Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/301

 ITALY

251

ITALY

dello (1480-1560) and Giambattista Giraldi (1504-75), have the merit of being less immoral than Boccaccio. Among minor prose treatises the "Galateo" of Gio- vanni della Casa, a manual of good breeding, has made its title proverbial. The translation of Tacitus by Bernardo Davan- zati (1529-1606) is a model of style. Among grammar- ians and literary critics, besides Bembo, Trissino, andVarchi, should be mentioned Leonardo Salviati, who played a lead- ing part in the foundation of the " .\ccademia della Crusca" in 1582. The spiritual ele- ment in vernacular literature is repre- s e n t e d by the " Vita e Transito della beata Osanna da Mantua", by Girolamo Monto- livetano (1505); the "Trattato del Purgatorio" of St. Catherine of Genoa (d. 1510); the mystical writings of her godchild, the Carmelite nun, Battista Vernazza (d. 1587); the Letters of St. Catherine de' Ricci (d. 1590); and the " Combattimento Spirituale" (circa 1585) of Lorenzo Scupoli, still so widely used among us for purposes of devotion.

The Decadence. — The creative genius of the Italians had been exhausted by the Renaissance, and the life of the nation crushed down by the foreign yoke of Spain, imposed on the peninsula by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis (1559). Already in the latter part of the sixteenth century the decline had set in; it lasted through the w'hole of the seventeenth (II Seicento), and the first half of the eighteenth centmy {II Seltecento), which together form the least fruitful epoch in the history of Italian literature. Exagger- ation and extravagance, with corrupted taste and frantic straining after novelty (in part a reaction against the frigid classicism in which the Renaissance ended), are the characteristics of earlier seventeenth- century poetry, of which the most tj-pical work is the "Adone" of the Neapolitan poet, Giovanbattista Marini (1569-1625), a profoundly immoral poem with a pretended ethical intention. Alessandro Tassoni (1565-1635) parodied the heroic poem in his comic epic, "La Secchia Rapita", and assailed the Spanish oppressors of his country in his prose "Fihppiche". A new school of IjTical poetry was inaugurated by Gabriello Chiabrera (1552-1637), who attempted, with only partial success, to adopt the metres of the Greek and Roman poets for Italian verse. He was followed, with less refined taste and more virility, by Fulvio Testi (1593-1646), whose patriotic poems strike a higher note. Among satirical poets, natural fruit of a corrupt age, is the Neapolitan painter, Salvator Rosa (1615-73). The inevitable reaction against the inflated mannerisms of the Marinisti led to a movement for reforming Italian poetry by a re- turn to nature and simpler ideals. To this latter school belong Vincenzo Filieaja (1642-1707), a deeply religious poet, the best of whose sonnets are the poetic gems of his age, Benedetto Menzini (1646-1704), a Florentine priest, who was also successful as a writer of satire.s; and Alessandro Guidi (1650-1712), called " the Italian Pindar ", who introduced greater freedom into the rhythmical structure of the canzone. This movement culminated in the famous "Accademia deir Arcadia",' inaugurated at Rome in 1690, which

soon sank into an affected pastoralism and artificial simplicity, as false to nature and to true poetry as the mamierisms which it was intended to combat.

Although the greatest Italian of the epoch, Galileo Gahlei (1564-1642), belongs to science rather than to literature, his writings are distinguished by the high- est literary excellences. Francesco Redi (1626-1698), a distinguished physician, was also a poet and phil- ologist. Three Jesuits are among the chief prose WTiters of the century, combining devotion and learn- ing with a literary style which, though far less free than Galileo's from the faults of the age, is unsur- passed by any of their contemporaries: Father Sforza Pallavicino (1607-1667) composed the official history of the Council of Trent, in refutation of that of Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623), and ethical and religious treatises, of which the "Arte della Perfezione Cris- tiana " and the four books " Del Bene ", philosophical dialogues held in the villa of Cardinal Alessandro Orsini at Bracciano, are still read; Father Daniello Bartoli (1608-85), a prolific and brilliant author, wrote the history of the Society of Jesus in a style which is tj-pical of the Seicento at its best; Father Paolo Segneri (1624-94) reformed the art of religious oratory and freed it from the corruptions of the times. Prominent among historians are Cardinal Guido Ben- tivoglio (1579-1644), a trusted diplomatist of the Holy See, and Enrico Caterino Davila (1576-1631), who wrote on the Civil Wars of France. .\ little later, the study of history was set upon a scientific basis by Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) and Lodovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750). Vico showed how history is Ulumined by the application of jurispru- dence and philosophy; Muratori, that worthy priest to whom, the student of the Middle Ages owes more than to any other man, taught by his own example that history must be founded in documentary re- search, and prepared the ground for subsequent scholars. In philology and literary criticism must be mentioned Carlo Dati (1619-76), who is associated with the Accademia della Crusca (of which the first Dictionary had been published in 1612); Gianvin- cenzo G r a V i n a (1664-1718), who was one of the founders of the Arcadia; and the Sienese, Girolamo Gigh (1660-1722), the zealous editor of St. Catherine. The Jesuit Giro- lamo Tiraboschi (1731-94) com- piled the volumi- nous history of Italian literature which is still in- dispensable.

By the middle of the eighteenth century dj'nastic changes had swept away most of the old decadent reigning houses, and by the Peace of Aachen (1748) the reactionary yoke of Spain was forever lifted from Italy. The latter half of the century shows a moral antl intellectual awakening, but at the same time the growth of a sceptical and irreligious spirit, due in part to French influence. It is an epoch of scientists and political economists, among the latter Cesarc Bcc- caria (1738-94) winning the most permanent fame. In poetrj-, Pietro Trapa.ssi (1698-1782), Ix-tter known as Metastasio, brought the melodrama to the ultimate

Gallery,