Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

Political science had its greatest representative in Machiavelli, who wrote on it with that profound knowledge of the human heart which he had acquired in public life, and with the habit of unweaving, in all its intricacies, the political perfidy which then prevailed in Italy. The "Prince" is the best known of his political works, and from the infamous principles which he has here developed, though probably with good intentions, his name is allied with everything false and perfidious in politics. The object of the treatise is to show how a new prince may establish and consolidate his power, and how the Medici might not only confirm their authority in Florence, but extend it over the whole of the Peninsula. At the time that Machiavelli wrote, Italy had been for centuries a theatre where might was the only right. He was not a man given to illusive fancies, and throughout a long political career nothing had been permitted to escape his keen and penetrating eye. In all the affairs in which he had taken part he had seen that success was the only thing studied, and therefore to succeed in an enterprise, by whatever means, had become the fundamental idea of his political theory. His Prince reduced to a science the art, long before known and practiced by kings and tyrants, of attaining absolute power by deception and cruelty, and of maintaining it afterwards by the dissimulation of leniency and virtue. It does not appear that any exception was at first taken to the doctrines which have since called forth such severe reprehension, and from the moment of its appearance the Prince became a favorite at every court. But soon after the death of Machiavelli a violent outcry was raised against him, and although it was first heard with amazement, it soon became general, The Prince was laid under the ban of several successive popes, and the name of Machiavelli passed into a proverb of infamy. His bones lay undistinguished for nearly two centuries, when a monument was erected to his memory in the church of Santa Croce, through the influence of an English nobleman.

12. PERIOD OF DECADENCE.—The sixteenth century reaped the fruits that had been sown in the fifteenth, but it scattered no seeds for a harvest in the seventeenth, which was therefore doomed to general sterility. In the reigns of Charles V. and Philip II. the chains of civil and religious despotism were forged which subdued the intellect and arrested the genius of the people. The Spanish viceroys ruled with an iron hand over Milan, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. Poverty and superstition wasted and darkened the minds of the people, and indolence and love of pleasure introduced almost universal degeneracy. But the Spanish yoke, which weighed so heavily at both extremities of the Peninsula, did not extend to the republic of Venice, or to the duchy of Tuscany; and the heroic character of the princes of Savoy alone would have served to throw a lustre over this otherwise darkened period. In literature, too, there were a few who resisted the torrent of bad taste, amidst many who opened the way for a crowd of followers in the false route, and gave to the age that character of extravagance for which it is so peculiarly distinguished.

The literary works of the seventeenth century may be divided into three classes, the first of which, under the guidance of Marini, attained the lowest degree of corruption, and remain in the annals of literature as monuments of bombastic style and bad taste. The second embraces those writers who were aware of the faults of the school to which they belonged, and who, aiming to bring about a reform in literature, while they endeavored to follow a better style, partook more or less of the character of the age. To this class may be referred Chiabrera already named, and more particularly Filicaja and other poets of the same school. The third class is composed of a few writers who preserved themselves faithful to the principles of true taste, and among them are Menzini, Salvator Rosa, Redi, and more particularly Tassoni.

13. EPIC AND LYRIC POETRY.—Marini (1569-1625), the celebrated innovator on classic Italian taste, is considered as the first who seduced the poets of the seventeenth century into a labored and affected style. He was born at Naples and educated for the legal profession, for which he had little taste, and on publishing a volume of poems, his indignant father turned him out of doors. But his popular qualities never left him without friends. He was invited to the Court of France, obtained the favor of Mary de' Medici, and the situation of gentleman to the king. He became exceedingly popular among the French nobility, many of whom learned Italian for the sole purpose of reading his works. It was here that he published the most celebrated of his poems, entitled "Adonis." He afterwards purchased a beautiful villa near Naples, to which he retired, and where he soon after died. The Adonis of Marini is a mixture of the epic and the romantic style, the subject being taken from the well-known story of Venus and Adonis. He renounced all keeping and probability, both in his incidents and descriptions; if he could present a series of enchanted pictures, he was little solicitous as to the manner of their arrangement. But the work has much beauty and imagination, and is often animated by the true spirit of poetry. Its principal faults are that it is sadly wire-drawn, and abounds in puns, endless antitheses, and inventions for surprising or bewildering the reader; graces which were greatly admired by the contemporaries of the poet. Marini was a voluminous writer, and was not only extolled in his own country above its classic authors, and in France, but the Spaniards held him in the highest esteem, and imitated and even surpassed him in his own eccentric career. He had also innumerable imitators in Italy, many of whom attained a high reputation during their lives, and afterwards sank into complete oblivion.

