Renaissance in Italy Volume IV Part 13

[180] _Libro chiamato Quatriregio del Decorso de la Vita Humana in Terza Rima_, Impresso in Venetia del MCCCCCXI a di primo di Decembrio.

There is, I believe, a last century Foligno reprint of the _Quadriregio_; but I have not seen it.

[181] "Regno di Dio Cupido," "Regno di Sathan," "Regno delli Vitii,"

"Regno della Dea Minerva e di Virtu."

[182] Lib. i. cap. 1.

[183] Lib. ii. cap. 2.

[184] Lib. ii. cap. 7.

[185] See _Ficini Epistolae_, 1495, folio 17. If possible, I will insert some further notice of Palmieri's poem in an Appendix.

[186] See Vasari (Lemonnier, 1849), vol. v. p. 115, and note. This work by Botticelli is now in England.

[187] I may refer curious readers to two _Lamenti_ of Pre Agostino, condemned to the cage or _Chebba_ at Venice for blasphemy. They are given at length by Mutinelli, _Annali Urbani di Venezia_, pp. 352-356.

[188] For instance, "Un Miracolo di S.M. Maddalena," in D'Ancona's _Sacre Rappr._ vol. i. p. 397.

[189] It would be an interesting study to trace the vicissitudes of _terza rima_ from the _Paradiso_ of Dante, through the _Quadriregio_ and _Dittamondo_, to Lorenzo de' Medici's _Beoni_ and La Casa's _Capitolo del Forno_. In addition to what I have observed above, it occurs to me to mention the semi-popular _terza rima_ poems in Alberti's _Accademia Coronaria_ (Bonucci's edition of Alberti, vol. i.

pp. clxxv. _et seq._) and Boiardo's comedy of _Timone_. Both ill.u.s.trate the didactic use of the meter.

[190] _Le Lettere di S. Caterina da Siena_, Firenze, Barbera, 1860.

Edited and furnished with a copious commentary by Niccol Tommaseo.

Four volumes.

[191] _Op. cit._ vol. iv. pp. 5-12.

[192] See for example, the pa.s.sages from Graziani's _Chronicle of Perugia_ quoted by me in Appendix IV. to _Age of the Despots_.

[193] See _Alcune Lettere familiari del Sec. xiv_, Bologna, Romagnoli, 1868. This collection contains letters by Lemmo Balducci (1333-1389), Filippo dell'Antella (_circa_ 1398), Dora del Bene, Lanfredino Lanfredini (born about 1345), Coluccio Salutati (1330-1406), Giorgio Scali (died 1381), and Marchionne Stefani (died 1385).

[194] Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, _Lettere di una Gentildonna Fiorentina del secolo xv_, Firenze, Sansoni, 1877.

[195] See _Revival of Learning_, chap. 4, and _Age of the Despots_, chap. 5.

[196] _Istorie Fiorentine scritte da Giov. Cavalcanti_, 2 vols.

Firenze, 1838.

[197] Besides Muratori's great collection and the _Archivio Storico_, the Chronicles of Lombard, Umbrian, and Tuscan towns have been separately printed too voluminously for mention in a note.

[198] _L'Historia di Milano volgarmente scritta dall'eccellentissimo oratore M. Bernardino Corio_, in Vinegia, per Giovan. Maria Bonelli, MDLIIII. "Cronaca della Citta di Perugia dal 1492 al 1503 di Francesco Matarazzo detto Maturanzio," _Archivio Storico Italiano_, vol. xvi.

par. ii. Of Corio's History I have made frequent use in the _Age of the Despots_. It is a book that repays frequent and attentive reperusals. Those students who desire to gain familiarity at first hand with Renaissance cannot be directed to a purer source.

[199] In _Studies in Italy and Greece_, article "Perugia," I have dealt more at large with Matarazzo's Chronicle than s.p.a.ce admits of here.

[200] _Il Novellino di Masuccio Salernitano._ Edited by Luigi Settembrini. Napoli, Morano, 1874.

[201] Introduction to Part iii. _op. cit._ p. 239. "Cognoscerai i lasciati vestigi del vetusto satiro Giovenale, e del famoso commendato poeta Boccaccio, l'ornatissimo idioma e stile del quale ti hai sempre ingegnato de imitare."

[202] For an instance of Masuccio's feudal feeling, take this. A knight kills a licentious friar--"alquanto pent.i.to per avere le sue possenti braccia con la morte di un Fra Minore contaminato" (_op.

cit._ p. 13). It emerges in his description of the Order of the Ermine (_ibid._ p. 240). It is curious to compare this with his strong censure of the point of honor (pp. 388, 389) in a story which has the same blunt sense as Ariosto's episode of Giocondo. The Italian here prevails over the n.o.ble.

[203] See especially _Nov._ xi. and x.x.xviii.

