Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part II. Italian

by Oscar Kuhns

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Best translated literally, "world pain."

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CHAPTER V

BOCCACCIO

We have hitherto discussed the development of poetry almost exclusively; and this is justifiable, for in Italy, as in all other countries, the development of prose as a form of literature comes after that of poetry. Petrarch wrote no prose in Italian; and although Dante wrote his Banquet and, in part, his New Life in prose, yet the former is couched in scholastic phraseology and the prose portion of the latter is of small compass. Giovanni Boccaccio, although not so great a poet as Dante, or so great a scholar and master of form as Petrarch, is yet of high importance in the history of Italian literature from a double point of view, as the first great writer of prose and the founder of the modern novel.

We can only give here a brief outline of his life and character, before passing on to his works. He was born in Paris in 1313, the son of a Florentine merchant and a young French gentlewoman. Going to Florence with his father, he was sent to school and is said to have written verses before the age of seven. His father, a merchant himself, wished his son to follow the same career, and at the age of fourteen the boy was taken to Naples with this purpose in view. In this "great, sinful city" Boccaccio passed his youth, at first in business, then in the study of law, both of which, however, he heartily disliked. Making the acquaintance of some well-known scholars, he was inducted into a love for study, and resolved to devote himself to a literary career.

About 1340 he left Naples and returned to Florence, which henceforth became his residence, although he was frequently absent from it on matters of business and pleasure. For he soon became known as a scholar and poet, and, in accordance with the customs of the times, he was honored by his city by being sent on frequent embassies. In this capacity he went, in 1350, to Ravenna, to the daughter of Dante; in 1354, to Pope Innocent VI., at Avignon; and in 1351, to Petrarch at Padua, in order to induce the great poet and scholar to reside in Florence. This meeting with the great apostle of the New Learning was an important event in Boccaccio's life, who from henceforth became an enthusiastic admirer of Petrarch. He plunged still more eagerly into the study of classic antiquity; and although not so great a scholar as Petrarch, he accomplished some things which the latter had not been able to do. Thus he learned Greek, imperfectly, however, and introduced to the western world a knowledge of that language (unknown to the Middle Ages) by bringing Leontius Pilatus to Florence as a professor in the university. It was at the dictation of the latter that Boccaccio wrote down his Latin translation of the Homeric poems, which, worthless as it now seems, then excited widespread admiration.

Boccaccio differed from Petrarch in being an ardent admirer and indefatigable student of Dante. Petrarch had once declared that he had never read the Divine Comedy. The influence of Dante on Boccaccio is seen on almost every page of his poetry, and it was in reward of his services in promoting the study of the former's works that in 1373 he was invited by Florence to lecture on the Divine Comedy (for the first time in Italy) in the university.

Boccaccio's character was in many respects an attractive one; he was honest, sincere, and modest; a faithful friend, a lover of true literature; and, above all, of a lovable and gentle disposition; Giovanni della Tranquillità, his friends called him—"John of the quiet mind," as we may translate it. The gravest accusation made against him, and one, alas! only too well founded, is his immorality. In his early years, and even later in life, his manners were light, and the effects thereof are too often reflected in his books. Before condemning him too harshly, however, we must bear in mind the low state of morals that marked all society at that time. Toward the end of his life Boccaccio became converted by a strange event. It seems that a certain Carthusian monk, Pietro de' Petroni—who, by the austerity of his life and his religious exaltation, had won a reputation for holiness—died at Siena, May 29, 1361. Fourteen days before his death he entered into a trance, in which he had a vision of the saints in heaven and the damned in hell. When he awoke he declared that he had been commanded by Christ to warn a number of distinguished men of the error of their ways. Among these was Boccaccio. Being too sick to go himself, Petroni sent his disciple, Gioachino Ciani, to fulfill his commission. The latter came to Florence, told Boccaccio of his master's vision, and then, in fiery language, urged him to see to the salvation of his soul, and to repudiate his immoral writings, else he would soon die and his soul be lost forever. Boccaccio was deeply affected by this strange embassy. In the first moments of depression he resolved to give up all study, burn his books, write no more, and spend the rest of life in religious exercises. From this violent action, however, he was saved by a sensible letter from Petrarch. Yet the effect did not pass away. Ever after this he was more serious and thought more of religious matters. He lost his former zest in life; his gaiety and serenity of temper became clouded. After a youth of enjoyment the evening of life came on gray and cold.

He died December 21, 1375, in Certaldo, not far from Florence.

Boccaccio, like Petrarch, wrote much in Latin, chief among such writings being the historical or biographical compilations on Illustrious Women and the Vicissitudes of Great Men, and especially his Genealogy of the Gods, which for one hundred years and more became the standard hand-book of mythology. In Italian poetry he was far more voluminous than Petrarch. Among the best known of his poems are the Vision of Love; Filostrato, which tells the story of Troilus and Cressida, afterwards imitated by Chaucer and Shakespeare; and the Theseid, imitated by Chaucer in his Knight's Tale. His Ninfale Fiesolana describes the beautiful suburbs of Florence, while his pastoral poem, Ameto, is the first example of that popular branch of poetry, which found its highest development in Sannazaro's Arcadia, Tasso's Aminta, and Guarini's Pastor Fido.

All these, however, are now almost forgotten. The one book by which Boccaccio is known to-day, not only in Italy, but the world over, is his Decameron, a collection of short stories in prose. In this book he becomes epoch-making in a double sense, for it begins both Italian prose and the modern novel. The name of the book is composed of two Greek words, meaning "ten days," and is explained by the fact that there are one hundred stories in all, told ten at a time, on ten successive days.

Neither the various stories themselves nor the idea of uniting them in a framework is original with Boccaccio. The latter device was especially popular in the Orient, and is illustrated in the Seven Wise Men, so vastly popular in the Middle Ages. Chaucer imitated Boccaccio in this respect in his Canterbury Tales. The sources of the stories in the Decameron are various. Such tales were among the most popular kinds of literature of the times, as may be seen in the Fabliaux in France and the well-known collections, the Novellino and Cento Novelle, in Italy. Boccaccio gathers them from all sides and adds many he had heard told orally, especially anecdotes of his contemporaries. All these are changed, however, by the alchemy of his own genius, and become original in style, in delineation of character, and in local color.

The framework of the Decameron is as follows: During the terrible pestilence which raged in Europe in 1348, a famous description of which is given in the opening chapter of the book, seven young ladies and three young men meet in one of the churches at Florence and agree to forsake the plague-stricken city, retire to their villas in the country and try to forget in pleasant converse the terrors that surround them. The plan is carried out. Each day a leader is chosen, whom all must obey. After breakfast they betake themselves to the garden, and here on green lawns covered with flowers, beneath shady trees and beside clear-running streams, they dance, play, and sing; and then, comfortably seated on the soft grass, they pass the hours away in cheerful conversation and story-telling.

Each one of these one hundred stories has an individual character of its own. While reading them we see passing in picturesque procession before our eyes the whole of Italian society of the times, kings and princes, knights and peasants, merchant, artist, mechanic, priest, and monk. There are not wanting earnest and serious stories, but the comic and satirical element prevails; especially are the vices of the clergy scourged, that fruitful source of all European medieval literature. The avaricious and licentious priests and monks are everywhere held up to the scornful laughter of his readers.

All this is expressed in an admirable prose style, with perfect adaptation of local color, with excellent delineation of character and insight into human nature, and with the inimitable skill in narration of the born story-teller.

The popularity of Boccaccio was, and is still, enormous, in spite of the immorality of certain of his stories. He is read to-day in the elementary schools of Italy (in emendated editions), and his influence on modern literature is incalculable. In English literature alone most of the great writers have found subjects for poems, stories, and dramas in the Decameron, among them Chaucer, Dryden, Shakespeare, Keats, Tennyson, and Longfellow.

The following story, which I have translated with some slight condensation, is not only the best and most famous of the Decameron, but it illustrates on the one hand the vast antiquity of the short-story (existing, as it does, not only in all European languages in the Middle Ages, but running back its roots to the early antiquity of India), and on the other hand, the influence of Boccaccio, "Patient Griselda" having become almost a household word in modern literature, and having furnished themes for poet, painter, and sculptor. John Addington Symonds has declared that no Greek poem equals Boccaccio's story of Griselda for tenderness.

A long time ago there lived a certain marquis of Saluzzo, named Walter, who spent his time chiefly in hunting, with never a thought of marriage. His vassals not liking this state of affairs often urged him to take to himself a wife, so that in case of death, he might not be without an heir, nor they without a master. To all this Walter made answer as follows: "My friends, you urge me to do that which I had resolved not to do, considering how difficult it is to find a proper mate, and how hard is the life of him who finds one not suited to him. Yet since it pleases you to bind me with these chains, I will agree—on this condition, however, that I choose my wife myself, so that if evil come to me, I may have no one to blame but myself. But bear this in mind: if you do not honor her as becomes your lady, you shall prove to your cost how grievous a thing it is to have forced me to wed against my own desire."

Now for some time past Walter had been much attracted by the gentle manners of a poor but beautiful village maiden, who lived near his castle; and it seemed to him that with her he could be happy. Hence without seeking further he sent for her father, and agreed with him to take his daughter as his wife. This being settled, Walter called together his friends and vassals and said to them: "Friends, it has pleased you to ask me to take to myself a wife, and I have yielded, more to please you, however, than through any desire of my own. You will remember that you agreed to be satisfied and treat as your lady whomsoever I should choose. The time has now come when I intend to keep my promise, and I desire that you keep yours. I have found a young lady to my liking whom I intend to marry, and I shall bring her home in a few days. See to it that the wedding feast be a fair one and that you receive her honorably." The good men, all rejoicing, answered that they were indeed pleased, and that whoever his bride might be, they would honor her in all things as their lady.

After this Walter prepared a bountiful wedding feast and invited thereto his many friends and relatives and all the gentle folk round about. He had many rich and beautiful gowns made fit to adorn the figure of the young girl whom he proposed to wed; and likewise rings, and girdles, and a fair rich crown, in short all things that a new bride might require.

Now when the day fixed for the wedding had come, Walter mounted his horse and said to his followers: "Gentlemen, it is time to go for the bride." And setting out with all his company he came to the village, and the house of the young girl's father, where they found her returning in great haste from the fountain, in order that she, with the other women-folk of the village, might go and see the coming of their lord's bride. When Walter saw her he called her by name—that is, Griselda—and asked her where her father was; to whom she answered shamefacedly, "My lord, he is in the house." Then Walter dismounted, and ordering his followers to remain outside, went alone into the humble cottage, where he found her father—whose name was Giannùcolo—and said to him: "I have come to wed Griselda; but first I wish to ask her something in your presence." And he asked her if she would always try to please him, if he took her for his wife; and if she would promise not to be angry, whatever he might say or do; and many other similar things; to all of which she made answer: "Yes, my lord."

Then Walter, taking her by the hand, led her outside, and having called for the gowns he had prepared, he had her clothed therewith, and upon her head he placed a crown, and then as all present marveled mightily, he said: "My lords, this is she whom I intend shall be my wife"; and then turning to her who stood blushing and full of wonder, he said: "Griselda, will you take me for your husband?" To which she answered as before, "Yes, my lord." "Then," said he, "I will take you for my wife"; and in presence of all he wed her, and setting her upon a palfrey, he led her home.

