Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/518

496 In fact, the whole world was there, and not just workaday, sorry, parts of it.

Had it not been for the full and varied city life in which he was born and bred, the quick-eyed youth would not have had that fund of human interest and intuition which makes him so pleasant and so different from any one north of the Alps in the thirteenth century. A city boy indeed, and what a full personality! He was to be a man of human curiosity, a tireless sight-seer. His interest is universal; his human love quick enough—for those he loved; for he was no saint, although a Minorite. His detestation is vivid, illuminating; it brings the hated man before us. And Salimbene's wide-open eyes are his own. He sees with a fresh vision; he is himself; a man of temperament, which lends its colours to the panorama. His own interest or curiosity is paramount with him; so his narrative will naïvely follow his sweet will and whim, and pass from topic to topic in chase of the suggestions of his thoughts.

The result is for us a unique treasure-trove. The story presents the world and something more; two worlds, if you will, very co-related: macrocosmos and microcosmos, the world without and the very eager ego, Salimbene. There he is unfailingly, the writer in his world. Scarcely another mediaeval penman so naïvely shows the world he moves about in and himself. Let us follow, for a little, his autobiographic chronicle, taking the liberty which he always took, of selecting as we choose.

In the year 1221 Salimbene was born at Parma, into the very centre of the world of strife between popes and