Our stock springs in the fourteenth century from a certain Pezòlo de'Gozzi. This is proved by an authentic genealogy, which we possess; the authority of which has never been disputed, and which has been accepted as evidence in law-courts, although it is but a dusty document, worm-eaten and be-cobwebbed, not framed in gold or hung against the wall. Since I am no Spaniard, I never applied to any genealogist to discover a more ancient origin for our race. There are historical works, however, which derive us from the family de'Gozze, extant at the present epoch in Ragusa, and original settlers of that venerable republic. The chronicles of Bergamo relate that the aforesaid Pezòlo de'Gozzi was a man of weight and substance in the district of Alzano, and that he won the gratitude of the most serene Republic of Venice for having imperilled his property and person against the Milanese in order to preserve that district for her invincible and clement rule. His descendants held office as ambassadors and podestàs for the city of Bergamo, which proves that they were members of its Council; while two privileges of the sixteenth century show that two separate branches of the family obtained admission to the citizenship of Venice.[96] They erected houses for the living and provided tombs for their dead in the quarter and the Church of San Cassiano, as may be seen at the present day.[97] One of these branches was honoured with adoption into the patrician families of Venice in the seventeenth century,[98] and afterwards expired. The branch from which I am descended remained in the class of Cittadini Originari, on which they certainly brought no discredit whatsoever.
None of my ancestors aspired to the honourable and lucrative posts which are open to Venetian citizens.[99] They were for the most part men of peaceful unambitious temper, contented with their lot in life, or perhaps averse from the disturbances of competition. Had they entered upon a political career, I am quite sure that they would have served their Prince faithfully, without pride and without vain ostentation.
About two centuries ago, my great-great-grandfather purchased some six hundred acres of land,[100] together with buildings, in Friuli, at the distance of five miles from Pordenone. A large portion of these estates consists of meadow-land, and is held by feudal tenure. All the heirs-male are bound to renew the investiture, which costs some ducats. Upon this point the officials of the Camera de' Feudi at Udine are extremely vigilant. If the fine is not paid immediately after the death of the last feudatory, they confiscate the crops derived from the meadows subject to this tenure. That happened to me after my father's decease. A few months' negligence cost me a considerable sum in excess of the customary fine. It is probably by right of some old parchment that we own the title of Count, conceded to our family in public acts and in the addresses of letters.[101] I should feel no resentment, if this title were refused me; but it would anger me extremely, if my hay were withheld.
My father was Jacopo Antonio Gozzi; a man of fine and penetrative intellect, of sensitive and delicate honour, of susceptible temper, resolute, and sometimes even formidable. His father Gasparo died while he was yet a child, leaving this only son to the guardianship of his mother, the Contessa Emilia Grampo, a noble woman of Padua. The estate was sufficient to sustain his dignity with credit; but he indulged dreams of magnificence. Sole heir, and educated by a tender mother, who humoured every fancy of her son, he early acquired the habit of following his own inclinations. These led him into lordly extravagances—stables full of horses; kennels of hounds; hunting-parties; splendid banquets—nor did he reflect upon the consequences of a marriage, which he made without deliberation in his early manhood, to indulge a whim of the heart. My mother was Angela Tiepolo, the daughter of one branch of that patrician house, which expired in her brother Almorò Cesare.[102] He died, a Senator of the Republic, about the year 1749.
I shall perhaps have wearied my readers with these facts about my pedigree and birth. Satirists will not, however, find in them anything to excite ambition in myself or to wing their pen with ridicule. Social ranks have always been regarded by me as accidental, though necessary for the proper subordination on which our institutions depend. As for my birth, I think less of whence I came than of whither I am going. Conduct unworthy of a decent origin might cause sorrow to my deceased parents, whose memory I hold in honour, and might cover myself and all my posterity with shame.
My name is Carlo. I was the sixth child born by my mother into the light, or shall I say the shadows of this world. I am writing on the last day of April in the year 1780. I have passed fifty, and not yet reached the age of sixty.[103] I shall not put the sacristan to trouble in order to view the register of my baptism, being quite sure that I was christened, and not having the stupid vanity to pass for a curled dandy. That is obvious, and has been always obvious, from the fashion of my clothes and the way I dress my hair. Besides, I set no value on the age of men. Human beings die at all ages; and I have seen boys who are adult, while grown-up men or grey-beards are often nothing better than peevish and ridiculous children.
II.
My Education and Circumstances down to the Age of Sixteen—Concerning the Art of Improvisation, and my Literary Studies.
Our family consisted of eleven children, male and female. I could record nothing but what is creditable of my brothers and sisters, had I proposed to write their memoirs. But this is not my thought; and they are capable of writing their own, if the whim should take them; for the epidemic of literature was always chronic in our household.
A succession of priests with little learning were our domestic pedagogues up to a certain age. I say a succession advisedly; each in turn having earned his dismissal by impertinent behaviour and intrigues with the serving-maids.
From early childhood I was always a silent observer of men and things, by no means insolent, of imperturbable serenity, and extremely attentive to my lessons. My brothers used my taciturn and peaceable temper to their own advantage. They accused me to our common tutor of all the naughtinesses of which they had been guilty. I did not condescend to excuse myself or to accuse them, but bore my unjust punishments with stoicism. I venture to affirm that no boy was ever more supremely indifferent than I was to the terrible penalty of being sent away from table just as we were sitting down to dinner. Smiling obedience was my only self-defence. Enemies may conclude from these traits of character that I was a stupid lout, and friends that I was a philosopher in embryo. Nothing is rarer than the eye of equal justice. Yet any one who takes the trouble to inquire of my acquaintances and servants, will learn that my taciturnity, my tolerance, my stoical endurance, have not changed with years—that I continue to view the events of this life with a smile, and that only those have nettled me which touched my honour.