The young bride was, as we have already said, beautiful in face and person, and withal so attractive, pleasing, and gentle-mannered, that she did not seem to have been a shepherdess, but the daughter of a noble lord; so that she made all those who had known her before, to marvel greatly. Moreover, she was so obedient to her husband, and so attentive to his comfort, that he held himself the happiest man in the world. In similar manner she was so kind and gracious towards her husband's subjects that they loved and honored her one and all, always praying for her health and happiness.

Shortly after the birth of his first child, a daughter, a strange fancy entered the mind of Walter, and he resolved to prove the patience and obedience of his wife, by subjecting her to many cruel trials. In the first place, he wounded her spirit by harsh words, feigning to be much disturbed in mind, and declaring that his vassals were ill-content with her on account of her low birth, and especially now that they saw that she bore children; wherefore they were sullen and did nothing but murmur. Hearing which words, Griselda, without changing countenance, said: "My lord, do with me as you think best for your own honor and happiness, and I will be content; for I know I was not worthy of all this honor to which you, by your courtesy, have brought me." This answer was very pleasing to Walter, who thus saw that her new honors had not puffed her up with pride.

A short time after, having said to his wife that his subjects could not endure her daughter, he sent one of his servants to her who, with mournful countenance, said, "My lady, if I would not die, I must do that which my lord commands me. He has ordered me to take your little daughter and to——" and he said no more. The lady, hearing these words, and seeing the face of the servant, and remembering the words of her husband, believed that the servant had been ordered to kill her child; whereupon quickly taking the little one from the cradle, she kissed and prayed over it, with unchanged countenance, in spite of the great sorrow she felt in her heart; and placing it in the arms of the servant, said: "Here, do what thy lord and mine has commanded thee to do. But see to it that the child be not devoured by birds or wild beasts, unless indeed he commands thee so to do."

The servant took the girl and reported to Walter what the lady had said. He, marveling greatly at her constancy, sent both servant and child to a certain lady in Bologna, a relative of his, begging her to bring it up and educate it carefully, without, however, revealing its parentage.

Some years after this Griselda gave birth to a son, to the great joy of Walter. But not being satisfied with what he already had done, he wounded Griselda's feelings still more, saying to her one day, "My lady, since this our child was born, I have not been able to live with my subjects, so bitterly do they rebel against the thought that some day a grandson of Giannùcolo shall rule over them. Wherefore, if I do not wish to be driven out, I shall have to leave you and take another wife." Griselda heard these words with patient mind, and only answered: "My lord, do you think how you may best satisfy your own pleasure; have no thought concerning me, for I desire only to see you happy."

A few days after, Walter sent for the son as he had done for the daughter before, and feigning again to have it slain, he sent it to Bologna to be brought up together with his daughter. At all of which Griselda made no other sign, nor said anything more than she had done when her daughter had been taken away. And once more Walter marveled to himself and declared that no other woman could do what she did, for he knew well that she loved her children dearly. His vassals, believing that he had put his children to death, blamed him strongly as a most cruel man, and had great compassion on their lady. She, however, never complained, but said always to those who condoled with her on the loss of her children, that what seemed good to their father seemed good to her.

Many years after the birth of his daughter, Walter, thinking it time to make a final test of Griselda's long suffering, declared openly that he could endure her no longer as his wife, and that he had acted as a foolish boy when he had taken her. Wherefore he would now make overtures to the pope for leave to divorce her, and take another wife. The lady, hearing these things, and foreseeing that she should have to return to her father's house, and perchance keep sheep as before, seeing another woman married to him whom she loved so much, grieved deeply in her heart. Nevertheless, as in the other blows of fortune, she disposed herself to bear this also with firm countenance.

Not long after, Walter caused false letters to come from Rome, and told his subjects that the pope had granted him a dispensation to leave Griselda and take a new wife. Then calling her before him in the presence of many others, he said to her: "Griselda, by special dispensation granted me by the pope, I am able now to leave you and take another wife; and inasmuch as my ancestors have been great gentlemen and lords of this country, while yours have always been laborers, I intend that you shall no longer be my wife, but shall return to your father's house, bearing with you the dowry which you brought." Hearing these words, Griselda, with the greatest difficulty, kept back her tears, being in this stronger than the common run of women, and answered: "My lord, I have always known that my humble condition was in no wise suited to your exalted rank; and what I have been to you, I recognize as coming from God and your courtesy. Nor have I ever regarded all these honors as given to me, but only loaned. If it please you then to take them back, it is my duty to be willing to give them up. Here is the ring with which you married me; take it."

Walter, who had more desire to weep than anything else, stood there with hard face and said: "Go, but see to it that you take with you one garment only." Whereupon she, dressed in a single garment, barefooted and bareheaded, left her husband's castle, and returned to her father, followed by the tears and compassion of all who saw her. Giannùcolo, who had never been quite able to believe that Walter could be content to take his daughter as his wife, and who expected her return every day, had kept her clothes which she had put off on the morning of her marriage. Now Griselda put them on again and gave herself up to the little duties of her father's house, bearing the cruel assaults of hostile fortune with firm mind.

In the meantime Walter declared to his vassals that he had chosen for his wife the daughter of a certain count of Panago (who was the husband of the lady in Bologna, to whom he had sent his children); and ordering great preparations for the wedding to be made, he sent for Griselda, and when she had come, he said: "I am about to bring home the lady whom I have chosen for my wife. You know that I have no one here who can arrange all the things needful for so great a feast. Wherefore do you put everything in order, and call in to help you the women you think best, and receive them as if you were still the lady here. Then after the wedding is all over you may return home."

Although these words were like so many stabs to the heart of Griselda, who could not lay aside her love for him as easily as she had laid aside her good fortune, she answered: "My lord, I am ready." And dressed in her peasant costume, she entered the house, whence she had shortly before gone forth, and began to sweep and put in order the rooms, and to prepare the food, setting her own hands to everything as if she were but a common servant of the house. Nor did she rest till all was properly arranged and prepared for the wedding. And then, inviting in the name of Walter all the ladies of the country round about, she began to prepare the feast, and when the wedding day had come, although she was dressed in coarse garments, she received all the ladies who came with ladylike bearing and smiling face.

Walter, who had caused his children to be diligently brought up in Bologna in the house of his relative, wife of the count of Panago (his son being six years old and his daughter twelve, the latter being the most beautiful creature ever seen), had sent to the count of Panago, begging him to bring his children to Saluzzo, and to say to all that the girl was to marry Walter. The count did as he was requested, and with the two children and a noble company arrived about noon at Saluzzo, where all the peasants and neighbors from round about were waiting for the new bride. She was received by the ladies, and Griselda, dressed as she was, came forward to meet her cheerfully, saying: "Welcome to my lady."

Walter, who now thought he had sufficient evidence of the long-suffering of his wife, called her to him, and in the presence of all, said to her: "What think you of our bride?" "My lord," said Griselda, "she seems fair indeed to look upon; and if she is as wise as beautiful, which I well believe, I doubt not that you will live with her the happiest gentleman in the world. But I beseech you for one thing: do not wound her spirit, as you have that of your other wife. For I do not believe she can stand it, young as she is, and so delicately brought up."

Walter, seeing that she firmly believed the girl was to be his wife, and that yet she spoke thus kindly of her, set her down beside him, and said: "Griselda, it is time now that you receive the rewards of your patience, and that those who have reputed me cruel, may know that what I did was to teach you how to be a wife, and to prepare for myself a life of perpetual peace and quiet with you as my loving and faithful companion. Therefore take with joyful mind this girl, whom you thought to be my bride, and her brother, for your children and mine. These are they whom you and many others long have thought I had cruelly slain. I am your husband, who love you above all things else; and I indeed can boast that no other man has so great reason to be content with his wife as I;" and thus speaking he embraced and kissed her, and raising her who was now weeping for joy, he led her to where the daughter sat, listening in amazement to all these things, and embraced her and her brother tenderly. Then all the ladies, rejoicing greatly, rose from the table and went with Griselda to her room, and dressed her in a rich gown, such as befitted a lady, which she ever seemed, even in her rags, and led her back again to the hall, and then all, rejoicing, continued the feast. The count of Panago went back to Bologna, and Walter, taking Giannùcolo from his work-shop, kept him in state as his father-in-law, so that he lived in great comfort and honor to the end of his life. And the marquis himself, having found his daughter a noble husband, lived long and happily with Griselda, holding her ever in love and esteem.

SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

Development of Italian prose later than that of poetry—Boccaccio its founder (1313-75)—Friendship for Petrarch—Service in introducing Greek language into Western Europe—His influence upon Chaucer and Shakespeare—The Decameron—He founds Italian prose style and the modern novel.

1. Which is usually developed first, prose or poetry?

2. Give sketch of the life of Boccaccio.

3. Describe his character.

4. Tell the story of his conversion.

5. Give a list of Boccaccio's chief works in Latin and Italian.

6. Which one is his greatest work?

7. What is the general framework of the Decameron?

8. Its popularity and influence.

9. Tell briefly the story of patient Griselda.

10. What is your opinion of this story?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Owing to the immorality of some of the stories of the Decameron the English translations of the whole book are not to be recommended. A selection, however, fit for the general public has been made by Joseph Jacobs, and published by John Lane.

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CHAPTER VI

THE RENAISSANCE AND ARIOSTO

We have seen that Petrarch is considered the founder of the Renaissance in Italy. He died in 1374, and it took a century and more to complete the work he inaugurated. The whole of the fifteenth century is of importance in the history of Italian literature, not so much for what it produced, as for the fact that it prepared the way for the so-called "Golden Age" of the sixteenth century. During these hundred years classical scholarship became more and more widely diffused, being no longer confined to a few cities or princely courts, but spread over all Italy and through all classes of society.

Yet Florence still remained the great center of this influence. Under the powerful family of the Medici the city had risen to great power and prosperity, and amid all the political confusion of the times it continued to be characterized by a keen intellectual and æsthetic life. The immediate successors of Petrarch and Boccaccio in the spread of the new learning, Luigi Marsili and Coluccio Salutati, lived and worked at Florence. Later came Poggio Bracciolini, who equaled Petrarch himself as an eager and successful collector of manuscripts; Marsilio Ficino, who founded under Cosimo de' Medici the famous Platonic academy; Pico della Mirandola, the youthful prodigy of learning and mystical enthusiast; and Politian, the greatest scholar and most elegant poet of his day. These men studied not only Latin as Petrarch had done, but obtained a good knowledge of Greek. They plunged eagerly into the study of Plato, who for so many centuries had been unknown to western Europe, and who now threatened to take the place of Aristotle in the world of philosophy. They gathered statues, coins, and inscriptions, and studied ruins in order to obtain as clear an idea as possible of the ancient world. It is hard for us to-day to get an idea of the eager enthusiasm and intense delight in study of these men of the Renaissance; they must have felt as Wordsworth did when he cried out:

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven."

The scholars of the time enjoyed an immense popularity. A new caste of society arose, not dependent on birth or wealth, but on learning and intelligence. Princes and cities sought for their services, for which they paid large sums. Everywhere they were received as equal to the noblest in the land. The movement reached its highest point in the first half of the sixteenth century, when the intellectual and artistic life of Italy was of almost incredible greatness. In proof of this statement we need only mention a few names, such as Michel Angelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Ariosto, and Macchiavelli; Tasso belongs to the same group, though born out of due season.

Naturally enough the early Humanists wrote for the most part in Latin, which they still looked upon as the language of their ancestors and thus, in a certain sense, their mother-tongue. Indeed, many at first despised the vernacular as a base corruption. Later, however, a reaction set in; the example of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio induced others to write in Italian, which now became more and more polished and adapted to become the medium of a great literature. This new impulse toward a national literature was first given at Florence, at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who himself, next to Politian, was the greatest poet of his day. We cannot linger, however, over these fifteenth century writers, but must hasten on to the next century and to the consideration of Ariosto, the supreme poet of the Renaissance.

In discussing the romantic poetry of Ariosto, however, we must go back a number of years in order to get the proper perspective. Among the brilliant men of letters of the court of the Medici was a certain Luigi Pulci, of a poor but noble family. It was he who was the first to introduce into elegant literature the old romances of the Carlovingian cycle, which for centuries had been sung and recited by rude, wandering minstrels in the public streets of Italy.

We have seen in Chapter I. how in the thirteenth century the old French chansons de gestes had been introduced into North Italy and had there become popular; these had been rewritten and worked over in rude forms for the amusement of the common folk, but up to the time of Pulci had found no place in literature proper. Now it is the glory of Pulci to have brought this popular material into the realm of artistic poetry. This he is said to have done at the request of Lorenzo's mother, the result being the poem known as Morgante. In this poem Pulci introduces as the chief character Orlando, the Italian form of Roland, the nephew of Charlemagne, and the hero of Roncesvalles, who plays so large a rôle in the French romances. The title is derived from the name of a giant whose life has been saved by Orlando, whom he, in gratitude therefor, follows as a faithful servant; he drops out of the story in the twentieth canto.

Pulci, in his Morgante, follows closely the popular poetry of his predecessors, but differs from them in language, style, and especially in the comic treatment of his theme; in all these respects he is the forerunner of Boiardo and Ariosto. As we have seen, he was a native of Florence, which, up to the end of the fifteenth century, had been the chief center of the literary glory of Italy. The scene now changes to Ferrara, where the house of Este had for generations held a brilliant court. It was here that the three great poets, Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso, lived and produced their works.

Boiardo has been so eclipsed by Ariosto that he is not known as well as he ought to be, when we consider his services to Italian literature. To him belongs the credit of having invented the romantic epic, and Ariosto, who followed in the same lines, added but little to the general groundwork of his predecessor.

Matteo Maria Boiardo was born of a noble family at Reggio in 1434, and having early gone to Ferrara, remained there till his death in 1494. A scholar, poet, administrator, and courtier, his position at the court of the duke of Este reminds us involuntarily of that of Goethe, three hundred years later, at Weimar. His first essays in literature were in Latin, but when he was about forty years old he began his poem of Orlando Innamorato (Roland in Love). He was led naturally thereto. Ferrara had early favored chivalrous poetry, and the library of the duke contained a large number of romances, belonging especially to the Arthurian cycle, which pleased the elegant society of the court more than the Carlovingian stories so popular with the common people. These romances of King Arthur and the Round Table, however, were in French.

Boiardo's great merit consists in the fact that he united in one the various characteristics of both the Carlovingian and the Arthurian romances, and thus combined the popular and the courtly element. He chose the characters of his poem from the former, but changed them to true knights of chivalry, and added all the paraphernalia of the Arthurian tales. Of especial importance was the introduction of romantic love as the motive of all action.

The general theme of Orlando Innamorato is the war between Charlemagne and the Saracens, yet there is no one definite action, as in the case of the regular epic. Rather the poem consists of a series of independent, or at least very loosely connected, episodes, in which the adventures of the various knights errant are recounted with great skill and interest. Chief among these episodes is that of Orlando and his love for Angelica, the daughter of the king of Cathay, who comes to the court of Charlemagne in Paris, and by means of her beauty and coquetry succeeds in drawing away a number of the best Christian warriors. Other important characters are Astolfo, Rodomonte, Rinaldo, and the latter's sister, Brandiamente, who falls in love with the pagan Roger, who, according to Boiardo, was the founder of the house of Este. Vast as the poem is in its present state, Boiardo left it only half finished when he died in 1494.

At the time of Boiardo's death Ludovico Ariosto was a youth of twenty. Born in Reggio, in 1474, of a family that had long been in the service of the Este family, he too, after an irregular and tardy education came to Ferrara and entered the service of the Cardinal Este. At the death of his father, in 1500, Ariosto found himself at the head of a family of ten, and nobly performed his duty by caring and providing for all his brothers and sisters. His position in the household of the cardinal was not at all to his liking; he was often sent on embassies and business trips, a function which, to a man who loved quiet and leisure as much as Ariosto did, was utterly distasteful. In 1517 he refused to accompany the cardinal to Hungary, on the ground of ill-health, and was thereupon summarily dismissed. He found soon, however, more congenial employment in the household of Duke Alfonso. His life now was more quiet and afforded him more opportunity for study and writing. Yet even here he was not content. His inclinations were all against court life, and he only retained his position on account of his poverty. His character, as depicted in his satires, was very different from that of Petrarch, who was a successful courtier. Ariosto could not bow and smile and make himself agreeable. He was sincere and independent by nature, modest in his desires, kindly and amiable, loved nature, quiet study, and rural occupations. In 1527 he succeeded in saving enough to buy a small house at Ferrara, with a garden attached. Over the door he placed the inscription which has become famous: "Small, but suited to me; harmful to no one; bought with my own money." Here he spent the remainder of his days, happy and contented, amusing himself with almost childish joy in the cultivation of his garden. He died June 6, 1533.

Ariosto's literary work consists of comedies, which are among the very first of modern literature; satires and the Orlando Furioso (Mad Roland). The satires rank next in literary value to his masterpiece, and are charming examples of the poetic epistle rather than biting satire. They contain many details of the society of the day, and are our best source for the life and character of their author. They are all inspired with kindly humor and full of worldly wisdom and common sense. No one can read these satires without feeling a respect and affection for the poet who wrote them.

Ariosto's most famous work, however, is the Orlando Furioso. When he came to Ferrara everybody was talking about the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo. Ariosto himself admired it immensely, for it harmonized perfectly with his own genius and literary tastes. Hence when there came to him that mysterious command, "Write," which all men of poetical genius hear some day or other, it was only natural that he should turn to the unfinished poem of his predecessor, with the thought of completing it.

Yet it would be a mistake to think Ariosto was a mere plagiarist or that he lacked originality. No writer ever lived who has so impressed his own individuality on his works as he. He took the data furnished by his predecessors and joined to them all the culture of the times, ideas, aspirations, conception of life; all these he fused into one vast work which reflects the age of the Renaissance as truly as the Divine Comedy reflects the closing period of the Middle Ages.

It is practically impossible to give a clear yet brief outline of Orlando Furioso. It does not, like the Iliad, Æneid, Paradise Lost, and Jerusalem Delivered, contain one central action, with which all parts are logically connected, but is rather a vast arena on which take place many different and independent actions at the same time. The wars between Charlemagne and the Saracens, which had been begun in Boiardo's poem, are here continued and carried to an end. In similar manner Ariosto takes up the history of the various knights errant introduced by his predecessor, and either continues their adventures or introduces new ones himself. In the first canto the poet shows us the army of Agramante before the walls of Paris, in which Charlemagne and his army are shut up, and in the course of the poem he shows us the city freed, the enemy defeated, and Christianity saved from the dominion of the Saracen. Yet this is not the real center of action; often it is entirely lost sight of in the confusing crowd of individual adventures. It only serves as a factitious means of joining from time to time the scattered threads of the various episodes. When the poet does not know what to do with any particular character, he despatches him forthwith to Paris, there to await the final dénouement.

The individual heroes are free, not bound by any ties of discipline to Charlemagne; they leave at any moment, in obedience to individual caprice, and wander forth in search of love and honor. It is in these various episodes or adventures that the true interest of the poem resides. At first sight there seems to be an inextricable confusion in the way they are told; but after careful study we find that the poet always controls them with a firm hand. A constant change goes on before our eyes. When one story has been told for some time, the poet, fearing to weary the reader, breaks it off, always at an interesting point, to begin another, which, in its turn, yields to another, and this to still another; from time to time these stories are taken up again, continued, and finished. All these transitions are marvels of skill and ingenuity.

Among the crowd of minor episodes three stand out with especial distinctness, the story of Cloridan and Medoro, Angelica's love for the latter and the consequent madness of Orlando; and the death of Zerbino.

Cloridan and Medoro are two brave young pagans, whose lord and master, Dardinello, has been slain in battle with Charlemagne's army outside the walls of Paris. Now the two youths, as they stand on guard at night, lament that their master's body lies unburied and dishonored on the field of battle, and resolve to go and find it and bring it back to camp.

These two were posted on a rampart's height,
With more to guard the encampment from surprise,
When 'mid the equal intervals, at night,
Medoro gazed on heaven with sleepy eyes.
In all his talk, the stripling, woful wight,
Here cannot choose, but of his lord devise,
The royal Dardinel; and evermore
Him, left unhonored on the field, deplore.

Then, turning to his mate, cries: "Cloridane,
I cannot tell thee what a cause of woe
It is to me, my lord upon the plain
Should lie, unworthy food for wolf or crow!
Thinking how still to me he was humane,
Meseems, if in his honor I forego
This life of mine, for favors so immense
I shall but make a feeble recompense.

"That he may lack not sepulture, will I
Go forth, and seek him out among the slain;
And haply God may will that none shall spy
Where Charles's camp lies hushed. Do thou remain;
That, if my death be written in the sky,
Thou may'st the deed be able to explain.
So that if Fortune foil so fair a feat,
The world, through Fame, my loving heart may weet."

Seeing that nought would bend him, nought would move,
"I too will go," was Cloridan's reply,
"In such a glorious act myself will prove;
As well such famous death I covet, I:
What other thing is left me, here above,
Deprived of thee, Medoro mine? To die
With thee in arms is better, on the plain,
Than afterwards of grief, should'st thou be slain."

So they go forth on their generous enterprise, and after slaying many distinguished warriors among the Christians, as they lay asleep, they approach the tent of Charlemagne, near which they find the body of their master:

The horrid mixture of the bodies there
Which heaped the plain where roved these comrades sworn,
Might well have rendered vain their faithful care
Amid the mighty piles, till break of morn,
Had not the moon, at young Medoro's prayer,
Out of a gloomy cloud put forth her horn.
Medoro to the heavens upturns his eyes
Towards the moon, and thus devoutly cries:

"O holy goddess! whom our fathers well
Have styled as of a triple form, and who
Thy sovereign beauty dost in heaven, and hell,
And earth, in many forms reveal; and through
The greenwood holt, of beast and monster fell,
—A huntress bold—the flying steps pursue,
Show where my king, amid so many lies,
Who did, alive, thy holy studies prize."

At the youth's prayer from parted cloud outshone
(Were it the work of faith or accident)
The moon, as fair, as when Endymion
She circled in her naked arms: with tent,
Christian or Saracen, was Paris-town
Seen in that gleam, and hill and plain's extent.
With these Mount Martyr and Mount Lery's height,
This on the left, and that upon the right.

The silvery splendor glistened yet more clear,
There where renowned Almontes's son lay dead.
Faithful Medoro mourned his master dear,
Who well agnized the quartering white and red,
With visage bathed in many a bitter tear
(For he a rill from either eyelid shed),
And piteous act and moan, that might have whist
The winds, his melancholy plaint to list;

Hurrying their steps, they hastened, as they might,
Under the cherished burden they conveyed;
And now approaching was the lord of light,
To sweep from heaven the stars, from earth the shade,
When good Zerbino, he, whose valiant sprite
Was ne'er in time of need by sleep down-weighed,
From chasing Moors all night, his homeward way
Was taking to the camp at dawn of day.

