Renaissance in Italy Volume V Part 21

[Footnote 409: Take one example, from the induction to Oda.s.si's poems (_Mac. Andr._ p. 63):

O putanarum putanissima, vacca vaccarum, O potifarum potissima pota potaza ...

Tu Phrosina mihi foveas, mea sola voluptas; Nulla mihi poterit melius succurrere Musa, Nullus Apollo magis.]

Before engaging in the criticism of this Maccaronic literature, it is necessary to interpolate some notice of a kindred style, called _pedantesco_. This was the exact converse of the Maccaronic manner.

Instead of adapting Italian to the rules of Latin, the parodist now treated Latin according to the grammatical usages and metrical laws of Italian. A good deal of the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_ is written in _lingua pedantesca_. But the recognized masterpiece of the species is a book called _I Cantici di Fidentio Glottogrysio Ludimagistro_. The author's real name was Camillo Scrofa, a humanist and schoolmaster of Vicenza. Though more than once reprinted, together with similar compositions by equally obscure craftsmen, his verses are exceedingly rare.[410] They owe their neglect partly to the absurdity of their language, partly to the undisguised immorality of their subject-matter. Of the _stilo pedantesco_ the following specimen may suffice. It describes a hostelry of boors and peasants:[411]

Pur pedetentim giunsi ad un cubiculo, Sordido, inelegante, ove molti hospiti Facean corona a un semimortuo igniculo.

Salvete, dissi, et Giove lieti e sospiti Vi riconduca a i vostri dolci hospitii!

Ma responso non hebbi; o rudi, o inhospiti!

Io che tra veri equestri e tra patritii Soglio seder, mi vedi alhor negligere Da quegli huomini novi et advent.i.tii.

Non sapea quasi indignabundo eligere Part.i.to; pur al fin fu necessario Tra lor per calefarmi un scanno erigere.

Che colloquio, O Dii boni, empio e nefario Pervenne a l'aure nostre purgatissime, Da muover nausea a un lenone a un sicario!

[Footnote 410: The book was first printed at Vicenza. The copy I have studied is the Florentine edition of 1574. Scrofa's verses, detached from the collection, may be found in the _Parnaso Italiano_, vol.

xxv.]

[Footnote 411: _Op. cit._ p. 23.]

One of the most famous and earliest, if not absolutely the first among the authors of Maccaronic verse, was Tifi Oda.s.si, a Paduan, whose poems were given to the press after his death, in at least two editions earlier than the close of the fifteenth century.[412] He chose a commonplace _Novella_ for his theme; but the interest of his tale consists less in its argument than in its vivid descriptions of low town-life. Oda.s.si's portraits of plebeian characters are executed with masterly realism, and the novelty of the vehicle gives them a singularly trenchant force. It is unfortunately impossible to bring either the cook-shop-keeper or his female servant, the mountebank or the glutton, before modern readers. These pictures are too Rabelaisian.[413] I must content myself with a pa.s.sage taken from the description of a bad painter, which, though it is inferior in comic power, contains nothing unpardonably gross.[414]

Quodsi forte aliquem voluit depingere gallum, Quicunque aspiciat poterit jurare cigognam; Depinxitque semel canes in caza currentes, Omnes credebant natantes in aequore luzos; Sive hominem pingit, poteris tu credere lignum In quo sartores ponunt sine capite vestes; Seu nudos facit multo sudore putinos, Tu caput a culo poteris dignoscere nunquam; Sive facit gremio Christum retinere Mariam, Non licet a filio sanctam dignoscere matrem; Pro gardelinis depingit sepe gallinas, Et pro gallinis depingit sepe caballos: Blasfemat, jurat, culpam dicit esse penelli, Quos spazzaturas poteris jurare de bruscho; Tam bene depingit pictorum pessimus iste, Nec tamen inferior se cogitat esse Bellino.

