The humour of Italy

by Unknown

Count Gasparo Gozzi, elder brother of Carlo Gozzi, the dramatist, was a Venetian, and lived from 1713 to 1786. The Gozzi family might be described as that of “a penniless laird wi’ a lang pedigree,” and the Memoirs of Count Carlo contain a vivid account of the straits and shifts to which they were put. Gasparo hoped to retrieve the family circumstances by his marriage with a learned lady given to poetry, Luisa Bergalli or Bargagli (who rejoiced in the academic title of Irminda Partenide); but her extravagance and shiftlessness only made matters worse, and he was forced to do anonymous hack-work—translations from the French, and the like—for a living; or, as he calls it, to wear himself out “in unknown writings with the daily sweat of one’s brow, and drag works—either insignificant or vile—out of the Gallic idiom into the Italian language.” Notwithstanding this, he contrived to do a tolerable amount of work which has lasted. His style is simple, clear, and pure, though without much vigour; and, as Cantù says, he has the gift of “coupling fancy with observation, and wit with feeling.” He issued for some time a paper called L’Osservatore on the plan of Addison’s Spectator. He wrote a great many “Bernesque” poems—sonnets a coda, and satirical pieces in blank verse. His letters also are excellent. (Page [53].)

Giacomo Leopardi, born at Recanati, in the Duchy of Urbino, in 1798, suffered all his life from ill-health and real or fancied uncongenial surroundings. He was heavily handicapped in the race of life, being hunchbacked, as well as constitutionally diseased; and thus the pessimistic doctrines which he imbibed from Pietro Giordani fell on a fertile soil. His father was rich and possessed a splendid library, and though he refused to allow Giacomo to go away to school, the boy threw himself into his studies at home with so much ardour that at fifteen he was a brilliant classical scholar, and wrote an ode in Greek which competent critics believed to be ancient. Yet he long remained unknown, thwarted by his father’s harshness in all his efforts to obtain a wider culture and more literary opportunities. At last he was able to escape from his hated home to Rome, where he enjoyed the society of literary men; but could not succeed, as he had hoped, in obtaining some professorship. He then, embittered and disgusted with the world, retired to Milan, where he lived in the house of a publisher and prepared his poems for the press. Here too he was unable to escape from the misery which pursued him, and his health became worse and worse. At last, in the autumn of 1831, he took his last journey—to Naples, where Antonio Ranieri, his untiring friend, received him into his house. There, worn out by dropsy and consumption, he died on July 14th, 1837. Of his philosophical works, and his splendid, gloomy verse, it is not the place to speak. I have included him in this collection on account of some of his dialogues, which are masterpieces of a subtle irony which has the air of simplicity and bites to the bone. It is keener and more delicate than Swift’s, but otherwise very difficult to describe. One cannot easily imagine that Leopardi ever laughed; but no one could read the “First Hour and the Sun,” or the “Wager of Prometheus,” and think him wanting in humour. (Page [63].)

Niccolo Machiavelli, a Florentine, lived from 1469 to 1527. His place in this volume is due to his comedy of La Mandragola, of which a scene is given; but this, of course, is not the work by which he is best known in history. Macaulay’s well-known essay gives a very good summary of his political and literary labours. He first took part in public affairs in 1494; in 1498 he was elected Secretary to the Florentine Republic, an office which he resigned in 1512, after the return of the Medici. Some time afterwards, being suspected of a conspiracy against the latter, he was imprisoned and put to the torture, nearly dying under it. He was included in the amnesty proclaimed by Giovanni di Medici, when raised to the Papacy under the title of Leo X. Though restored to liberty, he could take no part in politics, and finding himself unable to serve Florence, and condemned to a hateful inaction, he retired to his country-house, where he wrote the greater part of his works. The last of these was the History of Florence, written at the request of Pope Clement VII., and completed in 1525. In 1519 Leo X. consulted him about reforming the government of Florence, but his advice was not followed. In 1526, when the Constable Bourbon began to threaten Tuscany and Rome, Clement VII. again consulted Machiavelli, and entrusted him with the fortification of Florence, and with the precautions to be taken for the safety of Rome; but these precautions came too late. The Pope was taken prisoner, and the Medici once more driven from Florence; and Machiavelli being now looked upon as a partisan of that family, fell into neglect, and may be said to have died of grief and disappointment. His chief works besides the History, are the Prince, the Art of War, and the Discourses on the First Decade of Livy. Besides this, he wrote two or three comedies and a witty novella (somewhat extravagant, though, in its satire), entitled Belphegor. It relates how one of the devils, taking the form of a man, came to earth in order to try the experiment of matrimony; but was so very wretched in his married life, that, after a short trial, he preferred returning to the region whence he came. It is said that Machiavelli’s experiences in his own home gave point to his descriptions of Madonna Onesta’s folly and extravagance. The Mandragola, in spite of Macaulay’s high praise, offers scarcely anything adapted for quotation. The play is admirably constructed, but the story is one which would render it “impossible” for a modern audience. We have been forced to confine ourselves to a soliloquy of Fra Timoteo’s and one of the lyrical interludes between the acts, which has the merit of brevity, if no other. (Page [26].)

