With other voice forthwith, with other fleece,
Poet will I return, and at my font
Baptismal will I take the laurel crown.[20]
The Signoria showed itself grateful to Landino. It gave him a tower on the ramparts of Borgo alia Collina, where he dwelt, and its possession was confirmed to his descendants in 1563 by a sentence of the supreme civil court of Florence, the Rota, when the magistrates of the Parte Guelfa claimed it as public property. His work is not remarkable for critical thoroughness and correctness, but for the commentary, which had great influence on opinion at the time and long afterwards. Six if not seven reissues in different places before the end of the century show with what approval this edition was received. It encountered formidable rivals, with respect to the text, in 1502, in the first Aldine, and with respect to the commentary in 1544, in Alessandro Vellutello’s work, which was soon followed by others; yet it retains some value even now. While Landino was earning well-deserved fame by this fruit of diligent study, the lectures in the cathedral on the ‘Divine Comedy’ were entrusted, in 1483, to the preaching friar Domenico da Corella, who had taken part in the council, and dedicated his Latin poem on the life of the Virgin Theotokon to Piero de’ Medici in 1468. Marsilio Ficino had long previously turned his attention to Dante when he dedicated his translation of the ‘De Monarchia’ in 1467 to his friends Bernardo del Nero and Antonio Manetti. The latter, who occupied himself much with copying old codices, is remembered among students of Dante by his dialogue (between himself and Benivieni) on the position, form, and extent of hell. Marsilio’s dedication states that he had held much discourse with the two men named on the questions raised by this political treatise, and that they were thereby led to discuss the ‘Divina Commedia.’ As Dante treated in his poem of the kingdom of the blessed, of the regions of the wretched, and of the place where departed souls abide waiting for redemption, so in his book on monarchy he treated of the realms of those who are still waiting and hoping in this world. The perception, imperfect though it be, of the spiritual connection between the great poem and its author’s other works, shows a progress in the appreciation of Dante remarkable at the time, and to this Cristoforo Landino had practically contributed.
Lorenzo’s great interest in the most sublime poet of the middle ages is shown both by testimonies in his own writings and by a letter written to him, April 13, 1476, by the above-named Antonio Manetti, then governor of the small town of San Giovanni, in the Val d’Arno. This letter[21] shows that Lorenzo had come to an understanding with the Venetian ambassador, Bernardo Bembo, for the purpose of soliciting from the senate of that Republic the return of Dante’s mortal remains from Ravenna to Florence. ‘Magnificent Lord,’—thus the letter begins—‘I am told that the Venetian ambassador has returned home. Remembering what you once told me, as we returned from visiting him shortly after Matteo Palmieri’s funeral, when we were near the house of Antonio Pucci, I wish you would bring that matter to a conclusion. I know not what greater pleasure I could have in my life than to witness the return of those remains which the magnificent ambassador promised to obtain when he went back to his own country; the more so as I am sure that, with your greatness and magnanimity, you will do whatever is in your power to give to the remains of such a man the reception they deserve, as to sepulture and crown. Great acts are for the magnanimous; but what could be greater than this? I commend myself to your Magnificence. May the Lord be with you.’
Twice already, in 1396 and 1426, when the Polenta family, which had offered hospitality to the exiled poet, was still reigning at Ravenna, the Florentines had tried to get back his remains. But both times they failed; and they had no better luck in 1476, nor again under the reign of Leo X., when Michael Angelo offered to raise the monument to his great countryman, whom he resembled in more respects than one. Seven years after the date of Antonio Manetti’s letter, Bernardo Bembo, when Podestà at Ravenna, caused Dante’s sepulchre to be restored. He had been too rash in the promise given to Lorenzo de’ Medici, but he did all that lay in his power to honour the memory of the father of Italian poetry.
CHAPTER VIII.
LUIGI PULCI AND ANGELO POLIZIANO.
