Title:   Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Subject:  

Author:   Jacob Burckhardt

Keywords:  

Creator:  

PDF Version:   1.2



Contents:

Page No 1

Page No 2

Page No 3

Page No 4

Page No 5

Page No 6

Page No 7

Page No 8

Page No 9

Page No 10

Page No 11

Page No 12

Page No 13

Page No 14

Page No 15

Page No 16

Page No 17

Page No 18

Page No 19

Page No 20

Page No 21

Page No 22

Page No 23

Page No 24

Page No 25

Page No 26

Page No 27

Page No 28

Page No 29

Page No 30

Page No 31

Page No 32

Page No 33

Page No 34

Page No 35

Page No 36

Page No 37

Page No 38

Page No 39

Page No 40

Page No 41

Page No 42

Page No 43

Page No 44

Page No 45

Page No 46

Page No 47

Page No 48

Page No 49

Page No 50

Page No 51

Page No 52

Page No 53

Page No 54

Page No 55

Page No 56

Page No 57

Page No 58

Page No 59

Page No 60

Page No 61

Page No 62

Page No 63

Page No 64

Page No 65

Page No 66

Page No 67

Page No 68

Page No 69

Page No 70

Page No 71

Page No 72

Page No 73

Page No 74

Page No 75

Page No 76

Page No 77

Page No 78

Page No 79

Page No 80

Page No 81

Page No 82

Page No 83

Page No 84

Page No 85

Page No 86

Page No 87

Page No 88

Page No 89

Page No 90

Page No 91

Page No 92

Page No 93

Page No 94

Page No 95

Page No 96

Page No 97

Page No 98

Page No 99

Page No 100

Page No 101

Page No 102

Page No 103

Page No 104

Page No 105

Page No 106

Page No 107

Page No 108

Page No 109

Page No 110

Page No 111

Page No 112

Page No 113

Page No 114

Page No 115

Page No 116

Page No 117

Page No 118

Page No 119

Page No 120

Page No 121

Page No 122

Page No 123

Page No 124

Page No 125

Page No 126

Page No 127

Page No 128

Page No 129

Page No 130

Page No 131

Page No 132

Page No 133

Page No 134

Page No 135

Page No 136

Page No 137

Page No 138

Page No 139

Page No 140

Page No 141

Page No 142

Page No 143

Page No 144

Page No 145

Page No 146

Page No 147

Page No 148

Page No 149

Page No 150

Page No 151

Page No 152

Page No 153

Page No 154

Page No 155

Page No 156

Page No 157

Page No 158

Page No 159

Page No 160

Page No 161

Page No 162

Page No 163

Page No 164

Page No 165

Page No 166

Page No 167

Page No 168

Page No 169

Page No 170

Page No 171

Page No 172

Page No 173

Page No 174

Page No 175

Page No 176

Page No 177

Page No 178

Page No 179

Page No 180

Page No 181

Page No 182

Page No 183

Page No 184

Page No 185

Bookmarks





Page No 1


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Jacob Burckhardt



Top




Page No 2


Table of Contents

Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy .............................................................................................................1

Jacob Burckhardt.....................................................................................................................................1

Part I. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART...........................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................2

Despots of the Fourteenth Century..........................................................................................................4

Despots of the Fifteenth Century.............................................................................................................6

The Smaller Despotisms........................................................................................................................10

The Greater Dynasties ............................................................................................................................13

The Opponents of the Despots ...............................................................................................................19

The Republics: Venice and Florence.....................................................................................................21

Foreign Policy ........................................................................................................................................30

War as a Work of Art .............................................................................................................................32

The Papacy .............................................................................................................................................34

Patriotism...............................................................................................................................................42

Part Two. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL .................................................................42

Personality.............................................................................................................................................42

Glory......................................................................................................................................................46

Ridicule and Wit....................................................................................................................................49

Part Three. The Revival of Antiquity....................................................................................................54

Introductory ............................................................................................................................................54

The Ruins of Rome................................................................................................................................56

The Classics...........................................................................................................................................59

The Humanists.......................................................................................................................................62

Universities and Schools ........................................................................................................................65

Propagators of Antiquity ........................................................................................................................71

Epistolography: Latin Orators ................................................................................................................75

The Treatise, and History in Latin.........................................................................................................79

Antiquity as the Common Source ..........................................................................................................82

NeoLatin Poetry ...................................................................................................................................84

Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century .....................................................................................89

PART FOUR. THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN...............................................93

Journeys of the Italians..........................................................................................................................93

The Natural Sciences in Italy .................................................................................................................94

Discovery of the Beauty of the Landscape............................................................................................97

Discovery of Man................................................................................................................................100

Biography in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance.......................................................................108

Description of the Outward Man.........................................................................................................113

Description of Human Life..................................................................................................................115

Part Five. SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS............................................................................................117

Equality of Classes ...............................................................................................................................117

Costumes and Fashions ........................................................................................................................120

Language and Society ..........................................................................................................................123

Social Etiquette ...................................................................................................................................124

Education of the 'Cortigiano' ................................................................................................................126

Music...................................................................................................................................................127

Equality of Men and Women ...............................................................................................................128

Domestic Life .......................................................................................................................................130


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

i



Top




Page No 3


Table of Contents

Festivals...............................................................................................................................................131

Part Six. MORALITY AND RELIGION............................................................................................139

Morality and Judgement......................................................................................................................139

Morality and Immorality ......................................................................................................................140

Religion in Daily Life..........................................................................................................................149

Strength of the Old Faith.....................................................................................................................158

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance..........................................................................................161

Influence of Ancient Superstition........................................................................................................167

General Spirit of Doubt ........................................................................................................................178


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

ii



Top




Page No 4


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Jacob Burckhardt

Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore

 Part One: The State as a Work of Art

 11 Introduction

 12 Despots of the Fourteenth Century

 13 Despots of the Fifteenth Century

 14 The Smaller Despotisms

 15 The Greater Dynasties

 16 The Opponents of the Despots

 17 The Republics: Venice and Florence

 18 Foreign Policy

 19 War as a Work of Art

 110 The Papacy

 111 Patriotism

 Part Two: The Development of the Individual

 21 Personality

 22 Glory

 23 Ridicule and Wit

 Part Three: The Revival of Antiquity

 31 Introductory

 32 The Ruins of Rome

 33 The Classics

 34 The Humanists

 35 Universities and Schools

 36 Propagators of Antiquity

 37 Epistolography: Latin Orators

 38 The Treatise, and History in Latin

 39 Antiquity as the Common Source

 310 NeoLatin Poetry

 311 Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century

 Part Four: The Discovery of the World and of Man

 41 Journeys of the Italians

 42 The Natural Sciences in Italy

 43 Discovery of the Beauty of the Landscape

 44 Discovery of Man

 45 Biography in the Middle Ages

 46 Description of the Outward Man

 47 Description of Human Life

 Part Five: Society and Festivals

 51 Equality of Classes

 52 Costumes and Fashions

 53 Language and Society

 54 Social Etiquette

 55 Education of the 'Cortigiano'

 56 Music

 57 Equality of Men and Women

Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy 1



Top




Page No 5


 58 Domestic Life

 59 Festivals

 Part Six: Morality and Religion

 61 Morality and Judgement

 62 Morality and Immorality

 63 Religion in Daily Life

 64 Strength of the Old Faith

 65 Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance

 66 Influence of Ancient Superstition

 67 General Spirit of Doubt

Part I. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART

INTRODUCTION

This work bears the title of an essay in the strictest sense of the word. No one is more conscious than the

writer with what limited means and strength he has addressed himself to a task so arduous. And even if he

could look with greater confidence upon his own researches, he would hardly thereby feel more assured of

the approval of competent judges. To each eye, perhaps, the outlines of a given civilization present a different

picture; and in treating of a civilization which is the mother of our own, and whose influence is still at work

among us, it is unavoidable that individual judgement and feeling should tell every moment both on the

writer and on the reader. In the wide ocean upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are

many; and the same studies which have served for this work might easily, in other hands, not only receive a

wholly different treatment and application, but lead also to essentially different conclusions. Such indeed is

the importance of the subject that it still calls for fresh investigation, and may be studied with advantage from

the most varied points of view. Meanwhile we are content if a patient hearing is granted us, and if this book

be taken and judged as a whole. It is the most serious difficulty of the history of civilization that a great

intellectual process must be broken up into single, and often into what seem arbitrary categories in order to be

in any way intelligible. It was formerly our intention to fill up the gaps in this book by a special work on the

'Art of the Renaissance'an intention, however, which we have been able to fulfill only in part.

The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen left Italy in a political condition which differed

essentially from that of other countries of the West. While in France, Spain and England the feudal system

was so organized that, at the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into a unified monarchy, and

while in Germany it helped to maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy had shaken it off

almost entirely. The Emperors of the fourteenth century, even in the most favourable case, were no longer

received and respected as feudal lords, but as possible leaders and supporters of powers already in existence;

while the Papacy, with its creatures and allies, was strong enough to hinder national unity in the future, but

not strong enough itself to bring about that unity. Between the two lay a multitude of political

unitsrepublics and despotsin part of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded

simply on their power to maintain it. In them for the first time we detect the modern political spirit of Europe,

surrendered freely to its own instincts. Often displaying the worst features of an unbridled egotism, outraging

every right, and killing every germ of a healthier culture. But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or

in any way compensated, a new fact appears in historythe State as the outcome of reflection and

calculation, the State as a work of art. This new life displays itself in a hundred forms, both in the republican

and in the despotic States, and determines their inward constitution, no less than their foreign policy. We


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Part I. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 2



Top




Page No 6


shall limit ourselves to the consideration of the completer and more clearly defined type, which is offered by

the despotic States.

The internal condition of the despotically governed States had a memorable counterpart in the Norman

Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily, after its transformation by the Emperor Frederick Il. Bred amid treason and

peril in the neighbourhood of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type who sat upon a

throne, had early accustomed himself to a thoroughly objective treatment of affairs. His acquaintance with the

internal condition and administration of the Saracenic States was close and intimate; and the mortal struggle

in which he was engaged with the Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring into the field

all the resources at his command. Frederick's measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the

complete destruction of the feudal State, at the transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of will

and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the utmost degree to the exchequer. He centralized, in a

manner hitherto unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political administration. No office was

henceforth to be filled by popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the offending district and of

the enslavement of its inhabitants. The taxes, based on a comprehensive assessment, and distributed in

accordance with Mohammedan usages, were collected by those cruel and vexatious methods without which,

it is true, it is impossible to obtain any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a people, but

simply a disciplined multitude of subjects; who were forbidden, for example, to marry out of the country

without special permission, and under no circumstances were allowed to study abroad. The University of

Naples was the first we know of to restrict the freedom of study, while the East, in these respects at all events,

left its youth unfettered. It was after the examples of Mohammedan rules that Frederick traded on his own

account in all parts of the Mediterranean, reserving to himself the monopoly of many commodities, and

restricting in various ways the commerce of his subjects. The Fatimite Caliphs, with all their esoteric

unbelief, were, at least in their earlier history, tolerant of all the differences in the religious faith of their

people; Frederick, on the other hand, crowned his system of government by a religious inquisition, which will

seem the more reprehensible when we remember that in the persons of the heretics he was persecuting the

representatives of a free municipal life. Lastly, the internal police, and the kernel of the army for foreign

service, was composed of Saracens who had been brought over from Sicily to Nocera and Lucera men who

were deaf to the cry of misery and careless of the ban of the Church. At a later period the subjects, by whom

the use of weapons had long been forgotten, were passive witnesses of the fall of Manfred and of the seizure

of the government by Charles of Anjou; the latter continued to use the system which he found already at

work.

At the side of the centralizing Emperor appeared a usurper of the most peculiar kind; his vicar and

soninlaw, Ezzelino da Romano. He stands as the representative of no system of government or

administration, for all his activity was wasted in struggles for supremacy in the eastern part of Upper Italy;

but as a political type he was a figure of no less importance for the future than his imperial protector

Frederick. The conquests and usurpations which had hitherto taken place in the Middle Ages rested on real or

pretended inheritance and other such claims, or else were effected against unbelievers and excommunicated

persons. Here for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a throne by wholesale murder and

endless barbarities, by the adoption in short, of any means with a view to nothing but the end pursued. None

of his successors, not even Cesare Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of Ezzelino; but the example once set

was not forgotten, and his fall led to no return of justice among the nations and served as no warning to future

transgressors.

It was in vain at such a time that St. Thomas Aquinas, born subject of Frederick, set up the theory of a

constitutional monarchy, in which the prince was to be supported by an upper house named by himself, and a

representative body elected by the people. Such theories found no echo outside the lecture  room, and

Frederick and Ezzelino were and remain for Italy the great political phenomena of the thirteenth century.

Their personality, already half legendary, forms the most important subject of 'The Hundred Old Tales,'

whose original composition falls certainly within this century. In them Ezzelino is spoken of with the awe


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Part I. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART 3



Top




Page No 7


which all mighty impressions leave behind them. His person became the centre of a whole literature from the

chronicle of eyewitnesses to the halfmythical tragedy of later poets.

Despots of the Fourteenth Century

The tyrannies, great and small, of the fourteenth century afford constant proof that examples such as these

were not thrown away. Their misdeeds cried forth loudly and have been circumstantially told by historians.

As States depending for existence on themselves alone, and scientifically organized with a view to this

object, they present to us a higher interest than that of mere narrative.

The deliberate adaptation of means to ends, of which no prince out of Italy had at that time a conception,

joined to almost absolute power within the limits of the State, produced among the despots both men and

modes of life of a peculiar character. The chief secret of government in the hands of the prudent ruler lay in

leaving the incidence of taxation as far as possible where he found it, or as he had first arranged it. The chief

sources of income were: a land tax, based on a valuation; definite taxes on articles of consumption and duties

on exported and imported goods: together with the private fortune of the ruling house. The only possible

increase was derived from the growth of business and of general prosperity. Loans, such as we find in the free

cities, were here unknown; a wellplanned confiscation was held a preferable means of raising money,

provided only that it left public credit unshakenan end attained, for example, by the truly Oriental practice

of deposing and plundering the director of the finances.

Out of this income the expenses of the little court, of the bodyguard, of the mercenary troops, and of the

public buildings were met, as well as of the buffoons and men of talent who belonged to the personal

attendants of the prince. The illegitimacy of his rule isolated the tyrant and surrounded him with constant

danger, the most honorable alliance which he could form was with intellectual merit, without regard to its

origin. The liberality of the northern princes of the thirteenth century was confined to the knights, to the

nobility which served and sang. It was otherwise with the Italian despot. With his thirst for fame and his

passion for monumental works, it was talent, not birth, which he needed. In the company of the poet and the

scholar he felt himself in a new position, almost, indeed, in possession of a new legitimacy.

No prince was more famous in this respect than the ruler of Verona, Can Grande della Scala, who numbered

among the illustrious exiles whom he entertained at his court representatives of the whole of Italy. The men

of letters were not ungrateful. Petrarch, whose visits at the courts of such men have been so severely

censured, sketched an ideal picture of a prince of the fourteenth century. He demands great things from his

patron, the lord of Padua, but in a manner which shows that he holds him capable of them. 'Thou must not be

the master but the father of thy subjects, and must love them as thy children; yea, as members of thy body.

Weapons, guards, and soldiers thou mayest employ against the enemywith thy subjects goodwill is

sufficient. By citizens, of course, I mean those who love the existing order; for those who daily desire change

are rebels and traitors, and against such a stern justice may take its course.'

Here follows, worked out in detail, the purely modern fiction of the omnipotence of the State. The prince is to

take everything into his charge, to maintain and restore churches and public buildings, to keep up the

municipal police, to drain the marshes, to look after the supply of wine and corn; so to distribute the taxes

that the people can recognize their necessity; he is to support the sick and the helpless, and to give his

protection and society to distinguished scholars, on whom his fame in after ages will depend.

But whatever might be the brighter sides of the system, and the merits of individual rulers, yet the men of the

fourteenth century were not without a more or less distinct consciousness of the brief and uncertain tenure of

most of these despotisms. Inasmuch as political institutions like these are naturally secure in proportion to the

size of the territory in which they exist, the larger principalities were constantly tempted to swallow up the

smaller. Whole hecatombs of petty rulers were sacrificed at this time to the Visconti alone. As a result of this


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Despots of the Fourteenth Century 4



Top




Page No 8


outward danger an inward ferment was in ceaseless activity; and the effect of the situation on the character of

the ruler was generally of the most sinister kind. Absolute power, with its temptations to luxury and unbridled

selfishness, and the perils to which he was exposed from enemies and conspirators, turned him almost

inevitably into a tyrant in the worst sense of the word. Well for him if he could trust his nearest relations! But

where all was illegitimate, there could be no regular law of inheritance, either with regard to the succession or

to the division of the ruler's property; and consequently the heir, if incompetent or a minor, was liable in the

interest of the family itself to be supplanted by an uncle or cousin of more resolute character. The

acknowledgment or exclusion of the bastards was a fruitful source of contest and most of these families in

consequence were plagued with a crowd of discontented and vindictive kinsmen. This circumstance gave rise

to continual outbreaks of treason and to frightful scenes of domestic bloodshed. Sometimes the pretenders

lived abroad in exile, like the Visconti, who practiced the fisherman's craft on the Lake of Garda, viewed the

situation with patient indifference. When asked by a messenger of his rival when and how he thought of

returning to Milan, he gave the reply, 'By the same means as those by which I was expelled, but not till his

crimes have outweighed my own.' Sometimes, too, the despot was sacrificed by his relations, with the view

of saving the family, to the public conscience which he had too grossly outraged. In a few cases the

government was in the hands of the whole family, or at least the ruler was bound to take their advice; and

here, too, the distribution of property and influence often led to bitter disputes.

The whole of this system excited the deep and persistent hatred of the Florentine writers of that epoch. Even

the pomp and display with which the despot was perhaps less anxious to gratify his own vanity than to

impress the popular imagination, awakened their keenest sarcasm. Woe to an adventurer if he fell into their

hands, like the upstart Doge Agnello of Pisa (1364), who used to ride out with a golden scepter, and show

himself at the window of his house, 'as relics are shown,' reclining on embroidered drapery and cushions,

served like a pope or emperor, by kneeling attendants. More often, however, the old Florentines speak on this

subject in a tone of lofty seriousness. Dante saw and characterized well the vulgarity and commonplace

which marked the ambition of the new princes. 'What else mean their trumpets and their bells, their horns and

their flutes, but "come, hangmen come, vultures!"' The castle of the tyrant, as pictured by the popular mind, is

lofty and solitary, full of dungeons and listeningtubes, the home of cruelty and misery. Misfortune is

foretold to all who enter the service of the despot, who even becomes at last himself an object of pity: he

must needs be the enemy of all good and honest men: he can trust no one and can read in the faces of his

subjects the expectation of his fall. 'As despotisms rise, grow, and are consolidated, so grows in their midst

the hidden element which must produce their dissolution and ruin.' But the deepest ground of dislike has not

been stated; Florence was then the scene of the richest development of human individuality, while for the

despots no other individuality could be suffered to live and thrive but their own and that of their nearest

dependents. The control of the individual was rigorously carried out, even down to the establishment of a

system of passports.

The astrological superstitions and the religious unbelief of many of the tyrants gave, in the minds of their

contemporaries, a peculiar color to this awful and Godforsaken existence. When the last Carrara could no

longer defend the walls and gates of the plaguestricken Padua, hemmed in on all sides by the Venetians

(1405), the soldiers of the guard heard him cry to the devil 'to come and kill him.'

* * *

The most complete and instructive type of the tyranny of the fourteenth century is to be found unquestionably

among the Visconti of Milan, from the death of the Archbishop Giovanni onwards (1354). The family

likeness which shows itself between Bernabo and the worst of the Roman Emperors is unmistakable; the

most important public object was the prince's boarhunting; whoever interfered with it was put to death with

torture, the terrified people were forced to maintain 5,000 boar hounds, with strict responsibility for their

health and safety. The taxes were extorted by every conceivable sort of compulsion; seven daughters of the

prince received a dowry of 100,000 gold florins apiece; and an enormous treasure was collected. On the death


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Despots of the Fourteenth Century 5



Top




Page No 9


of his wife (1384) an order was issued 'to the subjects' to share his grief, as once they had shared his joy, and

to wear mourning for a year. The _coup de main_ (1385) by which his nephew Giangaleazzo got him into his

powerone of those brilliant plots which make the heart of even late historians beat more quickly was

strikingly characteristic of the man.

In Giangaleazzo that passion for the colossal which was common to most of the despots shows itself on the

largest scale. He undertook, at the cost of 300,000 golden florins, the construction of gigantic dikes, to divert

in case of need the Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua, and thus to render these cities

defenseless. It is not impossible, indeed, that he thought of draining away the lagoons of Venice. He founded

that most wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia and the cathedral of Milan, 'which exceeds in size

and splendor all the churches of Christendom.' The palace in Pavia, which his father Galeazzo began and

which he himself finished, was probably by far the most magnificent of the princely dwellings of Europe.

There he transferred his famous library, and the great collection of relics of the saints, in which he placed a

peculiar faith. It would have been strange indeed if a prince of this character had not also cherished the

highest ambitions in political matters. King Wenceslaus made him Duke (1395); he was hoping for nothing

less than the Kingdom of Italy or the Imperial crown, when (1402) he fell ill and died. His whole territories

are said to have paid him in a single year, besides the regular contribution of 1,200,000 gold florins, no less

than 800,000 more in extraordinary subsidies. After his death the dominions which he had brought together

by every sort of violence fell to pieces: and for a time even the original nucleus could with difficulty be

maintained by his successors. What might have become of his sons Giovanni Maria (died 1412) and Filippo

Maria (died 1447), had they lived in a different country and under other traditions, cannot be said. But, as

heirs of their house, they inherited that monstrous capital of cruelty and cowardice which had been

accumulated from generation to generation.

Giovanni Maria, too, is famed for his dogs, which were no longer, however, used for hunting but for tearing

human bodies. Tradition has preserved their names, like those of the bears of Emperor Valentinian I. In May,

1409, when war was going on, and the starving populace cried to him in the streets, _Pace! Pace!_ he let

loose his mercenaries upon them, and 200 lives were sacrificed; under penalty of the gallows it was forbidden

to utter the words pace and guerra, and the priests were ordered, instead of _dona nobis pacem_, to say

_tranquillitatem_! At last a band of conspirators took advantage of the moment when Facino Cane, the chief

Condotierre of the insane ruler, lay in at Pavia, and cut down Giovanni Maria in the church of San Gottardo

at Milan; the dying Facino on the same day made his officers swear to stand by the heir Filippo Maria, whom

he himself urged his wife to take for a second husband. His wife, Beatrice di Tenda, followed his advice. We

shall have occasion to speak of Filippo Maria later on.

And in times like these Cola di Rienzi was dreaming of founding on the rickety enthusiasm of the corrupt

population of Rome a new State which was to comprise all Italy. By the side of rulers such as those whom we

have described, he seems no better than a poor deluded fool.

Despots of the Fifteenth Century

The despotisms of the fifteenth century show an altered character. Many of the less important tyrants, and

some of the greater, like the Scala and the Carrara had disappeared, while the more powerful ones,

aggrandized by conquest, had given to their systems each its characteristic development. Naples for example

received a fresh and stronger impulse from the new Aragonese dynasty. A striking feature of this epoch is the

attempt of the Condottieri to found independent dynasties of their own. Facts and the actual relations of

things, apart from traditional estimates, are alone regarded; talent and audacity win the great prizes. The petty

despots, to secure a trustworthy support, begin to enter the service of the larger States, and become

themselves Condottieri, receiving in return for their services money and immunity for their misdeeds, if not

an increase of territory. All, whether small or great, must exert themselves more, must act with greater

caution and calculation, and must learn to refrain from too wholesale barbarities; only so much wrong is


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Despots of the Fifteenth Century 6



Top




Page No 10


permitted by public opinion as is necessary for the end in view, and this the impartial bystander certainly

finds no fault with. No trace is here visible of that halfreligious loyalty by which the legitimate princes of

the West were supported; personal popularity is the nearest approach we can find to it. Talent and calculation

are the only means of advancement. A character like that of Charles the Bold, which wore itself out in the

passionate pursuit of impracticable ends, was a riddle to the Italians. 'The Swiss were only peasants, and if

they were all killed, that would be no satisfaction for the Burgundian nobles who might fall in the war. If the

Duke got possession of all Switzerland without a struggle, his income would not be 5,000 ducats the greater.'

The mediaeval features in the character of Charles, his chivalrous aspirations and ideals, had long become

unintelligible to the Italians. The diplomatists of the South. when they saw him strike his officers and yet

keep them in his service, when he maltreated his troops to punish them for a defeat, and then threw the blame

on his counsellors in the presence of the same troops, gave him up for lost. Louis XI, on the other hand,

whose policy surpasses that of the Italian princes in their own style, and who was an avowed admirer of

Francesco Sforza, must be placed in all that regards culture and refinement far below these rulers.

Good and evil lie strangely mixed together in the Italian States of the fifteenth century. The personality of the

ruler is so highly developed, often of such deep significance, and so characteristic of the conditions and needs

of the time, that to form an adequate moral judgement on it is no easy task.

The foundation of the system was and remained illegitimate, and nothing could remove the curse which

rested upon it. The imperial approval or investiture made no change in the matter, since the people attached

little weight to the fact that the despot had bought a piece of parchment somewhere in foreign countries, or

from some stranger passing through his territory. If the Emperor had been good for anything, so ran the logic

of uncritical common sense, he would never have let the tyrant rise at all. Since the Roman expedition of

Charles IV, the emperors had done nothing more in Italy than sanction a tyranny which had arisen without

their help; they could give it no other practical authority than what might flow from an imperial charter. The

whole conduct of Charles in Italy was a scandalous political comedy. Matteo Villani relates how the Visconti

escorted him round their territory, and at last out of it; how he went about like a hawker selling his wares

(privileges, etc.) for money; what a mean appearance he made in Rome, and how at the end, without even

drawing the sword, he returned with replenished coffers across the Alps. Sigismund came, on the first

occasion at least (1414), with the good intention of persuading John XXIII to take part in his council; it was

on that journey, when Pope and Emperor were gazing from the lofty tower of Cremona on the panorama of

Lombardy, that their host, the tyrant Gabrino Fondolo, was seized with the desire to throw them both over.

On his second visit Sigismund came as a mere adventurer; for more than half a year he remained shut up in

Siena, like a debtor in gaol, and only with difficulty, and at a later period, succeeded in being crowned in

Rome. And what can be thought of Frederick III? His journeys to Italy have the air of holidaytrips or

pleasuretours made at the expense of those who wanted him to confirm their prerogatives, or whose vanity

is flattered to entertain an emperor. The latter was the case with Alfonso of Naples, who paid 150,000 florins

for the honour of an imperial visit. At Ferrara, on his second return from Rome (1469), Frederick spent a

whole day without leaving his chamber, distributing no less than eighty titles; he created knights, counts,

doctors. notariescounts, indeed, of different degrees, as, for instance, counts palatine, counts with the right

to create doctors up to the number of five, counts with the rights to legitimatize bastards, to appoint notaries,

and so forth. The Chancellor, however, expected in return for the patents in question a gratuity which was

thought excessive at Ferrara. The opinion of Borso, himself created Duke of Modena and Reggio in return for

an annual payment of 4,000 gold florins, when his imperial patron was distributing titles and diplomas to all

the little court, is not mentioned. The humanists, then the chief spokesmen of the age, were divided in opinion

according to their personal interests, while the Emperor was greeted by some of them with the conventional

acclamations of the poets of imperial Rome. Poggio confessed that he no longer knew what the coronation

meant: in the old times only the victorious Imperator was crowned, and then he was crowned with laurel.

With Maximilian I begins not only the general intervention of foreign nations, but a new imperial policy with

regard to Italy. The first step  the investiture of Lodovico il Moro with the duchy of Milan and the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Despots of the Fifteenth Century 7



Top




Page No 11


exclusion of his unhappy nephew  was not of a kind to bear good fruits. According to the modern theory of

intervention when two parties are tearing a country to pieces, a third may step in and take its share, and on

this principle the empire acted. But right and justice could be involved no longer. When Louis XI was

expected in Genoa (1507), and the imperial eagle was removed from the hall of the ducal palace and replaced

by painted lilies, the historian Senarega asked what, after all, was the meaning of the eagle which so many

revolutions had spared, and what claims the empire had upon Genoa. No one knew more about the matter

than the old phrase that Genoa was a _camera imperii_. In fact, nobody in Italy could give a clear answer to

any such questions. At length when Charles V held Spain and the empire together, he was able by means of

Spanish forces to make good imperial claims: but it is notorious that what he thereby gained turned to the

profit, not of the empire, but of the Spanish monarchy.

* * *

Closely connected with the political illegitimacy of the dynasties of the fifteenth century was the public

indifference to legitimate birth, which to foreigners  for example, to Commines  appeared so

remarkable. The two things went naturally together. In northern countries, as in Burgundy, the illegitimate

offspring were provided for by a distinct class of appanages, such as bishoprics and the like: in Portugal an

illegitimate line maintained itself on the throne only by constant effort; in Italy. on the contrary, there no

longer existed a princely house where even in the direct line of descent, bastards were not patiently tolerated.

The Aragonese monarchs of Naples belonged to the illegitimate line, Aragon itself falling to the lot of the

brother of Alfonso I. The great Federigo of Urbino was, perhaps, no Montefeltro at all. When Pius II was on

his way to the Congress of Mantua (1459), eight bastards of the house of Este rode to meet him at Ferrara,

among them the reigning duke Borso himself and two illegitimate sons of his illegitimate brother and

predecessor Lionello. The latter had also had a lawful wife, herself an illegitimate daughter of Alfonso I of

Naples by an African woman. The bastards were often admitted to the succession where the lawful children

were minors and the dangers of the situation were pressing; and a rule of seniority became recognized, which

took no account of pure or impure birth. The fitness of the individual, his worth and capacity, were of more

weight than all the laws and usages which prevailed elsewhere in the West. It was the age, indeed, in which

the sons of the Popes were founding dynasties. In the sixteenth century, through the influence of foreign ideas

and of the counter reformation which then began, the whole question was judged more strictly: Varchi

discovers that the succession of the legitimate children 'is ordered by reason, and is the will of heaven from

eternity.' Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici founded his claim to the lordship of Florence on the fact that he was

perhaps the fruit of a lawful marriage, and at all events son of a gentlewoman, and not, like Duke Alessandro,

of a servant girl. At this time began those morganatic marriages of affection which in the fifteenth century, on

grounds either of policy or morality, would have had no meaning at all.

But the highest and the most admired form of illegitimacy in the fifteenth century was presented by the

Condottiere, who whatever may have been his origin, raised himself to the position of an independent ruler.

At bottom, the occupation of Lower Italy by the Normans in the eleventh century was of this character. Such

attempts now began to keep the peninsula in a constant ferment.

It was possible for a Condottiere to obtain the lordship of a district even without usurpation, in the case when

his employer, through want of money or troops, provided for him in this way; under any circumstances the

Condottiere, even when he dismissed for the time the greater part of his forces, needed a safe place where he

could establish his winter quarters, and lay up his stores and provisions. The first example of a captain thus

portioned is John Hawkwood, who was invested by Gregory XI with the lordship of Bagnacavallo and

Cotignola. When with Alberigo da Barbiano Italian armies and leaders appeared upon the scene, the chances

of founding a principality, or of increasing one already acquired, became more frequent. The first great

bacchanalian outbreak of military ambition took place in the duchy of Milan after the death of Giangaleazzo

(1402). The policy of his two sons was chiefly aimed at the destruction of the new despotisms founded by the

Condottieri; and from the greatest of them, Facino Cane, the house of Visconti inherited, together with his


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Despots of the Fifteenth Century 8



Top




Page No 12


widow, a long list of cities, and 400,000 golden florins, not to speak of the soldiers of her first husband whom

Beatrice di Tenda brought with her. From henceforth that thoroughly immoral relation between the

governments and their Condottieri, which is characteristic of the fifteenth century, became more and more

common. An old storyone of those which are true and not true, everywhere and nowheredescribes it as

follows: The citizens of a certain town (Siena seems to be meant) had once an officer in their service who had

freed them from foreign aggression; daily they took counsel how to recompense him, and concluded that no

reward in their power was great enough, not even if they made him lord of the city. At last one of them rose

and said, 'Let us kill him and then worship him as our patron saint.' And so they did, following the example

set the Roman senate with Romulus. In fact the Condottieri had reason to fear none so much as their

employers: if they were successful, they became dangerous, and were put out of the way like Roberto

Malatesta just after the victory he had won for Sixtus IV (1482); if they failed, the vengeance of the

Venetians on Carmagnola showed to what risks they were exposed (1432). It is characteristic of the moral

aspect of the situation that the Condottieri had often to give their wives and children as hostages, and

notwithstanding this, neither felt nor inspired confidence. They must have been heroes of abnegation, natures

like Belisarius himself, not to be cankered by hatred and bitterness; only the most perfect goodness could

save them from the most monstrous iniquity. No wonder then if we find them full of contempt for all sacred

things, cruel and treacher ous to their fellows men who cared nothing whether or no they died under the ban

of the Church. At the same time, and through the force of the same conditions, the genius and capacity of

many among them attained the highest conceivable development, and won for them the admiring devotion of

their followers; their armies are the first in modern history in which the personal credit of the leader is the one

moving power. A brilliant example is shown in the life of Francesco Sforza; no prejudice of birth could

prevent him from winning and turning to account when he needed it a boundless devotion from each

individual with whom he had to deal; it happened more than once that his enemies laid down their arms at the

sight of him, greeting him reverently with uncovered heads, each honoring in him 'the common father of the

menatarms.' The race of the Sforza has this special interest that from the very beginning of its history we

seem able to trace its endeavors after the crown. The foundation of its fortune lay in the remarkable

fruitfulness of the family; Francesco's father, Jacopo, himself a celebrated man, had twenty brothers and

sisters, all brought up roughly at Cotignola, near Faenza, amid the perils of one of the endless Romagnole

'vendette' between their own house and that of the Pasolini. The family dwelling was a mere arsenal and

fortress; the mother and daughters were as warlike as their kinsmen. In his thirtieth year Jacopo ran away and

fled to Panicale to the Papal Condottiere Boldrino  the man who even in death continued to lead his troops,

the word of order being given from the bannered tent in which the embalmed body lay, till at last a fit leader

was found to succeed him. Jacopo, when he had at length made himself a name in the service of different

Condottieri, sent for his relations, and obtained through them the same advantages that a prince derives from

a numerous dynasty. It was these relations who kept the army together when he lay a captive in the Castel

dell'Uovo at Naples; his sister took the royal envoys prisoners with her own hands, and saved him by this

reprisal from death. It was an indication of the breadth and the range of his plans that in monetary affairs

Jacopo was thoroughly trustworthy: even in his defeats he consequently found credit with the bankers. He

habitually protected the peasants against the license of his troops, and reluctantly destroyed or injured a

conquered city. He gave his wellknown mistress, Lucia, the mother of Francesco, in marriage to another, in

order to be free for a princely alliance. Even the marriages of his relations were arranged on a definite plan.

He kept clear of the impious and profligate life of his contemporaries, and brought up his son Francesco to

the three rules: 'Let other men's wives alone; strike none of your followers, or, if you do, send the injured man

far away; don't ride a hardmouthed horse, or one that drops his shoe.' But his chief source of influence lay in

the qualities, if not of a great general, at least of a great soldier. His frame was powerful, and developed by

every kind of exercise; his peasant's face and frank manners won general popularity; his memory was

marvelous, and after the lapse of years could recall the names of his followers, the number of their horses,

and the amount of their pay. His education was purely Italian: he devoted his leisure to the study of history,

and had Greek and Latin authors translated for his use. Francesco, his still more famous son, set his mind

from the first on founding a powerful State, and through brilliant generalship and a faithlessness which

hesitated at nothing, got possession of the great city of Milan (1450).


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Despots of the Fifteenth Century 9



Top




Page No 13


His example was contagious. Aeneas Sylvius wrote about this time: 'In our changeloving Italy, where

nothing stands firm, and where no ancient dynasty exists, a servant can easily become a king.' One man in

particular, who styles himself 'the man of fortune,' filled the imagination of the whole country: Giacomo

Piccinino, the son of Niccolo;. It was a burning question of the day if he, too, would succeed in founding a

princely house. The greater States had an obvious interest in hindering it, and even Francesco Sforza thought

it would be all the better if the list of selfmade sovereigns were not enlarged. But the troops and captains

sent against him, at the time, for instance, when he was aiming at the lordship of Siena, recognized their

interest in supporting him: 'If it were all over with him, we should have to go back and plough our fields.'

Even while besieging him at Orbetello, they supplied him with provisions: and he got out of his straits with

honour. But at last fate overtook him. All Italy was betting on the result, when (1465) after a visit to Sforza at

Milan, he went to King Ferrante at Naples. In spite of the pledges given, and of his high connections, he was

murdered in the Castel Nuovo. Even the Condottieri who had obtained their dominions by inheritance, never

felt themselves safe. When Roberto Malatesta and Federigo of Urbino died on the same day (1482), the one

at Rome, the other at Bologna, it was found that each had recommended his State to the care of the other.

Against a class of men who themselves stuck at nothing, everything was held to be permissible. Francesco

Sforza, when quite young, had married a rich Calabrian heiress, Polissella Ruffo, Countess of Montalto, who

bore him a daughter; an aunt poisoned both mother and child, and seized the inheritance.

From the death of Piccinino onwards, the foundations of new States by the Condottieri became a scandal not

to be tolerated. The four great Powers, Naples, Milan, the Papacy, and Venice, formed among themselves a

political equilibrium which refused to allow of any disturbance. In the States of the Church, which swarmed

with petty tyrants, who in part were, or had been, Condottieri, the nephews of the Popes, since the time of

Sixtus IV, monopolized the right to all such undertakings. But at the first sign of a political crisis, the soldiers

of fortune appeared again upon the scene. Under the wretched administration of Innocent VIII it was near

happening that a certain Boccalino, who had formerly served in the Burgundian army, gave himself and the

town of Osimo, of which he was master, up to the Turkish forces; fortunately, through the intervention of

Lorenzo the Magnificent, he proved willing to be paid off, and took himself away. In the year 1495, when the

wars of Charles VIII had turned Italy upside down, the Condottiere Vidovero, of Brescia, made trial of his

strength; he had already seized the town of Cesena and murdered many of the nobles and the burghers; but

the citadel held out, and he was forced to withdraw. He then, at the head of a band lent him by another

scoundrel, Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, son of the Roberto already spoken of, and Venetian Condottiere,

wrested the town of Castelnuovo from the Archbishop of Ravenna. The Venetians, fearing that worse would

follow, and urged also by the Pope, ordered Pandolfo, 'with the kindest intentions,' to take an opportunity of

arresting his good friend: the arrest was made, though 'with great regret,' whereupon the order came to bring

the prisoner to the gallows. Pandolfo was considerate enough to strangle him in prison, and then show his

corpse to the people. The last notable example of such usurpers is the famous Castellan of Musso, who during

the confusion in the Milanese territory which followed the battle of Pavia (1525), improvised a sovereignty

on the Lake of Como.

The Smaller Despotisms

It may be said in general of the despotisms of the fifteenth century that the greatest crimes are most frequent

in the smallest States. In these, where the family was numerous and all the members wished to live in a

manner befitting their rank, disputes respecting the inheritance were unavoidable. Bernardo Varano of

Camerino put (1434) two of his brothers to death, wishing to divide their property among his sons. Where the

ruler of a single town was distinguished by a wise, moderate, and humane government, and by zeal for

intellectual culture, he was generally a member of some great family, or politically [ dependent on it. This

was the case, for example, with Alessandro Sforza, Prince of Pesaro, brother of the great Francesco, and

stepfather of Federigo of Urbino (d. 1473). Prudent in administration, just and affable in his rule, he enjoyed,

after ; years of warfare, a tranquil reign, collected a noble library, and passed his leisure in learned or

religious conversation. A man of the same class was Giovanni II Bentivoglio of Bologna (14631508),


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Smaller Despotisms 10



Top




Page No 14


whose policy was determined by that of the Este and the Sforza. What ferocity and bloodthirstiness is found,

on the other hand, among the Varani of Camerino, the Malatesta of Rimini, the Manfreddi of Faenza, and

above all among the Baglioni of Perugia. We find a striking picture of the events in the lastnamed family

towards the close of the fifteenth century, in the admirable historical narratives of Graziani and Matarazzo.

The Baglioni were one of those families whose rule never took the shape of an avowed despotism. It was

rather a leadership exercised by means of their vast wealth and of their practical influence in the choice of

public officers. Within the family one man was recognized as head; but deep and secret jealousy prevailed

among the members of the different branches. Opposed to the Baglioni stood another aristocratic party, led

by the family of the Oddi. In 1487 the city was turned into a camp, and the houses of the leading citizens

swarmed with bravos; scenes of violence were of daily occurrence. At t he burial of a German student, who

had been assassinated, two colleges took arms against one another; sometimes the bravos of the different

houses even joined battle in the public square. The complaints of the merchants and artisans were vain; the

Papal Governors and nipoti held their tongues, or took themselves off on the first opportunity. At last the

Oddi were forced to abandon Perugia, and the city became a beleaguered fortress under the absolute

despotism of the Baglioni, who used even the cathedral as barracks. Plots and surprises were met with cruel

vengeance; in the year 1491 after 130 conspirators, who had forced their way into the city, were killed and

hung up at the Palazzo Communale, thirtyfive altars were erected in the square, and for three days mass was

performed and processions held, to take away the curse which rested on the spot. A nipote of Innocent VIII

was in open day run through in the street. A nipote of Alexander VI, who was sent to smooth matters over,

was dismissed with public contempt. All the while the two leaders of the ruling house, Guido and Ridolfo,

were holding frequent interviews with Suor Colomba of Rieti, a Dominican nun of saintly reputation and

miraculous powers, who under penalty of some great disaster ordered them to make peace naturally in vain.

Nevertheless the chronicle takes the opportunity to point out the devotion and piety of the better men in

Perugia during this reign of terror. When in 1494 Charles VIII approached, the Baglioni from Perugia and the

exiles encamped in and near Assisi conducted the war with such ferocity that every house in the valley was

levelled to the ground. The fields lay untilled. the peasants were turned into plundering and murdering

savages, the fresh grown bushes were filled with stags and wolves, and the beasts grew fat on the bodies of

the slain, on socalled 'Christian flesh.' When Alexander VI withdrew (1495) into Umbria before Charles

VIII, then returning from Naples, it occurred to him, when at Perugia, that he might now rid himself of the

Baglioni once for all; he proposed to Guido a festival or tournament, or something else of the same kind,

which would bring the whole family together. Guido, however, was of opinion 'that the most impressive

spectacle of all would be to see the whole military force of Perugia collected in a body,' whereupon the Pope

abandoned his project. Soon after, the exiles made another attack in which nothing but the personal heroism

of the Baglioni won them the victory. It was then that Simonetto Baglione, a lad of scarcely eighteen, fought

in the square with a handful of followers against hundreds of the enemy: he fell at last with more than twenty

wounds, but recovered himself when Astorre Baglione came to his help, and mounting on horseback in gilded

amour with a falcon on his helmet, 'like Mars in bearing and in deeds, plunged into the struggle.'

At that time Raphael, a boy of twelve years of age, was at school under Pietro Perugino. The impressions of

these days are perhaps immortalized in the small, early pictures of St. Michael and St. George: something of

them, it may be, lives eternally in the large painting of St. Michael: and if Astorre Baglione has anywhere

found his apotheosis, it is in the figure of the heavenly horseman in the Heliodorus.

The opponents of the Baglioni were partly destroyed, partly scattered in terror, and were henceforth incapable

of another enterprise of the kind. After a time a partial reconciliation took place, and some of the exiles were

allowed to return. But Perugia became none the safer or more tranquil: the inward discord of the ruling family

broke out in frightful excesses. An opposition was formed against Guido and Ridolfo and their sons

Gianpaolo, Simonetto, Astorre, Gismondo, Gentile, Marcantonio and others, by two greatnephews, Grifone

and Carlo Barciglia; the latter of the two was also nephew of Varano Prince of Camerino, and brotherinlaw

of one of the former exiles, Gerolamo della Penna. In vain did Simonetto, warned by sinister presentiment,


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Smaller Despotisms 11



Top




Page No 15


entreat his uncle on his knees to allow him to put Penna to death: Guido refused. The plot ripened suddenly

on the occasion of the marriage of Astorre with Lavinia Colonna, at Midsummer, 1500. The festival began

and lasted several days amid gloomy forebodings, whose deepening effect is admirably described by

Matarazzo. Varano himself encouraged them with devilish ingenuity: he worked upon Grifone by the

prospect of undivided authority, and by stories of an imaginary intrigue of his wife Zenobia with Gianpaolo.

Finally each conspirator was provided with a victim. (The Baglioni lived all of them in separate houses,

mostly on the site of the pre sent castle.) Each received fifteen of the bravos at hand; the remainder were set

on the watch. In the night of July 15 the doors were forced, and Guido, Astorre, Simonetto, and Gismondo

were murdered; the others succeeded in escaping.

As the corpse of Astorre lay by that of Simonetto in the street, the spectators, 'and especially the foreign

students,' compared him to an ancient Roman, so great and imposing did he seem. In the features of

Simonetto could still be traced the audacity and defiance which death itself had not tamed. The victors went

round among the friends of the family, and did their best to recommend themselves; they found all in tears

and preparing to leave for the country. Meantime the escaped Baglioni collected forces without the city, and

on the following day forced their way in, Gianpaolo at their head, and speedily found adherents among others

whom Barciglia had been threatening with death. When Grifone fell into their hands near Sant' Ercolano,

Gianpaolo handed him over for execution to his followers. Barciglia and Penna fled to Varano, the chief

author of the tragedy, at Camerino; and in a moment, almost without loss, Gianpaolo became master of the

city.

Atalanta, the still young and beautiful mother of Grifone, who the day before had withdrawn to a country

house with the latter's wife Zenobia and two children of Gianpaolo, and more than once had repulsed her son

with a mother's curse, now returned with her daughterinlaw in search of the dying man. All stood aside as

the two women approached, each man shrinking from being recognized as the slayer of Grifone, and dreading

the malediction of the mother. But they were deceived: she herself besought her son to pardon him who had

dealt the fatal blow, and he died with her blessing. The eyes of the crowd followed the two women reverently

as they crossed the square with bloodstained garments. It was Atalanta for whom Raphael afterwards

painted the worldfamous 'Deposition,' with which she laid her own maternal sorrows at the feet of a yet

higher and holier suffering.

The cathedral, in the immediate neighbourhood of which the greater part of this tragedy had been enacted,

was washed with wine and consecrated afresh. The triumphal arch, erected for the wedding, still remained

standing, painted with the deeds of Astorre and with the laudatory verses of the narrator of these events, the

worthy Matarazzo.

A legendary history, which is simply the reflection of these atrocities, arose out of the early days of the

Baglioni. All the members of this family from the beginning were reported to have died an evil death

twentyseven on one occasion together; their houses were said to have been once before levelled to the

ground, and the streets of Perugia paved with the bricks and more of the same kind. Under Paul III the

destruction of their palaces really took place.

For a time they seemed to have formed good resolutions, to have brought their own party into power, and to

have protected the public officials against the arbitrary acts of the nobility. But the old curse broke out again

like a smoldering fire. In 1520 Gianpaolo was enticed to Rome under Leo X, and there beheaded; one of his

sons, Orazio, who ruled in Perugia for a short time only, and by the most violent means, as the partisan of the

Duke of Urbino (himself threatened by the Pope), once before repeated in his own family the horrors of the

past. His uncle and three cousins were murdered, whereupon the Duke sent him word that enough had been

done. His brother, Malatesta Baglione, the Florentine general, has made himself immortal by the treason of

1530; and Malatesta's son Ridolfo, the last of the house, attained, by the murder of the legate and the public

officers in the year 1534, a brief but sanguinary authority. We shall meet again with the names of the rulers of


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Smaller Despotisms 12



Top




Page No 16


Rimini. Unscrupulousness, impiety, military skill, and high culture have been seldom combined in one

individual as in Sigismondo Malatesta (d. 1467). But the accumulated crimes of such a family must at last

outweigh all talent, however great, and drag the tyrant into the abyss. Pandolfo, Sigismondo's nephew, who

has been mentioned already, succeeded in holding his ground, for the sole reason that the Venetians refused

to abandon their Condottiere, whatever guilt he might be chargeable with; when his subjects (1497), after

ample provocation, bombarded him in his castle at Rimini, and afterwards allowed him to escape, a Venetian

commissioner brought him back, stained as he was with fratricide and every other abomination. Thirty years

later the Malatesta were penniless exiles. In the year 1527, as in the time of Cesare Borgia, a sort of epidemic

fell on the petty tyrants; few of them outlived this date, and none to t heir own good. At Mirandola, which

was governed by insignificant princes of the house of Pico, lived in the year 1533 a poor scholar, Lilio

Gregorio Giraldi, who had fled from the sack of Rome to the hospitable hearth of the aged Giovanni

Francesco Pico, nephew of the famous Giovanni; the discussions as to the sepulchral monument which the

prince was constructing f or himself gave rise to a treatise, the dedication of which bears the date of April of

this year. The postscript is a sad one. In October of the same year the unhappy prince was attacked in the

night and robbed of life and throne by his brother's son; and I myself escaped narrowly, and am now in the

deepest misery.'

A neardespotism, without morals or principles, such as Pandolfo Petrucci exercised from after 1490 in

Siena, then torn by faction, is hardly worth a closer consideration. Insignificant and malicious, he governed

with the help of a professor of juris prudence and of an astrologer, and frightened his people by an occasional

murder. His pastime in the summer months was to roll blocks of stone from the top of Monte Amiata, without

caring what or whom they hit. After succeeding, where the most prudent failed, in escaping from the devices

of Cesare Borgia, he died at last forsaken and despised. His sons maintained a qualified supremacy for many

years afterwards.

The Greater Dynasties

In treating of the chief dynasties of Italy, it is convenient t discuss the Aragonese, on account of its special

character, apart from the rest. The feudal system, which from the days of the Nor mans had survived in the

form of a territorial supremacy of the Barons, gave a distinctive color to the political constitution of Naples;

while elsewhere in Italy, excepting only in the southern part of the ecclesiastical dominion, and in a few other

districts, a direct tenure of land prevailed, and no hereditary powers were permitted by the law. The great

Alfonso, who reigned in Naples from 1435 onwards (d. 1458), was a man of another kind than his real or

alleged descendants. Brilliant in his whole existence, fearless in mixing with his people, dignified and affable

in intercourse, admired rather than blamed even for his old man's passion for Lucrezia d'Alagno, he had the

one bad quality of extravagance, from which, however, the natural consequence followed. Unscrupulous

financiers were long omnipotent at Court, till the bankrupt king robbed them of their spoils; a crusade was

preached the Abruzzi, the survivors were compelled to make good the contributions of the dead. By such

means Alfonso was able to entertain distinguished guests with unrivalled splendor; he found pleasure in

ceaseless expense, even for the benefit of his enemies, and in rewarding literary work knew absolutely no

measure. Poggio received 500 pieces of gold for translating Xenophon's 'Cyropaedeia' into Latin.

Ferrante, who succeeded him, passed as his illegitimate son by a Spanish lady, but was not improbably the

son of a halfcaste Moor of Valencia. Whether it was his blood or the plots formed against his life by the

barons which embittered and darkened his nature, it is certain that he was equalled in ferocity by none among

the princes of his time. Restlessly active, recognized as one of the most powerful political minds of the day,

and free from the vices of the profligate, he concentrated all his powers, among which must be reckoned

profound dissimulation and an irreconcilable spirit of vengeance, on the destruction of his opponents. He had

been wounded in every point in which a ruler is open to offence; for the leaders of the barons, though related

to him by marriage, were yet the allies of his foreign enemies. Extreme measures became part of his daily

policy. The means for this struggle with his barons, and for his external wars, were exacted in the same


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Greater Dynasties 13



Top




Page No 17


Mohammedan fashion which Frederick II had introduced: the Government alone dealt in oil and corn; the

whole commerce of the country was put by Ferrante into the hands of a wealthy merchant, Francesco

Coppola, who had entire control of the anchorage on the coast, and shared the profits with the King. Deficits

were made up by forced loans, by executions and confiscations, by open simony, and by contributions levied

on the ecclesiastical corporations. Besides hunting, which he practiced regardless of all rights of property, his

pleasures were of two kinds: he liked to have his opponents near him, either alive in wellguarded prisons, or

dead and embalmed, dressed in the costume which they wore in their lifetime. He would chuckle in talking of

the captives with his friends, and make no secret whatever of the museum of mummies. His victims were

mostly men whom he had got into his power by treachery; some w ere even seized while guests at the royal

table. His conduct to his prime minister, Antonello Petrucci, who had grown sick and grey in his service, and

from whose increasing fear of death he extorted 'present after present,' was literally devilish. At length a

suspicion of complicity with the last conspiracy of the Coppola. The way in which all this is narrated in

Caracciolo and Porzio makes one's hair stand on end.

The elder of the King's sons, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, enjoyed in later years a kind of coregency with his

father. He was a savage, brutal profligate, who in point of frankness alone had the advantage of Ferrante, and

who openly avowed his contempt for religion and its usages. The better and nobler features of the Italian

despotisms are not to be found among the princes of this line; all that they possessed of the art and culture of

their time served the purpose of luxury or display. Even the genuine Spaniards seem to have almost always

degenerated in Italy; but the end of this crossbred house (1494 and 1503) gives clear proof of a want of

blood. Ferrante died of mental care and trouble; Alfonso accused his brother Federigo, the only honest

member of the family, of treason, and insulted him in the vilest manner. At length, though he had hitherto

passed for one of the ablest generals in Italy, he lost his head and fled to Sicily, leaving his son, the younger

Ferrante, a prey to the French and to domestic treason. A dynasty which had ruled as this had done must at

least have sold its life dear, if its children were ever to hope for a restoration. But, as Comines onesidedly,

and yet on the whole rightly observes on this occasion, '_Jamais homme cruel ne fut hardi_': there was never

a more cruel man.

The despotism of the Dukes of Milan, whose government from the time of Giangaleazzo onwards was an

absolute monarchy of the most thorough going sort, shows the genuine Italian character of the fifteenth

century. The last of the Visconti Filippo Maria (14121447), is a character of peculiar interest, and of which

fortunately an admirable description has been left us. What a man of uncommon gifts and high position can

be made by the passion of fear, is here shown with what may be called a mathematical completeness. All the

resources of the State were devoted to the one end of securing his personal safety, though happily his cruel

egotism did not degenerate into a purposeless thirst for blood. He lived in the Citadel of Milan, surrounded by

magnificent gardens, arbors, and lawns. For years he never set foot in the city, making his excursions only in

the country, where lay several of his splendid castles; the flotilla which, drawn by the swiftest horses,

conducted him to them along canals constructed for the purpose, was so arranged as to allow of the

application of the most rigorous etiquette. Whoever entered the citadel was watched by a hundred eyes; it was

forbidden even to stand at the window, lest signs should be given to those without. All who were admitted

among the personal followers of the Prince were subjected to a series of the strictest examinations; then, once

accepted, were charged with the highest diplomatic commissions, as well as with the humblest personal

services both in this Court being alike honorable. And this was the man who conducted long and difficult

wars, who dealt habitually with political affairs of the first importance, and every day sent his

plenipotentiaries to all parts of Italy. His safety lay in the fact that none of his servants trusted the others, that

his Condottieri were watched and misled by spies, and that the ambassadors and higher officials were baffled

and kept apart by artificially nourished jealousies, and in particular by the device of coupling an honest man

with a knave. His inward faith, too, rested upon opposed and contradictory systems; he believed in blind

necessity, and in the influence of the stars, and offering prayers at one and the same time to helpers of every

sort; he was a student of the ancient authors, as well as of French tales of chivalry. And yet the same man,

who would never suffer death to be mentioned in his presence, and caused his dying favorites to be removed


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Greater Dynasties 14



Top




Page No 18


from the castle, that no shadow might fall on the abode of happiness, deliberately hastened his own death by

closing up a wound, and, refusing to be bled, died at last with dignity and grace.

His soninlaw and successor, the fortunate Condottiere Francesco Sforza (1450 1466), was perhaps of all

the Italians of the fifteenth century the man most after the heart of his age. Never was the triumph of genius

and individual power more brilliantly displayed than in him; and those who would P.et recognize his merit

were at least forced to wonder at him as the spoilt child of fortune. The Milanese claimed it openly as an

honour to be governed by so distinguished a master; when he entered the city the thronging populace bore

him on horseback into the cathedral, without giving him the chance to dismount. Let us listen t o the

balancesheet of his life, in the estimate of Pope Pius II, a judge in such matters: 'In the year 1459, when the

Duke came to the congress at Mantua, he was 60 (really 58) years old; on horseback he looked like a young

man; of a lofty and imposing figure, with serious features, calm and affable in conversation, princely in his

whole bearing, with a combination of bodily and intellectual gifts unrivalled in our time, unconquered on the

field of battle  such was the man who raised himself from a humble position to the control of an empire. His

wife was beautiful and virtuous, his children were like the angels of heaven; he was seldom ill, and all his

chief wishes were fulfilled. And yet he was not without misfortune. His wife, out of jealousy, killed his

mistress; his old comrades and friends, Troilo and Brunoro, abandoned him and went over to King Alfonso;

another, Ciarpollone, he was forced to hang for treason; he had to suffer it that his brother Alessandro set the

French upon him; one of his sons formed intrigues against him, and was imprisoned; the March of Ancona,

which he h ad won in war, he lost again the same way. No man enjoys so unclouded a fortune that he has not

somewhere to struggle with adversity. He is happy who has but few troubles.' With this negative definition of

happiness the learned Pope dismisses the reader. Had he been able to see into the future, or been willing to

stop and discuss the consequences of an uncontrolled despotism, one pervading fact would not have escaped

his notice the absence of all guarantee for the future. Those children, beautiful as angels, carefully and

thoroughly educated as they were, fell victims, when they grew up, to the corruption of a measureless

egotism. Galeazzo Maria (14661476), solicitous only of outward effect, too k pride in the beauty of his

hands, in the high salaries he paid, in the financial credit he enjoyed, in his treasure of two million pieces of

gold, in the distinguished people who surrounded him, and in the army and birds of chase which he

maintained. He was fond of the sound of his own voice, and spoke well, most fluently, perhaps, when he had

the chance of insulting a Venetian ambassador. He was subject to caprices, such as having a room painted

with figures in a single night; and, what was worse, to fits of senseless debauchery and of revolting cruelty to

his nearest friends. To a handful of enthusiasts, he seemed a tyrant too bad to live; they murdered him, and

thereby delivered the State into the power of his brothers, one of whom, Lodovico il Moro, threw his nephew

into prison, and took the government into his own hands. From this usurpation followed the French

intervention, and the disasters which befell the whole of Italy.

Lodovico Sforza, called 'il Moro,' the Moor, is the most perfect type of the despot of that age, and, as a kind

of natural product, almost disarms our moral judgement. Notwithstanding the profound immorality of the

means he employed, he used them with perfect ingenuousness; no o ne would probably have been more

astonished than himself to learn that for the choice of means as well as of ends a human being is

morally.responsible; he would rather have reckoned it as a singular virtue that, so far as possible, he had

abstained from too free a use of the punishment of death. He accepted as no more than his due the almost

fabulous respect of the Italians for his political genius. In 1486 he boasted that the Pope Alexander was his

chaplain, the Emperor Maximilian his Condottiere, Venice his chamberlain, and the King of France his

courier, who must come and go at his bidding. With marvelous presence of mind he weighed, even in his last

extremity (1499), a possible means of escape, and at length he decided, to his honour, to trust to the goodness

of human nature; he rejected the proposal of his brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, who wished to remain in the

Citadel of Milan, on the ground of a former quarrel: 'Monsignore, take it not ill, but I trust you not, brother

though you be'; and appointed to the command of the castle, 'that pledge of his return,' a man to whom he had

always done good, but who nevertheless betrayed him. At home the Moor was a good and useful ruler, and to

the last he reckoned on his popularity both in Milan and in Como. In later years (after 1496) he had


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Greater Dynasties 15



Top




Page No 19


overstrained the resources of his State, and at Cremona had ordered, out of pure expediency, a respectable

citizen, who had spoken again st the new taxes, to be quietly strangled. Since that time, in holding audiences,

he kept his visitors away from his person by means of a bar, so that in conversing with him they were

compelled to speak at the top of their voices. At his court, the most brilliant in Europe, since that of

Burgundy had ceased to exist, immorality of the worst kind was prevalent; the daughter was sold by the

father, the wife by the husband, the sister by the brother. The Prince himself was incessantly active, and, as

son of his own deeds, claimed relationship with all who, like himself, stood on their personal merits with

scholars, poets, artists, and musicians. The academy which he founded 6 served rather for his own purposes

than for the instruction of scholars; nor was it the fame of the distinguished men who surrounded him which

he heeded, so much as their society and their services. It is certain that Bramante was scantily paid at first;

Leonardo, on the other hand, was up to 1496 suitably remunerated and besides, what kept him at the court, if

not his own free will The world lay open to him, as perhaps to no other mortal man of that day; and if proof

were wanting of the loftier element in the nature of Lodovico il Moro, it is found in the long stay of the

enigmatic master at his court. That afterwards Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia and Francis I

was probably due to the interest he felt in the unusual and striking character of the two men.

After the fall of the Moor, his sons were badly brought up among strangers. The elder, Massimiliano, had no

resemblance to him; the younger, Francesco, was at all events not without spirit. Milan, which in those years

changed its rulers so often, and suffered so unspeakably in t he change, endeavored to secure itself against a

reaction. In the year 1512 the French, retreating before the arms of Maximilian and the Spaniards, were

induced to make a declaration that the Milanese had taken no part in their expulsion, and, without being

guilty of rebellion, might yield themselves to a new conqueror. It is a f act of some political importance that

in such moments of transition the unhappy city, like Naples at the flight of the Aragonese, was apt to fall a

prey to gangs of (often highly aristocratic) scoundrels.

The house of Gonzaga at Mantua and that of Montefeltro of Urbino were among the best ordered and richest

in men of ability during the second half of the fifteenth century. The Gonzaga were a tolerably harmonious

family; for a long period no murder had been known among them, and their dead could be shown to the world

without fear.7 The Marquis Francesco Gonzaga and his wife, Isabella of Este, in spite of some few

irregularities, were a united and respectable couple, and brought up their sons to be successful and

remarkable men at a time when their small but most important State was exposed to incessant danger. That

Francesco, either as statesman or as soldier, should adopt a policy of exceptional honesty, was what neither

the Emperor, nor Venice, nor the King of France could have expected or desired; but certainly since the battle

of the Taro (1495), so far as military honour was concerned, he felt and acted as an Italian patriot, and

imparted the same spirit to his wife. Every deed of loyalty and heroism, such as the defence of Faenza against

Cesare Borgia, she felt as a vindication of the honour of Italy. Our judgement of her does not need to rest on

the praises of the artists and writers who made the fair princess a rich return for her patronage; her own letters

show her to us as a woman of unshaken firmness, full of kindliness and humorous observation. Bembo,

Bandello, Ariosto, and Bernardo Tasso sent their works to this court, small and powerless as it was, and

empty as they found its treasury. A more polished and charming circle was not to be seen in Italy, since the

dissolution (1508) of the old Court of Urbino; and in one respect, in freedom of movement, the society of

Ferrara was inferior to that of Mantua. In artistic matters Isabella had an accurate knowledge, and the

catalogue of her small but choice collection can be read by no lover of art without emotion.

In the great Federigo (14441482), whether he were a genuine Montefeltro or not, Urbino possessed a

brilliant representative of the princely order. As a Condottiere he shared the political morality of soldiers of

fortune, a morality of which the fault does not rest with them alone; as ruler of his little territory he adopted

the plan of spending at home the money he had earned abroad, and taxing his people as lightly as possible. Of

him and his two successors, Guidobaldo and Francesco Maria, we read: 'They erected buildings, furthered the

cultivation of the land, lived at home, and gave employment to a large number of people: their subjects loved

them.' But not only the State, but the court too, was a work of art and organization, and this in every sense of


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Greater Dynasties 16



Top




Page No 20


the word. Federigo had 500 persons in his service; the arrangements of the court were as complete as in the

capitals of the greatest monarchs, but nothing was built quarters sprang up at the bidding of the ruler: here, by

the concentration of the official classes and the active promotion of trade, was formed for the first time a true

capital; wealthy fugitives from all parts of Italy, Florentines especially, settled and built their palaces at

Ferrara. But the indirect taxation, at all events, must have reached a point at which it could only just be borne.

The Government, it is true, took measures of alleviation which were also adopted by other Italian despots,

such as Galeazzo Maria Sforza: in time of famine, corn was brought from a distance and seems to have been

distributed gratuitously; but in ordinary times it compensated itself by the monopoly, if not of corn, of many

other of the necessaries of life fish, salt, meat, fruit and vegetables, which last were carefully planted on and

ne ar the walls of the city. The most considerable source of income, however, was the annual sale of public

offices, a usage which was common throughout Italy, and about the working of which at Ferrara we have

more precise information. We read, for example, that at the new year 1502 the majority of the officials

bought their places at 'prezzi salati' (pungent prices); public servants of the most various kinds, customhouse

officers, bailiffs (massari), notaries, 'podesta,' judges, and even governors of provincial towns are quoted by

name. As one of the 'devourers of the people' who paid dearly for their places, and who were 'hated worse

than the devil,' Tito Strozza let us hope not the famous Latin poet is mentioned. About the same time every

year the dukes were accustomed to make a round of visits in Ferrara, the socalled 'andar per ventura,' in

which they took presents from, at any rate, the more wealthy citizens. The gifts, however, did not consist of

money, but of natural products.

It was the pride of the duke for all Italy to know that at Ferrara the soldiers received their pay and the

professors at the University their salary not a day later than it was due; that the soldiers never dared lay

arbitrary hands on citizen or peasant; that the town was impregnable to assault; and that vast sums of coined

money were stored up in the citadel. To keep two sets of accounts seemed unnecessary: the Minister of

Finance was at the same time manager of the ducal household. The buildings erected by Borso (14301471),

by Ercole I (till 1505), and by Alfonso I (till 1534), were very numerous, but of small size; they are

characteristic of a princely house which, with all its love of splendor Borso never appeared but in embroidery

and jewels indulged in no illconsidered expense. Alfonso may perhaps have foreseen the fate which was in

store for his charming little villas, the Belvedere with its shady gardens, and Montana with its fountains and

beautiful frescoes.

It is undeniable that the dangers to which these princes were constantly exposed developed in them capacities

of a remarkable kind. In so artificial a world only a man of consummate address could hope to succeed; each

candidate for distinction was forced to make good his claims by personal merit and show himself worthy of

the crown he sought. Their characters are not without dark sides; but in all of them lives something of those

qualities which Italy then pursued as its ideal. What European monarch of the time labored for his own

culture as, for instance, Alfonso I? His travels in France, England, and the Netherlands we re undertaken for

the purpose of study: by means of them he gained an accurate knowledge of the industry and commerce of

these countries. It is ridiculous to reproach him with the turner's work which he practiced in his leisure hours,

connected as it was with his skill in the casting of cannon, and with the unprejudiced freedom with which he

surrounded himself by masters of every art. The Italian princes were not, like their contemporaries in the

North, dependent on the society of an aristocracy which held itself to be the only class worth consideration,

and which infected the monarch with the same conceit. In Italy the prince was permitted and compelled to

know and to use men of every grade in society; and the nobility, though by birth a caste, were forced in social

intercourse to stand up on their personal qualifications alone. But this is a point which we shall discuss more

fully in the sequel. The feeling of the Ferrarese towards the ruling house was a strange compound of silent

dread, of the truly Italian sense of wellcalculated interest, and of the loyalty of the modern subject: personal

admiration was transferred into a new sentiment of duty. The city of Ferrara raised in 1451 a bronze

equestrian statue to their Prince Niccolo, who had died ten years earlier; Borso (1454) did not scruple to place

his own statue, also of bronze, but in a sitting posture, hard by in the market; in addition to which the city, at

the beginning of his reign, decreed to him a 'marble triumphal pillar.' A citizen who, when abroad in Venice,


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Greater Dynasties 17



Top




Page No 21


had spoken ill of Borso in public, was informed against on his return home, and condemned to banishment

and the confiscation of his goods; a loyal subject was with difficulty restrained from cutting him down before

the tribunal itself, and with a rope round his neck the offender went to the duke and begged for a full pardon.

The government was well provided with spies, and the duke inspected personally the daily list of travellers

which the innkeepers were strictly ordered to present. Under Borso, who was anxious to leave no

distinguished stranger unhonored, this regulation served a hospitable purpose; Ercole I used it simply as a

measure of precaution. In Bologna, too, it was then the rule, under Giovanni II Bentivoglio, that every

passing traveller who entered at one gate must obtain a ticket in order to go out at another. An unfailing

means of popularity was the sudden dismissal of oppressive officials. When Borso arrested in person his chief

and confidential counsellors, when Ercole I removed and disgraced a taxgatherer who for years had been

sucking the blood of the people, bonfires were lighted and the bells were pealed in their honour. With one of

his servants, however, Ercole let things go too far. The director of the police, or by whatever name we should

choose to call him (Capitano di Giustizia), was Gregorio Zampante of Lucca, a native being unsuited for an

office of this kind. Even the sons and brothers of the duke trembled before this man; the fines he inflicted

amounted to hundreds and thousands of ducats, and torture was applied even before the hearing of a case:

bribes were accepted from wealthy criminals, and their pardon obtained from the duke by false

representations. Gladly would the people have paid any sum to their ruler for sending away the 'enemy of

God and man.' But Ercole had knighted him and made him godfather to his children; and year by year

Zampante laid by 2,000 ducats. He dared only eat pigeons bred in his own house, and could not cross the

street without a band of archers and bravos. It was time to get rid of him; in 1496 two students, and a

converted Jew whom he had mortally offended, killed him in his house while taking his siesta, and then rode

through the town on horses held in waiting, raising the cry, 'Come out! come out! we have slain Zampante!'

The pursuers came too late, and found them already safe across the frontier. Of course it now rained satires

some of them in the form of sonnets, others of odes.

It was wholly in the spirit of this system that the sovereign imposed his own respect for useful servants on the

court and on the people. When in 1469 Borso's privy councillor Lodovico Casella died, no court of law or

place of business in the city, and no lectureroom at the University, was allowed to be open: all had to follow

the body to San Domenico, since the duke intended to be present. And, in fact, 'the first of the house of Este

who attended the corpse of a subject' walked, clad in black, after the coffin, weeping, while behind him came

the relatives of Casella, each conducted by one of the gentlemen of the court: the body of the plain citizen

was carried by nobles from the church into the cloister, where it was buried. Indeed this official sympathy

with princely emotion first came up in the Italian States. At the root of the practice may be a beautiful,

humane sentiment; the utterance of it, especially in the poets, is, as a rule, of equivocal sincerity. One of the

youthful poems of Ariosto, on the Death of Leonora of Aragon, wife of Ercole I, contains besides the

inevitable graveyard flowers, which are scattered in the elegies of all ages, some thoroughly modern features:

This death had given Ferrara a blow which it would not get over for years: its benefactress was now its

advocate in heaven, since earth was not worthy of her; truly the angel of Death did not come to her, as to us

common mortals, with bloodstained scythe, but fair to behold (onesta), and with so kind a face that every

fear was allayed.' But we meet, also, with sympathy of a different kind. Novelists, depending wholly on the

favour of their patrons, tell us the love stories of the prince, even before his death, in a way which, to later

times, would seem the height of indiscretion, but which then passed simply as an innocent compliment.

Lyrical poets even went so far as to sing the illicit flames of their lawfully married lords, e.g. Angelo

Poliziano, those of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Gioviano Pontano, with a singular gusto, those of Alfonso

of Calabria. The poem in question betrays unconsciously the odious disposition of the Aragonese ruler; in

these things too, he must needs be the most fortunate, else woe be to those who are more successful! That the

greatest artists, for example Leonardo, should paint the mistresses of their patrons was no more than a matter

of course.

But the house of Este was not satisfied with the praises of others; it undertook to celebrate itself. In the

Palazzo Schifanoia Borso caused himself to be painted in a series of historical representations, and Ercole


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Greater Dynasties 18



Top




Page No 22


(from 1472 on) kept the anniversary of his accession to the throne by a procession which was compared to the

feast of Corpus Christi; shops were closed as on Sunday; in the centre of the line walked all the members of

the princely house (bastards included) clad in embroidered robes. That the crown was the fountain of honour

and authority, that all personal distinction flowed from it alone, had been long expressed at this court by the

Order of the Golden Spur, an order which had nothing in common with medieval chivalry. Ercole I added to

the spur a sword, a goldlaced mantle, and a grant of money, in return for which there is no doubt that regular

service was required.

The patronage of art and letters for which this court has obtained a worldwide reputation, was exercised

through the University, which was one of the most perfect in Italy, and by the gift of places in the personal or

official service of the prince; it involved consequently no additional expense. Boiardo, as a wealthy country

gentleman and high official, belonged to this class. At the time when Ariosto began to distinguish himself,

there existed no court, in the true sense of the word, either at Milan or Florence, and soon there was none

either at Urbino or at Naples. He had to content himself with a place among the musicians and jugglers of

Cardinal Ippolito till Alfonso took him into his service. It was otherwise at a later time with Torquato Tasso,

whose presence at court was jealously sought after.

The Opponents of the Despots

In face of this centralized authority, all legal opposition within the borders of the State was futile. The

elements needed for the restoration of a republic had been for ever destroyed, and the field prepared for

violence and despotism. The nobles, destitute of political rights, even where they held feudal possessions,

might call themselves Guelphs or Ghibellines at will, might dress up their bravos in padded hose and

feathered caps or how else they pleased; thoughtful men like Machiavelli knew well enough that Milan and

Naples were too 'corrupt' for a republic. Strange judgements fell on these two socalled parties, which now

served only to give official sanction to personal and f family disputes.

An Italian prince, whom Agrippa of Nettesheim advised to put them down, replied that their quarrels brought

him in more than 12,000 ducats a year in fines. And when in the year 1500, during the brief return of

Lodovico il Moro to his States, the Guelphs of Tortona summoned a part of the neighbouring French army

into the city, in order to make an end once for all of their opponents, the French certainly began by

plundering and ruining the Ghibellines, but finished by doing the same to the Guelphs, till Tortona was

utterly laid waste. In Romagna, the hotbed of every ferocious passion, these two names had long lost all

political meaning. It was a sign of the political delusion of the people that they not seldom believed the

Guelphs to be the natural allies of the French and the Ghibellines of the Spaniards. It is hard to see that those

who tried to profit by this error got much by doing so. France, after all her interventions, had to abandon the

peninsula at last, and what became of Spain, after she had destroyed Italy, is known to every reader.

But to return to the despots of the Renaissance. A pure and simple mind, we might think, would perhaps have

argued that, since all power is derived from God, these princes, if they were loyally and honestly supported

by all their subjects, must in time themselves improve and los e all traces of their violent origin. But from

characters and imaginations inflamed by passion and ambition, reasoning of this kind could not be expected.

Like bad physicians, they thought to cure the disease by removing the symptoms, and fancied that if the

tyrant were put to death, freedom would follow of itself. Or else, without reflecting even to this extent, they

sought only to give a vent to the universal hatred, or to take vengeance for some family misfortune or

personal affront. Since the governments were absolute, and free from all legal restraints, the opposition chose

its weapons with equal freedom. Boccaccio declares openly: 'Shall I call the tyrant king or prince, and obey

him loyally as my lord? No, for he is the enemy of the commonwealth. Against him I may use arms,

conspiracies, spies, ambushes and fraud; to do so is a sacred and necessary work. There is no more acceptable

sacrifice than the blood of a tyrant.' We need not occupy ourselves with individual cases; Machiavelli, in a

famous chapter of his 'Discorsi,' treats of the conspiracies of ancient and modern times from the days of the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Opponents of the Despots 19



Top




Page No 23


Greek tyrants downwards, and classifies them with coldblooded indifference according to their various

plans and results. We need make but two observations, first on the murders committed in church, and next on

the influence of classical antiquity. So well was the tyrant guarded that it was almost impossible to lay hands

upon him elsewhere than at solemn religious services; and on no other occasion was the whole family to be

found assembled together. It was thus that the Fabrianese murdered (1435) the members of their ruling house,

the Chiavelli, during high mass, the signal being given by the words of the Creed, 'Et incarnatus est.' At

Milan the Duke Giovan Maria Visconti (1412) was assassinated at the entrance of the church of San Gottardo

Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1476) in the church of Santo Stefano, and Lodovico il Moro only escaped (1484) the

daggers of the adherents of the widowed Duchess Bona, through entering the church of Sant' Ambrogio by

another door than that by which he was expected. There was no intentional impiety in the act; the assassins of

Galeazzo did not fail to pray before the murder to the patron saint of the church, and to listen devoutly to the

first mass. It was, however, one cause of the partial failure of the conspiracy of the Pazzi against Lorenzo and

Giuliano Medici (1478), that the brigand Montesecco, who had bargained to commit the murder at a banquet,

declined to undertake it in the Cathedral of Florence. Certain of the clergy 'who were familiar with the sacred

place, and consequently had no fear' were induced to act in his stead.

As to the imitation of antiquity, the influence of which on moral, and more especially on political, questions

we shall often refer to, the example was set by the rulers themselves, who, both in their conception of the

State and in their personal conduct, took t he old Roman empire avowedly as their model. In like manner their

opponents, when they set to work with a deliberate theory, took pattern by the ancient tyrannicides. It may be

hard to prove that in the main point in forming the resolve itself they consciously followed a classical

example; but the appeal to antiquity was no mere phrase. The most striking disclosures have been left us with

respect to the murderers of Galeazzo Sforza, Lampugnani, Olgiati, and Visconti. Though all three had

personal ends to serve, yet their enterprise may be partly ascribed to a more general reason. About this time

Cola de' Montani, a humanist and professor of eloquence, had awakened among many of the young Milanese

nobility a vague passion for glory and patriotic achievements, and had mentioned to Lampugnani and Olgiati

his hope of delivering Milan. Suspicion was soon aroused against him: he was banished from the city, and his

pupils were abandoned to the fanaticism he had excited. Some ten days before the deed they met together and

took a solemn oath in the monastery of Sant' Ambrogio. 'Then,' says Olgiati, 'in a remote corner I raised my

eyes before the picture of the patron saint, and implored his help for ourselves and for all h* people.' The

heavenly protector of the city was called on to bless the undertaking, as was afterwards St. Stephen, in whose

church it was fulfilled. Many of their comrades were now informed of the plot, nightly meetings were held in

the house of Lampugnani, and the conspirators practiced for the murder with the sheaths of their daggers. The

attempt was successful, but Lampugnani was killed on the spot by the attendants of the duke; the others were

captured: Visconti was penitent, but Olgiati through all his tortures maintained that the deed was an

acceptable offering to God, and exclaimed while the executioner was breaking his ribs, 'Courage, Girolamo!

thou wilt long be remembered; death is bitter, but glory is eternal.'

But however idealistic the object and purpose of such conspiracies may appear, the manner in which they

were conducted betrays the influence of that worst of all conspirators, Catiline, a man in whose thoughts

freedom had no place whatever. The annals of Siena tell us expressly that the conspirators were students of

Sallust, and the fact is indirectly confirmed by the confession of Olgiati. Elsewhere, too, we meet with the

name of Catiline, and a more attractive pattern of the conspirator, apart from the end he followed, could

hardly be discovered.

Among the Florentines, whenever they got rid of, or tried to get rid of, the Medici, tyrannicide was a practice

universally accepted and approved. After the flight of the Medici in 1494, the bronze group of Donatello

Judith with the dead Holofernes was taken from their collection and placed before the Palazzo della Signoria,

on the spot where the 'David' of Michelangelo now stands, with the inscription, 'Exemplum salutis publicae

cives posuere 1495. No example was more popular than that of the younger Brutus, who, in Dante, lies with

Cassius and Judas Iscariot in the lowest pit of hell, because of his treason to the empire. Pietro Paolo Boscoli,


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Opponents of the Despots 20



Top




Page No 24


whose plot against Giuliano, Giovanni, and Giulio Medici failed (1513), was an enthusiastic admirer of

Brutus, and in order to follow his steps, only waited to find a Cassius. Such a partner he met with in Agostino

Capponi. His last utterances in prison a striking evidence of the religious feeling of the time show with what

an effort he rid his mind of these classical imaginations, in order to die like a Christian. A friend and the

confessor both had to assure him that St. Thomas Aquinas condemned conspirators absolutely; but the

confessor afterwards admitted to the same friend that St. Thomas drew a distinction and permitted

conspiracies against a tyrant who bad forced himself on a people against their will.

After Lorenzino Medici had murdered the Duke Alessandro (1537), and then escaped, an apology for the

deed appeared,8 which is probably his own work, and certainly composed in his interest, and in which he

praises tyrannicide as an act of the highest merit; on the supposition that Alessandro was a legitimate Medici,

and, therefore, related to him, if only distantly, he boldly compares himself with Timoleon, who slew his

brother for his country's sake. Others, on the same occasion, made use of the comparison with Brutus, and

that Michelangelo himself, even late in life, was not unfriendly to ideas of this kind, may be inferred from his

bust of Brutus in the Bargello. He left it unfinished, like nearly all his works, but certainly not because the

murder of Caesar was repugnant to his feeling, as the couplet beneath declares.

A popular radicalism in the form in which it is opposed to the monarchies of later times, is not to be found in

the despotic States of the Renaissance. Each individual protested inwardly against despotism but was

disposed to make tolerable or profitable terms with it rather than to combine with others for its destruction.

Things must have been as bad as at Camerino, Fabriano, or Rimini, before the citizens united to destroy or

expel the ruling house. They knew in most cases only too well that this would but mean a change of masters.

The star of the Republics was certainly on the decline.

The Republics: Venice and Florence

The Italian municipalities had, in earlier days, given signal proof of that force which transforms the city into

the State. It remained only that these cities should combine in a great confederation; and this idea was

constantly recurring to Italian statesmen, whatever differences of form it might from time to time display. In

fact, during the struggles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, great and formidable leagues actually were

formed by the cities; and Sismondi is of opinion that the time of the final armaments of the Lombard

confederation against Barbarossa (from 1168 on) was the moment when a universal Italian league was

possible. But the more powerful States had already developed characteristic features which made any such

scheme impracticable. In their commercial dealings they shrank from no measures, however extreme, which

might damage their competitors; they held their weaker neighbors in a condition of helpless dependence in

short, they each fancied they could get on by themselves without the assistance of the r est, and thus paved

the way for future usurpation. The usurper was forthcoming when long conflicts between the nobility and the

people, and between the different factions of the nobility, had awakened the desire for a strong government,

and when bands of mercenaries ready and willing to sell their aid to the highest bidder had superseded the

general levy of the citizens which party leaders now found unsuited to their purposes. The tyrants destroyed

the freedom of most of the cities; here and there they were expelled, but not thoroughly, or only for a short

time; and they were always restored, since the inward conditions were favourable to them, and the opposing

forces were exhausted.

Among the cities which maintained their independence are two of deep significance for the history of the

human race: Florence, the city of incessant movement, which has left us a record of the thoughts and

aspirations of each and all who, for three centuries, took part in this movement, and Venice, the city of

apparent stagnation and of political secrecy. No contrast can be imagined stronger than that which is offered

us by these two, and neither can be compared to anything else which the world has hitherto produced.

Venice recognized itself from the first as a strange and mysterious creation the fruit of a higher power than


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 21



Top




Page No 25


human ingenuity. The solemn foundation of the city was the subject of a legend: on March 25, 1413, at

midday, emigrants from Padua laid the first stone at the Rialto, that they might have a sacred, inviolable

asylum amid the devastations of the barbarians. Later writers attributed to the founders the presentiment of

the future greatness of the city; M. Antonio Sabellico, t who has celebrated the event in the dignified flow of

his hexameters, makes the priest who completes the act of consecration cry to heaven, 'When we hereafter

attempt great things, S grant us prosperity! Now we kneel before a poor altar; but if [ our vows are not made

in vain, a hundred temples, O God, of 6 gold and marble shall arise to Thee.' The island city at the end [' of

the fifteenth century was the jewelcasket of the world. It ; is so described by the same Sabellico, with its

ancient cupolas, [ its leaning towers, its inlaid marble facades, its compressed k splendor, where the richest

decoration did not hinder the y practical employment of every corner of space. He takes us to the crowded

Piazza before San Giacometto at the Rialto, where the business of the world is transacted, not amid shouting

and confusion, but with the subdued bum of many voices; where in the porticoes round the square and in

those of the adjoining streets sit hundreds of money changers and goldsmiths, with endless rows of shops and

warehouses above their heads. He describes the great Fondaco of the Germans beyond the bridge, where their

goods and their dwellings lay, and before which their ships are drawn up side by side in the canal; higher up

is a whole fleet laden with wine and oil, and parallel with i t, on the shore swarming with porters, are the

vaults of the merchants; then from the Rialto to the square of St. Mark come the inns and the perfumers'

cabinets. So he conducts the reader from one quarter of the city to another till he comes at last to the two

hospitals, which were among those institutions of public utility nowhere so numerous as at Venice. Care for

the people, in peace as well as in war, was characteristic of this government, and its attention to the wounded,

even to those of the enemy, excited the admiration of other States.

Public institutions of every kind found in Venice their pattern; the pensioning of retired servants was carried

out systematically, and included a provision for widows and orphans. Wealth, political security, and

acquaintance with other countries, had matured the understanding of such questions. These slender fair

haired men, with quiet cautious steps and deliberate speech, differed but slightly in costume and bearing from

one another; ornaments, especially pearls, were reserved for the women and girls. At that time the general

prosperity, notwithstanding the losses sustained from the Turks, was still dazzling; the stores of energy which

the city possessed, and the prejudice in its favour diffused throughout Europe, enabled it at a much later time

to survive the heavy blows inflicted upon it by the discovery of the sea route to the Indies, by the fall of the

Mamelukes in Egypt, and by the war of the League of Cambrai.

Sabellico, born in the neighbourhood of Tivoli, and accustomed to the frank loquacity of the scholars of his

day, remarks elsewhere with some astonishment, that the young nobles who came of a morning to hear his

lectures could not be prevailed upon to enter into political discussions: 'When I ask them what people think,

say, and expect about this or that movement in Italy, they all answer with one voice that they know nothing

about the matter.' Still, in spite of the strict imposition of the State, much was to be learned from the more

corrupt members of the aristocracy by those who were willing to pay enough for it. In the last quarter of the

fifteenth century there were traitors among the highest officials; the popes, the Italian princes, and even the

secondrate Condottieri in the service of the government had informers in their pay, sometimes with regular

salaries; things went so far that the Council of Ten found it prudent to conceal important political news from

the Council of the Pregadi, and it was even supposed that Lodovico il Moro had control of a definite number

of votes among the latter. Whether the hanging of single offenders and the high rewards such as a

lifepension of sixty ducats paid to those who informed against them were of much avail, it is hard to decide;

one of the chief causes of this evil, the poverty of many of the nobility, could not be removed in a day. In the

year 1492 a proposal was urged by two of that order, that the State should spend 70,000 ducats for the relief

of those poorer nobles who held no public office; the matter was near coming before the Great Council, in

which it might have had a majority, when the Council of Ten interfered in time and banished the two

proposers for life to Nicosia in Cyprus. About this time a Soranzo was hanged, though not in Venice itself,

for sacrilege, and a Contarini put in chains for burglary; another of the same family came in 1499 before the

Signory, and complained that for many years he had been without an office, that he had only sixteen ducats a


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 22



Top




Page No 26


year and nine children, that his debts amounted to sixty ducats, that he knew no trade and had lately been

turned into the streets. We can understand why some of the wealthier nobles built houses, sometimes whole

rows of them, to provide free lodging for their needy comrades. Such works figure in wills among deeds of

charity.

But if the enemies of Venice ever founded serious hopes upon abuses of this kind, they were greatly in error.

It might be thought that the commercial activity of the city, which put within reach of the humblest a rich

reward for their labor, and the colonies on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean would have diverted from

political affairs the dangerous elements of society. But had not the political history of Genoa, notwithstanding

similar advantages, been of the stormiest? The cause of the stability of Venice lies rather in a combination of

circumstances which were found in union nowhere else. Unassailable from its position, it had been able from

the beginning to treat of foreign affairs with the fullest and calmest reflection, and ignore nearly altogether

the parties which divided the rest of Italy, to escape the entanglement of permanent alliances, and to set the

highest price on those which it thought fit to make. The keynote of the Venetian character was, consequently,

a spirit of proud and contemptuous isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city by the other States of

Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity within The inhabitants meanwhile were united by the most

powerful ties of interest in dealing both with the colonies and with the possessions on the mainland, forcing

the population of the latter, that is, of all the towns up to Bergamo, to buy and sell in Venice alone. A power

which rested on means so artificial could only be maintained by internal harmony and unity; and this

conviction was so widely diffused among the citizens that conspirators found few elements to work upon.

And the discontented, if there were such, were held so far apart by the division between the noble and the

burgher that a mutual understanding was not easy. On the other hand, within the ranks of the nobility itself,

travel, commercial enterprise, and tb^ incessant wars with the Turks saved the wealthy and dangerous from

that fruitful source of conspiracies idleness. In these wars they were spared, often to a criminal extent, by the

general in command, and the fall of the city was predicted by a Venetian Cato, if this fear of the nobles 'to

give o ne another pain' should continue at the expense of justice. Nevertheless this free movement in the open

air gave the Venetian aristocracy, as a whole, a healthy bias.

And when envy and ambition called for satisfaction, an official victim was forthcoming and legal means and

authorities were ready. The moral torture which for years the Doge Francesco Foscari (d. 1457) suffered

before the eyes of all Venice is a frightful example of a vengeance possible only in an aristocracy. The

Council of Ten, which had a hand in everything, which disposed without appeal of life and death, of S

financial affairs and military appointments, which included the Inquisitors among its number, and which

overthrew Foscari, as it had overthrown so many powerful men before this Council was yearly chosen afresh

from the whole governing body, the Gran Consiglio, and was consequently the most direct expression of its

will. It is not probable that serious intrigues occurred at these elections, as the short duration of the office and

the accountability which followed rendered it an object of no great desire. But violent and mysterious as the

proceedings of this and other authorities might be, the genuine Venetian courted rather than fled their

sentence, not only because the Republic had long arms, and if it could not catch him might punish his family,

but because in most cases it acted from rational motives and not from a thirst for blood. No State, indeed, has

ever exercised a greater moral influence over its subjects, whether abroad or at home. If traitors were to be

found among the Pregadi, there was ample compensation for this in the fact that every Venetian away from

home was a born spy for his government. It was a matter of course that the Venetian cardinals at Rome sent

home news of the transactions of the secret papal consistories. The Cardinal Domenico Grimani had the

dispatches intercepted in the neighbourhood of Rome (1500) which Ascanio Sforza was sending to his

brother Lodovico il Moro, and forwarded them to Venice; his father, then exposed to a serious accusation,

claimed public credit for this service of his son before the Gran Consiglio, in other words, before all the

world.

The conduct of the Venetian government to the Condottieri in its pay has been spoken of already. The only

further guarantee of their fidelity which could be obtained lay in their great number, by which treachery was


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 23



Top




Page No 27


made as difficult as its discovery was easy. In looking at the Venetian army list, one is only surprised that

among forces of such miscellaneous composition any common action was possible. In the catalogue for the

campaign of 1495 we find 15,526 horsemen, broken up into a number of small divisions. Gonzaga of Mantua

alone had as many as I,200, and Gioffredo Borgia 740; then follow six officers with a contingent of 600 to

700, ten with 400, twelve with 400 to 200, fourteen or thereabouts with 200 to 100, nine with 80, six with 50

to 60, and so forth. These forces were partly composed of old Venetian troops, partly of veterans led by

Venetian city or country nobles; the majority of the leaders were, however, princes and rulers of cities or their

relatives. To these forces must be added 24,000 infantry we are not told how they were raised or commanded

with 3,300 additional troops, who probably belonged to the special services. In time of peace the cities of the

mainland were wholly unprotected or occupied by insignificant garrisons. Venice relied, if not exactly on the

loyalty, at least on the good sense of its subjects; in the war of the League of Cambrai (1509) it absolved

them, as is well known, from their oath of allegiance, and let them compare the amenities of a foreign

occupation with the mild government to which they had been accustomed. As there had been no treason in

their desertion of St. Mark, and consequently no punishment was to be feared, they returned to their old

masters with the utmost eagerness. This war, we may remark parenthetically, was the result of a century's

outcry against the Venetian desire for aggrandizement. The Venetians, in fact, were not free from the mistake

of those overclever people who will credit their opponents with no irrational and inconsiderate conduct.

Misled by this optimism, which is, perhaps, a peculiar weakness of aristocracies, they had utterly ignored not

only the preparations of Mohammed II for the capture of Constantinople, but even the armaments of Charles

VIII, till the unexpected blow fell at last. The League of Cambrai was an event of the same character, in so

far as it was clearly opposed to the interests of the two chief members, Louis XII and Julius II. The hatred of

all Italy against t}e victorious city seemed to be concentrated in the mind of the Pope, and to have blinded

him to the evils of foreign intervention; and as to the policy of Cardinal d'Amboise and his king, Venice

ought long before to have recognized it as a piece of malicious imbecility, and to have been thoroughly on its

guard. The other members of the League took part in it from that envy which may be a salutary corrective to

great wealth and power, but which in itself is a beggarly sentiment. Venice came out of the conflict with

honour, but not without lasting damage.

A power whose foundations were so complicated, whose activity and interests filled so wide a stage, cannot

be imagined without a systematic oversight of the whole, without a regular estimate of means and burdens, of

profits and losses. Venice can fairly make good its claim to be the birthplace of statistical science, together,

perhaps, with Florence, and followed by the more enlightened despotisms. The feudal state of the Middle

Ages knew of nothing more than catalogues of seignorial rights and possessions (urbaria); it looked on

production as a fixed quantity, which it approximately is, so long as we have to do with landed property only.

The towns, on the other hand, throughout the West must from very early times have treated production,

which with them depended on industry and commerce, as exceedingly variable; but even in the most

flourishing times of the Hanseatic League, they never got beyond a simple commercial balancesheet. Fleets,

armies, political power and influence fall under the debit and credit of a trader's ledger. In the Italian States a

clear political consciousness, the pattern of Mohammedan administration, and the long and active exercise of

trade and commerce, combined to produce for the first time a true science of statistics. The absolute

monarchy of Frederick II in Lower Italy was organized with the sole object of securing a concentrated power

for the death struggle in which he was engaged. In Venice, on the contrary, the supreme objects were the

enjoyment of life and power, the increase of inherited advantages, the creation of the most lucrative forms of

industry. and the opening of new channels for commerce.

The writers of the time speak of these things with the greatest freedom. We learn that the population of the

city amounted in the year 1422 to 190,000 souls; the Italians were, perhaps, the first to reckon, not according

to hearths, or men able to bear arms, or people able to walk, and so forth, but according to 'animae,' and thus

to get the most neutral basis for further calculation. About this time, when the Florentines wished to form an

alliance with Venice against Filippo Maria Visconti, they were for the moment refused, in the belief, resting

on accurate commercial returns, that a war between Venice and Milan, that is, between seller and buyer, was


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 24



Top




Page No 28


foolish. Even if the duke simply increased his army, the Milanese, through the heavier taxation they must

pay, would become worse customers. 'Better let the Florentines be defeated, and then, used as they are to the

life of a free city, they will settle with us and bring their silk and woollen industry with them, as the Lucchese

did in their distress.' The speech of the dying Doge Mocenigo (1423) to a few of the senators whom he had

sent for to his bedside is still more remarkable. It contains the chief elements of a statistical account of the

whole resources of Venice. I cannot say whether or where a thorough elucidation of this perplexing document

exists; by way of illustration, the following facts may be quoted. After repaying a warloan of four million

ducats, the public debt ('il monte') still amounted to six million ducats; the current trade (it seems) to ten

millions, which yielded, the text informs us, a profit of four millions. The 3,000 'navigli,' the 300 'navi,' and

the 45 galleys were manned respectively by 17,000, 8,000 and 11,000 seamen (more than 200 for each

galley). To these must be added 16,000 shipwrights. The houses in Venice were valued at seven millions, and

brought in a rent of half a million. These were 1,000 nobles whose incomes ranged from 70 to 4,000 ducats.

In another passage the ordinary income of the State in that same year is put at 1,100,000 ducats; through the

disturbance of trade caused by the wars it sank about the middle of the century to 800,000 ducats.

If Venice, by this spirit of calculation, and by the practical turn which she gave it, was the first fully to

represent one important side of modern political life, in that culture, on the other hand, which Italy then

prized most highly she did not stand in the front rant. The literary impulse, in general, was here wanting, and

especially that enthusiasm for classical antiquity which prevailed elsewhere. The aptitude of the Venetians,

says Sabellico, for philosophy and eloquence was in itself not smaller than that for commerce and politics.

George of Trebizond, who, in 1459, laid the Latin translation of Plato's Laws at the feet of the Doge, was

appointed professor of philology with a yearly salary of 150 ducats, and finally dedicated his 'Rhetoric' to the

Signoria. If, however, we look through the history of Venetian literature which Francesco Sansovino has

appended to his wellknown book, we shall find in the fourteenth century almost nothing but history, and

special works on theology, jurisprudence, and medicine; and in the fifteenth century, till we come to Ermolao

Barbaro and Aldo Manuzio, humanistic culture is, for a city of such importance, most scantily represented.

The library which Cardinal Bessarion bequeathed to the State (1468) narrowly escaped dispersion and

destruction. Learning could be had at the University of Padua, where, however, physicians and jurists the

latter for their opinion on points of law received by far the highest pay. The share of Venice in the poetical

creations of the country was long insignificant, till, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, her deficiencies

were made good. Even the art of the Renaissance was imported into the city from without, and it was not

before the end of the fifteenth century that she learned to move in this field with independent freedom and

strength. But we find more striking instances still of intellectual backwardness. This Government, which had

the clergy so thoroughly in its control, which reserved to itself the appointment to all important ecclesiastical

offices, and which, one time after another, dared to defy the court of Rome, displayed an official piety of a

most singular kind. The bodies of saints and other relics imported from Greece after the Turkish conquest

were bought at the greatest sacrifices and received by the Doge in solemn procession.12 For the coat without

a seam it was decided (1455) to offer 10,000 ducats, but it was not to be had. These measures were not the

fruit of any popular excitement, but of the tranquil resolutions of the heads of the Government, and might

have been omitted without attracting any comment, and at Florence, under similar circumstances, would

certainly have been omitted. We shall say nothing of the piety of the masses, and of their firm belief in the

indulgences of an Alexander VI. But the State itself, after absorbing the Church to a degree unknown

elsewhere, had in truth a certain ecclesiastical element in its composition, and the Doge, the symbol of the

State, appeared in twelve great processions ('andate') in a halfclerical character. They were almost all

festivals in memory of political events, and competed in splendor with the great feasts of the Church; the

most brilliant of all, the famous marriage with the sea, fell on Ascension Day.

The most elevated political thought and the most varied forms of human development are found united in the

history of Florence, which in this sense deserves the name of the first modern State in the world. Here the

whole people are busied with what in the despotic cities is the affair of a single family. That wondrous

Florentine spirit, at once keenly critical and artistically creative, was incessantly transforming the social and


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 25



Top




Page No 29


political condition of the State, and as incessantly describing and judging the change. Florence thus became

the home of political doctrines and theories, of experiments and sudden changes, but also, like Venice, the

home of statistical science, and alone and above all other States in the world, the home of historical

representation in the modern sense of the phrase. The spectacle of ancient Rome and a familiarity with its

leading writers were not without influence; Giovanni Villani confesses that he received the first impulse to

his great work at the jubilee of the year 1300, and began it immediately on his return home. Yet how many

among the 200,000 pilgrims of that year may have been like him in gifts and tendencies and still did not write

the history of their native cities? For not all of them could encourage themselves with the thought: 'Rome is

sinking; my native city is rising, and ready to achieve great things, and therefore I wish to relate its past

history, and hope to continue the story to the present time, and as long as any life shall last.' And besides the

witness to its past, Florence obtained through its historians something further a greater fame than fell to the

lot of any other city of Italy.

Our present task is not to write the history of this remarkable State, but merely to give a few indications of

the intellectual freedom and independence for which the Florentines were indebted to this history. In no other

city of Italy were the struggles of political parties so bitter, of such early origin, and so permanent. The

descriptions of them, which belong, it is true, to a somewhat later period, give clear evidence of the

superiority of Florentine criticism.

And what a politician is the great victim of these crises, Dante Alighieri, matured alike by home and by exile

! He uttered his scorn of the incessant changes and experiments in the constitution of his native city in ringing

verses, which will remain proverbial so long as political events of the same kind recur;14 he addressed his

home in words of defiance and yearning which must have stirred the hearts of his countrymen. But his

thoughts ranged over Italy and the whole world; and if his passion for the Empire, as he conceived it, was no

more than an illusion, it must yet be admitted that the youthful dreams of a newborn political speculation are

in his case not without a poetical grandeur. He is proud to be the first who trod this path,16 certainly in the

footsteps of Aristotle, but in his own way independently. His ideal emperor is a just and humane judge,

dependent on God only, the heir of the universal sway of Rome to which belonged the sanction of nature, of

right and of the will of God. The conquest of the world was, according to this view, rightful, resting on a

divine judgement between Rome and the other nations of the earth, and God gave his approval to this empire,

since under it He became Man, submitting at His birth to the census of the Emperor Augustus, and at His

death to the judgement of Pontius Pilate. We may find it hard to appreciate these and other arguments of the

same kind, but Dante's passion never fail s to carry us with him. In his letters he appears as one of the earliest

publicists, and is perhaps the first layman to publish political tracts in this form. He began early. Soon after

the death of Beatrice he addressed a pamphlet on the State of Florence 'to the Great ones of the Earth,' and the

public utterances of his later years, dating from the time of his banishment, are all directed to emperors,

princes, and cardinals. In these letters and in his book De Vulgari Eloquentia (About the Vernacular) the

feeling, bought with such bitter pains, is constantly recurring that the exile may find elsewhere than in his

native place an intellectual home in language and culture, which cannot be taken from him. On this point we

shall have more to say in the sequel.

To the two Villani, Giovanni as well as Matteo, we owe not so much deep political reflection as fresh and

practical observations, together with the elements of Florentine statistics and important notices of other

States. Here too trade and commerce had given the impulse to economic as well as political science. Nowhere

else in the world was such accurate information to be had on financial affairs. The wealth of the Papal court

at Avignon, which at the death of John XXII amounted to twentyfive millions of gold florins, would be

incredible on any less trustworthy authority. Here only, at Florence, do we meet with colossal loans like that

which the King of England contracted from the Florentine houses of Bardi and Peruzzi, who lost to his

Majesty the sum of 1,365,000 gold florins (1338) their own money and that of their partners and nevertheless

recovered from the shock. Most important facts are here recorded as to the condition of Florence at this time:

the public income (over 300,000 gold florins) and expenditure the population of the city, here only roughly


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 26



Top




Page No 30


estimated, according to the consumption of bread, in 'bocche,' i.e. mouths, put at 50,000 and the population of

the whole territory; the excess of 300 to 500 male children among the 5,800 to 8,000 annually baptized 18 the

schoolchildren, of whom 8,000 to 10,000 learned reading, 1,000 to 1,200 in six schools arithmetic; and

besides these, 600 scholars who were taught Latin grammar and logic in four schools. Then follow the

statistics of the churches and monasteries; of the hospitals, which held more than a thousand beds; of the

wool trade, with most valuable details; of the mint, the provisioning of the city, the public officials, and so

on. Incidentally we learn many curious facts; how, for instance, when the public funds ('monte') were first

established, in the year 1353, the Franciscans spoke from the pulpit in favour of the measure, the Dominicans

and Augustinians against it. The economic results of the black death were and could be observed and

described nowhere else in all Europe as in this city.20 Only a Florentine could have left it on record how it

was expected that the scanty population would have made everything cheap, and how instead of that labor

and commodities doubled in price; how the common people at first would do no work at all, but simply give

themselves up to enjoyment, how in the city itself servants and maids were not to be had except at

extravagant wages; how the peasants would only hill the best lands, and left the rest uncultivated; and how

the enormous legacies bequeathed to the poor at the time of the plague seemed afterwards useless, since the

poor had either died or had ceased to be poor. Lastly, on the occasion of a great bequest, by which a childless

philanthropist left six 'denarii' to every beggar in the city, the attempt is made to give a comprehensive

statistical account of Florentine mendicancy.

This statistical view of things was at a later time still more highly cultivated at Florence. The noteworthy

point about it is that, as a rule, we can perceive its connection with the higher aspects of history, with art, and

with culture in general. An inventory of the year 1422 mentions, within the compass of the same document,

the seventytwo exchange offices which surrounded the 'Mercato Nuovo'; the amount of coined money in

circulation (two million golden florins); the then new industry of gold spinning; the silk wares; Filippo

Brunellesco, then busy in digging classical architecture from its grave; and Leonardo Aretino, secretary of the

republic, at work at the revival of ancient literature and eloquence; lastly, it speaks of the general prosperity

of the city, then free from political conflicts, and of the good fortune of Italy, which had rid itself of foreign

mercenaries. The Venetian statistics quoted above which date from about the same year, certainly give

evidence of larger property and profit and of a more extensive scene of action; Venice had long been mistress

of the seas before Florence sent out its first galleys (1422) to Alexandria. But no reader can fail to recognize

the higher spirit of the Florentine documents. These and similar lists recur at intervals of ten years,

systematically arranged and tabulated, while elsewhere we find at best occasional notices. We can form an

approximate estimate of the property and the business of the first Medici; they paid for charities, public

buildings, and taxes from 1434 to 1471 no less than 663,755 gold florins, of which more than 400,000 fell on

Cosimo alone, and Lorenzo Magnifico was delighted that the money had been so well spent. In 1478 we have

again a most important and in its way complete view of the commerce and trades of this city, some of which

may be wholly or partly reckoned among the fine arts such as those which had to do with damasks and gold

or silver embroidery, with woodcarving and 'intarsia,' with the sculpture of arabesques in marble and

sandstone, with portraits in wax, and with jewelry and work in gold. The inborn talent of the Florentines for

the systematization of outward life is shown by their books on agriculture, business, and domestic economy,

which are markedly superior to those of other European people in the fifteenth century. It has been rightly

decided to publish selections of these works, although no little study will be needed to extract clear and

definite results from them. At all events, we have no difficulty in recognizing the city, where dying parents

begged the government in their wills to fine their sons 1,000 florins if they declined to practice a regular

profession.

For the first half of the sixteenth century probably no State in the world possesses a document like the

magnificent description of Florence by Varchi. In descriptive statistics, as in so many things besides, yet

another model is left to us, before the freedom and greatness of the city sank into the grave.

This statistical estimate of outward life is, however, uniformly accompanied by the narrative of political


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 27



Top




Page No 31


events to which we have already referred. Florence not only existed under political forms more varied than

those of the free States of Italy and of Europe generally, but it reflected upon them far more deeply. It is a

faithful mirror of the relations of individuals and classes to a variable whole. The pictures of the great civic

democracies in France and in Flanders, as they are delineated in Froissart, and the narratives of the German

chroniclers of the fourteenth century, are in truth of high importance; but in comprehensiveness of thought

and in the rational development of the story, none will bear comparison with the Florentines. The rule of the

nobility, the tyrannies, the struggles of the middle class with the proletariat, limited and unlimited democracy,

pseudodemocracy, the primacy of a single house, the theocracy of Savonarola, and the mixed forms of

government which prepared the way for the Medicean despotism all are so described that the inmost motives

of the actors are laid bare to the light. At length Machiavelli in his Florentine history (down to 1492)

represents his native city as a living organism and its development as a natural and individual process; he is

the first of the moderns who has risen to such a conception. It lies without our province to determine whether

and in what points Machiavelli may have done violence to history, as is notoriously the case in his life of

Castruccio Castracania fancy picture of the typical despot. We might find something to say against every

line of the 'Storie Fiorentine,' and yet the great and unique value of the whole would remain unaffected. And

his contemporaries and successors, Jacopo Pitti, Guicciardini, Segni, Varchi, Vettori, what a circle of

illustrious names! And what a story it is which these masters tell us! The great and memorable drama of the

last decades of the Florentine republic is here unfolded. The voluminous record of the collapse of the highest

and most original life which the world could then show may appear to one but as a collection of curiosities,

may awaken in another a devilish delight at the shipwreck of so much nobility and grandeur, to a third may

seem like a great historical assize; for all it will be an object of thought and study to the end of time. The evil

which was for ever troubling the peace of the city was its rule over once powerful and now conquered rivals

like Pisaa rule of which the necessary consequence was a chronic state of violence. The only remedy,

certainly an extreme one and which none but Savonarola could have persuaded Florence to accept, and that

only with the help of favourable chances, would have been the welltimed dissolution of Tuscany into a

federal union of free cities. At a later period this scheme, then no more than the dream of a past age, brought

(1548) a patriotic citizen of Lucca to the scaffold.

From this evil and from the illstarred Guelph sympathies of Florence for a foreign prince, which

familiarized it with foreign intervention, came all the disasters which followed. But who does not admire the

people which was wrought up by its venerated preacher to a mood of such sustained loftiness that for the first

time in Italy it set the example of sparing a conquered foe while the whole history of its past taught nothing

but vengeance and extermination? The glow which melted patriotism into one with moral regeneration may

seem, when looked at from a distance, to have soon passed away; but its best results shine forth again in the

memorable siege of 152930. They were 'fools,' as Guicciardini then wrote, who drew down this storm upon

Florence, but he confesses himself that they achieved things which seemed incredible; and when he declares

that sensible people would have got out of the way of the danger, he means no more than that Florence ought

to have yielded itself silently and ingloriously into the hands of its enemies. It would no doubt have preserved

its splendid suburbs and gardens, and the lives and prosperity of countless citizens; but it would have been

the poorer by one of its greatest and most ennobling memories.

In many of their chief merits the Florentines are the pattern and the earliest type of Italians and modern

Europeans generally; they are so also in many of their defects. When Dante compares the city which was

always mending its constitution with the sick man who is continually changing his posture to escape from

pain, he touches with the comparison a permanent feature of the political life of Florence. The great modern

fallacy that a constitution can be made, can be manufactured by a combination of existing forces and

tendencies, was constantly cropping up in stormy times; even Machiavelli is not wholly free from it.

Constitutional artists were never wanting who by an ingenious distribution and division of political power, by

indirect elections of the most complicated kind, by the establishment of nominal offices, sought to found a

lasting order of things, and to satisfy or to deceive the rich and the poor alike. They naively fetch their

examples from classical antiquity, and borrow the party names 'ottimati,' 'aristocrazia,' as a matter of course.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 28



Top




Page No 32


The world since then has become used to these expressions and given them a conventional European sense,

whereas all former party names were purely national, and oithor rhnrnotPrimPrl tho rnilqP nt iqqllP or cnrsnz

from the caprice of accident. But how a name colors or discolors a political cause!

But of all who thought it possible to construct a State, the greatest beyond all comparison was Machiavelli.

He treats existing forces as living and active, takes a large and accurate view of alternative possibilities, and

seeks to mislead neither himself nor others. No man could be freer from vanity or ostentation; indeed, he does

not write for the public, but either for princes and administrators or for personal friends. The danger for him

does not lie in an affectation of genius or in a false order of ideas, but rather in a powerful imagination which

he evidently controls with difficulty. The objectivity of his political Judgement is sometimes appalling in its

sincerity; but it is the sign of a time of no ordinary need and peril, when it was a hard matter to believe in

right, or to credit others with just dealing Virtuous indignation at his expense is thrown away on us, who have

seen in what sense political morality is understood by the statesmen of our own century. Machiavelli was at

all events able to forget himself in his cause. In truth, although his writing s, with the exception of very few

words, are altogether destitute of enthusiasm, and although the Florentines themselves treated him at last as a

criminal, he was a patriot in the fullest meaning of the word. But free as he was, like most of his

contemporaries, in speech and morals, the welfare of the State was yet his first and last thought.

His most complete program for the construction of a new political system at Florence is set forth in the

memorial to Leo X, composed after the death of the younger Lorenzo Medici, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519), to

whom he had dedicated his 'Prince.' The State was by that time in extremities and utterly corrupt, and the

remedies proposed are not always morally justifiable; but it is most interesting to see how he hopes to set up

the republic in the form of a moderate democracy, as heiress to the Medici. A more ingenious scheme of

concessions to the Pope, to the Pope's various adherents, and to the different Florentine interests, cannot be

imagined; we might fancy ourselves looking into the works of a clock. Principles, observations, comparisons,

political forecasts, and the like are to be found in numbers in the 'Discorsi,' among them flashes of wonderful

insight. He recognizes, for example, the law of a continuous though not uniform development in republican

institutions, and requires the constitution to be flexible and capable of change, as the only means of

dispensing with bloodshed and banishments. For a like reason, in order to guard against private violence and

foreign interference'the death of all freedom'he wishes to see introduced a judicial procedure ('accusa')

against hated citizens, in place of which Florence had hitherto had nothing but the court of scandal. With a

masterly hand the tardy and involuntary decisions are characterized which at critical moments play so

important a part in republican States. Once, it is true, he is misled by his imagination and the pressure of

events into unqualified praise of the people, which chooses its officers, he says, better than any prince, and

which can be cured of its errors by 'good advice.' With regard to the Government of Tuscany, he has no doubt

that it belongs to his native city, and maintains, in a special 'Discorso' that the reconquest of Pisa is a question

of life or death; he deplores that Arezzo, after the rebellion of 1502, was not razed to the ground; he admits in

general that Italian republics must be allowed to expand freely and add to their territory in order to enjoy

peace at home, and not to be themselves attacked by others, but declares that Florence had un at the wrong

end, and from the first made deadly Pisa, Lucca, and Siena, while Pistoia, 'treated like a brother,' had

voluntarily submitted to her.

It would be unreasonable to draw a parallel between the few other republics which still existed in the fifteenth

century and this unique citythe most important workshop of the Italian, and indeed of the modern

European spirit. Siena suffered from the gravest organic maladies, and its relative prosperity in art and

industry must not mislead us on this point. Aeneas Sylvius looks with longing from his native town over to

the 'merry' German imperial cities, where life is embittered by no confiscations of land and goods, by no

arbitrary officials, and by no political factions. Genoa scarcely comes within range of our task, as before the

time of Andrea Doria it took almost no part in the Renaissance.

Indeed, the inhabitant of the Riviera was proverbial among Italians for his contempt of all higher culture.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Republics: Venice and Florence 29



Top




Page No 33


Party conflicts here assumed so fierce a char acter, and disturbed so violently the whole course of life, that

we can hardly understand how, after so many revolutions and invasions, the Genoese ever contrived to return

to an endurable condition. Perhaps it was owing to the fact that all who took part in public affairs were at the

same time almost without exception active men of business. The example of Genoa shows in a striking

manner with what insecurity wealth and vast commerce, and with what internal disorder the possession of

distant colonies, are compatible.

Foreign Policy

As the majority of the Italian States were in their internal constitution works of art, that is, the fruit of

reflection and careful adaptation, so was their relation to one another and to foreign countries also a work of

art. That nearly all of them were the result of recent usurpations, was a fact which exercised as fatal an

influence in their foreign as in their internal policy. Not one of them recognized another without reserve; the

same play of chance which had helped to found and consolidate one dynasty might upset another. Nor was it

always a matter of choice with the despot whether to keep quiet or not. The necessity of movement and

aggrandizement is common to all illegitimate powers. Thus Italy became the scene of a 'foreign policy' which

gradually, as in other countries also, acquired the position of a recognized system of public law. The purely

objective treatment of international affairs, as free from prejudice as from moral scruples, attained a

perfection which sometimes is not without a certain beauty and grandeur of its own. But as a whole it gives

us the impression of a bottomless abyss.

Intrigues, armaments, leagues, corruption and treason make up the outward history of Italy at this period.

Venice in particular was long accused on all hands of seeking to conquer the whole peninsula, or gradually so

to reduce its strength that one State after another must fall into her hands. But on a closer view it is evident

that this complaint did not come from the people, but rather from the courts and official classes, which were

commonly abhorred by their subjects, while the mild government of Venice had secured for it general

confidence Even Florence, with its restive subject cities, found itself in a false position with regard to Venice,

apart from all commercial jealousy and from the progress of Venice in Romagna. At last the League of

Cambrai actually did strike a serious blow at the State which all Italy ought to have supported with united

strength.

The other States, also, were animated by feelings no less unfriendly, and were at all times ready to use against

one another any weapon which their evil conscience might suggest. Lodovico il Moro, the Aragonese kings

of Naples, and Sixtus IVto say nothing of the smaller powers kept Italy in a constant perilous agitation.

It would have been well if the atrocious game had been confined to Italy; but it lay in the nature of the case

that intervention sought from abroadin particular the French and the Turks.

The sympathies of the people at large were throughout on the side of France. Florence had never ceased to

confess with shocking _naivete _its old Guelph preference for the French. And when Charles VIII actually

appeared on the south of the Alps, all Italy accepted him with an enthusiasm which to himself and his

followers seemed unaccountable. In the imagination of the Italians, to take Savonarola for an example the

ideal picture of a wise, just, and powerful savior and ruler was still living, with the difference that he was no

longer the emperor invoked by Dante, but the Capetian king of France. With his departure the illusion was

broken; but it was long before all understood how completely Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I had

mistaken their true relation to Italy, and by what inferior motives they were led. The princes, for their part,

tried to make use of France in a wholly different way. When the FrancoEnglish wars came to an end, when

Louis XI began to cast about his diplomatic nets on all sides, and Charles of Burgundy to embark on his

foolish adventures, the Italian Cabinets came to meet them at every point. It became clear that the

intervention of France was only a question of time, even if the claims on Naples and Milan had never existed,

and that the old interference with Genoa and Piedmont was only a type of what was to follow. The Venetians,

in fact, expected it as early as 1462. The mortal terror of the Duke Galeazzo Maria of Milan during the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Foreign Policy 30



Top




Page No 34


Burgundian war, in which he was apparently the ally of Charles as well as of Louis, and consequently had

reason to dread an attack from both, is strikingly shown in his correspondence. The plan of an equilibrium of

the four chief Italian powers, as understood by Lorenzo the Magnificent, was but the assumption of a cheerful

optimistic spirit, which had outgrown both the recklessness of an experimental policy and the superstitions of

Florentine Guelphism, and persisted in hoping for the best. When Louis XI offered him aid in the war against

Ferrante of Naples and Sixtus IV, he replied, 'I cannot set my own advantage above the safety of all Italy;

would to God it never came into the mind of the French kings to try their strength in this country! Should

they ever do so, Italy is lost.' For the other princes, the King of France was alternately a bugbear to

themselves and their enemies, and they threatened to call him in whenever they saw no more convenient way

out of their difficulties. The Popes, in their turn, fancied that they could make use of France without any

danger to themselves, and even Innocent VIII imagined that he could withdraw to sulk in the North, and

return as a conqueror to Italy at the head of a French army.

Thoughtful men, indeed, foresaw the foreign conquest long before the expedition of Charles VIII. And when

Charles was back again on the other side of the Alps, it was plain to every eye that an era of intervention had

begun. Misfortune now followed on misfortune; it was understood too late that France and Spain, the two

chief invaders, had become great European powers, that they would be no longer satisfied with verbal

homage, but would fight to the death for influence and territory in Italy. They had begun to resemble the

centralized Italian States, and indeed to copy them, only on a gigantic scale. Schemes of annexation or

exchange of territory were for a time indefinitely multiplied. The end, as is well known, was the complete

victory of Spain, which, as sword and shield of the counterreformation, long held Papacy among its other

subjects. The melancholy reflections of the philosophers could only show them how those who had called in

the barbarians all came to a bad end.

Alliances were at the same time formed with the Turks too, with as little scruple or disguise; they were

reckoned no worse than any other political expedients. The belief in the unity of Western Christendom had at

various times in the course of the Crusades been seriously shaken, and Frederick II had probably outgrown it.

But the fresh advance of the Oriental nations, the need and the ruin of the Greek Empire, had revived the old

feeling, though not in its former strength, throughout Western Europe. Italy, however, was a striking

exception to this rule. Great as was the terror felt for the Turks, and the actual danger from them, there was

yet scarcely a government of any consequence which did not conspire against other Italian States with

Mohammed II and his successors. And when they did not do so, they still had the credit of it; nor was it

worse than the sending of emissaries to poison the cisterns of Venice, which was the charge brought against

the heirs of Alfonso, King of Naples. From a scoundrel like Sigismondo Malatesta nothing better could be

expected than that he should call the Turks into Italy. But the Aragonese monarchs of Naples, from whom

Mohammedat the instigation, we read, of other Italian governments, especially of Venicehad once

wrested Otranto (1480), afterwards hounded on the Sultan Bajazet II against the Venetians. The same charge

was brought against Lodovico il Moro. 'The blood of the slain, and the misery of the prisoners in the hands of

the Turks, cry to God for vengeance against him,' says the State historian. In Venice, where the government

was informed of everything, it was known that Giovanni Sforza, ruler of Pesaro, the cousin of Lodovico, had

entertained the Turkish ambassadors on their way to Milan. The two most respectable among the Popes of the

fifteenth century, Nicholas V and Pius II, died in the deepest grief at the progress of the Turks, the latter

indeed amid the preparations for a crusade which he was hoping to lead in person; their successors embezzled

the contributions sent for this purpose from all parts of Christendom, and degraded the indulgences granted in

return for them into a private commercial speculation. Innocent VIII consented to be gaoler to the fugitive

Prince Djem, for a salary paid by the prisoner's brother Bajazet II, and Alexander VI supported the steps

taken by Lodovico il Moro in Constantinople to further a Turkish assault upon Venice (1498), whereupon the

latter threatened him with a Council. It is clear that the notorious alliance between Francis I and Soliman II

was nothing new or unheard of.

Indeed, we find instances of whole populations to whom it seemed no particular crime to go over bodily to


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Foreign Policy 31



Top




Page No 35


the Turks. Even if it were held out as a threat to oppressive governments, this is at least a proof that the idea

had become familiar. As early as 1480 Battista Mantovano gives us clearly to understand that most of the

inhabitants of the Adriatic coast foresaw something o f this kind, and that Ancona in particular desired it.

When Romagna was suffering from the oppressive government of Leo X, a deputy from Ravenna said openly

to the Legate, Cardinal Giulio Medici: 'Monsignore, the honorable Republic of Venice will not have us, for

fear of a dispute with the Holy See; but if the Turk comes to Ragusa we will put ourselves into his hands.'

It was a poor but not wholly groundless consolation for the enslavement of Italy then begun by the Spaniards,

that the country was at least secured from the relapse into barbarism which would have awaited it under the

Turkish rule. By itself, divided as it was, it could hardly have escaped this fate.

If, with all these drawbacks, the Italian statesmanship of this period deserves our praise, it is only on the

ground of its practical and unprejudiced treatment of those questions which were not affected by fear,

passion, or malice. Here was no feudal system after the northern fashion, with its artificial scheme of rights;

but the power which each possessed he held in practice as in theory. Here was no attendant nobility to foster

in the mind of the prince the mediaeval sense of honour with all its strange consequences; but princes and

counsellors were agreed in acting according to the exigencies of the particular case and to the end they had in

view. Towards the men whose services were used and towards allies, come from what quarter they might, no

pride of caste was felt which could possibly estrange a supporter; and the class of the Condottieri, in which

birth was a matter of indifference, shows clearly enough in what sort of hands the real power lay; and lastly,

the government, in the hands of an enlightened despot, had an incomparably more accurate acquaintance with

its own country and with that of its neighbors than was possessed by northern contemporaries, and estimated

the economical and moral capacities of friend and foe down to the smallest particular. The rulers were,

notwithstanding grave errors, born masters of statistical science. With such men negotiation was possible; it

might be presumed that they would be convinced and their opinion modified when practical reasons were laid

before them. When the great Alfonso of Naples was (1434) a prisoner of Filippo Maria Visconti, he was able

to satisfy his gaoler that the rule of the House of Anjou instead of his own at Naples would make the French

masters of Italy; Filippo Maria set him free without ransom and made an alliance with him. A northern prince

would scarcely have acted in the same way, certainly not one whose morality in other respects was like that

of Visconti. What confidence was felt in the power of selfinterest is shown by the celebrated visit (1478)

which Lorenzo Magnifico, to the universal astonishment of the Florentines, paid the faithless Ferrante at

Naplesa man who would certainly be tempted to keep him a prisoner, and was by no means too scrupulous

to do so. For to arrest a powerful monarch, and then to let him go alive, after extorting his signature and

otherwise insulting him, as Charles the Bold did to Louis XI at Peronne (1468), seemed madness to the

Italians; so that Lorenzo was expected to come back covered with glory, or else not to come back at all. The

art of political persuasion was at this time raised to a pointespecially by the Venetian ambassadors of

which northern nations first obtained a conception from the Italians, and of which the official addresses give

a most imperfect idea. These are mere pieces of humanistic rhetoric. Nor, in spite of an otherwise

ceremonious etiquette was there in case of need any lack of rough and frank speaking in diplomatic

intercourse. A man like Machiavelli appears in his 'Legazioni' in an almost pathetic light. Furnished with

scanty instructions, shabbily equipped, and treated as an agent of inferior rank, he never loses his gift of free

and wide observation or his pleasure in picturesque description.

A special division of this work will treat of the study of man individually and nationally, which among the

Italians went hand in hand with the study of the outward conditions of human life.

War as a Work of Art

It must here be briefly indicated by what steps the art of war assumed the character of a product of reflection.

Throughout the countries of the West the education of the individual soldier in the Middle Ages was perfect

within the limits of the then prevalent system of defence and attack: nor was there any want of ingenious


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

War as a Work of Art 32



Top




Page No 36


inventors in the arts of besieging and of fortification. But the development both of strategy and of tactics was

hindered by the character and duration of military service, and by the ambition of the nobles, who disputed

questions of precedence in the face of the enemy, and through simple want of discipline caused the loss of

great battles like Crecy and Maupertuis. Italy, on the contrary, was the first country to adopt the system of

mercenary troops, which demanded a wholly different organization; and the early intro duction of firearms

did its part in making war a democratic pursuit, not only because the strongest castles were unable to

withstand a bombardment, but because the skill of the engineer, of the gunfounder, and of the artillerist

men belonging to another class than the nobilitywas now of the first importance in a campaign. It was felt,

with regret, that the value of the individual, which had been the soul of the small and admirably organized

bands of mercenaries, would suffer from these novel means of destruction, which did their work at a distance;

and there were Condottieri who opposed to the utmost the introduction at least of the musket, which had

lately been invented in Germany. We read that Paolo Vitelli, while recognizing and himself adopting the

cannon, put out the eyes and cut off the hands of the captured 'schioppettieri' (arquebusiers) because he held it

unworthy that a gallant, and it might be noble, knight should be wounded and laid low by a common,

despised foot soldier. On the whole, however, the new discoveries were accepted and turned to useful

account, till the Italians became the teachers of all Europe, both in the build ing of fortifications and in the

means of attacking them. Princes like Federigo of Urbino and Alfonso of Ferrara acquired a mastery of the

subject compared to which the knowledge even of Maximilian I appears superficial. In Italy, earlier than

elsewhere, there existed a comprehensive science and art of military affairs; here, for the first time, that

impartial delight is taken in able generalship for its own sake, which might, indeed, be expected from the

frequent change of party and from the wholly unsentimental mode of action of the Condottieri. During the

MilanoVenetian war of 1451 and 1452, between Francesco Sforza and Jacopo Piccinino, the headquarters of

the latter were attended by the scholar Gian Antonio Porcellio dei Pandoni, commissioned by Alfonso of

Naples to write a report of the campaign. It is written, not in the purest, but in a fluent Latin, a little too much

in the style of the humanistic bombast of the day, is modelled on Caesar's Commentaries, and interspersed

with speeches, prodigies, and the like. Since for the past hundred years it had been seriously disputed whether

Scipio Africanus or Hannibal was the greater, Piccinino through the whole book must needs be called Scipio

and Sforza Hannibal. But something positive had to be reported too respecting the Milanese army; the sophist

presented himself to Sforza, was led along the ranks, praised highly all that he saw, and promised to hand it

down to posterity. Apart from him the Italian literature of the day is rich in descriptions of wars and strategic

devices, written for the use of educated men in general as well as of specialists, while the contemporary

narratives of northerners, such as the 'Burgundian War' by Diebold Schilling, still retain the shapelessness

and matter offact dryness of a mere chronicle. The greatest _dilettante _who has ever treated in that

character of military affairs, Machiavelli, was then busy writing his 'Arte della Guerra.' But the development

of the individual soldier found its most complete expression in those public and solemn conflicts between one

or more pairs of combatants which were practiced long before the famous 'Challenge of Barletta' (1503). The

victor was assured of the praises of poets and scholars, which were denied to the northern warrior. The result

of these combats was no longer regarded as a Divine judgement, but as a triumph of personal merit, and to

the minds of the spectators seemed to be both the decision of an exciting competition and a satisfaction for

the honour of the army or the nation.

It is obvious that this purely rational treatment of warlike affairs allowed, under certain circumstances, of the

worst atrocities, even in the absence of a strong political hatred, as, for instance, when the plunder of a city

had been promised to the troops. After the forty days' devastation of Piacenza, which Sforza was compelled

to permit to his soldiers (1477), the town long stood empty, and at last had to be peopled by force. Yet

outrages like these were nothing compared with the misery which was afterwards brought upon Italy by

foreign troops, and most of all by the Spaniards, in whom perhaps a touch of oriental blood, perhaps

familiarity with the spectacles of the Inquisition, had unloosed the devilish element of human nature. After

seeing them at work at Prato, Rome, and elsewhere, it is not easy to take any interest of the higher sort in

Ferdinand the Catholic and Charles V who knew what these hordes were, and yet unchained them. The mass

of documents which are gradually brought to light from the cabinets of these rulers will always remain an


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

War as a Work of Art 33



Top




Page No 37


important source of historical information; but from such men no fruitful political conception can be looked

for.

The Papacy

The Papacy and the dominions of the Church are creations of so peculiar a kind that we have hitherto, in

determining the general characteristics of Italian States, referred to them only occasionally. The deliberate

choice and adaptation of political] expedients, which gives so great an interest to the other States is what we

find least of all at Rome, since here the spiritual power could constantly conceal or supply the defects of the

temporal. And what fiery trials did this State undergo in the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth

century, when the Papacy was led captive to Avignon! All, at first, was thrown into confusion; but the Pope

had money, troops, and a great statesman and general, the Spaniard Albornoz, who again brought the

ecclesiastical State into complete subjection. The danger of a final dissolution was still greater at the time of

the schism, when neither the Roman nor the French Pope was rich enough to reconquer the newly lost State;

but this was done under Martin V, after the unity of the Church was restored, and done again under Eugenius

IV, when the same danger was renewed. But the ecclesiastical State was and remained a thorough anomaly

among the powers of Italy; in and near Rome itself, the Papacy was defied by the great families of the

Colonna, Orsini, Savelli and Anguillara; in Umbria, in the Marches, and in Romagna, those civic republics

had almost ceased to exist, for whose devotion the Papacy had shown so little gratitude; their place had been

taken by a crowd of princely dynasties, great or small, whose loyalty and obedience signified little. As

selfdependent powers, standing on their own merits, they have an interest of their own; and from this point

of view the most important of them have already been discussed.

Nevertheless, a few general remarks on the Papacy can hardly be dispensed with. New and strange perils and

trials came upon it in the course of the fifteenth century, as the political spirit of the nation began to lay hold

upon it on various sides, and to draw it within the sphere of its action. The least of these dangers came from

the populace or from abroad; the most serious had their ground in the characters of the Popes themselves.

Let us, for this moment, leave out of consideration the countries beyond the Alps. At the time when the

Papacy was exposed to mortal danger in Italy, it neither received nor could receive the slightest assistance

either from France, then under Louis XI, or from England, distracted by the Wars of the Roses, or from the

then disorganized Spanish monarchy, or from Germany, but lately betrayed at the Council of Basle. In Italy

itself there was a certain number of instructed and even uninstructed people whose national vanity was

flattered by the Italian character of the Papacy; the personal interests of very many depended on its having

and retaining this character; and vast masses of the people still believed in the virtue of the Papal blessing and

consecration; among them notorious transgressors like Vitelozzo Vitelli, who still prayed to be absolved by

Alexander VI, when the Pope's son had him strangled. But all these grounds of sympathy put together would

not have sufficed to save the Papacy from its enemies, had the latter been really in earnest, and had they

known how to take advantage of the envy and hatred with which the institution was regarded.

And at the very time when the prospect of help from without was so small, the most dangerous symptoms

appeared within the Papacy itself. Living as it now did, and acting in the spirit of the secular Italian

principalities, it was compelled to go through the same dark experiences as they; but its own exceptional

nature gave a peculiar color to the shadows.

As far as the city of Rome itself is concerned, small account was taken of its internal agitations, so many

were the Popes who had returned after being expelled by popular tumult, and so greatly did the presence of

the Curia minister to the interests of the Roman people. But Rome not only displayed at times a specific

antipapal radicalism, but in the most serious plots which were then contrived, gave proof of the working of

unseen hands from without. It was so in the case of the conspiracy of Stefano Porcari against Nicholas V

(1453), the very Pope who had done most for the prosperity of the city. Porcari aimed at the complete


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Papacy 34



Top




Page No 38


overthrow of the papal authority, and had distinguished accomplices, who, though their names are not handed

down to us, are certainly to be looked for among the Italian governments of the time. Under the pontificate of

the same man, Lorenzo Valla concluded his famous declamation against the gift of Constantine with the wish

for the speedy secularization of the States of the Church.

The Catilinarian gang with which Pius II had to (1460) avowed with equal frankness their resolution to

overthrow the government of the priests, and its leader, Tiburzio, threw the blame on the soothsayers, who

had fixed the accom plishment of his wishes for this very year. Several of the chief men of Rome, the Prince

of Taranto, and the Condottiere Jacopo Piccinino, were accomplices and supporters of Tiburzio. Indeed,

when we think of the booty which was accumulated in the palaces of wealthy prelatesthe conspirators had

the Car dinal of Aquileia especially in viewwe are surprised that, in an almost unguarded city, such

attempts were not more frequent and more successful. It was not without reason that Pius II preferred to

reside anywhere rather than in Rome, and even Paul II was exposed to no small anxiety through a plot formed

by some discharged abbreviators, who, under the command of Platina, besieged the Vatican for twenty days.

The Papacy must sooner or later have fallen a victim to such enterprises, if it had not stamped out the

aristocratic factions under whose protection these bands of robbers grew to a head.

This task was undertaken by the terrible Sixtus IV. He was the first Pope who had Rome and the

neighbourhood thoroughly under his control, especially after his successful attack on the House of Colonna,

and consequently, both in his Italian policy and in the internal affairs of the Church, he could venture to act

with a defiant audacity, and to set at nought the complaints and threats to summon a council which arose

from all parts of Europe. He supplied himself with the necessary funds by simony, which suddenly grew to

unheardof proportions, and which extended from the appointment of cardinals down to the granting of the

smallest favours. Sixtus himself had not obtained the papal dignity without recourse to the same means.

A corruption so universal might sooner or later bring disastrous consequences on the Holy See, but they lay

in the uncertain future. It was otherwise with nepotism, which threatened at one time to destroy the Papacy

altogether. Of all the 'nipoti,' Cardinal Pietro Riario enjoyed at first the chief and almost exclusive favour of

Sixtus. He soon drew upon him the eyes of all Italy, partly by the fabulous luxury of his life, partly through

the reports which were current of his irreligion and his political plans. He bargained with Duke Galeazzo

Maria of Milan (1473), that the latter should become King of Lombardy, and then aid him with money and

troops to return to Rome and ascend the papal throne; Sixtus, it appears, would have voluntarily yielded to

him. This plan, which, by making the Papacy hereditary, would have ended in the secularization of the papal

State, failed through the sudden death of Pietro. The second 'nipote,' Girolamo Riario, remained a layman,

and did not seek the Pontificate. From this time the 'nipoti,' by their endeavors to found principalities for

themselves, became a new source of confusion to Italy. It had already happened that the Popes tried to make

good their feudal claims on Naples un favour of their relatives, but since the failure of Calixtus III. such a

scheme was no longer practicable, and Girolamo Riario, after the attempt to conquer Florence (and who

knows how many others places) had failed, was forced to content himself with founding a State within the

limits of the papal dominions themselves. This was in so far justifiable as Romagna, with its princes and civic

despots, threatened to shake off the papal supremacy altogether, and ran the risk of shortly falling a prey to

Sforza or the Venetians, when Rome interfered to prevent it. But who, at times and in circumstances like

these, could guarantee the continued obedience of 'nipoti' and their descendants, now turned into sovereign

rulers, to Popes with whom they had no further concern? Even in his lifetime the Pope was not always sure of

his own son or nephew, and the temptation was strong to expel the 'nipote' of a predecessor and replace him

by one of his own. The reaction of the whole system on the Papacy itself was of the most serious character;

all means of compulsion, whether temporal or spiritual, were used without scruple for the most questionable

ends, and to these all the other objects of the Apostolic See were made subordinate. And when they were

attained, at whatever cost of revolutions and proscriptions, a dynasty was founded which had no stronger

interest than the destruction of the Papacy.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Papacy 35



Top




Page No 39


At the death of Sixtus, Girolamo was only able to maintain himself in his usurped principality of Forli and

Imola by the utmost exertions of his own, and by the aid of the House of Sforza, to which his wife belonged.

In the conclave (1484) which followed the death of Sixtus that in which Innocent VIII was electedan

incident occurred which seemed to furnish the Papacy with a new external guarantee. Two cardinals, who, at

the same time, were princes of ruling houses, Giovanni d'Aragona, son of King Ferrante, and Ascanio Sforza,

brother of Lodovico il Moro, sold their votes with shameless effrontery; so that, at any rate, the ruling houses

of Naples and Milan became interested, by their participation in the booty, in the continuance of the papal

system. Once again, in the following conclave, when all the cardinals but five sold themselves, Ascanio

received enormous sums in bribes, not without cherishing the hope that at the next election he would himself

be the favored candidate.

Lorenzo the Magnificent, on his part, was anxious that the House of Medici should not be sent away with

empty hands. He married his daughter Maddalena to the son of the new Pope the first who publicly

acknowledged his children Franceschetto Cibo, and expected not only favours of all kinds for his own son,

Cardinal Giovanni, afterwards Leo X, but also the rapid promotion of his soninlaw. But with respect to the

latter, he demanded impossibilities. Under Innocent VIII there was no opportunity for the audacious nepotism

by which States had been founded, since Franceschetto himself was a poor creature who, like his father the

Pope, sought power only for the lowest purpose of allthe acquisition and accumulation of money. The

manner, however, in which father and son practiced this occupation must have led sooner or later to a final

catastrophethe dissolution of the State. If Sixtus had filled his treasury by the sale of spiritual dignities and

favours, Innocent and his son, for their part, established an office for the sale of secular favours, in which

pardons for murder and manslaughter were sold for large sums of money. Out of every fine 150 ducats were

paid into the papal exchequer, and what was over to Franceschetto. Rome, during the latter part of this

pontificate, swarmed with licensed and unlicensed assassins; the factions, which Sixtus had begun to put

down, were again as active as ever; the Pope, well guarded in the Vatican, was satisfied with now and then

laying a trap, in which a wealthy misdoer was occasionally caught. For Franceschetto the chief point was to

know by what means, when the Pope died, he could escape with wellfilled coffers. He betrayed himself at

last, on the occasion of a false report (1490) of his father's death; he endeavored to carry off all the money in

the papal treasury, and when this proved impossible, insisted that, at all events, the Turkish prince, Djem,

should go with him, and serve as a living capital, to be advantageously disposed of, perhaps to Ferrante of

Naples. It is hard to estimate the political possibilities of remote periods, but we cannot help asking ourselves

the question if Rome could have survived two or three pontificates of this kind. Also with reference to the

believing countries of Europe, it was imprudent to let matters go so far that not only travellers and pilgrims,

but a whole embassy of Maximilian, King of the Romans, were stripped to their shirts in the neighbourhood

of Rome, and that envoys had constantly to turn back without setting foot within the city.

Such a condition of things was incompatible with the conception of power and its pleasures which inspired

the gifted Alexander VI (1492 1503), and the first event that happened was the restoration, at least

provisionally, of public order, and the punctual payment of every salary.

Strictly speaking, as we are now discussing phases of Italian civilization, this pontificate might be passed

over, since the Borgias are no more Italian than the House of Naples. Alexander spoke Spanish in public with

Cesare; Lucrezia, at her entrance to Ferrara, where she wore a Spanish costume, was sung to by Spanish

buffoons; their confidential servants consisted of Spaniards, as did also the most ill famed company of the

troops of Cesare in the war of 1500; and even his hangman, Don Micheletto, and his poisoner, Sebastiano

Pinzon Cremonese, seem to have been of the same nation. Among his other achievements, Cesare, in true

Spanish fashion, killed, according to the rules of the craft, six wild bulls in an enclosed court. But the Roman

corruption, which seemed to culminate in this family, was already far advanced when they came to the city.

What they were and what they did has been often and fully described. Their immediate purpose, which, in

fact, they attained, was the complete subjugation of the pontifical State. All the petty despots, who were


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Papacy 36



Top




Page No 40


mostly more or less refractory vassals of the Church, were expelled or destroyed; and in Rome itself the two

great factions were annihilated, the socalled Guelph Orsini as well as the socalled Ghibelline Colonna. But

the means employed were of so frightful a character that they must certainly have ended in the ruin of the

Papacy, had not the contemporaneous death of both father and son by poison suddenly intervened to alter the

whole aspect of the situation. The moral indignation of Christendom was certainly no great source of danger

to Alexander; at home he was strong enough to extort terror and obedience; foreign rulers were won over to

his side, and Louis XII even aided him to the utmost of his power. The mass of the people throughout Europe

had hardly a conception of what was passing in Central Italy. The only moment which was really fraught with

dangerwhen Charles VIII was in Italywent by with unexpected fortune, and even then it was not the

Papacy as such that was in peril, but Alexander, who risked being supplanted by a more respectable Pope.

The great, permanent, and increasing danger for the Papacy lay in Alexander himself, and, above all, in his

son Cesare Borgia.

In the nature of the father, ambition, avarice, and sensuality were combined with strong and brilliant qualities.

All the pleasures of power and luxury he granted himself from the first day of his pontificate in the fullest

measure. In the choice of means to this end he was wholly without scruple; it was known at once that he

would more than compensate himself for the sacrifices which his election had involved, and that the seller

would far exceed the simony of the buyer. It must be remembered that the vicechancellorship and other

offices which Alexander had formerly held had taught him to know better and turn to more practical account

the various sources of revenue than any other member of the Curia. As early as 1494, a Carmelite, Adam of

Genoa, who had preached at Rome against simony, was found murdered in his bed with twenty wounds.

Hardly a single cardinal was appointed without the payment of enormous sums of money.

But when the Pope in course of time fell under the influence of his son Cesare Borgia, his violent measures

assumed that character of devilish wickedness which necessarily reacts upon the ends pursued. What was

done in the struggle with the Roman nobles and with the tyrants of Romagna exceeded in faithlessness and

barbarity even that measure to which the Aragonese rulers of Naples had already accustomed the world; and

the genius for deception was also greater. The manner in which Cesare isolated his father, murdering brother,

brotherinlaw, and other relations or courtiers, whenever their favour with the Pope or their position in any

other respect became inconvenient to him, is literally appalling. Alexander was forced to acquiesce in the

murder of his bestloved son, the Duke of Gandia, since he himself lived in hourly dread of Cesare.

What were the final aims of the latter? Even in the last months of his tyranny, when he had murdered the

Condottieri at Sinigaglia, and was to all intents and purposes master of the ecclesiastical State (1503), those

who stood near him gave the modest reply that the Duke merely wished to put down the factions and the

despots, and all for the good of the Church only; that for himself he desired nothing more than the lordship of

the Romagna, and that he had earned the gratitude of all the following Popes by ridding them of the Orsini

and Colonna. But no one will accept this as his ultimate design. The Pope Alexander himself, in his

discussions with the Venetian ambassador, went further than this, when committing his son to the protection

of Venice: 'I will see to it,' he said, that one day the Papacy shall belong either to him or to you.' Cesare

indeed added that no one could become Pope without the consent of Venice, and for this end the Venetian

cardinals had only to keep well together. Whether he referred to himself or not we are unable to say; at all

events, the declaration of his father is sufficient to prove his designs on the pontifical throne. We further

obtain from Lucrezia Borgia a certain amount of indirect evidence, in so far as certain passages in the poems

of Ercole Strozza may be the echo of expressions which she as Duchess of Ferrara may easily have permitted

herself to use. Here, too, Cesare's hopes of the Papacy are chiefly spoken of; but now and then a supremacy

over all Italy is hinted at, and finally we are given to understand that as temporal ruler Cesare's projects were

of the greatest, and that for their sake he had formerly surrendered his cardinalate. In fact, there can be no

doubt whatever that Cesare, whether chosen Pope or not after the death of Alexander, meant to keep

possession of the pontifical State at any cost, and that this, after all the enormities he had committed, he could

not as Pope have succeeded in doing permanently. He, if anybody, could have secularized the States of the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Papacy 37



Top




Page No 41


Church, and he would have been forced to do so in order to keep them. Unless we are much deceived, this is

the real reason of the secret sympathy with which Machiavelli treats the great criminal; from Cesare, or from

nobody, could it be hoped that he 'would draw the steel from the wound,' in other words, annihilate the

Papacythe source of all foreign intervention and of all the divisions of Italy. The intriguers who thought to

divine Cesare's aims, when holding out to him hopes of the Kingdom of Tuscany, seem to have been

dismissed with contempt.

But all logical conclusions from his premises are idle, not because of the unaccountable genius, which in fact

characterized him as little as it did Wallenstein, but because the means which he employed were not

compatible with any large and consistent course of action. Perhaps, indeed, in the very excess of his

wickedness some prospect of salvation for the Papacy may have existed even without the accident which put

an end to his rule.

Even if we assume that the destruction of the petty despots in the pontifical State had gained for him nothing

but sympathy, even if we take as proof of his great projects the army composed of the best soldiers and

officers in Italy, with Leonardo da Vinci as chief engineer, which followed his fortunes in 1502, other facts

nevertheless bear such a character of unreason that our judgement, like that of contemporary observers, is

wholly at a loss to explain them. One fact of this kind is the devastation and maltreatment of the newlywon

State, which Cesare still intended to keep and to rule over. Another is the condition of Rome and of the Curia

in the last decades of the pontificate. Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal list of

proscribed persons, or that the murders were resolved upon one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent

on the secret destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they coveted. Of this, money and

movable goods formed the smallest part; it was a much greater source of profit for the Pope that the incomes

of the clerical dignitaries in question were suspended by their death, and that he received the revenues of their

offices while vacant, and the price of these offices when they were filled by the successors of the murdered

men. The Venetian ambassador Paolo Capello reported in the year 1500: 'Every night four or five murdered

men are discoveredbishops, prelates and othersso that all Rome is trembling for fear of being destroyed

by the Duke (Cesare).' He himself used to wander about Rome in the nighttime with his guards, and there is

every reason to believe that he did so not only because, like Tiberius, he shrank from showing his now

repulsive features by daylight, but also to gratify his insane thirst for blood, perhaps even on persons

unknown to him.

As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that many of the Papal guards were waylaid

and put to death But those whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence fell victims to their poison.

For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion seemed requisite, a white powder of an agreeable taste

was made use of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which could be mixed

without notice in any dish or goblet. Prince Djem had taken some of it in a sweet draught, before Alexander

surrendered him to Charles VIII (1495), and at the end of their career father and son poisoned themselves

with the same powder by accidentally tasting a sweetmeat intended for a wealthy cardinal. The official

epitomizer of the history of the Popes, Onofrio Panvinio, mentions three cardinals, Orsini, Ferrerio and

Michiel, whom Alexander caused to be poisoned, and hints at a fourth, Giovanni Borgia, whom Cesare took

into his own charge though probably wealthy prelates seldom died in Rome at that time without giving rise

to suspicions of this sort. Even tranquil scholars who had withdrawn to some provincial town were not out of

reach of the merciless poison. A secret horror seemed to hang about the Pope; storms and thunderbolts,

crushing in walls and chambers, had in earlier times often visited and alarmed him; in the year I 500, when

these phenomena were repeated, they were held to be 'cosa diabolica.' The report of these events seems at

last, through the wellattended jubilee of 1500, to have been carried far and wide throughout the countries of

Europe, and the infamous traffic in indulgences did what else was needed to draw all eyes upon Rome.

Besides the returning pilgrims, strange white robed penitents came from Italy to the North, among them

disguised fugitives from the Papal State, who are not likely to have been silent. Yet none can calculate how

far the scandal and indignation of Christendom might have gone, before they became a source of pressing


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Papacy 38



Top




Page No 42


danger to Alexander. 'He would,' says Panvinio elsewhere, 'have put all the other rich cardinals and prelates

out of the way, to get their property, had he not, in the midst of his great plans for his son, been struck down

by death.' And what might not Cesare have achieved if, at the moment when his father died, he had not

himself been laid upon a sickbed! What a conclave would that have been, in which, armed with all his

weapons, he had extorted his election from a college whose numbers he had judiciously reduced by

poisonand this at a time when there was no French army at hand! In pursuing such a hypothesis the

imagination loses itself in an abyss.

Instead of this followed the conclave in which Pius III was elected, and, after his speedy death, that which

chose Julius II both elections the fruits of a general reaction.

Whatever may have been the private morals of Julius II, in all essential respects he was the savior of the

Papacy. His familiarity with the course of events since the pontificate of his uncle Sixtus had given him a

profound insight into the grounds and conditions of the Papal authority. On these he founded his own policy,

and devoted to it the whole force and passion of his unshaken soul. He ascended the steps of St. Peter's chair

without simony and amid general applause, and with him ceased, at all events, the undisguised traffic in the

highest offices of the Church. Julius had favorites, and among them were some the reverse of worthy, but a

special fortune put him above the temptation to nepotism. His brother, Giovanni della Rovere, was the

husband of the heiress of Urbino, sister of the last Montefeltro, Guidobaldo, and from this marriage was born,

in 1491, a son, Francesco Maria della Rovere, who was at the same time Papal 'nipote' and lawful heir to the

duchy of Urbino. What Julius elsewhere acquired, either on the field of battle or by diplomatic means, he

proudly bestowed on the Church, not on his family; the ecclesiastical territory, which he found in a state of

dissolution, he bequeathed to his successor completely subdued, and increased by Parma and Piacenza. It was

not his fault that Ferrara too was not added the Church. The 700,000 ducats which were stored up in the

Castel Sant' Angelo were to be delivered by the governor to none but the future Pope. He made himself heir

of the cardinals, and, indeed, of all the clergy who died in Rome, and this by the most despotic means; but he

murdered or poisoned none of them. That he should himself lead his forces to battle was for him an

unavoidable necessity, and certainly did him nothing but good at a time when a man in Italy was forced to be

either hammer or anvil, and when per sonality was a greater power than the most indisputable right. If

despite all his highsounding 'Away with the barbarians! ' he nevertheless contributed more than any man to

the firm settlement of the Spaniards in Italy, he may have thought it a matter of indifference to the Papacy, or

even, as things stood, a relative advantage. And to whom, sooner than to Spain, could the Church look for a

sincere and lasting respect, in an age when the princes of Italy cherished none but sacrilegious projects

against her? Be this as it may, the powerful, original nature, which could swallow no anger and conceal no

genuine goodwill, made on the whole the impression most desirable in his situationthat of the 'Pontefice

terribile.' 26 He could even, with comparatively clear conscience, venture to summon a council to Rome, and

so bid defiance to that outcry for a council which was raised by the opposition all over Europe. A ruler of this

stamp needed some great outward symbol of his conceptions; Julius found it in the reconstruction of St.

Peter's. The plan of it, as Bramante wished to have it, is perhaps the grandest expression of power in unity

which can be imagined. In other arts besides architecture the face and the memory of the Pope live on in their

most ideal form, and it is not without significance that even the Latin poetry of those days gives proof of a

wholly different enthusiasm for Julius than that shown for his predecessors. The entry into Bologna, at the

end of the 'Iter Julii Secundi' by the Cardinal Adriano da Corneto, has a splendor of its own, and Giovan

Antonio Flaminio, in one of the finest elegies, appealed to the patriot in the Pope to grant his protection to

Italy.

In a constitution of his Lateran Council, Julius had solemnly denounced the simony of the Papal elections.

After his death in 1513, the money loving cardinals tried to evade the prohibition by proposing that the

endowments and offices hitherto held by the chosen candidate should be equally divided among themselves,

in which case they would have elected the bestendowed cardinal, the incompetent Raphael Riario. But a

reaction, chiefly arising from the younger members of the Sacred College, who, above all things, desired a


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Papacy 39



Top




Page No 43


liberal Pope, rendered the miserable combination futile; Giovanni Medici was elected the famous Leo X.

We shall often meet with him in treating of the noonday of the Renaissance; here we wish only to point out

that under him the Papacy was again exposed to great inward and outward dangers. Among these we do not

reckon the conspiracy of the Cardinals Petrucci, De Sauli, Riario, and Corneto (1517), which at most could

have occasioned a change of and to which Leo found the true antidote in the unheardof creation of

thirtyone new cardinals, a measure which additional advantage of rewarding, in some cases at least, real

merit.

But some of the paths which Leo allowed himself to tread during the first two years of his office were

perilous to the last degree. He seriously endeavored to secure, by negotiation, the kingdom of Naples for his

brother Giuliano, and for his nephew Lorenzo a powerful North Italian State, to comprise Milan, Tuscany,

Urbino and Ferrara. It is clear that the Pontifical State, thus hemmed in on all sides, would have become a

mere Medicean appanage, and that, in fact, there would have been no further need to secularize it.

The plan found an insuperable obstacle in the political conditions of the time. Giuliano died early. To provide

for Lorenzo, Leo undertook to expel the Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere from Urbino, but reaped from

the war nothing but hatred and poverty, and was forced, when in 1519 Lorenzo followed his uncle to the

grave, to hand over the hardwon conquests to the Church. He did on compulsion and without credit what, if

it had been done voluntarily, would have been to his lasting honour. What he attempted against Alfonso of

Ferrara, and actually achieved against a few petty despots and Condottieri, was assuredly not of a kind to

raise his reputation. And this was at a time when the monarchs of the West were yearly growing more and

more accustomed to political gambling on a colossal scale, of which the stakes were this or that province of

Italy. Who could guarantee that, since the last decades had seen so great an increase of their power at home,

their ambition would stop short of the States of the Church? Leo himself witnessed the prelude of what was

fulfilled in the year 1527; a few bands of Spanish infantry appeared of their own accord, it seems at the

end of 1520, on the borders of the Pontifical territory, with a view to laying the Pope under contribution, but

were driven back by the Papal forces. The public feeling, too, against the corruptions of the hierarchy had of

late years been drawing rapidly to a head, and men with an eye for the future, like the younger Pico della

Mirandola, called urgently for reform. Meantime Luther had already appeared upon the scene.

Under Adrian VI (15211523), the few and timid improvements, carried out in the face of the great German

Reformation, came too late. He could do little more than proclaim his horror of the course which things had

taken hitherto, of simony, nepotism, prodigality, brigandage, and profligacy. The danger from the side of the

Lutherans was by no means the greatest; an acute observer from Venice, Girolamo Negro, uttered his fears

that a speedy and terrible disaster would befall the city of Rome itself.

Under Clement VII the whole horizon of Rome was filled with vapors, like that leaden veil which the sirocco

drew over the Campagna, and which made the last months of summer so deadly. The Pope was no less

detested at home than abroad. Thoughtful people were filled with anxiety, hermits appeared upon the streets

and squares of Rome, foretelling the fate of Italy and of the world, and calling the Pope by the name of

Antichrist; the faction of the Colonna raised its head defiantly; the indomitable Cardinal Pompeo Colonna,

whose mere existence was a permanent menace to the Papacy, ventured to surprise the city in 1526, hoping

with the help of Charles V, to become Pope then and there, as soon as Clement was killed or captured. It was

no piece of good fortune for Rome that the latter was able to escape to the Castel Sant' Angelo, and the fate

for which he himself was reserved may well be called worse than death. By a series of those falsehoods

which only the powerful can venture on, but which bring ruin upon the weak, Clement brought about the

advance of the GermanoSpanish army under Bourbon and Frundsberg (1527). It is certain that the Cabinet

of Charles V intended to inflict on him a severe castigation, and that it could not calculate beforehand how far

the zeal of its unpaid hordes would carry them. It would have been vain to attempt to enlist men in Germany

without paying any bounty, if it had not been well known that Rome was the object of the expedition. It may


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Papacy 40



Top




Page No 44


be that the written orders to Bourbon will be found some day or other, and it is not improbable that they will

prove to be worded mildly. But historical criticism will not allow itself to be led astray. The Catholic King

and Emperor owed it to his luck and nothing else that Pope and cardinals were not murdered by his troops.

Had this happened, no sophistry in the world could clear him of his share in the guilt. The massacre of

countless people of less consequence, the plunder of the rest, and all the horrors of torture and traffic in

human life, show clearly enough what was possible in the 'Sacco di Roma.'

Charles seems to have wished to bring the Pope, who had fled a second time to the Castel Sant' Angelo, to

Naples, after extorting from him vast sums of money, and Clement's flight to Orvieto must have happened

without any connivance on the part of Spain. Whether the Emperor ever thought seriously of the

secularization of the States of the Church, for which every body was quite prepared, and whether he was

really dissuaded from it by the representations of Henry VIII of England, will probably never be made clear.

But if such projects really existed, they cannot have lasted long: from the devastated city arose a new spirit of

reform both in Church and State. It made itself felt in a moment. Cardinal Sadoleto, one witness of many,

thus writes: 'If through our suffering a satisfaction is made to the wrath and justice of God, if these fearful

punishments again open the way to better laws and morals, then is our misfortune perhaps not of the

greatest.... What belongs to God He will take care of; before us lies a life of reformation, which no violence

can take from us. Let us so rule our deeds and thoughts as to seek in God only the true glory of the priesthood

and our own true greatness and power.'

In point of fact, this critical year, 1527, so far bore fruit that the voices of serious men could again make

themselves heard. Rome had suffered too much to return, even under a Paul III, to the gay corruption of Leo

X.

The Papacy, too, when its sufferings became so great, began to excite a sympathy half religious and half

political. The kings could not tolerate that one of their number should arrogate to himself the right of Papal

gaoler, and concluded (August 18, 1527) the Treaty of Amiens, one of the objects of which was the

deliverance of Clement. They thus, at all events, turned to their own account the unpopularity which the

deeds of the Imperial troops had excited. At the same time the Emperor became seriously embarrassed, even

in Spain, where the prelates and grandees never saw him without making the most urgent remonstrances.

When a general deputation of the clergy and laity, all clothed in mourning, was projected, Charles, fearing

that troubles might arise out of it, like those of the insurrection quelled a few years before, forbade the

scheme. Not only did he not dare to prolong the maltreatment of the Pope, but he was absolutely compelled,

even apart from all considerations of foreign politics, to be reconciled with the Papacy, which he had so

grievously wounded. For the temper of the German people, which certainly pointed to a different course,

seemed to him, like German affairs generally, to afford no foundation for a policy. It is possible, too, as a

Venetian maintains, that the memory of the sack of Rome lay heavy on his conscience, and tended to hasten

that expiation which was sealed by the permanent subjection of the Florentines to the Medicean family of

which the Pope was a member. The 'nipote' and new Duke, Alessandro Medici, was married to the natural

daughter of the Emperor.

In the following years the plan of a Council enabled Charles to keep the Papacy in all essential points under

his control, and at one and the same time to protect and to oppress it. The greatest danger of all

secularizationthe danger which came from within, from the Popes themselves and their 'nipoti,' was

adjourned for centuries by the German Reformation. Just as this alone had made the expedition against Rome

(1527) possible and successful, so did it compel the Papacy to become once more the expression of a

worldwide spiritual power, to raise itself from the soulless debasement in which it lay, and to place itself at

the head of all the enemies of this reformation. The institution thus developed during the latter years of

Clement VII, and under Paul III, Paul IV, and their successors, in the face of the defection of half Europe,

was a new, regenerated hierarchy, which avoided all the great and dangerous scandals of former times,


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Papacy 41



Top




Page No 45


particularly nepotism, with its attempts at territorial aggrandizement, and which, in alliance with the Catholic

princes, and impelled by a newborn spiritual force, found its chief work in the recovery of what had been lost.

It only existed and is only intelligible in opposition to the seceders. In this sense it can be said with perfect

truth that the moral salvation of the Papacy is due to its mortal enemies. And now its political position, too,

though certainly under the permanent tutelage of Spain, became impregnable; almost without effort it

inherited, on the extinction of its vassals, the legitimate line of Este and the house of Della Rovere, the

duchies of Ferrara and Urbino. But without the Reformationif, indeed, it is possible to think it awaythe

whole ecclesiastical State would long ago have passed into secular hands.

Patriotism

In conclusion, let us briefly consider the effect of these political circumstances on the spirit of the nation at

large.

It is evident that the general political uncertainty in Italy, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was of

a kind to excite in the better spirits of the time a patriotic disgust and opposition. Dante and Petrarch, in their

day, proclaimed loudly a common Italy, the object of the highest efforts of all her children. It may be

objected that this was only the enthusiasm of a few highly instructed men, in which the mass of the people

had no share; but it can hardly have been otherwise even in Germany, although in name at least that country

was united, and recognized in the Emperor one supreme head. The first patriotic utterances of German

literature, if we except some verses of the 'Minnesanger,' belong to the humanists of the time of Maximilian I

and after, and read like an echo of Italian declamations. And yet, as a matter of fact, Germany had been long

a nation in a truer sense than Italy ever was since the Roman days. France owes the consciousness of its

national unity mainly to its conflicts with the English, and Spain has never permanently succeeded in

absorbing Portugal, closely related as the two countries are. For Italy, the existence of the ecclesiastical State,

and the conditions under which alone it could continue, were a permanent obstacle to national unity, an

obstacle whose removal seemed hopeless. When, therefore, in the political intercourse of the fifteenth

century, the common fatherland is sometimes emphatically named, it is done in most cases to annoy some

other Italian State. But those deeply serious and sorrowful appeals to national sentiment were not heard again

till later, when the time for unity had gone by, when the country was inundated with Frenchmen and

Spaniards. The sense of local patriotism may be said in some measure to have taken the place of this feeling,

though it was but a poor equivalent for it.

Part Two. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Personality

In the character of these States, whether republics or despotisms, lies, not the only, but the chief reason for

the early development of the Italian. To this it is due that he was the firstborn among the sons of modern

Europe.

In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousnessthat which was turned within as that which was

turned without lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion,

and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was

conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporationonly through some

general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an _objective _treatment and consideration of the State

and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with

corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual _individual, _recognized himself as such. In the same way

the Greek had once distinguished himself from the barbarian, and the Arab had felt himself an individual at a

time when other Asiatics knew themselves only as members of a race. It will not be difficult to show that this


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Patriotism 42



Top




Page No 46


result was due above all to the political circumstances of Italy.

In far earlier times we can here and there detect a development of free personality which in Northern Europe

either did not occur at all, or could not display itself in the same manner. The band of audacious wrongdoers

in the tenth century described to us by Liudprand, some of the contemporaries of Gregory VII (for example,

Benzo of Alba), and a few of the opponents of the first Hohenstaufen, show us characters of this kind. But at

the close of the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the ban laid upon human

personality was dissolved; and a thousand figures meet us each in its own special shape and dress. Dante's

great poem would have been impossible in any other country of Europe, if only for the reason that they all

still lay under the spell of race. For Italy the august poet, through the wealth of individuality which he set

forth, was the most national herald of his time. But this unfolding of the treasures of human nature in

literature and artthis manysided representation and criticismwill be discussed in separate chapters;

here we have to deal only with the psychological fact itself. This fact appears in the most decisive and

unmistakable form. The Italians of the fourteenth century knew little of false modesty or of hypocrisy in any

shape; not one of them was afraid of singularity, of being and seeming unlike his neighbors.

Despotism, as we have already seen, fostered in the highest degree the individuality not only of the tyrant or

Condottiere himself, but also of the men whom he protected or used as his toolsthe secretary, minister,

poet, and companion. These people were forced to know all the inward resources of their own nature, passing

or permanent; and their enjoyment of life was enhanced and concentrated by the desire to obtain the greatest

satisfaction from a possibly very brief period of power and influence.

But even the subjects whom they ruled over were not free from the same impulse. Leaving out of account

those who wasted their lives in secret opposition and conspiracies, we speak of the majority who were

content with a strictly private station, like most of the urban population of the Byzantine empire and the

Mohammedan States. No doubt it was often hard for the subjects of a Visconti to maintain the dignity of their

persons and families, and multitudes must have lost in moral character through the servitude they lived under.

But this was not the case with regard to individuality; for political impotence does not hinder the different

tendencies and manifestations of private life from thriving in the fullest vigor and variety. Wealth and culture,

so far as display and rivalry were not forbidden to them, a municipal freedom which did not cease to be

considerable, and a Church which, unlike that of the Byzantine or of the Mohammedan world, was not

identical with the State all these conditions undoubtedly favored the growth of individual thought, for

which the necessary leisure was furnished by the cessation of party conflicts. The private man, indifferent to

politics, and busied partly with serious pursuits, partly with the interests of a _dilettante, _seems to have been

first fully formed in these despotisms of the fourteenth century. Documentary evidence cannot, of course, be

required on such a point. The novelists, from whom we might expect information, describe to us oddities in

plenty, but only from one point of view and in so far as the needs of the story demand. Their scene, too, lies

chiefly in the republican cities.

In the latter, circumstances were also, but in another way, favourable to the growth of individual character.

The more frequently the governing party was changed, the more the individual was led to make the utmost of

the exercise and enjoyment of power. The statesmen and popular leaders, especially in Florentine history,

acquired so marked a personal character that we can scarcely find, even exceptionally, a parallel to them in

contemporary history, hardly even in Jacob van Arteveldt.

The members of the defeated parties, on the other hand, often came into a position like that of the subjects of

the despotic States, with the difference that the freedom or power already enjoyed, and in some cases the

hope of recovering them, gave a higher energy to their individuality. Among these men of involuntary leisure

we find, for instance, an Agnolo Pandolfini (d. 1446), whose work on domestic economy is the first complete

programme of a developed private life. His estimate of the duties of the individual as against the dangers and

thanklessness of public life is in its way a true monument of the age.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Patriotism 43



Top




Page No 47


Banishment, too, has this effect above all, that it either wears the exile out or develops whatever is greatest in

him. 'In all our more populous cities,' says Gioviano Pontano, 'we see a crowd of people who have left their

homes of their own free will; but a man takes his virtues with him wherever he goes.' And, in fact, they were

by no means only men who had been actually exiled, but thousands left their native place voluntarily, be

cause they found its political or economic condition intolerable. The Florentine emigrants at Ferrara and the

Lucchese in Venice formed whole colonies by themselves.

The cosmopolitanism which grew up in the most gifted circles is in itself a high stage of individualism.

Dante, as we have already said, finds a new home in the language and culture of Italy, but goes beyond even

this in the words, 'My country is the whole world.' And when his recall to Florence was offered him on

unworthy conditions, he wrote back: 'Can I not everywhere behold the light of the sun and the stars;

everywhere meditate on the noblest truths, without appearing ingloriously and shamefully before the city and

the people? Even my bread will not fail me.' The artists exult no less defiantly in their freedom from the

constraints of fixed residence. 'Only he who has learned everything,' says Ghiberti,'is nowhere a stranger;

robbed of his fortune and without friends, he is yet the citizen of every country, and can fearlessly despise the

changes of fortune.' In the same strain an exiled humanist writes: 'Wherever a learned man fixes his seat,

there is home.'

An acute and practiced eye might be able to trace, step by step, the increase in the number of complete men

during the fifteenth century. Whether they had before them as a conscious object the harmonious

development of their spiritual and material existence, is hard to say; but several of them attained it, so far as

is consistent with the imperfection of all that is earthly. It may be better to renounce the attempt at an estimate

of the share which fortune, character, and talent had in the life of Lorenzo il Magnifico. But look at a

personality like that of Ariosto, especially as shown in his satires. In what harmony are there expressed the

pride of the man and the poet, the irony with which he treats his own enjoyments, the most delicate satire, and

the deepest goodwill!

When this impulse to the highest individual development was combined with a powerful and varied nature,

which had mastered all the elements of the culture of the age, then arose the 'allsided man''l'uomo

universale'who belonged to Italy alone. Men there were of encyclopedic knowledge _, in many countries

during the Middle Ages, for this knowledge was confined within narrow limits; and even in the twelfth

century there were universal artists, but the problems of architecture were comparatively simple and uniform,

and in sculpture and painting the matter was of more importance than the form. But in Italy at the time of the

Renaissance, we find artists who in every branch created new and perfect works, and who also made the

greatest impression as men. Others, outside the arts they practiced, were masters of a vast circle of spiritual

interests.

Dante, who, even in his lifetime, was called by some a poet, by others a philosopher, by others a theologian,

pours forth in all his writings a stream of personal force by which the reader, apart from the interest of the

subject, feels himself carried away. What power of will must the steady, unbroken elaboration of the _Divine

Comedy _have required! And if we look at the matter of the poem, we find that in the whole spiritual or

physical world there is hardly an important subject which the poet has not fathomed, and on which his

utterances often only a few wordsare not the most weighty of his time. For the visual arts he is of the

first importance, and this for better reasons than the few references to contemporary artistshe soon became

himself the source of inspiration.

The fifteenth century is, above all, that of the manysided men. There is no biography which does not,

besides the chief work of its hero, speak of other pursuits all passing beyond the limits of dilettantism. The

Florentine merchant and statesman was often learned in both the classical languages; the most famous

humanists read the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle to him and his sons; even the daughters of the house were

highly educated. It is in these circles that private education was first treated seriously. The humanist, on his


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Patriotism 44



Top




Page No 48


side, was compelled to the most varied attainments, since his philological learning was not limited, as it is

now, to the theoretical knowledge of classical antiquity, but had to serve the practical needs of daily life.

While studying Pliny, he made collections of natural history; the geography of the ancients was his guide in

treating of modern geography, their history was his pattern in writing contemporary chronicles, even when

composed in Italian; he Dot only translated the comedies of Plautus, but acted as manager when they were

put on the stage; every effective form of ancient literature down to the dialogues of Lucian he did his best to

imitate; and besides all this, he acted as magistrate, secretary and diplomatistnot always to his own

advantage.

But among these manysided men, some, who may truly be called all sided, tower above the rest. Before

analyzing the general phases of life and culture of this period, we may here, on the threshold of the fifteenth

century, consider for a moment the figure of one of these giants  Leon Battista Alberti (b. 1404, d. 1472).

His biography, which is only a fragment, speaks of him but little as an artist, and makes no mention at all of

his great significance in the history of architecture. We shall now see what he was, apart from these special

claims to distinction.

