Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece Part 47

ETNA

PALERMO

SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI

ATHENS

INDEX

The Ildefonso Group _Frontispiece_

SKETCHES AND STUDIES

IN

ITALY AND GREECE

_FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO_

Students of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translations from the early Italian poets (_Dante and his Circle_. Ellis & White, 1874) will not fail to have noticed the striking figure made among those jejune imitators of Provencal mannerism by two rhymesters, Cecco Angiolieri and Folgore da San Gemignano. Both belong to the school of Siena, and both detach themselves from the metaphysical fas.h.i.+on of their epoch by clearness of intention and directness of style. The sonnets of both are remarkable for what in the critical jargon of to-day might be termed realism. Cecco is even savage and brutal. He antic.i.p.ates Villon from afar, and is happily described by Mr.

Rossetti as the prodigal, or 'scamp' of the Dantesque circle. The case is different with Folgore. There is no poet who breathes a fresher air of gentleness. He writes in images, dealing but little with ideas. Every line presents a picture, and each picture has the charm of a miniature fancifully drawn and brightly coloured on a missal-margin. Cecco and Folgore alike have abandoned the mediaeval mysticism which sounds unreal on almost all Italian lips but Dante's. True Italians, they are content to live for life's sake, and to take the world as it presents itself to natural senses. But Cecco is perverse and impious. His love has nothing delicate; his hatred is a morbid pa.s.sion. At his worst or best (for his best writing is his worst feeling) we find him all but rabid. If Caligula, for instance, had written poetry, he might have piqued himself upon the following sonnet; only we must do Cecco the justice of remembering that his rage is more than half ironical and humorous:--

An I were fire, I would burn up the world; An I were wind, with tempest I'd it break; An I were sea, I'd drown it in a lake; An I were G.o.d, to h.e.l.l I'd have it hurled; An I were Pope, I'd see disaster whirled O'er Christendom, deep joy thereof to take; An I were Emperor, I'd quickly make All heads of all folk from their necks be twirled; An I were death, I'd to my father go; An I were life, forthwith from him I'd fly; And with my mother I'd deal even so; An I were Cecco, as I am but I, Young girls and pretty for myself I'd hold, But let my neighbours take the plain and old.

Of all this there is no trace in Folgore. The worst a moralist could say of him is that he sought out for himself a life of pure enjoyment. The famous Sonnets on the Months give particular directions for pastime in a round of pleasure suited to each season.

The Sonnets on the Days are conceived in a like hedonistic spirit.

But these series are specially addressed to members of the Glad Brigades and Spending Companies, which were common in the great mercantile cities of mediaeval Italy. Their tone is doubtless due to the occasion of their composition, as compliments to Messer Nichol di Nisi and Messer Guerra Cavicciuoli.

The mention of these names reminds me that a word need be said about the date of Folgore. Mr. Rossetti does not dispute the commonly a.s.signed date of 1260, and takes for granted that the Messer Nicol of the Sonnets on the Months was the Sienese gentleman referred to by Dante in a certain pa.s.sage of the 'Inferno':[1]--

And to the Poet said I: 'Now was ever So vain a people as the Sienese?

Not for a certainty the French by far.'

Whereat the other leper, who had heard me, Replied unto my speech: 'Taking out Stricca, Who knew the art of moderate expenses, And Nicol, who the luxurious use Of cloves discovered earliest of all Within that garden where such seed takes root.

And taking out the band, among whom squandered Caccia d' Ascian his vineyards and vast woods, And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered.'

Now Folgore refers in his political sonnets to events of the years 1314 and 1315; and the correct reading of a line in his last sonnet on the Months gives the name of Nichol di Nisi to the leader of Folgore's 'blithe and lordly Fellows.h.i.+p.' The first of these facts leads us to the conclusion that Folgore flourished in the first quarter of the fourteenth, instead of in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. The second prevents our identifying Nichol di Nisi with the Niccol de' Salimbeni, who is thought to have been the founder of the Fellows.h.i.+p of the Carnation. Furthermore, doc.u.ments have recently been brought to light which mention at San Gemignano, in the years 1305 and 1306, a certain Folgore. There is no sufficient reason to identify this Folgore with the poet; but the name, to say the least, is so peculiar that its occurrence in the records of so small a town as San Gemignano gives some confirmation to the hypothesis of the poet's later date. Taking these several considerations together, I think we must abandon the old view that Folgore was one of the earliest Tuscan poets, a view which is, moreover, contradicted by his style. Those critics, at any rate, who still believe him to have been a predecessor of Dante's, are forced to reject as spurious the political sonnets referring to Monte Catini and the plunder of Lucca by Uguccione della f.a.ggiuola. Yet these sonnets rest on the same ma.n.u.script authority as the Months and Days, and are distinguished by the same qualities.[2]

[1] _Inferno_, xxix. 121.--_Longfellow_.

