Renaissance in Italy, Volume 5 (of 7) / Italian Literature, Part 2

by John Addington Symonds

Alcionio upon his mule:

Quella che per soperchio digiunare Tra l'anime celesti benedette Come un corpo diafano traspare:

Ser Cecco who could never be severed from the Court, nor the Court from Ser Cecco:

Perch'ambedue son la Corte e ser Cecco:

the pompous doctor:

l'ambasciador del Boja, Un medico, maestro Guazzaletto:

Domenico d'Ancona, the memory of whose beard, shorn by some Vandal of a barber, draws tears from every sympathetic soul:

Or hai dato, barbier, l'ultimo crollo Ad una barba la più singolare Che mai fosse descritta in verso o 'n prosa:

these form a gallery of comic likenesses, drawn from the life and communicated with the force of reality to the reader. Each is perfect in style, clearly cut like some antique chalcedony, bringing the object of the poet's mirth before us with the exact measure of ridicule he sought to inflict.[471]

This satiric power culminates in the sonnet on Pietro Aretino.[472] The tartness of Berni's more good-humored pasquinades is concentrated to vitriol by unadulterated loathing. He flings this biting acid in the face of one whom he has found a scoundrel. The sonnet starts at the white heat of fury: