The humour of Italy

by Unknown

Cicero. Fin a quando, o Catilina L’esterminio e la rovina Contro a noi mediterai? Fino a quando abuserai Con cotesta impertinenza Della nostra pazienza? Va, rubello, evadi, espatria, Traditore, della patria, Conciofossecosachè.... Catil. Traditor rubello a me? Cic. Conciofossecosachè. People. Si ch è’ ver.... Others.                 No chè non è! Cic. Conciofossecosachè...

This is pretty good fooling, and the compound conjunction (a sort of double-barrelled Forasmuch as, often used in legal phraseology), to which the orator clings desperately, when so rudely thrown out in his speech, comes in with the happiest effect. But the effect of the rapid rush of the double-rhymed octo-syllables would be quite lost in a translation. They have somewhat the character of the smart and fluent verse in Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s operas. Besides verse, Casti wrote prose Novelle, to which Cantù (Letteratura Italiana, vol. ii.) gives the worst character. Of the Animali Parlanti, the same author says that it “satirised Governments with the liberalism of the café” (as we might say “of taproom politicians”) “and in the style of an improvisatore.” It is a somewhat long-winded work in six-line stanzas. (Page [57].)

Baldassare Castiglione, born in the Mantuan territory in 1478, was attached, first to the court of Lodovico the Moor, at Milan; afterwards, in succession to those of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, and Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino. He was a polished gentleman and brilliant scholar, “a perfect knight, second to none either in intellect or culture.” Charles V. pronounced him “one of the best knights in the world.” The court of Urbino, at that time “a school of courtesy and valour, as well as of learning,” was a fitting home for such a man. He took part in more than one campaign, and was sent as ambassador to England, to Milan, and to Rome. He died at Toledo in 1529, while on a diplomatic mission to the Emperor Charles V., it is said, of grief at the sack of Rome by the Spaniards under the Constable de Bourbon. Raphael painted his portrait in life; Guido Romano designed his tomb after his death, and Pietro Bembo wrote his epitaph. He wrote many elegant and scholarly poems, both in Latin and Italian; but his fame as an author rests entirely on the book entitled Il Cortigiano (The Courtier). It consists of a series of dialogues in which the qualities necessary to the character of a perfect courtier are discussed. It seems to have been written at Mantua, during the short period of his happy wedded life (his wife, Ippolita Torelli, married in 1516, died three years later). The style is courtly and polished, though with a certain simplicity in its stateliness. The interlocutors sometimes relieve their grave philosophy by humorous anecdotes, of which a few specimens are given in the text. (Page [27].)

Francesco Cerlone lived during the latter half of the eighteenth century, and wrote an immense number of plays of the Commedia dell’ Arte type. His works were published, in a collected form, at Bologna in 1787, and again (in twenty-two volumes) at Naples, in 1825–29. Little seems to be known about him. Symonds calls him “a plebeian poet of Naples.” The distinguished Italian critic, Michele Scherillo, “discovered” him not many years ago. (Page [49].)

C. Collodi is the pseudonym of a brilliant Tuscan writer, Carlo Lorenzini, a frequent contributor to Fanfulla. He was for some time theatrical censor to the Prefecture of Florence. He has also written children’s books, and one or more volumes of short stories. (Page [90].)

Napoleone Corazzini, born in Tuscany about 1840, had a natural bent towards humorous writing, but was prevented by circumstances from following it out, though a farce (or rather parody) of his, called The Duel, is sometimes acted. He spent some time in Herzegovina as a newspaper correspondent, but was forced, on his return, to forsake literature for commerce. (Page [103].)

Paolo Ferrari, writer of comedies, was born at Modena in 1822. His father was an official in the service of the Duke, and young Ferrari’s liberal sentiments were a great disadvantage to him at the outset of his career. It is even said (with what truth I do not know) that they induced the Duke to interfere with the granting of his University degree, which was delayed for a long time. But Ferrari’s legal studies had been pursued with so little ardour as to suggest another reason for the action of the University authorities. His first comedy was written in 1847, and was called Bartolommeo the Shoemaker, a title afterwards changed to Uncle Venanzio’s Codicil. After contending with many difficulties, he wrote his Goldoni in 1852, but had to wait two years before it was produced, when it was a signal success. Since then he has given to the world a long series of works, chiefly comedies, and the Italians consider him their first comic dramatist. Some of his greatest successes are his dramas, drawn from Italian history, in which the characters—unlike those in the ordinary historical drama—are rather literary than political. Such are Dante a Verona, Parini e la Satira, and the above-mentioned Goldoni e le sue Sedici Commedie. He writes either in prose or in a kind of rhymed alexandrines called Versi Martelliani. Of his other dramas the greatest are Il Duello, Il Suicidio, Gli amici rivali, Cause ed effetti, Il Ridicolo, Gli Uomini Serii. Nearly all of his plays which are still on the stage have obtained the Government prize offered in Italy for dramatic excellence. (Page [237].)

Piero Francesco Leopoldo Coccoluto Ferrigni, better known under the name of “Yorick,” is a Tuscan writer; born at Leghorn in 1836, though of Neapolitan descent. He began his literary career in 1854 by contributing “correspondence” to some of the Florentine papers. In 1856 he first adopted the pseudonym which has become so famous—from Hamlet, not from Sterne. Indeed, when he became acquainted with the latter’s works, he felt as if he had been guilty of presumption, and thenceforth signed his articles, Yorick, son of Yorick. He took a brilliant law degree at Siena in 1857, and has made his mark as an advocate, though his reputation is principally journalistic and literary. Florentine newsboys may be heard using his name to enhance the attractions of their wares. “C’è l’articolo di Yorick,” they will say, or more briefly, “C’è Yorick!” (There’s Yorick in it). Like many living Italian writers, he bore his part in the War of Liberation. He volunteered in 1859, when, for some time, he acted as Garibaldi’s private secretary, and in 1860 he was wounded at Milazzo. He is a writer of great ease and fluency—and not in his own language only—sending contributions in French to the Indépendance Italienne, and in German to the Neue Freie Presse. He appears to be one of the few Italians who have found literature profitable. Many of his newspaper articles have been collected in volume form. The specimens here quoted are taken from “Cronache dei Bagni di Mare” (part of which was reproduced in English by the Morning Post), and “Su e giù per Firenze.” (Page [232].)

Antonio Ghislanzoni, son of a doctor at Lecco, on the Lake of Como, was born in 1824. His father first wished him to become a priest, and then sent him to study medicine at Pavia; but the youth, finding that he possessed a splendid baritone, studied singing instead, and in 1846 obtained an engagement at the Lodi Theatre. In 1848 he took to journalism, and ran two papers at Milan; the extreme political opinions advocated in which soon landed him in prison. After the return of the Austrians he was exiled, and, after another imprisonment in Corsica, continued his musical career there and in Paris, till he lost his voice (in 1854) in consequence of an attack of bronchitis, and returned to literature and Italy. He edited various papers, wrote a variety of articles, mostly of a comic character, and composed the libretti to several operas, of which the best known is Verdi’s Aida. For some time past he has resided in a little house of his own at Lecco. He edited, and in great part wrote, the Rivista Minima, which afterwards passed into the hands of his friend, Salvatore Farina. (Page [94].)

Giuseppe Giusti, born at Monsummano, in Val di Nievole (Tuscany), in 1809. He received his early education, between the ages of seven and twelve, from a priest; its results being, to use his own words, “sundry canings, not a shadow of Latin, a few glimmerings of history, discouragement, irritation, weariness, and an inward conviction that I was good for nothing.” He then attended a school in Florence, where he came under the care of more intelligent and sympathetic masters, and began to awaken to the love of knowledge. He afterwards went to the University of Pisa, but (like our own Wordsworth and others) made no special progress in the studies proper to the place. In later life he lamented the idleness and desultory habits of these years; but it is probable that, in following the bent of his intellect towards popular and general literature, and picking up songs and stories in the racy idiom of the Tuscan hills, he was laying the best possible foundation for his future career as a poet. His health was never good, and he died, comparatively young, in 1850, thus disappointing the brilliant expectations his friends had formed. What he did accomplish, however, is sufficient to secure him a place in the first rank of modern Italian literature. Besides the Poems (of which several collected editions have been published) his principal works are a collection of Tuscan proverbs (with introduction and notes) and a Discourse on the Life and Works of Giuseppe Parini, the satirist. Since his death there have been published a volume of his letters, and one of unpublished pieces in prose and verse, the principal of which is a commentary on Dante’s Divina Commedia. His poems are peculiarly difficult to translate, on account of their exceedingly idiomatic character, as well as, in many cases, of their personal and political bearing. They have a directness, vigour, and pungency rare in the literature of Italy during the first half of this century. His political satire rises sometimes into noble indignation, as in the fine poem beginning, A noi, larve d’Italia, which has been translated into English, if we mistake not, at least twice. His non-political satire is always kindly and good-humoured, and the same spirit, along with an irrepressible cheerfulness and boyish love of fun, comes out in his letters—especially those to his intimate friend, Manzoni. (Page [74].)