In all by which praise is won, Leon Battista was from his childhood the first. Of his various gymnastic feats

and exercises we read with astonishment how, with his feet together, he could spring over a man's head; how

in the cathedral, he threw a coin in the air till it was heard to ring against the distant roof; how the wildest

horses trembled under him. In three things he desired to appear faultless to others, in walking, in riding, and

in speaking. He learned music without a master, and yet his compositions were admired by professional

judges. Under the pressure of poverty, he studied both civil and canonical law for many years, till exhaustion

brought on a severe illness. In his twenty fourth year, finding his memory for words weakened, but his sense

of facts unimpaired, he set to work at physics and mathematics. And all the while he acquired every sort of

accomplishment and dexterity, crossexamining artists, scholars and artisans of all descriptions, down to the

cobblers, about the secrets and peculiarities of their craft. Painting and modelling he practiced by the way,

and especially excelled in admirable likenesses from memory. Great admiration was excited by his

mysterious 'camera obscura,' in which he showed at one time the stars and the moon rising over rocky hills, at

another wide landscapes with mountains and gulfs receding into dim perspective, and with fleets advancing

on the waters in shade or sunshine. And that which others created he welcomed joyfully, and held every

human achievement which followed the laws of beauty for something almost divine. To all this must be

added his literary works, first of all those on art, which are landmarks and authorities of the first order for the

Renaissance of Form, especially in architecture; then his Latin prose writings  novels and other works 

of which some have been taken for productions of antiquity; his elegies, eclogues, and humorous

dinnerspeeches. He also wrote an Italian treatise on domestic life in four books; and even a funeral oration

on his dog. His serious and witty sayings were thought worth collecting, and specimens of them, many

columns long, are quoted in his biography. And all that he had and knew he imparted, as rich natures always

do, without the least reserve, giving away his chief discoveries for nothing. But the deepest spring of his

nature has yet to be spoken of  the sympathetic intensity with which he entered into the whole life around

him. At the sight of noble trees and waving cornfields he shed tears; handsome and dignified old men he

honored as 'a delight of nature,' and could never look at them enough. Perfectly formed animals won his

goodwill as being specially favored by nature; and more than once, when he was ill, the sight of a beautiful

landscape cured him. No wonder that those who saw him in this close and mysterious communion with the

world ascribed to him the gift of prophecy. He was said to have foretold a bloody catastrophe in the family of

Este, the fate of Florence and that of the Popes many years beforehand, and to be able to read in the

countenances and the hearts of men. It need not be added that an iron will pervaded and sustained his whole

personality; like all the great men of the Renaissance, he said, 'Men can do all things if they will.'

And Leonardo da Vinci was to Alberti as the finisher to the beginner, as the master to the _dilettante_. Would

only that Vasari's work were here supplemented by a description like that of Alberti! The colossal outlines of

Leonardo's nature can never be more than dimly and distantly conceived.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Patriotism 45



Top




Page No 49


Glory

To this inward development of the individual corresponds a new sort of outward distinctionthe modern

form of glory.

In the other countries of Europe the different classes of society lived apart, each with its own medieval caste

sense of honour. The poetical fame of the Troubadours and Minnesanger was peculiar to the knightly order.

But in Italy social equality had appeared before the time of the tyrannies or the democracies. We there find

early traces of a general society, having, as will be shown more fully later on, a common ground in Latin and

Italian literature; and such a ground was needed for this new element in life to grow in. To this must be added

that the Roman authors, who were not zealously studied, are filled and saturated with the conception of fame,

and that their subject itselfthe universal empire of Rome stood as a permanent ideal before the minds of

Italians. From henceforth all the aspirations and achievements of the people were governed by a moral

postulate, which was still unknown elsewhere in Europe.

Here, again, as in all essential points, the first witness to be called is Dante. He strove for the poet's garland

with all the power of his soul.33 As publicist and man of letters, he laid stress on the fact that what he did

was new, and that he wished not only to be, but to be esteemed the first in his own walks.34 But in his prose

writings he touches also on the inconveniences of fame; he knows how often personal acquaintance with

famous men is disappointing, and explains how this is due partly to the childish fancy of men, partly to envy,

and partly to the imperfections of the hero himself. And in his great poem he firmly maintains the emptiness

of fame, although in a manner which betrays that his heart was not free from the longing for it. In Paradise

the sphere of Mercury is the seat of such blessed ones as on earth strove after glory and thereby dimmed 'the

beams of true love.' It is characteristic that the lost souls in hell beg of Dante to keep alive for them their

memory and fame on earth, while those in Purgatory only entreat his prayers and those of others for their

deliverance.37 And in a famous passage, the passion for fame'lo gran disio dell'eccellenza' (the great desire

of excelling)is reproved for the reason that intellectual glory is not absolute, but relative to the times, and

may be surpassed and eclipsed by greater successors.

The new race of poetscholars which arose soon after Dante quickly made themselves masters of this fresh

tendency. They did so in a double sense, being themselves the most acknowledged celebrities of Italy, and at

the same time, as poets and historians, consciously disposing of the reputation of others. An outward symbol

of this sort of fame was the coronation of the poets, of which we shall speak later on.

A contemporary of Dante, Albertinus Musattus or Mussatus, crowned poet at Padua by the bishop and rector,

enjoyed a fame which fell little short of deification. Every Christmas Day the doctors and students of both

colleges at the University came in solemn procession before his house with trumpets and, it seems, with

burning tapers, to salute him and bring him presents. His reputation lasted till, in 1318, he fell into disgrace

with the ruling tyrant of the House of Carrara.

This new incense, which once was offered only to saints and heroes, was given in clouds to Petrarch, who

persuaded himself in his later years that it was but a foolish and troublesome thing. His letter 'To Posterity' is

the confession of an old and famous man, who is forced to gratify the public curiosity. He admits that he

wishes for fame in the times to come, but would rather be without it in his own day. In his dialogue on

fortune and misfortune, the interlocutor, who maintains the futility of glory, has the best of the contest. But,

at the same time, Petrarch is pleased that the autocrat of Byzantium knows him as well by his writings as

Charles IV knows him. And in fact, even in his lifetime, his fame extended far beyond Italy. And the emotion

which he felt was natural when his friends, on the occasion of a visit to his native Arezzo (1350), took him to

the house where he was born, and told him how the city had provided that no change should be made in it. In

former times the dwellings of certain great saints were preserved and revered in this way, like the cell of St.

Thomas Aquinas in the Dominican convent at Naples, and the Portincula of St. Francis near Assisi; and one


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Glory 46



Top




Page No 50


or two great jurists so enjoyed the halfmythical reputation which led to this honour. Towards the close of

the fourteenth century the people at Bagnolo, near Florence, called an old building the 'Studio of Accursius'

(died in 1260), but, nevertheless, suffered it to be destroyed. It is probable that the great incomes and the

political influence which some jurists obtained as consulting lawyers made a lasting impression on the

popular imagination.

To the cult of the birthplaces of famous men must be added that of their graves, and, in the case of Petrarch,

of the spot where he died. In memory of him Arqua became a favorite resort of the Paduans, and was dotted

with graceful little villas. At this time there were no 'classic spots' in Northern Europe, and pilgrimages were

only made to pictures and relics. It was a point of honour for the different cities to possess the bones of their

own and foreign celebrities; and it is most remarkable how seriously the Florentines, even in the fourteenth

century long before the building of Santa Crocelabored to make their cathedral a Pantheon. Accorso,

Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the jurist Zanobi della Strada were to have had magnificent tombs there

erected to them. Late in the fifteenth century, Lorenzo il Magnifico applied in person to the Spoletans, asking

them to give up the corpse of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi for the cathedral, and received the answer that they

had none too many ornaments to the city, especially in the shape of distinguished people, for which reason

they begged him to spare them; and, in fact, he had to be content with erecting a cenotaph. And even Dante,

in spite of all the applications to which Boccaccio urged the Florentines with bitter emphasis, remained

sleeping tranquilly in San Francesco at Ravenna, 'among ancient tombs of emperors and vaults of saints, in

more honorable company than thou, O Florence, couldst offer him.' It even happened that a man once took

away unpunished the lights from the altar on which the crucifix stood, and set there by the grave, with the

words, 'Take them; thou art more worthy of them than He, the Crucified One! ' (Franco Sacchetti, Novella

121.)

And now the Italian cities began again to remember their ancient citizens and inhabitants. Naples, perhaps,

had never forgotten its tomb of Virgil, since a kind of mythical halo had become attached to the name.

The Paduans, even in the sixteenth century, firmly believed that they possessed not only the genuine bones of

their founder, Antenor, but also those of the historian Livy. 'Sulmona,' says Boccaccio, 'bewails that Ovid lies

buried far away in exile; and Parma rejoices that Cassius sleeps within its walls.' The Mantuans coined a

medal in 1257 with the bust of Virgil, and raised a statue to represent him. In a fit of aristocratic insolence,

the guardian of the young Gonzaga, Carlo Malatesta, caused it to be pulled down in 1392, and was afterwards

forced, when he found the fame of the old poet too strong for him, to set it up again. Even then, perhaps, the

grotto, a couple of miles from the town, where Virgil was said to have meditated, was shown to strangers,

like the 'Scuola di Virgilio' at Naples. Como claimed both the Plinys for its own, and at the end of the

fifteenth century erected statues in their honour, sitting under graceful baldachins on the facade of the

cathedral.

History and the new topography were now careful to leave no local celebrity unnoticed. At the same period

the northern chronicles only here and there, among the list of popes, emperors, earthquakes, and comets, put

in the remark, that at such a time this or that famous man 'flourished.' We shall elsewhere have to show how,

mainly under the influence of this idea of fame, an admirable biographical literature was developed. We must

here limit ourselves to the local patriotism of the topographers who recorded the claims of their native cities

to distinction.

In the Middle Ages, the cities were proud of their saints and of the bones and relics in their churches. With

these the panegyrist of Padua in 1450, Michele Savonarola, begins his list; from them he passes to 'the

famous men who were no saints, but who, by their great intellect and force (virtus) deserve to be added

_(adnecti) _to the saints'just as in classical antiquity the distinguished man came close upon the hero. The

further enumeration is most characteristic of the time. First comes Antenor, the brother of Priam, who

founded Padua with a band of Trojan fugitives; King Dardanus, who defeated Attila in the Euganean hills,


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Glory 47



Top




Page No 51


followed him in pursuit, and struck him dead at Rimini with a chessboard; the Emperor Henry IV, who built

the cathedral; a King Marcus, whose head was preserved in Monselice; then a couple of cardinals and

prelates as founders of colleges, churches, and so forth; the famous Augustinian theologian, Fra Alberto; a

string of philosophers beginning with Paolo Veneto and the celebrated Pietro of Abano; the jurist Paolo

Padovano; then Livy and the poets Petrarch, Mussato, Lovato. If there is any want of military celebrities in

the list, the poet consoles himself for it by the abundance of learned men whom he has to show, and by the

more durable character of intellectual glory, while the fame of the soldier is buried with his body, or, if it

lasts, owes its permanence only to the scholar. It is nevertheless honorable to the city that foreign warriors lie

buried here by their own wish, like Pietro de' Rossi of Parma, Filippo Arcelli of Piacenza, and especially

Gattemelata of Narni (d. 1443), whose brazen equestrian statue, 'like a Caesar in triumph,' already stood by

the church of the Santo. The author then names a crowd of jurists and physicians, nobles 'who had not only,

like so many others, received, but deserved, the honour of knighthood.' Then follows a list of famous

mechanicians, painters, and musicians, and in conclusion the name of a fencingmaster Michele Rosso, who,

as the most distinguished man in his profession, was to be seen painted in many places.

By the side of these local temples of fame, which myth, legend, popular admiration, and literary tradition

combined to create, the poet scholars built up a great Pantheon of worldwide celebrity. They made

collections of famous men and famous women, often in direct imitation of Cornelius Nepos, the

pseudoSuetonius, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch _(Mulierum virtutes), _Jerome _(De viris illustribus), _and

others: or they wrote of imaginary triumphal processions and Olympian assemblies, as was done by Petrarch

in his 'Trionfo della Fama,' and Boccaccio in the 'Amorosa Visione,' with hundreds of names, of which

threefourths at least belong to antiquity and the rest to the Middle Ages. By and by this new and

comparatively modern element was treated with greater emphasis; the historians began to insert descriptions

of character, and collections arose of the biographies of distinguished contemporaries, like those of Filippo

Villani, Vespasiano Fiorentino, Bartolommeo I Fazio, and lastly of Paolo Giovio.

The North of Europe, until Italian influence began to tell upon its writers for instance, on Trithemius, the

first German who wrote the lives of famous men possessed only either legends of the saints, or

descriptions of princes and churchmen partaking largely of the character of legends and showing no traces of

the idea of fame, that is, of distinction won by a man's personal efforts. Poetical glory was still confined to

certain classes of society, and the names of northern artists are only known to us at this period in so far as

they were members of certain guilds or corporations.

The poetscholar in Italy had, as we have already said, the fullest consciousness that he was the giver of fame

and immortality, or, if he chose, of oblivion. Boccaccio complains of a fair one to whom he had done

homage, and who remained hardhearted in order that he might go on praising her and making her famous,

and he gives her a hint that he will try the effect of a little blame. Sannazaro, in two magnificent sonnets,

threatens Alfonso of Naples with eternal obscurity on account of his cowardly flight before Charles VIII.

Angelo Poliziano seriously exhorts (1491) King John of Portugal to think betimes of his immortality in

reference to the new discoveries in Africa, and to send him materials to Florence, there to be put into shape

_(operosius excolenda), _otherwise it would befall him as it had befallen all the others whose deeds,

unsupported by the help of the learned, 'lie hidden in the vast heap of human frailty.' The king, or his

humanistic chancellor, agreed to this, and promised that at least the Portuguese chronicles of African affairs

should be translated into Italian, and sent to Florence to be done into Latin. Whether the promise was kept is

not known. These pretensions are by no means so groundless as they may appear at first sight; for the form in

which events, even the greatest, are told to the living and to posterity is anything but a matter of indifference.

The Italian humanists, with their mode of exposition and their Latin style, had long the complete control of

the reading world of Europe, and till last century the Italian poets were more widely known and studied than

those of any other nation. The baptismal name of the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci was given, on account of

his book of travels, to a new quarter of the globe, and if Paolo Giovio, with all his superficiality and graceful

caprice, promised himself immortality, his expectation has not altogether been disappointed.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Glory 48



Top




Page No 52


Amid all these preparations outwardly to win and secure fame, the curtain is now and then drawn aside, and

we see with frightful evidence a boundless ambition and thirst after greatness, regardless of all means and

consequences. Thus, in the preface to Machiavelli's Florentine history, in which he blames his predecessors

Leonardo, Aretino and Poggio for their too considerate reticence with regard to the political parties in the

city: 'They erred greatly and showed that they understood little the ambition of men and the desire to

perpetuate a name. How many who could distinguish themselves by nothing praiseworthy, strove to do so by

infamous deeds! ' Those writers did not consider that actions which are great in themselves, as is the case

with the actions of rulers and of States, always seem to bring more glory than blame, of whatever kind they

are and whatever the result of them may be. In more than one remarkable and dreadful undertaking the

motive assigned by serious writers is the burning desire to achieve something great and memorable. This

motive is not a mere extreme case of ordinary vanity, but something demonic, involving a surrender of the

will, the use of any means, however atrocious, and even an indifference to success itself. In this sense, for

example, Machiavelli conceives the character of Stefano Porcari; of the murderers of Galeazzo Maria Sforza

(1476), the documents tell us about the same; and the assassination of Duke Alessandro of Florence (1537) is

ascribed by Varchi himself to the thirst for fame which tormented the murderer Lorenzino Medici. Still more

stress is laid on this motive by Paolo Giovio. Lorenzino, according to him, pilloried by a pamphlet of Molza,

broods over a deed whose novelty shall make his disgrace forgotten, and ends by murdering his kinsman and

prince. These are characteristic features of this age of overstrained and despairing passions and forces, and

remind us of the burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus in the time of Philip of Macedon

Ridicule and Wit

The corrective, not only of this modern desire for fame, but of all highly developed individuality, is found in

ridicule, especially when expressed in the victorious form of wit. We read in the Middle Ages how hostile

armies, princes, and nobles, provoked one another with symbolical insult, and how the defeated party was

loaded with symbolical outrage. Here and there, too, under the influence of classical literature, wit began to

be used as a weapon in theological disputes, and the poetry of Provence produced a whole class of satirical

compositions. Even the Minnesanger, as their political poems show, could adopt this tone when necessary.

But wit could not be an independent element in life till its appropriate victim, the developed individual with

personal pretensions, had appeared. Its weapons were then by no means limited to the tongue and the pen, but

included tricks and practical jokes  the socalled 'burle' and 'beffe' which form a chief subject of many

collections of novels.

The 'Hundred Old Novels,' which must have been composed about the end of the thirteenth century, have as

yet neither wit, the fruit of contrast, nor the 'burla,' for their subject; their aim is merely to give simple and

elegant expression to wise sayings and pretty stories or fables. But if anything proves the great antiquity of

the collection, it is precisely this absence of satire. For with the fourteenth century comes Dante, who, in the

utterance of scorn, leaves all other poets in the world far behind, and who, if only on account of his great

picture of the deceivers, must be called the chief master of colossal comedy. With Petrarch begin the

collections of witty sayings after the pattern of Plutarch (Apophthegmata, etc.).

What stores of wit were concentrated in Florence during this century is most characteristically shown in the

novels of Franco Sacchetti. These are, for the most part, not stories but answers, given under certain

circumstances shocking pieces of _naivete,_with which silly folks, court jesters, rogues, and profligate

women make their retort. The comedy of the tale lies in the startling contrast of this real or assumed naivete

with conventional morality and the ordinary relations of the worldthings are made to stand on their heads.

All means of picturesque representation are made use of, including the introduction of certain North Italian

dialects. Often the place of wit is taken by mere insolence, clumsy trickery, blasphemy, and obscenity; one or

two jokes told of Condottieri are among the most brutal and malicious which are recorded. Many of the

'burle' are thoroughly comic, but many are only real or supposed evidence of personal superiority, of triumph

over another. How much people were willing to put up with, how often the victim was satisfied with getting


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Ridicule and Wit 49



Top




Page No 53


the laugh on his side by a retaliatory trick, cannot be said; there was much heartless and pointless malice

mixed up with it all, and life in Florence was no doubt often made unpleasant enough from this cause. The

inventors and retailers of jokes soon became inevitable figures, and among them there must have been some

who were classical far superior to all the mere courtjesters, to whom competition, a changing public, and

the quick apprehension of the audience, all advantages of life in Florence, were wanting. Some Florentine

wits went starring among the despotic courts of Lombardy and Romagna, and found themselves much better

rewarded than at home, where their talent was cheap and plentiful. The better type of these people is the

amusing man (l'uomo piacevole), the worse is the buffoon and the vulgar parasite who presents himself at

weddings and banquets with the argument, 'If I am not invited, the fault is not mine.' Now and then the latter

combine to pluck a young spendthrift, but in general they are treated and despised as parasites, while wits of

higher position bear themselves like princes, and consider their talent as something sovereign. Dolcibene,

whom Charles IV had pronounced to be the 'king of Italian jesters,' said to him at Ferrara: 'You will conquer

the world, since you are my friend and the Pope's; you fight with the sword, the Pope with his bulls, and I

with my tongue.' This is no mere jest, but the foreshadowing of Pietro Aretino.

The two most famous jesters about the middle of the fifteenth century were a priest near Florence, Arlotto

(1483), for more refined wit ('facezie'), and the courtfool of Ferrara, Gonnella, for buffoonery. We can

hardly compare their stories with those of the Parson of Kalenberg and Till Eulenspiegel, since the latter

arose in a different and halfmythical manner, as fruits of the imagination of a whole people, and touch rather

on what is general and intelligible to all, while Arlotto and Gonnella were historical beings, colored and

shaped by local influences. But if the comparison be allowed, and extended to the jests of the nonItalian

nations, we shall find in general that the joke in the French _fabliaux, _as among the Germans, is chiefly

directed to the attainment of some advantage or enjoyment; while the wit of Arlotto and the practical jokes of

Gonnella are an end in themselves, and exist simply for the sake of the triumph of production. (Till

Eulenspiegel again forms a class by himself, as the personified quiz, mostly pointless enough, of particular

classes and professions.) The courtfool of the Este retaliated more than once by his keen satire and refined

modes of vengeance.

The type of the 'uomo piacevole' and the 'buffone' long survived the freedom of Florence. Under Duke

Cosimo flourished Barlacchia, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century Francesco Ruspoli and Curzio

Marignolli. In Pope Leo X, the genuine Florentine love of jesters showed itself strikingly. This prince, whose

taste for the most refined intellectual pleasures was insatiable, endured and desired at his table a number of

witty buffoons and jackpuddings, among them two monks and a cripple; at public feasts he treated them

with deliberate scorn as parasites, setting before them monkeys and crows in the place of savory meats. Leo,

indeed, showed a peculiar fondness for the 'burla'; it belonged to his nature sometimes to treat his own

favorite pursuits  music and poetryironically, parodying them with his factotum, Cardinal Bibbiena.

Neither of them found it beneath him to fool an honest old secretary till he thought himself a master of the art

of music. The Improvisatore, Baraballo of Gaeta, was brought so far by Leo's flattery that he applied in all

seriousness for the poet's coronation on the Capitol. On the feast of St. Cosmas and St. Damian, the patrons

of the House of Medici, he was first compelled, adorned with laurel and purple, to amuse the papal guests

with his recitations, and at last, when all were ready to split with laughter, to mount a gold harnessed

elephant in the court of the Vatican, sent as a present to Rome by Emmanuel the Great of Portugal, while the

Pope looked down from above through his eyeglass. The brute, however, was so terrified by the noise of the

trumpets and kettledrums, and the cheers of the crowd, that there was no getting him over the bridge of Sant'

Angelo.

The parody of what is solemn or sublime, which here meets us in the case of a procession, had already taken

an important place in poetry. It was naturally compelled to choose victims of another kind than those of

Aristophanes, who introduced the great tragedians into his plays. But the same maturity of culture which at a

certain period produced parody among the Greeks, did the same in Italy. By the close of the fourteenth

century, the lovelorn wailings of Petrarch's sonnets and others of the same kind were taken off by


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Ridicule and Wit 50



Top




Page No 54


caricaturists; and the solemn air of this form of verse was parodied in lines of mystic twaddle. A constant

invitation to parody was offered by the 'Divine Comedy,' and Lorenzo il Magnifico wrote the most admirable

travesty in the style of the 'Inferno' (Simposio or I Beoni). Luigi Pulci obviously imitates the Improvisatori in

his 'Morgante,' and both his poetry and Boiardo's are in part, at least, a halfconscious parody of the

chivalrous poetry of the Middle Ages. Such a caricature was deliberately undertaken by the great parodist

Teofilo Folengo (about 1520). Under the name of Limerno Pitocco, he composed the 'Orlandino,' in which

chivalry appears only as a ludicrous setting for a crowd of modern figures and ideas. Under the name of

Merlinus Coccaius he described the journeys and exploits of his fantastic vagabonds (also in the same spirit

of parody) in halfLatin hexameters, with all the affected pomp of the learned Epos of the day ('Opus

Macaronicorum'). Since then caricature has been constantly, and often brilliantly, represented on the Italian

Parnassus.

About the middle period of the Renaissance a theoretical analysis of wit was undertaken, and its practical

application in good society was regulated more precisely. The theorist was Gioviano Pontano. In his work on

speaking, especially in the third and fourth books, he tries by means of the comparison of numerous jokes or

'facetiae' to arrive at a general principle. How wit should be used among people of position is taught by

Baldassare Castiglione in his 'Cortigiano.' Its chief function is naturally to enliven those present by the

repetition of comic or graceful stories and sayings; personal jokes, on the contrary, are discouraged on the

ground that they wound unhappy people, show too much honour to wrongdoers, and make enemies of the

powerful and the spoiled children of fortune; and even in repetition, a wide reserve in the use of dramatic

gestures is recommended to the gentleman. Then follows, not only for purposes of quotation, but as patterns

for future jesters, a large collection of puns and witty sayings, methodically arranged according to their

species, among them some that are admirable. The doctrine of Giovanni della Casa, some twenty years later,

in his guide to good manners, is much stricter and more cautious; with a view to the consequences, he wishes

to see the desire of triumph banished altogether from jokes and 'burle.' He is the herald of a reaction, which

was certain sooner or later to appear.

Italy had, in fact, become a school for scandal, the like of which the world cannot show, not even in France at

the time of Voltaire. In him and his comrades there was assuredly no lack of the spirit of negation; but where,

in the eighteenth century, was to be found the crowd of suitable victims, that countless assembly of highly

and characteristically developed human beings, celebrities of every kind, statesmen, churchmen, inventors,

and discoverers, men of letters, poets and artists, all of whom then gave the fullest and freest play to their

individuality. This host existed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and by its side the general culture of

the time had educated a poisonous brood of impotent wits, of born critics and railers, whose envy called for

hecatombs of victims; and to all this was added the envy of the famous men among themselves. In this the

philologists notoriously led the wayFilelfo, Poggio, Lorenzo Valla, and others while the artists of the

fifteenth century lived in peaceful and friendly competition with one another. The history of art may take note

of the fact.

Florence, the great market of fame, was in this point, as we have said, in advance of other cities. 'Sharp eyes

and bad tongues' is the description given of the inhabitants. An easygoing contempt of everything and

everybody was probably the prevailing tone of society. Machiavelli, in the remarkable prologue to his

'Mandragola,' refers rightly or wrongly the visible decline of moral force to the general habit of

evilspeaking, and threatens his detractors with the news that he can say sharp things as well as they. Next to

Florence comes the Papal court, which had long been a rendezvous of the bitterest and wittiest tongues.

Poggio's 'Facetiae' are dated from the Chamber of Lies _(bugiale) _of the apostolic notaries; and when we

remember the number of disappointed placehunters, of hopeless competitors and enemies of the favorites, of

idle, profligate prelates there assembled, it is intelligible how Rome became the home of the savage

pasquinade as well as of more philosophical satire. If we add to this the widespread hatred borne to the

priests, and the wellknown instinct of the mob to lay any horror to the charge of the great, there results an

untold mass of infamy. Those who were able, protected themselves best by contempt both of the false and


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Ridicule and Wit 51



Top




Page No 55


true accusations, and by brilliant and joyous display. More sensitive natures sank into utter despair when they

found themselves deeply involved in guilt, and still more deeply in slander. In course of time calumny

became universal, and the strictest virtue was most certain of all to challenge the attacks of malice. Of the

great pulpit orator, Fra Egidio of Viterbo, whom Leo made a cardinal on account of his merits, and who

showed himself a man of the people and a brave monk in the calamity of 1527, Giovio gives us to understand

that he preserved his ascetic pallor by the smoke of wet straw and other means of the same kind. Giovio is a

genuine Curial in these matters. He generally begins by telling his story, then adds that he does not believe it,

and then hints at the end that perhaps after all there may be something in it. But the true scapegoat of Roman

scorn was the pious and moral Adrian VI. A general agreement seemed to be made to take him only on the

comic side. He fell out from the first with the formidable Francesco Berni, threatening to have thrown into

the Tiber not, as people said, the statue of Pasquino, but the writers of the satires themselves. The vengeance

for this was the famous 'Capitolo' against Pope Adriano, inspired not exactly by hatred, but by contempt for

the comical Dutch barbarian; the more savage menaces were reserved for the cardinals who had elected him.

The plague, which then was prevalent in Rome, was ascribed to him; Berni and others sketch the environment

of the Pope with the same sparkling untruthfulness with which the modern _feuilletoniste _turns black into

white, and everything into anything. The biography which Paolo Giovio was commissioned to write by the

cardinal of Tortosa, and which was to have been a eulogy, is for anyone who can read between the lines an

unexampled piece of satire. It sounds ridiculous at least for the Italians of that timeto hear how Adrian

applied to the Chapter of Saragossa for the jawbone of St. Lambert; how the devout Spaniards decked him

out till he looked 'like a right well dressed Pope'; how he came in a confused and tasteless procession from

Ostia to Rome, took counsel about burning or drowning Pasquino, would suddenly break off the most

important business when dinner was announced; and lastly, at the end of an unhappy reign, how be died of

drinking too much beerwhereupon the house of his physician was hung with garlands by midnight

revellers, and adorned with the inscription, 'Liberatori Patriae S.P.Q.R.' It is true that Giovio had lost his

money in the general confiscation of public funds, and had only received a benefice by way of compensation

because he was 'no poet,' that is to say, no pagan. But it was decreed that Adrian should be the last great

victim. After the disaster which befell Rome in 1527, slander visibly declined along with the unrestrained

wickedness of private life.

* * *

But while it was still flourishing was developed, chiefly in Rome the greatest railer of modern times, Pietro

Aretino. A glance at his life and character will save us the trouble of noticing many less distinguished

members of his class.

We know him chiefly in the last thirty years of his life, (152756), which he passed in Venice, the only

asylum possible for him. From hence he kept all that was famous in Italy in a kind of state of siege, and here

were delivered the presents of the foreign princes who needed or dreaded his pen. Charles V and Francis I

both pensioned him at the same time, each hoping that Aretino would do some mischief to the other. Aretino

flattered both, but naturally attached himself more closely to Charles, because he remained master in Italy.

After the Emperor's victory at Tunis in 1535, this tone of adulation passed into the most ludicrous worship, in

observing which it must not be forgotten that Aretino constantly cherished the hope that Charles would help

him to a cardinal's hat. It is probable that he enjoyed special protection as Spanish agent, as his speech or

silence could have no small effect on the smaller Italian courts and on public opinion in Italy. He affected

utterly to despise the Papal court because he knew it so well; the true reason was that Rome neither could nor

would pay him any longer. Venice, which sheltered him, he was wise enough to leave unassailed. The rest of

his relations with the great is mere beggary and vulgar extortion.

Aretino affords the first great instance of the abuse of publicity to such ends. The polemical writings which a

hundred years earlier Poggio and his opponents interchanged, are just as infamous in their tone and purpose,

but they were not composed for the press, but for a sort of private circulation. Aretino made all his profit out


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Ridicule and Wit 52



Top




Page No 56


of a complete publicity, and in a certain sense may be considered the father of modern journalism. His letters

and miscellaneous articles were printed periodically, after they had already been circulated among a tolerably

extensive public.

Compared with the sharp pens of the eighteenth century, Aretino had the advantage that he was not burdened

with principles, neither with liberalism nor philanthropy nor any other virtue, nor even with science; his

whole baggage consisted of the wellknown motto, 'Veritas odium parit.' He never, conse quently, found

himself in the false position of Voltaire, who was forced to disown his 'Pucelle' and conceal all his life the

authorship of other works. Aretino put his name to all he wrote, and openly gloried in his notorious

'Ragionamenti.' His literary talent, his clear and sparkling style, his varied observation of men and things,

would have made him a considerable writer under any circumstances, destitute as he was of the power of

conceiving a genuine work of art, such as a true dramatic comedy; and to the coarsest as well as the most

refined malice he added a grotesque wit so brilliant that in some cases it does not fall short of that of

Rabelais.

In such circumstances, and with such objects and means, he set to work to attack or circumvent his prey. The

tone in which he appealed to Clement VII not to complain or to think of vengeance, but to forgive, at the

moment when the wailings of the devastated city were ascending to the Castel Sant' Angelo, where the Pope

himself was a prisoner, is the mockery of a devil or a monkey. Sometimes, when he is forced to give up all

hope of presents, his fury breaks out into a savage howl, as in the 'Capitolo' to the Prince of Salerno, who

after paying him for some time refused to do so any longer. On the other hand, it seems that the terrible

Pierluigi Farnese, Duke of Parma, never took any notice of him at all. As this gentleman had probably

renounced altogether the pleasures of a good reputation, it was not easy to cause him any annoyance; Aretino

tried to do so by comparing his personal appearance to that of a constable, a miller, and a baker. Aretino is

most comical of all in the expression of whining mendicancy, as in the 'Capitolo' to Francis I; but the letters

and poems made up of menaces and flattery cannot, notwithstanding all that is ludicrous in them, be read

without the deepest disgust. A letter like that one of his written to Michelangelo in November, 1545, is alone

of its kind; along with all the admiration he expresses for the 'Last Judgement' he charges him with irreligion,

indecency, and theft from the heirs of Julius II, and adds in a conciliating postscript, 'I only want to show you

that if you are "divino," I am not "d'acqua." ' Aretino laid great stress upon it whether from the insanity of

conceit or by way of caricaturing famous menthat he himself should be called divine, as one of his

flatterers had already begun to do; and he certainly attained so much personal celebrity that his house at

Arezzo passed for one of the sights of the place. There were indeed whole months during which he never

ventured to cross his threshold at Venice, lest he should fall in with some incensed Florentine like the

younger Strozzi. Nor did he escape the cudgels and the daggers of his enemies, although they failed to have

the effect which Berni prophesied him in a famous sonnet. Aretino died in his house, of apoplexy.

The differences he made in his modes of flattery are remarkable: in dealing with nonItalians he was grossly

fulsome; people like Duke Cosimo of Florence he treated very differently. He praised the beauty of the then

youthful prince, who in fact did share this quality with Augustus in no ordinary degree; he praised his moral

conduct, with an oblique reference to the financial pursuits of Cosimo's mother, Maria Salviati, and

concluded with a mendicant whine about the bad times and so forth. When Cosimo pensioned him, which he

did liberally, considering his habitual parsimonyto the extent, at least, of 160 ducats a yearhe had

doubtless an eye to Aretino's dangerous character as Spanish agent. Aretino could ridicule and revile Cosimo,

and in the same breath threaten the Florentine agent that he would obtain from the Duke his immediate recall;

and if the Medicean prince felt himself at last to be seen through by Charles V he would naturally not be

anxious that Aretino's jokes and rhymes against him should circulate at the Imperial court. A curiously

qualified piece of flattery was that addressed to the notorious Marquis of Marignano, who as Castellan of

Musso had attempted to found an independent State. Thanking him for the gift of a hundred crowns, Aretino

writes: 'All the qualities which a prince should have are present in you, and all men would think so, were it

not that the acts of violence inevitable at the beginning of all undertakings cause you to appear a trifle rough


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Ridicule and Wit 53



Top




Page No 57


_(aspro).'

_

It has often been noticed as something singular that Aretino only reviled the world, and not God also. The

religious belief of a man who lived as he did is a matter of perfect indifference, as are also the edifying

writings which he composed for reasons of his own. It is in fact hard to say why he should have been a

blasphemer. He was no professor, or theoretical thinker or writer; and he could extort no money from God by

threats or flattery, and was consequently never goaded into blasphemy by a refusal. A man like him does not

take trouble for nothing.

It is a good sign for the present spirit of Italy that such a character and such a career have become a thousand

times impossible. But historical criticism will always find in Aretino an important study.

Part Three. The Revival of Antiquity

Introductory

Now that this point in our historical view of Italian civilization has been reached, it is time to speak of the

influence of antiquity, the 'new birth' of which has been onesidedly chosen as the name to sum up the whole

period. The conditions which have been hitherto described would have sufficed, apart from antiquity, to

upturn and to mature the national mind; and most of the intellectual tendencies which yet remain to be

noticed would be conceivable without it. But both what has gone before and what we have still to discuss are

colored in a thousand ways by the influence of the ancient world; and though the essence of the phenomena

might still have been the same without the classical revival, it is only with and through this revival that they

are actually manifested to us. The Renaissance would not have been the process of worldwide significance

which it is, if its elements could be so easily separated from one another. We must insist upon it, as one of the

chief propositions of this book, that it was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of

the Italian people, which achieved the conquest of the western world. The amount of independence which the

national spirit maintained in this union varied according to circumstances. In the modern Latin literature of

the period, it is very small, while in the visual arts, as well as in other spheres, it is remarkably great; and

hence the alliance between two distant epochs in the civilization of the same people, because concluded on

equal terms, proved justifiable and fruitful. The rest of Europe was free either to repel or else partly or wholly

to accept the mighty impulse which came forth from Italy. Where the latter was the case we may as well be

spared the complaints over the early decay of mediaeval faith and civilization. Had these been strong enough

to hold their ground, they would be alive to this day. If those elegiac natures which long to see them return

could pass but one hour in the midst of them, they would gasp to be back in modern air. That in a great

historical process of this kind flowers of exquisite beauty may perish, without being made immortal in poetry

or tradition, is undoubtedly true; nevertheless, we cannot wish the process undone. The general result of it

consists in thisthat by the side of the Church which had hitherto held the countries of the West together

(though it was unable to do so much longer) there arose a new spiritual influence which, spreading itself

abroad from Italy, became the breath of life for all the more instructed minds in Europe. The worst that can

be said of the movement is, that it was antipopular, that through it Europe became for the first time sharply

divided into the cultivated and uncultivated classes. The reproach will appear groundless when we reflect that

even now the fact, though clearly recognized, cannot be altered. The separation, too, is by no means so cruel

and absolute in Italy as elsewhere. The most artistic of her poets, Tasso, is in the hands of even the poorest.

The civilization of Greece and Rome, which, ever since the fourteenth century, obtained so powerful a hold

on Italian life, as the source and basis of culture, as the object and ideal of existence, partly also as an avowed

reaction against preceding tendenciesthis civilization had long been exerting a partial influence on


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Part Three. The Revival of Antiquity 54



Top




Page No 58


mediaeval Europe, even beyond the boundaries of Italy. The culture of which Charlemagne was a

representative was, in face of the barbarism of the seventh and eighth centuries, essentially a Renaissance,

and could appear under no other form. Just as in the Romanesque architecture of the North, beside the general

outlines inherited from antiquity, remarkable direct imitations of the antique also occur, so too monastic

scholarship had not only gradually absorbed an immense mass of materials from Roman writers, but the style

of it, from the days of Einhard onwards, shows traces of conscious imitation.

But the resuscitation of antiquity took a different form in Italy from that which it assumed in the North. The

wave of barbarism had scarcely gone by before the people, in whom the former life was but half effaced,

showed a consciousness of its past and a wish to reproduce it. Elsewhere in Europe men deliberately and with

reflection borrowed this or the other element of classical civilization; in Italy the sympathies both of the

learned and of the people were naturally engaged on the side of antiquity as a whole, which stood to them as

a symbol of past greatness. The Latin language, too, was easy to an Italian, and the numerous monuments and

documents in which the country abounded facilitated a return to the past. With this tendency other

elements the popular character which time had now greatly modified, the political institutions imported by

the Lombards from Germany, chivalry and other northern forms of civilization, and the influence of religion

and the Churchcombined to produce the modern Italian spirit, which was destined to serve as the model

and ideal for the whole western world.

How antiquity influenced the visual arts, as soon as the flood of barbarism had subsided, is clearly shown in

the Tuscan buildings of the twelfth and in the sculptures of the thirteenth centuries. In poetry, too, there will

appear no want of similar analogies to those who hold that the greatest Latin poet of the twelfth century, the

writer who struck the keynote of a whole class of Latin poems, was an Italian. We mean the author of the best

pieces in the socalled 'Carmina Burana.' A frank enjoyment of life and its pleasures, as whose patrons the

gods of heathendom are invoked, while Catos and Scipios hold the place of the saints and heroes of

Christianity, flows in full current through the rhymed verses. Reading them through at a stretch, we can

scarcely help coming to the conclusion that an Italian, probably a Lombard, is speaking; in fact, there are

positive grounds for thinking so. To a certain degree these Latin poems of the 'Clerici vagantes' of the twelfth

century, with all their remarkable frivolity, are, doubtless, a product in which the whole of Europe had a

share; but the writer of the song 'De Phyllide et Flora' and the 'Aestuans Interius' can have been a northerner

as little as the polished Epicurean observer to whom we owe 'Dum Diana vitrea sero lampas oritur.' Here, in

truth, is a reproduction of the whole ancient view of life, which is all the more striking from the medieval

form of the verse in which it is set forth. careful imitation of the antique appears both in the hexameter and

pentameter of the meter and in the classical, often myth ological, character of the subject, and which yet

have not anything like the same spirit of antiquity about them. In the hexametric chronicles and other works

of Guglielmus Apuliensis and his successors (from about 1100), we find frequent trace of a diligent study of

Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, and Claudian; but this classical form is, after all, a mere matter of archaeology,

as is the classical subject in compilers like Vincent of Beauvais, or in the mythological and allegorical writer,

Alanus ab Insulis. The Renaissance, however, is not a fragmentary imitation or compilation, but a new birth;

and the signs of this are visible in the poems of the unknown 'Clericus' of the twelfth century.

But the great and general enthusiasm of the Italians for Classical antiquity did not display itself before the

fourteenth century. For this a development of civic life was required, which took place only in Italy, and there

not till then. It was needful that noble and burgher should first learn to dwell together on equal terms, and that

a social world should arise which felt the want of culture, and had the leisure and the means to obtain it. But

culture, as soon as it freed itself from the fantastic bonds of the Middle Ages, could not at once and without

help find its way to the understanding of the physical and intellectual world. It needed a guide, and found one

in the ancient civilization, with its wealth of truth and knowledge in every spiritual interest. Both the form

and the substance of this civilization were adopted with admiring gratitude; it became the chief part of the

culture of the age. The general condition of the country was favourable to this transformation. The medieval

empire, since the fall of the Hohenstaufen, had either renounced, or was unable to make good, its claims on


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Part Three. The Revival of Antiquity 55



Top




Page No 59


Italy. The Popes had migrated to Avignon. Most of the political powers actually existing owed their origin to

violent and illegitimate means. The spirit of the people, now awakened to self consciousness, sought for

some new and stable ideal on which to rest. And thus the vision of the worldwide empire of Italy and Rome

so possessed the popular mind that Cola di Rienzi could actually attempt to put it in practice. The conception

he formed of his task, particularly when tribune for the first time, could only end in some extravagant

comedy; nevertheless, the memory of ancient Rome was no slight support to the national sentiment. Armed

afresh with its culture, the Italian soon felt himself in truth citizen of the most advanced nation in the world.

It is now our task to sketch this spiritual movement, not indeed in all its fullness, but in its most salient

features, and especially in its first beginnings.

The Ruins of Rome

Rome itself, the city of ruins, now became the object of a holly different sort of piety from that of the time

when the 'Mirabilia Roma' and the collection of William of Malmesbury ere composed. The imaginations of

the devout pilgrim, or of the seeker after marvels and treasures, are supplanted in contemporary records by

the interests of the patriot and the historian. In this sense we must understand Dante's words, that the stones

of the walls of Rome deserve reverence, and that the ground on which the city is built is more worthy than

men say. The jubilees, incessant as they were, have scarcely left a single devout record in literature properly

so called. The best thing that Giovanni Villani brought back from the jubilee of the year 1300 was the

resolution to write his history which bad been awakened in him by the sight of the ruins of Rome. Petrarch

gives evidence of a taste divided between classical and Christian antiquity. He tells us how often with

Giovanni Colonna he ascended the mighty vaults of the Baths of Diocletian, and there in the transparent air,

amid the wide silence with the broad panorama stretching far around them, they spoke, not of business or

political affairs, but of the history which the ruins beneath their feet suggested, Petrarch appearing in these

dialogues as the partisan of classical, Giovanni of Christian antiquity; then they would discourse of

philosophy and of the inventors of the arts. How often since that time, down to the days of Gibbon and

Niebuhr, have the same ruins stirred men's minds to the same reflections!

This double current of feeling is also recognizable in the 'Dittamondo' of Fazio degli Uberti, composed about

the year 1360a description of visionary travels, in which the author is accompanied by the old geographer

Solinus, as Dante was by Virgil. They visit Bari in memory of St. Nicholas, and Monte Gargano of the

archangel Michael, and in Rome the legends of Aracoeli and of Santa Maria in Trastevere are mentioned.

Still, the pagan splendor of ancient Rome unmistakably exercises a greater charm upon them. A venerable

matron in torn garmentsRome herself is meanttells them of the glorious past, and gives them a minute

description of the old triumphs; she then leads the strangers through the city, and points out to them the seven

hills and many of the chief ruins'che comprender potrai, quanto fui bella.'

Unfortunately this Rome of the schismatic and Avignonese popes was no longer, in respect of classical

remains, what it had been some generations earlier. The destruction of 140 fortified houses of the Roman

nobles by the senator Brancaleone in 1257 must have wholly altered the character of the most important

buildings then standing: for the nobles had no doubt ensconced themselves in the loftiest and bestpreserved

of the ruins. Nevertheless, far more was left than we now find, and probably many of the remains had still

their marble incrustation, their pillared entrances, and their other ornaments, where we now see nothing but

the skeleton of brickwork. In this state of things, the first beginnings of a topographical study of the old city

were made.

In Poggio's walks through Rome the study of the remains themselves is for the first time more intimately

combined with that of the ancient authors and inscriptionsthe latter he sought out from among all the

vegetation in which they were imbeddedthe writer's imagination is severely restrained, and the memories

of Christian Rome carefully excluded. The only pity is that Poggio's work was not fuller and was not


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Ruins of Rome 56



Top




Page No 60


illustrated with sketches. Far more was left in his time than was found by Raphael eighty years later. He saw

the tomb of Caecilia Metella and the columns in front of one of the temples on the slope of the Capitol, first

in full preservation, and then afterwards half destroyed, owing to that unfortunate quality which marble

possesses of being easily burnt into lime. A vast colonnade near the Minerva fell piecemeal a victim to the

same fate. A witness in the year 1443 tells us that this manufacture of lime still went on: 'which is a shame,

for the new buildings are pitiful, and the beauty of Rome is in its ruins.' The inhabitants of that day, in their

peasant's cloaks and boots, looked to foreigners like cowherds; and in fact the cattle were pastured in the city

up to the Banchi. The only social gatherings were the services at church, on which occasion it was possible

also to get a sight of the beautiful women.

In the last years of Eugenius IV (d. 1447) Biondus of Forli wrote his 'Roma Instaurata,' making use of

Frontinus and of the old 'Libri Regionali,' as well as, it seems, of Anastasius. His object is not only the

description of what existed, but still more the recovery of what was lost. In accordance with the dedication to

the Pope, he consoles himself for the general ruin by the thought of the precious relics of the saints in which

Rome was so rich.

With Nicholas V (14471455) that new monumental spirit which was distinctive of the age of the

Renaissance appeared on the papal throne. The new passion for embellishing the city brought with it on the

one hand a fresh danger for the ruins, on the other a respect for them, as forming one of Rome's claims to

distinction. Pius II was wholly possessed by antiquarian enthusiasm, and if he speaks little of the antiquities

of Rome, he closely studied those of all other parts of Italy, and was the first to know and describe accurately

the remains which abounded in the districts for miles around the capital. It is true that, both as priest and

cosmographer, he was interested alike in classical and Christian monuments and in the marvels of nature. Or

was he doing violence to himself when he wrote that Nola was more highly honoured by the memory of St.

Paulinus than by all its classical reminiscences and by the heroic struggle of Marcellus? Not, indeed, that his

faith in relics was assumed; but his mind was evidently rather disposed to an inquiring interest in nature and

antiquity, to a zeal for monumental works, to a keen and delicate observation of human life. In the last years

of his Papacy, afflicted with the gout and yet in the most cheerful mood, he was borne in his litter over hill

and dale to Tusculum, Alba, Tibur, Ostia, Falerii, and Otriculum, and whatever he saw he noted down. He

followed the Roman roads and aqueducts, and tried to fix the boundaries of the old tribes which had dwelt

round the city. On an excursion to Tivoli with the great Federigo of Urbino the time was happily spent in talk

on the military system of the ancients, and particularly on the Trojan war. Even on his journey to the

Congress of Mantua (1459) he searched, though unsuccessfully, for the labyrinth of Clusium mentioned by

Pliny, and visited the socalled villa of Virgil on the Mincio. That such a Pope should demand a classical

Latin style from his abbreviators, is no more than might be expected. It was he who, in the war with Naples,

granted an amnesty to the men of Arpinum, as countrymen of Cicero and Marius, after whom many of them

were named. It was to him alone, as both judge and patron, that Blondus could dedicate his 'Roma

Triumphans,' the first great attempt at a complete exposition of Roman antiquity.

Nor was the enthusiasm for the classical past of Italy confined at this period to the capital. Boccaccio had

already called the vast ruins of Baia 'old walls, yet new for modern spirits'; and since his time they were held

to be the most interesting sight near Naples. Collections of antiquities of all sorts now became common.

Ciriaco of Ancona (d. 1457) travelled not only through Italy, but through other countries of the old Orbis

terrarum, and brought back countless inscriptions and sketches. When asked why he took all this trouble, he

replied, 'To wake the dead.' The histories of the various cities of Italy had from the earliest times laid claim to

some true or imagined connection with Rome, had alleged some settlement or colonization which started

from the capital; and the obliging manufacturers of pedigrees seem constantly to have derived various

families from the oldest and most famous blood of Rome. So highly was the distinction valued, that men

clung to it even in the light of the dawning criticism of the fifteenth century. When Pius II was at Viterbo he

said frankly to the Roman deputies who begged him to return, 'Rome is as much my home as Siena, for my

House, the Piccolomini, came in early times from the capital to Siena, as is proved by the constant use of the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Ruins of Rome 57



Top




Page No 61


names 'neas and Sylvius in my family.' He would probably have had no objection to be held a descendant of

the Julii. Paul II, a Barbo of Venice, found his vanity flattered by deducing his House, notwithstanding an

adverse pedigree, according to which it came from Germany, from the Roman Ahenobarbus, who had led a

colony to Parma, and whose successors had been driven by party conflicts to migrate to Venice. That the

Massimi claimed descent from Q. Fabius Maximus, and the Cornaro from the Cornelii, cannot surprise us.

On the other hand, it is a strikingly exceptional fact for the sixteenth century that the novelist Bandello tried

to connect his blood with a noble family of Ostrogoths.

To return to Rome. The inhabitants, 'who then called themselves Romans,' accepted greedily the homage

which was offered them by the rest of Italy. Under Paul II, Sixtus IV and Alexander VI, magnificent

processions formed part of the Carnival, representing the scene most attractive to the imagination of the

time the triumph of the Roman Imperator. The sentiment of the people expressed itself naturally in this

shape and others like it. In this mood of public feeling, a report arose on April 18, 1485, that the corpse of a

young Roman lady of the classical periodwonderfully beautiful and in perfect preservation had been

discovered. Some Lombard masons digging out an ancient tomb on an estate of the convent of Santa Maria

Nuova, on the Appian Way, beyond the tomb of Caecilia Metella, were said to have found a marble

sarcophagus with the inscription: 'Julia, daughter of Claudius.' On this basis the following story was built.

The Lombards disappeared with the jewels and treasure which were found with the corpse in the

sarcophagus. The body had been coated with an antiseptic essence, and was as fresh and flexible as that of a

girl of fifteen the hour after death. It was said that she still kept the colors of life, with eyes and mouth half

open. She was taken to the palace of the 'Conservatori' on the Capitol; and then a pilgrimage to see her began.

Among the crowd were many who came to paint her; 'for she was more beautiful than can be said or written,

and, were it said or written, it would not be believed by those who had not seen her.' By order of Innocent

VIII she was secretly buried one night outside the Pincian Gate; the empty sarcophagus remained in the court

of the 'Conservatori.' Probably a colored mask of wax or some other material was modelled in the classical

style on the face of the corpse, with which the gilded hair of which we read would harmonize admirably. The

touching point in the story is not the fact itself, but the firm belief that an ancient body, which was now

thought to be at last really before men's eyes, must of necessity be far more beautiful than anything of modern

date.

Meanwhile the material knowledge of old Rome was increased by excavations. Under Alexander VI the

socalled 'Grotesques,' that is, the mural decorations of the ancients, were discovered, and the Apollo of the

Belvedere was found at Porto d'Anzio. Under Julius II followed the memorable discoveries of the Laocoon,

of the Venus of the Vatican, of the Torso of the Cleopatra. The palaces of the nobles and the cardinals began

to be filled with ancient statues and fragments. Raphael undertook for Leo X that ideal restoration of the

whole ancient city which his (or Castiglione's) celebrated letter (1518 or 1519) speaks of. After a bitter

complaint over the devastations which had not even then ceased, and which had been particularly frequent

under Julius II, he beseeches the Pope to protect the few relics which were left to testify to the power and

greatness of that divine soul of antiquity whose memory was inspiration to all who were capable of higher

things. He then goes on with penetrating judgement to lay the foundations of a comparative history of art, and

concludes by giving the definition of an architectural survey which has been accepted since his time; he

requires the ground plan, section and elevation separately of every building that remained. How archaeology

devoted itself after his day to the study of the venerated city and grew into a special science, and how the

Vitruvian Academy at all events proposed to itself great him, cannot here be related. Let us rather pause at the

days of Leo X, under whom the enjoyment of antiquity combined with all other pleasures to give to Roman

life a unique stamp and consecration. The Vatican resounded with song and music, and their echoes were

heard through the city as a call to joy and gladness, though Leo did not succeed thereby in banishing care and

pain from his own life, and his deliberate calculation to prolong his days by cheerfulness was frustrated by an

early death. The Rome of Leo, as described by Paolo Giovio, forms a picture too splendid to turn away from,

unmistakable as are also its darker aspectsthe slavery of those who were struggling to rise; the secret

misery of the prelates, who, notwithstanding heavy debts, were forced to live in a style befitting their rank;


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Ruins of Rome 58



Top




Page No 62


the system of literary patronage, which drove men to be parasites or adventurers; and, lastly, the scandalous

maladministration of the finances of the State. Yet the same Ariosto who knew and ridiculed all this so well,

gives in the sixth satire a longing picture of his expected intercourse with the accomplished poets who would

conduct him through the city of ruins, of the learned counsel which he would there find for his own literary

efforts, and of the treasures of the Vatican library. These, he says, and not the longabandoned hope of

Medicean protection, were the baits which really attracted him, if he were again asked to go as Ferrarese

ambassador to Rome.

But the ruins within and outside Rome awakened not only archaeological zeal and patriotic enthusiasm, but

an elegiac of sentimental melancholy. In Petrarch and Boccaccio we find touches of this feeling. Poggio

Bracciolini often visited the temple of Venus and Roma, in the belief that it was that of Castor and Pollux,

where the senate used so often to meet, and would lose himself in memories of the great orators Crassus,

Hortensius, Cicero. The language of Pius II, especially in describing Tivoli, has a thoroughly sentimental

ring, and soon afterwards (1467) appeared the first pictures of ruins, with a commentary by Polifilo. Ruins of

mighty arches and colonnades, half hid in planetrees, laurels, cypresses and brushwood, figure in his pages.

In the sacred legends it became the custom, we can hardly say how, to lay the scene of the birth of Christ in

the ruins of a magnificent palace. That artificial ruins became afterwards a necessity of landscape gardening

is only a practical consequence of this feeling.

The Classics

But the literary bequests of antiquity, Greek as well as Latin, were of far more importance than the

architectural, and indeed than all the artistic remains which it had left. They were held in the most absolute

sense to be the springs of all knowledge. The literary conditions of that age of great discoveries have often

been set forth; no more can here be attempted than to point out a few lessknown features of the picture.

Great as was the influence of the old writers on the Italian mind in the fourteenth century and before, yet that

influence was due rather to the wide diffusion of what bad long been known than to the discovery of much

that was new. The most popular latin poets, historians, orators and letterwriters, to gether with a number of

Latin translations of single works of Aristotle, Plutarch, and a few other Greek authors, constituted the

treasure from which a few favored individuals in the time of Petrarch and Boccaccio drew their inspiration.

The former, as is well known, owned and kept with religious care a Greek Homer, which he was unable to

read. A complete Latin translation of the Iliad and Odyssey, though a very bad one, vas made at Petrarch's

suggestion, and with Boccaccio's help, by a Calabrian Greek, Leonzio Pilato. But with the fifteenth century

began the long list of new discoveries, the systematic creation of libraries by means of copies, and the rapid

multiplication of translations from the Greek.

Had it not been for the enthusiasm of a few collectors of that age, who shrank from no effort or privation in

their researches, we should certainly possess only a small part of the literature, especially that of the Greeks,

which is now in our hands. Pope Nicholas V, when only a simple monk, ran deeply into debt through buying

manuscripts or having them copied. Even then he made no secret of his passion for the two great interests of

the Renaissance, books and buildings. As Pope he kept his word. Copyists wrote and spies searched for him

through half the world. Perotto received 500 ducats for the Latin translation of Polybius; Guarino, 1,000 gold

florins for that of Strabo, and he would have been paid 500 more but for the death of the Pope. Filelfo was to

have received 10,000 gold florins for a metrical translation of Homer, and was only prevented by the Pope's

death from coming from Milan to Rome. Nicholas left a collection of 5,000 or, according to another way of

calculating, of 6,000 volumes, for the use of the members of the Curia, which became the foundation of the

library of the Vatican. It was to be preserved in the palace itself, as its noblest ornament, the library of

Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alexandria. When the plague (1450) drove him and his court to Fabriano, whence

then, as now, the best paper was procured, he took his translators and compilers with him, that he might run

no risk of losing them.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Classics 59



Top




Page No 63


The Florentine Niccolo Niccoli, a member of that accomplished circle of friends which surrounded the elder

Cosimo de' Medici, spent his whole fortune in buying books. At last, when his money was all gone, the

Medici put their purse at his disposal for any sum which his purpose might require. We owe to him the later

books of Ammianus Marcellinus, the 'De Oratore' of Cicero, and other works; he persuaded Cosimo to buy

the best manuscript of Pliny from a monastery at Lubeck. With noble confidence he lent his books to those

who asked for them, allowed all comers to study them in his own house, and was ready to converse with the

students on what they had read. His collection of 800 volumes, valued at 6,000 gold florins, passed after his

death, through Cosimo's intervention, to the monastery of San Marco, on the condition that it should be

accessible to the public.

Of the two great bookfinders, Guarino and Poggio, the latter, on the occasion of the Council of Constance

and acting partly as the agent of Niccoli, searched industriously among the abbeys of South Germany. He

there discovered six orations of Cicero, and the first complete Quintilian, that of St. Gallen, now at Zurich; in

thirtytwo days he is said to have copied the whole of it in a beautiful handwriting. He was able to make

important additions to Silius Italicus, Manilius, Lucretius, Valerius Flaccus, Asconius Pedianus, Columella,

Celsus, Aulus Gellius, Statius, and others; and with the help of Leonardo Aretino he unearthed the last twelve

comedies of Plautus, as well as the Verrine orations.

The famous Greek, Cardinal Bessarion, in whom patriotism was mingled with a zeal for letters, collected, at a

great sacrifice, 600 manuscripts of pagan and Christian authors. He then looked round for some receptacle

where they could safely lie until his unhappy country, if she ever regained her freedom, could reclaim her lost

literature. The Venetian government declared itself ready to erect a suitable building, and to this day the

Biblioteca Marciana retains a part of these treasures.

The formation of the celebrated Medicean library has a history of its own, into which we cannot here enter.

The chief collector for Lorenzo il Magnifico was Johannes Lascaris. It is well known that the collection, after

the plundering in the year 1494, had to be recovered piecemeal by the Cardinal Giovanni Medici, afterwards

Leo X.

The library of Urbino, now in the Vatican, was wholly the work of the great Federigo of Montefeltro. As a

boy he had begun to collect; in after years he kept thirty or forty 'scrittori' employed in various places, and

spent in the course of time no less than 30,000 ducats on the collection. It was systematically extended and

completed, chiefly by the help of Vespasiano, and his account of it forms an ideal picture of a library of the

Renaissance. At Urbino there were catalogues of the libraries of the Vatican, of St. Mark at Florence, of the

Visconti at Pavia, and even of the library at Oxford. It was noted with pride that in richness and completeness

none could rival Urbino. Theology and the Middle Ages were perhaps most fully represented. There was a

complete Thomas Aquinas, a complete Albertus Magnus, a complete Bonaventura. The collection, however,

was a manysided one, and included every work on medicine which was then to be had. Among the

'moderns' the great writers of the fourteenth centuryDante and Boccaccio, with their complete

worksoccupied the first place. Then followed twentyfive select humanists, invariably with both their

Latin and Italian writings and with all their translations. Among the Greek manuscripts the Fathers of the

Church far outnumbered the rest; yet in the list of the classics we find all the works of Sophocles, all of

Pindar, and all of Menander. The last codex must have quickly disappeared from Urbino, else the philologists

would have soon edited it.

We have, further, a good deal of information as to the way in which manuscripts and libraries were

multiplied. The purchase of an ancient manuscript, which contained a rare, or the only complete, or the only

existing text of an old writer, was naturally a lucky accident of which we need take no further account.

Among the professional copyists those who understood Greek took the highest place, and it was they

especially who bore the honorable name of 'scrittori.' Their number was always limited, and the pay they

received very large. The rest, simply called 'copisti,' were partly mere clerks who made their living by such


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Classics 60



Top




Page No 64


work, partly schoolmasters and needy men of learning, who desired an addition to their income. The copyists

at Rome in the time of Nicholas V were mostly Germans or Frenchmen'barbarians' as the Italian humanists

called them, probably men who were in search of favours at the papal court, and who kept themselves alive

meanwhile by this means. When Cosimo de' Medici was in a hurry to form a library for his favorite

foundation, the Badia below Fiesole, he sent for Vespasiano, and received from him the advice to give up all

thoughts of purchasing books, since those which were worth getting could not be had easily, but rather to

make use of the copyists; whereupon Cosimo bargained to pay him so much a day, and Vespasiano, with

fortyfive writers under him, delivered 200 volumes in twentytwo months. The catalogue of the works to be

copied was sent to Cosimo by Nicholas V, who wrote it with his own hand. Ecclesiastical literature and the

books needed for the choral services naturally held the chief place in the list.

The handwriting was that beautiful modern Italian which was already in use in the preceding century, and

which makes the sight of one of the books of that time a pleasure. Pope Nicholas V, Poggio, Gianozzo

Manetti, Niccolo Niccoli, and other distinguished scholars, themselves wrote a beautiful hand, and desired

and tolerated none other. The decorative adjuncts, even when miniatures formed no part of them, were full of

taste, as may be seen especially in the Laurentian manuscripts, with the light and graceful scrolls which begin

and end the lines. The material used to write on, when the work was ordered by great or wealthy people, was

always parchment; the binding, both in the Vatican and at Urbino, was a uniform crimson velvet with silver

clasps. Where there was so much care to show honour to the contents of a book by the beauty of its outward

form, it is intelligible that the sudden appearance of printed books was greeted at first with anything but

favour. Federigo of Urbino 'would have been ashamed to own a printed book.'

But the weary copyistsnot those who lived by the trade, but the many who were forced to copy a book in

order to have itrejoiced at the German invention. It was soon applied in Italy to the multiplication first of

the Latin and then of the Greek authors, and for a long period nowhere but in Italy, yet it spread with by no

means the rapidity which might have been expected from the general enthusiasm for these works. After a

while the modern relation between author and publisher began to develop itself, and under Alexander VI,

when it was no longer easy to destroy a book, as Cosimo could make Filelfo promise to do, the prohibitive

censorship made its appearance.

The growth of textual criticism which accompanied the advancing study of languages and antiquity belongs

as little to the subject of this book as the history of scholarship in general. We are here occupied, not with the

learning of the Italians in itself, but with the reproduction of antiquity in literature and life. One word more on

the studies themselves may still be permissible.

Greek scholarship was chiefly confined to Florence and to the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth

centuries. The impulse which had proceeded from Petrarch and Boccaccio, superficial as was their own

acquaintance with Greek, was powerful, but did not tell immediately on their contemporaries, except a few;

on the other hand, the study of Greek literature died out about the year 1520 with the last of the colony of

learned Greek exiles, and it was a singular piece of fortune that northerners like Erasmus, the Stephani, and

Budaeus had meanwhile made themselves masters of the language. That colony had begun with Manuel

Chrysoloras and his relation John, and with George of Trebizond. Then followed, about and after the time of

the conquest of Constantinople, John Argyropulos, Theodore Gaza, Demetrios Chalcondylas, who brought up

his sons Theophilos and Basilios to be excellent Hellenists, Andronikos Kallistos, Marcos Musuros and the

family of Lascaris, not to mention others. But after the subjection of Greece by the Turks was completed, the

succession of scholars was maintained only by the sons of the fugitives and perhaps here and there by some

Candian or Cyprian refugee. That the decay of Hellenistic studies began about the time of the death of Leo X

was due partly to a general change of intellectual attitude, and to a certain satiety of classical influences

which now made itself felt; but its coincidence with the death of the Greek fugitives was not wholly a matter

of accident. The study of Greek among the Italians appears, if we take the year 1500 as our standard, to have

been pursued with extraordinary zeal. Many of those who then learned the language could still speak it half a


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Classics 61



Top




Page No 65


century later, in their old age, like the Popes Paul III and Paul IV. But this sort of mastery of the study

presupposes intercourse with native Greeks.

Besides Florence, Rome and Padua nearly always maintained paid teachers of Greek, and Verona, Ferrara,

Venice, Perugia, Pavia and other cities occasional teachers. Hellenistic studies owed a priceless debt to the

press of Aldo Manuzio at Venice, where the most important and voluminous writers were for the first time

printed in the original. Aldo ventured his all in the enterprise; he was an editor and publisher whose like the

world has rarely seen.

Along with this classical revival, Oriental studies now assumed considerable proportions. The controversial

writings of the great Florentine statesman and scholar, Giannozzo Manetti (d. 1459) against the Jews afford

an early instance of a complete mastery of their language and science. His son Agnolo was from his

childhood instructed in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The father, at the bidding of Nicholas V, translated the

whole Bible afresh, as the philologists of the time insisted on giving up the 'Vulgata.'

Many other humanists devoted themselves before Reuchlin to the study of Hebrew, among them Pico della

Mirandola, who was not satisfied with a knowledge of the Hebrew grammar and ScriptureS, but penetrated

into the Jewish Cabbalah and even made himself as familiar with the literature of the Talmud as any Rabbi.

Among the Oriental languages, Arabic was studied as well as Hebrew. The science of medicine, no longer

satisfied with the older Latin translations of the great Arab physicians, had constant recourse to the originals,

to which an easy access was offered by the Venetian consulates in the East, where Italian doctors were

regularly kept. Hieronimo Ramusio, a Venetian physician, translated a great part of Avicenna from the

Arabic and died at Damascus in 1486. Andrea Mongaio of Belluno lived long at Damascus for the purpose of

studying Avicenna, learnt Arabic, and emended the author's text. The Venetian government afterwards

appointed him professor of this subject at Padua.

We must here linger for a moment over Pico della Mirandola, before passing on to the general effects of

humanism. He was the only man who loudly and vigorously defended the truth and science of all ages against

the onesided worship of classical antiquity. He knew how to value not only Averroes and the Jewish

investigators, but also the scholastic writers of the Middle Ages, according to the matter of their writings. In

one of his writings he makes them say, 'We shall live for ever, not in the schools of wordcatchers, but in the

circle of the wise, where they talk not of the mother of Andromache or of the sons of Niobe, but of the deeper

causes of things human and divine; he who looks closely will see that even the barbarians had intelligence

_(mercurium), _not on the tongue but in the breast.' Himself writing a vigorous and not inelegant Latin, and a

master of clear exposition, he despised the purism of pedants and the current overestimate of borrowed

forms, especially when joined, as they often are, with one sidedness, and involving indifference to the wider

truth of the things themselves. Looking at Pico, we can guess at the lofty flight which Italian philosophy

would have taken had not the counterreformation annihilated the higher spiritual life of the people.

The Humanists

Who now were those who acted as mediators between their own age and a venerated antiquity, and made the

latter a chief element in the culture of the former?

They were a crowd of the most miscellaneous sort, wearing one face today and another tomorrow; but they

clearly felt themselves, and it was fully recognized by their time that they formed, a wholly new element in

society. The 'clerici vagantes' of the twelfth century may perhaps be taken as their forerun nersthe same

unstable existence, the same free and more than free views of life, and the germs at all events of the same

pagan tendencies in their poetry. But now, as competitor with the whole culture of the Middle Ages, which

was essentially clerical and was fostered by the Church, there appeared a new civilization, founding itself on


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Humanists 62



Top




Page No 66


that which lay on the other side of the Middle Ages. Its active representatives became influential because they

knew what the ancients knew, because they tried to write as the ancients wrote, because they began to think,

and soon to feel, as the ancients thought and felt. The tradition to which they devoted themselves passed at a

thousand points into genuine reproduction.

Some modern writers deplore the fact that the germs of a far more independent and essentially national

culture, such as appeared in Florence about the year 1300, were afterwards so completely swamped by the

humanists. There was then, we are told, nobody in Florence who could not read; even the donkeymen sang

the verses of Dante; the best Italian manuscripts which we possess belonged originally to Florentine artisans;

the publication of a popular encyclopedia, like the 'Tesoro' of Brunetto Latini, was then possible; and all this

was founded on d strength and soundness of character due to the universal participation in public affairs, to

commerce and travel, and to the systematic reprobation of idleness. The Florentines, it is urged, were at that

time respected and influential throughout the whole world, and were called in that year, not without reason,

by Pope Boniface VIII, 'the fifth element.' The rapid progress of humanism after the year 1400 paralysed

native impulses. Henceforth men looked only to antiquity for the solution of every problem, and

consequently allowed literature to turn into mere quotation. Nay, the very fall of civil freedom is partly

ascribed to all this, since the new learning rested on obedience to authority, sacrificed municipal rights to

Roman law, and thereby both sought and found the favour of the despots.

These charges will occupy us now and then at a later stage of our inquiry, when we shall attempt to reduce

them to their true value, and to weigh the losses against the gains of this movement. For the present we must

confine ourselves to showing how the civilization even of the vigorous fourteenth century necessarily

prepared the way for the complete victory of humanism, and how precisely the greatest representatives of the

national Italian spirit were themselves the men who opened wide the gate for the measureless devotion to

antiquity in the fifteenth century.

To begin with Dante. If a succession of men of equal genius had presided over Italian culture, whatever

elements their natures might have absorbed from the antique, they still could not fail to retain a characteristic

and stronglymarked national stamp. But neither Italy nor Western Europe produced another Dante, and he

was and remained the man who first thrust antiquity into the foreground of national culture. In the 'Divine

Comedy' he treats the ancient and the Christian worlds, not indeed as of equal authority, but as parallel to one

another. Just as, at an earlier period of the Middle Ages, types and anti types were sought in the history of

the Old and New Testaments, so does Dante constantly bring together a Christian and a pagan illustration of

the same fact. It must be remembered that the Christian cycle of history and legend was familiar, while the

ancient was relatively unknown, was full of promise and of interest, and must necessarily have gained the

upper hand in the competition for public sympathy when there was no longer a Dante to hold the balance

between the two.

Petrarch, who lives in the memory of most people nowadays chiefly as a great Italian poet, owed his fame

among his contemporaries far rather to the fact that he was a kind of living representative of antiquity, that he

imitated all styles of Latin poetry, endeavored by his voluminous historical and philosophical writings not to

supplant but to make known the works of the ancients, and wrote letters that, as treatises on matters of

antiquarian interest, obtained a reputation which to us is unintelligible, but which was natural enough in an

age without handbooks.

It was the same with Boccaccio. For two centuries, when but little was known of the 'Decameron' north of the

Alps, he was famous all over Europe simply on account of his Latin compilations on mythology, geography

and biography. One of these, 'De Genealogia Deorum,' contains in the fourteenth and fifteenth books a

remarkable appendix, in which he discusses the position of the then youthful humanism with regard to the

age. We must not be misled by his exclusive references to 'poesie,' as closer observation shows that he means

thereby the whole mental activity of the poetscholars. This it is whose enemies he so vigorously


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Humanists 63



Top




Page No 67


combatsthe frivolous ignoramuses who have no soul for anything but debauchery; the sophistical

theologian, to whom Helicon, the Castalian fountain, and the grove of Apollo were foolishness; the greedy

lawyers, to whom poetry was a superfluity, since no money was to be made by it; finally the mendicant friars,

described periphrastically, but clearly enough, who made free with their charges of paganism and immorality.

Then follows the defence of poetry, the praise of it, and especially of the deeper and allegorical meanings

which we must always attribute to it, and of that calculated obscurity which is intended to repel the dull

minds of the ignorant.

And finally, with a clear reference to his own scholarly work, the writer justifies the new relation in which his

age stood to paganism. The case was wholly different, he pleads, when the Early Church had to fight its way

among the heathen. Nowpraised be Jesus Christ !true religion was strengthened, paganism destroyed,

and the victorious Church in possession of the hostile camp. It was now possible to touch and study paganism

almost _(fere) _without danger. This is the argument invariably used in later times to defend the Renaissance.

There was thus a new cause in the world and a new class of men to maintain it. It is idle to ask if this cause

ought not to have stopped short in its career of victory, to have restrained itself deliberately, and conceded the

first place to purely national elements of culture. No conviction was more firmly rooted in the popular mind

than that antiquity was the highest title to glory which Italy possessed.

There was a symbolical ceremony peculiar to the first generation of poetscholars which lasted on into the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though losing the higher sentiment which inspired itthe coronation of the

poets with the laurel wreath. The origin of this custom in the Middle Ages is obscure, and the ritual of the

ceremony never became fixed. It was a public demonstration, an outward and visible expression of literary

enthusiasm, and naturally its form was variable. Dante, for instance, seems to have understood it in the sense

of a halfreligious consecration; he desired to assume the wreath in the baptistery of San Giovanni, where, like

thousands of other Florentine children, he had received baptism. He could, says his biographer, have

anywhere received the crown in virtue of his fame, but desired it nowhere but in his native city, and therefore

died uncrowned. From the same source we learn that the usage was till then uncommon, and was held to be

inherited by the ancient Romans from the Greeks. The most recent source to which the practices could be

referred is to be found in the Capitoline contests of musicians, poets, and other artists, founded by Domitian

in imitation of the Greeks and celebrated every five years, which may possibly have survived for a time the

fall of the Roman Empire; but as few other men would venture to crown themselves, as Dante desired to do,

the question arises, to whom did this office belong? Albertino Mussato was crowned at Padua in 1310 by the

bishop and the rector of the University. The University of Paris, the rector of which was then a Florentine

(1341), and the municipal authorities of Rome, competed for the honour of crowning Petrarch. His

selfelected examiner, King Robert of Anjou, would have liked to perform the ceremony at Naples, but

Petrarch preferred to be crowned on the Capitol by the senator of Rome. This honour was long the highest

object of ambition, and so it seemed to Jacobus Pizinga, an illustrious Sicilian magistrate. Then came the

Italian journey of Charles IV, whom it amused to flatter the vanity of ambitious men, and impress the

ignorant multitude by means of gorgeous ceremonies. Start ing from the fiction that the coronation of poets

was a prerogative of the old Roman emperors, and consequently was no less his own, he crowned (May 15,

1355) the Florentine scholar, Zanobi della Strada, at Pisa, to the great disgust of Boccaccio, who declined to

recognize this 'laurea Pisana' as legitimate. Indeed, it might be fairly asked with what right this stranger, half

Slavonic by birth, came to sit in judgement on the merits of Italian poets. But from henceforth the emperors

crowned poets wherever they went on their travels; and in the fifteenth century the popes and other princes

assumed the same right, till at last no regard whatever was paid to place or circumstances. In Rome, under

Sixtus IV, the academy of Pomponius L'tus gave the wreath on its own authority. The Florentines had the

good taste not to crown their famous humanists till after death. Carlo Aretino and Leonardo Aretino were

thus crowned; the eulogy of the first was pronounced by Matteo Palmieri, of the latter by Giannozzo Manetti,

before the members of the council and the whole people, the orator standing at the head of the bier, on which

the corpse lay clad in a silken robe. Carlo Aretino was further honoured by a tomb in Santa Croce, which is


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Humanists 64



Top




Page No 68


among the most beautiful in the whole course of the Renaissance.

Universities and Schools

The influence of antiquity on culture, of which we have now to speak, presupposes that the new learning had

gained possession of the universities. This was so, but by no means to the extent and with the results which

might have been expected.

Few of the Italian universities show themselves in their full vigor till the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,

when the increase of wealth rendered a more systematic care for education possible. At first there were

generally three sorts of professorshipsone for civil law, another for canonical law, the third for medicine;

in course of time professorships of rhetoric, of philosophy, and of astronomy were added, the last commonly,

though not always, identical with astrology. The salaries varied greatly in different cases. Sometimes a capital

sum was paid down. With the spread of culture, competition became so active that the different universities

tried to entice away distinguished teachers from one another, under which circumstances Bologna is said to

have sometimes devoted the half of its public income (20,000 ducats) to the university. The appointments

were as a rule made only for a certain time, sometimes for only half a year, so that the teachers were forced to

lead a wandering life, like actors. Appointments for life were, however, not unknown. Sometimes the promise

was exacted not to teach elsewhere what had already been taught at one place. There were also voluntary,

unpaid professors.

Of the chairs which have been mentioned, that of rhetoric was especially sought by the humanist; yet it

depended only on his familiarity with the matter of ancient learning whether or no be could aspire to those of

law, medicine, philosophy, or astronomy. The inward conditions of the science of the day were as variable as

the outward conditions of the teacher. Certain jurists and physicians received by far the largest salaries of all,

the former chiefly as consulting lawyers for the suits and claims of the State which employed them. In Padua

a lawyer of the fifteenth century received a salary of 1,000 ducats, and it was proposed to appoint a celebrated

physician with a yearly payment of 2,000 ducats, and the right of private practice, the same man having

previously received 700 gold florins at Pisa. When the jurist Bartolommeo Socini, professor at Pisa, accepted

a Venetian appointment at Padua, and was on the point of starting on his journey, he was arrested by the

Florentine government and only released on payment of bail to the amount of 18,000 gold florins. The high

estimation in which these branches of science were held makes it intelligible why distinguished philologists

turned their attention to law and medicine, while on the other hand specialists were more and more compelled

to acquire something of a wide literary culture. We shall presently have occasion to speak of the work of the

humanists in other departments of practical life.

Nevertheless, the position of the philologists, as such, even where the salary was large, and did not exclude

other sources of income, was on the whole uncertain and temporary, so that one and the same teacher could

be connected with a great variety of institutions. It is evident that change was desired for its own sake, and

something fresh expected from each newcomer, as was natural at a time when science was in the making, and

consequently depended to no small degree on the personal influence of the teacher. Nor was it always the

case that a lecturer on classical authors really belonged to the university of the town where he taught.

Communication was so easy, and the supply of suitable accommodation, in monasteries and elsewhere, was

so abundant, that a private appointment was often practicable. In the first decades of the fifteenth century,

when the University of Florence was at its greatest brilliance, when the courtiers of Eugenius IV, and perhaps

even of Martin V thronged the lectureroom, when Carlo Aretino and Filelfo were competing for the largest

audience, there existed, not only an almost complete university among the Augustinians of Santo Spirito, not

only an association of scholars among the Camaldolesi of the Angeli, but individuals of mark, either singly or

in common, arranged to provide philosophical and philological teaching for themselves and others. Linguistic

and antiquarian studies in Rome had next to no connection with the university (Sapienza), and depended

almost exclusively either on the favour of individual popes and prelates, or on the appointments made in the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Universities and Schools 65



Top




Page No 69


Papal chancery. It was not till Leo X (1513) that the great reorganization of the Sapienza took place, which

now had eightyeight lecturers, among whom there were the most able men of Italy, reading and interpreting

the class;cs. But this new brilliancy was of short duration. We have already spoken briefly of the Greek

professorships in Italy.

To form an accurate picture of the method of scientific instruction then pursued, we must turn away our eyes

as far as possible from our present academic system. Personal intercourse between the teachers and the

taught, public disputations, the constant use of Latin and often of Greek, the frequent changes of lecturers and

the scarcity of books, gave the studies of that time a color which we cannot represent to ourselves without

effort.

There were Latin schools in every town of the least importance, not by any means merely as preparatory to

higher education, but because, next to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the knowledge of Latin was a

necessity; and after Latin came logic. It is to be noted particularly that these schools did not depend on the

Church, but on the municipality; some of them, too, were merely private enterprises.

This school system, directed by a few distinguished humanists, not only attained a remarkable perfection of

organization, but became an instrument of higher education in the modern sense of the phrase. With the

education of the children of two princely houses in North Italy institutions were connected which may be

called unique of their kind.

At the court of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua (14071444) appeared the illustrious Vittorino da

Feltre, one of those men who devote their whole life to an object for which their natural gifts constitute a

special vocation.

He directed the education of the sons and daughters of the princely house, and one of the latter became under

his care a woman of learning. When his reputation extended far and wide over Italy, and members of great

and wealthy families came from long distances, even from Germany, in search of his instructions, Gonzaga

was not only willing that they should be received, but seems to have held it an honour for Mantua to be the

chosen school of the aristocratic world. Here for the first time gymnastics and all noble bodily exercises were

treated along with scientific instruction as indispensable to a liberal education. Besides these pupils came

others, whose instruction Vittorino probably held to be his highest earthly aim, the gifted poor, whom he

supported in his house and educated, 'per l'amore di Dio,' along with the highborn youths who here learned to

live under the same roof with untitled genius. Gonzaga paid him a yearly salary of 300 gold florins, and

contributed to the expenses caused by the poorer pupils. He knew that Vittorino never saved a penny for

himself, and doubtless realized that the education of the poor was the unexpressed condition of his presence.

The establishment was conducted on strictly religious lines, stricter indeed than many monasteries.

More stress was laid on pure scholarship by Guarino of Verona (1370 1460), who in the year 1429 was

called to Ferrara by Niccolo d'Este to educate his son Lionello, and who, when his pupil was nearly grown up

in 1436, began to teach at the university of eloquence and of the ancient languages. While still acting as tutor

to Lionello, he had many other pupils from various parts of the country, and in his own house a select class of

poor scholars, whom he partly or wholly supported. His evening hours till far into the night were devoted to

hearing lessons or to instructive conversation. His house, too, was the home of a strict religion and morality.

It signified little to him or to Vittorino that most of the humanists of their day deserved small praise in the

matter of morals or religion. It is inconceivable how Guarino, with all the daily work which fell upon him,

still found time to write translations from the Greek and voluminous original works.

Not only in these two courts, but generally throughout Italy, the education of the princely families was in part

and for certain years in the hands of the humanists, who thereby mounted a step higher in the aristocratic

world. The writing of treatises on the education of princes, formerly the business of theologians, fell now


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Universities and Schools 66



Top




Page No 70


within their province.

From the time of Pier Paolo Vergerio the Italian princes were well taken care of in this respect, and the

custom was transplanted into Germany by Aeneas Sylvius, who addressed detailed exhortations to two young

German princes of the House of Habsburg on the subject of their further education, in which they are both

urged, as might be expected, to cultivate and nurture humanism. Perhaps Aeneas was aware that in addressing

these youths he was talking in the air, and therefore took measures to put his treatise into public circulation.

But the relations of the humanists to the rulers will be discussed separately. We have here first to speak of

those citizens, mostly Florentines, who made antiquarian interests one of the chief objects of their lives, and

who were themselves either distinguished scholars, or else distinguished _dilettanti _who maintained the

scholars. They were of peculiar significance during the period of transition at the beginning of the fifteenth

century, since it was in them that humanism first showed itself practically as an indispensable element in

daily life. It was not till after this time that the popes and princes began seriously to occupy themselves with

it.

Niccolo Niccoli and Giannozzo Manetti have been already spoken of more than once. Niccoli is described to

us by Vespasiano as a man who would tolerate nothing around him out of harmony with his own classical

spirit. His handsome longrobed figure, his kindly speech, his house adorned with the noblest remains of

antiquity, made a singular impression. He was scrupulously cleanly in everything, most of all at table, where

ancient vases and crystal goblets stood before him on the whitest linen. The way in which he won over a

pleasureloving young Florentine to intellectual interests is too charming not to be here described. Piero de'

Pazzi, son of a distinguished merchant, and himself destined to the same calling, fair to behold, and much

given to the pleasures of the world, thought about anything rather than literature. One day, as he was passing

the Palazzo del Podesta, Niccolo called the young man to him, and although they had never before exchanged

a word, the youth obeyed the call of one so respected. Niccolo asked him who his father was. He answered,

'Messer Andrea de' Pazzi.' When he was further asked what his pursuit was, Piero replied, as young people

are wont to do, 'I enjoy myself' ('attendo a darmi buon tempo'). Niccolo said to him, 'As son of such a father,

and so fair to look upon, it is a shame that thou knowest nothing of the Latin language, which would be so

great an ornament to thee. If thou learnest it not, thou wilt be good for nothing, and as soon as the flower of

youth is over, wilt be a man of no consequence' (virtu). When Piero heard this, he straightway perceived that

it was true, and said that he would gladly take pains to learn, if only he had a teacher. Whereupon Niccol

answered that he would see to that. And he found him a learned man for Latin and Greek, named Pontano,

whom Piero treated as one of his own house, and to whom he paid 100 gold florins a year. Quitting all the

pleasures in which he had hitherto lived, he studied day and night, and became a friend of all learned men and

a nobleminded statesman. He learned by heart the whole 'neid and many speeches of Livy, chiefly on the way

between Florence and his country house at Trebbio. Antiquity was represented in another and higher sense by

Giannozzo Manetti (13931459). Precocious from his first years, he was hardly more than a child when he had

finished his apprenticeship in commerce and became bookkeeper in a bank. But soon the life he led seemed

to him empty and perishable, and he began to yearn after science, through which alone man can secure

immortality. He then busied himself with books as few laymen had done before him, and became, as has been

said, one of the most profound scholars of his time. When appointed by the government as its representative

magistrate and tax collector at Pescia and Pistoia, he fulfilled his duties in accordance with the lofty ideal

with which his religious feeling and humanistic studies combined to inspire him. He succeeded in collecting

the most unpopular taxes which the Florentine State imposed, and declined payment for his services. As

provincial governor he refused all presents, abhorred all bribes, checked gambling, kept the country well

supplied with corn, was indefatigable in settling lawsuits amicably, and did wonders in calming inflamed

passions by his goodness. The Pistoiese were never able to discover to which of the two political parties he

leaned. As if to symbolize the common rights and interests of all, he spent his leisure hours in writing the

history of the city, which was preserved, bound in a purple cover, as a sacred relic in the town hall. When he

took his leave the city presented him with a banner bearing the municipal arms and a splendid silver helmet.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Universities and Schools 67



Top




Page No 71


For further information as to the learned citizens of Florence at this period the reader must all the more be

referred to Vespasiano, who knew them all personally, because the tone and atmosphere in which he writes,

and the terms and conditions on which he mixed in their society, are of even more importance than the facts

which he records. Even in a translation, and still more in the brief indications to which we are here compelled

to limit ourselves, this chief merit of his book is lost. Without being a great writer, he was thoroughly familiar

with the subject he wrote on, and had a deep sense of its intellectual significance.

If we seek to analyze the charm which the Medici of the fifteenth century, especially Cosimo the Elder (d.

