano, Il quale, o ricco, o povero che sia, Desidra in nostre stanze il Tramontano.... Che se non fosser le gran parti in quella, Dominerebbe il mondo Italia bella.]

[Footnote 397:

For verily on that most dreadful day, When in the Valley of Jehosaphat The trump shall sound, and thrill this globe of clay, And dead folk shuddering leave their tombs thereat, No well, sewer, privy shall be found, I say, Which, while the angels roar their rat-tat-tat, Shall not disgorge its Spaniards, Frenchmen, Swiss, Germans, and rogues of every race that is. Then shall we see a wonderful dispute, As each with each they wrangle, bone for bone; One grasps an arm, one grabs a hand, a foot; Comes one who says, "These are not yours, you loon!" "They're mine!" "They're not!" While many a limb of brute Joined to their human bodies shall be shown, Mule's heads, bull's legs, cruppers and ears of asses, As each man's life on earth his spirit classes.]

The birth of Orlando gives occasion for a mock-heroic passage, in which Pulci is parodied to the letter.[398] All the more amusing for the assumption of pompous style, is the ensuing account of the hero's boyhood among the street-urchins of Sutri. When he is tall enough to bestride a broomstick, Orlandino proves his valor by careering through the town and laughing at the falls he gets. At seven he shows the strength of twelve:

Urta, fracassa, rompe, quassa, e smembra; Orsi, leoni, tigri non paventa, Ma contro loro intrepido s'avventa.

[Footnote 398: Canto vi. 8-11:

Qui nacque Orlando, l'inclito Barone; Qui nacque Orlando, Senator Romano, etc.]

The octave stanzas become a cataract of verbs and nouns to paint his tempestuous childhood. It is a spirited comic picture of the Italian enfant terrible, stone-throwing, boxing, scuffling, and swearing like a pickpocket. At the same time the boy grows in cunning, and supports his mother by begging from one and bullying another of the citizens of Sutri:--

Io v'addimando per l'amor di Dio Un pane solo ed un boccal di vino; Officio non fu mai piu santo e pio Che se pascete il pover pellegrino: Se non men date, vi prometto ch'io, Quantunque sia di membra si piccino, Ne prendero da me senza riguardo; Che salsa non vogl'io di San Bernardo. Cancar vi mangi, datemi a mangiare, Se non, vi buttero le porte giuso; Per debolezza sentomi mancare, E le budella vannomi a riffuso. Gente devota, e voi persone care Che vi leccate di buon rosto il muso, Mandatemi, per Dio, qualche minestra, O me la trate giu dalla finestra.

In the course of these adventures Orlandino meets Oliver, the son of Rainero, the governor, and breaks his crown in a quarrel. This brings about the catastrophe; for the young hero pours forth such a torrent of voluble slang, mixed with imprecations and menaces, that Rainero is forced to acknowledge the presence of a superior genius.[399] But before the curtain falls upon the discovery of Orlandino's parentage and his reception into the company of peers, Folengo devotes a canto to the episodical history of the Prelate Griffarosto.[400] The name of this Rabelaisian ecclesiastic--Claw-the-roast--sufficiently indicates the line of the poet's satire.

[Footnote 399: Canto vii. 61-65.]

[Footnote 400: He has been identified on sufficiently plausible grounds with Ignazio Squarcialupo, the prior of Folengo's convent. In the Maccaronea this burlesque personage reappears as the keeper of a tavern in hell, who feeds hungry souls on the most hideous messes of carrion and vermin (Book xxiii. p. 217). There is sufficient rancor in Griffarosto's portrait to justify the belief that Folengo meant in it to gratify a private thirst for vengeance.]

Whatever appeared in the market of Sutri fit for the table, fell into his clutches, or was transferred to the great bag he wore beneath his scapulary. His library consisted of cookery books; and all the tongues he knew, were tongues of swine and oxen.[401] Orlandino met this Griffarosto fat as a stalled ox, one morning after he had purchased a huge sturgeon:

La Reverenzia vostra non si parta; Statemi alquanto, prego, ad ascoltare. _Nimis sollicita es, O Marta, Marta, Circa substantian Christi devorare._ Dammi poltron, quel pesce, ch'io 'l disquarta, Per poterlo in communi dispensare, Nassa d'anguille che tu sei, lurcone; E cio dicendo dagli col bastone.

[Footnote 401: In the play on the word lingue there is a side-thrust at the Purists.]

The priest was compelled to disgorge his prey, and the fame of the boy's achievement went abroad through Sutri. Rainero thereupon sent for Griffarosto, and treated the Abbot to such a compendious abuse of monks in general as would have delighted a Lutheran.[402] Griffarosto essayed to answer him with a ludicrous jumble of dog Latin; but the Governor requested him to defer his apology for the morrow. The description of Griffarosto's study in the monastery, where wine and victuals fill the place of books, his oratory consecrated to Bacchus, the conversation with his cook, and the ruse by which the cook gets chosen Prior in his master's place, carry on the satire through fifty stanzas of slashing sarcasm. The whole episode is a pendent picture to Pulci's Margutte. Then, by a brusque change from buffoonery to seriousness, Folengo plunges into a confession of faith, attributed to Rainero, but presumably his own.[403] It includes the essential points of Catholic orthodoxy, abjuring the impostures of priests and friars, and taking final station on the Lutheran doctrine of salvation by faith and repentance. Idle as a dream, says Folengo, are the endeavors made by friars to force scholastic conclusions on the conscience in support of theses S. Paul would have rejected. What they preach, they do not comprehend. Their ignorance is only equal to their insolent pretension. They are worse than Judas in their treason to Christ, worse than Herod, Anna, Caiaphas, or Pilate. They are only fit to consort with usurers and slaves. They use the names of saints and the altar of the Virgin as the means of glutting their avarice with the gold of superstitious folk. They abuse confession to gratify their lusts. Their priories are dens of dogs, hawks, and reprobate women. They revel in soft beds, drink to intoxication, and stuff themselves with unctuous food. And still the laity intrust their souls to these rogues, and there are found many who defraud their kith and kin in order to enrich a convent![404]

[Footnote 402: Canto viii. 23-32.]

[Footnote 403: Canto viii. 73-84. This passage I have also translated and placed in an Appendix to this chapter, where the chief Lutheran utterances of the burlesque poets will be found together.]

[Footnote 404: In addition to the eighth Canto, I have drawn on iii. 4, 20; iv. 13; vi. 44, for this list.]

It would not be easy to compose an invective more suited to degrade the objects of a satirist's anger by the copiousness and the tenacity of the dirt flung at them. Yet the Orlandino was written by a monk, who, though he had left his convent, was on the point of returning to it; and the poem was openly printed during the pontificate of Clement VII. That Folengo should have escaped inquisitorial censure is remarkable. That he should have been readmitted to the Benedictine order after this outburst of bile and bold diffusion of heretical opinion, is only explicable by the hatred which subsisted in Italy between the rules of S. Francis and S. Benedict. While attacking the former, he gratified the spite and jealousy of the latter. But the fact is that his auditors, whether lay or clerical, were too accustomed to similar charges and too frankly conscious of their truth, to care about them. Folengo stirred no indignation in the people, who had laughed at ecclesiastical corruption since the golden days of the Decameron. He roused no shame in the clergy, for, till Luther frightened the Church into that pseudo-reformation which Sarpi styled a deformation of manners, the authorities of Rome were nonchalantly careless what was said about them.[405] An atrabilious monk in his garret vented his spleen with more than usual acrimony, and the world applauded. Ha fatto un bel libro! That was all. Conversely, it is not strange that the weighty truths about religion uttered by Folengo should have had but little influence. He was a scribbler, famous for scurrility, notoriously profligate in private life. Free thought in Italy found itself too often thus in company with immorality. The names of heretic and Lutheran carried with them at that time a reproach more pungent and more reasonable than is usual with the epithets of theological hatred.[406]

[Footnote 405: Leo X.'s complacent acceptance of the Mandragola proves this.]

[Footnote 406: The curious history of Giulio Trissino, told by Bernardo Morsolin in the last chapters of his Giangiorgio Trissino (Vicenza, 1878), reveals the manner of men who adopted Lutheranism in Italy in the sixteenth century. See above, p. 304. I shall support the above remarks lower down in this chapter by reference to Berni's Lutheran opinions.]

In the Orlandino, Ariosto's irony is degraded to buffoonery. The prosaic details he mingled with his poetry are made the material of a new and vulgar comedy of manners. The satire he veiled in allegory or polite discussion, bursts into open virulence. His licentiousness yields to gross obscenity. The chivalrous epic, as employed for purposes of art in Italy, contained within itself the germs of this burlesque. It was only necessary to develop certain motives at the expense of general harmony, to suppress the noble and pathetic elements, and to lower the literary key of utterance, in order to produce a parody. Ariosto had strained the semi-seriousness of romance to the utmost limits of endurance. For his successors nothing was left but imitation, caricature, or divergence upon a different track. Of these alternatives, Folengo and Berni, Aretino and Fortiguerra, chose the second; Tasso took the third, and provided Tassoni with the occasion of a new burlesque.

While the romantic epic lent itself thus easily to parody, another form of humorous poetry took root and flourished on the mass of Latin literature produced by the Revival. Latin never became a wholly dead language in Italy; and at the height of the Renaissance a public had been formed whose appreciation of classic style insured a welcome for its travesty. To depreciate the humanistic currency by an alloy of plebeian phrases, borrowed from various base dialects; to ape Virgilian mannerism while treating of the lowest themes suggested by boisterous mirth or satiric wit; was the method of the so-called Maccaronic poets. It is matter for debate who first invented this style, and who created the title Maccaronea. So far back as the thirteenth century, we notice a blending of Latin with French and German in certain portions of the Carmina Burana.[407] But the two elements of language here lie side by side, without interpenetration. This imperfect fusion is not sufficient to constitute the genuine Maccaronic manner. The jargon known as Maccaronic must consist of the vernacular, suited with Latin terminations, and freely mingled with classical Latin words. Nothing should meet the ear or eye, which does not sound or look like Latin; but, upon inspection, it must be discovered that a half or third is simple slang and common speech tricked out with the endings of Latin declensions and conjugations.[408] In Italy, where the modern tongue retained close similarity to Latin, this amalgamation was easy; and we find that in the fifteenth century the hybrid had already assumed finished form. The name by which it was then known, indicates its composition. As maccaroni is dressed with cheese and butter, so the maccaronic poet mixed colloquial expressions of the people with classical Latin, serving up a dish that satisfied the appetite by rarity and richness of concoction. At the same time, since maccaroni was the special delicacy of the proletariate, and since a stupid fellow was called a Maccherone, the ineptitude and the vulgarity of the species are indicated by its title. Among the Maccaronic poets we invariably find ourselves in low Bohemian company. No Phoebus sends them inspiration; nor do they slake their thirst at the Castalian spring. The muses they invoke are tavern-wenches and scullions, haunting the slums and stews of Lombard cities.[409] Their mistresses are of the same type as Villon's Margot. Mountains of cheese, rivers of fat broth, are their Helicon and Hippocrene. Their pictures of manners demand a coarser brush than Hogarth's to do them justice.

[Footnote 407: The political and ecclesiastical satires known in England as the work of Walter Mapes, abound in pseudo-Maccaronic passages. Compare Du Meril, Poesies Populaires Latines anterieures au xiime Siecle, p. 142, etc., for further specimens of undeveloped Maccaronic poetry of the middle ages.]

[Footnote 408: Those who are curious to study this subject further, should consult the two exhaustive works of Octave Delepierre, Macaroneana (Paris, 1852), and Macaroneana Andra (Londres, Truebner, 1862). These two publications contain a history of Maccaronic verse, with reprints of the scarcer poems in this style. The second gives the best text of Odassi, Fossa, and the Virgiliana. The Maccheronee di Cinque Poeti Italiani (Milano, Daelli, 1864), is a useful little book, since it reproduces Delepierre's collections in a cheap and convenient form. In the uncertainty which attends the spelling of this word, I have adopted the form Maccaronic.]

[Footnote 409: Take one example, from the induction to Odassi's poems (Mac. Andr. p. 63):

O putanarum putanissima, vacca vaccarum, O potifarum potissima pota potaza ... Tu Phrosina mihi foveas, mea sola voluptas; Nulla mihi poterit melius succurrere Musa, Nullus Apollo magis.]

Before engaging in the criticism of this Maccaronic literature, it is necessary to interpolate some notice of a kindred style, called pedantesco. This was the exact converse of the Maccaronic manner. Instead of adapting Italian to the rules of Latin, the parodist now treated Latin according to the grammatical usages and metrical laws of Italian. A good deal of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is written in lingua pedantesca. But the recognized masterpiece of the species is a book called I Cantici di Fidentio Glottogrysio Ludimagistro. The author's real name was Camillo Scrofa, a humanist and schoolmaster of Vicenza. Though more than once reprinted, together with similar compositions by equally obscure craftsmen, his verses are exceedingly rare.[410] They owe their neglect partly to the absurdity of their language, partly to the undisguised immorality of their subject-matter. Of the stilo pedantesco the following specimen may suffice. It describes a hostelry of boors and peasants:[411]

Pur pedetentim giunsi ad un cubiculo, Sordido, inelegante, ove molti hospiti Facean corona a un semimortuo igniculo. Salvete, dissi, et Giove lieti e sospiti Vi riconduca a i vostri dolci hospitii! Ma responso non hebbi; o rudi, o inhospiti! Io che tra veri equestri e tra patritii Soglio seder, mi vedi alhor negligere Da quegli huomini novi et adventitii. Non sapea quasi indignabundo eligere Partito; pur al fin fu necessario Tra lor per calefarmi un scanno erigere. Che colloquio, O Dii boni, empio e nefario Pervenne a l'aure nostre purgatissime, Da muover nausea a un lenone a un sicario!

[Footnote 410: The book was first printed at Vicenza. The copy I have studied is the Florentine edition of 1574. Scrofa's verses, detached from the collection, may be found in the Parnaso Italiano, vol. xxv.]

[Footnote 411: Op. cit. p. 23.]

One of the most famous and earliest, if not absolutely the first among the authors of Maccaronic verse, was Tifi Odassi, a Paduan, whose poems were given to the press after his death, in at least two editions earlier than the close of the fifteenth century.[412] He chose a commonplace Novella for his theme; but the interest of his tale consists less in its argument than in its vivid descriptions of low town-life. Odassi's portraits of plebeian characters are executed with masterly realism, and the novelty of the vehicle gives them a singularly trenchant force. It is unfortunately impossible to bring either the cook-shop-keeper or his female servant, the mountebank or the glutton, before modern readers. These pictures are too Rabelaisian.[413] I must content myself with a passage taken from the description of a bad painter, which, though it is inferior in comic power, contains nothing unpardonably gross.[414]

Quodsi forte aliquem voluit depingere gallum, Quicunque aspiciat poterit jurare cigognam; Depinxitque semel canes in caza currentes, Omnes credebant natantes in aequore luzos; Sive hominem pingit, poteris tu credere lignum In quo sartores ponunt sine capite vestes; Seu nudos facit multo sudore putinos, Tu caput a culo poteris dignoscere nunquam; Sive facit gremio Christum retinere Mariam, Non licet a filio sanctam dignoscere matrem; Pro gardelinis depingit sepe gallinas, Et pro gallinis depingit sepe caballos: Blasfemat, jurat, culpam dicit esse penelli, Quos spazzaturas poteris jurare de bruscho; Tam bene depingit pictorum pessimus iste, Nec tamen inferior se cogitat esse Bellino.

[Footnote 412: Bernardino Scardeone in his work De antiquitate urbis Patavii, etc. (Basileae, 1560), speaks of Odassi as the inventor of Maccaronic poetry: "adinvenit enim primus ridiculum carminis genus, nunquam prius a quopiam excogitatum, quod Macaronaeum nuncupavit, multis farcitum salibus, et satyrica mordacitate respersum." He adds that Odassi desired on his deathbed that the book should be burned. In spite of this wish, it was frequently reprinted during Scardeone's lifetime.]

[Footnote 413: It is with great regret that I omit Bertapalia, the charlatan--a portrait executed with inimitable verve. Students of Italian life in its lowest and liveliest details should seek him out. Mac. Andr. pp. 68-71.]

[Footnote 414: Ibid. p. 71. I have altered spelling and punctuation.]

It will be seen from this specimen that Italian and Latin are confounded without regard to either prosody or propriety of diction. The style, far from being even pedestrian, is reptile, and the inspiration is worthy of the source imagined by the poet.[415] As Odassi remarks in his induction:

Aspices, lector, Prisciani vulnera mille Gramaticamque novam, quam nos docuere putane.

[Footnote 415:

Cognosces in me quantum tua numina possunt, Quaeque tua veniunt stilantia carmina pota.]

The note struck by Odassi was sustained by his immediate imitators. Another Paduan author used this parody of humanistic verse to caricature a humanist, whom he called Vigonca.[416] Like Odassi, he invoked Venus Volgivaga; and like Odassi's, very little of his verse is quotable. The following extracts may be found acceptable for their humorous account of a Professor's inaugural lecture in the university of Padua.[417] Vigonca announces the opening of his course:

Ipse ante totis facit asavere piacis, Et totis scolis mandat bolletina bidelis, Quae bolletina portabant talia verba: "Comes magnificus cavalerius ille Vigonca, Patricius Patavus comesque ab origine longa, Vos rogat ad primam veniatis quisque legendam; Qui veniet, magnum fructum portabit a casa." Omnes venturos sese dixere libenter; Promissit comes, capitaneus atque potestas, Et paduani vechi juvenesque politi. Lux promissa aderat, qua se smatare Vigonca Debebat, atque suam cunctis monstrare matieram. Ille tamen totam facit concare la scolam, De nigro totam facit conzare cathedram, In qua debebat matus sprologare Vigonca; Cetera fulgebant banchalis atque thapetis, Et decem in brochis dicit spendidisse duchatos.

[Footnote 416: This anonymous poet has been variously identified with Odassi and with Fossa of Cremona. The frequent occurrence of Paduan idioms seems to point to a Paduan rather than a Cremonese author; and though there is no authoritative reason for referring the poem to Odassi, it resembles his style sufficiently to render the hypothesis of his authorship very plausible. The name of the hero, Vigonca, is probably the Italian Bigoncia, which meant in one sense a pulpit or a reading-desk, in its ordinary sense a tub.]

[Footnote 417: Daelli, Maccheronee di Cinque Poeti Italiani (Milano, 1864), p. 50; cp. Mac. Andr. p. 19.]

After narrating how the whole town responded to Vigonca's invitation, and how the folk assembled to hear his first address, the poet thus describes the great occasion:[418]

Sed neque bastabat ingens intrantibus ussus; Rumpebant cupos parietes atque fenestras, Inque ipso multos busos fecere parete. Tunc ibi bidelus cunctos ratione pregavit, Et sibi cavavit nigrum Vigonca biretum, Et manicas alzans dedit hic sua verba de mato, Et comencavit sanctam faciendo la crucem. "Magnifice pretor, pariter generose prefecte, Tu facunde comes auri portando colanam, Magnus philosophus, lingua in utraque poeta, Tu primicerius, Venete spes alma paludis, Et vos doctores, celeberrima fama per orbem, Vos cavalerii multum sperone dorati, Vosque scolares, cives, charique sodales! Non ego perdivi tempus futuendo putanas, Non ego zugando, non per bordella vagando; Non ego cum canibus lepores seguendo veloces, Non cum sparveris, non cum falconibus ipse; Non ego cum dadis tabulam lissando per ullam; Non ego cum chartis volui dissipare dinaros, Qualiter in Padue faciunt de nocte scolares. Quum jocant alii, stabat in casa Vigonca Et studiabat guardando volumina longa."

[Footnote 418: Daelli, op. cit. pp. 52, 54.]

This Paduan caricature may be reckoned among the most valuable documents we possess for the illustration of the professorial system in Italy during the ascendancy of humanism. Some material of the same kind is supplied by the Virgiliana of Evangelista Fossa, a Cremonese gentleman, who versified a Venetian Burla in mock-heroic Latin. He, too, painted the portrait of a pedant, Priscianus:[419]

Est mirandus homo; nam sunt miracula in illo, Omnes virtutes habet hic in testa fichatas ... Nam quicquid dicit, semper per littera parlat, Atque habet in boccham pulchra haec proverbia semper.... Est letrutus nam multum, studiavit in omni Arte, fuit Padoe, fuit in la citta de Perosa, Bononie multum mansit de senno robando.

[Footnote 419: Ibid. p. 112; Mac. Andra, p. 32.]

But Fossa's Virgiliana, while aiming at a more subtle sort of parody than the purely maccaronic poems, misses their peculiar salt, and, except for the Hudibrastic description of the author on horseback,[420] offers nothing of great interest.

[Footnote 420: "De fossa compositore quando venit patavio" (Mac. Andra, p. 39).]

Brief notice also may be taken of Giovan Giorgio Alione's satire on the Lombards. Alione was a native of Asti, and seasoned his maccaroni with the base French of his birthplace. For Asti, transferred to the House of Orleans by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, was more than half a French city and its inhabitants spoke the Gallic dialect common to Piedmont.[421] Alione is proud of this subjection, and twits the Lombards of Milan and Pavia with being unworthy of their ancient origin no less than of their modern masters.[422] Unlike the ordinary run of burlesque poems, his Macharonea is virulently satirical. Animated by a real rage against the North Italians, Alione paints them as effeminate cowards, devoid of the sense of honor and debased by the vices of ill-bred parvenus. The opening of a Novella he relates, may be cited as a fair specimen of his style:[423]

Quidam Franzosus, volens tornare Parisum, Certum Milaneysum scontravit extra viglianam Sine capello docheti testa bagnatum: Et cum ignoraret Gallicus hic unde fuisset Dixit vulgariter estes vous moglie mon amicus? Ille qui intelligit a la rebusa, respondit Sy sy mi che ho mogle Milani et anca fiolos. Gallus tunc cernens Lombardum fore loquela, Et recordatus quod tempore guerre Salucis Alixandrini fecerant pagare menestram Scutumque sibi sgrafignarant de gibesera, Sfodravit ensem dicens o tretre ribalde Rendez moy sa mon escu, sy non a la morte spazat.

[Footnote 421: Alione says:

Cum nos Astenses reputemur undique Galli.]

[Footnote 422: See the passage beginning "O Longobardi frapatores," and ending with these lines:

Tunc baratasti Gallorum nobile nomen Cum Longobardo, etc.

Daelli, op. cit. p. 94.]

[Footnote 423: Daelli, p. 93.]

The end of the story is far too crude to quote, and it is probable that even the most curious readers will already have had enough of Alione's peculiar gibberish.

The maccaronic style had reached this point when Folengo took possession of it, stamped it with his own genius, and employed it for one of the most important poems of the century. He is said to have begun a serious Latin epic in his early manhood, and to have laid this aside because he foresaw the impossibility of wresting the laurels from Virgil. This story is probably a legend; but it contains at least an element of truth. Folengo aimed at originality; he chose to be the first of burlesque Latin poets rather than to claim the name and fame of a Virgilian imitator.[424] In the proemium to his Moscheis he professes to have found the orthodox Apollo deaf to his prayers:

Illius heu frustra doctas captare sorores Speravi ac multa laude tenere polos.

[Footnote 424: In the first book of the Moscheis, line 7, he says:

Gens ceratana sinat vecchias cantare batajas, Squarzet Virgilios turba pedanta suos.

The end of the Maccaronea sets forth the impossibility of modern bards contending with the great poet of antiquity. Pontanus, Sannazzarius, all the best Latin writers of the age, pale before Virgil:

Non tamen aequatur vati quem protulit Andes, Namque vetusta nocet laus nobis saepe modernis.

This refrain he repeats for each poet with whimsical reiteration. Folengo's own ambition to take the first place among burlesque writers appears in the final lines of Mac. book iii.:

Mantua Virgilio gaudet, Verona Catullo, Dante suo florens urbs Tusca, Cipada Cocajo: Dicor ego superans alios levitate poetas, Ut Maro medesimos superans gravitate poetas.

The induction to the Moscheis points to a serious heroic poem on Mantua which he abandoned for want of inspiration. We have in these references enough to account for the myth above mentioned.]

The reason of the god's anger was that his votary had sullied the clear springs of Hippocrene:

Nescio quas reperi musas, turpesve sorores, Nescio quas turpi carmina voce canunt. Limpida Pegasidum vitiavi stagna profanus, Totaque sunt limo dedecorata meo.

The exordium to the Maccaronea introduces us to these vulgar Muses, grossae Camoenae, who fill their neophytes with maccaronic inspiration:

Jam nec Melpomene, Clio, nec magna Thalia, Nec Phoebus grattando lyram mihi carmina dictet, Qui tantos olim doctos fecere poetas; Verum cara mihi foveat solummodo Berta, Gosaque, Togna simul, Mafelina, Pedrala, Comina. Veridicae Musae sunt hae, doctaeque sorellae; Quarum non multis habitatio nota poetis.

The holy hill of Folengo's Muses is a mountain of cheese and maccaroni, with lakes of broth and rivers of unctuous sauces:

Stant ipsae Musae super altum montis acumen, Formajum gratulis durum retridando foratis.

Here he seeks them, and here they deign to crown him poet:[425]

Ergo macaronicas illic cattavimus artes, Et me grossiloquum vatem statuere sorores.

[Footnote 425: Compare Mac. vii. p. 195.

Nil nisi crassiloquas dicor scrivisse camoenas, Crassiloquis igitur dicamus magna camoenis.

This great theme is nothing less than monasticism in its vilest aspects.]

We have seen already that the maccaronic style involved a free use of plebeian Italian, imbedded in a mixed mass of classical and medieval Latinity. Folengo refined the usage of his predecessors, by improving the versification, adopting a more uniformly heroic tone, and introducing scraps of Mantuan dialect at unexpected intervals, so that each lapse into Italian has the force of a surprise--what the Greeks called [Greek: para prosdokian]. The comic effect is produced by a sustained epical inflation, breaking irregularly into the coarsest and least pardonable freaks of vulgarity. It is as though the poet were improvising, emulous of Virgil; but the tide of inspiration fails him, he falls short of classical phrases to express his thoughts, and is forced in the hurry of the moment to avail himself of words and images that lie more close at hand. His Pegasus is a showy hack, who ambles on the bypaths of Parnassus, dropping now and then a spavined hock and stumbling back into his paces with a snort. His war-trumpet utters a sonorous fanfaronnade; but the blower loses breath, and breaks his note, or suffers it to lapse into a lamentable quaver.

Tifi Odassi, who may be regarded as Folengo's master in this species of verse, confined the Maccaronic Muse to quaintly-finished sketches in the Dutch style.[426] His pupil raised her to the dignity of Clio and composed an epic in twenty-five books. The length of this poem and the strangeness of the manner render it unpalatable to all but serious students at the present time. Its humor has evaporated, and the form itself strikes us as rococo. We experience some difficulty in sympathizing with those readers of the sixteenth century, who, perfectly acquainted with Latin poetry and accustomed to derive intellectual pleasure from its practice, found exquisite amusement in so cleverly constructed a parody. Nor is it possible for Englishmen to appreciate the more delicate irony of the vulgarisms, which Folengo adopted from one of the coarsest Italian dialects, and cemented with subtle skill upon the stately structure of his hexameters. Still we may remember that the Maccaronea was read with profit by Rabelais, and that much of Butler's humor betrays a strong affinity to this antiquated burlesque.

[Footnote 426: At the end of the Maccaronea I think there may be an allusion to Odassi conveyed in these words, Tifi Caroloque futuris.]

In substance the Maccaronea begins with a rehandling of the Orlandino. Guido, peerless among Paladins, wins the love of his king's daughter, Baldovina of France. They fly together into Italy, and she dies in giving birth to a son at Cipada, near Mantua. Guido disappears, and the boy, Baldus, is brought up by a couple of peasants. He believes himself to be their child, and recognizes the rustic boor, Zambellus, for his brother. Still the hero's nature reveals itself in the village urchin; and, like the young Orlando, Baldus performs prodigies of valor in his boyhood:

Non it post vaccas, at saepe caminat ad urbem, Ac ad Panadae dispectum praticat illam; In villam semper tornabat vespere facto, Portabatque caput fractum gambasque macatas.

When he goes to school, he begins by learning his letters with great readiness. But he soon turns away from grammar to books of chivalry:

Sed mox Orlandi nasare volumina coepit: Non vacat ultra deponentia discere verba, Non species, numeros, non casus atque figuras, Non Doctrinalis versamina tradere menti: Fecit de norma scartazzos mille Donati Inque Perotinum librum salcicia coxit. Orlandi solum, nec non fera bella Rinaldi Aggradant; animum faciebat talibus altum: Legerat Ancrojam, Tribisondam, gesta Danesi, Antonaeque Bovum, mox tota Realea Francae, Innamoramentum Carlonis et Asperamontem, Spagnam, Altobellum, Morgantis facta gigantis.

And so forth through the whole list of chivalrous romances, down to the Orlando Furioso and the Orlandino. The boy's heart is set on deeds of daring. He makes himself the captain of a band of rogues who turn the village of Cipada upside down. Three of these deserve especial notice--Fracassus, Cingar, and Falchettus; since they became the henchmen of our hero in all his subsequent exploits. Fracassus was descended in the direct line from Morgante:

Primus erat quidam Fracassus prole gigantis, Cujus stirps olim Morganto venit ab illo, Qui bachiocconem campanae ferre solebat Cum quo mille hominum colpo sfracasset in uno.

Cingar in like manner drew his blood from Pulci's Margutte:

Alter erat Baldi compagnus, nomine Cingar, Accortus, ladro, semper truffare paratus; Scarnus enim facie, reliquo sed corpore nervis Plenus, compressus, picolinus, brunus, et atrox, Semper habens nudam testam, rizzutus et asper. Iste suam traxit Marguti a sanguine razzam, Qui ad calcagnos sperones ut gallus habebat Et nimio risu simia cagante morivit.

Falchettus boasted a still stranger origin:[427]

Sed quidnam de te, Falchette stupende, canemus? Tu quoque pro Baldo bramasti prendere mortem. Forsitan, o lecor, quae dico, dura videntur, Namque Pulicano Falchettus venit ab illo Quem scripsere virum medium, mediumque catellum; Quapropter sic sic noster Falchettus habebat Anteriora viri, sed posteriora canina.

[Footnote 427: I do not recognize Pulicanus, who is said to be the ancestor of Falchettus. Is it a misprint for Fulicanus? Fulicano is a giant in Bello's Mambriano, one of Folengo's favorite poems of romance.]

It would be too long to relate how Baldus received knightly education from a nobleman who admired his daring; how, ignorant of his illustrious blood, he married the village beauty Berta; and how he made himself the petty tyrant of Cipada. The exploits of his youth are a satire on the violence of local magnates, whose manners differed little from those of the peasants they oppressed. In course of time Baldus fell under the displeasure of a despot stronger than himself, and was shut up in prison.[428] In the absence of his hero from the scene, the poet now devotes himself to the exploits of Cingar among the peasants of Cipada. Without lowering his epic tone, Folengo fills five books with whimsical adventures, painting the manners of the country in their coarsest colors, and introducing passages of stinging satire on the monks he hated.[429] Cingar, finding himself on one occasion in a convent, gives vent to a long soliloquy which expresses Folengo's own contempt for the monastic institutions that filled Italy with rogues:

Quo diavol, ait, tanti venere capuzzi? Nil nisi per mundum video portare capuzzos: Quisquam vult fieri Frater, vult quisque capuzzum Postquam giocarunt nummos, tascasque vodarunt, Postquam pane caret cophinum, celaria vino, In Fratres properant, datur his extemplo capuzzus. Undique sunt isti Fratres, istique capuzzi. Qui sint nescimus; discernare nemo valeret Tantas vestitum foggias, tantosque colores: Sunt pars turchini, pars nigri, parsque morelli, Pars albi, russi, pars gialdi, parsque bretini. Si per iter vado telluris, cerno capuzzos: Si per iter pelagi, non mancum cerno capuzzos; Quando per armatos eo campos, cerno capuzzos; Sive forum subeo, sive barcam, sive tabernam, Protinus ante oculos aliquem mihi cerno capuzzum.

[Footnote 428: Mac. iii. The edition I quote from is that of Mantua (?) under name of Amsterdam, 1769 and 1771, 2 vols. 4to. See vol. i. p. 117, for a satire on the frauds and injustice of a country law-court, followed by a mock heroic panegyric of the Casa Gonzaga. The description of their celebrated stud and breed of horses may be read with interest.]

[Footnote 429: The episode of Berta's battle with her sister Laena (Mac. iv. p. 144), the apostrophe to old age (Mac. v. p. 152), the village ball (ibid. p. 163), the tricks played by Cingar on Zambellus (ibid. p. 168, and Mac. vi.), the description of the convent of Motella (Mac. vii. 196), the portrait of the ignorant parish-priest (Mac. vii. p. 202), the Carnival Mass (Mac. viii. p. 212), followed by a drunken Ker Mess (ibid. p. 214), are all executed in the broad style of a Dutch painter, and abound in realistic sketches of Lombard country-life.]

There will soon be no one left to bear arms, till the fields, or ply the common handicrafts. All the villains make themselves monks, aspiring to ecclesiastical honors and seeking the grade of superiority denied them by their birth. It is ambition that fills the convents:

Illic nobilitas sub rusticitate laborat, Ambitio quoniam villanos unica brancat.

This tirade is followed by the portrait of Prae Jacopinus, a village parson whose stupidity is only equaled by his vices. Jacopino's education in the alphabet is a masterpiece of Rabelaisian humor, and the following passage on his celebration of the Mass brings all the sordidness of rustic ceremonial before our eyes:[430]

Praeterea Missam foggia dicebat in una, Nec crucis in fronte signum formare sciebat. Inter Confiteor parvum discrimen et Amen Semper erat, jam jam meditans adjungere finem; Incipiebat enim nec adhuc in nomine Patris, Quod tribus in saltis veniebat ad Ite misestum.

[Footnote 430: Mac. vii. p. 204.]

From generalities Folengo passes to particulars in the following description of a village Mass:[431]

Inde Jacopinus, chiamatis undique Pretis, Coeperat in gorga Missam cantare stupendam; Subsequitant alii, magnisque cridoribus instant. Protinus Introitum spazzant talqualiter omnem, Ad Chyrios veniunt, quos miro dicere sentis Cum contrappunto, veluti si cantor adesset Master Adrianus, Constantius atque Jachettus. Hic per dolcezzam scorlabant corda vilani Quando de quintis terzisque calabat in unam Musicus octavam noster Jacopinus et ipsas Providus octavas longa cum voce tirabat. Gloria in excelsis passat, jam Credo propinquat; Oh si Josquinus Cantorum splendor adesset!

[Footnote 431: Mac. vii. p. 212. Folengo seems to have been fond of music. See the whimsical description of four-part singing, Mac. xx. p. 139, followed by the panegyric of Music and the malediction of her detractors.]

Meanwhile Baldus has been left in prison, and it is time for Cingar to undertake his rescue. He effects this feat, by stripping two Franciscan monks, and dressing himself up in the frock he had just filched from one of them, while he coaxes the unfortunate Zambellus to assume the other. Then he persuades the people of Mantua that he has seen himself assassinated on the high road; gains access to Baldus in the dungeon, on the plea of hearing his confession; and contrives to leave Zambellus there in the clothes of Baldus, after disguising his friend in one of the friar's tunics. The story is too intricate for repetition here.[432] Suffice it to say that Baldus escapes and meets a knight errant, Leonardus, at the city gate, who has ridden all the way from Rome to meet so valorous a Paladin. The swear eternal friendship. The three henchmen of the hero muster round the new comrades in arms; and the party thus formed set forth upon a series of adventures in the style of Astolfo's journey to the moon.

[Footnote 432: This episode of Cingar's triumph over the enemies of Baldus, his craft, his rhetoric, his ready wit, his infinite powers of persuasion, his monkey tricks and fox-like cunning, is executed with an energy of humor and breadth of conception, that places it upon a level with the choicest passages in Rabelais.]

This part of the epic is a close copy of the chivalrous romances in their more fantastic details. The journey of the Barons, as they are now invariably styled, is performed in a great ship. They encounter storms and pirates, land on marvelous islands, enter fairy palaces, and from time to time recruit their forces with notable rogues and drunkards whom they find upon their way. The parody consists in the similarity of their achievements to those of knight-errantry, while they are themselves in all points unlike the champions of chivalry. One of their most cherished companions, for example, is Boccalus, a Bergamasque buffoon, who distinguishes himself by presence of mind in a great storm:[433]

Ille galantus homo, qui nuper in aequora bruttam Jecerat uxorem, dicens non esse fagottum Fardellumque homini plus laidum, plusque pesentum Quam sibi mojeram lateri mirare tacatam Quae sit oca ingenio, quae vultu spazzacaminus.

[Footnote 433: Mac. xii. p. 296.]

The tale of adventures is diversified, after the manner of the romantic poets, by digressions, sometimes pathetic, sometimes dissertational. Among these the most amusing is Cingar's lecture on astronomy, in which the planetary theories of the middle ages are burlesqued with considerable irony.[434] The most affecting is the death of Leonardus, who chooses to be torn in pieces by bears rather than yield his virginity to a vile woman. This episode suggests one of the finest satiric passages in the whole poem. Having exhibited the temptress Muselina, the poet breaks off with this exclamation:[435]

Heu quantis noster Muselinis orbis abundat!

[Footnote 434: In the course of this oration Folengo introduces an extraordinarily venomous invective against contadini, which may be paralleled with his allegory in the Orlandino. It begins (Mac. xiii. p. 11):

Progenies maledicta quidem villana vocatur,

and extends through forty lines of condensed abuse.]

[Footnote 435: Mac. xvi. p. 66.]

He then enumerates their arts of seduction, and winds up with a powerful dramatic picture, painted from the life, of a mezzana engaged in corrupting a young man's mind during Mass-time:

Dum Missae celebrantur, amant cantonibus esse, Postque tenebrosos mussant chiachiarantque pilastros; Ah miserelle puer, dicunt, male nate, quod ullam Non habes, ut juvenes bisognat habere, morosam!... Numquid vis fieri Frater Monachusve, remotis Delitiis Veneris, Bacchi, Martisque, Jovisque, Quos vel simplicitas, vel desperatio traxit?... Nemo super terram sanctus; stant aethere sancti: Nos carnem natura facit, quo carne fruamur.

As the epic approaches its conclusion, Baldus discovers his true father, Guido, under the form of a holy hermit, and learns that it is reserved for him by destiny, first to extirpate the sect of witches under their queen Smirna Gulfora, and afterwards to penetrate the realms of death and hell. The last five books of the Maccaronea are devoted to these crowning exploits. Merlin appears, and undertakes the guidance of the Barons on their journey to Avernus.[436] But first he requires full confession of their sins from each; and this humorous act of penitence forms one of the absurdest episodes, as may be easily imagined, in the poem. Absolved and furnished with heroic armor, the Barons march to the conquest of Gulfora and the destruction of her magic palace. Folengo has placed it appropriately on the road to hell; for under Gulfora he allegorizes witchcraft. The space allotted to Smirna Gulfora and the importance attached to her overthrow by Baldus and his Barons, call attention to the prevalence of magic in Italy at this epoch.[437] It may not, therefore, be out of place, before engaging in this portion of the analysis, to give some account of Italian witchcraft drawn from other sources, in order to estimate the truth of the satire upon which Folengo expended his force.

[Footnote 436: Mac. xx. p. 152. From this point onward the poet and Merlin are one person:

Nomine Merlinos dicor, de sanguine Mantus, Est mihi cognomen Cocajus Maccaronensis.]

[Footnote 437: The Novella of Luca Philippus, who kept a tavern at the door of Paradise, and had no custom, since no one came that way so long as Gulfora ruled on earth, forms a significant preface to her episode. See Mac. xxi. p. 180. The altercation between this host and Peter at the rusty gate of heaven is written in the purest Italian style of pious parody.]

"Beautiful and humane Italy," as Bandello calls his country in the preface to one of his most horrible Novelle, was, in spite of her enlightenment, but little in advance of Europe on the common points of medieval superstition. The teaching of the Church encouraged a belief in demons; and the common people saw on every chapel wall the fresco of some saint expelling devils from the bodies of possessed persons, or exorcising domestic utensils which had been bewitched.[438] Thus the laity grew up in the confirmed opinion that earth, air, and ocean swarmed with supernatural beings, whom they distinguished as fiends from hell or inferior sprites of the elements, called spiriti folletti.[439] While the evil spirits of both degrees were supposed to lie beneath the ban of ecclesiastical malediction, they lent their aid to necromancers, witches and wizards, who, defying the interdictions of the Church, had the audacity to use them as their slaves by the employment of powerful spells and rites of conjurations. There was a way, it was believed, of taming both the demons and the elves, of making them the instruments of human avarice, ambition, jealousy and passion. Since all forms of superstition in Italy lent themselves to utilitarian purposes, the necromancer and the witch, having acquired this power over supernatural agents, became the servants of popular lusts. They sold their authority to the highest bidders, undertaking to blast the vines or to poison the flocks of an enemy; to force young men and maidens to become the victims of inordinate appetites; to ruin inconvenient husbands by slowly-wasting diseases; to procure abortion by spells and potions; to confer wealth and power upon aspirants after luxury; to sow the seeds of discord in families--in a word, to open a free path for the indulgence of the vain desires that plague ill-regulated egotisms. A class of impostors, half dupes of their own pretensions, half rogues relying on the folly of their employers, sprang into existence, who combined the Locusta of ancient Rome with the witch of medieval Germany. Such was the Italian strega--a loathsome creature, who studied the chemistry of poisons, philtres, and abortion-hastening drugs, and while she pretended to work her miracles by the help of devils, played upon the common passions and credulities of human kind.[440] By her side stood her masculine counterpart, the stregone, negromante or alchimista, who plays so prominent a part in the Italian comedies and novels.

[Footnote 438: Aretino's Cortigiana contains a very humorous exorcism inflicted by way of a practical joke upon a fisherman.]

[Footnote 439: See above, Part i, p. 453, note 2, for the distinction between the fiends and the sprites drawn by Pulci.]

[Footnote 440: See Lasca's Novella of Zoroastro; Bandello's novels of witchcraft (Part iii. 29 and 52); Cellini's celebrated conjuration in the Coliseum; and Ariosto's comedy of the Negromante. These sources may be illustrated from the evidence given by Virginia Maria Lezia before her judges, and the trial of witches at Nogaredo, both of which are printed in Dandolo's Signora di Monza (Milano, 1855). Compare the curious details about Lombard witchcraft in Cantu's Diocesi di Como.]

Witchcraft was localized in two chief centers--the mountains of Norcia, and the Lombard valleys of the Alps.[441] In the former we find a remnant of antique superstition. The witches of this district, whether male or female, had something of the classical Sibyl in their composition and played upon the terrors of their clients. Like their Roman predecessors, they plied the trades of poisoner, quack-doctor and bawd. In Lombardy witchcraft assumed a more Teutonic complexion. The witch was less the instrument of fashionable vices, trading in them as a lucrative branch of industry, than the hysterical subject of a spiritual disease. Lust itself inflamed the victims of this superstition, who were burned by hundreds in the towns, and who were supposed to hold their revels in the villages of Val Camonica. Like the hags of northern Europe, these Lombard streghe had recourse to the black art in the delirious hope of satisfying their own inordinate ambitions, their own indescribable desires. The disease spread so wildly at the close of the fifteenth century that Innocent VIII., by his Bull of 1484, issued special injunctions to the Dominican monks of Brescia, Bergamo and Cremona, authorizing them to stamp it out with fire and torture.[442] The result was a crusade against witchcraft, which seems to have increased the evil by fascinating the imagination of the people. They believed all the more blindly in the supernatural powers to be obtained by magic arts, inasmuch as this traffic had become the object of a bloody persecution. When the Church recognized that men and women might command the fiends of hell, it followed as a logical consequence that wretches, maddened by misery and intoxicated with ungovernable lusts, were tempted to tamper with the forbidden thing at the risk of life and honor in this world and with the certainty of damnation in the other. After this fashion the confused conscience of illiterate people bred a formidable extension of this spiritual malady throughout the northern provinces of Italy. Some were led by morbid curiosity; others by a vain desire to satisfy their appetites, or to escape the consequences of their crimes. A more dangerous class used the superstition to acquire power over their neighbors and to make money out of popular credulity.

[Footnote 441: It may be remembered that the necromancer in Cellini sent his book to be enchanted in the Apennines of Norcia. Folengo alludes to this superstition:

Qualiter ad stagnum Nursae sacrare quadernos.

With regard to Val Camonica, see the actual state of that district as reported by Cantu. Folengo in the Orlandino mentions its witches. Bandello (iii. 52) speaks of it thus: "Val Camonica, ove si dice essere di molte streghe."]

[Footnote 442: Witchcraft in Italy grew the more formidable the closer it approached the German frontier. It seems to have assumed the features of an epidemic at the close of the fifteenth century. Up to that date little is heard of it, and little heed was paid to it. The exacerbation of the malady portended and accompanied the dissolution of medieval beliefs in a population vexed by war, famine and pestilence, and vitiated by ecclesiastical corruption.]

Born and bred in Lombardy at the epoch when witchcraft had attained the height of popular insanity, Folengo was keenly alive to the hideousness of a superstition which, rightly or wrongly, he regarded as a widespread plague embracing all classes of society. It may be questioned whether he did not exaggerate its importance. But there is no mistaking the verisimilitude of the picture he drew. All the uncleanliness of a diseased imagination, all the extravagances of wanton desire, all the consequences of domestic unchastity--incest, infanticide, secret assassination, concealment of births--are traced to this one cause and identified by him with witchcraft. The palace of the queen Gulfora is a pandemonium of lawless vice:

Quales hic reperit strepitus, qualemque tumultum, Quales mollities turpes, actusque salaces, Utile nil scribi posset, si scribere vellem.

Her courts are crowded with devils who have taken human shape to gratify the lusts of her votaries:

Leggiadros juvenes, bellos, facieque venustos, Stringatos, agiles, quos judicat esse diablos, Humanum piliasse caput moresque decentes, Conspicit, innumeras circum scherzare puellas, Quae gestant vestes auri brettasque veluti.

The multitude is made up of all nations, sexes, ages, classes:

Obstupet innumeros illic retrovare striones, Innumerasque strias vecchias, modicasque puellas. Non ea medesimo generatur schiatta paeso; At sunt Italici, Graeci, Gallique, Spagnoles, Magnates, poveri, laici, fratresque, pretesque, Matronae, monighae per forzam claustra colentes.

Some of them are engaged in preparing love-potions and poisonous draughts from the most disgusting and noxious ingredients. Others compound unguents to be used in the metamorphosis of themselves on their nocturnal jaunts. Among these are found poets, orators, physicians, lawyers, governors, for whose sins a handful of poor old women play the part of scapegoats before the public:

Sed quia respectu legis praevertitur ordo, Namque solent grossi pisces mangiare minutos, Desventuratae quaedam solummodo vecchiae Sunt quae supra asinos plebi spectacula fiunt, Sunt quae primatum multorum crimina celant, Sunt quae sparagnant madonnis pluribus ignem.

Some again are discovered compiling books of spells:

Quomodo adulterium uxoris vir noscere possit, Quomodo virgineae cogantur amare puellae, Quomodo non tumeat mulier cornando maritum, Quomodo si tumuit fantinum mingat abortum, Quomodo vix natos vitient sua fascina puttos, Quomodo desiccent odiati membra mariti.

The elder witches keep a school for the younger, and instruct them in the secrets of their craft. Among these Baldus recognizes his own wife, together with the principal ladies of his native land.

It is clear that under the allegory of witchcraft, in which at the same time he seems to have believed firmly, Folengo meant to satirize the secret corruption of society. When Gulfora herself appears, she holds her court like an Italian duchess:

Longa sequit series hominum muschiata zibettis, Qui cortesanos se vantant esse tilatos, Quorum si videas mores rationis ochialo, Non homines maschios sed dicas esse bagassas.

The terrible friar then breaks into a tirade against the courtiers of his day, comparing them with Arthur's knights:

Tempore sed nostro, proh dii, saecloque dadessum, Non nisi perfumis variis et odore zibetti, Non nisi, seu sazarae petenentur sive tosentur, Brettis velluti, nec non scufiotibus auri, Auri cordiculis, impresis, atque medallis, Millibus et frappis per calzas perque giupones, Cercamus carum merdosi germen amoris.

Baldus exterminates the whole vile multitude, while Fracassus pulls Gulfora's palace about her ears. After this, the Barons pursue their way to Acheron, and call upon Charon to ferry them across. He refuses to take so burdensome a party into his boat; but by the strength of Fracassus and the craft of Cingar they effect a passage. Their entry into hell furnishes Folengo with opportunities for new tirades against the vices of Italy. Tisiphone boasts how Rome, through her machinations, has kept Christendom in discord. Alecto exults in her offspring, the Guelph and Ghibelline factions:

Unde fides Christi paulatim lapsa ruinet, Dum gentes Italae bastantes vincere mundum Se se in se stessos discordant, seque medesmos Vassallos faciunt, servos, vilesque famejos His qui vassalli, servi, vilesque fa meji Tempore passato nobis per forza fu ere.

After passing the Furies, and entering the very jaws of Hades, Baldus encounters the fantasies of grammarians and humanists, the idle nonsense of the schoolmen, all the lumber of medieval philosophy mixed with the trifles of the Renaissance.[443] He fights his way through the thick-crowding swarm of follies, and reaches the hell of lovers, where a mountebank starts forward and offers to be his guide. Led by this zany, the hero and his comrades enter an enormous gourd, the bulk of which is compared to the mountains of Val Camonica. Within its spacious caverns dwell the sages of antiquity, with astrologers, physicians, wizards, and false poets. But, having brought his Barons to this place Merlinus Cocajus can advance no further. He is destined to inhabit the great gourd himself. Beyond it he has no knowledge; and here, therefore, he leaves the figments of his fancy without a word of farewell:

Nec Merlinus ego, laus, gloria, fama Cipadae, Quamvis fautrices habui Tognamque Gosamque, Quamvis implevi totum macaronibus orbem, Quamvis promerui Baldi cantare batajas, Non tamen hanc zuccam potui schifare decentem, In qua me tantos opus est nunc perdere dentes, Tot, quot in immenso posui mendacia libro.

[Footnote 443:

Hic sunt Grammaticae populi, gentesque reductae, Huc, illuc, istuc, reliqua seguitante fameja: Argumenta volant dialectica, mille sophistae Adsunt bajanae, pro, contra, non, ita, lyque: Adsunt Errores, asunt mendacia, bollae, Atque solecismi, fallacia, fictio vatum... Omnes altandem tanto rumore volutant Ethicen et Physicen, Animam, centumque novellas, Ut sibi stornito Baldus stopparet orecchias. Squarnazzam Scoti Fracassus repperit illic, Quam vestit, gabbatque Deum, pugnatque Thomistas. Alberti magni Lironus somnia zaffat.]

With this grotesque invention of the infernal pumpkin, where lying bards are punished by the extraction of teeth which never cease to grow again, Folengo breaks abruptly off. His epic ends with a Rabelaisian peal of laughter, in which we can detect a growl of discontent and anger.

Laying the book down, we ask ourselves whether the author had a serious object, or whether he meant merely to indulge a vein of wayward drollery. The virulent invectives which abound in the Maccaronea, seem to warrant the former conclusion; nor might it be wholly impossible to regard the poem as an allegory, in which Baldus should play the part of the reason, unconscious at first of its noble origin, consorting with the passions and the senses, but finally arriving at the knowledge of its high destiny and defeating the powers of evil.[444] Yet when we attempt to press this theory and to explain the allegory in detail, the thread snaps in our hands. Like the romances of chivalry which it parodies, the Maccaronea is a bizarre mixture of heterogeneous elements, loosely put together to amuse an idle public and excite curiosity. If its author has used it also as the vehicle for satire which embraces all the popular superstitions, vices and hypocrisies of his century; if, as he approaches the conclusion, he assumes a tone of sarcasm more sinister than befits the broad burlesque of the commencement; we must rest contented with the assumption that his choleric humor led him from the path of comedy, while the fury of a soul divided against itself inspired his muses of the cook-shop with loftier strains than they had promised at the outset.[445] Should students in the future devote the same minute attention to Folengo that has been paid to Rabelais, it is not improbable that the question here raised may receive solution. The poet is not unworthy of such pains. Regarded merely as the precursor of Rabelais, Folengo deserves careful perusal. He was the creator of a style, which, when we read his epic, forces us to think of the seventeenth century; so strongly did it influence the form of humorous burlesque in Europe for at least two hundred years. On this account, the historian of modern literature cannot afford to neglect him. For the student of Italian manners in Lombardy during the height of the Renaissance, the huge amorphous undigested mass of the Maccaronea is one of the most valuable and instructive documents that we possess. I do not hesitate, from this point of view, to rank it with the masterpieces of the age, with the Orlando of Ariosto, with Machiavelli's comedies, and with the novels of Bandello.

[Footnote 444: This hypothesis receives support from the passage in which Baldus compares his new love for Crispis, the paragon of all virtues, with his old infatuation for Berta, who is the personification of vulgar appetite, unrefined natural instinct. See the end of Book xxiii.]

[Footnote 445: The rage of a man who knows that he has chosen the lower while he might have trodden the higher paths of life and art, flames out at intervals through this burlesque. Take this example, the last five lines of Book xxiii.:

Sic ego Macronicum penitus volo linquere carmen Cum mihi tempus erit, quod erit, si celsa voluntas Flectitur et nostris lachrymis et supplice voto. Heu heu! quod volui misero mihi? floribus Austrum Perditus et liquidis immisi fontibus aprum.]

Folengo used the maccaronic style in two other considerable compositions. The one entitled Moscheis is an elegant parody of the Batrachomyomachia, relating the wars of ants and flies in elegiac verse. The other, called Zanitonella, celebrates the rustic loves of Zanina and Tonello in a long series of elegies, odes and eclogues. This collection furnishes a complete epitome of parodies modeled on the pastorals in vogue. The hero appears upon the scene in the following Sonolegia, under which title we detect a blending of the Sonnet and the Elegy:[446]

Solus solettus stabam colegatus in umbra, Pascebamque meas virda per arva capras. Nulla travajabant animum pensiria nostrum, Cercabam quoniam tempus habere bonum. Quando bolzoniger puer, o mea corda forasti; Nec dedit in fallum dardus alhora tuus. Immo fracassasti rationis vincula, quae tunc Circa coradam bastio fortis erat.

[Footnote 446: Zanitonella, p. 3.]

The lament is spun out to the orthodox length of fourteen verses, and concludes with a pretty point. Who the bolzoniger puer was, is more openly revealed in another Sonolegia:[447]

Nemo super terram mangiat mihi credite panem Seu contadinus, seu citadinus erit, Quem non attrapolet Veneris bastardulus iste, Qui volat instar avis, caecus, et absque braga.

[Footnote 447: Ibid. p. 2. Compare Sonolegia xiii. ib. p. 40.]

To follow the poet through all his burlesques of Petrarchistic and elegiac literature, Italian or Latin, would be superfluous. It is enough to say that he leaves none of their accustomed themes untouched with parody. The masterpiece of his art in this style is the sixth Eclogue, consisting of a dialogue between two drunken bumpkins--interloquutores Tonellus et Pedralus, qui ambo inebriantur.[448]

[Footnote 448: Op. cit. p. 42.]

The maccaronic style was a product of North Italy, cultivated by writers of the Lombard towns, who versified comic or satiric subjects in parodies of humanistic poetry. The branch of burlesque literature we have next to examine, belonged to Tuscany, and took its origin from the equivocal carnival and dance songs raised to the dignity of art by Lorenzo de' Medici. Its conventional meter was terza rima, handled with exquisite sense of rhythm, but degraded to low comedy by the treatment of trivial or vulgar motives. The author of these Capitoli, as they were called, chose some common object--a paint-brush, salad, a sausage, peaches, figs, eels, radishes--to celebrate; affected to be inspired by the grandeur of his subject; developed the drollest tropes, metaphors and illustrations; and almost invariably conveyed an obscene meaning under the form of innuendoes appropriate to his professed theme. Though some exceptions can be pointed out, the Capitoli in general may be regarded as a species of Priapic literature, fashioned to suit the taste of Florentines, who had been accustomed for many generations to semi-disguised obscenity in their vernacular town poetry.[449] Taken from the streets and squares, adopted by the fashionable rhymsters of academies and courtly coteries, the rude Fescennine verse lost none of its license, while it assumed the polish of urbane art. Were it not for this antiquity and popularity of origin, which suggests a plausible excuse for the learned writers of Capitoli and warns us to regard their indecency as in some measure conventional, it would be difficult to approach the three volumes which contain a selection of their poems, without horror.[450] So deep, universal, unblushing is the vice revealed in them.

[Footnote 449: We may ascend to the very sources of popular Tuscan poetry, and we shall find this literature of double entendre in the Canzoni of the Nicchio and Ugellino, noticed above, Part i. p. 38. Besides the Canti Carnascialeschi edited by Il Lasca, we have a collection of Canzoni a Ballo, printed at Florence in 1569, which proves that the raw material of the Capitoli lay ready to the hand of the burlesque poets in plebeian literature.]

[Footnote 450: My references are made to Opere Burlesche, 3 vols., 1723, with the names of Londra and Firenze. Gregorovius says of them: "Wenn man diese 'scherzenden' Gedichte liest, muss man entweder ueber die Nichtigkeit ihrer Gegenstaende staunen, oder vor dem Abgrund der Unsittlichkeit erschrecken, den sie frech entschleiern." Stadt Rom. vol. viii. p. 345.]

To Francesco Berni belongs the merit, such as it is, of having invented the burlesque Capitoli. He gave his name to it, and the term Bernesque has passed into the critical phraseology of Europe. The unique place of this rare poet in the history of Italian literature, will justify a somewhat lengthy account of his life and works. Studying him, we study the ecclesiastical and literary society of Rome in the age of Leo X. and Clement VII.

Francesco Berni was born at Lamporecchio, in the Val di Nievole, about the end of the fifteenth century.[451] His parents were poor; but they were connected with the family of the Cardinal Bibbiena, who, after the boy's education at Florence, took him at the age of nineteen to Rome. Upon the death of this patron in 1520, Berni remained in the service of Bibbiena's nephew, Agnolo Dovizio. Receiving no advancement from these kinsmen, he next transferred himself, in the quality of secretary, to the household of Giammatteo Giberti, Bishop of Verona, who was a distinguished Mecaenas of literary men. This change involved his taking orders. Berni now resided partly at Rome and partly at Verona, tempering the irksome duties of his office by the writing of humorous poetry, which he recited in the then celebrated Academy of the Vignajuoli. This society, which numbered Molza, Mauro, La Casa, Lelio Capilupi, Firenzuola, and Francesco Bini among its members, gave the tone to polite literature at the Courts of Leo and Clement.

[Footnote 451: The probable date is 1496.]

Berni survived the sack of 1527, which proved so disastrous to Italian scholars; but he lost everything he possessed.[452] Monsignor Giberti employed him on various missions of minor importance, involving journeys to Venice, Padua, Nice, Florence, and the Abruzzi. After sixteen years of Court-life, Berni grew weary of the petty duties, which must have been peculiarly odious to a man of his lazy temperament, if it is true, as he informs us, that the Archbishop kept him dancing attendance till daylight, while he played primiera with his friends. Accordingly, he retired to Florence, where he held a canonry in the cathedral. There, after a quiet life of literary ease, he died suddenly in 1535. It was rumored that he had been poisoned: and the most recent investigations into the circumstances of his death tend rather to confirm this report. All that is known, however, for certain, is that he spent the evening of May 25 with his friends the Marchionesse di Massa in the Palazzo Pazzi, and that next morning he breathed his last. His mysterious and unexplained decease was ascribed to one of the two Medicean princes then resident in Florence. A sonnet in Berni's best style, containing a vehement invective against Alessandro de' Medici, is extant. The hatred expressed in this poem may have occasioned the rumor (which certainly acquired a certain degree of currency) that Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici attempted to use the poet for the secret poisoning of his cousin, and on his refusal had him murdered. Other accounts of the supposed assassination ascribe a like intention to the Duke, who is said to have suggested the poisoning of the Cardinal to Berni. Both stories agree in representing his tragic end as the price paid for refusal to play the part of an assassin. The matter remains obscure; but enough suspicion rests upon the manner of his death to render this characteristic double legend plausible; especially when we remember what the customs of Florence with respect to poisoning were, and how the Cardinal de' Medici ended his own life.[453]

[Footnote 452: Orl. Inn. Rifatto da Fr. Berni, i. 14, 23-28, makes it clear that Berni was an eye-witness of the Sack of Rome. Panizzi's reference to this passage (Boiardo ed Ariosto, London, 1830, vol. ii. p. cxi.) involves what seems to me a confusion.]

[Footnote 453: The matter is fully discussed by Mazzuchelli in his biography of Berni. He, relying on the hypothesis of Berni having lived till 1536, if not till 1543, points out the impossibility of his having been murdered by the Cardinal, who died himself in July, 1535. This difficulty has recently been removed by Signor Antonio Virgili's demonstration of the real date of Berni's death in May, 1535. See Rassegna Settimanale, February 23, 1879, a paper of great importance for students of Berni's life and works, to which I shall frequently refer.]

