Besides the Galateo, Monsignor della Casa has left another and shorter Tractate on Amicable Intercourse between Superiors and Inferiors (Trattato degli Uffici Comuni tra gli Amici Superiori e Inferiori). This deals not so much with the relation between those who are rich and those who are poor in the gifts of fortune, taken simply on that footing, as with the connection between master and servant, patron and client, magnate and dependent. The tone is grave and humane, with an adequate share of worldly wisdom interspersed. The opening is interesting and suggestive; and shows that the great ‘Servant Controversy,’ of which the pages of English daily newspapers are now almost annually conscious in the dull season, was by no means unknown to Italy in the sixteenth century:—
‘I apprehend that the ancients were free from a great and continual trouble; having their households composed, not of free men, as is our usage, but of slaves, of whose labour they availed themselves, both for the comforts of life, and to maintain their repute, and for the other demands of society. For, as the nature of man is noble, copious, and erect, and far more apt to commanding than obeying, a hard and odious task do those undertake who assume to exercise masterdom over it, while still bold and of undiminished strength, as is done now-a-days. To the ancients, in my judgment, it was no difficult or troublesome thing to command those who were already quelled and almost domesticated—people whom either chains, or long fatigues, or a soul servile from very childhood, had bereaved of pride and force. We on the contrary have to do with souls robust, spirited, and almost unbending; which, through the vigour of their nature, refuse and hate to be in subjection, and, knowing themselves free, resist their masters, or at least seek and demand (often with reason, but sometimes also without) that in commanding them some measure be observed. Whence it arises that every house is full of complaints, wranglings, and questionings. And certainly this is the fact; because we are unjust judges in our own cause,—and, as it is true that everybody unfairly prizes his own affairs higher than those of others, albeit of equal value, and consequently always persuades himself that he has given more than he has received, the thing cannot go on pari passu. Hence comes the wearisome complaint of the one, “I have worn myself out in your house;” and the rebuke of the other, “I have maintained and fed you, and treated you well.”’
I can afford only one more extract from this treatise; which indeed handles its general subject-matter more on the ground of fairness, good-feeling, and expedient compromise of conflicting claims, than as a question of courtesy—though neither is that left out of view.
‘In giving orders and assigning duties which have to be fulfilled, let regard be paid to the condition of the individuals; so that, if anything uncleanly is to be done, that be allotted to the lowest, and it come not to pass (as some perverse-natured people will have it) that noblemen[59] should sweep the house, and carry slops out of the chambers. Let not things of much labour be committed to the weak, nor the degrading to the well-mannered, nor the frivolous and sportful to the aged. Moreover let the masters be heedful not to impose upon any one anything of uncommon difficulty or labour or painstaking, unless of necessity or for some great cause; for the laws of humanity command us not to make a call upon a man’s diligence and solicitude beyond what is reasonable, or as if in levity—especially if it exceeds the ordinary bounds.’
With this I shut up Della Casa’s volume, and take final leave of my reader—trusting that, after perusing, skimming, or skipping, so much matter concerning Courtesy, he will part from me on the terms of (at lowest) a ‘courteous reader,’ in more than the merely conventional sense.
FOOTNOTES
[1] As mentioned below, the first German work including something by way of Courtesy-Book, ab. 1210 A.D., Der Wälsche Gast, was written by an Italian, Tomasin von Zirclaria.
[2] Possibly this notion prompted Dante to represent himself, in the opening of the Commedia, as also lost in a forest.
[3] The line here translated as one forms two in the Italian, and the like with our sequel; Brunetto’s metre being an ungracefully short one—thus:
Indeed the metre keeps up such a perpetual jingling as almost to reduce to doggerel what might, in a different rhythmical form, be accepted as very fair rhyme and reason indeed. I have thrown the several couplets into single lines, in the translation, simply with a view to saving space.
[4] The original runs
This phrase is not quite clear to me; but I suppose the word ‘arti’ is to be understood as meaning ‘crafts, trades, or professions,’ and that Brunetto had been sharp enough to see that people become ‘shoppy’ according to their respective shops. ‘Vous êtes orfèvre, Monsieur Josse.’
[5] ‘Mercennaio’—literally, mercenary or hireling.
[6] ‘Picciolini.’ These were, I gather, coins of a particular denomination, but I have not been able to ascertain their precise value.
