Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/527

 LITERATURE.] ITALY 505 mental differences in their characters, the two great authors were old and warm friends. But their affection for Dante was not equal. Petrarch, who says that he saw him once in his childhood, did not preserve a pleasant recollection of him, and it would be useless to deny that he was jealous of his renown. The Divina Commedia was sent him by Boccaccio, when he was an old man, and he confessed that he never read it. On the other hand, Boccaccio felt for Dante something more than love enthusiasm. He wrote a biography of him, of which the accuracy is now unfairly depreciated by some critics, and he gave public critical lectures on the poem in Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence. Fazio degli Uberti and Federigo Frezzi were imitators of the Divina Commedia, but only in its external form. The former wrote the Dittamondo, a long poem, in which the author supposes that he was taken by the geographer Solinus into different parts of the world, and that his guide related the history of them. The legends of the rise of the different Italian cities have some importance historically. Frezzi, bishop of his native town Foligno, wrote the Quadriregio, a poem of the four kingdoms Love, Satan, the Vices, and the Virtues. This poem has many points of resemblance with the Divina Commedia. Frezzi pictures the condition of man who rises from a state of vice to one of virtue, and describes hell, the limbo, purgatory, and heaven. The poet has Pallas for a companion. ior Ser Giovanni Fiorentino wrote, under the title of elists. Pecorone, a collection of tales, which are supposed to have been related by a monk and a nun in the parlour of the monastery of Forli. He closely imitated Boccaccio, and drew on Villani s chronicle for his historical stories. Franco Sacchetti wrote tales too, for the most part on subjects taken from Florentine history. His book gives a life-like picture of Florentine society at the end of the 14th century. The subjects are almost always improper; but it is evident that Sacchetti collected all these anecdotes in order to draw from them his own conclusions and moral reflexions, which are to be found at the end of every story. From this point of view Sacchetti s work comes near to the Moralisationes of the Middle Ages. A third novelist was Giovanni Sercambi of Lucca, who after 1374 wrote a book, in imitation of Boccaccio, about a party of people who were supposed to fly from a plague and to go travel ling about in different Italian cities, stopping here and there telling stories. echro- It has already .been said that the chronicles formerly lers. believed to have been of the 13th century are now regarded as forgeries of later times. At the end of the 13th century, however, we find a chronicle by Dino Compagni, which, not withstanding the unfavourable opinion of it entertained especially by some German writers, is in all probability authentic. Little is known about the life of Compagni. Noble by birth, he was democratic in feeling, and was a supporter of the new ordinances of Giano della Bella. As prior and gonfalonier of justice he always had the public welfare at heart. When Charles of Valois, the nominee of Boniface VIII., was expected in Florence, Compagni, fore seeing the evils of civil discord, assembled a number of citizens in the church of San Giovanni, and tried to quiet their excited spirits. His chronicle relates the events that came under his own notice from 1280 to 1312. It bears the stamp of a strong subjectivity. The narrative is con stantly personal. It often rises to the finest dramatic style. A strong patriotic feeling and an exalted desire for what is right pervade the book. Compagni is more an historian than a chronicler, because he looks for the reasons of events, and makes profound reflexions on them. According to our judgment he is one of the most important authorities for that period of Florentine history, notwithstanding the not insignificant mistakes in fact which are to be found in his writings. On the contrary, Giovanni Villani, born in 1300, was more of a chronicler than an historian. He relates the events up to 1347. The journeys that he made in Italy and France, and the information thus acquired, account for the fact that his chronicle, called by him Istorie Florentine, comprises events that occurred all over Europe. What specially distinguishes the work of Villani is that he speaks at length, not only of events in politics and war, but also of the stipends of public officials, of the sums of money used for paying soldiers and for public festivals, and of many other things of which the knowledge is very valuable. With such an abundance of information it is not to be wondered at that Villani s narrative is often encumbered with fables and errors, particularly when he speaks of things that happened before his own time. Matteo was the brother of Giovanni Villani, and continued the chronicle up to 1363. It was again continued by Filippo -Villani. Gino Capponi, author of the Commentari delV Acquisto di Pisa and of the narration of the Tumidto dei Ciompi, belonged to both the 14th and the 15th centuries. The Divina Commedia is ascetic in its conception, and Ascetic in a good many points of its execution. To a large extent writers, similar is the genius of Petrarch ; yet neither Petrarch nor Dante could be classified among the pure ascetics of their time. But many other writers come under this head. St Catherine of Siena s mysticism was political. She was a really extraordinary woman, who aspired to bring back the Church of Rome to evangelical virtue, and who has left a collection of letters written in a high and lofty tone to all kinds of people, including popes. She joins hands on the one side with Jacopone of Todi, on the other with Savon arola. Hers is the strongest, clearest, most exalted religious utterance that made itself heard in Italy in the 1 4th century. It is not to be thought that precise ideas of reformation entered into her head, but the want of a great moral reform was felt in her heart. And she spoke indeed ex abun- dantia cordis. Anyhow the daughter of Jacopo Benincasa must take her place among those who from afar off pre pared the way for the religious movement which took effect, especially in Germany and England, in the 16th century. Another Sienese, Giovanni Colombini, founder of the order of Jesuati, preached poverty by precept and example, going back to the religious idea of St Francis of Assisi. His letters are among the most remarkable in the category of ascetic works in the 14th century. Passavanti, in his Specchio della vera Penitenza, attached instruction to narrative. Cavalca translated from the Latin the Vite dei Santi Padri. Rivalta left behind him many sermons, and Franco Sacchetti (the famous novelist) many discourses. On the whole, there is no doubt that one of the most important productions of the Italian spirit of the 14th century was the religious literature. In direct antithesis with this is a kind of literature which Comic has a strong popular element. Humorous poetry, the poetry poetry, of laughter and jest, which as we saw was largely devel oped in the 13th century, was carried on in the 14th by Bindo Bonichi, Arrigodi Castruccio, Cecco Nuccoli, Andrea Orgagna, Filippo de Bardi, Adriano de Rossi, Antonio&quot; Pucci, and other lesser writers. Orgagna was specially comic ; Bonichi was comic with a satirical and moral pur pose. Antonio Pucci was superior to all of them for the variety of his production. He put into triplets the chronicle of Giovanni Villani (Centi oquio), and wrote many historical poems called Serventesi, many comic poems, and not a few epico-popular compositions on various sub jects. A little poem of his in seven cantos treats of the war between the Florentines and the Pisans from 1362 to 1365. Other poems drawn from a legendary source cele brate the Edna d Oriente, Apollonio di Tiro, the Bel Gherardino, &c. These poems, meant to be recited to the XIII. 64