[842] As was the case in Germany too. Poesie satiriche, p. 119. From the satire of Bern. Giambullari, ‘Per prendere moglie’ (pp. 107-126), we can form a conception of the chemistry of the toilette, which was founded largely on superstition and magic.
[843] The poets spared no pains to show the ugliness, danger, and absurdity of these practices. Comp. Ariosto, Sat. iii. 202 sqq.; Aretino, Il Marescalco, atto ii. scena 5; and several passages in the Ragionamenti; Giambullari, l. c. Phil. Beroald. sen. Garmina. Also Filelfo in his Satires (Venice, 1502, iv. 2-5 sqq.).
[844] Cennino Cennini, Trattato della Pittura, gives in cap. 161 a recipe for painting the face, evidently for the purpose of mysteries or masquerades, since, in cap. 162, he solemnly warns his readers against the general use of cosmetics and the like, which was peculiarly common, as he tells us ([p. 146] sqq.), in Tuscany.
[845] Comp. La Nencia di Barberino, str. 20 and 40. The lover promises to bring his beloved cosmetics from the town (see on this poem of Lorenzo dei Medici, above, p. 101).
[846] Agnolo Pandolfini, Trattato della Governo della Famiglia, p. 118. He condemns this practice most energetically.
[847] Tristan. Caracciolo, in Murat. xxii. col. 87. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 47.
[848] Cap. i. to Cosimo: “Quei cento scudi nuovi e profumati che l’altro di mi mandaste a donare.” Some objects which date from that period have not yet lost their odour.
[849] Vespasiano Fiorent. p. 453, in the life of Donato Acciajuoli, and p. 625, in the life of Niccoli. See above, vol. i. p. 303 sqq.
[850] Giraldi, Hecatommithi, Introduz. nov. 6. A few notices on the Germans in Italy may not here be out of place. On the fear of German invasion, see p. 91, note 2; on Germans as copyists and printers, p. 193 sqq. and the notes; on the ridicule of Hadrian VI. as a German, p. 227 and notes. The Italians were in general ill-disposed to the Germans, and showed their ill-will by ridicule. Boccaccio (Decam. viii. 1) says: ‘Un Tedesco in soldo prò della persona è assai leale a coloro ne’ cui servigi si mattea; il che rade volte suole de’ Tedeschi avenire.’ The tale is given as an instance of German cunning. The Italian humanists are full of attacks on the German barbarians, and especially those who, like Poggio, had seen Germany. Comp. Voigt, Wiederbelebung, 374 sqq.; Geiger, Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Italien Zeit des Humanismus in Zeitschrift für deutsche Culturgeschichte, 1875, pp. 104-124; see also Janssen, Gesch. der deutschen Volkes, i. 262. One of the chief opponents of the Germans was Joh. Ant. Campanus. See his works, ed. Mencken, who delivered a discourse ‘De Campani odio in Germanos.’ The hatred of the Germans was strengthened by the conduct of Hadrian VI., and still more by the conduct of the troops at the sack of Rome (Gregorovius, viii. 548, note). Bandello III. nov. 30, chooses the German as the type of the dirty and foolish man (see iii. 51, for another German). When an Italian wishes to praise a German he says, as Petrus Alcyonius in the dedication to his dialogue De Exilio, to Nicolaus Schomberg, p. 9: ‘Itaque etsi in Misnensi clarissima Germaniæ provincia illustribus natalibus ortus es, tamen in Italiae luce cognosceris.’ Unqualified praise is rare, e.g. of German women at the time of Marius, Cortigiano, iii. cap. 33.
It must be added that the Italians of the Renaissance, like the Greeks of antiquity, were filled with aversion for all barbarians. Boccaccio, De claris Mulieribus, in the article ‘Carmenta,’ speaks of ‘German barbarism, French savagery, English craft, and Spanish coarseness.’