I have translated literally; but that of course makes something very like nonsense in English. To ‘make the fig’ is a gesture of the thumb and fingers, understood as gross and insulting in the highest degree. The general sense of the passage is therefore—‘He fancies he is thus testifying in his own honour, whereas it really does redound to his own extreme shame.’ Readers of Dante, remembering the splendid canzone
in which he refutes the false and defines the true bases of ‘nobility’ (gentilezza), will perceive that the illustrious pupil had been to a great extent anticipated by the teaching of his early instructor. Francesco da Barberino (Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne) adopts a middle course, discriminating ‘gentilezza’ thus: ‘Nobility is twoform in quality and in origin. The first is a state of the human soul contented in virtue, hostile to vice, exulting in the good of others, and pitiful in their adversity. The second is mastery over men or riches, derived from of old, sensitive to shame when brought low.’
[8] Here, on the contrary, we come to a precept the reverse of Dantesque. Yet, on combining this passage with that which opens the ensuing paragraph, it would seem that Brunetto does not mean to recommend connivance with anything that is positively evil, but only with current habits and fashions, objectionable though they may be, in matters essentially indifferent—as of speech and deportment.
[9] ‘Briccon’—the colloquial term still in daily use among Italians.
[10] ‘Solo d’una canzone:’ literally, ‘merely for one song.’ The Abate Zannoni understands this to mean ‘per aver una sola volta canzonato femmina.’ He admits that this sense of the phrase is not discoverable in that fetish of the Italian pedant, the Dizionario della Crusca; but as I have no superior authority to oppose to that of Abate Zannoni, I have followed his interpretation.
[11] This seems strange doctrine—that love of courtesy and love of women cannot co-exist in the same man—if we are to accept it in its amplest sense. Perhaps, however, we are to understand that the speaker is still confining his censures to miscellaneous and unsanctioned amours or flirtations, especially with married women.
[12] Poesie Lombarde Inedite del Secolo 13, publicate ed illustrate da B. Biondelli. Milano: Bernardoni. 1856. We are indebted to Signor Biondelli’s courtesy for a copy of this curious and interesting work.
[13] Bonvexino (pronounced Bonvesino) is, in modern Italian, Bonvicino—i.e. good neighbour.
[14] ‘Afresh’ represents the Italian ‘de frescho.’ Signor Biondelli considers that the phrase means ‘afresh,’ indicating that Fra Bonvesino had written his Courtesies in Latin before turning them into Italian. Signor Biondelli, however, admits that ‘de frescho’ may also mean ‘now recently,’ ‘just now’; and, but for his contrary preference, I should attribute that meaning to the word in the present instance.
[15] ‘Noxe.’ I suppose this must represent the modern-Italian word ‘nozze,’ nuptials, though the incident of a wedding seems rather suddenly introduced at this point, and does not re-appear afterwards.
[16] Signor Biondelli understands this stanza in a somewhat different sense, as applying to the assigning of dishes, not the signing of the cross as a grace before meat. The reference to Christ seems to me to create a strong presumption in favour of my interpretation.
[17] It is clear from the general context that the victuals here spoken of as to be eaten with a spoon are solid edibles—not merely soups or the like: the spoon corresponding to the modern fork. The word translated ‘suck’ is ‘sorbilar:’ perhaps ‘mumble’ would convey the force of the precept more fully though less literally.
[18] I feel some doubt as to the meaning of this passage.
[19] This appears to be the general sense of the last two lines. In the final one Signor Biondelli gives up two words as unintelligible: he infers that they must be miscopied.
[20] This seems to contemplate the plan of the several guests helping themselves off the dish brought to table. At any rate, so Signor Biondelli understands it.
[21] ‘Donzello.’ This precept seems to be especially addressed to the servitors. Uguccione Pisano, quoted by Muratori, says: ‘Donnicelli et Domicellæ dicuntur quando pulchri juvenes magnatum sunt sicut servientes.’ Such Donzelli were not allowed to sit at table with the knights; or, if allowed, had to sit apart on a lower seat.
