If the texts that have survived are somewhat scanty, there is good reason to believe that they form but a small portion of the eclogues actually represented at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. Thus we find a show, of the nature of which it is not altogether easy to judge, recorded in a letter by a certain Floriano Dulfo, written from Bologna in July, 1496[[382]]. It appears to have been a composition of some length, pastoral only in part, supernatural in others, but belonging on the whole rather to the cycle of chivalresque romance than of classical mythology. In Act I an astrologer announces the birth of a giant, who in Act II is represented as persecuting the shepherds. Acts III and IV are occupied by various complaints on his account In Act V, called by Dulfo 'la ultima comedia, overo egloga,' the giant carries off a nymph while she is gathering flowers; the shepherds, however, come to her rescue and restore her to her lover. This incident, reminiscent possibly of the rape of Proserpine, tends to connect the piece with the mythological tradition. So far as can be gathered, the verse appears to have been ottava rima with the introduction of lyrical passages. Again, we know that the representation of eclogues formed part of the festivities at the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with Giovanni Sforza in 1493, and again in 1502, when she espoused Alfonzo d' Este. In 1508 the carnival shows at Ferrara included three eclogues, the work respectively of Ercolo Pio, Antonio dall' Ongano. and Antonio Tebaldeo[[383]]. At Venice we have note of similar performances, and even find ecloghe mentioned among the forms of dramatic spectacle recognized by the laws of the state. I may also call attention in this connexion, and as illustrating the habituai introduction of acted eclogues in all forms of festival, to the occurrence of such a performance in a chivalrous romance by Cassio da Narni, entitled La morte del Danese[[384]]. The piece is, however, of the most primitive form, and must not be taken as typical of its date, just as the masques introduced into the plays of the Elizabethan drama are commonly of a far simpler order than actually represented at court. It may also not improbably have been influenced by the more popular form of rustic shows, as its description as a 'festa in atti rusticali' would seem to indicate.
Meanwhile the rustic eclogue was developing upon lines of its own, though rather in arrear of the courtly variety. In 1508 we find a piece in terza rima, exhibiting traces of Paduan dialect, composed or transcribed by one Cesare Nappi of Bologna, in which no less than fourteen 'villani' appear with their sweethearts to honour the feast of San Pancrazio[[385]]. Eating and dancing form the mainstay of the composition, and since the female characters are described but do not speak, it may be questioned whether the piece was intended for representation. Not till five years later have we any evidence of a rustic eclogue forming part of an actual show. In 1513, Giuliano de' Medici was at Rome, and in the entertainment provided at the Capitol on the occasion of his receiving the freedom of the city was included an eclogue by a certain 'Blosio,' otherwise Biagio Pallai delia Sabina, of the Roman Academy. The argument alone has come down to us. A rustic, who has first suffered at the hands of the foreign soldiers then overrunning Italy, and has afterwards been plundered by the sharper citizens of Rome, meets a friend with whom it has fared similarly, and the two determine to seek justice of the Conservators, as a last chance before retiring to live among the Turks, since a man may not abide in peace in a Christian land. They find the Capitol en fête, and the piece ends with a song in praise of Giuliano and Leo X[[386]]. Of the same year is the 'Egloga pastorale di Justitia,' the earliest extant specimen of the rustic dramatic eclogue proper. It is a satirical piece concerning a countryman, who fails to obtain justice because he is poor. He at last appeals to the king himself, but is again repulsed because he is accompanied by Truth in place of Adulation[[387]]. This form of composition, recalling as it does the allegories of Langland and other satirists of the middle ages, differs widely from that usually found in the courtly eclogues, nor is it typical of rustic representations. Again, to the same year, 1513, belongs an eclogue in rustic speech and Bellunese dialect, by Bartolommeo Cavassico, which like the Roman show turns upon the horrors of the war which had been devastating the country since 1508. Recollections of the 'tagliata di Cadore[[388]]' blend incongruously with fauns, nymphs, bears, pelicans, and wild men of the woods, to form a whole which appears to be of a decidedly burlesque character. The distribution, however, of these rustic eclogues never appears to have been very wide, and in later times they were chiefly confined to the representations of the famous Congrega dei Rozzi at Siena, though the activity of this society extended, it is true, far beyond the limits of its Tuscan home. Most of these representations, at any rate in the earlier years with which we are concerned, were short realistic farces of low life composed in dialectal verse. Some of the cleverest are by Francesco Berni, better known for his obscene capitoli and his rifacimento of Boiardo's Orlando, and appeared between 1537 and 1567; while in later days the kind attained its highest perfection in the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger, whose Tancia originally appeared in 1612[[389]].
