A Manual of Italian Literature

by Francis Henry Cliffe

The first of these in point of time is Eustachio Manfredi, of Bologna, who died in 1739. He was a mathematician and an astronomer, and he added poetry to his other accomplishments. He was in love with a lady of the name of Giulia Vandi, but she became a nun, and she was as much lost to him as if they had been severed by death. He expressed his sorrow in many sonnets and odes. He laboured sedulously to do justice to his noble subject, but he had not the magic gift of genius which alone confers immortality. His lines are not particularly melodious, and though everything is good, nothing is enchanting.

Niccolò Fortiguerra occupied many high posts in the Roman Curia. He rose to great dignities, but it is said that he wished to rise higher, and that his death in 1736 was caused by grief at not being made a Cardinal. He amused his leisure hours with the composition of poetry, and he gained the distinction of being the last poet to produce a long epic in the style of Ariosto. This poem, called the Ricciardetto, although the last in point of time, is by no means the last in point of merit. He had a truly poetical mind and a genial disposition, and there is a pleasing gaiety about his work that only wants to be expressed in a style more rich and vigorous to achieve absolute greatness. It is said that he made a wager that he would write his epic in as many days as it contained cantos, and that he won his bet. The cantos are so long that it is scarcely credible that he could have written each in a day. Pope Clement XII took great interest in the work, and probably that interest inspired the poet with the ambition of being raised to the Roman purple. He published the Ricciardetto under the pseudonym of "Carteromaco."

Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni was born in Genoa in 1692, and died at Parma as Court Poet in 1768. Frugonian poetry has become a bye-word to indicate abundance of so-called eloquence, poverty of thought, and cheap and hackneyed imagery. But Frugoni himself was by no means a man devoid of talent. He had wit, he had imagination, he had fertility. But he was without austerity of judgment. Whatever he wrote delighted him, and he thought it would delight his readers. He did .not stop to correct or to condense. He gave everything with perfect self-satisfaction to the world. His verse is often most flowing and musical, such as Metastasio might have written in his boyhood. He is successful in his sonnets, chiefly because the strict symmetry of that kind of composition prevents him from indulging in his favourite foible of prolixity. Some of his lyric poems have fancy and elegance to recommend them, but these good qualities are drowned in an ocean of verbiage. He delighted in blank verse, and one of his funniest compositions in that metre is entitled L'Ombra di Pope, written on the birth of a son of Lord Holderness, British Ambassador to the Venetian Republic. The Ghost of Pope, in answer to Frugoni's prayers, arises and prophecies the future of the noble infant and sings the praises of its lovely mother. After paying many compliments to Frugoni's poetical talents the ghost finally vanishes at break of day.

Alfonso Varano was a more earnest and impassioned spirit than Frugoni, and he deserves the credit of having, both by precept and example, drawn attention to the neglected beauties of Dante. His principal work is his Book of Visions, written in the metre of Dante and redolent of his style. Varano resolutely discarded the hackneyed mythological allusions that disfigure the works of his contemporaries. He is strictly Christian, and he endeavours to be medieval. But he has hardly sufficient foundation to go upon, his Visions are about nothing in particular, and his style is not sufficiently flexible and picturesque to delight readers who cannot help being reminded of Dante.

The Marquis Giambattista Spolverini, of Verona, born in 1695, died in 1763, is remarkable for one extremely well-written poem in blank verse on the cultivation of rice. The subject, as may be imagined, had not previously been treated in poetry, and the author made himself complete master of the technicalities of his theme. He devoted himself to the perusal of the great models of poetry, and to writing verses himself in order to acquire the necessary flexibility of style. He laboured for many years over the details of the one work by which he hoped to be remembered, and at last, in the memorable year 1758, he gave La Coltivazione del Riso to the world. But, alas! the world paid no heed to the slender volume and went its way as usual. Deep was the mortification of Spolverini. He could not realise that a poem so important to himself, should appear so insignificant to the public. His health and spirits gave way, and he died, unnoticed and unlamented, in 1763. The utter neglect of his contemporaries was neither discerning nor creditable, and later years did justice to the numerous, though unobtrusive, beauties of the poem. He has the merit, rare in his age, of going straight to life and nature, and what he observes he is able to record in spirited verse. But the subject does not appeal to the general reader, and hence probably the utter indifference with which it was received.[1]

Giambattista Pastorini, a native of Genoa, wrote a noble sonnet on the city of his birth.

Tommaso Crudeli wrote some pretty fables. He languished for years in the dungeons of the Inquisition, and died at the age of forty-two in 1745.

Paolo Rolli is remarkable for having translated Paradise Lost into Italian. He lived for many years as teacher of Italian in London where he seems to have been well received. He returned to Italy in 1747 and chose Todi in Umbria as his residence, where he died twenty years later aged eighty.

Cassiani of Modena, produced some spirited Sonnets; so did Onofrio Minzoni of Ferrara, and Prospero Manara may be mentioned for the same reason.