Renaissance in Italy Volume IV Part 30

[499] No one who has read Poliziano's Greek epigrams on Chrysocomus, or who knows the scandal falsely circulated regarding his death, will have failed to connect the sentiments put into the mouth of Orpheus (Carducci, pp. 109-110) with the personality of the poet-scholar. That the pa.s.sage in question could have been recited with applause before a Cardinal, is a fact of much significance.

[500] Perhaps Ficino was the first to give him this t.i.tle. In a letter of his to Lorenzo de' Medici we read: "Nutris domi Homeric.u.m ilium adolescentem Angelum Politianum qui Graecam Homeri personam Latinis coloribus exprimat. Exprimit jam; atque, id quod mirum est ita tenera aetate, ita exprimit ut nisi quivis Graec.u.m fuisse Homerum noverit dubitaturus sit e duobus uter naturalis sit et uter pictus Homerus"

(_Ep._ ed. Flor. 1494, lib. i. p. 6). Ficino always addressed Poliziano as "Poeta Homericus."

[501] Among the frescoes by Signorelli at Orvieto there is a _tondo_ in monochrome, representing Orpheus before the throne of Pluto. He is dressed like a poet, with a laurel crown, and he is playing on a violin of antique form. Medieval demons are guarding the prostrate Eurydice. It would be curious to know whether a rumor of the Mantuan pageant had reached the ears of the Cortonese painter, or whether he had read the edition of 1494.

[502] The original should be read in the version first published by the Padre Aff (Carducci, pp. 148-154). My translation will be found in _Studies and Sketches in Italy_, pp. 235-237.

[503] "La notte esceva per Barletta (re Manfredi) cantando strambotti e canzoni, che iva pigliando lo frisco, e con isso ivano due musici Siciliani ch'erano gran romanzatori." M. Spinello, in _Scr. Rer.

Ital._ vii. Spinello's Chronicles are, however, probably a sixteenth-century forgery.

[504] A letter addressed by Poliziano to Lorenzo in 1488 from Acquapendente justifies the belief that the cultivation of popular poetry had become a kind of pastime in the Medicean circle. He says: "Yesterday we set off for Viterbo. We are all gay, and make good cheer, and all along the road we whet our wits at furbishing up some song or May-day ditty, which here in Acquapendente with their Roman costume seem to me more fanciful than those at home." See Del Lungo's edition of the _Prose Volgari_, etc., p. 75.

[505] See above, p. 378. For translations of several _Ballate_ by Poliziano I may refer to my _Sketches and Studies in Italy_, pp.

190-225.

[506] For translations of detached _Rispetti_, see my _Sketches and Studies in Italy_, p. 197.

[507] I have translated one long _Rispetto Continuato_ or _Lettera in Istrambotti_; see _Sketches and Studies in Italy_, pp. 198-201. It is probable that Poliziano wrote these love-poems for his young friends, which may excuse the frequent repet.i.tions of the same thoughts and phrases.

[508] In Carducci's edition, pp. 342, 355, 363. The first seems to me untranslatable. The second and third are translated by me in _Sketches and Studies, etc._, pp. 202-207.

[509]

But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth, Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face Venus; for every grace And beauty of the world in her combined.

Merely to think, far more to tell my mind, Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me; For mid the maidens she Who most resembled her was found most rare.

Call ye another first among the fair; Not first, but sole before my lady set: Lily and violet.

And all the flowers below the rose must bow.

Down from her royal head and l.u.s.trous brow The golden curls fell sportively unpent.

While through the choir she went With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound.

[510]

White is the maid, and white the robe around her, With buds and roses and thin gra.s.ses pied; Enwreathed folds of golden tresses crowned her, Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride: The wild wood smiled; the thicket, where he found her, To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild, And with her brow tempers the tempests wild.

Reclined he found her on the swarded gra.s.s In jocund mood; and garlands she had made Of every flower that in the meadow was, Or on her robe of many hues displayed; But when she saw the youth before her pa.s.s, Raising her timid head awhile she stayed; Then with her white hand gathered up her dress, And stood, lap full of flowers, in loveliness.

[511] Praised for their incomparable sweetness by Scaliger, and translated into softest Italian by Firenzuola.

CHAPTER VII.

PULCI AND BOIARDO.

The Romantic Epic--Its Plebeian Origin--The Popular Poet's Standpoint--The Pulci Family--The Carolingian Cycle--Turpin--_Chanson de Roland_--Historical Basis--Growth of the Myth of Roland--Causes of its Popularity in Italy--Burlesque Elements--The _Morgante Maggiore_--Adventures in Paynimry--Roncesvalles--Episodes introduced by the Poet--Sources in older Poems--The Treason of Gano--Pulci's Characters--His Artistic Purpose--His Levity and Humor--Margutte--Astarotte--Pulci's _bourgeois_ Spirit--Boiardo--His Life--Feudalism in Italy--Boiardo's Humor--His Enthusiasm for Knighthood--His Relation to Renaissance Art--Plot of the _Orlando Innamorato_--Angelica--Mechanism of the Poem--Creation of Characters--Orlando and Rinaldo--Ruggiero--Lesser Heroes--The Women--Love--Friendship--Courtesy--Orlando and Agricane at Albracca--Natural Delineation of Pa.s.sions--Speed of Narration--Style of Versification--Cla.s.sical and Medieval Legends--The Punishment of Rinaldo--The Tale of Narcissus--Treatment of Mythology--Treatment of Magic--Fate of the _Orlando Innamorato_.

Lorenzo de' Medici and Angelo Poliziano reunited the two currents of Italian literature, plebeian and cultivated, by giving the form of refined art to popular lyrics of divers kinds, to the rustic idyll, and to the sacred drama. Another member of the Medicean circle, Luigi Pulci, aided the same work of restoration by taking up the rude tales of the _Cantori da Piazza_ and producing the first romantic poem of the Renaissance.

Of all the numerous forms of literature, three seem to have been specially adapted to the Italians of this Period. They were the _Novella_, the Romantic Epic, and the Idyll. With regard to the _Novella_ and the Idyll, it is enough in this place to say that we may reckon them indigenous to modern Italy. They suited the temper of the people and the age; the _Novella_ furnishing the fit artistic vehicle for Italian realism and objectivity; the Idyll presenting a point of contact with the literature of antiquity, and expressing that calm sensibility to natural beauty which was so marked a feature of the national character amid the distractions of the sixteenth century. The Idyll and the _Novella_ formed, moreover, the most precious portion of Boccaccio's legacy.

Concerning the Romantic Epic it is necessary to speak at greater length.

At first sight the material of the Carolingian Cycle, which formed the basis of the most considerable narrative poems of the Renaissance, seems uncongenial to the Italians. Feudalism had never taken a firm hold on the country. Chivalry was more a pastime of the upper cla.s.ses, more consciously artificial than it had been in France or even England. The interest of the Italians in the Crusades was rather commercial than religious, and the people were not stirred to their center by the impulse to recover the Holy Sepulcher. The enthusiasm of piety which animated the Northern myth of Charlemagne, was not characteristic of the race that earlier than the rest of Europe had indulged in speculative skepticism and sarcastic raillery; nor were the marvels of the legend congenial to their positive and practical imagination, turned ever to the beauties of the plastic arts. Charlemagne, again, was not a national hero. It seemed as though the great foreign epics, which had been transported into Italy during the thirteenth century, would find no permanent place in Southern literature after the close of the fourteenth. The cultivated cla.s.ses in their eagerness to discover and appropriate the ancient authors lost sight of peer and paladin. Even Boccaccio alluded contemptuously to chivalrous romance, as fit reading only for idle women; and when he attempted an epical poem in octave stanzas, he chose a tale of ancient Greece. Still, in spite of these apparent drawbacks, in spite of learned scorn and polished indifference, the Carolingian Cycle had taken a firm hold upon the popular fancy. We have seen how a special cla.s.s of literary craftsmen reproduced its princ.i.p.al episodes in prose and verse for the mult.i.tudes gathered on the squares to hear their recitations, or for readers in the workshop and the country farm. Now, in the renascence of the native literature, poets of the highest rank were destined to receive the same material from the people and to give it a form appropriate to their own culture. This fact must not be forgotten by the student of Pulci, Boiardo, Berni, and Ariosto. The romantic epics of the golden age had a plebeian origin; and the masters of verse who devoted their best energies to that brilliant series of poems, were dealing with legends which had taken shape in the imagination of the people, before they applied their own inventive faculties to the task of beautifying them with art unrivaled for splendor and variety of fancy. This, and this alone, explains the anomalies of the Italian romantic epic--the mixture of burlesque with seriousness, the irony and sarcasm alternating with gravity and pathos, the wealth of comic episodes, the interweaving of extraneous incidents, the ant.i.thesis between the professed importance of the subject-matter and the spirit of the poet who plays with it as though he felt its puerility--all the startling contrasts, in a word, which have made this glittering Harlequin of art in the Renaissance so puzzling to modern critics. If we remember that the poets of the sixteenth century adopted their subjects from the people, finding them already impregnated with the plebeian instincts of _improvisatori_, who felt no real sympathy with knighthood, and whose one aim was to amuse and gratify an audience eager for excitement; if we further recollect that these poets approached their own task in the same spirit, adding yet another element of irony proper to men who stood aloof and laughed, and who desired to entertain the Courts of Italy with masterpieces of humor and fantastic beauty; we shall succeed in comprehending the peculiarities of their productions.

The romances of Orlando must be regarded as works of pure art, wrought by courtly singers from a previously existing popular literature, which in its turn had been fashioned from the Frankish legends to suit the tastes of a non-chivalrous, but humorous and marvel-loving mult.i.tude. In pa.s.sing from the Song of Roland or Turpin's Chronicle to the _Orlando Furioso_ we can trace two separate processes of trans.m.u.tation. By the earlier process the _materia di Francia_ was adapted to the Italian people; by the second the new material thus obtained was reconstructed for the Italian Courts. The final product is a masterpiece of refined art, retaining something of the French originals, something of the popular Italian _rifacimento_, but superadding the wisdom, the irony, and the poetry of one of the world's brightest geniuses. We might compare the growth of a romantic epic of the sixteenth century to the art of Calimala, whereby the rough stuffs of Flanders were wrought at Florence into finer cloths, and the finished fabric was tinted with the choicest dyes, and made fit for a king's chamber.

Hitherto I have spoken as though Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto, Berni, and the lesser writers of romantic epics could be cla.s.sed together in one sentence. The justification of so broad a treatment at the outset lies in this, that their relation to the popular romances they rehandled was substantially the same. But it will be the special purpose of the following pages to point out their essential differences, not only as poets, but also with regard to the spirit in which they viewed their common subject-matter.

Boccaccio, in his desire to fuse the cla.s.sic and the medieval modes of thought and style, not merely adapted the periods of Latin to Italian prose, but also sought to treat an antique subject in the popular measure of the octave stanza. His _Teseide_ is a narrative poem in which the Greek hero plays a prominent part, while all the chiefs of Theban and Athenian legend are brought upon the scene. Yet the main motive is a tale of love, and the language is as modern as need be. Writing to please the mistress of his heart, and emulous of epic fame, Boccaccio rejected the usual apostrophes and envoys of the _Cantori da Banca_, and constructed a poem divided into books. Poliziano approached the problem of fusing the antique and modern from a different point of view. He adorned a courtly theme of his own day with phrases and decorative details borrowed from the cla.s.sic authors, presenting in a series of brilliant pictures an epitome of ancient art. It remained for Pulci to develop, without cla.s.sical admixture, the elements of poetry existing in the popular Italian romances. The _Morgante Maggiore_ is therefore more thoroughly and purely Tuscan than any work of equal magnitude that had preceded it. This is its great merit, and this gives it a place apart among the hybrid productions of the Renaissance.