1464) and Lorenzo the Magnificent (d. 1492 ) exercised over Florence and over all their contemporaries, we

shall find that it lay less in their political capacity than in their leadership in the culture of the age. A man in

Cosimo's positiona great merchant and party leader, who also had on his side all the thinkers, writers and

investigators, a man who was the first of the Florentines by birth and the first of the Italians by culture such a

man was to all intents and purposes already a prince. To Cosimo belongs the special glory of recognizing in

the Platonic philosophy the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought, of inspiring his friends with the

same belief, and thus of fostering within humanistic circles themselves another and a higher resuscitation of

antiquity. The story is known to us minutely. It all hangs on the calling of the learned Johannes Argyropulos,

and on the personal enthusiasm of Cosimo himself in his last years, which was such that the great Marsilio

Ficino could style himself, as far as Platonism was concerned, the spiritual son of Cosimo. Under Pietro

Medici, Ficino was already at the head of a school; to him Pietro's son and Cosimo's grandson, the illustrious

Lorenzo, came over from the Peripatetics. Among his most distinguished fellowscholars were Bartolommeo

Valori, Donato Acciaiuoli, and Pierfilippo Pandolfini. The enthusiastic teacher declares in several passages of

his writings that Lorenzo had sounded all the depths of the Platonic philosophy, and had uttered his

conviction that without Plato it would be hard to be a good Christian or a good citizen. The famous band of

scholars which surrounded Lorenzo was united together, and distinguished from all other circles of the kind,

by this passion for a higher and idealistic philosophy. Only in such a world could a man like Pico della

Mirandola feel happy. But perhaps the best thing of all that can be said about it is, that, with all this worship

of antiquity, Italian poetry found here a sacred refuge, and that of all the rays of light which streamed from

the circle of which Lorenzo was the centre, none was more powerful than this. As a statesman, let each man

judge him as he pleases; a foreigner will hesitate to pronounce what in the fate of Florence was due to human

guilt and what to circumstances, but no more unjust charge was ever made than that in the field of culture

Lorenzo was the protector of mediocrity, that through his fault Leonardo da Vinci and the mathematician Fra

Luca Pacioli lived abroad, and that Toscanella, Vespucci, and others remained at least unsupported. He was

not, indeed, a man of universal mind; but of all the great men who have striven to favour and promote

spiritual interests, few certainly have been so manysided, and in none probably was the inward need to do so

equally deep.

The age in which we live is loud enough in proclaiming the worth of culture, and especially of the culture of

antiquity. But the enthusiastic devotion to it, the recognition that the need of it is the first and greatest of all

needs, is nowhere to be found in such a degree as among the Florentines of the fifteenth and the early part of

the sixteenth centuries. On this point we have indirect proof which precludes all doubt. It would not have

been so common to give the daughters of the house a share in the same studies, had they not been held to be

the noblest of earthly pursuits, exile would not have been turned into a happy retreat, as was done by Palla

Strozzi; nor would men who indulged in every conceivable excess have retained the strength and the spirit to

write critical treatises on the Natural History of Pliny like Filippo Strozzi. Our business here is not to deal out

either praise or blame, but to understand the spirit of the age in all its vigorous individuality.

Besides Florence, there were many cities of Italy where individuals and social circles devoted all their

energies to the support of humanism and the protection of the scholars who lived among them. The

correspondence of that period is full of references to personal relations of this kind. The feeling of the

instructed classes set strongly and almost exclusively in this direction.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Universities and Schools 68



Top




Page No 72


But it is now time to speak of humanism at the Italian courts. The natural alliance between the despot and the

scholar, each relying solely on his personal talent, has already been touched upon; that the latter should

avowedly prefer the princely courts to the free cities, was only to be expected from the higher pay which he

there received. At a time when the great Alfonso of Aragon seemed likely to become master of all Italy,

Aeneas Sylvius wrote to another citizen of Siena: 'I had rather that Italy attained peace under his rule than

under that of the free cities, for kingly generosity rewards excellence of every kind.' Too much stress has

latterly been laid on the unworthy side of this relation, and the mercenary flattery to which it gave rise, just as

formerly the eulogies of the humanists led to a too favourable judgement on their patrons. Taking all things

together, it is greatly to the honour of the latter that they felt bound to place themselves at the head of the

culture of their age and country, onesided though this culture was. In some of the popes, the fearlessness of

the consequences to which the new learning might lead strikes us as something truly, but unconsciously,

imposing. Nicholas V was confident of the future of the Church, since thousands of learned men supported

her. Pius II was far from making such splendid sacrifices for humanism as were made by Nicholas, and the

poets who frequented his court were few in number; but he himself was much more the personal head of the

republic of letters than his predecessor, and enjoyed his position without the least misgiving. Paul II was the

first to dread and mistrust the culture of his secretaries, and his three successors, Sixtus, Innocent, and

Alexander, accepted dedications and allowed themselves to be sung to the hearts' content of the poets there

even existed a 'Borgiad,' probably in hexameter but were too busy elsewhere, and too occupied in seeking

other foundations for their power, to trouble themselves much about the poetscholars. Julius II found poets

to eulogize him, because he himself was no mean subject for poetry, but he does not seem to have troubled

himself much about them. He was followed by Leo X, 'as Romulus by Numa'in other words, after the

warlike turmoil of the previous pontificate, a new one was hoped for wholly given to the muses. Enjoyment

of elegant Latin prose and melodious verse was part of the pro gramme of Leo's life, and his patronage

certainly had the result that his Latin poets have left us a living picture of that joyous and brilliant spirit of the

Leonine days, with which the biography of Jovius is filled, in countless epigrams, elegies, odes, and orations.

Probably in all European history there is no prince who, in proportion to the few striking events of his life,

has received such manifold homage. The poets had access to him chiefly about noon, when the musicians had

ceased playing; but one of the best among them tells us how they also pursued him when he walked in his

garden or withdrew to the privacy of his chamber, and if they failed to catch him there, would try to win him

with a mendicant ode or elegy, filled, as usual, with the whole population of Olympus. For Leo, prodigal of

his money, and disliking to be surrounded by any but cheerful faces, displayed a generosity in his gifts which

was fabulously exaggerated in the hard times that followed. His reorganization of the Sapienza has been

already spoken of. In order not to underrate Leo's influence on hu manism we must guard against being

misled by the toywork that was mixed up with it, and must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the

apparent irony with which he himself sometimes treated these matters. Our judgement must rather dwell on

the countless spiritual possibilities which are included in the word 'stimulus,' and which, though they cannot

be measured as a whole, can still, on closer study, be actually followed out in particular cases. Whatever

influence in Europe the Italian humanists have had since 1520 depends in some way or other on the impulse

which was given by Leo. He was the Pope who in granting permission to print the newly found Tacitus,

could say that the great writers were a rule of life and a consolation in misfortune; that helping learned men

and obtaining excellent books had ever been one of his highest aims; and that he now thanked heaven that he

could benefit the human race by furthering the publication of this book.

The sack of Rome in the year 1527 scattered the scholars no less than the artists in every direction, and spread

the fame of the great departed Maecenas to the farthest boundaries of Italy.

Among the secular princes of the fifteenth century, none displayed such enthusiasm for antiquity as Alfonso

the Great of Aragon, King of Naples. It appears that his zeal was thoroughly unaffected, and that the

monuments and writings of the ancient world made upon him, from the time of his arrival in Italy, an

impression deep and powerful enough to reshape his life. With strange readiness he surrendered the stubborn

Aragon to his brother, and devoted himself wholly to his new possessions. He had in his service, either


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Universities and Schools 69



Top




Page No 73


successively or to gether, George of Trebizond, the younger Chrysoloras, Lorenzo Valla, Bartolommeo

Fazio and Antonio Panormita, of whom the two latter were his historians; Panormita daily instructed the King

and his court in Livy, even during military expeditions. These men cost him yearly 20,000 gold florins. He

gave Panormita 1,000 for his work; Fazio received for the 'Historia Alfonsi,' besides a yearly income of 500

ducats, a present of 1,500 more when it was finished, with the words, 'It is not given to pay you, for your

work would not be paid for if I gave you the fairest of my cities; but in time I hope to satisfy you.'

When he took Giannozzo Manetti as his secretary on the most brilliant conditions, he said to him, 'My last

crust I will share with you.' When Giannozzo first came to bring the congratulations of the Florentine

government on the marriage of Prince Ferrante, the impression he made was so great, that the King sat

motionless on the throne, 'like a brazen statue, and did not even brush away a fly, which had settled on his

nose at the beginning of the oration.' His favorite haunt seems to have been the library of the castle at Naples,

where he would sit at a window overlooking the bay, and listen to learned debates on the Trinity. For he was

profoundly religious, and had the Bible, as well as Livy and Seneca, read to him, till after fourteen perusals

he knew it almost by heart. Who can fully understand the feeling with which he regarded the suppositions

remains of Livy at Padua? When, by dint of great entreaties, he obtained an armbone of the skeleton from

the Venetians, and received it with solemn pomp at Naples, how strangely Christian and pagan sentiment

must have been blended in his heart! During a campaign in the Abruzzi, when the distant Sulmona, the

birthplace of Ovid, was pointed out to him, he saluted the spot and returned thanks to its tutelary genius. It

gladdened him to make good the prophecy of the great poet as to his future fame. Once indeed, at his famous

entry into the conquered city of Naples (1443) he himself chose to appear before the world in ancient style.

Not far from the market a breach forty ells wide was made in the wall, and through this he drove in a gilded

chariot like a Roman Triumphator. The memory of the scene is preserved by a noble triumphal arch of marble

in the Castello Nuovo. His Neapolitan successors inherited as little of this passion for antiquity as of his other

good qualities.

Alfonso was far surpassed in learning by Federigo of Urbino, who had but few courtiers around him,

squandered nothing, and in his appropriation of antiquity, as in all other things, went to work considerately. It

was for him and for Nicholas V that most of the translations from the Greek, and a number of the best

commentaries and other such works, were written. He spent much on the scholars whose services he used, but

spent it to good purpose. There were no traces of a poets' court at Urbino, where the Duke himself was the

most learned in the whole court. Classical antiquity, indeed, only formed a part of his culture. An

accomplished ruler, captain, and gentleman, he had mastered the greater part of the science of the day, and

this with a view to its practical application. As a theologian, he was able to compare Scotus with Aquinas,

and was familiar with the writings of the old Fathers of the Eastern and Western Churches, the former in

Latin translations. In philosophy, he seems to have left Plato altogether to his contemporary Cosimo, but he

knew thoroughly not only the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle but the Physics and some other works. The rest

of his reading lay chiefly among the ancient historians, all of whom he possessed; these, and not the poets, 'he

was always reading and having read to him.'

The Sforza, too, were all of them men of more or less learning and patrons of literature; they have been

already referred to in passing. Duke Francesco probably looked on humanistic culture as a matter of course in

the education of his children, if only for political reasons. It was felt universally to be an advantage if a prince

could mix with the most instructed men of his time on an equal footing. Lodovico il Moro, himself an

excellent Latin scholar, showed an interest in intellectual matters which extended far beyond classical

antiquity.

Even the petty rulers strove after similar distinctions, and we do them injustice by thinking that they only

supported the scholars at their courts as a means of diffusing their own fame. A ruler like Borso of Ferrara,

with all his vanity, seems by no means to have looked for immortality from the poets, eager as they were to

propitiate him with a 'Borseid' and the like. He had far too proud a sense of his own position as a ruler for


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Universities and Schools 70



Top




Page No 74


that. But intercourse with learned men, interest in antiquarian matters, and the passion for elegant Latin

correspondence were necessities for the princes of that age. What bitter complaints are those of Duke

Alfonso, competent as he was in practical matters, that his weakliness in youth had forced him to seek

recreation in manual pursuits only! or was this merely an excuse to keep the humanists at a distance? A

nature like his was not intelligible even to contemporaries.

Even the most insignificant despots of Romagna found it hard to do without one or two men of letters about

them. The tutor and secretary were often one and the same person, who sometimes, indeed, acted as a kind of

court factotum. We are apt to treat the small scale of these courts as a reason for dismissing them with a too

ready contempt, forgetting that the highest spiritual things are not precisely matters of measurement.

Life and manners at the court of Rimini must have been a singular spectacle under the bold pagan

Condottiere Sigismondo Malatesta. He had a number of scholars around him, some of whom he provided for

liberally, even giving them landed estates, while others earned at least a livelihood as officers in his army. In

his citadel'arx Sismundea'they used to hold discussions, often of a very venomous kind, in the presence

of the 'rex,' as they termed him. In their Latin poems they sing his praises and celebrate his amour with the

fair Isotta, in whose honour and as whose monument the famous rebuilding of San Francesco at Rimini took

place 'Divae Isottae Sacrum.' When the humanists themselves came to die, they were laid in or under the

sarcophagi with which the niches of the outside walls of the church were adorned, with an inscription

testifying that they were laid here at the time when Sigismundus, the son of Pandulfus, ruled. It is hard for us

nowadays to believe that a monster like this prince felt learning and the friendship of cultivated people to be a

necessity of life; and yet the man who excommunicated him, made war upon him, and burnt him in effigy,

Pope Pius II, says: 'Sigismondo knew history and had a great store of philosophy; he seemed born to all that

he undertook.'

Propagators of Antiquity

We have here first to speak of those citizens, mostly Florentines, who made antiquarian interests one of the

chief objects of their lives, and who were themselves either distinguished scholars, or else distinguished

_dilettanti_ who maintained the scholars. They were of peculiar significance during the period of transition at

the beginning of the fifteenth century, since it was in them that humanism first showed itself practically as an

indispensable element in daily life. It was not till after this time that the popes and princes began seriously to

occupy themselves with it.

Niccolò Niccoli and Giannozzo Manetti have been already spoken of more than once. Niccoli is described to

us by Vespasiano as a man who would tolerate nothing around him out of harmony with his own classical

spirit. His handsome longrobed figure, his kindly speech, his house adorned with the noblest remains of

antiquity, made a singular impression. He was scrupulously cleanly in everything, most of all at table, where

ancient vases and crystal goblets stood before him on the whitest linen. The way in which he won over a

pleasureloving young Florentine to intellectual interests is too charming not to be here described. Piero de'

Pazzi, son of a distinguished merchant, and himself destined to the same calling, fair to behold, and much

given to the pleasures of the world, thought about anything rather than literature. One day, as he was passing

the Palazzo del Podestà, Niccolò called the young man to him, and although they had never before exchanged

a word, the youth obeyed the call of one so respected. Niccolò asked him who his father was. He answered,

'Messer Andrea de' Pazzi'. When he was further asked what his pursuit was, Piero replied, as young people

are wont to do, 'I enjoy myself' ('attendo a darmi buon tempo'). Niccolò said to him, 'As son of such a father,

and so fair to look upon, it is a shame that thou knowest nothing of the Latin language, which would be so

great an ornament to thee. If thou learnest it not, thou wilt be good for nothing, and as soon as the flower of

youth is over, wilt be a man of no consequence' (_virtù_). When Piero heard this, he straightway perceived

that it was true, and said that he would gladly take pains to learn, if only he had a teacher. Whereupon

Niccolò answered that he would see to that. And he found him a learned man for Latin and Greek, named


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Propagators of Antiquity 71



Top




Page No 75


Pontano, whom Piero treated as one of his own house, and to whom he paid 100 gold florins a year. Quitting

all the pleasures in which he had hitherto lived, he studied day and night, and became a friend of all learned

men and a nobleminded statesman. He learned by heart the whole AEneid and many speeches of Livy,

chiefly on the way between Florence and his country house at Trebbio. Antiquity was represented in another

and higher sense by Giannozzo Maneeti (13931459). Precocious from his first years, he was hardly more

than a child when he had finished his apprenticeship in commerce, and became bookkeeper in a bank. But

soon the life he led seemed to him empty and perishable, and he began to yearn after science, through which

alone man can secure immortality. He then busied himself with books as few laymen had done before him,

and became, as has been said, one of the most profound scholars of his time. When appointed by the

government as its representative magistrate and tax collector at Pescia and Pistoia, he furfilled his duties in

accordance with the lofty ideal with which his religious feeling and humanistic studies combined to inspire

him. He succeeded in collecting the most unpopular taxes which the Florentine State imposed, and declined

payment for his services. As provincial governor he refused all presents, abhorred all bribes, checked

gambling, kept the country well supplied with corn, was indefatigable in settling lawsuits amicably, and did

wonders in calming inflamed passions by his goodness. The Pistoiese were never able to discover to which of

the two political parties he leaned. As if to symbolize the common rights and interests of all, he spent his

leisure hours in writing the history of the city, which was preserved, bound in a purple cover, as a sacred relic

in the town hall. When he took his leave the city presented him with a banner bearing the municipal arms and

a splendid silver helmet.

For further information as to the learned citizens of Florence at this period the reader must all the more be

referred to Vespasiano, who knew them all personally, because the tone and atmosphere in which he writes,

and the terms and conditions on which he mixed in their society, are of even more importance than the facts

which he records. Even in a translation, and still more in the brief indications to which we are here compelled

to limit ourselves, this chief merit of his book is lost. Without being a great writer, he was thoroughly familiar

with the subject he wrote on, and had a deep sense of its intellectual significance.

If we seek to analyse the charm which the Medici of the fifteenth century, especially Cosimo the Elder (d.

1464) and Lorenzo the Magnificent (d. 1492) exercised over Florence and over all their contemporaries, we

shall find that it lay less in their political capacity than in their leadership in the culture of the age. A man in

Cosimo's position  a great merchant and party leader, who also had on his side all the thinkers, writers and

investigators, a man who was the first of the Florentines by birth and the first of the Italians by culture 

such a man was to all intents and purposes already a prince. To Cosimo belongs the special glory of

recognizing in the Platonic philosophy the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought, of inspiring his

friends with the same belief, amd thus of fostering within humanistic circles themselves another and a higher

resuscitation of antiquity. The story is known to us minutely. It all hangs on the calling of the learned

Johannes Argyropulos, and on the personal enthusiasm of Cosimo himself in his last years, which was such,

that the great Marsilio Ficino could style himself, as far as Platonism was concerned, the spiritual son of

Cosimo. Under Pietro Medici, Ficino was already at the head of a school; to him Pietro's son and Cosimo's

grandson, the illustrious Lorenzo, came over from the Peripatetics. Among his most distinguished

fellowscholars were Bartolommeo Valori, Donato Acciaiuoli, and Pierfilippo Pandolfini. The enthusiastic

teacher declares in several passages of his writings that Lorenzo had sounded all the depths of the Platonic

philosophy, and had uttered his conviction that without Plato it would be hard to be a good Christian or a

good citizen. The famous band of scholars which surrounded Lorenzo was united together, and distinguished

from all other circles of the kind, by this passion for a higher and idealistic philosophy. Only in such a world

could a man like Pico della Mirandola feel happy. But perhaps the best thing of all that can be said about it is,

that, with all this worship of antiquity, Italian poetry found here a sacred refuge, and that of all the rays of

light which streamed from the circle of which Lorenzo was the centre, none was more powerful than this. As

a statesman, let each man judge him as he pleases; a foreigner will hesitate to pronounce what was due to

human guilt and what to circumstances in the fate of Florence, but no more unjust charge was ever made than

that in the field of culture Lorenzo was the protector of mediocrity, that through his fault Leonardo da Vinci


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Propagators of Antiquity 72



Top




Page No 76


and the mathematician Fra Luca Pacioli lived abroad, and that Toscanella, Vespucci, and others at least

remained unsupported. He was not, indeed, a man of universal mind; but of all the great men who have

striven to favour and promote spiritual interests, few certainly have been so manysided, and in none

probably was the inward need to do so equally deep.

The age in which we live is loud enough in proclaiming the worth of culture, and especially of the culture of

antiquity. But the enthusiastic devotion to it, the recognition that the need of it is the first and greatest of all

needs, is nowhere to be found in such a degree as among the Florentines of the fifteenth and the early part of

the sixteenth centuries. On this point we have indirect proof which precludes all doubt. It would not have

been so common to give the daughters of the house a share in the same studies, had they not been held to be

the noblest of earthly pursuits; exile would not have been turned into a happy retreat, as was done by Palla

Strozzi; nor would men who indulged in every conceivable excess have retained the strength and the spirit to

write critical treatises on the 'Natural History' of Pliny like Filippo Strozzi. Our business here is not to deal

out either praise or blame, but to understand the spirit of the age in all its vigorous individuality.

Besides Florence, there were many cities of Italy where individuals and social circles devoted all their

energies to the support of humanism and the protection of the scholars who lived among them. The

correspondence of that period is full of references to personal relations of this kind. The feeling of the

instructed classes set strongly and almost exclusively in this direction.

But it is now time to speak of humanism at the Italian courts. The natural alliance between the despot and the

scholar, each relying solely on his personal talent, has already been touched upon; that the latter should

avowedly prefer the princely courts to the free cities, was only to be expected from the higher pay which they

there received. At a time when the great Alfonso of Aragon seemed likely to become master of all Italy,

AEneas Sylvius wrote to another citizen of Siena: 'I had rather that Italy attained peace under his rule than

under that of the free cities, for kingly generosity rewards excellence of every kind'. Too much stress has

latterly been laid on the unworthy side of this relation, and the mercenary flattery to which it gave rise, just as

formerly the eulogies of the humanists led to a too favourable judgement on their patrons. Taking all things

together, it is greatly to the honour of the latter that they felt bound to place themselves at the head of the

culture of their age and country, onesided though this culture was. In some of the popes, the fearlessness of

the consequences to which the new learning might lead strikes us as something truly, but unconsciously,

imposing. Nicholas V was confident of the future of the Church, since thousands of learned men supported

her. Pius II was far from making such splendid sacrifices for humanism as were made by Nicholas, and the

poets who frequented his court were few in number; but he himself was much more the personal head of the

republic of letters than his predecessor, and enjoyed his position without the least misgiving. Paul II was the

first to dread and mistrust the culture of his secretaries, and his three successors, Sixtus, Innocent, and

Alexander, accepted dedications and allowed themselves to be sung to the hearts' content of the poets 

there even existed a 'Borgiad', probably in hexameters  but were too busy elsewhere, and too occupied in

seeking other foundations for their power, to trouble themselves much about the poetscholars. Julius II

found poets to eulogize him, because he himself was no mean subject for poetry, but he does not seem to

have troubled himself much about them. He was followed by Leo X, 'as Romulus by Numa'  in other

words after the warlike turmoil of the first pontificate, a new one was hoped for wholly given to the muses.

The enjoyment of elegant Latin prose and melodious verse was part of the programme of Leo's life, and his

patronage certainly had the result that his Latin poets have left us a living picture of that joyous and brilliant

spirit of the Leonine days, with which the biography of Jovius is filled, in countless epigrams, elegies, odes,

and orations. Probably in all European history there is no prince who, in proportion to the few striking events

of his life, has received such manifold homage. The poets had access to him chiefly about noon, when the

musicians had ceased playing; but one of the best among them tells us how they also pursued him when he

walked in his garden or withdrew to the privacy of his chamber, and if they failed to catch him there, would

try to win him with a mendicant ode or elegy, filled, as usual, with the whole population of Olympus. For

Leo, prodigal of his money, and disliking to be surrounded by any but cheerful faces, displayed a generosity


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Propagators of Antiquity 73



Top




Page No 77


in his gifts which was fabulously exaggerated in the hard times that followed. His reorganization of the

Sapienza has been already spoken of. In order not to underrate Leo's influence on humanism we must guard

against being misled by the toywork that was mixed up with it, and must not allow ourselves to be deceived

by the apparent irony with which he himself sometimes treated these matters. Our judgement must rather

dwell on the countless spiritual possibilities which are included in the word 'stimulus', and which, though

they cannot be measured as a whole, can still, on closer study, be actually followed out in particular cases.

Whatever influence in Europe the Italian humanists have had since 1520 depends in some way or other on the

impulse which was given by Leo. He was the Pope who in granting permission to print the newly found

Tacitus, could say that the great writers were a rule of life and a consolation in misfortune; that helping

learned men and obtaining excellent books had ever been one of his highest aims; and that he now thanked

heaven that he could benefit the human race by furthering the publication of this book.

The sack of Rome in the year 1527 scattered the scholars no less than the artists in every direction, and spread

the fame of the great departed Maecenas to the farthest boundaries of Italy.

Among the secular princes of the fifteenth century, none displayed such enthusiasm for antiquity as Alfonso

the Great of Aragon, King of Naples. It appears that his zeal was thoroughly unaffected, and that the

monuments and writings of the ancient world made upon him from the time of his arrival in Italy, an

impression deep and powerful enough to reshape his life. With strange readiness he surrendered the stubborn

Aragon to his brother, and devoted himself wholly to his new possessions. He had in his service, either

successively or together, George of Trebizond, the younger Chrysoloras, Lorenzo Valla, Bartolommeo Facio

and Antonio Panormita, of whom the two latter were his historians; Panormita daily instructed the King and

his court in Livy, even during military expeditions. These men cost him yearly 20,000 gold florins. He gave

Panormita 1,000 for his work: Facio received for the 'Historia Alfonsi', besides a yearly income of 500

ducats, a present of 1,500 more when it was finished, with the words, 'It is not given to pay you, for your

work would not be paid for if I gave you the fairest of my cities; but in time I hope to satisfy you'. When he

took Giannozzo Manetti as his secretary on the most brilliant conditions, he said to him, 'My last crust I will

share with you'. When Giannozzo first came to bring the congratulations of the Florentine government on the

marriage of Prince Ferrante, the impression he made was so great, that the King sat motionless on the throne,

'like a brazen statue, and did not even brush away a fly, which had settled on his nose at the beginning of the

oration'. His favourite haunt seems to have been the library of the castle at Naples, where he would sit at a

window overlooking the bay, and listen to learned debates on the Trinity. For he was profoundly religious,

and had the Bible, as well as Livy and Seneca, read to him, till after fourteen perusals he knew it almost by

heart. Who can fully understand the feeling with which he regarded the supposititious remains of Livy at

Padua? When, by dint of great entreaties, he obtained an armbone of the skeleton from the Venetians, and

received it with solemn pomp at Naples, how strangely Christian and pagan sentiment must have been

blended in his heart! During a campaign in the Abruzzi, when the distant Sulmona, the birthplace of Ovid,

was pointed out to him, he saluted the spot and returned thanks to its tutelary genius. It gladdened him to

make good the prophecy of the great poet as to his future fame. Once indeed, at his famous entry into the

conquered city of Naples (1443) he himself chose to appear before the world in ancient style. Not far from

the market a breach forty ells wide was made in the wall, and through this he drove in a gilded chariot like a

Roman Triumphator. The memory of the scene is preserved by a noble triumphal arch of marble in the

Castello Nuovo. His Neapolitan successors inherited as little of this passion for antiquity as of his other good

qualities.

Alfonso was far surpassed in learning by Federigo of Urbino, who had but few courtiers around him,

squandered nothing, and in his appropriation of antiquity, as in all other things, went to work considerately. It

was for him and for Nicholas V that most of the translations from the Greek, and a number of the best

commentaries and other such works, were written. He spent much on the scholars whose services he used, but

spent it to good purpose. There were no traces of the official poet at Urbino, where the Duke himself was the

most learned in the whole court. Classical antiquity, indeed, only formed a part of his culture. An


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Propagators of Antiquity 74



Top




Page No 78


accomplished ruler, captain, and gentleman, he had mastered the greater part of the science of the day, and

this with a view to its practical application. As a theologian, he was able to compare Scotus with Aquinas,

and was familiar with the writings of the old fathers of the Eastern and Western Churches, the former in Latin

translations. In philosophy, he seems to have left Plato altogether to his contemporary Cosimo, but he knew

thoroughly not only the 'Ethics' and 'Politics' of Aristotle but the 'Physics' and some other works. The rest of

his reading lay chiefly among the ancient historians, all of whom he possessed; these, and not the poets, 'he

was always reading and having read to him'.

The Sforza, too, were all of them men of more or less learning and patrons of literature; they have been

already referred to in passing. Duke Francesco probably looked on humanistic culture as a matter of course in

the education of his children, if only for political reasons. It was felt universally to be an advantage if the

Prince could mix with the most instructed men of his time on an equal footing. Lodovico il Moro, himself an

excellent Latin scholar, showed an interest in intellectual matters which extended far beyond classical

antiquity.

Even the petty despots strove after similar distinctions, and we do them injustice by thinking that they only

supported the scholars at their courts as a means of diffusing their own fame. A ruler like Borso of Ferrara,

with all his vanity, seems by no means to have looked for immortality from the poets, eager as they were to

propitiate him with a 'Borseid' and the like. He had far too proud a sense of his own position as a ruler for

that. But intercourse with learned men, interest in antiquarian matters, and the passion for elegant Latin

correspondence were necessities for the princes of that age. What bitter complaints are those of Duke

Alfonso, competent as he was in practical matters, that his weakliness in youth had forced him to seek

recreation in manual pursuits only! or was this merely an excuse to keep the humanists at a distance? A

nature like his was not intelligible even to contemporaries.

Even the most insignificant despots of Romagna found it hard to do without one or two men of letters about

them. The tutor and secretary were often one and the same person, who sometimes, indeed, acted as a kind of

court factotum. We are apt to treat the small scale of these courts as a reason for dismissing them with a too

ready contempt, forgetting that the highest spiritual things are not precisely matters of measurement.

Life and manners at the court of Rimini must have been a singular spectacle under the bold pagan

Condottiere Sigismondo Malatesta. He had a number of scholars around him, some of whom he provided for

liberally, even giving them landed estates, while others earned at least a livelihood as officers in his army. In

his citadl  'arx Sismundea'  they used to hold discussions, often of a very venomous kind, in the

presence of the 'rex', as they termed him. In their Latin poems they sing his praises and celebrate his amour

with the fair Isotta, in whose honour and as whose monument the famous rebuilding of San Francesco at

Rimini took place  'Divae Isottae Sacrum'. When the humanists themselves came to die, they were laid in

or under the sarcophagi with which the niches of the outside walls of the church were adorned, with an

inscription testifying that they were laid here at the time when Sigismundus, the son of Pandulfus, ruled. It is

hard for us nowadays to believe that a monster like this prince felt learning and the friendship of cultivated

people to be a necessity of life; and yet the man who excommunicated hirn, made war upon him, and burnt

him in effigy, Pope Pius II, says: 'Sigismondo knew history and had a great store of philosophy; he seemed

born to all that he undertook'.

Epistolography: Latin Orators

There were two purposes, however, for which the humanist was as indispensable to the republics as to princes

or popes, namely, the official correspondence of the State, and the making of speeches on public and solemn

occasions.

Not only was the secretary required to be a competent Latinist, but conversely, only a humanist was credited


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Epistolography: Latin Orators 75



Top




Page No 79


with the knowledge and ability necessary for the post of secretary. And thus the greatest men in the sphere of

science during the fifteenth century mostly devoted a considerable part of their lives to serve the State in this

capacity. No importance was attached to a man's home or origin. Of the four great Florentine secretaries who

filled the office between 1427 and 1465, three belonged to the subject city of Arezzo, namely, Leonardo

(Bruni), Carlo (Marzuppini), and Benedetto Accolti; Poggio was from Terra Nuova, also in Florentine

territory. For a long period, indeed, many of the highest offices of State were on principle given to foreigners.

Leonardo, Poggio, and Giannozzo Manetti were at one time or another private secretaries to the popes, and

Carlo Aretino was to have been so. Biondo of Forli, and, in spite of everything, at last even Lorenzo Valla,

filled the same office. From the time of Nicholas V and Pius II onwards, the Papal chancery continued more

and more to attract the ablest men, and this was still the case even under the last popes of the fifteenth

century, little as they cared for letters. In Platina's 'History of the Popes,' the life of Paul II is a charming piece

of vengeance taken by a humanist on the one Pope who did not know how to behave to his chanceryto that

circle 'of poets and orators who bestowed on the Papal court as much glory as they received from it.' It is

delightful to see the indignation of these haughty gentlemen, when some squabble about precedence

happened, when, for instance, the 'Advocati consistoriales' claimed equal or superior rank to theirs. The

Apostle John, to whom the 'Secreta caelestia' were revealed; the secretary of Porsenna, whom Mucius

Scaevola mistook for the king; Maecenas, who was private secretary to Augustus; the archbishops, who in

Germany were called chancellors, are all appealed to in turn. 'The apostolic secretaries have the most weighty

business of the world in their hands. For who but they decide on matters of the Catholic faith, who else

combat heresy, reestablish peace, and mediate between great monarchs; who but they write the statistical

accounts of Christendom? It is they who astonish kings, princes, and nations by what comes forth from the

Pope. They write commands and instructions for the legates, and receive their orders only from the Pope, on

whom they wait day and night.' But the highest summit of glory was only attained by the two famous

secretaries and stylists of Leo X: Pietro Bembo and Jacopo Sadoleto.

All the chanceries did not turn out equally elegant documents. A leathern official style, in the impurest of

Latin, was very common. In the Milanese documents preserved by Corio there is a remarkable contrast

between this sort of composition and the few letters written by members of the princely house, which must

have been written, too, in moments of critical importance. They are models of pure Latinity. To maintain a

faultless style under all circumstances was a rule of good breeding, and a result of habit.

The letters of Cicero, Pliny, and others, were at this time diligently studied as models. As early as the

fifteenth century a great mass of manuals and models for Latin correspondence had appeared (as offshoots

of the great grammatical and lexicographic works), a mass which is astounding to us even now when we look

at them in the libraries. But just as the existence of these helps tempted many to undertake a task to which

they had no vocation, so were the really capable men stimulated to a more faultless excellence, till at length

the letters of Politian, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century those of Pietro Bembo, appeared, and took

their place as unrivalled masterpieces, not only of Latin style in general, but also of the more special art of

letterwriting.

Together with these there appeared in the sixteenth century the classical style of Italian correspondence, at the

head of which stands Bembo again. Its form is wholly modern, and deliberately kept free from Latin

influence, and yet its spirit is thoroughly penetrated and possessed by the ideas of antiquity.

But at a time and among a people where 'listening' was among the chief pleasures of life, and where every

imagination was filled with the memory of the Roman senate and its great speakers, the orator occupied a far

more brilliant place than the letterwriter. Eloquence had shaken off the influence of the Church, in which it

had found a refuge during the Middle Ages, and now became an indispensable element and ornament of all

elevated lives. Many of the social hours which are now filled with music were then given to Latin or Italian

oratory, with results which every reader can imagine.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Epistolography: Latin Orators 76



Top




Page No 80


The social position of the speaker was a matter of perfect indifference; what was desired was simply the most

cultivated humanistic talent. At the court of Borso of Ferrara, the Duke's physician, Girolamo da Castello,

was chosen to deliver the congratulatory address on the visits of Frederick III and of Pius II. Married laymen

ascended the pulpits of the churches at any scene of festivity or mourning) and even on the feastdays of the

saints. It struck the nonItalian members of the Council of Basle as something strange that the Archbishop of

Milan should summon Aeneas Sylvius, who was then unordained, to deliver a public discourse at the feast of

Saint Ambrose; but they suffered it in spite of the murmurs of the theologians, and listened to the speaker

with the greatest curiosity.

Let us glance for a moment at the most frequent and important occasions of public speaking.

It was not for nothing, in the first place, that the ambassadors from one State to another received the title of

orators. Whatever else might be done in the way of secret negotiation, the envoy never failed to make a

public appearance and deliver a public speech, under circumstances of the greatest possible pomp and

ceremony. As a rule, however numerous the embassy might be, one individual spoke for all; but it happened

to Pius II, a critic before whom all were glad to be heard, to be forced to sit and listen to a whole deputation,

one after another. Learned princes who had the gift of speech were themselves fond of discoursing in Latin or

Italian. The children of the House of Sforza were trained to this exercise. The boy Galeazzo Maria delivered

in 1455 a fluent speech before the Great Council at Venice, and his sister Ippolita saluted Pope Pius II with a

graceful address at the Congress of Mantua (1459). Pius himself through all his life did much by his oratory

to prepare the way for his final elevation to the Papal chair. Great as he was both as scholar and diplomatist,

he would probably never have become Pope without the fame and the charm of his eloquence. 'For nothing

was more lofty than the dignity of his oratory.' Without doubt this was a reason why multitudes held him to

be the fittest man for the office even before his election.

Princes were also commonly received on public occasions with speeches, which sometimes lasted for hours.

This happened of course only when the prince was known as a lover of eloquence, or wished to pass for such,

and when a competent speaker was present, whether university professor, official, ecclesiastic, physician, or

courtscholar. Every other political opportunity was seized with the same eagerness, and according to the

reputation of the speaker, the concourse of the lovers of culture was great or small. At the yearly change of

public officers, and even at the consecration of new bishops, a humanist was sure to come forward, and

sometimes addressed his audience in hexameters or Sapphic verses. Often a newly appointed official was

himself forced to deliver a speech more or less relevant to his department, as, for instance, on justice; and

lucky for him if he were well up in his part! At Florence even the Condottieri, whatever their origin or

education might be, were compelled to accommodate themselves to the popular sentiment, and on receiving

the insignia of their office, were harangued before the assembled people by the most learned secretary of

state. It seems that beneath or close to the Loggia de' Lanzithe porch where the government was wont to

appear solemnly before the people a tribune or platform _(rostra, ringhiera) _was erected for such purposes.

Anniversaries, especially those of the death of princes, were commonly celebrated by memorial speeches.

Even the funeral oration strictly so called was generally entrusted to a humanist, who delivered it in church,

clothed in a secular dress; nor was it only princes, but officials, or persons otherwise distinguished, to whom

this honour was paid. This was also the case with the speeches delivered at weddings or betrothals, with the

difference that they seem to have been made in the palace, instead of in church, like that of Filelfo at the

betrothal of Anna Sforza to Alfonso of Este in the castle of Milan. It is still possible that the ceremony may

have taken place in the chapel of the castle. Private families of distinction no doubt also employed such

wedding orators as one of the luxuries of high life. At Ferrara, Guarino was requested on these occasions to

send some one or other of his pupils. The clergy performed only the purely religious ceremonies at weddings

and funerals.

The academical speeches, both those made at the installation of a new teacher and at the opening of a new


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Epistolography: Latin Orators 77



Top




Page No 81


course of lectures were delivered by the professor himself, and treated as occasions of great rhetorical

display. The ordinary university lectures also usually had an oratorical character.

With regard to forensic eloquence, the quality of the audience determined the form of speech. In case of need

it was enriched with all sorts of philosophical and antiquarian learning.

As a special class of speeches we may mention the address made in Italian on the battlefield, either before or

after the combat. Federigo of Urbino was esteemed a classic in this style; he used to pass round among his

squadrons as they stood drawn up in order of battle, inspiring them in turn with pride and enthusiasm. Many

of the speeches in the military historians of the fifteenth century, as for instance in Porcellius, may be, in part

at least, imaginary, but may be also in part faithful representations of words actually spoken. The addresses

again which were delivered to the Florentine Militia, organized in 1506 chiefly through the influence of

Machiavelli, and which were spoken first at reviews, and afterwards at special annual festivals, were of

another kind. They were simply general appeals to the patriotism of the hearers, and were addressed to the

assembled troops in the church of each quarter of the city by a citizen in armor, sword in hand.

Finally, the oratory of the pulpit began in the fifteenth century to lose its distinctive peculiarities. Many of the

clergy had entered into the circle of classical culture, and were ambitious of success in it. The streetpreacher

Bernardino da Siena, who even in his lifetime passed for a saint and who was worshipped by the populace,

was not above taking lessons in rhetoric from the famous Guarino, although he had only to preach in Italian.

Never indeed was more expected from preachers than at that time especially from the Lenten preachers; and

there were not a few audiences which could not only tolerate, but which demanded a strong dose of

philosophy from the pulpit. But we have here especially to speak of the distinguished occasional preachers in

Latin. Many of their opportunities had been taken away from them, as has been observed, by learned laymen.

Speeches on particular saints' days, at weddings and funerals, or at the installation of a bishop, and even the

introductory speech at the first mass of a clerical friend, or the address at the festival of some religious order,

were all left to laymen. But at all events at the Papal court in the fifteenth century, whatever the occasion

might be, the preachers were generally monks. Under Sixtus IV, Giacomo da Volterra regularly enumerates

these preachers, and criticizes them according to the rules of the art. Fedra Inghirami, famous as an orator

under Julius II, had at least received holy orders and was canon at St. John Lateran; and besides him, elegant

Latinists were now common enough among the prelates. In this matter, as in others, the exaggerated

privileges of the profane humanists appear lessened in the sixteenth century on which point we shall presently

speak more fully.

What now was the subject and general character of these speeches? The national gift of eloquence was not

wanting to the Italians of the Middle Ages, and a socalled 'rhetoric' belonged from the first to the seven

liberal arts; but so far as the revival of the ancient methods is concerned, this merit must be ascribed,

according to Filippo Villani, to the Florentine Bruno Casini, who died of the plague in 1348. With the

practical purpose of fitting his countrymen to speak with ease and effect in public, he treated, after the pattern

of the ancients, invention, declamation, bearing, and gesticulation, each in its proper connection. Elsewhere

too we read of an oratorical training directed solely to practical application. No accomplishment was more

highly esteemed than the power of elegant improvisation in Latin. The growing study of Cicero's speeches

and theoretical writings, of Quintilian and of the imperial panegyrists, the appearance of new and original

treatises, the general progress of antiquarian learning, and the stores of ancient matter and thought which now

could and must be drawn from, all combined to shape the character of the new eloquence.

This character nevertheless differed widely according to the individual. Many speeches breathe a spirit of true

eloquence, especially those which keep to the matter treated of; of this kind is the mass of what is left to us of

Pius II. The miraculous effects produced by Giannozzo Manetti point to an orator the like of whom has not

been often seen. His great audiences as envoy before Nicholas V and before the Doge and Council of Venice

were events not to be soon forgotten. Many orators, on the contrary, would seize the opportunity, not only to


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Epistolography: Latin Orators 78



Top




Page No 82


flatter the vanity of distinguished hearers, but to load their speeches with an enormous mass of antiquarian

rubbish. How it was possible to endure this infliction for two and even three hours, can only be understood

when we take into account the intense interest then felt in everything connected with antiquity, and the rarity

and defectiveness of treatises on the subject at a time when printing was but little diffused. Such orations had

at least the value which we have claimed for many of Petrarch's letters. But some speakers went too far. Most

of Filelfo's speeches are an atrocious patchwork of classical and biblical quotations, tacked on to a string of

commonplaces, among which the great people he wishes to flatter are arranged under the head of the cardinal

virtues, or some such category, and it is only with the greatest trouble, in his case and in that of many others,

that we can extricate the few historical no tices of any value which they really contain. The speech, for

instance, of a scholar and professor of Piacenza at the reception of the Duke Galeazzo Maria, in 1467, begins

with Julius Caesar, then proceeds to mix up a mass of classical quotations with a number from an allegorical

work by the speaker himself, and concludes with some exceedingly indiscreet advice to the ruler. Fortunately

it was late at night, and the orator had to be satisfied with handing his written panegyric to the prince. Filelfo

begins a speech at a betrothal with the words: 'Aristotle, the peripatetic.' Others start with P. Cornelius Scipio,

and the like, as though neither they nor their hearers could wait a moment for a quotation. At the end of the

fifteenth century public taste suddenly improved, chiefly through Florentine influence, and the practice of

quotation was restricted within due limits. Many works of reference were now in existence, in which the first

comer could find as much as he wanted of what had hitherto been the admiration of princes and people.

As most of the speeches were written out beforehand in the study, the manuscripts served as a means of

further publicity afterwards. The great extemporaneous speakers, on the other hand, were attended by

shorthand writers. We must further remember that not all the orations which have come down to us were

intended to be actually delivered. The panegyric, for example, of the elder Beroaldus on Lodovico il Moro

was presented to him in manuscript. In fact, just as letters were written addressed to all conceivable persons

and parts of the world as exercises, as formularies, or even to serve a controversial end, so there were

speeches for imaginary occasions to be used as models for the reception of princes, bishops, and other

dignitaries.

For oratory, as for the other arts, the death of Leo X (1521) and the sack of Rome (1527) mark the epoch of

decadence. Giovio, but just escaped from the desolation of the eternal city, described, not impartially, but on

the whole correctly, the causes of this decline: 'The plays of Plautus and Terence, once a school of Latin style

for the educated Romans, are banished to make room for Italian comedies. Graceful speakers no longer find

the recognition and reward which they once did. The Consistorial advocates no longer prepare anything but

the introductions to their speeches, and deliver the resta confused muddleon the inspiration of the

moment. Sermons and occasional speeches have sunk to the same level. If a funeral oration is wanted for a

cardinal or other great personage, the executors do not apply to the best orators in the city, to whom they

would have to pay a hundred pieces of gold, but they hire for a trifle the first impudent pedant whom they

come across, and who only wants to be talked of, whether for good or ill. The dead, they say, is none the

wiser if an ape stands in a black dress in the pulpit, and beginning with a hoarse, whimpering mumble, passes

little by little into a loud howling. Even the sermons preached at great Papal ceremonies are no longer

profitable, as they used to be. Monks of all orders have again got them into their hands, and preach as if they

were speaking to the mob. Only a few years ago a sermon at mass before the Pope might easily lead the way

to a bishopric.'

The Treatise, and History in Latin

From the oratory and the epistolary writings of the humanists, we shall here pass on to their other creations,

which were all, to a greater or less extent, reproductions of antiquity.

Among these must be placed the treatise, which often took the shape of a dialogue. In this case it was

borrowed directly from Cicero. In order to do anything like justice to this class of literaturein order not to


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Treatise, and History in Latin 79



Top




Page No 83


throw it aside at first sight as a bore two things must be taken into consideration. The century which escaped

from the influence of the Middle Ages felt the need of something to mediate between itself and antiquity in

many questions of morals and philosophy; and this need was met by the writer of treatises and dialogues.

Much which appears to us as mere commonplace in their writings, was for them and their contemporaries a

new and hardwon view of things upon which mankind had been silent since the days of antiquity. The

language too, in this form of writing, whether Italian or Latin, moved more freely and flexibly than in

historical narrative, in letters, or in oratory, and thus became in itself the source of a special pleasure. Several

Italian compositions of this kind still hold their place as patterns of style. Many of these works have been, or

will be mentioned on account of their contents; we here refer to them as a class. From the time of Petrarch's

letters and treatises down to near the end of the fifteenth century, the heaping up of learned quotations, as in

the case of the orators, is the main business of most of these writers. Subsequently the whole style, especially

in Italian, was purified, until, in the 'Asolani' of Bembo, and the 'Vita Sobria' of Luigi Cornaro, a classical

perfection was reached. Here too the decisive fact was this, that antiquarian matter of every kind had

meantime begun to be deposited in encyclopedic works (now printed), and no longer stood in the way of the

essayist.

It was inevitable too that the humanistic spirit should control the writing of history. A superficial comparison

of the histories of this period with the earlier chronicles, especially with works so full of life, color, and

brilliancy as those of the Villani, will lead us loudly to deplore the change. How insipid and conventional

appear by their side the best of the humanists, and particularly their immediate and most famous successors

among the historians of Florence, Leonardo Aretino and Poggio! The enjoyment of the reader is incessantly

marred by the sense that, in the classical phrases of Fazio, Sabellico, Foglietta, Senarega, Platina in the

chronicles of Mantua, Bembo in the annals of Venice, and even of Giovio in his histories, the best local and

individual coloring and the full sincerity of interest in the truth of events have been lost. Our mistrust is

increased when we hear that Livy, the pattern of this school of writers, was copied just where he is least

worthy of imitationon the ground, namely, 'that he turned a dry and walled tradition into grace and

richness.' In the same place we meet with the suspicious declaration that it is the function of the historian

just as if he were one with the poetto excite, charm, or overwhelm the reader. We ask ourselves finally,

whether the contempt for modern things, which these same humanists sometimes avowed openly, must not

necessarily have had an unfortunate influence on their treatment of them. Unconsciously the reader finds

himself looking with more interest and confidence on the unpretending Latin and Italian annalists, like those

of Bologna and Ferrara, who remained true to the old style, and still more grateful does he feel to the best of

the genuine chroniclers who wrote in Italianto Marino Sanuto, Corio, and Infessurawho were followed

at the beginning of the sixteenth century by that new and illustrious band of great national historians who

wrote in their mother tongue.

Contemporary history, no doubt, was written far better in the language of the day than when forced into

Latin. Whether Italian was also more suitable for the narrative of events long past, or for historical research,

is a question which admits, for that period, of more answers than one. Latin was, at that time, the 'Lingua

franca' of instructed people, not only in an international sense, as a means of intercourse between

Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Italians, but also in an interprovincial sense. The Lombard, the Venetian, and

the Neapolitan modes of writing, though long modelled on the Tuscan, and bearing but slight traces of the

dialect were still not recognized by the Florentines. This was of less consequence in local contemporary

histories, which were sure of readers at the place where they were written, than in the narratives of the past,

for which a larger public was desired. In these the local interests of the people had to be sacrificed to the

general interests of the learned. How far would the influence of a man like Biondo of Forli have reached if he

had written his great monuments of learning in the dialect of the Romagna? They would have assuredly sunk

into neglect, if only through the contempt of the Florentines, while written in Latin they exercised the

profoundest influence on the whole European world of learning. And even the Florentines in the fifteenth

century wrote Latin, not only because their minds were imbued with humanism, but in order to be more

widely read.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Treatise, and History in Latin 80



Top




Page No 84


Finally, there exist certain Latin essays in contemporary history which stand on a level with the best Italian

works of the kind. When the continuous narrative after the manner of Livythat Procrustean bed of so many

writers is abandoned, the change is marvelous. The same Platina and Giovio, whose great histories we only

read because and so far as we must, suddenly come forward as masters in the biographical style. We have

already spoken of Tristano Caracciolo, of the biographical works of Fazio and of the Venetian topography of

Sabellico, and others will be mentioned in the sequel.

The Latin treatises on past history were naturally concerned, for the most part, with classical antiquity. What

we are most surprised to find among these humanists are some considerable works on the history of the

Middle Ages. The first of this kind was the chronicle of Matteo Palmieri (4491449), beginning where

Prosper Accedence ceases. On opening the 'Decades' of Biondo of Forli, we are surprised to find a universal

history, 'ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii,' as in Gibbon, full of original studies on the authors of each

century, and occupied, through the first 300 folio pages, with early mediaeval history down to the death of

Frederick II. And this when in Northern countries nothing more was current than chronicles of the popes and

emperors, and the 'Fasciculus temporum.' We cannot here stay to show what writings Biondo made use of,

and where he found his materials, though this justice will some day be done to him by the historians of

literature. This book alone would entitle us to say that it was the study of antiquity which made the study of

the Middle Ages possible, by first training the mind to habits of impartial historical criticism. To this must be

added, that the Middle Ages were now over for Italy, and that the Italian mind could the better appreciate

them, because it stood outside them. It cannot, nevertheless, be said that it at once judged them fairly, let

alone with piety. In the arts a strong prejudice established itself against all that those centuries had created,

and the humanists date the new era from the time of their own appearance. 'I begin,' says Boccaccio, 'to hope

and believe that God has had mercy on the Italian name, since I see that His infinite goodness puts souls into

the breasts of the Italians like those of the ancients souls which seek fame by other means than robbery and

violence, but rather on the path of poetry, which makes men immortal.' But this narrow and unjust temper did

not preclude investigation in the minds of the more gifted men, at a time, too, when elsewhere in Europe any

such investigation would have been out of the question. A historical criticism of the Middle Ages was

practicable, just because the rational treatment of all subjects by the humanists had trained the historical

spirit. In the fifteenth century this spirit had so far penetrated the history even of the individual cities of Italy

that the stupid fairy tales about the origin of Florence, Venice, and Milan vanished, while at the same time,

and long after, the chronicles of the North were stuffed with this fantastic rubbish, destitute for the most part

of all poetical value, and invented as late as the fourteenth century.

The close connection between local history and the sentiment of glory has already been touched on in

reference to Florence. Venice would not be behindhand. Just as a great rhetorical triumph of the Florentines

would cause a Venetian embassy to write home posthaste for an orator to be sent after them, so too the

Venetians felt the need of a history which would bear comparison with those of Leonardo Aretino and

Poggio. And it was to satisfy this feeling that, in the fifteenth century, the 'Decades' of Sabellico appeared,

and in the sixteenth the 'Historia rerum Venetarum' of Pietro Bembo, both written at the express charge of the

republic, the latter a continuation of the former.

The great Florentine historians at the beginning of the sixteenth century were men of a wholly different kind

from the Latinists Bembo and Giovio. They wrote Italian, not only because they could not vie with the

Ciceronian elegance of the philologists, but because, like Machiavelli, they could only record in a living

tongue the living results of their own immediate observations and we may add in the case of Machiavelli, of

his observation of the pastand because, as in the case of Guicciardini, Varchi, and many others, what they

most desired was, that their view of the course of events should have as wide and deep a practical effect as

possible. Even when they only write for a few friends, like Francesco Vettori, they feel an inward need to

utter their testimony on men and events, and to explain and justify their share in the latter.

And yet, with all that is characteristic in their language and style, they were powerfully affected by antiquity,


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Treatise, and History in Latin 81



Top




Page No 85


and, without its influence, would be inconceivable. They were not humanists, but they had passed through the

school of humanism and have in them more of the spirit of the ancient historians than most of the imitators of

Livy. Like the ancients, they were citizens who wrote for citizens.

Antiquity as the Common Source

We cannot attempt to trace the influence of humanism in the special sciences. Each has its own history, in

which the Italian investigators of this period, chiefly through their rediscovery of the results attained by

antiquity, mark a new epoch, with which the modern period of the science in question begins with more or

less distinctness. With regard to philosophy, too, we must refer the reader to the special historical works on

the subject. The influence of the old philosophers on Italian culture will appear at times immense, at times

inconsiderable; the former, when we consider how the doctrines of Aristotle, chiefly drawn from the Ethics

and Politicsboth widely diffused at an early periodbecame the common property of educated Italians,

and how the whole method of abstract thought was governed by him; the latter, when we remember how

slight was the dogmatic influence of the old philosophies, and even of the enthusiastic Florentine Platonists,

on the spirit of the people at large. What looks like such an influence is generally no more than a consequence

of the new culture in general, and of the special growth and development of the Italian mind. When we come

to speak of religion, we shall have more to say on this head. But in by far the greater number of cases, we

have to do, not with the general culture of the people with the utterances of individuals or of learned circles;

and here, too, a distinction must be drawn between the true assimilation of ancient doctrines and fashionable

makebelieve. For with many, antiquity was only a fashion, even among very learned people.

Nevertheless, all that looks like affectation to our age, need not then have actually been so. The giving of

Greek and Latin names to children, for example, is better and more respectable than the present practice of

taking them, especially the female names, from novels. When the enthusiasm for the ancient world was

greater than for the saints, it was simple and natural enough that noble families called their sons Agamemnon,

Tydeus, and Achilles, and that a painter named his son Apelles and his daughter Minerva.58 Nor will it

appear unreasonable that, instead of a family name, which people were often glad to get rid of, a

wellsounding ancient name was chosen. A local name, shared by all residents in the place, and not yet

transformed into a family name, was willingly given up, especially when its religious associations made it

inconvenient. Filippo da San Gimignano called himself Callimachus. The man, mis understood and insulted

by his family, who made his fortune as a scholar in foreign cities, could afford, even if he were a

Sanseverino, to change his name to Julius Pomponius Laetus. Even the simple translation of a name into

Latin or Greek, as was almost uniformly the custom in Germany, may be excused to a generation which

spoke and wrote Latin, and which needed names that could be not only declined, but used with facility in

verse and prose. What was blameworthy and ridiculous was the change of half a name, baptismal or family,

to give it a classical sound and a new sense. Thus Giovanni was turned into Jovianus or Janus, Pietro to

Petreius or Pierius, Antonio to Aoniuss Sannazaro to Syncerus, Luca Grasso to Lucius Crassus. Ariosto, who

speaks with such derision of all this, lived to see children called after his own heroes and heroines.

Nor must we judge too severely the latinization of many usages of social life, such as the titles of officials, of

cere monies, and the like, in the writers of the period. As long as people were satisfied with a simple, fluent

Latin style, as was the case with most writers from Petrarch to, Aeneas Sylvius, this practice was not so

frequent and striking; it became inevitable when a faultless, Ciceronian Latin was demanded. Modern names

and things no longer harmonized with the style, unless they were first artificially changed. Pedants found a

pleasure in addressing municipal counsellors as 'Patres Conscripti,' nuns as 'Virgines Vestales,' and entitling

every saint 'Divus' or 'Deus'; but men of better taste, such as Paolo Giovio, only did so when and because they

could not help it. But as Giovio does it naturally, and lays no special stress upon it, we are not offended if, in

his melodious language, the cardinals appear as 'Senatores,' their dean as 'Princeps Senatus,'

excommunication as 'Dirae,' and the carnival as 'Lupercalia.' The example of this author alone is enough to

warn us against drawing a hasty inference from these peculiarities of style as to the writer's whole mode of


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Antiquity as the Common Source 82



Top




Page No 86


thinking.

The history of Latin composition cannot here be traced in detail. For fully two centuries the humanists acted

as if Latin were, and must remain, the only language worthy to be written. Poggio deplores that Dante wrote

his great poem in Italian; and Dante, as is well known, actually made the attempt in Latin, and wrote the

beginning of the 'Inferno' first in hexameters. The whole future of Italian poetry hung on his not continuing in

the same style, but even Petrarch relied more on his Latin poetry than on the Sonnets and 'Canzoni,' and

Ariosto himself was desired by some to write his poem in Latin. A stronger coercion never existed in

literature; but poetry shook it off for the most part, and it may be said, without the risk of too great optimism,

that it was well for Italian poetry to have had both means of expressing itself. In both something great and

characteristic was achieved, and in each we can see the reason why Latin or Italian was chosen. Perhaps the

same may be said of prose. The position and influence of Italian culture throughout the world depended on

the fact that certain subjects were treated in Latin'urbi et orbi'while Italian prose was written best of all

by those to whom it cost an inward struggle not to write in Latin.

From the fourteenth century Cicero was recognized universally as the purest model of prose. This was by no

means due solely to a dispassionate opinion in favour of his choice of language, of the structure of his

sentences, and of his style of composition, but rather to the fact that the Italian spirit responded fully and

instinctively to the amiability of the letter writer, to the brilliancy of the orator, and to the lucid exposition of

the philosophical thinker. Even Petrarch recognized dearly the weakness of Cicero as a man and a statesman,

though he respected him too much to rejoice over them. After Petrarch's time, the epistolary style was formed

entirely on the pattern of Cicero; and the rest, with the exception of the narrative style, followed the same

influence. Yet the true Ciceronianism, which rejected every phrase which could not be justified out of the

great authority, did not appear till the end of the fifteenth century, when the grammatical writings of Lorenzo

Valla had begun to tell on all Italy, and when the opinions of the Roman historians of literature had been

sifted and compared. Then every shade of difference in the style of the ancients was studied with closer and

doser attention till the consoling conclusion was at last reached that in Cicero alone was the perfect model to

be found, or, if all forms of literature were to be embraced, in 'that immortal and almost heavenly age of

Cicero.' Men like Pietro Bembo and Pierio Valeriano now turned all their energies to this one object. Even

those who had long resisted the tendency, and had formed for themselves an archaic style from the earlier

authors, yielded at last, and joined in the worship of Cicero. Longolius, at Bembo's advice, determined to read

nothing but Cicero for five years long, and finally took an oath to use no word which did not occur in this

author. It was this temper which broke out at last in the great war among the scholars, in which Erasmus and

the elder Scaliger led the battle.

For all the admirers of Cicero were by no means so onesided as to consider him the only source of language.

In the fifteenth century, Politian and Ermolao Barbaro made a conscious and deliberate effort to form a style

of their own, naturally on the basis of their 'overflowing' learning, and our informant of this fact, Paolo

Giovio, pursued the same end. He first attempted, not always successfully, but often with remarkable power

and elegance, and at no small cost of effort, to reproduce in Latin a number of modern, particularly of

aesthetic, ideas. His Latin characteristics of the great painters and sculptors of his time contain a mixture of

the most intelligent and of the most blundering interpretation. Even Leo X, who placed his glory in the fact,

'ut lingua latina nostro pontificatu dicatur facta auctior,' was inclined to a liberal and not too exclusive

Latinity, which, indeed, was in harmony with his pleasureloving nature. He was satisfied if the Latin which

he had to read and to hear was lively, elegant, and idiomatic. Then, too, Cicero offered no model for Latin

conversation, so that here other gods had to be worshipped beside him. The want was supplied by

representations of the comedies of Plautus and Terence, frequent both in and out of Rome, which for the

actors were an incomparable exercise in Latin as the language of daily life. A few years later, in the

pontificate of Paul II, the learned Cardinal of Teano (probably Niccolo Forteguerra of Pistoia) became

famous for his critical labors in this branch of scholarship. He set to work upon the most defective plays of

Plautus, which were destitute even of a list of the characters, and went carefully through the whole remains of


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Antiquity as the Common Source 83



Top




Page No 87


this author, chiefly with an eye to the language. Possibly it was he who gave the first impulse for the public

representations of these plays. Afterwards Pomponius Laetus took up the same subject, and acted as producer

when Plautus was put on the stage in the houses of great churchmen. That these representations became less

in common after 1520, is mentioned by Giovio, as we have seen, among the causes of the decline of

eloquence.

We may mention, in conclusion, the analogy between Ciceronianism in literature and the revival of Vitruvius

by the architects in the sphere of art. And here, too, the law holds good which prevails elsewhere in the

history of the Renaissance, that each artistic movement is preceded by a corresponding movement in the

general culture of the age. In this case, the interval is not more than about twenty years, if we reckon from

Cardinal Adrian of Corneto (1505) to the first avowed Vitruvians.

NeoLatin Poetry

The chief pride of the humanists is, however, their modern Latin poetry. It lies within the limits of our task to

treat of it, at least in so far as it serves to characterize the humanistic movement.

How favourable public opinion was to that form of poetry, and how nearly it supplanted all others, has been

already shown. We may be very sure that the most gifted and highly developed nation then existing in the

world did not renounce the language such as the Italian out of mere folly and without knowing what they

were doing. It must have been a weighty reason which led them to do so.

This cause was the devotion to antiquity. Like all ardent and genuine devotion it necessarily prompted men to

imitation. At other times and among other nations we find many isolated attempts of the same kind. But only

in Italy were the two chief conditions present which were needful for the continuance and development of

neoLatin poetry: a general interest in the subject among the instructed classes, and a partial reawakening of

the old Italian genius among the poets themselvesthe wondrous echo of a faroff strain. The best of what

is produced under these conditions is not imitation, but free production. If we decline to tolerate any

borrowed forms in art, if we either set no value on antiquity at all, or attribute to it some magical and

unapproachable virtue, or if we will pardon no slips in poets who were forced, for instance, to guess or to

discover a multitude of syllabic quantities, then we had better let this class of literature alone. Its best works

were not created in order to defy criticism, but to give pleasure to the poet and to thousands of his

contemporaries.

The least success of all was attained by the epic narratives drawn from the history or legends of antiquity.

The essential conditions of a living epic poetry were denied, not only to the Romans who now served as

models, but even to the Greeks after Homer. They could not be looked for among the Latins of the

Renaissance. And yet the 'Africa' of Petrarch probably found as many and as enthusiastic readers and hearers

as any epos of modern times. Purpose and origin of the poem are not without interest. The fourteenth century

recognized with sound historical sense that the time of the second Punic war had been the noonday of Roman

greatness; and Petrarch could not resist writing of this time. Had Silius Italicus been then discovered, Petrarch

would probably have chosen another subject; but as it was, the glorification of Scipio Africanus the Elder was

so much in accordance with the spirit of the fourteenth century, that another poet, Zanobi di Strada, also

proposed to himself the same task, and only from respect for Petrarch withdrew the poem with which he had

already made great progress. If any justification were sought for the 'Africa,' it lies in the fact that in

Petrarch's time and afterwards Scipio was as much an object of public interest as if he were then alive, and

that he was regarded as greater than Alexander, Pompey, and Caesar. How many modern epics treat of a

subject at once so popular, so historical in its basis, and so striking to the imagination? For us, it is true, the

poem is unreadable. For other themes of the same kind the reader may be referred to the histories of

literature.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

NeoLatin Poetry 84



Top




Page No 88


A richer and more fruitful vein was discovered in expanding and completing the GrecoRoman mythology.

In this too, Italian poetry began early to take a part, beginning with the 'Teseid' of Boccaccio, which passes

for his best poetical work. Under Martin V, Maffeo Vegio wrote in Latin a thirteenth book to the, Aeneid;

besides which we meet with many less considerable attempts, especially in the style of Claudiana

'Meleagris,' a 'Hesperis,' and so forth. Still more curious were the newlyinvented myths, which peopled the

fairest regions of Italy with a primeval race of gods, nymphs, genii, and even shepherds, the epic and bucolic

styles here passing into one another. In the narrative or conversational eclogue after the time of Petrarch,

pastoral life was treated in a purely conventional manner, as a vehicle of all possible feelings and fancies; and

this point will be touched on again in the sequel.58 For the moment, we have only to do with the new myths.

In them, more clearly than anywhere else, we see the double significance of the old gods to the men of the

Renaissance. On the one hand, they replace abstract terms in poetry, and render allegorical figures

superfluous; and, on the other, they serve as free and independent elements in art, as forms of beauty which

can be turned to some account in any and every poem. The example was boldly set by Boccaccio, with his

fanciful world of gods and shepherds who people the country round Florence in his 'Ninfale d'Ameto' and

'Ninfale Fiesolano.' Both these poems were written in Italian. But the masterpiece in this style was the 'Sarca'

of Pietro Bembo, which tells how the rivergod of that name wooed the nymph Garda; of the brilliant

marriage feast in a cave of Monte Baldo; of the prophecies of Manto, daughter of Tiresias; of the birth of the

child Mincius; of the founding of Mantua, and of the future glory of Virgil, son of Mincius and of Magia,

nymph of Andes. This humanistic rococo is set forth by Bembo in verses of great beauty, concluding with.an

address to Virgil, which any poet might envy him. Such works are often slighted as mere declamation. This is

a matter of taste on which we are all free to form our own opinion.

Further, we find long epic poems in hexameters on biblical or ecclesiastical subjects. The authors were by no

means always in search of preferment or of papal favour. With the best of them, and even with less gifted

writers, like Battista Mantovano, the author of the 'Parthenice,' there was probably an honest desire to serve

religion by their Latin versesa desire with which their halfpagan conception of Catholicism harmonized

well enough. Gyraldus goes through a list of these poets, among whom Vida, with his 'Christiad' and

Sannazaro, with his three books, 'De partu Virginis' hold the first place. Sannazaro (b. 1458, d. 1530) is

impressive by the steady and powerful flow of his verse, in which Christian and pagan elements are mingled

without scruple, by the plastic vigor of his description, and by the perfection of his workmanship. He could

venture to introduce Virgil's fourth Eclogue into his song of the shepherds at the manger without fearing a

comparison. In treating of the unseen world, he sometimes gives proofs of a boldness worthy of Dante, as

when King David in the Limbo of the Patriarchs rises up to sing and prophesy, or when the Eternal, sitting on

the throne clad in a mantle shining with pictures of all the elements, addresses the heavenly host. At other

times he does not hesitate to weave the whole classical mythology into his subject, yet without spoiling the

harmony of the whole, since the pagan deities are only accessory figures, and play no important part in the

story. To appreciate the artistic genius of that age in all its bearings, we must not refuse to notice such works

as these. The merit of Sannazaro will appear the greater, when we consider that the mixture of Christian and

pagan elements is apt to disturb us much more in poetry than in the visual arts. The latter can still satisfy the

eye by beauty of form and color, and in general are much more independent of the significance of the subject

than poetry. With them, the imagination is interested chiefly in the form, with poetry, in the matter. Honest

Battista Mantovano, in his calendar of the festivals, tried another expedient. Instead of making the gods and

demigods serve the purposes of sacred history, he put them, as the Fathers of the Church did, in active

opposition to it. When the angel Gabriel salutes the Virgin at Nazareth, Mercury flies after him from Carmel,

and listens at the door. He then announces the result of his eavesdropping to the assembled gods, and

stimulates them thereby to desperate resolutions. Elsewhere, it is true, in his writings, Thetis, Ceres, Aeolus,

and other pagan deities pay willing homage to the glory of the Madonna.

The fame of Sannazaro, the number of his imitators, the enthusiastic homage which was paid to him by the

greatest men, all show how dear and necessary he was to his age. On the threshold of the Reformation he

solved for the Church the problem, whether it were possible for a poet to be a Christian as well as a classic;


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

NeoLatin Poetry 85



Top




Page No 89


and both Leo and Clement were loud in their thanks for his achievements.

And, finally, contemporary history was now treated in hexameters or distichs, sometimes in a narrative and

sometimes in a panegyrical style, but most commonly to the honour of some prince or princely family. We

thus meet with a Sforziad, a Borseid, a Laurentiad, a Borgiad, a Trivulziad, and the like. The object sought

after was certainly not attained; for those who became famous and are now immortal owe it to anything rather

than to this sort of poems, for which the world has always had an ineradicable dislike, even when they happen

to be written by good poets. A wholly different effect is produced by smaller, simpler and more unpretentious

scenes from the lives of distinguished men, such as the beautiful poem on Leo X's 'Hunt at Palo,' or the

'Journey of Aulius II' by Adrian of Corneto. Brilliant descriptions of huntingparties are found in Ercole

Strozzi, in the abovementioned Adrian, and in others; and it is a pity that the modern reader should allow

himself to be irritated or repelled by the adulation with which they are doubtless filled. The masterly

treatment and the considerable historical value of many of these most graceful poems guarantee to them a

longer existence than many popular works of our own day are likely to attain.

In general, these poems are good in proportion to the sparing use of the sentimental and the general. Some of

the smaller epic poems, even of recognized masters, unintentionally produce, by the illtimed introduction of

mythological elements, an impression that is indescribably ludicrous. Such, for instance, is the lament of

Ercole Strozzi on Cesare Borgia. We there listen to the complaint of Roma, who had set all her hopes on the

Spanish Popes, Calixtus III and Alexander VI, and who saw her promised deliverer in Cesare. His history is

related down to the catastrophe of 1503. The poet then asks the Muse what were the counsels of the gods at

that moment, and Erato tells how, upon Olympus, Pallas took the part of the Spaniards, Venus of the Italians,

how both then embrace the knees of Jupiter, how thereupon he kisses them, soothes them, and explains to

them that he can do nothing against the fate woven by the Parc, but that the divine promises will be fulfilled

by the child of the House of EsteBorgia.60 After relating the fabulous origin of both families, he declares

that he can confer immortality on Cesare as little as he could once, in spite of all entreaties, on Memnon or

Achilles; and concludes with the consoling assurance that Cesare, before his own death, will destroy many

people in war. Mars then hastens to Naples to stir up war and confusion, while Pallas goes to Nepi, and there

appears to the dying Cesare under the form of Alexander VI. After giving him the good advice to submit to

his fate and be satisfied with the glory of his name, the papal goddess vanishes 'like a bird.'

Yet we should needlessly deprive ourselves of an enjoyment which is sometimes very great, if we threw aside

everything in which classical mythology plays a more or less appropriate part. Here, as in painting and

sculpture, art has often ennobled what is in itself purely conventional. The beginnings of parody are also to be

found by lovers of that class of literature, e.g. in the Macaroneid to which the comic Feast of the Gods, by

Giovanni Bellini, forms an early parallel.

Many, too, of the narrative poems in hexameters are merely exercises, or adaptations of histories in prose,

which latter the reader will prefer, where he can find them. At last, everything every quarrel and every

ceremonycame to be put into verse, and this even by the German humanists of the Reformation. and yet it

would be unfair to attribute this to mere want of occupation, or to an excessive facility in stringing verses

together. In Italy, at all events, it was rather due to an abundant sense of style, as is further proved by the

mass of contemporary reports, histories, and even pamphlets, in the 'terza rima.' Just as Niccolo da Uzzano

published his scheme for a new constitution, Machiavelli his view of the history of his own time, a third, the

life of Savonarola, and a fourth the siege of Piombino by Alfonso the Great, in this difficult meter, in order to

produce a stronger effect, so did many others feel the need of hexameters, in order to win their special public.

What was then tolerated and demanded, in this shape, is best shown by the didactic poetry of the time. Its

popularity in the fifteenth century is something astounding. The most distinguished humanists were ready to

celebrate in Latin hexameters the most commonplace, ridiculous, or disgusting themes, such as the making of

gold, the game of chess, the management of silkworms, astrology, and venereal diseases _(morbus gallicus),

_to say nothing of many long Italian poems of the same kind. Nowadays this class of poem is condemned


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

NeoLatin Poetry 86



Top




Page No 90


unread, and how far, as a matter of fact, they are really worth the reading, we are unable to say. One thing is

certain: epochs far above our own in the sense of beautythe Renaissance and the GrecoRoman

worldcould not dispense with this form of poetry. It may be urged in reply, that it is not the lack of a sense

of beauty, but the greater seriousness and the altered method of scientific treatment which renders the poetical

form inappropriate, on which point it is unnecessary to enter.

One of these didactic works has been occasionally republishedthe 'Zodiac of Life,' by Marcellus

Palingenius (Pier Angelo Manzolli), a secret adherent of Protestantism at Ferrara, written about 1528. With

the loftiest.speculations on God, virtue, and immortality, the writer connects the discussion of many questions

of practical life, and is, on this account, an authority of some weight in the history of morals. On the whole,

however, his hi fruit of contrast, nor the 'burla,' for their subject; their aim is merely to give simple and

elegant expression to wise sayings and pretty stories or fables. But if anything proves the great antiquity of

the collection, it is precisely this absence of satire. For with the fourteenth century comes Dante, who, in the

utterance of scorn, leaves all other poets in the world far behind, and who, if only on account of his great

picture of the deceivers, must be called the chief master of colossal comedy. With Petrarch begin the

collections of witty sayings after the pattern of Plutarch (Apophthegmata, etc.).

is no verbal imitation, in precisely the tone and style of the verses on Lesbia's sparrow. There are short poems

of this sort, the date of which even a critic would be unable to fix, in the absence of positive evidence that

they are works of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

On the other hand, we can find scarcely an ode in the Sapphic or Alcaic meter, which does not clearly betray

its modern origin. This is shown mostly by a rhetorical verbosity, rare in antiquity before the time of Statius,

and by a singular want of the lyrical concentration which is indispensable to this style of poetry. Single

passages in an ode, sometimes two or three strophes together, may look like an ancient fragment; but a longer

extract will seldom keep this character throughout. And where it does so, as, for instance, in the fine Ode to

Venus, by Andrea Navagero, it is easy to detect a simple paraphrase of ancient masterpieces. Some of the

odewriters take the saints for their subject, and invoke them in verses tastefully modelled after the pattern of

analogous odes of Horace and Catullus. This is the manner of Navagero, in the Ode to the Archangel Gabriel,

and particularly of Sannazaro, who goes still further in his appropriation of pagan sentiment. He celebrates

above all his patron saint, whose chapel was attached to his lovely villa on the shores of Posilippo, 'there

where the waves of the sea drink up the stream from the rocks, and surge against the walls of the little

sanctuary.' His delight is in the annual feast of St. Nazzaro, and the branches and garlands with which t_e

chapel is hung on this day seem to him like sacrificial gifts. Full of sorrow, and far off in exile, at St. Nazaire,

on the banks of the Loire, with the banished Federigo of Aragon, he brings wreaths of box and oak leaves to

his patron saint on the same anniversary, thinking of former years, when all the youth of Posilippo used to

come forth to greet him on flowerhung boats, and praying that he may return home.

Perhaps the most deceptive likeness to the classical style is borne by a class of poems in elegiacs or

hexameters, whose subject ranges from elegy, strictly so called, to epigram. As the humanists dealt most

freely of all with the text of the Roman elegiac poets, so they felt themselves most at home in imitating them.

The elegy of Navagero addressed to the Night, like other poems of the same age and kind, is full of points

which remind us of his model; but it has the finest antique ring about it. Indeed Navagero always begins by

choosing a truly poetical subject, which he then treats, not with servile imitation, but with masterly freedom,

in the style of the Anthology, of Ovid, of Catullus, or of the Virgilian eclogues. He makes a sparing use of

mythology, only, for instance, to introduce a sketch of country life, in a prayer to Ceres and other rural

divinities. An address to his country, on his return from an embassy to Spain, though left unfinished, might

have been worthy of a place beside the 'Bella Italia, amate sponde' of Vincenzo Monti, if the rest had been

equal to this beginning:

'Salve cura Deum, mundi felicior ora, Formosae Veneris dulces salvete recessus; Ut vos post tantos animi


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

NeoLatin Poetry 87



Top




Page No 91


mentisque labores Aspicio lustroque libens, ut munere vestro Sollicitas toto depello e pectore curas! '

The elegiac or hexametric form was that in which all higher sentiment found expression, both the noblest

patriotic enthusiasm and the most elaborate eulogies on the ruling houses, as well as the tender melancholy of

a Tibullus. Francesco Maria Molza, who rivals Statius and Martial in his flattery of Clement VII and the

Farnesi, gives us in his elegy to his 'comrades,' written from a sickbed, thoughts on death as beautiful and

genuinely antique as can be found in any of the poets of antiquity, and this without borrowing anything worth

speaking of from them. The spirit and range of Roman elegy were best understood and reproduced by

Sannazaro, and no other writer of his time offers us so varied a choice of good poems in this style as he. We

shall have occasion now and then to speak of some of these elegies in reference to the matter they treat of.

The Latin epigram finally became in those days an affair of serious importance, since a few clever lines,

engraved on a monument or quoted with laughter in society, could lay the foundation of a scholar's celebrity.

This tendency showed itself early in Italy. When it was known that Guido da Polenta wished to erect a

monument at Dante's grave, epitaphs poured in from all directions, 'written by such as wished to show

themselves, or to honour the dead poet, or to win the favour of Polenta.' On the tomb of the Archbishop

Giovanni Visconti (d. 1354), in the Cathedral at Milan, we read at the foot of thirtysix hexameters: 'Master

Gabrius de Zamoreis of Parma, Doctor of Laws, wrote these verses.' In course of time, chiefly under the

influence of Martial, and partly of Catullus, an ex tensive literature of this sort was formed. It was held the

greatest of all triumphs, if an epigram was mistaken for a genuine copy from some old marble, or if it was so

good that all Italy learned it by heart, as happened in the case of some of Bembo's. When the Venetian

government paid Sannazaro 600 ducats for a eulogy in three distichs, no one thought it an act of generous

prodigality. The epigram was prized for what it was, in truth, to all the educated classes of that agethe

concentrated essence of fame. Nor, on the other hand, was any man then so powerful as to be above the reach

of a satirical epigram, and even the most powerful needed, for every inscription which they set before the

public eye, the aid of careful and learned scholars, lest some blunder or other should qualify it for a place in

the collections of ludicrous epitaphs. Epigraphy and literary epigrams began to link up; the former was based

on a most diligent study of the ancient monuments.

The city of epigrams and inscriptions was, above all others, Rome. In this state without hereditary honours,

each man had to look after his own immortality, and at the same time found the epigram an effective weapon

against competitors. Pius II enumerates with satisfaction the distichs which his chief poet Campanus wrote on

any event of his government which could be turned to poetical account. Under the following popes satirical

epigrams came into fashion, and reached, in the opposition to Alexander VI and his family, the highest pitch

of defiant invective. Sannazaro, it is true, wrote his verses in a place of comparative safety, but others in the

immediate neighbourhood of the court ventured on the most reckless attacks. On one occasion when eight

threatening distichs were found fastened to the doors of the library, Alexander strengthened his guard by 800

men; we can imagine what he would have done to the poet if he had caught him. Under Leo X, Latin

epigrams were like daily bread. For complimenting or for reviling the Pope, for punishing enemies and

victims, named or unnamed, for real or imaginary subjects of wit, malice, grief, or contemplation, no form

was held more suitable. On the famous group of the Virgin with Saint Anne and the Child, which Andrea

Sansovino carved for Sant' Agostino, no fewer than 120 persons wrote Latin verses, not so much, it is true,

from devotion, as from regard for the patron who ordered the work. This man, Johann Goritz of Luxemburg,

papal referendary of petitions, not only held a religious service on the feast of Saint Anne, but gave a great

literary dinner in his garden on the slopes of the Capitol. It was then worth while to pass in, review, in a long

poem 'De poetis urbanis,' the whole crowd of singers who sought their fortune at the court of Leo. This was

done by Franciscus Arsillusa man who needed the patronage neither of pope nor prince, and who dared to

speak his mind, even against his colleagues. The epigram survived the pontificate of Paul III only in a few

rare echoes, while epigraphy continued to flourish till the seventeenth century, when it perished finally of

bombast.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

NeoLatin Poetry 88



Top




Page No 92


In Venice, also, this form of poetry had a history of its own, which we are able to trace with the help of the

'Venezia' of Francesco Sansovino. A standing task for the epigramwriters was offered by the mottoes

(Brievi) on the pictures of the Doges in the great hall of the ducal palacetwo or four hexameters, setting

forth the most noteworthy facts in the government of each. In addition to this, the tombs of the Doges in the

fourteenth century bore short inscriptions in prose, recording merely facts, and beside them turgid hexameters

or leonine verses. In the fifteenth century more care was taken with the style; in the sixteenth century it is

seen at its best; and then coon after came pointless antithesis, prosopopceia, false pathos, praise of abstract

qualities in a word, affectation and bombast. A good many traces of satire can be detected, and veiled

criticism of the living is implied in open praise of the dead. At a much later period we find a few instances of

deliberate recurrence to the old, simple style.

Architectural works and decorative works in general were constructed with a view to receiving inscriptions,

often in frequent repetition; while the Northern Gothic seldom, and with difficulty, offered a suitable place

for them, and in sepulchral monuments, for example, left free only the most exposed parts  namely the

edges.

By what has been said hitherto we have, perhaps, failed to convince the reader of the characteristic value of

this Latin poetry of the Italians. Our task was rather to indicate its position and necessity in the history of

civilization. In its own day, a caricature of it appearedthe socalled macaronic poetry. The masterpiece of

this style, the 'opus macaronicorum,' was written by Merlinus Coccaius (Teofilo Folengo of Mantua). Vi/e

shall now and then have occasion to refer to the matter of this poem. As to the formhexameter and other

verses, made up of Latin words and Italian words with Latin endings  its comic effect lies chiefly in the

fact that these combinations sound like so many slips of the tongue, or like the effusions of an over hasty

Latin 'improvisatore.' The German imitations do not give the smallest notion of this effect.

Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century

Why, it may be asked, were not these reproaches, whether true or false, heard sooner? As a matter of fact,

they were heard at a very early period, but the effect they produced was insignificant, for the plain reason that

men were far too dependent on the scholars for their knowledge of antiquitythat the scholars were

personally the possessors and diffusers of ancient culture. But the spread of printed editions of the classics,

and of large and wellarranged handbooks and dictionaries, went far to free the people from the necessity of

personal intercourse with the humanists, and, as soon as they could be but partly dispensed with, the change

in popular feeling became manifest. It was a change under which the good and bad suffered indiscriminately.

The first to make these charges were certainly the humanists themselves. Of all men who ever formed a class,

they had the least sense of their common interests, and least respected what there was of this sense. All means

were held lawful, if one of them saw a chance of supplanting another. From literary discussion they passed

with astonishing suddenness to the fiercest and the most groundless vituperation. Not satisfied with refuting,

they sought to annihilate an opponent. Something of this must be put to the account of their position and

circumstances; we have seen how fiercely the age, whose loudest spokesmen they were, was borne to and fro

by the passion for glory and the passion for satire. Their position, too, in practical life was one that they had

continually to fight for. In such a temper they wrote and spoke and described one another. Pog gio's works

alone contain dirt enough to create a prejudice against the whole classand these 'Opera Poggii' were just

those most often printed, on the north as well as on the south side of the Alps. We must take care not to

rejoice too soon, when we meet among these men a figure which seems immaculate; on further inquiry there

is always a danger of meeting with some foul charge, which, even if it is incredible, still discolors the picture.

The mass of indecent Latin poems in circulation, and such things as ribaldry on the subject of one's own

family, as in Pontano's dialogue 'Antonius,' did the rest to discredit the class. The sixteenth century was not

only familiar with all these ugly symptoms, but had also grown tired of the type of the humanist. These men

had to pay both for the misdeeds they had done, and for the excess of honour which had hitherto fallen to


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century 89



Top




Page No 93


their lot. Their evil fate willed it that the greatest poet of the nation, Ariosto, wrote of them in a tone of calm

and sovereign contempt.

Of the reproaches which combined to excite so much hatred, many were only too well founded. Yet a clear

and unmistakable tendency to strictness in matters of religion and morality was alive in many of the

philologists, and it is a proof of small knowledge of the period, if the whole class is condemned. Yet many,

and among them the loudest speakers, were guilty.

Three facts explain and perhaps diminish their guilt: the overflowing excess of fervour and fortune, when the

luck was on their side; the uncertainty of the future, in which luxury or misery depended on the caprice of a

patron or the malice of an enemy; and finally, the misleading influence of antiquity. This undermined their

morality, without giving them its own instead; and in religious matters, since they could never think of

accepting the positive belief in the old gods, it affected them only on the negative and sceptical side. Just

because they conceived of antiquity dogmaticallythat is, took it as the model or all thought and actionits

influence was here pernicious. But that an age existed which idolized the ancient world and its products with

an exclusive devotion was not the fault of individuals. It was the work of an historical providence, and if the

culture of the ages which have followed, and of the ages to come, rests upon the fact that it was so, and that

all the ends of life but this one were then deliberately put aside.