Alessandro Manzoni, born at Milan 1784, died 1873. One of the leaders of the Romantic Movement in Italy, and the founder (in that country) of the historical novel in the style of Scott. The Promessi Sposi, published in 1827 (from which we have quoted a scene or two), has probably been translated into every European language. Less widely known are his tragedies, Adelchi and Il Conte di Carmagnola, and his Odes (1815), the most famous of which is that on the death of Napoleon—Il Cinque Maggio. He was followed in the department of historical fiction by his son-in-law, D’Azeglio, and by Grossi, Guerrazzi, Rosini, Ademollo, and others. Though at first sight I Promessi Sposi might seem anything but a humorous work, there are scenes equal in this respect to some of the best in Scott’s novels. That of the attempted irregular marriage (which we have chosen for quotation) is especially good, and the character of Don Abbondio is comically conceived throughout. Perhaps the book has been somewhat neglected of late years—it has certainly, like many other masterpieces, suffered undeservedly through being used as a school-book. (Page [82].)

Filippo Pananti was born at Ronta, in the district of Mugello (Tuscany), about 1776, and studied law at Pisa, but afterwards gave himself up entirely to literature. He went abroad in 1799, and after visiting France, Spain, and Holland, obtained a position as libretto-writer to the Italian Opera in London. When returning to Italy by sea he was taken prisoner by Algerine pirates, but liberated through the intervention of the English consul. “He then came to Florence, and published his works—viz., Il Poeta di Teatro, Prose e Versi, Viaggio in Algeria, in which it may be said that he is often negligent rather than simple, and that he makes use unnecessarily of foreign expressions, or of such as are not yet accepted as current in the conversation of the best educated persons; yet he pleases, nevertheless, and deserves to do so, by his vivid and racy way of expressing himself, and his ease and fluency. He died in 1837.”—(Ambrosoli.) Il Poeta di Teatro is a lively and amusing poem descriptive of the miseries endured by a poet of small means. It is thoroughly good-humoured throughout, and has no “Grub Street bitterness” about it. We have extracted one or two passages. (Page [70].)

Girolamo Parabosco, born at Piacenza about the beginning of the sixteenth century, died at Venice, 1557. He wrote “Rime” and prose comedies, and was, moreover, esteemed one of the best musicians of his time. He was for some time organist and choirmaster at St. Mark’s, Venice. But he is best known by I Diporti, a collection of stories after the model of Boccaccio’s Decameron, supposed to be told by a fowling-party weatherbound on an island in the Venetian lagoons. (Page [14].)

