[715] The portraits of the school of Van Eyck would prove the contrary for the North. They remained for a long period far in advance of all descriptions in words.
[716] Printed in the sixteenth volume of his Opere Volgari. See M. Landau, Giov. Boccaccio (Stuttg. 1877), pp. 36-40; he lays special stress on B.’s dependence on Dante and Petrarch.
[717] In the song of the shepherd Teogape, after the feast of Venus, Opp. ed. Montier, vol. xv. 2. p. 67 sqq. Comp. Landau, 58-64; on the Fiammetta, see Landau, 96-105.
[718] The famous Lionardo Aretino, the leader of the humanists at the beginning of the fifteenth century, admits, ‘Che gli antichi Greci d’umanita e di gentilezza di cuore abbino avanzanto di gran lunga i nostri Italiani;’ but he says it at the beginning of a novel which contains the sentimental story of the invalid Prince Antiochus and his step-mother Stratonice—a document of an ambiguous and half-Asiatic character. (Printed as an Appendix to the Cento Novelle Antiche.)
[719] No doubt the court and prince received flattery enough from their occasional poets and dramatists.
[720] Comp. the contrary view taken by Gregorovius, Gesch. Roms, vii. 619.
[721] Paul. Jovius, Dialog. de viris lit. illustr., in Tiraboschi, tom. vii. iv. Lil. Greg. Gyraldus, De poetis nostri temp.
[722] Isabella Gonzaga to her husband, Feb. 3, 1502, Arch. Stor. Append. ii. p. 306 sqq. Comp. Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, i. 256-266, ed. 3. In the French Mystères the actors themselves first marched before the audience in procession, which was called the ‘montre.’
[723] Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 404. Other passages referring to the stage in that city, cols. 278, 279, 282 to 285, 361, 380, 381, 393, 397, from which it appears that Plautus was the dramatist most popular on these occasions, that the performances sometimes lasted till three o’clock in the morning, and were even given in the open air. The ballets were without any meaning or reference to the persons present and the occasion solemnized. Isabella Gonzaga, who was certainly at the time longing for her husband and child, and was dissatisfied with the union of her brother with Lucrezia, spoke of the ‘coldness and frostiness’ of the marriage and the festivities which attended it.
[724] Strozzii Poetæ, fol. 232, in the fourth book of the Æolosticha of Tito Strozza. The lines run: