Franco Sacchetti carries us to somewhat different scenes. The best of his madrigals and canzonets describe the pleasures of country life. They are not genuinely rustic; nor do they, in Theocritean fashion, attempt to render the beauty of the country from the peasant's point of view. On the contrary, they owe their fascination to the contrast between the simplicity of the villa and the unrest of the town, where:
Mai vi si dice e di ben far vi è caro.
They are written for and by the bourgeois who has escaped from shops and squares and gossiping street-corners. The keynote of this poetry, which has always something of the French école buissonnière in its fresh unalloyed enjoyment, is struck in a song describing the return of Spring[143]:
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Benedetta sia la state Che ci fa sì solazzare! Maladetto sia lo verno Che a città ci fa tornare! |
The poet summons his company of careless folk, on pleasure bent:
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No' siam una compagnia, I' dico di cacciapensieri. |
He takes them forth into the fields among the farms and olive-gardens, bidding them leave prudence and grave thoughts within the lofty walls of Florence town:
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Il senno e la contenenza Lasciam dentro all'alte mura Della città di Fiorenza. |