Such is the uneventful record of Berni's career. He was distinguished among all the poets of the century for his genial vein of humor and amiable personal qualities. That he was known to be stained with vices which it is not easy to describe, but which he frankly acknowledged in his poetical epistles, did not injure his reputation in that age of mutual indulgence.[454] Willing to live and let live, with a never-failing fund of drollery, and with a sincere dislike for work of any sort, he lounged through existence, an agreeable, genial and witty member of society. If this were all we should not need to write about him now. But with this easy-going temperament he combined a genius for poetry so peculiar and delicate, that his few works mark an epoch in Italian literature.

[Footnote 454: It is enough to mention the Capitoli "Delle Pesche," "A M. Antonio da Bibbiena," "Sopra un Garzone," "Lamentazion d'Amore." References are made to the Rime e Lettere di Fr. Berni, Firenze, Barbera, 1865. For the Rifacimento of the Orlando Innamorato I shall use the Milan reprint in 5 vols., 1806, which also contains the Rime.]

The best description of Berni is contained in the burlesque portrait of himself, which forms part of his Boiardo Innamorato.[455] This has been so well translated by an English scholar, the late W.S. Rose, that I cannot do better than refer the student to his stanzas. They convey as accurate a notion of the Bernesque manner as can be derived from any version in a foreign language.[456] The character he there has given to himself for laziness is corroborated by his extant epistles in prose. Berni represents himself as an incurably bad correspondent, pleased to get letters, but overcome with mortal terror when he is obliged to answer them.[457] He confides to his friend Francesco Bini that the great affair in life is to be gay and to write as little as possible:[458] "A vivere avemo sino alla morte a dispetto di chi non vuole, e il vantaggio e vivere allegramente, come conforto a far vio, attendando a frequentar quelli banchetti che si fanno per Roma, e scrivendo sopra tutto manco che potete. Quia haec est victoria, quae vincit mundum." The curse has been laid upon him of having to drive his quill without ceasing:[459] "O ego laevus, che scrivo d'ogni tempo, e scrivo ora che ho una gamba al collo, che ieri tornando dalla Certosa mi ruppe la mia cavalla, cascandomivi sopra. Sono pure un gran coglione!" So his pen runs on. The man writes just as he spoke, without affectation, mixing his phrases of Latin with the idiom of common life. The whole presents an agreeable contrast to the stilted style of Bembo, La Casa's studied periods, and the ambitious epistolary efforts of Aretino. Sometimes he breaks into doggrel:[460] "S'io avessi l'ingenio del Burchiello, Io vi farei volentier un sonetto, Che non ebbi giammai tema e subietto, Piu dolce, piu piacevol, ne piu bello." When his friends insist upon his writing to them, rhyme comes to his aid, and he affects a comic fit of rage:[461]

Perche m'ammazzi con le tue querele, Priuli mio, perche ti duole a torto, Che sai che t'amo piu che l'orso il miele, etc.

[Footnote 455: Book III. canto vii. (canto 67 of the Rifacimento, vol. iv. p. 266).]

[Footnote 456: This translation will be found in Panizzi's edition of the Orlando Innamorato (London, Pickering, 1830), vol. ii. p. cxiv.]

[Footnote 457: Letter vi. to Messer Giamb. Montebuona.]

[Footnote 458: Letter xvii.]

[Footnote 459: Letter xxiv.]

[Footnote 460: Letter to Ippolito de' Medici (ed. Milan, vol. v. p. 227).]

[Footnote 461: Letter ix.]

Importuned to publish the poems he recited with so much effect in private circles, he at last consents because he cannot help it:[462] "Compare, io non ho potuto tanto schermirmi che pure m'e bisognato dar fuori questo benedetto Capitolo e Comento della Primiera; e siate certo che l'ho fatto, non perche mi consumassi d'andare in stampa, ne per immortalarmi come il cavalier Casio, ma per fuggire la fatica mia, e la malevolenza di molti che domandandomelo e non lo avendo mi volevano mal di morte." Nor were these the ordinary excuses of an author eager to conceal his vanity. The Capitolo upon the game of primiera was the only poem which appeared with his consent.[463] He intended his burlesque verses for recitation, and is even said to have preserved no copies of them, so that many of his compositions, piratically published in his lifetime, were with difficulty restored to a right text by Il Lasca in 1548. This indifference to public fame did not imply any carelessness of style. Mazzuchelli, who had seen some of his rough copies, asserts that they bore signs of the minutest pains bestowed upon them. The melody of versification, richness of allusion, refinement of phrase, equality and flowing smoothness, which distinguish Berni's work from that of his imitators confirm the belief that his Capitoli and sonnets, in spite of their apparent ease, were produced with the conscientious industry of a real artist.

[Footnote 462: Letter vii. Compare the sonnet "In nome di M. Prinzivalle da Pontremoli" (ed. Milan, vol. v. p. 3).]

[Footnote 463: It was published at Rome by Calvo in 1526, with the comment of M. Pietro Paolo da S. Chirico.]

Berni's theory of poetry revealed a common-sense and insight which were no less rare than commendable in that age of artificial literature. He refused to write at command, pleading that spontaneity of inspiration is essential to art, and quoting Vida's dictum:

Nec jussa canas, nisi forte coactus Magnorum imperio regum.

Notwithstanding his avoidance of publication and parsimony of production, Berni won an almost unique reputation during his lifetime, and after his death was worshiped as a saint by the lovers of burlesque.[464] In one of his drollest sonnets he complains that poets were wont to steal their neighbors' verses, but that he is compelled to take the credit of more than he ever wrote:[465]

A me quei d'altri son per forza dati, E dicon tu gli arai, vuoi o non vuoi.

[Footnote 464: Il Lasca prefixed a sonnet to his edition of 1548, in which he speaks of "Il Berni nostro dabbene e gentile," calls him "primo e vero trovatore, Maestro e padre del burlesco stile," says that it is possible to envy but impossible to imitate him, and compares him thus with Burchiello:

Non sia chi mi ragioni di Burchiello, Che saria proprio come comparare Caron Dimonio all'Agnol Gabriello.

In another sonnet he climbs a further height of panegyric:

Quanti mai fur poeti al mondo e sono, Volete in Greco, in Ebreo, o in Latino, A petto a lui non vagliono un lupino, Tant'e dotto, faceto, bello e buono:

and winds up with the strange assurance that:

da lui si sente Anzi s'impara con gioja infinita Come viver si debbe in questa vita.]

[Footnote 465: Sonnet xxvii.]

A piece of comic prose or verse cannot appear but that it is at once ascribed to him:

E la gente faceta Mi vuole pure impiastrar di prose e carmi, Come s'io fussi di razza di marmi: Non posso ripararmi; Come si vede fuor qualche sonetto, Il Berni l'ha composto a suo dispetto. E fanvi su un guazzetto Di chiose e di sensi, che rinnieghi il cielo, Se Luter fa piu stracci del Vangelo.

One of the glosses referred to in this coda, lies before me as I write. It was composed by Gianmaria Cecchi on Berni's sonnet which begins "Cancheri e beccafichi." The sonnet is an amusing imprecation upon matrimony, written in one paragraph, and containing the sting of the epigram in its short coda of three lines.[466] But it did not need a commentary, and Cecchi's voluminous annotations justify the poet's comic anger.

[Footnote 466: Sonnet ix.]

Berni's Capitoli may be broadly divided into three classes. The first includes his poetical epistles, addressed to Fracastoro, Sebastian del Piombo, Ippolito de' Medici, Marco Veneziano, and other friends. Except for the peculiar humor, which elevates the trivial accidents of life to comedy, except for the consummate style, which dignifies the details of familiar correspondence and renders fugitive effusions classical, these letters in verse would scarcely detach themselves from a mass of similar compositions. As it is, Berni's personality renders them worthy companions of Ariosto's masterpieces in a similar but nicely differentiated branch of literature. It remains for the amateurs of autobiographical poetry to choose between the self-revelation of the philosophizing Ferrarese poet and the brilliant trifling of the Florentine. The second class embraces a number of occasional poems--the Complaint against Love, the Deluge in Mugello, the Satire upon Adrian VI., the Lamentation of Nardino--descriptive or sarcastic pieces, where the poet chooses a theme and develops it with rhetorical abundance. The third class may be regarded as the special source and fountain of the Bernesque manner, as afterwards adopted and elaborated by Berni's imitators. Omitting personal or occasional motives, he sings the praises of the Plague, of Primiera, of Aristotle, of Peaches, of Debt, of Eels, of the Urinal, of Thistles, and of other trifling subjects. Here his burlesque genius takes the most fantastic flight, soaring to the ether of absurdity and sinking to the nadir of obscenity, combining heterogeneous elements of fun and farce, yet never transgressing the limits of refined taste. These Capitoli revealed a new vehicle of artistic expression to his contemporaries. Penetrated with their author's individuality, they caught the spirit of the age and met its sense of humor. Consequently they became the touchstones of burlesque inspiration, the models which tempted men of feebler force and more uncertain tact to hopeless tasks of emulation. We still possess La Casa's Capitolo on the Oven; Molza's on Salad and the Fig; Firenzuola's on the Sausage and the Legno Santo; Bronzino's on the Paint-brush and the Radish; Aretino's on the Quartan Fever; Franzesi's on Carrots and Chestnuts; Varchi's on Hard Eggs and Fennel; Mauro's on Beans and Priapus; Dolce's on Spittle and Noses; Bini's on the Mal Franzese; Lori's on Apples; Ruscelli's on the Spindle--not to speak of many authors, the obscurity of whose names and the obscenity of the themes they celebrated, condemn them to condign oblivion. Not without reason did Gregorovius stigmatize these poems as a moral syphilis, invading Italian literature and penetrating to the remotest fibers of its organism. After their publication in academical circles and their further diffusion through the press, simple terms which had been used to cloak their improprieties, became the bywords of pornographic pamphleteers and poets. Figs, beans, peaches, apples, chestnuts acquired a new and scandalous significance. Sins secluded from the light of day by a modest instinct of humanity, flaunted their loathsomeness without shame beneath the ensigns of these literary allegories. The corruption of society, hypocritically veiled or cynically half-revealed in coteries, expressed itself too plainly through the phraseology invented by a set of sensual poets. The most distinguished members of society, Cardinals like Bembo, prelates like La Casa, painters like Bronzino, critics like Varchi, scholars like Molza, lent the prestige of their position and their talents to the diffusion of this leprosy, which still remains the final most convincing testimony to the demoralization of Italy in the Renaissance.[467]

[Footnote 467: The scholars of the day were not content with writing burlesque Capitoli. They must needs annotate them. See Caro's Commentary on the Ficheide of Molza (Romagnoli, Scelta di Curiosita Letterarie, Dispensa vii. Bologna, 1862) for the most celebrated example. There is not a sentence in this long and witty composition, read before the Accademia delle Virtu, which does not contain a grossly obscene allusion, scarcely a paragraph which does not refer to an unmentionable vice.]

To what extent, it may be asked, was Berni responsible for these consequences? He brought the indecencies of the piazza, where they were the comparatively innocuous expression of coarse instincts, into the close atmosphere of the study and the academical circle, refined their vulgarisms, and made their viciousness attractive by the charm of his incomparable style. This transition from the Canto Carnascialesco to the Capitolo may be observed in Berni's Caccia di Amore, a very licentious poem dedicated to "noble and gentle ladies." It is a Carnival Song or Canzone a Ballo rewritten in octave stanzas of roseate fluency and seductive softness. A band of youthful huntsmen pay their court in it to women, and the double entendre exactly reproduces the style of innuendo rendered fashionable by Lorenzo de' Medici. Yet, though Berni is unquestionably answerable for the obscene Capitoli of the sixteenth century, it must not be forgotten that he only gave form to material already sufficiently appropriated by the literary classes. With him, the grossness which formed the staple of Mauro's, Molza's, Bini's, La Casa's and Bronzino's poems, the depravities of appetite which poisoned the very substance of their compositions, were but accidental. The poet stood above them and in some measure aloof from them, employing these ingredients in the concoction of his burlesque, but never losing the main object of his art in their development. A bizarre literary effect, rather than the indulgence of a sensual imagination, was the aim he had in view. Therefore, while we regret that his example gave occasion to coarser debaucheries of talent, we are bound to acknowledge that the jests to which he condescended, do not represent his most essential self. This, however, is but a feeble apology. That without the excuse of passion, without satirical motive or overmastering personal proclivity, he should have penned the Capitolo a M. Antonio da Bibbiena, and have joked about giving and taking his metaphorical peaches, remains an ineradicable blot upon his nature.[468]

[Footnote 468: The six opening lines of the Lamentazion d'Amore prevent our regarding Berni's jests as wholly separate from his experience and practice.]

The Bernesque Capitoli were invariably written in terza rima, which at this epoch became the recognized meter of epistolary, satirical, and dissertational poetry throughout Italy.[469] Thus the rhythm of the Divine Comedy received final development by lending itself to the expression of whims, fancies, personal invectives and scurrilities. To quote from Berni's masterpieces in this style would be impossible. Each poem of about one hundred lines is a perfect and connected unity, which admits of no mutilation by the detachment of separate passages. Still readers may be referred to the Capitolo a Fracastoro and the two Capitoli della Peste as representative of the poet's humor in its purest form, without the moral deformities of the still more celebrated Pesche or the uncleanliness of the Orinale.

[Footnote 469: A familiar illustration is Cellini's Capitolo del Carcere. Curious examples of these occasional poems, written for the popular taste, are furnished by Mutinelli in his Annali Urbani di Venezia. See above, Part i. pp. 172, 519, for the vicissitudes of terza rima after the close of the fourteenth century.]

At the close of the Capitolo written on the occasion of Adrian VI.'s election to the Papacy, Berni declared that it had never been his custom to speak ill of people:

L'usanza mia non fu mai di dir male; E che sia il ver, leggi le cose mie, Leggi l'Anguille, leggi l'Orinale, Le Pesche, i Cardi e l'altre fantasie: Tutte sono inni, salmi, laudi ed ode.

We have reason to believe this declaration. Genial good humor is a characteristic note of his literary temperament. At the same time he was no mean master of caricature and epigram. The Capitolo in question is a sustained tirade against the Fleming, who had come to break the peace of polished Rome--a shriek of angry lamentation over altered times, intolerable insults, odious innovations. The amazement and discomfiture of the poet, contrasted with his burlesque utterance, render this composition comic in a double sense. Its satire cuts both ways, against the author and the object of his rage. Yet when Adrian gave place to Giulio de' Medici, and Berni discovered what kind of a man the new Pope was, he vented nobler scorn in verse of far more pungent criticism. His sonnet on Clement is remarkable for exactly expressing the verdict posterity has formed after cool and mature inquiry into this Pope's actions. Clement's weakness and irresolution must end, the poet says, by making even Adrian seem a saint:[470]

Un Papato composto di rispetti, Di considerazioni e di discorsi, Di piu, di poi, di ma, di si, di forsi, Di pur, di assai parole senza effetti; Di pensier, di consigli, di concetti, Di congetture magre per apporsi D'intrattenerti, purche non si sborsi, Con audienze, risposte, e bei detti: Di pie di piombo e di neutralita, Di pazienza, di dimostrazione, Di Fede, di Speranza e Carita, D'innocenza, di buona intenzione; Ch'e quasi come dir, semplicita. Per non le dare altra interpretazione, Sia con sopportazione, Lo diro pur, vedrete che pian piano Fara canonizzar Papa Adriano.

[Footnote 470:

A Papacy composed of compliment, Debate, consideration, complaisance, Of furthermore, then, but, yes, well, perchance, Haply, and such-like terms inconsequent; Of thought, conjecture, counsel, argument, Starveling surmise to summon countenance, Negotiations, audiences, romance, Fine words and shifts, disbursement to prevent; Of feet of lead, of tame neutrality, Of patience and parade to outer view. Of fawning Faith, of Hope and Charity, Of Innocence and good intentions too, Which it were well to dub simplicity, Uglier interpretations to eschew; With your permission, you, To speak the plain truth out, shall live to see Pope Adrian sainted through this Papacy.]

The insight into Clement's character displayed in this sonnet, the invective against Adrian, and the acerbity of another sonnet against Alessandro de' Medici:

Empio Signor, che de la roba altrui Lieto ti vai godendo, e del sudore:

would gain in cogency, could we attach more value to the manliness of Berni's utterances. But when we know that, while he was showering curses on the Duke of Civita di Penna, he frequented the Medicean Court and wrote a humorous Capitolo upon Gradasso, a dwarf of Cardinal Ippolito, we feel forced to place these epigrammatic effusions among the ebullitions of personal rather than political animosity. There was nothing of the patriot in Berni, not even so much as in Machiavelli, who himself avowed his readiness to roll stones for the Signori Medici.

As a satirist, Berni appears to better advantage in his caricatures of private or domestic personages. The portrait of his housekeeper, who combined in her single person all the antiquities of all the viragos of romance:

Io ho per cameriera mia l'Ancroja Madre di Ferrau, zia di Morgante, Arcavola maggior dell'Amostante, Balia del Turco e suocera del Boja:

Alcionio upon his mule:

Quella che per soperchio digiunare Tra l'anime celesti benedette Come un corpo diafano traspare:

Ser Cecco who could never be severed from the Court, nor the Court from Ser Cecco:

Perch'ambedue son la Corte e ser Cecco:

the pompous doctor:

l'ambasciador del Boja, Un medico, maestro Guazzaletto:

Domenico d'Ancona, the memory of whose beard, shorn by some Vandal of a barber, draws tears from every sympathetic soul:

Or hai dato, barbier, l'ultimo crollo Ad una barba la piu singolare Che mai fosse descritta in verso o 'n prosa:

these form a gallery of comic likenesses, drawn from the life and communicated with the force of reality to the reader. Each is perfect in style, clearly cut like some antique chalcedony, bringing the object of the poet's mirth before us with the exact measure of ridicule he sought to inflict.[471]

[Footnote 471: Sonnets xi. xvi. xiv. iii. xx. The same vivid picturesqueness is displayed in the desecrated Abbey (Sonnet xvii.), which deserves to be called an etching in words.]

This satiric power culminates in the sonnet on Pietro Aretino.[472] The tartness of Berni's more good-humored pasquinades is concentrated to vitriol by unadulterated loathing. He flings this biting acid in the face of one whom he has found a scoundrel. The sonnet starts at the white heat of fury:

Tu ne dirai e farai tante e tante, Lingua fracida, marcia, senza sale.

[Footnote 472: Sonnet xix. In the Capitolo to Ippolito de' Medici, Berni thus alludes to Aretino:

Com'ha fatto non so chi mio vicino, Che veste d'oro, e piu non degna il panno, E dassi del messere e del divino.]

It proceeds with execration; and when the required fourteen lines have been terminated, it foams over into rage more voluble and still more voluble, unwinding the folds of an interminable Coda with ever-increasing crescendo of vituperation, as though the passion of the writer could not be appeased. The whole has to be read at one breath. No quotation can render a conception of its rhetorical art. Every word strikes home because every word contains a truth expressed in language of malignant undiluted heartfelt hate. That most difficult of literary triumphs, to render abuse sublime, to sustain a single note of fierce invective without relaxing or weakening the several grades that lead to the catastrophe, has been accomplished. This achievement is no doubt due in some measure to the exact correspondence between what we know of Pietro Aretino and what Berni has written of him. Yet its blunt fidelity to fact does not detract from the skill displayed in the handling of those triple series of rhymes, each one of which descends like a lash upon the writhing back beneath:

Ch'ormai ogni paese Hai ammorbato, ogn'uom, ogn'animale, Il ciel e Dio e 'l diavol ti vuol male. Quelle veste ducale, O ducali accattate e furfantate, Che ti piangono addosso sventurate, A suon di bastonate Ti saran tratte, prima che tu muoja, Dal reverendo padre messer boja, Che l'anima di noja, Mediante un capestro, caveratti, E per maggior favore squarteratti; E quei tuoi leccapiatti, Bardassonacci, paggi da taverna, Ti canteranno il requiem eterna. Or vivi e ti governa, Bench'un pugnale, un cesso, overo un nodo Ti faranno star cheto in ogni modo.

From this conclusion the rest may be divined. Berni paid dearly for the satisfaction of thus venting his spleen. Aretino had found more than his match. Though himself a master in the art of throwing dirt, he could not, like Berni, sling his missiles with the certainty of gaining for himself by the same act an immortality of glory. This privilege is reserved for the genius of style, and style alone. Therefore he had to shrink in silence under Berni's scourge. But Aretino was not the man to forego revenge if only an opportunity for inflicting injury upon his antagonist, full and effectual, and without peril to himself, was offered. The occasion came after Berni's death; and how he availed himself of it, will appear in the next paragraphs.

