choose rich and elegant words from every part of Italy, but I should
even praise him for sometimes using some of those French and Spanish
terms that are already accepted by our custom.[88] Thus it would not
displease me if on occasion he were to say, _primor_ (excellence); or
_acertare_ (to succeed), _aventurare_ (to run a risk successfully); or
_ripassare una persona con ragionamento_, meaning to sound a person and
to talk with him in order to gain perfect knowledge of him; or _un
cavalier senza rimproccio_ (a cavalier without reproach), _attilato_
(elegant), _creato d’un principe_ (a prince’s creature), and other like
terms, provided he might hope to be understood.[89]
“Sometimes I would have him use a few words in a sense other than that
proper to them, to transpose them aptly, and as it were to graft them,
like the branch of a tree, upon a more appropriate trunk,—so as to make
them more attractive and beautiful, and as it were to bring things
within the range of our vision, and within hand-touch as we say, to the
delight of him who hears or reads. Nor would I have him scruple to form
new words and in new figures of speech, deriving them tastefully from
the Latins, as of old the Latins derived them from the Greeks.
35.—“Now if among the lettered men of good talent and judgment who
to-day are found in our midst, there were a few who would take care to
write in this language (as I have described) things worthy of being
read, we should soon see it studied and abounding in beautiful terms and
figures, and capable of being written in as well as is any other
whatsoever; and if it were not pure old Tuscan, it would be
Italian,—universal, copious and varied, and in a way like a delightful
garden full of various flowers and fruits. Nor would this be a novel
thing; for from the four dialects that the Greek writers had in use,[90]
they culled words, forms and figures from each as they saw fit, and
thence they brought forth another dialect which was called ‘common,’ and
later they called all five by the single name Greek. And although the
Attic dialect was more elegant, pure and copious than the others, good
writers who were not Athenians by birth did not so affect it as to be
unrecognizable by their style and by the perfume (as it were) and
essence of their native speech. Nor yet were they disprized for this; on
the contrary those who tried to seem too Athenian, were censured for it.
Among the Latin writers too, many non-Romans were highly esteemed in
their day, although there was not found in them that typical purity of
the Roman tongue which men of other race can rarely acquire. Thus Titus
Livius was not at all discarded, although someone professed to have
detected a Paduan flavour in him;[91] nor was Virgil, albeit reproached
with not speaking Roman. Moreover, as you know, many writers of
barbarian race were read and esteemed at Rome.
“We, on the contrary, much more strict than the ancients, needlessly
impose certain new laws upon ourselves, and with the beaten highways
before our eyes, we seek to go along the by-paths; for in our own
language,—of which, as of all others, the office is to express thought
well and clearly,—we delight ourselves with obscurity; and calling it
the vulgar tongue, we try in speaking it to use words that are
understood neither by the vulgar nor yet by the gentle and lettered, and
are no longer used in any place; unmindful that all the good writers of
old disapproved words discarded by custom. Which to my thinking, you do
not rightly understand; since you say that if some fault of speech is
widely prevalent among the ignorant, it ought not for that reason to be
called custom or accepted as a rule of speech, and from what I have
heard you sometimes say, you would have us use _Campidoglio_ in place of
_Capitolio_; _Girolamo_ for _Hieronymo_; _aldace_ for _audace_; and
_padrone_ for _patrone_, and other words corrupt and spoiled like these;
because they are found written thus by some ignorant old Tuscan, and
because the Tuscan country folk speak thus to-day.[92]
“Hence I believe that good custom in speech springs from men who have
talent and who have gained good judgment from study and experience, and
who therefore agree and consent to accept the words that to them seem
good, which are recognized by a certain innate judgment and not by any
art or rule. Do you not know that figures of speech, which give so much
grace and splendour to an oration, are all infringements of grammatical
rules, yet accepted and confirmed by usage, because, although unable to
offer other reason, they give pleasure and seem to carry suavity and
sweetness to our very sense of hearing? And this I believe to be good
custom,—of which the Romans, the Neapolitans, the Lombards and the rest,
may be as capable as the Tuscans are.
