Note 6, p. [223].—The Roman Catholic clergy are forbidden to smoke, but allowed to take snuff. The point of this sentence is fully brought out, a page or two later on, by the friar’s indignant denunciations of eating meat in Lent.

Note 7, p. [230].—“Come, I will show you Lucca,” is said in joke to children, the person addressing them seizing and lifting them by the neck. The saying is probably connected with the idiom, “I shall see you again at Lucca”—i.e., ironically, “I shall never see you again;” so that “seeing Lucca” = “seeing nothing.” Tommaseo and Bellini (Dizionario) suggest that the expression may refer to the fact that the Lucchese were great travellers.

BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF WRITERS.

Edmondo de Amicis, born in 1846 at Oneglia (on the Genoa coast), was educated at Cuneo, Turin, and the Military College of Modena, which he left, with the grade of sub-lieutenant, in 1865. In 1866 he was present at the battle of Custozza, and in 1867 edited a military periodical at Florence. After the Italian occupation of Rome in 1870 he left the army, and devoted himself entirely to literature. He is in a certain sense a follower of Manzoni, who encouraged and directed his early efforts. His “Sketches of Military Life” (one of which is translated in the present collection) first saw the light in the pages of the Italia Militare, and were followed by a collection of Novelle (or short stories), which, however, are inferior to the first-named work. The construction is defective, and the characterisation, though vivacious, not very deep or subtle. Another fault which De Amicis frequently falls into is a certain straining after pathos, which defeats its own object—a fault which Dickens, in his desire to draw tears, was not always exempt from. This is perhaps most apparent in his later works, of which Cuore and another depicting the life (a most wretched one, if De Amicis is to be believed) of an Italian elementary schoolmaster, are examples. He has travelled extensively, and given to the world several lively and humorous volumes recording his experiences in Holland, Spain, Morocco, and elsewhere—besides being well known as a lecturer. We understand he is now resident at Turin, and has, quite recently, proclaimed himself a convert to Socialistic ideas. (Page [199].)

Lodovico Ariosto was born at Reggio (near Modena, not to be confused with Reggio in Calabria) in 1474. He has written his own autobiography in the Satires. He studied law at Padua, but never had any taste for that profession, and never practised it. In 1503 he entered the service of the Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, who employed him on various diplomatic missions, but left him leisure to continue his studies. In 1516 he published his great poem, the Orlando Furioso, which he had spent ten years in writing. After the death of his patron in 1520, Ariosto transferred his services to the cardinal’s brother, Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, who, in 1522, appointed him governor of the mountainous district of Garfagnana, near Lucca—a post he has humorously described in his Satires. In 1524 he returned to Ferrara, and spent the rest of his life in lettered leisure at Alfonso’s court. He now wrote his five blank verse comedies (La Cassaria, I Suppositi, La Lena, Il Negromante, and La Scolastica), which were acted before the court in a theatre built for the purpose by order of the Duke. He died in 1533 of a lingering illness. He was never married. The Orlando Furioso, says one writer, “has been translated into most European languages, but seldom successfully. Of the English translations, that by Harrington is spirited, and much superior to Hook’s, but Rose’s is considered the best, and is generally faithful.” A specimen from the Satires has been given in T. H. Croker’s version. Of the Orlando Furioso, it has been thought best, after consideration, to give a free prose translation (selected and slightly adapted from Stories from Ariosto, by H. C. Hollway-Calthrop[[41]]) of the passage describing Astolfo’s visit to the moon, which is one of the best for exhibiting the humorous side of Ariosto’s genius. The poem is a gigantic one, with legions of characters, and a perfect maze of episodes more or less closely connected with the main thread of the story: the war between Charlemagne and the Saracens, ending with the defeat of the latter and the death of their king, Agramante. If those who are in at the death of Spenser’s Blatant Beast are very few and very weary, we should imagine that those who have followed Agramante to his bitter end must be fewer and wearier still. (Page [30].)