The Pulci were a n.o.ble family, reduced in circ.u.mstances and attached to the Casa Medici by ties of political and domestic dependency. Bernardo, the eldest of three brothers, distinguished himself in literature by his translations of Virgil's Eclogues, by his elegies on Cosimo de' Medici, by a _Sacra Rappresentazione_ on the tale of Barlaam, and by a poem on the Pa.s.sion of Christ which he composed at the instance of a devout nun.

Luca wrote the stanzas on the Tournament of Lorenzo de' Medici above mentioned,[512] and took some part at least in the composition of an obscure poem called the _Ciriffo Calvaneo_.[513] But the most famous of the brothers was Luigi, whose correspondence with Lorenzo de' Medici proves him to have been a kind of Court-poet in the Palace of the Via Larga, while the sonnets he exchanged with Matteo Franco breathe Burchiello's plebeian spirit.[514] He had a wild fantastic temperament, inclining to bold speculations on religious topics; tinctured with curiosity that took the form of magic art; bizarre in expression, yet withal so purely Florentine that his prose and verse are a precious mine of _quattrocento_ idioms gathered from the jargon of the streets and squares. Of humanistic culture he seems to have possessed but little.

Still the terms of familiar intercourse on which he lived with Angelo Poliziano, Matteo Palmieri, and Paolo Toscanelli enabled him to gather much of the learning then in vogue. The theological and scientific speculations of the age are transmitted to us in his comic stanzas with a vernacular raciness that renders them doubly precious.[515]

Before engaging with the _Morgante Maggiore_, it is needful to inquire into the source of this and all the other Italian romantic poems, and to account for the fact that they were confined, so far as their subject went, within the circle of the Carolingian epic. In 1122 a prose history in monkish Latin, purporting to be the Chronicle of the last years of the reign of Charles the Great written by Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, was admitted among the canonical books by Calixtus II., who in his Bull cursed those who should thenceforward listen to the "lying songs of Jongleurs." This Chronicle was merely a sanctimonious and prosaic version of the Songs of Roland and of Roncesvalles.[516] The object of the scribe who compiled it, and of the Pope who canonized it, was to give an ecclesiastical complexion to the martial chants which already possessed the ear of the public.[517] Accordingly, while he left untouched the tales of magic, the monstrous marvels and the unchristian ethics of the elder fable, this pseudo-Turpin interspersed prayers, confessions, vows, miracles, homilies, and pulpit admonitions. In order to secure verisimilitude for his narrative, he reversed the old account of Roncesvalles, according to which Turpin perished on the field, anathematized all previous poets, and pretended that his Chronicle was written by the hands of the Archbishop.[518] What he effected for the Song of Roland, Geoffrey of Monmouth did, without a sacerdotal bias, for the romance of Arthur.

We possess a MS. of the _Chanson de Roland_ in Norman French. It was discovered in the Bodleian Library and published first in 1837 by M.

Michel, afterwards in 1851 by M. Genin. The date of the MS. has been fixed by some critics as early as the eleventh, by others as late as the thirteenth, century. Purporting to be the work of one Turold, its most enthusiastic admirers claim it as the genuine production of Theroulde, tutor to William the Conqueror, which, after pa.s.sing through the hands of Taillefer, the knightly bard of Senlac field, was deposited in his MS. chest by a second Theroulde, abbot of Peterborough.[519] Be that as it may, we can a.s.sume that the Bodleian MS. presents the ancient battle-song in nearly the same form as when the Normans followed Taillefer at Hastings, and heard him chanting of "Charlemain and Roland and Oliver who died in Roncesvalles." This song reverberated throughout medieval Europe. Poggio in the _Facetiae_ compares a man who weeps over the fall of Rome, to one who in Milan shed tears over Roland's death at Roncesvalles. Dante may have heard it on the lips of the _Cantores Francigenarum_ in Lombard towns, or in the halls of Fosdinovo above the Tyrrhene Sea; for he writes with an energy of style scarcely inspired by the pseudo-Turpin:

Dopo la dolorosa rotta, quando Carlo Magno perde la santa gesta, Non son si terribilmente Orlando.

