Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part II. Italian

by Oscar Kuhns

This feeling of kinship was a natural one for those who lived in the same cities in which the Romans had lived, surrounded by the imposing ruins of the ancient world, speaking a language, which although essentially a modern one, with all its characteristics, was still nearer to Latin than French, Provençal, or Spanish. For these men the irruptions of the northern barbarians, the Goths, the Lombards, and later the Normans, were only a break in the continuity of the historical development of the Latin race in Italy. This spirit—which explains the popularity and temporary success of Arnold of Brescia, in the twelfth century, and of Cola di Rienzi, in the fourteenth, in their efforts to restore the old forms of the Roman republic—must be kept constantly in mind by the student, not only of the political history of Italy, but of its literature and art as well.

Yet this natural feeling does not rest altogether on fact. The Italians of to-day are not the pure descendants of the ancient Romans, but, like the other so-called Latin races, are of mixed origin, more nearly related, it is true, to the Romans, yet in general formed in the same ethnical way as their neighbors.

With the downfall of Rome, Italy, like France and Spain, was overrun by the hordes of German tribes, who, leaving the cold and inhospitable regions of the North sought for more congenial climes in the sunny South. As the Franks in France, the Visigoths and Vandals in Spain, so the Ostrogoths in Italy, toward the end of the fifth century, conquered and colonized the country, and under Theodoric restored for a brief time an appearance of prosperity. In the sixth century came the Lombards, and after destroying and devastating city and country as far south as Rome, and even beyond, finally settled in upper Italy now known from them as Lombardy. Several centuries later came the Normans from France and conquered Sicily and the southern extremity of the peninsula. All these peoples were of German origin, and being gradually merged with the conquered race, formed what we now call the Italian people.[1]

It goes without saying that the Latin language was profoundly affected by all these changes. Although the German invaders gradually adopted the civilization of the conquered land, including the language, yet they could not help influencing this civilization and impressing it with their own individual stamp.

With regard to the language, we must bear in mind that even in the time of Vergil and Cicero, Latin had two forms, one the elegant and artificial language of literature, and the other the idiom of the common people, or the vernacular. Many of the peculiar phonetic, grammatical, and syntactical phenomena which characterize the modern Romance languages existed in this so-called "vulgar Latin," long before the fall of Rome, the irruption of the northern barbarians, and the consequent formation of new nations and new tongues.

All the Romance languages have been derived from this "vulgar Latin," each one being specially moulded by its peculiar environments, and by the various German, Celtic, and other dialects by which it was influenced. Thus the "vulgar Latin" imported by Roman colonists into Gaul, and influenced by the Franks, produced the French language: in the same way "vulgar Latin" plus the various local and foreign influences to which it was subjected in Italy, produced the various dialects of that country—Venetian, Tuscan, Neapolitan, and Sicilian. While literary Latin, although becoming more and more corrupt as the years went by, continued in Italy to be the language of the church, of the courts of law, and of what literature there was, the vernacular—i. e., the various dialects—was used in all the operations of daily life.

We have evidence that this popular tongue must have been in existence as far back as the seventh century, for in Latin public documents dating from that period on, we find occasional words and fragments of phrases, especially the names of persons and places, which are marked by the special characteristics of the Italian language. These expressions, embedded in the Latin documents, like pebbles in sand, become more and more numerous as we approach the tenth century, until finally, in the year 960, we meet for the first time with a complete Italian sentence, in a legal document concerning the boundaries of a certain piece of property in Capua; four years later we find almost the same formula in a similar document. Toward the end of the eleventh century certain frescoes were painted in the lower church of Saint Clement in Rome, where they may still be seen, and among them is one beneath which is found an explanation in Italian.

In spite of the fact, however, that these monuments of early Italian increase from year to year, they were not numerous before the thirteenth century. The very scarcity of them shows the tenacity with which the people clung to the traditions of Rome, since not only literature, but even public and private documents were written in Latin. This literary tradition never wholly died out in Italy, even in the darkest days of her history. It is true that in the terrible disorders that accompanied the slow agony of dying Rome, a long period of darkness and ignorance occurred. The empire was split into two parts and the seat of the emperor was transferred to Constantinople; the Goths and Lombards conquered Northern Italy, the Saracens and Normans the South. All through the Dark Ages Italy was the prey of foreign marauders; the Huns—those scourges of the nations—came as far as Rome; the Arabs obtained a foothold in Sicily, scoured the seas, and even ravaged the Campagna up to the very walls of the Eternal City.

Not only did devoted Italy suffer from outsiders, but discord and civil conflicts rent her very entrails. When Charlemagne was crowned emperor in 800 by Leo III., as a reward for having defended Rome against the incursions of the Lombards, it was thought that the reëstablishment of the Roman empire would bring in a new era of peace and glory. With the death of the great king, however, anarchy once more reigned supreme. His successors in the empire (for the most part weaklings) were kept busy with the affairs of Germany, and regarded Italy, "the garden of the empire," as Dante calls it, with indifference. In Italy itself there was no such thing as patriotism or feeling of national unity. The people were oppressed by the nobles, who themselves were in a continual state of warfare with each other. In the eleventh century a new power arose in the form of free cities, chief among them being Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence. These, however, only increased the disorder which already existed; city fought with city, and even within the same walls the various families formed parties and feuds, which led to incessant strife, of which murder, rapine, and arson were the usual concomitants.

No wonder, then, that in the midst of all this anarchy and confusion Roman civilization almost died out. What the barbarians had spared, the church itself tried to destroy. Having finally triumphed over pagan Rome, it fought pagan civilization; the early Christian fathers looked upon art and literature as the work of demons; the clergy were forbidden to read the classic writers except for grammatical purposes, the subject matter being deemed poisonous to the souls of Christians. Even so great a man as Pope Gregory despised classical antiquity. During the long period when Italy was the prey of Saracen and Hun, when pestilence and famine stalked gauntly through the desolated land, civilization sank to its lowest point. Superstition and asceticism held full sway in religion; men sought relief from the sufferings of the life that now is in the contemplation of a new and happier state in the life to come. Hence arose the widespread conviction that God is best pleased with those who despise this life, with all its beauty and pleasure, its pride and glory, its pomp and power.