36.—“It is very true that in every language certain things are always
good, such as ease, good order, richness, beautiful sentences,
harmonious periods; and on the contrary affectation and other things
opposed to these, are bad. But among words there are some that remain
good for a time, then grow antiquated and wholly lose their grace;
others gain strength and come to be esteemed. For as the seasons of the
year despoil the earth of flowers and fruits and then clothe it anew
with others, so time causes those primal words to decay, and use makes
others to be born again and gives them grace and dignity, until they in
their turn meet their death, consumed by the envious gnawing of time;
for in the end both we and all our concerns are mortal. Consider that we
no longer have any knowledge of the Oscan tongue.[93] The Provençal,
although it may be said to have been but lately celebrated by noble
writers, is not now understood by the inhabitants of that country. Hence
I think, as my lord Magnifico has well said, that if Petrarch and
Boccaccio were alive at this time, they would not use many words that we
find in their writings: therefore it does not seem to me well for us to
copy these words. I applaud very highly those who know how to imitate
that which ought to be imitated, but I do not at all believe that it is
impossible to write well without imitating,—and particularly in this
language of ours, wherein we may be aided by usage: which I should not
dare say of Latin.”
37.—The messer Federico said:
“Why would you have usage more esteemed in the vernacular than in
Latin?”
“Nay,” replied the Count, “I esteem usage as mistress of both the one
and the other. But since those men to whom the Latin tongue was as
natural as the vernacular now is to us, are no longer on earth, we must
needs learn from their writings that which they learned from usage. Nor
does ancient speech mean anything more than ancient usage of speech, and
it would be a silly business to like ancient speech for no other reason
than a wish to speak as men used to speak rather than as they now
speak.”
“Then,” replied messer Federico, “the ancients did not imitate?”
“I believe,” said the Count, “that many of them did, but not in
everything. And if Virgil had imitated Hesiod in everything, he would
not have surpassed his master; nor Cicero, Crassus; nor Ennius, his
predecessors. You know Homer is so ancient that many believe he is the
first heroic poet in time as he is also in excellence of diction: and
whom would you think he imitated?”
“Some other poet,” replied messer Federico, “more ancient than he, of
whom we have no knowledge because of excessive antiquity.”
“Then whom,” said the Count, “would you say Petrarch and Boccaccio
imitated, who were on earth only three days since, one may say?”
“I know not,” replied messer Federico; “but we may believe that even
their minds were directed to imitation, although we do not know of
whom.”
The Count replied:
“We may believe that they who were imitated, surpassed those who
imitated them; and if they were admirable, it would be too great a
marvel that their name and fame should be so soon extinguished. But I
believe that their real master was aptitude and their own native
judgment; and at this there is no one who ought to wonder, since nearly
always the summit of every excellence may be approached by diverse
roads. Nor is there anything that has not in it many things of the same
sort which are dissimilar and yet intrinsically deserving of equal
praise.
“Consider music, the harmonies of which are now grave and slow, now very
fast and of novel moods and means; yet all give pleasure, albeit for
different reasons: as is seen in Bidon’s[94] manner of singing, which is
so skilful, ready, vehement, fervid, and of such varied melodies, that
the listener’s spirits are moved and inflamed, and thus entranced seem
to be lifted up to heaven. Nor does our friend Marchetto Cara[95] move
us less by his singing, but with a gentler harmony; because he softens
and penetrates our souls by placid means and full of plaintive
sweetness, gently stirring them to sweet emotion.
“Again, various things give equal pleasure to our eyes, so that we can
with difficulty decide which are more pleasing to them. You know that in
painting Leonardo da Vinci,[96] Mantegna,[97] Raphael,[98] Michelangelo,
[99] Giorgio da Castelfranco,[100] are very excellent, yet they are all
unlike in their work; so that no one of them seems to lack anything in
his own manner, since each is known as most perfect in his style.
[Illustration:
ANGELO AMBROGINI
POLIZIANO
1454-1494
]
Reduced from Anderson’s photograph (no. 8148) of a part of the fresco,
“Zacharias in the Temple,” in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at
Florence, by Domenico Bigordi, better known as Ghirlandajo,
(1449-1494).
