A Manual of Italian Literature

by Francis Henry Cliffe

The age of Ariosto is remarkable for the first appearance of blank verse in the Italian language. The Italia Liberata of Trissino, on the subject of the victories of Belisarius over the Goths, is the first work in that metre. Trissino thought himself a second Homer, and his epic is full of injudicious imitations of the Iliad. The scene between Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida is transferred to Justinian and Theodora, in the Palace of Constantinople, with very voluptuous amplifications More than with this ponderous epic, Trissino did his country service by writing the first Italian tragedy, Sofonisba, a work containing passages almost worthy of Euripides. With a style less languid and prosaic, Trissino might have achieved considerable success in the drama.

The poet who came nearest to Ariosto in elegance of style, though far indeed from possessing equal fire and genius, was Francesco Berni, mentioned in a previous chapter, as having recast the Orlando Innamorato of Bojardo. He cannot have had a very original mind, or he would not have submitted to the drudgery of re-writing, line for line, the work of another man, when he might have been employed on poems of his own; but he had plenty of vivacity and raciness, as his Satires and Sonnets attest. So popular did they become, that light and comic poetry came to be called after him, Poesia Bernesca. His end was more tragic than his works. Unfortunately for himself, he lived in Florence in the intimacy of the Medici family. A bitter feud arose between the Duke Alexander and Cardinal Ippolito. The Duke endeavoured to bribe Berni to poison the Cardinal, and on his refusing to be a party to so terrible a crime, Alexander had him poisoned in his turn, lest he should reveal the secret of his guilt.

Luigi Alamanni was an indefatigable writer of poetry. He wrote two enormous epics, Giron il Cortese and the Avarchide; but it would require the musical diction of Ariosto to make such productions live; and, unfortunately, Alamanni, though a scholarly and painstaking writer, had nothing like Ariosto's powers of versification. The work by which he is most honourably remembered is a didactic poem, La Coltivazione, on the same subject as the Georgics.

Giovanni Rucellai, a nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was also indebted to the Georgics for his poem, Le Api (on Bees), in blank verse, of which there is an excellent defence in the introductory lines, quite the most original and pleasing passage in the poem.

Monsignor Giovanni Della Casa acquired an immense reputation in his own age for his works in prose and verse, in Latin and Italian; but as his merit consists exclusively in the finished style—his thoughts not rising above conventionality—he has been neglected for writers combining equal, if not greater, beauty of language with more originality of thought.

Annibal Caro rendered signal service to his country by giving it a spirited translation of the Æneid, and his works in prose and verse are all characterised by vigour of style. He rose from a humble origin to considerable wealth and prominence, and he became notorious by reason of a bitter feud with a contemporary critic of the name of Castelvetro. He had written a poem in praise of the House of Valois, "Venite all'ombra de' gran gigli d'oro," and Castelvetro wrote a sharp and acrimonious criticism upon it, to which he retorted in his Apologia with almost insane rancour. Castelvetro was not tardy in replying, and Caro is suspected of having used all his influence to ruin the career of his adversary. But it is painful to dwell upon these ebullitions of spite, unfortunately too frequent in the annals of literature.

Cardinal Bembo was a writer fastidiously elegant. He is reported to have possessed forty portfolios, in the first of which he put the first draft of his works; in the second, the second; and so on until the fortieth revision reached the fortieth receptacle, after which alone would he suffer the work to see the light. His productions are such as might be expected from a man so minutely laborious. He is more intent upon words than upon realities. His poetry is modelled on Petrarch, his prose on Boccaccio. He wrote a History of Venice in twelve books, originally in Latin, translating it himself into Italian. A dialogue, entitled Gli Asolani, is interesting to English readers from its similarity of title to Browning's Asolando. The name is taken from Asolo, a spot on the mainland not far from Venice, whither he loved to retire, as Browning did three hundred years later. His letters are esteemed his best production, being less over-elaborated in style than his other works. His Latin works are entirely modelled on those of Cicero.

Francesco Grazzini, surnamed Il Lasca, was a sort of inferior Berni in his poems, but he is remarkable as one of the founders of the Florentine Accademia della Crusca.

Bernardino Rota, a Neapolitan, produced some really pathetic poems on the death of his wife.