Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/298

 ITALY

248

ITALY

Leone Battista Alberti

the Humanists, the precursor of the Renaissance. The worshipper of Dante and intimate friend of Petrarca, Boccaccio, in his "Filostrato" and "Teseide", estab- hshed ottava rima (previously only used in popular verse) as the normal measure for Italian narrative poetry. In his "Ameto" he introduced the prose pastoral and the vernacular ec- logue. His grossly immoral " Fiam- metta " may be said to inaugurate the modern psy- chological novel. In the hundred stories of the " De- camer on ", he gave perfect artis- tic form to the novella, or short story, imbuing it with modern life. Written in an or- nate and poetical prose, lacking in simplicity and directness, the " Decameron " gives an unsur- passable picture of certain aspects of fourteenth century society, but is disfigured by obscenity, and permeated by a superficial and sen- sual ideal of life.

This century in Italy, as elsewhere, is the golden age of vernacular ascetical and mystical literature, producing a rich harvest of translations from the Scriptures and the Fathers, of spiritual letters, ser- mons, and religious treatises no less remarkable for their fervour and unction than for their linguistic value. From the earliest years of the Trecento have come down the sermons of the Dominican, B. Gior- dano da Rivalto (d. 1311). The exquisite "Fioretti di San Francesco", now known to be a translation from the Latin, date from about 1328. Prominent among the spiritual vvriters, who thus set themselves to open the Church's treasury to the unlearned, are the Augustinians, B. Simone Fidati da Cascia (d. 1348) and Giovanni da Salerno (d. 1388), whose works have been edited by P. Nicola MattioU; and the Dominicans. Domenico Cavalca, a copious translator, and Jacopo Passavanti (d. 1357), whose "Specchio della Vera Penitenza" is a model of style and language. The admirable letters of B. Giovanni Colombini (d. 1367) and the mystical lyrics of his follower. Bianco dair Aneiolina (El Bianco da Siena), have the glowing fervour, the Divine madness, of the first Franciscans. In a less exalted vein, the epistles of the monk of Vallombrosa, B. Giovanni dalle Celle (d. 1396), extend from the forties to the nineties of the century. Supreme above them all, a figure worthy, from the mere literary point of view, to stand by Dante and Petrarca, is St. Catherine of Siena (1347-80), whose "Dialogo" is the greatest mystical work in prose in the Italian language, and whose "Letters" have hardly been surpassed in the annals of Christianity.

Minor poets are numerous. Cecco Angiolieri of Siena (d. circa 1312), the Italian Villon, wrote humor- ous and satirical sonnets of amazing vigour and originality on subjects mainly drawn from low life. Folgore da San Gimignano (d. after 1315) pictured the fashionable existence of the young nobles of Siena with the touch of a painter. Guittoncino de' Sinibuldi, known as Cino da Pistoia (d. 1337), also won renown as a jurist; the friend of Dante, whose "Rime" he imitated, his best amatory and political lyrics arc

hardly unworthy of his master. Francesco da Bar- berino (d. 1348), who was influenced by French and Provencal models, is the author of two somewhat insipid allegorical didactic poems. A higher note is struck by the Florentine exile, Fazio clegli Uberti (d. after 1368), whose "Dittamondo", a long poem in terza rima, "was intended as an eartlily parallel to Dante's Sacred Poem, doing for this world what he did for the other" (Rossetti); he surpassed himself in splendid patriotic lyrics, which give spirited ex- pression to the new national Ghibellinism of Italy. Antonio Pucci of Florence (d. 1374) is the chief literary representative of the popular poetry of the age.

With the early years of the century begins the series of chronicles and diaries in the vernacular. Dino Comfiagni (d. 1.324), to whom is also ascribed the "Intelligenza", an allegorical poem in nana rima, describes the factions of the Bianchi and Neri in Florence with patriotic indignation and impartiality. Giovanni Villani (d. 1348) and his brother Matteo (d. 1363) wrote the whole history of Florence from the legendary origins down to the year of the latter's death; their work, in addition to its supreme his- torical value, is a monument of the purest Tuscan prose. Minor chroniclers arose all over Italy; we will mention only the two Sienese, Agnolo di Tura and Neri di Donato, and the Benedictine Abbot Niccolo of Gavello, who WTote the "Libro del Polistore", a kind of universal history (still only in part pub- lished) which ends in 1367. In fiction, the "Reali di Francia " of Andrea da Barlierino, WTitten at the end of the century, renders the chivalrous tales of Charlemagne and his Paladins from the French; the " Pecorone " of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino (c. 1378) is a collection of tales in imitation of Boccaccio. Franco Sacchetti (1335-1400), less artificial than Boccaccio, adapted the novella to a moral purpose; he also wTOte evangelical sermons, and poems, both playful and serious, frequently of real lyrical beauty, in which the literature of the Florentine Trecento comes to a pleasant close.

The Renaissance. — There are two distinct epochs in the history of the Italian Renais- sance: the earlier, including the greater part of the fifteenth century (II Quattrocento), from the return of the popes from Avignon (1377) to the invasion of CharlesVIII(1494); the later, compris- ing the sixteenth century (II Cinque- cento), from the de- feat of the French at Fornovo (1495) to the devolution of the Duchy of Ferrara to the Holy See (1597). Allowing for some necessary overlapping, the liter- ature of the epoch falls into two corresponding periods.

The Quattrocento is an intermediate period be- tween the mainly Tuscan movement of the fourteenth, and the general Italian literature of the sixteenth, century. It developed under the auspices of the princes who were forming hereditary states on the ruins of the communes, and is at first marked by the continuance of the work (inaugurated by Petrarch)

Angelo Polizianu

Detail from *' The Sacrifice of the Vi

triarch Zacharia.s", Ghirlandajo