[310] See the Latin hendecasyllables quoted by me in the Revival of Learning, p. 415, and the Defense of Italian in the treatise "Della volgare Lingua" (Bembo, Opere, Milan, Class. It. x. 28). Carducci in his essay Delle Poesie Latine di Ludovico Ariosto, pp. 179-181, gives some interesting notices of Ercole Strozzi's conversion to the vulgar tongue.

[311] See Revival of Learning, pp. 410-415, 481-485.

[312] Opere del Cardinale Bembo (Class. It. Milano, 1808, vol. x.).

[313] See his Latin treatise De Imitatione. It is in the form of an epistle.

[314] See Panizzi, Bioardo ed Ariosto, vi. lxxxi.

[315] Sonnet xxxvi. of his collected poems.

[316] My edition is in four volumes, Gualtero Scotto, Vinegia, MDLII. They are collected with copious additions in the Classici Italiani.

[317] It will be impossible to do more than make general reference to the vast masses of Italian letters printed in the sixteenth century. I must, therefore, content myself here with mentioning the collections of La Casa, Caro, Bernardo, and Torquato Tasso, Aretino, Guidiccioni, together with the miscellanies published under the titles of Lettre Scritte al Signor Pietro Aretino, the Lettere Diverse in three books (Aldus, 1567), and the Lettere di Tredici Uomini Illustri (Venetia, 1554).

[318] Lettere, ed. cit. vol. iv. pp. 1-31.

[319] Another letter, dated Venice, August 1, 1504, is fuller in particulars about this dearly-loved brother.

[320] Il Cortegiano (ed. Lemonnier, Firenze, 1854), pp. 296-303. I have already spoken at some length about this essay in the Age of the Despots, pp. 183-190, and have narrated the principal events of Castiglione's life in the Revival of Learning, pp. 418-422. For his Latin poems see ib. pp. 490-497.

[321] Ed. cit. pp. 39-53.

[322] Ariosto's style was formed on precisely these principles.

[323] The preface to the Cortegiano may be compared with this passage. When it appeared, the critics complained that Castiglione had not imitated Boccaccio. His answer is marked by good sense and manly logic: see pp. 3, 4. With Castiglione, Aretino joined hands, the ruffian with the gentleman, in this matter of revolt against the purists. See the chapter in this volume upon Aretino.

[324] Varchi's Ercolano or Dialogo delle Lingue; Sperone's dialogue Delle Lingue; Claudio Tolommei's Cesano; Girolamo Muzio's Battaglie.

[325] Varchi called it Fiorentina, Tolommei and Salviati Toscana, Bargagli Senese, Trissino and Muzio Italiana. Castiglione and Bembo agreed in aiming at Italian rather than pure Tuscan, but differed in their proposed method of cultivating style. Bembo preferred to call the language Volgare, as it was the common property of the Volgo. Castiglione suggested the title Cortigiana, as it was refined and settled by the usage of Courts. Yet Castiglione was more liberal than Bembo in acknowledging the claims of local dialects.

[326] For a list of commentators upon Petrarch at this period, see Tiraboschi, lib. iii. cap. iii., section 1. Common sense found at last sarcastic utterance in Tassoni.

[327] See Revival of Learning, pp. 365-368.

[328] Quirino is mentioned as "legitimatum, seu forsitan legitimandum," in La Casa's will (Opp. Venezia, Pasinelli, 1752, vol. i. p. lxxvii.). From his name and his age at La Casa's death we ought perhaps to refer this fruit of his amours to the Venetian period of his life and his intimacy with the Quirino family. His biographer, Casotti, says that he discovered nothing about the mother's name (loc. cit. p. lxxiii.).

[329] La Casa received a special commission at Venice in 1546, to prosecute Pier Paolo Vergerio for heresy. When Vergerio went into exile, he did his best to blacken La Casa's character, and used his writings to point the picture he drew in Protestant circles of ecclesiastical profligacy. The whole subject of La Casa's exclusion from the College is treated by his editor, Casotti (Opp. vol. 1. pp. xlv.-xlviii.). That the Bishop of Benevento was stung to the quick by Vergerio's invectives may be seen in his savage answer "Adversus Paulum Vergerium" (Opp. iii. 103), and in the hendecasyllables "Ad Germanos" (Opp. i. 295), both of which discuss the Forno and attempt to apologize for it.

