The linguistic discussions and controversies of the sixteenth century prepared the way for a higher appreciation of national languages and literatures. These controversies on the comparative merits of the classical and vernacular tongues had begun in the time of Dante, and were continued in the sixteenth century by Bembo, Castiglione, Varchi, Muzio, Tolomei, and many others; and in 1564 Salviati summed up the Italian side of the question in an oration in which he asserted that the Tuscan, or, as he called it, the Florentine language and the Florentine literature are vastly superior to any other language or literature, whether ancient or modern. However extravagant this claim may appear, the mere fact that Salviati made such a claim at all is enough to give him a place worthy of serious consideration in the history of Italian literature. The other side of the controversy finds its extremest expression in a treatise of Celio Calcagnini addressed to Giraldi Cintio, in which the hope is expressed that the Italian language, and all the literature composed in that language, would be absolutely abandoned by the world.[303]
In Giraldi Cintio we find the first traces of purely national criticism. His purpose, in writing the discourse on the romanzi, was primarily to defend Ariosto, whom he had known personally in his youth. The point of view from which he starts is that the romanzi constitute a new form of poetry of which Aristotle did not know, and to which, therefore, Aristotle's rules do not apply. Giraldi regarded the romantic poems of Ariosto and Boiardo both as national and as Christian works; and Italian literature is thus for the first time critically distinguished from classical literature in regard to language, religion, and nationality. In Giraldi's discourse there is no apparent desire either to underrate or to disregard the Poetics of Aristotle; the fact was simply that Aristotle had not known the poems which deal with many actions of many men, and hence it would be absurd to demand that such poems should conform to his rules. The romanzi deal with phases of poetry, and phases of life, which Aristotle could not be expected to understand.
A similar feeling of the distinct nationality of Italian literature is to be found in many of the prefaces of the Italian comedies of this period. Il Lasca, in the preface of the Strega (c. 1555), says that "Aristotle and Horace knew their own times, but ours are not the same at all. We have other manners, another religion, and another mode of life; and it is therefore necessary to make comedies after a different fashion." As early as 1534, Aretino, in the prologue of his Cortegiana, warned his audience "not to be astonished if the comic style is not observed in the manner required, for we live after a different fashion in modern Rome than they did in ancient Athens." Similarly, Gelli, in the dedication of the Sporta (1543), justifies the use of language not to be found in the great sources of Italian speech, on the ground that "language, together with all other natural things, continually varies and changes."[304]
Although there is in Giraldi Cintio no fundamental opposition to Aristotle, it is in his discourse on the romanzi that there may be found the first attempt to wrest a province of art from Aristotle's supreme authority. Neither Salviati, who had rated the Italian language above all others, nor Calcagnini, who had regarded it as the meanest of all, had understood the discussion of the importance of the Tuscan tongue to be concerned with the question of Aristotle's literary supremacy. It was simply a national question—a question as to the national limits of Aristotle's authority, just as was the case in the several controversies connected with Tasso, Dante, and Guarini's Pastor Fido.[305] Castelvetro, in his commentary on the Poetics, differs from Aristotle on many occasions, and does not hesitate even to refute him. Yet his reverence for Aristotle is great; his sense of Aristotle's supreme authority is strong; and on one occasion, where Horace, Quintilian, and Cicero seem to differ from Aristotle, Castelvetro does not hesitate to assert that they could not have seen the passage of the Poetics in question, and that, in fact, they did not thoroughly understand the true constitution of a poet.[306]
The opposition to Aristotelianism among the humanists has already been alluded to. This opposition increased more and more with the development of modern philosophy. In 1536 Ramus had attacked Aristotle's authority at Paris. A few years later, in 1543, Ortensio Landi, who had been at the Court of France for some time, published his Paradossi, in which it is contended that the works which pass under the name of Aristotle are not really Aristotle's at all, and that Aristotle himself was not only an ignoramus, but also the most villanous man of his age. "We have, of our own accord," he says, "placed our necks under the yoke, putting that vile beast of an Aristotle on a throne, and depending on his conclusions as if he were an oracle."[307] It is the philosophical authority of Aristotle that Landi is attacking. His attitude is not that of a humanist, for Cicero and Boccaccio do not receive more respectful treatment at his hands than Aristotle does. Landi, despite his mere eccentricities, represents the growth of modern free thought and the antagonism of modern philosophy to Aristotelianism.
The literary opposition and the philosophical opposition to Aristotelianism may be said to meet in Francesco Patrizzi, and, in a less degree, in Giordano Bruno. Patrizzi's bitter Antiperipateticism is to be seen in his Nova de Universis Philosophia (1591), in which the doctrines of Aristotle are shown to be false, inconsistent, and even opposed to the doctrines of the Catholic Church. His literary antagonism to Aristotle is shown in his remarkable work, Della Poetica, published at Ferrara in 1586. This work is divided into two parts,—the first historical, La Deca Istoriale, and the second controversial, La Deca Disputata. In the historical section he attempts to derive the norm of the different poetic forms, not from one or two great works as Aristotle had done, but from the whole history of literature. It is thus the first work in modern times to attempt the philosophical study of literary history, and to trace out the evolution of literary forms. The second or controversial section is directed against the Poetics of Aristotle, and in part also against the critical doctrines of Torquato Tasso. In this portion of his work Patrizzi sets out to demonstrate—per istoria, e per ragioni, e per autorità de' grandi antichi—that the accepted critical opinions of his time were without foundation; and the Poetics of Aristotle himself he exhibits as obscure, inconsistent, and entirely unworthy of credence.
Similar antagonism to the critical doctrines of Aristotle is to be found in passages scattered here and there throughout the works of Giordano Bruno. In the first dialogue of the Eroici Furori, published at London in 1585, while Bruno was visiting England, he expresses his contempt for the mere pedants who judge poets by the rules of Aristotle's Poetics. His contention is that there are as many sorts of poets as there are human sentiments and ideas, and that poets, so far from being subservient to rules, are themselves really the authors of all critical dogma. Those who attack the great poets whose works do not accord with the rules of Aristotle are called by Bruno stupid pedants and beasts. The gist of his argument may be gathered from the following passage:—
"Tans. Thou dost well conclude that poetry is not born in rules, or only slightly and accidentally so; the rules are derived from the poetry, and there are as many kinds and sorts of true rules as there are kinds and sorts of true poets.
Cic. How then are the true poets to be known?
Tans. By the singing of their verses; in that singing they give delight, or they edify, or they edify and delight together.