Chapter 29

[829]Comp. the poetry, already quoted, of Politian and Luca Pulci (p. 349, note 3). Further, Paul. Jov.,Vita Leonis X.l. i.; Macchiavelli,Storie Fiorent., l. vii.; Paul. Jov.Elog., speaking of Pietro de’ Medici, who neglected his public duties for these amusements, and of Franc. Borbonius, who lost his life in them; Vasari, ix. 219,Vita di Granacci. In theMorganteof Pulci, written under the eyes of Lorenzo, the knights are comical in their language and actions, but their blows are sturdy and scientific. Bojardo, too, writes for those who understand the tournament and the art of war. Comp. p. 323. In earlier Florentine history we read of a tournament in honour of the king of France, c. 1380, in Leon. Aret.,Hist. Flor.lib. xi. ed. Argent, p. 222. The tournaments at Ferrara in 1464 are mentioned in theDiario Ferrar.in Murat. xxiv. col. 208; at Venice, see Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 153 sqq.; at Bologna in 1470 and after, see Bursellis,Annal. Bonon.Muratori xxiii. col. 898, 903, 906, 908, 911, where it is curious to note the odd mixture of sentimentalism attaching to the celebration of Roman triumphs; ‘ut antiquitas Romana renovata videretur,’ we read in one place. Frederick of Urbino (p. 44sqq.) lost his right eye at a tournament ‘ab ictu lanceae.’ On the tournament as held at that time in northern countries, see Olivier de la Marche,Mémoires,passim, and especially cap. 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, &c.[830]Bald. Castiglione.Il Cortigiano, l. i. fol. 18.[831]Paul. Jovii,Elogia, sub tit. Petrus Gravina, Alex. Achillinus, Balth. Castellio, &c. pp. 138 sqq. 112 sqq. 143 sqq.[832]Casa,Il Galateo, p. 78.[833]See on this point the Venetian books of fashions, and Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 150 sqq. The bridal dress at the betrothal—white, with the hair falling freely on the shoulders—is that of Titian’s Flora. The ‘Proveditori alle pompe’ at Venice established 1514. Extracts from their decisions in Armand Baschet,Souvenirs d’une Mission, Paris, 1857. Prohibition of gold-embroidered garments in Venice, 1481, which had formerly been worn even by the bakers’ wives; they were now to be decorated ‘gemmis unionibus,’ so that ‘frugalissimus ornatus’ cost 4,000 gold florins. M. Ant. Sabellici,Epist.lib. iii. (to M. Anto. Barbavarus).[834]Jovian. Pontan.De Principe: ‘Utinam autem non eo impudentiae perventum esset, ut inter mercatorem et patricium nullum sit in vestitu ceteroque ornatu discrimen. Sed haec tanta licentia reprehendi potest, coerceri non potest, quanquam mutari vestes sic quotidie videamus, ut quas quarto ante mense in deliciis habebamus, nunc repudiemus et tanquam veteramenta abjiciamus. Quodque tolerari vix potest, nullum fere vestimenti genus probatur, quod e Galliis non fuerit adductum, in quibus levia pleraque in pretio sunt, tametsi nostri persaepe homines modum illis et quasi formulam quandam praescribant.’[835]See e.g. theDiario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 297, 320, 376, sqq., in which the last German fashions are spoken of; the chronicler says, ‘Che pareno buffoni tali portatori.’[836]This interesting passage from a very rare work may be here quoted. See above, p. 83 note 1. The historical event referred to is the conquest of Milan by Antonio Leiva, the general of Charles V., in 1522. ‘Olim splendidissime vestiebant Mediolanenses. Sed postquam Carolus Cæsar in eam urbem tetram et monstruosam Bestiam immisit, it a consumpti et exhausti sunt, ut vestimentorum splendorem omnium maxime oderint, et quemadmodum ante illa durissima Antoniana tempora nihil aliud fere cogitabant quam de mutandis vestibus, nunc alia cogitant ac in mente versant. Non potuit tamen illa Leviana rabies tantum perdere, neque illa in exhausta depraedandi libidine tantum expilare, quin a re familiari adhuc belle parati fiant atque ita vestiant quemadmodum decere existimant. Et certe nisi illa Antonii Levae studia egregios quosdam imitatores invenisset, meo quidem judicio, nulli cederent. Neapolitani nimium exercent in vestitu sumptus. Genuensium vestitum perelegantem judico neque sagati sunt neque togati. Ferme oblitus eram Venetorum. Ii togati omnes. Decet quidem ille habitus adulta aetate homines, juvenes vero (si quid ego judico) minime utuntur panno quem ipsi vulgo Venetum appellant, ita probe confecto ut perpetuo durare existimes, saepissime vero eas vestes gestant nepotes, quas olim tritavi gestarunt. Noctu autem dum scortantur ac potant, Hispanicis palliolis utuntur. Ferrarienses ac Mantuani nihil tam diligenter curant, quam ut pileos habeant aureis quibusdam frustillis adornatos, atque nutanti capite incedunt seque quovis honore dignos existimant, Lucenses neque superbo, neque abjecto vestitu. Florentinorum habitus mihi quidem ridiculus videtur. Reliquos omitto, ne nimius sim.’ Ugolinus Verinus, ‘de illustratione urbis Florentiae’ says of the simplicity of the good old time:‘Non externis advecta BritannisLana erat in pretio, non concha aut coccus in usu.’[837]Comp. the passages on the same subject in Falke,Die deutsche Trachten- und Modenwelt, Leipzig, 1858.[838]On the Florentine women, see the chief references in Giov. Villani, x. 10 and 150 (Regulations as to dress and their repeal); Matteo Villani, i. 4 (Extravagant living in consequence of the plague). In the celebrated edict on fashions of the year 1330, embroidered figures only were allowed on the dresses of women, to the exclusion of those which were painted (dipinto). What was the nature of these decorations appears doubtful. There is a list of the arts of the toilette practised by women in Boccaccio,De Cas. Vir. Ill.lib. i. cap. 18, ‘in mulieres.’[839]Those of real hair were called ‘capelli morti.’ Wigs were also worn by men, as by Giannozzo Manetti,Vesp. Bist. Commentario, p. 103; so at least we explain this somewhat obscure passage. For an instance of false teeth made of ivory, and worn, though only for the sake of clear articulation, by an Italian prelate, see Anshelm,Berner Chronik, iv. p. 30 (1508). Ivory teeth in Boccaccio, l. c.: ‘Dentes casu sublatos reformare ebore fuscatos pigmentis gemmisque in albedinem revocare pristinam.’[840]Infessura, in Eccard,Scriptores, ii. col. 1874: Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 823. For the writers on Savonarola, see below.[841]Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 152: ‘Capelli biondissimi per forza di sole.’ Comp. p. 89, and the rare works quoted by Yriarte, ‘Vie d’un Patricien de Venise’ (1874), p. 56.[842]As was the case in Germany too.Poesie satiriche, p. 119. From the satire of Bern. Giambullari, ‘Per prendere moglie’ (pp. 107-126), we can form a conception of the chemistry of the toilette, which was founded largely on superstition and magic.[843]The poets spared no pains to show the ugliness, danger, and absurdity of these practices. Comp. Ariosto,Sat.iii. 202 sqq.; Aretino,Il Marescalco, atto ii. scena 5; and several passages in theRagionamenti; Giambullari, l. c. Phil. Beroald. sen.Garmina. Also Filelfo in his Satires (Venice, 1502, iv. 2-5 sqq.).[844]Cennino Cennini,Trattato della Pittura, gives in cap. 161 a recipe for painting the face, evidently for the purpose of mysteries or masquerades, since, in cap. 162, he solemnly warns his readers against the general use of cosmetics and the like, which was peculiarly common, as he tells us (p. 146sqq.), in Tuscany.[845]Comp.La Nencia di Barberino, str. 20 and 40. The lover promises to bring his beloved cosmetics from the town (see on this poem of Lorenzo dei Medici, above, p. 101).[846]Agnolo Pandolfini,Trattato della Governo della Famiglia, p. 118. He condemns this practice most energetically.[847]Tristan. Caracciolo, in Murat. xxii. col. 87. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 47.[848]Cap. i. to Cosimo: “Quei cento scudi nuovi e profumati che l’altro di mi mandaste a donare.” Some objects which date from that period have not yet lost their odour.[849]Vespasiano Fiorent. p. 453, in the life of Donato Acciajuoli, and p. 625, in the life of Niccoli. See above, vol. i. p. 303 sqq.[850]Giraldi,Hecatommithi, Introduz. nov. 6. A few notices on the Germans in Italy may not here be out of place. On the fear of German invasion, see p. 91, note 2; on Germans as copyists and printers, p. 193 sqq. and the notes; on the ridicule of Hadrian VI. as a German, p. 227 and notes. The Italians were in general ill-disposed to the Germans, and showed their ill-will by ridicule. Boccaccio (Decam.viii. 1) says: ‘Un Tedesco in soldo prò della persona è assai leale a coloro ne’ cui servigi si mattea; il che rade volte suole de’ Tedeschi avenire.’ The tale is given as an instance of German cunning. The Italian humanists are full of attacks on the German barbarians, and especially those who, like Poggio, had seen Germany. Comp. Voigt,Wiederbelebung, 374 sqq.; Geiger,Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Italien Zeit des HumanismusinZeitschrift für deutsche Culturgeschichte, 1875, pp. 104-124; see also Janssen,Gesch. der deutschen Volkes, i. 262. One of the chief opponents of the Germans was Joh. Ant. Campanus. See his works, ed. Mencken, who delivered a discourse ‘De Campani odio in Germanos.’ The hatred of the Germans was strengthened by the conduct of Hadrian VI., and still more by the conduct of the troops at the sack of Rome (Gregorovius, viii. 548, note). Bandello III. nov. 30, chooses the German as the type of the dirty and foolish man (see iii. 51, for another German). When an Italian wishes to praise a German he says, as Petrus Alcyonius in the dedication to his dialogueDe Exilio, to Nicolaus Schomberg, p. 9: ‘Itaque etsi in Misnensi clarissima Germaniæ provincia illustribus natalibus ortus es, tamen in Italiae luce cognosceris.’ Unqualified praise is rare, e.g. of German women at the time of Marius,Cortigiano, iii. cap. 33.It must be added that the Italians of the Renaissance, like the Greeks of antiquity, were filled with aversion for all barbarians. Boccaccio,De claris Mulieribus, in the article ‘Carmenta,’ speaks of ‘German barbarism, French savagery, English craft, and Spanish coarseness.’[851]Paul. Jov.Elogia, p. 289, who, however, makes no mention of the German education. Maximilian could not be induced, even by celebrated women, to change his underclothing.[852]Æneas Sylvius (Vitae Paparum, ap. Murat. iii. ii. col. 880) says, in speaking of Baccano: ‘Pauca sunt mapalia, eaque hospitia faciunt Theutonici; hoc hominum genus totam fere Italiam hospitalem facit; ubi non repereris hos, neque diversorium quaeras.’[853]Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 21. Padua, about the year 1450, boasted of a great inn—the ‘Ox’—like a palace, containing stabling for two hundred horses. Michele Savonarola, in Mur. xxiv. col. 1175. At Florence, outside the Porta San Gallo, there was one of the largest and most splendid inns then known, but which served, it seems, only as a place of amusement for the people of the city. Varchi,Stor. Fior.iii. p. 86. At the time of Alexander VI. the best inn at Rome was kept by a German. See the remarkable notices taken from the MS. of Burcardus in Gregorovius, vii. 361, note 2. Comp.ibid.p. 93, notes 2 and 3.[854]Comp. e.g. the passages in Sebastian Brant’sNarrenschiff, in the Colloquies of Erasmus, in the Latin poem of Grobianus, &c., and poems on behaviour at table, where, besides descriptions of bad habits, rules are given for good behaviour. For one of these, see C. Weller,Deutsche Gedichte der Jahrhunderts, Tübingen, 1875.[855]The diminution of the ‘burla’ is evident from the instances in theCortigiano, l. ii. fol. 96. The Florence practical jokes kept their ground tenaciously. See, for evidence, the tales of Lasca (Ant. Franc. Grazini, b. 1503, d. 1582), which appeared at Florence in 1750.[856]For Milan, see Bandello, parte i. nov. 9. There were more than sixty carriages with four, and numberless others with two, horses, many of them carved and richly gilt and with silken tops. Comp.ibid.nov. 4. Ariosto,Sat.iii. 127.[857]Bandello, parte i. nov. 3, iii. 42, iv. 25.[858]De Vulgari Eloquio, ed. Corbinelli, Parisiis, 1577. According to Boccaccio,Vita di Dante, p. 77, it was written shortly before his death. He mentions in theConvitothe rapid and striking changes which took place during his lifetime in the Italian language.[859]See on this subject the investigations of Lionardo Aretino (Epist.ed. Mehus. ii. 62 sqq. lib. vi. 10) and Poggio (Historiae disceptativae convivales tres, in theOpp.fol. 14 sqq.), whether in earlier times the language of the people and of scholars was the same. Lionardo maintains the negative; Poggio expressly maintains the affirmative against his predecessor. See also the detailed argument of L. B. Alberti in the introduction toDella Famiglia, book iii., on the necessity of Italian for social intercourse.[860]The gradual progress which this dialect made in literature and social intercourse could be tabulated without difficulty by a native scholar. It could be shown to what extent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the various dialects kept their places, wholly or partly, in correspondence, in official documents, in historical works, and in literature generally. The relations between the dialects and a more or less impure Latin, which served as the official language, would also be discussed. The modes of speech and pronunciation in the different cities of Italy are noticed in Landi,Forcianae Quaestiones, fol. 7a.Of the former he says: ‘Hetrusci vero quanquam caeteris excellant, effugere tamen non possunt, quin et ipsi ridiculi sint, aut saltem quin se mutuo lacerent;’ as regards pronunciation, the Sienese, Lucchese, and Florentines are specially praised; but of the Florentines it is said: ‘Plus (jucunditatis) haberet si voces non ingurgitaret aut non ita palato lingua jungeretur.’[861]It is so felt to be by Dante,De Vulgari Eloquio.[862]Tuscan, it is true, was read and written long before this in Piedmont—but very little reading and writing was done at all.[863]The place, too, of the dialect in the usage of daily life was clearly understood. Gioviano Pontano ventured especially to warn the prince of Naples against the use of it (Jov. Pontan.De Principe). The last Bourbons were notoriously less scrupulous in this respect. For the way in which a Milanese Cardinal, who wished to retain his native dialect in Rome was ridiculed, see Bandello, parte ii. nov. 31.[864]Bald. Castiglione,Il Cortigiano, l. i. fol. 27 sqq. Throughout the dialogue we are able to gather the personal opinion of the writer. The opposition to Petrarch and Boccaccio is very curious (Dante is not once mentioned). We read that Politian, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and others were also Tuscans, and as worthy of imitation as they, ‘e forse di non minor dottrina e guidizio.’[865]There was a limit, however, to this. The satirists introduce bits of Spanish, and Folengo (under the pseudonym Limerno Pitocco, in hisOrlandino) of French, but only by way of ridicule. It is an exceptional fact that a street in Milan, which at the time of the French (1500 to 1512, 1515 to 1522) was called Rue Belle, now bears the name Rugabella. The long Spanish rule has left almost no traces on the language, and but rarely the name of some governor in streets and public buildings. It was not till the eighteenth century that, together with French modes of thought, many French words and phrases found their way into Italian. The purism of our century is still busy in removing them.[866]Firenzuola,Opera, i. in the preface to the discourse on female beauty, and ii. in theRagionamentiwhich precede the novels.[867]Bandello, parte i.Proemio, and nov. 1 and 2. Another Lombard, the before-mentioned Teofilo Folengo in hisOrlandino, treats the whole matter with ridicule.[868]Such a congress appears to have been held at Bologna at the end of 1531 under the presidency of Bembo. See the letter of Claud. Tolomai, in Firenzuola,Opere, vol. ii. append. p. 231 sqq. But this was not so much a matter of purism, but rather the old quarrel between Lombards and Tuscans.[869]Luigi Cornaro complains about 1550 (at the beginning of hisTrattato della Vita Sobria) that latterly Spanish ceremonies and compliments, Lutheranism and gluttony had been gaining ground in Italy. With moderation in respect to the entertainment offered to guests, the freedom and ease of social intercourse disappeared.[870]Vasari, xii. p. 9 and 11,Vita di Rustici. For the School for Scandal of needy artists, see xi. 216 sqq.,Vita d’Aristotile. Macchiavelli’sCapitolifor a circle of pleasure-seekers (Opere minori, p. 407) are a ludicrous caricature of these social statutes. The well-known description of the evening meeting of artists in Rome in Benvenuto Cellini, i. cap. 30 is incomparable.[871]Which must have been taken about 10 or 11 o’clock. See Bandello, parte ii. nov. 10.[872]Prato,Arch. Stor.iii. p. 309, calls the ladies ‘alquante ministre di Venere.’[873]Biographical information and some of her letters in A. v. Reumont’sBriefe heiliger und gottesfürchtiger Italiener. Freiburg (1877) p. 22 sqq.[874]Important passages: parte i. nov. 1, 3, 21, 30, 44; ii. 10, 34, 55; iii. 17, &c.[875]Comp.Lorenzo Magn. dei Med., Poesie, i. 204 (the Symposium); 291 (the Hawking-Party). Roscoe,Vita di Lorenzo, iii. p. 140, and append. 17 to 19.[876]The title ‘Simposio’ is inaccurate; it should be called, ‘The return from the Vintage.’ Lorenzo, in a parody of Dante’s Hell, gives an amusing account of his meeting in the Via Faenza all his good friends coming back from the country more or less tipsy. There is a most comical picture in the eighth chapter of Piovanno Arlotto, who sets out in search of his lost thirst, armed with dry meat, a herring, a piece of cheese, a sausage, and four sardines, ‘e tutte si cocevan nel sudore.’[877]On Cosimo Ruccellai as centre of this circle at the beginning of the sixteenth century, see Macchiavelli,Arte della Guerra, l. i.[878]Il Cortigiano, l. ii. fol. 53. See above pp. 121, 139.[879]Caelius Calcagninus (Opere, p. 514) describes the education of a young Italian of position about the year 1506, in the funeral speech on Antonio Costabili: first, ‘artes liberales et ingenuae disciplinae; tum adolescentia in iis exercitationibus acta, quæ ad rem militarem corpus et animum praemuniunt. Nunc gymnastae (i.e. the teachers of gymnastics) operam dare, luctari, excurrere, natare, equitare, venari, aucupari, ad palum et apud lanistam ictus inferre aut declinare, caesim punctimve hostem ferire, hastam vibrare, sub armis hyemen juxta et aestatem traducere, lanceis occursare, veri ac communis Martis simulacra imitari.’ Cardanus (De prop. Vita, c. 7) names among his gymnastic exercises the springing on to a wooden horse. Comp. Rabelais,Gargantua, i. 23, 24, for education in general, and 35 for gymnastic art. Even for the philologists, Marsilius Ficinus (Epist.iv. 171 Galeotto) requires gymnastics, and Maffeo Vegio (De Puerorum Educatione, lib. iii. c. 5) for boys.[880]Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 172 sqq. They are said to have arisen through the rowing out to the Lido, where the practice with the crossbow took place. The great regatta on the feast of St. Paul was prescribed by law from 1315 onwards. In early times there was much riding in Venice, before the streets were paved and the level wooden bridges turned into arched stone ones. Petrarch (Epist. Seniles, iv. 4) describes a brilliant tournament held in 1364 on the square of St. Mark, and the Doge Steno, about the year 1400, had as fine a stable as any prince in Italy. But riding in the neighbourhood of the square was prohibited as a rule after the year 1291. At a later time the Venetians naturally had the name of bad riders. See Ariosto,Sat.v. 208.[881]See on this subject:Ueber den Einfluss der Renaissance auf die Entwickelung der Musik, by Bernhard Loos, Basel, 1875, which, however, hardly offers for this period more than is given here. On Dante’s position with regard to music, and on the music to Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s poems, see Trucchi,Poesie Ital. inedite, ii. p. 139. See alsoPoesie Musicali dei Secoli XIV., XV. e XVI. tratte da vari codici per cura di Antonio Cappelli, Bologna, 1868. For the theorists of the fourteenth century, Filippo Villani,Vite, p. 46, and Scardeonius,De urb. Pativ. antiq.in Graev. Thesaur, vi. iii. col. 297. A full account of the music at the court of Frederick of Urbino, is to be found inVespes. Fior.p. 122. For the children’s chapel (ten children 6 to 8 years old whom F. had educated in his house, and who were taught singing), at the court of Hercules I., seeDiario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 359. Out of Italy it was still hardly allowable for persons of consequence to be musicians; at the Flemish court of the young Charles V. a serious dispute took place on the subject. See Hubert. Leod.De Vita Frid. II. Palat.l. iii. Henry VIII. of England is an exception, and also the German Emperor Maximilian, who favoured music as well as all other arts. Joh. Cuspinian, in his life of the Emperor, calls him ‘Musices singularis amator’ and adds, ‘Quod vel hinc maxime patet, quod nostra aetate musicorum principes omnes, in omni genere musices omnibusque instrumentis in ejus curia, veluti in fertilissimo agro succreverant. Scriberem catalogum musicorum quos novi, nisi magnitudinem operis vererer.’ In consequence of this, music was much cultivated at the University of Vienna. The presence of the musical young Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan contributed to this result. See Aschbach,Gesch. der Wiener Universität(1877), vol. ii. 79 sqq.A remarkable and comprehensive passage on music is to be found, where we should not expect it, in the Maccaroneide, Phant. xx. It is a comic description of a quartette, from which we see that Spanish and French songs were often sung, that music already had its enemies (1520), and that the chapel of Leo X. and the still earlier composer, Josquin des Près, whose principal works are mentioned, were the chief subjects of enthusiasm in the musical world of that time. The same writer (Folengo) displays in hisOrlandino(iii. 23 &c.), published under the name Limerno Pitocco, a musical fanaticism of a thoroughly modern sort.Barth. Facius,De Vir. Ill.p. 12, praises Leonardus Justinianus as a composer, who produced love-songs in his youth, and religious pieces in his old age. J. A. Campanus (Epist.i. 4, ed. Mencken) extols the musician Zacarus at Teramo and says of him, ‘Inventa pro oraculis habentur.’ Thomas of Forli ‘musicien du pape’ inBurchardi Diarium, ed. Leibnitz, pp. 62 sqq.[882]Leonis Vita anonyma, in Roscoe, ed. Bossi, xii. p. 171. May he not be the violinist in the Palazzo Sciarra? A certain Giovan Maria da Corneto is praised in theOrlandino(Milan, 1584, iii. 27).[883]Lomazzo,Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, &c. p. 347. The text, however, does not bear out the last statement, which perhaps rests on a misunderstanding of the final sentence, ‘Et insieme vi si possono gratiosamente rappresentar convitti et simili abbellimenti, che il pittore leggendo i poeti e gli historici può trovare copiosamente et anco essendo ingenioso et ricco d’invenzione può per se stesso imaginare?’ Speaking of the lyre, he mentions Lionardo da Vinci and Alfonso (Duke?) of Ferrara. The author includes in his work all the celebrities of the age, among them several Jews. The most complete list of the famous musicians of the sixteenth century, divided into an earlier and a later generation, is to be found in Rabelais, in the ‘New Prologue’ to the fourth book. A virtuoso, the blind Francesco of Florence (d. 1390), was crowned at Venice with a wreath of laurel by the King of Cyprus.[884]Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 138. The same people naturally collected books of music. Sansovino’s words are, ‘è vera cosa che la musica ha la sua propria sede in questa città.’[885]The ‘Academia de’ Filarmonici’ at Verona is mentioned by Vasari, xi. 133, in the life of Sanmichele. Lorenzo Magnifico was in 1480 already the centre of a School of Harmony consisting of fifteen members, among them the famous organist and organ-builder Squarcialupi. See Delecluze,Florence et ses Vicissitudes, vol. ii. p. 256, and Reumont,L. d. M.i. 177 sqq., ii. 471-473. Marsilio Ficino took part in these exercises and gives in his letters (Epist.i. 73, iii. 52, v. 15) remarkable rules as to music. Lorenzo seems to have transmitted his passion for music to his son Leo X. His eldest son Pietro was also musical.[886]Il Cortigiano, fol. 56, comp. fol. 41.[887]Quatro viole da arco’—a high and, except in Italy, rare achievement for amateurs.[888]Bandello, parte i. nov. 26. The song of Antonio Bologna in the House of Ippolita Bentivoglio. Comp. iii. 26. In these delicate days, this would be called a profanation of the holiest feelings. (Comp. the last song of Britannicus, Tacit.Annal.xiii. 15.) Recitations accompanied by the lute or ‘viola’ are not easy to distinguish, in the accounts left us, from singing properly so-called.[889]Scardeonius, l. c.[890]For biographies of women, see above, p. 147 and note 1. Comp. the excellent work of Attilio Hortis:Le Donne Famose, descritte da Giovanni Boccacci. Trieste, 1877.[891]E.g. in Castiglione,Il Cortigiano. In the same strain Francesco Barbaro,De Re Uxoria; Poggio,An Seni sit Uxor ducenda, in which much evil is said of women; the ridicule of Codro Urceo, especially his remarkable discourse,An Uxor sit ducenda(Opera, 1506, fol. xviii.-xxi.), and the sarcasms of many of the epigrammatists. Marcellus Palingenius, (vol. i. 304) recommends celibacy in various passages, lib. iv. 275 sqq., v. 466-585; as a means of subduing disobedient wives he recommends to married people,‘Tu verbera misceTergaque nunc duro resonent pulsata bacillo.’Italian writers on the woman’s side are Benedetto da Cesena,De Honore Mulierum, Venice, 1500, Dardano,La defesa della Donna, Ven. 1554,Per Donne Romane. ed. Manfredi, Bol. 1575. The defence of, or attack on, women, supported by instances of famous or infamous women down to the time of the writer, was also treated by the Jews, partly in Italian and partly in Hebrew; and in connection with an earlier Jewish literature dating from the thirteenth century, we may mention Abr. Sarteano and Eliah Gennazzano, the latter of whom defended the former against the attacks of Abigdor (for their MS. poems about year 1500, comp. Steinschneider,Hebr. Bibliogr.vi. 48).[892]Addressed to Annibale Maleguccio, sometimes numbered as the 5th or the 6th.[893]When the Hungarian Queen Beatrice, a Neapolitan princess, came to Vienna in 1485, she was addressed in Latin, and ‘arrexit diligentissime aures domina regina saepe, cum placide audierat, subridendo.’ Aschbach, o. c. vol. ii. 10 note.[894]The share taken by women in the plastic arts was insignificant. The learned Isotta Nogarola deserves a word of mention. On her intercourse with Guarino, see Rosmini, ii. 67 sqq.; with Pius II. see Voigt, iii. 515 sqq.[895]It is from this point of view that we must judge of the life of Allessandra de’ Bardi in Vespasiano Fiorentino (Mai,Spicileg.rom. i. p. 593 sqq.) The author, by the way, is a great ‘laudator temporis acti,’ and it must not be forgotten that nearly a hundred years before what he calls the good old time, Boccaccio wrote theDecameron. On the culture and education of the Italian women of that day, comp. the numerous facts quoted in Gregorovius,Lucrezia Borgia. There is a catalogue of the books possessed by Lucrezia in 1502 and 3 (Gregorovius, ed. 3, i. 310, ii. 167), which may be considered characteristic of the Italian women of the period. We there find a Breviary; a little book with the seven psalms and some prayers; a parchment book with gold miniature, calledDe Coppelle alla Spagnola; the printed letters of Catherine of Siena; the printed epistles and gospels in Italian; a religious book in Spanish; a MS. collection of Spanish odes, with the proverbs of Domenico Lopez; a printed book, calledAquila Volante; theMirror of Faithprinted in Italian; an Italian printed book calledThe Supplement of Chronicles; a printed Dante, with commentary; an Italian book on philosophy; the legends of the saints in Italian; an old bookDe Ventura; a Donatus; a Life of Christ in Spanish; a MS. Petrarch, on duodecimo parchment. A second catalogue of the year 1516 contains no secular books whatever.[896]Ant. Galateo,Epist. 3, to the young Bona Sforza, the future wife of Sigismund of Poland: ‘Incipe aliquid de viro sapere, quoniam ad imperandum viris nata es.... Ita fac, ut sapientibus viris placeas, ut te prudentes et graves viri admirentur, et vulgi et muliercularum studia et judicia despicias,’ &c. A remarkable letter in other respects also (Mai.Spicileg. Rom.viii. p. 532).[897]She is so called in theChron. Venetum, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 121 sqq. (in the account of her heroic defence,ibid.col. 121 she is called a virago). Comp. Infessura in Eccard,Scriptt.ii. col. 1981, andArch. Stor.append. ii. p. 250, and Gregorovius, vii. 437 note 1.[898]Contemporary historians speak of her more than womanly intellect and eloquence. Comp. Ranke’sFilippo Strozzi, inHistorisch-biographische Studien, p. 371 note 2.[899]And rightly so, sometimes. How ladies should behave while such tales are telling, we learn fromCortigiano, l. iii. fol. 107. That the ladies who were present at his dialogues must have known how to conduct themselves in case of need, is shown by the strong passage, l. ii. fol. 100. What is said of the ‘Donna di Palazzo’—the counterpart of the Cortigiano—that she should neither avoid frivolous company nor use unbecoming language, is not decisive, since she was far more the servant of the princess than the Cortigiano of the prince. See Bandello, i. nov. 44. Bianca d’Este tells the terrible love-story of her ancestor, Niccolò of Ferrara, and Parisina. The tales put into the mouths of the women in theDecameronmay also serve as instances of this indelicacy. For Bandello, see above, p. 145; and Landau,Beitr. z. Gesch. der Ital. Nov.Vienna, 1875, p. 102. note 32.[900]Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 152 sqq. How highly the travelled Italians valued the freer intercourse with girls in England and the Netherlands is shown by Bandello, ii. nov. 44, and iv. nov. 27. For the Venetian women and the Italian women generally, see the work of Yriarte, pp. 50 sqq.[901]Paul. Jov.De Rom. Piscibus, cap. 5; Bandello, parte iii. nov. 42. Aretino, in theRagionamento del Zoppino, p. 327, says of a courtesan: ‘She knows by heart all Petrarch and Boccaccio, and many beautiful verses of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and a thousand other authors.’[902]Bandello, ii. 51, iv. 16.[903]Bandello, iv. 8.[904]For a characteristic instance of this, see Giraldi,Hecatomithi, vi nov. 7.