Orlando and Oliver (or Ogier) are carved upon the facade of the Duomo at Verona--Dietrich's town of Bern, where Northern traditions of chivalry long lingered.[520] Like the Spanish legend of the Cid, or the climax of the _Niebelungenlied_, this Song of Roland, in dignity and strength of style, in tragic heroism and pa.s.sionate simplicity, is worthy to be ranked with a Canto of the _Iliad_. Like all medieval romantic poetry, it is but a fragment--the portion of a cycle never wrought by intervention of a Homer into epical completeness. But its superiority over Turpin's Chronicle in all the qualities that could inspire a singer is immeasurable.

Two questions have now to be asked. What historical basis can be found for the Carolingian myth? and how did it happen that the Italians preferred this legend of French Paladins to any other of the feudal romances? The history of Charlemagne and his peers--of Roland, Oliver, Ogier, Turpin, Ganilo the traitor, Pinabel, Marsilius the Moorish king of Spain, and all the rest, of whom we read in the Norman Song, and who receive numerous additions from the Italian romancers--must not be sought in Eginhard. It is a Myth. But like all myths, it has some nucleus of reality, round which have crystallized the enthusiasms of a semi-barbarous age, the pa.s.sionate memories of the people looking back to bygone greatness, the glowing fancies of poets intent on visions of the future. This nucleus of fact is little more than the name of Charles the Frankish Emperor. All the legends of the cycle represent him as conducting a crusade, defeating the Saracens in mighty battles, besieged by them in Paris, betrayed by his own subject Ganilo, and bereft of his n.o.blest paladins in the Pa.s.s of Roncesvalles. History knows nothing of these events. Nor can history account for the traditional character of the Emperor, who is feeble, credulous, browbeaten by lawless va.s.sals, incapable of strenuous action, and yet respected as the conqueror of the world and the anointed of the Lord.[521] It is therefore clear that the myth has blent together divers incongruous elements, and that the spirit of the crusades has been at work, giving a kind of unity to scarce remembered acts of the chief of Christendom. We hear from Eginhard that Charlemagne in 778 advanced as far as Saragossa into Spain, and during his retreat had his rearguard cut off by the Basques.[522] Among the slain was "Roland, prefect of the Breton Marches." We read again in Eginhard (anno 824) how Louis le Debonair lost two of his counts, who were returning from Spain through the Pa.s.s of Roncesvalles. Furthermore, the Merovingian Chronicles tell us of a Pyrenean battle in the days of Dagobert, when twelve Frankish chiefs were surrounded in those pa.s.ses and slain. These are sufficient data to account for the Pa.s.s of Roncesvalles becoming a valley dolorous, the vale of the great woe. For the crusading exploits of Charlemagne we have to look to his predecessor, Charles Martel, who defeated the Saracens at Tours and stemmed the tide of Mussulman invasion. His successors, the feeble monarchs of the Frankish line, several of whom bore the name of Charles, explain the transformation of the Emperor into a vacillating monarch, infirm of purpose and incapable of keeping his peers in order; for the distinguishing surnames of history are later additions, and Chronicles, though written, were not popularly read. The bard, therefore, mixed his materials without care for criticism, and the myth produced a hybrid Charlemagne composed of many royal Karls. As for the traitor Gano, we hear of Lupus, Duke of Gascony, who dealt treasonably with Charlemagne, and of one Ganilo, Ganelon, or Wenelon, Archbishop of Sens, who played the same part toward Charles the Bald in 864.[523] This portion of the myth may possibly be referred to these dim facts. Yet it would be wiser not to insist upon them; for the endeavor to rationalize an entire legend is always hazardous, and it is enough to say that a traitor was needed for the fight of Roncesvalles no less than Mordred for the death of Arthur in the plain of Glas...o...b..ry. To explain the legendary siege of Paris by the Saracens, so important an incident in the Italian romances, it has been ingeniously remarked that, though the Moors never menaced the French capital, the Normans did so repeatedly, while both Saracens and Normans were Pagans.[524] It may also be remembered that Saracens had pillaged Rome, and the Saracen forays were a common incident of Italian experience. The gathering of great armies from the far East and the incursions of hideous barbarian hordes, which form an integral element of Boiardo's and Ariosto's scheme, can be referred to the memory of Tartar, Hun, and Turk; while the episodes of Christian knights enamored of Pagan damsels are incidents drawn from actual history in the intercourse of Italy with the Levant. Allowing for this slight framework of fact, but not pressing even the few points that have been gathered by antiquarian research, it may be briefly said that the bulk of the Carolingian romance, with its numerous subordinate legends of knights and ladies, is purely mythical.