It may be questioned to what extent these rustic shows influenced the development of the pastoral eclogue. Their recognition as a dramatic form was subsequent to that of the ecloga rappresentativa, and no element traceable to their influence can be shown to exist in the dramatic pastoral as finally evolved. On the other hand, we do undoubtedly meet with incidents and characters in the courtly shows which appear to belong to the style of the popular burlesque. A point of contact between the two traditions may be found in the commedie maggiaiuole, a sort of May-day shows also represented by the Rozzi, but of a more idealized character than the rustic drama proper. They may, indeed, be regarded as to some extent at least a parody of the two kinds--the courtly and the popular pastoral--since by combining the two each was made the foil and criticism of the other. Nymphs and shepherds appear as in the pastoral eclogues, but their loves are interrupted by the incursion of boisterous rustics, who substitute the unchastened instincts and brute force of half-savage boors for the delicate wooing and sentimentality of their rivals.
We return to the development of the dramatic eclogue in a work of some importance as marking an advance both in dramatic construction and versification. I due pellegrini[[390]], written not later than 1528, when the author, Luigi Tansillo, was a youth of sixteen or seventeen, was doubtless produced on some occasion before the court of the Orsini, at Nola, near Naples. It was revived with great pomp ten years later at Messina, when Don Garcia de Toledo, commander of the Neapolitan fleet, entertained Antonia Cardona, daughter of the Count of Colisano, for whose hand he was a suitor[[391]]. Two shepherds, pilgrims of love, bereft of the objects of their affection, the one through death, the other through inconstancy, meet in a forest and reason of the comparative hardness of their lots. Unable to decide the question, they each resolve to bear the strongest possible witness to the depth of their affliction by putting an end to their lives. At this moment, however, the voice of the dead mistress is heard from a neighbouring tree, persuading them to relinquish their intentions, reconciling them once more with the world and life, and directing them to join the festivities in the city of Nola. Here for the first time we meet with a pastoral composition of some length pretending to a dramatic solution, and contrasting with the stationary character of most of the eclogues we have been examining in that the change of purpose among the actors constitutes a sort of περιπέτεια, or rivolgimento. The piece is likewise important from a metrical point of view, since it not only contains a free intermixture of ottava and terza rima, and hendecasyllables with rimalmezzo, a favourite verse form in certain kinds of composition[[392]], but likewise foreshadows, in its mingling of freely riming hendecasyllables with settenarî, the peculiar measures of the pastoral drama proper. I due pellegrini was not, however, an altogether original composition. In 1525 had appeared a work by the Neapolitan Marco Antonio Epicuro de' Marsi, styled in the original edition 'dialogo di tre ciechi,' and in later reprints 'tragi-commedia intitulata Cecaria[[393]].' In this three blind men, one blind with love, another with jealousy, the third with gazing too intently on the sun-like beauty of his mistress, meet and determine to die together. They fall in, however, with a priest of Amor, who sends them back to their respective loves to be cured. It was this theme that Tansillo arranged in pastoral form, borrowing even the metres of the original, but it was just the element which justifies our including it here that he added, and it is useless to seek in Epicuro's work the origin of the form with which it was thus only accidentally associated.
A composition of some importance, dating from a period about two years later than Tansillo's piece, is an 'ecloga pastorale' by the 'mestissimo giovane' Luca di Lorenzo of Siena.[[394]] Two nymphs, by name Euridice and Diversa, respectively seek and shun the delights of love. They meet a citto--that is a bambino in Sienese dialect--who proves to be none other than Cupid himself, and rewards them according to their deserts, Euridice obtaining the love of the courtly shepherd Orindio, while Diversa is condemned to follow the rude and loveless Fantasia. The piece is written in a mixture of ottava and terza rima, with a variety of lyrics introduced. The contrast between the loving and the careless nymphs, and the episode of the latter being bound to a tree, appear to anticipate the later pastoral; while the introduction of Cupid as a dramatis persona carries one back to the mythological drama, and the rustic characters connect the piece with the plays of the Rozzi. Another composition of Tuscan origin is the Lilia, first printed in 1538, and composed throughout in polished octaves.[[395]] It merely relates how the shepherd Fileno courted the fair Lilia, a certain rustic element being introduced in the persons of the herdsmen Crotolo and Tirso.