The career of the humanists was, as a rule, of such a kind hat only the strongest characters could pass through

it unscathed. The first danger came, in some cases, from the parents, rho sought to turn a precocious child

into a miracle of learning, with an eye to his future position in that class which then was supreme. Youthful

prodigies, however, seldom rise above a certain level; or, if they do, are forced to achieve their further

progress and development at the cost of the bitterest trials. For an ambitious youth, the fame and the brilliant

position of the humanists were a perilous temptation; it seemed to him that he too 'through inborn pride could

no longer regard the low and common things of life.' He was thus led to plunge into a life of excitement and

vicissitude, in which exhausting studies, tutorships, secretaryships, professorships, offices in princely

households, mortal enmities and perils, luxury and beggary, boundless admiration and boundless contempt,

followed confusedly one upon the other, and in which the most solid worth and learning were often pushed

aside by superficial impudence. But the worst of all was, that the position of the humanist was almost

incompatible with a fixed home, since it either made frequent changes of dwelling necessary for a livelihood,

or so affected the mind of the individual that he could never be happy for long in one place. He grew tired of

the people, and had no peace among the enmities which he excited, while the people themselves in their turn

demanded something new. Much as this life reminds us of the Greek sophists of the Empire, as described to

us by Philostratus, yet the position of the sophists was more favourable. They often had money, or could

more easily do without it than the humanists, and as professional teachers of rhetoric, rather than men of

learning, their life was freer and simpler. But the scholar of the Renaissance was forced to combine great

learning with the power of resisting the influence of everchanging pursuits and situations. Add to this the

deadening effect of licentious excess, andsince do what he might, the worst was believed of hima total

indifference to the moral laws recognized by others. Such men can hardly be conceived to exist without an

inordinate pride. They needed it, if only to keep their heads above water, and were confirmed in it by the

admiration which alternated with hatred in the treatment they received from the world. They are the most

striking examples and victims of an unbridled subjectivity.

The attacks and the satirical pictures began, as we have said, at an early period. For all strongly marked

individuality, for every kind of distinction, a corrective was at hand in the national taste for ridicule. And in

this case the men themselves offered abundant and terrible materials which satire had but to make use of. In

the fifteenth century, Battista Mantovano, in discoursing of the seven monsters, includes the humanists, with

any others, under the head 'Superbia.' He describes how, fancying themselves children of Apollo, they walk

along with affected solemnity and with sullen, malicious looks, now gazing t their own shadow, now

brooding over the popular praise they hunted after, like cranes in search of food. But in the sixteenth century


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century 90



Top




Page No 94


the indictment was presented in full. Besides Ariosto, their own historian Gyraldus gives evidence of this,

whose treatise, written under Leo X, was probably revised about the year 1540. Warning examples from

ancient and modern times the moral disorder and the wretched existence of the scholars meet us in

astonishing abundance, and along with these, accusations of the most serious nature are brought formally

against them. Among these are anger, vanity, obstinacy, selfadoration, dissolute private life, immorality of

all descriptions, heresy, theism; further, the habit of speaking without conviction, a sinister influence on

government, pedantry of speech, thanklessness towards teachers, and abject flattery of the great, who st give

the scholar a taste of their favours and then leave m to starve. The description is closed by a reference to the

den age, when no such thing as science existed on the earth. these charges, that of heresy soon became the

most dangers, and Gyraldus himself, when he afterwards republished a perfectly harmless youthful work, was

compelled to take refuge neath the mantle of Duke Ercole II of Ferrara, since men had the upper hand who

held that people had better spend their time on Christian themes than on mythological researches. justifies

himself on the ground that the latter, on the contrary, were at such a time almost the only harmless branches

of study, as they deal with subjects of a perfectly neutral character.

But if it is the duty of the historian to seek for evidence in which moral judgement is tempered by human

sympathy, he 11 find no authority comparable in value to the work so often quoted of Pierio Valeriano, 'On

the Infelicity of the Scholar.' It was written under the gloomy impressions left by the sack of Rome, which

seems to the writer, not only the direct cause of untold misery to the men of learning, but, as it were, the

fulfilment of an evil destiny which had long pursued them. Pierio is here led by a simple and, on the whole,

just feeling. He does not introduce a special power, which plagued the men of genius on account of their

genius, but he states facts, in which an unlucky chance often wears the aspect of fatality. Not wishing to write

a tragedy or to refer events to the conflict of higher powers, he is content to lay before us the scenes of

everyday life. We are introduced to men who, in times of trouble, lose first their incomes and then their

places; to others who, in trying to get two appointments, miss both; to unsociable misers who carry about

their money sewn into their clothes, and die mad when they are robbed of it; to others, who accept wellpaid

offices, and then sicken with a melancholy longing for their lost freedom. We read how some died young of a

plague or fever, and how the writings which had cost them so much toil were burnt with their bed and

clothes; how others lived in terror of the murderous threats of their colleagues; how one was slain by a

covetous servant, and another caught by highwaymen on a journey, and left to pine in a dungeon, because

unable to pay his ransom. Many died of unspoken grief from the insults they received and the prizes of which

they were defrauded. We are told how a Venetian died because of the death of his son, a youthful prodigy;

and how mother and brothers followed, as if the lost child drew them all after him. Many, especially

Florentines, ended their lives by suicide; others through the secret justice of a tyrant. Who, after all, is

happy?and by what means? By blunting all feeling for such misery? One of the speakers in the dialogue in

which Pierio clothed his argument, can give an answer to these questions the illustrious Gasparo Contarini,

at the mention of whose name we turn with the expectation to hear at least something of the truest and

deepest which was then thought on such matters. As a type of the happy scholar, he mentions Fra Urbano

Valeriano of Belluno, who was for years a teacher of Greek at Venice, who visited Greece and the East, and

towards the close of his life travelled, now through this country, now through that, without ever mounting a

horse; who never had a penny of his own, rejected all honours and distinctions, and after a gay old age, died

in his eightyfourth year, without, if we except a fall from a ladder, having ever known an hour of sickness.

And what was the difference between such a man and the humanists? The latter had more free will, more

subjectivity, than they could turn to purposes of happiness. The mendicant friar, who had lived from his

boyhood in the monastery, and never eaten or slept except by rule, ceased to feel the com pulsion under

which he lived. Through the power of this habit he led, amid all outward hardships, a life of inward peace, by

which he impressed his hearers far more than by his teaching. Looking at him, they could believe that it

depends on ourselves whether we bear up against misfortune or surrender to it. 'Amid want and toil he was

happy, because he willed to be so, because he had contracted no evil habits, was not capricious, inconstant,

immoderate; but was always contented with little or nothing.' If we heard Contarini himself, religious motives

would no doubt play a part in the argumentbut the practical philosopher in sandals speaks plainly enough.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century 91



Top




Page No 95


An allied character, but placed in other circumstances, is that of Fabio Calvi of Ravenna, the commentator of

Hippocrates. He lived to a great age in Rome, eating only pulse 'like the Pythagoreans,' and dwelt in a hovel

little better than the tub of Diogenes. Of the pension which Pope Leo gave him, he spent enough to keep body

and soul together, and gave the rest away. He was not a healthy man, like Fra Urbano, nor is it likely that, like

him, he died with a smile on his lips. At the age of ninety, in the sack of Rome, he was dragged away by the

Spaniards, who hoped for a ransom, and died of hunger in a hospital. But his name has passed into the

kingdom of the immortals, for Raphael loved the old man like a father, and honoured him as a teacher, and

came to him for advice in all things. Perhaps they discoursed chiefly of the projected restoration of ancient

Rome, perhaps of still higher matters. Who can tell what a share Fabio may have had in the conception of the

School of Athens, and in other great works of the master?

We would gladly close this part of our essay with the picture of some pleasing and winning character.

Pomponius Laetus, of whom we shall briefly speak, is known to us principally through the letter of his pupil

Sabellicus, in which an antique coloring is purposely given to his character. Yet many of its features are

clearly recognizable. He was a bastard of the House of the Neapolitan Sanseverini, princes of Salerno, whom

he nevertheless refused to recognize, writing, in reply to an invitation to live with them, the famous letter:

'Pomponius Laetus cognatis et propinquis suis salutem. Quod petitis fieri non potest. Valete.' t An

insignificant little figure, with small, quick eyes, and quaint dress, he lived, during the last decades of the

fifteenth century, as professor in the University of Rome, either in his cottage in a garden on the Esquiline

hill, or in his vineyard on the Quirinal. In the one he bred his ducks and fowls; the other he cultivated

according to the strictest precepts of Cato, Varro, and Columella. He spent his holidays in fishing or

birdcatching in the Campagna, or in feasting by some shady spring or on the banks of the Tiber. Wealth and

luxury he despised. Free himself from envy and uncharitable speech, he would not suffer them in others. It

was only against the hierarchy that he gave his tongue free play, and passed, till his latter years, for a scorner

of religion altogether. He was involved in the persecution of the humanists begun by Pope Paul II, and

surrendered to this pontiff by the Venetians; but no means could be found to wring unworthy confessions

from him. He was afterwards befriended and supported by popes and prelates, and when his house was

plundered in the disturbances under Sixtus IV, more was collected for him than he had lost. No teacher was

more conscientious. Before daybreak he was to be seen descending the Esquiline with his lantern, and on

reaching his lectureroom found it always filled to overflowing. A stutter compelled him to speak with care,

but his delivery was even and effective. His few works give evidence of careful writing. No scholar treated

the text of ancient authors more soberly and accurately. The remains of antiquity which surrounded him in

Rome touched him so deeply that he would stand before them as if entranced, or would suddenly burst into

tears at the sight of them. As he was ready to lay aside his own studies in order to help others, he was much

loved and had many friends; and at his death, even Alexander VI sent his courtiers to follow the corpse,

which was carried by the most distinguished of his pupils. The funeral service in the Aracceli was attended by

forty bishops and by all the foreign ambassadors.

It was Laetus who introduced and conducted the representations of ancient, chiefly Plautine, plays in Rome.

Every year, he celebrated the anniversary of the foundation of the city by a festival, at which his friends and

pupils recited speeches and poems. Such meetings were the origin of what acquired, and long retained, the

name of the Roman Academy. It was simply a free union of individuals, and was connected with no fixed

institution. Besides the occasions mentioned, it met at the invitation of a patron, or to celebrate the memory

of a deceased member, as of Platina. At such times, a prelate belonging to the academy would first say mass;

Pomponio would then ascend the pulpit and deliver a speech; someone else would then follow him and recite

an elegy. The customary banquet, with declamations and recitations, concluded the festival, whether joyous

or serious, and the academicians, notably Platina himself, early acquired the reputation of epicures. At other

times, the guests performed farces in the old Atellan style. As a free association of very varied elements, the

academy lasted in its original form down to the sack of Rome, and included among its hosts Angelus

Coloccius, Johannes Corycius and others. Its precise value as an element in the intellectual life of the people

is as hard to estimate as that of any other social union of the same kind; yet a man like Sadoleto reckoned it


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century 92



Top




Page No 96


among the most precious memories of his youth. A large number of other academies appeared and passed

away in many Italian cities, according to the number and significance of the humanists living in them, and to

the patronage bestowed by the great and wealthy. Of these we may mention the Academy of Naples, of which

Jovianus Pontanus was the centre, and which sent out a colony to Lecce, and that of Pordenone, which

formed the court of the Condottiere Alviano. The circle of Lodovico il Moro, and its peculiar importance for

that prince, has been already spoken of.

About the middle of the sixteenth century, these associations seem to have undergone a complete change. The

humanists, driven in other spheres from their commanding position, and viewed askance by the men of the

Counterreformation, lost the control of the academies: and here, as elsewhere, Latin poetry was replaced by

Italian. Before long every town of the least importance had its academy, with some strange, fantastic name,

and its own endowment and subscriptions. Besides the recitation of verses, the new institutions inherited

from their predecessors the regular banquets and the representation of plays, sometimes acted by the

members themselves, sometimes under their direction by young amateurs, and sometimes by paid players.

The fate of the Italian stage, and afterwards of the opera, was long in the hands of these associations.

PART FOUR. THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN

Journeys of the Italians

Freed from the countless bonds which elsewhere in Europe checked progress, having reached a high degree

of individual development and been schooled by the teachings of antiquity, the Italian mind now turned to the

discovery of the outward universe, and to the representation of it in speech and form.

On the journeys of the Italians to distant parts of the world, we can here make but a few general observations.

The Crusades had opened unknown distances to the European mind, and awakened in all the passion for

travel and adventure. It may be hard to indicate precisely the point where this passion allied itself with, or

became the servant of, the thirst for knowledge; but it was in Italy that this was first and most completely the

case. Even in the Crusades the interest of the Italians was wider than that of other nations, since they already

were a naval power and had commercial relations with the East. From time immemorial the Mediterranean

Sea had given to the nations that dwelt on its shores mental impulses different from those which governed the

peoples of the North; and never, from the very structure of their character, could the Italians be adventurers in

the sense which the word bore among the Teutons. After they were once at home in all the eastern harbors of

the Mediterranean, it was natural that the most enterprising among them should be led to join that vast inter

national movement of the Mohammedans which there found its outlet. A new half of the world lay, as it

were, freshly discovered before them. Or, like Polo of Venice, they were caught in the current of the

Mongolian peoples, and carried on to the steps of the throne of the Great Khan. At an early period, we find

Italians sharing in the discoveries made in the Atlantic Ocean; it was the Genoese who, in the thirteenth

century found the Canary Islands. In the same year, 1291, when Ptolemais, the last remnant of the Christian

East, was lost, it was again the Genoese who made the first known attempt to find a seapassage to the East

Indies. Columbus himself is but the greatest of a long list of Italians who, in the service of the western

nations, sailed into distant seas. The true discoverer, however, is not the man who first chances to stumble

upon anything, but the man who finds what he has sought. Such a one alone stands in a link with the thoughts

and interests of his predecessors, and this relationship will also determine the account he gives of his search.

For which reason the Italians, although their claim to be the first comers on this or that shore may be

disputed, will yet retain their title to be preeminently the nation of discoverers for the whole latter part of the

Middle Ages. The fuller proof of this assertion belongs to the special history of discoveries. Yet ever and

again we turn with admiration to the august figure of the great Genoese, by whom a new continent beyond

the ocean was demanded, sought and found; and who was the first to be able to say: 'il mondo e poco'the

world is not so large as men have thought. At the time when Spain gave Alexander VI to the Italians, Italy


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

PART FOUR. THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN 93



Top




Page No 97


gave Columbus to the Spaniards. Only a few weeks before the death of that pope Columbus wrote from

Jamaica his noble letter (July 7, 1503) to the thankless Catholic kings, which the ages to come can never read

without profound emotion. In a codicil to his will, dated Valladolid, May 4, I 506, he bequeathed to 'his

beloved home, the Republic of Genoa, the prayerbook which Pope Alexander had given him, and which in

prison, in conflict, and in every kind of adversity, had been to him the greatest of comforts.' It seems as if

these words cast upon the abhorred name of Borgia one last gleam of grace and mercy.

The development of geographical and allied sciences among the Italians must, like the history of their

voyages, be touched upon but very briefly. A superficial comparison of their achievements with those of

other nations shows an early and striking superiority on their part. Where, in the middle of the fifteenth

century, could be found, anywhere but in Italy, such a union of geographical, statistical, and historical

knowledge as was found in Aeneas Sylvius? Not only in his great geographical work, but in his letters and

commentaries, he describes with equal mastery landscapes, cities, manners, industries and products, political

conditions and constitutions, wherever he can use his own observation or the evidence of eyewitnesses.

What he takes from books is naturally of less moment. Even the short sketch of that valley in the Tyrolese

Alps where Frederick III had given him a benefice, and still more his description of Scotland, leaves

untouched none of the relations of human life, and displays a power and method of unbiased observation and

comparison impossible in any but a countryman of Columbus, trained in the school of the ancients.

Thousands saw and, in part, knew what he did, but they felt no impulse to draw a picture of it, and were

unconscious that the world desired such pictures.

In geography, as in other matters, it is vain to attempt to distinguish how much is to be attributed to the study

of the ancients, and how much to the special genius of the Italians. They saw and treated the things of this

world from an objective point of view, even before they were familiar with ancient literature, partly because

they were themselves a halfancient people, and partly because their political circumstances predisposed

them to it; but they would not so rapidly have attained to such perfection had not the old geographers shown

them the way. The influence of the existing Italian geographies on the spirit and tendencies of the travellers

and discoverers was also inestimable. Even the simple 'dilettante' of a science if in the present case we

should assign to Aeneas Sylvius so low a rankcan diffuse just that sort of general interest in the subject

which prepares for new pioneers the indispensable favourable predisposition in the public mind. True

discoverers in any science know well what they owe to such meditation.

The Natural Sciences in Italy

For the position of the Italians in the sphere of the natural sciences, we must refer the reader to the special

treatises on the subject, of which the only one with which we are familiar is the superficial and depreciatory

work of Libri. The dispute as to the priority of particular discoveries concerns us all the less, since we hold

that, at any time, and among any civilized people, a man may appear who, starting with very scanty

preparation, is driven by an irresistible impulse into the path of scientific investigation, and through his native

gifts achieves the most astonishing success. Such men were Gerbert of Rheims and Roger Bacon. That they

were masters of the whole knowledge of the age in their several departments was a natural consequence of

the spirit in which they worked. When once the veil of illusion was torn asunder, when once the dread of

nature and the slavery to books and tradition were overcome, countless problems lay before them for

solution. It is another matter when a whole people takes a natural delight in the study and investigation of

nature, at a time when other nations are indifferent, that is to say, when the discoverer is not threatened or

wholly ignored, but can count on the friendly support of congenial spirits. That this was the case in Italy is

unquestionable. The Italian students of nature trace with pride in the 'Divine Comedy' the hints and proofs of

Dante's scientific in terest in nature. On his claim to priority in this or that discovery or reference, we must

leave the men of science to decide; but every layman must be struck by the wealth of his observations on the

external world, shown merely in his picture and comparisons. He, more than any other modern poet, takes

them from reality, whether in nature or human life, and uses them never as mere ornament, but in order to


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Natural Sciences in Italy 94



Top




Page No 98


give the reader the fullest and most adequate sense of his meaning. It is in astronomy that he appears chiefly

as a scientific specialist, though it must not be forgotten that many astronomical allusions in his great poem,

which now appear to us learned, must then have been intelligible to the general reader. Dante, learning apart,

appeals to a popular knowledge of the heavens, which the Italians of his day, from the mere fact that they

were a nautical people, had in common with the ancients. This knowledge of the rising and setting of the

constellations has been rendered superfluous to the modern world by calendars and clocks, and with it has

gone whatever interest in astronomy the people may once have had. Nowadays, with our schools and

handbooks, every child knows what Dante did not knowthat the earth moves round the sun; but the

interest once taken in the subject itself has given place, except in the case of astronomical specialists, to the

most absolute indifference.

The pseudoscience which dealt with the stars proves nothing against the inductive spirit of the Italians of

that day. That spirit was but crossed, and at times overcome, by the passionate desire to penetrate the future.

We shall recur to the subject of astrology when we come to speak of the moral and religious character of the

people.

The Church treated this and other pseudosciences nearly always with toleration; and showed itself actually

hostile even to genuine science only when a charge of heresy together with necromancy was also in

questionwhich certainly was often the case. A point which it would be interesting to decide is this: whether

and in what cases the Dominican (and also the Franciscan) Inquisitors in Italy were conscious of the

falsehood of the charges, and yet condemned the accused, either to oblige some enemy of the prisoner or

from hatred to natural science, and particularly to experiments. The latter doubtless occurred, but it is not

easy to prove the fact. What helped to cause such persecutions in the North, namely, the opposition made to

the innovators by the upholders of the received official, scholastic system of nature, was of little or no weight

in Italy. Pietro of Abano, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, is well known to have fallen a victim to

the envy of another physician, who accused him before the Inquisition of heresy and magic; and something of

the same kind may have happened in the case of his Paduan contemporary, Giovannino Sanguinacci, who

was known as an innovator in medical practice. He escaped, however, with banishment. Nor must it be

forgotten that the inquisitorial power of the Dominicans was exercised less uniformly in Italy than in the

North. Tyrants and free cities in the fourteenth century treated the clergy at times with such sovereign

contempt that very different matters from natural science went unpunished. But when, with the fifteenth

century, antiquity became the leading power in Italy, the breach it made in the old system was turned to

account by every branch of secular science. Humanism, nevertheless, attracted to itself the best strength of

the nation, and thereby, no doubt, did injury to the inductive investigation of nature. Here and there the

Inquisition suddenly started into life, and punished or burned physicians as blasphemers or magicians. In

such cases it is hard to discover what was the true motive underlying the condemnation. But even so, Italy, at

the close of the fifteenth century, with Paolo Toscanelli, Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci, held

incomparably the highest place among European nations in mathematics and the natural sciences, and the

learned men of every country, even Regiomontanus and Copernicus, confessed themselves its pupils. This

glory survived the Counterreformation, and even today the Italians would occupy the first place in this

respect if circumstances had not made it impossible for the greatest minds to devote themselves to tranquil

research.

A significant proof of the widespread interest in natural history is found in the zeal which showed itself at an

early period for the collection and comparative study of plants and animals. Italy claims to be the first creator

of botanical gar dens, though possibly they may have served a chiefly practical end, and the claim to priority

may be itself disputed. It is of far greater importance that princes and wealthy men, in laying out their

pleasuregardens, instinctively made a point of collecting the greatest possible number of different plants in

all their species and varieties. Thus in the fifteenth century the noble grounds of the Medicean Villa Careggi

appear from the descriptions we have of them to have been almost a botanical garden, with countless

specimens of different trees and shrubs. Of the same kind was a villa of the Cardinal Trivulzio, at the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Natural Sciences in Italy 95



Top




Page No 99


beginning of the sixteenth century, in the Roman Campagna towards Tivoli, with hedges made up of various

species of roses, with trees of every description the fruittrees especially showing an astonishing

varietywith twenty different sorts of vines and a large kitchengarden. This is evidently something very

different from the score or two of familiar medicinal plants which were to be found in the garden of any

castle or monastery in Western Europe. Along with a careful cultivation of fruit for the purposes of the table,

we find an interest in the plant for its own sake, on account of the pleasure it gives to the eye. We learn from

the history of art at how late a period this passion for botanical collections was laid aside, and gave place to

what was considered the picturesque style of landscapegardening.

The collections, too, of foreign animals not only gratified curiosity, but served also the higher purposes of

observation. The facility of transport from the southern and eastern harbors of the Mediterranean, and the

mildness of the Italian climate, made it practicable to buy the largest animals of the south, or to accept them

as presents from the Sultans. The cities and princes were especially anxious to keep live lions even where a

lion was not, as in Florence, the emblem of the State. The lions' den was generally in or near the government

palace, as in Perugia and Florence; in Rome, it lay on the slope of the Capitol. The beasts sometimes served

as executioners of political judgements, and no doubt, apart from this, they kept alive a certain terror in the

popular mind. Their condition was also held to be ominous of good or evil. Their fertility, especially, was

considered a sign of public prosperity, and no less a man than Giovanni Villani thought it worth recording

that he was present at the delivery of a lioness. The cubs were often given to allied States and princes, or to

Condottieri as a reward of their valor. In addition to the lions, the Florentines began very early to keep

leopards, for which a special keeper was appointed. Borso of Ferrara used to set his lion to fight with bulls,

bears, and wild boars.

By the end of the fifteenth century, however, true menageries (serragli), now reckoned part of the suitable

appointments of a court, were kept by many of the princes. 'It belongs to the position of the great,' says

Matarazzo, 'to keep horses, dogs, mules, falcons, and other birds, courtjesters, singers, and foreign animals.'

The menagerie at Naples, in the time of Ferrante, contained even a giraffe and a zebra, presented, it seems, by

the ruler of Baghdad. Filippo Maria Visconti possessed not only horses which cost him each 500 or 1,000

pieces of gold, and valuable English dogs, but a number of leopards brought from all parts of the East; the

expense of his hunting birds, which were collected from the countries of Northern Europe, amounted to 3,000

pieces of gold a month. King Emanuel the Great of Portugal knew well what he was about when he presented

Leo X with an elephant and a rhinoceros. It was under such circumstances that the foundations of a scientific

zoology and botany were laid.

A practical fruit of these zoological studies was the establishment of studs, of which the Mantuan, under

Francesco Gonzaga, was esteemed the first in Europe. All interest in, and knowledge of the different breeds

of horses is as old, no doubt, as riding itself, and the crossing of the European with the Asiatic must have

been common from the time of the Crusades. In Italy, a special inducement to perfect the breed was offered

by the prizes at the horseraces held in every considerable town in the peninsula. In the Mantuan stables were

found the in fallible winners in these contests, as well as the best military chargers, and the horses best

suited by their stately appearance for presents to great people. Gonzaga kept stallions and mares from Spain,

Ireland, Africa, Thrace, and Cilicia, and for the sake of the last he cultivated the friendship of the Sultans. All

possible experiments were here tried, in order to produce the most perfect animals.

Even human menageries were not wanting. The famous Cardinal Ippolito Medici, bastard of Giuliano, Duke

of Nemours, kept at his strange court a troop of barbarians who talked no less than twenty different

languages, and who were all of them perfect specimens of their races. Among them were incomparable

_voltigeurs _of the best blood of the North African Moors, Tartar bowmen, Negro wrestlers, Indian divers,

and Turks, who generally accompanied the Cardinal on his hunting expeditions. When he was overtaken by

an early death (1535), this motley band carried the corpse on their shoulders from Itri to Rome, and mingled

with the general mourning for the openhanded Cardinal their medley of tongues and violent gesticulations.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The Natural Sciences in Italy 96



Top




Page No 100


These scattered notices of the relations of the Italians to natural science, and their interest in the wealth and

variety of the products of nature, are only fragments of a great subject. No one is more conscious than the

author of the defects in his knowledge on this point. Of the multitude of special works in which the subject is

adequately treated, even the names are but imperfectly known to him.

Discovery of the Beauty of the Landscape

But outside the sphere of scientific investigation, there is another way to draw near to nature. The Italians are

the first among modern peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful.

The power to do so is always the result of a long and complicated development, and its origin is not easily

detected, since a dim feeling of this kind may exist long before it shows itself in poetry and painting and

thereby becomes conscious of itself. Among the ancients, for example, art and poetry had gone through the

whole circle of human interests, before they turned to the representation of nature, and even then the latter

filled always a limited and subordinate place. And yet, from the time of Homer downwards, the powerful

impression made by nature upon man is shown by countless verses and chance expressions. The Germanic

races, which founded their States on the ruins of the Roman Empire, were thoroughly and specially fitted to

understand the spirit of natural scenery; and though Christianity compelled them for a while to see in the

springs and mountains, in the lakes and woods, which they had till then revered, the working of evil demons,

yet this transitional conception was soon outgrown. By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a

genuine, hearty enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively expres sion in the

minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of

nature spring with its flowers, the green fields and the woods. But these pictures are all foreground without

perspective. Even the crusaders, who travelled so far and saw so much, are not recognizable as such in their

poems. The epic poetry, which describes amour and costumes so fully, does not attempt more than a sketch of

outward nature; and even the great Wolfram von Eschenbach scarcely anywhere gives us an adequate picture

of the scene on which his heroes move. From these poems it would never be guessed that their noble authors

in all countries inhabited or visited lofty castles, commanding distant prospects. Even in the Latin poems of

the wandering clerks, we find no traces of a distant viewof landscape properly so called but what lies

near is sometimes described with a glory and splendor which none of the knightly minstrels can surpass.

What picture of the Grove of Love can equal that of the Italian poet  for such we take him to beof the

twelfth century?

'Immortalis fieret Ibi manens homo; Arbor ibi quaelibet Suo gaudet pomo; Viae myrrha, cinnamo Fragrant, et

amomo Conjectari poterat Dominus ex domo' etc.

To the Italian mind, at all events, nature had by this time lost its taint of sin, and had shaken off all trace of

demoniacal powers. Saint Francis of Assisi, in his Hymn to the Sun, frankly praises the Lord for creating the

heavenly bodies and the four elements.

But the unmistakable proofs of a deepening effect of nature on the human spirit begin with Dante. Not only

does he awaken in us by a few vigorous lines the sense of the morning air and the trembling light on the

distant ocean, or of the grandeur of the stormbeaten forest, but he makes the ascent of lofty peaks, with the

only possible object of enjoying the viewthe first man, perhaps, since the days of antiquity who did so. In

Boccaccio we can do little more than infer how country scenery affected him; yet his pastoral romances show

his imagination to have been filled with it. But the significance of nature for a receptive spirit is fully and

clearly displayed by Petrarchone of the first truly modern men. That clear soulwho first collected from

the literature of all countries evidence of the origin and progress of the sense of natural beauty, and himself,

in his 'Aspects of Nature,' achieved the noblest masterpiece of descriptionAlexander von Humboldt has not

done full justice to Petrarch; and following in the steps of the great reaper, we may still hope to glean a few

ears of interest and value.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of the Beauty of the Landscape 97



Top




Page No 101


Petrarch was not only a distinguished geographerthe first map of Italy is said to have been drawn by his

directionand not only a reproducer of the sayings of the ancients, but felt himself the influence of natural

beauty. The enjoyment of nature is, for him, the favorite accompaniment of intellectual pursuits; it was to

combine the two that he lived in learned retirement at Vaucluse and elsewhere, that he from time to time fled

from the world and from his age. We should do him wrong by inferring from his weak and undeveloped

power of describing natural scenery that he did not feel it deeply. His picture, for instance, of the lovely Gulf

of Spezia and Porto Venere, which he inserts at the end of the sixth book of the 'Africa,' for the reason that

none of the ancients or moderns had sung of it, is no more than a simple enumeration, but Petrarch is also

conscious of the beauty of rock scenery, and is perfectly able to distinguish the picturesqueness from the

utility of nature. During his stay among the woods of Reggio, the sudden sight of an impressive landscape so

affected him that he resumed a poem which he had long laid aside. But the deep est impression of all was

made upon him by the ascent of Mont Ventoux, near Avignon. An indefinable longing for a distant panorama

grew stronger and stronger in him, till at length the accidental sight of a passage in Livy, where King Philip,

the enemy of Rome, ascends the Haemus, decided him. He thought that what was not blamed in a greyheaded

monarch, might well be _excused _in a young man of private station. The ascent of a mountain for its own

sake was unheard of, and there could be no thought of the companionship of friends or acquaintances.

Petrarch took with him only his younger brother and two country people from the last place where he halted.

At the foot of the mountain an old herdsman besought him to turn back, saying that he himself had attempted

to climb it fifty years before, and had brought home nothing but repentance, broken bones, and torn clothes,

and that neither before nor after had anyone ventured to do the same. Nevertheless, they struggled forward

and upward, till the clouds lay beneath their feet, and at last they reached the top. A description of the view

from the summit would be looked for in vain, not because the poet was insensible to it, but, on the contrary,

because the impression was too overwhelming. His whole past life, with all its follies, rose before his mind;

he remembered that ten years ago that day he had quitted Bologna a young man, and turned a longing gaze

towards his native country; he opened a book which then was his constant companion, the 'Confessions' of St.

Augustine, and his eye fell on the passage in the tenth chapter, 'and men go forth, and admire lofty mountains

and broad seas, and roaring torrents, and the ocean, and the course of the stars, and forget their own selves

while doing so.' His brother, to whom he read these words, could not understand why he closed the book and

said no more.

Some decades later, about 1360, Fazio degli Uberti describes, in his rhyming geography, the wide panorama

from the mountains of Auvergne, with the interest, it is true, of the geographer and antiquarian only, but still

showing clearly that he himself had seen it. He must, however, have ascended far higher peaks, since he is

familiar with facts which only occur at a height of 10,000 feet or more above the seamountainsickness

and its accompanimentsof which his imaginary comrade Solinus tries to cure him with a sponge dipped in

an essence. The ascents of Parnassus and Olympus, of which he speaks, are perhaps only fictions.

In the fifteenth century, the great masters of the Flemish school, Hubert and Jan van Eyck, suddenly lifted the

veil from nature. Their landscapes are not merely the fruit of an endeavor to reflect the real world in art, but

have, even if expressed conventionally, a certain poetical meaningin short, a soul. Their influence on the

whole art of the West is undeniable, and extended to the landscapepainting of the Italians, but without

preventing the characteristic interest of the Italian eye for nature from finding its own expression.

On this point, as in the scientific description of nature, Aeneas Sylvius is again one of the most weighty

voices of his time. Even if we grant the justice of all that has been said against his character, we must

nevertheless admit that in few other men was the picture of the age and its culture so fully reflected, and that

few came nearer to the normal type of the men of the early Renaissance. It may be added parenthetically, that

even in respect to his moral character he will not be fairly judged, if we listen solely to the complaints of the

German Church, which his fickleness helped to balk of the Council it so ardently desired.

He here claims our attention as the first who not only enjoyed the magnificence of the Italian landscape, but


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of the Beauty of the Landscape 98



Top




Page No 102


described it with enthusiasm down to its minutest details. The ecclesiastical State and the south of

Tuscanyhis native homehe knew thoroughly, and after he became Pope he spent his leisure during the

favourable season chiefly in excursions to the country. Then at last the gouty man was rich enough to have

himself carried in a litter across the mountains and valleys; and when we compare his enjoyments with those

of the Popes who succeeded him, Pius, whose chief delight was in nature, antiquity, and simple, but noble,

architecture, appears almost a saint. In the elegant and flowing Latin of his 'Commentaries' he freely tells us

of his happiness.

His eye seems as keen and practiced as that of any modern observer. He enjoys with rapture the panoramic

splendor of the view from the summit of the Alban Hillsfrom the Monte Cavowhence he could see the

shores of St. Peter from Terracina and the promontory of Circe as far as Monte Argentaro, and the wide

expanse of country round about, with the ruined cities of the past, and with the mountainchains of Central

Italy beyond; and then his eye would turn to the green woods in the hollows beneath and the mountainlakes

among them. He feels the beauty of the position of Todi, crowning the vineyards and oliveclad slopes,

looking down upon distant woods and upon the valley of the Tiber, where towns and castles rise above the

winding river. The lovely hills about Siena, with villas and monasteries on every height, are his own home,

and his descrip tions of them are touched with a peculiar feeling. Single picturesque glimpses charm him

too, like the little promontory of Capo di Monte that stretches out into the Lake of Bolsena. 'Rocky steps,' we

read, 'shaded by vines, descend to the water's edge, where the evergreen oaks stand between the cliffs, alive

with the song of thrushes.' On the path round the Lake of Nemi, beneath the chestnuts and fruittrees, he feels

that here, if anywhere, a poet's soul must awakehere in the hidingplace of Diana! He often held

consistories or received ambassadors under huge old chestnuttrees, or beneath the olives on the greensward

by some gurgling spring. A view like that of a narrowing gorge, with a bridge arched boldly over it, awakens

at once his artistic sense. Even the smallest details give him delight through something beautiful, or perfect,

or characteristic in themthe blue fields of waving flax, the yellow gorse which covers the hills, even

tangled thickets, or single trees, or springs, which seem to him like wonders of nature.

The height of his enthusiasm for natural beauty was reached during his stay on Monte Amiata, in the summer

of 1462, when plague and heat made the lowlands uninhabitable. Halfway up the mountain, in the old

Lombard monastery of San Salvatore, he and his court took up their quarters. There, between the chestnuts

which clothe the steep declivity, the eye may wander over all Southern Tuscany, with the towers of Siena in

the distance. The ascent of the highest peak he left to his companions, who were joined by the Venetian

envoy; they found at the top two vast blocks of stone one upon the otherperhaps the sacrificial altar of a

prehistoric peopleand fancied that in the far distance they saw Corsica and Sardinia rising above the sea. In

the cool air of the hills, among the old oaks and chestnuts, on the green meadows where there were no thorns

to wound the feet, and no snakes or insects to hurt or to annoy, the Pope passed days of unclouded happiness.

For the 'Segnatura,' which took place on certain days of the week, he selected on each occasion some new

shady retreat 'novos in convallibus fontes et novas inveniens umbras, quae dubiam facerent electionem.' At

such times the dogs would perhaps start a great stag from his lair, who, after defending himself a while with

hoofs and antlers, would fly at last up the mountain. In the evening the Pope was accustomed to sit before the

monastery on the spot from which the whole valley of the Paglia was visible, holding lively conversations

with the cardinals. The courtiers, who ventured down from the heights on their hunting expeditions, found the

heat below intolerable, and the scorched plains like a very hell, while the monastery, with its cool, shady

woods, seemed like an abode of the blessed.

All this is genuine modern enjoyment, not a reflection of antiquity. As surely as the ancients themselves felt

in the same manner, so surely, nevertheless, were the scanty expressions of the writers whom Pius knew

insufficient to awaken in him such enthusiasm.

The second great age of Italian poetry, which now followed at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of

the sixteenth centuries, as well as the Latin poetry of the same period, is rich in proofs of the powerful effect


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of the Beauty of the Landscape 99



Top




Page No 103


of nature on the human mind. The first glance at the lyric poets of that time will suffice to convince us.

Elaborate descriptions of natural scenery, it is true, are very rare, for the reason that, in this energetic age,

poetry had something else to paint nature vigorously, but no effort to appeal by their reader, which they

endeavor to reach solely by their narrative and characters. Letter writers and the authors of philosophical

dialogues are, in fact, better evidence of the growing love of nature than the poets. The novelist Bandello, for

example, observes rigorously the rules of his department of literature; he gives us in his novels themselves

not a word more than is necessary on the natural scenery amid which the action of his tales takes place, but in

the dedications which always precede them we meet with charming descriptions of nature as the setting for

his dialogues and social pictures. Among letterwriters, Aretino unfortunately must be named as the first who

has fully painted in words the splendid effect of light and shadow in an Italian sunset.

We sometimes find the feeling of the poets, also, itself with tenderness to graceful scenes of country Strozzi,

about the year 1480, describes in a Latin elegy the dwelling of his mistress. We are shown an old ivyclad

house, half hidden in trees, and adorned with weather stained frescoes of the saints, and near it a chapel

much damaged by the violence of the River Po, which flowed hard by; not far off, the priest ploughs his few

barren roods with borrowed cattle. This is no reminiscence of the Roman elegists, but true modern sentiment;

and the parallel to ita sincere, unartificial description of country life in generalwill be found at the end

of this part of our work.

It may be objected that the German painters at the beginning of the sixteenth century succeeded in

representing with perfect mastery these scenes of country life, as, for instance, Albrecht Durer, in his

engraving of the Prodigal Son. But it is one thing if a painter, brought up in a school of realism, introduces

such scenes, and quite another thing if a poet, accustomed to an ideal or mythological framework, is driven

by inward impulse into realism. Besides which, priority in point of time is here, as in the descriptions of

country life, on the side of the Italian poets.

Discovery of Man

To the discovery of the outward world the Renaissance added a still greater achievement, by first discerning

and bringing to light the full, whole nature of man. This period, as we have seen, first gave the highest

development to individuality, and then led the individual to the most zealous and thorough study of himself in

all forms and under all conditions. Indeed, the development of personality is essentially involved in the

recognition of it in oneself and in others. Between these two great processes our narrative has placed the

influence of ancient literature because the mode of conceiving and representing both the individual and

human nature in general was defined and colored by that influence. But the power of conception and

representation lay in the age and in the people.

The facts which we shall quote in evidence of our thesis will be few in number. Here, if anywhere in the

course of this discussion, the author is conscious that he is treading on the perilous ground of conjecture, and

that what seems to him a clear, if delicate and gradual, transition in the intellectual movement of the

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, may not be equally plain to others. The gradual awakening of the soul of a

people is a phenomenon which may produce a different impression on each spectator. Time will judge which

impression is the most faithful.

Happily the study of the intellectual side of human nature began, not with the search after a theoretical

psychologyfor that, Aristotle still sufficedbut with the endeavor to observe and to describe. The

indispensable ballast of theory was limited to the popular doctrine of the four temperaments, in its then

habitual union with the belief in the influence of the planets. Such conceptions may remain ineradicable in

the minds of individuals, without hindering the general progress of the age. It certainly makes on us a

singular impression, when we meet them at a time when human nature in its deepest essence and in all its

characteristic expressions was not only known by exact observation, but represented by an immortal poetry


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of Man 100



Top




Page No 104


and art. It sounds almost ludicrous when an otherwise competent observer considers Clement VII to be of a

melancholy temperament, but defers his judgement to that of the physicians, who declare the Pope of a

sanguinecholeric nature; or when we read that the same Gaston de Foix, the victor of Ravenna, whom

Giorgione painted and Bambaia carved, and whom all the historians describe, had the saturnine temperament.

No doubt those who use these expressions mean something by them; but the terms in which they tell us their

meaning are strangely out of date in the Italy of the sixteenth century.

As examples of the free delineation of the human spirit, we shall first speak of the great poets of the

fourteenth century.

If we were to collect the pearls from the courtly and knightly poetry of all the countries of the West during

the two preceding centuries, we should have a mass of wonderful divinations and single pictures of the

inward life, which at first sight would seem to rival the poetry of the Italians. Leaving lyrical poetry out of

account, Godfrey of Strassburg gives us, in 'Tristram and Isolt,' a representation of human passion, some

features of which are immortal. But these pearls lie scattered in the ocean of artificial convention, and they

are altogether something very different from a complete objective picture of the inward man and his spiritual

wealth.

Italy, too, in the thirteenth century had, through the 'Trovatori,' its share in the poetry of the courts and of

chivalry. To them is mainly due the 'Canzone,' whose construction is as difficult and artificial as that of the

songs of any northern minstrel. Their subject and mode of thought represents simply the conventional tone of

the courts, be the poet a burgher or a scholar.

But two new paths at length showed themselves, along which Italian poetry could advance to another and a

characteristic future. They are not the less important for being concerned only with the formal and external

side of the art.

To the same Brunetto Latinithe teacher of Dantewho, in his 'Canzoni,' adopts the customary manner of

the 'Trovatori,' we owe the firstknown 'versi sciolti,' or blank hendecasyllabic verses, and in his apparent

absence of form, a true and genuine passion suddenly showed itself. The same voluntary renunciation of

outward effect, through confidence in the power of the inward conception, can be observed some years later

in frescopainting, and later still in painting of all kinds, which began to cease to rely on color for its effect,

using simply a lighter or darker shade. For an age which laid so much stress on artificial form in poetry, these

verses of Brunetto mark the beginning of a new epoch.84

About the same time, or even in the first half of the thirteenth century, one of the many strictly balanced

forms of mere, in which Europe was then so fruitful, became a normal and recognized form in Italythe

sonnet. The order of rhymes and even the number of lines varied for a whole century, till Petrarch fixed them

permanently. In this form all higher lyrical and meditative subjects, and at a later time subjects of every

possible description, were treated, and the madrigals, the sestine, and even the 'Canzoni' were reduced to a

subordinate place. Later Italian writers complain, half jestingly, half resentfully, of this inevitable mould, this

Procrustean bed, to which they were compelled to make their thoughts and feelings fit. Others were, and still

are, quite satisfied with this particular form of verse, which they freely use to express any personal

reminiscence or idle singsong without necessity or serious purpose. For which reason there are many more

bad or insignificant sonnets than good ones.

Nevertheless, the sonnet must be held to have been an unspeakable blessing for Italian poetry. The clearness

and beauty of its structure, the invitation it gave to elevate the thought in the second and more rapidly moving

half, and the ease with which it could be learned by heart, made it valued even by the greatest masters. In

fact, they would not have kept it in use down to our own century had they not been penetrated with a sense of

its singular worth. These masters could have given us the same thoughts in other and wholly different forms.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of Man 101



Top




Page No 105


But when once they had made the sonnet the normal type of lyrical poetry, many other writers of great, if not

the highest, gifts, who otherwise would have lost themselves in a sea of diffusiveness, were forced to

concentrate their feelings. The sonnet became for Italian literature a condenser of thoughts and emotions such

as was possessed by the poetry of no other modern people.

Thus the world of Italian sentiment comes before us in a series of pictures, clear, concise, and most effective

in their brevity. Had other nations possessed a form of expression of the same kind, we should perhaps have

known more of their inward life; we might have had a number of pictures of inward and outward

situationsreflexions of the national character and temperand should not be dependent for such

knowledge on the socalled lyrical poets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, who can hardly ever be

read with any serious enjoyment. In Italy we can trace an undoubted progress from the time when the sonnet

came into existence. In the second half of the thirteenth century the 'Trovatori della transizione,' as they have

been recently named, mark the passage from the Troubadours to the poets that is, to those who wrote under

the influence of antiquity. The simplicity and strength of their feeling, the vigorous delineation of fact, the

precise expression and rounding off of their sonnets and other poems, herald the coming of a Dante. Some

political sonnets of the Guelphs and Ghibellines (12601270) have about them the ring of his passion, and

others remind us of his sweetest lyrical notes.

Of his own theoretical view of the sonnet, we are unfortunately ignorant, since the last books of his work, 'De

vulgari eloquentia,' in which he proposed to treat of ballads and sonnets, either remained unwritten or have

been lost. But, as a matter of fact, he has left us in his Sonnets and 'Canzoni' a treasure of inward experience.

And in what a framework he has set them! The prose of the 'Vita Nuova,' in which he gives an account of the

origin of each poem, is as wonderful as the verses themselves, and forms with them a uniform whole, inspired

with the deepest glow of passion. With unflinching frankness and sincerity he lays bare every shade of his joy

and his sorrow, and molds it resolutely into the strictest forms of art. Reading attentively these Sonnets and

'Canzoni' and the marvelous fragments of the diary of his youth which lie between them, we fancy that

throughout the Middle Ages the poets have been purposely fleeing from themselves, and that he was the first

to seek his own soul. Before his time we meet with many an artistic verse; but he is the first artist in the full

sense of the wordthe first who consciously cast immortal matter into an immortal form. Subjective feeling

has here a full objective truth and greatness, and most of it is so set forth that all ages and peoples can make it

their own. Where he writes in a thoroughly objective spirit, and lets the force of his sentiment be guessed at

only by some outward fact, as in the magnificent sonnets 'Tanto gentile,' etc., and 'Vede perfettamente,' etc.,

he seems to feel the need of excusing himself. The most beautiful of these poems really belongs to this

class the 'Deh peregrini che pensosi andate,' ('Oh, pilgrims, walking deep in thoughts,' from Vita Nuova.)

Even apart from the 'Divine Comedy,' Dante would have marked by these youthful poems the boundary

between medievalism and modern times. The human spirit had taken a mighty step towards the consciousness

of its own secret life.

The revelations in this matter which are contained in the 'Divine Comedy' itself are simply immeasurable; and

it would be necessary to go through the whole poem, one canto after another, in order to do justice to its value

from this point of view. Happily we have no need to do this, as it has long been a daily food of all the

countries of the West. Its plan, and the ideas on which it is based, belong to the Middle Ages, and appeal to

our interest only historically; but it is nevertheless the beginning of all modern poetry, through the power and

richness shown in the description of human nature in every shape and attitude. From this time forward poetry

may have experienced unequal fortunes, and may show, for half a century together, a socalled relapse. But

its nobler and more vital principle was saved for ever; and whenever in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and in the

beginning of the sixteenth centuries, an original mind devotes himself to it, he represents a more advanced

stage than any poet out of Italy, given what is certainly always easy to settle satisfactorilyan equality of

natural gifts to start with.

Here, as in other things in Italy, cultureto which poetry belongs precedes the visual arts and, in fact,


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of Man 102



Top




Page No 106


gives them their chief impulse. More than a century elapsed before the spiritual element in painting and

sculpture attained a power of expression in any way analogous to that of the 'Divine Comedy.' How far the

same rule holds good for the artistic development of other nations, and of what importance the whole

question may be, does not concern us here. For Italian civilization it is of decisive weight.

The position to be assigned to Petrarch in this respect must be settled by the many readers of the poet. Those

who come to him in the spirit of a crossexaminer, and busy themselves in detecting the contradictions

between the poet and the man, his infidelities in love, and the other weak sides of his character, may perhaps,

after sufficient effort, end by losing all taste for his poetry. In place, then, of artistic enjoyment, we may

acquire a knowledge of the man in his 'totality.' What a pity that Petrarch's letters from Avignon contain so

little gossip to take hold of, and that the letters of his acquaintances and of the friends of these acquaintances

have either been lost or never existed! Instead of Heaven being thanked when we are not forced to inquire

how and through what struggles a poet has rescued something immortal from his own poor life and lot, a

biography has been stitched together for Petrarch out of these socalled 'remains,' which reads like an

indictment. But the poet may take comfort. If the printing and editing of the correspondence of celebrated

people goes on for another halfcentury as it has begun in England and Germany, illustrious company

enough sitting with him on repentance.

Without shutting our eyes to much that is _. artificial in his poetry, where the writer is merely imitating

himself and singing on in the old strain, we cannot fail to admire the marvelous abundance of pictures of the

inmost soul  descriptions of moments of joy and sorrow which must have been thoroughly his own, since

no one before him gives us anything of the kind, and on which his significance rests for his country and for

the world. His verse is not in all places equally transparent; by the side of his most beautiful thoughts stands

at times some allegorical conceit or some sophistical trick of logic, altogether foreign to our present taste. But

the balance is on the side of excellence.

Boccaccio, too, in his imperfectlyknown Sonnets, succeeds sometimes in giving a most powerful and

effective picture of his feeling. The return to a spot consecrated by love (Son. 22), the melancholy of spring

(Son. 33), the sadness of the poet who feels himself growing old (Son. 65), are admirably treated by him. And

in the 'Ameto' he has described the ennobling and transfiguring power of love in a manner which would

hardly be expected from the author of the 'Decameron.' In the 'Fiammetta' we have another great and

minutelypainted picture of the human soul, full of the keenest observation, though executed with anything

but uniform power, and in parts marred by the passion for highsounding language and by an unlucky

mixture of mythological allusions and learned quotations. The 'Fiammetta,' if we are not mistaken, is a sort of

feminine counterpart to the 'Vita Nuova' of Dante, or at any rate owes its origin to it.

That the ancient poets, particularly the elegists, and Virgil, in the fourth book of the Aeneid, were not without

influence on the Italians of this and the following generation is beyond a doubt; but the spring of sentiment

within the latter was nevertheless powerful and original. If we compare them in this respect with their

contemporaries in other countries, we shall find in them the earliest complete expression of modern European

feeling. The question, be it remembered, is not to know whether eminent men of other nations did not feel as

deeply and as nobly, but who first gave documentary proof of the widest knowledge of the movements of the

human heart.

Why did the Italians of the Renaissance do nothing above the second rank in tragedy? That was the field on

which to display human character, intellect, and passion, in the thousand forms of their growth, their

struggles, and their decline. In other words: why did Italy produce no Shakespeare? For with the stage of

other northern countries besides England the Italians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had no reason

to fear a comparison; and with the Spaniards they could not enter into competition, since Italy had long lost

all traces of religious fanaticism, treated the chivalrous code of honour only as a form, and was both too

proud and too intelligent to bow down before its tyrannical and illegitimate masters. We have therefore only


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of Man 103



Top




Page No 107


to consider the English stage in the period of its brief splendor.

It is an obvious reply that all Europe produced but one Shakespeare, and that such a mind is the rarest of

Heaven's gifts. It is further possible that the Italian stage was on the way to something great when the

Counterreformation broke in upon it, and, aided by the Spanish rule over Naples and Milan, and indirectly

over almost the whole peninsula, withered the best flowers of the Italian spirit. It would be hard to conceive

of Shakespeare himself under a Spanish viceroy, or in the neighbourhood of the Holy Inquisition at Rome, or

in his own country a few decades later, at the time o English Revolution. The stage, which in its perfection is

a product of every civilization, must wait for its own time and fortune.

We must not, however, quit this subject without mentioning certain circumstances which were of a character

to hinder or retard a high development of the drama in Italy, till the time for it had gone by.

As the most weighty of these causes we must mention without doubt that the scenic tastes of the people were

occupied elsewhere, and chiefly in the mysteries and religious processions. Throughout all Europe dramatic

representations of sacred history and legend form the origin of the secular drama; but Italy, as will be shown

more fully in the sequel, had spent on the mysteries such a wealth of decorative splendor as could not but be

unfavorable to the dramatic element. Out of all the countless and costly representations, there sprang not even

a branch of poetry like the 'Autos Sagramentales' of Calderon and other Spanish poets, much less any

advantage or foundation for the secular drama.

And when the latter did at length appear, it at once gave itself up to magnificence of scenic effects, to which

the mysteries had already accustomed the public taste to far too great an extent. We learn with astonishment

how rich and splendid the scenes in Italy were, at a time when in the North the simplest indication of the

place was thought sufficient. This alone might have had no such unfavorable effect on the drama, if the

attention of the audience had not been drawn away from the poetical conception of the play partly by the

splendor of the costumes, partly and chiefly by fantastic interludes (Intermezzi).

That in many places, particularly in Rome and Ferrara, Plautus and Terence, as well as pieces by the old

tragedians, were given in Latin or in Italian, that the academies of which we have already spoken, made this

one of their chief objects, and that the poets of the Renaissance followed these models too servilely, were all

untoward conditions for the Italian stage at the period in question. Yet I hold them to be of secondary

importance. Had not the Counterreformation and the rule of foreigners intervened, these very disadvantages

might have been turned into useful means of transition. At all events, by the year 1520 the victory of the

mothertongue in tragedy and comedy was, to the great disgust of the humanists, as good as won. On this

side, then, no obstacle stood in the way of the most developed people in Europe, to hinder them from raising

the drama, in its noblest forms, to be a true reflection of human life and destiny. It was the Inquisitors and

Spaniards who cowed the Italian spirit, and rendered impossible the representation of the greatest and most

sublime themes, most of all when they were associated with patriotic memories. At the same time, there is no

doubt that the distracting 'Intermezzi' did serious harm to the drama. We must now consider them a little

more closely.

When the marriage of Alfonso of Ferrara with Lucrezia Borgia was celebrated, Duke Ercole in person

showed his illustrious guests the 110 costumes which were to serve at the representation of five comedies of

Plautus, in order that all might see that not one of them was used twice. But all this display of silk and camlet

was nothing to the ballets and pantomimes which served as interludes between the acts of the Plautine

dramas. That, in comparison, Plautus himself seemed mortally dull to a lively young lady like Isabella

Gonzaga, and that while the play was going on everybody was longing for the interludes, is quite intelligible,

when we think of the picturesque brilliancy with which they were put on the stage. There were to be seen

combats of Roman warriors, who brandished their weapons to the sound of music, torchdances executed by

Moors, a dance of savages with horns of plenty, out of which streamed waves of fire all as the ballet of a


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of Man 104



Top




Page No 108


pantomime in which a maiden was delivered from a dragon. Then came a dance of fools, got up as Punches,

beating one another with pigs' bladders, with more of the same kind. At the Court of Ferrara they never gave

a comedy without 'its' ballet (Moresca). In what style the 'Amphitruo' of Plautus was there represented (1491)

at the first marriage of Alfonso with Anna Sforza), is doubtful. Possibly it was given rather as a pantomime

with music than as a drama. In any case, the accessories were more considerable than the play itself. There

was a choral dance of ivyclad youths, moving in intricate figures, done to the music of a ringing orchestra;

then came Apollo, striking the lyre with the plectrum, and singing an ode to the praise of the House of Este;

then followed, as an interlude within an interlude, a kind of rustic farce, after which the stage was again

occupied by classical mythologyVenus, Bacchus and their followersand by a pantomime representing

the judgement of Paris.

Not till then was the second half of the fable of Amphitruo performed, with unmistakable references to the

future birth of a Hercules of the House of Este. At a former representation of the same piece in the courtyard

of the palace (1487), 'a paradise with stars and other wheels,' was constantly burning, by which is probably

meant an illumination with fireworks, that, no doubt, absorbed most of the attention of the spectators. It was

certainly better when such performances were given separately, as was the case at other courts. We shall have

to speak of the entertainments given by the Cardinal Pietro Riario, by the Bentivogli at Bologna, and by

others, when we come to treat of the festivals in general.

This scenic magnificence, now become universal, had a disastrous effect on Italian tragedy. 'In Venice

formerly,' writes Francesco Sansovino, about 1570, 'besides comedies, tragedies by ancient and modern

writers were put on the stage with great pomp. The fame of the scenic arrangements _(apparati) _brought

spectators from far and near. Nowadays, performances are given by private individuals in their own houses,

and the custom has long been fixed of passing the carnival in comedies and other cheerful entertainments.' In

other words, scenic display had helped to kill tragedy.

The various starts or attempts of these modern tragedians, among which the 'Sofonisba' of Trissino (1515)

was the most celebrated, belong in the history of literature. The same may be said of genteel comedy,

modelled on Plautus and Terence. Even Ariosto could do nothing of the first order in this style. On the other

hand, popular prosecomedy, as treated by Machiavelli, Bibbiena, and Aretino, might have had a future, if its

matter had not condemned it to destruction. This was, on the one hand, licentious to the last degree, and on

the other, aimed at certain classes in society, which, after the middle of the sixteenth century, ceased to afford

a ground for public attacks. If in the 'Sofonisba' the portrayal of character gave place to brilliant declamation,

the latter, with its halfsister, caricature, was used far too freely in comedy also.

The writing of tragedies and comedies, and the practice of putting both ancient and modern plays on the

stage, continued without intermission; but they served only as occasions for display. The national genius

turned elsewhere for living interest. When the opera and the pastoral fable came up, these attempts were at

length wholly abandoned.

One form of comedy only was and remained nationalthe unwritten, improvised 'Commedia dell' Arte.' It

was of no great service in the delineation of character, since the masks used were few in number and familiar

to everybody. But the talent of the nation had such an affinity for this style, that often in the middle of written

comedies the actors would throw themselves on their own inspiration, so that a new mixed form of comedy

came into existence in some places. The plays given in Venice by Burchiello, and afterwards by the company

of Armonio, Val. Zuccato, Lod. Dolce, and others, were perhaps of this character. Of Burchiello we know

expressly that he used to heighten the comic effect by mixing Greek and Slavonic words with the Venetian

dialect. A complete 'Commedia dell' Arte,' or very nearly so, was represented by Angelo Beolco, known as 'Il

Ruzzante' (150242), whose customary masks were Paduan peasants, with the names Menato, Vezzo,

Billora, etc. He studied their dialect when spending the summer at the villa of his patron Luigi Cornaro

(Aloysius Cornelius) at Codevico. Gradually all the famous local masks made their appearance, whose


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of Man 105



Top




Page No 109


remains still delight the Italian populace in our day: Pantalone, the Doctor, Brighella, Pulcinella, Arlecchino,

and the rest. Most of them are of great antiquity, and possibly are historically connected with the masks in the

old Roman farces; but it was not till the sixteenth century that several of them were combined in one piece.

At the present time this is less often the case; but every great city still keeps to its local maskNaples to the

Pulcinella, Florence to the Stentorello, Milan to its often so admirable Meneghino.

This is indeed scanty compensation for a people which possessed the power, perhaps to a greater degree than

any other, to reflect and contemplate its own highest qualities in the mirror of the drama. But this power was

destined to be marred for centuries by hostile forces, for whose predominance the Italians were only in part

responsible. The universal talent for dramatic representation could not indeed be uprooted, and in music Italy

long made good its claim to supremacy in Europe. Those who can find in this world of sound a compensation

for the drama, to which all future was denied, have, at all events, no meagre source of consolation.

But perhaps we can find in epic poetry what the stage fails to offer us. Yet the chief reproach made against

the heroic poetry of Italy is precisely on the score of the insignificance and imperfect representation of its

characters.

Other merits are allowed to belong to it, among the rest, that for three centuries it has been actually read and

constantly reprinted, while nearly the whole of the epic poetry of other nations has become a mere matter of

literary or historical curiosity. Does this perhaps lie in the taste of the readers, who demand something

different from what would satisfy a northern public? Certainly, without the power of entering to some degree

into Italian sentiment, it is impossible to appreciate the characteristic excellence of these poems, and many

distinguished men declare that they can make nothing of them. And in truth, if we criticize Pulci, Boiardo,

Ariosto, and Berni solely with an eye to their thought and matter, we shall fail to do them justice. They are

artists of a peculiar kind, who write for a people which is distinctly and eminently artistic.

The mediaeval legends had lived on after the gradual extinction of the poetry of chivalry, partly in the form

of rhyming adaptations and collections, and partly of novels in prose. The latter was the case in Italy during

the fourteenth century; but the newlyawakened memories of antiquity were rapidly growing up to a gigantic

size, and soon cast into the shade all the fantastic creations of the Middle Ages. Boccaccio, for example, in

his 'Visione Amorosa,' names among the heroes in his enchanted palace Tristram, Arthur, Galeotto, and

others, but briefly, as if he were ashamed to speak of them; and following writers either do not name them at

all, or name them only for purposes of ridicule. But the people kept them in its memory, and from the people

they passed into the hands of the poets of the fifteenth century. These were now able to conceive and

represent their subjects in a wholly new manner. But they did more. They introduced into it a multitude of

fresh elements, and in fact recast it from beginning to end. It must not be expected of them that they should

treat such subjects with the respect once felt for them. All other countries must envy them the advantage of

having a popular interest of this kind to appeal to; but they could not without hypocrisy treat these myths with

any respect.

Instead of this, they moved with victorious freedom in the new field which poetry had won. What they

chiefly aimed at seems to have been that their poems, when recited, should produce the most harmonious and

exhilarating effect. These works indeed gain immensely when they are repeated, not as a whole, but

piecemeal, and with a slight touch of comedy in voice and gesture. A deeper and more detailed portrayal of

character would do little to enhance this effect; though the reader may desire it, the hearer, who sees the

rhapsodist standing before him, and who hears only one piece at a time, does not think about it at all. With

respect to the figures, which the poet found ready made for him, his feeling was of a double kind; his

humanistic culture protested against their mediaeval character, and their combats as counterparts of the

battles and tournaments of the poet's own age exercised all his knowledge and artistic power, while at the

same time they called forth all the highest qualities in the reciter. Even in Pulci, accordingly, we find no

parody, strictly speaking, of chivalry, nearly humour of his paladins at times approaches it. By their side


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of Man 106



Top




Page No 110


stands the ideal of pugnacitythe droll and jovial Morgantewho masters whole armies with his

bellclapper, and who is himself thrown into relief by contrast with the grotesque and most interesting monster

Margutte. Yet Pulci lays no special stress on these two rough and vigorous characters, and his story, long

after they had disappeared from it, maintains its singular course. Boiardo treats his characters with the same

mastery, using them for serious or comic purposes as he pleases; he has his fun even out of supernatural

beings, whom he sometimes intentionally depicts as louts. But there is one artistic aim which he pursues as

earnestly as Pulci, namely, the lively and exact description of all that goes forward. Pulci recited his poem, as

one book after another was finished, before the society of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and in the same way Boiardo

recited his at the court of Ercole of Ferrara. It may be easily imagined what sort of excellence such an

audience demanded, and how little thanks a profound exposition of character would have earned for the poet.

Under these circumstances the poems naturally formed no complete whole, and might just as well be half or

twice as long as they now are. Their composition is not that of a great historical picture, but rather that of a

frieze, or of some rich festoon entwined among groups of picturesque figures. And precisely as in the figures

or tendrils of a frieze we do not look for minuteness of execution in the individual forms, or for distant

perspectives and different planes, so we must as little expect anything of the kind from these poems.

The varied richness of invention which continually astonishes us, most of all in the case of Boiardo, turns to

ridicule all our school definitions as to the essence of epic poetry. For that age, this form of literature was the

most agreeable diversion from archaeological studies, and, indeed, the only possible means of reestablishing

an independent class of narrative poetry. For the versification of ancient history could only lead to the false

tracks which were trodden by Petrarch in his 'Africa,' written in Latin hexameters, and a hundred and fifty

years later by Trissino in his 'Italy delivered from the Goths,' composed in 'versi sciolti'a neverending

poem of faultless language and versification, which only makes us doubt whether this unlucky alliance has

been more disastrous to history or to poetry.

And whither did the example of Dante beguile those who imitated him? The visionary 'Trionfi' of Petrarch

were the last of the works written under this influence which satisfy our taste. The 'Amorosa Visione' of

Boccaccio is at bottom no more than an enumeration of historical or fabulous characters, arranged under

allegorical categories. Others preface what they have to tell with a baroque imitation of Dante's first canto,

and provide themselves with some allegorical comparison, to take the place of Virgil. Uberti, for example,

chose Solinus for his geographical poemthe 'Dittamondo'and Giovanni Santi, Plutarch for his encomium

on Federigo of Urbino. The only salvation of the time from these false tendencies lay in the new epic poetry

which was represented by Pulci and Boiardo. The admiration and curiosity with which it was received, and

the like of which will perhaps never fall again to the lot of epic poetry to the end of time, is a brilliant proof

of how great was the need of it. It is idle to ask whether that epic ideal which our own day has formed from

Homer and the 'Nibelungenlied' is or is not realized in these works; an ideal of their own age certainly was.

By their endless descriptions of combats, which to us are the most fatiguing part of these poems, they

satisfied, as we have already said, a practical interest of which it is hard for us to form a just conceptionas

hard, indeed, as of the esteem in which a lively and faithful reflection of the passing moment was then held.

Nor can a more inappropriate test be applied to Ariosto than the degree in which his 'Orlando Furioso' serves

for the representation of character. Characters, indeed, there are, and drawn with an affectionate care; but the

poem does not depend on these for its effect, and would lose, rather than gain, if more stress were laid upon

them. But the demand for them is part of a wider and more general desire which Ariosto fails to satisfy as our

day would wish it satisfied. From a poet of such fame and such mighty gifts we would gladly receive

something better than the adventures of Orlando. From him we might have hoped for a work expressing the

deepest conflicts of the human soul, the highest thoughts of his time on human and divine thingsin a word,

one of those supreme syntheses like the 'Divine Comedy' or 'Faust.' Instead of which he goes to work like the

visual artists of his own day, not caring for originality in our sense of the word, simply reproducing a familiar

circle of figures, and even, when it suits his purpose, making use of the details left him by his predecessors.

The excellence which, in spite of all this, can nevertheless be attained, will be the more incomprehensible to


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Discovery of Man 107



Top




Page No 111


people born without the artistic sense, the more learned and intelligent in other respects they are. The artistic

aim of Ariosto is brilliant, living action, which he distributes equally through the whole of his great poem.

For this end he needs to be excused, not only from all deeper expression of character, but also from

maintaining any strict connection in his narrative. He must be allowed to take up lost and forgotten threads

when and where he pleases; his heroes must come and go, not because their character, but because the story

requires it. Yet in this apparently irrational and arbitrary style of composition he displays a harmonious

beauty, never losing himself in description, but giving only such a sketch of scenes and persons as does not

hinder the flowing movement of the narrative. Still less does he lose himself in conversation and monologue,

but maintains the lofty privilege of the true epos, by transforming all into living narrative. His pathos does not

lie in the words, not even in the famous twentythird and following cantos, where Roland's madness is

described. That the lovestories in the heroic poem are without all lyrical tenderness, must be reckoned a

merit, though from a moral point of view they cannot always be approved. Yet at times they are of such truth

and reality, notwithstanding all ; and romance which surrounds them, that we might think them personal

affairs of the poet himself. In the full consciousness of his own genius, he does not scruple to interweave t he

events of his own day into the poem, and to celebrate the fame of the house of Este in visions and prophecies.

The wonderful stream of his octaves bears it all forward in even and dignified movement.

With Teofilo Folengo, or, as he here calls himself, Limerno Pitocco, the parody of the whole system of

chivalry attained the end it had so long desired. But here comedy, with its realism, demanded of necessity a

stricter delineation of character. Exposed to all the rough usage of the halfsavage streetlads in a Roman

country town, Sutri, the little Orlando grows up before our eyes into the hero, the priesthater, and the

disputant. The conventional world which had been recognized since the time of Pulci and had served as a

framework for the epos, here falls to pieces. The origin and position of the paladins is openly ridiculed, as in

the tournament of donkeys in the second book, where the knights appear with the most ludicrous armament.

The poet utters his ironical regrets over the inexplicable faithlessness which seems implanted in the house of

Gano of Mainz, over the toilsome acquisition of the sword Durindana, and so forth. Tradition, in fact, serves

him only as a substratum for episodes, ludicrous fancies, allusions to events of the time (among which some,

like the close of cap. vi. are exceedingly fine), and indecent jokes. Mixed with all this, a certain derision of

Ariosto is unmistakable, and it was fortunate for the 'Or lando Furioso' that the 'Orlandino,' with its

Lutheran heresies, was soon put out of the way by the Inquisition. The parody is evident when (cap. vi, 28)

the house of Gonzaga is deduced from the paladin Guidone, since the Colonna claimed Orlando, the Orsini

Rinaldo, and the house of Esteaccording to Ariosto Ruggiero as their ancestors. Perhaps Ferrante

Gonzaga, the patron of the poet, was a party to this sarcasm on the house of Este.

That in the 'Jerusalem Delivered' of Torquato Tasso the delineation of character is one of the chief tasks of

the poet, proves only how far his mode of thought differed from that prevalent half a century before. His

admirable work is a true monument of the Counterreformation which had meanwhile been accomplished,

and of the spirit and tendency of that movement.

Biography in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance

Outside the sphere of poetry also, the Italians were the first of all European nations who displayed any

remarkable power and inclination accurately to describe man as shown in history, according to his inward and

outward characteristics.

It is true that in the Middle Ages considerable attempts were made in the same direction; and the legends of

the Church, as a kind of standing biographical task, must, to some extent, have kept alive the interest and the

gift for such descriptions. In the annals of the monasteries and cathedrals, many of the churchmen, such as

Meinwerk of Paderborn, Godehard of Hildesheim, and others, are brought vividly before our eyes; and

descriptions exist of several of the German emperors, modelled after old authorsparticularly

Suetoniuswhich contain admirable features. Indeed these and other profane 'vitae' came in time to form a


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Biography in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance 108



Top




Page No 112


continuous counterpart to the sacred legends. Yet neither Einhard nor Wippo nor Radevicus can be named by

the side of Joinville's picture of St. Louis, which certainly stands almost alone as the first complete spiritual

portrait of a modern European nature. Characters like St. Louis are rare at all times, and his was favored by

the rare good fortune that a sincere and naive observer caught the spirit of all the events and actions of his

life, and represented it admirably. From what scanty sources are we left to guess at the inward nature of

Frederick II or of Philip the Fair. Much of what, till the close of the Middle Ages, passed for biography, is

properly speaking nothing but contemporary narrative, written without any sense of what is individual in the

subject of the memoir.

Among the Italians, on the contrary, the search for the characteristic features of remarkable men was a

prevailing tendency; and this it is which separates them from the other western peoples, among whom the

same thing happens but seldom, and in exceptional cases. This keen eye for individuality belongs only to

those who have emerged from the halfconscious life of the race and become themselves individuals.

Under the influence of the prevailing conception of fame an art of comparative biography arose which no

longer found it necessary, like Anastasius, Agnellus, and their successors, or like the biographers of the

Venetian doges, to adhere to a dynastic or ecclesiastical succession. It felt itself free to describe a man if and

because he was remarkable. It took as models.Suetonius, Nepos (the 'viri illustres'), and Plutarch,so far as he

was known and translated; for sketches of literary history, the lives of the grammarians, rhetoricians, and

poets, known to us as the 'Appendices' to Suetonius, seem to have served as patterns, as well as the

widelyread life of Virgil by Donatus.

It has already been mentioned that biographical collections lives of famous men and famous

womenbegan to appear in the fourteenth century. Where they do not describe contemporaries, they are

naturally dependent on earlier narratives. The first great original effort is the life of Dante by Boccaccio.

Lightly and rhetorically written, and full, as it is, of arbitrary fancies, this work nevertheless gives us a lively

sense of the extraordinary features in Dante's nature. Then follow, at the end of the fourteenth century, the

'vite' of illustrious Florentines, by Filippo Villani. They are men of every calling: poets, jurists, physicians,

scholars, artists, statesmen, and soldiers, some of them then still living. Florence is here treated like a gifted

family, in which all the members are noticed in whom the spirit of the house expresses itself vigorously. The

descriptions are brief, but show a remarkable eye for what is characteristic, and are noteworthy for including

the inward and outward physiognomy in the same sketch. From that time forward, the Tuscans never ceased

to consider the description of man as lying within their special competence, and to them we owe the most

valuable portraits of the Italians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Giovanni Cavalcanti, in the

appendices to his Florentine history, written before the year 1450, collects instances of civil virtue and

abnegation, of political discernment and of military valor, all shown by Florentines. Pius II gives in his

'Commentaries' valuable portraits of famous contemporaries; and not long ago a separate work of his earlier

years, which seems preparatory to these portraits, but which has colors and features that are very singular,

was reprinted. To Jacopo of Volterra we owe piquant sketches of members of the Curia in the time of Sixtus

IV. Vespasiano Fiorentino has often been referred to already, and as a historical authority a high place must

be assigned to him; but his gift as a painter of character is not to be compared with that of Machiavelli,

Niccolo Valori, Guicciardini, Varchi, Francesco Vettori, and others, by whom European historical literature

has probably been as much influenced in this direction as by the ancients. It must not be forgotten that some

of these authors soon found their way into northern countries by means of Latin translations. And without

Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo and his allimportant work, we should perhaps to this day have no history of

Northern art, or of the art of modern Europe, at all.

Among the biographers of North Italy in the fifteenth century, Bartolommeo Fazio of Spezia holds a high

rank. Platina, born in the territory of Cremona, gives us, in his 'Life of Paul II,' examples of biographical

caricatures. The description of the last Visconti, written by Piercandido Decembrioan enlarged imitation of

Suetoniusis of special importance. Sismondi regrets that so much trouble has been spent on so unworthy


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Biography in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance 109



Top




Page No 113


an object, but the author would hardly have been equal to deal with a greater man, while he was thoroughly

competent to describe the mixed nature of Filippo Maria, and in and through it to represent with accuracy the

conditions, the forms, and the consequences of this particular kind of despotism. The picture of the fifteenth

century would be incomplete without this unique biography, which is characteristic down to its minutest

details. Milan afterwards possessed, in the historian Corio, an excellent portraitpainter; and after him came

Paolo Giovio of Como, whose larger biographies and shorter 'Elogia' have achieved a worldwide reputation,

and become models for subsequent writers in all countries. It is easy to prove by a hundred passages how

superficial and even dishonest he was; nor from a man like him can any high and serious purpose be

expected. But the breath of the age moves in his pages, and his Leo, his Alfonso, his Pompeo Colonna, live

and act before us with such perfect truth and reality, that we seem admitted to the deepest recesses of their

nature.

Among Neapolitan writers, Tristano Caracciolo, so far as we are able to judge, holds indisputably the first

place in this respect, although his purpose was not strictly biographical. In the figures which he brings before

us, guilt and destiny are wondrously mingled. He is a kind of unconscious tragedian. That genuine tragedy

which then found no place on the stage, 'swept by' in the palace, the street, and the public square. The 'Words

and Deeds of Alfonso the Great,' written by Antonio Panormita during the lifetime of the king, are

remarkable as one of the first of such collections of anecdotes and of wise and witty sayings.

The rest of Europe followed the example of Italy in this respect but slowly, although great political and

religious movements had broken so many bonds, and had awakened so many thousands to new spiritual life.

Italians, whether scholars or diplomatists, still remained, on the whole, the best source of information for the

characters of the leading men all over Europe. It is well known how speedily and unanimously in recent times

the reports of the Venetian embassies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been recognized as

authorities of the first order for personal description. Even autobiography takes here and there in Italy a bold

and vigorous flight, and puts before us, together with the most varied incidents of external life, striking

revelations of the inner man. Among other nations, even in Germany at the time of the Reformation, it deals

only with outward experiences, and leaves us to guess at the spirit within from the style of the narrative. It

seems as though Dante's 'Vita Nuova,' with the inexorable truthfulness which runs through it, had shown his

people the way.

The beginnings of autobiography are to be traced in the family histories of the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries, which are said to be not uncommon as manuscripts in the Florentine librariesunaffected

narratives written for the sake of the individual or of his family, like that of Buonaccorso Pitti.

A profound selfanalysis is not to be looked for in the 'Commentaries' of Pius II. What we here learn of him

as a man seems at first sight to be chiefly confined to the account which he gives of the various steps in his

career. But further reflection will lead us to a different conclusion with regard to this remarkable book. There

are men who are by nature mirrors of what surrounds them. It would be irrelevant to ask incessantly after

their convictions, their spiritual struggles, their inmost victories and achievements. Aeneas Sylvius lived

wholly in the interest which lay near, without troubling himself about the problems and contradictions of life.

His Catholic orthodoxy gave him all the help of this kind which he needed. And at all events, after taking part

in every intellectual movement which interested his age, and notably furthering some of them, he still at the

close of his earthly course retained character enough to preach a crusade against the Turks, and to die of grief

when it came to nothing.

Nor is the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, any more than that of Pius II, founded on introspection. And

yet it describes the whole man not always willinglywith marvelous truth and completeness. It is no

small matter that Benvenuto, whose most important works have perished half finished, and who, as an artist,

is perfect only in his little decorative speciality, but in other respects, if judged by the works of him which

remain, is surpassed by so many of his greater contemporariesthat Benvenuto as a man will interest


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Biography in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance 110



Top




Page No 114


mankind to the end of time. It does not spoil the impression when the reader often detects him bragging or

lying; the stamp of a mighty, energetic, and thoroughly developed nature remains. By his side our modern

autobiographers, though their tendency and moral character may stand much higher, appear incomplete

beings. He is a man who can do all and dares do all, and who carries his measure in himself. Whether we like

him or not, he lives, such as he was, as a significant type of the modern spirit.

Another man deserves a brief mention in connection with this subjecta man who, like Benvenuto, was not

a model of veracity: Girolamo Cardano of Milan (b. 1500). His little book, 'De propria vita,' will outlive and

eclipse his fame in philosophy and natural science, just as Benvenuto's Life, though its value is of another

kind, has thrown his works into the shade. Cardano is a physician who feels his own pulse, and describes his

own physical, moral, and intellectual nature, together with all the conditions under which it had developed,

and this, to the best of his ability, honestly and sincerely. The work which he avowedly took as his

modelthe 'Confessions' of Marcus Aureliushe was able, hampered as he was by no stoical maxims, to

surpass in this particular. He desires to spare neither himself nor others, and begins the narrative of his career

with the statement that his mother tried, and failed, to procure abortion. It is worth remark that he attributes to

the stars which presided over his birth only the events of his life and his intellectual gifts, but not his moral

qualities; he confesses (cap. 10) that the astrological prediction that he would not live to the age of forty or

fifty years did him much harm in his youth. But there is no need to quote from so wellknown md accessible

a book; whoever opens it will not lay it down il] the last page. Cardano admits that he cheated at play, that e

was vindictive, incapable of all compunction, purposely cruel in his speech. He confesses it without

impudence and without feigned contrition, without even wishing to make himself an object of interest, but

with the same simple and sincere love of fact which guided him in his scientific researches. And, what is to

us the most repulsive of all, the old man, after the most shocking experiences and with his confidence in his

fellowmen gone, finds himself after all tolerably happy and comfortable. He has still left him a grandson,

immense learning, the fame of his works, money, rank and credit, powerful friends, the knowledge of many

secrets, and, best of all, belief in God. After this, he counts the teeth in his head, and finds that he was fifteen.

Yet when Cardano wrote, Inquisitors and Spaniards were already busy in Italy, either hindering the

production of such natures, or, where they existed, by some means or other putting them out of the way.

There lies a gulf between this book and the memoirs of Alfieri.

Yet it would be unjust to close this list of autobiographers without listening to a word from one man who was

both worthy and happy. This is the wellknown philosopher of practical life, Luigi Cornaro, whose dwelling

at Padua, classical as an architectural work, was at the same time the home of all the muses. In his famous

treatise 'On the Sober Life,' he describes the strict regimen by which he succeeded, after a sickly youth, in

reaching an advanced and healthy age, then of eighty three years. He goes on to answer those who despise

life after the age of sixtyfive as a living death, showing them that his own life had nothing deadly about it.

'Let them come and see, and wonder at my good health, how I mount on horseback without help, how I run

upstairs and up hills, how cheerful, amusing, and contented I am, how free from care and disagreeable

thoughts. Peace and joy never quit me.... My friends are wise, learned, and distinguished people of good

position, and when they are not with me I read and write, and try thereby, as by all other means. to be useful

to others. Each of these things I do at the proper time, and at my ease, in my dwelling, which is beautiful and

lies in the best part of Padua, and is arranged both for summer and winter with all the resources of

architecture, and provided with a garden by the running water. In the spring and autumn, I go for awhile to

my hill in the most beautiful part of the Euganean mountains, where I have fountains and gardens, and a

comfortable dwelling; and there I amuse myself with some easy and pleasant chase, which is suitable to my

years. At other times I go to my villa on the plain; there all the paths lead to an open space, in the middle of

which stands a pretty church; an arm of the Brenta flows through the plantations fruitful, wellcultivated

fields, now fully peopled, which the marshes and the foul air once made fitter for snakes than for men. It was

I who drained the country; then the air became good, and people settled there and multiplied, and the land

became cultivated as it now is, so that T can truly say: "On this spot I gave to God an altar and a temple, and


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Biography in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance 111



Top




Page No 115


souls to worship Him." This is my consolation and my happiness whenever I come here. In the spring and

autumn, I also visit the neighbouring towns, to see and converse with my friends, through whom I make the

acquaintance of other distinguished men, architects, painters, sculptors, musicians, and cultivators of the soil.

I see what new things they have done, I look again at what I know already, and learn much that is of use to

me. I see palaces, gardens, antiquities, public grounds, churches, and fortifications. But what most of all

delights me when I travel, is the beauty of the country and the places, lying now on the plain, now on the

slopes of the hills, or on the banks of rivers and streams, surrounded by gardens and villas. And these

enjoyments are not diminished through weakness of the eyes or the ears; all my senses (thank God!) are in the

best condition, including the sense of taste; for I enjoy more the simple food which I now take in moderation,

than all the delicacies which I ate in my years of disorder.' After mentioning the works he had undertaken on

behalf of the republic for draining the marshes, and the projects which he had constantly advocated for

preserving the lagoons, he thus concludes:

'These are the true recreations of an old age which God has permitted to be healthy, and which is free from

those mental and bodily sufferings to which so many young people and so many sickly older people

succumb. And if it be allowable to add the little to the great, to add jest to earnest, it may be mentioned as a

result of my moderate life, that in my eightythird year I have written a most amusing comedy, full of

blameless wit. Such works are generally the business of youth, as tragedy is the business of old age. If it is

reckoned to the credit of the famous Greek that he wrote a tragedy in his seventythird year, must I not, with

my ten years more, be more cheerful and healthy than he ever was? And that no consolation may be wanting

in the overflowing cup of my old age, I see before my eyes a sort of bodily immortality in the persons of my

descendants. When I come home I see before me, not one or two, but eleven grandchildren, between the ages

of two and eighteen, all from the same father and mother, all healthy, and, so far as can already be judged, all

gifted with the talent and disposition for learning and a good life. One of the younger I have as my playmate

(buffoncello), since children from the third to the fifth year are born to tricks; the elder ones I treat as my

companions, and, as they have admirable voices, I take delight in hearing them sing and play on different

instruments. And I sing myself, and find my voice better, clearer, and louder than ever. These are the

pleasures of my last years. My life, therefore, is alive, and not dead; nor would I exchange my age for the

youth of such as live in the service of their passions.'

In the 'Exhortation' which Cornaro added at a much later time, in his ninetyfifth year, he reckons it among

the elements of his happiness that his 'Treatise' had made many converts. He died at Padua in 1565, at the age

of over a hundred years.

This national gift did not, however, confine itself to the criticism and description of individuals, but felt itself

competent to deal with the qualities and characteristics of whole peoples. Throughout the Middle Ages the

cities, families, and nations of all Europe were in the habit of making insulting and derisive attacks on one

another, which, with much caricature, contained commonly a kernel of truth. But from the first the Italians

surpassed all others in their quick apprehension of the mental differences among cities and populations. Their

local patriotism, stronger probably than in any other medieval people, soon found expression in literature, and

allied itself with the current conception of 'Fame.' Topography became the counterpart of biography; while all

the more important cities began to celebrate their own praises in prose and verse, writers appeared who made

the chief towns and districts the subject partly of a serious comparative description, partly of satire, and

sometimes of notices in which jest and earnest are not easy to be distinguished. Next to some famous

passages in the 'Divine Comedy,' we have here the 'Dittamondo' of Uberti (about 1360). As a rule, only single

remarkable facts and characteristics are here mentioned: the Feast of the Crows at Sant' Apollinare in

Ravenna, the springs at Treviso, the great cellar near Vicenza, the high duties at Mantua, the forest of towers

at Lucca. Yet mixed up with all this, we find laudatory and satirical criticisms of every kind. Arezzo figures

with the crafty disposition of its citizens, Genoa with the artificially blackened eyes and teeth (?) of its

women, Bologna with its prodigality, Bergamo with its coarse dialect and hardheaded people. In the

fifteenth century the fashion was to belaud one's own city even at the expense of others. Michele Savonarola


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Biography in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance 112



Top




Page No 116


allows that, in comparison with his native Padua, only Rome and Venice are more splendid, and Florence

perhaps more joyousby which our knowledge is naturally not much extended. At the end of the century,

Jovianus Pontanus, in his 'Antonius,' writes an imaginary journey through Italy, simply as a vehicle for

malicious observations. But in the sixteenth century we meet with a series of exact and profound studies of

national characteristics, such as no other people of that time could rival. Machiavelli sets forth in some of his

valuable essays the character and the political condition of the Germans and French in such a way that the

born northerner, familiar with the history of his own country, is grateful to the Florentine thinker for his

flashes of insight. The Florentines begin to take pleasure in describing themselves; and basking in the

wellearned sunshine of their intellectual glory, their pride seems to attain its height when they derive the

artistic pre eminence of Tuscany among Italians, not from any special gifts of nature, but from hard, patient

work. The homage of famous men from other parts of Italy, of which the sixteenth Capitolo of Ariosto is a

splendid example, they accepted as a merited tribute to their excellence.

Of an admirable description of the Italians, with their various pursuits and characteristics, though in a few

words and with special stress laid on the Lucchese, to whom the work was dedicated, we can give only the

title: _Forcianae Questiones, _by Ortensio Landi, Naples, 1536. Leandro Alberti is not so fruitful as might be

expected in his description of the character of the different cities. A 'Commentario' (by Ortensio Landi,

Venice, 1553) contains among many absurdities some valuable information on the unfortunate conditions

prevailing about the middle of the century.

To what extent this comparative study of national and local characteristics may, by means of Italian

humanism, have influenced the rest of Europe, we cannot say with precision. To Italy, at all events, belongs

the priority in this respect, as in the description of the world in general.

Description of the Outward Man

But the discoveries made with regard to man were not confined to the spiritual characteristics of individuals

and nations; his outward appearance was in Italy the subject of an entirely different interest from that shown

in it by northern peoples.