In the next place we have to consider what led the Italians to select the romances of Charlemagne for special development rather than those of Arthur, with which they were no less familiar.[525] We have seen that on the first introduction of the _materia di Francia_ into Italy, the Arthurian Cycle became the property of the n.o.bles, who found in it a mirror of the feudal manners they affected, whereas the people listened to _Chansons de Geste_ upon the market-place.[526] When, therefore, the polite poets of the fifteenth century adopted the romantic epic from the popular rhymers, they found a ma.s.s of Carolingian tales in vogue, to which they had themselves from infancy been used. But this preference of the mult.i.tude for Charlemagne and Roland requires further explanation.

It must be remarked in the first place that the Empire exercised a fascination over the Italians in the middle ages, paralleled by no other power except the Papacy. They regarded it as their own, as their glory in the past, as their pride in the future, if only the inheritor of the Caesars would do his duty and rule the world from Rome with equal justice. The pedigree of the Christian Emperors from Constantine to Charles the Great formed an integral part of the Carolingian romance as it took form in Italy.[527] It was something for the Italians that Charles had been crowned at Rome, a ceremony from time to time repeated by his German successors during the centuries which made his legend famous. Nor, though the people were but little influenced by the crusading fanaticism, was it of no importance that in the person of this Emperor Christendom had been imperiled by the infidels, and Christendom through him had triumphed. The Chronicle of Turpin, again, had received authoritative sanction. Add to it as the romancers chose, attribute nonsense to the Archbishop as they pleased, they always relied, in show at least, on his canonical veracity. Pulci, Bello, Boiardo, and Ariosto appeal to his authority with mock seriousness; and even the burlesque Berni, while turning Turpin into ridicule, adopts the style:

Perche egli era Arcivescovo, bisogna Credergli, ancor che dica la menzogna.[528]

The fashion lasted till the days of Folengo and Fortiguerra. It may further be mentioned that Orlando at an early date had been made a Roman by the popular Italian mythologists. They said that he was born at Sutri, and that Oliver was the son of the Roman prefect for the Pope.

The sentiment of the people for this strange _Senator Roma.n.u.s_ expressed itself touchingly and pithily in his supposed epitaph: "One G.o.d, One Rome, One Roland."[529] Orlando was so rooted in the popular consciousness as a hero, that to have subst.i.tuted for him another epical character would have been impossible.