Filicaja (1642-1709) stands at the head of the lyric poets of the seventeenth century. His inspiration seems first to have been awakened when Vienna was besieged by the Turks in 1683, and gallantly defended by the Christian powers. His verses on this occasion awoke the most enthusiastic admiration, and called forth the eulogies of princes and poets. The admiration which he excited in his day is scarcely to be wondered at; for, though this judgment has not been ratified by posterity, Filicaja has at least the merit of having raised the poetry of Italy from the abject service of mere amorous imbecility to the noble office of embodying the more manly and virtuous sentiments; and though his style is infected with the bombastic spirit of the age, it is even in this respect singularly moderate, compared with that of his contemporaries.

14. MOCK-HEROIC POETRY, THE DRAMA, AND SATIRE.—The full maturity of the style of mock-heroic poetry is due to Tassoni (1565-1635). He first attracted public notice by disputing the authority of Aristotle, and the poetical merits of Petrarch. In 1622 he published his "Rape of the Bucket," a burlesque poem on the petty wars which were so common between the towns of Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The heroes of Modena had, in 1325, discomfited the Bolognese, and pursued them to the very heart of their city, whence they carried off, as a trophy of their victory, the bucket belonging to the public well. The expedition undertaken by the Bolognese for its recovery forms the basis of the twelve mock-heroic cantos of Tassoni. To understand this poem requires a knowledge of the vulgarisms and idioms which are frequently introduced in it.

About the same period, Bracciolini (1566-1645) produced another comic- heroic poem, entitled the "Ridicule of the Gods," in which the ancient deities are introduced as mingling with the peasants, and declaiming in the low, vulgar dialect, and making themselves most agreeably ridiculous. Somewhat later appeared one more example of the same species of epic, "The Malmantile," by Lippi (1606-1664). This poem is considered a pure model of the dialect of the Florentines, which is so graceful and harmonious even in its homeliness.

The seventeenth century was remarkable for the prodigious number of its dramatic authors, but few of them equaled and none excelled those of the preceding age. The opera, or melodrama, which had arisen out of the pastoral, seemed to monopolize whatever talent was at the disposal of the stage, and branches formerly cultivated sank below mediocrity. Amid the crowd of theatrical corrupters, the name of Andreini (1564-1652) deserves peculiar mention, not from any claim to exemption from the general censure, but because his comedy of "Adam" is believed to have been the foundation of Milton's "Paradise Lost." Andreini was but one of the common throng of dramatic writers, and it has been fiercely contended by some, that it is impossible that the idea of so sublime a poem should have been taken from so ordinary a composition as his Adam. His piece was represented at Milan as early as 1613, and so has at least a claim of priority,

Menzini (1646-1708) and Salvator Rosa (1615-1675) were the representatives of the satire of this century; the former distinguished for the purity of his language and the harmony of his verse; the latter for his vivacity and sprightliness.

15. HISTORY AND EPISTOLARY WRITINGS.—The number of historical works in this century is much greater than in that of the preceding, but they are generally far from possessing the same merit or commanding the same interest. The historians seem to have lost all feeling of national dignity; they do not venture to unveil the causes of public events, or to indicate their results. Even those that dared treat of Italy or its provinces, confined themselves to the reigning dynasties, and overlooking the causes which most deeply affected the happiness of the people, described only the festivities, battles, and triumphs of their princes. A large number of historians chose foreign subjects; the history of France was remarkable for the number of Italians who endeavored to relate it in this age. The work of Davila (1576-1630) on "The Civil Wars of France," however, throws all the rest into the shade. What gives to it peculiar value is the carefulness with which the materials were collected, in connection with the opportunities its author enjoyed for gaining information. This history is considered as superior to that of Guicciardini in its matter, as the latter excels it in style. It is wanting in that elegance which characterized the Florentine historians of the sixteenth century. Bentivoglio (1579-1644) was an eminent rival of Davila; he wrote the history of the civil wars of Flanders; a work remarkable for the elegance and correctness of its style. Above all stand the works of Sarpi, who lived between 1552 and 1623, and who defended with great courage the authority of the Senate of Venice against the power of the Popes, notwithstanding their excommunication and continued persecution. His history of the Council of Trent contains a curious account of the intrigues of the Court of Rome at the period of the Reformation.