“It is the same with many Greek and Latin poets, who, although different
in their writing, are equal in their fame. The orators, too, have always
had so much diversity among themselves, that almost every age has
produced and prized a type of orator peculiar to its own time; and these
have been different not only from their predecessors and successors, but
from one another: as it is written of Isocrates, Lysias, Æschines,[101]
and many others among the Greeks,—all excellent, yet each resembling no
one but himself. So, among the Latins, Carbo, Lælius, Scipio Africanus,
Galba, Sulpicius, Cotta, Gracchus, Marcus Antonius, Crassus,[102] and so
many others that it would be tedious to name them,—all good and very
different one from another; so that if a man were able to consider all
the orators that have been in the world, he would find as many kinds of
oratory as of orators. I think I remember too that Cicero in a certain
place[103] makes Marcus Antonius say to Sulpicius that there are many
who imitate no man and yet arrive at the highest pitch of excellence;
and he speaks of certain ones who had introduced a new form and figure
of speech, beautiful but not usual among the orators of that time,
wherein they imitated no one but themselves. For that reason he affirms
also that masters ought to consider the pupils’ nature, and taking this
as guide ought to direct and aid them to the path towards which their
aptitude and natural disposition incline them. Hence I believe, dear
messer Federico, that if a man has no innate affinity for any particular
author, it is not well to force him to imitate, because the vigour[104]
of his faculty languishes and is impeded when turned from the channel in
which it would have made progress had that channel not been barred.
“Therefore I do not see how it can be well, instead of enriching this
language of ours and giving it spirit and grandeur and light, to make it
poor, thin, humble and obscure, and to try to restrict it in such narrow
bounds that everyone shall be forced to imitate Petrarch and Boccaccio
alone; and how, in respect of language, we ought not also to give
credence to Poliziano,[105] to Lorenzo de’ Medici,[106] to Francesco
Diacceto,[107] and to some others who are also Tuscans and perhaps of no
less learning and judgment than were Petrarch and Boccaccio. And great
pity would it be indeed to set a limit, and not to surpass that which
almost the earliest writers achieved, and to deny that so many men of
such noble genius can ever find more than one beautiful form of
expression in this language which is proper and natural to them. But
to-day there are certain scrupulous souls, who so frighten the listener
with the cult and ineffable mysteries of this Tuscan tongue of theirs,
as to put even many a noble and learned man in such fear, that he dare
not open his mouth and confesses that he does not know how to speak the
very language which he learned in swaddling clothes from his nurse.
“However I think we have said only too much of this; so now let us go on
with our discussion about the Courtier.”
38.—Then messer Federico replied:
“I should first like to say one thing more, which is that I do not deny
men’s opinions and aptitudes to be different among themselves. Nor do I
believe that it would be well for a naturally vehement and excitable man
to set himself to write of placid themes, or for another, being severe
and grave, to write jests; for in this matter it seems to me reasonable
that everyone should adapt himself to his own proper instinct. And I
think Cicero was speaking of this when he said that masters ought to
have regard to their pupils’ nature, in order not to act like bad
husbandmen, who will sometimes sow grain in land that is fruitful only
for the vine.
“Still I cannot get it into my head why, in the case of a particular
language,—which is not proper to all men equally, like speech and
thought and many other functions, but an invention of limited use,—it is
not more rational to imitate those who speak better, than to speak at
random; or why, just as in Latin we ought to try to approach the
language of Virgil and Cicero rather than that of Silius or Cornelius
Tacitus,[108] it is not better in the vernacular also to imitate the
language of Petrarch and Boccaccio than any other’s; yet to express our
thoughts in it well, and thus to give heed to our own natural instinct,
as Cicero teaches. And in this way it will be found that the difference
which you say there is among good orators, consists in sense and not in
language.”
Then the Count said:
“I fear we shall be entering on a wide sea, and shall be leaving our
first subject of the Courtier. However, I ask you in what consists the
excellence of this language?”
Messer Federico replied:
“In preserving strictly its proprieties, in giving it that sense, and in
using that style and those rhythms, which have been used by all who have
written well.”
