[289] Observe the expressions ‘uomo singolare’ and ‘uomo unico’ for the higher and highest stages of individual development.
[290] By the year 1390 there was no longer any prevailing fashion of dress for men at Florence, each preferring to clothe himself in his own way. See the Canzone of Franco Sacchetti: ‘Contro alle nuove foggie’ in the Rime, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 52.
[291] At the close of the sixteenth century Montaigne draws the following parallel (Essais, l. iii. chap. 5, vol. iii. p. 367 of the Paris ed. 1816): ‘Ils (les Italiens) ont plus communement des belles femmes et moins de laides que nous; mais des rares et excellentes beautés j’estime que nous allons à pair. Et j’en juge autant des esprits; de ceux de la commune façon, ils en ont beaucoup plus et evidemment; la brutalité y est sans comparaison plus rare; d’ames singulières et du plus hault estage, nous ne leur en debvons rien.’
[292] And also of their wives, as is seen in the family of Sforza and among other North Italian rulers. Comp. in the work of Jacobus Phil. Bergomensis, De Plurimis Claris Selectisque Mulieribus, Ferrara, 1497, the lives of Battista Malatesta, Paola Gonzaga, Bona Lombarda, Riccarda of Este, and the chief women of the House of Sforza, Beatrice and others. Among them are more than one genuine virago, and in several cases natural gifts are supplemented by great humanistic culture. (See below, chap. 3 and part v.)
[293] Franco Sacchetti, in his ‘Capitolo’ (Rime, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 56), enumerates about 1390 the names of over a hundred distinguished people in the ruling parties who had died within his memory. However many mediocrities there may have been among them, the list is still remarkable as evidence of the awakening of individuality. On the ‘Vite’ of Filippo Villani, see below.
[294] Trattato del Governo della Famiglia forms a part of the work: La Cura della Famiglia (Opere Volg. di Leon Batt. Alberti, publ. da Anicio Bonucci, Flor. 1844, vol. ii.). See there vol. i. pp. xxx.-xl., vol. ii. pp. xxxv. sqq. and vol. v. pp. 1-127. Formerly the work was generally, as in the text, attributed to Agnolo Pandolfini (d. 1446; see on him Vesp. Fiorent., pp. 291 and 379); the recent investigations of Fr. Palermo (Florence 1871), have shown Alberti to be the author. The work is quoted from the ed. Torino, Pomba, 1828.
[295] Trattato, p. 65 sqq.
[296] Jov. Pontanus, De Fortitudine, l. ii. cap. 4, ‘De tolerando Exilio,’ Seventy years later, Cardanus (De Vitâ Propriâ, cap. 32) could ask bitterly: ‘Quid est patria nisi consensus tyrannorum minutorum ad opprimendos imbelles timidos et qui plerumque sunt innoxii?’
[297] De Vulgari Eloquio, lib. i. cap. 6. On the ideal Italian language, cap. 17. The spiritual unity of cultivated men, cap. 18. On home-sickness, comp. the famous passages, Purg. viii. 1 sqq., and Parad. xxv. 1 sqq.
[298] Dantis Alligherii Epistolae, ed. Carolus Witte, p. 65.