[Footnote 58: In the Variorum edition of Dante, ut sup. vol. iii. p. 845, we are informed that a gentleman of Naples, the Cavaliere Giuseppe de Cesare, was the first to notice (not long since, I presume) the curious circumstance of Dante's having terminated the three portions of his poem with the word "stars." He thinks that it was done as a happy augury of life and renown to the subject. The literal intention, however, seems to have been to shew us, how all his aspirations terminated.]
PULCI:
Critical Notice
of
PULCI'S LIFE AND GENIUS.
Pulci, who is the first genuine romantic poet, in point of time, after Dante, seems, at first sight, in the juxtaposition, like farce after tragedy; and indeed, in many parts of his poem, he is not only what he seems, but follows his saturnine countryman with a peculiar propriety of contrast, much of his liveliest banter being directed against the absurdities of Dante's theology. But hasty and most erroneous would be the conclusion that he was nothing but a banterar. He was a true poet of the mixed order, grave as well as gay; had a reflecting mind, a susceptible and most affectionate heart; and perhaps was never more in earnest than when he gave vent to his dislike of bigotry in his most laughable sallies.
Luigi Pulci, son of Jacopo Pulci and Brigida de' Bardi, was of a noble family, so ancient as to be supposed to have come from France into Tuscany with his hero Charlemagne. He was born in Florence on the 3d of December, 1431, and was the youngest of three brothers, all possessed of a poetical vein, though it did not flow with equal felicity. Bernardo, the eldest, was the earliest translator of the Eclogues of Virgil; and Lucca wrote a romance called the Ciriffo Calvaneo, and is commended for his Heroic Epistles. Little else is known of these brothers; and not much more of Luigi himself, except that he married a lady of the name of Lucrezia degli Albizzi; journeyed in Lombardy and elsewhere; was one of the most intimate friends of Lorenzo de Medici and his literary circle; and apparently led a life the most delightful to a poet, always meditating some composition, and buried in his woods and gardens. Nothing is known of his latter days. An unpublished work of little credit (Zilioli On the Italian Poets), and an earlier printed book, which, according to Tiraboschi, is of not much greater (Scardeone De Antiquitatibus Orbis Patavinæ), say that he died miserably in Padua, and was refused Christian burial on account of his impieties. It is not improbable that, during the eclipse of the fortunes of the Medici family, after the death of Lorenzo, Pulci may have partaken of its troubles; and there is certainly no knowing how badly his or their enemies may have treated him; but miserable ends are a favourite allegation with theological opponents. The Calvinists affirm of their master, the burner of Servetus, that he died like a saint; but I have seen a biography in Italian, which attributed the most horrible death-bed, not only to the atrocious Genevese, but to the genial Luther, calling them both the greatest villains (sceleratissimi); and adding, that one of them (I forget which) was found dashed on the floor of his bedroom, and torn limb from limb.
Pulci appears to have been slender in person, with small eyes and a ruddy face. I gather this from the caricature of him in the poetical paper-war carried on between him and his friend Matteo Franco, a Florentine canon, which is understood to have been all in good humour—sport to amuse their friends—a perilous speculation. Besides his share in these verses, he is supposed to have had a hand in his brother's romance, and was certainly the author of some devout poems, and of a burlesque panegyric on a country damsel, La Beca, in emulation of the charming poem La Nencia, the first of its kind, written by that extraordinary person, his illustrious friend Lorenzo, who, in the midst of his cares and glories as the balancer of the power of Italy, was one of the liveliest of the native wits, and wrote songs for the people to dance to in Carnival time.
The intercourse between Lorenzo and Pulci was of the most familiar kind. Pulci was sixteen years older, but of a nature which makes no such differences felt between associates. He had known Lorenzo from the latter's youth, probably from his birth—is spoken of in a tone of domestic intimacy by his wife—and is enumerated by him among his companions in a very special and characteristic manner in his poem on Hawking (La Caccia col Falcone), when, calling his fellow-sportsmen about him, and missing Luigi, one of them says that he has strolled into a neighbouring wood, to put something which has struck his fancy into a sonnet:
"'Luigi Pulci ov' è, che non si sente?' 'Egli se n' andò dianzi in quel boschetto, Che qualche fantasia ha per la mente; Vorr à fantasticar forse un sonetto.'"