[22] ‘Drapi da pey.’ I confess to some uncertainty as to what sort of thing these ‘foot-cloths’ may have been. Signor Biondelli terms them ‘the cloths wherewith the feet were wrapped round and dried.’ He adds: ‘This precept apprizes us that at that time the use of a pocket-handkerchief was not yet introduced, and perhaps not even the use of stockings.’ One would fain hope that the summit of Lombardic good breeding in 1290 was not the wiping of noses on cloths actually and at the moment serving for the feet. Possibly drapi da pey is here a generic term; cloths or napkins at hand for use, and which might have served for foot-cloths. Thus the word ‘duster’ might be employed in a similar connection, without our being compelled to suppose that the individual duster had first been used on the spot for dusting the tables or floors, and then for wiping the nose. Or indeed, we moderns, who wipe our noses on hand-kerchiefs, do not first use said kerchiefs for wiping our hands, nor yet for covering our heads (‘couvre chef’).—Reverting to Signor Biondelli’s observation as to ‘the use of stockings,’ I may observe that Francesco da Barberino, in a passage of his Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne, speaks of ‘the beautiful foot shod in silk’—‘calzato in seta’—which may imply either a stocking or else a shoe. This poem, as we shall see further on, is but little later than Bonvicino’s.—The reader may also observe, at p. 68, the horror with which a much later writer, Della Casa, contemplated the use of a dinner-napkin as a pocket-handkerchief.
[23] ‘Chi s’ asetilia.’ Signor Biondelli cannot assign the exact sense of this verb. I should suppose it to be either a form of ‘Assettarsi,’ to settle oneself, to keep one’s place, or a corruption of ‘Assottigliarsi,’ to subtilize, to be punctilious, to ‘look sharp.’
[24] ‘D’alchun obediente.’ This phrase, if directly connected with the ‘Jesu Xristo’ of the previous line, seems peculiar. I am not quite clear whether the whole stanza is to be understood as an injunction to render grace after meat, in thankfulness for what Christ has given one—or to thank the servants who have been waiting at table, and so to glorify Christ by an act of humility.
[25] ‘Dro bon vino dra carera.’ The general sense is evidently near what the translation gives: but Signor Biondelli is unable to assign the precise sense. No wonder therefore that I am unable.
[26] Several others must nevertheless have been written before or about the same time; for Barberino himself, in the exordium to his Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne, says—
[27] A full account of it by Mr Eugene Oswald follows the present Essay.
[30] The Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo d’Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300), in the Original Metres: together with Dante’s Vita Nuova. Translated by D. G. Rossetti. Smith and Elder, 1862.
[31] There is evidently something erroneous in this statement: Brunetto died in 1294. The Editor of a collection of Italian Poets (Lirici del Secolo secondo, & c.—Venezia, Antonelli, 1841) says: ‘Francesco went through his first studies under Brunetto Latini. Hence he passed to the Universities of Padua and of Bologna.’ Barberino being a Tuscan, this seems the natural course for him to adopt, rather than to have gone to Padua and Bologna before Florence. My brother’s remark, as to the death of Neri in 1296, and as to Francesco’s subsequent sojourn in Florence, agrees, however, with the statement made by Tiraboschi: apparently we should understand that Francesco had been in Florence both before and after his stay in Padua and Bologna, and that his studies under Brunetto pertain to the earlier period.
[32] Teachings or Lessonings of Love might probably express the sense more exactly to an English ear.
[33] ‘Chi vuol fare merli.’ The phrase means literally ‘he who wants to make battlements’—or possibly ‘to make thrushes,’ I can only guess at its bearing in the present passage, having searched for a distinct explanation in vain. It seems to be one of the myriad ‘vezzi di lingua’ of old Italian, and especially old Tuscan, idiom.
[34] ‘Di mandar a laveggio.’ I am far from certain as to the real meaning.
[35] This precept, and especially a preceding one (p. 39) which enjoins the host to place the guests in their appropriate seats, keeping by himself those of less account, would seem to show that at this period the seats at the right and left of the host (or hostess) were by no means understood to be posts of honour. The absence of all mention, either in Bonvicino or in Barberino, of the hostess or her especial duties, strikes one as a singularity. That the hostess is nevertheless understood to be present may be fairly inferred from the clearly expressed presence of other ladies.
[36] Prettily worded in the Italian:
[38] The mention of a slave in a Florentine household of the late 13th or early 14th century may startle some readers. I translate the note which Signor Guglielmo Manzi, the editor of the Reggimento, supplies on this subject. ‘Slavery, which abases mankind, and revolts humanity and reason, diminished greatly when the Christian religion was introduced into the Roman Empire—that religion being in manifest opposition to so barbarous a system. The more the one progressed in the world, the more did the other wane; and, as Bodino observes in his book De Republicâ, slavery had ceased in Europe, to a great extent, by 1200. I shall follow this author, who is the only one to afford us some degree of light amid so great obscurity. In the year 1212 there were still, according to him, slaves in Italy; as may be seen from the ordinances of William, King of Sicily, and of the Emperor Frederick II. for the kingdom of Naples, and from the decretals of the Popes Alexander III., Urban III., and Innocent III., concerning the marriages of slaves. The first of these Popes was elected in 1158, the second in 1185, and the third in 1198; so that the principle of liberty cannot be dated earlier than in or about 1250—Bartolo, who lived in the year 1300, writing (Hostes de Captivis, I.) that in his time there were no slaves, and that, according to the laws of Christendom, men were no longer put up to sale. This assertion, however, conflicts with the words of our author, who affirms that in his time—that is, at the commencement of the 14th century—the custom existed. But, in elucidation of Bartolo, it should be said that he implied that men were no longer sold, on the ground that this was prohibited by the laws of Christendom, and the edicts of sovereigns. In France it can be shown that in 1430 Charles VII. gave their liberty to some persons of servile condition; and even in the year 1548 King Henri II. liberated, by letters patent, those of the Bourbonnais: and the like was done throughout all his states by the Duke of Savoy in 1561. In the Hundred Tales of Boccaccio we have also various instances showing that the sale of free men was practised in Italy. These are in the 6th Tale of the 2nd Day, the story of Madonna Beritola, whose sons remained in Genoa in serfdom; and in the 6th of the 5th Day, the story of Frederick, King of Sicily; and in the 7th of the same Day, the story of Theodore and Violante. It is therefore clear, from all this evidence, that, in the time of Messer Francesco, so execrable a practice was still prevalent; and, summing up all we have said, it must be concluded that serfdom, in non-barbarian Europe, was not entirely extinguished till the 16th century.’
[39] ‘Mottetti e parlari.’ Only a few specimens of these are given, and they are all sufficiently occult. Here is one. ‘Grande a morte, o la morte. Di molte se grava morte. [Responde Madonna] Dolci amorme, quel camorme, dunque amorme conveniarme.’
[40] This Lady is an ideal or symbolic personage—presumably Wisdom.
[41] Matteo Palmieri (see p. 58) indicates that the state of things was the same in his time, about 1430: he is more decided than Barberino in condemning it.
[42] ‘Uomin di corte.’ This term was first applied to heralds, chamberlains, and the like court-officials: subsequently to the entertainers of a court, ‘giullari,’ jesters, and buffoons: and in process of time it came to include courtiers of whatever class. In the early writers—such as Barberino, Boccaccio, &c.—it is not always easy for a translator to pitch upon the precise equivalent: the reader should understand a personage who might be as romantic as a Troubadour, or as quaint as a Touchstone—but tending rather towards the latter extreme.
[43] ‘Uccelli grifoni.’ This seems a daring suggestion: possibly, as a griffin is a compound of eagle and lion, we are to understand that the eagle is the griffin-bird.
[44] ‘Drappi oltramarin’—which may mean foreign (from beyond sea), or else of ultramarine colour: I rather suppose the former.
[45] ‘Lana di pesce’—literally, fish’s wool. The term is new to me, nor do I find it explained in dictionaries: I can only therefore surmise that it designates the silky filaments of certain sea-mollusks, such as the pinna of the Mediterranean. This byssus is still made use of in Italy for gloves and similar articles.
[46] !!
[47] ‘Intaglj;’ and the next line gives the word ‘Scolture.’ Giovanni Villani notes that in 1330 a prohibition was issued against ‘dresses cut-out or painted:’ the fashion having run into the extravagance of ‘dresses cut-out with different sorts of cloth, and made of stuffs trimmed variously with silks.’
[48] These seem to be very obedient birds: and their position, behind glass windows in a globe figuring the world, was rather an odd one to modern notions. The reader will keep me company in guessing whether or not we are to take the whole description au pied de la lettre.
[49] Tiraboschi says 1468; but that, as far as I can trace, is a mistake.
[50] It may be fair to state that the work, as first published, was put in the Roman index of prohibited books; and that the reissues (including no doubt the edition known to me) have omitted the inculpated passages. Whether these were objected to on moral or rather on ecclesiastical grounds I cannot affirm: the book as now printed is not only quite free from immoralities, but is decidedly moral, whereas there remains at least one passage of a tone such as churchmen resent ex officio.
