[861] It is so felt to be by Dante, De Vulgari Eloquio.
[862] Tuscan, it is true, was read and written long before this in Piedmont—but very little reading and writing was done at all.
[863] The place, too, of the dialect in the usage of daily life was clearly understood. Gioviano Pontano ventured especially to warn the prince of Naples against the use of it (Jov. Pontan. De Principe). The last Bourbons were notoriously less scrupulous in this respect. For the way in which a Milanese Cardinal, who wished to retain his native dialect in Rome was ridiculed, see Bandello, parte ii. nov. 31.
[864] Bald. Castiglione, Il Cortigiano, l. i. fol. 27 sqq. Throughout the dialogue we are able to gather the personal opinion of the writer. The opposition to Petrarch and Boccaccio is very curious (Dante is not once mentioned). We read that Politian, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and others were also Tuscans, and as worthy of imitation as they, ‘e forse di non minor dottrina e guidizio.’
[865] There was a limit, however, to this. The satirists introduce bits of Spanish, and Folengo (under the pseudonym Limerno Pitocco, in his Orlandino) of French, but only by way of ridicule. It is an exceptional fact that a street in Milan, which at the time of the French (1500 to 1512, 1515 to 1522) was called Rue Belle, now bears the name Rugabella. The long Spanish rule has left almost no traces on the language, and but rarely the name of some governor in streets and public buildings. It was not till the eighteenth century that, together with French modes of thought, many French words and phrases found their way into Italian. The purism of our century is still busy in removing them.
[866] Firenzuola, Opera, i. in the preface to the discourse on female beauty, and ii. in the Ragionamenti which precede the novels.
[867] Bandello, parte i. Proemio, and nov. 1 and 2. Another Lombard, the before-mentioned Teofilo Folengo in his Orlandino, treats the whole matter with ridicule.
[868] Such a congress appears to have been held at Bologna at the end of 1531 under the presidency of Bembo. See the letter of Claud. Tolomai, in Firenzuola, Opere, vol. ii. append. p. 231 sqq. But this was not so much a matter of purism, but rather the old quarrel between Lombards and Tuscans.
[869] Luigi Cornaro complains about 1550 (at the beginning of his Trattato della Vita Sobria) that latterly Spanish ceremonies and compliments, Lutheranism and gluttony had been gaining ground in Italy. With moderation in respect to the entertainment offered to guests, the freedom and ease of social intercourse disappeared.
[870] Vasari, xii. p. 9 and 11, Vita di Rustici. For the School for Scandal of needy artists, see xi. 216 sqq., Vita d’Aristotile. Macchiavelli’s Capitoli for a circle of pleasure-seekers (Opere minori, p. 407) are a ludicrous caricature of these social statutes. The well-known description of the evening meeting of artists in Rome in Benvenuto Cellini, i. cap. 30 is incomparable.