Though the Capitoli and sonnets won for their author the high place he occupies among Italian poets, Berni is also famous for his rifacimento or remodeling of the Orlando Innamorato. He undertook this task after the publication of the Furioso; and though part was written at Verona, we know from references to contemporary events contained in the rifacimento, that Berni was at work upon it in the last years of his life at Florence. It was not published until some time after his death. Berni subjected the whole of Boiardo's poem to minute revision, eliminating obsolete words and Lombard phrases, polishing the verse, and softening the roughness of the elder poet's style. He omitted a few passages, introduced digressions, connected the episodes by links and references, and opened each canto with a dissertation in the manner of Ariosto. Opinions may vary as to the value of the changes wrought by Berni. But there can be no doubt that his work was executed with artistic accuracy, and that his purpose was a right one. He aimed at nothing less than rendering a noble poem adequate to the measure of literary excellence attained by the Italians since Boiardo's death. The Innamorato was to be made worthy of the Furioso. The nation was to possess a continuous epic of Orlando, complete in all its parts and uniformly pure in style. Had Berni lived to see his own work through the press, it is probable that this result would have been attained. As it happened, the malignity of fortune or the malice of a concealed enemy defeated his intention. We only possess a deformed version of his rifacimento. The history, or rather the tragedy, of its publication involves some complicated questions of conjecture. Yet the side-lights thrown upon the conditions of literature at that time in Italy, as well as on the mystery of Berni's death, are sufficiently interesting to justify the requisite expenditure of space and time.

The rifacimento appeared in a mutilated form at Venice in 1541, from the press of the Giunti, and again in 1542 at Milan from that of Francesco Calvo. These two issues are identical, except in the title and tail pages. The same batch of sheets was in fact divided by the two publishers. In 1545 another issue, called Edizione Seconda, saw the light at Venice, in which Giunta introduced a very significant note, pointing out that certain stanzas were not the work of "M. Francesco Berni, but of one who presumptuously willed to do him so great an injury."[473] This edition, differing in many respects from those of 1541 and 1542, was on the whole an improvement. It would seem that the publishers, in the interval between 1541 and 1545, regretted that Berni's copy had been tampered with, and did their best, in the absence of the original, to restore a correct text. Still, as Giunta acknowledged, the rifacimento had been irretrievably damaged by some private foe.[474] The introductory dedication to Isabella Gonzaga, where we might have expected an allusion to Boiardo, is certainly not Berni's; and the two lines,

Ne ti sdegnar veder quel ch'altri volse Forse a te dedicar, ma morte il tolse,

must be understood to refer to Berni's and not to Boiardo's death. Comparison of the two editions makes it, moreover, clear that Berni's MS. had been garbled, and the autograph probably put out of the way before the publication of the poem.

[Footnote 473: "Di chi presuntuosamente gli ha voluto fare tanta ingiuria." This note occurs at Stanza 83 of Canto 1.]

[Footnote 474: In some cases the readings of the second edition are inferior to those of the first, while both fall short of Boiardo. Boiardo wrote in his description of Astolfo (Canto i. 60):

Quel solea dir, ch'egli era per sciagura, E tornava a cader senza paura.

In the rifacimento of 1541 we have:

E alle volte cadeva per sciagura, E si levava poi senza paura.

In that of 1545:

Un sol dispetto avea: dice Turpino Che nel cader alquanto era latino.

I take these instances from Panizzi.]

Who is to be held responsible for this fraud? Who was the presumptuous enemy who did such injury to Berni? Panizzi, so far back as 1830, pointed out that Giovanni Alberto Albicante took some part in preparing the edition of 1541-2. This man prefixed sonnets written by himself to the rifacimento; "whence we might conclude that he was the editor."[475] Signor Virgili, to whose researches attention has already been directed, proved further by references to Pietro Aretino's correspondence that this old enemy of Berni had a hand in the same work. Writing to Francesco Calvo from Venice on February 16, 1540, Aretino approaches the subject of the rifacimento in these words:[476] "Our friend Albicante informs me, with reference to the printing of Orlando defamed by Berni, that you are good enough to meet my wishes, for which I thank you.... You will see that, for the sake of your own modesty, you are bound either not to issue the book at all, or else to purge it of all evil-speaking." He then states that it had been his own intention "to emend the Count of Scandiano's Innamoramento, a thing in its kind of heroic beauty, but executed in a trivial style, and expressed with phrases at once plebeian and obsolete." This task he renounced upon reflection that it would bring him no fame to assume the mask of a dead man's labors. In another letter to the same Calvo, dated February 17, 1542, Aretino resumes the subject. Sbernia (so he chooses to call Berni) has been "overwhelmed beneath the ruins he pulled down upon himself by his undoing of the Innamoramento."[477] Now, it is certain that the ruin proclaimed by Aretino did really fall on Berni's labors. In 1545 Lodovico Domenichi published a second rifacimento, far inferior in style to that of Berni, and executed with the slovenliness of a literary hack. But this was several times reprinted, whereas Berni's remained neglected on the shelves of the librarians until the year 1725, when it was republished and welcomed with a storm of exaggerated enthusiasm.

[Footnote 475: Boiardo ed Ariosto, vol. ii. p. cxxxiv.]

[Footnote 476: Lettere, Book ii. p. 121.]

[Footnote 477: Ibid. p. 249. We might quote a parallel passage from the Prologue to the Ipocrita, which Aretino published in 1542, just after accomplishing his revenge on Berni: "Io non ho pensato al gastigo che io darei a quegli che pongono il lor nome nei libri che essi guastano nella foggia che un non so chi ha guasto il Boiardo, per non mi credere che si trovasse cotanta temerita nella presunzione del mondo." The hypocrisy of this is worthy of the play's title.]

We have therefore reached this conclusion, that Aretino, aided by Albicante, both of them notable literary brigands, contrived to send a mutilated version of the rifacimento to press, with a view of doing irreparable mischief to Berni's reputation.[478] We have also seen that there was something dangerous in Berni's work, described by Aretino as maldicentia, which he held as a threat over the Milanese publisher. Lastly, Giunta recognized too late that he had made himself the party to some act of malice by issuing a garbled copy. Aretino had, we know, a private grudge to satisfy. He could not forget the castigation he received at Berni's hands, in the sonnet which has been already described. The hatred subsisting between the two men had been further exasperated by the different parts they took in a literary duel. Antonio Broccardo, a young Venetian scholar, attacked Pietro Bembo's fame at Padua in 1530, and attempted to raise allies against the great dictator. Aretino took up the cudgels for Bembo, and assailed Broccardo with vehement abuse and calumny. Berni ranged himself upon Broccardo's side. The quarrel ended in Broccardo's death under suspicious circumstances in 1531 at Padua. He was, indeed, said to have been killed by Aretino.[479] Berni died mysteriously at Florence four years later, and Aretino caused his rifacimento, "purged of evil-speaking," to be simultaneously published at Venice and Milan.

[Footnote 478: Mazzuchelli (Scrittori d'Italia: Albicante, Giov. Alberto) may be consulted about the relations between these two ruffians, who alternately praised and abused each other in print.]

[Footnote 479: See Mazzuchelli, op. cit., under "Brocardo, Antonio." The spelling of the name varies. Bembo, six years afterwards, told Varchi that Aretino drove Broccardo for him into an early grave. See Lettere all'Aretino, vol. ii. p. 186, ed. Romagnoli. The probability is that Broccardo died of fever aggravated by the annoyance caused him by Aretino's calumnies. There is no valid suspicion of poison.]

The question still remains to be asked how Aretino, Berni's avowed enemy, obtained possession of the MS. Berni had many literary friends. Yet none of them came forward to avert the catastrophe. None of them undertook the publication of his remains. His last work was produced, not at Florence, where he lived and died, but at Venice; and Albicante, Aretino's tool, was editor. In the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to answer this question authoritatively. Considerable light, however, is thrown upon the mystery by a pamphlet published in 1554 by the heretic Vergerio. He states that Berni undertook his rifacimento with the view of diffusing Protestant doctrines in a popular and unobtrusive form; but that the craft of the devil, or in other words the policy of the Church, effected its suppression at the very moment when it was finished and all but printed.[480] Here, then, we seem to find some missing links in the dark chain of intrigue. Aretino's phrase maldicentia is explained; his menace to Francesco Calvo becomes intelligible; the silence of Berni's friends can be accounted for; and the agency by which the MS. was placed in Albicante's hands, can be at least conjectured. As a specimen of Berni's Lutheran propaganda, Vergerio subjoins eighteen stanzas, written in the poet's purest style, which were addressed to Battista Sanga, and which formed the induction to the twentieth Canto. This induction, as it stands in Berni's Innamorato, is reduced to seven stanzas, grossly garbled and deformed in diction. Very few of the original lines have been retained, and those substituted are full of vulgarisms.[481] From a comparison of the original supplied by Vergerio with the mutilated version, the full measure of the mischief practiced upon Berni's posthumous work can be gauged. Furthermore, it must be noticed that these compromising eighteen stanzas contained the names of several men alive in Italy, all of whom were therefore interested in their suppression, or precluded from exposing the fraud.

[Footnote 480: This curious pamphlet was reprinted from a unique copy by Panizzi, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 361. In the introduction, Vergerio gives an interesting account of Berni. He represents him as a man of worldly life, addicted to gross pleasures and indecent literature until within a few years of his death. Having been converted to evangelical faith in Christ, Berni then resolved to use the Orlando as a vehicle for Lutheran opinions; and his rifacimento was already almost printed, when the devil found means to suppress it. Vergerio is emphatic in his statement that the poem was finished and nearly printed. If this was indeed the case, we must suppose that Albicante worked upon the sheets, canceling some and leaving others, and that the book thus treated was afterwards shared by Giunta and Calvo.]

[Footnote 481: I shall print a translation of the eighteen stanzas in an Appendix to this volume. Lines like the following,

Arrandellarsi come un salsicciuolo,

which are common in the mangled version, would never have passed Berni's censure.]

The inference I am inclined to draw from Signor Virgili's researches, combined with Vergerio's pamphlet, is that the Church interfered to prevent the publication of Berni's heretical additions to Boiardo's poem. Berni's sudden death, throwing his affairs into confusion at the moment when he was upon the point of finishing the business, afforded an excellent occasion to his ecclesiastical and personal opponents, who seem to have put some pressure on his kinsmen to obtain the MS. or the sheets they meant to mutilate.[482] The obnoxious passages may have been denounced by Aretino; for we know that he was intimate with Vergerio, and it is more than probable that the verses to Sanga were already in circulation.[483] Aretino, strange to say, was regarded in clerical quarters as a pillar of the Church. He therefore found it in his power to wreak his vengeance on an enemy at the same time that he posed as a defender of the faith. That he was allowed to control the publication, appears from his letters to Calvo; and he confided the literary part of the business to Albicante. His threats to Calvo have reference to Berni's heresy, and the maldicentia may possibly have been the eighteen stanzas addressed to Sanga. The terror of the Inquisition reduced Berni's friends to silence. Aretino, even if he had not denounced Berni to the Church, had now identified himself with the crusade against his poem, and he was capable of ruining opponents in this unequal contest by charges they would have found it impossible to refute. The eighteen stanzas were addressed to a secretary of Clement VII.; and men of note like Molza, Flamminio, Navagero, Fondulo, Fregoso, were distinctly named in them. If, then, there is any cogency in the conclusions I have drawn from various sources, Berni's poem, and perhaps his life, was sacrificed to theological hatred in combination with Aretino's personal malice. The unaccountable inactivity of his friends is explained by their dread of being entangled in a charge of heresy.[484]

[Footnote 482: This appears from a reference in Aretino's second letter to Calvo, where he talks of Berni's "friends and relatives." It might be going too far to suggest that Berni was murdered by his ecclesiastical enemies, who feared the scandal which would be caused by the publication of his opinions.]

[Footnote 483: Vergerio may have communicated the eighteen stanzas to Aretino; or conversely he may have received them from him. I have read through the letters exchanged between him and Aretino--and they are numerous--without, however, finding any passage that throws light on this transaction. Aretino published both series of letters. He had therefore opportunity to suppress inconvenient allusions.]

[Footnote 484: We may note the dates and fates of the chief actors in this tragedy. Broccardo died of grief in 1531. Berni died, under suspicion of poison, in 1535. Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici was poisoned a few months later, in 1535. Alessandro de' Medici was murdered by Lorenzino in 1537. Pietro Paolo Vergerio was deprived of his see and accused of heresy in 1544. Berni's old friend, the author of Il Forno, M. La Casa, conducted his trial, as Papal Nuncio at Venice. Aretino, who had assumed the part of inquisitor and mutilator to gratify his private spite, survived triumphant.]

Enough has been already said about Berni's imitators in the burlesque style. Of satire in the strict sense of the term, the poets of the sixteenth century produced nothing that is worth consideration. The epistolary form introduced by Ariosto, and the comic caprices rendered fashionable by Berni, determined the compositions of Pietro Aretino, of Ercole Bentivoglio, of Luigi Alamanni, of Antonio Vinciguerra, of Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara, of Cesare Caporali, and of the minor versifiers whose occasional poems in terza rima, seasoned with more or less satirical intention, are usually reckoned among the satires of the golden age.[485] Personal vituperation poured forth in the heat of literary quarrels, scarcely deserves the name of satire. Else it might be necessary in this place to mention Niccolo Franco's sonnets on Pietro Aretino, or the far more elegant compositions of Annibale Caro directed against his enemy Castelvetro.[486] Models for this species of poetical abuse had been already furnished by the sonnets exchanged between Luigi Pulci and Matteo Franco in a more masculine age of Italian literature.[487] It is not, however, incumbent upon the historian to resuscitate the memory of those forgotten and now unimportant duels. The present allusion to them may suffice to corroborate the opinion already stated that, while the Italians of the Renaissance were ingenious in burlesque, and virulent in personal invective, they lacked the earnestness of moral conviction, the indignation, and the philosophic force that generate real satire.

[Footnote 485: See the Raccolta di Poesie Satiriche, Milano, 1808.]

[Footnote 486: See, for the latter series, Poesie Satiriche, pp. 138-156.]

[Footnote 487: See Sonetti di Matteo Franco e di Luigi Pulci, 1759. Cp. above, Part i. p. 431.]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XV. PIETRO ARETINO

Aretino's Place in Italian Literature and Society--His Birth and Boyhood--Goes to Rome--In the Service of Agostino Chigi--At Mantua--Gradual Emergence into Celebrity--The Incident of Giulio Romano's Postures--Giovanni delle Bande Nere--Aretino settles at Venice--The Mystery of his Influence--Discerns the Power of the Press--Satire on the Courts--Magnificent Life--Aretino's Wealth--His Tributary Princes--Bullying and Flattery--The Divine Aretino--His Letter to Vittoria Colonna--To Michelangelo--His Admiration of Artists--Relations with Men of Letters--Epistle to Bernardo Tasso--His Lack of Learning--Disengagement from Puristic Prejudices--Belief in his own Powers--Rapidity of Composition--His Style--Originality and Independence--Prologue to Talanta--Bohemian Comrades--Niccolo Franco--Quarrel with Doni--Aretino's Literary Influence--His Death--The Anomaly of the Renaissance--Estimate of Aretino's Character.

Pietro Aretino, as I have already had occasion to observe, is a representative name in the history of Italian literature. It is almost as impossible to slur him over with a passing notice as it would be to dwell but casually upon Machiavelli or Ariosto, Cellini or Poliziano, in reviewing the Renaissance. Base in character, coarse in mental fiber, unworthy to rank among real artists, notwithstanding his undoubted genius, Aretino was the typical ruffian of an age which brought ruffianism to perfection, welcomed it when successful, bowed to its insolence, and viewed it with complacent toleration in the highest places of Church, State, and letters. He was the condottiere of the pen in a society which truckled to the Borgias. He embodied the infamy and cowardice which lurked beneath the braveries of Italian Court-life--the coarseness of speech which contradicted literary purism--the cynicism and gross strength of appetite for which convention was a flimsy veil.[488] The man himself incarnated the dissolution of Italian culture. His works, for the student of that period, are an anti-mask to the brilliant display of Ariosto's or of Tasso's puppets. It is the condemnation of Italy that we are forced to give this prominence to Aretino. If we place Poliziano or Guicciardini, Bembo or La Casa, Bandello or Firenzuola, Cellini or Berni, Paolo Giovio or Lodovico Dolce--typical men of letters chosen from the poets, journalists, historians, thinkers, artists, novel-writers of the age--under the critical microscope, we find in each and all of them a tincture of Aretino. It is because he emphasizes and brings into relief one master element of the Renaissance, that he deserves the rank assigned to him. In Athens Aristophanes is named together with Sophocles, Thucydides and Plato, because, with genius equal to theirs, he represented the comic antithesis to tragedy, philosophy and history. In Italy Aretino is classed with Machiavelli and Ariosto for a different reason. His lower nature expressed, not an antithesis, but a quality, which, in spite of intellectual and moral superiority, they possessed in common with him, which he exhibited in arrogant abundance, and which cannot be omitted from the survey of his century. The alloy of cynicism in Machiavelli, his sordid private pleasures, his perverse admiration for Cesare Borgia, his failure to recognize the power of goodness in the world, condemn him to the company of this triumvir. The profligacy of genius in Ariosto, his waste of divine gifts upon trifles, his lack of noble sentiment, his easy acquiescence in conditions of society against which he should have uttered powerful protest, consign him, however undeservedly, to the same association.[489]

[Footnote 488: The best source of information regarding Pietro Aretino is his own correspondence published in six volumes (Paris, 1609), and the two volumes of letters written to him by eminent personages, which are indeed a rich mine of details regarding Italian society and manners in the sixteenth century. Mazzuchelli's Vita di Pietro Aretino (Padua, 1741) is a conscientious, sober, and laborious piece of work, on which all subsequent notices have been based.]

[Footnote 489: It may be mentioned that Ariosto has immortalized this bully in the Orlando (xlvi. 14), among the most illustrious men and women of his age:

ecco il flagello De' principi, il divin Pietro Aretino.]

Pietro was born at Arezzo in 1492. His reputed father was a nobleman of that city, named Luigi Bacci. His mother, Tita, was a woman of the town, whose portrait, painted as the Virgin of the Annunciation, adorned the church-door of S. Pietro. The boy, "born," as he afterwards boasted, "in a hospital with the spirit of a king," passed his childhood at Arezzo with his mother. He had no education but what he may have picked up among the men who frequented Tita's house, or the artists who employed her as a model. Of Greek and Latin he learned nothing either now or afterwards. Before growing to man's estate, he had to quit his native city--according to one account because he composed and uttered a ribald sonnet on indulgences, according to another because he robbed his mother. He escaped to Perugia, and gained his livelihood by binding books. Here he made acquaintance with Firenzuola, as appears from a letter of the year 1541, in which he alludes to their youthful pranks together at the University. One of Aretino's exploits at Perugia became famous. "Having noticed in a place of much resort upon the public square a picture, in which the Magdalen was represented at the feet of Christ, with extended arms and in an attitude of passionate grief, he went privily and painted in a lute between her hands." From Perugia he trudged on foot to Rome, and entered the service of Agostino Chigi, under whose patronage he made himself useful to the Medici, remaining in the retinue of both Leo X. and Clement VII. between 1517 and 1524. This period of seven years formed the man's character; and it would be interesting to know for certain what his employment was. Judging by the graphic descriptions he has left us of the Roman Court in his comedy of the Cortigiana and his dialogue De le Corti, and also by his humble condition in Perugia, we have reason to believe that he occupied at first the post of lackey, rising gradually by flattery and baser arts to the position of a confidential domestic, half favorite, half servant.[490] That he possessed extraordinary social qualities, and knew how to render himself agreeable by witty conversation and boon companionship, is obvious from the whole course of his subsequent history. It is no less certain that he allowed neither honor nor self-respect to interfere with his advancement by means which cannot be described in detail, but which opened the readiest way to favor in that profligate society of Rome. His own enormous appetite for sensual enjoyment, his cynicism, and his familiarity with low life in all its forms, rendered him the congenial associate of a great man's secret pleasures, the convenient link of communication between the palace and the stews.[491]

[Footnote 490: Aretino's comedies, letters, and occasional poems are our best sources for acquaintance with the actual conditions of palace-life. The Dialogo de le Corti opens with a truly terrible description of the debauchery and degradation to which a youth was exposed on his first entrance into the service of a Roman noble. It may have been drawn from the author's own experience. The nauseous picture of the tinello, or upper-servants' hall, which occurs in the comedy Cortigiana (act v. sc. 15), proves intimate familiarity with the most revolting details of domestic drudgery. The dirt of these places made an ineffaceable impression on Aretino's memory. In his burlesque Orlandino, when he wishes to call up a disgusting image, he writes:

Odorava la sala come odora Un gran tinel d'un Monsignor Francese, O come quel d'un Cardinal ancora Quando Febo riscalda un bestial mese.]