[330] Opp. vol. i. pp. 237-306. Galateo is said to have been a certain Galeazzo Florimonte of Sessa.

[331] Vol. ii. of the Venetian edition, 1752.

[332] Take for instance this outburst from a complimentary sonnet (No. 40, vol. i. p. 70):

Or this opening of the sonnet on Court-honors (No. 26):

Or this from a Canzone on his love (No. 2):

[333] Sonnet 58, vol. i. 154.

[334] No. 52, ib. p. 136.

[335] Canzone 4, ib. p. 102.

[336] Sonnets 8, 26, 40. ib. pp. 12, 39, 70; Canzone 2, ib. p. 79.

[337] They are Nos. 58, 50, 25, 26, 8. The sixth, on Jealousy, may be compared with Sannazzaro's, above, p. 200.

[338] La Casa, Canzone 4 (Opp. i. 151).

[339] De Poetis, Dial. ii.

[340] Opere di Messer G. Guidiccioni (Firenze, Barbèra, 1867), vol. i. p. 12.

[341] We might parallel Guidiccioni's lamentations with several passages from the Latin elegies of the period, and with some of the obscurer compositions of Italian poetasters. See, for example, the extracts from Cariteo of Naples, Tibaldeo of Ferrara, and Cammelli of Pistoja on the passage of Charles VIII. quoted by Carducci, Delle Poesie Latine di Ludovico Ariosto, pp. 83-86. But the most touching expression of sympathy with Italy's disaster is the sudden silence of Boiardo in the middle of a canto of Orlando. See above, part i. p. 463.

[342] See, for example, "Donna, qual mi foss'io," and "In voi mi trasformai," or "Eran l'aer tranquillo e l'onde chiare."

[343] See "Carlo il Quinto fu questi"; "Nell'apparir del giorno"; and "Venite all'ombra de' gran gigli d'oro."

[344] Among the liveliest missiles used in this squabble are Bronzino's Sattarelli, recently reprinted by Romagnoli, Bologna, 1863.

[345] Alberigo Longo was in fact murdered in 1555, and a servant of Castelvetro's was tried for the offense. But he was acquitted. Caro, on his side, gave occasion to the worst reports by writing in May 1560 to Varchi: "E credo che all'ultimo sarò sforzato a finirla, per ogni altra via, e vengane ciò che vuole." See Tiraboschi, Part 3, lib. iii. chap. 3 sec. 13.

[346] The identity of male and female education in Italy is an important feature of this epoch. The history of Vittorino da Feltre's school at Mantua given by his biographer, Rosmini, supplies valuable information upon this point. Students may consult Burckhardt, Cultur der Renaissance, sec. 5, ed. 2, p. 312; Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, book i. sec. 4; Janitschek, Gesellschaft der Renaissance, Lecture 3.

[347] See Vulgate, Gen. ii. 23: "Hæc vocabitur Virago," etc.

[348] In a rare tract called Tariffa delle puttane, etc., Tullia d'Aragona is catalogued among the courtesans of Venice. See Passano, Novellieri in Verso, p. 118.

[349] See Revival of Learning, p. 375.

[350] Rinaldo Corso, quoted by Tiraboschi.

[351] See Ricordi Inediti di Gerolamo Morone, pubblicati dal C. Tullio Dandolo, Milano, 1855.

[352] The most recent investigations tend rather to confirm the tradition of Vittoria's Lutheran leanings. See Giuseppe Campori's Vittoria Colonna (Modena, 1878), and the fine article upon it by Ernesto Masi in the Rassegna Settimanale, January 29, 1879. Karl Benrath's Ueber die Quellen der italienischen Reformationsgeschichte (Bonn, 1876) is a valuable contribution to the history of Lutheran opinion in the South.

[353] The whole document may be seen in the Archivio Storico, nuov. ser. tom. v. part 2, p. 139, or in Grimm's Life of Michelangelo.

[354] The first lines of the introductory sonnet are strictly true:

[355] The last biographer of Vittoria Colonna, G. Campori, has shown that her husband was by no means faithful to his marriage vows.

[356] The close of the twenty-second sonnet is touching by reason of its allusion to the past. Vittoria had no children.

[357] See, for instance, Rime Varie, Sonetto li. and lxxi. xc.

[358] It is No. 31 of the Rime Varie (Florence, Barbèra, 1860).

[359] The introductory Sonnet has, however, these ugly concetti:

[360] Rime Sacre, 119, 120, 86, 87.

