The maccaronic style was a product of North Italy, cultivated by writers of the Lombard towns, who versified comic or satiric subjects in parodies of humanistic poetry. The branch of burlesque literature we have next to examine, belonged to Tuscany, and took its origin from the equivocal carnival and dance songs raised to the dignity of art by Lorenzo de' Medici. Its conventional meter was terza rima, handled with exquisite sense of rhythm, but degraded to low comedy by the treatment of trivial or vulgar motives. The author of these Capitoli, as they were called, chose some common object—a paint-brush, salad, a sausage, peaches, figs, eels, radishes—to celebrate; affected to be inspired by the grandeur of his subject; developed the drollest tropes, metaphors and illustrations; and almost invariably conveyed an obscene meaning under the form of innuendoes appropriate to his professed theme. Though some exceptions can be pointed out, the Capitoli in general may be regarded as a species of Priapic literature, fashioned to suit the taste of Florentines, who had been accustomed for many generations to semi-disguised obscenity in their vernacular town poetry.[449] Taken from the streets and squares, adopted by the fashionable rhymsters of academies and courtly coteries, the rude Fescennine verse lost none of its license, while it assumed the polish of urbane art. Were it not for this antiquity and popularity of origin, which suggests a plausible excuse for the learned writers of Capitoli and warns us to regard their indecency as in some measure conventional, it would be difficult to approach the three volumes which contain a selection of their poems, without horror.[450] So deep, universal, unblushing is the vice revealed in them.

To Francesco Berni belongs the merit, such as it is, of having invented the burlesque Capitoli. He gave his name to it, and the term Bernesque has passed into the critical phraseology of Europe. The unique place of this rare poet in the history of Italian literature, will justify a somewhat lengthy account of his life and works. Studying him, we study the ecclesiastical and literary society of Rome in the age of Leo X. and Clement VII.

Francesco Berni was born at Lamporecchio, in the Val di Nievole, about the end of the fifteenth century.[451] His parents were poor; but they were connected with the family of the Cardinal Bibbiena, who, after the boy's education at Florence, took him at the age of nineteen to Rome. Upon the death of this patron in 1520, Berni remained in the service of Bibbiena's nephew, Agnolo Dovizio. Receiving no advancement from these kinsmen, he next transferred himself, in the quality of secretary, to the household of Giammatteo Giberti, Bishop of Verona, who was a distinguished Mecænas of literary men. This change involved his taking orders. Berni now resided partly at Rome and partly at Verona, tempering the irksome duties of his office by the writing of humorous poetry, which he recited in the then celebrated Academy of the Vignajuoli. This society, which numbered Molza, Mauro, La Casa, Lelio Capilupi, Firenzuola, and Francesco Bini among its members, gave the tone to polite literature at the Courts of Leo and Clement.

Berni survived the sack of 1527, which proved so disastrous to Italian scholars; but he lost everything he possessed.[452] Monsignor Giberti employed him on various missions of minor importance, involving journeys to Venice, Padua, Nice, Florence, and the Abruzzi. After sixteen years of Court-life, Berni grew weary of the petty duties, which must have been peculiarly odious to a man of his lazy temperament, if it is true, as he informs us, that the Archbishop kept him dancing attendance till daylight, while he played primiera with his friends. Accordingly, he retired to Florence, where he held a canonry in the cathedral. There, after a quiet life of literary ease, he died suddenly in 1535. It was rumored that he had been poisoned: and the most recent investigations into the circumstances of his death tend rather to confirm this report. All that is known, however, for certain, is that he spent the evening of May 25 with his friends the Marchionesse di Massa in the Palazzo Pazzi, and that next morning he breathed his last. His mysterious and unexplained decease was ascribed to one of the two Medicean princes then resident in Florence. A sonnet in Berni's best style, containing a vehement invective against Alessandro de' Medici, is extant. The hatred expressed in this poem may have occasioned the rumor (which certainly acquired a certain degree of currency) that Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici attempted to use the poet for the secret poisoning of his cousin, and on his refusal had him murdered. Other accounts of the supposed assassination ascribe a like intention to the Duke, who is said to have suggested the poisoning of the Cardinal to Berni. Both stories agree in representing his tragic end as the price paid for refusal to play the part of an assassin. The matter remains obscure; but enough suspicion rests upon the manner of his death to render this characteristic double legend plausible; especially when we remember what the customs of Florence with respect to poisoning were, and how the Cardinal de' Medici ended his own life.[453]

