Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/534

 512 ITALY [LITERATURE. the vileness of Italian social life, is given us in satire and in particular in that of Salvator Rosa and Alessandro Tassoni. Salvator Rosa, born in 1615, near Naples, was a painter, a musician, and a poet. As a poet he showed that he felt the sad condition of his country, showed that he mourned over it, and gave vent to his feeling (as another satire-writer, Giuseppe Giusti, said) in generosi ralibuffi. His exhortation to Italian poets to turn their thoughts to the miseries of their country as a subject for their song their country languishing under the tyrant s hands certain passages where he deplores the effeminacy of Italian habits, a strong apostrophe against Rome, make Salvator Rosa a precursor of the patriotic literature which in augurated the revival of the 1 8th century. Tassoni, a man really quite exceptional in this century, was superior to Rosa. He showed independent judgment in the midst of universal servility, and his Secclda Rapita proved that he was an eminent writer. This is an heroic comic poem, which is at the same time an epic and a personal satire. He was bold enough to attack the Spaniards in his Filippiche, in which he urged Duke Carlo Emanuele of Savoy to persist in the war against them. N e v 6. The Revival in the 18th Century. Having for the political most part freed itself from the Spanish dominion in the condi- 18th century, the political condition of Italy began to shown in many civil reforms, were Joseph II., Leopold I., and Charles I. The work of these princes was copied from the philosophers, who in their turn felt the influence of a general movement of ideas, which was quietly working in many parts of Europe, and which came to a head in the French encyclopedists. Histori- Giambattista Vico was a token of the awakening of cal works, historical consciousness in Italy. In his Scienza Nuova he applied himself to the investigation of the laws govern ing the progress of the human race, and according to which events are developed. From the psychological study of man he endeavoured to infer the &quot; comune natura delle nazioni,&quot; i.e., the universal laws of history, or the laws by which civilizations rise, flourish, and fall. From the same scientific spirit which animated the philosophical investigation of Vico, there was born a different kind of investigation, that of the sources of Italian civil and literary history. Lodovico Antonio Muratori, after having collected in one entire body (Rerwn Italicarum Scriptores) the chronicles, the biographies, the letters, and the diaries of Italian history from 500 to 1500, after having discussed the most obscure historical questions in the Antiquitates Italics Medii sEvi, wrote the Annali cT Italia, minutely narrating facts derived from authentic sources. Muratori s associates in his historical researches were Scipione Maffei of Verona and Apostolo Zena of Venice. In his Verona illustrata the former left, not only a treasure of learning, but an excellent specimen of historical monograph. The latter added much to the erudition of literary history, both in his Disserlazioni Vossiane and in his notes to the Biblioteca dell Eloq_uenza Italiana of Monsignore Giusto Fontanini. Girolamo Tiraboschi and the Count Giovanni Maria Mazzuchelli of Brescia devoted themselves to literary history. The latter meant to give in his Scrittori d Italia, not only the biography of all the writers, but an account of their works. Only six volumes were printed, containing the letters A and B ; but the immense materials collected by him are in the A 7 atican library, and it is to be hoped that some day they may be arranged and published. Social While the new spirit of the times led men to the investi- sciencc. g a ti n of historical sources, it also led them to inquire into the mechanism of economical and social laws. Francesco Galiani wrote on currency; Gaetano Filangieri wrote a Scienza della Legislazione, Cesare Beccaria, in his treatise Dei Delitti e delle Pene, made a contribution to the reform of the penal system and promoted the abolition of torture. The man in whom above all others the literary revival S of the 18th century was most conspicuously embodied was Giuseppe Parini. He was born in a Lombard village in 1729, was mostly educated at Milan, and as a youth was known among the Arcadian poets by the name of Darisbo Elidonio. Even as an Arcadian, however, Parini showed signs of departing from the common type. In a collec tion of poems that he published at twenty -three years of age, under the name of Ripano Eupilino, there are some pastoral sonnets in which the poet shows that he had the faculty of taking his scenes from real life, and also some satirical pieces in which he exhibits a spirit of somewhat rude opposition to his own times. These poems are per haps based on reminiscences of Berni, but at any rate they indicate a resolute determination to assail boldly all the literary conventionalities that surrounded the author. This, however, was only the beginning of the battle. Parini lived in times of great social prostration. The nobles and the rich, all given up to ease and to silly gallantry, consumed their lives in ridiculous trifles or in shameless self-indulgence, wasting themselves on immoral &quot; Cicisbeismo,&quot; and offering the most miserable spectacle of feebleness of mind and character. It was against this social condition that Parini s muse was directed. Already, improving on the poems of his youth, he had proved himself an innovator in his lyrics, rejecting at once Petrarchisrn, Secentismo, and Arcadia, the three maladies that had weakened Italian art in the centuries preceding his own, and choosing subjects taken from real life, such as might help in the instruction of his con temporaries. In the Odi the satirical note is already heard. But it came out more strongly in the poem Del Giorno, in which he imagines himself to be teaching a young Milanese patrician all the habits and ways of gallant life; he shows up all its ridiculous frivolities, and with delicate irony unmasks the futilities of aristocratic habits. Dividing the day into four parts, the Mattino, .the Mezzogiorno, the Vespero, the Notte, by means of each of these he describes the trifles of which they were made up, and the book thus assumes a social and historical value of the highest importance. Parini, satirizing his time, fell back upon truth, and finally made art serve the purpose of civil morality. As an artist, going straight back to classical forms, aspiring to imitate Virgil and Dante, he opened the way to the fine school that we shall soon see rise, that of Alfieri, Foscolo, and Monti. As a work of art, the Giorno is wonderful for the Socratic skill with which that delicate irony is constantly kept up by which he seems to praise what he effectually blames. The verse has new harmonies ; sometimes it is a little hard and broken, not by accident, but as a protest against the Arcadian monotony. Generally it flows majestically, but without that Frugonian droning that deafens the ears and leaves the heart cold. Gasparo Gozzi s satire was less elevated, but directed towards the same end as Parini s. In his Osservatore, something like Acldison s Spectator, in his Gazzetta Veneta, in the Hondo Morale, by means of allegories and novelties he hit the vices with a delicate touch, and inculcated a practical moral with much good sense. Gozzi s satire has s^me slight resemblance in style to Lucian s. It is smooth and light, but withal it does not go less straight to its aim, which is to point out the defects of society and to correct them. Gozzi s prose is very graceful and lively. It only errs by its overweening affectation of imitating the writers of the 14th century. Another satirical writer of the first half of the 18th century was Giuseppe Baretti of Turin. In a journal called the Frusta Letteraria he took to lashing
 * lon * improve. Promoters of this improvement, which was