Mario Pratesi, a Tuscan writer, was born at Santafiora, in the district of Monte Amiata, in 1842. At eighteen he became a clerk in a Government office, and remained at this distasteful employment till 1864, when he returned to his studies, and in 1872 obtained an appointment as lecturer on Italian literature at the Pavia Technical Institute, whence he passed to a similar post at Viterbo, and thence to Terni. Most of his stories, since collected in volume form, first appeared in the Nuova Antologia, and he has contributed to the Diritto, the Rassegna Settimanale, and the Nazione (Florence). He has also written poems. He is at his best when describing the scenery of his native mountains. Monte Amiata, it may be remembered, was the scene of the strange religious revival led by the insane peasant-preacher, David Lazzaretti, who was shot down by the gendarmes in August 1878. It is a wild, lonely region, lying between the river Ombrone and the Roman border—a land of craggy peaks and dark glens, inhabited by simple, serious-minded people with a touch of gloomy mysticism in their character, perhaps due to Etruscan ancestry. The immediate neighbourhood of the district where the tragedy took place is admirably described in “Sovana.” Pratesi is intensely sympathetic in his manner of depicting life. He does not aim at an “objectivity” which seems to glory in appearing cold and heartless; but he does not dwell unnecessarily on his pathetic scenes. He relates them with grim brevity, and leaves them to produce their own effect. He has an eye for the ludicrous, but it does not predominate in his view of life; he never laughs, but he often smiles quietly, and sometimes grimly. Dottor Febo is a good example of his subtle irony, and has been given entire, as no detached passage would show to advantage. He is fully alive to the great evils of priestcraft and ignorance from which Italy has suffered in the past, but he is no radical of the type which is all negation and no affirmation. His attitude towards the clergy is impartial enough—he has drawn them of all sorts, good and bad. In the story before us there are three, and those who have resided any length of time in Italy must have met them all: the spiteful, hypocritical preaching friar, the jovial, easy-going Arciprete (who would have overlooked the sin of a bit of meat on Ash Wednesday if that meddling rascal of a Franciscan had not put his finger in the pie), and the chaplain of the Confraternità, in his threadbare coat,—own brother to Chaucer’s Parson. Though in the stories here translated I have usually left all proper names in their original form, I have in this instance departed from the rule, in order to bring out the quaint incongruity of the hero’s name with his pitifully sordid life and surroundings, Febo not being perhaps readily recognisable at first sight as Phœbus. Names as classical as this are by no means uncommon in the Roman and Tuscan country districts. Romolo and its feminine Romola are frequently met with, as also Belisario, Ersilia, Flaminia, etc. Naples and the Adriatic coast show a greater preference for Church saints; and a peculiarity of the latter district is the frequent occurrence of Old Testament names, which are not usual in other parts. Perhaps this is due to Byzantine influence, and the more comprehensive calendar of the Eastern Church; thus we find Samuele, Zacchiele, Elia, etc. The subject of Christian names in rural Italy is an interesting one, and would well repay study, especially in villages where reading is almost unknown, and the names in use must be to a large extent traditional, and probably handed down from remote antiquity. (Page [206].)

“Antonio Pucci, the son of a bell-founder, was a poet, although he kept a shop; and had not a little of that easy, sparkling vein which, a century later, was so abundant in Berni, as to make the latter seem like the creator of a new style of poetry. He died in Florence, his native city, some time after 1375.” This is all I can find with regard to Pucci in Ambrosoli’s Manual of Italian Literature. The sonnet in which he describes the persecutions to which a poet is subject at the hands of his friends is a not unfavourable specimen of what the Italians call poesia bernesca. This kind of sonnet is called “sonetto a coda,” or “with a tail,” and is much used in humorous and satirical writing, as being a kind in which more licence is allowable metrically, when the idea cannot be brought within the limits of the strict sonnet form. The “tail” may be lengthened at pleasure, but always in sets of three lines—one short and two long—and sometimes attains to a greater length than the original sonnet. (Page [1].)