When we further investigate the naturalization of Orlando in Italy, we find that all the romantic poems written on his legend inclined to the burlesque. The chivalrous element of love which pervades the Arthurian Cycle, had been extracted and treated after their own fashion by the lyrists of the fourteenth century. That was no immediate concern of the people, nor had the citizens any sympathy with the chivalry of arms. To deal as solemnly with medieval romance as the Northern bards had done, was quite beside the purpose of the _improvisatori_ who refashioned the _Chansons de Geste_ for Italian townsfolk. When, therefore, Pulci undertook to amuse Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the mother of Lorenzo de'

Medici, with a tale of Roland, he found his material already stripped of epical sobriety; nor was it hard for him to handle his theme in the spirit of Boccaccio, bent on exhausting every motive of amus.e.m.e.nt which it might suggest. He a.s.sumed the tone of a street-singer, opening each canto with the customary invocation to Madonna or a paraphrase of some Church collect, and dismissing his audience at the close with grateful thanks or brief good wishes. But Pulci was no mere _Cantastorie_. The popular style served but for a cloak to cover his subtle-witted satire and his mocking levity. Sarcastic Tuscan humor keeps up an _obbligato_ accompaniment throughout the poem. Sometimes this humor is in harmony with the plebeian spirit of the old Italian romances; sometimes it turns aside and treats it as a theme of ridicule. In reading the _Morgante_, we must bear in mind that it was written, canto by canto, to be recited in the Palace of the Via Larga, at the table where Poliziano and Ficino gathered with Michelangelo Buonarroti and Cristoforo Landino. Whatever topics may from time to time have occupied that brilliant circle, were reflected in its stanzas; and this alone suffices to account for its tender episodes and its burlesque extravagances, for the satiric picture of Margutte and the serious discourses of the devil Astarotte. The external looseness of construction and the intellectual unity of the poem, are both attributable to these circ.u.mstances. Pa.s.sing by rapid transitions from grave to gay, from pathos to cynicism, from theological speculations to ribaldry, it is at one and the same time a mirror of the popular taste which suggested the form, and also of the courtly wits who listened to it laughing. The _Morgante_ is no _nave_ production of a simple age, but the artistic plaything of a cultivated and critical society, entertaining its leisure with old-world stories, accepting some for their beauty's sake in seriousness, and turning others into nonsense for pure mirth.

A careful study of the _Morgante Maggiore_ reveals to the critic three separate strains of style. To begin with, it is clear that we are dealing with two poems fused in one--the first ending with the twenty-third canto, the second consisting of the last five cantos.

Between these two divisions a considerable period of time is supposed to have elapsed. The first poem consists of a series of romantic adventures in strange countries, whither Orlando, Uliviero, Rinaldo and Astolfo have been driven by the craft of Gano, and where they fight giants, liberate ladies, and fall in love with Pagan damsels, after the jovial fashion of knights errant. The second a.s.sumes a more heroic tone, and tells in truly thrilling verse the tale of Roncesvalles. But over and above this double material, different in matter and in manner, we trace throughout the whole romance a third element, which seems to be more essentially the poet's own than either his fantastic tissue of adventures or his serious narrative of Roland's death. This third element consists of half-ironical half-sober dissertations, reflective digressions, and brilliant interpolated incidents, among which we have to reckon the splendid episodes of Astarotte and Margutte. So much was clear to my mind when I first read the _Morgante_, and attempted to comprehend the difficulties it presented to critics like Ginguene and Hallam. Since then the truth of this view has been substantiated by the eminent Italian scholar, Pio Rajna, who has proved that the _Morgante_ is the _rifacimento_ of two earlier popular poems, the first existing in MS. in the Laurentian library, the second ent.i.tled _La Spagna_.[530]

Pulci availed himself freely of his popular models, at times repeating the old stanzas with no alteration, but oftener rehandling them and adding to their comic spirit, and interpolating pa.s.sages of his own invention. Since the two originals differed in character, his _rifacimento_ retained their divers peculiarities, notwithstanding those master-touches which betray the same hand in both of its main sections.