[2] The above points are fully discussed by Signor Giulio Navone, in his recent edition of _Le Rime di Folgore da San Gemignano e di Cene da la Chitarra d' Arezzo_.

Bologna: Romagnoli, 1880. I may further mention that in the sonnet on the Pisans, translated on p. 18, which belongs to the political series, Folgore uses his own name.

Whatever may be the date of Folgore, whether we a.s.sign his period to the middle of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, there is no doubt but that he presents us with a very lively picture of Italian manners, drawn from the point of view of the high bourgeoisie. It is on this account that I have thought it worth while to translate five of his Sonnets on Knighthood, which form the fragment that remains to us from a series of seventeen. Few poems better ill.u.s.trate the temper of Italian aristocracy when the civil wars of two centuries had forced the n.o.bles to enroll themselves among the burghers, and when what little chivalry had taken root in Italy was fast decaying in a gorgeous over-bloom of luxury. The inst.i.tutions of feudal knighthood had lost their sterner meaning for our poet. He uses them for the suggestion of delicate allegories fancifully painted. Their mysterious significance is turned to gaiety, their piety to amorous delight, their grimness to refined enjoyment. Still these changes are effected with perfect good taste and in perfect good faith. Something of the perfume of true chivalry still lingered in a society which was fast becoming mercantile and diplomatic. And this perfume is exhaled by the petals of Folgore's song-blossom. He has no conception that to readers of Mort Arthur, or to Founders of the Garter, to Sir Miles Stapleton, Sir Richard Fitz-Simon, or Sir James Audley, his ideal knight would have seemed but little better than a scented civet-cat. Such knights as his were all that Italy possessed, and the poet-painter was justly proud of them, since they served for finished pictures of the beautiful in life.

The Italians were not a feudal race. During the successive reigns of Lombard, Frankish, and German masters, they had pa.s.sively accepted, stubbornly resisted feudalism, remaining true to the conviction that they themselves were Roman. In Roman memories they sought the traditions which give consistency to national consciousness. And when the Italian communes triumphed finally over Empire, counts, bishops, and rural aristocracy; then Roman law was speedily subst.i.tuted for the 'asinine code' of the barbarians, and Roman civility gave its tone to social customs in the place of Teutonic chivalry. Yet just as the Italians borrowed, modified, and misconceived Gothic architecture, so they took a feudal tincture from the nations of the North with whom they came in contact. Their n.o.ble families, those especially who followed the Imperial party, sought the honour of knighthood; and even the free cities arrogated to themselves the right of conferring this distinction by diploma on their burghers. The chivalry thus formed in Italy was a decorative inst.i.tution. It might be compared to the ornamental frontispiece which masks the structural poverty of such Gothic buildings as the Cathedral of Orvieto.

On the descent of the German Emperor into Lombardy, the great va.s.sals who acknowledged him, made knighthood, among t.i.tles of more solid import, the price of their allegiance.[1] Thus the chronicle of the Cortusi for the year 1354 tells us that when Charles IV. 'was advancing through the March, and had crossed the Oglio, and was at the borders of Cremona, in his camp upon the snow, he, sitting upon his horse, did knight the doughty and n.o.ble man, Francesco da Carrara, who had constantly attended him with a great train, and smiting him upon the neck with his palm, said: "Be thou a good knight, and loyal to the Empire." Thereupon the n.o.ble German peers dismounted, and forthwith buckled on Francesco's spurs. To them the Lord Francesco gave chargers and horses of the best he had.'

Immediately afterwards Francesco dubbed several of his own retainers knights. And this was the customary fas.h.i.+on of these Lombard lords.