He has with him some horsemen in his train,
That from afar the two companions spy.
Expecting thus some spoil or prize to gain,
They, every one, towards that quarter his.
"Brother, behoves us," cries young Cloridane,
"To cast away the load we bear, and fly:
For 'twere a foolish thought (might well be said)
To lose two living men, to save one dead;"

And dropt the burden, weening his Medore
Had done the same by it, upon his side;
But that poor boy, who loved his master more,
His shoulders to the weight, alone, applied;
Cloridan hurrying with all haste before,
Deeming him close behind him or beside;
Who, did he know his danger, him to save
A thousand deaths, instead of one, would brave.

So far was Cloridan advanced before,
He heard the boy no longer in the wind;
But when he marked the absence of Medore,
It seemed as if his heart was left behind.
"Ah! how was I so negligent (the Moor
Exclaimed), so far beside myself, and blind,
That I, Medoro, should without thee fare,
Nor know when I deserted thee or where?"

So saying, in the wood he disappears,
Plunging into the maze with hurried pace;
And thither, whence he lately issued, steers,
And, desperate, of death returns in trace.
Cries and the tread of steeds this while he hears,
And word and threat of foemen, as in chase;
Lastly Medoro by his voice is known,
Disarmed, on foot, 'mid many horse, alone.

A hundred horsemen who the youth surround,
Zerbino leads, and bids his followers seize
The stripling; like a top, the boy turns round
And keeps him as he can: among the trees,
Behind oak, elm, beech, ash, he takes his ground,
Nor from the cherished load his shoulders frees.
Wearied, at length, the burden he bestowed
Upon the grass, and stalked about his load.

Cloridan, who to aid him knows not how,
And with Medoro willingly would die,
But who would not for death this being forego,
Until more foes than one should lifeless lie,
Ambushed, his sharpest arrow to his bow
Fits, and directs it with so true an eye,
The feathered weapon bores a Scotchman's brain,
And lays the warrior dead upon the plain.

Enraged at this, Zerbino leaps forward to wreak revenge on Medoro, but he, begging to be allowed to bury his master so touches Zerbino with his youthful beauty that he is inclined to spare him, and one of his own followers smiting Medoro, who stands in suppliant attitude, Zerbino, in a rage, pursues him and followed by his companions, disappears, leaving Cloridan dead and Medoro gravely wounded.

In the meantime—

By chance arrived a damsel at the place,
Who was (though mean and rustic was her wear)
Of royal presence and of beauteous face,
And lofty manners, sagely debonair:
Her have I left unsung so long a space,
That you will hardly recognize the fair.
Angelica, in her (if known not) scan,
The lofty daughter of Cathay's great khan.

This is Angelica, who having despised the love of Orlando, now finally meets her fate in the person of Medoro:

When fair Angelica the stripling spies,
Nigh hurt to death in that disastrous fray,
Who for his king, that there unsheltered lies,
More sad than for his own misfortune lay,
She feels new pity in her bosom rise,
Which makes its entry in unwonted way.
Touched was her haughty heart, once hard and curst,
And more when he his piteous tale rehearsed.

And calling back to memory her art,
For she in Ind had learned chirurgery,
(Since it appears such studies in that part
Worthy of praise and fame are held to be,
And, as an heirloom, sires to sons impart,
With little aid of books, the mystery)
Disposed herself to work with simples' juice,
Till she in him should healthier life produce.

She succeeds in curing him, and falling desperately in love, marries him and departs for Cathay, of which she designs making her husband king.

After some time Orlando comes that way and finds engraved on trees in love-knots and intertwined names, the evidence of the love of Angelica and Medoro:

Turning him round, he there, on many a tree,
Beheld engraved, upon the woody shore,
What as the writing of his deity
He knew, as soon as he had marked the lore.
This was a place of those described by me,
Whither ofttimes, attended by Medore,
From the near shepherd's cot had wont to stray
The beauteous lady, sovereign of Cathay.

In a hundred knots, amid those green abodes,
In a hundred parts, their cyphered names are dight;
Whose many letters are so many goads,
Which Love has in his bleeding heart-core pight.
He would discredit in a thousand modes,
That which he credits in his own despite;
And would parforce persuade himself, that rhind
Other Angelica than his had signed.

He tries to convince himself that there is no truth in all this, but in vain, for meeting the shepherd at whose house Angelica had brought Medoro, he learns in detail the whole story. Upon hearing this he rushes forth from the cottage and hastens to the forest, where he can give full vent to the sorrow that fills his heart, and where he gradually loses all control of himself, and finally becomes raging mad:

All night about the forest roved the count,
And, at the break of daily light, was brought
By his unhappy fortune to the fount,
Where his inscription young Medoro wrought.
To see his wrongs inscribed upon that mount,
Inflamed his fury so, in him was nought
But turned to hatred, frenzy, rage, and spite;
Nor paused he more, but bared his falchion bright.

Cleft through the writing; and the solid block,
Into the sky, in tiny fragments sped.
Wo worth each sapling and that caverned rock,
Where Medore and Angelica were read!
So scathed, that they to shepherd or to flock
Thenceforth shall never furnish shade or bed.
And that sweet fountain, late so clear and pure,
From such tempestuous wrath was ill secure.

For he turf, stone, and trunk, and shoot, and lop
Cast without cease into the beauteous source;
Till, turbid from the bottom to the top,
Never again was clear the troubled course.
At length, for lack of breath, compelled to stop,
(When he is bathed in sweat, and wasted force,
Serves not his fury more) he falls, and lies
Upon the mead, and, gazing upward, sighs.

Wearied and woe-begone, he fell to ground,
And turned his eyes toward heaven; nor spake he aught,
Nor ate, nor slept, till in his daily round
The golden sun had broken thrice, and sought
His rest anew; nor ever ceased his wound
To rankle, till it marred his sober thought.
At length, impelled by frenzy, the fourth day,
He from his limbs tore plate and mail away.

Thus begins the madness of Orlando, who, after performing prodigious deeds of strength on men, cattle, and trees, is seized with restlessness, and wanders far and wide:

Now right, now left, he wandered, far and wide,
Throughout all France, and reached a bridge one day;
Beneath which ran an ample water's tide,
Of steep and broken banks: a turret gray
Was builded by the spacious river's side,
Discerned, from far and near, and every way.
What here he did I shall relate elsewhere,
Who first must make the Scottish prince my care.

The Scottish prince, to whom the poet refers in these last lines, is the same Zerbino whom we have left pursuing the wretch who wounded the young Medoro. Zerbino is young, handsome, and brave, and has married Isabella, daughter of the king of Gallicia, whom he loves and by whom he is loved with tender conjugal affection. Now his time has come to die. He, with Isabella, arrives on the scene of Orlando's madness and finds the scattered arms of Orlando, which he gathers together and hangs on a tree, with an inscription telling whose they are, and forbidding all to touch them. Just then up comes Mandricardo, emperor of Tartary, accompanied by Doralice, his lady-love, and attempts to take Orlando's sword Durindane. The two warriors fight, and Zerbino being fatally wounded, Doralice, at the prayer of Isabella, prevails on Mandricardo to end the battle: yet it is too late to save the life of Zerbino.

Neither the wars of Charlemagne nor the madness of Orlando gives a real unity to the poem; the nearest thing to such a unity is to be found in the story of Roger and Brandiamante, the former a pagan, the latter a Christian, daughter of Aymon and sister to Rinaldo. They love each other, seek each other, and after countless adventures by land and sea, are united in marriage, thus founding the house of Este. It is with Roger's conversion to Christianity and his marriage that the poem ends. All the different heroes are gathered together before the walls of Paris, Orlando's madness has been cured by Astolfo, who has made his famous visit to the moon, where, in the paradise of fools, he recovers the lost brain of his friend; Rinaldo, on his wedding day, slays Rodamonte, the truculent and hitherto unconquerable enemy of the Christians, and with his fall the war and the poem are ended.

Hard as it is to give a clear conception of the complicated adventures told in the Orlando Furioso, it is perhaps still harder to give an idea of its charm to these who have not read it. We are introduced at once into a world of fancy, a sort of fairy-book for grown-up people. The poem is not deeply impressive like the Divine Comedy, it has no elements of tragedy. Ariosto did not aim at moral effect, but merely sought to amuse his readers. Dante represents the deep, mystical religious feeling of his times; Ariosto represents the worldliness of the neo-paganism of the Renaissance. The asceticism of the Middle Ages now gives way to intense delight in the life that now is. The artist and poet sought to represent the pomp and circumstance of life, man in his physical and intellectual power, woman in her beauty, nature in all its picturesque variety, art in its magnificence. This was the ideal followed by Ariosto; this was the ideal of the Italian Renaissance.

The great charm of Ariosto is his style. Here form reaches its highest expression. He worked over and polished his verses unceasingly, yet so natural are they that they seem to have been written spontaneously. The Orlando is full of beautiful descriptions, of pathetic scenes, alternating skilfully with humorous ones. Ariosto's humor, however, is not coarse or grotesque, but refined and elegant. He does not caricature the stories of chivalry, as Cervantes does in Don Quixote; but living in a skeptical age he cannot take seriously the creatures of his own fancy, and accompanies the prodigious deeds of his heroes with a smile of good-natured irony.

We have already said that Ariosto was a man of good sense. From the quiet of his own home he looked out upon the ruffled sea of life and mused on what he saw. His reflections are contained in his satires; but they likewise add a peculiar and original charm to the Orlando Furioso. Among the parts most popular with the serious reader are the short introductions to the various cantos, each containing some wise reflection, some rule of life, or some kindly satire; this charm is well known to the genuine lover of Thackeray.

SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

Progress of the revival of learning—Florence the center of the movement—Poggio Bracciolini; Pico della Mirandola; Politian; their services to scholarship—The chivalrous romance in Italy—Boiardo's influence—Ariosto (1474-1533); Comedies and Satires—His Orlando Furioso reflects the age.

1. Trace the development of the Renaissance from Petrarch to Politian.

2. Name some of the more important writers of this period.

3. Who was Lorenzo the Magnificent?

4. Who was the first to introduce chivalrous romances into Italian literature?

5. Who was Boiardo? What were his services to Italian literature?

6. Give a sketch of Ariosto's life.

7. Describe his character.

8. Give a list of his works.

9. What is the general theme of Orlando Furioso?

10. Did Ariosto invent the plot of his poem?

11. Tell the story of Cloridano and Medoro.

12. How does Orlando become insane?

13. Describe the death of Zerbino.

14. How does the poem end?

15. Was Ariosto a great poet?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The best English book on the Renaissance is that by J. A. Symonds. For the romatic poets, Leigh Hunt's book, "Stories from the Italian Poets," should be read. The first canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore was translated by Byron and may be found in his works. A complete translation of Orlando Furioso, translated by Rose, is published in the Bohn Library.

