Renaissance in Italy Volume IV Part 17

The same version furnishes the episode of the poisoned hounds[356]:

Coss'av fa dell'altra mezza, Figliuol mio caro, fiorito e gentil?

Cossa av fa dell'altra mezza?

L'ho dada alla cagnla: Signora mama, mio core sta mal!

L'ho dada alla cagnla: Ohime, ch'io moro, ohime!

Cossa av fa della cagnla, Figliuol mio caro, fiorito e gentil?

Cossa av fa della cagnla?

L'e morta dre la strada; Signora mama, mio core sta mal!

L'e morta dre la strada: Ohime, ch'io moro, ohime!

It is worth mentioning that the same Ballad belongs under slightly different forms to the Germans, Swedes, and other nations of the Teutonic stock; but so far as I have yet been able to discover, it remains the sole instance of that species of popular literature in Italy.[357] The phenomenon is singular, and though conjectures may be hazarded in explanation, it is impossible, until further researches for parallel examples have been made, to advance a theory of how this Ballad penetrated so far south as Tuscany.

FOOTNOTES:

[279] See Rosmini, _Vita di Filelfo_, vol. ii. p. 13, for Filelfo's dislike of Italian. In the dedication of his Commentary to Filippo Maria Visconti he says: "Tanto piu volentieri ho intrapreso questo comento, quanto dalla tua eccellente Signoria non solo invitato sono stato, ma pregato, lusingato et provocato." The first Canto opens thus:

O Philippo Maria Anglo possente, Perche mi strengi a quel che non poss'io?

Vuoi tu ch'io sia ludibrio d'ogni gente?

[280] Dated Milan, Feb. 1477. Rosmini, _op. cit._ p. 282.

[281] _Ercolano_ (in Vinetia, Giunti, 1570), p. 185.

[282] _Prose Volgari_, etc., edite da I. del Lungo (Firenze, Barbera, 1867), p. 80.

[283] _Prose_, etc., _op. cit._ pp. 45 _et seq._ pp. 3 _et seq._

[284] Alberti, _Op. Volg._ vol. i. pp. clxvii.-ccx.x.xiii. The quality of these Latin meters may be judged from the following hexameters:

Ma non prima sara che 'l Dato la musa corona Invochi, allora subito cantando l'avete, Tal qual si G.o.de presso il celeste Tonante.

Of the Sapphics the following is a specimen:

Eccomi, i' son qui Dea degli amici, Quella qual tutti li omini solete Mordere, e falso fugitiva dirli, Or la volete.

[285] Carducci, "Della Rime di Dante Alighieri," _Studi_, p. 154.

[286] For Giotto's and Orcagna's poems, see Trucchi, vol. ii. pp. 8 and 25.

[287] See above, pp. 17 _et seq._

[288] The _Tavola Ritonda_ has been reprinted, 2 vols., Bologna, Romagnoli, 1864. It corresponds very closely in material to our _Mort d'Arthur_, beginning with the history of Uther Pendragon and ending with Arthur's wound and departure to the island of Morgan le Fay.

[289] See above, p. 18. The subject of these romances has been ably treated by Pio Rajna in his works, _I Reali di Francia_ (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1872), and _Le Fonti dell'Orlando Furioso_ (Firenze, Sansoni, 1876).

[290] The _Rinaldino_, a prose romance recently published (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1865), might be selected as a thoroughly Italian _fioritura_ on the ancient Carolingian theme.

[291] We have here the germ of the _Orlando_ and of the first part of the _Morgante_.

[292] Rajna, _I Reali_, p. 320, fixes the date of its composition at a little before 1420.

[293] _Ibid._ p. 3.

[294] _I Reali_, pp. 311-319.

[295] The _Storie Nerbonesi_ were published in two vols. (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1877), under the editors.h.i.+p of I.G. Isola. The third volume forms a copious philological and critical appendix.

[296] _Guerino_ was versified in octave stanzas, by a poet of the people called L'Altissimo, in the sixteenth century.

[297] See _I Novellieri Italiani in Verso_ by Giamb. Pa.s.sano (Romagnoli, 1868). The whole _Decameron_ was turned into octave stanzas by V. Brugiantino, and published by Marcolini at Venice in 1554. Among _Novelle_ versified for popular reading may be cited, _Masetto the Gardener_ (_Decam._ Giorn. iii. 1), _Romeo and Juliet_ (Verona, 1553), _Il Gra.s.so, Legnaiuolo_ (by B. Davanzati, Florence, 1480), _Prasildo and Lisbina_ (from the _Orlando Innamorato_), _Oliva, Fiorio e Biancifiore_ (the tale of the _Filocopo_). Of cla.s.sical tales we find _Sesto Tarquinio et Lucretia_, _Orpheo_, _Perseo_, _Piramo_, _Giasone e Medea_.

[298] _Tancredi Principe di Salerno_, Bologna, Romagnoli, 1863. _Il Marchese di Saluzzo e la Griselda_, Bologna, Romagnoli, 1862.

[299] See above, p. 212. The literary hesitations of an age as yet uncertain of its aim might be ill.u.s.trated from these romances. Of _Ippolito e Leonora_ we have a prose, an _ottava rima_, and a Latin version. Of _Griselda_ we have Boccaccio's Italian, and Petrarch's Latin prose, in addition to the anonymous _ottava rima_ version. Of the _Principe di Salerno_ we have Boccaccio's Italian, and Lionardo Bruni's Latin versions in prose, together with Filippo Beroaldo's Latin elegiacs, Francesco di Michele Accolti's _terza rima_ and Benivieni's octave stanzas. Lami in his _Novelle letterarie_ (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1859) prints an Italian _novella_ on the same story, which he judges anterior to the _Decameron_. Later on, Annibal Guasco produced another _ottava rima_ version; and the tale was used by several playwrights in the composition of tragedies.

[300] _La Storia di Ginevra Almieri che fu sepolta viva in Firenze_ (Pisa, Nistri, 1863).

[301] The same point is ill.u.s.trated by the tales of the Marchese di Saluzzo and the Principe di Salerno, which produced the novels of _Griselda_ and _Tancredi_. See notes to p. 250, above.

[302] _Raccolta dei Novellieri Italiani_, vol. xiii.

[303] _Op. cit._ vol. xiii. An allusion to Masuccio in this novel is interesting, since it proves the influence he had acquired even in Florence: "Masuccio, grande onore della citta di Salerno, molto imitatore del nostro messer Giovanni Boccaccio," _ib._ p. 34. Pulci goes on to say that the reading of the _Novellino_ had encouraged him to write his tale.

[304] See D'Ancona, _La Poesia Popolare Italiana_, pp. 64-79.

[305] A fine example of these later _Lamenti_ has been republished at Bologna by Romagnoli, 1864. It is the _Lamento di Fiorenza_ upon the siege and slavery of 1529-30.

[306] A medieval specimen of this species of composition is the _Ballata_ for the _Reali di Napoli_ in the defeat of Montecatini. See Carducci's _Cino e Altri_, p. 603.

[307] D'Ancona, _op. cit._ p. 78.

[308] _Sermintese Storico di A. Pucci_, Livorno, Vigo, 1876. It will be remembered that Dante in the _Vita Nuova_ (section vi.) says he composed a _Serventese_ on sixty ladies of Florence. The name was derived from Provence, and altered into _Sermintese_ by the Florentines. We possess a poem of this sort by A. Pucci on the Florentine ladies, printed by D'Ancona in his edition of the _Vita Nuova_ (Pisa, Nistri, p. 71), together with a valuable discourse upon this form of poetry. Carducci in his _Cino e Altri_ prints two _Sermintesi_ by Pucci on the beauties of women.

[309] D'Ancona, _Poesia Popolare Italiana_, pp. 47-50, has collected from Leonardo Bruno and other sources many interesting facts about Pope Martin's anger at this ditty. He seems to have gone to the length of putting Florence under an interdict.

[310] D'Ancona, _op. cit._ pp. 51-56.

[311] One of the last plebeian rhymes on politics comes from Siena, where, in the year 1552, the people used to sing this couplet in derision of the Cardinal of the Mignanelli family sent to rule them:

Mignanello, Mignanello, Non ci piace il tuo modello.

See Benci's _Storia di Montepulciano_ (Fiorenza, Ma.s.si e Landi, 1641), p. 104. An anecdote from Busini (_Lettere al Varchi_, Firenze, Le Monnier, p. 220) is so characteristic of the popular temper under the oppression of Spanish tyranny that its indecency may be excused. He says that a law had been pa.s.sed awarding, "quattro tratti di corda ad uno che, tirando una c---- disse: Poi che non si pu parlare con la bocca, io parler col c----."

[312] See the work ent.i.tled _Sulle Poesie Toscane di Domenico il Burchiello nel secolo xv_, G. Gargani, Firenze, Tip. Cenn. 1877.

[313]

Intendi a me, che gia studiai a Pisa, E ogni mal conosco senza signo.