Francesco Berni, a Tuscan, was born in 1490, and died in 1536 as canon of the cathedral at Florence. He was a priest, and spent the greater part of his life at the court of Rome, in the service of various cardinals and prelates. A writer in the National Encyclopædia says, “Berni is one of the principal writers of Italian jocose poetry, which has ever since retained the name of Poesia Bernesca. This style had been introduced before him” (see Note on Pucci), “but Berni carried it to a degree of perfection which has rarely been equalled since.... His satire is generally of the milder sort, but at times it rises to a bitter strain of invective. His humour may be said to be untranslatable, for it depends on the genius of the Italian language, the constitution of the Italian mind, and the habits and associations of the Italian people. His language is choice Tuscan. The worst feature in Berni’s humorous poems is his frequent licentious allusions and equivocations, which, though clothed in decent language, are well understood by Italian readers.” It is, perhaps, curious that another great offender in this respect—Casti—was also an ecclesiastic. But we cannot help remembering in this connection a remark made by a writer in an English magazine, who had been invited to a wedding in an Italian country town—viz., that of the congratulatory verses sent in by friends (some of which were very far from being in accordance with our notions of propriety) the most objectionable were written by priests. Three volumes of Berni’s Poesie Burlesche were collected and published after his death. He also wrote what he called a rifacimento of Bojardo’s Orlando Innamorata, altering the diction of the poem into what he considered purer Italian, and adding some stanzas of his own. More satisfactory productions, perhaps, are La Catrina and Il Migliazzo, dramatic scenes written in the rustic dialect of Tuscany. (Page [35].)

Giovanni Boccaccio was born at Paris in 1313. His father, a native of Certaldo, near Florence, brought him to the latter city when quite a child, intending to educate him for commerce, in which he was himself engaged. He escaped from this life at the age of twenty by promising to study canonical law, which, however, proved not much more to his taste than business, and his principal pursuits at the University of Naples were Greek (then beginning to be studied in Italy), Latin, and mathematics. At Naples, too, he made the acquaintance of Petrarch, and fell in love with the Princess Maria, a natural daughter of King Robert, for whom he wrote his poem of the Teseide, containing the tale of “Palaemon and Arcite,” afterwards made use of by Chaucer. In 1350 Boccaccio returned to Florence, and appears to have gradually changed his way of life, and become known as a quiet and orderly citizen. In 1361 he retired from the world altogether, and became a priest. He visited Petrarch at Milan, and again (in 1363) at Venice, and kept up his friendship with him to the end of his life. In 1373 he was appointed by the Republic of Florence to give public readings, with comments, of Dante’s Divina Commedia; but these lectures were often interrupted by ill-health, and Boccaccio died in December 1375. His earliest work was in verse, but finding that he could not hope to attain first-rate excellence in poetry he turned his attention chiefly to prose. The Decameron was one of the earliest prose works written in Italian, and is esteemed a classic for its style. The plan, perhaps, suggested that of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; the hundred tales of which it consists being supposed to be told by ten persons on ten different days—hence the name (from the Greek words for ten days). The introduction relates how the narrators—seven ladies and three knights—having fled to the country to escape from the plague which desolated Florence in 1348, enlivened the solitude of their villa by telling stories. Some of these tales are lively and humorous, some pathetic and tragic. Many of them, as is well known, are better left in oblivion; some, indeed, being good comedy spoilt by that which renders it unquotable; while others, if ever they were found amusing, must have been so by reason of their coarseness, for they have no other claim. Others, again, reach a very high level, as that of “Nathan and Mithridanes”; or that other of the three rings, on which Lessing founded his drama of Nathan der Weise. The story of “Calandrino and the Heliotrope” is, we believe, one of the best farcical ones. Buffalmacco and his practical jokes seem to have been the common property of the comic writers of the period, and probably all “burle” or “japes” which were thought more than commonly amusing were indiscriminately fathered upon him. His real life is given by Vasari, from whom we have also culled one or two of the more celebrated burle, which, however, belonging to popular tradition, had previously been related by Sacchetti. In the same way, at a later period, every witty saying and ridiculous adventure current in Florence was attributed to the dramatist G. B. Fagiuoli (1660–1742). Anecdotes of the latter may be picked up among the Florentine populace even now; but the practical joke related of him (we hope falsely) in Pitré’s collection of folk-tales will not bear repetition. Other Joe Millers of Italy are the Florentine Piovano Arlotto, Gonnella, and Barlacchia, various collections of whose jests have from time to time been published. The translation given (as also in the case of the selections from Parabosco and Sabadino degli Arienti) is Thomas Roscoe’s. (Page [2].)