[830]Bald. Castiglione.Il Cortigiano, l. i. fol. 18.

[831]Paul. Jovii,Elogia, sub tit. Petrus Gravina, Alex. Achillinus, Balth. Castellio, &c. pp. 138 sqq. 112 sqq. 143 sqq.

[832]Casa,Il Galateo, p. 78.

[833]See on this point the Venetian books of fashions, and Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 150 sqq. The bridal dress at the betrothal—white, with the hair falling freely on the shoulders—is that of Titian’s Flora. The ‘Proveditori alle pompe’ at Venice established 1514. Extracts from their decisions in Armand Baschet,Souvenirs d’une Mission, Paris, 1857. Prohibition of gold-embroidered garments in Venice, 1481, which had formerly been worn even by the bakers’ wives; they were now to be decorated ‘gemmis unionibus,’ so that ‘frugalissimus ornatus’ cost 4,000 gold florins. M. Ant. Sabellici,Epist.lib. iii. (to M. Anto. Barbavarus).

[834]Jovian. Pontan.De Principe: ‘Utinam autem non eo impudentiae perventum esset, ut inter mercatorem et patricium nullum sit in vestitu ceteroque ornatu discrimen. Sed haec tanta licentia reprehendi potest, coerceri non potest, quanquam mutari vestes sic quotidie videamus, ut quas quarto ante mense in deliciis habebamus, nunc repudiemus et tanquam veteramenta abjiciamus. Quodque tolerari vix potest, nullum fere vestimenti genus probatur, quod e Galliis non fuerit adductum, in quibus levia pleraque in pretio sunt, tametsi nostri persaepe homines modum illis et quasi formulam quandam praescribant.’

[835]See e.g. theDiario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 297, 320, 376, sqq., in which the last German fashions are spoken of; the chronicler says, ‘Che pareno buffoni tali portatori.’

[836]This interesting passage from a very rare work may be here quoted. See above, p. 83 note 1. The historical event referred to is the conquest of Milan by Antonio Leiva, the general of Charles V., in 1522. ‘Olim splendidissime vestiebant Mediolanenses. Sed postquam Carolus Cæsar in eam urbem tetram et monstruosam Bestiam immisit, it a consumpti et exhausti sunt, ut vestimentorum splendorem omnium maxime oderint, et quemadmodum ante illa durissima Antoniana tempora nihil aliud fere cogitabant quam de mutandis vestibus, nunc alia cogitant ac in mente versant. Non potuit tamen illa Leviana rabies tantum perdere, neque illa in exhausta depraedandi libidine tantum expilare, quin a re familiari adhuc belle parati fiant atque ita vestiant quemadmodum decere existimant. Et certe nisi illa Antonii Levae studia egregios quosdam imitatores invenisset, meo quidem judicio, nulli cederent. Neapolitani nimium exercent in vestitu sumptus. Genuensium vestitum perelegantem judico neque sagati sunt neque togati. Ferme oblitus eram Venetorum. Ii togati omnes. Decet quidem ille habitus adulta aetate homines, juvenes vero (si quid ego judico) minime utuntur panno quem ipsi vulgo Venetum appellant, ita probe confecto ut perpetuo durare existimes, saepissime vero eas vestes gestant nepotes, quas olim tritavi gestarunt. Noctu autem dum scortantur ac potant, Hispanicis palliolis utuntur. Ferrarienses ac Mantuani nihil tam diligenter curant, quam ut pileos habeant aureis quibusdam frustillis adornatos, atque nutanti capite incedunt seque quovis honore dignos existimant, Lucenses neque superbo, neque abjecto vestitu. Florentinorum habitus mihi quidem ridiculus videtur. Reliquos omitto, ne nimius sim.’ Ugolinus Verinus, ‘de illustratione urbis Florentiae’ says of the simplicity of the good old time:‘Non externis advecta BritannisLana erat in pretio, non concha aut coccus in usu.’

‘Non externis advecta BritannisLana erat in pretio, non concha aut coccus in usu.’

[837]Comp. the passages on the same subject in Falke,Die deutsche Trachten- und Modenwelt, Leipzig, 1858.

[838]On the Florentine women, see the chief references in Giov. Villani, x. 10 and 150 (Regulations as to dress and their repeal); Matteo Villani, i. 4 (Extravagant living in consequence of the plague). In the celebrated edict on fashions of the year 1330, embroidered figures only were allowed on the dresses of women, to the exclusion of those which were painted (dipinto). What was the nature of these decorations appears doubtful. There is a list of the arts of the toilette practised by women in Boccaccio,De Cas. Vir. Ill.lib. i. cap. 18, ‘in mulieres.’

[839]Those of real hair were called ‘capelli morti.’ Wigs were also worn by men, as by Giannozzo Manetti,Vesp. Bist. Commentario, p. 103; so at least we explain this somewhat obscure passage. For an instance of false teeth made of ivory, and worn, though only for the sake of clear articulation, by an Italian prelate, see Anshelm,Berner Chronik, iv. p. 30 (1508). Ivory teeth in Boccaccio, l. c.: ‘Dentes casu sublatos reformare ebore fuscatos pigmentis gemmisque in albedinem revocare pristinam.’

[840]Infessura, in Eccard,Scriptores, ii. col. 1874: Allegretto, in Murat. xxiii. col. 823. For the writers on Savonarola, see below.

[841]Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 152: ‘Capelli biondissimi per forza di sole.’ Comp. p. 89, and the rare works quoted by Yriarte, ‘Vie d’un Patricien de Venise’ (1874), p. 56.

[842]As was the case in Germany too.Poesie satiriche, p. 119. From the satire of Bern. Giambullari, ‘Per prendere moglie’ (pp. 107-126), we can form a conception of the chemistry of the toilette, which was founded largely on superstition and magic.

[843]The poets spared no pains to show the ugliness, danger, and absurdity of these practices. Comp. Ariosto,Sat.iii. 202 sqq.; Aretino,Il Marescalco, atto ii. scena 5; and several passages in theRagionamenti; Giambullari, l. c. Phil. Beroald. sen.Garmina. Also Filelfo in his Satires (Venice, 1502, iv. 2-5 sqq.).

[844]Cennino Cennini,Trattato della Pittura, gives in cap. 161 a recipe for painting the face, evidently for the purpose of mysteries or masquerades, since, in cap. 162, he solemnly warns his readers against the general use of cosmetics and the like, which was peculiarly common, as he tells us (p. 146sqq.), in Tuscany.

[845]Comp.La Nencia di Barberino, str. 20 and 40. The lover promises to bring his beloved cosmetics from the town (see on this poem of Lorenzo dei Medici, above, p. 101).

[846]Agnolo Pandolfini,Trattato della Governo della Famiglia, p. 118. He condemns this practice most energetically.

[847]Tristan. Caracciolo, in Murat. xxii. col. 87. Bandello, parte ii. nov. 47.

[848]Cap. i. to Cosimo: “Quei cento scudi nuovi e profumati che l’altro di mi mandaste a donare.” Some objects which date from that period have not yet lost their odour.

[849]Vespasiano Fiorent. p. 453, in the life of Donato Acciajuoli, and p. 625, in the life of Niccoli. See above, vol. i. p. 303 sqq.

[850]Giraldi,Hecatommithi, Introduz. nov. 6. A few notices on the Germans in Italy may not here be out of place. On the fear of German invasion, see p. 91, note 2; on Germans as copyists and printers, p. 193 sqq. and the notes; on the ridicule of Hadrian VI. as a German, p. 227 and notes. The Italians were in general ill-disposed to the Germans, and showed their ill-will by ridicule. Boccaccio (Decam.viii. 1) says: ‘Un Tedesco in soldo prò della persona è assai leale a coloro ne’ cui servigi si mattea; il che rade volte suole de’ Tedeschi avenire.’ The tale is given as an instance of German cunning. The Italian humanists are full of attacks on the German barbarians, and especially those who, like Poggio, had seen Germany. Comp. Voigt,Wiederbelebung, 374 sqq.; Geiger,Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Italien Zeit des HumanismusinZeitschrift für deutsche Culturgeschichte, 1875, pp. 104-124; see also Janssen,Gesch. der deutschen Volkes, i. 262. One of the chief opponents of the Germans was Joh. Ant. Campanus. See his works, ed. Mencken, who delivered a discourse ‘De Campani odio in Germanos.’ The hatred of the Germans was strengthened by the conduct of Hadrian VI., and still more by the conduct of the troops at the sack of Rome (Gregorovius, viii. 548, note). Bandello III. nov. 30, chooses the German as the type of the dirty and foolish man (see iii. 51, for another German). When an Italian wishes to praise a German he says, as Petrus Alcyonius in the dedication to his dialogueDe Exilio, to Nicolaus Schomberg, p. 9: ‘Itaque etsi in Misnensi clarissima Germaniæ provincia illustribus natalibus ortus es, tamen in Italiae luce cognosceris.’ Unqualified praise is rare, e.g. of German women at the time of Marius,Cortigiano, iii. cap. 33.It must be added that the Italians of the Renaissance, like the Greeks of antiquity, were filled with aversion for all barbarians. Boccaccio,De claris Mulieribus, in the article ‘Carmenta,’ speaks of ‘German barbarism, French savagery, English craft, and Spanish coarseness.’