For we read how in the year 1328 Can Grande della Scala, after the capture of Padua, 'returned to Verona, and for the further celebration of his victory upon the last day of October held a court, and made thirty-eight knights with his own hand of the divers districts of Lombardy.' And in 1294 Azzo d'Este 'was knighted by Gerardo da Camino, who then was Lord of Treviso, upon the piazza of Ferrara, before the gate of the Bishop's palace. And on the same day at the same hour the said Lord Marquis Azzo made fifty-two knights with his own hand, namely, the Lord Francesco, his brother, and others of Ferrara, Modena, Bologna, Florence, Padua, and Lombardy; and on this occasion was a great court held in Ferrara.' Another chronicle, referring to the same event, says that the whole expenses of the ceremony, including the rich dresses of the new knights, were at the charge of the Marquis. It was customary, when a n.o.ble house had risen to great wealth and had abundance of fighting men, to increase its prestige and spread abroad its glory by a wholesale creation of knights. Thus the Chronicle of Rimini records a high court held by Pandolfo Malatesta in the May of 1324, when he and his two sons, with two of his near relatives and certain strangers from Florence, Bologna, and Perugia, received this honour. At Siena, in like manner, in the year 1284, 'thirteen of the house of Salimbeni were knighted with great pomp.'

[1] The pa.s.sages used in the text are chiefly drawn from Muratori's fifty-third Dissertation.

It was not on the battlefield that the Italians sought this honour.

They regarded knighthood as a part of their signorial parade.

Therefore Republics, in whom perhaps, according to strict feudal notions, there was no fount of honour, presumed to appoint procurators for the special purpose of making knights. Florence, Siena, and Arezzo, after this fas.h.i.+on gave the golden spurs to men who were enrolled in the arts of trade or commerce. The usage was severely criticised by Germans who visited Italy in the Imperial train. Otto Frisingensis, writing the deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, speaks with bitterness thereof: 'To the end that they may not lack means of subduing their neighbours, they think it no shame to gird as knights young men of low birth, or even handicraftsmen in despised mechanic arts, the which folk other nations banish like the plague from honourable and liberal pursuits.' Such knights, amid the chivalry of Europe, were not held in much esteem; nor is it easy to see what the cities, which had formally excluded n.o.bles from their government, thought to gain by aping inst.i.tutions which had their true value only in a feudal society. We must suppose that the Italians were not firmly set enough in their own type to resist an enthusiasm which inflamed all Christendom. At the same time they were too Italian to comprehend the spirit of the thing they borrowed. The knights thus made already contained within themselves the germ of those Condottieri who reduced the service of arms to a commercial speculation. But they lent splendour to the Commonwealth, as may be seen in the grave line of mounted warriors, steel-clad, with open visors, who guard the commune of Siena in Ambrogio Lorenzetti's fresco. Giovanni Villani, in a pa.s.sage of his Chronicle which deals with the fair state of Florence just before the outbreak of the Black and White parties, says the city at that epoch numbered 'three hundred Cavalieri di Corredo, with many clubs of knights and squires, who morning and evening went to meat with many men of the court, and gave away on high festivals many robes of vair.' It is clear that these citizen knights were leaders of society, and did their duty to the commonwealth by adding to its joyous cheer. Upon the battlefields of the civil wars, moreover, they sustained at their expense the charges of the cavalry.

Siena was a city much given to parade and devoted to the Imperial cause, in which the inst.i.tution of chivalry flourished. Not only did the burghers take knighthood from their procurators, but the more influential sought it by a special dispensation from the Emperor.

Thus we hear how Nino Tolomei obtained a Caesarean diploma of knighthood for his son Giovanni, and published it with great pomp to the people in his palace. This Giovanni, when he afterwards entered religion, took the name of Bernard, and founded the Order of Monte Oliveto.

Owing to the special conditions of Italian chivalry, it followed that the new knight, having won his spurs by no feat of arms upon the battlefield, was bounden to display peculiar magnificence in the ceremonies of his invest.i.ture. His honour was held to be less the reward of courage than of liberality. And this feeling is strongly expressed in a curious pa.s.sage of Matteo Villani's Chronicle. 'When the Emperor Charles had received the crown in Rome, as we have said, he turned towards Siena, and on the 19th day of April arrived at that city; and before he entered the same, there met him people of the commonwealth with great festivity upon the hour of vespers; in the which reception eight burghers, given to display but miserly, to the end they might avoid the charges due to knighthood, did cause themselves then and there to be made knights by him. And no sooner had he pa.s.sed the gates than many ran to meet him without order in their going or provision for the ceremony, and he, being aware of the vain and light impulse of that folk, enjoined upon the Patriarch to knight them in his name. The Patriarch could not withstay from knighting as many as offered themselves; and seeing the thing so cheap, very many took the honour, who before that hour had never thought of being knighted, nor had made provision of what is required from him who seeketh knighthood, but with light impulse did cause themselves to be borne upon the arms of those who were around the Patriarch; and when they were in the path before him, these raised such an one on high, and took his customary cap off, and after he had had the cheek-blow which is used in knighting, put a gold-fringed cap upon his head, and drew him from the press, and so he was a knight. And after this wise were made four-and-thirty on that evening, of the n.o.ble and lesser folk. And when the Emperor had been attended to his lodging, night fell, and all returned home; and the new knights without preparation or expense celebrated their reception into chivalry with their families forthwith. He who reflects with a mind not subject to base avarice upon the coming of a new-crowned Emperor into so famous a city, and bethinks him how so many n.o.ble and rich burghers were promoted to the honour of knighthood in their native land, men too by nature fond of pomp, without having made any solemn festival in common or in private to the fame of chivalry, may judge this people little worthy of the distinction they received.'

This pa.s.sage is interesting partly as an instance of Florentine spite against Siena, partly as showing that in Italy great munificence was expected from the carpet-knights who had not won their spurs with toil, and partly as proving how the German Emperors, on their parade expeditions through Italy, debased the inst.i.tutions they were bound to hold in respect. Enfeebled by the extirpation of the last great German house which really reigned in Italy, the Empire was now no better than a cause of corruption and demoralisation to Italian society. The conduct of a man like Charles disgusted even the most fervent Ghibellines; and we find Fazio degli Uberti flinging scorn upon his avarice and baseness in such lines as these:--

Sappi ch' i' son Italia che ti parlo, Di Lusimburgo _ignominioso Carlo_ ...

Veggendo te aver tese tue arti _A tor danari e gir con essi a casa_ ...

Tu dunque, Giove, perche 'l Santo uccello Da questo Carlo quarto Imperador non togli e dalle mani _Degli altri, lurchi moderni Germani_ _Che d' aquila un allocco n' hanno fatto_?

From a pa.s.sage in a Sienese chronicle we learn what ceremonies of bravery were usual in that city when the new knights understood their duty. It was the year 1326. Messer Frances...o...b..ndinelli was about to be knighted on the morning of Christmas Day. The friends of his house sent peac.o.c.ks and pheasants by the dozen, and huge pies of marchpane, and game in quant.i.ties. Wine, meat, and bread were distributed to the Franciscan and other convents, and a fair and n.o.ble court was opened to all comers. Messer Sozzo, father of the novice, went, attended by his guests, to hear high ma.s.s in the cathedral; and there upon the marble pulpit, which the Pisans carved, the ceremony was completed. Tommaso di Nello bore his sword and cap and spurs before him upon horseback. Messer Sozzo girded the sword upon the loins of Messer Francesco, his son aforesaid. Messer Pietro Ridolfi, of Rome, who was the first vicar that came to Siena, and the Duke of Calabria buckled on his right spur. The Captain of the People buckled on his left. The Count Simone da Battifolle then undid his sword and placed it in the hands of Messer Giovanni di Messer Bartolo de' Fibenzi da Rodi, who handed it to Messer Sozzo, the which sword had previously been girded by the father on his son.

After this follows a list of the ill.u.s.trious guests, and an inventory of the presents made to them by Messer Francesco. We find among these 'a robe of silken cloth and gold, skirt, and fur, and cap lined with vair, with a silken cord.' The description of the many costly dresses is minute; but I find no mention of armour. The singers received golden florins, and the players upon instruments 'good store of money.' A certain Salamone was presented with the clothes which the novice doffed before he took the ceremonial bath.

The whole catalogue concludes with Messer Francesco's furniture and outfit. This, besides a large wardrobe of rich clothes and furs, contains armour and the trappings for charger and palfrey. The _Corte Bandita_, or open house held upon this occasion, lasted for eight days, and the charges on the Bandinelli estates must have been considerable.

Knights so made were called in Italy _Cavalieri Addobbati_, or _di Corredo_, probably because the expense of costly furniture was borne by them--_addobbo_ having become a name for decorative trappings, and _Corredo_ for equipment. The latter is still in use for a bride's trousseau. The former has the same Teutonic root as our verb 'to dub.' But the Italians recognised three other kinds of knights, the _Cavalieri Bagnati_, _Cavalieri di Scudo_, and _Cavalieri d'Arme_. Of the four sorts Sacchetti writes in one of his novels:--'Knights of the Bath are made with the greatest ceremonies, and it behoves them to be bathed and washed of all impurity. Knights of Equipment are those who take the order with a mantle of dark green and the gilded garland. Knights of the s.h.i.+eld are such as are made knights by commonwealths or princes, or go to invest.i.ture armed, and with the casque upon their head. Knights of Arms are those who in the opening of a battle, or upon a foughten field, are dubbed knights.' These distinctions, however, though concordant with feudal chivalry, were not scrupulously maintained in Italy. Messer Frances...o...b..ndinelli, for example, was certainly a _Cavaliere di Corredo_. Yet he took the bath, as we have seen. Of a truth, the Italians selected those picturesque elements of chivalry which lent themselves to pageant and parade. The sterner intention of the inst.i.tution, and the symbolic meaning of its various ceremonies, were neglected by them.

In the foregoing pa.s.sages, which serve as a lengthy preamble to Folgore's five sonnets, I have endeavoured to draw ill.u.s.trations from the history of Siena, because Folgore represents Sienese society at the height of mediaeval culture. In the first of the series he describes the preparation made by the aspirant after knighthood. The n.o.ble youth is so bent on doing honour to the order of chivalry, that he raises money by mortgage to furnish forth the banquets and the presents due upon the occasion of his inst.i.tution.

He has made provision also of equipment for himself and all his train. It will be noticed that Folgore dwells only on the fair and joyous aspect of the ceremony. The religious enthusiasm of knighthood has disappeared, and already, in the first decade of the fourteenth century, we find the spirit of Jehan de Saintre prevalent in Italy. The word _donzello_, derived from the Latin _domicellus_, I have translated _squire_, because the donzel was a youth of gentle birth awaiting knighthood.

This morn a young squire shall be made a knight; hereof he fain would be right worthy found, And therefore pledgeth lands and castles round To furnish all that fits a man of might.

Meat, bread and wine he gives to many a wight; Capons and pheasants on his board abound, Where serving men and pages march around; Choice chambers, torches, and wax candle light.

Barbed steeds, a mult.i.tude, are in his thought, Mailed men at arms and n.o.ble company, Spears, pennants, housing cloths, bells richly wrought.

Musicians following with great barony And jesters through the land his state have brought, With dames and damsels whereso rideth he.

The subject having thus been introduced, Folgore treats the ceremonies of invest.i.ture by an allegorical method, which is quite consistent with his own preference of images to ideas. Each of the four following sonnets presents a picture to the mind, admirably fitted for artistic handling. We may imagine them to ourselves wrought in arras for a sumptuous chamber. The first treats of the bath, in which, as we have seen already from Sacchetti's note, the aspirant after knighthood puts aside all vice, and consecrates himself anew. Prodezza, or Prowess, must behold him nude from head to foot, in order to a.s.sure herself that the neophyte bears no blemish; and this inspection is an allegory of internal wholeness.

Lo Prowess, who despoileth him straightway, And saith: 'Friend, now beseems it thee to strip; For I will see men naked, thigh and hip, And thou my will must know and eke obey; And leave what was thy wont until this day, And for new toil, new sweat, thy strength equip; This do, and thou shalt join my fellows.h.i.+p, If of fair deeds thou tire not nor cry nay.'

And when she sees his comely body bare, Forthwith within her arms she him doth take, And saith: 'These limbs thou yieldest to my prayer; I do accept thee, and this gift thee make, So that thy deeds may s.h.i.+ne for ever fair; My lips shall never more thy praise forsake.'

After courage, the next virtue of the knightly character is gentleness or modesty, called by the Italians humility. It is this quality which makes a strong man pleasing to the world, and wins him favour. Folgore's sonnet enables us to understand the motto of the great Borromeo family--_Humilitas_, in Gothic letters underneath the coronet upon their princely palace fronts.

Humility to him doth gently go, And saith: 'I would in no wise weary thee; Yet must I cleanse and wash thee thoroughly, And I will make thee whiter than the snow.

Hear what I tell thee in few words, for so Fain am I of thy heart to hold the key; Now must thou sail henceforward after me; And I will guide thee as myself do go.

But one thing would I have thee straightway leave; Well knowest thou mine enemy is pride; Let her no more unto thy spirit cleave: So leal a friend with thee will I abide That favour from all folk thou shalt receive; This grace hath he who keepeth on my side.'