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CHAPTER VII

TASSO

From the beginning of Italian literature to the death of Ariosto nearly three hundred years had elapsed. In that period four of its greatest writers had appeared. Yet no literature can attain the highest rank in which the drama and epic are not represented. Italy hitherto lacked these two important branches. The Divine Comedy of Dante is, strictly speaking, not an epic, but forms a class by itself, being an imaginative journey to the supernatural world, with a record of things seen and heard therein; Ariosto's Orlando Furioso was a revival of the old chivalrous romances in a new and elegant form, adapted to the conditions and taste of his times; a huge fresco, rather than an epic. As we shall see in the next chapter, comedy and tragedy had to wait nearly two hundred years after the death of Ariosto before finding worthy representatives in Alfieri and Goldoni. The regular epic, however, was given to Italy by Tasso at the end of the sixteenth century.

The story of Tasso's life is of great though painful interest. It is a tragedy of suffering like that of Dante; yet how vast the difference between the two. Dante bore his sufferings with unparalleled nobility of character, exciting our admiration. Tasso, weak and vacillating by nature, lives wretched and miserable, not from the decrees of fortune, but owing to his unfitness to bear the trials of ordinary life.

He was born March 11, 1544, at Sorrento, near Naples, the son of Bernardo Tasso, a man of affairs, a courtier and a poet, who, although of noble family, was forced by straitened circumstances to pass his life in the service of others. Tasso's education was varied enough; a few years at a Jesuit school in Naples, an experience which left a lasting impression on his sensitive and melancholy temperament; then under private teachers at Rome; and finally, several years of study of law at the universities of Padua and Bologna. He was compelled to leave the latter as a result of certain satires against the university authorities, which he was accused of having written.

The important period of his life begins in 1565, when he went to Ferrara, then, as in the days of Boiardo and Ariosto, the center of a rich and brilliant court. His life here for the next seven or eight years was a prosperous one. Fortune seemed to have showered her fairest gifts on this young, handsome, and gentle-mannered poet. He was treated on terms of intimacy by the duke and his sisters, Lucretia and Leonora. He was accustomed to take his meals with the two ladies, and to them he read the poetry which he wrote from time to time. It was undoubtedly due to their influence that he composed his famous pastoral poem, Aminta (1572-73), full of exquisite pictures of rural life and bathed in an atmosphere of tender and refined love. This poem had an unprecedented success and made its author famous throughout all Europe.

Not long after this, however, the first germs of the terrible mental disease which wrecked his life began to show themselves. For many years Tasso was made the hero of a romance, in which he was depicted as a martyr to social caste—the victim of his own love for a woman beyond his sphere. According to this romance Tasso fell in love with the sister of the duke of Ferrara, and for this crime was shut up in prison and falsely treated as insane. The results of modern scholarship, however, have dissipated the sentimental halo from the brow of the unfortunate poet, and reduced his case to one of pathological diagnosis. Leonora was some ten years older than Tasso, and the affection which at first undoubtedly existed between them was that of an elder sister and a younger brother. The duke was not cruel to Tasso, but on the contrary treated him at first kindly, and only when he was at last worn out by the vagaries of the poet, did he drop him and bother himself no more about him.

The secret of Tasso's sufferings and vicissitudes of fortune lay in himself; he was, during the latter part of his life, simply insane. All his actions during this period illustrate perfectly the various phases of the persecution mania, which in his case was aggravated by religious hallucination. To this terrible mental disease he was predisposed from early life; his Jesuit education, the mysterious death of his mother (suspected of having been poisoned), overwork and worriment, and especially his morbidly sensitive and melancholy temperament, all helped to prepare the way for the catastrophe that was to darken his life.

The first open manifestations of insanity occurred in 1577 (probably as the result of a fever), about the time he had finished the first draft of the Jerusalem Delivered. Very foolishly for a man as sensitive as he was, he turned over the manuscript of his poem to a number of friends for suggestions. The heartless criticisms he thus received filled him with bitterness and fostered the rising irritability of his nascent disease. He was especially hurt by the brutal and stupid criticism of the Inquisitor Antoniano, who advised him to cut out all the romantic episodes, which form the real beauty of the poem. This put into his mind the thought that the Inquisition might refuse him permission to print his poem, and made him fear that he might be a heretic. The lessons of his early teachers, the Jesuits, now began to bear fruit. In 1577, tormented by religious doubts, he went to the inquisitor of Bologna and laid his case before him. Although the latter absolved him from his self-charge of heresy, Tasso was not satisfied. Henceforth religious fear was added to the fear of assassination—a double torment to his soul.

Under these circumstances he became more and more moody and irritable; he was suspicious of all about him and subject to frequent outbursts of violence. On the evening of June 17, 1577, he was discoursing of his troubles to the Princess Lucretia, when he suspected a passing servant of spying him, and flung a knife at him. In order to prevent further acts of violence he was shut up, at first in his room, and later in the monastery of St. Francis, under the care of a physician. On July 27 he broke the door and escaped. Horsemen were sent after him, but being disguised as a peasant, he escaped, and after many adventures, often begging his way as a common beggar, he reached Sorrento, where, in the quiet seclusion of his sister's house, surrounded by all the tokens of her love and sympathy, he enjoyed a short period of rest and peace.

He soon became restless, however, and yearned for the brilliant life of the court, which presented itself to his fancy, enhanced by the charms of distance and of those things we have had and lost. He was like a butterfly, always attracted toward the light that was to destroy him. He returned to Ferrara, and again ran away, wandering from city to city, yet finding nowhere a warm welcome. "The world's rejected guest," Shelley called him, who knew himself only too well the meaning of these words.

In February, 1579, Tasso once more returned to Ferrara, this time without previous warning, and asked to be received by the duke. It was a singularly unpropitious moment; the duke was then in the midst of preparations for his marriage with Margaret Gonzaga, his third wife, and naturally enough the obscure, half-insane poet was neglected. This neglect completely turned his mind, and losing all self-control he broke out into violent invectives in the presence of the court. He was immediately taken out, shut up in the insane asylum of S. Anna, and in accordance with the barbarous customs of the age in the treatment of the insane, put in chains. Here he remained in utter misery, a prey to the double nightmare of his sick brain, fear of death by the assassin's knife, and of everlasting damnation as a heretic. The letters which he wrote by scores during this period are of heartbreaking pathos.

He remained in S. Anna nearly eight years, being released in 1586 at the solicitation of Prince Vincenzo Gonzaga, brother-in-law of the duke of Ferrara. From now on to the end, the story of Tasso's life becomes a mere repetition of melancholy incidents. Once more he went from city to city, visiting in turn Milan, Florence, Naples, and Rome, and moving restlessly hither and thither

"Like spirits of the wandering wind,
Who seek for rest, yet rest can never find."

Finally fortune seemed about to smile upon him; a faint ray of sunshine broke through the thick clouds that for so long had hung over his life. In November, 1594, he was invited to Rome, there to be crowned poet, as Petrarch had been. The pope assigned him a pension, and it seemed as if at last some measure of happiness might again be his. It was only a brief gleam of sunshine, however; the clouds soon closed again, and the sun of Tasso's life hastened to its setting shrouded in gloom. The coronation was put off on account of the ill health of Cardinal Cinzio and the inclemency of the season. In March, 1595, he himself fell sick, and in April was taken to the monastery of S. Onofrio on the Janiculum hill. To the monks who came to meet him he uttered the pathetic words: "My fathers, I have come to die among you." The pope sent his own physician to attend him, but in vain. The world-weary poet passed away April 25, 1595. His body lies buried in the adjacent church. The visitor to-day can still see his room, furnished as in his lifetime, and on the wall a copy of his last letter, in which he announces his speedy death.

Tasso's works are comparatively voluminous, and consist of lyrical poems, the pastoral poem, Aminta, a tragedy, Torrismondo, dialogues, letters, and the Jerusalem Delivered. In this brief sketch we can only discuss the latter, by which alone he is known the world over.

Already when only sixteen years old, he had felt the ambition to write a poem which should combine the merits of the regular epic (such as the Iliad and Æneid), and the romantic interest of the poems of Boiardo and Ariosto. His Rinaldo, written when he was only nineteen years old, was remarkable both on account of the youth of its author and as a promise of what was to follow. For a number of years after this, however, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the task of preparing himself, by reading, study, and thought, to write the great poem which he had in mind.

His choice of a subject was a happy one. The fear of the Turk at that time was widespread; the wars between Christian and Saracen, which filled the old romances, were now occurring again on the eastern borders of Europe. The Turks had conquered Hungary, and their piratic ships had ravaged the coast of Italy, often destroying entire populations; a short time before Sorrento, Tasso's birthplace, had been attacked, and his sister escaped only by a miracle. Tasso himself must have heard many a story of the crusades, when a child at Sorrento, where Pope Urban, who had published the first crusade, was buried. His choice of the deliverance of Jerusalem from the unbeliever then was a natural one.

Contrary to the Orlando Furioso, the story of Jerusalem Delivered, is a simple one. Yet the main plot, i. e., the military operations of Godfrey, the various battles, and the final capture of Jerusalem, are not so effective or interesting as the various romantic episodes introduced from time to time; the reader to-day is disposed to hurry over the early cantos and to linger over the beautiful pages which tell the loves of Tancred and Clorinda, Olindo and Sophronia, Rinaldo, Armida, and Erminia.

The poem begins with the usual invocation:

I sing the pious arms and Chief, who freed
The Sepulcher of Christ from thrall profane:
Much did he toil in thought, and much in deed;
Much in the glorious enterprise sustain;
And hell in vain opposed him; and in vain
Afric and Asia to the rescue poured
Their mingled tribes;—Heaven recompensed his pain,
And from all fruitless sallies of the sword,
True to the Red-Cross flag his wandering friends restored.

O, thou, the Muse, that not with fading palms
Circlest thy brows on Pindus, but among
The Angels warbling their celestial psalms,
Hast for thy coronal a golden throng
Of everlasting stars! make thou my song
Lucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divine
Into my bosom; and forgive the wrong,
If with grave truth light fiction I combine,
And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine.

The poet then plunges into the midst of the action, We learn how the Christian army has been in Holy Land for six years and had made many conquests:

Six summers now were past, since in the East
Their high Crusade the Christians had begun;
And Nice by storm, and Antioch had they seized
By secret guile, and gallantly when won,
Held in defiance of the myriads dun,
Prest to its conquest by the Persian king;
Tortosa sacked, when now the sullen sun
Entered Aquarius, to breme winter's wing
The quartered hosts give place, and wait the coming spring.

In the spring of the seventh year the archangel Gabriel appears to Godfrey of Bouillon and orders him to assemble the chiefs of the army and prepare for a new and vigorous prosecution of the war. Godfrey obeys and is himself elected commander-in-chief. Then, after a review of the troops, which furnishes the poet an opportunity of giving a catalogue of the various Christian forces (after the manner of Homer), the whole army starts for Jerusalem.

The scene then changes to the Holy City itself, where King Aladine and his followers are seized with consternation at the news of the advance of the Christians. We now see the first of the famous episodes of the Jerusalem Delivered. The Magician Ismeno urges the king to seize a certain image of the Virgin Mary and shut it up in the royal mosque (thus converting it into a palladium for Jerusalem). The king does so; but immediately the image disappears from the mosque. Aladine is wild with rage and being unable to discover the perpetrator of the outrage, resolves to destroy all the Christians in the city. Now there was in the city a beautiful Christian girl:

Of generous thoughts and principles sublime,
Amongst them in the city lived a maid.
The flower of virgins, in her ripest prime,
Supremely beautiful! but that she made
Never her care, or beauty only weighed
In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired
A deeper charm from blooming in the shade;
Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired.
But from their praises turned, and lived a life retired.