[51] A noticeable proverbial phrase. It is new to me; but I suppose it means either ‘learned in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin’ (the three languages in which the inscription over the cross was written), or else perhaps ‘learned in languages generally.’
[52] That most capital and characteristic book, the Autobiography of the tragedian Alfieri, contains a reference to the Galateo, which, longish as it is, I am tempted to extract. ‘My worthy Paciaudi was wont to advise me not to neglect, amid my laborious readings, works in prose, which he learnedly termed the nurse of poetry. As regards this, I remember that one day he brought me the Galateo of Della Casa; recommending me to ponder it well with respect to the turn of speech, which assuredly is pure Tuscan, and the reverse of all Frenchifying. I, who in boyhood had (as we all have) read it loosely, understood it little, and relished it not at all, felt almost offended at this schoolboyish and pedantic advice. Full of venom against the said Galateo, I opened it. And, at the sight of that first Conciossiacosachè, to which is trailed-on that long sentence so pompous and so wanting in pith, such an impulse of rage seized me that, hurling the book out of window, I cried like a maniac: “Surely a hard and disgusting necessity, that, in order to write tragedies at the age of twenty-seven, I must swallow down again this childish chatter, and relax my brain with such pedantries!” He smiled at my uneducated poetic furor; and prophesied that I would yet read the Galateo, and that more than once. And so it turned out; but several years afterwards, when I had thoroughly hardened my neck and shoulders to bear the grammatical yoke. And I read not only the Galateo, but almost all our prose writers of the fourteenth century, and annotated them too: with what profit I cannot say. But true it is that, were any one to give them a good reading as regards their turn of phrase, and to manage availing himself with judgment and skill of their array, rejecting the cast clothes of their ideas, he might perhaps afterwards, in his writings as well philosophic as poetic or historic, or of any other class, give a richness, brevity, propriety, and force of colour, to his style, which I have not as yet seen fully gracing any Italian writer.’ A word or two may be spared to the formidable-looking vocable Conciossiacosachè which so excited Alfieri’s bile. It might be translated literally as ‘Herewith-be-something-that;’ and corresponds in practice to the English ‘Forasmuch as’—or more briefly ‘since,’ or ‘as.’ The Italian word poichè serves all the same uses, save that of longwindedness. But Conciossiacosachè itself is not lengthy enough for some Italian lips: and I believe that even the phrase into which it has sometimes been prolonged—‘Con ciò sia cosa fosse massimamente che’—has been used for other than burlesquing purposes.
[53] The comparison whereby our Archbishop illustrates the condition of the napkins must perfume our page only in its native Italian—‘Che le pezze degli agiamenti sono più nette.’
[54] This is affirmed by Xenophon of the Persians: he says in the Cyropædia that, both of old and in his own time, they did without either spitting or blowing the nose—a proof of temperance, and of energetic exercise which carried off the moisture of the body.
[55] Stecco. ‘Toothpick’ is the only appropriate technical sense for stecco given in the dictionaries; and I suppose it is correct here, although Della Casa’s very next sentence, denouncing the carrying of this implement round the neck, designates it by the word stuzzicadenti, and it seems odd that the two terms should be thus juxta-posed or opposed. If stecco does not in this passage really mean ‘toothpick,’ I should infer that it indicates some skewer-like object, used possibly as a fork—i.e. to secure the viands on the plate, while they are severed with a spoon, and by that conveyed to the mouth (see pp. 21 and 34 as to the use of spoon instead of fork in Bonvicino’s time). This would in fact be a sort of chop-stick. Such an inference is quite compatible with the general sense of the word stecco—any stake or splint of wood.
[56] Cecchina is a double diminutive of Francesca; corresponding to ‘Fannikin’ or ‘Fan.’
[57] The English reader may fancy that this passage conflicts with that which immediately precedes: but such is not the case. In the earlier passage, the use of You was recommended as more civil than Thou: in the later passage, the use of Vossignoria (or other the like impersonal term, where appropriate) as more respectful than You.
[58] This is, I think, still a national trait among Italians, and a most creditable one: the endless grades and sub-grades, shades and demi-shades, of good society, as maintained in England (with an instinct comparable to the marvellous power of a bat to wing its dark way amid any number of impediments, and to be impeded by none of them), are unintelligible to ordinary Italians—or, where intelligible, detestable. Long may they remain so!
[59] Nobili. I presume this is to be understood literally; the household in which noblemen could be thus employed being of course one of exalted position.