It must be added that the Italians of the Renaissance, like the Greeks of antiquity, were filled with aversion for all barbarians. Boccaccio,De claris Mulieribus, in the article ‘Carmenta,’ speaks of ‘German barbarism, French savagery, English craft, and Spanish coarseness.’

[851]Paul. Jov.Elogia, p. 289, who, however, makes no mention of the German education. Maximilian could not be induced, even by celebrated women, to change his underclothing.

[852]Æneas Sylvius (Vitae Paparum, ap. Murat. iii. ii. col. 880) says, in speaking of Baccano: ‘Pauca sunt mapalia, eaque hospitia faciunt Theutonici; hoc hominum genus totam fere Italiam hospitalem facit; ubi non repereris hos, neque diversorium quaeras.’

[853]Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 21. Padua, about the year 1450, boasted of a great inn—the ‘Ox’—like a palace, containing stabling for two hundred horses. Michele Savonarola, in Mur. xxiv. col. 1175. At Florence, outside the Porta San Gallo, there was one of the largest and most splendid inns then known, but which served, it seems, only as a place of amusement for the people of the city. Varchi,Stor. Fior.iii. p. 86. At the time of Alexander VI. the best inn at Rome was kept by a German. See the remarkable notices taken from the MS. of Burcardus in Gregorovius, vii. 361, note 2. Comp.ibid.p. 93, notes 2 and 3.

[854]Comp. e.g. the passages in Sebastian Brant’sNarrenschiff, in the Colloquies of Erasmus, in the Latin poem of Grobianus, &c., and poems on behaviour at table, where, besides descriptions of bad habits, rules are given for good behaviour. For one of these, see C. Weller,Deutsche Gedichte der Jahrhunderts, Tübingen, 1875.

[855]The diminution of the ‘burla’ is evident from the instances in theCortigiano, l. ii. fol. 96. The Florence practical jokes kept their ground tenaciously. See, for evidence, the tales of Lasca (Ant. Franc. Grazini, b. 1503, d. 1582), which appeared at Florence in 1750.

[856]For Milan, see Bandello, parte i. nov. 9. There were more than sixty carriages with four, and numberless others with two, horses, many of them carved and richly gilt and with silken tops. Comp.ibid.nov. 4. Ariosto,Sat.iii. 127.

[857]Bandello, parte i. nov. 3, iii. 42, iv. 25.

[858]De Vulgari Eloquio, ed. Corbinelli, Parisiis, 1577. According to Boccaccio,Vita di Dante, p. 77, it was written shortly before his death. He mentions in theConvitothe rapid and striking changes which took place during his lifetime in the Italian language.

[859]See on this subject the investigations of Lionardo Aretino (Epist.ed. Mehus. ii. 62 sqq. lib. vi. 10) and Poggio (Historiae disceptativae convivales tres, in theOpp.fol. 14 sqq.), whether in earlier times the language of the people and of scholars was the same. Lionardo maintains the negative; Poggio expressly maintains the affirmative against his predecessor. See also the detailed argument of L. B. Alberti in the introduction toDella Famiglia, book iii., on the necessity of Italian for social intercourse.

[860]The gradual progress which this dialect made in literature and social intercourse could be tabulated without difficulty by a native scholar. It could be shown to what extent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the various dialects kept their places, wholly or partly, in correspondence, in official documents, in historical works, and in literature generally. The relations between the dialects and a more or less impure Latin, which served as the official language, would also be discussed. The modes of speech and pronunciation in the different cities of Italy are noticed in Landi,Forcianae Quaestiones, fol. 7a.Of the former he says: ‘Hetrusci vero quanquam caeteris excellant, effugere tamen non possunt, quin et ipsi ridiculi sint, aut saltem quin se mutuo lacerent;’ as regards pronunciation, the Sienese, Lucchese, and Florentines are specially praised; but of the Florentines it is said: ‘Plus (jucunditatis) haberet si voces non ingurgitaret aut non ita palato lingua jungeretur.’

[861]It is so felt to be by Dante,De Vulgari Eloquio.

[862]Tuscan, it is true, was read and written long before this in Piedmont—but very little reading and writing was done at all.

[863]The place, too, of the dialect in the usage of daily life was clearly understood. Gioviano Pontano ventured especially to warn the prince of Naples against the use of it (Jov. Pontan.De Principe). The last Bourbons were notoriously less scrupulous in this respect. For the way in which a Milanese Cardinal, who wished to retain his native dialect in Rome was ridiculed, see Bandello, parte ii. nov. 31.

[864]Bald. Castiglione,Il Cortigiano, l. i. fol. 27 sqq. Throughout the dialogue we are able to gather the personal opinion of the writer. The opposition to Petrarch and Boccaccio is very curious (Dante is not once mentioned). We read that Politian, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and others were also Tuscans, and as worthy of imitation as they, ‘e forse di non minor dottrina e guidizio.’

[865]There was a limit, however, to this. The satirists introduce bits of Spanish, and Folengo (under the pseudonym Limerno Pitocco, in hisOrlandino) of French, but only by way of ridicule. It is an exceptional fact that a street in Milan, which at the time of the French (1500 to 1512, 1515 to 1522) was called Rue Belle, now bears the name Rugabella. The long Spanish rule has left almost no traces on the language, and but rarely the name of some governor in streets and public buildings. It was not till the eighteenth century that, together with French modes of thought, many French words and phrases found their way into Italian. The purism of our century is still busy in removing them.

[866]Firenzuola,Opera, i. in the preface to the discourse on female beauty, and ii. in theRagionamentiwhich precede the novels.

[867]Bandello, parte i.Proemio, and nov. 1 and 2. Another Lombard, the before-mentioned Teofilo Folengo in hisOrlandino, treats the whole matter with ridicule.

[868]Such a congress appears to have been held at Bologna at the end of 1531 under the presidency of Bembo. See the letter of Claud. Tolomai, in Firenzuola,Opere, vol. ii. append. p. 231 sqq. But this was not so much a matter of purism, but rather the old quarrel between Lombards and Tuscans.

[869]Luigi Cornaro complains about 1550 (at the beginning of hisTrattato della Vita Sobria) that latterly Spanish ceremonies and compliments, Lutheranism and gluttony had been gaining ground in Italy. With moderation in respect to the entertainment offered to guests, the freedom and ease of social intercourse disappeared.

[870]Vasari, xii. p. 9 and 11,Vita di Rustici. For the School for Scandal of needy artists, see xi. 216 sqq.,Vita d’Aristotile. Macchiavelli’sCapitolifor a circle of pleasure-seekers (Opere minori, p. 407) are a ludicrous caricature of these social statutes. The well-known description of the evening meeting of artists in Rome in Benvenuto Cellini, i. cap. 30 is incomparable.

[871]Which must have been taken about 10 or 11 o’clock. See Bandello, parte ii. nov. 10.

[872]Prato,Arch. Stor.iii. p. 309, calls the ladies ‘alquante ministre di Venere.’