But the most precious part of the poem remains Pulci's own. Nothing can deprive him of Margutte and Astarotte; nor without his clever trans.m.u.tation of the old material would the bulk of the _Morgante Maggiore_ deserve more attention than many similar romances buried in condign oblivion. Between the two parts we may notice a considerable difference of literary merit. The second and shorter is by far the finer in poetic quality, earnestness, and power of treatment. The first is tedious to read. The second inthralls and carries us along.[531]

The poem takes its t.i.tle from the comic hero Morgante, a giant captured and converted by Orlando in the first Canto.[532] He dies, however, in the twentieth, and the narrative proceeds with no interruption. If we seek for epical unity, in a romance so loosely put together from so many divers sources, we can find it in the treason of Gano. The action turns decisively and frequently upon this single point, returns to it from time to time for fresh motives, and reaches its conclusion in the execution of the traitor after the great deed of crime has been accomplished in the valley dolorous. An Italian of the fifteenth century could not have chosen a motive more suited to the temper and experience of his age, when conspiracies like that of the Pazzi at Florence and the Baglioni at Perugia were frightfully frequent, and when the successful ma.s.sacre of Sinigaglia made Cesare Borgia the hero of historical romance. _Il tradimento_, _il traditore_, the kiss of Judas, the simile of the fox, recur with fatal resonance through all the Cantos of the poem. The style a.s.sumes a rugged grandeur of tragic realism, not unworthy of poets of the stamp of our own Webster or Marston, in the pa.s.sage which describes the tempest by the well at Saragossa, where Gano met Marsilio to plan their fraud, and where the locust-tree let fall its fruit upon the traitor's head.[533] The _Morgante_ is, in truth, the epic of treason, and the character of Gano, as an accomplished yet not utterly abandoned Judas, is admirably sustained throughout. The powerful impression of his perversity is heightened by contrast with the loyalty of his son Baldovino. In the fight at Roncesvalles Baldovino carries a mantle given to Gano by the Saracen king, without knowing for what purpose his father made him wear it; and wherever he charges through the press of men, the foes avoid him. Orlando learns that he is protected by this ensign of fraud, and accuses him of partaking in Gano's treason.

Then the youth flings the cloak from his shoulders, and plunges into the fight with an indignant repudiation of this shame upon his lips. The scene is not unworthy of the _Iliad_;[534] and his last words, as he falls pierced in the breast with two lances, _Or non son io piu traditiore!_ are dramatic.

Pulci deserves credit for strong delineation of character. Through all the apish tricks and fantastic arabesque-work of his style, the chief personages retain firmly-marked types. Never since the _Chanson de Roland_ was first sung, has a more heroic portrait of Orlando, the G.o.d-fearing knight, obedient to his liege-lord, serene in his courage and gentle in his strength, courteous, pious and affectionate, been painted.[535] Close adherence to the popular conception of Orlando's character here stood Pulci in good stead; nor was he hampered with the difficulties which beset Boiardo and Ariosto, when they showed the champion of Christianity subdued to madness and to love. Thus one work at least of the Renaissance maintained for the Italians an ideal of chivalrous heroism, first conceived by Franco-Norman bards, and afterwards transmitted through the fancy of the people, who are ever ready to discern and to preserve the lineaments of greatness. Oliver the true friend and doughty warrior, Rinaldo the fiery foe and reckless lover, to whom the press of men was Paradise,[536] and Malagigi the magician, are drawn with no less skill. Charles is such as the traditions of the myth and the requirements of the plot obliged Pulci to make him. Yet in spite of the feebleness which exposes him to the treasonable arts of Gano, he is not deficient in a certain n.o.bility. In the conduct of these characters, amid the windings of the poet's freakish fancy, we trace the solidity of his plan, his faculty for earnest art. But should there still be found critics who, after a careful study of Gano, Orlando, Uliviero, Rinaldo and Carlo, think that Pulci meant his poem for a mere burlesque, this opinion cannot but be shaken by a perusal of the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh Cantos. The refusal of Orlando to blow his horn: