Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/528

 506 ITALY [LITERATURE. people, are the remote ancestors of the romantic epic, which was developed in the 16th century, and the first representatives of which were Eoiardo and Ariosto. Political Many poets of the 14th century have left us political and works. Of these Fazio degli Uberti, the author of Ditta- amatory mon( i w } 10 wro te a Serventese to the lords and people of &quot;noctrv Italy, a poem on Rome, a fierce invective against Charles IV. of Luxemburg, deserves notice, and Francesco di Van- nozzo, Frate Stoppa, and Matteo Frescobaldi. It may be said in general that following the example of Petrarch many writers devoted themselves to patriotic poetry. From this period also dates that literary phenomenon known under the name of Petrarchism. The Petrarchists, or those who sang of love, imitating Petrarch s manner, were found already in the 14th century. But others treated the same subject with more originality, in a manner that might be called semi-popular. Such were the Ballate of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, of Franco Sacchetti, of Niccolo Soldanieri, of Guido and Bindo Donati. Ballate were poems sung to dancing, and we have very many songs for Histories music of the 14th century. We have already stated that in verse. Antonio Pucci versified Villani s Chronicle. This instance of versified history is not unique, and it is evidently connected with the precisely similar phenomenon offered by the &quot;vulgar Latin &quot; literature. It is enough to notice a chronicle of Arezzo in terza rima by Gorello de Sinigardi, and the history, also in terza rima, of the journey of Pope Alexander III. to Venice by Pier de Natali. Besides this, every kind of subject, whether history, tragedy, or husbandry, was treated in verse. ISTeri di Landocio wrote a life of St Catherine; Jacopo Gradenigo put the gospels into triplets; Paganino Bonafede in the Tesoro del Rustici gave many precepts in agriculture, beginning that kind of Georgic poetry which was fully developed later by Alamanni in his Coltivazione, by Girolamo Baruffaldi in the Canapajo, by Rucellai in the Api, by Bartolommeo Lorenzi in the Coltivazione dei Monti, by Giambattista Spolverini in the Coltivazione del Riso, &c. Drama. There cannot have been an entire absence of dramatic literature in Italy in the 14th century, but traces of it are wanting, although we find them again in great abundance in the 15th century. The 14th century had, however, one drama unique of its kind. In the sixty years (1250 to 1310) which ran from the death of the emperor Frederick II. to the expedition of Henry VII., no emperor had come into Italy. In the north of Italy, Ezzelino da Piomano, with the title of imperial vicar, had taken possession of almost the whole of the March of Treviso, and threatened Lombmly. The popes proclaimed a crusade against him, and, crushed by it, the Ezzelini fell. Padua then began to breathe again, and took to extending its dominion. There was living at Padua Albertino Mussato, born in 1261, a year after the catastrophe of the Ezzelini ; he grew up among the survivors of a generation that hated the name of the tyrant. After having written in Latin a history, of Henry VII., he devoted himself to a dramatic work en Ezzelino, and wrote it also in Latin. The Ecceriims, which was probably never represented on the stage, has been by som3 critics compared to the great tragic works of Greece. It would probably be nearer the truth to say that it has nothing in common with the works of yEschylus ; but certainly the dramatic strength, the delineation of certain situations, and the narration of certain events are very original. Mussato s work stands alone in the history of Italian dramatic literature. Perhaps this would not have been the case if he had written it in Italian. In the last years of the 14th century we find the struggle that was soon to break out between the indigenous literary tradition and the reviving classicism already alive in spirit. As representatives of this struggle, of this antagonism, we may consider Luigi Marsilio and Coluccio Salutati, both learned men who spoke and wrote Latin, who aspired to be humanists, but who meanwhile also loved Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and felt and celebrated in their writings the beauty of Italian literature. 3. The Renaissance. A great intellectual movement, Gr-. which had been gathering for a long time, made itself felt La in Italy in the 15th century. A number of men arose, all learned, laborious, indefatigable, and all intent on one great work. Such were Niccolo Niccoli, Giannozzo Manetti, Palla Strozzi, Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Filelfo, Poggio Bracciolini, Carlo d Arezzo, Lorenzo Valla. Manetti buried himself in his books, slept only for a few hours in the night, never went out of doors, and spent his time in translating from Greek, studying Hebrew, and com menting on Aristotle. Palla Strozzi sent into Greece at his own expense to search for ancient books, and had Plutarch and Plato brought for him. Poggio Bracciolini went to the council of Constance, and found in a monastery in the dust-hole Cicero s Orations. He copied Quintilian with his own hand, discovered Lucretius, Plautus, Pliny, and many other Latin authors. Guarino went through the East in search of codices. Giovanni Aurispa returned to Venice with many hundreds of manuscripts. What was the passion that excited all these men ? What did they search after? What did they look to 1 ? These Italians were but handing on the solemn tradition which, although partly latent, was the informing principle of Italian mediaeval history, and now at length came out triumphant. This tradition was that same tenacious and sacred memory of Rome, that same worship of its language and institu tions, which at one time had retarded the development of Italian literature, and now grafted the old Latin branch of ancient classicism on the flourishing stock of Italian litera ture. All this is but the continuation of a phenomenon that has existed for ages. It is the thought of Rome that always dominates Italians, the thought that keeps appearing from Boetius to Dante Alighieri, from Arnold of Brescia to Cola di Rienzi, which gathers strength with Petrarch and Boccaccio, and finally becomes triumph ant in literature and life, in life, because the modern spirit is fed on the works of the ancients. Men come to have a more just idea of nature : the world is no longer cursed or despised ; truth and beauty join hands ; man is born again ; and human reason resumes its rights. Every thing, the individual and society, are changed under the influence of new facts. First of all there was formed a human individuality, Nc which was wanting in the Middle Ages. As Burckhardt soc has said, the man was changed into the individual. He c f l began to feel and assert his own personality, which was constantly attaining a fuller realization. As a consequence of this, the idea of fame and the desire for it arose. A really cultured class was formed, in the modern meaning of the word, and the conception was arrived at (completely unknown in former times) that the worth of a man did not depend at all on his birth but on his personal qualities. ! Poggio in his dialogue De Noltilitate declares that he entirely agreed with his interlocutors Niccolo Niccoli and 1 Lorenzo de Medici in the opinion that there is no other nobility but that of personal merit. External life was growing more refined in all particulars ; the man of society was created ; rules for civilized life were made ; there was an increasing desire for sumptuous and artistic enter tainments. The medircval idea of existence was turned upside down : men who had hitherto turned their thoughts exclusively to heavenly things, and believed exclusively in the divine right, now began to think of beautifying their earthly existence, of making it happy and gay, and returned to a belief in their human rights. This was a great