[Footnote 491: Aretino's correspondence and the comedy above mentioned throw sufficient light upon these features of Roman society. It will, for the rest, suffice to quote a passage from Monsignore Guidiccioni's letter to Giambattista Bernardi (Opere di M. Giov. Guidiccioni, Barbera, 1867, vol. i. p. 195): "Non solamente da questi illustri per ricchezze non si puo avere, ma non si puote ancora sperare premio che sia di lunghe fatiche o di rischio di morte, se l'uomo non si rivolge ad acquistarlo per vie disoneste. Perciocche essi non carezzano e non esaltano se non adulatori, e quelli che sanno per alfabeto le abitazioni, le pratiche e le qualita delle cortigiane." The whole letter should be read by those who would understand Roman society of the Renaissance. The italics are mine.]

Yet though Pietro resided at this time principally in Rome, he had by no means a fixed occupation, and his life was interrupted by frequent wanderings. He is said to have left Agostino Chigi's service, because he stole a silver cup. He is also said to have taken the cowl in a Capuchin convent at Ravenna, and to have thrown his frock to the nettles on the occasion of Leo's election to the Papacy. We hear of him parading in the Courts of Lombardy, always on the lookout for patronage, supporting himself by what means is unapparent, but gradually pushing his way to fame and fashion, loudly asserting his own claims to notice, and boasting of each new favor he received. Here is a characteristic glimpse into his nomadic mode of life:[492] "I am now in Mantua with the Marquis, and am held by him in so high favor that he leaves off sleeping and eating to converse with me, and says he has no other pleasure in life; and he has written to the Cardinal about me things that will not fail to help me greatly to my credit. I have also received a present of 300 crowns. He has assigned to me the very same apartment which Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, occupied when he was in exile; and has appointed a steward to preside over my table, where I always have some noblemen of rank. In a word, more could not be done for the entertainment of the greatest prince. Besides, the whole Court worships me. Happy are they who can boast of having got a verse from me. My lord has had all the poems ever writ by me copied, and I have made some in his praise. So I pass my life here, and every day get some gift, grand things which you shall see at Arezzo. But it was at Bologna they began to make me presents. The Bishop of Pisa had a robe of black satin embroidered with gold cut for me; nothing could be handsomer. So I came like a prince to Mantua. Everybody calls me 'Messere' and 'Signore.' I think this Easter we shall be at Loreto, where the Marquis goes to perform a vow; and on this journey I shall be able to satisfy the Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino, both of whom have expressed the desire to make my acquaintance."

[Footnote 492: Quoted by Philarete Chasles from Gamurrini, Ist. Gen. delle famiglie nobili Toscane ed Umbre, iii. 332. I do not know exactly to what period the letter refers.]

On the election of Clement VII., Pietro returned to Rome with a complimentary sonnet in his pocket for the new Pope. He had now acquired an Italian reputation, and was able to keep the state of an independent gentleman, surrounded by a band of disreputable hangers-on, the bardassonacci, paggi da taverna, of Berni's satirical sonnet. But a misfortune obliged him suddenly to decamp. Giulio Romano had designed a series of obscene figures, which Marcantonio Raimondi engraved, and Aretino illustrated by sixteen sonnets, describing and commenting upon the lewdness of each picture. Put in circulation, these works of immodest art roused the indignation of the Roman prelates, who, though they complacently listened to Berni's Pesche or La Casa's Forno behind the closed doors of a literary club, disliked the scandal of publicity. Raimondi was imprisoned; Giulio Romano went in the service of the Marquis of Mantua to build the famous Palazzo del Te; and Aretino discreetly retired from Rome for a season. Of the three accomplices in this act of high treason against art, Aretino was undoubtedly the guiltiest. Yet he had the impudence to defend his sonnets in 1537, and to address them with a letter of dedication, unmatched for its parade of shamelessness, to Messer Battista Zatti of Brescia.[493] In this epistle he takes credit to himself for having procured the engraver's pardon and liberation from Clement VII. However this may be, he fell in 1524 under the special ban of Monsignor Giberti's displeasure, and had to take refuge with Giovanni de' Medici delle Bande Nere.[494] This famous general was a wild free-liver. He conceived a real affection for Aretino, made him the sharer in his debaucheries, gave him a place even in his own bed, and listened with rapture to his indecent improvisations. Aretino's fortune was secured. It was discovered that he had the art of pleasing princes. He knew exactly how to season his servility with freedom, how to flatter the great man by pandering to his passions and tickling his vanity, while he added the pungent sauce of satire and affected bluntness. Il gran Diavolo, as Giovanni de' Medici was called, introduced Aretino to Francis I., and promised, if fortune favored him, to make the adventurer master of his native town, Arezzo.[495]

[Footnote 493: Lettere, vol. i. p. 258.]

[Footnote 494: It may be remembered that Giberti, Bishop of Verona, was Berni's patron. This helps to account for the animosity between Berni and Aretino.]

[Footnote 495: Op. Burl. ii. p. 11:

Sotto Milano dieci volte, non ch'una, Mi disse: Pietro, se di questa guerra Mi scampa Dio e la buona fortuna, Ti voglio impadronir della tua terra.

Giovanni de' Medici wrote to him thus: "Vieni presto.... Il re a buon proposito si dolse che non ti aveva menato al solito, onde io diedi la colpa al piacerti piu lo stare in Corte che in Campo ... non so vivere senza l'Aretino."--Lettere scritte all'Aretino, i. 6.]

Aretino's intercourse with these powerful protectors was broken by a short visit to Rome, where he seems to have made peace with the prelates. It was probably inconvenient to protract hostilities against a man who had gained the friendship of a King of France and of the greatest Italian condottiere of his age. But fortune had ceased to smile on our hero in Rome. It so happened that he wrote a ribald sonnet on a scullion-wench in the service of Monsignor Giberti, to whom a certain Achille della Volta was at the same time paying his addresses. The bravo avenged this insult to his mistress by waylaying Aretino in the Trastevere and stabbing him several times in the breast and hands. When Aretino recovered from his wounds, he endeavored in vain to get justice against Achille. The Pope and his Datary refused to interfere in this ignoble quarrel. Aretino once more retired from Rome, vowing vengeance against Clement, whom he defamed to the best of his ability in scurrilous libels and calumnious conversation.[496]

[Footnote 496: The sonnet by Berni quoted above, p. 371, was written to meet these libels of Aretino. It contains an allusion to Achille della Volta's poignard.]

He now remained with Giovanni de' Medici until that general's death in 1526. The great captain died in Aretino's arms at Mantua from the effect of a wound inflicted by an unknown harquebuss in Frundsperg's army.[497] This accident decided Aretino to place no further reliance on princely patronage. He was thirty-two years of age, and had acquired a singular reputation throughout Italy for social humor, pungent wit and literary ability. Though deficient in personal courage, as the affair of Achille della Volta proved, he contrived to render himself formidable by reckless evil-speaking; and while he had no learning and no style, he managed to pass for a writer of distinction. How he attained this position in an age of purists, remains a puzzle; we possess nothing which explains the importance attached to his compositions at this early period. His sonnets had made what the French call a success of scandal; and the libertines who protected him, were less particular about literary elegance than eager to be amused. If we inquire minutely into the circumstances of Aretino's career, we find that he had worked himself into favor with a set of princes--the Marquis of Mantua, the Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino, Giovanni de' Medici, and the King of France--who were powerful enough to confer fashion upon an adventurer, and to place him in a position where it would be perilous to contest his claims, but who were not eminent for literary taste. In the Court of the two Medici at Rome, who exacted more scholarship and refinement than Aretino possessed, he never gained firm footing; and this was perhaps the chief reason of his animosity against Clement. He had in fact become the foremost parasite, the wittiest and most brilliant companion of debauch, in the less cultivated Italian Courts. This reputation he now resolved to use for his own profit. From the moment when he retired to Venice in 1527, resolved to support himself by literary work, until his death, in 1557, he enjoyed a princely income, levying tribute on kings and nobles, living with prodigal magnificence, corresponding with the most illustrious men of all nations, and dictating his own terms to the society he alternately flattered and insulted. The history of these last thirty years, which may be clearly read in the six bulky volumes of his published correspondence, and in the four volumes of letters written to him, is one of the most extraordinary instances on record of celebrity and power acquired by calculated imposture and audacious brigandism.[498]

[Footnote 497: See Aretino's Letters, vol. i. pp. 8, 10, for very interesting details concerning the death of Giovanni de' Medici. He here used the interest of his old master to secure the favor of Duke Cosimo.]

[Footnote 498: The edition of Aretino's own letters which I shall use is that of Paris, 1609 in six books. The edition of the Lettere scritte all'Aretino is Romagnoli's reprint, Scelta di Curiosita, Bologna, 1873-1876, Dispensa cxxxii., two books divided into four volumes; to these, for convenience sake, I shall refer as 1, 2, 3, 4.]

Aretino showed prudence in the choice of Venice for his fixed abode. In Venice there was greater liberty both of life and speech than elsewhere at that time in Italy. So long as a man refrained from politics and offered no cause of suspicion to the State, he might do and publish pretty much what he chose, without fear of interference and without any serious peril from the Inquisition. For a filibuster of Aretino's type, Venice offered precisely the most advantageous harbor, whence he could make sallies and predatory excursions, and whither he might always return to rest at ease beneath the rampart of a proud political indifference. His greatness consisted in the accurate measure he had taken of the society upon which he now intended to live by literary speculation. His acute common sense enabled him to comprehend the power of the press, which had not as yet been deliberately used as a weapon of offense and an instrument of extortion. We have seen in another portion of this book how important a branch of literature the invectives of the humanists had been, how widely they were read, and what an impression they produced upon society. The diatribes of Poggio and Filelfo circulated in manuscript; but now the press was in full working order, and Aretino perceived that he might make a livelihood by printing threats and libels mixed with eulogies and personal panegyrics. The unwieldy three-decker of the invective should be reduced to the manageable form of the epistolary torpedo and gunboat. To propagate calumnies and to render them imperishable by printing was the menace he addressed to society. He calculated wisely on the uneasiness which the occasional appearance of stinging pamphlets, fully charged with personalities, would produce among the Italians, who were nothing if not a nation of readers at this epoch. At the same time he took measures to secure his own safety. Professing himself a good Christian, he liberally seasoned his compositions with sacred names; and, though he had no more real religion than Fra Timoteo in Machiavelli's Mandragola he published pious romances under the titles of I tre libri della Humanita di Christo, I Sette Salmi de la penitentia di David, Il Genesi di Pietro Aretino, La Vita di Catherina Vergine, La Vita di Maria Vergine, La Vita di S. Tommaso Signor d'Aquino. These books, proceeding from the same pen as the Sonetti lussuriosi and the pornographic Ragionamenti, were an insult to piety. Still they served their author for a shield, behind which he shot the arrows of his calumnies, and carried on the more congenial game of making money by pandering to the licentiousness or working on the cowardice of the wealthy.[499]

[Footnote 499: It is clear from a perusal of the Lettere all'Aretino that his reputation depended in a great measure upon these pious romances. The panegyrics heaped on them are too lengthy and too copious to be quoted. They are curiously mixed with no less fervent praises of the Dialoghi.]

Aretino, who was able to boast that he had just refused a flattering invitation from the Marquis of Montferrat, was received with honor by the State of Venice. Soon after his arrival he wrote thus to the Doge Andrea Gritti:[500] "I, who, in the liberty of so great and virtuous a commonwealth, have now learned what it is to be free, reject Courts henceforth for ever, and here make my abiding tabernacle for the years that yet remain to me; for here there is no place for treason, here favor cannot injure right, here the cruelty of prostitutes exerts no sway, here the insolence of the effeminate is powerless to command, here there is no robbing, no violence to the person, no assassination. Wherefore I, who have stricken terror into kings, I, who have restored confidence to virtuous men, give myself to you, fathers of your people, brothers of your servants, sons of truth, friends of virtue, companions of the stranger, pillars of religion, observers of your word, executors of justice, treasuries of charity, and subjects of clemency." Then follows a long tirade in the same stilted style upon the majesty of Venice. The Doge took Aretino by the hand, reconciled him with Clement and the Bishop of Verona, and assured him of protection, so long as the illustrious author chose to make the city of the lagoons his home. Luigi Gritti, the Doge's son, assigned him a pension; and though invitations came from foreign Courts, Aretino made his mind up to remain at Venice. He knew that the very singularity of his resolve, in an age when men of letters sought the patronage of princely houses, would enable him to play the game he had in view. Nor could he forget the degradation he had previously undergone in courtly service. "Only let me draw breath outside that hell! Ah! your Court! your Court! To my mind a gondolier here is better off than a chamberlain there. Look you at yonder poor waiting man, tortured by the cold, consumed by the heat, standing at his master's pleasure--where is the fire to warm him? where is the water to refresh him? When he falls ill, what chamber, what stable, what hospital will take him in? Rain, snow, mud! Faugh, it murders a man to ride in such weather with his patron or upon his errands. Think how cruel it is to have to show a beard grown in the service of mere boys, how abject are white hairs, when youth and manhood have been spent in idling around tables, antechamber doors, and privies? Here I sit when I am tired; when I am hungry, eat; when I feel the inclination, sleep; and all the hours are obedient to my will."[501] He revels in the sense of his own freedom. "My sincerity, and my virtue, which never could stomach the lies that bolster up the Court of Rome, nor the vices that reign in it, have found favor in the eyes of all the princes of the world. Emperors, thank God, are not Popes, nor Kings Cardinals! Therefore I enjoy their generosity, instead of courting that hypocrisy of priests, which acts the bawd and pander to our souls. Look at Chieti, the parasite of penitence! Look at Verona, the buffoon of piety! They at least have solved the doubts in which their ambitious dissimulation held those who believed that the one would not accept the hat, and the other was not scheming for it. I meanwhile praise God for being what I am. The hatred of slaves, the rancors of ambition no longer hem me round. I rob no man's time. I take no delight in seeing my neighbors go naked through the world. Nay, I share with them the very shirts off my back, the crust of bread upon my plate. My servant-girls are my daughters, my lackeys are my brothers. Peace is the pomp of my chambers, and liberty the majordomo of my palace. I feast daily off bread and gladness; and, wishing not to be of more importance than I am, live by the sweat of my ink, the luster of which has never been extinguished by the blasts of malignity or the mists of envy."[502] At another time he breaks into jubilant descriptions of his own magnificence and popularity. "I swear to you by the wings of Pegasus that, much as may have reached your ears, you have not heard one half the hymn of my celebrity. Medals are coined in my honor; medals of gold, of silver, of brass, of lead, of stucco. My features are carved along the fronts of palaces. My portrait is stamped upon comb-cases, engraved on mirror-handles, painted on majolica. I am a second Alexander, Caesar, Scipio. Nay more: I tell you that some kinds of glasses they make at Murano, are called Aretines. Aretine is the name given to a breed of cobs--after one Pope Clement sent me and I gave to Duke Frederick. They have christened the little canal that runs beside my house upon the Canalozzo, Rio Aretino. And, to make the pedants burst with rage, besides talking of the Aretine style, three wenches of my household, who have left me and become ladies, will have themselves known only as the Aretines."[503]

[Footnote 500: Lettere, vol. i. p. 3.]

[Footnote 501: Lettere, i. 204.]

[Footnote 502: Lettere, ii. 58.]

[Footnote 503: Lettere, iii. 145; cp. iii. 89. The whole of the passage translated above is an abstract of a letter professedly written to Aretino by Doni (Lett. all'Ar. vol. iv. p. 395), which may be read with profit as an instance of flattery. The occurrence of the same phrases in both series of epistles raises a doubt whether Aretino did not tamper with the text of the correspondence he published, penning panegyrics of himself and printing them under fictitious names as advertisements. Doni was a man who might have lent himself to such imposture on the public.]

These self-congratulations were no idle vaunts. His palace on the Grand Canal was crowded with male and female servants, thronged with visitors, crammed with costly works of art and presents received from every part of Italy and Europe. The choicest wines and the most exquisite viands--rare birds, delicate fruits, and vegetables out of season--arrived by special messengers to furnish forth his banquets. Here he kept open house, enjoying the society of his two bosom friends, Titian and Sansovino, entertaining the magnificent Venetian prostitutes, and welcoming the men of fashion or of learning who made long journeys to visit him.[504] "If I only spent in composition one third of the time I fling away, the printers would do nothing but attend to the issuing of my works. And yet I could not write so much if I would; so enormous is the multitude which comes incessantly to see me. I am often forced to fly from my own house, and leave the concourse to take care of itself."[505] "So many lords and gentlemen are eternally breaking in upon me with their importunities, that my stairs are worn by their feet like the Capitol with wheels of triumphal chariots. Turks, Jews, Indians, Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, flock to see me. You can fancy how many Italians come! I say nothing about the common folk. You could not find me without a flock of friars and priests. I have come to be the Oracle of Truth, the Secretary of the Universe: everybody brings me the tale of his injury by this prince or that prelate."[506] This sumptuous train of life demanded a long purse, and Aretino had nothing but his brains to live by. Yet, by the sale of his books and the contributions levied on great folk, he accumulated a yearly income sufficient to his needs. "Thanks to their Majesties of Spain and France, with the addition of a hundred crowns of pension allowed me by the Marquis of Vasto, and the same amount paid by the Prince of Salerno, I have six hundred crowns of fixed income, besides the thousand or thereabouts I make yearly with a quire of paper and a bottle of ink."[507] In another place he says that in the course of eighteen years "the alchemy of his pen had drawn over twenty-five thousand crowns from the entrails of various princes."[508] It was computed that, during his lifetime, he levied blackmail to the extent of about 70,000 crowns, or considerably more than a million of francs, without counting his strictly professional earnings. All this wealth he spent as soon as he laid hands upon it, boasting loudly of his prodigality, as though it were a virtue. He dressed splendidly, and denied himself no sensual indulgence. His house contained a harem of women, devoted to his personal pleasures and those, apparently, of his familiar friends. He had many illegitimate daughters, whom he dowered. Moreover, he was liberal to poor people; and while squandering money first upon his vices, he paid due attention to his reputation for generosity.[509] The bastard of Arezzo vaunted he had been born in a hospital with the soul of a king.[510] Yet he understood nothing of real magnanimity; his charity was part of an openhanded recklessness, which made him fling the goods of fortune to the wind as soon as gained--part of the character of grand seigneur he aspired to assume.[511]

[Footnote 504: See Lettere all'Ar. vol. iv. p. 352, for a vivid description, written by Francesco Marcolini, of Aretino's train of living and prodigal hospitality. It realizes the vast banqueting-pictures of Veronese.]

[Footnote 505: Lettere, iii. 72.]

[Footnote 506: Lettere, i. 206. This passage occurs also in a letter addressed to Aretino by one Alessandro Andrea (Lett. all'Ar. vol. iii. p. 178); whence Mazzuchelli argues that Aretino tampered with the letters written to him, and interpolated passages before he sent them to the press. See last page, note 1.]

[Footnote 507: Lettere, ii. 213.]

[Footnote 508: Lettere, iii. 70.]

[Footnote 509: See Lettere, ii. 257; iii. 340; v. 251.]

[Footnote 510: See the Capitolo al Duca di Fiorenza.]

[Footnote 511: Marcolini's letter (Lettere all'Aretino, vol. iv. p. 352), and some letters from obscure scholars (for example, ib. vol. ii. pp. 118-121), seem to prove that he was really openhanded in cases of distress.]

It would fatigue the patience of the reader to furnish forth a complete list of the presents made to Aretino and acknowledged by him in his correspondence. Chains, jewels, horses, pictures, costly stuffs, cups, mirrors, delicacies of the table, wines--nothing came amiss to him; and the more he received, the more he cried continually, give, give, give! There was hardly a reigning prince in Europe, hardly a noble of distinction in Italy, who had not sent some offering to his shrine. The Sultan Soliman, the pirate Barbarossa, the Pope, the Emperor, were among his tributaries.[512] The Empress gave him a golden collar worth three hundred crowns. Philip, Infante of Spain, presented him with another worth four hundred. Francis I. bestowed on him a still more costly chain, wrought of pure gold, from which hung a row of red enameled tongues, bearing the inscription Lingua ejus loquetur mendacium. Aretino received these presents from the hands of embassadors, and wore them when he sat to Titian or to Tintoretto for his portrait. Instead of resenting the equivocal compliment of the French king's motto, he gloried in it. Lies, no less than flattery, were among the openly-avowed weapons of his armory.[513] Upon the medals struck in his honor he styled himself Divus P. Aretinus, Flagellum Principum, the Divine Pietro Aretino, Scourge of Princes. Another inscription ran as follows: I Principi tributati dai popoli il Servo loro tributano--Princes who levy tribute from their people, bring tribute to their servant. And there is Aretino seated on a throne, with noble clients laying golden vases at his feet.[514]

[Footnote 512: There is a letter from Barbarossa to Aretino in the Lettere all'Ar. vol. iii. p. 269.]