Although she was unconscious of love herself, there was a noble Christian youth, Olindo, who had long loved her in secret. Sophronia resolves to save her people. She makes her way to the king's palace, and declares that she alone is guilty of having stolen the sacred image from the mosque.

Thus she prepares a public death to meet,
A people's ransom at a tyrant's shrine:
Oh glorious falsehood! beautiful deceit!
Can Truth's own light thy loveliness outshine?
To her bold speech misdoubting Aladine
With unaccustomed temper calm replied:
"If so it were, who planned the rash design,
Advised thee to it, or became thy guide?
Say, with thyself who else his ill-timed zeal allied?"

"Of this my glory not the slightest part
Would I," said she, "with one confederate share;
I needed no adviser; my full heart
Alone sufficed to counsel, guide, and dare."
"If so," he cried, "then none but thou must bear
The weight of my resentment, and atone
For the misdeed." "Since it has been my care,"
She said, "the glory to enjoy alone,
'T is just none share the pain; it should be all mine own."

To this the tyrant, now incensed, returned,
"Where rests the Image?" and his face became
Dark with resentment: she replied, "I burned
The holy image in the holy flame,
And deemed it glory; thus at least no shame
Can e'er again profane it—it is free
From further violation; dost thou claim
The spoil or spoiler? this behold in me;
But that, whilst time rolls round, thou never more shall see

---

Doomed in tormenting fire to die, they lay
Hands on the maid; her arms with rough cords twining,
Rudely her mantle chaste they tear away,
And the white veil that o'er her drooped declining:
This she endured in silence unrepining,
Yet her firm breast some virgin tremors shook;
And her warm cheek, Aurora's late outshining,
Waned into whiteness, and a color took,
Like that of the pale rose, or lily of the brook.

At this moment Olindo approaches the spot, and discovering that the victim is Sophronia, bursts through the crowd, exclaiming that he himself is the author of the crime. Sophronia appeals to him not to sacrifice himself for her, but he remains firm until the king, angered at their apparent scorn of his power, condemns them both to be burned. Thus both are about to die, when a knight appears:

In midst of their distress, a knight behold,
(So would it seem) of princely port! whose vest,
And arms of curious fashion, grained with gold,
Bespeak some foreign and distinguished guest;
The silver tigress on the helm impressed,
Which for a badge is borne, attracts all eyes,—
A noted cognizance, the accustomed crest
Used by Clorinda, whence conjectures rise,
Herself the stranger is—nor false is their surmise.

All feminine attractions, aims, and parts,
She from her childhood cared not to assume;
Her haughty hand disdained all servile arts,
The needle, distaff, and Arachne's loom;
Yet, though she left the gay and gilded room
For the free camp, kept spotless as the light
Her virgin fame, and proud of glory's plume,
With pride her aspect armed; she took delight
Stern to appear, and stern, she charmed the gazer's sight.

This is the first appearance of Clorinda, who is destined to play so large a part in the poem, and who shows the nobility of her character by interceding for the lovers with the king. The king, delighted at having so powerful an auxiliary in his hour of danger and need, willingly grants Clorinda's request, and the lovers are saved.

In the meantime the Christian army approach Jerusalem, which they reach at early dawn, and which they greet with deep emotion:

The odorous air, morn's messenger, now spread
Its wings to herald, in serenest skies,
Aurora issuing forth, her radiant head
Adorned with roses plucked in Paradise;
When in full panoply the hosts arise,
And loud and spreading murmurs upward fly,
Ere yet the trumpet sings; its melodies
They miss not long, the trumpet's tuneful cry
Gives the command to march, shrill sounding to the sky.

---

Winged is each heart, and winged every heel;
They fly, yet notice not how fast they fly;
But by the time the dewless meads reveal
The fervent sun's ascension in the sky,
Lo, towered Jerusalem salutes the eye!
A thousand pointing fingers tell the tale;
"Jerusalem!" a thousand voices cry,
"All hail, Jerusalem!" hill, down, and dale
Catch the glad sounds, and shout, "Jerusalem, all hail!"

Erminia, daughter of the deceased king of Antioch, points out to King Aladine from a high tower the famous warriors among the Christians, and especially praises Tancred, who had conquered her father and taken her prisoner, and who, by his courtesy and gentle treatment, had won her love. A sortie is made from the city, and Tancred, finding himself engaged in battle with Clorinda, whom he esteems a man, breaks her helmet, and discovering her to be the maiden whom he loves, refuses to fight further with her.

Meanwhile Clorinda rushes to assail
The Prince, and level lays her spear renowned;
Both lances strike, and on the barred ventayle
In shivers fly, and she remains discrowned
For, burst its silver rivets, to the ground
Her helmet leaped (incomparable blow!)
And by the rudeness of the shock unbound,
Her sex to all the field emblazoning so,
Loose to the charmed winds her golden tresses flow.

Thus begins the most famous episode of the Jerusalem Delivered. For the next half of the poem Tancred and Clorinda are the real hero and heroine.

In the meantime Satan has called together his followers for consultation. Among the many plans for holding the Christian army in check is the sending of the beautiful enchantress Armida to the camp of Godfrey, where she succeeds by her wiles in drawing away from the army a number of the bravest warriors. The king of Egypt, with an immense army, announces his intention to help Jerusalem and from this time on, this menace hovers like a black cloud over the horizon of the poem, ever approaching nearer and nearer, till in the last canto the storm is averted by the bravery of the Christian warriors and the aid of heaven.

Argantes, one of the pagan warriors of Jerusalem, sends a herald to Godfrey's camp, challenging any of his warriors to single combat. Tancred is appointed by Godfrey to accept the challenge, and the two doughty champions fight all day long with no result. When night comes on both retire, bearing away serious wounds. Erminia, who has been in a terrible state of anxiety during the combat, cannot rest content when night comes on, without learning the condition of Tancred's wounds. She puts on Clorinda's suit of armor, leaves the city, and makes her way to the Christian camp, first sending a messenger to Tancred, announcing that a lady desires to see him. The scene which follows is very picturesque, describing as it does the silence of the night and the distant view of the tents.

On high were the clear stars; the gentle Hours
Walked cloudless through the galaxy of space,
And the calm moon rose, lighting up the flowers
With frost of living pearl: like her in grace,
Th' enamored maid from her illumined face
Reflected light where'er she chanced to rove;
And made the silent Spirit of the place,
The hills, the melancholy moon above,
And the dumb valleys round, familiars of her love.

Seeing the Camp, she whispered: "O ye fair
Italian tents! how amiable ye show!
The breathing winds that such refreshment bear,
Ravish my soul, for 't is from you they blow
So may relenting Heaven on me bestow,—
On me, by froward Fate so long distressed,—
A chaste repose from weariness and woe,
As in your compass only lies my quest;
As 'tis your arms alone can give my spirit rest."

---

Ah, little does she think, while thus she dreams,
What is prepared for her by Fortune's spite!
She is so placed, that the moon's placid beams
In line direct upon her armor light;
So far remote into the shades of night
The silver splendor is conveyed, and she
Surrounded is with brilliancy so bright,
That whosoe'er might chance her crest to see,
Would of a truth conclude it must Clorinda be.

Two sentinels see her, and believing her to be Clorinda, pursue her. She flies and is carried by her horse many miles away, finally reaching a shepherd's cottage on the banks of the Jordan, where for some time she takes up her abode far from war's alarms and the "pangs of despised love." The description of Erminia's life here is much admired for its delineations of the charm of rural life.

She slept, till in her dreaming ear, the bowers
Whispered, the gay birds warbled of the dawn;
The river roared; the winds to the young flowers
Made love; the blithe bee wound its dulcet horn:
Roused by the mirth and melodies of morn,
Her languid eyes she opens, and perceives
The huts of shepherds on the lonely lawn;
Whilst seeming voices, 'twixt the waves and leaves
Call back her scattered thoughts,—again she sighs and grieves.

Her plaints were silenced by soft music, sent
As from a rural pipe, such sounds as cheer
The Syrian shepherd in his summer tent,
And mixed with pastoral accents, rude but clear
She rose and gently, guided by her ear,
Came where an old man on a rising ground
In the fresh shade, his white flocks feeding near,
Twig baskets wove, and listened to the sound
Trilled by three blooming boys, who sate disporting round.

The shepherd, pitying Erminia's distress, takes her to his wife, and she thus becomes a member of the humble but happy household.

In the meantime many events are taking place between the Christians and pagans, sorties, single combats, and attacks on the walls of the city. Godfrey has caused powerful engines of war to be built, especially a mighty movable tower, so high that it overtops the walls of the city. Clorinda, eager for glory, undertakes one night to destroy the tower, in spite of the warning of her old servant Arsetes, who tells her the story of her birth, and reveals the fact that she is of Christian parentage. She issues forth, succeeds in setting fire to the tower, but not being able to reënter the city, flies, followed by Tancred, who not recognizing her, fights with her and to his own eternal sorrow, slays her. This passage is regarded as the most beautiful of the whole poem:

As the deep Euxine, though the wind no more
Blows, that late tossed its billows to the stars,
Stills not at once its rolling and its roar,
But with its coasts long time conflicting jars;
Thus, though their quickly-ebbing blood debars
Force from their blades as vigor from their arms,
Still lasts the frenzy of the flame which Mars
Blew in their breasts; sustained by whose strong charms,
Yet heap they strokes on strokes, yet harms inflict on harms.

But now, alas! the fatal hour arrives
That must shut up Clorinda's life in shade;
In her fair bosom deep his sword he drives;
'Tis done—life's purple fountain bathes the blade;
The golden flowered cymar of light brocade,
That swathed so tenderly her breasts of snow,
Is steeped in the warm stream: the hapless maid
Feels her end nigh; her knees their strength forego,
And her enfeebled frame droops languishing and low.

He, following up the thrust with taunting cries,
Lays the pierced Virgin at his careless feet;
She as she falls, in mournful tones outsighs,
Her last faint words, pathetically sweet;
Which a new spirit prompts, a spirit replete
With charity, and faith, and hope serene,
Sent dove-like down from God's pure mercy-seat;
Who, though through life his rebel she had been,
Would have her die a fond, repentant Magdalene.

"Friend, thou hast won; I pardon thee, and oh
Forgive thou me! I fear not for this clay,
But my dark soul—pray for it, and bestow
The sacred right that laves all stains away:"
Like dying hymns heard far at close of day,
Sounding I know not what in the soothed ear
Of sweetest sadness, the faint words make way
To his fierce heart, and, touched with grief sincere,
Streams from his pitying eye the involuntary tear.

Not distant, gushing from the rocks, a rill
Clashed on his ear; to this with eager pace
He speeds—his hollow casque the waters fill—
And back he hurries to the deed of grace;
His hands as aspens tremble, whilst they raise
The locked aventayle of the unknown knight;—
God, for thy mercy! 'tis her angel face!
Aghast and thunderstruck, he loathes the light;
Ah, knowledge best unknown! ah, too distracting sight.

Yet still he lived; and mustering all his powers
To the sad task, restrained each wild lament,
Fain to redeem by those baptismal showers
The life his sword bereft; whilst thus intent
The hallowing words he spoke, with ravishment
Her face transfigured shone, and half apart
Her bland lips shed a lively smile that sent
This silent speech in sunshine to his heart:
"Heaven gleams; in blissful peace behold thy friend depart!"