Francesco Redi, born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, in 1626, was a jovial physician, no less famed for his wit than for his learning and medical skill. He studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Pisa, and was then invited to Rome by the princes of the House of Colonna, in whose palace he lectured on rhetoric. He was afterwards court physician to the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. During the last years of his life he was afflicted with epilepsy, and retired to Pisa, as being a healthier place than Florence. Here he died suddenly on March 1st, 1698. His published works consist of poems, scientific treatises, and a large collection of letters which show his wide learning, his shrewd sense, and the merry, genial spirit which could see a funny side to his own troubles. “To judge from the praises of his countrymen,” says Leigh Hunt, “he partook of the wit and learning of Arbuthnot, the science of Harvey, and the poetry and generosity of Garth.” His humour is rather broad than subtle—but always sweet and kindly; his laughter is the mellow mirth of one who enjoys life himself and wishes others to enjoy it also. He was passionately fond of natural history, and an acute and patient observer; his papers on vipers, on the generation of insects, and on some other subjects, were important contributions to the science of his time. His replies (usually at great length) to the patients who consulted him by letter have been preserved, and are printed among his works. In medicine, he had a wholesome faith in the healing efficacy of nature, and anticipated the modern revolt against the excessive use of drugs, or, as he himself puts it, “that hotch-potch of physic which physicians, out of sheer perversity, are accustomed to prescribe to others, but would never dream of swallowing themselves.” His poems are not numerous, nor of the most elevated kind of poetry; but the best known, the dithyrambus of “Bacco in Toscana,” with its fiery swing and rush, leap, and lilt of melody, is perhaps the most perfect thing of its kind ever done. It awakened the enthusiasm of Leigh Hunt, from whose translation we have extracted a passage, and whose critically appreciative introduction is quoted below. “Bacco in Toscana” is not a poem to be looked on with favour by total abstainers; but wine of Montepulciano is not the most pernicious form of alcohol known to the world (the wine on which the German cavalier in the ballad drank himself to death was that of Montefiascone, on the other side of the Roman border), and, moreover, the poem is no proof that the poet really was in the habit of taking more than was good for him. “The ‘Bacco in Toscana,’” says Leigh Hunt, “was the first poem of its kind, and when a trifle is original even a trifle becomes worth something.... That the nature of the subject is partly a cause for its popularity, and that, for the same reason, it is impossible to convey a proper Italian sense of it to an Englishman is equally certain. But I hope it is not impossible to impart something of its spirit and vivacity. At all events, there is a novelty in it; the wine has a tune in the pouring out; and it is hard if some of the verses do not haunt a good-humoured reader, like a new air brought from the South.... It is observable that among the friends of our author were Carlo Dati, Francini, and Antonio Malatesti, three of Milton’s acquaintances when he was in Italy. Redi was only twelve years of age when Milton visited his country; but he may have seen him, and surely heard of him. It is pleasant to trace any kind of link between eminent men. There is reason to believe that our author was well known in England. Magalotti, who travelled there with Cosmo, and who afterwards translated Phillips’s Cyder, was one of his particular friends; and I cannot help thinking, from the irregularity of numbers in Dryden’s nobler dithyrambic, as well as from another poem of his (‘Dialogue of a Scholar and his Mistress’), that the ‘Bacco in Toscana’ had been seen by that great writer. Nothing is more likely; for, besides the connection between Cosmo and Charles II., James II. made a special request by his ambassador, Sir William Trumball, to have the poem sent him. When Spence was in Italy, many years afterwards, the name of Redi was still in great repute, both for his humorous poetry and his serious, though the wits had begun to find out that his real talent lay only in the former. Crudeli, a poet of that time, still in repute, told Spence that ‘Redi’s “Bacco in Toscana” was as lively and excellent as his sonnets were low and tasteless.’ And, after all, what is this ‘Bacco in Toscana’? It is an original, an effusion of animal spirits, a piece of Bacchanalian music. This is all; but this will not be regarded as nothing by those who know the value of originality, and who are thankful for any addition to our pleasures.... I wish that, by any process not interfering with the spirit of my original, I could make up to the English reader for the absence of that particular interest in a poem of this kind which arises from its being national. But this is impossible; and if he has neither a great understanding, nor a good-nature that supplies the want of it; if he is deficient in animal spirits, or does not value a supply of them; and, above all, if he has no ear for a dancing measure, and no laughing welcome for a sudden turn or two at the end of a passage—our author’s triumph over his cups will fall on his ear like ‘a jest unprofitable.’ I confess I have both enough melancholy and merriment in me to be at no time proof against a passage like—

‘Non fia già che il Cioccolatte