[Footnote 513: See the frank admissions in Lettere, ii. 52; iv. 168; i. 19, 30, 142.]

[Footnote 514: See the plates prefixed to Mazzuchelli's Life of Aretino. Compare a passage in his Letters, vi. 115, and the headings of the Letters addressed to him, passim.]

It is incredible that arrogance so palpable should have been tolerated, inconceivable how such a braggart exercised this fascination. What had Emperors and Kings to gain or lose by Aretino's pen? What was the secret of his power? No satisfactory answer has yet been given to these questions. The enigma does not, indeed, admit of solution. We have to deal in Aretino's case with a blind movement among "the better vulgar," expressing itself as fashion; and nothing is more difficult to fathom than the fashion of a bygone age.[515] The prestige which attached itself to people like Cagliostro or S. Germains or Beau Nash is quite incalculable. Yet some account may be rendered of what seems to have been Aretino's method. He assiduously cultivated a reputation for reckless freedom of speech. He loudly trumpeted his intention of speaking evil when and where it pleased him. He proclaimed himself the champion of veracity, asserted that nothing was so damnatory as the truths he had to tell, and announced himself the "Censor of the world," the foe of vice, the defender of virtue. Having occupied the ear of society by these preliminary fanfaronnades, he proceeded to satirize the Courts in general, and to vilify the manners of princes, without mentioning any in particular.[516] It thus came to be believed that Aretino was a dangerous person, a writer it would be wiser to have upon one's side, and who, if he were not coaxed into good humor, might say something eminently disagreeable.[517] There was pungency enough in his epigrams, in the slashing, coarse, incisive brutality of his style, to make his attack formidable. People shrank from it, as they now shrink from articles in certain libelous weekly papers. Aretino was recognized as a Cerberus, to whom sops should be thrown. Accordingly, the custom began of making him presents and conferring on him pensions. Then it was discovered that if he used a pen dipped in vitriol for his enemies, he had in reserve a pen of gold for his patrons, from which the gross mud-honey of flatteries incessantly trickled.[518] To send him a heavy fee was the sure way of receiving an adulatory epistle, in which the Scourge of Princes raised his benefactor of the moment to the skies. In a word, Aretino's art consisted in making each patron believe that the vigilant satirist of other people's vices bestowed just eulogy on him alone, and that his praises were wrung from the mouth of truth by singular and exceptional merit. The fact is that though Aretino corresponded with all the princes of Europe and with at least thirty Cardinals, his letters are nothing but a series of the grossest flatteries. There is a hint here and there that the benefactor had better loosen his purse strings, if he wishes the stream of sycophancy to continue. When Cerberus has been barking long without a sop, we hear an angry growl, a menace, a curt and vicious snarl for gold.[519] But no sooner has the gift been sent, than the fawning process recommences. In this way, by terrorism and toad-eating, by wheedling and bullying, by impudent demands for money and no less impudent assertions of his power to confer disgrace or fame, the rascal held society at his disposal. He boasted, and not without reason, that from his study in Venice he could move the world by a few lines scribbled on a piece of paper with his pen. What remains inconceivable, is that any value should have been attached to his invectives or his panegyrics--that persons of distinction should have paid him for the latter, and have stooped to deprecate the former. But it had become the fashion to be afraid of Aretino, the fashion to court his goodwill, the fashion to parade his praises. Francis I. and Charles V. led this vogue. The other princes followed suit. Charles wished to knight Aretino: but the adventurer refused a barren honor. Julius III. made him knight of S. Peter with a small pension. Henry VIII. sent him a purse of 300 crowns for a dedicatory epistle.[520] It was even talked of elevating him to the rank of Cardinal, and engrossing his talents for the service of the Church.[521] Nobody thought of addressing him without the prefix of Divino.[522] And yet, all this while, it was known to every one in Italy that Aretino was a pander, a coward, a liar, a debauchee, who had wallowed in every lust, sold himself to work all wickedness, and speculated on the grossest passions, the basest curiosities, the vilest vices of his age.[523]

[Footnote 515: After studying the Lettere scritte all'Aretino--epistles, it must be remembered, from foreign kings and princes, from cardinals and bishops, from Italian dukes and noblemen, from illustrious ladies and great artists, and from the most distinguished men of letters of his day--I am quite at a loss to comprehend the furore of fashion which accompanied this man through his career. One and all praise him as the most powerful, the most virtuous, the bravest, the wittiest, the wisest, or, to use their favorite phrase, the divinest man of his century. Was all this a mere convention? Was it evoked by fear and desire of being flattered in return? Or, after all, had Aretino some now occult splendor, some real, but now unintelligible, utility for his contemporaries?]

[Footnote 516: The Papal Court was attacked by him; but none other that I can discover. The only Prince who felt the rough side of his tongue was the Farnese:

Impara tu, Pierluigi ammorbato, Impara, Ducarel da sei quattrini, Il costume d'un Re si onorato.

Cardinal Gaddi and the Bishop of Verona were pretty roughly treated. So was Clement VII. But all these personages made their peace with Aretino, and paid him homage.]

[Footnote 517: See the curious epistle written to Messer Pompeo Pace by the Conte di Monte Labbate, and included among the Lettere all'Aretino, vol. iv. p. 385. Speaking of Aretino's singular worth and excellent qualities, it discusses the question of the terror he inspired, which the author attributes to a kind of justifiable chantage. That Aretino was the inventor of literary chantage is certain; but that it was justifiable, does not appear.]

[Footnote 518: Aretino made no secret of his artificial method of flattery. In a letter to Bembo (Lettere, ii. 52), he openly boasts that his literary skill enables him to "swell the pride of grandees with exorbitant praises, keeping them aloft in the skies upon the wings of hyperboles." "It is my business," he adds, "to transform digressions, metaphors, and pedagogeries of all sorts into capstans for moving and pincers for opening. I must so work that the voice of my writings shall break the sleep of avarice; and baptize that conceit or that phrase which shall bring me crowns of gold, not laurels."]

[Footnote 519: As a sample of his begging style, we may extract the following passage from a letter (1537), referring to the king of France (Lettere, i. 111): "I was and ever shall be the servant of his Majesty, of whom I preached and published what appears in all my utterances and in all my works. But since it is my wonted habit not to live by dreams, and since certain persons take no care for me, I have with glory to myself made myself esteemed and sought by those who are really liberal. The chain was three years delayed, and four have gone without so much as a courtesy to me from the King's quarter. Therefore I have turned to one who gives without promising--I speak of the Emperor. I adored Francis; but never to get money from the stirring of his liberality, is enough to cool the furnaces of Murano."]

[Footnote 520: See Cromwell's letter, in the Lettere all'Aretino, vol. ii. p. 15.]

[Footnote 521: Lettere all'Aretino, vol. i. p. 245; vol. iv. pp. 281, 289, 300, contain allusions to this project, which is said to have originated with the Duke of Parma. The first citation is a letter of Titian's.]

[Footnote 522: "Divino," "Divinissimo," "Precellentissimo," "Unichissimo," "Onnipotente," are a few of the epithets culled from the common language of his flatterers.]

[Footnote 523: I will translate passages from two letters, which, by their very blasphemies, emphasize this contradiction. "One might well say that you, most divine Signor Pietro, are neither Prophet nor Sibyl, but rather the very Son of God, seeing that God is highest truth in heaven, and you are truth on earth; nor is any city but Venice fit to give you harborage, who are the jewel of the earth, the treasure of the sea, the pride of heaven; and that rare cloth of gold, bedecked with gems, they place upon the altar of S. Mark's, is naught but you" (Lettere scritte a P. Aretino, vol. iii. p. 176). The next is more extraordinary, since it professes to be written by a monk: "In this our age you are a column, lantern, torch and splendor of Holy Church, who, could she speak, would give to you the revenues of Chieti, Farnese, Santa Fiore, and all those other idlers, crying out--Let them be awarded to the Lord Pietro, who distinguishes, exalts and honors me, in whom unite the subtlety of Augustine, the moral force of Gregory, Jerome's profundity of meaning, the weighty style of Ambrose. It is not I but the whole world that says you are another Paul, who have borne the name of the Son of God into the presence of kings, potentates, princes of the universe; another Baptist, who with boldness, fearing naught, have reproved, chastised, exposed iniquities, malice, hypocrisy before the whole world; another John the Evangelist, for exhorting, entreating, exalting, honoring the good, the righteous, and the virtuous. Verily he who first called you Divine, can claim the words Christ spake to Peter: Beatus es, quia caro et sanguis non revelavit tibi, sed Pater noster qui in coelis est" (Ibid. p. 142).]

Sometimes he met with men stout enough to treat him as he deserved. The English embassador at Venice cudgeled him within an inch of his life. Pietro Strozzi threatened to assassinate him if he showed his face abroad, and Aretino kept close so long as the condottiere remained in Venice. Tintoretto offered to paint his portrait; and when he had got the fellow inside his studio, grimly took his measure with a cutlass. Aretino never resented these insults. Bully as he was, he bowed to blows, and kissed the hand that dared to strike him. We have already seen how he waited till Berni's death before he took revenge for the famous sonnet. All this makes the general adulation of society for the "divine Aretino" the more unintelligible. We can only compare the treatment he received with the mingled contempt and flattery, the canings and the invitations, showered at the present time on editors of scandal-mongering journals.

The miracle of Aretino's dictatorship is further enhanced by the fact that he played with cards upon the table. His epistles were continually being printed--in fact, were sent to the press as soon as written. Here all the world could see the workings of his mind, his hypocrisies, his contradictions, the clamorousness of his demands for gold, the grossness and universality of his flatteries, his cynical obscenity, his simulation of a superficial and disgusting piety. Yet the more he published of his correspondence, the louder was the acclamation of society. The charlatan of genius knew his public, and won their favor by effronteries that would have ruined a more cautious impostor. Some of his letters are masterpieces of infernal malice. The Marchioness of Pescara had besought him to change his mode of life, and to dedicate his talents only to religion.[524] This is how he answers her:[525] "It gives me pleasure, most modest lady, that the religious pieces I have written do not displease the taste of your good judgment. Your doubt, whether to praise me or to dispraise me for expending my talents on aught else than sacred studies, is prompted by that most excellent spirit which moves you to desire that every thought and every word should turn toward God, forasmuch as He is the giver of virtue and of intellectual power. I confess that I am less useful to the world, and less acceptable to Christ, when I exhaust my studious energies on lying trifles, and not on the eternal verities. But all this evil is caused by the pleasure of others, and by my own necessities; for if the princes were as truly pious as I am indigent, I would employ my pen on nothing else but Misereres. Excellent my lady, all men are not gifted with the graces of divine inspiration. They are ever burning with lustful desires, while you are every hour inflamed with angelic fire. For you the services of the Church and sermons are what music and comedies are for them. You would not turn your eyes to look at Hercules upon his pyre, nor yet on Marsyas without his skin: while they would hardly keep a S. Lawrence on the gridiron or a flayed Bartholomew in their bedroom. There's my bosom friend Bruciolo; five years ago he dedicated his Bible to the King, who calls himself Most Christian, and yet he has not had an answer. Perhaps the book was neither well translated nor well bound. On this account my Cortigiana, which drew from his Majesty the famous chain of gold, abstained from laughing at his Old Testament; for this would be indecent. So you see I ought to be excused if I compose jests for my livelihood and not for evil purpose. Anyhow, may Jesus inspire you with the thought of paying me through M. Sebastiano of Pesaro--from whom I received your thirty crowns--the rest, which I owe, upon my word and honor. From Venice. The 9th of January, 1537."

[Footnote 524: Her letter may be read in the Lettere all'Aretino, vol iii. p. 28.]

[Footnote 525: Lettere, ii. 9.]

This letter, one long tissue of sneers, taunts and hypocritical sarcasms, gives the complete measure of Aretino's arrogance. Yet the illustrious and pious lady to whom it was addressed, suffered the writer--such was this man's unaccountable prestige--to remain her correspondent. The collection of his letters contains several addressed to Vittoria Colonna, of which the date is subsequent to 1537.[526] Not less remarkable were Aretino's dealings with the proud, resentful, solitary Michelangelo. Professing the highest admiration for Buonarroti's genius, averring that "the world has many kings but one only Michelangelo," Aretino wrote demanding drawings from the mighty sculptor, and giving him advice about his pictures in the Sistine. Instead of treating these impertinent advances with silence or sending a well-merited rebuff, we have a letter from Michelangelo addressed to "M. Pietro, my lord and brother," requesting the dictator to write something concerning him:[527] "Not only do I hold this dear, but I implore you to do so, since kings and emperors regard it as the height of favor to be mentioned by your pen." Was this the depth of humility, or the acme of irony, or was it the acquiescence of a noble nature in a fashion too prevalent to be examined by the light of reason? Let those decide who have read a portion of Aretino's letters to his "singularly divine Buonaruoto." For my own part, in spite of their strange but characteristic fusion of bullying and servility, I find in these epistles a trace of Aretino's most respectable quality--his worship of art, and his personal attachment to great artists. It may be said in passing that he never shows so well as in the epistles to Sansovino and Titian, men from whom he could gain but indirectly, and to whom he clung by an instinct of what was truest and sincerest in his nature. It is, therefore, not improbable that Michelangelo gave him credit for sincerity, and, instead of resenting his importunity, was willing to accept his advances in a kindly spirit.[528]

[Footnote 526: She wrote to him again in 1539; see Lettere all'Aretino, vol. iii. p. 30. The series of letters from the virtuous Veronica Gambara are equally astonishing (ib. vol. i. pp. 318-333).]

[Footnote 527: Lettere all'Aretino, vol. ii. p. 335.]

[Footnote 528: Giorgio Vasari, the common friend of Pietro Aretino and M.A. Buonarroti, had no doubt something to do with the acquiescent courtesy of the latter.]

Thus far we have been dealing with Aretino's relation to sovereigns, ladies, and people of importance in the world of art. That he should have imposed upon them is singular. But his position in the republic of letters offers still stranger food for reflection. In an age of literary refinement and classical erudition, this untaught child of the people arrogated to himself the fame of a prominent author, and had his claims acknowledged by men like Bembo, Varchi, Molza, Sperone.[529] All the Academies in Italy made him their member with extraordinary honors, and he corresponded with every writer of distinction. He treated the scholars of his day as he treated the princes of Italy, abusing them collectively for pedantry, and showering the epithets of divino, divinissimo, upon them individually. With his usual sagacity, Aretino saw how to command the public by running counter to the prejudices of his century, and proclaiming his independence of its principles. He resolved to win celebrity by contrast, by piquancy of style, by the assertion of his individual character, by what Machiavelli termed virtu. As he had boasted of the baseness of his origin, so now he piqued himself upon his ignorance. He made a parade of knowing neither Latin nor Greek, derided the puristic veneration for Petrarch and Boccaccio then in vogue, and asserted that his mother-wit was the best source of inspiration. This audacity proved successful. While the stylists of the day were polishing their labored periods to smoothness, he expressed such thoughts as occurred to him in the words which came first to hand, seeking only vivacity, relief and salience. He wrote as he talked; and the result was that he acquired a well-won reputation for freshness, wit, originality and vigor. This is how he dictates the terms of epistolary style to Bernardo Tasso:[530] "I, who am more your brother in benevolence than you show yourself to be my friend in honor, did not believe that the serenity of my mind would ever again be dimmed by those clouds, which, after thunders and lightnings, burst in the bolt that sent Antonio Broccardo beneath the earth. Pride and vanity, for certain, prompted you to tell the excellent and illustrious Annibale Caro that no writer of letters is worthy to be imitated at the present day, sagaciously hinting at yourself as the right man to be imitated. Without doubt, your inordinate self-love, combined with your inattention to the claims of others, brought your judgment to this pass. I published letters before you, and you borrowed your style, in so far as it is worth anything, from me. Yet you cannot produce even a counterfeit of my manner. My sentences and similes are made to live; yours issue stillborn from your mind. It is time that you copy a few of my familiar phrases, word by word. What else can you do? Your own taste is rather inclined to the scent of flowers than the savor of fruits. You have the graces of a certain celestial style, fit for epithalamial odes and hymns. But all that sweetness is out of place in epistles, where we want the salience of invention, not the illuminated arabesques of artifice. I am not going to sing my own praises, nor to tell you that men of merit ought to mark my birthday with white chalk--I, who without scouring the post-roads, without following Courts, without stirring from my study, have made every living duke, prince, sovereign, tributary to my virtue--I, who hold fame at my discretion through the universe--I, whose portrait is revered, whose name is honored in Persia and the Indies. To end this letter, I salute you with the assurance that nobody, so far as your epistles go, blames you for envy's sake, while many, very many, praise you through compassion for your having written them." There was no limit to his literary self-confidence.[531] "Of the three opinions current respecting the talents which keep my name alive, time has refuted that, which, hearing I had no erudition, judged my compositions to be nonsense, together with that other, which, finding in them some gust of genius, affirmed they were not mine. Whence it follows that only one remains, the opinion, to wit, that I, who never had a tutor, am complete in every branch of knowledge. All this comes from the poverty of art, which ever envies the wealth of nature, from whom I borrow my conceptions. Wherefore, if you are of the number of those who, in order to deprive me of nature's favor, attribute to me the learning that comes from study, you deceive yourself, for I swear by God I hardly understand my mother tongue." Meanwhile his tirades against the purists are full of excellent good sense. "O mistaken multitude, I tell you again, and yet again that poetry is a caprice of nature in her moments of gladness; it depends on a man's own inspiration, and if this fails, a poet's singing is but a tambourine without rattles, a bell-tower without bells. He who attempts to write verses without the gift is like the alchemists, who, for all their industry and eager avarice, never yet made gold, while nature, without labor, turns it out in plenty, pure and beautiful. Take lessons from that painter, who, when he was asked whom he imitated, pointed to a crowd of living men, meaning that he borrowed his examples from life and reality. This is what I do, when I write or talk. Nature herself, of whose simplicity I am the secretary, dictates that which I set down."[532] And again: "I laugh at those pedants, who think that learning consists in Greek and Latin, laying down the law that one who does not understand these languages, cannot open his mouth. It is not because I do not know them, that I have departed from Petrarch's and Boccaccio's precedents; but because I care not to lose time, patience, reputation, in the mad attempt to convert myself into their persons. The true aim of writing is to condense into the space of half a page, the length of histories, the tedium of orations; and this my letters clearly show that I have done." "It is far better to drink out of one's own wooden cup than another's golden goblet; and a man makes a finer show in his own rags than in stolen velvets. What have we to do with other people's property?"[533] "What have we to do with words which, however once in common use, have now passed out of fashion?"[534] At times he bursts into a fury of invective against erudition: "Those pedants, the asses of other people's books, who, after massacring the dead, rest not till they have crucified the living! It was pedantry that murdered Duke Alessandro, pedantry that flung the Cardinal of Ravenna into prison, and, what is worse, stirred up heresy against our faith through the mouth of that arch-pedant Luther."[535] This is admirable. It plunges to the very root of the matter. Sharpened by his hostility to the learning he did not share, and the puerile aspects of which he justly satirized, this acute and clairvoyant critic is enabled to perceive that both Italian tyrannicide and German Reformation had their origin in the humanistic movement of the fifteenth century. He is equally averse to either consequence. Erudition spoils sport, stiffens style, breaks in upon the pastimes of the principalities and papacies, which breed the lusts on which an Aretino lives.