A paleness beauteous as the lily's mixt
With the sweet violet's, like a gust of wind
Flits o'er her face; her eyes on Heaven are fixt,
And heaven on her returns its looks as kind:
Speak she can not; but her cold hand, declined,
In pledge of peace on Tancred she bestows;
And to her fate thus tenderly resigned,
In her meek beauty she expires, and shows
But as a smiling saint indulging soft repose.

Clorinda, being dead, Tancred has little desire to live, but is comforted by a vision of her in heaven:

And, clad in starry robes, the maid for whom
He mourned, appears amid his mourning dreams;
Fairer than erst, but by the deathless bloom
And heavenly radiance that around her beams,
Graced, not disguised; in sweetest act she seems
To stoop, and wipe away the tears that flow
From his dim eyes: "Behold what glory streams
Round me," she cries; "how beauteous now I show,
And for my sake, dear friend, this waste of grief forego."

Up to this time the most prominent characters in the poem have been Tancred and Clorinda. This state of things now changes and the real hero, Rinaldo, who like Achilles has long been absent from the field of action, reappears and brings matters to a climax.

We have already seen how Armida has come to camp and carried off a number of the Christian warriors. At the same time Rinaldo had, in a contest for the successor of Dudo (killed in the first skirmish between the crusaders and the pagans), slain Gernando in the presence of the whole army, and was forced to fly the wrath of Godfrey. He, after having freed the fifty knights from the power of Armida, is himself caught by her wiles, and carried off by her to a gorgeous palace situated in the midst of a beautiful garden, on a high mountain in the island of Teneriffe. Here, lost in luxury and idleness, he sleeps out the thought of his duty as a Christian warrior.

In the meantime Godfrey, by various supernatural tokens, learns that Rinaldo alone can bring about the final success of the Christian arms. He is thus induced to pardon his crime, which indeed had in a certain sense been justified, and sends two messengers to bring him back. These embark on a magic vessel, traverse the Mediterranean, pass the strait of Gibraltar, enter the Atlantic, and reach the island of Teneriffe. The descriptions of this voyage and the allusion to Columbus, are famous and well deserve to be quoted, if we had the space. It is especially interesting to compare this fictitious voyage into the Atlantic Ocean with that of Ulysses in Dante's Inferno, the one written before, the other shortly after the discovery of America.

The ambassadors arrive at the island, climb the mountain, overcome all obstacles, enter the enchanted garden, and discover Rinaldo, surrounded by all the beauty of nature and magnificence of art.

The messengers succeed in arousing the dormant nobility of Rinaldo; he tears himself away, follows them to the camp of Godfrey, is pardoned by the latter, succeeds in breaking the spell of the enchanted forest, and thus prepares the way for the building of new war machines. The city then is assaulted and taken, and finally the Egyptian army, which now appears on the scene, is defeated and the poem ends.

The literature of the Italian Renaissance, which was inaugurated by Petrarch and Boccaccio, reached its highest point with Ariosto. Tasso, equally great with Ariosto, lived at the beginning of a long period of decline; the Jerusalem Delivered projecting the last rays of the glories of the Renaissance into this new period. The sixteenth century, especially the first half, is the golden age of Italian literature, comparable to that of Augustus in Rome, Louis XIV. in France, and Queen Elizabeth in England. In the narrow confines of this sketch we have only been able to treat in some detail the great writers thereof, Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso. Yet the number of men of genius and talent is legion—giants indeed lived in those days—not only in the field of art and scholarship but in literature. In lyrical poetry were Pietro Bembo, the Petrarch of his times; Michel Angelo and Vittoria Colonna. In the pastoral poem, besides Tasso, there were Sannazaro and Guarini, the former (whose Arcadia was imitated in England by Sidney and Spenser) on the border-line between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the latter on that between the sixteenth and seventeenth. In comic poetry there was Francesco Berni, who worked over Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, which has since then been read almost wholly in this version. In prose was developed an especially rich literature, among the great masters of which we may mention in history, Nicholas Machiavelli, who, in his Prince, introduced a new philosophy of politics; Guicciardini, Varchi, and Nardi; in the history of art, Vasari; in novels and stories, Luigi da Porto, who first told the story of Romeo and Juliet; Giraldo Cinzio, Matteo Bandello, who continued the work of Boccaccio and Sacchetti. Forming a special group are Benvenuto Cellini, whose autobiography has made him famous; Firenzuola, who wrote on the beauty of woman; Baldasarre Castiglione, the Lord Chesterfield of his day, who in his book on the Courtier, depicted the character of the perfect gentleman according to the ideals of the times.

SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

Lack of true epic hitherto—Tasso (1544-95) the first to give Italy an epic in the style of Homer and Vergil—Pathos of his life—His works: The pastoral poem Aminta; a tragedy, Torrismondo; Jerusalem Delivered—Long preparation for his masterpiece—The sixteenth century the Golden Age of Italian literature: Bembo, Sannazaro, Guarini, Berni, Machiavelli, Guicciardini.

1. Would you call the Divine Comedy and Orlando Furioso true epics?

2. Give briefly the main facts of Tasso's life.

3. What was the real cause of his unhappiness?

4. Describe his death.

5. What was the Aminta; when was it written?

6. What is the theme of Jerusalem Delivered?

7. Why did Tasso choose this subject?

8. Give in brief outline the plot.

9. Tell the story of Sophronia and Olindo.

10. Who was Clorinda, by whom was she loved, and how did she die?

11. Tell all you know about Erminia.

12. What part in the poem is played by Armida?

13. Where was Rinaldo during most of the fighting, and how was he brought back to camp?

14. How does the poem end?

15. Mention a few other writers of the sixteenth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete translation of Jerusalem Delivered by Wiffen is published in the Bohn Library.

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CHAPTER VIII

THE PERIOD OF DECADENCE AND THE REVIVAL

In the history of Italian literature, Dante, to expand a figure already used, stands at the end of the Middle Ages like a lofty, solitary mountain peak; behind him the low, level plain fades away into darkness; before him the landscape, shone upon by the first rays of a new epoch, slopes gradually upward until with Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the great writers of the Renaissance, we have a lofty and widely extended plateau. After Tasso there is a sudden descent to a low, level, uniform plain, in which Italian literature dragged itself along till the middle of the eighteenth century, when again an upward slope is noticed, which becomes more and more accentuated as we approach the present.

Among the causes of the period of degradation, from 1560 to 1750, the leading ones must be sought for in the political and religious condition of Italy at that time. Spain had become possessed of a large part of the country, especially in the north and south, while the pope, who ruled the center, in temporal as well as spiritual matters, was the firm ally of the Spaniards. The country thus under foreign dominion, was oppressed and robbed without mercy. The Spanish viceroys, and their ignoble imitators, the Italian nobles, lived a life of luxury and vice, surrounded by bandits and brigands, and by paralyzing all commerce and industry, brought on famine and pestilence.

The religious condition was no better. The Catholic reaction, or counter reformation, which culminated in the Council of Trent, fastened still more firmly the chains of medieval superstition and dogmatism on the mass of the Italian people. The absolute power of the pope was reaffirmed; two mighty instruments were forged to crush out heresy and opposition—the Inquisition, which effectually choked out free thought, and the Jesuits, who found their way stealthily into all ranks and classes of society. Such was the condition of Italy at this time, "a prolonged, a solemn, an inexpressibly heartrending tragedy." The effect on the social life of Italy was almost fatal. Everywhere, to use the almost exaggerated language of Symonds, were to be seen idleness, disease, brigandage, destitution, ignorance, superstition, hypocrisy, vice, ruin, pestilence, "while over the Dead Sea of social putrefaction floated the sickening oil of Jesuit hypocrisy."

No wonder that in such a state of society, literature and art reached the lowest point in all its history. Scarcely a single man of genius or even of talent, can be found in the period between 1580 and 1750. All literature was marked by lack of originality of thought and by a style deformed by execrable taste, a style which consisted of wretched conceits, puns, antithesis, and gorgeous and far-fetched metaphors. This form of literary diction was not confined, however, to Italy, being represented in Spain by Gongora, in France by the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and in England by Lyly's Euphues. In Italy it is known as Marinism from the poet Marini, whose Adone (in which is told the love of Venus for Adonis, a subject previously treated by Shakespeare) exemplifying all phases of the above-mentioned style, had enormous popularity not only in Italy but abroad.

During the period now under discussion, poets were not wanting, for the defect was in quality rather than quantity. Yet not all were entirely without merit, for some possessed a certain degree of talent, especially in the musical elements of their verse. Such were the lyrical poets, Chiabrera, Testi, and Filicaja. In prose literature a better and saner style prevailed, especially in the dialogues of Galileo, and in the historical and critical writings of Sarpi and Vico.

In 1748 the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended Spanish rule in Italy, and the breath of free thought from England sweeping across the plains of France entered Italy and gradually weakened the power of the Jesuits, dissipated to a certain extent superstition and ignorance, and aroused the country to a sense of its degradation. By bringing Italy into connection with other nations, and with newer ideas, it planted the germs of a new intellectual life. The influence of France, England, and Germany began to make itself felt. Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire influenced Italian tragedy, while Molière, who himself had borrowed largely from the early Italian comedies, now returned the favor by becoming the master of Goldoni. English influence came later, first Addison, Pope, and Milton, then toward the end of the eighteenth century, Young, Gray, Shakespeare, and Ossian. Last of all came the German influence, especially Klopstock and Goethe.

In this period of awakening the chief gain was in the field of the drama. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century, Italy, in this branch of literature, could not even remotely be compared with France, Spain, or England. In the sixteenth century comedies had not been wanting, and beside the purely Italian creation of improvised farce (now represented in Punch and Judy shows, pantomimes, and harlequinades), Ariosto had written literary comedies in close imitation of Plautus and Terence. Yet, from Ariosto to Goldoni we find practically but one genuine writer of comedy; this singularly enough, was Machiavelli, whose Mandragora was enormously popular, and was declared by Voltaire to be better than Aristophanes and but little inferior to Molière. But one book does not make a literature any more than one swallow makes a summer. It was left for Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) to give his country a number of comedies worthy of being compared with those of Molière. Goldoni was a kindly, amiable man of the world as well as of letters, bright and witty but withal somewhat superficial. Although a keen observer of the outer form of society and human nature, he lacked the depth and insight, and especially the subtle pathos of Molière. He was greatly influenced by the latter, whom he looked upon as his master. Like him he began with light comedy, farcical in nature, and gradually produced more and more comedies of manner and character. Yet he is not a slavish imitator of the great Frenchman, to whom, while inferior in earnestness and knowledge of the human heart, he was equal in dialogue, in development of plot, and in comic talent. Goldoni composed rapidly (once he wrote sixteen comedies in a year), and has left behind him one hundred and sixty plays and eighty musical dramas and opera texts.

The musical drama is a peculiar Italian invention, and almost immediately reached perfection in Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782), after whom it began rapidly to decline. Metastasio was universally admired and was, before Goldoni and Alfieri, the only Italian that had a European reputation, and who thus won some measure of glory for his country in her period of deepest degradation. His plays, meant to be set to music—the modern opera text is a debased form of this—were superficial, had no real delineation of character, yet were written in verses which flowed softly along like a clear stream through flowery meads. Light, artificial in sentiment, often lax in morals, yet expressing the courtly conventionalities of the times, Metastasio's poetry enjoyed vast popularity, while he himself became the favorite of the aristocratic society of Vienna, where he lived for fifty years, and the pride and glory of Italy. After him music became the all-important element in this peculiar form of drama, which thus became the modern opera, while the poetical element was degraded to the text thereof.

