[823] Poggius, De Nobilitate, fol. 27. See above, p. 19. Ænea Silvio (Hist. Fried. III. ed. Kollar, p. 294) finds fault with the readiness with which Frederick conferred knighthood in Italy.
[824] Vasari, iii. 49, and note. Vita di Dello. The city of Florence claimed the right of conferring knighthood. On the ceremonies of this kind in 1378 and 1389, see Reumont, Lorenzo, ii. 444 sqq.
[825] Senarega, De Reb. Gen. in Murat. xxiv. col. 525. At a wedding of Joh. Adurnus with Leonora di Sanseverino, ‘certamina equestria in Sarzano edita sunt ... proposita et data victoribus praemia. Ludi multiformes in palatio celebrati a quibus tanquam a re nova pendebat plebs et integros dies illis spectantibus impendebat.’ Politian writes to Joh. Picus of the cavalry exercise of his pupils (Aug. Pol. Epist. lib. xii. ep. 6): ‘Tu tamen a me solos fieri poetas aut oratores putas, at ego non minus facio bellatores.’ Ortensio Landi in the Commentario, fol. 180, tells of a duel between two soldiers at Correggio with a fatal result, reminding one of the old gladiatorial combats. The writer, whose imagination is generally active, gives us here the impression of truthfulness. The passages quoted show that knighthood was not absolutely necessary for these public contests.
[826] Petrarch, Epist. Senil. xi. 13, to Ugo of Este. Another passage in the Epist. Famil. lib. v. ep. 6, Dec. 1st, 1343, describes the disgust he felt at seeing a knight fall at a tournament in Naples. For legal prescriptions as to the tournament at Naples, see Fracassetti’s Italian translation of Petrarch’s letters, Florence, 1864, ii. p. 34. L. B. Alberti also points out the danger, uselessness, and expense of tournaments. Della Famiglia, Op. Volg. ii. 229.
[827] Nov. 64. With reference to this practice, it is said expressly in the Orlandino (ii. str. 7), of a tournament under Charlemagne: ‘Here they were no cooks and scullions, but kings, dukes, and marquises, who fought.’
[828] This is one of the oldest parodies of the tournament. Sixty years passed before Jacques Cœur, the burgher-minister of finance under Charles VII., gave a tournament of donkeys in the courtyard of his palace at Bourges (about 1450). The most brilliant of all these parodies—the second canto of the Orlandino just quoted—was not published till 1526.
[829] Comp. the poetry, already quoted, of Politian and Luca Pulci ([p. 349], note 3). Further, Paul. Jov., Vita Leonis X. l. i.; Macchiavelli, Storie Fiorent., l. vii.; Paul. Jov. Elog., speaking of Pietro de’ Medici, who neglected his public duties for these amusements, and of Franc. Borbonius, who lost his life in them; Vasari, ix. 219, Vita di Granacci. In the Morgante of Pulci, written under the eyes of Lorenzo, the knights are comical in their language and actions, but their blows are sturdy and scientific. Bojardo, too, writes for those who understand the tournament and the art of war. Comp. p. 323. In earlier Florentine history we read of a tournament in honour of the king of France, c. 1380, in Leon. Aret., Hist. Flor. lib. xi. ed. Argent, p. 222. The tournaments at Ferrara in 1464 are mentioned in the Diario Ferrar. in Murat. xxiv. col. 208; at Venice, see Sansovino, Venezia, fol. 153 sqq.; at Bologna in 1470 and after, see Bursellis, Annal. Bonon. Muratori xxiii. col. 898, 903, 906, 908, 911, where it is curious to note the odd mixture of sentimentalism attaching to the celebration of Roman triumphs; ‘ut antiquitas Romana renovata videretur,’ we read in one place. Frederick of Urbino ([p. 44] sqq.) lost his right eye at a tournament ‘ab ictu lanceae.’ On the tournament as held at that time in northern countries, see Olivier de la Marche, Mémoires, passim, and especially cap. 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, &c.
[830] Bald. Castiglione. Il Cortigiano, l. i. fol. 18.
[831] Paul. Jovii, Elogia, sub tit. Petrus Gravina, Alex. Achillinus, Balth. Castellio, &c. pp. 138 sqq. 112 sqq. 143 sqq.
[832] Casa, Il Galateo, p. 78.