[361] Ibid. 75, 80, 81.

[362] For a brief account of Michelangelo's Rime, see Fine Arts, Appendix ii.; also the introduction to my translation of the sonnets, The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommaso Campanella, Smith and Elder, 1878.

[363] Varchi's and Guidicci's Lezioni will be found in Guasti's edition of the Rime.

[364] I use the Life prefixed by G. Campori to his Lettere Inedite di Bernardo Tasso (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1869).

[365] The Amadigi was printed by Giolito at Venice in 1560 under the author's own supervision. The book is a splendid specimen of florid typography.

[366] Besides the Amadigi, Bernardo Tasso composed a second narrative poem, the Floridante, which his son, Torquato, retouched and published at Mantua in 1587.

[367] Giangiorgio Trissino, by Bernardo Morsolin (Vicenza, 1878), is a copious biography and careful study of this poet's times.

[368] Francesco died in 1514.

[369] See above, pp. 126-128.

[370] See Morsolin, op. cit., p. 360, for Trissino's own emphatic statement that his services had been unpaid. Ibid. p. 344, for a list of the personages he complimented.

[371] Ibid. p. 323.

[372] Ibid. pp. 219-235.

[373] Ibid. p. 301.

[374] Op. cit. p. 366.

[375] Op. cit. p. 385.

[376] Ibid. p. 413.

[377] Ibid. p. 414.

[378] The whole of this extraordinary sequel to Trissino's biography will be read with interest in the last chapter of Signor Morsolin's monograph. It leaves upon my mind the impression that Giulio, though unpardonably ill-tempered, and possibly as ill-conducted in his private life as his foes asserted, was the victim of an almost diabolical persecution.

[379] See Morsolin, op. cit., p. 197. This device was imprinted as early as 1529, upon the books published for Trissino at Verona by Janicolo of Brescia.

[380] The Poetica was printed in 1529; but it had been composed some years earlier.

[381] His grammatical and orthographical treatises were published under the titles of Epistola a Clemente VII., Grammatichetta, Dialogo Castellano, Dubbi Grammaticali. Firenzuola made Trissino's new letters famous and ridiculous by the burlesque sonnets he wrote upon them.

[382] Vicenza, Tolomeo Janicolo, 1529.

[383] Nine books were first printed at Rome in 1547 by Valerio and Luigi Dorici. The whole, consisting of twenty-seven books, was published at Venice in 1548 by Tolomeo Janicolo of Brescia. This Janicolo was Trissino's favorite publisher.

[384] See the Madrigals in Opere Burlesche, vol. iii. pp. 36-38.

[385] Ibid. p. 290.

[386] In Mac. xx. (p. 152 of Mantuan edition, 1771), he darkly alludes to this episode of his early life, where he makes an exposed witch exclaim:

[387] I cannot find sufficient authority for the story of Folengo's having had a grammar-master named Cocaius, from whom he borrowed part of his pseudonym. The explanation given by his Mantuan editor, which I have adopted in the text, seems the more probable. Cocáj in Mantuan dialect means a cork for a bottle; and the phrase ch'al fà di cocáj is used to indicate some extravagant absurdity or blunder.

[388] There seems good reason, from many passages in his Maccaronea, to believe that his repentance was sincere. I may here take occasion to remark that, though his poems are gross in the extreme, their moral tone is not unhealthy. He never makes obscenity or vice attractive.

[389] Part of Folengo's satire is directed against the purists. See Canto i. 7-9. He confesses himself a Lombard, and shrugs his shoulders at their solemn criticisms:

To the reproach of "turnip-eating Lombard" he retorts, "Tuscan chatterbox." Compare vi. 1, 2, on his own style:

[390] The first line of the elegy placed upon the edition of 1526 runs thus:

Mensibus istud opus tribus indignatio fecit.

Folengo claims for himself a satiric purpose. The edition used by me is Molini's, Londra, 1775.

[391] See above Part i. p. 455, for the belief that Poliziano was the real author of the Morgante Maggiore.

[392] Canto i. 64, 65; ii. 1-4:

Folengo, of course, has a mistress, to whom he turns at the proper moments of his narrative. This mia diva Caritunga is a caricature of the fashionable Laura. See v. 1, 2:

[393] Canto ii. 9-42.

[394] Canto vi. 40-46. I have placed a translation of this passage in an Appendix to this chapter.

[395] Canto v. 56-58. The contempt for country folk seems unaffected.

[396] Canto vi. 55-57. This passage is a caricature of Pulci's burlesque description of the Last Day. See above Part i. p. 449. Folengo's loathing of the strangers who devoured Italy is clear here, as also in i. 43, ii. 4, 59. But there is no force in his invectives or laments.

[397]

[398] Canto vi. 8-11:

[399] Canto vii. 61-65.

[400] He has been identified on sufficiently plausible grounds with Ignazio Squarcialupo, the prior of Folengo's convent. In the Maccaronea this burlesque personage reappears as the keeper of a tavern in hell, who feeds hungry souls on the most hideous messes of carrion and vermin (Book xxiii. p. 217). There is sufficient rancor in Griffarosto's portrait to justify the belief that Folengo meant in it to gratify a private thirst for vengeance.

[401] In the play on the word lingue there is a side-thrust at the Purists.

[402] Canto viii. 23-32.

[403] Canto viii. 73-84. This passage I have also translated and placed in an Appendix to this chapter, where the chief Lutheran utterances of the burlesque poets will be found together.

[404] In addition to the eighth Canto, I have drawn on iii. 4, 20; iv. 13; vi. 44, for this list.

[405] Leo X.'s complacent acceptance of the Mandragola proves this.

[406] The curious history of Giulio Trissino, told by Bernardo Morsolin in the last chapters of his Giangiorgio Trissino (Vicenza, 1878), reveals the manner of men who adopted Lutheranism in Italy in the sixteenth century. See above, p. 304. I shall support the above remarks lower down in this chapter by reference to Berni's Lutheran opinions.

[407] The political and ecclesiastical satires known in England as the work of Walter Mapes, abound in pseudo-Maccaronic passages. Compare Du Méril, Poésies Populaires Latines antérieures au xiime Siècle, p. 142, etc., for further specimens of undeveloped Maccaronic poetry of the middle ages.

[408] Those who are curious to study this subject further, should consult the two exhaustive works of Octave Delepierre, Macaronéana (Paris, 1852), and Macaronéana Andra (Londres, Trübner, 1862). These two publications contain a history of Maccaronic verse, with reprints of the scarcer poems in this style. The second gives the best text of Odassi, Fossa, and the Virgiliana. The Maccheronee di Cinque Poeti Italiani (Milano, Daelli, 1864), is a useful little book, since it reproduces Delepierre's collections in a cheap and convenient form. In the uncertainty which attends the spelling of this word, I have adopted the form Maccaronic.

[409] Take one example, from the induction to Odassi's poems (Mac. Andr. p. 63):

[410] The book was first printed at Vicenza. The copy I have studied is the Florentine edition of 1574. Scrofa's verses, detached from the collection, may be found in the Parnaso Italiano, vol. xxv.

[411] Op. cit. p. 23.

[412] Bernardino Scardeone in his work De antiquitate urbis Patavii, etc. (Basileæ, 1560), speaks of Odassi as the inventor of Maccaronic poetry: "adinvenit enim primus ridiculum carminis genus, nunquam prius a quopiam excogitatum, quod Macaronæum nuncupavit, multis farcitum salibus, et satyrica mordacitate respersum." He adds that Odassi desired on his deathbed that the book should be burned. In spite of this wish, it was frequently reprinted during Scardeone's lifetime.

[413] It is with great regret that I omit Bertapalia, the charlatan—a portrait executed with inimitable verve. Students of Italian life in its lowest and liveliest details should seek him out. Mac. Andr. pp. 68-71.

[414] Ibid. p. 71. I have altered spelling and punctuation.

[415]

[416] This anonymous poet has been variously identified with Odassi and with Fossa of Cremona. The frequent occurrence of Paduan idioms seems to point to a Paduan rather than a Cremonese author; and though there is no authoritative reason for referring the poem to Odassi, it resembles his style sufficiently to render the hypothesis of his authorship very plausible. The name of the hero, Vigonça, is probably the Italian Bigoncia, which meant in one sense a pulpit or a reading-desk, in its ordinary sense a tub.

[417] Daelli, Maccheronee di Cinque Poeti Italiani (Milano, 1864), p. 50; cp. Mac. Andr. p. 19.

[418] Daelli, op. cit. pp. 52, 54.

[419] Ibid. p. 112; Mac. Andra, p. 32.