The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
by Jacob Burckhardt
Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore, 1878
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
consciousness--that
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 corporation--only
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, 26 and 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 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 art--this
many-sided
representation and criticism--will
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 tools--the 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.
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 'all-sided 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 in- terests.
Dante, who, even in his lifetime, was
called
by some a poet, by others a philosopher,
by others a theologian, 30 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 words--are
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 artists--he
soon
became himself the source of inspiration.
The fifteenth century is, above all,
that
of the many-sided 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 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 diplomatist--not always
to
his own advantage.
But among these many-sided 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,
cross-examining 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 dinner-speeches. 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.
Part Two
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL
Glory
To this inward development of the individual
corresponds a new sort of outward distinction--the
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 itself--the
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,
38 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 poet-scholars 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 or two great jurists so enjoyed
the half-mythical
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 Croce--labored
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, 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 fencing-master 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
pseudo-Suetonius, Valerius Maximus,
Plutarch
(Muherum 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 three-fourths
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 poet-scholar 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 hard-hearted 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.
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
Part Two
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL
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 so-called '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
world--things 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 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 court-jesters, 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 court-fool
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 half-mythical
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 non-Italian 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 court-fool
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 jack-puddings, 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 poetry--ironically,
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 eye-glass. 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
love-lorn wailings of Petrarch's sonnets
and others of the same kind were taken
off
by 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 half-conscious 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 half-Latin 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 wrong-doers,
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 cen-
turies,
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 way--Filelfo, 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 evil-speaking, 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 place-hunters,
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 well-known 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 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 time--to
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 beer--whereupon 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, (1527-56), 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 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 well-known
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 men--that 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 in- censed 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 non-Italians
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 parsimony--to
the
extent, at least, of 160 ducats a year--he
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 (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.
|
Evans Experientialism 