[873]Biographical information and some of her letters in A. v. Reumont’sBriefe heiliger und gottesfürchtiger Italiener. Freiburg (1877) p. 22 sqq.

[874]Important passages: parte i. nov. 1, 3, 21, 30, 44; ii. 10, 34, 55; iii. 17, &c.

[875]Comp.Lorenzo Magn. dei Med., Poesie, i. 204 (the Symposium); 291 (the Hawking-Party). Roscoe,Vita di Lorenzo, iii. p. 140, and append. 17 to 19.

[876]The title ‘Simposio’ is inaccurate; it should be called, ‘The return from the Vintage.’ Lorenzo, in a parody of Dante’s Hell, gives an amusing account of his meeting in the Via Faenza all his good friends coming back from the country more or less tipsy. There is a most comical picture in the eighth chapter of Piovanno Arlotto, who sets out in search of his lost thirst, armed with dry meat, a herring, a piece of cheese, a sausage, and four sardines, ‘e tutte si cocevan nel sudore.’

[877]On Cosimo Ruccellai as centre of this circle at the beginning of the sixteenth century, see Macchiavelli,Arte della Guerra, l. i.

[878]Il Cortigiano, l. ii. fol. 53. See above pp. 121, 139.

[879]Caelius Calcagninus (Opere, p. 514) describes the education of a young Italian of position about the year 1506, in the funeral speech on Antonio Costabili: first, ‘artes liberales et ingenuae disciplinae; tum adolescentia in iis exercitationibus acta, quæ ad rem militarem corpus et animum praemuniunt. Nunc gymnastae (i.e. the teachers of gymnastics) operam dare, luctari, excurrere, natare, equitare, venari, aucupari, ad palum et apud lanistam ictus inferre aut declinare, caesim punctimve hostem ferire, hastam vibrare, sub armis hyemen juxta et aestatem traducere, lanceis occursare, veri ac communis Martis simulacra imitari.’ Cardanus (De prop. Vita, c. 7) names among his gymnastic exercises the springing on to a wooden horse. Comp. Rabelais,Gargantua, i. 23, 24, for education in general, and 35 for gymnastic art. Even for the philologists, Marsilius Ficinus (Epist.iv. 171 Galeotto) requires gymnastics, and Maffeo Vegio (De Puerorum Educatione, lib. iii. c. 5) for boys.

[880]Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 172 sqq. They are said to have arisen through the rowing out to the Lido, where the practice with the crossbow took place. The great regatta on the feast of St. Paul was prescribed by law from 1315 onwards. In early times there was much riding in Venice, before the streets were paved and the level wooden bridges turned into arched stone ones. Petrarch (Epist. Seniles, iv. 4) describes a brilliant tournament held in 1364 on the square of St. Mark, and the Doge Steno, about the year 1400, had as fine a stable as any prince in Italy. But riding in the neighbourhood of the square was prohibited as a rule after the year 1291. At a later time the Venetians naturally had the name of bad riders. See Ariosto,Sat.v. 208.

[881]See on this subject:Ueber den Einfluss der Renaissance auf die Entwickelung der Musik, by Bernhard Loos, Basel, 1875, which, however, hardly offers for this period more than is given here. On Dante’s position with regard to music, and on the music to Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s poems, see Trucchi,Poesie Ital. inedite, ii. p. 139. See alsoPoesie Musicali dei Secoli XIV., XV. e XVI. tratte da vari codici per cura di Antonio Cappelli, Bologna, 1868. For the theorists of the fourteenth century, Filippo Villani,Vite, p. 46, and Scardeonius,De urb. Pativ. antiq.in Graev. Thesaur, vi. iii. col. 297. A full account of the music at the court of Frederick of Urbino, is to be found inVespes. Fior.p. 122. For the children’s chapel (ten children 6 to 8 years old whom F. had educated in his house, and who were taught singing), at the court of Hercules I., seeDiario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 359. Out of Italy it was still hardly allowable for persons of consequence to be musicians; at the Flemish court of the young Charles V. a serious dispute took place on the subject. See Hubert. Leod.De Vita Frid. II. Palat.l. iii. Henry VIII. of England is an exception, and also the German Emperor Maximilian, who favoured music as well as all other arts. Joh. Cuspinian, in his life of the Emperor, calls him ‘Musices singularis amator’ and adds, ‘Quod vel hinc maxime patet, quod nostra aetate musicorum principes omnes, in omni genere musices omnibusque instrumentis in ejus curia, veluti in fertilissimo agro succreverant. Scriberem catalogum musicorum quos novi, nisi magnitudinem operis vererer.’ In consequence of this, music was much cultivated at the University of Vienna. The presence of the musical young Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan contributed to this result. See Aschbach,Gesch. der Wiener Universität(1877), vol. ii. 79 sqq.A remarkable and comprehensive passage on music is to be found, where we should not expect it, in the Maccaroneide, Phant. xx. It is a comic description of a quartette, from which we see that Spanish and French songs were often sung, that music already had its enemies (1520), and that the chapel of Leo X. and the still earlier composer, Josquin des Près, whose principal works are mentioned, were the chief subjects of enthusiasm in the musical world of that time. The same writer (Folengo) displays in hisOrlandino(iii. 23 &c.), published under the name Limerno Pitocco, a musical fanaticism of a thoroughly modern sort.Barth. Facius,De Vir. Ill.p. 12, praises Leonardus Justinianus as a composer, who produced love-songs in his youth, and religious pieces in his old age. J. A. Campanus (Epist.i. 4, ed. Mencken) extols the musician Zacarus at Teramo and says of him, ‘Inventa pro oraculis habentur.’ Thomas of Forli ‘musicien du pape’ inBurchardi Diarium, ed. Leibnitz, pp. 62 sqq.

A remarkable and comprehensive passage on music is to be found, where we should not expect it, in the Maccaroneide, Phant. xx. It is a comic description of a quartette, from which we see that Spanish and French songs were often sung, that music already had its enemies (1520), and that the chapel of Leo X. and the still earlier composer, Josquin des Près, whose principal works are mentioned, were the chief subjects of enthusiasm in the musical world of that time. The same writer (Folengo) displays in hisOrlandino(iii. 23 &c.), published under the name Limerno Pitocco, a musical fanaticism of a thoroughly modern sort.

Barth. Facius,De Vir. Ill.p. 12, praises Leonardus Justinianus as a composer, who produced love-songs in his youth, and religious pieces in his old age. J. A. Campanus (Epist.i. 4, ed. Mencken) extols the musician Zacarus at Teramo and says of him, ‘Inventa pro oraculis habentur.’ Thomas of Forli ‘musicien du pape’ inBurchardi Diarium, ed. Leibnitz, pp. 62 sqq.

[882]Leonis Vita anonyma, in Roscoe, ed. Bossi, xii. p. 171. May he not be the violinist in the Palazzo Sciarra? A certain Giovan Maria da Corneto is praised in theOrlandino(Milan, 1584, iii. 27).

[883]Lomazzo,Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, &c. p. 347. The text, however, does not bear out the last statement, which perhaps rests on a misunderstanding of the final sentence, ‘Et insieme vi si possono gratiosamente rappresentar convitti et simili abbellimenti, che il pittore leggendo i poeti e gli historici può trovare copiosamente et anco essendo ingenioso et ricco d’invenzione può per se stesso imaginare?’ Speaking of the lyre, he mentions Lionardo da Vinci and Alfonso (Duke?) of Ferrara. The author includes in his work all the celebrities of the age, among them several Jews. The most complete list of the famous musicians of the sixteenth century, divided into an earlier and a later generation, is to be found in Rabelais, in the ‘New Prologue’ to the fourth book. A virtuoso, the blind Francesco of Florence (d. 1390), was crowned at Venice with a wreath of laurel by the King of Cyprus.

[884]Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 138. The same people naturally collected books of music. Sansovino’s words are, ‘è vera cosa che la musica ha la sua propria sede in questa città.’