Of the position held by the great Italian physicians with respect to the progress of physiology, we cannot

venture to speak; and the artistic study of the human figure belongs, not to a work like the present, but to the

history of art. But something must here be said of that universal education of the eye, which rendered the

judgement of the Italians as to bodily beauty or ugliness perfect and final.

On reading the Italian authors of that period attentively, we are astounded at the keenness and accuracy with

which outward features are seized, and at the completeness with which personal appearance in general is

described. Even today the Italians, and especially the Romans, have the art of sketching a man's picture in a

couple of words. This rapid apprehension of what is characteristic is an essential condition for detecting and

representing the beautiful. In poetry, it is true, circumstantial description may be a fault, not a merit, since a

single feature, suggested by deep passion or insight, will often awaken in the reader a far more powerful

impression of the figure described. Dante gives us nowhere a more splendid idea of his Beatrice than where

he only describes the influence which goes forth from her upon all around. But here we have not to treat

particularly of poetry, which follows its own laws and pursues its own ends, but rather of the general capacity

to paint in words real or imaginary forms.

In this Boccaccio is a masternot in the 'Decameron,' where the character of the tales forbids lengthy

description, but in the romances, where he is free to take his time. In his 'Ameto' he describes a blonde and a

brunette much as an artist a hundred years later would have painted themfor here, too, culture long

precedes art. In the account of the brunetteor, strictly speaking, of the less blonde of the twothere are

touches which deserve to be called classical. In the words 'la spaziosa testa e distesa' lies the feeling for


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Description of the Outward Man 113



Top




Page No 117


grander forms, which go beyond a graceful prettiness; the eyebrows with him no longer resemble two bows,

as in the Byzantine ideal, but a single wavy line; the nose seems to have been meant to be aquiline; the broad,

full breast, the arms of moderate length, the effect of the beautiful hand, as it lies on the purple mantleall

this foretells the sense of beauty of a coming time, and unconsciously approaches to that of classical

antiquity. In other descriptions Boccaccio mentions a flat (not medievally rounded) brow, a long, earnest,

brown eye, and round, not hollowed neck, as well asin a very modern tonethe 'little feet' and the 'two

roguish eyes' of a blackhaired nymph.

Whether the fifteenth century has left any written account of its ideal of beauty, I am not able to say. The

works of the painters and sculptors do not render such an account as unnecessary as might appear at first

sight, since possibly, as opposed to their realism, a more ideal type might have been favored and preserved by

the writers. In the sixteenth century Firenzuola came forward with his remarkable work on female beauty. We

must clearly distinguish in it what he had learned from old authors or from artists, such as the fixing of

proportions according to the length of the head, and certain abstract conceptions. What remains is his own

genuine observation, illustrated with examples of women and girls from Prato. As his little work is a kind of

lecture, delivered before the women of this citythat is to say, before very severe criticshe must have

kept pretty closely to the truth. His principle is avowedly that of Zeuxis and of Lucianto piece together an

ideal beauty out of a number of beautiful parts. He defines the shades of color which occur in the hair and

skin, and gives to the 'biondo' the preference, as the most beautiful color for the hair, understanding by it a

soft yellow, inclining to brown. He requires that the hair should be thick, long, and locky; the forehead

serene, and twice as broad as high; the skin bright and clear (candida), but not of a dead white (bianchezza);

the eyebrows dark, silky, most strongly marked in the middle, and shading off towards the ears and the nose;

the white of the eye faintly touched with blue, the iris not actually black, though all the poets praise 'occhi

neri' as a gift of Venus, despite that even goddesses were known for their eyes of heavenly blue, and that soft,

joyous, brown eyes were admired by everybody. The eye itself should be large and full and brought well

forward; the lids white, and marked with almost invisible tiny red veins; the lashes neither too long, nor too

thick, nor too dark. The hollow round the eye should have the same color as the cheek. The ear, neither too

large nor too small, firmly and neatly fitted on, should show a stronger color in the winding than in the even

parts, with an edge of the transparent ruddiness of the pomegranate. The temples must be white and even, and

for the most perfect beauty ought not to be too narrow. The red should grow deeper as the cheek gets rounder.

The nose, which chiefly determines the value of the profile, must recede gently and uniformly in the direction

of the eyes; where the cartilage ceases, there may be a slight elevation, but not so marked as to make the nose

aquiline, which is not pleasing in women; the lower part must be less strongly colored than the ears, but not

of a chilly whiteness, and the middle partition above the lips lightly tinted with red. The mouth, our author

would have rather small, and neither projecting to a point, nor quite flat, with the lips not too thin, and fitting

neatly together; an accidental opening, that is, when the woman is neither speaking nor laughing, should not

display more than six upper teeth. As delicacies of detail, he mentions a dimple in the upper lip, a certain

fullness of the under lip, and a tempting smile in the left corner of the mouth and so on. The teeth should

not be too small, regular, well marked off from one another, and of the color of ivory; and the gums must not

be too dark or even like red velvet. The chin is to be round, neither pointed nor curved outwards, and growing

slightly red as it rises; its glory is the dimple. The neck should be white and round and rather long than short,

with the hollow and the Adam's apple but faintly marked; and the skin at every movement must show

pleasing lines. The shoulders he desires broad, and in the breadth of the bosom sees the first condition of its

beauty. No bone may be visible upon it, its fall and swell must be gentle and gradual, its color 'candidissimo.'

The leg should be long and not too hard in the lower parts, but still not without flesh on the shin, which must

be provided with white, full calves. He likes the foot small, but not bony, the instep (it seems) high, and the

color white as alabaster. The arms are to be white, and in the upper parts tinted with red; in their consistence

fleshy and muscular, but still soft as those of Pallas, when she stood before the shepherd on Mount Idain a

word, ripe, fresh, and firm. The hand should be white, especially towards the wrist, but large and plump,

feeling soft as silk, the rosy palm marked with a few, but distinct and not intricate lines; the elevations in it

should be not too great, the space between thumb and forefinger brightly colored and without wrinkles, the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Description of the Outward Man 114



Top




Page No 118


fingers long, delicate, and scarcely at all thinner towards the tips, with nails clear, even, not too long nor to

square, and cut so as to show a white margin about the breadth of a knife's back.

Aesthetic principles of a general character occupy a very subordinate place to these particulars. The ultimate

principles of beauty, according to which the eye judges 'senza appello,' are for Firenzuola a secret, as he

frankly confesses; and his definitions of 'Leggiadria,' 'Grazia,' 'Aria,' 'Maesta,' 'Vaghezza,' 'Venusta,' are

partly, as has been remarked, philological, and partly vain attempts to utter the unutterable. Laughter he

prettily defines, probably following some old author, as a radiance of the soul. The literature of all countries

can, at the close of the Middle Ages, show single attempts to lay down theoretic principles of beauty; but no

other work can be compared to that of Firenzuola. Brantome, who came a good halfcentury later, is a

bungling critic by his side, because governed by lasciviousness and not by a sense of beauty.

Description of Human Life

Among the new discoveries made with regard to man, we must reckon, in conclusion, the interest taken in

descriptions of the daily course of human life.

The comical and satirical literature of the Middle Ages could not dispense with pictures of everyday events.

But it is another thing, when the Italians of the Renaissance dwelt on this picture for its own sakefor its

inherent interest and because it forms part of that great, universal life of the world whose magic breath

they felt everywhere around them. Instead of and together with the satirical comedy, which wanders through

houses, villages, and streets, seeking food for its derision in parson, peasant, and burgher, we now see in

literature the beginnings of a true _genre, _long before it found any expression in painting. That _genre _and

satire are often met with in union, does not prevent them from being wholly different things.

How much of earthly business must Dante have watched with attentive interest, before he was able to make

us see with our own eyes all that happened in his spiritual world. The famous pictures of the busy movement

in the arsenal at Venice, of the blind men laid side by side before the church door, and the like, are by no

means the only instances of this kind: for the art, in which he is a master, of expressing the inmost soul by the

outward gesture, cannot exist without a close and incessant study of human life. (Cf. Inferno xxi, 16,

Purgatorio xiii, 6166.) The poets who followed rarely came near him in this respect, and the novelists were

forbidden by the first laws of their literary style to linger over details. Their prefaces and narratives might be

as long as they pleased, but what we understand by _genre _was outside their province. The taste for this

class of description was not fully awakened till the time of the revival of antiquity.

And here we are again met by the man who had a heart for everything Aeneas Sylvius. Not only natural

beauty, not only that which has an antiquarian or a geographical interest, finds a place in his descriptions, but

any living scene of daily life. Among the numerous passages in his memoirs in which scenes are described

which hardly one of his contemporaries would have thought worth a line of notice, we will here only mention

the boatrace on the Lake of Bolsena. We are not able to detect from what old letterwriter or storyteller the

impulse was derived to which we owe such lifelike pictures. Indeed, the whole spiritual communion between

antiquity and the Renaissance is full of delicacy and of mystery.

To this class belong those descriptive Latin poems of which we have already spokenhuntingscenes,

journeys, ceremonies, and so forth. In Italian we also find something of the same kind, as, for example, the

descriptions of the famous Medicean tournament by Politian and Luca Pulci. The true epic poets, Luigi Pulci,

Boiardo, and Ariosto, are carried on more rapidly by the stream of their narrative; yet in all of them we must

recognize the lightness and precision of their descriptive touch as one of the chief elements of their greatness.

Franco Sacchetti amuses himself with repeating the short speeches of a troop of pretty women caught in the

woods by a shower of rain.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Description of Human Life 115



Top




Page No 119


Other scenes of moving life are to be looked for in the military historians. In a lengthy poem, dating from an

earlier period, we find a faithful picture of a combat of mercenary soldiers in the fourteenth century, chiefly

in the shape of the orders, cries of battle, and dialogue with which it is accompanied.

But the most remarkable productions of this kind are the realistic descriptions of country life, which are

found most abundantly in Lorenzo il Magnifico and the poets of his circle.

Since the time of Petrarch, an unreal and conventional style of bucolic poetry had been in vogue, which,

whether written in Latin or Italian, was essentially a copy of Virgil. Parallel to this, we find the pastoral novel

of Boccaccio and other works of the same kind down to the 'Arcadia' of Sannazaro, and later still, the pastoral

comedy of Tasso and Guarini. They are works whose style, whether poetry or prose is admirably finished and

perfect, but in which pastoral life is ideal dress for sentiments which belong to a wholly sphere of culture.

But by the side of all this there appeared in Italian poetry, towards the close of the fifteenth century, signs of a

more realistic treatment of rustic life. This was not possible out of Italy; for here only did the peasant,

whether laborer or proprietor, possess human dignity, personal freedom, and the right of settlement, hard as

his lot might sometimes be in other respects. The difference between town and country is far from being so

marked here as in northern countries. Many of the smaller towns are peopled almost exclusively by peasants

who, on coming home at nightfall from their work, are transformed into townsfolk. The masons of Como

wandered over nearly all Italy; the child Giotto was free to leave his sheep and join a guild at Florence;

everywhere there was a human stream flowing from the country into the cities, and some mountain

populations seemed born to supply this current. It is true that the pride and local conceit supplied poets and

novelists with abundant motives for making game of the 'villano,' and what they left undone was taken charge

of by the comic improvisers. But nowhere do we find a trace of that brutal and contemptuous classhatred

against the 'vilains' which inspired the aristocratic poets of Provence, and often, too, the French chroniclers.

On the contrary, Italian authors of every sort gladly recognize and accentuate what is great or remarkable in

the life of the peasant. Gioviano Pontano mentions with admiration instances of the fortitude of the savage

inhabitants of the Abruzzi; in the biographical collections and in the novelists we meet with the figure of the

heroic peasantmaiden who hazards her life to defend her family and her honour.

Such conditions made the poetical treatment of country life possible. The first instance we shall mention is

that of Battista Mantovano, whose eclogues, once much read and still worth reading, appeared among his

earliest works about 1480. They are a mixture of real and conventional rusticity, but the former tends to

prevail. They represent the mode of thought of a wellmeaning village clergyman, not without a certain

leaning to liberal ideas. As Carmelite monk, the writer may have had occasion to mix freely with the

peasantry.

But it is with a power of a wholly different kind that Lorenzo il Magnifico transports himself into the

peasant's world. His 'Nencia di Barberino' reads like a crowd of genuine extracts from the popular songs of

the Florentine country, fused into a great stream of octaves. The objectivity of the writer is such that we are in

doubt whether the speakerthe young peasant Vallera, who declares his love to Nencia awakens his

sympathy or ridicule. The deliberate contrast to the conventional eclogue is unmistakable. Lorenzo surrenders

himself purposely to the realism of simple, rough country life, and yet his work makes upon us the

impression of true poetry.

The 'Beca da Dicomano' of Luigi Pulci is an admitted counterpart to the 'Nencia' of Lorenzo. But the deeper

purpose is wanting. The 'Beca' is written not so much from the inward need to give a picture of popular life,

as from the desire to win the approbation of the educated Florentine world by a successful poem. Hence the

greater and more deliberate coarseness of the scenes, and the indecent jokes. Nevertheless, the point of view

of the rustic lover is admirably maintained.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Description of Human Life 116



Top




Page No 120


Third in this company of poets comes Angelo Poliziano, with his 'Rusticus' in Latin hexameters. Keeping

clear of all imitation of Virgil's Georgics, he describes the year of the Tuscan peasant, beginning with the late

autumn, when the countryman gets ready his new plough and prepares the seed for the winter. The picture of

the meadows in spring is full and beautiful, and the 'Summer' has fine passages; but the vintagefeast in

autumn is one of the gems of modern Latin poetry. Politian wrote poems in Italian as well as Latin, from

which we may infer that in Lorenzo's circle it was possible to give a realistic picture of the passionate life of

the lower classes. His gipsy's love song is one of the earliest products of that wholly modern tendency to put

oneself with poetic consciousness into the position of another class. This had probably been attempted for

ages with a view to satire, and the opportunity for it was offered in Florence at every carnival by the songs of

the maskers. But the sympathetic understanding of the feeling of another class was new; and with it the

'Nencia' and this 'Canzone zingaresca' mark a new startingpoint in the history of poetry.

Here, too, we must briefly indicate how culture prepared the way for artistic development. From the time of

the 'Nencia,' a period of eighty years elapses to the rustic genrepainting of Jacopo Bassano and his school.

In the next part of this work we shall show how differences of birth had lost their significance in Italy. Much

of this was doubtless owing to the fact that men and mankind were here first thoroughly and profoundly

understood. This one single result of the Renaissance is enough to fill us with everlasting thankfulness. The

logical notion of humanity was old enoughbut here the notion became a fact.

The loftiest conceptions on this subject were uttered by Pico della Mirandola in his Speech on the Dignity of

Man, which may justly be called one of the noblest of that great age. God, he tells us, made man at the close

of the creation, to know the laws of the universe, to love its beauty, to admire its greatness. He bound him to

no fixed place, to no prescribed form of work, and by no iron necessity, but gave him freedom to will and to

love. 'I have set thee,' says the Creator to Adam, 'in the midst of the world, that thou mayst the more easily

behold and see all that is therein. I created thee a being neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor

immortal only, that thou mightest be free to shape and to overcome thyself. Thou mayst sink into a beast, and

be born anew to the divine likeness. The brutes bring from their mother's body what they will carry with them

as long as they live; the higher spirits are from the beginning, or soon after, what they will be for ever. To

thee alone is given a growth and a development depending on thine own free will. Thou bearest in thee the

germs of a universal life.'

Part Five. SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS

Equality of Classes

Every period of civilization which forms a complete and consistent whole manifests itself not only in political

life, in religion, art, and science, but also sets its characteristic stamp on social life. Thus the Middle Ages had

their courtly and aristocratic manners and etiquette, differing but little in the various countries of Europe, as

well as their peculiar forms of middleclass life.

Italian customs at the time of the Renaissance offer in these respects the sharpest contrasts to medievalism.

The foundation on which they rest is wholly different. Social intercourse in its highest and most perfect form

now ignored all distinctions of caste, and was based simply on the existence of an educated class as we now

understand the word. Birth and origin were without influence, unless combined with leisure and inherited

wealth. Yet this assertion must not be taken in an absolute and unqualified sense, since medieval distinctions

still sometimes made themselves felt to a greater or less degree, if only as a means of maintaining equality

with the aristocratic pretensions of the less advanced countries of Europe. But the main current of the time

went steadily towards the fusion of classes in the modern sense of the phrase.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Part Five. SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS 117



Top




Page No 121


The fact was of vital importance that, from certainly the twelfth century onwards, the nobles and the burghers

dwelt together within the walls of the cities. The interests and pleasures of both classes were thus identified,

and the feudal lord learned to look at society from another point of view than that of his mountain castle. The

Church, too, in Italy never suffered itself, as in northern countries, to be used as a means of providing for the

younger sons of noble families. Bishoprics, abbacies, and canonries were often given from the most unworthy

motives, but still not according to the pedigrees of the applicants; and if the bishops in Italy were more

numerous, poorer, and, as a rule, destitute of all sovereign rights, they still lived in the cities where their

cathedrals stood, and formed, together with their chapters, an important element in the cultivated society of

the place. In the age of despots and absolute princes which followed, the nobility in most of the cities had the

motives and the leisure to give themselves up to a private life free from the political danger and adorned with

all that was elegant and enjoyable, but at the same time hardly distinguishable from that of the wealthy

burgher. And after the time of Dante, when the new poetry and literature were in the hands of all Italy, when

to this was added the revival of ancient culture and the new interest in man as such, when the successful

Condottiere became a prince, and not only good birth, but legitimate birth, ceased to be indispensable for a

throne, it might well seem that the age of equality had dawned, and the belief in nobility vanished for ever.

From a theoretical point of view, when the appeal was made to antiquity, the conception of nobility could be

both justified and condemned from Aristotle alone. Dante, for example, derives from Aristotle's definition,

'Nobility rests on excellence and inherited wealth,' his own saying, 'Nobility rests on personal excellence or

on that of forefathers.' But elsewhere he is not satisfied with this conclusion. He blames himself, because

even in Paradise, while talking with his ancestor Cacciaguida, he made mention of his noble origin, which is

but a mantle from which time is ever cutting something away, unless we ourselves add daily fresh worth to it.

And in the 'Convito' he disconnects 'nobile' and 'nobilita' from every condition of birth, and identifies the idea

with the capacity for moral and intellectual eminence, laying a special stress on high culture by calling

'nobilita' the sister of 'filosofia.'

And as time went on, the greater the influence of humanism on the Italian mind, the firmer and more

widespread became the conviction that birth decides nothing as to the goodness or badness of a man. In the

fifteenth century this was the prevailing opinion. Poggio, in his dialogue 'On nobility,' agrees with his

interlocutors Niccolo Niccoli, and Lorenzo Medici, brother of the great Cosimo that there is no other

nobility than that of personal merit. The keenest shafts of his ridicule are directed against much of what

vulgar prejudice thinks indispensable to an aristocratic life. 'A man is !111 the farther removed from true

nobility, the longer his forefathers have plied the trade of brigands. The taste for hawking and hunting

saviours no more of nobility than the nests and lairs of the hunted creatures of spikenard. The cultivation of

the soil, as practiced by the ancients, would be much nobler than this senseless wandering through the hills

and woods, by which men make themselves like to the brutes than to the reasonable creatures. It may serve

well enough as a recreation, but not as the business of a lifetime.' The life of the English and French chivalry

in the country or in the woody fastnesses seems to him thoroughly ignoble, and worst of all the doings of the

robberknights of Germany. Lorenzo here begins to take the part of the nobility, but not which is

characteristicappealing to any natural sentiment in its favour, but because Aristotle in the fifth book of the

Politics recognizes the nobility as existent, and defines it as resting on excellence and inherited wealth. To

this Niccoli retorts that Aristotle gives this not as his own conviction, but as the popular impression; in his

Ethics, where he speaks as he thinks, he calls him noble who strives after that which is truly good. Lorenzo

urges upon him vainly that the Greek word for nobility (Eugeneia) means good birth; Niccoli thinks the

Roman word 'nobilis' (i.e. remark able) a better one, since it makes nobility depend on a man's deeds.

Together with these discussions, we find a sketch of the conditions of the nobles in various parts of Italy. In

Naples they will not work, and busy themselves neither with their own estates nor with trade and commerce,

which they hold to be discreditable; they either loiter at home or ride about on horseback. The Roman

nobility also despise trade, but farm their own property; the cultivation of the land even opens the way to a

title; it is a respectable but boorish nobility. In Lombardy the nobles live upon the rent of their inherited

estates; descent and the abstinence from any regular calling, constitute nobility. In Venice, the 'nobili,' the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Part Five. SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS 118



Top




Page No 122


ruling caste, were all merchants. Similarly in Genoa the nobles and nonnobles were alike merchants and

sailors, and only separated by their birth: some few of the former, it is true, still lurked as brigands in their

mountain castles. In Florence a part of the old nobility had devoted themselves to trade; another, and cer

tainly by far the smaller part, enjoyed the satisfaction of their titles, and spent their time, either in nothing at

all, or else in hunting and hawking.

The decisive fact was, that nearly everywhere in Italy, even those who might be disposed to pride themselves

on their birth could not make good the claims against the power of culture and of wealth, and that their

privileges in politics and at court were not sufficient to encourage any strong feeling of caste. Venice offers

only an apparent exception to this rule, for there the 'nobili' led the same life as their fellowcitizens, and

were distinguished by few honorary privileges. The case was certainly different at Naples, which the strict

isolation and the ostentatious vanity of its nobility excluded, above all other causes, from the spiritual

movement of the Renaissance. The traditions of medieval Lombardy and Normandy, and the French

aristocratic influences which followed, all tended in this direction; and the Aragonese government, which was

established by the middle of the fifteenth century, completed the work, and accomplished in Naples what

followed a hundred years later in the rest of Italya social transformation in obedience to Spanish ideas, of

which the chief features were the contempt for work and the passion for titles. The effect of this new

influence was evident, even in the smaller towns, before the year 1500. We hear complaints from La Cava

that the place had been proverbially rich, as long as it was filled with masons and weavers; whilst now, since

instead of looms and trowels nothing but spurs, stirrups and gilded belts was to be seen, since everybody was

trying to become Doctor of Laws or of Medicine, Notary, Officer or Knight, the most intolerable poverty

prevailed. In Florence an analogous change appears to have taken place by the time of Cosimo, the first

Grand Duke; he is thanked for adopting the young people, who now despise trade and commerce, as knights

of his order of St. Stephen. This goes straight in the teeth of the good old Florentine custom, by which fathers

left property to their children on the condition that they should have some occupation. But a mania for titles

of a curious and ludicrous sort sometimes crossed and thwarted, especially among the Florentines, the

levelling influence of art and culture. This was the passion hood, which became one of the most striking

follies at a time when the dignity itself had lost every significance.

'A few years ago,' writes Franco Sacchetti, towards the end of the fourteenth century, 'everybody saw how all

the workpeople down to the bakers, how all the woolcarders, usurers moneychangers and blackguards of

all description, became knights. Why should an official need knighthood when he goes to preside over some

little provincial town? What has this title to do with any ordinary breadwinning pursuit? How art thou

sunken, unhappy dignity! Of all the long list of knightly duties, what single one do these knights of ours

discharge? I wished to speak of these things that the reader might see that knighthood is dead. And as we

have gone so far as to confer the honour upon dead men, why not upon figures of wood and stone, and why

not upon an ox?' The stories which Sacchetti tells by way of illustration speak plainly enough. There we read

how Bernabo Visconti knighted the victor in a drunken brawl, and then did the same derisively to the

vanquished; how Ger man knights with their decorated helmets and devices were ridiculedand more of

the same kind. At a later period Poggio makes merry over the many knights of his day without a horse and

without military training. Those who wished to assert the privilege of the order, and ride out with lance and

colors, found in Florence that they might have to face the government as well as the jokers.

On considering the matter more closely, we shall find that this belated chivalry, independent of all nobility of

birth, though partly the fruit of an insane passion for titles, had nevertheless another and a better side.

Tournaments had not yet ceased to be practiced, and no one could take part in them who was not a knight.

But the combat in the lists, and especially the difficult and perilous tilting with the lance, offered a favourable

opportunity for the display of strength, skill, and courage, which no one, whatever might be his origin, would

willingly neglect in an age which laid such stress on personal merit.

It was in vain that from the time of Petrarch downwards the tournament was denounced as a dangerous folly.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Part Five. SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS 119



Top




Page No 123


No one was converted by the pathetic appeal of the poet: 'In what book do we read that Scipio and Caesar

were skilled at the joust?' The practice became more and more popular in Florence. Every honest citizen

came to consider his tournament now, no doubt, less dangerous than formerlyas a fashionable sport.

Franco Sacchetti has left us a ludicrous picture of one of these holiday cavaliersa notary seventy years old.

He rides out on horseback to Peretola, where the tournament was cheap, on a jade hired from a dyer. A thistle

is stuck by some wag under the tail of the steed, who takes fright, runs away, and carries the helmeted rider,

bruised and shaken, back into the city. The inevitable conclusion of the story is a severe curtainlecture from

the wife, who is not a little enraged at these breakneck follies of her husband.

It may be mentioned in conclusion that a passionate interest in this sport was displayed by the Medici, as if

they wished to show private citizens as they were, without noble blood in their veins that the society

which surrounded them was in no respect inferior to a Court. Even under Cosimo (1459), and afterwards

under the elder Pietro, brilliant tournaments were held at Florence. The younger Pietro neglected the duties of

government for these amusements and would never suffer himself to be painted except clad in armor. The

same practice prevailed at the Court of Alexander VI, and when the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza asked the

Turkish Prince Djem how he liked the spectacle, the barbarian replied with much discretion that such

combats in his country only took place among slaves, since then, in the case of accident, nobody was the

worse for it. The Oriental was unconsciously in accord with the old Romans in condemning the manners of

the Middle Ages.

Apart, however, from this particular prop of knighthood, we find here and there in Italy, for example at

Ferrara, orders of courtiers whose members had a right to the title of _Cavaliere.

_

But, great as were individual ambitions, and the vanities of nobles and knights, it remains a fact that the

Italian nobility took its place in the centre of social life, and not at the extremity. We find it habitually mixing

with other classes on a footing of perfect equality, and seeking its natural allies in culture and intelligence. It

is true that for the courtier a cer tain rank of nobility was required, but this exigence is expressly declared to

be caused by a prejudice rooted in the public mind 'per l'opinion universale'and never was held to imply

the belief that the personal worth of one who was not of noble blood was in any degree lessened thereby, nor

did it follow from this rule that the prince was limited to the nobility for his society. It meant simply that the

perfect manthe true courtiershould not be wanting in any conceivable advantage, and therefore not in

this. If in all the relations of life he was specially bound to maintain a dignified and reserved demeanor, the

reason was not found in the blood which flowed in hs veins, but in the perfection of manner which was

demanded from him. We are here in the presence of a modern distinctiori, based on culture and on wealth,

but on the latter solely because it enables men to devote their life to the former, and effectually to promote its

interests and advancement.

Costumes and Fashions

But in proportion as distinctions of birth ceased to confer any special privilege, was the individual himself

compelled to make the most of his personal qualities, and society to find its worth and charm in itself. The

demeanor of individuals, and all the higher forms of social intercourse, became ends pursued a deliberate and

artistic purpose.

Even the outward appearance of men and women and the habits of daily life were more perfect, more

beautiful, and more polished than among the other nations of Europe. The dwellings of the upper classes fall

rather within the province of the history of art; but we may note how far the castle and the city mansion in

Italy surpassed in comfort, order, and harmony the dwellings of the northern noble. The style of dress varied

sc continually that it is impossible to make any complete comparison with the fashions of other countries, all


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Costumes and Fashions 120



Top




Page No 124


the more because since the close of the fifteenth century imitations of the latter were frequent. The costumes

of the time, as given us by the Italian painters, are the most convenient, and the most pleasing to the eye

which were then to be found in Europe; but we cannot be sure if they represent the prevalent fashion, or if

they are faithfully reproduced by the artist. It is nevertheless beyond a doubt that nowhere was so much

importance attached to dress as in Italy. The nation was, and is, vain; and even serious men among it looked

on a handsome and becoming costume as an element in the perfection of the individual. At Florence, indeed,

there was a brief period when dress was a purely personal matter, and every man set the fashion for himself,

and till far into the sixteenth century there were exceptional people who still had the courage to do so; and the

majority at all events showed themselves capable of varying the fashion according to their individual tastes. It

is a symptom of decline when Giovanni della Casa warns his readers not to be singular or to depart from

existing fashions Our own age, which, in men's dress at any rate, treats uniformity as the supreme law, gives

up by so doing far more than it is aware of. But it saves itself much time, and this, according to our notions of

business, outweighs all other disadvantages.

In Venice and Florence at the time of the Renaissance there were rules and regulations prescribing the dress

of the men and restraining the luxury of the women. Where the fashions were more free, as in Naples, the

moralists confess with regret that no difference can be observed between noble and burgher. They further

deplore the rapid changes of fashion, andif we rightly understand their wordsthe senseless idolatry of

whatever comes from France, though in many cases the fashions which were received back from the French

were originally Italian. It does not further concern us how far these frequent changes, and the adoption of

French and Spanish ways, contributed to the national passion for external display; but we find in them

additional evidence of the rapid movement of life in Italy in the decades before and after the year 1500.

We may note in particular the efforts of the women to alter their appearance by all the means which the

toilette could afford. In no country of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire was so much trouble taken

to modify the face, the color of the skin and the growth of the hair, as in Italy at this time. All tended to the

formation of a conventional type, at the cost of the most striking and transparent deceptions. Leaving out of

account costume in general, which in the fourteenth century was in the highest degree varied in color and

loaded with ornament, and at a later period assumed a character of more harmonious richness, we here limit

ourselves more particularly to the toilette in the narrower sense.

No sort of ornament was more in use than false hair, often made of white or yellow silk.81 The law

denounced and forbade it in vain, till some preacher of repentance touched the worldly minds of the wearers.

Then was seen, in the middle of the public square, a lofty pyre (talamo), on which, besides lutes, diceboxes,

masks, magical charms, songbooks, and other vanities, lay masses of false hair, which the purging fires

soon turned into a heap of ashes. The ideal color sought for both natural and artificial hair was blond. And as

the sun was supposed to have the power of making the hair this color, many ladies would pass their whole

time in the open air on sunshiny days. Dyes and other mixtures were also used freely for the same purpose.

Besides all these, we meet with an endless list of beautifying waters, plasters, and paints for every single part

of the faceeven for the teeth and eyelidsof which in our day we can form no conception. The ridicule of

the poets, the invectives of the preachers, and the experience of the baneful effects of these cosmetics on the

skin, were powerless to hinder women from giving their faces an unnatural form and color. It is possible that

the frequent and splendid representations of Mysteries,82 at which hundreds of people appeared painted and

masked, helped to further this practice in daily life. It is certain that it was widespread, and that the

countrywomen vied in this respect with their sisters in the towns. It was vain to preach that such decorations

were the mark of the courtesan; the most honorable matrons, who all the year round never touched paint, used

it nevertheless on holidays when they showed themselves in public. But whether we look on this bad habit as

a remnant of barbarism, to which the painting of savages is a parallel, or as a consequence of the desire for

perfect youthful beauty in feature and in color, as the art and complexity of the toilette would lead us to

thinkin either case there was no lack of good advice on the part of the men. The use of perfumes, too, went

beyond all reasonable limits. They were applied to everything with which human beings came into contact.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Costumes and Fashions 121



Top




Page No 125


At festivals even the mules were treated with scents and ointments, and Pietro Aretino thanks Cosimo I for a

perfumed roll of money.

The Italians of that day lived in the belief that they were more cleanly than other nations. There are in fact

general reasons which speak rather for than against this claim. Cleanliness is indispensable to our modern

notion of social perfection, which was developed in Italy earlier than elsewhere. That the Italians were one of

the richest of existing peoples, is another presumption in their favour. Proof, either for or against these

pretensions, can of course never be forthcoming, and if the question were one of priority in establishing rules

of cleanliness, the chivalrous poetry of the Middle Ages is perhaps in advance of anything that Italy can

produce. It is nevertheless certain that the singular neatness and cleanliness of some distinguished

representatives of the Renaissance, especially in their behavior at meals, was noticed expressly,83 and that

'German' was the synonym in Italy for all that is filthy. The dirty habits which Massimiliano Sforza picked up

in the course of his German education, and the notice they attracted on his return to Italy, are recorded by

Giovio. It is at the same time very curious that, at least in the fifteenth century, the inns and hotels were left

chiefly in the hands of Germans, who probably, however, made their profit mostly out of the pilgrims

journeying to Rome. Yet the statements on this point may refer mainly to the country districts, since it is

notorious that in the great cities Italian hotels held the first place. The want of decent inns in the country may

also be explained by the general insecurity of life and property.

To the first half of the sixteenth century belongs the manual of politeness which Giovanni della Casa, a

Florentine by birth, published under the title 'Il Galateo.' Not only cleanliness in the strict sense of the word,

but the dropping of all the habits which we consider unbecoming, is here prescribed with the same unfailing

tact with which the moralist discerns the highest ethical truths. In the literature of other countries the same

lessons are taught, though less systematically, by the indirect influence of repulsive descriptions.

In other respects also, the 'Galateo' is a graceful and in telligent guide to good mannersa school of tact

and delicacy. Even now it may be read with no small profit by people of all classes, and the politeness of

European nations is not likely to outgrow its precepts. So far as tact is an affair of the heart, it has been inborn

in some men from the dawn of civilization, and acquired through force of will by others; but the Italians were

the first to recognize it as a universal social duty and a mark of culture and education. And Italy itself had

altered much in the course of two centuries. We feel at their close that the time for practical jokes between

friends and acquaintances for 'burle' and 'beffe'was over in good society, that the people had emerged

from the walls of the cities and had learned a cosmopolitan politeness and consideration. We shall speak later

on of the intercourse of society in the narrower sense.

Outward life, indeed, in the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth centuries, was polished and ennobled

as among ¦ no other people in the world. A countless number of those small things and great things which

combine to make up what we: mean by comfort, we know to have first appeared in Italy. In | the wellpaved

streets of the Italian cities, driving was universal, while elsewhere in Europe walking or riding was the

custom, and at all events no one drove for amusement. We read in the novelists of soft, elastic beads, of

costly carpets and bedroom furniture, of which we hear nothing in other countries. We often hear especially

of the abundance and beauty of the linen. Much of all this is drawn within the sphere of art. We note with

admiration the thousand ways in which art ennobles luxury, not only adorning the massive sideboard or the

light brackets with noble vases, clothing the walls with the movable splendor of tapestry, and covering the

toilettable with numberless graceful trifles, but absorbing whole branches of mechanical workespecially

carpenteringinto its province. All Western Europe, as soon as its wealth enabled it to do so, set to work in

the same way at the close of the Middle Ages. But its efforts produced either childish and fantastic toywork,

or were bound by the chains of a narrow and purely Gothic art, while the Renaissance moved freely, entering

into the spirit of every task it undertook and working for a far larger circle of patrons and admirers than the

northern artists. The rapid victory of Italian decorative art over northern in the course sixteenth century is due

partly to this fact, though the result of wider and more general causes.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Costumes and Fashions 122



Top




Page No 126


Language and Society

The higher forms of social intercourse, which here meet us as a work of artas a conscious product and one

of the highest products of national life have no more important foundation and condition than language. In

the most flourishing period of the Middle Ages, the nobility of Western Europe had sought to establish a

'courtly' speech for social intercourse as well as for poetry. In Italy, too, where the dialects differed so greatly

from one another, we find in the thirteenth century a socalled 'Curiale,' which was common to the courts and

to the poets. It is of decisive importance for Italy that the attempt was there seriously and deliberately made to

turn this into the language of literature and society. The introduction to the 'Cento Novelle Antiche,' which

were put into their present shape before l 300, avows this object openly. Language is here considered apart

from its uses in poetry; its highest function is clear, simple, intelligent utterance in short speeches, epigrams,

and answers. This faculty was admired in Italy, as nowhere else but among the Greeks and Arabs: 'how many

in the course long life have scarcely produced a single "bel parlare." '

But the matter was rendered more difficult by the diversity of the aspects under which it was considered. The

writings of Dante transport us into the midst of the struggle. His work 'On the Italian Language' is not only of

the utmost importance for the subject itself, but is also the first complete treatise on any modern language.

His method and results belong to the history of linguistic science, in which they will always hold a high

place. We must here content ourselves with the remark that long before the appearance of this book the

subject must have been one of daily and pressing importance, various dialects of Italy had long been the

object of study and dispute, and that the birth of the one ideal was not accomplished without many throes.

Nothing certainly contributed so much to this end as the great poem of Dante. The Tuscan dialect became the

basis of the new national speech. If this assertion may seem to some to go too far, as foreigners we may be

excused, in a matter on which much difference of opinion prevails, for following the general belief.

Literature and poetry probably lost more than they gained by the contentious purism which was long

prevalent in Italy, and which marred the freshness and vigor of many an able writer. Others, again, who felt

themselves masters of this magnificent language, were tempted to rely upon its harmony and flow, apart from

the thought which it expressed. A very insignificant melody, played upon such an instrument, can produce a

very great effect. But however this may be, it is certain that socially the language had great value. It was, as it

were, that the ; of eager language the crown of a noble and dignified behavior, and compelled the gentleman,

both in his ordinary bearing and in exceptional moments to observe external propriety. No doubt this classical

garment, like the language of Attic society, served to drape much that was foul and malicious; but it was also

the adequate expression of all that is noblest and most refined. But politically and nationally it was of

supreme importance, serving as an ideal home for the educated classes in all the States of the divided

peninsula. Nor was it the special property of the nobles or of any one class, but the poorest and humblest

might learn it if they would. Even now and perhaps more than ever in those parts of Italy where, as a

rule, the most unintelligible dialect prevails, the stranger is often astonished at hearing pure and wellspoken

Italian from the mouths of peasants or artisans, and looks in vain for anything analogous in France or in

Germany, where even the educated classes retain traces of a provincial speech. There is certainly a larger

number of people able to read in Italy than we should be led to expect from the condition of many parts of the

countryas for in stance, the States of the Churchin other respects; but what is more important is the

general and undisputed respect for pure language and pronunciation as something precious and sacred. One

part of the country after another came to adopt the classical dialect officially. Venice, Milan, and Naples did

so at the noontime of Italian literature, and partly through its influences. It was not till the present century that

Piedmont became of its own free will a genuine Italian province by sharing in this chief treasure of the

peoplepure speech. The dialects were from the beginning of the sixteenth century purposely left to deal

with a certain class of subjects, serious as well as comic, and the style which was thus developed proved the

equal to all its tasks. Among other nations a conscious separation of this kind did not occur till a much later

period.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Language and Society 123



Top




Page No 127


The opinion of educated people as to the social value of language is fully set forth in the 'Cortigiano.' There

were then persons, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, who purposely kept to the antiquated

expressions of Dante and the other Tuscan writers of his time, simply because they were old. Our author

forbids the use of them altogether in speech, and is unwilling to permit them even in writing, which he

considers a form of speech. Upon this follows the admission that the best style of speech is that which most

resembles good writing. We can clearly recognize the author's feeling that people who have anything of

importance to say must shape their own speech, and that language is something flexible and changing

because it is something living. It is allowable to make use of any expression, however ornate, as long as it is

used by the people; nor are nonTuscan words, or even French and Spanish words forbidden, if custom has

once applied them to definite purposes. Thus care and intelligence will produce a language, which, if not the

pure old Tuscan, is still Italian, rich in flowers and fruit like a wellkept garden. It belongs to the

completeness of the 'Cortigiano' that his wit, his polished manners, and his poetry, must be clothed in this

perfect dress.

When style and language had once become the property of a living society, all the efforts of purists and

archaists failed to secure their end. Tuscany itself was rich in writers and the first order, who ignored and

ridiculed these endeavors. Ridicule in abundance awaited the foreign scholar who explained to the Tuscans

how little they understood their language. The life and influence of a writer like Machiavelli was enough to

sweep away all these cobwebs. His vigorous thoughts, his clear and simple mode of expression wore a form

which had any merit but that of the 'Trecentisti.' And on the other hand there were too many North Italians,

Romans, and Neapolitans, who were thankful if the demand for purity of style in literature and conversation

was not pressed too far. They repudiated, indeed, the forms and idioms of their dialect; and Bandello, with

what a foreigner might suspect to be false modesty, is never tired of declaring: 'I have no style; I do not write

like a Florentine, but like a barbarian; I am not ambitious of giving new graces to my language; I am a

Lombard, and from the Ligurian border into the bargain.' But the claims of the purists were most successfully

met by the express renunciation of the higher qualities of style, and the adoption of a vigorous, popular

language in their stead. Few could hope to rival Pietro Bembo who, though born in Venice, nevertheless

wrote the purest Tuscan, which to him was a foreign language, or the Neapolitan Sannazaro, who did the

same. But the essential point was that language, whether spoken or written, was held to be an object of

respect. As long as this feeling was prevalent, the fanaticism of the puriststheir linguistic congresses and

the rest of itdid little harm. Their bad influence was not felt till much later, when the original power of

Italian literature relaxed and yielded to other and far worse influences. At last it became possible for the

Accademia della Crusca to treat Italian like a dead language. But this association proved so helpless that it

could not even hinder the invasion of Gallicism in the eighteenth century.

This languageloved, tended, and trained to every usenow served as the basis of social intercourse. In

northern countries, the nobles and the princes passed their leisure either in solitude, or in hunting, fighting,

drinking, and the like; the burghers in games and bodily exercises, with a mixture of literary or festive

amusements. In Italy there existed a neutral ground, where people of every origin, if they had the needful

talent and culture, spent their time in conversation change of jest and earnest. As eating small part of such

entertainments, it not difficult to keep at a distance those who sought society for these objects. If we are to

take the writers of dialogues literally, the loftiest problems of human existence were not excluded from the

conversation of thinking men, and the production of noble thoughts was not, as was commonly the case in the

North, the work of solitude, but of society. But we must here limit ourselves to the less serious side of social

intercourseto the side which existed only for the sake of amusement.

Social Etiquette

This society, at all events at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was a matter of art; and had, and rested

on, tacit or avowed rules of good sense and propriety, which are the exact reverse of all mere etiquette. In less

polished circles, where society took the form of a permanent corporation, we meet with a system of formal


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Social Etiquette  124



Top




Page No 128


rules and a prescribed mode of entrance, as was the case with those wild sets of Florentine artists of whom

Vasari tells us that they were capable of giving representations of the best comedies of the day. In the easier

intercourse of society it was not unusual to select some distinguished lady as president, whose word was law

for the evening.

Everybody knows the introduction to Boccaccio's 'Decameron,' and looks on the presidency of Pampinea as a

graceful fiction. That it was so in this particular case is a matter of course; but the fiction was nevertheless

based on a practice which often occurred in reality. Firenzuola, who nearly two centuries later (1523) pref

aces his collection of tales in a similar manner, with express reference to Boccaccio, comes assuredly nearer

to the truth when he puts into the mouth of the queen of the society a formal speech on the mode of spending

the hours during the stay which the company proposed to make in the country. The day was to begin with a

stroll among the hills passed in philosophical talk; then followed breakfast, with music and singing, after

which came the recitation, in some cool, shady spot, of a new poem, the subject of which had been given the

night before; in the evening the whole party walked to a spring of water where they all sat down and each one

told a tale; last of all came supper and lively conversation 'of such a kind that the women might listen to it

without shame and the men might not seem to be speaking under the influence of wine.' Ban dello, in the

introductions and dedications to single novels, does not give us, it is true, such inaugural discourses as this,

since the circles before which the stories are told are represented as already formed; but he gives us to

understand in other ways how rich, how manifold, and how charming the conditions of society must have

been. Some readers may be of opinion that no good was to be got from a world which was willing to be

amused by such immoral literature. It would be juster to wonder at the secure foundations of a society which,

notwithstanding these tales, still observed the rules of order and decency, and which knew how to vary such

pastimes with serious and solid discussion. The need of noble forms of social intercourse was felt to be

stronger than all others. To convince ourselves of it, we are not obliged to take as our standard the idealized

society which Castiglione depicts as discussing the loftiest sentiments and aims of human life at the court of

Guidobaldo of Urbino, and Pietro Bembo at the castle of Asolo The society described by Bandello, with all

the frivolities which may be laid to its charge, enables us to form the best notion of the easy and polished

dignity, of the urbane kindliness, of the intellectual freedom, of the wit and the graceful dilettantism, which

distinguished these circles. A significant proof of the value of such circles lies in the fact that the women who

were the centers of them could become famous and illustrious without in any way compromising their

reputation. Among the patronesses of Bandello, for example, Isabella Gonzaga (born an Este) was talked of

unfavorably not through any fault of her own, but on account of the toofreelived young ladies who filled

her court. Giulia Gonzaga Colonna, Ippolita Sforza married to a Bentivoglio, Bianca Rangona, Cecilia

Gallerana, Camilla Scarampa, and others, were either altogether irreproachable, or their social fame threw

into the shade whatever they may have done amiss. The most famous woman of Italy, Vittoria Colonna (b.

1490, d. 1547), the friend of Castiglioni and Michelangelo, enjoyed the reputation of a saint. It is hard to give

such a picture of the unconstrained intercourse of these circles in the city, at the baths, or in the country, as

will furnish literal proof of the superiority of Italy in this respect over the rest of Europe. But let us read

Bandello, and then ask ourselves if anything of the same kind would have been possible, say, in France,

before this kind of society was there introduced by people like himself. No doubt the supreme achievements

of the human mind were then produced independently of the help of the drawingroom. Yet it would be

unjust to rate the influence of the latter on art and poetry too low, if only for the reason that society helped to

shape that which existed in no other countrya widespread interest in artistic production and an intelligent

and critical public opinion. And apart from this, society of the kind we have described was in itself a natural

flower of that life and culture which was then purely Italian, and which since then has extended to the rest of

Europe.

In Florence society was powerfully affected by literature and politics. Lorenzo the Magnificent was supreme

over his circle, not, as we might be led to believe, through the princely position which he occupied, but rather

through the wonderful tact he displayed in giving perfect freedom of action to the many and varied natures

which surrounded him. We see how gently he dealt with his great tutor Politian, and how the sovereignty of


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Social Etiquette  125



Top




Page No 129


the poet and scholar was reconciled, though not without difficulty, with the inevitable reserve prescribed by

the approaching change in the position of the house of Medici and by consideration for the sensitiveness of

the wife. In return for the treatment he received, Politian became the herald and the living symbol of

Medicean glory. Lorenzo, after the fashion of a true Medici, delighted in giving an outward and artistic

expression to his social amusements. In his brilliant improvisationthe Hawking Partyhe gives us a

humorous description of his comrades, and in the Symposium a burlesque of them, but in both cases in such a

manner that we clearly feel his capacity for more serious companionship. Of this intercourse his

correspondence and the records of his literary and philosophical conversation give ample proof. Some of the

social unions which were afterwards formed in Florence were in part political clubs, though not without a

certain poetical and philosophical character. Of this kind was the socalled Platonic Academy which met

after Lorenzo's death in the gardens of the Rucellai.

At the courts of the princes, society naturally depended on the character of the ruler. After the beginning of

the sixteenth century they became few in number, and these few soon lost their importance. Rome, however,

possessed in the unique court of Leo X a society to which the history of the world offers no parallel.

Education of the 'Cortigiano'

It was for this societyor rather for his own sakethat the 'Cortigiano,' as described to us by Castiglione,

educated himself. He was the ideal man of society, and was regarded by the civili zation of that age as its

choicest flower; and the court existed for him rather than he for the court. Indeed, such a man would have

been out of place at any court, since he himself possessed all the gifts and the bearing of an accomplished

ruler, and because his calm supremacy in all things, both outward and spiritual, implied a too independent

nature. The inner impulse which inspired him was directed, though our author does not acknowledge the fact,

not to the service of the prince, but to his own perfection. One instance will make this clear. In time of war

the courtier refuses even useful and perilous tasks, if they are not beautiful and dignified in themselves, such

as, for instance, the capture of a herd of cattle; what urges him to take part in war is not duty but 'l'onore.' The

moral relation to the prince, as described in the fourth book, is singularly free and independent. The theory of

wellbred lovemaking, set forth in the third book, is full of delicate psychological observation, which

perhaps would be more in place in a treatise on human nature generally; and the magnificent praise of ideal

love, which occurs at the end of the fourth book, and which rises to a lyrical elevation of feeling, has no

connection whatever with the special object of the work. Yet here, as in the 'Asolani' of Bembo, the culture of

the time shows itself in the delicacy with which this sentiment is represented and analyzed. It is true that

these writers are not in all cases to be taken literally; but that the discourses they give us were actually

frequent in good society, cannot be doubted, and that it was an affectation, but genuine passion, which

appeared in this dress, we shall see further on.

Among outward accomplishments, the socalled knightly exercises were expected in thorough perfection

from the courtier, and besides these much that could only exist at courts highly organized and based on

personal emulation, such as were not to be found out of Italy. Other points obviously rest on an abstract

notion of individual perfection. The courtier must be at home in all noble sports, among them running,

leaping, swimming and wrestling; he must, above all things, be a good dancer and, as a matter of course, an

accomplished rider. He must be master of several languages, at all events of Latin and Italian; he must be

familiar with literature and have some knowledge of the fine arts. In music a certain practical skill was

expected of him, which he was bound, nevertheless, to keep as secret as possible. All this is not to be taken

too seriously, except what relates to the use of arms. The mutual interaction of these gifts and

accomplishments results in the perfect man, in whom no one quality usurps the place of the rest.

So much is certain, that in the sixteenth century the Italians had all Europe for their pupils both theoretically

and practically in every noble bodily exercise and in the habits and manners of good society. Their

instructions and their illustrated books on riding, fencing, and dancing served as the model to other countries.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Education of the 'Cortigiano' 126



Top




Page No 130


Gymnastics as an art, apart both from military training and from mere amusement, was probably first taught

by Vittorino da Feltre and after his time became essential to a complete education. The important fact is that

they were taught systematically, though what exercises were most in favour, and whether they resembled

those now in use, we are unable to say. But we may infer, not only from the general character of the people,

but from positive evidence which has been left for us, that not only strength and skill, but grace of movement

was one of the main objects of physical training. It is enough to remind the reader of the great Federigo of

Urbino directing the evening games of the young people committed to his care.

The games and contests of the popular classes did not differ essentially from those which prevailed elsewhere

in Europe. In the maritime cities boatracing was among the number, and the Venetian regattas were famous

at an early period. The classical game of Italy was and is the ball; and this was probably played at the time of

the Renaissance with more zeal and brilliancy than elsewhere. But on this point no distinct evidence is

forthcoming.

Music

A few words on music will not be out of place in this part of our work. Musical composition down to the year

1500 was chiefly in the hands of the Flemish school, whose originality and artistic dexterity were greatly

admired. Side by side with this, there nevertheless existed an Italian school, which probably stood nearer to

our present taste. Half a century later came Palestrina, whose genius still works powerfully among us. We

learn among other facts that he was a great innovator; but whether he or others took the decisive part in

shaping the musical language of the modern world lies beyond the judgement of the unprofessional critic.

Leaving on one side the history of musical composition, we shall confine ourselves to the position which

music held in the social life of the day.

A fact most characteristic of the Renaissance and of Italy is the specialization of the orchestra, the search for

new instruments and modes of sound, and, in close connection with this tendency, the formation of a class of

'virtuosi,' who devoted their whole attention to particular instruments or particular branches of music.

Of the more complex instruments, which were perfected and widely diffused at a very early period, we find

not only the organ, but a corresponding string instrument, the 'gravicembalo' or 'clavicembalo.' Fragments of

these dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century have come down to our own days, adorned with

paintings from the hands of the greatest masters. Among other instruments the first place was held by the

violin, which even then conferred great celebrity on the successful player. At the court of Leo X, who, when

cardinal, had filled his house with singers and musicians, and who enjoyed the reputation of a critic and

performer, the Jew Giovan Maria del Corneto and Jacopo Sansecondo were among the most famous. The

former received from Leo the title of count and a small town; the latter has been taken to be the Apollo in the

Parnassus of Raphael. In the course of the sixteenth century, celebrities in every branch of music appeared in

abundance, and Lomazzo (1584) names the three most distinguished masters of the art of singing, of the

organ, the lute, the lyre, the 'viola da gamba,' the harp, the cithern, the horn, and the trumpet, and wishes that

their portraits might be painted on the instruments themselves.97 Such manysided comparative criticism

would have been impossible anywhere but in Italy, although the same instruments were to be found in other

countries.

The number and variety of these instruments is shown by the fact that collections of them were now made

from curiosity. In Venice, which was one of the most musical cities of Italy, there were several such

collections, and when a sufficient number of performers happened to be on the spot, a concert was at once

improvised. In one of these museums there was a large number of instruments, made after ancient pictures

and descriptions, but we are not told if anybody could play them, or how they sounded. It must not be

forgotten that such instruments were often beautifully decorated, and could be arranged in a manner pleasing

to the eye. We thus meet with them in collections of other rarities and works of art.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Music 127



Top




Page No 131


The players, apart from the professional performers, were either single amateurs, or whole orchestras of them,

organized into a corporate Academy. Many artists in other branches were at home in music, and often masters

of the art. People of position were averse to wind instruments, for the same reason which made them

distasteful to Alcibiades and Pallas Athene. In good society singing, either alone or accompanied with the

violin, was usual; but quartettes of string instruments were also common, and the 'clavicembalo' was liked on

account of its varied effects. In singing, the solo only was permitted, 'for a single voice is heard, enjoyed, and

judged far better.' In other words, as singing, notwithstanding all conventional modesty, is an exhibition of

the individual man of society, it is better that each should be seen and heard separately. The tender feelings

produced in the fair listeners are taken for granted, and elderly people are therefore recommended to abstain

from such forms of art, even though they excel in them. It was held important that the effect of the song

should be enhanced by the impression made on the sight. We hear nothing, however, of the treatment in these

circles of musical composition as an independent branch of art. On the other hand it happened sometimes that

the subject of the song was some terrible event which had befallen the singer himself.

This dilettantism, which pervaded the middle as well as the upper classes, was in Italy both more widespread

and more genuinely artistic than in any other country of Europe. Wherever we meet with a description of

social intercourse, there music and singing are always and expressly mentioned. Hundreds of portraits show

us men and women, often several together, playing or holding some musical instrument, and the angelic

concerts represented in the ecclesiastical pictures prove how familiar the painters were with the living effects

of music. We read of the luteplayer Antonio Rota, at Padua (d. 1549), who became a rich man by his

lessons, and published a handbook to the practice of the lute.

At a time when there was no opera to concentrate and monopolize musical talent, this general cultivation of

the art must have been something wonderfully varied, intelligent, and original. It is another question how

much we should find to satisfy us in these forms of music, could they now be reproduced for us.

Equality of Men and Women

To understand the higher forms of social intercourse at this period, we must keep before our minds the fact

that women stood on a footing of perfect equality with men. We must not suffer ourselves to be misled by the

sophistical and often malicious talk about the assumed inferiority of the female sex, which we meet with now

and then in the dialogues of this time, nor by such satires as the third of Ariosto, who treats woman as a

dangerous grownup child, whom a man must learn how to manage, in spite of the great gulf between them.

There is, indeed, a certain amount of truth in what he says. Just because the educated woman was on a level

with the man, that communion of mind and heart which comes from the sense of mutual dependance and

completion, could not be developed in marriage at this time, as it has been developed later in the cultivated

society of the North.

The education given to women in the upper classes was essentially the same as that given to men. The Italian,

at the time of the Renaissance, felt no scruple in putting sons and daughters alike under the same course of

literary and even philological instruction. Indeed, looking at this ancient culture as the chief treasure of life,

he was glad that his girls should have a share in it. We have seen what perfection was attained by the

daughters of princely houses in writing and speaking Latin. Many others must at least have been able to read

it, in order to follow the conversation of the day, which turned largely on classical subjects. An active interest

was taken by many in Italian poetry, in which, whether prepared or improvised, a large number of Italian

women, from the time of the Venetian Cassandra Fedele onwards (about the close of the fifteenth century),

made themselves famous. One, indeed, Vittoria Colonna, may be called immortal. If any proof were needed

of the assertion made above, it would be found in the manly tone of this poetry. Even the lovesonnets and

religious poems are so precise and definite in their character, and so far removed from the tender twilight of

sentiment, and from all the dilettantism which we commonly find in the poetry of women, that we should not

hesitate to attribute them to male authors, if we had not clear external evidence to prove the contrary.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Equality of Men and Women 128



Top




Page No 132


For, with education, the individuality of women in the upper classes was developed in the same way as that of

men. Till the time of the Reformation, the personality of women out of Italy, even of the highest rank, comes

forward but little. Exceptions like Isabella of Bavaria, Margaret of Anjou, and Isabella of Castile, are the

forced result of very unusual circumstances. In Italy, throughout the whole of the fifteenth century, the wives

of the rulers, and still more those of the Condottieri, have nearly all a distinct, recognizable personality, and

take their share of notoriety and glory. To these came gradually to be added a crowd of famous women of the

most varied kind; among them those whose distinction consisted in the fact that their beauty, disposition,

education, virtue, and piety, combined to render them harmonious human beings. There was no question of

'woman's rights' or female emancipation, simply because the thing itself was a matter of course. The educated

woman, no less than the man, strove naturally after a characteristic and complete individuality. The same

intellectual and emotional development which perfected the man, was demanded for the perfection of the

woman. Active literary world, nevertheless, was not expected from her, and if she were a poet, some

powerful utterance of feeling, rather than the confidences of the novel or the diary, was looked for. These

women had no thought of the public; their function was to influence distinguished men, and to moderate male

impulse and caprice.

The highest praise which could then be given to the great Italian women was that they had the mind and the

courage of men. We have only to observe the thoroughly manly bearing of most of the women in the heroic

poems, especially those of Boiardo and Ariosto, to convince ourselves that we have before us the ideal of the

time. The title 'virago,' which is an equivocal compliment in the present day, then implied nothing but praise.

It was borne in all its glory by Caterina Sforza, wife and afterwards widow of Girolamo Riario, whose

hereditary possession, Forli, she gallantly defended first against his murderers, and then against Cesare

Borgia. Though finally vanquished, she retained the admiration of her countrymen and the title 'prima donna

d'Italia.' This heroic vein can be detected in many of the women of the Renaissance, though none found the

same opportunity of showing their heroism to the world. In Isabella Gonzaga this type is clearly recognizable.

Women of this stamp could listen to novels like those of Bandello, without social intercourse suffering from

it. The ruling genius of society was not, as now, womanhood, or the respect for certain presuppositions,

mysteries, and susceptibilities, but the consciousness of energy, of beauty, and of a social state full of danger

and opportunity. And for this reason we find, side by side with the most measured and polished social forms,

something our age would call immodesty, forgetting that by which it was corrected and counter balanced

the powerful characters of the women who were exposed to it.

That in all the dialogues and treatises together we can find no absolute evidence on these points is only

natural, however freely the nature of love and the position and capacities of women were discussed.

What seems to have been wanting in this society were the young girls who, even when not brought up in the

monasteries, were still carefully kept away from it. It is not easy to say whether their absence was the cause

of the greater freedom of conversation, or whether they were removed on account of it.

Even the intercourse with courtesans seems to have assumed a more elevated character, reminding us of the

position of the Hetairae in classical Athens. The famous Roman courtesan Imperia was a woman of

intelligence and culture, had learned from a certain Domenico Campana the art of making sonnets, and was

not without musical accomplishments. The beautiful Isabella de Luna, of Spanish extraction, who was

reckoned amusing company, seems to have been an odd compound of a kind heart with a shockingly foul

tongue, which latter sometimes brought her into trouble. At Milan, Bandello knew the majestic Caterina di

San Celso, who played and sang and recited superbly. It is clear from all we read on the subject that the

distinguished people who visited these women, and from time to time lived with them, demanded from them

a considerable degree of intelligence and instruction, and that the famous courtesans were treated with no

slight respect and consideration. Even when relations with them were broken off, their good opinion was still

desired, which shows that departed passion had left permanent traces behind. But on the whole this


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Equality of Men and Women 129



Top




Page No 133


intellectual intercourse is not worth mentioning by the side of that sanctioned by the recognized forms of

social life, and the traces which it has left in poetry and literature are for the most part of a scandalous nature.

We may well be astonished that among the 6,800 persons of this class, who were to be found in Rome in

1490that is, before the appearance of syphilisscarcely a single woman seems to have been remarkable

for any higher gifts. Those whom we have mentioned all belong to the period which immediately followed.

The mode of life, the morals and the philosophy of the public women, who with all their sensuality and greed

were not always incapable of deeper passions, as well as the hypocrisy and devilish malice shown by some in

their later years, are best set forth by Giraldi, in the novels which form the introduction to the 'Hecatommithi.'

Pietro Aretino, in his 'Ragionamenti,' gives us rather a picture of his own depraved character than of this

unhappy class of women as they really were.

The mistresses of the princes, as has been pointed out, were sung by poets and painted by artists, and thus

have become personally familiar to their contemporaries and to posterity. But we hardly know more than the

name of Alice Perries; and of Clara Dettin, the mistress of Frederick the Victorious, and of Agnes Sorel we

have only a half legendary story. With the concubines of the Renaissance monarchs Francis I and Henry

IIthe case is different.

Domestic Life

After treating of the intercourse of society, let us glance for a moment at the domestic life of this period. We

are commonly disposed to look on the family life of the Italians at this time as hopelessly ruined by the

national immorality, and this side of the question will be more fully discussed in the sequel. For the moment

we must content ourselves with pointing out that conjugal infidelity has by no means so disastrous an

influence on family life in Italy as in the North, so long at least as certain limits are not overstepped.

The domestic life of the Middle Ages was a product of popular morals, or if we prefer to put it otherwise, a

result of the inborn tendencies of national life, modified by the varied circumstances which affected them.

Chivalry at the time of its splendor left domestic economy untouched. The knight wandered from court to

court, and from one battlefield to another. His homage was given systematically to some other woman than

his own wife, and things went how they might at home in the castle. The spirit of the Renaissance first

brought order into domestic life, treating it as a work of deliberate contrivance. Intelligent economical views,

and a rational style of domestic architecture served to promote this end. But the chief cause of the change was

the thoughtful study of all questions relating to social intercourse, to education, to domestic service and

organization.

The most precious document on this subject is the treatise on the management of the home by Agnolo

Pandolfini (actually written by L. B. Alberti, d. 1472). He represents a father speaking to his grownup sons,

and initiating them into his method of administration. We are introduced into a large and wealthy household,

which, if governed with moderation and reasonable economy, promises happiness and prosperity for

generations to come. A considerable landed estate, whose produce furnishes the table of the house, and serves

as the basis of the family fortune, is combined with some industrial pursuit, such as the weaving of wool or

silk. The dwelling is solid and the food good. All that has to do with the plan and arrangement of the house is

great, durable and costly, but the daily life within it is as simple as possible. All other expenses, from the

largest in which the family honour is at stake, down to the pocketmoney of the younger sons, stand to one

another in a rational, not a conventional relation. Nothing is considered of so much importance as education,

which the head of the house gives not only to the children, but to the whole household. He first develops his

wife from a shy girl, brought up in careful seclusion, to the true woman of the house, capable of commanding

and guiding the servants. The sons are brought up without any undue severity, carefully watched and

counselled, and controlled 'rather by authority than by force.' And finally the servants are chosen and treated

on such principles that they gladly and faithfully hold by the family.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Domestic Life 130



Top




Page No 134


One feature of that book must be referred to, which is by no means peculiar to it, but which it treats with

special warmth the love of the educated Italian for country life. In northern countries the nobles lived in

the country in their castles, and the monks of the higher orders in their wellguarded monasteries, while the

wealthiest burghers dwelt from one year's end to another in the cities. But in Italy, so far as the

neighbourhood of certain towns at all events was concerned, the security of life and property was so great,

and the passion for a country residence was so strong, that men were willing to risk a loss in time of war.

Thus arose the villa, the countryhouse of the wellto do citizen. This precious inheritance of the old

Roman world was thus revived, as soon as the wealth and culture of the people were sufficiently advanced.

Pandolfini finds at his villa a peace and happiness, for an account of which the reader must hear him speak

himself. The economical side of the matter is that one and the same property must, if possible, contain

everything corn, wine, oil, pastureland and woods, and that in such cases the property was paid for well,

since nothing needed then to be got from the market. But the higher enjoyment derived from the villa is

shown by some words of the introduction: 'Round about Florence lie many villas in a transparent atmosphere,

amid cheerful scenery, and with a splendid view; there is little fog and no injurious winds; all is good, and the

water pure and healthy. Of the numerous buildings many are like palaces, many like castles costly and

beautiful to behold.' He is speaking of those unrivalled villas, of which the greater number were sacrificed,

though vainly, by the Florentines themselves in the defence of their city in 1529.

In these villas, as in those on the Brenta, on the Lombard hills, at Posilippo and on the Vomero, social life

assumes a freer and more rural character than in the palaces within the city. We meet with charming

descriptions of the intercourse of the guests, the huntingparties, and all the openair pursuits and

amusements. But the noblest achievements of poetry and thought are sometimes also dated from these scenes

of rural peace.

Festivals

It is by no arbitrary choice that in discussing the social life of this period, we are led to treat of the

processions and shows which formed part of the popular festivals. The artistic power of which the Italians of

the Renaissance gave proof on such occasions, was attained only by means of that free intercourse of all

classes which formed the basis of Italian society. In Northern Europe the monasteries, the courts, and the

burghers had their special feasts and shows as in Italy; but in the one case the form and substance of these

displays differed according to the class which took part in them, in the other an art amid culture common to

the whole nation stamped them with both a higher and a more popular character. The decorative architecture,

which served to aid in these festivals, deserves a chapter to itself in the history of art, although our

imagination can only form a picture of it from the descriptions which have been left to us. We are here more

especially concerned with the festival as a higher phase in the life of the people, in which its religious, moral,

and poetical ideas took visible shape. The Italian festivals in their best form mark the point of transition from

real life into the world of art.

The two chief forms of festal display were originally here, as elsewhere in the West, the Mystery, or the

dramatization of sacred history and legend, and the Procession, the motive and character of which was also

purely ecclesiastical.

The performances of the Mysteries in Italy were from the first more frequent and splendid than elsewhere,

and were most favorably affected by the progress of poetry and of the other arts. In the course of time not

only did the farce and the secular drama branch off from the Mystery, as in other countries of Europe, but the

pantomime also, with its accompaniments of singing and dancing, the effect of which depended on the

richness and beauty of the spectacle.

The Procession, in the broad, level, and wellpaved streets of the Italian cities, was soon developed into the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Festivals 131



Top




Page No 135


'Trionfo,' or train of masked figures on foot and in chariots, the ecclesiastical character of which gradually

gave way to the secular. The pro cessions at the Carnival and at the feast of Corpus Christi were alike in the

pomp and brilliancy with which they were conducted, and set the pattern afterwards followed by the royal or

princely progresses. Other nations were willing to spend vast sums of money on these shows, but in Italy

alone do we find an artistic method of treatment which arranged the processions as a harmonious and

significative whole.

What is left of these festivals is but a poor remnant of what once existed. Both religious and secular displays

of this kind have abandoned the dramatic elementthe costumespartly from dread of ridicule, and partly

because the cultivated classes, which formerly gave their whole energies to these things, have for several

reasons lost their interest in them. Even at the Carnival, the great processions of masks are out of fashion.

What still remains, such as the costumes adopted in imitation of certain religious confraternities, or even the

brilliant festival of Santa Rosalia at Palermo, shows clearly how far the higher culture of the country has

withdrawn from such interests.

The festivals did not reach their full development till after the decision victory of the modern spirit in the

fifteenth century, unless perhaps Florence was here, as in other things, in advance of the rest of Italy. In

Florence, the several quarters of the city were, in early times, organized with a view to such exhibitions,

which demanded no small expenditure of artistic effort. Of this kind was the representation of Hell, with a

scaffold and boats in the Arno, on the 1st of May, 1304, when the Ponte alla Carraia broke down under the

weight of the spectators. That at a later time the Florentines used to travel through Italy as directors of

festivals (festaiuoli), shows that the art was early perfected at home.

In setting forth the chief points of superiority in the Italian festivals over those of other countries, the first that

we shall have to remark is the developed sense of individual character istics, in other words, the capacity to

invent a given mask, and to act the part with dramatic propriety. Painters and sculptors not merely did their

part towards the decoration of the place where the festival was held, but helped in getting up the characters

themselves, and prescribed the dress, the paints, and the other ornaments to be used. The second fact to be

pointed out is the universal familiarity of the people with the poetical basis of the show. The Mysteries,

indeed, were equally well understood all over Europe, since the biblical story and the legends of the saints

were the common property of Christendom; but in all other respects the advantage was on the side of Italy.

For the recitations, whether of religious or secular heroes, she possessed a lyrical poetry so rich and

harmonious that none could resist its charm. The majority, too, of the spectatorsat least in the

citiesunderstood the meaning of mythological figures, and could guess without much difficulty at the

allegorical and historical, which were drawn from sources familiar to the mass of Italians.

This point needs to be more fully discussed. The Middle Ages were essentially the ages of allegory. Theology

and philosophy treated their categories as independent beings, and poetry and art had but little to add, in order

to give them personality. Here all the countries of the West were on the same level.

Their world of ideas was rich enough in types and figures, but when these were put into concrete shape, the

costume and attributes were likely to be unintelligible and unsuited to the popular taste. This, even in Italy,

was often the case, and not only so during the whole period of the Renaissance, but down to a still later time.

To produce the confusion, it was enough if a predicate of the allegorical figures was wrongly translated by an

attribute. Even Dante is not wholly free from such errors, and, indeed, he prides himself on the obscurity of

his allegories in general. Petrarch, in his 'Trionfi,' attempts to give clear, if short, descriptions of at all events

the figures of Love, of Chastity, of Death, and of Fame. Others again load their allegories with inappropriate

attributes. In the Satires of Vinciguerra, for example, Envy is depicted with rough, iron teeth, Gluttony as

biting its own lips, and with a shock of tangled hair, the latter probably to show its indifference to all that is

not meat and drink. We cannot here discuss the bad influence of these misunderstandings on the plastic arts.

They, like poetry, might think themselves fortunate if allegory could be expressed by a mythological


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Festivals 132



Top




Page No 136


figureby a figure which antiquity saved from absurdityif Mars might stand for war, and Diana for the

love of the chase.

Nevertheless art and poetry had better allegories than these to offer, and we may assume with regard to such

figures of this kind as appeared in the Italian festivals, that the public required them to be clearly and vividly

characteristic, since its previous training had fitted it to be a competent critic. Elsewhere, particularly at the

Burgundian court, the most inexpressive figures, and even mere symbols, were allowed to pass, since to

understand, or to seem to understand them, was a part of aristocratic breeding. On the occasion of the famous

'Oath of the Pheasant' in the year 1454, the beautiful young horsewoman, who appears as 'Queen of Pleasure,'

is the only pleasing allegory. The huge epergnes, with automatic or even living figures within them, are either

mere curiosities or are intended to convey some clumsy moral lesson. A naked female statue guarding a live

lion was supposed to represent Constantinople and its future savior, the Duke of Burgundy. The rest, with the

exception of a Pantomime Jason in Colchisseems either too recondite to be understood or to have no

sense at all. Oliver de la Marche, to whom we owe the description of the scene (Memoires, ch. 29), appeared

costumed as 'The Church,' in a tower on the back of an elephant, and sang a long elegy on the victory of the

unbelievers.

But although the allegorical element in the poetry, the art, and the festivals of Italy is superior both in good

taste and in unity of conception to what we find in other countries, yet it is not in these qualities that it is most

characteristic and unique. The decisive point of superiority lay rather in the fact that, besides the

personifications of abstract qualities, historical rep resentatives of them were introduced in great

numberthat both poetry and plastic art were accustomed to represent famous men and women. The 'Divine

Comedy,' the 'Trionfi' of Petrarch, the 'Amorosa Visione' of Boccaccioall of them works constructed on

this principleand the great diffusion of culture which took place under the influence of antiquity, had made

the nation familiar with this historical element. These figures now appeared at festivals, either individualized,

as definite masks, or in groups, as characteristic attendants on some leading allegorical figure. The art of

grouping and composition was thus learnt in Italy at a time when the most splendid exhibitions in other

countries were made up of unintelligible symbolism or unmeaning puerilities.

Let us begin with that kind of festival which is perhaps the oldest of allthe Mysteries. They resembled in

their main features those performed in the rest of Europe. In the public squares, in the churches and in the

cloisters, extensive scaffolds were constructed, the upper story of which served as a Paradise to open and shut

at will, and the groundfloor often as 8 Hell, while between the two lay the stage properly so called,

representing the scene of all the earthly events of the drama In Italy, as elsewhere, the biblical or legendary

play often began with an introductory dialogue between Apostles, Prophets, Sibyls, Virtues, and Fathers of

the Church, and sometimes ended with a dance. As a matter of course the halfcomic 'Intermezzi' of

secondary characters were not wanting in Italy, yet this feature was hardly so broadly marked as in northern

countries. The artificial means by which figures were made to rise and float in the airone of the chief

delights of these representationswere probably much better understood in Italy than elsewhere; and at

Florence in the fourteenth century the hitches in these performances were a stock subject of ridicule. Soon

afterwards Brunellesco invented for the Feast of the Annunciation in the Piazza San Felice a marvelous ap

paratus consisting of a heavenly globe surrounded by two circles of angels, out of which Gabriel flew down

in a machine shaped like an almond. Cecca, too, devised mechanisms for such displays. The spiritual

corporations or the quarters of the city which undertook the charge and in part the performance of these plays

spared, at all events in the larger towns, no trouble and expense to render them as perfect and artistic as

possible. The same was no doubt the case at the great court festivals, when Mysteries were acted as well as

pantomimes and secular dramas. The court of Pietro Riario and that of Ferrara were assuredly not wanting in

all that human invention could produce. When we picture to ourselves the theatrical talent and the splendid

costumes of the actors, the scenes constructed in the style of the architecture of the period, and hung with

garlands and tapestry, and in the background the noble buildings of an Italian piazza, or the slender columns

of some great courtyard or cloister, the effect is one of great brilliance. But just as the secular drama suffered


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Festivals 133



Top




Page No 137


from this passion for display, so the higher poetical development of the Mystery was arrested by the same

cause. In the texts which are left we find for the most part the poorest dramatic groundwork, relieved now and

then by a fine lyrical or rhetorical passage, but no trace of the grand symbolic enthusiasm which distinguishes

the 'Autos Sacramentales' of Calderon.

In the smaller towns, where the scenic display was less, the effect of these spiritual plays on the character of

the spectators may have been greater. We read that one of the great preachers of repentance of whom more

will be said later on, Roberto da Lecce, closed his Lenten sermons during the plague of 1448, at Perugia, with

a representation of the Passion. The piece followed the New Testament closely. The actors were few, but the

whole people wept aloud. It is true that on such occasions emotional stimulants were resorted to which were

borrowed from the crudest realism. We are reminded of the pictures of Matteo da Siena, or of the groups of

clayfigures by Guido Mazzoni, when we read that the actor who took the part of Christ appeared covered

with welts and apparently sweating blood, and even bleeding from a wound in the side.

The special occasions on which these mysteries were performed, apart from the great festivals of the Church,

from princely weddings, and the like, were of various kinds. When, for example, St. Bernardino of Siena was

canonized by the Pope (1450), a sort of dramatic imitation of the ceremony (rappresentazione) took place,

probably on the great square of his native city, and for two days there was feasting with meat and drink for all

comers. We are told that a learned monk celebrated his promotion to the degree of Doctor of Theology by

giving a representation of the legend about the patron saint of the city. Charles VIII had scarcely entered Italy

before he was welcomed at Turin by the widowed Duchess Bianca of Savoy with a sort of halfreligious

pantomime, in which a pastoral scene first symbolized the Law of Nature, and then a procession of patriarchs

the Law of Grace. Afterwards followed the story of Lancelot of the lake, and that 'of Athens.' And no sooner

had the King reached Chieri than he was received with another pantomime, in which a woman in childbed

was shown surrounded by distinguished visitors.

If any church festival was held by universal consent to call for exceptional efforts, it was the feast of Corpus

Christi, which in Spain gave rise to a special class of poetry. We possess a splendid description of the manner

in which that feast was celebrated at Viterbo by Pius II in 1462. The procession itself, which advanced from a

vast and gorgeous tent in front of San Francesco along the main street to the Cathedral, was the least part of

the ceremony. The cardinals and wealthy prelates had divided the whole distance into parts, over which they

severally presided, and which they decorated with curtains, tapestry, and garlands. Each of them had also

erected a stage of his own, on which, as the procession passed by, short historical and allegorical scenes were

represented. It is not clear from the account whether all the characters were living beings or some merely

draped figures; the expense was certainly very great. There was a suffering Christ amid singing cherubs, the

Last Supper with a figure of St. Thomas Aquinas, the combat between the Archangel Michael and the devils,

fountains of wine and orchestras of angels, the grave of Christ with all the scene of the Resurrection, and

finally, on the square before the Cathedral, the tomb of the Virgin. It opened after High Ma s and

Benediction, and the Mother of God ascended singing to Paradise, where she was crowned by her Son, and

led into the presence of the Eternal Father.

Among these representations in the public street, that given by the Cardinal ViceChancellor Roderigo

Borgia, afterwards Pope Alexander VI, was remarkable for its splendor and obscure symbolism. It offers an

early instance of the fondness for salvos of artillery which was characteristic of the house of Borgia.

The account is briefer which Pius II gives us of the procession held the same year in Rome on the arrival of

the skull of St. Andrew from Greece. There, too, Roderigo Borgia distinguished himself by his magnificence;

but this festival has a more secular character than the other, as, besides the customary choirs of angels, other

masks were exhibited, as well as 'strong men,' who seem to have performed various feats of muscular

prowess.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Festivals 134



Top




Page No 138


Such representations as were wholly or chiefly secular in their character were arranged, especially at the more

important princely courts, mainly with a view to splendid and striking scenic effects. The subjects were

mythological or allegorical, and the interpretation commonly lay on the surface. Extravagances, indeed, were

not wanting gigantic animals from which a crowd of masked figures suddenly emerged, as at Siena in the

year 1465, when at a public reception a ballet of twelve persons came out of a golden wolf; living table

ornaments, not always, however, showing the tasteless exaggeration of the Burgundian Court and the like.

Most of them showed some artistic or poetical feeling. The mixture of pantomime and drama at the Court of

Ferrara has been already referred to in the treating of poetry. The entertainments given in 1473 by the

Cardinal Pietro Riario at Rome when Leonora of Aragon, the destined bride of Prince Hercules of Ferrara,

was passing through the city, were famous far beyond the limits of Italy. The plays acted were mysteries on

some ecclesiastical subject, the pantomimes, on the contrary, were mythological. There were represented

Orpheus with the beasts, Perseus and Andromeda, Ceres drawn by dragons, Bacchus and Ariadne by

panthers, and finally the education of Achilles. Then followed a ballet of the famous lovers of ancient times,

with a troop of nymphs, which was interrupted by an attack of predatory centaurs, who in their turn were

vanquished and put to flight by Hercules. The fact, in itself a trifle, may be mentioned as characteristic of the

taste of the time, that the human beings who at all festivals appeared as statues in niches or on pillars and

triumphal arches, and then showed themselves to be alive by singing or speaking, wore their natural

complexion and a natural costume, and thus the sense of incongruity was removed; while in the house of

Riario there was exhibited a living child, gilt from head to foot, who showered water round him from a

spring.

Brilliant pantomimes of the same kind were given at Bologna, at the marriage of Annibale Bentivoglio with

Lucrezia of Este. Instead of the orchestra, choral songs were sung, while the fairest of Diana's nymphs flew

over to the Juno Pronuba, and while Venus walked with a lion which in this case was a disguised

manamong a troop of savages. The decorations were a faithful representation of a forest. At Venice, in

1491, the princesses of the house of Este were met and welcomed by the Bucentaur, and entertained by

boatraces and a splendid pantomime, called 'Meleager,' in the court of the ducal palace. At Milan Leonardo

da Vinci directed the festivals of the Duke and of some leading citizens. One of his machines, which must

have rivalled that of Brunellesco, represented the heavenly bodies with all their movements on a colossal

scale. Whenever a planet approached Isabella, the bride of the young Duke, the divinity whose name it bore

stepped forth from the globe, and sang some verses written by the courtpoet Bellincioni (1490). At another

festival (1493) the model of the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza appeared with other objects under a

triumphal arch on the square before the castle. We read in Vasari of the ingenious automata which Leonardo

invented to welcome the French kings as masters of Milan. Even in the smaller cities great efforts were

sometimes made on these occasions. When Duke Borso came in 1453 to Reggio, to receive the homage of the

city, he was met at the gate by a great machine, on which St. Prospero, the patron saint of the town, appeared

to float, shaded by a baldachin held by angels, while below him was a revolving disc with eight singing

cherubs, two of whom received from the saint the scepter and keys of the city, which they then delivered to

the Duke, while saints and angels held forth in his praise. A chariot drawn by concealed horses now

advanced, bearing an empty throne, behind which stood a figure of Justice attended by a genius. At the

corners of the chariot sat four greyheaded lawgivers, encircled by angels with banners; by its side rode

standardbearers in complete armor. It need hardly be added that the goddess and the genius did not suffer

the Duke to pass by without an address. A second car, drawn by a unicorn, bore a Caritas with a burning

torch; between the two came the classical spectacle of a car in the form of a ship, moved by men concealed

within it. The whole procession now advanced before the Duke. In front of the church of St. Pietro, a halt was

again made. The saint, attended by two angels, descended in an aureole from the facade, placed a wreath of

laurel on the head of the Duke, and then floated back to his former position. The clergy provided another

allegory of a purely religious kind. Idolatry and Faith stood on two lofty pillars, and after Faith, represented

by a beautiful girl, had uttered her welcome, the other column fell to pieces with the lay figure upon it.

Further on, Borso was met by a Caesar with seven beautiful women, who were presented to him as the

Virtues which he was exhorted to pursue. At last the Cathedral was reached, but after the service the Duke


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Festivals 135



Top




Page No 139


again took his seat on a lofty golden throne, and a second time received the homage of some of the masks

already mentioned. To conclude all, three angels flew down from an adjacent building, and, amid songs of

joy, delivered to him palm branches, as symbols of peace.

Let us now give a glance at those festivals the chief feature of which was the procession itself.

There is no doubt that from an early period of the Middle Ages the religious processions gave rise to the use

of masks. Little angels accompanied the sacrament or the sacred pictures and relics on their way through the

streets; or characters in the Passionsuch as Christ with the cross, the thieves and the soldiers, or the faithful

women were represented for public edification. But the great feasts of the Church were from an early time

accompanied by a civic procession, and the _naivete _of the Middle Ages found nothing unfitting in the

many secular elements which it contained. We may mention especially the naval car _(carrus navalis),

_which had been inherited from pagan times, and which, as an instance already quoted shows, was admissible

at festivals of very various kinds, and is associated with one of them in particular the Carnival. Such ships,

decorated with all possible splendor, delighted the eyes of spectators long after the original meaning of them

was forgotten. When Isabella of England met her bridegroom, the Emperor Frederick II, at Cologne, she was

met by a number of such chariots, drawn by invisible horses, and filled with a crowd of priests who

welcomed her with music and singing.

But the religious processions were not only mingled with secular accessories of all kinds, but were often

replaced by processions of clerical masks. Their origin is perhaps to be found in the parties of actors who

wound their way through the streets of the city to the place where they were about to act the mystery; but it is

possible that at an early per;od the clerical procession may have constituted itself as a distinct species. Dante

described the 'Trionfo' of Beatrice, with the twentyfour Elders of the Apocalypse, with the four mystical

Beasts, with the three Christian and four Cardinal Virtues, and with Saint Luke, Saint Paul, and other

Apostles, in a way which almost forces us to conclude that such processions actually occurred before his

time. We are chiefly led to this conclusion by the chariot in which Beatrice drives, and which in the

miraculous forest of the vision would have been unnecessary or rather out of place. It is possible, on the other

hand, that Dante looked on the chariot as a symbol of victory and triumph, and that his poem rather served to

give rise to these processions, the form of which was borrowed from the triumph of the Roman Emperors.

However this may be, poetry and theology continued to make free use of the symbol. Savonarola in his

'Triumph of the Cross' represents Christ on a Chariot of Victory, above his head the shining sphere of the

Trinity, in his left hand the Cross, in his right the Old and New Testaments; below him the Virgin Mary; on

both sides the Martyrs and Doctors of the Church with open books; behind him all the multitude of the saved;

and in the distance the countless host of his enemiesemperors, princes, philosophers, hereticsall

vanquished, their idols broken, and their books burned. A great picture of Titian, which is known only as a

woodcut, has a good deal in common with this description. The ninth and tenth of Sabellico's thirteen Elegies

on the Mother of God contain a minute account of her triumph, richly adorned with allegories, and especially

interesting from that matteroffact air which also characterizes the realistic painting of the fifteenth century.

Nevertheless, the secular 'Trionfi' were far more frequent than the religious. They were modelled on the

procession of the Roman Imperator, as it was known from the old reliefs and the writings of ancient authors.

The historical conceptions then prevalent in Italy, with which these shows were closely connected, have

already been discussed.