Such is the uneventful record of Berni's career. He was distinguished among all the poets of the century for his genial vein of humor and amiable personal qualities. That he was known to be stained with vices which it is not easy to describe, but which he frankly acknowledged in his poetical epistles, did not injure his reputation in that age of mutual indulgence.[454] Willing to live and let live, with a never-failing fund of drollery, and with a sincere dislike for work of any sort, he lounged through existence, an agreeable, genial and witty member of society. If this were all we should not need to write about him now. But with this easy-going temperament he combined a genius for poetry so peculiar and delicate, that his few works mark an epoch in Italian literature.

The best description of Berni is contained in the burlesque portrait of himself, which forms part of his Boiardo Innamorato.[455] This has been so well translated by an English scholar, the late W.S. Rose, that I cannot do better than refer the student to his stanzas. They convey as accurate a notion of the Bernesque manner as can be derived from any version in a foreign language.[456] The character he there has given to himself for laziness is corroborated by his extant epistles in prose. Berni represents himself as an incurably bad correspondent, pleased to get letters, but overcome with mortal terror when he is obliged to answer them.[457] He confides to his friend Francesco Bini that the great affair in life is to be gay and to write as little as possible:[458] "A vivere avemo sino alla morte a dispetto di chi non vuole, e il vantaggio è vivere allegramente, come conforto a far vio, attendando a frequentar quelli banchetti che si fanno per Roma, e scrivendo sopra tutto manco che potete. Quia hæc est victoria, quæ vincit mundum." The curse has been laid upon him of having to drive his quill without ceasing:[459] "O ego lævus, che scrivo d'ogni tempo, e scrivo ora che ho una gamba al collo, che ieri tornando dalla Certosa mi ruppe la mia cavalla, cascandomivi sopra. Sono pure un gran coglione!" So his pen runs on. The man writes just as he spoke, without affectation, mixing his phrases of Latin with the idiom of common life. The whole presents an agreeable contrast to the stilted style of Bembo, La Casa's studied periods, and the ambitious epistolary efforts of Aretino. Sometimes he breaks into doggrel:[460] "S'io avessi l'ingenio del Burchiello, Io vi farei volentier un sonetto, Che non ebbi giammai tema e subietto, Più dolce, più piacevol, nè più bello." When his friends insist upon his writing to them, rhyme comes to his aid, and he affects a comic fit of rage:[461]

Perchè m'ammazzi con le tue querele,
Priuli mio, perchè ti duole a torto,
Che sai che t'amo più che l'orso il miele, etc.

Importuned to publish the poems he recited with so much effect in private circles, he at last consents because he cannot help it:[462] "Compare, io non ho potuto tanto schermirmi che pure m'è bisognato dar fuori questo benedetto Capitolo e Comento della Primiera; e siate certo che l'ho fatto, non perchè mi consumassi d'andare in stampa, nè per immortalarmi come il cavalier Casio, ma per fuggire la fatica mia, e la malevolenza di molti che domandandomelo e non lo avendo mi volevano mal di morte." Nor were these the ordinary excuses of an author eager to conceal his vanity. The Capitolo upon the game of primiera was the only poem which appeared with his consent.[463] He intended his burlesque verses for recitation, and is even said to have preserved no copies of them, so that many of his compositions, piratically published in his lifetime, were with difficulty restored to a right text by Il Lasca in 1548. This indifference to public fame did not imply any carelessness of style. Mazzuchelli, who had seen some of his rough copies, asserts that they bore signs of the minutest pains bestowed upon them. The melody of versification, richness of allusion, refinement of phrase, equality and flowing smoothness, which distinguish Berni's work from that of his imitators confirm the belief that his Capitoli and sonnets, in spite of their apparent ease, were produced with the conscientious industry of a real artist.

Berni's theory of poetry revealed a common-sense and insight which were no less rare than commendable in that age of artificial literature. He refused to write at command, pleading that spontaneity of inspiration is essential to art, and quoting Vida's dictum: