Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Vol III.
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SKETCHES AND STUDIES
IN ITALY AND GREECE
BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY," "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS," ETC.
THIRD SERIES
WITH A FRONTISPIECE
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1910
First Edition (Smith, Elder & Co.) _December 1898_
_Reprinted December 1907_
_Reprinted October 1910_
Taken Over by John Murray _January 1917_
_All rights reserved_
_Printed in Great Britain by_
Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd.
_London, Colchester & Eton_
CONTENTS
FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO
THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS
SIENA
MONTE OLIVETO
MONTEPULCIANO
PERUGIA
ORVIETO
LUCRETIUS
ANTINOUS
SPRING WANDERINGS
AMALFI, PAESTUM, CAPRI
ETNA
PALERMO
SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI
ATHENS
INDEX
The Ildefonso Group _Frontispiece_
SKETCHES AND STUDIES
IN
ITALY AND GREECE
_FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO_
Students of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translations from the early
Italian poets (_Dante and his Circle_. Ellis & White, 1874) will not
fail to have noticed the striking figure made among those jejune
imitators of Provencal mannerism by two rhymesters, Cecco Angiolieri
and Folgore da San Gemignano. Both belong to the school of Siena,
and both detach themselves from the metaphysical fashion of their
epoch by clearness of intention and directness of style. The sonnets
of both are remarkable for what in the critical jargon of to-day
might be termed realism. Cecco is even savage and brutal. He
anticipates Villon from afar, and is happily described by Mr.
Rossetti as the prodigal, or 'scamp' of the Dantesque circle. The
case is different with Folgore. There is no poet who breathes a
fresher air of gentleness. He writes in images, dealing but little
with ideas. Every line presents a picture, and each picture has the
charm of a miniature fancifully drawn and brightly coloured on a
missal-margin. Cecco and Folgore alike have abandoned the mediaeval
mysticism which sounds unreal on almost all Italian lips but
Dante's. True Italians, they are content to live for life's sake,
and to take the world as it presents itself to natural senses. But
Cecco is perverse and impious. His love has nothing delicate; his
hatred is a morbid passion. At his worst or best (for his best
writing is his worst feeling) we find him all but rabid. If
Caligula, for instance, had written poetry, he might have piqued
himself upon the following sonnet; only we must do Cecco the justice
of remembering that his rage is more than half ironical and
humorous:--
An I were fire, I would burn up the world;
An I were wind, with tempest I'd it break;
An I were sea, I'd drown it in a lake;
An I were God, to hell I'd have it hurled;
An I were Pope, I'd see disaster whirled
O'er Christendom, deep joy thereof to take;
An I were Emperor, I'd quickly make
All heads of all folk from their necks be twirled;
An I were death, I'd to my father go;
An I were life, forthwith from him I'd fly;
And with my mother I'd deal even so;
An I were Cecco, as I am but I,
Young girls and pretty for myself I'd hold,
But let my neighbours take the plain and old.
Of all this there is no trace in Folgore. The worst a moralist could
say of him is that he sought out for himself a life of pure
enjoyment. The famous Sonnets on the Months give particular
directions for pastime in a round of pleasure suited to each season.
The Sonnets on the Days are conceived in a like hedonistic spirit.
But these series are specially addressed to members of the Glad
Brigades and Spending Companies, which were common in the great
mercantile cities of mediaeval Italy. Their tone is doubtless due to
the occasion of their composition, as compliments to Messer Nicholo
di Nisi and Messer Guerra Cavicciuoli.
The mention of these names reminds me that a word need be said about
the date of Folgore. Mr. Rossetti does not dispute the commonly
assigned date of 1260, and takes for granted that the Messer Nicolo
of the Sonnets on the Months was the Sienese gentleman referred to
by Dante in a certain passage of the 'Inferno':[1]--
And to the Poet said I: 'Now was ever
So vain a people as the Sienese?
Not for a certainty the French by far.'
Whereat the other leper, who had heard me,
Replied unto my speech: 'Taking out Stricca,
Who knew the art of moderate expenses,
And Nicolo, who the luxurious use
Of cloves discovered earliest of all
Within that garden where such seed takes root.
And taking out the band, among whom squandered
Caccia d' Ascian his vineyards and vast woods,
And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered.'
Now Folgore refers in his political sonnets to events of the years
1314 and 1315; and the correct reading of a line in his last sonnet
on the Months gives the name of Nicholo di Nisi to the leader of
Folgore's 'blithe and lordly Fellowship.' The first of these facts
leads us to the conclusion that Folgore flourished in the first
quarter of the fourteenth, instead of in the third quarter of the
thirteenth century. The second prevents our identifying Nicholo di
Nisi with the Niccolo de' Salimbeni, who is thought to have been the
founder of the Fellowship of the Carnation. Furthermore, documents
have recently been brought to light which mention at San Gemignano,
in the years 1305 and 1306, a certain Folgore. There is no
sufficient reason to identify this Folgore with the poet; but the
name, to say the least, is so peculiar that its occurrence in the
records of so small a town as San Gemignano gives some confirmation
to the hypothesis of the poet's later date. Taking these several
considerations together, I think we must abandon the old view that
Folgore was one of the earliest Tuscan poets, a view which is,
moreover, contradicted by his style. Those critics, at any rate, who
still believe him to have been a predecessor of Dante's, are forced
to reject as spurious the political sonnets referring to Monte
Catini and the plunder of Lucca by Uguccione della Faggiuola. Yet
these sonnets rest on the same manuscript authority as the Months
and Days, and are distinguished by the same qualities.[2]
[1] _Inferno_, xxix. 121.--_Longfellow_.
[2] The above points are fully discussed by Signor Giulio
Navone, in his recent edition of _Le Rime di Folgore da
San Gemignano e di Cene da la Chitarra d' Arezzo_.
Bologna: Romagnoli, 1880. I may further mention that in
the sonnet on the Pisans, translated on p. 18, which
belongs to the political series, Folgore uses his own
name.
Whatever may be the date of Folgore, whether we assign his period to
the middle of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth
century, there is no doubt but that he presents us with a very
lively picture of Italian manners, drawn from the point of view of
the high bourgeoisie. It is on this account that I have thought it
worth while to translate five of his Sonnets on Knighthood, which
form the fragment that remains to us from a series of seventeen. Few
poems better illustrate the temper of Italian aristocracy when the
civil wars of two centuries had forced the nobles to enroll
themselves among the burghers, and when what little chivalry had
taken root in Italy was fast decaying in a gorgeous over-bloom of
luxury. The institutions of feudal knighthood had lost their sterner
meaning for our poet. He uses them for the suggestion of delicate
allegories fancifully painted. Their mysterious significance is
turned to gaiety, their piety to amorous delight, their grimness to
refined enjoyment. Still these changes are effected with perfect
good taste and in perfect good faith. Something of the perfume of
true chivalry still lingered in a society which was fast becoming
mercantile and diplomatic. And this perfume is exhaled by the petals
of Folgore's song-blossom. He has no conception that to readers of
Mort Arthur, or to Founders of the Garter, to Sir Miles Stapleton,
Sir Richard Fitz-Simon, or Sir James Audley, his ideal knight would
have seemed but little better than a scented civet-cat. Such knights
as his were all that Italy possessed, and the poet-painter was
justly proud of them, since they served for finished pictures of the
beautiful in life.
The Italians were not a feudal race. During the successive reigns of
Lombard, Frankish, and German masters, they had passively accepted,
stubbornly resisted feudalism, remaining true to the conviction that
they themselves were Roman. In Roman memories they sought the
traditions which give consistency to national consciousness. And
when the Italian communes triumphed finally over Empire, counts,
bishops, and rural aristocracy; then Roman law was speedily
substituted for the 'asinine code' of the barbarians, and Roman
civility gave its tone to social customs in the place of Teutonic
chivalry. Yet just as the Italians borrowed, modified, and
misconceived Gothic architecture, so they took a feudal tincture
from the nations of the North with whom they came in contact. Their
noble families, those especially who followed the Imperial party,
sought the honour of knighthood; and even the free cities arrogated
to themselves the right of conferring this distinction by diploma on
their burghers. The chivalry thus formed in Italy was a decorative
institution. It might be compared to the ornamental frontispiece
which masks the structural poverty of such Gothic buildings as the
Cathedral of Orvieto.
On the descent of the German Emperor into Lombardy, the great
vassals who acknowledged him, made knighthood, among titles of more
solid import, the price of their allegiance.[1] Thus the chronicle
of the Cortusi for the year 1354 tells us that when Charles IV. 'was
advancing through the March, and had crossed the Oglio, and was at
the borders of Cremona, in his camp upon the snow, he, sitting upon
his horse, did knight the doughty and noble man, Francesco da
Carrara, who had constantly attended him with a great train, and
smiting him upon the neck with his palm, said: "Be thou a good
knight, and loyal to the Empire." Thereupon the noble German peers
dismounted, and forthwith buckled on Francesco's spurs. To them the
Lord Francesco gave chargers and horses of the best he had.'
Immediately afterwards Francesco dubbed several of his own retainers
knights. And this was the customary fashion of these Lombard lords.
For we read how in the year 1328 Can Grande della Scala, after the
capture of Padua, 'returned to Verona, and for the further
celebration of his victory upon the last day of October held a
court, and made thirty-eight knights with his own hand of the divers
districts of Lombardy.' And in 1294 Azzo d'Este 'was knighted by
Gerardo da Camino, who then was Lord of Treviso, upon the piazza of
Ferrara, before the gate of the Bishop's palace. And on the same day
at the same hour the said Lord Marquis Azzo made fifty-two knights
with his own hand, namely, the Lord Francesco, his brother, and
others of Ferrara, Modena, Bologna, Florence, Padua, and Lombardy;
and on this occasion was a great court held in Ferrara.' Another
chronicle, referring to the same event, says that the whole expenses
of the ceremony, including the rich dresses of the new knights, were
at the charge of the Marquis. It was customary, when a noble house
had risen to great wealth and had abundance of fighting men, to
increase its prestige and spread abroad its glory by a wholesale
creation of knights. Thus the Chronicle of Rimini records a high
court held by Pandolfo Malatesta in the May of 1324, when he and his
two sons, with two of his near relatives and certain strangers from
Florence, Bologna, and Perugia, received this honour. At Siena, in
like manner, in the year 1284, 'thirteen of the house of Salimbeni
were knighted with great pomp.'
[1] The passages used in the text are chiefly drawn from
Muratori's fifty-third Dissertation.
It was not on the battlefield that the Italians sought this honour.
They regarded knighthood as a part of their signorial parade.
Therefore Republics, in whom perhaps, according to strict feudal
notions, there was no fount of honour, presumed to appoint
procurators for the special purpose of making knights. Florence,
Siena, and Arezzo, after this fashion gave the golden spurs to men
who were enrolled in the arts of trade or commerce. The usage was
severely criticised by Germans who visited Italy in the Imperial
train. Otto Frisingensis, writing the deeds of Frederick Barbarossa,
speaks with bitterness thereof: 'To the end that they may not lack
means of subduing their neighbours, they think it no shame to gird
as knights young men of low birth, or even handicraftsmen in
despised mechanic arts, the which folk other nations banish like the
plague from honourable and liberal pursuits.' Such knights, amid the
chivalry of Europe, were not held in much esteem; nor is it easy to
see what the cities, which had formally excluded nobles from their
government, thought to gain by aping institutions which had their
true value only in a feudal society. We must suppose that the
Italians were not firmly set enough in their own type to resist an
enthusiasm which inflamed all Christendom. At the same time they
were too Italian to comprehend the spirit of the thing they
borrowed. The knights thus made already contained within themselves
the germ of those Condottieri who reduced the service of arms to a
commercial speculation. But they lent splendour to the Commonwealth,
as may be seen in the grave line of mounted warriors, steel-clad,
with open visors, who guard the commune of Siena in Ambrogio
Lorenzetti's fresco. Giovanni Villani, in a passage of his Chronicle
which deals with the fair state of Florence just before the outbreak
of the Black and White parties, says the city at that epoch numbered
'three hundred Cavalieri di Corredo, with many clubs of knights and
squires, who morning and evening went to meat with many men of the
court, and gave away on high festivals many robes of vair.' It is
clear that these citizen knights were leaders of society, and did
their duty to the commonwealth by adding to its joyous cheer. Upon
the battlefields of the civil wars, moreover, they sustained at
their expense the charges of the cavalry.
Siena was a city much given to parade and devoted to the Imperial
cause, in which the institution of chivalry flourished. Not only did
the burghers take knighthood from their procurators, but the more
influential sought it by a special dispensation from the Emperor.
Thus we hear how Nino Tolomei obtained a Caesarean diploma of
knighthood for his son Giovanni, and published it with great pomp to
the people in his palace. This Giovanni, when he afterwards entered
religion, took the name of Bernard, and founded the Order of Monte
Oliveto.
Owing to the special conditions of Italian chivalry, it followed
that the new knight, having won his spurs by no feat of arms upon
the battlefield, was bounden to display peculiar magnificence in the
ceremonies of his investiture. His honour was held to be less the
reward of courage than of liberality. And this feeling is strongly
expressed in a curious passage of Matteo Villani's Chronicle. 'When
the Emperor Charles had received the crown in Rome, as we have said,
he turned towards Siena, and on the 19th day of April arrived at
that city; and before he entered the same, there met him people of
the commonwealth with great festivity upon the hour of vespers; in
the which reception eight burghers, given to display but miserly, to
the end they might avoid the charges due to knighthood, did cause
themselves then and there to be made knights by him. And no sooner
had he passed the gates than many ran to meet him without order in
their going or provision for the ceremony, and he, being aware of
the vain and light impulse of that folk, enjoined upon the Patriarch
to knight them in his name. The Patriarch could not withstay from
knighting as many as offered themselves; and seeing the thing so
cheap, very many took the honour, who before that hour had never
thought of being knighted, nor had made provision of what is
required from him who seeketh knighthood, but with light impulse did
cause themselves to be borne upon the arms of those who were around
the Patriarch; and when they were in the path before him, these
raised such an one on high, and took his customary cap off, and
after he had had the cheek-blow which is used in knighting, put a
gold-fringed cap upon his head, and drew him from the press, and so
he was a knight. And after this wise were made four-and-thirty on
that evening, of the noble and lesser folk. And when the Emperor had
been attended to his lodging, night fell, and all returned home; and
the new knights without preparation or expense celebrated their
reception into chivalry with their families forthwith. He who
reflects with a mind not subject to base avarice upon the coming of
a new-crowned Emperor into so famous a city, and bethinks him how so
many noble and rich burghers were promoted to the honour of
knighthood in their native land, men too by nature fond of pomp,
without having made any solemn festival in common or in private to
the fame of chivalry, may judge this people little worthy of the
distinction they received.'
This passage is interesting partly as an instance of Florentine
spite against Siena, partly as showing that in Italy great
munificence was expected from the carpet-knights who had not won
their spurs with toil, and partly as proving how the German
Emperors, on their parade expeditions through Italy, debased the
institutions they were bound to hold in respect. Enfeebled by the
extirpation of the last great German house which really reigned in
Italy, the Empire was now no better than a cause of corruption and
demoralisation to Italian society. The conduct of a man like Charles
disgusted even the most fervent Ghibellines; and we find Fazio degli
Uberti flinging scorn upon his avarice and baseness in such lines as
these:--
Sappi ch' i' son Italia che ti parlo,
Di Lusimburgo _ignominioso Carlo_ ...
Veggendo te aver tese tue arti
_A tor danari e gir con essi a casa_ ...
Tu dunque, Giove, perche 'l Santo uccello
Da questo Carlo quarto
Imperador non togli e dalle mani
_Degli altri, lurchi moderni Germani_
_Che d' aquila un allocco n' hanno fatto_?
From a passage in a Sienese chronicle we learn what ceremonies of
bravery were usual in that city when the new knights understood
their duty. It was the year 1326. Messer Francesco Bandinelli was
about to be knighted on the morning of Christmas Day. The friends of
his house sent peacocks and pheasants by the dozen, and huge pies of
marchpane, and game in quantities. Wine, meat, and bread were
distributed to the Franciscan and other convents, and a fair and
noble court was opened to all comers. Messer Sozzo, father of the
novice, went, attended by his guests, to hear high mass in the
cathedral; and there upon the marble pulpit, which the Pisans
carved, the ceremony was completed. Tommaso di Nello bore his sword
and cap and spurs before him upon horseback. Messer Sozzo girded the
sword upon the loins of Messer Francesco, his son aforesaid. Messer
Pietro Ridolfi, of Rome, who was the first vicar that came to Siena,
and the Duke of Calabria buckled on his right spur. The Captain of
the People buckled on his left. The Count Simone da Battifolle then
undid his sword and placed it in the hands of Messer Giovanni di
Messer Bartolo de' Fibenzi da Rodi, who handed it to Messer Sozzo,
the which sword had previously been girded by the father on his son.
After this follows a list of the illustrious guests, and an
inventory of the presents made to them by Messer Francesco. We find
among these 'a robe of silken cloth and gold, skirt, and fur, and
cap lined with vair, with a silken cord.' The description of the
many costly dresses is minute; but I find no mention of armour. The
singers received golden florins, and the players upon instruments
'good store of money.' A certain Salamone was presented with the
clothes which the novice doffed before he took the ceremonial bath.
The whole catalogue concludes with Messer Francesco's furniture and
outfit. This, besides a large wardrobe of rich clothes and furs,
contains armour and the trappings for charger and palfrey. The
_Corte Bandita_, or open house held upon this occasion, lasted for
eight days, and the charges on the Bandinelli estates must have been
considerable.
Knights so made were called in Italy _Cavalieri Addobbati_, or _di
Corredo_, probably because the expense of costly furniture was borne
by them--_addobbo_ having become a name for decorative trappings,
and _Corredo_ for equipment. The latter is still in use for a
bride's trousseau. The former has the same Teutonic root as our verb
'to dub.' But the Italians recognised three other kinds of knights,
the _Cavalieri Bagnati_, _Cavalieri di Scudo_, and _Cavalieri
d'Arme_. Of the four sorts Sacchetti writes in one of his
novels:--'Knights of the Bath are made with the greatest ceremonies,
and it behoves them to be bathed and washed of all impurity. Knights
of Equipment are those who take the order with a mantle of dark
green and the gilded garland. Knights of the Shield are such as are
made knights by commonwealths or princes, or go to investiture
armed, and with the casque upon their head. Knights of Arms are
those who in the opening of a battle, or upon a foughten field, are
dubbed knights.' These distinctions, however, though concordant with
feudal chivalry, were not scrupulously maintained in Italy. Messer
Francesco Bandinelli, for example, was certainly a _Cavaliere di
Corredo_. Yet he took the bath, as we have seen. Of a truth, the
Italians selected those picturesque elements of chivalry which lent
themselves to pageant and parade. The sterner intention of the
institution, and the symbolic meaning of its various ceremonies,
were neglected by them.
In the foregoing passages, which serve as a lengthy preamble to
Folgore's five sonnets, I have endeavoured to draw illustrations
from the history of Siena, because Folgore represents Sienese
society at the height of mediaeval culture. In the first of the
series he describes the preparation made by the aspirant after
knighthood. The noble youth is so bent on doing honour to the order
of chivalry, that he raises money by mortgage to furnish forth the
banquets and the presents due upon the occasion of his institution.
He has made provision also of equipment for himself and all his
train. It will be noticed that Folgore dwells only on the fair and
joyous aspect of the ceremony. The religious enthusiasm of
knighthood has disappeared, and already, in the first decade of the
fourteenth century, we find the spirit of Jehan de Saintre prevalent
in Italy. The word _donzello_, derived from the Latin _domicellus_,
I have translated _squire_, because the donzel was a youth of gentle
birth awaiting knighthood.
This morn a young squire shall be made a knight;
hereof he fain would be right worthy found,
And therefore pledgeth lands and castles round
To furnish all that fits a man of might.
Meat, bread and wine he gives to many a wight;
Capons and pheasants on his board abound,
Where serving men and pages march around;
Choice chambers, torches, and wax candle light.
Barbed steeds, a multitude, are in his thought,
Mailed men at arms and noble company,
Spears, pennants, housing cloths, bells richly wrought.
Musicians following with great barony
And jesters through the land his state have brought,
With dames and damsels whereso rideth he.
The subject having thus been introduced, Folgore treats the
ceremonies of investiture by an allegorical method, which is quite
consistent with his own preference of images to ideas. Each of the
four following sonnets presents a picture to the mind, admirably
fitted for artistic handling. We may imagine them to ourselves
wrought in arras for a sumptuous chamber. The first treats of the
bath, in which, as we have seen already from Sacchetti's note, the
aspirant after knighthood puts aside all vice, and consecrates
himself anew. Prodezza, or Prowess, must behold him nude from head
to foot, in order to assure herself that the neophyte bears no
blemish; and this inspection is an allegory of internal wholeness.
Lo Prowess, who despoileth him straightway,
And saith: 'Friend, now beseems it thee to strip;
For I will see men naked, thigh and hip,
And thou my will must know and eke obey;
And leave what was thy wont until this day,
And for new toil, new sweat, thy strength equip;
This do, and thou shalt join my fellowship,
If of fair deeds thou tire not nor cry nay.'
And when she sees his comely body bare,
Forthwith within her arms she him doth take,
And saith: 'These limbs thou yieldest to my prayer;
I do accept thee, and this gift thee make,
So that thy deeds may shine for ever fair;
My lips shall never more thy praise forsake.'