More famous, perhaps, than either the above was Alfieri, the founder of modern Italian tragedy. In the intellectual movement of the sixteenth century, tragedy, like comedy, had not been neglected, and many translations and imitations had been made of the Greek and Latin dramatists. The first regular tragedy, not only of Italian but of modern European literature, was the Sofonisba of Trissino, which became the model of all succeeding writers. Published first in 1524 it was soon translated into all European languages and has been imitated, among many others, by Corneille and Voltaire in France, Alfieri in Italy, and Geibel in Germany. In spite of this promising beginning, however, Italian tragedy did not develop as that of the neighboring countries did. Among the numberless writers of tragedy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries scarcely one deserves mention. In the early part of the eighteenth century one name became famous, Scipio Maffei (1675-1755) the immediate predecessor of Alfieri, whose Merope was vastly popular throughout all Europe.

Yet Italy could not boast of a truly national drama before the appearance of Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803), who gave her an honorable rank in this department of the world's literature. The story of his life, as told by himself in his autobiography, is exceedingly interesting. Born in Asti, near Turin, of a noble family, after a youth spent in idleness, ignorance, and selfish pleasure, he "found himself," at the age of twenty-six, and being fired with ambition to become a poet, he began a long period of self-education, in which he made especial effort to master the Italian language, which he, born in Piedmont, and long absent abroad, only half understood. The rest of his life was spent in this study and in writing his dramas.

In his reform of the Italian drama, Alfieri did not, like Manzoni later, try to introduce Shakesperean methods. He went back to the tragic system of the Greeks and tried to improve on the French followers of the latter. He observed the three unities, especially that of action, even more strictly than Corneille or even Racine. Hence his plays are extraordinarily short (only one is of more than fifteen hundred lines). The action moves on swiftly to the climax with no effort at mere dramatic situation or stage effect.

Of especial interest are the subjects of Alfieri's tragedies, all of them having a political or social tendency. They all express the theories of the French philosophers then so popular in Italy, concerning freedom and the rights of the people in opposition to the divine right of kings. His heroes—Virginius, Brutus, Timoleon—all proclaim the liberty of man. It is interesting to note that he dedicated one of his plays to George Washington. To the reader of the present day even his best plays—Virginia, Orestes, Agamemnon, Myrra, and Saul—seem conventional, monotonous, and unreal. The characters are mere types of passion or sentiment; there is no variety of action, no episodes, and no poetical adornments. Yet in his own age Alfieri was regarded as a great tragic poet, not only in his own country, but beyond the Alps. His influence on Italian literature was very great. For the next two generations there was scarcely a poet who did not admire and imitate him. Parini, Foscolo, Monti, Manzoni, Leopardi, and Pellico, all looked up to him as their master.

Alfieri was the first to speak of a fatherland, a united Italy; he practically founded the patriotic school of literature which has lasted down to the present time. Hence he is even more important from a political standpoint than from a literary one. He himself looked on his tragedies as a means of inspiring new and higher political ideas in his fellow-countrymen, degraded as they had been by the long oppression of Spain. "I wrote," he says, "because the sad conditions of the times did not allow me to act."

The literature of the first half of the nineteenth century was dominated by this political and patriotic spirit; Monti, Foscolo, Manzoni, and Pellico, all wrote dramas in the spirit of Alfieri. Most of them, however, are better known in other accounts. Foscolo, through his letters of Jacopo Ortis, the Italian Werther, and his literary essays; Pellico for his My Prisons; Manzoni for his Betrothed, one of the great novels of modern times.

Greater than all of these, however, is Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), who alone is worthy to be placed beside the four great Italian poets, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, the last three of whom, at least, he might under happier circumstances have equaled. The story of his life is a pathetic one. Born of a family noble but poor, with a sensitive and melancholy temperament, the circumstances of his life only added to his morbid tendency, and after a brief existence, passed in sickness, poverty, and gloom, he died. Leopardi was great as a poet, a philosopher, and scholar. His Ode to Italy is one of the noblest poems in the language, and his Solitary Shepherd of Asia, is full of incomparable beauty.

Other names of this later period crowd upon our attention, in political literature, Mazzini; in the novel, D'Azeglio, Cantù, Guerazzi, and Gozzi; in history Botta, Balbo, and Cantù. But we must hasten to close this brief survey, with merely mentioning the names of a few of the more important writers of the present time; in poetry, Carducci, Ada Negri, D'Annunzio; in the novel, which in Italy as elsewhere has usurped the chief place, Fogazzaro, D'Annunzio. The latter, although still young, is, next to Carducci, the most considerable figure in Italian literature to-day. In his dramas, poetry, and novels he shows a wonderful command of language and descriptive imagination, and at one time bid fair to become a truly great writer. In his later works he shows retrogression rather than progress, and the taint of immorality and a certain exaggerated eccentricity of thought have vitiated his talent and tended to destroy his popularity.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. Mention some causes of the degradation of Italian literature in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

2. Describe the political and social condition of the country.

3. Who was Marini?

4. Name some of the early writers of Italian comedy.

5. Life, character, and literary genius of Goldoni.

6. What was the musical drama; who its greatest writer?

7. Name two famous tragedies before the time of Alfieri.

8. Give an account of the life of Alfieri.

9. What is the general character of his plays?

10. Alfieri's influence, what form did it take?

11. Name some of his followers.

12. Who was the greatest poet of the early nineteenth century?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For the political and social condition of Italy during the period of decline see Symond's Catholic Reaction. Alfieri's Autobiography, an intensely interesting book, has been often published in English. For modern literature see Howell's Modern Italian Poets, Sewall's translations from Carducci, and Greene's Italian Lyrists of To-day.

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INDEX

• Accius, 5.
• Alexander, 7.
• Alfieri, Vittorio, [341], seq.
• Alighieri, Dante, [195], seq.; [299], [313], [337].
• Andronicus, 4, 39, 119.
• Angelo, Michel, [335].
• Annales, 124.
• Anselm, [179].
• Apollodorus, 39.
• Aquinas, St. Thomas, [180], [256], [263].
• Arezzo, Guittone d', [184], seq.
• Argo, 7.
• Argonautæ, 7.
• Ariosto, [191], Chap. VI. works; [303], [322], [335].
• Aristophanes, 39.

• Bandello, Matteo, [336].
• Beatrice, [197], [204], [206], seq.
• Bellum, Punicum, 119.
• Bembo, Pietro, [335].
• Benivieni, Girolamo, [189].
• Berni, Francesco, [335].
• Boccaccio, [196], [267], Chap. V. works; [286], seq.; [299], [335], [337].
• Boiardo, [191], [300], seq.; [322].
• Bonaventura, St., [180].
• Bracciolini, Poggio, [297].

• Cæsar, 82, 90, 129.
• Calvo, Bonifaccio, [182].
• Carducci, [345].
• Castiglione, Baldasarre, [335].
• Cato, 9, 72, 122.
• Catullus, 128.
• Cavalcanti, [193], seq.
• Cellini, Benvenuto, [335].
• Cervantes, [314].
• Chanson, de geste, [190], [299].
• Chaucer, [286], seq.; [289].
• Chiabrera, [339].
• Ciani, Gioachino, [286].
• Cicero, 129.
• Cino da Pistoia, [193].
• Cinzio, Giraldo, [335].
• Colonna, Vittoria, [335].
• Convito, [205].
• Cratinus, 39.

• Damian, Peter, [179], [257].
• Daniel, Arnaut, [184].
• D'Annunzio, [345].
• Dante da Majano, [193].
• Decameron, [287], seq.
• Dies, Iræ, [188].
• Divine Comedy, [205], Chap. III., [316].
• Domitian, 106.
• Domitius, 9.

• Eclogues of Vergil, 130.
• Ennius, 5, 74;
  • epitaph of, 75; 121.
• Epicharmus, 74.
• Eupolis, 39.

• Fabulæ prætextæ, 5.
• Fasani, [188].
• Ficino, Marsilio, [297].
• Filicaja, [339].
• Firenzuola, [335].
• Flagellants, [188], seq.
• Foscolo, [343], [344].
• Francesca da Rimini, [203], [221].
• Frederick II., [182], seq.
• Fulvius, 122, 123.

• Georgics of Vergil, 130.
• Gianni, Lapo, [193].
• Goldoni, Carlo, [339].
• Guarini, [335].
• Guelphs and Ghibellines, [198], seq.
• Guicciardini, [335].
• Guinicelli, Guido, [185], seq.; [247].

• Hesiod, 72.
• Horace, 72, 80.

• Italian Renaissance, [314], [335].

• Jacopone da Todi, [189].
• Jerusalem Delivered, [304], [322], seq.
• Juvenal, 105.

• Lanfranc, [179].
• Latini, Brunetto, [196], [227].
• Laudi, [189].
• Laura, [269], seq.
• Leopardi, Giacomo, [344].
• Lombard, Peter, [179].
• Lucan, 9.
• Lucilius, 72, 73, 75, 76, 128.
• Lucretius, 128.

• Machiavelli, Nicholas, [335], [340].
• Mæcenas, 83, 91, 92, 95, 130.
• Maffei, Scipio, [342].
• Manzoni, [343], [344].
• Marini, [339].
• Marsili, Luigi, [297].
• Maternus, 9.
• Menander, 39.
• Metastasio, Pietro, [341].
• Mirandola, Pico della, [298].

• Nævius, 5, 40, 119.
• Nardi, [335].
• New Life, The, [206], seq.

• Octavia, 9.
• Odyssey, 4, 119.
• Œnomaus, 8.
• Orlando, [300];
  • Innamorato, [301];
  • Furioso, [303];
  • seq., [316].
• Ovid, 9, 72.

• Pacuvius, 5.
• Paris, 7.
• Pellico, [343], [344].
• Persius, 99.
• Petrarch, Chap. IV., [299], [335], [337].
• Petroni, Pietro de', [285].
• Pharsalia of Lucan, 127.
• Philemon, 39.
• Plautus, 40.
• Politian, [298], [299].
• Pollio, 8, 91.
• Pomponius Secundus, 9.
• Porto Luigi da, [335].
• Provençal, [173], [182], seq.
• Ptolemaic system, [216], [217].
• Pulci, Luigi, [191], [299].
• Punica, of Silius, 127.

• Sallust, 129.
• Salutati, Coluccio, [297].
• Sannazaro, [335].
• Sarpi, [339].
• Seneca, 9.
• Sordello, of Mantua, [182], [241].
• Speculum Majus, [180].
• Stabat Mater, [189].
• St. Francis, [187], [256].

• Tacitus, 107.
• Tasso, [298], Chapter VII.
  • Works, [322], [337].
• Terence, 40.
• Testi, [339].
• Thebaid, of Statius, 127.
• Thomas, of Celano, [188].
• Thyestes, 9.

• Uberti, Farinata degli, [225].
• Ulysses, [230].
• Universal Monarchy, [205];
  • political treatise on, [206].

• Vaqueiras, Rambaud de, [181].
• Varchi, [335].
• Varius, 8, 9.
• Varro, 72, 128.
• Vasari, [335].
• Vergil, 9, 72, 91, 128, Chap. III.
• Vico, [339].
• Vidal, Pierre, [181].
• Vigne, Pier delle, [183].
• Vincent of Beauvais, [180].

• Works and Days, 72.

• Zorzi, Bartolomeo, [182].