[885]The ‘Academia de’ Filarmonici’ at Verona is mentioned by Vasari, xi. 133, in the life of Sanmichele. Lorenzo Magnifico was in 1480 already the centre of a School of Harmony consisting of fifteen members, among them the famous organist and organ-builder Squarcialupi. See Delecluze,Florence et ses Vicissitudes, vol. ii. p. 256, and Reumont,L. d. M.i. 177 sqq., ii. 471-473. Marsilio Ficino took part in these exercises and gives in his letters (Epist.i. 73, iii. 52, v. 15) remarkable rules as to music. Lorenzo seems to have transmitted his passion for music to his son Leo X. His eldest son Pietro was also musical.

[886]Il Cortigiano, fol. 56, comp. fol. 41.

[887]Quatro viole da arco’—a high and, except in Italy, rare achievement for amateurs.

[888]Bandello, parte i. nov. 26. The song of Antonio Bologna in the House of Ippolita Bentivoglio. Comp. iii. 26. In these delicate days, this would be called a profanation of the holiest feelings. (Comp. the last song of Britannicus, Tacit.Annal.xiii. 15.) Recitations accompanied by the lute or ‘viola’ are not easy to distinguish, in the accounts left us, from singing properly so-called.

[889]Scardeonius, l. c.

[890]For biographies of women, see above, p. 147 and note 1. Comp. the excellent work of Attilio Hortis:Le Donne Famose, descritte da Giovanni Boccacci. Trieste, 1877.

[891]E.g. in Castiglione,Il Cortigiano. In the same strain Francesco Barbaro,De Re Uxoria; Poggio,An Seni sit Uxor ducenda, in which much evil is said of women; the ridicule of Codro Urceo, especially his remarkable discourse,An Uxor sit ducenda(Opera, 1506, fol. xviii.-xxi.), and the sarcasms of many of the epigrammatists. Marcellus Palingenius, (vol. i. 304) recommends celibacy in various passages, lib. iv. 275 sqq., v. 466-585; as a means of subduing disobedient wives he recommends to married people,‘Tu verbera misceTergaque nunc duro resonent pulsata bacillo.’Italian writers on the woman’s side are Benedetto da Cesena,De Honore Mulierum, Venice, 1500, Dardano,La defesa della Donna, Ven. 1554,Per Donne Romane. ed. Manfredi, Bol. 1575. The defence of, or attack on, women, supported by instances of famous or infamous women down to the time of the writer, was also treated by the Jews, partly in Italian and partly in Hebrew; and in connection with an earlier Jewish literature dating from the thirteenth century, we may mention Abr. Sarteano and Eliah Gennazzano, the latter of whom defended the former against the attacks of Abigdor (for their MS. poems about year 1500, comp. Steinschneider,Hebr. Bibliogr.vi. 48).

‘Tu verbera misceTergaque nunc duro resonent pulsata bacillo.’

Italian writers on the woman’s side are Benedetto da Cesena,De Honore Mulierum, Venice, 1500, Dardano,La defesa della Donna, Ven. 1554,Per Donne Romane. ed. Manfredi, Bol. 1575. The defence of, or attack on, women, supported by instances of famous or infamous women down to the time of the writer, was also treated by the Jews, partly in Italian and partly in Hebrew; and in connection with an earlier Jewish literature dating from the thirteenth century, we may mention Abr. Sarteano and Eliah Gennazzano, the latter of whom defended the former against the attacks of Abigdor (for their MS. poems about year 1500, comp. Steinschneider,Hebr. Bibliogr.vi. 48).

[892]Addressed to Annibale Maleguccio, sometimes numbered as the 5th or the 6th.

[893]When the Hungarian Queen Beatrice, a Neapolitan princess, came to Vienna in 1485, she was addressed in Latin, and ‘arrexit diligentissime aures domina regina saepe, cum placide audierat, subridendo.’ Aschbach, o. c. vol. ii. 10 note.

[894]The share taken by women in the plastic arts was insignificant. The learned Isotta Nogarola deserves a word of mention. On her intercourse with Guarino, see Rosmini, ii. 67 sqq.; with Pius II. see Voigt, iii. 515 sqq.

[895]It is from this point of view that we must judge of the life of Allessandra de’ Bardi in Vespasiano Fiorentino (Mai,Spicileg.rom. i. p. 593 sqq.) The author, by the way, is a great ‘laudator temporis acti,’ and it must not be forgotten that nearly a hundred years before what he calls the good old time, Boccaccio wrote theDecameron. On the culture and education of the Italian women of that day, comp. the numerous facts quoted in Gregorovius,Lucrezia Borgia. There is a catalogue of the books possessed by Lucrezia in 1502 and 3 (Gregorovius, ed. 3, i. 310, ii. 167), which may be considered characteristic of the Italian women of the period. We there find a Breviary; a little book with the seven psalms and some prayers; a parchment book with gold miniature, calledDe Coppelle alla Spagnola; the printed letters of Catherine of Siena; the printed epistles and gospels in Italian; a religious book in Spanish; a MS. collection of Spanish odes, with the proverbs of Domenico Lopez; a printed book, calledAquila Volante; theMirror of Faithprinted in Italian; an Italian printed book calledThe Supplement of Chronicles; a printed Dante, with commentary; an Italian book on philosophy; the legends of the saints in Italian; an old bookDe Ventura; a Donatus; a Life of Christ in Spanish; a MS. Petrarch, on duodecimo parchment. A second catalogue of the year 1516 contains no secular books whatever.

[896]Ant. Galateo,Epist. 3, to the young Bona Sforza, the future wife of Sigismund of Poland: ‘Incipe aliquid de viro sapere, quoniam ad imperandum viris nata es.... Ita fac, ut sapientibus viris placeas, ut te prudentes et graves viri admirentur, et vulgi et muliercularum studia et judicia despicias,’ &c. A remarkable letter in other respects also (Mai.Spicileg. Rom.viii. p. 532).

[897]She is so called in theChron. Venetum, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 121 sqq. (in the account of her heroic defence,ibid.col. 121 she is called a virago). Comp. Infessura in Eccard,Scriptt.ii. col. 1981, andArch. Stor.append. ii. p. 250, and Gregorovius, vii. 437 note 1.

[898]Contemporary historians speak of her more than womanly intellect and eloquence. Comp. Ranke’sFilippo Strozzi, inHistorisch-biographische Studien, p. 371 note 2.

[899]And rightly so, sometimes. How ladies should behave while such tales are telling, we learn fromCortigiano, l. iii. fol. 107. That the ladies who were present at his dialogues must have known how to conduct themselves in case of need, is shown by the strong passage, l. ii. fol. 100. What is said of the ‘Donna di Palazzo’—the counterpart of the Cortigiano—that she should neither avoid frivolous company nor use unbecoming language, is not decisive, since she was far more the servant of the princess than the Cortigiano of the prince. See Bandello, i. nov. 44. Bianca d’Este tells the terrible love-story of her ancestor, Niccolò of Ferrara, and Parisina. The tales put into the mouths of the women in theDecameronmay also serve as instances of this indelicacy. For Bandello, see above, p. 145; and Landau,Beitr. z. Gesch. der Ital. Nov.Vienna, 1875, p. 102. note 32.

[900]Sansovino,Venezia, fol. 152 sqq. How highly the travelled Italians valued the freer intercourse with girls in England and the Netherlands is shown by Bandello, ii. nov. 44, and iv. nov. 27. For the Venetian women and the Italian women generally, see the work of Yriarte, pp. 50 sqq.

[901]Paul. Jov.De Rom. Piscibus, cap. 5; Bandello, parte iii. nov. 42. Aretino, in theRagionamento del Zoppino, p. 327, says of a courtesan: ‘She knows by heart all Petrarch and Boccaccio, and many beautiful verses of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and a thousand other authors.’

[902]Bandello, ii. 51, iv. 16.

[903]Bandello, iv. 8.

[904]For a characteristic instance of this, see Giraldi,Hecatomithi, vi nov. 7.

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