The Century of Columbus Part 32

About the middle of the nineteenth century Guicciardini's. .h.i.therto unpublished works were given to the public in ten volumes and served to throw wonderful light on the historian himself. His _"Ricordi Politici"_ deserve to be placed beside Machiavelli's "Prince," and it is easy to understand, after reading them, that Guicciardini regarded his friend Machiavelli somewhat as "an amiable visionary or political enthusiast." There has probably never been a set of human doc.u.ments that illuminated the heights and depths of humanity so well as these writings of the Renaissance. To read Machiavelli, Guicciardini's _"Ricordi,"_ Benvenuto Cellini's "Autobiography" and Rabelais is to see the contradictions that there are in this microcosm man better than is possible in any other way. If we but add Montaigne, who was educated in our century, the picture is complete. These men of the Renaissance saw clearly and deeply into humanity through the lens of themselves. Guicciardini, devoid of pa.s.sion as well as of high moral standards in personal life, eminently loyal to his patrons at all times, just so far as administration of law went, and unquestionably able, possesses all that ordinarily is a.s.sumed to bring the admiration if not the respect of men, yet no one can read his "Reminiscences"

without feeling the deepest repugnance for his cynicism, selfishness and distrust of men. Ranke has impugned his good faith as an historian, and his quondam repute is gone. It is this very contrast, as exhibited in his writings, that makes Guicciardini's works as valuable a contribution to the story of humanity as the many masterpieces of his contemporaries.

{453}

One of the writers of this time who must not be omitted, though his merit has not always been recognized, is Vasari, whose "Lives of the Painters" has interested every generation in every country who have occupied themselves much with the great artists. Himself an artist, living on intimate terms with many of the men whose lives he sketched and gathering anecdotes about them and rescuing many a personal trait from oblivion that otherwise would have been lost to posterity, Vasari succeeded in making an extremely valuable as well as interesting book.

Some of his anecdotes have been discredited, and he has often been open to the criticism of lack of critical ac.u.men in his compilations of materials, but his industry, his recognition of what was likely to be of interest and his untiring efforts to make his sketch as complete as possible, deserve the recognition which they have obtained. While his style is apparently most artless, he possesses, as Garnett has said, "either the science or the knack of felicitous composition to an extraordinary degree." It must not be forgotten that this apparent lack of art is often the highest art, and so it is not surprising to hear Vasari spoken of as the Herodotus of art. His good taste in art as well as in literature is demonstrated by his admiration for the first fruits of the early Tuscan school which were neglected in his day. He was one of the genial, lovable men of the time who made many friends.

The most popularly interesting phase of the literature of the Renaissance and Columbus' Century for our time is doubtless the fiction that was written so plentifully and so widely read during the period. Whenever a large number of people become interested in reading, after a time more and more superficial reading is provided for them until finally the most trivial of story-telling becomes the vogue. This has happened at a number of times in the world's history.

It can be traced in Rome with the decadence, in the Oriental countries, as Burton's edition of the "Thousand and One Nights" shows so clearly, and in our own time as well as during the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Another interesting development is the tendency for the fiction that is popular among the better and supposedly more educated cla.s.ses, gradually {454} to be occupied more and more with s.e.x problems and s.e.xual questions of all kinds. Whenever many have leisure and a smattering of education, this occurs. It is quite noticeable during the Renaissance period, though a great many good stories were written of excellent literary quality without any tinge of this.

The writing of novels in Italy had begun with Boccaccio in the fourteenth century, and continued with Sacchetti and Giovanni Il Fiorentino. About the middle of the fifteenth century, however, this mode of writing became all the fashion, and the number of novels, though of course by the word _novelle_ the Italians meant a short story, is almost without end. Very many of them have been lost, but a very large number have been preserved. The first of the writers of the time was Ma.s.succio Salernitano, who flourished during the latter half of the fifteenth century and died towards its close. Doni has said of him, "Hail then to the name of Salernitano, who, scorning to borrow even a single word from Boccaccio, has produced a work which he may justly regard as his own." It is to him that we owe the first form of what afterwards became "Romeo and Juliet." Ma.s.succio was a realist and called "Heaven to witness that the whole of his stories are a faithful narrative of events occurring during his own time." Fifty of his novels at least are extant.

Often these novel writers did not attempt any other mode of literature, and indeed not infrequently were not scholarly in any sense of the word, but the next of the Italian novelists of the time, Savadino degli Arienti, was an accomplished scholar and historian. His history of his native city Bologna is still considered very valuable by his countrymen. He ent.i.tled his tales "Porretane" because he declared that they had been recited at the baths of Porreto, which was the favorite summer resort and place of public amus.e.m.e.nt for the Bolognese. The recital of these would be supposed to occupy somewhat the place that moving pictures do now. There is a variety of amusing adventures, witty stories, love tales, and sometimes tragic incidents for contrast. Besides his novels and his history, Ariente wrote an account of ill.u.s.trious ladies, _Delle Donne Clare,_ dedicated to Giunipera Sforza Bentivoglio, {455} which shows very clearly how the women of the Renaissance, as we have come to know them, were appreciated by their masculine contemporaries very early in Columbus'

Century.

After Savadino comes Luigi da Porto. Crippled by a wound early in life, he turned from the army to literature and became the friend of many of the scholars of the time, especially Cardinal Bembo and members of the Gonzaga family. To him we owe "Juliet" in its best and purest form. It is the only story we have from him, but it secured world-wide reputation at the time and has never lost its interest for mankind. Porto was followed by Leonardo Illicini, another writer of a single novel which has been preserved and has gone through a number of editions. Illicini, or Licinio, as his name is sometimes given, was a physician, for a time the court physician to the Duke of Milan, afterwards professor of medicine at Ferrara and one of the distinguished philosophers of the time. Every man is said to have one good story in him, if he only has the time and energy to write it, and Illicini wrote his and attracted the attention of his distinguished friends and contemporaries by the n.o.bleness and beauty of the sentiments which he incorporated into it and which make it a singular exception to the usual tenor of Italian novels.

Like Illicini, Machiavelli, the historian and political philosopher, took it upon himself to write a novel which few people have read and yet which has a certain exaggeration of social satire which sets it rather closely in touch with our time. The story represents indeed a curious ever-recurring phase of the att.i.tude that men are accustomed--for jest purposes only--to a.s.sume toward marriage.

According to the story, the devils were very much disturbed over the fact that most of the married men who came to h.e.l.l blamed their coming on their wives. h.e.l.l had been well enough so long as people were willing to admit that they were punished deservedly, but society there became very uncomfortable under this new dispensation. The devils resolved to send one of their number up to earth to find out about it.

Belphagor, one of the fallen Archangels, having a.s.sumed the body of a handsome man of thirty and a large fortune, is commissioned {456} to marry and live with a wife for ten years. He finds no difficulty in getting a bride, having "soon attracted the notice of many n.o.ble citizens blessed with large families of daughters and small incomes.

The former of these was soon offered to him, and Belphagor chose a very beautiful girl with the name of Onesta." The name, which signifies purity, is evidently chosen for a purpose by Machiavelli, for, while the wife is as pure as an angel, she has more than the pride of Lucifer.

A good idea of the way the story develops can only be obtained by quoting a pa.s.sage from the translation of the novel:

"He had not long enjoyed the society of his beloved Onesta before he became tenderly attached to her, and was unable to behold her suffer the slightest inquietude or vexation. Now, along with her other gifts of beauty and n.o.bility, the lady had brought into the house of Roderigo such an insufferable portion of pride that in this respect Lucifer himself could not equal her, for her husband, who had experienced the effects of both, was at no loss to decide which was the most intolerable of the two. Yet it became infinitely worse when she discovered the extent of Roderigo's attachment to her, of which she availed herself to obtain an ascendency over him and rule him with an iron rod. Not content with this, when she found he would bear it, she continued to annoy him with all kinds of insults and taunts, in such a way as to give him the most indescribable pain and uneasiness. For what with the influence of her father, her brothers, her friends and relatives, the duty of the matrimonial yoke, and the love he bore her, he suffered all for some time with the patience of a saint. It would be useless to recount the follies and extravagancies into which he ran in order to gratify her taste for dress and every article of the newest fashion, in which our city, ever so variable in its nature, according to its usual habits, so much abounds. Yet, to live upon easy terms with her, he was obliged to do more than this; he had to a.s.sist his father-in-law in portioning off his other daughters; and she next asked him to furnish one of her brothers with goods to sail for the Levant, another with silks for the West, while a third was to be set up in a goldbeater's establishment at Florence. In such objects the greatest part of his fortune was soon consumed. At length the carnival season was at hand; the festival of St. John was to be celebrated, and the whole city, as usual, was in a ferment. Numbers of the n.o.blest families were about to vie with each other in the splendor of their parties, and the Lady Onesta, being resolved not to be outshone by her acquaintance, insisted that Roderigo should exceed them all in the richness of their feasts. For the reason above stated he submitted to her will; nor, indeed, would he have scrupled at doing much more, however difficult it {457} might have been, could he have flattered himself with a hope of preserving the peace and comfort of his household and of awaiting quietly the consummation of his ruin.

But this was not the case, inasmuch as the arrogant temper of his wife had grown to such a height of asperity, by long indulgence, that he was at a loss in what way to act. His domestics, male and female, would no longer remain in the house, being unable to support for any length of time the intolerable life they led. The inconvenience which he suffered, in consequence of having no one to whom he could intrust his affairs, it is impossible to express. Even his own familiar devils, whom he had brought along with him, had already deserted him, choosing to return below rather than longer submit to the tyranny of his wife. Left, then, to himself, amidst his turbulent and unhappy life, and having dissipated all the ready money he possessed, he was compelled to live upon the hopes of the returns expected from his ventures in the East and the West. Being still in good credit, in order to support his rank, he resorted to bills of exchange; nor was it long before, accounts running against him, he found himself in the same situation as many other unhappy speculators in the market. Just as his case became extremely delicate, there arrived sudden tidings, both from the East and West, that one of his wife's brothers had dissipated the whole of Roderigo's profits in play, and that while the other was returning with a rich cargo uninsured, his ship had the misfortune to be wrecked, and he himself was lost."

Belphagor fled and, having suffered much from his pursuers, finally escapes, and at the end of the novel is having a rather good time at the court of the King of France, where he has entered into possession of the daughter of the King and is attracting much appreciated attention from friends, relatives, courtiers, physicians and the clergy by the acts which he causes her to perform. An Italian to whom Belphagor had confided his secret comes to Court and recognizes the particular devil's activities. He tries to persuade Belphagor to leave his victim, but the demon refuses absolutely. Finally the Italian, catching Belphagor unawares, calls out that his wife is coming after him. With a shriek, the poor devil abandons his victim and is glad to find his way back to h.e.l.l.

During the first half of the sixteenth century there are a whole series of Italian novelists, each one of them the writer of many novels. One of the earliest of these is Firenzuola, who is said to have been a monk and who was a scholar, for among his collected works are a translation of "Apuleius' {458} Golden a.s.s," treatises on animals, two comedies, as well as critical and literary work of other kinds. After him came Cinthio, who wrote "Hecatomithi or Hundred Fables." He was a very prolific writer, perhaps the most popular in his own time, with recurring periods of popularity since. His praises were celebrated by nearly all the scholars of the period. His writing was vivid but daring, and the style shows the beginning of that degeneration, from over-consciousness of effort to make it scholarly, so often characteristic of a period when genius is giving place to mere talent. One of his stories furnished the incidents for Shakespeare's "Tragedy of Oth.e.l.lo," and this has given Cinthio a place in the commentators on Shakespeare. Another of the Italian novelists whose memory has been frequently renewed for a similar reason was Matteo Bandello, who is often spoken of as the best from a literary standpoint, as he is the most voluminous of the Italian novelists of this period. He is almost the only one of them, besides Boccaccio, known beyond the confines of Italy, and though he was a priest and afterwards a bishop, his stories are as immoral as those of the other novelists of the time.

Indeed, the most important characteristic of all this novel-writing in Italy is that most of the stories were quite without moral qualities, not a few of them were licentious and some of them made their appeal mainly through the liking for descriptions of cruelty to which mankind is apparently always attracted. In our time the corresponding reading is the daily newspaper. The stories of the crime and cruelty of the day before that are told each morning are about of the average length of these _novelle_ as written by the Italian novelists of the Renaissance. There is the same demand for them and they are just as much talked about. For literary quality the novels are infinitely higher than our modern newspaper stories. The interesting thing about these novels of indecency and cruelty is that the claim of their authors at least was that they were written in order to bring about reformation and the correction of evil by spreading the knowledge of it and so making people realize its hideousness. Whenever any excuse is given for our publication of the cruel and immoral details {459} of crime in our newspapers, it follows this same specious line of reasoning. Not a few of the writers of the popular novels were clergymen. Bandello was made a bishop, yet continued his writing of novels. It is perfectly possible for good, well-meaning men at any time to be mistaken in the accomplishment of a purpose, and popularity was as great a bait as the making of money is in our time.

One of the most interesting contributions to Italian prose at this time is the "Autobiography" of Benvenuto Cellini, which finds its place very properly after the fiction of the period. The book has been famous in the modern time, particularly since Goethe translated it, and has gone through many editions in nearly every language in Europe.

Long ago, Walpole p.r.o.nounced it "more amusing than any novel," and it is probably rather as fiction than as genuine autobiography that it must be judged. The style is simple, direct, straightforward, and the wonderful romance has great historical value, for Cellini was in contact with most of the great men and many of the higher n.o.bility of his time, and he has used his experiences as the groundwork of the story. It is hard to tell now how much of it may be true, for Cellini's great works of art would seem to contradict it, in so far as it represents him as a frequent brutal murderer, while the amount of labor that he must have given to the many works we have from him would seem to make impossible that he should have spent quite so much time as his life would hint in light living and idleness, while the affection of his contemporaries and their respect for him in his declining years would seem to be further contradiction. He was evidently one of those men who like to be thought worse than they really are and like so many of the artists of all times who are anxious to produce the impression that their works were flashes of genius and not the result of careful patient labor as well.

One of the books that had a very wide influence at this period and which deserves much more than Benvenuto's romance to be thought typical of the time is Balda.s.sare Castiglione's _"Cortigiano,"_ in which the author depicts the ideal courtier or gentleman of the time.

The method of presentation is by a series of conversations held at the Court of {460} Urbino among the distinguished persons who frequented it in the time when most of the best-known characters of the Renaissance found their way occasionally up to the little hill town.

Castiglione's standard for the gentleman is very high, not only in personal conduct, but especially in intellectual accomplishment. His purpose to draw the picture of a scholar-gentleman, the ideal of an accomplished knight, seemed to his contemporaries to have been successfully fulfilled. The book was widely read. It influenced not only Italy and France and the Latin-American countries, but above all affected the English deeply. Mr. Courthope says that, "Carried to the North of Europe and grafted on the still chivalrous manners of the English aristocracy, the ideal of Castiglione contributed to form the character of Sir Philip Sidney. Augustus Hare in his "Ladies of the Italian Renaissance" (New York, 1904) says:

"Spenser declared that the aim of his book is the same: 'To fashion a gentleman in n.o.ble person, in virtuous and gentle discipline.' We might fill a volume with instances of the marvellous influence which the work of Castiglione had upon Elizabethan literature, as we hear it echoing through the sonnets of Shakespeare, Spenser's hymns 'Of Heavenly Love,' Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Burton, the poets and early dramatists, even the grave Ascham; and, amongst later writers, Sh.e.l.ley's 'Hymn to Intellectual Beauty' is steeped in the same Italian Platonism."

As a rule, indeed, it may be said that what was best in the literature and art of the Italian Renaissance had a much wider influence than the worse elements in it. It is only in after-times that many of the unfortunately too human contributions to the intellectual life of this period have been revived among scholars and have come to be looked upon as expressive of the spirit of the time. In every movement there are always the lesser men whose notes are discordant and who exaggerate the significance of their own ideas and often exhibit the worst side of human nature. To conclude from them, however, as to the real temper of the time and its influence would be a sad mistake.

Castiglione meant ever so much more in the Europe of his day than Cellini. The {461} "Courtier" sank deep into the minds of poets, artists and literary and educated folk of all cla.s.ses and aroused what was best in those who were influencing their generation. The "Autobiography" was read much more widely, but mainly by people whose influence over others was to be slight, while the poets and writers and artists did not take it very seriously, but spent a leisure hour or two over it as over any other romance, and turned to their work again.

{462}

CHAPTER III

FRENCH LITERATURE

The French literature of Columbus' Century is but little, if at all, below that of Italy in world influence and interest. It was ushered in by that alluring character, the vagabond poet, Villon. He was twenty the first year of our century, and having, providentially for the world of literature, escaped hanging, wrote poetry that has always attracted the attention of poets of every land, and besides has had a popular vogue whenever men have looked beyond their own time and country for literary interests. Few poets of modern times have had among the educated of all countries so many ardent admirers--devotees they might well be called--as Villon. The power of expression of the Renaissance that was just opening was incarnate in him, and no one has ever said better what he sang, though his message was limited enough.

His "Ladies of the Olden Time," probably addressed in its epilogue to Prince Charles of Orleans, his poetic contemporary, to whom it is said that he owed his being saved from hanging, is the best known, and is a typical example of his work which reveals the reason for its enduring qualities:

"Say where--in what region be Flora that fair Roman dame, Hipparchia where, and Thais, she Who doth kindred beauty claim?

Echo where? who back the same Voice from lake and river throws, Lovely beyond human frame: But--where are the last year's snows?

Queen Blanche, white as lily is, Who used to sing with siren strain; {463} Bertha, Alice, Beatrice, Ermengarde who held the Maine, Joan, blessed maiden of Lorraine, At Rouen burnt by English foes.

Where are they, O Virgin Queen?

But--where are the last year's snows?

Prince, nor in a week or year Bid me where they be disclose.

Lest you still this burden hear.

But--where are the last year's snows?"

With Villon came Prince Charles of Orleans, of whom we would probably know very little except for the fact that twenty years of imprisonment in an English prison gave him the opportunity for devotion to poetry.

His beautiful lines on the death of his wife are a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of mourning poetry and one of the gems of literature. The Prince's appeal to Death as to what has made Fate so bold as to take the n.o.ble Princess, who was his comfort, his life, his good, his pleasure, his richness, demanding why it had not rather taken himself, has been often translated. There is another of his little poems addressed to her which has often been quoted and yet cannot be quoted too often:

"How G.o.d has made her good to see!

So holy, full of grace, and fair; For the great gifts that in her be.

All haste her praises to declare.

Of her, what soul could weary be?

Each day her beauty doth repair.

How G.o.d has made her good to see!

So holy, full of grace, and fair.

So hither, nor beyond the sea.

No damsel nor dame I know.

Who can like her all graces show; Only in dreams such thought can be-- How G.o.d has made her good to see!"

{464}

One of Clement Marot's shorter poems contains his formula for what const.i.tutes happiness in life. It is the same formula that has been in the mouths of all the poets at all times who have cared to express themselves on the subject, though some critics have been unkind enough to say that it was not always in their hearts--"Happy the man whose mind and care a few paternal acres share." Marot goes somewhat more into detail. His poem is an antic.i.p.ation of the sonnet of the great master printer of Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, at the end of this century. Because of its many a.s.sociations it deserves a place here:

"This, Clement Marot! (if you wish to know) Can upon man a happy life bestow.

Goods you don't earn, but by bequest acquire, A pleasant wholesome house and constant fire.

Hated by none, yourself devoid of hate.

And little meddling with affairs of state: A wise and simple life, true friends, and like A good plain fare, with nought the eyes to strike, With all in easy converse to combine: Pa.s.s careless nights, not careless made by wine; A wife to have--kind, joyous, chaste and bright; And well to sleep, which shorter makes the night: Contented with your rank, nor wish for higher; And neither death to fear, nor death desire This, Clement Marot! (if you wish to know) Can upon man a happy life bestow."

Francis I was himself a poet, and his poems and letters were collected and published in the first half of the nineteenth century. "In default of a great talent, he had a real pa.s.sion for poetry," says Imbert de Saint-Amand, and like the Trouveres he liked to make use of the lyre and sword by turns. Sainte-Beuve in his _"Portraits Litteraires"_ declared that "Francis I, from the day he ascended the throne, gave the signal for this puissant labor which was to aid in expanding and definitely polishing the French language. Thanks to the impulse given by him from above, there was soon a universal {465} clearing of the ground all around him." The verses in which he formulated one of the most melancholy and most striking judgments that ever monarch p.r.o.nounced on the nothingness of the grandeurs of this lower world, deserve to be quoted:

"The more my goods, the more my sorrow grows; The more my honors, less is my content; For one I gain, a hundred I desire.

When nought I have, for nothing I lament; But having all, the fear doth me torment, Either to lose it or to make it worse.

Tired, full well may I my misery mourn, Seeing I die of envy but to have a good.

Which is my death and I esteem it life."