With the Amaranta of Casalio we have been sufficiently concerned in the text (p. 172). It was printed at Venice in 1538,[[396]] having probably been written some years earlier. It is composed in ottava and terza rima, with the introduction of a canzonet, and marks an important advance on previous work, not only in the nature of the plot, but in being divided into acts and scenes. Sixteen years elapsed between the publication of Amaranta and the appearance of the regular pastoral drama in Beccari's Sacrifizio. Some time ago Stiefel pointed out a considerable hiatus at this point in Rossi's account, and mentioned certain works which might be expected to fill it. These and others have since been examined by Carducci, with the result that it is possible, at least partially, to bridge the gap. The period proves to be one less of gradual evolution than of conscious experiment. At least this is how I read the available evidence. Besides the Cecaria, mentioned above, Epicuro de' Marsi also left a manuscript play entitled Mirzia, which he describes as a 'favola boschereccia,' being thus the first to make use of the term later adopted by Tasso.[[397]] The piece, which was written some ten years before the author's death in 1555, leads us off into one of the numerous by-paths into which the pastorals of this period were for ever wandering. Two despised lovers, together with their friend Ottimo, witness unseen the dances of Diana and the nymphs, on which occasion Ottimo falls in love with the goddess herself. After passing through various plights, into which they are led by their love of the careless nymphs, they all have recourse to an oracle, whose predictions are fulfilled through a series of violent metamorphoses. This mixture of mythology and magic is wholly foreign to the spirit of the Arcadian drama, and the Mirzia cannot any more than the Cecaria be regarded as the progenitor of that form. I may mention incidentally that among the characters is a good-natured satyr, who consoles Ottimo in his hopeless passion for Diana.
Another attempt at mingling the pastoral with the mythological drama, and one which likewise exhibits a tendency to borrow from the rustic compositions, is the Florentine 'commedia pastorale' first printed in 1545 under the title of Silvia.[[398]] The author calls himself Fileno Addiacciato, from which it would appear that he was a member of the pastoral academy of the Addiaccio, founded at Prato in 1539 by Agnolo Firenzuola. The prologue relates how the first archimandrita of the academy, the title assumed by the president, here called Silvano, was driven out by his followers because of certain innovations he made, 'Alzando i Rozzi e deprimendo i buoni.' This would seem to imply that the head of the Addiacciati was expelled for evincing too particular an interest in the Sienese society, a piece of literary gossip fairly borne out by the little we know of the events which led up to Firenzuola's departure from Prato. The prologue, indeed, speaks of Silvano as already dead, which would appear to necessitate the placing of Firenzuola's death earlier by three years than the accepted date. The inference, however, is not necessary, since the expelled president might in his pastoral character be represented as dead though still alive in the flesh. The play itself, which is in five acts, and contains characters alike Olympian, Arcadian, and rustic, besides a hermit and a slave, is composed in a variety of metres--terza rima, octaves both sdrucciole and piane, and in the style alike of Poliziano and Lorenzo, hendecasyllables both blank and with rimalmezzo, and lyrical stanzas. The plot itself is of the simplest, and resembles that of the Amaranta. Through the sovereign will of Venus and Cupid, Silvia and Panfilo love. A temporary estrangement, brought about by the mischievous rustic Murrone and his burlesque courting of Silvia, is set right by an opportune appearance of Cupid just as the girl has determined on suicide, and the lovers are united according to the Christian rite by the hermit, in the presence of Cupid and Venus. What could be more complete?
The following year, 1546, saw the appearance in type of two eclogues, Erbusto and Filena, by a certain Giovanni Agostino Cazza or Caccia, the founder of a pastoral academy at Novara, for whose diversion the pieces were presumably composed.[[399]] The first of these, Erbusto, is in three acts, and terza rima. The elderly Erbusto is the rival of Ameto in the love of a shepherdess named Flora. The girl's affections are set on the younger suitor, and after some complications she is discovered to be Erbusto's own daughter, stolen as a baby during the war in Piedmont. Similar recognitions, imitated from the Roman comedy, are of frequent occurrence in the regular Italian drama, and are not uncommonly connected, as here, with some actual event in contemporary history. The second piece, Filena, runs to four acts, and has lyrical songs introduced into the terza rima. It appears to be a sufficiently shameless and somewhat formless farce, which, being quite alien from the spirit of the regular pastoral, need not be examined in detail.
To the next few years belong a series of 'giocose moderne e facetissime ecloghe pastorali,' by the Venetian Andrea Calmo, composed in endecasillabi sdruccioli sciolti, and published in 1553.[[400]] They introduce a number of dialects, suited to various personages; Arcadian shepherds like Lucido, Silvano, and the rest; rustics with names such as Grítolo di Burano, mythological figures, and a satiro villan who speaks Dalmatian. An advance in dramatization may perhaps be seen in the introduction of a second pair of lovers, while the writer goes even further than Beccari in the introduction of oracles (a point in which, however, he had been anticipated by the author of Mirzia), and an echo scene, a device of which Calmo's example is certainly of an elementary character.