Tiraboschi declines the task of compiling the long catalogue of his various writings, in poetry, sacred and profane history, moral essays, and familiar letters,[*152] nor need we undertake it. A large portion of his works were directed against protestant doctrines, and, having reformed the habits of his somewhat stormy youth, he lent willing and efficient aid in strangling the progress of Calvinism in Italy, after a protracted struggle, upon which the investigations of Dr. M'Crie have thrown much valuable light. Muzio is alleged to have exhibited in this contest more of martial dexterity than theological acumen; but his controversial effusions, being published in Italian, and clothed in a homely slashing style, were probably supposed quite as efficacious against the progress of heretical opinions among his countrymen, as the disquisitions of more profound theologians. It was not, however, for the dogmas of faith alone that Muzio wielded his pen. The soldier of fortune was quite as happy, and more at home, on topics belonging to the chivalry of his profession. His treatises on Duels and the Point of Honour were suited to the spirit of the age, and had in consequence a considerable run of popularity, now of course long ago past. The like fate has befallen his didactic poem on the Art of Poetry, in the literature of his own country. What most concerns us are his Lives of Dukes of Urbino. That of Federigo is dedicated to Guidobaldo II., and the original is deposited in the Vatican Library. Having been compiled with considerable care, it continues our best narrative of his reign, and has been greatly drawn upon by Baldi and Riposati. The edition printed at Venice in 1605 is but an abridgment, containing less than half the original matter. His Life of Francesco Maria I. was left unfinished, and remains unedited in the Vatican.[153]
We shall mention but one more prose writer of Urbino. Federigo Bonaventura was born in 1555, and owed to Cardinal Giulio della Rovere a fashionable education at Rome. On his return home, the marked favour of Francesco Maria II. was attracted by his good sense and winning manners; but finding his courtly accomplishments unequal to the profound pursuits of that young prince, he laboured assiduously to supply his own deficiencies. By close application, his progress in Greek, mathematics, and natural philosophy was amazingly rapid; but these studies were happily blended with the business of life, and, directing his powerful judgment to political affairs, he established his reputation by a work on public polity, which, for the first time in Italy, methodised the principles of government. These talents his sovereign turned to account by sending him on various diplomatic missions. Conforming in many respects to the maxims inculcated by the Cortegiano, he filled in the Duke's court somewhat the same place which Castiglione had done in that of Guidobaldo I., and died in 1602.
[CHAPTER L]
Italian versification—Ariosto—Pietro Aretino—Vittoria Colonna—Laura Battiferri—Dionigi Atanagi—Antonio Galli—Marco Montano—Bernardo Tasso.
THE liquid vocables of the Italian language flow in melody with a facility perilous to genius, fatal to mediocrity: its stream is equally apt to dilute Castalian inspiration, or to quench poetic fire. Hence the poets of Italy are far outnumbered by its versifiers; and hence among the laureates of Urbino we find but few historic names. But, in absence of native bards, the dukes of the second dynasty attracted to their court several of those most conspicuous on the Ausonian Parnassus, under whose influence a great change came over the manner and spirit of national poetry. Hitherto their predecessors had before them two models, whose excellence is still universally admitted. Dante, in founding an epic literature, chose the grandest and most difficult theme ever dared by man, and his success, by immeasurably distancing his few competitors, has deterred competition. Petrarch addressed himself to passions and sympathies essentially earthly, and constructed a lyrical versification demanding no sustained exertion; whose trammels sufficed, in his melodious and pliant idiom, to stimulate ingenuity without imposing labour; whose perfection depended rather upon elaborate polish than upon originality or vigour. Thus, while Dante continued a model, Petrarch became a snare; and hence, a "multitude of imitators, satisfied with copying the latter in his defects; who could easily follow him in the choice of his subject, but not in the beauty of his style, the variety of his knowledge, and the elegance of his imagery." Sonnets are indeed the most peculiarly Italian form of poetry, but they are avowedly ill-suited to the naïve expression of pure and artless feelings. Their laboured strain and studied melody are adapted to an artificial cast of sentiment; they encourage exaggeration and tend to mannerism and commonplace. Singly they are charming, but "when taken collectively we become indifferent to their unity, felicity, and grace, and accuse them of what under other circumstances we might possibly commend, their recurring metaphors, their uniform structure, and the unfailing sweetness of their versification."[154] Yet in their complex form, a prolonged repetition of the same rhyme tends, like the return to a simple air amid difficult variations, touchingly to renew the feeling originally and pleasingly evoked; and thus is it that sonnets often possess a charm of which, in their ambitious attempts, their authors were probably quite unconscious.[155]
It is not now our object to analyze the varied metrical arrangements to which the fertile language of Italy willingly lent itself, and which its minstrels,