The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
by Jacob Burckhardt
Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore, 1878
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 middle-class 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.
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 robber-knights of
Germany.
Lorenzo here begins to take the part
of the
nobility, but not-- which is characteristic--appealing
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 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 fellow-citizens,
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 Italy--a
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 wool-carders,
usurers money-changers 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
bread-winning 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
ridiculed--and 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. 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
formerly--as
a fashionable sport. Franco Sacchetti
has
left us a ludicrous picture of one
of these
holiday cavaliers--a 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 curtain-lecture
from the wife, who is not a little
enraged
at these break-neck 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 man--the true courtier--should
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 h-s 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.
Part Five
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 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,
and--if we rightly understand their
words--the
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, song-books, 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 face--even for the teeth
and
eyelids--of 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 think--in
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. 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
manners--a 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 well-paved 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 toilet-table with numberless graceful
trifles, but absorbing whole branches
of
mechanical work--especially carpentering--into
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 toy-work, 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.
Part Five
Language and Society
The higher forms of social intercourse,
which
here meet us as a work of art--as 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 so-called '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 well-spoken
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 country--as for in- stance,
the States
of the Church--in 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 people--pure
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.
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 non-Tuscan 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
well-kept 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 purists--their linguistic congresses
and the rest of it--did 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 language--loved, tended, and trained
to every use--now 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 intercourse--to the
side which
existed only for the sake of amusement.
Part Five
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 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 too-free-lived
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 drawing-room. 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 country--a
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 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 improvisation--the
Hawking
Party--he 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 so-called 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.
Part Five
Education of the 'Cortigiano'
It was for this society--or rather
for his
own sake--that 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 well-bred love-making,
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
so-called
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. 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 boat-racing 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part Five
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 many-sided 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.
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 lute-player 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.
Part Five
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 grown-up 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 love-sonnets 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.
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 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 1490--that is,
before
the appearance of syphilis--scarcely
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 II--the case is different.
Part Five
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 grown-up 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
pocket-money 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.
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
well-guarded
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 country-house of the well-to-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
hunting-parties,
and all the open-air pursuits and amusements.
But the noblest achievements of poetry
and
thought are sometimes also dated from
these
scenes of rural peace.
Part Five
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
well-paved streets of the Italian cities,
was soon developed into the '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 element--the costumes--partly
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 spectators--at least in
the cities--understood
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 figure--by
a figure which antiquity saved from
absurdity--if
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 Colchis--seems
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 number--that
both poetry and plastic art were accustomed
to represent famous men and women.
The 'Divine
Comedy,' the 'Trionfi' of Petrarch,
the 'Amorosa
Visione' of Boccaccio--all of them
works
constructed on this principle--and
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 all--the 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 ground-floor
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 half-comic '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 air--one of the chief
delights
of these representations--were 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
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 clay-figures
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 half-religious
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
Vice-Chancellor
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.
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 man--among 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
boat-races
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
court-poet 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 grey-headed lawgivers, encircled
by angels with banners; by its side
rode
standard-bearers 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 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 Passion--such
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 twenty-four 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
enemies--emperors,
princes, philosophers, heretics--all
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 matter-of-fact
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
Notre-Dame.
For the rest, Alfonso's procession,
which
passed by a breach in the wall through
the
city to the cathedral, was a strange
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
arts--as 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
time--the frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia--shows
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 found--kings
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 |
Evans Experientialism 