Luigi Capuana, Sicilian novelist and critic, born at Mineo, in the province of Catania, May 27, 1839. His first published works were poems, among others an imitation of Tommy Moore’s Loves of the Angels. In 1864 he went to Florence, where he was for two years dramatic critic to La Nazione. The best of the articles written for that paper he afterwards published in volume form, under the title, Teatro italiano Contemporaneo. In 1868 he returned to his native place, and remained there till 1876. During this time he was chosen Syndic of the district, and in 1875 published an official report on The Commune of Mineo, which is really worthy of the name of a contribution to literature. In 1877 he removed to Milan, and resumed his literary labours, writing critical articles in the Corriere delle Sera, and also a number of sketches, afterwards collected in volume form, under the title, Profili di donne. Since then he has issued various works of fiction, mostly collections of short stories—or rather character-sketches—for some of them have scarcely any story to speak of. The specimens in the present volume are taken from a collection entitled Fumando. Capuana is a great admirer of Émile Zola, and aims at his style and methods; but his Italian (or perhaps Greek, since he is a Sicilian!) sense of beauty and proportion preserve him from the grossest faults of the extreme naturalist school. He needs, however, to guard against the dangers of Impressionism; at least we suppose that is the name for the tendency to give detached “bits” instead of pictures—a tendency which appears to excess in his short stories. He has written two complete novels, Giacinta, and Storia Fosca; and a charming collection of popular fairy tales, retold for children under the title of C’era una volta (“Once upon a time”). (Page [107].)

Enrico Castelnuovo, born at Florence, 1839, has passed the greater part of his life at Venice, where he appears to be still resident. From 1853 to 1870 he was engaged in business, but in the latter year became editor of a political paper, La Stampa. Since then he has published several novels and collections of short stories, some of which have appeared in the Perseveranza. Some of the best known of them are: La Casa Bianca, Vittorina, Lauretta (1876), Il Professõr Romualdo (1878), Nuovi Racconti, Alla Finestra, and Sorrisi e Lacrime, from which the sketch in the present volume is taken. Most of his stories deal with Venetian life. (Page [191].)

Giovanni Battista Casti, 1721–1803, was an ecclesiastic, and the author of many satirical works, of which the best known is Gli Animali Parlanti (The Speaking Animals), which has, I believe, been translated as The Court and Parliament of Beasts. He also wrote a sequence of a hundred sonnets, entitled I Tre Giuli, which is surely the most striking instance extant of an idea ridden to death. The sonnets (of which one here and there is fairly amusing) are all on the subject of a debt of about eighteenpence which the author owed a friend. They hardly merit the extremely laudatory language used about them by the translator, M. Montague (1841). A much greater contribution to the gaiety of nations is the “opera buffa” of Il Re Teodoro, for which Paisiello wrote the music, and from which we have given an extract. Casti wrote other comic operas, one of the best of which is Catiline’s Conspiracy, in which the famous exordium of Cicero’s oration, Quousque tandem, is rendered (and pretty closely too) into burlesque verse. Cicero is shown in his study, preparing his oration with infinite pains. When at length it is delivered, the interruptions of Catiline and others are faithfully reported.