[BOOK NINTH]
OF LITERATURE AND ART UNDER THE
DUKES DELLA ROVERE AT URBINO
[CHAPTER XLIX]
Italian literature subject to new influences—The academies—Federigo Comandino—Guidobaldo del Monte—The Paciotti—Leonardi—Muzio Oddi—Bernardino Baldi—Girolamo Muzio—Federigo Bonaventura.
“FOR a long lapse of years, Italy had been an organised body of highly civilised states, different in their origin, laws, and constitutions, divided by local jealousies and opposite interests, constantly engaged in their endeavours to establish a political equilibrium by the manœuvres of a wary and even unprincipled diplomacy, baffled oftentimes in their ambitious schemes, and brought into sudden collision, but still deriving new energies from their very rivalry, and promoting, with their own, the interests of social progress."[131]
It was in a state of things thus happily described that letters and art attained their zenith of glory in the Peninsula. But the close of the fifteenth century had introduced elements of change, which a fatal policy permitted to spread. Those foreign aggressions and domestic convulsions which we have seen extirpating nationality and crushing independence were not less destructive to mind and its efforts. A struggle of thirty-five years against her ultramontane invaders,—a series of unavailing because ill-directed and discordant efforts,—closed with the coronation of Charles V., and left Italy for nearly two centuries at the mercy of Spain. The states which escaped the direct miseries of that iron domination, and retained a nominal independence under the papal sway or their native dynasties, sank unresisting before an influence affecting at once their politics, their manners, and their literature. The pride of the Spaniard had long been proverbial, and was little susceptible of modification even in a new country. The conquered race quickly conformed to fashions which they could neither shake off nor exclude. They aped a pompous bearing that sat with singularly bad grace upon a vanquished people, and the affectation which at first loaded their language with fulsome epithets, soon corrupted their writings by elaborate adulation. It is difficult for those whose taste has been formed upon the models of a less copious language to judge fairly of Italian ornamental literature, for its authors, in availing themselves of the resources at their command, are prone to lavish them too unsparingly. When tried by such a standard their prose may seem tedious or tumid verbiage, their epics may teem with overstrained hyperbole, and even their lighter poetry may appear to substitute subtle conceits and elaborate epithets for graceful ease and flexibility. But these idiomatic peculiarities are but echoes of the national genius, and ought not perhaps in fairness to be subjected to canons of criticism unknown to their authors. Yet it cannot be denied that facilities such as the language of Italy affords to flowery composition are virtually premiums on feebleness, and that decorations of style afford a tempting disguise for indolence of mind or poverty of matter. The influence of petty courts was peculiarly and fatally favourable to such qualities. Trifling incidents there assumed an importance that justified magniloquence befitting loftier themes, whilst the narrow views common to limited circles found ample scope in exaggerated phrases of metaphor and hyperbole. Thus came abundance without fertility, exuberance yielding only redundancy.
Associations and clubs for political or social objects being then incompatible equally with the spirit of governments and the habits of the people, men readily formed themselves into religious confraternities or literary academies. But these academies acted as drags upon the progress of that literature which they were instituted to promote; they clogged its chariot wheels with devices originally dictated by pedantry, and soon degenerating into puerile verbiage. From the draughts of inflated poetry and corrupted rhetoric which they manufactured, every stimulating ingredient was gradually withdrawn, while opiates were freely introduced in their stead. They thus lulled to sleep what little public spirit had survived the subjugation of the Peninsula; and the governments of the new régime, quickly aware of their emasculating tendencies, lavished upon them patronage until they deluged the land, and stifled the energies of the national mind in all-prevailing mediocrity. The classic spirit of the fifteenth century had originated this mischief, by diverting letters from the sphere of popular sympathy, and nourishing that affectation to which an almost exclusive study of the dead languages must ever lead. But the evil was aggravated by Spanish influence. Ingrafting frigid forms and stately phrases upon the lively intercourse of a naturally light-hearted people, it did for the manners what pedantry had effected for the letters of Italy. Nature and originality were replaced by imitation and servility. Parodies suppressed inspiration, compliments chilled cordiality. In both cases genius languished, epithets multiplied, and terse and vigorous diction passed with independence to happier lands.
In all histories of Italian literature the academies occupy a conspicuous place, and we have already noticed the Assorditi of Urbino, for whom municipal vanity has asserted an origin in the reign of Duke Federigo.[132] They appear to have occasionally met as early at least as that of his successor, although not formally constituted until about 1520. Their name, like that of most similar associations, being probably adopted from some foolish whim, the next step was to invent a badge suited to the humour of the times, so they assumed "the ship of Ulysses surrounded by sirens"; and for motto, playing at once on sound and sense Canitur surdis, "They sing to the deaf." The word assorditi properly means "the deafened," but its signification might be stretched by punning to include absurdity, niggardness, or filth, none of them very flattering qualities to connect with the epithet. The rolls of this fantastic association included many authors who were harboured at Urbino, but it is in no way identified with their reputation. Having fallen into neglect, it was revived in 1623, and, after nearly a century of provincialism, was once more reconstituted in 1723.
As these literary associations rose, their predecessors, the scholastic academies, declined. That which Lorenzo the Magnificent had founded at his villa of Carreggi, was closed in 1522, and Platonism having consequently waned, the Stagirite philosophy was once more master of the field. But another and more deadly struggle awaited it. When men began to study nature and base their reasonings upon her laws, the deficiencies of their old guide were detected, and its authority was impugned. Yet the peripatetic system was too deeply founded to be at once dismissed, and the ingenuity of its disciples was long directed to accommodate its dogmas to modern discoveries,—a vain effort which only divided their ranks and led them into inextricable dilemmas, until Galileo appeared "to furnish forth creation," and conduct them clear of the labyrinth by a silver thread of truth. But though a new light had dawned, new snares beset the way. From bold investigation and speculative inquiry, ecclesiastical authority and civil despotism had much to lose, nothing to gain. Their side was therefore soon chosen. War was declared against thought, backed by the whole armoury of oppression. Where prevention failed, persecution followed, and the censor's veto was enforced by rack and faggot.