[851] Paul. Jov. Elogia, p. 289, who, however, makes no mention of the German education. Maximilian could not be induced, even by celebrated women, to change his underclothing.
[852] Æneas Sylvius (Vitae Paparum, ap. Murat. iii. ii. col. 880) says, in speaking of Baccano: ‘Pauca sunt mapalia, eaque hospitia faciunt Theutonici; hoc hominum genus totam fere Italiam hospitalem facit; ubi non repereris hos, neque diversorium quaeras.’
[853] Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 21. Padua, about the year 1450, boasted of a great inn—the ‘Ox’—like a palace, containing stabling for two hundred horses. Michele Savonarola, in Mur. xxiv. col. 1175. At Florence, outside the Porta San Gallo, there was one of the largest and most splendid inns then known, but which served, it seems, only as a place of amusement for the people of the city. Varchi, Stor. Fior. iii. p. 86. At the time of Alexander VI. the best inn at Rome was kept by a German. See the remarkable notices taken from the MS. of Burcardus in Gregorovius, vii. 361, note 2. Comp. ibid. p. 93, notes 2 and 3.
[854] Comp. e.g. the passages in Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, in the Colloquies of Erasmus, in the Latin poem of Grobianus, &c., and poems on behaviour at table, where, besides descriptions of bad habits, rules are given for good behaviour. For one of these, see C. Weller, Deutsche Gedichte der Jahrhunderts, Tübingen, 1875.
[855] The diminution of the ‘burla’ is evident from the instances in the Cortigiano, l. ii. fol. 96. The Florence practical jokes kept their ground tenaciously. See, for evidence, the tales of Lasca (Ant. Franc. Grazini, b. 1503, d. 1582), which appeared at Florence in 1750.
[856] For Milan, see Bandello, parte i. nov. 9. There were more than sixty carriages with four, and numberless others with two, horses, many of them carved and richly gilt and with silken tops. Comp. ibid. nov. 4. Ariosto, Sat. iii. 127.
[857] Bandello, parte i. nov. 3, iii. 42, iv. 25.
[858] De Vulgari Eloquio, ed. Corbinelli, Parisiis, 1577. According to Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 77, it was written shortly before his death. He mentions in the Convito the rapid and striking changes which took place during his lifetime in the Italian language.
[859] See on this subject the investigations of Lionardo Aretino (Epist. ed. Mehus. ii. 62 sqq. lib. vi. 10) and Poggio (Historiae disceptativae convivales tres, in the Opp. fol. 14 sqq.), whether in earlier times the language of the people and of scholars was the same. Lionardo maintains the negative; Poggio expressly maintains the affirmative against his predecessor. See also the detailed argument of L. B. Alberti in the introduction to Della Famiglia, book iii., on the necessity of Italian for social intercourse.
[860] The gradual progress which this dialect made in literature and social intercourse could be tabulated without difficulty by a native scholar. It could be shown to what extent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the various dialects kept their places, wholly or partly, in correspondence, in official documents, in historical works, and in literature generally. The relations between the dialects and a more or less impure Latin, which served as the official language, would also be discussed. The modes of speech and pronunciation in the different cities of Italy are noticed in Landi, Forcianae Quaestiones, fol. 7 a. Of the former he says: ‘Hetrusci vero quanquam caeteris excellant, effugere tamen non possunt, quin et ipsi ridiculi sint, aut saltem quin se mutuo lacerent;’ as regards pronunciation, the Sienese, Lucchese, and Florentines are specially praised; but of the Florentines it is said: ‘Plus (jucunditatis) haberet si voces non ingurgitaret aut non ita palato lingua jungeretur.’