Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/530

 508 ITALY [LITERATURE. raise the romantic epic which had been for two centuries in the hands of story-tellers into a work of art, and in having united the serious and the comic, thus happily depicting the manners and feelings of the time. With a more serious intention Matteo Boiardo, count of Scandiano, wrote his Orlando iunamomto, in which he seems to have aspired to embrace the whole range of Carlovingian legends ; but he did not complete his task. We find here too a large vein of humour and burlesque. Still the Ferrarese poet is drawn to the world of romance by a profound sympathy for chivalrous manners and feelings, that is to say, for love, courtesy, valour, and generosity. A third romantic poem of the 15th century was the Mambriano by Francesco Bello (Cieco of Ferrara). He drew from the Carlovin gian cycle, from the romances of the Round Table, from classical antiquity. He was a poet of no common genius, and of ready imagination. He showed the influence of Boiardo, especially in something of the fantastic which he introduced into his work. Drama. The development of the drama in the 15th century was very great. This kind of semi-popular literature was born in Florence, and attached itself to certain popular festivities that were usually held in honour of St John the Baptist, patron saint of the city. The Sacra Sappresentazione is in substance nothing more than the development of the mediaeval Mistero (&quot;mystery-play&quot;). Although it belonged to popular poetry, some of its authors were literary men of much renown. It is enough to notice Lorenzo de Medici, who wrote San Giovanni e Paolo, and Feo Belcari, author of the San Panunzio, the Abramo ed Isac, &c. From the 15th century, some element of the comic-profane found its way into the Sacra Rappresentazione, From its Biblical and legendary conventionalism Poliziano emanci pated himself in his Orfeo, which, although in its exterior form belonging to the sacred representations, yet substan tially detaches itself from them in its contents and in the artistic element introduced. Pastoral From Petrarch onwards the eclogue w r as a kind of litera- poetry. fc ure t na t muca pleased the Italians. In it, however, the pastoral element is only apparent, for there is nothing really rural in it. Such is the Arcadia of Jacopo Sannaz- zaro of Naples, author of a wearisome Latin poem De Partu Virginia, and of some piscatorial eclogues. The Arcadia is divided into ten eclogues, in which the festivi ties, the games, the sacrifices, the manners of a colony of shepherds are described. They are written in elegant verses, but it would be vain to look in them for the remotest feeling of country life. On the other hand, eVen in this style, Lorenzo de Medici was, superior. His Nencia da Barberino, as a modern writer says, is as it were the new and clear reproduction of the popular songs of the environs of Florence, melted into one majestic wave of octave stanzas. Lorenzo threw himself into the spirit of the bare realism of country life. There is a marked con trast between this work and the conventional bucolic of Sannazzaro and other writers. A rival of the Medici in this style, but always inferior to him, was Luigi Pulci in his Beca da Dicomano. The lyric love poetry of this century was unimportant. 2 try. j n ^s stead we see a completely new style arise, the Canto Carnascialcsco. These were a kind of choral songs, which were accompanied with symbolical masquerades, common in Florence at the carnival. They were written in a metre like that of the ballate ; and for the most part they were put into the mouth of a party of workmen and tradesmen, who, with not very chaste allusions, sang the praises of their art. These triumphs and masquerades were directed by Lorenzo himself. At eventide there set out into the city large companies on horseback, playing and singing these songs. There are some by Lorenzo himself, which surpass all the others in their mastery of art. That entitled Bacco ed Arianna is the most famous. Girolamo Savonarola arose to fight against the literary ; and social movement of the Renaissance. He was a Ferrarese ] friar, born in 1452, and he came to Florence in 1489. Some have tried to make out that Savonarola was an apostle of liberty, others that he was a precursor of the Reformation. In truth, however, he was neither the one nor the other. In his struggle with Lorenzo de Medici, lie directed his attack against the promoter of classical studies, the patron of pagan literature, rather than against the political tyrant. Animated by mystic zeal, he took the line of a prophet, preaching against reading voluptuous authors, against the tyranny of the Medici, and calling for popular government. This, however, w r as not done from a desire for civil liberty, but because Savonarola saw in Lorenzo and his court the greatest obstacle to that return to Catholic doctrine which was his heart s desire; while he thought this return would be easily accomplished if, on the fall of the Medici, the Florentine republic should come into the hands of his supporters. There may be more justice in j looking on Savonarola as the forerunner of the Reformation. If he was so, it was more than he intended. The friar of Ferrara never thought of attacking the papal dogma, and always maintained that he wished to remain within the church of Rome. He had none of the great aspirations of Luther. He only repeated the complaints and the exhorta tions of St Catherine of Siena ; he desired a reform of manners, entirely of manners, not of doctrine. He pre pared the ground for the German and English religious movement of the 10th century, but unconsciously. In the history of Italian civilization he represents retrogression, that is to say, the cancelling of the great fact of the Renaissance, and return to- mediaeval ideas. His attempt to put himself in opposition to his time, to arrest the course of events, to bring the people back to the faith of the past, the belief that all the social evils came from a Medici and a Borgia, his not seeing the historical reality as it w T as, his aspiring to found a republic with Jesus Christ for its king, all these things show that Savonarola was more of a fanatic than a thinker. Nor has he any great merit as a writer. He wrote Italian sermons, hymns (laudi), ascetic and political treatises, but they are roughly executed, and only important as throwing light on the history of his ideas. The religious poems of Girolamo Benivieni are better than his, and are drawn from the same inspirations. In these lyrics, sometimes sweet, always warm with religious feeling, Benivieni and with him Feo Belcari carry us back to the literature of the 14th century. History had neither many nor very good students in the I 15th century. Its revival belonged to the following age. ^ It was mostly written in Latin. Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo wrote the history of Florence, Gioviano Pontario that of Naples, in Latin. Bernardino Corio wrote the history of Milan in Italian, but in a rude way. Leonardo da Vinci wrote a treatise on painting, Leon Battista Alberti one on sculpture and architecture. But the names of these two men are important, not so much as authors of these treatises, but as being embodiments of another characteristic of the age of the Renaissance,- versatility of genius, power of application along many and varied lines, and of being excellent in all. - Leonardo was an architect, a poet, a painter, an hydraulic engineer, and a distinguished mathematician. Alberti was a musician, studied jurisprudence, was an architect and a draughtsman, and had great fame in literature. He had a deep feeling for nature, an almost unique faculty of assimilating all that he saw and heard. Leonardo and Alberti are representa tives and almost a compendium in themselves of all that intellectual vigour of the Renaissance age, which in the