[Footnote 412: Bernardino Scardeone in his work _De antiquitate urbis Patavii_, etc. (Basileae, 1560), speaks of Oda.s.si as the inventor of Maccaronic poetry: "adinvenit enim primus ridiculum carminis genus, nunquam prius a quopiam excogitatum, quod Macaronaeum nuncupavit, multis farcitum salibus, et satyrica mordacitate respersum." He adds that Oda.s.si desired on his deathbed that the book should be burned. In spite of this wish, it was frequently reprinted during Scardeone's lifetime.]

[Footnote 413: It is with great regret that I omit Bertapalia, the charlatan--a portrait executed with inimitable verve. Students of Italian life in its lowest and liveliest details should seek him out.

_Mac. Andr._ pp. 68-71.]

[Footnote 414: _Ibid._ p. 71. I have altered spelling and punctuation.]

It will be seen from this specimen that Italian and Latin are confounded without regard to either prosody or propriety of diction.

The style, far from being even pedestrian, is reptile, and the inspiration is worthy of the source imagined by the poet.[415] As Oda.s.si remarks in his induction:

Aspices, lector, Prisciani vulnera mille Gramaticamque novam, quam nos docuere putane.

[Footnote 415:

Cognosces in me quantum tua numina possunt, Quaeque tua veniunt stilantia carmina pota.]

The note struck by Oda.s.si was sustained by his immediate imitators.

Another Paduan author used this parody of humanistic verse to caricature a humanist, whom he called Vigonca.[416] Like Oda.s.si, he invoked Venus Volgivaga; and like Oda.s.si's, very little of his verse is quotable. The following extracts may be found acceptable for their humorous account of a Professor's inaugural lecture in the university of Padua.[417] Vigonca announces the opening of his course:

Ipse ante totis facit asavere piacis, Et totis scolis mandat bolletina bidelis, Quae bolletina portabant talia verba: "Comes magnificus cavalerius ille Vigonca, Patricius Patavus comesque ab origine longa, Vos rogat ad primam veniatis quisque legendam; Qui veniet, magnum fructum portabit a casa."

Omnes venturos sese dixere libenter; Promissit comes, capitaneus atque potestas, Et paduani vechi juvenesque politi.

Lux promissa aderat, qua se smatare Vigonca Debebat, atque suam cunctis monstrare matieram.

Ille tamen totam facit concare la scolam, De nigro totam facit conzare cathedram, In qua debebat matus sprologare Vigonca; Cetera fulgebant banchalis atque thapetis, Et decem in brochis dicit spendidisse duchatos.

[Footnote 416: This anonymous poet has been variously identified with Oda.s.si and with Fossa of Cremona. The frequent occurrence of Paduan idioms seems to point to a Paduan rather than a Cremonese author; and though there is no authoritative reason for referring the poem to Oda.s.si, it resembles his style sufficiently to render the hypothesis of his authors.h.i.+p very plausible. The name of the hero, Vigonca, is probably the Italian _Bigoncia_, which meant in one sense a pulpit or a reading-desk, in its ordinary sense a tub.]

[Footnote 417: Daelli, _Maccheronee di Cinque Poeti Italiani_ (Milano, 1864), p. 50; cp. _Mac. Andr._ p. 19.]

After narrating how the whole town responded to Vigonca's invitation, and how the folk a.s.sembled to hear his first address, the poet thus describes the great occasion:[418]

Sed neque bastabat ingens intrantibus ussus; Rumpebant cupos parietes atque fenestras, Inque ipso multos busos fecere parete.

Tunc ibi bidelus cunctos ratione pregavit, Et sibi cavavit nigrum Vigonca biretum, Et manicas alzans dedit hic sua verba de mato, Et comencavit sanctam faciendo la crucem.

"Magnifice pretor, pariter generose prefecte, Tu facunde comes auri portando colanam, Magnus philosophus, lingua in utraque poeta, Tu primicerius, Venete spes alma paludis, Et vos doctores, celeberrima fama per orbem, Vos cavalerii multum sperone dorati, Vosque scolares, cives, charique sodales!

Non ego perdivi tempus futuendo putanas, Non ego zugando, non per bordella vagando; Non ego c.u.m canibus lepores seguendo veloces, Non c.u.m sparveris, non c.u.m falconibus ipse; Non ego c.u.m dadis tabulam lissando per ullam; Non ego c.u.m chartis volui dissipare dinaros, Qualiter in Padue faciunt de nocte scolares.

Quum jocant alii, stabat in casa Vigonca Et studiabat guardando volumina longa."

[Footnote 418: Daelli, _op. cit._ pp. 52, 54.]

This Paduan caricature may be reckoned among the most valuable doc.u.ments we possess for the ill.u.s.tration of the professorial system in Italy during the ascendancy of humanism. Some material of the same kind is supplied by the _Virgiliana_ of Evangelista Fossa, a Cremonese gentleman, who versified a Venetian _Burla_ in mock-heroic Latin. He, too, painted the portrait of a pedant, Priscia.n.u.s:[419]

Est mirandus h.o.m.o; nam sunt miracula in illo, Omnes virtutes habet hic in testa fichatas ...

Nam quicquid dicit, semper per littera parlat, Atque habet in boccham pulchra haec proverbia semper....

Est letrutus nam multum, studiavit in omni Arte, fuit Padoe, fuit in la citta de Perosa, Bononie multum mansit de senno robando.

[Footnote 419: _Ibid._ p. 112; _Mac. Andra_, p. 32.]

But Fossa's _Virgiliana_, while aiming at a more subtle sort of parody than the purely maccaronic poems, misses their peculiar salt, and, except for the Hudibrastic description of the author on horseback,[420] offers nothing of great interest.

[Footnote 420: "De fossa compositore quando venit patavio" (_Mac.

Andra_, p. 39).]

Brief notice also may be taken of Giovan Giorgio Alione's satire on the Lombards. Alione was a native of Asti, and seasoned his maccaroni with the base French of his birthplace. For Asti, transferred to the House of Orleans by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, was more than half a French city and its inhabitants spoke the Gallic dialect common to Piedmont.[421] Alione is proud of this subjection, and twits the Lombards of Milan and Pavia with being unworthy of their ancient origin no less than of their modern masters.[422] Unlike the ordinary run of burlesque poems, his _Macharonea_ is virulently satirical.

Animated by a real rage against the North Italians, Alione paints them as effeminate cowards, devoid of the sense of honor and debased by the vices of ill-bred _parvenus_. The opening of a _Novella_ he relates, may be cited as a fair specimen of his style:[423]

Quidam Franzosus, volens tornare Parisum, Certum Mlaneysum scontravit extra viglianam Sine capello docheti testa bagnatum: Et c.u.m ignoraret Gallicus hic unde fuisset Dixit vulgariter _estes vous moglie mon amicus_?

Ille qui intelligit a la rebusa, respondit _Sy sy mi che ho mogle Milani et anca fiolos._ Gallus tunc cernens Lombardum fore loquela, Et recordatus quod tempore guerre Salucis Alixandrini fecerant pagare menestram Scutumque sibi sgrafignarant de gibesera, Sfodravit ensem dicens _o tretre ribalde_ _Rendez moy sa mon escu_, sy non a la morte spazat.

[Footnote 421: Alione says:

c.u.m nos Astenses reputemur undique Galli.]

[Footnote 422: See the pa.s.sage beginning "O Longobardi frapatores,"

and ending with these lines:

Tunc baratasti Gallorum n.o.bile nomen c.u.m Longobardo, etc.

Daelli, _op. cit._ p. 94.]

[Footnote 423: Daelli, p. 93.]

The end of the story is far too crude to quote, and it is probable that even the most curious readers will already have had enough of Alione's peculiar gibberish.

The maccaronic style had reached this point when Folengo took possession of it, stamped it with his own genius, and employed it for one of the most important poems of the century. He is said to have begun a serious Latin epic in his early manhood, and to have laid this aside because he foresaw the impossibility of wresting the laurels from Virgil. This story is probably a legend; but it contains at least an element of truth. Folengo aimed at originality; he chose to be the first of burlesque Latin poets rather than to claim the name and fame of a Virgilian imitator.[424] In the proemium to his _Moscheis_ he professes to have found the orthodox Apollo deaf to his prayers:

Illius heu frustra doctas captare sorores Speravi ac multa laude tenere polos.