An influence hardly less important than that of the philosophers and grammarians was exercised on Lorenzo and his epoch by the literary innovators who, with some infusion of classic learning, were not so pedantic as the early humanists, while they bore the impress of the teaching of the preceding century. The Medici were to these men of letters, just as much as they were to the philosophers, the centre to which their several rays converged, and Lorenzo’s name is inseparable from the names of several among them. One in this brilliant circle holds a different position from the rest. He took as a poet the part which Landino took as a critic in the revival of the study of Dante. Matteo Palmieri holds a place by himself. The first glance into his great poem, the ‘City of Life,’ (‘Città di Vita’) shows it to be an imitation of the ‘Divine Comedy;’ but only in the outward form. It is a philosophical work, the object of which is to describe and correct the problems and abuses of citizen life. It contains no real poetry, but has the merit of popularising the doctrines of moral philosophy in language somewhat lifeless, indeed, yet expressive, comparatively pure, and free from the philological follies of the age. The book became known only within a narrow circle. Theological criticism discovered in it the heretical doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which indeed Alamanno Rinuccini avowed without scruple in his funeral oration on the poet, and the work was suppressed. In later years the author wrote an unfinished history of the world, and a life of the grand seneschal Nicola Acciaiuolo. He had been a pupil of Traversari and Marsuppini, had held important offices of state, and after fulfilling several embassies with honour, died at a ripe age in 1475.[22]
While this faint echo of Dante was addressing itself to the higher classes, and proving how large was the retrogression from the beginning of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century, the popular poetry, of which the religious side has been already noticed, began to sound a natural strain in a lighter style. Burlesque, which belonged to the character of the people, was allowed considerable play. The sonnets that came forth from the barber’s shop of Domenico, called ‘Burchiello,’ in the very heart of old Florence, the Calimala, and the market, enjoy a reputation that must be taken on trust. They were chiefly experiments in the Florentine vulgar tongue—full of allusions and trivialities; but occasionally they take a flight which may serve to throw light on social and political matters, if all the writings attributed to this man, who died at Rome in 1448, are really by him. Another burlesque poet, Matteo Franco, whom we shall meet again, belonged to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s household, and used to hold with other poets, particularly with Luigi Pulci, satirical and not always very seemly sham-fights as a social pastime. But far more important for this period was the rise of a new style which was destined to give to the sixteenth century its special poetic character. Of the brothers Pulci, scions of an old family somewhat reduced in circumstances, one, Bernardo, tried his hand both as an original writer and a translator of eclogues; the two others are among the cultivators of the poetry of chivalry, which began its course as a branch of literature under their auspices. Both Luca and Luigi belong to the immediate Medicean circle. Luca Pulci, the eldest brother, born at Florence in 1431, is commonly designated as the author of the poem on Lorenzo de’ Medici’s tournament, which only retains a place in literature because it records an event in the life of a celebrated man. But the assumption of this authorship is by no means certain, for the first edition bears the name of Luigi Pulci, whose literary fame it would not enhance. That Luca was intimate with the young Medici is shown by the fact that at their desire he began the poem ‘Ciriffo Calvaneo,’ which two generations later was partially continued by Bernardo Giambullari for another Lorenzo, grandson of the Magnificent. It is a poetical version of a popular romance of chivalry, which in its Italian form bears the title of the ‘Povero Avveduto,’ and relates the battles and adventures of the time of King Louis d’Outre-mer of France, in 921-954.[23] Luca Pulci, after some unlucky banking affairs at Rome and Florence, died in 1470, in the debtors’ prison of the Stinche, and left to his brothers the burden of a large family. He was, as we have said, the eldest of the brothers; but it is probable that his ‘Ciriffo’ was preceded by Luigi’s ‘Morgante.’ We are led to assume this by the fact that Luigi chose a far better subject.[24] His poem must have been written in and after 1460, and the cantos must have followed close upon each other. We learn from the author himself that its original conception was due in part to Lorenzo’s mother. In a letter addressed by him to Lorenzo from Fuligno, December 4, 1470, he held out prospects of a new heroic poem.[25] That a serious and pious woman like Madonna Lucrezia should be patroness of a work more or less offensive in a religious point of view may be matter of surprise. But after making allowance for the tendencies of the time, which saw no harm in a mixture of religion and burlesque, and, amid the strictest devotional practices, treated questions of faith with incredible unceremoniousness, it must be remembered that this lady was wont for the sake of genius to judge leniently many things in literature and in life that were questionable. Thus she remained a supporter of Angelo Poliziano after he had fallen into disgrace with her daughter-in-law, and presented him with her religious poems when the unfavourable rumours as to his faith and morals could be no secret to her. But Luigi Pulci, the free-thinker and loose mocker, who mixed up quotations from St. John’s Gospel with open expressions of unbelief, found in her an active and zealous friend till her life’s close.