[204] _Nov._ ii. iii. v. xi. xviii. xxix.

[205] _Nov._ x.x.xi.--Masuccio's peculiar animosity against the clergy may be ill.u.s.trated by comparing his story of the friar who persuaded the nun that she was chosen by the Holy Ghost (_Nov._ ii.) with Boccaccio's tale of the Angel Gabriel. See, too, the scene in the convent (_Nov._ vi.), the comedy of S. Bernardino's sermon (_Nov._ xvi.), the love-adventures of Cardinal Roderigo Borgia.

[206] For example, _Nov._ vii. xiii. v.

[207] _Op. cit._ pp. 292, 282, 391, 379.

[208] _Nov._ i. and xxviii. The second of these stories is dedicated to Francesco of Aragon, who, born in 1461, could not have been more than fifteen when this frightful tale of l.u.s.t and blood was sent him.

Nothing paints the manners of the time better than this fact.

[209] See _op. cit._ pp. 28, 68, 89, 141, 256, 273, 275, 380, 341, 343.

[210] For specimens of his invective read pp. 517, 273, 84, 275, 55, 65, 534. I have collected some of these pa.s.sages, bearing on the clergy, in a note to p. 458 of my _Age of the Despots_, 2nd edition.

No wonder that Masuccio's book was put upon the Index!

[211] _Nov._ xxvii, x.x.xiii. x.x.xv. x.x.xvii. xlviii.

[212] See _Revival of Learning_, pp. 341-344, for some account of Alberti's life and place among the humanists; _Fine Arts_, p. 74, for his skill as an architect.

[213] Sacchetti, we have seen, called himself _uomo discolo_; Ser Giovanni proclaimed himself a _pecorone_; Masuccio had the culture of a n.o.bleman; Corio and Matarazzo, if we are right in identifying the latter with Francesco Maturanzio, were both men of considerable erudition.

[214] The most charming monument of Alberti's memory is the Life by an anonymous writer, published in Muratori and reprinted in Bonucci's edition, vol. i. Bonucci conjectures, without any substantial reason, that it was composed by Alberti himself.

[215] For the _Camera Optica_, _Reticolo de' dipintori_, and _Bolide Albertiana_, see the Preface (pp. lxv.-lxix.) to Anicio Bonucci's edition of the _Opere Volgari di L.B. Alberti_, Firenze, 1843, five vols. All references will be made to this comprehensive but uncritical collection. Hubert Janitschek's edition of the Treatises on Art should be consulted for its introduction and carefully prepared text--Vienna, 1877, in the _Quellenschriften fur Kunstgeschichte_.

[216] The sentence of banishment was first removed in 1428; but the rights of burghership were only restored to the Alberti in 1434. Leo Battista finished the Treatise on Painting at Florence, Sept. 7, 1435 (see Janitschek, _op. cit._ p. iii.), and dedicated it to Brunelleschi, July 17, 1436. From that dedication it would seem that he had only recently returned.

[217] A pa.s.sage in the _Della Tranquillita dell'Animo_ (_Op. Volg._ i.

35), shows how Alberti had lived into the conception of cosmopolitan citizenship. It may be compared with another in the _Teogenio_ (_op.

cit._ iii. 194) wher he argues that love for one's country, even without residence in it, satisfies the definition of a citizen.

[218] _Op. cit._ ii. 215-221.

[219] Such phrases as _i nostri maggiori patrizii in Roma_ (i. 37), _la quasi dovuta a noi per le nostre virtu da tutte le genti riverenzia e obbedienzia_ (ii. 218), _nostri ottimi pa.s.sati Itali debellarono e sotto averono tutte le genti_ (ii. 9), might be culled in plenty. Alberti shows how deep was the Latin idealism of the Renaissance, and how impossible it would have been for the Italians to found their national self-consciousness on aught but a recovery of the past.

[220] Especially the fine pa.s.sage beginning, "Quello imperio maraviglioso senza termini, quel dominio di tutte le genti acquistato con _nostri latini auspici_, ottenuto colla _nostra industria_, amplificato con _nostre armi latine_" (ii. 8); and the apostrophe, "E tu, Italia n.o.bilissima, capo e arce di tutto l'universo mondo" (_ib._ 13).

[221] An example of servile submission to cla.s.sical authority might be chosen from Alberti's discourse on Friendship (_Famiglia_, lib. iv.

_op. cit._ ii. 415), where he adduces Sylla and Mark Antony in contradiction to his general doctrine that only upright conversation among friends can lead to mutual profit.

[222] Alberti's loss of training in the vernacular is noticed by his anonymous biographer (_op. cit._ i. xciv.). It will be observed by students of his writings that he does not speak of _la nostra italiana_ but _la nostra toscana_ (ii. 221). Again (iv. 12) _in lingua toscana_ is the phrase used in his dedication of the Essay on Painting to Brunelleschi.