We now and then read of the actual triumphal entrance of a victorious general, which was organized as far as

possible on the ancient pattern, even against the will of the hero himself. Francesco Sforza had the courage

(1450) to refuse the triumphal chariot which had been prepared for his return to Milan, on the ground that

such things were monarchial superstitions. Alfonso the Great, on his entrance into Naples (1443), declined

the wreath of laurel, which Napoleon did not disdain to wear at his coronation in NotreDame. For the rest,

Alfonso's procession, which passed by a breach in the wall through the city to the cathedral, was a strange


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Festivals 136



Top




Page No 140


mixture of antique, allegorical, and purely comic elements. The car, drawn by four white horses, on which he

sat enthroned, was lofty and covered with gilding; twenty patricians carried the poles of the canopy of cloth

of gold which shaded his head. The part of the procession which the Florentines then present in Naples had

undertaken was composed of elegant young cavaliers, skillfully brandishing their lances, of a chariot with the

figure of Fortune, and of seven Virtues on horseback. The goddess herself, in accordance with the inexorable

logic of allegory to which even the painters at that time conformed, wore hair only on the front part of her

head, while the back part was bald, and the genius who sat on the lower steps of the car, and who symbolized

the fugitive character of fortune, had his feet immersed in a basin of water Then followed, equipped by the

same Florentines, a troop of horsemen in the costumes of various nations, dressed as foreign princes and

nobles, and then, crowned with laurel and standing above a revolving globe, a Julius Caesar, who explained

to the king in Italian verse the meaning of the allegories, and then took his place in the procession. Sixty

Florentines, all in purple and scarlet, closed this splendid display of what their home could achieve. Then a

band of Catalans advanced on foot, with lay figures of horses fastened on to them before and behind, and

engaged in a mock combat with a body of Turks, as though in derision of the Florentine sentimentalism. Last

of all came a gigantic tower, the door guarded by an angel with a drawn sword; on it stood four Virtues, who

each addressed the king with a song. The rest of the show had nothing specially characteristic about it.

At the entrance of Louis XII into Milan in the year 1507 we find, besides the inevitable chariot with Virtues,

a living group representing Jupiter, Mars, and a figure of Italy caught in a net. After which came a car laden

with trophies, and so forth.

And when there were in reality no triumphs to celebrate, the poets found a compensation for themselves and

their patrons. Petrarch and Boccaccio had described the representation of every sort of fame as attendants

each of an allegorical figure; the celebrities of past ages were now made attendants of the prince. The poetess

Cleofe Gabrielli of Gubbio paid this honour to Borso of Ferrara. She gave him seven queens the seven

liberal artsas his handmaids, with whom he mounted a chariot; further, a crowd of heroes, distinguished by

names written on their foreheads; then followed all the famous poets; and after them the gods driving in their

chariots. There is, in fact, at this time simply no end to the mythological and allegorical charioteering, and the

most important work of art of Borso's timethe frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoiashows us a whole

frieze filled with these motives. Raphael, when he had to paint the Camera della Segnatura, found this mode

of artistic thought completely vulgarized and worn out. The new and final consecration which he gave to it

will remain a wonder to all ages.

The triumphal processions, strictly speaking, of victorious generals, formed the exception. But all the festive

processions, whether they celebrated any special event or were mainly held for their own sakes, assumed

more or less the character and nearly always the name of a 'Trionfo.' It is a wonder that funerals were not also

treated in the same way.

It was the practice, both at the Carnival and on other occasions, to represent the triumphs of ancient Roman

commanders, such as that of Paulus Aemilius under Lorenzo the Magnificent at Florence, and that of

Camillus on the visit of Leo X. Both were conducted by the painter Francesco Granacci. In Rome, the first

complete exhibition of this kind was the triumph of Augustus after the victory over Cleopatra, under Paul II,

where, besides the comic and mythological masks, which, as a matter of fact, were not wanting in the ancient

triumphs, all the other requisites were to be foundkings in chains, tablets with decrees of the senate and

people, a senate clothed in the ancient costume, praetors, aediles, and quaestors, four chariots filled with

singing masks, and, doubtless, cars laden with trophies. Other processions rather aimed at setting forth, in a

general way, the universal empire of ancient Rome; and in answer to the very real danger which threatened

Europe from the side of the Turks, a cavalcade of camels bearing masks representing Ottoman prisoners,

appeared before the people. Later, at the Carnival of the year 1500, Cesare Borgia, with a bold allusion to

himself, celebrated the triumph of Julius Caesar, with a procession of eleven magnificent chariots, doubtless

to the scandal of the pilgrims who had come fm the Jubilee. Two 'Trionfi,' famous for their taste and beauty,


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Festivals 137



Top




Page No 141


were given by rival companies in Florence, on the election of Leo X to the Papacy. One of them represented

the three Ages of Man, the other the Ages of the World, ingeniously set forth in five scenes of Roman history,

and in two allegories of the golden age of Saturn and of its final return. The imagination displayed in the

adornment of the chariots, when the great Florentine artists undertook the work, made the scene so

impressive that such representations became in time a permanent element in the popular life. Hitherto the

subject cities had been satisfied merely to present their symbolical giftscostly stuffs and waxcandles

on the day when they annually did homage. The guild of merchants now built ten chariots, to which others

were afterwards to be added, not so much to carry as to symbolize the tribute, and Andrea del Sarto, who

painted some of them, no doubt did his work to perfection. These cars, whether used to hold tribute or

trophies, now formed part of all such celebrations, even when there was not much money to be laid out. The

Sienese announced, in 1477, the alliance between Ferrante and Sixtus IV, with which they themselves were

associated, by driving a chariot round the city, with 'one clad as the goddess of peace standing on a hauberk

and other arms.'

At the Venetian festivals the processions, not on land but on water, were marvelous in their fantastic

splendor. The sailing of the Bucentaur to meet the Princesses of Ferrara in the year 1491 seems to have been

something belonging to fairyland. Countless vessels with garlands and hangings, filled with the richly dressed

youth of the city, moved in front; genii with attributes symbolizing the various gods, floated on machines

hung in the air; below stood others grouped as tritons and nymphs; the air was filled with music, sweet odors,

and the fluttering of embroidered banners. The Bucentaur was followed by such a crowd of boats of every

sort that for a mile all round _(octo stadia) _the water could not be seen. With regard to the rest of the

festivities, besides the pantomime mentioned above, we may notice as something new a boatrace of fifty

powerful girls. In the sixteenth century the nobility were divided into corporations with a view to these

festivals, whose most noteworthy feature was some extraordinary machine placed on a ship. So, for instance,

in the year 1541, at the festival of the 'Sempiterni,' a round 'universe' floated along the Grand Canal, and a

splendid ball was given inside it. The Carnival, too, in this city was famous for its dances, processions, and

exhibitions of every kind. The Square of St. Mark was found to give space enough not only for tournaments,

but for 'Trionfi,' similar to those common on the mainland. At a festival held on the conclusion of peace, the

pious brotherhoods ('scuole') took each its part in the procession. There, among golden chandeliers with red

candles, among crowds of musicians and winged boys with golden bowls and horns of plenty, was seen a car

on which Noah and David sat together enthroned; then came Abigail, leading a camel laden with treasures,

and a second car with a group of political figures Italy sitting be tween Venice and Liguriaand on a

raised step three female symbolical figures with the arms of the allied princes. This was followed by a great

globe with the constellations, as it seems, round it. The princes themselves, or rather their bodily

representatives, appeared on other chariots with their servants and their coats of arms, if we have rightly

interpreted our author.

The Carnival, properly so called, apart from these great triumphal marches, had nowhere, perhaps, in the

fifteenth century so varied a character as in Rome. There were races of every kindof horses, asses,

buffaloes, old men, young men, Jews, and so on. Paul II entertained the people in crowds before the Palazzo

di Venezia, in which he lived. The games in the Piazza Navona, which had probably never altogether ceased

since the classical times, were remarkable for their warlike splendor. We read of a sham fight of cavalry, and

a review of all the citizens in arms. The greatest freedom existed with regard to the use of masks, which were

sometimes allowed for several months together. Sixtus IV ventured, in the most populous part of the cityat

the Campofiore and near the Banchi to make his way through crowds of masks, though he declined to

receive them as visitors in the Vatican. Under Innocent VIII, a discreditable usage, which had already

appeared among the Cardinals, attained its height. In the Carnival of 1491, they sent one another chariots full

of splendid masks, of singers, and of buffoons, chanting scandalous verses. They were accompanied by men

on horseback. Apart from the Carnival, the Romans seem to have been the first to discover the effect of a

great procession by torchlight. When Pius II came back from the Congress of Mantua in 1459, the people

waited on him with a squadron of horsemen bearing torches, who rode in shining circles before his palace.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Festivals 138



Top




Page No 142


Sixtus IV, however, thought it better to decline a nocturnal visit of the people, who proposed to wait on him

with torches and olivebranches.

But the Florentine Carnival surpassed the Roman in a certain class of processions, which have left their mark

even in literature. Among a crowd of masks on foot and on horseback appeared some huge, fantastic chariots,

and upon each an allegorical figure or group of figures with the proper accompaniments, such as Jealousy

with four spectacled faces on one head; the four temperaments with the planets belonging to them; the three

Fates; Prudence enthroned above Hope and Fear, which lay bound before her; the four Elements, Ages,

Winds, Seasons, and so on; as well as the famous chariot of Death with the coffins, which presently opened.

Sometimes we meet with a splendid scene from classical mythologyBacchus and Ariadne, Paris and

Helen, and others. Or else a chorus of figures forming some single class or category, as the beggars, the

hunters and nymphs, the lost souls who in their lifetime were hardhearted women, the hermits, the

astrologers, the vagabonds, the devils, the sellers of various kinds of wares, and even on one occasion 'il

popolo,' the people as such, who all reviled one another in their songs. The songs, which still remain and have

been collected, give the explanation of the masquerade sometimes pathetic, sometimes in a humorous, and

sometimes in an excessively indecent tone. Some of the worst in this respect are attributed to Lorenzo the

Magnificent, probably because the real author did not venture to declare himself. However this may be, we

must certainly ascribe to him the beautiful song which accompanied the masque of Bacchus and Ariadne,

whose refrain still echoes to us from the fifteenth century, like a regretful presentiment of the brief splendor

of the Renaissance itself:

'Quanto è bella giovinezza, Che si fugge tuttavia! Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: Di doman non c'è certezza.'

Part Six. MORALITY AND RELIGION

Morality and Judgement

The relation of the various peoples of the earth to the supreme interests of life, to God, virtue, and

immortality, may be investigated up to a certain point, but can never be compared to one another with

absolute strictness and certainty. The more plainly in these matters our evidence seems to speak, the more

carefully must we refrain from unqualified assumptions and rash generalizations.

This remark is especially true with regard to our judgement on questions of morality. It may be possible to

indicate many contrasts and shades of difference among different nations, but to strike the balance of the

whole is not given to human insight. The ultimate truth with respect to the character, the conscience, and the

guilt of a people remains for ever a secret; if only for the reason that its defects have another side, where they

reappear as peculiarities or even as virtues. We must leave those who find pleasure in passing sweeping

censures on whole nations, to do so as they like. The people of Europe can maltreat, but happily not judge

one another. A great nation, interwoven by its civilization, its achievements, and its fortunes with the whole

life of the modern world, can afford to ignore both its advocates and its accusers. It lives on with or without

the approval of theorists.

Accordingly, what here follows is no judgement, but rather a string of marginal notes, suggested by a study of

the Italian Renaissance extending over some years. The value to be attached to them is all the more qualified

as they mostly touch on the life of the upper classes, with respect to which we are far better informed in Italy

than in any other country in Europe at that period. But though both fame and infamy sound louder here than

elsewhere, we are not helped thereby in forming an adequate moral estimate of the people.

What eye can pierce the depths in which the character and fate of nations are determined?in which that

which is inborn and that which has been experienced combine to form a new whole and a fresh nature? in


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Part Six. MORALITY AND RELIGION 139



Top




Page No 143


which even those intellectual capacities which at first sight we should take to be most original are in fact

evolved late and slowly? Who can tell if the Italian before the thirteenth century possessed that flexible

activity and certainty in his whole beingthat play of power in shaping whatever subject he dealt with in

word or in form, which was peculiar to him later? And if no answer can be found to these questions, how can

we possibly judge of the infinite and infinitely intricate channels through which character and intellect are

incessantly pouring their influence one upon the other. A tribunal there is for each one of us, whose voice is

our conscience; but let us have done with these generalities about nations. For the people that seems to be

most sick the cure may be at hand; and one that appears to be healthy may bear within it the ripening germs

of death, which the hour of danger will bring forth from their hidingplace.

Morality and Immorality

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the civilization of the Renaissance had reached its highest

pitch, and at the same time the political ruin of the nation seemed inevitable, there were not wanting serious

thinkers who saw a connexion between this ruin and the prevalent immorality. It was not one.of those

methodistical moralists who in every age think themselves called to declaim against the wickedness of the

time, but it was Machiavelli, who, in one of his bestconsidered works, said openly: 'We Italians are

irreligious and corrupt above others.' Another man would perhaps have said, 'We are individually highly

developed; we have outgrown the limits of morality and religion which were natural to us in our undeveloped

state, and we despise outward law, because our rulers are illegitimate, and their judges and officers wicked

men.' Machiavelli adds, 'because the Church and her representatives set us the worst example.'

Shall we add also, 'because the influence exercised by antiquity was in this respect unfavorable'? The

statement can only be received with many qualifications. It may possibly be true of the humanists, especially

as regards the profligacy of their lives. Of the rest it may perhaps be said with some approach to accuracy

that, after they became familiar with antiquity, they substituted for holinessthe Christian ideal of lifethe

cult of historical greatness. We can understand, therefore, how easily they would be tempted to consider those

faults and vices to be matters of indifference, in spite of which their heroes were great. They were probably

scarcely conscious of this themselves, for if we are summoned to quote any statement of doctrine on this

subject, we are again forced to appeal to humanists like Paolo Giovio, who excuses the perjury of

Giangaleazzo Visconti, through which he was enabled to found an empire, by the example of Julius Caesar.

The great Florentine historians and statesmen never stoop to these slavish quotations, and what seems antique

in their deeds and their judgements is so because the nature of their political life necessarily fostered in them

a mode of thought which has some analogy with that of antiquity.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century found itself in the midst

of a grave moral crisis, out of which the best men saw hardly any escape.

Let us begin by saying a few words about that moral force which was then the strongest bulwark against evil.

The highly gifted man of that day thought to find it in the sentiment of honour. This is that enigmatic mixture

of conscience and egotism which often survives in the modern man after he has lost, whether by his own fault

or not, faith, love, and hope. This sense of honour is compatible with much selfishness and great vices, and

may be the victim of astonishing illusions; yet, nevertheless, all the noble elements that are left in the wreck

of a character may gather around it, and from this fountain may draw new strength. It has become, in a far

wider sense than is commonly believed, a decisive test of conduct in the minds of the cultivated Europeans of

our own day, and many of those who yet hold faithfully by religion and morality are unconsciously guided by

this feeling in the gravest decisions of their lives.

It lies without the limits of our task to show how the men of antiquity also experienced this feeling in a

peculiar form, and how, afterwards, in the Middle Ages, a special sense of honour became the mark of a

particular class. Nor can we here dispute with those who hold that conscience, rather than honour, is the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 140



Top




Page No 144


motive power. It would indeed be better and nobler if it were so; but since it must be granted that even our

worthier resolutions result from 'a conscience more or less dimmed by selfishness,' it is better to call the

mixture by its right name. It is certainly not always easy, in treating of the Italian of this period, to distinguish

this sense of honour from the passion for fame, into which, indeed, it easily passes. Yet the two sentiments

are essentially different.

There is no lack of witnesses on this subject. One who speaks plainly may here be quoted as a representative

of the rest. We read in the recently published 'Aphorisms' of Guicciardini: 'who esteems honour highly

succeeds in all that he undertakes, since he fears neither trouble, danger, nor expense; I have found it so in my

own case, and may say it and write it; vain and dead are the deeds of men which have not this as their

motive.' It is necessary to add that, from what is known of the life of the writer, he can here be only speaking

of honour and not of fame. Rabelais has put the matter more clearly than perhaps any Italian. We quote him,

indeed, unwillingly in these pages. What the great, baroque Frenchman gives us is a picture of what the

Renaissance would be without form and without beauty. But his description of an ideal state of things in the

Thelemite monastery is decisive as historical evidence. In speaking of his gentlemen and ladies of the Order

of Free Will, he tells us as follows:

'En leur reigle n'estoit que ceste clause: Fay ce que vouldras. Parce que gens liberes, bien nayz, bien

instruictz, conversans en compaignies honnestes, ont par nature ung instinct et aguillon qui tousjours les

poulse... faictz tueux, et retire de vice: lequel ilz nommoyent honneur.'

This is that same faith in the goodness of human nature which inspired the men of the second half of the

eighteenth century, and helped to prepare the way for the French Revolution. Among the Italians, too, each

man appeals to this noble instinct within him, and though with regard to the people as a wholechiefly in

consequence of the national disasters judgements of a more pessimistic sort became prevalent, the

importance of this sense of honour must still be rated highly. If the boundless development of individuality,

stronger than the will of the individual, be the work of a historical providence, not less so is the opposing

force which then manifested itself in Italy. How often, and against what passionate attacks of selfishness it

won the day, we cannot tell, and therefore no human judgement can estimate with certainty the absolute

moral value of the nation.

A force which we must constantly take into account in judging of the morality of the more highly developed

Italian of this period, is that of the imagination. It gives to his virtues and vices a peculiar color, and under its

influence his unbridled egotism shows itself in its most terrible shape.

The force of his imagination explains, for example, the fact that he was the first gambler on a large scale in

modern times. Pictures of future wealth and enjoyment rose in such lifelike colors before his eyes, that he

was ready to hazard everything to reach them. The Mohammedan nations would doubtless have anticipated

him in this respect, had not the Koran, from the beginning, set up the prohibition against gambling as a chief

safeguard of public morals, and directed the imagination of its followers to the search after buried treasures.

In Italy, the passion for play reached an intensity which often threatened or altogether broke up the existence

of the gambler. Florence had already, at the end of the fourteenth century, its Casanova a certain

Buonaccorso Pitti, who, in the course of his incessant journeys as merchant, political agent, diplomatist and

professional gambler, won and lost sums so enormous that none but princes like the Dukes of Brabant,

Bavaria, and Savoy, were able to compete with him. That great lotterybank, which was called the Court of

Rome, accustomed people to a need of excitement, which found its satisfaction in games of hazard during the

intervals between one intrigue and another. We read, for example, how Franceschetto Cibo, in two games

with the Cardinal Raffaello Riario, lost no less than 14,000 ducats, and afterwards complained to the Pope

that his opponent has cheated him. Italy has since that time been the home of the lottery.

It was to the imagination of the Italians that the peculiar character of their vengeance was due. The sense of


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 141



Top




Page No 145


justice was, indeed, one and the same throughout Europe, and any violation of it, so long as no punishment

was inflicted, must have been felt in the same manner. But other nations, though they found it no easier to

forgive, nevertheless forgot more easily, while the Italian imagination kept the picture of the wrong alive with

frightful vividness. The fact that, according to the popular morality, the avenging of blood is a dutya duty

often performed in a way to make us shuddergives to this passion a peculiar and still firmer basis. The

government and the tribunals recognize its existence and justification, and only attempt to keep it within

certain limits. Even among the peasantry, we read of Thyestean banquets and mutual assassination on the

widest scale. Let us look at an instance.

In the district of Acquapendente three boys were watching cattle, and one of them said: 'Let us find out the

way how people are hanged.' While one was sitting on the shoulders of the other, and the third, after fastening

the rope round the neck of the first, was tying it to an oak, a wolf came, and the two who were free ran away

and left the other hanging. Afterwards they found him dead, and buried him. On the Sunday his father came

to bring him bread, and one of the two confessed what had happened, and showed him the grave. The old

man then killed him with a knife, cut him up, brought away the liver, and entertained the boy's father with it

at home. After dinner, he told him whose liver it was. Hereupon began a series of reciprocal murders between

the two families, and within a month thirtysix persons were killed, women as well as men.

And such 'vendette,' handed down from father to son, and extending to friends and distant relations, were not

limited to the lower classes, but reached to the highest. The chronicles and novels of the period are full of

such instances, especially of vengeance taken for the violation of women. The classic land for these feuds

was Romagna, where the 'vendetta' was interwoven with intrigues and party divisions of every conceivable

sort. The popular legends present an awful picture of the savagery into which this brave and energetic people

had relapsed. We are told, for instance, of a nobleman at Ravenna who had got all his enemies together in a

tower, and might have burned them; instead of which he let them out, embraced them, and entertained them

sumptuously; whereupon shame drove them mad, and they conspired against him. Pious and saintly monks

exhorted unceasingly to reconciliation, but they can scarcely have done more than restrain to a certain extent

the feuds already established; their influence hardly prevents the growth of new ones. The novelists

sometimes describe to this effect of religionhow sentiments of generosity and forgiveness were suddenly

awakened, and then again paralysed by the force of what had once been done and could never be un. done.

The Pope himself was not always lucky as a peacemaker. Pope Paul II desired that the quarrel between

Antonio Caffarello and the family of Alberino should cease, and ordered Giovanni Alberino and Antonio

Caffarello to come before him bade them kiss one another, and threatened them with a fine of 2,000 ducats if

they renewed this strife, and two days after Antonio was stabbed by the same Giacomo Alberino, son of

Giovanni, who had wounded him once before; and the Pope was full of anger, and confiscated the goods of

Alberino, and destroyed his houses, and banished father and son from Rome. The oaths and ceremonies by

which reconciled enemies attempted to guard themselves against a relapse, are sometimes utterly horrible.

When the parties of the 'Nove' and the 'Popolari' met and kissed one another by twos in the cathedral at Siena

on New Year's Eve, 1494, an oath was read by which all salvation in time and eternity was denied to the

future violator of the treaty'an oath more astonishing and dreadful than had ever yet been heard.' The last

consolations of religion in the hour of death were to turn to the damnation of the man who should break it. It

is clear, however, that such a ceremony rather represents the despairing mood of the mediators than offers

any real guarantee of peace, inasmuch as the truest reconciliation is just that one which has least need of it.

This personal need of vengeance felt by the cultivated and highly placed Italian, resting on the solid basis of

an analogous popular custom, naturally displays itself under a thousand different aspects, and receives the

unqualified approval of public opinion, as reflected in the works of the novelists. All are at one on the point

that, in the case of those injuries and insults for which Italian justice offered no redress, and all the more in

the case of those against which no human law can ever adequately provide, each man is free to take the law

into his own hands. Only there must be art in the vengeance, and the satisfaction must be compounded of the

material injury and moral humiliation of the offender. A mere brutal, clumsy triumph of force was held by


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 142



Top




Page No 146


public opinion to be no satisfaction. The whole man with his sense of fame and of scorn, not only his fist,

must be victorious.

The Italian of that time shrank, it is true, from no dissimulation in order to attain his ends, but was wholly

free from hypocrisy in matters of principle. In these he attempted to deceive neither himself nor others.

Accordingly, revenge was declared with perfect frankness to be a necessity of human nature. Coolheaded

people declared that it was then most worthy of praise when it was disengaged from passion, and worked

simply from motives of expedience, 'in order that other men may learn to leave us unharmed.' Yet such

instances must have formed only a small minority in comparison with those in which passion sought an

outlet. This sort of revenge differs clearly from the avenging of blood, which has already been spoken of;

while the latter keeps more or less within the limits of retaliationthe 'ius talionis' the former necessarily

goes much further, not only requiring the sanction of the sense of justice, but craving admiration, and even

striving to get the laugh on its own side.

Here lies the reason why men were willing to wait so long for their revenge. A 'bella vendetta' demanded as a

rule a combination of circumstances for which it was necessary to wait patiently. The gradual ripening of

such opportunities is described by the novelists with heartfelt delight.

There is no need to discuss the morality of actions in which plaintiff and judge are one and the same person.

If this Italian thirst for vengeance is to be palliated at all, it must be by proving the existence of a

corresponding national virtue, namely gratitude. The same force of imagination which retains and magnifies

wrong once suffered, might be expected also to keep alive the memory of kindness received. It is not

possible, however, to prove this with regard to the nation as a whole, though traces of it may be seen in the

Italian character of today. The gratitude shown by the inferior classes for kind treatment, and the good

memory of the upper for politeness in social life, are instances of this.

This connexion between the imagination and the moral qualities of the Italian repeats itself continually. If,

nevertheless, we find more cold calculation in cases where the Northerner rather follows his impulses, the

reason is that individual development in Italy was not only more marked and earlier in point of time, but also

far more frequent. Where this is the case in other countries, the results are also analogous. We find, for

example, that the early emancipation of the young from domestic and paternal authority is common to North

America with Italy. Later on, in the more generous natures, a tie of freer affection grows up between parents

and children.

It is, in fact, a matter of extreme difficulty to judge fairly of other nations in the sphere of character and

feeling. In these respects a people may be developed highly, and yet in a manner so strange that a foreigner is

utterly unable to understand it. Perhaps all the nations of the West are in this point equally favored.

But where the imagination has exercised the most powerful and despotic influence on morals is in the illicit

intercourse of the two sexes. It is well known that prostitution was freely practiced in the Middle Ages,

before the appearance of syphilis. A discussion, however, on these questions does not belong to our present

work. What seems characteristic of Italy at this time, is that here marriage and its rights were more often and

more deliberately trampled underfoot than anywhere else. The girls of the higher classes were carefully

secluded, and of them we do not speak. All passion was directed to the married women.

Under these circumstances it is remarkable that, so far as we know, there was no diminution in the number of

marriages, and that family life by no means underwent that disorganization which a similar state of things

would have produced in the North. Men wished to live as they pleased, but by no means to renounce the

family, even when they were not sure that it was all their own. Nor did the race sink, either physically or

mentally, on this account; for that apparent intellectual decline which showed itself towards the middle of the

sixteenth century may be certainly accounted for by political and ecclesiastical causes, even if we are not to


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 143



Top




Page No 147


assume that the circle of achievements possible to the Renaissance had been completed. Notwithstanding

their profligacy, the Italians continued to be, physically and mentally, one of the healthiest and bestborn

populations in Europe, and have retained this position, with improved morals, down to our own time.

When we come to look more closely at the ethics of love at the time of the Renaissance, we are struck by a

remarkable Contrast. The novelists and comic poets give us to understand that love consists only in sensual

enjoyment, and that to win this, all means, tragic or comic, are not only permitted, but are interesting in

proportion to their audacity and unscrupulousness. But if we turn to the best of the lyric poets and writers of

dialogues, we find in them a deep and spiritual passion of the noblest kind, whose last and highest expression

is a revival of the ancient belief in an original unity of souls in the Divine Being. And both modes of feeling

were then genuine, and could coexist in the same individual. It is not exactly a matter of glory, but it is a

fact, that, in the cultivated man of modern times, this sentiment can be not merely unconsciously present in

both its highest and lowest stages, but may also manifest itself openly, and even artistically. The modern

man, like the man of antiquity, is in this respect too a microcosm, which the medieval man was not and could

not be.

To begin with the morality of the novelists. They treat chiefly, as we have said, of married women, and

consequently of adultery.

The opinion mentioned above of the equality of the two sexes is of great importance in relation to this

subject. The highly developed and cultivated woman disposes of herself with a freedom unknown in Northern

countries; and her unfaithfulness does not break up her life in the same terrible manner, so long as no outward

consequences follow from it. The husband's claim on her fidelity has not that firm foundation which it

acquires in the North through the poetry and passion of courtship and betrothal. After the briefest

acquaintance with her future husband, the young wife quits the convent or the paternal roof to enter upon a

world in which her character begins rapidly to develop. The rights of the husband are for this reason

conditional, and even the man who regards them in the light of a 'ius quaesitum' thinks only of the outward

conditions of the contract, not of the affections. The beautiful young wife of an old man sends back the

presents and letters of a youthful lover, in the firm resolve to keep her honour (onesta). 'But she rejoiced in

the love of the youth for his great excellence; and she perceived that a noble woman may love a man of merit

without loss to her honour.' But the way is short from such a distinction to a complete surrender.

The latter seems indeed as good as justified when there is unfaithfulness on the part of the husband. The

woman, conscious of her own dignity, feels this not only as a pain, but also as a humiliation and deceit, and

sets to work, often with the calmest consciousness of what she is about, to devise the vengeance which the

husband deserves. Her tact must decide as to the measure of punishment which is suited to the particular case.

The deepest wound, for example, may prepare the way for a reconciliation and a peaceful life in the future, if

only it remain secret. The novelists, who themselves undergo such experiences or invent them according to

the spirit of the age, are full of admiration when the vengeance is skillfully adapted to the particular case, in

fact, when it is a work of art. As a matter of course, the husband never at bottom recognizes this right of

retaliation, and only submits to it from fear or prudence. Where these motives are absent, where his wife's

unfaithfulness exposes him or may expose him to the derision of outsiders, the affair becomes tragical, and

not seldom ends in murder or other vengeance of a violent sort. It is characteristic of the real motive from

which these deeds arise, that not only the husbands, but the brothers and the father of the woman feel

themselves not only justified in taking vengeance, but bound to take it. Jealousy, therefore, has nothing to do

with the matter, moral reprobation but little; the real reason is the wish to spoil the triumph of others.

'Nowadays,' says Bandello, 'we see a woman poison her husband to gratify her lusts, thinking that a widow

may do whatever she desires. Another, fearing the discovery of an illicit amour, has her husband murdered by

her lover. And though fathers, brothers, and husbands arise to extirpate the shame with poison, with the

sword, and by every other means, women still continue to follow their passions, careless of their honour and

their lives.' Another time, in milder strain, he exclaims: 'Would that we were not daily forced to hear that one


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 144



Top




Page No 148


man has murdered his wife because he suspected her of infidelity; that another has killed his daughter, on

account of a secret marriage; that a third has caused his sister to be murdered, because she would not marry as

he wished! It is great cruelty that we claim the right to do whatever we list, and will not suffer women to do

the same. If they do anything which does not please us, there we are at once with cords and daggers and

poison. What folly it is of men to suppose their own and their house's honour depend on the appetite of a

woman. The tragedy in which such affairs commonly ended was so well known that the novelist looked on

the threatened gallant as a dead man, even while he went about alive and merry. The physician and

luteplayer Antonio Bologna had made a secret marriage with the widowed Duchess of Amalfi, of the house

of Aragon. Soon afterwards her brother succeeded in securing both her and her children, and murdered them

in a castle. Antonio, ignorant of their fate, and still cherishing the hope of seeing them again, was staying at

Milan, closely watched by hired assassins, and one day in the society of Ippolita Sforza sang to the lute the

story of his misfortunes. A friend of the house, Delio, 'told the story up to this point to Scipione Atellano, and

added that he would make it the subject of a novel, as he was sure that Antonio would be murdered.' The

manner in which this took place, almost under the eyes of both Delio and Atellano, is movingly described by

Bandello.

Nevertheless, the novelists habitually show a sympathy for all the ingenious, comic, and cunning features

which may happen to attend adultery. They describe with delight how the lover manages to hide himself in

the house, all the means and devices by which he communicates with his mistress, the boxes with cushions

and sweetmeats in which he can be hidden and carried out of danger. The deceived husband is described

sometimes as a fool to be laughed at, sometimes as a bloodthirsty avenger of his honour; there is no third

situation except when the woman is painted as wicked and cruel, and the husband or lover is the innocent

victim. It may be remarked, however, that narratives of the latter kind are not strictly speaking novels, but

rather warning examples taken from real life.

When in the course of the sixteenth century Italian life fell more and more under Spanish influence, the

violence of the means to which jealousy had recourse perhaps increased. But this new phase must be

distinguished from the punishment of infidelity which existed before, and which was founded in the spirit of

the Italian Renaissance itself. As the influence of Spain declined, these excesses of jealousy declined also, till

towards the close of the seventeenth century they had wholly disappeared, and their place was taken by that

indifference which regarded the 'Cicisbeo' as an indispensable figure in every household, and took no offence

at one or two contemporary lovers ('Patiti').

But who can undertake to compare the vast sum of wickedness which all these facts imply, with what

happened in other countries? Was the marriagetie, for instance, really more sacred in France during the

fifteenth century than in Italy? The 'fabliaux' and farces would lead us to doubt it, and rather incline us to

think that unfaithfulness was equally common, though its tragic consequences were less frequent, because the

individual was less developed and his claims were less consciously felt than in Italy. More evidence,

however, in favour of the Germanic peoples lies in the fact of the social freedom enjoyed among them by

girls and women, which impressed Italian travellers so pleasantly in England and in the Netherlands. And yet

we must not attach too much importance to this fact. Unfaithfulness was doubtless very frequent, and in

certain cases led to a sanguinary vengeance. We have only to remember how the northern princes of that time

dealt with their wives on the first suspicion of infidelity.

But it was not merely the sensual desire, not merely the vulgar appetite of the ordinary man, which trespassed

upon forbidden ground among the Italians of that day, but also the passion of the best and noblest; and this,

not only because the unmarried girl did not appear in society, but also because the man, in proportion to the

completeness of his own nature, felt himself most strongly attracted by the woman whom marriage had

developed. These are the men who struck the loftiest notes of lyrical poetry, and who have attempted in their

treatises and dialogues to give us an idealized image of the devouring passion 'l'amor divino.' When they

complain of the cruelty of the winged god, they are not only thinking of the coyness or hardheartedness of


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 145



Top




Page No 149


the beloved one, but also of the unlawfulness of the passion itself. They seek to raise themselves above this

painful consciousness by that spiritualization of love which found a support in the Platonic doctrine of the

soul, and of which Pietro Bembo is the most famous representative. His thoughts on this subject are set forth

by himself in the third book of the 'Asolani,' and indirectly by Castiglione, who puts in his mouth the splendid

speech with which the fourth book of the 'Cortigiano' concludes. Neither of these writers was a stoic in his

conduct, but at that time it meant something to be at once a famous and a good man, and this praise must be

accorded to both of them; their contemporaries took what these men said to be a true expression of their

feeling, and we have not the right to despise it as affectation. Those who take the trouble to study the speech

in the 'Cortigiano' will see how poor an idea of it can be given by an extract. There were then living in Italy

several distinguished women, who owed their celebrity chiefly to relations of this kind, such as Giulia

Gonzaga, Veronica da Correggio, and, above all, Vittoria Colonna. The land of profligates and scoffers

respected these women and this sort of loveand what more can be said in their favour? We cannot tell how

far vanity had to do with the matter, how far Vittoria was flattered to hear around her the sublimated

utterances of hopeless love from the most famous men in Italy. If the thing was here and there a fashion, it

was still no trifling praise for Vittoria that she, as least, never went out of fashion, and in her latest years

produced the most profound impressions. It was long before other countries had anything similar to show.

In the imagination then, which governed this people more than any other, lies one general reason why the

course of every passion was violent, and why the means used for the gratification of passion were often

criminal. There is a violence which cannot control itself because it is born of weakness; but in Italy we find

what is the corruption of powerful natures. Sometimes this corruption assumes a colossal shape, and crime

seems to acquire almost a personal existence of its own.

The restraints of which men were conscious were but few. Each individual, even among the lowest of the

people, felt himself inwardly emancipated from the control of the State and its police, whose title to respect

was illegitimate, and itself founded on violence; and no man believed any longer in the justice of the law.

When a murder was committed, the sympathies of the people, before the circumstances of the case were

known, ranged themselves instinctively on the side of the murderer. A proud, manly bearing before and at the

execution excited such admiration that the narrator often forgets to tell us for what offence the criminal was

put to death. But when we add to this inward contempt of law and to the countless grudges and enmities

which called for satisfaction, the impunity which crime enjoyed during times of political disturbance, we can

only wonder that the State and society were not utterly dissolved. Crises of this kind occurred at Naples,

during the transition from the Aragonese to the French and Spanish rule, and at Milan, on the repeated

expulsions and returns of the Sforzas; at such times those men who have never in their hearts recognized the

bonds of law and society, come forward and give free play to their instincts of murder and rapine. Let us take,

by way of example, a picture drawn from a humbler sphere.

When the Duchy of Milan was suffering from the disorders which followed the death of Galeazzo Maria

Sforza, about the year 1480, all safety came to an end in the provincial cities. This was the case in Parma,

where the Milanese Governor, terrified by threats of murder, consented to throw open the gaols and let loose

the most abandoned criminals. Burglary, the demolition of houses, public assassination and murders, were

events of everyday occurrence. At first the authors of these deeds prowled about singly, and masked; soon

large gangs of armed men went to work every night without disguise. Threatening letters, satires, and

scandalous jests circulated freely; and a sonnet in ridicule of the Government seems to have roused its

indignation far more than the frightful condition of the city. In many churches the sacred vessels with the host

were stolen, and this fact is characteristic of the temper which prompted these outrages. It is impossible to say

what would happen now in any country of the world, if the government and police ceased to act, and yet

hindered by their presence the establishment of a provisional authority; but what then occurred in Italy wears

a character of its own, through the great share which the personal hatred and revenge had in it. The

impression, indeed, which Italy at this period makes on us is, that even in quiet times great crimes were

commoner than in other countries. We may, it is true, be misled by the fact that we have far fuller details on


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 146



Top




Page No 150


such matters here than elsewhere, and that the same force of imagination, which gives a special character to

crimes actually committed, causes much to be invented which never really happened. The amount of violence

was perhaps as great elsewhere. It is hard to say for certain, whether in the year 1500 men were any safer,

whether human life was any better protected, in powerful, wealthy Germany, with its robber knights,

extortionate beggars, and daring highwaymen. But one thing is certain, that premeditated crimes, committed

professionally and for hire by third parties, occurred in Italy with great and appalling frequency.

So far as regards brigandage, Italy, especially in the more fortunate provinces, such as Tuscany, was certainly

not more, and probably less, troubled than the countries of the North. But the figures which do meet us are

characteristic of the country. It would be hard, for instance, to find elsewhere the case of a priest, gradually

driven by passion from one excess to another, till at last he came to head a band of robbers. That age offers us

this example among others. On August 12, 1495, the priest Don Niccolo de' Pelagati of Figarolo was shut up

in an iron cage outside the tower of San Giuliano at Ferrara. He had twice celebrated his first mass; the first

time he had the same day committed murder, but afterwards received absolution at Rome; he then killed four

people and married two wives, with whom he travelled about. He afterwards took part in many

assassinations, violated women, carried others away by force, plundered far and wide, and infested the

territory of Ferrara with a band of followers in uniform, extorting food and shelter by every sort of violence.

When we think of what all this implies, the mass of guilt on the head of this one man is something

tremendous. The clergy and monks had many privileges and little supervision, and among them were

doubtless plenty of murderers and other malefactorsbut hardly a second Pelagati. It is another matter,

though by no means creditable, when ruined characters sheltered themselves in the cowl in order to escape

the arm of the law, like the corsair whom Masuccio knew in a convent at Naples. What the real truth was with

regard to Pope John XXIII in this respect, is not known with certainty.

The age of the famous brigand chief did not begin till later, in the seventeenth century, when the political

strife of Guelph and Ghibelline, of Frenchman and Spaniard, no longer agitated the country. The robber then

took the place of the partisan.

In certain districts of Italy, where civilization had made little progress, the country people were disposed to

murder any stranger who fell into their hands. This was especially the case in the more remote parts of the

Kingdom of Naples, where the barbarism dated probably from the days of the Roman 'latifundia,' and when

the stranger and the enemy ('hospes' and 'hostis') were in all good faith held to be one and the same. These

people were far from being irreligious. A herdsman once appeared in great trouble at the confessional,

avowing that, while making cheese during Lent, a few drops of milk had found their way into his mouth. The

confessor, skilled in the customs of the country, discovered in the course of his examination that the penitent

and his friends were in the practice of robbing and murdering travellers, but that, through the force of habit,

this usage gave rise to no twinges of conscience within them. We have already mentioned to what a degree of

barbarism the peasants elsewhere could sink in times of political confusion.

A worse symptom than brigandage of the morality of that time was the frequency of paid assassination. In

that respect Naples was admitted to stand at the head of all the cities of Italy. 'Nothing,' says Pontano, 'is

cheaper here than human life.' But other districts could also show a terrible list of these crimes. It is hard, of

course, to classify them according to the motives by which they were prompted, since political expediency,

personal hatred, party hostility, fear, and revenge, all play into one another. It is no small honour to the

Florentines, the most highly developed people of Italy, that offenses of this kind occurred more rarely among

them than anywhere else, perhaps because there was a justice at hand for legitimate grievances which was

recognized by all, or because the higher culture of the individual gave him different views as to the right of

men to interfere with the decrees of fate. In Florence, if anywhere, men were able to feel the incalculable

consequences of a deed of blood, and to understand how uncertain the author of a socalled profitable crime

is of any true and lasting gain. After the fall of Florentine liberty, assassination, especially by hired agents,

seems to have rapidly increased, and continued till the government of Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici had


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 147



Top




Page No 151


attained such strength that the police were at last able to repress it.

Elsewhere in Italy paid crimes were probably more or less frequent in proportion to the number of powerful

and solvent buyers. Impossible as it is to make any statistical estimate of their amount, yet if only a fraction

of the deaths which public report attributed to violence were really murders, the crime must have been

terribly frequent. The worst example of all was set by princes and governments, who without the faintest

scruple reckoned murder as one of the instruments of their power. And this, without being in the same

category with Cesare Borgia. The Sforzas, the Aragonese monarchs, and, later on, the agents of Charles V

resorted to it whenever it suited their purpose. The imagination of the people at last became so accustomed to

facts of this kind that the death of any powerful man was seldom or never attributed to natural causes. There

were certainly absurd notions current with regard to the effect of various poisons. There may be some truth in

the story of that terrible white powder used by the Borgias, which did its work at the end of a definite period,

and it is possible that it was really a 'venenum atterminatum' which the Prince of Salerno handed to the

Cardinal of Aragon, with the words: 'In a few days you will die, because your father, King Ferrante, wished

to trample upon us all.' But the poisoned letter which Caterina Riario sent to Pope Alexander VI would hardly

have caused his death even if he had read it; and when Alfonso the Great was warned by his physicians not to

read in the Livy which Cosimo de' Medici had presented to him, he told them with justice not to talk like

fools. Nor can that poison with which the secretary of Piccinino wished to anoint the sedanchair of Pius II

have affected any other organ than the imagination. The proportion which mineral and vegetable poisons bore

to one another, cannot be ascertained precisely. The poison with which the painter Rosso Fiorentino

destroyed himself (1541) was evidently a powerful acid, which it would have been impossible to administer

to another person without his knowledge. The secret use of weapons, especially of the dagger, in the service

of powerful individuals, was habitual in Milan, Naples, and other cities. Indeed, among the crowds of armed

retainers who were necessary for the personal safety of the great, and who lived in idleness, it was natural that

outbreaks of this mania for blood should from time to time occur. Many a deed of horror would never have

been committed, had not the master known that he needed but to give a sign to one or other of his followers.

Among the means used for the secret destruction of others so far, that is, as the intention goeswe find

magic, practiced, however, sparingly. Where 'maleficii,' 'malie,' and so forth, are mentioned, they appear

rather as a means of heaping up additional terror on the head of some hated enemy. At the courts of France

and England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, magic, practiced with a view to the death of an

opponent, plays a far more important part than in Italy. In this country, finally, where individuality of every

sort attained its highest development, we find instances of that ideal and absolute wickedness which delights

in crimes for their own sake, and not as means to an end, or at any rate as means to ends for which our

psychology has no measure.

Among these appalling figures we may first notice certain of the 'Condottieri,' such as Braccio da Montone,

Tiberto Brandolino, and that Werner von Urslingen whose silver hauberk bore the inscription: 'The enemy of

God, of pity and of mercy.' This class of men offers us some of the earliest instances of criminals deliberately

repudiating every moral restraint. Yet we shall be more reserved in our judgement of them when we

remember that the worst part of their guiltin the estimate of those who record it lay in their defiance of

spiritual threats and penalties, and that to this fact is due that air of horror with which they are represented as

surrounded. In the case of Braccio, the hatred of the Church went so far that he was infuriated at the sight of

monks at their psalms, and had them thrown down from the top of a tower; but at the same time 'he was loyal

to his soldiers and a great general.' As a rule, the crimes of the 'Condottieri' were committed for the sake of

some definite advantage, and must be attributed to a position in which men could not fail to be demoralized.

Even their apparently gratuitous cruelty had commonly a purpose, if it were only to strike terror. The

barbarities of the House of Aragon, as we have seen, were mainly due to fear and to the desire for vengeance.

The thirst for blood on its own account, the devilish delight in destruction, is most clearly exemplified in the

case of the Spaniard Cesare Borgia, whose cruelties were certainly out of all proportion to the end which he

had in view. In Sigismondo Malatesta, tyrant of Rimini, the same disinterested love of evil may also be


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Morality and Immorality 148



Top




Page No 152


detected. It is not only the Court of Rome, but the verdict of history, which convicts him of murder, rape,

adultery, incest, sacrilege, perjury and treason, committed not once but often. The most shocking crime of

allthe unnatural attempt on his own son Roberto, who frustrated it with his drawn daggermay have been

the result not merely of moral corruption, but perhaps of some magical or astrological superstition. The same

conjecture has been made to account for the rape of the Bishop of Fano by Pierluigi Farnese of Parma, son of

Paul III.

If we now attempt to sum up the principal features in the Italian character of that time, as we know it from a

study of the life of the upper classes, we shall obtain something like the following result. The fundamental

vice of this character was at the same time a condition of its greatness, namely, excessive individualism. The

individual first inwardly casts off the authority of a State which, as a fact, is in most cases tyrannical and

illegitimate, and what he thinks and does is, rightly or wrongly, now called treason. The sight of victorious

egotism in others drives him to defend his own right by his own arm. And, while thinking to restore his

inward equilibrium, he falls, through the vengeance which he executes, into the hands of the powers of

darkness. His love, too, turns mostly for satisfaction to another individuality equally developed, namely, to

his neighbor's wife. In face of all objective facts, of laws and restraints of whatever kind, he retains the

feeling of his own sovereignty, and in each single instance forms his decision independently, according as

honour or interest, passion or calculation, revenge or renunciation, gain the upper hand in his own mind.

If therefore egotism in its wider as well as narrower sense is the root and fountain of all evil, the more highly

developed Italian was for this reason more inclined to wickedness than the members of other nations of that

time.

But this individual development did not through any fault of his own, but rather through necessity. It did not

come upon him alone, but also, and chiefly, by means of Italian culture, upon the other nations of Europe,

and has constituted since then the higher atmosphere which they breathe. In itself it is neither good nor bad,

but necessary; within it has grown up a modern standard of good and evil a sense of moral

responsibilitywhich is essentially different from that which was familiar to the Middle Ages.

But the Italian of the Renaissance had to bear the first mighty surging of a new age. Through his gifts and his

passions, he has become the most characteristic representative of all the heights and all the depths of his time.

By the side of profound corruption appeared human personalities of the noblest harmony, and an artistic

splendor which shed upon the life of man a lustre which neither antiquity nor medievalism could or would

bestow upon it.

Religion in Daily Life

The morality of a people stands in the closest connection with its consciousness of God, that is to say, with its

firmer or weaker faith in the divine government of the world, whether this faith looks on the world as

destined to happiness or to misery and speedy destruction. The infidelity then prevalent in Italy is notorious,

and whoever takes the trouble to look about for proofs, will find them by the hundred. Our present task, here

as elsewhere, is to separate and discriminate; refraining from an absolute and final verdict.

The belief in God at earlier times had its source and chief support in Christianity and the outward symbol of

Christianity, the Church. When the Church became corrupt, men ought to have drawn a distinction, and kept

their religion in spite of all. But this is more easily said than done. It is not every people which is calm

enough, or dull enough, to tolerate a lasting contradiction between a principle and its outward expression. But

history does not record a heavier responsibility than that which rests upon the decaying Church. She set up as

absolute truth, and by the most violent means, a doctrine which she had distorted to serve her own

aggrandizement. Safe in the sense of her inviolability, she abandoned herself to the most scandalous

profligacy, and, in order to maintain herself in this state, she levelled mortal blows against the conscience and


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 149



Top




Page No 153


the intellect of nations, and drove multitudes of the noblest spirits, whom she had inwardly estranged, into the

arms of unbelief and despair.

Here we are met by the question: Why did not Italy, intellectually so great, react more energetically against

the hierarchy; why did she not accomplish a reformation like that which occurred in Germany, and

accomplish it at an earlier date?

A plausible answer has been Italian mind, we are told, never of the hierarchy, while the origin given to this

question. The went further than the denial and the vigor of the German Reformation was due to its positive

religious doctrines, most of all to the doctrines of justification by faith and of the inefficacy of good works.

It is certain that these doctrines only worked upon Italy through Germany, and this not till the power of Spain

was sufficiently great to root them out without difficulty, partly by itself and partly by means of the Papacy,

and its instruments.105 Nevertheless, in the earlier religious movements of Italy, from the Mystics of the

thirteenth century down to Savonarola, there was a large amount of positive religious doctrine which, like the

very definite Christianity of the Huguenots, failed to achieve success only because circumstances were

against it. Mighty events like the Reformation elude, as respects their details, their outbreak and their

development, the deductions of the philosophers, however clearly the necessity of them as a whole may be

demonstrated. The movements of the human spirit, its sudden flashes, its expansions and its pauses, must for

ever remain a mystery to our eyes, since we can but know this or that of the forces at work in it, never all of

them together.

The feeling of the upper and middle classes in Italy with regard to the Church at the time when the

Renaissance culminated, was compounded of deep and contemptuous aversion, of acquiescence in the

outward ecclesiastical customs which entered into daily life, and of a sense of dependence on sacraments and

ceremonies. The great personal influence of religious preachers may be added as a fact characteristic of Italy.

That hostility to the hierarchy, which displays itself more especially from the time of Dante onwards in

Italian literature and history, has been fully treated by several writers. We have already said something of the

attitude of public opinion with regard to the Papacy. Those who wish for the strongest evidence which the

best authorities offer us, can find it in the famous passages of Machiavelli's 'Discorsi,' and in the unmutilated

edition of Guicciardini. Outside the Roman Curia, some respect seems to have been felt for the best men

among the bishops, and for many of the parochial clergy. On the other hand, the mere holders of benefices,

the canons and the monks were held in almost universal suspicion, and were often the objects of the most

scandalous aspersions, extending to the whole of their order.

It has been said that the monks were made the scapegoats for the whole clergy, for the reason that none but

they could be ridiculed without danger. But this is certainly incorrect. They are introduced so frequently in

the novels and comedies, because these forms of literature need fixed and wellknown types where the

imagination of the reader can easily fill up an outline. Besides which, the novelists do not as a fact spare the

secular clergy. In the third place, we have abundant proof in the rest of Italian literature that men could speak

boldly enough about the Papacy and the Court of Rome. In works of imagination we cannot expect to find

criticism of this kind. Fourthly, the monks, when attacked, were sometimes able to take a terrible vengeance.

It is nevertheless true that the monks were the most unpopular class of all, and that they were reckoned a

living proof of the worthlessness of conventual life, of the whole ecclesiastical organization, of the system of

dogma, and of religion altogether, according as men pleased, rightly or wrongly, to draw their conclusions.

We may also assume that Italy retained a clearer recollection of the origin of the two great mendicant orders

than other countries, and had not forgotten that they were the chief agents in the reaction against what is

called the heresy of the thirteenth century, that is to say, against an unruly and vigorous movement of the

modern Italian spirit. And that spiritual police which was permanently entrusted to the Dominicans certainly


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 150



Top




Page No 154


never excited any other feeling than secret hatred and contempt.

After reading the 'Decameron' and the novels of Franco Sacchetti, we might imagine that the vocabulary of

abuse directed at the monks and nuns was exhausted. But towards the time of the Reformation this abuse

became still fiercer. To say nothing of Aretino, who in the play to his own poisonous nature, we may quote

one author as typical of the restMasuccio, in the first ten of his fifty novels. They are written in a tone of

the deepest indignation, and with the purpose to make this indignation general; and are dedicated to men in

the highest position, such as King Ferrante and Prince Alfonso of Naples. The stories are many of them old,

and some of them familiar to readers of Boccaccio. But others reject, with a frightful realism, the actual state

of things at Naples. The way in which the priests befool and plunder the people by means of spurious

miracles, added to their own scandalous lives, is enough to drive any thoughtful observer to despair. We read

of the Minorite friars who travelled to collect alms: 'They cheat, steal, and fornicate, and when they are at the

end of their resources, they set up as saints and work miracles, one displaying the cloak of St. Vincent,

another the handwriting of St. Bernardino, a third the bridle of Capistrano's donkey.' Others 'bring with them

confederates who pretend to be blind or afflicted with some mortal disease, and after touching the hem of the

monk's cowl, or the relics which he carries, are healed before the eyes of the multitude. All then shout

"Misericordia," the bells are rung, and the miracle is recorded in a solemn protocol.' Or else the monk in the

pulpit is denounced as a liar by another who stands below among the audience; the accuser is immediately

possessed by the devil, and then healed by the preacher. The whole thing was a prearranged comedy, in

which, however, the principal with his assistant made so much money that he was able to buy a bishopric

from a Cardinal, on which the two confederates lived comfortably to the end of their days. Masuccio makes

no great distinction between Franciscans and Dominicans, finding the one worth as much as the other. 'And

yet the foolish people lets itself be drawn into their hatreds and divisions, and quarrels about them in public

places, and calls itself "franceschino" or "domenichino." ' The nuns are the exclusive property of the monks.

Those of the former who have anything to do with the laity, are prosecuted and put in prison, while others are

wedded in due form to the monks, with the accompaniments of mass, a marriagecontract, and a liberal

indulgence in food and wine. 'I myself,' says the author, 'have been there not once, but several times, and seen

it all with my own eyes. The nuns afterwards bring forth pretty little monks or else use means to hinder that

result. And if anyone charges me with falsehood, let him search the nunneries well, and he will find there as

many little bores as in Bethlehem at Herod's time.' These things, and the like, are among the secrets of

monastic life. The monks are by no means too strict with one another in the confessional, and impose a

Paternoster in cases where they would refuse all absolution to a layman as if he were a heretic. 'Therefore

may the earth open and swallow up the wretches alive, with those who protect them.' In another place

Masuccio, speaking of the fact that the influence of the monks depends chiefly on the dread of another world,

utters the following remarkable wish: 'The best punishment for them would be for God to abolish Purgatory;

they would then receive no more alms, and would be forced to go back to their spades.'

If men were free to write, in the time of Ferrante, and to him, in this strain, the reason is perhaps to be found

in the fact that the king himself had been incensed by a false miracle which had been palmed off on him. An

attempt had been made to urge him to a persecution of the Jews, like that carried out in Spain and imitated by

the Popes, by producing a tablet with an inscription bearing the name of St. Cataldus, said to have been

buried at Taranto, and afterwards dug up again. When he discovered the fraud, the monks defied him. He had

also managed to detect and expose a pretended instance of fasting, as his father, Alfonso, had done before

him. The Court, certainly, was no accomplice in maintaining these blind superstitions.

We have been quoting from an author who wrote in earnest, and who by no means stands alone in his

judgement. All the Italian literature of that time is full of ridicule and invective aimed at the begging friars. It

can hardly be doubted that the Renaissance would soon have destroyed these two Orders, had it not been for

the German Reformation and the CounterReformation which intervened. Their saints and popular preachers

could hardly have saved them. It would only have been necessary to come to an understanding at a favourable

moment with a Pope like Leo X, who despised the Mendicant Orders. If the spirit of the age found them


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 151



Top




Page No 155


ridiculous or repulsive? they could no longer be anything but an embarrassment to the Church. And who can

say what fate was in store for the Papacy itself, if the Reformation had not saved it?

The influence which the Father Inquisitor of a Dominican monastery was able habitually to exercise in the

city where it was situated, was in the latter part of the fifteenth century just considerable enough to hamper

and irritate cultivated people, but not strong enough to extort any lasting fear or obedience. It was no longer

possible to punish men for their thoughts, as it once was, and those whose tongues wagged most impudently

against the clergy could easily keep clear of heretical doctrine. Except when some powerful party had an end

to serve, as in the case of Savonarola, or when there was a question of the use of magical arts, as was often

the case in the cities of North Italy, we seldom read at this time of men being burnt at the stake. The

Inquisitors were in some instances satisfied with the most superficial retraction, in others it even happened

that the victim was saved out of their hands on the way to the place of execution. In Bologna (1452) the priest

Niccolo da Verona had been publicly degraded on a wooden scaffold in front of San Domenico as a wizard

and profaner of the sacraments, and was about to be led away to the stake, when he was set free by a gang of

armed men, sent by Achille Malvezzi, a noted friend of heretics and violator of nuns. The legate, Cardinal

Bessarion, was only able to catch and hang one of the party; Malvezzi lived on in peace.

It deserves to be noticed that the higher monastic orders e.g. Benedictines, with their many

brancheswere, notwithstanding their great wealth and easy lives, far less disliked than the mendicant friars.

For ten novels which treat of 'frati' hardly one can be found in which a 'monaco' is the subject and the victim.

It was no small advantage to these orders that they were founded earlier, and not as an instrument of police,

and that they did not interfere with private life. They contained men of learning, wit, and piety, but the

average has been described by a member of it, Firenzuola, who says: 'These wellfed gentlemen with the

capacious cowls do not pass their time in barefooted journeys and in sermons, but sit in elegant slippers with

their hands crossed over their paunches, in charming cells wainscoted with cypruswood. And when they are

obliged to quit the house, they ride comfortably, as if for their amusement, on mules and sleek, quiet horses.

They do not overstrain their minds with the study of many books, for fear lest knowledge might put the pride

of Lucifer in the place of monkish simplicity.'

Those who are familiar with the literature of the time, will see that we have only brought forward what is

absolutely necessary for the understanding of the subject. That the reputation attaching to the monks and the

secular clergy must have shattered the faith of multitudes in all that is sacred is, of course, obvious.

And some of the judgements which we read are terrible; we will quote one of them in conclusion, which has

been published only lately and is but little known. The historian Guicciardini who was for many years in the

service of the Medicean Popes, says (1529) in his 'Aphorisms': 'No man is more disgusted than I am with the

ambition, the avarice and the profligacy of the priests, not only because each of these vices is hateful in itself,

but because each and all of them are most unbecoming in those who declare themselves to be men in special

relations with God, and also because they are vices so opposed to one another, that they can only coexist in

very singular natures. Nevertheless, my position at the Court of several Popes forced me to desire their

greatness for the sake of my own interest. But, had it not been for this, I should have loved Martin Luther as

myself, not in order to free myself from the laws which Christianity, as generally understood and explained,

lays upon us, but in order to see this swarm of scoundrels (questa caterva di scelerati) put back into their

proper place, so that they may be forced to live either without vices or without power.'

The same Guicciardini is of opinion that we are in the dark as to all that is supernatural, that philosophers and

theologians have nothing but nonsense to tell us about it, that miracles occur in every religion and prove the

truth of none in particular, and that all of them may be explained as unknown phenomena of nature. The faith

which moves mountains, then common among the followers of Savonarola, is mentioned by Guicciardini as a

curious fact, but without any bitter remark.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 152



Top




Page No 156


Notwithstanding this hostile public opinion, the clergy and the monks had the great advantage that the people

were used to them, and that their existence was interwoven with the everyday existence of all. This is the

advantage which every old and powerful institution possesses. Everybody had some cowled or frocked

relative, some prospect of assistance or future gain from the treasure of the Church; and in the centre of Italy

stood the Court of Rome, where men sometimes became rich in a moment. Yet it must never be forgotten that

all this did not hinder people from writing and speaking freely. The authors of the most scandalous satires

were themselves mostly monks or beneficed priests. Poggio, who wrote the_Facetiae, was a clergyman;

Francesco Berni, the satirist, held a canonry; Teofilo Folengo, the author of the_Orlandino, was a

Benedictine, certainly by no means a faithful one; Matteo Bandello, who held up his own order to ridicule,

was a Dominican, and nephew of a general of this order. Were they encouraged to write by the sense that

they ran no risks. Or did they feel an inward need to clear themselves personally from the infamy which

attached to their order? Or were they moved by that selfish pessimism which takes for its maxim, 'it will last

our time'. Perhaps all of these motives were more or less at work. In the case of Folengo, the unmistakable

influence of Lutheranism must be added.

The sense of dependence on rites and sacraments, which we have already touched upon in speaking of the

Papacy, is not surprising among that part of the people which still believed in the Church. Among those who

were more emancipated, it testifies to the strength of youthful impressions, and to the magical force of

traditional symbols. The universal desire of dying men for priestly absolution shows that the last remnant of

the dread of hell had not, even in the case of one like Vitellozzo, been altogether extinguished. It would

hardly be possible to find a more instructive instance than this. The doctrine taught by the Church of the

'character indelibilis' of the priesthood, independently of the personality of the priest, had so far borne fruit

that it was possible to loathe the individual and still desire his spiritual gifts. It is true, nevertheless, that there

were defiant natures like Galeotto of Mirandola, who died unabsolved in 1499) after living for sixteen years

under the ban of the Church. All this time the city lay under an interdict on his account, so that no mass was

celebrated and no Christian burial took place.

A splendid contrast to all this is offered by the power exercised over the nation by its great Preachers of

Repentance. Other countries of Europe were from time to time moved by the words of saintly monks, but

only superficially, in comparison with the periodical upheaval of the Italian conscience. The only man, in

fact, who produced a similar effect in Germany during the fifteenth century, was an Italian, born in the

Abruzzi, named Giovanni Capistrano. Those natures which bear within them this religious vocation and this

commanding earnestness, wore then in Northern countries an intuitive and mystical aspect. In the South they

were practical and expansive, and shared in the national gift of oratorical skill. The North produced an

'Imitation of Christ,' which worked silently, at first only within the walls of the monastery, but worked for the

ages; the South produced men who made on their fellows an immediate and mighty but passing impression.

This impression consisted chiefly in the awakening of the conscience. The sermons were moral exhortations

free from abstract notions and full of practical application, rendered more impressive by the saintly and

ascetic character of the preacher, and by the miracles which, even against his will, the inflamed imagination

of the people attributed to him. The most powerful argument used was not the threat of Hell and Purgatory,

but rather the living results of the 'maledizione,' the temporal ruin wrought on the individual by the curse

which clings to wrongdoing. The grieving of Christ and the Saints has its consequences in this life. And

only thus could men, sunk in passion and guilt, be brought to repentance and amendmentwhich was the

chief object of these sermons.

Among these preachers were Bernardino da Siena, Alberto da Sarzana, Jacopo della Marca, Giovanni

Capistrano, Roberto da Lecce and others j and finally, Girolamo Savonarola. No prejudice of the day was

stronger than that against the mendicant friar, and this they overcame. They were criticized and ridiculed by a

scornful humanism; but when they raised their voices, no one gave heed to the humanists. The thing was no

novelty, and the scoffing Florentines had already in the fourteenth century learned to caricature it whenever it


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 153



Top




Page No 157


appeared in the pulpit. But no sooner did Savonarola come forward than he carried the people so

triumphantly with him, that soon all their beloved art and culture melted away ill the furnace which he

lighted. Even the grossest profanation done to the cause by hypocritical monks, who got up an effect in the

audience by means of confederates, could not bring the thing itself into discredit. Men kept on laughing at the

ordinary monkish sermons, with their spurious miracles and manufactured relics; but did not cease to honour

the great and genuine preachers. These are a true speciality of the fifteenth century.

The Ordergenerally that of St. Francis, and more particularly the so called Observantinessent them out

according as they were wanted. This was commonly the case when there was some important public or

private feud in a city, or some alarming outbreak of violence, immorality, or disease. When once the

reputation of a preacher was made, the cities were all anxious to hear him even without any special occasion.

He went wherever his superiors sent him. A special form of this work was the preaching of a Crusade against

the Turks; but here we have to speak more particularly of the exhortations to repentance.

The order of these, when they were treated methodically, seems to have followed the customary list of the

deadly sins. The more pressing, however, the occasion is, the more directly does the preacher make for his

main point. He begins perhaps in one of the great churches of the Order, or in the cathedral. Soon the largest

piazza is too small for the crowds which throng from every side to hear him, and he himself can hardly move

without risking his life. The sermon is commonly followed by a great procession; but the first magistrates of

the city, who take him in their midst, can hardly save him from the multitude of women who throng to kiss

his hands and feet, and cut off fragments from his cowl.

The most immediate consequences which follow from the preacher's denunciations of usury, luxury, and

scandalous fashions, are the opening of the gaolswhich meant no more than the discharge of the poorest

debtorsand the burning of various instruments of luxury and amusement, whether innocent or not. Among

these are dice, cards, games of all kinds, written incantations, masks, musical instruments, song books, false

hair, and so forth. All these would then be gracefully arranged on a scaffold ('talamo'), a figure of the devil

fastened to the top, and then the whole set on fire.

Then came the turn of the more hardened consciences. Men who had long never been near the confessional,

now acknowledged their sins. Ill gotten gains were restored, and insults which might have borne fruit in

blood retracted. Orators like Bernardino of Siena entered diligently into all the details of the daily life of men,

and the moral laws which are involved in it. Few theologians nowadays would feel tempted to give a morning

sermon 'on contracts, restitutions, the public debt (monte), and the portioning of daughters,' like that which he

once delivered in the Cathedral at Florence. Imprudent speakers easily fell into the mistake of attacking

particular classes, professions, or offices, with such energy that the enraged hearers proceeded to violence

against those whom the preacher had denounced. A sermon which Bernardino once preached in Rome (1424)

had another consequence besides a bonfire of vanities on the Capitol: 'After this,' we read, 'the witch Finicella

was burnt, because by her diabolical arts she had killed many children and bewitched many other persons;

and all Rome went to see the sight.'

But the most important aim of the preacher was, as has been already said, to reconcile enemies and persuade

them to give up thoughts of vengeance. Probably this end was seldom attained till towards the close of a

course of sermons, when the tide of penitence flooded the city, and when the air resounded with the cry of the

whole people: 'Misericordia! ' Then followed those solemn embracings and treaties of peace, which even

previous bloodshed on both sides could not hinder. Banished men were recalled to the city to take part in

these sacred transactions. It appears that these 'Paci' were on the whole faithfully observed, even after the

mood which prompted them was over; and then the memory of the monk was blessed from generation to

generation. But there were sometimes terrible crises like those in the families Della Valle and Croce in Rome

(1482) where even the great Roberto da Lecce raised his voice in vain. Shortly before Holy Week he had

preached to immense crowds in the square before the Minerva. But on the night before Maundy Thursday a


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 154



Top




Page No 158


terrible combat took place in front of the Palazzo della Valle, near the Ghetto. In the morning Pope Sixtus

gave orders for its destruction, and then performed the customary ceremonies of the day. On Good Friday

Roberto preached again with a crucifix in his hand; but he and his hearers could do nothing but weep.

Violent natures, which had fallen into contradictions with themselves, often resolved to enter a convent,

under the impression made by these men. Among such were not only brigands and criminals of every sort,

but soldiers without employment. This resolve was stimulated by their admiration of the holy man, and by the

desire to copy at least his outward position.

The concluding sermon is a general benediction, summed up in the words: 'la pace sia con voi!' Throngs of

hearers accompany the preacher to the next city, and there listen for a second time to the whole course of

sermons.

The enormous influence exercised by these preachers made it important, both for the clergy and for the

government, at least not to have them as opponents; one means to this end was to permit only monks or

priests who had received at all events the lesser consecration, to enter the pulpit, so that the Order or

Corporation to which they belonged was, to some extent, responsible for them. But it was not easy to make

the rule absolute, since the Church and pulpit had long been used as a means of publicity in many ways,

judicial, educational, and others, and since even sermons were sometimes delivered by humanists and other

laymen. There existed, too, in Italy, a dubious class of persons who were neither monks nor priests, and who

yet had renounced the worldthat is to say, the numerous class of hermits who appeared from time to time

in the pulpit on their own authority, and often carried the people with them. A case of this kind occurred at

Milan in 1516 after the second French conquest, certainly at a time when public order was much disturbed. A

Tuscan hermit, Hieronymus of Siena, possibly an adherent of Savonarola, maintained his place for months

together in the pulpit of the Cathedral, denounced the hierarchy with great violence, caused a new chandelier

and a new altar to be set up in the church, worked miracles, and only abandoned the field after a long and

desperate struggle. During the decades in which the fate of Italy was decided, the spirit of prophecy was

unusually active, and nowhere where it displayed itself was it confined to any one particular class. We know

with what a tone of true prophetic defiance the hermits came forward before the sack of Rome. In default of

any eloquence of their own, these men made use of messengers with symbols of one kind or another, like the

ascetic near Siena (1496) who sent a 'little hermit,' that is a pupil, into the terrified city with a skull upon a

pole to which was attached a paper with a threatening text from the Bible.

Nor did the monks themselves scruple to attack princes, governments, the clergy, or even their own order. A

direct exhortation to overthrow a despotic house, like that uttered by Jacopo Bussolaro at Pavia in the

fourteenth century, hardly occurs again in the following period: but there is no want of courageous reproofs,

addressed even to the Pope in his own chapel, and of naive political advice given in the presence of rulers

who by no means held themselves in need of it. In the Piazza del Castello at Milan, a blind preacher from the

Incoronataconsequently an Augustinianventured in 1494 to exhort Lodovico il Moro from the pulpit:

'My lord, beware of showing the French the way, else you will repent it.' There were further prophetic monks

who, without exactly preaching political sermons, drew such appalling pictures of the future that the hearers

almost lost their senses. After the election of Leo X, in the year 1513 a whole association of these men,

twelve Franciscan monks in all, journeyed through the various districts of Italy, of which one or other was

assigned to each preacher. The one who appeared in Florence, fra Francesco da Montepulcian, struck terror

into the whole people. The alarm was not diminished by the exaggerated reports of his prophecies which

reached those who were too far off to hear him. After one of his sermons he suddenly died 'of pain in the

chest.' The people thronged in such numbers to kiss the feet of the corpse that it had to be secretly buried in

the night. But the newly awakened spirit of prophecy, which seized upon even women and peasants, could

not be controlled without great difficulty. 'In order to restore to the people their cheerful humour, the

MediciGiuliano, Leo's brother, and Lorenzogave on St. John's Day, 1514, those splendid festivals,

tournaments, processions, and huntingparties, which were attended by many distinguished persons from


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 155



Top




Page No 159


Rome, and among them, though disguised, no less than six cardinals.'

But the greatest of the prophets and apostles had already been burnt in Florence in the year 1498Fra

Girolamo Savonarola of Ferrara. We must content ourselves with saying a few words respecting him.

The instrument by means of which he transformed and ruled the city of Florence (14948) was his eloquence.

Of this the meagre reports that are left to us, which were taken down mostly on the spot, give us evidently a

very imperfect notion. It was not that he possessed any striking outward advantages, for voice, accent, and

rhetorical skill constituted precisely his weakest side; and those who required the preacher to be a stylist,

went to his rival Fra Mariano da Genazzano. The eloquence of Savonarola was the expression of a lofty and

commanding personality, the like of which was not seen again till the time of Luther. He himself held his

own influence to be the result of a divine illumination, and could therefore, without presumption, assign a

very high place to the office of the preacher, who, in the great hierarchy of spirits, occupies, according to

him, the next place below the angels.

This man, whose nature seemed made of fire, worked another and greater miracle than any of his oratorical

triumphs. His own Dominican monastery of San Marco, and then all the Dominican monasteries of Tuscany,

became likeminded with himself, and undertook voluntarily the work of inward reform. When we reflect

what the monasteries then were, and what measureless difficulty attends the least change where monks are

concerned, we are doubly astonished at so complete a revolution. While the reform was still in progress large

numbers of Savonarola's followers entered the Order, and thereby greatly facilitated his plans. Sons of the

first houses in Florence entered San Marco as novices.

This reform of the Order in a particular province was the first step to a national Church, in which, had the

reformer himself lived longer, it must infallibly have ended. Savonarola, indeed, desired the regeneration of

the whole Church) and near the end of his career sent pressing exhortations to the great potentates urging

them to call together a Council. But in Tuscany his Order and party were the only organs of his spiritthe

salt of the earthwhile the neighbouring provinces remained in their old condition. Fancy and asceticism

tended more and more to produce in him a state of mind to which Florence appeared as the scene of the

kingdom of God upon earth.

The prophecies, whose partial fulfilment conferred on Savonarola a supernatural credit, were the means by

which the ever active Italian imagination seized control of the soundest and most cautious natures. At first the

Franciscans of the Osservanza, trusting in the reputation which had been bequeathed to them by St.

Bernardino of Siena, fancied that they could compete with the great Dominican. They put one of their own

men into the Cathedral pulpit, and outbid the Jeremiads of Savonarola by still more terrible warnings, till

Piero de' Medici, who then still ruled over Florence, forced them both to be silent. Soon after, when Charles

XII came to Italy and the Medici were expelled, as Savonarola had clearly foretold, he alone was believed in.

It must be frankly confessed that he never judged his own premonitions and visions critically, as he did those

of others. In the funeral oration on Pico della Mirandola, he deals somewhat harshly with his dead friend.

Since Pico, notwithstanding an inner voice which came from God, would not enter the Order, he had himself

prayed to God to chasten him for his disobedience. He certainly had not desired his death, and alms and

prayers had obtained the favour that Pico's soul was safe in Purgatory. With regard to a comforting vision

which Pico had upon his sickbed, in which the Virgin appeared and promised him that he should not die,

Savonarola confessed that he had long regarded it as a deceit of the I)evil, till it was revealed to him that the

Madonna meant the second and eternal death. If these things and the like are proofs of presumption, it must

be admitted that this great soul at all events paid a bitter penalty for his fault. In his last days Savonarola

seems to have recognized the vanity of his visions and prophecies. And yet enough inward peace was left to

him to enable him to meet death like a Christian. His partisans held to his doctrine and predictions for thirty

years longer.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 156



Top




Page No 160


He only undertook the reorganization of the State for the reason that otherwise his enemies would have got

the government into their own hands. It is unfair to judge him by the semidemocratic constitution of the

beginning of the year 1495, which was neither better nor worse than other Florentine constitutions.

He was at bottom the most unsuitable man who could be found for such a work. His idea was a theocracy, in

which all men were to bow in blessed humility before the Unseen, and all conflicts of passion wert not even

to be able to arise. His whole mind is written in that inscription on the Palazzo della Signoria, the substance

of which was his maxim as early as 1495, and which was solemnly renewed by his partisans in 1527: 'Jesus

Christus Rex populi Florentini S.P.Q. decreto creatus.' He stood in no more relation to mundane affairs and

their actual conditions than any other inhabitant of a monastery. Man, according to him, has only to attend to

those things which make directly for his salvation.

This temper comes out clearly in his opinions on ancient literature: 'The only good thing which we owe to

Plato and Aristotle, is that they brought forward many arguments which we can use against the heretics. Yet

they and other philosophers are now in Hell. An old woman knows more about the Faith than Plato. It would

be good for religion if many books that seem useful were destroyed. When there were not so many books and

not so many arguments ("ragioni naturali") and disputes, religion grew more quickly than it has done since.'

He wished to limit the classical instruction of the schools to Homer, Virgil and Cicero, and to supply the rest

from Jerome and Augustine. Not only Ovid and Catullus, but Terence and Tibullus, were to be banished. This

may be no more than the expressions of a nervous morality, but elsewhere in a special work he admits that

science as a whole is harmful. He holds that only a few people should have to do with it, in order that the

tradition of human knowledge may not perish, and particularly that there may be no want of intellectual

athletes to confute the sophisms of the heretics. For all others, grammar, morals, and religious teaching

('litterae sacrae') suffice. Culture and education would thus return wholly into the charge of the monks, and

as, in his opinion, the 'most learned and the most pious' are to rule over the States and empires, these rulers

would also be monks. Whether he really foresaw this conclusion, we need not inquire.

A more childish method of reasoning cannot be imagined. The simple reflection that the newborn antiquity

and the boundless enlargement of human thought and knowledge which was due to it, might give splendid

confirmation to a religion able to adapt itself thereto, seems never even to have occurred to the good man. He

wanted to forbid what he could not deal with by any other means. In fact, he was anything but liberal, and

was ready, for example, to send the astrologers to the same stake at which he afterwards himself died.

How mighty must have been the soul which dwelt side by side with this narrow intellect! And what a flame

must have glowed within him before he could constrain the Florentines, possessed as they were by the

passion for knowledge and culture, to surrender themselves to a man who could thus reason!

How much of their heart and their worldliness they were ready to sacrifice for his sake is shown by those

famous bonfires by the side of which all the 'talami' of Bernardino da Siena and others were certainly of small

account.

All this could not, however, be effected without the agency of a tyrannical police. He did not shrink from the

most vexatious interferences with the muchprized freedom of Italian private life, using the espionage of

servants on their masters as a means of carrying out his moral reforms. That transformation of public and

private life which the Iron Calvin was but just able to effect at Geneva with the aid of a permanent state of

siege necessarily proved impossible at Florence, and the attempt only served to drive the enemies of

Savonarola into a more implacable hostility. Among his most unpopular measures may be mentioned those

organized parties of boys, who forced their way into the houses and laid violent hands on any objects which

seemed suitable for the bonfire. As it happened that they were sometimes sent away with a beating, they were

afterwards attended, in order to keep up the figment of a pious 'rising generation,' by a bodyguard of

grownup persons.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion in Daily Life 157



Top




Page No 161


On the last day of the Carnival in the year 1497, and on the same day the year after, the great 'Auto da Fe'

took place on the Piazza della Signoria. In the center of it rose a high pyramid of several tiers, like the 'rogus'

on which the Roman Emperors were commonly burned. On the lowest tier were arranged false beards, masks,

and carnival disguises; above came volumes of the Latin and Italian poets, among others Boccaccio, the

'Morgante' of Pulci, and Petrarch, partly in the form of valuable printed parchments and illuminated

manuscripts; then women's ornaments and toilet articles, scents, mirrors, veils and false hair; higher up, lutes,

harps, chessboards, playingcards; and finally, on the two uppermost tiers, paintings only, especially of

female beauties, partly fancy pictures, bearing the classical names of Lucretia, Cleopatra, or Faustina, partly

portraits of the beautiful Bencina, Lena Morella, Bina and Maria de' Lenzi. On the first occasion a Venetian

merchant who happened to be present offered the Signoria 22,000 gold florins for the objects on the pyramid;

but the only answer he received was that his portrait, too, was painted, and burned along with the rest. When

the pile was lighted, the Signoria appeared on the balcony, and the air echoed with song, the sound of

trumpets, and the pealing of bells. The people then adjourned to the Piazza di San Marco, where they danced

round in three concentric circles. The innermost was composed of monks of the monastery, alternating with

boys, dressed as angels; then came young laymen and ecclesiastics; and on the outside, old men, citizens, and

priests, the latter crowned with wreaths of olive.

All the ridicule of his victorious enemies, who in truth bad no lack of justification or of talent for ridicule,

was unable to discredit the memory of Savonarola. The more tragic the fortunes of Italy became, the brighter

grew the halo which in the recollection of the survivors surrounded the figure of the great monk and prophet.

Though his predictions may not have been confirmed in detail, the great and general calamity which he

foretold was fulfilled with appalling truth.

Great, however, as the influence of all these preachers may have been, and brilliantly as Savonarola justified

the claim of the monks to this office, nevertheless the order as a while could not escape the contempt and

condemnation of the people. Italy^ showed that she could give her enthusiasm only to individuals.

Strength of the Old Faith

If, apart from all that concerns the priests and the monks, we attempt to measure the strength of the old faith,

it will be found great or small according to the light in which it is considered. We have spoken already of the

need felt for the Sacraments as something indispensable. Let us now glance for a moment at the position of

faith and worship in daily life. Both were determined partly by the habits of the people and partly by the

policy and example of the rulers.

All that has to do with penitence and the attainment of salvation by means of good works was in much the

one stage of development or corruption as in the North of Europe, both among the peasantry and among the

poorer inhabitants of the cities. The instructed classes were sometimes influenced by the same motives. Those

sides of popular Catholicism which had their origin in the old pagan ways of invoking, rewarding, and

propitiating the gods have fixed themselves ineradicably in the consciousness of the people. The eighth

eclogue of Battista Mantovano, which has already been quoted elsewhere, contains the prayer of a peasant to

the Madonna, in which she is called upon as the special patroness of all rustic and agricultural interests. And

what conceptions they were which the people formed of their protectress in heaven. What was in the mind of

the Florentine woman who gave 'ex voto' a keg of wax to the Annunziata, because her lover, a monk, had

gradually emptied a barrel of wine without her absent husband finding it out. Then, too, as still in our own

days, different departments of human life were presided over by their respective patrons.

The attempt has often been made to explain a number of the commonest rites of the Catholic Church as

remnants of pagan ceremonies, and no one doubts that many local and popular usages, which are associated

with religious festivals, are forgotten fragments of the old pre Christian faiths of Europe. In Italy, on the

contrary, we find instances in which the affiliation of the new faith to the old seems consciously recognized.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Strength of the Old Faith 158



Top




Page No 162


So, for example, the custom of setting out food for the dead four days before the feast of the Chair of St.

Peter, that is to say, on February 18, the date of the ancient Feralia. Many other practices of this kind may

then have prevailed and have since then been extirpated. Perhaps the paradox is only apparent if we say that

the popular faith in Italy had a solid foundation just in proportion as it was pagan.

The extent to which this form of belief prevailed in the upper classes can to a certain point be shown in detail.

It had, as we have said in speaking of the influence of the clergy, the power of custom and early impressions

on its side. The love for ecclesiastical pomp and display helped to confirm it, and now and then there came

one of those epidemics of revivalism, which few even among the scoffers and the sceptics were able to

withstand.

But in questions of this kind it is perilous to grasp too hastily at absolute results. We might fancy, for

example, that the feeling of educated men towards the relics of the saints would be a key by which some

chambers of their religious consciousness might be opened. And in fact, some difference of degree may be

demonstrable, though by no means as clearly as might be wished. The Government of Venice in the fifteenth

century seems to have fully shared in the reverence felt throughout the rest of Europe for the remains of the

bodies of the saints. Even strangers who lived in Venice found it well to adapt themselves to this superstition.

If we can judge of scholarly Padua from the testimony of its topographer Michele Savonarola, things must

have been much the same there. With a mixture of pride and pious awe, Michele tells us how in times of great

danger the saints were heard to sigh at night along the streets of the city, how the hair and nails on the corpse

of a holy nun in Santa Chiara kept continually growing, and how the same corpse. when any disaster was

impending, used to make a noise and lift up the arms. When he sets to work to describe the chapel of St.

Anthony in the Santo, the writer loses himself in ejaculations and fantastic dreams. In Milan the people at

least showed a fanatical devotion to relics; and when once, in the year 1517, the monks of San Simpliciano

were careless enough to expose six holy corpses during certain alterations of the high altar, which event was

followed by heavy floods of rain, the people attributed the visitation to this sacrilege, and gave the monks a

sound beating whenever they met them in the street. In other parts of Italy, and even in the case of the Popes

themselves, the sincerity of this feeling is much more dubious, though here, too, a positive conclusion is

hardly attainable. It is well known amid what general enthusiasm Pius II solemnly deposited the head of the

Apostle Andrew, which had been brought from Greece, and then from San

Maura, in the Church of St. Peter (1462); but we gather from his own narrative that he only did it from a kind

of shame, as so many princes were competing for the relic. It was not till afterwards that the idea struck him

of making Rome the common refuge for all the remains of the saints which had been driven from their own

churches. Under Sixtus IV, the population of the city was still more zealous in this cause than the Pope

himself, and the magistracy (1483) complained bitterly that Sixtus had sent to Louis XI, the dying King of

France, some specimens of the Lateran relics. A courageous voice was raised about thin time at Bologna,

advising the sale of the skull of St. Dominic to the King of Spain, and the application of the money to some

useful public object. But those who had the least reverence of all for the relics were the Florentines. Between

the decision to honour their saint, St. Zanobi, with a new sarcophagus and the final execution of the project

by Ghiberti, ten years elapsed (143242) and then it only happened by chance, because the master had

executed a smaller order of the same kind with great skill (1428).

Perhaps through being tricked by a cunning Neapolitan abbess (1352), who sent them a spurious arm of the

patroness of the Cathedral, Santa Reparata, made of wood and plaster, they began to get tired of relics. Or

perhaps it would be truer to say that their aesthetic sense turned them away in disgust from dismembered

corpses and mouldy clothes. Or perhaps their feeling was rather due to that sense of glory which thought

Dante and Petrarch worthier of a splendid grave than all the twelve apostles put together. It is probable that

throughout Italy, apart from Venice and from Rome, the condition of which latter city was exceptional, the

worship of relics had long been giving way to the adoration of the Madonna, at all events to a greater extent

than elsewhere in Europe; and in this fact lies indirect evidence of an early development of the aesthetic


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Strength of the Old Faith 159



Top




Page No 163


sense.

It may be questioned whether in the North, where the vastest cathedrals are clearly all dedicated to Our Lady,

and where an extensive branch of Latin and indigenous poetry sang the praises of the Mother of God, a

greater devotion to her was impossible. In Italy, however, the number of miraculous pictures of the Virgin

was far greater, and the part they played in the daily life of the people much more important. Every town of

any size contained a quantity of them, from the ancient, or ostensibly ancient, paintings by St. Luke, down to

the works of contemporaries, who not seldom lived to see the miracles wrought by their own handiwork. The

work of art was in these cases by no means as harmless as Battista Mantovano thinks; sometimes it suddenly

acquired a magical virtue. The popular craving for the miraculous, especially strong in women, may have

been fully satisfied by these pictures, and for this reason the relics been less regarded. It cannot be said with

certainty how far the respect for genuine relics suffered from the ridicule which the novelist aimed at the

spurious. The attitude of the educated classes in Italy towards Mariolatry, or the worship of the Virgin, is

more clearly recognizable than towards the worship of images. One cannot but be struck with the fact that in

Italian literature Dante's 'Paradise' is the last poem in honour of the Virgin, while among the people hymns in

her praise have been constantly produced down to our own day. The names of Sannazaro and Sabellico and

other writers of Latin poems prove little on the other side, since the object with which they wrote was chiefly

literary. The poems written in Italian in the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, in which

we meet with genuine religious feeling, such as the hymns of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the sonnets of

Vittoria Colonna and of Michelangelo might have been just as well composed by Protestants. Besides the

lyrical expression of faith in God, we chiefly notice in them the sense of sin, the consciousness of deliverance

through the death of Christ, the longing for a better world. The intercessiOn of the Mother of God is only

mentioned by the way. The same phenomenon is repeated in the classical literature of the French at the time

of Louis XIV. Not till the time of the CounterReformation did Mariolatry reappear in the higher Italian

poetry. Meanwhile the visual arts had certainly done their utmost to glorify the Madonna. It may be added

that the worship of the saints among the educated classes often took an essentially pagan form.

We might thus critically examine the various sides of Italian Catholicism at this period, and so establish with

a certain degree of probability the attitude of the instructed classes towards popular faith. Yet an absolute and

positive result cannot be reached. We meet with contrasts hard to explain. While architects, painters, and

sculptors were working with restless activity in and for the churches, we hear at the beginning of the sixteenth

century the bitterest complaints of the neglect of public worship and of these churches themselves.