[Footnote 529: The adulation with which all the chief literary men of Italy greeted Aretino, is quite incredible. One must read their letters in the Lettere all'Aretino to have any conception of it. See in particular those of Varchi (ib. vol. ii. pp. 186-202), of Dolce (vol. ii. pp. 277-295), of Paolo Giovio (vol. iii. pp. 59-64), of Niccolo Martelli (vol. iii. pp. 116-125), of Annibale Caro (ib. p. 163), of Sperone (ib. pp. 324-330), of Firenzuola (ib. p. 345), of Doni (vol. iv. p. 395). Molza, terrified by one of Aretino's threats, cringes before him (vol. i. p. 340). Doni signs himself "Il Doni dell'Aretino," and Vergerio, Bishop of Capo d'Istria, "Il Vescovo dell'Aretino." Even the excellent Bishop of Fossombrone pays him courtly compliments (vol. ii. pp. 61-67). The pitch attained by these flatteries may be understood from this opening of a letter: "Bella armonia, e soave concento, dovea essere nel cielo, Signor Pietro divino, e fra le stelle amiche, il di, che Iddio e la Natura di voi fece altero dono a questa nostra etade," etc. ad. inf. (vol. iv. p. 269). Here is another fragment: "Manifestamente si vede e si conosce che da Iddio per conservazione de la sua gloria e per utilita del mondo v'abbi fra tanti avversari," etc. (vol. iv. p. 398).]

[Footnote 530: Lettere, v. 184. The above is only a condensed paraphrase of a very long tirade.]

[Footnote 531: Lettere, ii. 242.]

[Footnote 532: Lettere, i. 123.]

[Footnote 533: Lettere, ii. 182.]

[Footnote 534: Lettere, i. 210.]

[Footnote 535: Lettere, i. 143.]

It was Aretino's boast that he composed as fast as the pen would move across the paper, and that his study contained no books of reference--nothing but the quire of paper and the bottle of ink, which were necessary to immortalize the thick-crowding fancies of his brain. His comedy of the Filosofo was written in ten mornings; the Talanta and the Ipocrita in "the hours robbed from sleep during perhaps twenty nights."[536] Referring to his earlier fertility in 1537, he says:[537] "Old age begins to stupefy my brains, and love, which ought to wake them up, now sends them off to sleep. I used to turn out forty stanzas in a morning; now I can with difficulty produce one. It took me only seven mornings to compose the Psalms; ten for the Cortigiana and the Marescalco; forty-eight for the two Dialogues; thirty for the Life of Christ." The necessary consequences of this haste are discernible in all his compositions. Aretino left nothing artistically finished, nothing to which it is now possible to point in justification of his extraordinary celebrity. His sonnets are below contempt. Frigid, inharmonious, pompous, strained, affected, they exhibit the worst vices to which this species of poetry is liable. His Capitoli, though he compared them to "colossal statues of gold or silver, where I have carved the forms of Julius, a Pope, Charles, an Emperor, Catherine, a Queen, Francesco Maria, a Duke, with such art that the outlines of their inner nature are brought into relief, the muscles of their will and purpose are shown in play, the profiles of their emotions are thrown into salience"[538]--these Capitoli will not bear comparison for one moment with Berni's. They are coarse and strident in style, threadbare in sentiment, commonplace in conception, with only one eminent quality, a certain gross prolific force, a brazen clash and clangor of antithesis, to compensate for their vulgarity. Yet, such as they are, the Capitoli must be reckoned the best of his compositions in verse. Of his comedies I have already spoken. These will always be valuable for their lively sketches of contemporary manners, their free satiric vein of humor. The Dialoghi, although it is scarcely possible to mention them in a decent book of history, are distinguished by the same qualities of veracity, acumen, prolific vigor, animal spirits, and outspokenness. Aretino's religious works, it need hardly be said, are worthless or worse. Impudent romances, penned by one of the most unscrupulous of men, frankly acknowledged by their author to be a tissue of "poetical lies," we are left to marvel how they could have deceived the judgment and perverted the taste of really elevated natures.[539] That the Marchioness of Pescara should have hailed the coarse fictions of the Life of S. Catherine, which Aretino confessed to have written out of his own head, as a work of efficient piety, remains one of the wonders of that extraordinary age.

[Footnote 536: Lettere, iii. 84. Letter at the end of the Talanta.]

[Footnote 537: Lettere, i. 99.]

[Footnote 538: Lettere, vi. 4.]

[Footnote 539: See Lettere, ii. 168, iii. 169, for his method of composing these books.]

What then, it may finally be asked, was Aretino's merit as an author? Why do we allude to him at all in writing the history of sixteenth-century literature? The answer can be given in two words--originality and independence. It was no vain boast of Aretino that he trusted only to nature and mother-wit. His intellectual distinction consisted precisely in this confidence and self-reliance, at a moment when the literary world was given over to pedantic scruples and the formalities of academical prescription. Writing without the fear of pedagogues before his eyes--seeking, as he says, relief, expression, force, and brilliancy of phrase, he produced a manner at once singular and attractive which turned to ridicule the pretensions of the purists. He had the courage of his personality, and stamped upon his style the very form and pressure of himself. As a writer, he exhibited what Machiavelli demanded from the man of action--virtu, or the virility of self-reliance. That was the secret of his success. The same audacity and independence characterize all his utterances of opinion--his criticisms of art and literature--his appreciation of natural beauty. In some of the letters written to painters and sculptors, and in a description of a Venetian sunset already quoted in this book, we trace the dawnings of a true and natural school of criticism, a forecast of the spontaneity of Diderot and Henri Beyle. This naturalness of expression did not save Aretino from glaring bad taste. His letters and his dedicatory introductions abound in confused metaphors, extravagant concetti, and artificial ornaments. It seems impossible for him to put pen to paper without inventing monstrous and ridiculous periphrases. Still the literary impropriety, which would have been affectation in any one else, and which became affectation in his imitators, was true to the man's nature. He could not be true to himself without falseness of utterance, because there was in him an inherent insincerity, and this was veiled by no scholastic accuracy or studied purity of phrase.

Much of the bad taste of the later Renaissance (the tropes of Marini and the absurdities of seicentismo) may be ascribed to the fascination exercised by this strange combination of artificiality and naturalness in a style remarkable for vigor. Who, for instance does not feel that the mannerism of our euphuistic prosaists is shadowed forth in the following passage from the introduction to the Talanta?[540] The Prologue, on the drawing of the curtain, takes the audience into his confidence, and tells them that he long had hesitated which of the Immortal Gods to personate. Mars, Jupiter, Phoebus, Venus, Mercury, and all the Pantheon in succession were rejected, for different appropriate reasons, till the God of Love appeared. "When at last it came to Cupid's turn, I immediately said Yes! and having so assented, I felt wings growing at my shoulders, the quiver at my side, the bow within my hands. In a moment I became all steel, all fire; and eager to be ware what things are done in love, I cast a glance upon the crowd of lovers; whence I soon could see who has the rendezvous, who is sent about his business, who prowls around his mistress' house, who enters by the door, who clambers up the walls, who scales the rope, who jumps from the window, who hides himself within a tub, who takes the cudgel, who gets a gelding for his pains, who is stowed away by the chambermaid, who is kicked out by the serving-man, who goes mad with anxiety, who bursts with passion, who wastes away in gazing, who cuts snooks at hope, who lets himself be hoodwinked, who spends a fortune on his mistress to look grand, who robs her for a freak, who saps her chastity with threats, who conjures her with prayers, who blabs of his success, who hides his luck, who bolsters up his vaunt with lies, who dissembles the truth, who extols the flame that burns him, who curses the cause of his heart's conflagration, who cannot eat for grief, who cannot sleep for joy, who compiles sonnets, who scribbles billets-doux, who dabbles in enchantments, who renews assaults, who takes counsel with bawds, who ties a favor on his arm, who mumbles at a flower the wench has touched, who twangles the lute, who hums a glee, who thrusts his rival through the body, who gets killed by his competitors, who eats his heart out for a mylady, who dies of longing for a strumpet. When I understood the things aforesaid, I turned round to these female firebrands, and saw how the devil (to chastise them for the perverse ways they use toward men who serve them, praise them, and adore them) gives them up, easy victims, to a pedant, a plebeian, a simpleton, a loon, a groom, a graceless clown, and to a certain mange that catches them."

[Footnote 540: I have purposely chosen an extract where the style is keen and mobile. Had I taken examples from the Letters, I could have produced a far closer parallel to Lilly's rhetoric.]

Aretino congregated round him a whole class of literary Bohemians, drawing forth the peccant humors of more than one Italian city, and locating these greedy adventurers in Venice as his satellites. It is enough to mention Niccolo Franco, Giovanni Alberto Albicante, Lorenzo Veniero, Doni, Lodovico Dolce. They were, most of them, hack writers, who gained a scanty livelihood by miscellaneous work for the booksellers and by selling dedications to patrons. More or less successfully, they carried on the trade invented and developed by Aretino; remaining on terms of intimacy with him, at first as friends or secretaries, afterwards as enemies and rivals. We have already seen what use was made of Albicante for the mutilation of Berni's Innamoramento. This poetaster was a native of Milan, who published a history of the war in Piedmont, which Aretino chose to ridicule in one of his Capitoli.[541] Albicante replied with another poem in terza rima, and Aretino seems to have perceived that he had met a worthy adversary. It was Albicante's glory to be called furibondo and bestiale. He affected an utter indifference to consequences, an absolute recklessness concerning what he did and said. Whether Aretino was really afraid of him, or whether he wished to employ him in the matter of Berni's Innamoramento, is not certain. At any rate, he made advances to Albicante in a letter which begins: "My brother, the rage of poets is but a frenzy of stupidity." The antagonists were reconciled, and the Academy of the Intronati at Siena thought this event worthy of commemoration in a volume: "Combattimento poetico del divino Aretino e del bestiale Albicante occorso sopra la Guerra di Piemonte, e la pace loro celebrata nella Accademia de gli Intronati a Siena."

[Footnote 541: See the article on Albicante in Mazzuchelli's Scrittori Italiani, vol. i.]

Niccolo Franco was a native of Benevento, whom Aretino took into his service, as a kind of secretary.[542] Being deficient in scholarship, he needed a man capable of supplying him with Greek and Latin quotations, and who could veneer his coarse work with a show of humanistic erudition. Franco undertook the office; and it is probable that some of Aretino's earlier works of piety and learning--the Genesis, for instance--issued from this unequal collaboration. But their good accord did not last long. Franco proved to be a ruffian of even fiercer type than his master. If Aretino kept a literary poignard in the scabbard, ready to strike when his utility demanded, Franco went about the world with unsheathed dagger, stabbing for the pleasure of the sport. "I would rather lose a dinner," he writes, "than omit to fire my pen off when the fancy takes me." The two men could not dwell together in union. When Aretino published the first series of his letters, Franco issued a rival volume, in the last epistle of which, addressed to Envy, he made an attack on his patron. Ambrogio degli Eusebi, an ame damnee of the Aretine, about whom many scurrilous stories were told, stabbed Franco, while Aretino published invective after invective against him in the form of letters. Franco left Venice, established himself for a while at Casale in the lordship of Montferrat, opened a school at Mantua, and ran a thousand infamous adventures, pouring forth satirical sonnets all the while at Aretino. In the course of his wanderings, he completed a Latin commentary on the Priapea. These two works together--the centuries of sonnets against Aretino, and the Priapic lucubrations--obtained a wide celebrity. Speaking of the book, Tiraboschi is compelled to say that "few works exist which so dishonor human nature. The grossest obscenities, the most licentious evil-speaking, the boldest contempt of princes, Popes, Fathers of the Council, and other weighty personages, are the gems with which he adorned his monument of perverse industry." Franco proved so obnoxious to polite society that he was at last taken and summarily hanged in 1569. The curious point about this condemnation of a cur is, that he was in no whit worse than many other scribblers of the day. But he made more noise; he had not the art to rule society like Aretino; he committed the mistake of trusting himself to the perilous climates of Lombardy and Rome. His old master drove him out of Venice, and the unlucky reprobate paid the penalty of his misdeeds by becoming the scapegoat for men whom he detested.

[Footnote 542: For what follows see Tiraboschi, tom. vii. part 3, lib. iii.]

Doni began his Venetian career as a friend of Aretino, whose companion he was in the famous Academy of the Pellegrini. They quarreled over a present sent to Doni by the Duke of Urbino, and the bizarre Florentine passed over to the ranks of Aretino's bitterest enemies. In 1556 he declared war, with a book entitled "Terremoto del Doni Fiorentino." The preface was addressed to "the infamous and vicious Pietro Aretino, the source and fountain of all evil, the stinking limb of public falsehood, and true Antichrist of our century." Soon after the appearance of this volume, followed Aretino's death. But Doni pursued his animosity beyond the grave, and was instrumental in causing his rival's writings to be subjected to ecclesiastical interdiction.

We tire of these low literary quarrels. Yet they form an integral part of the history of Italian civilization; and the language of invective used in them, originating with Aretino and improved upon by Doni and Franco, became the model of vituperative style in Europe. Doni's "Earthquake, with the Ruin of a great Bestial Colossus, the Antichrist of our age," brings to mind a score of pamphlets, published in Europe during the conflict of the Church with Reformation. We find an echo of its strained metaphors in the polemical writings of Bruno and Campanella. The grotesque manner of the seventeenth century begins with Aretino and his satellites, just as its far-fetched conceits may be traced in the clear language of Guarini. Gongora, Marini, Euphues, and the Precieuses Ridicules of the Hotel Rambouillet are contained, as it were, in germ among this little knot of refugees at Venice, who set their wits against the academical traditions of pure Italian taste.

A characteristic legend is told of Aretino's death. Two of his sisters kept, it is said, a house of ill fame; and the story runs that he died of immoderate laughter, flinging himself backward in his chair and breaking his neck, on hearing some foul jest reported by them. It is difficult to believe that this tale has any foundation in fact. We must take it as a scurrilous invention, proving the revolution of public opinion, which since his books had been put upon the Index in 1559, undoubtedly took place. Of like tenor is the epitaph which was never really placed upon his grave:[543]

Qui giace l'Aretin poeta tosco, Che disse mal d'ognun fuorche di Cristo, Scusandosi col dir: non lo conosco.

[Footnote 543: These lines have been, without authority, ascribed to Giovio; they may thus be rendered:

Here lieth Aretine, in prose and poem Who spake such ill of all the world but Christ, Pleading for this neglect, I do not know him.

Giovio, we may remember, styled Aretino divino, divinissimo, unichissimo, precellentissimo, in his letters.]

His features, though formed upon a large and not ignoble type, bore in later life a mixed expression of the wolf and the fox; nor was it without oblique satire that the engraver of his portrait, Giuseppe Patrini, surrounded the medallion with a wolf's hide, the grinning snarl and slanting eyes of the brute mimicking the man's physiognomy. It was a handsome face, no doubt, in youth, when, richly attired in the satin mantle cut for him by a bishop, and mounted on his white charger, he scoured the streets of Reggio at Giovanni de' Medici's side, curling his blue-black beard, and fixing his bold bright eyes upon the venal beauties they courted in company. But the thick lips and open sensual mouth, the distended nostrils, and the wicked puckers of the wrinkles round his eyes and nose, show that the beast of prey and appetite had been encouraged through a life of self-indulgence, until the likeness of humanity yielded to victorious animalism. The same face, at once handsome and bestial, never to be forgotten after a first acquaintance, leans out, in the company of Sansovino and Titian, from the bronze door of the Sacristy in S. Mark's Church.[544] The high relief is full of life and movement, one of Sansovino's masterpieces. And yet it strikes one here with even greater strangeness than the myths of Ganymede and Leda on the portals of S. Peter's at Rome.

[Footnote 544: Among the many flatteries addressed to Aretino none is more laughable than a letter (Lettere all'Aretino, vol. iii. p. 175) which praises his physical beauty in most extravagant terms: "Most divine Lord Peter; if, among the many and so lovely creatures that swinish Nature sends into this worst of worlds, you alone are of such beauty and incomparable grace that you combine all qualities the human frame can boast of: for the which cause there is no need to wonder that Titian, when he seeks to paint a face that has in it true beauty, uses his skilled brush in only drawing you," etc. etc. The period is too long to finish.]

Aretino is, in truth, not the least of the anomalies which meet us everywhere in the Italian Renaissance. Was he worse, was he not even in some respects better than his age? How much of the repulsion he inspires can be ascribed to altered taste and feeling? To what extent was the legend of the man, so far as this is separable from the testimony of his writings, made black by posthumous malevolence and envy? These are the questions which rise in our mind when we reflect upon the incidents of his extraordinary career, and calmly estimate his credit with contemporaries. The contradictions of the epoch were concentrated in his character. He was a professed Christian of the type formed by Rome before the Counter-Reformation. He helped the needy, tended the sick, dowered orphans, and kept open house for beggars. He was the devoted friend of men like Titian, a sincere lover of natural and artistic beauty, an acute and enthusiastic critic. At the same time he did his best to corrupt youth by painting vice in piquant colors. He led a life of open and voluptuous debauchery. He was a liar, a bully, a braggart, venomous in the pursuit of private animosities, and the remorseless foe of weaker men who met with his displeasure. From the conditions of society which produced Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, Pier Luigi Farnese and Gianpaolo Baglioni, it was no wonder that a writer resolved on turning those conditions to account, should have arisen. The credit of originality, independence, self-reliant character--of what Machiavelli called virtu--does certainly belong to him. It is true that he extracted the means of a luxurious existence from patrons upon whom he fawned. Yet he was superior to the common herd of courtiers, in so far as he attached himself to no master, and all his adulation masked a battery of menaces. The social diseases which emasculated men of weaker fiber, he turned to the account of his rapacious appetites. His force consisted in the clear notion he had formed of his own aim in life, and the sagacity with which he used the most efficient means for attaining it. The future, whether of reputation or of literary fame, had no influence over his imagination. He resolved to enjoy the present, and he succeeded beyond expectation. Corruption is itself a kind of superiority, when it is consummate, cynical, self-conscious. It carries with it its own clairvoyance, its own philosophy of life, its own good sense. More than this, it imposes on opinion and fascinates society. Aretino did not suffer from a divided will. He never halted between two courses, but realized the ideal of the perfettamente tristo. He lived up to Guicciardini's conception of the final motive, which may be described as the cult of self. Sneering at all men less complete in purpose than himself, he disengaged his conduct from contemporary rules of fashion; dictated laws to his betters in birth, position, breeding, learning, morals, taste; and vindicated his virility by unimpeded indulgence of his personal proclivities. He was the last, the most perfect, if also the most vitiated product of Renaissance manners. In the second half of the sixteenth century, when hypocrisy descended like a cloud upon the ineradicable faults of Italy, there was no longer any possibility for the formation of a hero after Aretino's type.

Thus at the close of any estimate of Aretino, we are forced to do justice to the man's vigor. It is not for nothing that even a debased society bows to a dictatorship so autocratic; nor can eminence be secured, even among the products of a decadent civilization, by undiluted defects. Aretino owed his influence to genuine qualities--to the independence which underlay his arrogance, to the acute common sense which almost justified his vanity, to the outspokenness which made him satirize the vices that he shared and illustrated.[545] We have abundant and incontrovertible testimony to the fact that his Dialoghi, when they were first published, passed for powerful and drastic antidotes to social poisons[546]; and it is clear that even his religious works were accepted by the pious world as edifying. The majority of his contemporaries seem to have beheld in him the fearless denouncer of ecclesiastical and civil tyrants, the humble man's friend, and the relentless detective of vice. The indescribable nastiness of the Dialoghi, the false feeling of the Vita di S. Catherina, which makes us turn with loathing from their pages, did not offend the taste of his century. While, therefore, he comprehended and expressed his age in its ruffianism and dissoluteness, he stood outside it and above it, dealing haughtily and like a potentate with evils which subdued less hardened spirits, and with personages before whom his equals groveled. We must not suffer our hatred of his mendacity, uncleanliness, brutality, and arrogance to blind us to the elements of strength and freedom which can be discerned in him.[547]

[Footnote 545: I should not be surprised to see an attempt soon made to whitewash Aretino. Balzac, in his Catherine de Medicis, has already indicated the line to be followed: "L'Aretin, l'ami de Titien et le Voltaire de son siecle, a, de nos jours, un renom en complete opposition avec ses oeuvres, avec son caractere, et que lui vaut une debauche d'esprit en harmonie avec les ecrits de ce siecle, ou le drolatique etait en honneur, ou les reines et les cardinaux ecrivaient des contes, dits aujourd'hui licentieux."]

[Footnote 546: I will only refer to a very curious epistle (Lettere a P. Aretino, vol. iii. p. 193), which appears to me genuine, in which Aretino is indicated as the poor man's friend against princely tyrants; and another from Daniello Barbaro (ibid. p. 217), in which the Dialogue on Courts is praised as a handbook for the warning and instruction of would-be courtiers. The Pornographic Dialogues made upon society the same impression as Zola's Nana is now making, although it is clear to us that they were written with a licentious, and not an even ostensibly scientific, intention.]

[Footnote 547: While these sheets are passing through the press, I see announced a forthcoming work by Antonio Virgili, Francesco Berni con nuovi documenti. We may expect from this book more light upon Aretino's relation to the Tuscan poet.]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us