It is well known how Luther was scandalized by the irreverence with which the priests in Rome said Mass.

And at the same time the feasts of the Church were celebrated with a taste and magnificence of which

Northern countries had no conception. It looks as if this most imaginative of nations was easily tempted to

neglect everyday things, and as easily captivated by anything extraordinary.

It is to this excess of imagination that we must attribute the epidemic of religious revivals upon which we

shall again say a few words. They must be clearly distinguished from the excitement called forth by the great

preachers. They were rather due to general public calamities, or to the dread of such.

In the Middle Ages all Europe was from time to time flooded by these great tides, which carried away whole

peoples in their waves. The Crusades and the Flagellant revival are instances. Italy took part in both of these

movements. The first great companies of flagellants appeared, immediately after the fall of Ezzelino and his

house, in the neighbourhood of the same Perugia which has been already spoken of as the headquarters of the

revivalist preachers. Then followed the flagellants of 1310 and 1334, and then the great pilgrimage without

encouraging in the year 1349, which Corio has recorded. It is not impossible that the Jubilees were founded

partly in order to regulate and render harmless this sinister passion for vagabondage which seized on the

whole populations at times of religious excitement. The great sanctuaries of Italy, such as Loreto and others,

had meantime become famous, and no doubt diverted a certain part of this enthusiasm.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Strength of the Old Faith 160



Top




Page No 164


But terrible crises had still at a much later time the power to reawaken the glow of mediaeval penitence, and

the conscience  stricken people, often still further appalled by signs and wonders, sought to move the pity of

Heaven by wailings and scourgings. So it was at Bologna when the plague came in 1457, and so in 1496 at a

time of internal discord at Siena) to mention two only out of countless instances. No more moving scene can

be imagined than that which we read of at Milan in 1529) when famine, plague, and war conspired with

Spanish extortion to reduce the city to the lowest depths of despair. It chanced that the monk who had the ear

of the people, Fra Tomasso Nieto, was himself a Spaniard. The Host was borne along in a novel fashion,

amid barefooted crowds of old and young. It was placed on a decorated bier, which rested on the shoulders of

four priests in linen garmentsan imitation of the Ark of the Covenant which the children of Israel once

carried round the walls of Jericho. Thus did the afflicted people of Milan remind their ancient God of His old

covenant with man; and when the procession again entered the cathedral, and it seemed as if the vast building

must fall in with the agonized cry of 'Misericordia!', many who stood there may have believed that the

Almighty would indeed subvert the laws of nature and of history, and send a miraculous deliverance.

There was one government in Italy, that of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara, which assumed the direction of public

feeling, and compelled the popular revivals to move in regular channels. At the time when Savonarola was

powerful in Florence, and the movement which he began spread far and wide among the population of

Central Italy, the people of Ferrara voluntarily entered on a general fast (at the beginning of 1496). A Lazarist

announced from the pulpit the approach of a season of war and famine such as the world had never seen; but

the Madonna had assured some pious people that these evils might be avoided by fasting. Upon this, the court

itself had no choice but to fast, but it took the conduct of the public devotions into its own hands. On Easter

Day, the 3rd of April, a proclamation on morals and religion was published, forbidding blasphemy,

prohibiting games, sodomy, concubinage, the letting of houses to prostitutes or panders, and the opening of

all shops on feast days, excepting those of the bakers and greengrocers. The Jews and Moors, who had taken

refuge from the Spaniards at Ferrara, were now again compelled to wear the yellow O upon the breast.

Contraveners were threatened, not only with the punishments already provided by law, but also 'with such

severer penalties as the Duke might think good to inflict.' After this, the Duke and the court went several days

in succession to hear sermons in church, and on the 10th of April all the Jews in Ferrara were compelled to do

the same. On the 3rd of May, the director of police, Zampante, sent the crier to announce that whoever had

given money to the policeofficers in order not to be denounced as a blasphemer, might, if he came forward,

have it back with a further indemnification. These wicked officers, he said, had extorted as much as two or

three ducats from innocent persons by threatening to lodge an information against them. They had then

mutually informed against one another, and so had all found their way into prison. But as the money had been

paid precisely in order not to have to do with Zampante, it is probable that his proclamation induced few

people to come forward. In the year 1500, after the fall of Lodovico il Moro, when a similar outbreak of

popular feeling took place, Ercole ordered a series of nine processions, in which there were 4,000 children

dressed in white, bearing the standard of Jesus. He himself rode on horseback, as he could not walk without

difficulty. An edict was afterwards published of the same kind as that of 1496. It is well known how many

churches and monasteries were built by this ruler. He even sent for a live saint, the Suor Colomba, shortly

before he married his son Alfonso to Lucrezia Borgia (1502). A special messenger fetched the saint with

fifteen other nuns from Viterbo, and the Duke himself conducted her on her arrival at Ferrara into a convent

prepared for her reception. We shall probably do him no injustice if we attribute all these measures very

largely to political calculation. To the conception of government formed by the House of Este, this

employment of religion for the ends of statecraft belongs by a kind of logical necessity.

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance

But in order to reach a definite conclusion with regard to the religious sense of the men of this period, we

must adopt a different method. From their intellectual attitude in general, we can infer their relation both to

the divine idea and to the existing religion of their age.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance 161



Top




Page No 165


These modern men, the representatives of the culture of Italy, were born with the same religious instincts as

other mediaeval Europeans. But their powerful individuality made them in religion, as in other matters,

altogether subjective, and the intense charm which the discovery of the inner and outer universe exercised

upon them rendered them markedly worldly. In the rest of Europe religion remained, till a much later period.

something given from without, and in practical life egotism and sensuality alternated with devotion and

repentance. The latter had no spiritual competitors) as in Italy, or only to a far smaller extent.

Further, the close and frequent relations of Italy with Byzantium and the Mohammedan peoples had produced

a dispassionate tolerance which weakened the ethnographical conception of a privileged Christendom. And

when classical antiquity with its men and institutions became an ideal of life) as well as the greatest of

historical memories, ancient speculation and skepticism obtained in many cases a complete mastery over the

minds of Italians. Since, again, the Italians were the first modern people of Europe who gave themselves

boldly to speculations on freedom and necessity, and since they did so under violent and lawless political

circumstances, in which evil seemed often to win a splendid and lasting victory, their belief in God began to

waver, and their view of the government of the world became fatalistic. And when their passionate natures

refused to rest in the sense of uncertainty, they made a shift to help themselves out with ancient, Oriental, or

medieval superstition. They took to astrology and magic.

Finally, these intellectual giants, these representatives of the Renaissance, show, in respect to religion, a

quality which is common in youthful natures. Distinguishing keenly between good and evil, they yet are

conscious of no sin. Every disturbance of their inward harmony they feel themselves able to make good out

of the plastic resources of their own nature, and therefore they feel no repentance. The need of salvation thus

becomes felt more and more dimly, while the ambitions and the intellectual activity of the present either shut

out altogether every thought of a world to come, or else caused it to assume a poetic instead of a dogmatic

form.

When we look on all this as pervaded and often perverted by the all powerful Italian imagination, we obtain

a picture of that time which is certainly more in accordance with truth than are vague declarations against

modern paganism. And closer investigation often reveals to us that underneath this outward shell much

genuine religion could still survive.

The fuller discussion of these points must be limited to a few of the more essential explanations.

That religion should again become an affair of the individual and of his own personal feeling was inevitable

when the Church became corrupt in doctrine and tyrannous in practice, and is a proof that the European mind

was still alive. It is true that this showed itself in many different ways. While the mystical and ascetical sects

of the North lost no time in creating new outward forms for their new modes of thought and feeling, each

individual in Italy went his own way, and thousands wandered on the sea of life without any religious

guidance whatever. All the more must we admire those who attained and held fast to a personal religion.

They were not to blame for being unable to have any part or lot in the old Church, as she then was; nor would

it be reasonable to expect that they should all of them go through that mighty spiritual labor which was

appointed to the German reformers. The form and aim of this personal faith, as it showed itself in the better

minds, will bc set forth at the close of our work.

The worldliness, through which the Renaissance seems to offer so striking a contrast to the Middle Ages,

owed its first origin to the flood of new thoughts, purposes, and views, which transformed the mediaeval

conception of nature and man. The spirit is not in itself more hostile to religion than that 'culture' which now

holds its place, but which can give us only a feeble notion of the universal ferment which the discovery of a

new world of greatness then called forth. This worldliness was not frivolous, but earnest, and was ennobled

by art and poetry. It is a lofty necessity of the modern spirit that this attitude, once gained, can never again be

lost, that an irresistible impulse forces us to the investigation of men and things, and that we must hold this


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance 162



Top




Page No 166


inquiry to be our proper end and work. How soon and by what paths this search will lead us back to God, and

in what ways the religious temper of the individual will be affected by it, are questions which cannot be met

by any general answer. The Middle Ages, which spared themselves the trouble of induction and free inquiry,

can have no right to impose upon us their dogmatical verdict in a matter of such vast importance.

To the study of man, among many other causes, was due the tolerance and indifference with which the

Mohammedan religion was regarded. The knowledge and admiration of the remarkable civilization which

Islam, particularly before the Mongol inundation, had attained, was peculiar to Italy from the time of the

Crusades. This sympathy was fostered by the halfMohammedan government of some Italian princes, by

dislike and even contempt for the existing Church, and by constant commercial intercourse with the harbors

of the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean. It can be shown that in the thirteenth century the Italians

recognized a Mohammedan ideal of nobleness, dignity, and pride, which they loved to connect with the

person of a Sultan. A Mameluke Sultan is commonly meant; if any name is mentioned, it is the name of

Saladin. Even the Osmanli Turks, whose destructive tendencies were no secret, gave the Italians only half a

fright, and a peaceable accord with them was looked upon as no impossibility.

The truest and most characteristic expression of this religious indifference is the famous story of the Three

Rings, which Lessing has put into the mouth of his Nathan, after it had been already told centuries earlier,

though with some reserve, in the 'Hundred Old Novels' (nov. 12 or 73), and more boldly in Boccaccio

(Decamerone, i, nov. 3). In what language and in what corner of the Mediterranean it was first told can never

be known; most likely the original was much more plainspoken than the two Italian adaptations. The

religious postulate on which it rests, namely Deism, will be discussed later on in its wider significance for

this period. The same idea is repeated, though in a clumsy caricature, in the famous proverb of the 'three who

have deceived the world, that is, Moses, Christ, and Mohammed.' If the Emperor Frederick II, in whom this

saying is said to have originated, really thought so, he probably expressed himself with more wit.

Ideas of the same kind were also current in Islam. At the height of the Renaissance, towards the close of the

fifteenth century, Luigi Pulci offers us an example of the same mode of thought in the 'Morgante Maggiore.'

The imaginary world of which his story treats is divided, as in all heroic poems of romance, into a Christian

and a Mohammedan camp. In accordance with the medieval temper, the victory of the Christian and the final

reconciliation among the combatants was attended by the baptism of the defeated Islamites, and the

Improvisatori, who preceded Pulci in the treatment of these subjects, must have made free use of this stock

incident. It was Pulci's object to parody his predecessors, particularly the worst among them, and this he does

by the invocations of God, Christ, and the Madonna, with which each canto begins; and still more clearly by

the sudden conversions and baptisms, the utter senselessness of which must have struck every reader or

hearer. This ridicule leads him further to the confession of his faith in the relative goodness of all religions,

which faith, notwithstanding his profession of orthodoxy, rests on an essentially theistic basis. In another

point, too, he departs widely from mediaeval conceptions. The alternatives in past centuries were: Christian,

or else Pagan and Mohammedan; orthodox believer or heretic. Pulci draws a picture of the Giant Margutte

who, disregarding each and every religion, jovially confesses to every form of vice and sensuality, and only

reserves to himself the merit of having never broken faith. Perhaps the poet intended to make something of

thisin his wayhonest monster, possibly to have led him into virtuous paths by Morgante, but he soon got

tired of his own creation, and in the next canto brought him to a comic end. Margutte has been brought

forward as a proof of Pulci's frivolity; but he is needed to complete the picture of the poetry of the fifteenth

century. It was natural that it should somewhere present in grotesque proportions the figure of an untamed

egotism, insensible to all established rule, and yet with a remnant of honorable feeling left. In other poems

sentiments are put into the mouths of giants, fiends, infidels, and Mohammedans which no Christian knight

would venture to utter.

Antiquity exercised an influence of another kind than that of Islam, and this not through its religion, which

was but too much like the Catholicism of this period, but through its philosophy. Ancient literature, now


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance 163



Top




Page No 167


respected as something incomparable, is full of the victory of philosophy over religious tradition. An endless

number of systems and fragments of systems were suddenly presented to the Italian mind, not as curiosities

or even as heresies, but almost with the authority of dogmas, which had now to be reconciled rather than

discriminated. In nearly all these various opinions and doctrines a certain kind of belief in God was implied;

but taken altogether they formed a marked contrast to the Christian faith in a Divine government of the world.

And there was one central question, which mediaeval theology had striven in vain to solve, and which now

urgently demanded an answer from the wisdom of the ancients, namely, the relation of Providence to the

freedom or necessity of the human will. To write the history of this question even superficially from the

fourteenth century onwards, would require a whole volume. A few hints must here suffice.

If we take Dante and his contemporaries as evidence, we shall find that ancient philosophy first came into

contact with Italian life in the form which offered the most marked contrast to Christianity, that is to say,

Epicureanism. The writings of Epicurus were no longer preserved, and even at the close of the classical age a

more or less onesided conception had been formed of his philosophy. Nevertheless, that phase of

Epicureanism which can be studied in Lucretius, and especially in Cicero, is quite sufficient to make men

familiar with a godless universe. To what extent his teaching was actually understood, and whether the name

of the problematic Greek sage was not rather a catchword for the multitude, it is hard to say. It is probable

that the Dominican Inquisition used it against men who could not be reached by a more definite accusation.

In the case of sceptics born before the time was ripe, whom it was yet hard to convict of positive heretical

utterances, a moderate degree of luxurious living may have sufficed to provoke the charge. The word is used

in this conventional sense by Giovanni Villani, when he explains the Florentine fires of 1115 and 1117 as a

Divine judgement on heresies, among others, 'on the luxurious and gluttonous sect of Epicureans.' The same

writer says of Manfred, 'His life was Epicurean, since he believed neither in God, nor in the Saints, but only

in bodily pleasure.'

Dante speaks still more clearly in the ninth and tenth cantos of the 'Inferno.' That terrible fiery field covered

with halfopened tombs, from which issued cries of hopeless agony, was peopled by the two great classes of

those whom the Church had vanquished or expelled in the thirteenth century. The one were heretics who

opposed the Church by deliberately spreading false doctrine; the other were Epicureans, and their sin against

the Church lay in their general disposition, which was summed up in the belief that the soul dies with the

body. The Church was well aware that this one doctrine, if it gained ground, must be more ruinous to her

authority than all the teachings of the Manichaeans and Paterines, since it took away all reason for her

interference in the affairs of men after death. That the means which she used in her struggles were precisely

what had driven the most gifted natures to unbelief and despair was what she naturally would not herself

admit.

Dante's loathing of Epicurus, or of what he took to be his doctrine, was certainly sincere. The poet of the life

to come could not but detest the denier of immortality; and a world neither made nor ruled by God, no less

than the vulgar objects of earthly life which the system appeared to countenance, could not but be intensely

repugnant to a nature like his. But if we look closer, we find that certain doctrines of the ancients made even

on him an impression which forced the biblical doctrine of the Divine government into the background

unless, indeed, it was his own reflection, the influence of opinions then prevalent, or loathing for the injustice

that seemed to rule this world, which made him give up the belief in a special Providence His God leaves all

the details of the world's government to a deputy, Fortune, whose sole work it is to change and change again

all earthly things, and who can disregard the wailings of men in unalterable beatitude. Nevertheless, Dante

does not for a moment fail to insist on the moral responsibility of man; he believes in free will. The belief in

the freedom of the will, in the popular sense of the words, has always prevailed in Western countries. At all

times men have been held responsible for their actions, as though this freedom were a matter of course. The

case is otherwise with the religious and philosophical doctrine, which labors under the difficulty of

harmonizing the nature of the will with the laws of the universe at large. We have here to do with a question

of more or less, which every moral estimate must take into account. Dante is not wholly free from those


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance 164



Top




Page No 168


astrological superstitions which illumined the horizon of his time with deceptive light, but they do not hinder

him from rising to a worthy conception of human nature. 'The stars,' he makes his Marco Lambert say

('Purgatorio,' xvi, 73), 'the stars give the first impulse to your actions, but a light is given you to know good

and evil, and free will, which, if it endure the strain in its first battlings with the heavens, at length gains the

whole victory, if it be well nurtured.'

Others might seek the necessity which annulled human freedom in another power than the stars, but the

question was henceforth an open and inevitable one. So far as it was a question for the schools or the pursuit

of isolated thinkers, its treatment belongs to the historian of philosophy. But inasmuch as it entered into the

consciousness of a wider public, it is necessary for us to say a few words respecting it.

The fourteenth century was chiefly stimulated by the writings of Cicero, who, though in fact an eclectic, yet,

by his habit of setting forth the opinions of different schools, without coming to a decision between them,

exercised the influence of a skeptic. Next in importance came Seneca, and the few works of Aristotle which

had been translated into Latin. The immediate fruit of these studies was the capacity to reflect on great

subjects, if not in direct opposition to the authority of the Church, at all events independently of it.

In the course of the fifteenth century the works of antiquity were discovered and diffused with extraordinary

rapidity. All the writings of the Greek philosophers which we ourselves possess were now, at least in the

form of Latin translations, in everybody's hands. It is a curious fact that some of the most zealous apostles of

this new culture were men of the strictest piety, or even ascetics. Fra Ambrogio Camaldolese, as a spiritual

dignitary chiefly occupied with ecclesiastical affairs, and as a literary man with the translation of the Greek

Fathers of the Church, could not repress the humanistic impulse, and at the request of Cosimo de' Medici,

undertook to translate Diogenes Laertius into Latin. His contemporaries, Niccolo Niccoli, Giannozzo

Manetti, Donato Acciaiuoli, and Pope Nicholas V, united to a manysided humanism profound biblical

scholarship and deep piety. In Vittorino da Feltre the same temper has been already noticed. The same

Maffeo Vegio, who added a thirteenth book to the Aeneid, had an enthusiasm for the memory of St.

Augustine and his mother, Monica, which cannot have been without a deeper influence upon him. The result

of all these tendencies was that the Platonic Academy at Florence deliberately chose for its object the

reconciliation of the spirit of antiquity with that of Christianity. It was a remarkable oasis in the humanism of

the period.

This humanism was in fact pagan, and became more and more so as its sphere widened in the fifteenth

century. Its representatives, whom we have already described as the advance guard of an unbridled

individualism, display as a rule such a character that even their religion, which is sometimes professed very

definitely, becomes a matter of indifference to us. They easily got the name of atheists, if they showed

themselves indifferent to religion and spoke freely against the Church; but not one of them ever professed, or

dared to profess, a formal, philosophical atheism. If they sought for any leading principle, it must have been a

kind of superficial rationalisma careless inference from the many and contradictory opinions of antiquity

with which they busied themselves, and from the discredit into which the Church and her doctrines had fallen

This was the sort of reasoning which was near bringing Galeotto Martio to the stake, had not his former pupil,

Pope Sixtus IV, perhaps at the request of Lorenzo de' Medici, saved him from the hands of the Inquisition.

Galeotto had ventured to write that the man who lived uprightly, and acted according to the natural law born

within him, would go to heaven, whatever nation he belonged to.

Let us take, by way of example, the religious attitude of one of the smaller men in the great army. Codrus

Urceus was first the tutor of the last Ordelaffo, Prince of Forli, and afterwards for many years professor at

Bologna. Against the Church and the monks his language is as abusive as that of the rest. His tone in general

is reckless to the last degree, and he constantly introduces himself in all his local history and gossip. But he

knows how to speak to the edification of the true GodMan, Jesus Christ, and to commend himself by letter

to the prayers of a saintly priest. On one occasion, after enumerating the follies of the pagan religions, he thus


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance 165



Top




Page No 169


goes on: 'Our theologians, too, quarrel about "the guineapig's tail," about the Immaculate Conception,

Antichrist, Sacraments, Predestination, and other things, which were better let alone than talked of publicly.'

Once, when he was not at home, his room and manuscripts were burnt. When he heard the news he stood

opposite a figure of the Madonna in the street, and cried to it: 'Listen to what I tell you; I am not mad, I am

saying what I mean. If I ever call upon you in the hour of my death, you need not hear me or take me among

your own, for I will go and spend eternity with the devil.' After which speech he found it desirable to spend

six months in retirement at the home of a woodcutter. With all this, he was so superstitious that prodigies and

omens gave him incessant frights, leaving him no belief to spare for the immortality of the soul. When his

hearers questioned him on the matter, he answered that no one knew what became of a man, of his soul or his

spirit, after death, and the talk about another life was only fit to frighten old women. But when he came to

die, he commended in his will his soul or his spirit to Almighty God, exhorted his weeping pupils to fear the

Lord, and especially to believe in immortality and future retribution, and received the Sacrament with much

fervor. We have no guarantee that more famous men in the same calling, however significant their opinions

may be, were in practical life any more consistent. It is probable that most of them wavered inwardly between

incredulity and a remnant of the faith in which they were brought up, and outwardly held for prudential

reasons to the Church.

Through the connexion of rationalism with the newly born science of historical investigation, some timid

attempts at biblical criticism may here and there have been made. A saying of Pius II has been recorded,

which seems intended to prepare the way for such criticism: 'Even if Christianity were not confirmed by

miracles, it ought still to be accepted on account of its morality.' The legends of the Church, in so far as they

contained arbitrary versions of the biblical miracles, were freely ridiculed, and this reacted on the religious

sense of the people. Where Judaizing heretics are mentioned, we must understand chiefly those who denied

the Divinity of Christ, which was probably the offence for which Giorgio da Novara was burnt at Bologna

about the year 1500. But again at Bologna in the year 1497 the Dominican Inquisitor was forced to let the

physician Gabriele da Salo, who had powerful patrons, escape with a simple expression of penitence,

although he was in the habit of maintaining that Jesus was not God, but son of Joseph and Mary, and

conceived in the usual way; that by his cunning he had deceived the world to its ruin; that he may have died

on the cross on account of crimes which he had committed; that his religion would soon come to an end; that

his body was not really contained in the sacrament, and that he performed his miracles, not through any

divine power, but through the influence of the heavenly bodies. This latter statement is most characteristic of

the time: Faith is gone, but magic still holds its ground.

With respect to the moral government of the world, the humanists seldom get beyond a cold and resigned

consideration of the prevalent violence and misrule. In this mood the main works 'On Fate,' or whatever name

they bear, are written. They tell of the turning of the wheel of Fortune, and of the instability of earthly,

especially political, things. Providence is only brought in because the writers would still be ashamed of

undisguised fatalism, of the avowal of their ignorance, or of useless complaints. Gioviano Pontano

ingeniously illustrates the nature of that mysterious something which men call Fortune by a hundred

incidents, most of which belonged to his own experience. The subject is treated more humorously by Aeneas

Sylvius, in the form of a vision seen in a dream. The aim of Poggio, on the other hand, in a work written in

his old age, is to represent the world as a vale of tears, and to fix the happiness of various classes as low as

possible. This tone became in future the prevalent one. Distinguished men drew up a debit and credit of the

happiness and unhappiness of their lives, and generally found that the latter outweighed the former. The fate

of Italy and the Italians, so far as it could be told in the year 1510, has been described with dignity and almost

elegiac pathos by Tristan Caracciolo. Applying this general tone of feeling to the humanists themselves,

Pierio Valeriano afterwards composed his famous treatise. Some of these themes, such as the fortunes of Leo

X, were most suggestive. All the good that can be said of him politically has been briefly and admirably

summed up by Francesco Vettori; the picture of Leo's pleasures is given by Paolo Giovio and in the

anonymous biography; and the shadows which attended his prosperity are drawn with inexorable truth by the

same Pierio Valeriano.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance 166



Top




Page No 170


We cannot, on the other hand, read without a kind of awe how men sometimes boasted of their fortune in

public inscriptions. Giovanni II Bentivoglio, ruler of Bologna, ventured to carve in stone on the newly built

tower by his palace that his merit and his fortune had given him richly of all that could be desiredand this a

few years before his expulsion. The ancients, when they spoke in this tone, had nevertheless a sense of the

envy of the gods. In Italy it was probably the Condottieri who first ventured to boast so loudly of their

fortune. But the way in which resuscitated antiquity affected religion most powerfully, was not through any

doctrines or philosophical system, but through a general tendency which it fostered. The men, and in some

respects the institutions, of antiquity were preferred to those of the Middle Ages, and in the eager attempt to

imitate and reproduce them, religion was left to take care of itself. All was absorbed in the admiration for

historical greatness. To this the philologians added many special follies of their own, by which they became

the mark for general attention. How far Paul II was justified in calling his Abbreviators and their friends to

account for their paganism, is certainly a matter of great doubt, as his biographer and chief victim, Platina,

has shown a masterly skill in explaining his vindictiveness on other grounds, and especially in making him

play a ludicrous figure. The charges of infidelity, paganism, denial of immortality, and so forth, were not

made against the accused till the charge of high treason had broken down. Paul, indeed, if we are correctly

informed about him, was by no means the man to judge of intellectual things. It was he who exhorted the

Romans to teach their children nothing beyond reading and writing. His priestly narrowness of views reminds

us of Savonarola, with the difference that Paul might fairly have been told that he and his like were in great

part to blame if culture made men hostile to religion. It cannot, nevertheless, be doubted that he felt a real

anxiety about the pagan tendencies which surrounded him. And what, in truth, may not the humanists have

allowed themselves at the court of the profligate pagan, Sigismondo Malatesta, How far these men, destitute

for the most part of fixed principle, ventured to go, depended assuredly on the sort of influences they were

exposed to. Nor could they treat of Christianity without paganizing it. It is curious, for instance, to notice how

far Gioviano Pontano carried this confusion. He speaks of a saint not only as 'divus,' but as 'deus'; the angels

he holds to be identical with the genii of antiquity; and his notion of immortality reminds us of the old

kingdom of the shades. This spirit occasionally appears in the most extravagant shapes. In 1526, when Siena

was attacked by the exiled party, the worthy Canon Tizio, who tells us the story himself, rose from his bed on

the 22nd of July, called to mind what is written in the third book of Macrobius, celebrated Mass, and then

pronounced against the enemy the curse with which his author had supplied him, only altering 'Tellus mater

teque Jupiter obtestor' into 'Tellus teque Christe Deus obtestor.' After he had done this for three days, the

enemy retreated. On the one side, these things strike us as an affair of mere style and fashion j on the other, as

a symptom of religious decadence.

Influence of Ancient Superstition

But in another way, and that dogmatically, antiquity exercised perilous influence. It imparted to the

Renaissance its own forms of superstition. Some fragments of this had survived in Italy all through the

Middle Ages, and the resuscitation of the whole was thereby made so much the more easy. The part played

by the imagination in the process need not be dwelt upon. This only could have silenced the critical intellect

of the Italians.

The belief in a Divine government of the world was in many minds destroyed by the spectacle of so much

injustice and misery. Others, like Dante, surrendered at all events this life to the caprices of chance, and if

they nevertheless retained a sturdy faith, it was because they held that the higher destiny of man would be

accomplished in the life to come. But when the belief in immortality began to waver, then Fatalism got the

upper hand, or sometimes the latter came first and had the former as its consequence.

The gap thus opened was in the first place filled by the astrology of antiquity, or even of the Arabs. From the

relation of the planets among themselves and to the signs of the zodiac. future events and the course of whole

lives were inferred, and the most weighty decisions were taken in consequence. In many cases the line of

action thus adopted at the suggestion of the stars may not have been more immoral than that which would


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 167



Top




Page No 171


otherwise have been followed. But too often the decision must have been made at the cost of honour and

conscience. It is profoundly instructive to observe how powerless culture and enlightenment were against this

delusion; since the latter had its support in the ardent imagination of the people, in the passionate wish to

penetrate and determine the future. Antiquity, too, was on the side of astrology.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century this superstition suddenly appeared in the foreground of Italian life.

The Emperor Frederick II always travelled with his astrologer Theodorus; and Ezzelino da Romano with a

large, wellpaid court of such people, among them the famous Guido Bonatto and the longbearded Saracen,

Paul of Baghdad. In all important undertakings they fixed for him the day and the hour, and the gigantic

atrocities of which he was guilty may have been in part practical inferences from their prophecies. Soon all

scruples about consulting the stars ceased. Not only princes, but free cities, had their regular astrologers, and

at the universities, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, professors of this pseudoscience were

appointed, and lectured side by side with the astronomers. The Popes commonly made no secret of their

stargazing, though Pius II, who also despised magic, omens, and the interpretation of dreams, is an honorable

exception. Even Leo X seems to have thought the flourishing condition of astrology a credit to his

pontificate, and Paul III never held a Consistory till the stargazers had fixed the hour.

It may fairly be assumed that the better natures did not allow their actions to be determined by the stars

beyond a certain point, and that there was a limit where conscience and religion made them pause. In fact, not

only did pious and excellent people share the delusion, but they actually came forward to profess it publicly.

One of these was Maestro Pagolo of Florence, in whom we can detect the same desire to bring astrology to

moral account which meets us in the late Roman Firmicus Maternus. His life was that of a saintly ascetic. He

ate almost nothing, despised all temporal goods, and only collected books. A skilled physician, he only

practiced among his friends, and made it a condition of his treatment that they should confess their sins. He

frequented the small but famous circle which assembled in the Monastery of the Angeli around Fra Ambrogio

Camaldolese. He also saw much of Cosimo the Elder, especially in his last years; for Cosimo accepted and

used astrology, though probably only for objects of lesser importance. As a rule, however, Pagolo only

interpreted the stars to his most confidential friends. But even without this severity of morals, the astrologers

might be highly respected and show themselves everywhere. There were also far more of them in Italy than in

other European countries, where they only appeared at the great courts, and there not always. All the great

householders in Italy, when the fashion was once established, kept an astrologer, who, it must be added, was

not always sure of his dinner. Through the literature of this science, which was widely diffused even before

the invention of printing, a dilettantism also grew up which as far as possible followed in the steps of the

masters. The worst class of astrologers were those who used the stars either as an aid or a cloak to magical

arts.

Yet apart from the latter, astrology is a miserable feature in the life of that time. What a figure do all these

highly gifted, manysided, original characters play, when the blind passion for knowing and determining the

future dethrones their powerful will and resolution! Now and then, when the stars send them too cruel a

message, they manage to brace themselves up, act for themselves, and say boldly: 'Vir sapiens dominabitus

lustris', the wise man is master of the starsand then again relapse into the old delusion.

In all the better families the horoscope of the children was drawn as a matter of course, and it sometimes

happened that for half a lifetime men were haunted by the idle expectation of events which never occurred!

The stars were questioned whenever a great man had to come to any important decision, and even consulted

as to the hour at which any undertaking was to be begun. The journeys of princes, the reception of foreign

ambassadors, the laying of the foundationstones of public buildings, depended on the answer. A striking

instance of the latter occurs in the life of the aforenamed Guido Bonatto, who by his personal activity and by

his great systematic work on the subject deserves to be called the restorer of astrology in the thirteenth

century. In order to put an end to the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines at Forli, he persuaded the

inhabitants to rebuild the city walls and to begin the works under a constellation indicated by himself. If then


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 168



Top




Page No 172


two men, one from each party, at the same moment put a stone into the foundation, there would henceforth

and for ever be no more party divisions in Forli. A Guelph and a Ghibelline were selected for this office; the

solemn moment arrived, each held the stone in his hands, the workmen stood ready with their implements.

Bonatto gave the signal, and the Ghibelline threw down his stone on to the foundation. But the Guelph

hesitated, and at last refused to do anything at all, on the ground that Bonatto himself had the reputation of a

Ghibelline and might be devising some mysterious mischief against the Guelphs. Upon which the astrologer

addressed him: 'God damn thee and the Guelph party with your distrustful malice! This constellation will not

appear above our city for 500 years to come.' In fact God soon afterwards did destroy the Guelphs of Forli,

but now, writes the chronicler about 1480, the two parties are thoroughly reconciled, and their very names are

heard no longer.

Nothing that depended upon the stars was more important than decisions in time of war. The same Bonatto

procured for the great Ghibelline leader Guido da Montefeltro a series of victories, by telling him the

propitious hour for marching. When Montefeltro was no longer accompanied by him he lost the courage to

maintain his despotism, and entered a Minorite monastery, where he lived as a monk for many years till his

death. In the war with Pisa in 1362, the Florentines commissioned their astrologer to fix the hour for the

march, and almost came too late through suddenly receiving orders to take a circuitous route through the city.

On former occasions they had marched out by the Via di Borgo Santi Apostoli, and the campaign had been

unsuccessful. It was clear that there was some bad omen connected with the exit through this street against

Pisa, and consequently the army was now led out by the Porta Rossa. But as the tents stretched out there to

dry had not been taken away, the flagsanother bad omenhad to be lowered. The influence of astrology

in war was confirmed by the fact that nearly all the Condottieri believed in it. Jacopo Caldora was cheerful in

the most serious illness, knowing that he was fated to fall in battle, which in fact happened. Bartolommeo

Alviano was convinced that his wounds in the head were as much a gift of the stars as his military command.

Niccolo OrsiniPitigliano asked the physicist and astrologer Alessandro Benedetto to fix a favourable hour

for the conclusion of his bargain with Venice. When the Florentines on June 1, 1498, solemnly invested their

new Condottiere Paolo Vitelli with his office, the Marshal's staff which they handed him was, at his own

wish, decorated with pictures of the constellations.

Sometimes it is not easy to make out whether }n important political events the stars were questioned

beforehand, or whether the astrologers were simply impelled afterwards by curiosity to find out the

constellation which decided the result. When Giangaleazzo Visconti by a masterstroke of policy took

prisoner his uncle Bernabo, with the latter's family (1385), we are told by a contemporary that Jupiter, Saturn

and Mars stood in the house of the Twins, but we cannot say if the deed was resolved on in consequence. It is

also probable that the advice of the astrologers was often determined by political calculation not less than by

the course of the planets.

All Europe, through the latter part of the Middle Ages, had allowed itself to be terrified by predictions of

plagues, wars, floods, and earthquakes, and in this respect Italy was by no means behind other countries. The

unlucky year 1494, which for ever opened the gates of Italy to the stranger, was undeniably ushered in by

many prophecies of misfortuneonly we cannot say whether such prophecies were not ready for each and

every year.

This mode of thought was extended with thorough consistency into regions where we should hardly expect to

meet with it. If the whole outward and spiritual life of the individual is determined by the facts of his birth,

the same law also governs groups of individuals and historical products that is to say, nations and

religions; and as the constellation of these things changes, so do the things themselves. The idea that each

religion has its day, first came into Italian culture in connection with these astrological beliefs. The

conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn brought forth, we are told, the faith of Israel; that of Jupiter and Mars, the

Chaldean; with the Sun, the Egyptian; with Venus, the Mohammedan; with Mercury, the Christian; and the

conjunction of Jupiter with the Moon will one day bring forth the religion of Antichrist. Cecco d'Ascoli had


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 169



Top




Page No 173


already blasphemously calculated the nativity of Christ, and deduced from it his death upon the Cross. For

this he was burnt at the stake in 1327, at Florence. Doctrines of this sort ended by simply darkening men's

whole perceptions of spiritual things.

So much more worthy then of recognition is the warfare which the clear Italian spirit waged against this army

of delusions. Notwithstanding the great monumental glorification of astrology, as in the frescoes in the

Salone at Padua, and those in Borso's summer palace (Schifanoia) at Ferrara, notwithstanding the shameless

praises of even such a man as the elder Beroaldus, there was no want of thoughtful and independent antiquity,

but it was their own common sense and observation which taught them what to say. Petrarch's attitude

towards the astrologers, whom he knew by personal intercourse, is one of bitter contempt; and no one saw

through their system of lies more clearly than he. The novels, from the time when they first began to appear

from the time of the 'Cento novelle antiche,' are almost always hostile to the astrologers. The Florentine

chroniclers bravely keep themselves free from the delusions which, as part of historical tradition, they are

compelled to record. Giovanni Villani says more than once, 'No constellation can subjugate either the free

will of man, or the counsels of God.' Matteo Villani declares astrology to be a vice which the Florentines had

inherited, along with other superstitions, from their pagan ancestors, the Romans. The question, however, did

not remain one for mere literary discussion, but the parties for and against disputed publicly. After the terrible

floods of 1333, and again in 1345, astrologers and theologians discussed with great minuteness the influence

of the stars, the will of God, and the justice of his punishments. These struggles never ceased throughout the

whole time of the Renaissance, and we may conclude that the protestors were ill earnest, since it was easier

for them to recommend themselves to the great by defending, than by opposing astrology.

In the circle of Lorenzo the Magnificent, among his most distinguished Platonists, opinions were divided on

this question. Marsilio Ficino defended astrology, and drew the horoscope of the children of the house,

promising the little Giovanni, afterwards Leo X, that he would one day be Pope. Pico della Mirandola, on the

other hand, made an epoch in the subject by his famous refutation. He detects in this belief the root of all

impiety and immorality. If the astrologer, he maintains, believes in anything at all, he must worship not God,

but the planets, from which all good and evil are derived. All other superstitions find a ready instrument in

astrology, which serves as handmaid to geomancy, chiromancy, and magic of every kind. As to morality, he

maintains that nothing can more foster evil than the opinion that heaven itself is the cause of it, in which case

the faith in eternal happiness and punishment must also disappear. Pico even took the trouble to check off the

astrologers inductively, and found that in the course of a month threefourths of their weather prophecies

turned out false. But his main achievement was to set forth, in the Fourth Book, a positive Christian doctrine

of the freedom of the will and the government of the universe, which seems to have made a greater

impression on the educated classes throughout Italy than all the revivalist preachers put together. The latter,

in fact, often failed to reach these classes.

The first result of his book was that the astrologers ceased to publish their doctrines, and those who had

already printed them were more or less ashamed of what they had done. Gioviano Pontano, for example, in

his book on Fate, had recognized the science, and in a great work of his had expounded the whole theory of it

in the style of the old Firmicus, ascribing to the stars the growth of every bodily and spiritual quality. He now

in his dialogue 'Aegidius' surrendered, if not astrology, at least certain astrologers) and sounded the praises of

free will, by which man is enabled to know God. Astrology remained more or less in fashion, but seems not

to have governed human life in the way it formerly had done. The art of painting, which in the fifteenth

century had done its best to foster the delusion now expressed the altered tone of thought. Raphael, in the

cupola of the Capella Chigi, represents the gods of the different planets and the starry firmament, watched,

however, and guided by beautiful angelfigures, and receiving from above the blessing of the eternal Father.

There was also another cause which now began to tell against astrology in Italy. The Spaniards took no

interest in it, not even the generals, and those who wished to gain their favour declared open war against the

halfheretical, half Mohammedan science. It is true that Guicciardini writes in the year 1529: 'How happy

are the astrologers, who are believed if they tell one truth to a hundred lies, while other people lose all credit


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 170



Top




Page No 174


if they tell one lie to a hundred truths.' But the contempt for astrology did not necessarily lead to a return to

the belief in Providence. It could as easily lead to an indefinite fatalism.

In this respect, as in others, Italy was unable to make its own way healthily through the ferment of the

Renaissance, because the foreign invasion and the CounterReformation came upon it in the middle. Without

such interfering causes its own strength would have enabled it thoroughly to get rid of these fantastic

illusions. Those who hold that the onslaught of the strangers and the Catholic reactions were necessities for

which the Italian people was itself solely responsible, will look on the spiritual bankruptcy which they

produced as a just retribution. But it is a pity that the rest of Europe had indirectly to pay so large a part of the

penalty.

The belief in omens seems a much more innocent matter than astrology. The Middle Ages had everywhere

inherited them in abundance from the various pagan religions; and Italy did not differ in this respect from

other countries. What is characteristic of Italy is the support lent by humanism to the popular superstition.

The pagan inheritance was here backed up by a pagan literary development.

The popular superstition of the Italians rested largely on premonitions and inferences drawn from ominous

occurrences. with which a good deal of magic, mostly of an innocent sort, was connected. There was,

however. no lack of learned humanists who boldly ridiculed these delusions, and to whose attacks we partly

owe the knowledge of them. Gioviano Pontano, the author of the great astrological work already mentioned

above, enumerates with pity in his 'Charon' a long string of Neapolitan superstitionsthe grief of the women

when a fowl or goose caught the pip; the deep anxiety of the nobility if a hunting falcon did not come home,

or if a horse sprained its foot; the magical formulae of the Apulian peasants, recited on three Saturday

evenings, when mad dogs were at large. The animal kingdom, as in antiquity, was regarded as specially

significant in this respect, and the behavior of the lions, leopards, and other beasts kept by the State gave the

people all the more food for reflection, because they had come to be considered as living symbols of the

State. During the siege of Florence, in 1597 an eagle which had been shot at fled into the city, and the

Signoria gave the bearer four ducats because the omen was good. Certain times and places were favourable or

unfavorable, or even decisive one way or the other, for certain actions. The Florentines, so Varchi tells us,

held Saturday to be the fateful day on which all important events, good as well as bad, commonly happened.

Their prejudice against marching out to war through a particular street has been already mentioned. At

Perugia one of the gates, the 'Porta Eburnea,' was thought lucky, and the Baglioni always went out to fight

through it. Meteors and the appearance of the heavens were as significant in Italy as elsewhere in the Middle

Ages, and the popular imagination saw warring armies in an unusual formation of clouds, and heard the clash

of their collision high in the air. The superstition became a more serious matter when it attached itself to

sacred things, when figures of the Virgin wept or moved the eyes, or when public calamities were associated

with some alleged act of impiety, for which the people demanded expiation. In 1478, when Piacenza was

visited with a violent and prolonged rainfall, it was said that there would be no dry weather till a certain

usurer, who had been lately buried in San Francesco, had ceased to rest in consecrated earth. As the bishop

was not obliging enough to have the corpse dug up the young fellows of the town took it by force, dragged it

down the streets amid frightful confusion, and at last threw it into the Po. Even Politian accepted this point of

view in speaking of Giacomo Pazzi, one of the chiefs of the conspiracy of 1478, In Florence, which is called

after his family. When he was put to death, he devoted his soul to Satan with fearful words; here, too, rain

followed and threatened to ruin the harvest; here, too, a party of men, mostly peasants, dug up the body in the

church, and immediately the clouds departed and the sun shone'so gracious was fortune to the opinion of

the people,' adds the great scholar. The corpse was first cast into unhallowed ground, the next day dug up,

and after a horrible procession through the city thrown into the Arno.

These facts and the like bear a popular character, and might have occurred in the tenth, just as well as in the

sixteenth century. But now comes the literary influence of antiquity. We know positively that the humanists

were peculiarly accessible to prodigies and auguries, and instances of this have been already quoted. If


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 171



Top




Page No 175


further evidence were needed, it would be found in Poggio. The same radical thinker who denied the rights of

noble birth and the inequality of men, not only believed in all the mediaeval stories of ghosts and devils, but

also in prodigies after the ancient pattern, like those said to have occurred on the last visit of Pope Eugenius

IV to Florence. 'Near Como there were seen one evening four thousand dogs, who took the road to Germany;

these were followed by a great herd of cattle, and these by an army on foot and horseback, some with no

heads and some with almost invisible heads, and then a gigantic horseman with another herd of cattle behind

him.' Poggio also believes in a battle of magpies and jackdaws. He even relates, perhaps without being aware

of it, a wellpreserved piece of ancient mythology. On the Dalmatian coast a Triton had appeared, bearded

and horned, a genuine seasatyr, ending in fins and a tail; he carried away women and children from the

shore, till five stouthearted washerwomen killed him with sticks and stones. A wooden model of the

monster, which was exhibited at Ferrara, makes the whole story credible to Poggio. Though there were no

more oracles, and it was no longer possible to take counsel of the gods, yet it became again the fashion to

open Virgil at hazard, and take the passage hit upon as an omen ('Sorted Virgilianae'). Nor can the belief in

daemons current in the later period of antiquity have been without influence on the Renaissance. The work of

Iamblichus or Abarnmon on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, which may have contributed to this result, was

printed in a Latin translation at the end of the fifteenth century. The Platonic Academy at Florence was not

free from these and other neoplatonic delusions of the Roman decadence. A 'few words must here be given to

the belief in demons and to the magic which was connected with this belief.

The popular faith in what is called the spiritworld was nearly the same in Italy as elsewhere in Europe. In

Italy as elsewhere there were ghosts, that is, reappearances of deceased persons; and if the view taken of them

differed in any respect from that which prevailed in the North, the difference betrayed itself only in the

ancient name 'ombra.' Even nowadays if such a shade presents itself, a couple of Masses are said for its

repose. That the spirits of bad men appear in a dreadful shape, is a matter of course, but along with this we

find the notion that the ghosts of the departed are universally malicious. The dead, says the priest in a novel

of Bandello, kill the little children. It seems as if a certain shade was here thought of as separate from the

soul, since the latter suffers in Purgatory, and when it appears, does nothing but wail and pray. At other times

what appears is not the ghost of a man, but of an event  of a past condition of things. So the neighbors

explained the diabolical appearances in the old palace of the Visconti near San Giovanni in Conca, at Milan,

since here it was that Bernab Visconti had caused countless victims of his tyranny to be tortured and

strangled, and no wonder if there were strange things to be seen. One evening a swarm of poor people with

candles in their hands appeared to a dishonest guardian of the poor at Perugia, and danced round about him; a

great figure spoke in threatening tones on their behalf, it was St. Alo, the patron saint of the poorhouse. These

modes of belief were so much a matter of course that the poets could make use of them as something which

every reader would understand. The appearance of the slain Lodovico Pico under the walls of the besieged

Mirandola is finely represented by Castiglione. It is true that poetry made the freest use of these conceptions

when the poet himself had outgrown them.

Italy, too, shared the belief in demons with the other nations of the Middle Ages. Men were convinced that

God sometimes allowed bad spirits of every class to exercise a destructive influence on parts of the world and

of human life. The only reservation made was that the man to whom the Evil One came as tempter, could use

his free will to resist. In Italy the demonic influence, especially as shown in natural events, easily assumed a

character of poetical greatness. In the night before the great inundation of the Val d'Arno in 1333, a pious

hermit above Vallombrosa heard a diabolical tumult in his cell, crossed himself, stepped to the door, and saw

a crowd of black and terrible knights gallop by in amour. When conjured to stand, one of them said: 'We go

to drown the city of Florence on account of its sins, if God will let us.' With this, the nearly contemporary

vision at Venice (1340) may be compared, out of which a great master of the Venetian school, probably

Giorgione, made the marvelous picture of a galley full of daemons, which speeds with the swiftness of a bird

over the stormy lagoon to destroy the sinful islandcity, till the three saintS, who have stepped unobserved

into a poor boatman's skiff, exorcised the fiends and sent them and their vessel to the bottom of the waters.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 172



Top




Page No 176


To this belief the illusion was now added that by means of magical arts it was possible to enter into relations

with the evil ones, and use their help to further the purposes of greed, ambition, and sensuality. Many persons

were probably accused of doing so before the time when it was actually attempted by many; but when the

socalled magicians and witches began to be burned, the deliberate practice of the black art became more

frequent. With the smoke of the fires in which the suspected victims were sacrificed, were spread the narcotic

fumes by which numbers of ruined characters were drugged into magic; and with them many calculating

impostors became associated.

The primitive and popular form in which the superstition had probably lived on uninterruptedly from the time

of the Romans, was the art of the witch_(strege)._The witch, so long as she limited herself to mere divination,

might be innocent enough. were it not that the transition from prophecy to active help could easily, though

often imperceptibly, be a fatal downward step. She was credited in such a case not only with the power of

exciting love or hatred between man and woman, but also with purely destructive and malignant arts, and was

especially charged with the sickness of little children, even when the malady obviously came from the neglect

and stupidity of the parents. It is still questionable how far she was supposed to act by mere magical

ceremonies and formula, or by a conscious alliance with the fiends, apart from the poisons and drugs which

she administered with a full knowledge of their effect.

The more innocent form of the superstition, in which the mendicant friar could venture to appear as the

competitor of the witch, is shown in the case of the witch of Gaeta whom we read of in Pontano. His traveller

Suppatius reaches her dwelling while she is giving audience to a girl and a servingmaid, who come to her

with a black hen, nine eggs laid on a Friday, a duck, and some white thread, for it is the third day since the

new moon. They are then sent away, and bidden to come again at twilight. It is to be hoped that nothing

worse than divination is intended. The mistress of the servantmaid is pregnant by a monk; the girl's lover

has proved untrue and has gone into a monastery. The witch complains: 'Since my husband's death I support

myself in this way, and should make a good thing of it, since the Gaetan women have plenty of faith, were it

not that the monks balk me of my gains by explaining dreams, appeasing the anger of the saints for money,

promising husbands to the girls, menchildren to the pregnant women, offspring to the barren, and besides all

this visiting the women at night when their husbands are away fishing, in accordance with the assignations

made in daytime at church.' Suppatius warns her against the envy of the monastery, but she has no fear, since

the guardian of it is an old acquaintance of hers.

But the superstition further gave rise to a worse sort of witches, namely those who deprived men of their

health and life. In these cases the mischief, when not sufficiently accounted for by the evil eye and the like,

was naturally attributed to the aid of powerful spirits. The punishment, as we have seen in the case of

Finicella, was the stake; and yet a compromise with fanaticism was sometimes practicable. According to the

laws of Perugia, for example, a witch could settle the affair by paying down 400 pounds. The matter was not

then treated with the seriousness and consistency of later times. In the territories of the Church? at Norcia

(Nursia), the home of St. Benedict in the upper Apennines, there was a perfect nest of witches and sorcerers,

and no secret was made of it. It is spoken of in one of the most remarkable letters of Aeneas Sylvius,

belonging to his earlier period. He writes to his brother: 'The bearer of this came to me to ask if I knew of a

Mount of Venus in Italy, for in such a place magical arts were taught, and his master, a Saxon and a great

astronomer, was anxious to learn them. I told him that I knew of a Porto Venere not far from Carrara, on the

rocky coast of Liguria, where I spent three nights on the way to Basle; I also found that there was a mountain

called Eryx, in Sicily, which was dedicated to Venus, but I did not know whether magic was taught here. But

it came into my mind while talking, that in Umbria, in the old Duchy (Spoleto)? near the town of Nursia,

there is a cave beneath a steep rock, in which water flows. There, as I remember to have heard, are witches

(striges), demons, and nightly shades, and he that has the courage can see and speak to ghosts (spiritus), and

learn magical arts. I have not seen it, nor taken any trouble about it, for that which is learned with sin is better

not learned at all.' He nevertheless names his informant, and begs his brother to take the bearer of the letter to

him, should he be still alive. Aeneas goes far enough here in his politeness to a man of position, but


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 173



Top




Page No 177


personally he was not only freer from superstition than his contemporaries, but he also stood a test on the

subject which not every educated man of our own day could endure. At the time of the Council of Basle,

when he lay sick of the fever for seventyfive days at Milan, he could never be persuaded to listen to the

magic doctors, though a man was brought to his bedside who a short time before had marvelously cured

2,000 soldiers of fever in the camp of Piccinino. While still an invalid, Aeneas rode over the mountains to

Basle, and got well on the journey.

We learn something more about the neighborhood of Norcia through the necromancer who tried to get

Benvenuto Cellini into his power. A new book of magic was to be consecrated, and the best place for the

ceremony was among the mountains in that district. The master of the magician had once, it is true, done the

same thing near the abbey of Farfa, but had there found difficulties which did not present themselves at

Norcia; further, the peasants in the latter neighborhood were trustworthy people who had had practice in the

matter, and who could afford considerable help in case of need. The expedition did not take place, else

Benvenuto would probably have been able to tell us something of the impostor's assistants. The whole

neighborhood was then proverbial. Aretino says somewhere of an enchanted well, 'there dwell the sisters of

the sibyl of Norcia and the aunt of the Fata Gloriana.' And about the same time Trissino could still celebrate

the place in his great epic with all the resources of poetry and allegory as the home of authentic prophecy.

After the notorious Bull of Innocent VIII (1484), witchcraft and the persecution of witches grew into a great

and revolting system. The chief representatives of this system of persecution were German Dominicans; and

Germany and, curiously enough, those parts of Italy nearest Germany were the countries most afflicted by

this plague. The bulls and injunctions of the Popes themselves refer, for example, to the Dominican Province

of Lombardy, to Cremona, to the dioceses of Brescia and Bergamo. We learn from Sprenger's famous

theoretico practical guide, the 'Malleus Maleficarum,' that fortyone witches were burnt at Como in the first

year after the publication of the bull; crowds of Italian women took refuge in the territory of the Archduke

Sigismund, where they believed themselves to be still safe. Witchcraft ended by taking firm root in a few

unlucky Alpine valleys, especially in the Val Camonica; the system of persecution had succeeded in

permanently infecting with the delusion those populations which were in any way predisposed for it. This

essentially German form of witchcraft is what we should think of when reading the stories and novels of

Milan or Bologna. That it did not make further progress in Italy is probably due to the fact that here a highly

developed 'stregheria' was already in existence, resting on a different set of ideas. The Italian witch practiced

a trade, and needed for it money and, above all, sense. We find nothing about her of the hysterical dreams of

the Northern witch, of marvelous journeys through the air, of Incubus and Succubus; the business of the

'strega' was to provide for other people's pleasures. If she was credited with the power of assuming different

shapes, or of transporting herself suddenly to distant places, she was so far content to accept this reputation,

as her influence was thereby increased; on the other hand, it was perilous for her when the fear of her malice

and vengeance, and especially of her power for enchanting children, cattle, and crops, became general.

Inquisitors and magistrates were then most thoroughly in accord with popular wishes if they burnt her.

By far the most important field for the activity of the 'strega' lay, as has been said, in loveaffairs, and

included the stirring up of love and of hatred, the producing of abortion, the pretended murder of the

unfaithful man or woman by magical arts, and even the manufacture of poisons. Owing to the unwillingness

of many persons to have to do with these women, class of occasional practitioners arose who secretly learned

from them some one or other of their arts, and then used this knowledge on their own account. The Roman

prostitutes, for example, tried to enhance their personal attractions by charms of another description in the

style of the Horatian Canidia. Aretino may not only have known, but have also told the truth about them in

this particular. He gives a list of the loathsome messes which were to be found in their boxeshair, skulls,

ribs, teeth, dead men's eyes, human skin, the navels of little children, the soles of shoes and pieces of clothing

from tombs. They even went themselves to the graveyard and fetched bits of rotten flesh, which they slyly

gave their lovers to eatwith more that is still worse. Pieces of the hair and nails of the lover were boiled in

oil stolen from the everburning lamps in the church. The most innocuous of their charms was to make a


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 174



Top




Page No 178


heart of glowing ashes, and then to pierce it while singing: 'Prima che'l fuoco spenghi, Fa ch'a mia porta

venghi; Tal ti punga mio amore Quale io fo questo cuore.'

There were other charms practiced by moonshine, with drawings on the ground, and figures of wax or

bronze, which doubtless represented the lover, and were treated according to circumstances.

These things were so customary that a woman who, without youth and beauty, nevertheless exercised a

powerful charm on men, naturally became suspected of witchcraft. The mother of Sanga, secretary to

Clement VII, poisoned her son's mistress, who was a woman of this kind. Unfortunately the son died too, as

well as a party of friends who had eaten of the poisoned salad.

Next comes, not as helper, but as competitor to the witch, the magician or enchanter'incantatore'who

was still more familiar with the most perilous business of the craft. Sometimes he was as much or more of an

astrologer than of a magician; he probably often gave himself out as an astrologer in order not to be

prosecuted as a magician, and a certain astrology was essential in order to find out the favourable hour for a

magical process. But since many spirits are good or indifferent, the magician could sometimes maintain a

very tolerable reputation, and Sixtus IV, in the year 1474, had to proceed expressly against some Bolognese

Carmelites, who asserted in the pulpit that there was no harm in seeking information from the demons. Very

many people believed in the possibility of the thing itself; an indirect proof of this lies in the fact that the

most pious men believed that by prayer they could obtain visions of good spirits. Savonarola's mind was

filled with these things; the Florentine Platonists speak of a mystic union with God; and Marcellus

Palingenius gives us to understand clearly enough that he had to do with consecrated spirits. The same writer

is convinced of the existence of a whole hierarchy of bad demons, who have their seat from the moon

downwards, and are ever on the watch to do some mischief to nature and human life. He even tells of his own

personal acquaintance with some of them, and as the scope of the present work does not allow of a systematic

exposition of the then prevalent belief in spirits, the narrative of Palingenius may be given as one instance out

of many.

At San Silvestro, on Soracte, he had been receiving instruction from a pious hermit on the nothingness of

earthly things and the worthlessness of human life; and when the night drew near he set out on his way back

to home. On the road, in the full light of the moon, he was joined by three men, one of whom called him by

name, and asked him whence he came. Palingenius made answer: 'From the wise man on the mountain.' 'O

fool,' replied the stranger, 'dost thou in truth believe that anyone on earth is wise? Only higher beings (Divi)

have wisdom, and such are we three, although we wear the shapes of men. I am named Saracil, and these two

Sathiel and Jana. Our kingdom lies near the moon, where dwell that multitude of intermediate beings who

have sway over earth and sea.' Palingenius then asked, not without an inward tremor, what they were going to

do at Rome. The answer was: 'One of our comrades, Ammon, is kept in servitude by the magic arts of a youth

from Narni, one of the attendants of Cardinal Orsini; for mark it, O men, there is proof of your own

immortality therein, that you can control one of us: I myself shut up in crystal, was once forced to serve a

German, till a bearded monk set me free. This is the service which we wish to render at Rome to our friend,

and he shall also take the opportunity of sending one or two distinguished Romans to the nether world.' At

these words a light breeze arose, and Sathiel said: 'Listen, our messenger is coming back from Rome, and this

wind announces him.' And then another being appeared, whom they greeted joyfully and then asked about

Rome. His utterances are strongly antipapal: Clement VII was again allied with the Spaniards and hoped to

root out Luther's doctrines, not with arguments, but by the Spanish sword. This is wholly in the interest of the

demons, whom the impending bloodshed would enable to carry away the souls of thousands into hell. At the

close of this conversation, in which Rome with all its guilt is represented as wholly given over to the Evil

One, the apparitions vanish, and leave the poet sorrowfully to pursue his way alone.

Those who would form a conception of the extent of the belief in those relations to the demons which could

be openly avowed in spite of the penalties attaching to witchcraft, may be referred to the muchread work of


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 175



Top




Page No 179


Agrippa of Nettesheim 'On secret Philosophy.' He seems originally to have written it before he was in Italy,

but in the dedication to Trithemius he mentions Italian authorities among others, if only by way of

disparagement. In the case of equivocal persons like Agrippa, or of the knaves and fools into whom the

majority of the rest may be divided, there is little that is interesting in the system they profess, with its

formula, fumigations, ointments, and the rest of it. But this system was filled with quotations from the

superstitions of antiquity, the influence of which on the life and the passions of Italians is at times most

remarkable and fruitful. We might think that a great mind must be thoroughly ruined, before it surrendered

itself to such influences; but the violence of hope and desire led even vigorous and original men of all classes

to have recourse to the magician, and the belief that the thing was feasible at all weakened to some extent the

faith, even of those who kept at a distance, in the moral order of the world. At the cost of a little money and

danger it seemed possible to defy with impunity the universal reason and morality of mankind, and to spare

oneself the intermediate steps which otherwise lie between a man and his lawful or unlawful ends.

Let us here glance for a moment at an older and now decaying form of superstition. From the darkest period

of the Middle Ages, or even from the days of antiquity, many cities of Italy had kept the remembrance of the

connection of their fate with certain buildings, statues, or other material objects. The ancients had left records

of consecrating priests or Telestae, who were present at the solemn foundation of cities, and magically

guaranteed their prosperity by erecting certain monuments or by burying certain objects (Telesmata).

Traditions of this sort were more likely than anything else to live on in the form of popular, unwritten legend;

but in the course of centuries the priest naturally became transformed into the magician, since the religious

side of his function was no longer understood. In some of the Virgilian miracles at Naples, the ancient

remembrance of one of these Telestae is clearly preserved, his name being in course of time supplanted by

that of Virgil. The enclosing of the mysterious picture of the city in a vessel is neither more nor less than a

genuine ancient Telesma; and Virgil, as founder of Naples, is but the officiating priest who took part in the

ceremony, presented in another dress. The popular imagination went on working at these themes, till Virgil

became also responsible for the brazen horse, for the heads at the Nolan gate, for the brazen fly over another

gate, and even for the Grotto of Posilippoall of them things which in one respect or other served to put a

magical constraint upon fate, and the first two of which seemed to determine the whole fortune of the city.

Medieval Rome also preserved confused recollections of the same kind. At the church of Sant' Ambrogio at

Milan, there was an ancient marble Hercules; so long, it was said, as this stood in its place, so long would the

Empire last. That of the Germans is probably meant, as the coronation of their emperors at Milan took place

in this church. The Florentines were convinced that the temple of Mars, afterwards transformed into the

Baptistery, would stand to the end of time, according to the constellation under which it had been built; they

had, as Christians, removed from it the marble equestrian statue; but since the destruction of the latter would

have brought some great calamity on the cityalso according to a constellationthey set it upon a tower by

the Arno. When Totila conquered Florence, the statue fell into the river, and was not fished out again till

Charlemagne refounded the city. It was then placed on a pillar at the entrance to the Ponte Vecchio, and on

this spot Buondelmonti was slain in 1215. The origin of the great feud between Guelph and Ghibelline was

thus associated with the dreaded idol. During the inundation of 1333 the statue vanished for ever.

But the same Telesma reappears elsewhere. Guido Bonatto, already mentioned, was not satisfied, at the

refounding of the walls of Forli, with requiring certain symbolic acts of reconciliation from the two parties.

By burying a bronze or stone equestrian statue, which he had produced by astrological or magical arts, he

believed that he had defended the city from ruin, and even from capture and plunder. When Cardinal

Albornoz was governor of Romagna some sixty years later, the statue was accidentally dug up and then

shown to the people, probably by the order of the Cardinal, that it might be known by what means the cruel

Montefeltro had defended himself against the Roman Church. And again, half a century later, when an

attempt to surprise Forli had failed, men began to talk afresh of the virtue of the statue, which had perhaps

been saved and reburied. It was the last time that they could do so; for a year later Forli was really taken. The

foundation of buildings all through the fifteenth century was associated not only with astrology but also with

magic. The large number of gold and silver medals which Paul II buried in the foundation of his buildings


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 176



Top




Page No 180


was noticed, and Platina was by no means displeased to recognize an old pagan Telesma in the fact. Neither

Paul nor his biographer were in any way conscious of the mediaeval religious significance of such an

offering.

But this official magic, which in many cases only rests on hearsay, was comparatively unimportant by the

side of the secret arts practiced for personal ends.

The form which these most often took in daily life is shown by Ariosto in his comedy of the necromancers.

His hero is one of the many Jewish exiles from Spain, although he also gives himself out for a Greek, an

Egyptian, and an African, and is constantly changing his name and costume. He pretends that his incantations

can darken the day and lighten the darkness, that he can move the earth, make himself invisible, and change

men into beasts; but these vaunts are only an advertisement. His true object is to make his account out of

unhappy and troubled marriages, and the traces which he leaves behind him in his course are like the slime of

a snail, or often like the ruin wrought by a hailstorm. To attain his ends he can persuade people that the box in

which a lover is hidden is full of ghosts, or that he can make a corpse talk. It is at all events a good sign that

poets and novelists could reckon on popular applause in holding up this class of men to ridicule. Bandello not

only treats this sorcery of a Lombard monk as a miserable, and in its consequences terrible, piece of knavery,

but he also describes with unaffected indignation the disasters which never cease to pursue the credulous fool.

'A man hopes with "Solomon's Key' and other magical books to find the treasures hidden in the bosom of the

earth, to force his lady to do his will, to find out the secret of princes, and to transport himself in the

twinkling of an eye from Milan to Rome. The more often he is deceived, the more steadfastly he believes....

Do you remember the time, Signor Carlo, when a friend of ours, in order to win a favour of his beloved, filled

his room with skulls and bones like a churchyard?' The most loathsome tasks were prescribedto draw three

teeth from a corpse or a nail from its finger, and the like; and while the hocuspocus of the incantation was

going on, the unhappy participants sometimes died of terror.

Benvenuto Cellini did not die during the wellknown incantation (1532) in the Colosseum at Rome, although

both he and his companions witnessed no ordinary horrors; the Sicilian priest, who probably expected to find

him a useful coadjutor in the future, paid him the compliment as they went home of saying that he had never

met a man of so sturdy a courage. Every reader will make his own reflections on the proceedings themselves.

The narcotic fumes and the fact that the imaginations of the spectators were predisposed for all possible

terrors, are the chief points to be noticed, and explain why the lad who formed one of the party, and on whom

they made most impression, saw much more than the others. but it may be inferred that Benvenuto himself

was the one whom it was wished to impress, since the dangerous beginning of the incantation can have had

no other aim than to arouse curiosity. For Benvenuto had to think before the fair Angelica occurred to him;

and the magician told him afterwards that lovemaking was folly compared with the finding of treasures.

Further, it must not be forgotten that it flattered his vanity to be able to say, 'The demons have kept their

word, and Angelica came into my hands, as they promised, just a month later' (I, cap. 68). Even on the

supposition that Benvenuto gradually lied himself into believing the whole story, it would still be

permanently valuable as evidence of the mode of thought then prevalent.

As a rule, however, the Italian artists, even 'the odd, capricious, and eccentric' among them, had little to do

with magic. One of them, in his anatomical studies, may have cut himself a jacket out of the skin of a corpse,

but at the advice of his confessor he put it again into the grave. Indeed the frequent study of anatomy

probably did more than anything else to destroy the belief in the magical influence of various parts of the

body, while at the same time the incessant observation and representation of the human form made the artist

familiar with a magic of a wholly different sort.

In general, notwithstanding the instances which have been quoted, magic seems to have been markedly on the

decline at the beginning of the sixteenth centurythat is to say, at a time when it first began to flourish

vigorously out of Italy; and thus the tours of Italian sorcerers and astrologers in the North seem not to have


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

Influence of Ancient Superstition 177



Top




Page No 181


begun till their credit at home was thoroughly impaired. In the fourteenth century it was thought necessary

carefully to watch the lake on Mount Pilatus, near Scariotto, to hinder the magicians from there consecrating

their books. In the fifteenth century we find, for example, that the offer was made to produce a storm of rain,

in order to frighten away a besieged army; and even then the commander of the besieged town, Niccolo

Vitelli in Citta di Castello had the good sense to dismiss the sorcerers as godless persons. In the sixteenth

century no more instances of this official kind appear, although in private life the magicians were still active.

To this time belongs the classic figure of German sorcery, Dr. Johann Faust; the Italian ideal, on the other

hand, Guido Bonatto, dates back to the thirteenth century.

It must nevertheless be added that the decrease of the belief in magic was not necessarily accompanied by an

increase of the belief in a moral order, but that in many cases, like the decaying faith in astrology, the

delusion left behind it nothing but a stupid fatalism.

One or two minor forms of this superstition, pyromancy, chiromancy and others, which obtained some credit

as the belief in sorcery and astrology was declining, may be here passed over, and even the pseudo science

of physiognomy has by no means the interest which the name might lead us to expect. For it did not appear as

the sister and ally of art and psychology, but as a new form of fatalistic superstition, and, what it may have

been among the Arabs, as the rival of astrology. The author of a physiognomical treatise, Bartolommeo

Cocle, who styled himself a 'metoposcopist,' and whose science, according to Giovio, seemed like one of the

most respectable of the free arts, was not content with the prophecies which he made to the many people who

daily consulted him, but wrote also a most serious 'catalogue of such whom great dangers to life were

awaiting.' Giovio, although grown old in the free thought of Rome 'in hac luce romana'is of opinion that

the predictions contained therein had only too much truth in them We learn from the same source how the

people aimed at in these and similar prophecies took vengeance on a seer. Giovanni Bentivoglio caused

Lucas Gauricus to be five times swung to and fro against the wall, on a rope hanging from a lofty, winding

staircase, because Lucas had foretold to him the loss of his authority. Ermes Bentivoglio sent an assassin after

Cocle, because the unlucky metopOscopist had unwillingly prophesied to him that he would die an exile in

battle. The murderer seems to have derided the dying man in his last moments, saying that Cocle himself had

foretold him he would shortly commit an infamous murder. The reviver of chiromancy, Antioco Tiberto of

Cesena, came by an equally miserable end at the hands of Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, to whom he had

prophesied the worst that a tyrant can imagine, namely, death in exile and in the most grievous poverty.

Tiberto was a man of intelligence, who was supposed to give his answers less according to any methodical

chiromancy than by means of his shrewd knowledge of mankind; and his high culture won for him the

respect of those scholars who thought little of his divination.

Alchemy, in conclusion, which is not mentioned in antiquity till quite late under Diocletian, played only a

very subordinate part at the best period of the Renaissance. Italy went through the disease earlier, when

Petrarch in the fourteenth century confessed, in his polemic against it, that goldmaking was a general

practice. Since then that particular kind of faith, devotion, and isolation which the practice of alchemy

required became more and more rare in Italy, just when Italian and other adepts began to make their full

profit out of the great lords in the North. Under Leo X the few Italians who busied themselves with it were

called 'ingenia curiosa,' and Aurelio Augurelli, who dedicated to Leo X, the great despiser of gold, his

didactic poem on the making of the metal, is said to have received in return a beautiful but empty purse. The

mystic science which besides gold sought for the omnipotent philosopher's stone, is a late northern growth,

which had its rise in the theories of Paracelsus and others.

General Spirit of Doubt

With these superstitions, as with ancient modes of thought generally, the decline in the belief of immortality

stands in the closest connection. This questiOn has the widest and deepest relations with the whole

development of the modern spirit.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

General Spirit of Doubt 178



Top




Page No 182


One great source of doubt in immortality was the inward wish to be under no obligations to the hated Church.

We have seen that the Church branded those who thus felt as Epicureans. In the hour of death many doubtless

called for the sacraments, but multitudes during their whole lives, and especially during their most vigorous

years, lived and acted on the negative supposition. That unbelief on this particular point must often have led

to a general skepticism, is evident of itself, and is attested by abundant historical proof. These are the men of

whom Ariosto says: 'Their faith goes no higher than the roof.' In Italy, and especially in Florence, it was

possible to live as an open and notorious unbeliever, if a man only refrained from direct acts of hostility

against the Church. The confessor, for instance, who was sent to prepare a political offender for death, began

by inquiring whether the prisoner was a believer, 'for there was a false report that he had no belief at all.'

The unhappy transgressor here referred tothe same Pierpaolo Boscoli who has been already

mentionedwho in 1513 took part in an attempt against the newly restored family of the Medici, is a faithful

mirror of the religious confusion then prevalent. Beginning as a partisan of Savonarola, he became afterwards

possessed with an enthusiasm for the ancient ideals of liberty, and for paganism in general; but when he was

in prison his early friends regained the control of his mind, and secured for him what they considered a pious

ending. The tender witness and narrator of his last hours is one of the artistic family of the Della Robbia, the

learned philologist Luca. 'Ah,' sighs Boscoli, 'get Brutus out of my head for me, that I may go my way as a

Christian.' 'If you will,' answers Luca, 'the thing is not difficult; for you know that these deeds of the Romans

are not handed down to us as they were, but idealized (con arte accresciute).' The penitent now forces his

understanding to believe, and bewails his inability to believe voluntarily. If he could only live for a month

with pious monks he would truly become spiritually minded. It comes out that these partisans of Savonarola

knew their Bible very imperfectly; Boscoli can only say the Paternoster and Ave Maria, and earnestly begs

Luca to exhort his friends to study the sacred writings, for only what a man has learned in life does he possess

in death. Luca then reads and explains to him the story of the Passion according to the Gospel of St. John; the

poor listener, strange to say, can perceive clearly the Godhead of Christ, but is perplexed at His manhood; he

wishes to get as firm a hold of it 'as if Christ came to meet him out of a wood.' His friend thereupon exhorts

him to be humble, since this was only a doubt sent him by the Devil. Soon after it occurs to the penitent that

he has not fulfilled a vow made in his youth to go on pilgrimage to the Impruneta; his friend promises to do it

in his stead. Meantime the confessora monk, as was desired, from Savonarola's monastery arrives, and

after giving him the explanation quoted above of the opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas on tyrannicide, exhorts

him to bear death manfully. Boscoli makes answer: 'Father, waste no time on this; the philosophers have

taught it me already; help me to bear death out of love to Christ.' What follows, the communion, the

leavetaking and the executionis very touchingly described; one point deserves special mention. When

Boscoli laid his head on the block, he begged the executioner to delay the stroke for a moment: 'During the

whole time since the announcement of the sentence he had been striving after a close union with God,

without attaining it as he wished, and now in this supreme moment he thought that by a strong effort he could

give himself wholly to God.' It is clearly some halfunderstood expression of Savonarola which was

troubling him.

If we had more confessions of this character the spiritual picture of the time would be richer by many

important features which no poem or treatise has preserved for us. We should see more clearly how strong the

inborn religious instinct was, how subjective and how variable the relation of the individual to religion, and

what powerful enemies and competitors religion had. That men whose inward condition is of this nature, are

not the men to found a new church, is evident; but the history of the Western spirit would be imperfect

without a view of that fermenting period among the Italians, while other nations, who have had no share in

the evolution of thought, may be passed over without loss. But we must return to the question of immortality.

If unbelief in this respect made such progress among the more highly cultivated natures, the reason lay partly

in the fact that the great earthly task of discovering the world and representing it in word and form, absorbed

most of the higher spiritual faculties. We have already spoken of the inevitable worldliness of the

Renaissance. But this investigation and this art were necessarily accompanied by a general spirit of doubt and

inquiry. If this spirit shows itself but little in literature, if we find, for example, only isolated instances of the


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

General Spirit of Doubt 179



Top




Page No 183


beginnings of biblical criticism, we are not therefore to infer that it had no existence. The sound of it was

only overpowered by the need of representation and creation in all departments that is, by the artistic

instinct; and it was further checked, whenever it tried to express itself theoretically, by the already existing

despotism of the Church. This spirit of doubt must, for reasons too obvious to need discussion, have

inevitably and chiefly busied itself with the question of the state of man after death.

And here came in the influence of antiquity, and worked in a twofold fashion on the argument. In the first

place men set themselves to master the psychology of the ancients, and tortured the letter of Aristotle for a

decisive answer. In one of the Lucianic dialogues of the time, Charon tells Mercury how he questioned

Aristotle on his belief in immortality, when the philosopher crossed in the Stygian boat; but the prudent sage,

although dead in the body and nevertheless living on, declined to compromise himself by a definite

answerand centuries later how was it likely to fare with the interpretation of his writings? All the more

eagerly did men dispute about his opinion and that of others on the true nature of the soul, its origin, its

preexistence, its unity in all men, its absolute eternitY, even its transformations; and there were men who

treated of these things in the pulpit. The dispute was warmly carried on even in the fifteenth century; some

proved that Aristotle taught the doctrine of an immortal soul; others complained of the hardness of men's

hearts, who would not believe that there was a soul at all, till they saw it sitting down on a chair before them;

Filelfo, in his funeral oration on Francesco Sforza, brings forward a long list of opinions of ancient and even

of Arab philosophers in favour of immortality, and closes the mixture, which covers a folio page and a half of

print, with the words, 'Besides all this we have the Old and New Testaments, which are above all truth.' Then

came the Florentine Platonists with their master's doctrine of the soul, supplemented at times, as in the case of

Pico, by Christian teaching. But the opposite opinion prevailed in the instructed world. At the beginning of

the sixteenth century the stumblingblock which it put in the way of the Church was so serious that Leo X set

forth a Constitution at the Lateran Council in 1513, in defence of the immortality and individuality of the

soul, the latter against those who asserted that there was but one soul in all men. A few years later appeared

the work of Pomponazzo, in which the impossibility of a philosophical proof of immortality is maintained;

and the contest was now waged incessantly with replies and 'apologies,' till it was silenced by the Catholic

reaction. The preexistence of the soul in God, conceived more or less in accordance with Plato's theory of

ideas, long remained a common belief, and proved of service even to the poets. The consequences which

followed from it as to the mode of the soul's continued existence after death were not more closely

considered.

There was a second way in which the influence of antiquity made itself felt, chiefly by means of that

remarkable fragment of the sixth book of Cicero's 'Republic,' known by the name of Scipio's Dream. Without

the commentary of Macrobius it would probably have perished like the rest of the second part of the work; it

was now diffused in countless manuscript copies, and, after the discovery of typography, in a printed form

and edited afresh by various commentatOrs. It is the description of a transfigured hereafter for great men,

pervaded by the harmony of the spheres. This pagan heaven, for which many other testimonies were

gradually extracted from the writings of the ancients, came step by step to supplant the Christian heaven in

proportion as the ideal of fame and historical greatness threw into the shade the ideal of the Christian life,

without, nevertheless, the public feeling being thereby offended as it was by the doctrine of personal

annihilation after death. Even Petrarch founds his hope chiefly on this Dream of Scipio, on the declarations

found in other Ciceronian works, and on Plato's 'Phaedo,' without making any mention of the Bible. 'Why,' he

asks elsewhere, 'should not I as a Catholic share a hope which was demonstrably cherished by the heathen?'

Soon afterwards Coluccio Salutati wrote his 'Labors of Hercules' (still existing in manuscript), in which it is

proved at the end that the valorous man, who has well endured the great labors of earthly life, is justly

entitled to a dwelling among the stars. If Dante still firmly maintained that the great pagans, whom he would

have gladly welcomed in Paradise, nevertheless must not come beyond the Limbo at the entrance to Hell, the

poetry of a later time accepted joyfully the new liberal ideas of a future life. Cosimo the Elder, according to

Bernardo Pulci's poem on his death, was received in heaven by Cicero, who had also been called the 'father of

his country,' by the Fabii, by Curius, Fabricius and many others; with them he would adorn the choir where


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

General Spirit of Doubt 180



Top




Page No 184


only blameless spirits sing.

But in the old writers there was another and less pleasing picture of the world to comethe shadowy realms

of Homer and of those poets who had not sweetened and humanized the conception. This made an impression

on certain temperaments. Gioviano Pontano somewhere attributes to Sannazaro the story of a vision which he

beheld one morning early while half awake. He seemed to see a departed friend, Ferrandus Januarius, with

whom he had often discoursed on the immortality of the soul, and whom he now asked whether it was true

that the pains of Hell were really dreadful and eternal. The shadow gave an answer like that of Achilles when

Odysseus questioned him. 'So much I tell and aver to thee, that we who are parted from earthly life have the

strongest desire to return to it again.' He then saluted his friend and disappeared.

It cannot but be recognized that such views of the state of man after death partly presuppose and partly

promote the dissolution of the most essential dogmas of Christianity. The notion of sin and of salvation must

have almost entirely evaporated. We must not be misled by the effects of the great preachers of repentance or

by the epidemic revivals which have been described above. For even granting that the individually developed

classes had shared in them like the rest, the cause of their participation was rather the need of emotional

excitement, the rebound of passionate natures, the horror felt at great national calamities, the cry to heaven

for help. The awakening of the conscience had by no means necessarily the sense of sin and the felt need of

salvation as its consequence and even a very severe outward penance did not perforce involve any repentance

in the Christian meaning of the word. When the powerful natures of the Renaissance tell us that their

principle is to repent of nothing, they may have in their minds only matters that are morally indifferent, faults

of unreason or imprudence; but in the nature of the case this contempt for repentance must extend to the

sphere of morals, because its origin, namely the consciousness of individual force, is common to both sides of

human nature. The passive and contemplative form of Christianity, with its constant reference to a higher

world beyond the grave, could no longer control these men. Machiavelli ventured still further, and maintained

that it could not be serviceable to the State and to the maintenance of public freedom.

The form assumed by the strong religious instinct which, notwithstanding all, survived in many natures, was

Theism or Deism, as we may please to call it. The latter name may be applied to that mode of thought which

simply wiped away the Christian element out of religion, without either seeking or finding any other

substitute for the feelings to rest upon. Theism may be considered that definite heightened devotion to the one

Supreme Being which the Middle Ages were not acquainted with. This mode of faith does not exclude

Christianity, and can either ally itself with the Christian doctrines of sin, redemption, and immortality, or else

exist and flour;sh without them.

Sometimes this belief presents itself with childish_naivete and even with a halfpagan air, God appearing as

the almighty fulfiller of human wishes. Agnolo Pandolfini tells us how, after his wedding, he shut himself in

with his wife, and knelt down before the family altar with the picture of the Madonna, and prayed, not to her,

but to God, that He would vouchsafe to them the right use of their property, a long life in joy and unity with

one another, and many male descendants: 'For myself I prayed for wealth, honour, and friends; for her

blamelessness, honesty, and that she might be a good housekeeper.' When the language used has a strong

antique flavor, it is not always easy to keep apart the pagan style and the theistic belief.

This temper sometimes manifests itself in times of misfortune with a striking sincerity. Some addresses to

God are left us from the latter period of Firenzuola, when for years he lay ill of fever, in which, though he

expressly declares himself a believing Christian, he shows that his religious consciousness is essentially

theistic. Hie sufferings seem to him neither as the punishment of sin, nor as preparation for a higher world;

they are an affair between him and God only, who has put the strong love of life between man and his

despair. 'I curse, but only curse Nature, since Thy greatness forbids me to utter Thy name.... Give me death,

Lord, I beseech Thee, give it me now!'


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

General Spirit of Doubt 181



Top




Page No 185


In these utterances and the like, it would be vain to look for a conscious and consistent Theism; the speakers

partly believed themselves to be still Christians, and for various other reasons respected the existing doctrines

of the Church. But at the time of the Reformation, when men were driven to come to a distinct conclusion on

such points, this mode of thought was accepted with a fuller consciousness; a number of the Italian

Protestants came forward as AntiTrinitarians and Socinians, and even as exiles in distant countries made the

memorable attempt to found a church on these principles. From the foregoing exposition it will be clear that,

apart from humanistic rationalism, other spirits were at work in this field.

One chief centre of theistic modes of thought lay in the Platonic Academy at Florence, and especially in

Lorenzo il Magnifico himself. The theoretical works and even the letters of these men show us only half their

nature. It is true that Lorenzo, from his youth till he died, expressed himself dogmatically as a Christian, and

that Pico was drawn by Savonarola's influence to accept the point of view of a monkish ascetic. But in the

hymns of Lorenzo, which we are tempted to regard as the highest product of the spirit of this school, an

unreserved Theism is set forth a Theism which strives to treat the world as a great moral and physical

Cosmos.

While the men of the Middle Ages look on the world as a vale of tears, which Pope and Emperor are set to

guard against the coming of Antichrist; while the fatalists of the Renaissance oscillate between seasons of

overflowing energy and seasons of superstition or of stupid resignation) here, in this circle of chosen spirits,

the doctrine is upheld that the visible world was created by God in love, that it is the copy of a pattern

preexisting in Him, and that He will ever remain its eternal mover and restorer. The soul of man can by

recognizing God draw Him into its narrow boundaries, but also by love of Him expand itself into the

Infiniteand this is blessedness on earth.

Echoes of medieval mysticism here flow into one current with Platonic doctrines and with a characteristically

modern spirit. One of the most precious fruits of the knowledge of the world and of man here comes to

maturity, on whose account alone the Italian Renaissance must be called the leader of modern ages.


Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

General Spirit of Doubt 182



Top





Bookmarks



1. Table of Contents, page = 3

2. Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, page = 5

   3. Jacob Burckhardt, page = 5

   4. Part I. THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART, page = 6

   5. INTRODUCTION, page = 6

   6. Despots of the Fourteenth Century, page = 8

   7. Despots of the Fifteenth Century, page = 10

   8. The Smaller Despotisms, page = 14

   9. The Greater Dynasties, page = 17

   10. The Opponents of the Despots, page = 23

   11. The Republics: Venice and Florence, page = 25

   12. Foreign Policy, page = 34

   13. War as a Work of Art, page = 36

   14. The Papacy, page = 38

   15. Patriotism, page = 46

   16. Part Two. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL, page = 46

   17. Personality, page = 46

   18. Glory, page = 50

   19. Ridicule and Wit, page = 53

   20. Part Three. The Revival of Antiquity, page = 58

   21. Introductory, page = 58

   22. The Ruins of Rome, page = 60

   23. The Classics, page = 63

   24. The Humanists, page = 66

   25. Universities and Schools, page = 69

   26. Propagators of Antiquity, page = 75

   27. Epistolography: Latin Orators, page = 79

   28. The Treatise, and History in Latin, page = 83

   29. Antiquity as the Common Source, page = 86

   30. Neo-Latin Poetry, page = 88

   31. Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century, page = 93

   32. PART FOUR. THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN, page = 97

   33. Journeys of the Italians, page = 97

   34. The Natural Sciences in Italy, page = 98

   35. Discovery of the Beauty of the Landscape, page = 101

   36. Discovery of Man, page = 104

   37. Biography in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, page = 112

   38. Description of the Outward Man, page = 117

   39. Description of Human Life, page = 119

   40. Part Five. SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS, page = 121

   41. Equality of Classes, page = 121

   42. Costumes and Fashions, page = 124

   43. Language and Society, page = 127

   44. Social Etiquette , page = 128

   45. Education of the 'Cortigiano', page = 130

   46. Music, page = 131

   47. Equality of Men and Women, page = 132

   48. Domestic Life, page = 134

   49. Festivals, page = 135

   50. Part Six. MORALITY AND RELIGION, page = 143

   51. Morality and Judgement, page = 143

   52. Morality and Immorality, page = 144

   53. Religion in Daily Life, page = 153

   54. Strength of the Old Faith, page = 162

   55. Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance, page = 165

   56. Influence of Ancient Superstition, page = 171

   57. General Spirit of Doubt, page = 182