“I should like to know,” said the Count, “whether this style and these
rhythms of which you speak, arise from the thought or from the words.”
“From the words,” replied messer Federico.
“Then,” said the Count, “do not the words of Silius and Cornelius
Tacitus seem to you the same that Virgil and Cicero use? and employed in
the same sense?”
“Certainly they are the same,” replied messer Federico, “but some of
them wrongly applied and turned awry.”
The Count replied:
“And if from a book of Cornelius and from one of Silius, all those words
were removed that are used in a sense different from that of Virgil and
Cicero, which would be very few,—would you not then say that Cornelius
was the equal of Cicero in language, and Silius of Virgil, and that it
would be well to imitate their manner of speech?”
39.—Then my lady Emilia said:
“Methinks this debate of yours is far too long and tedious; therefore it
were well to postpone it to another time.”
Messer Federico was about to reply none the less, but my lady Emilia
always interrupted him. At last the Count said:
“Many men like to pass judgment upon style and to talk about rhythms and
imitation; but they cannot make it at all clear to me what manner of
thing style or rhythm is, or in what imitation consists, or why things
taken from Homer or from someone else are so becoming in Virgil that
they seem illumined rather than imitated. Perhaps this is because I am
not capable of understanding them; but since a good sign that a man
knows a thing, is his ability to teach it, I suspect that they too
understand it but little, and that they praise both Virgil and Cicero
because they hear such praise from many, not because they perceive the
difference that exists between these two and others: for in truth it
does not consist in preserving two or three or ten words used in a way
different from the others.
“In Sallust, Cæsar, Varro[109] and the other good writers, some terms
are found used differently from the way Cicero uses them; and yet both
ways are proper, for the excellence and force of a language lie in no
such trifling matter: as Demosthenes well said to Æschines, who
tauntingly asked him whether certain words that he had used (although
not Attic) were prodigies or portents; and Demosthenes laughed and
replied that the fortunes of Greece did not hang on such a trifle. So I
too should care little if I were reproved by a Tuscan for having said
_satisfatto_ rather than _sodisfatto_, _honorevole_ for _horrevole_,
_causa_ for _cagione_, _populo_ for _popolo_, and the like.”
Then messer Federico rose to his feet and said:
“Hear me these few words, I pray.”
“The pain of my displeasure,” replied my lady Emilia, laughing, “be upon
him who speaks more of this matter now, for I wish to postpone it to
another evening. But do you, Count, go on with the discussion about the
Courtier,—and show us what a fine memory you have, which I think you
will do in no small measure, if you are able to take up the discussion
where you left it.”
40.—“My Lady,” replied the Count, “I fear the thread is broken; yet if I
am not wrong, methinks we were saying that the pest of affectation
imparts extreme ungracefulness to everything, while on the other hand
simplicity and nonchalance produce the height of grace: in praise of
which, and in blame of affectation, we might cite many other arguments;
but of these I wish to add only one, and no more. Women are always very
eager to be—and when they cannot be, at least to seem—beautiful. So
where nature is somewhat at fault in this regard, they try to piece it
out by artifice; whence arise that painting of the face with so much
care and sometimes pains, that plucking of the eyebrows and forehead,
and the use of all those devices and the endurance of that trouble,
which you ladies think to keep very secret from men, but which are all
well known.”
Here madonna Costanza Fregosa laughed and said:
“It would be far more courteous for you to keep to your discussion, and
tell us of what grace is born, and talk about Courtiership,—than to try
to unveil the weaknesses of women, which are not to the purpose.”
“Nay, much to the purpose,” replied the Count: “for these weaknesses of
yours I am speaking of, deprive you of grace because they spring from
nothing but affectation, wherein you openly make known to everyone your
over-eagerness to be beautiful.
“Do you not see how much more grace a lady has who paints (if at all) so
sparingly and so little, that whoever sees her is in doubt whether she
be painted or not; than another lady so plastered that she seems to have
put a mask upon her face and dares not laugh for fear of cracking it,
nor ever changes colour but when she dresses in the morning, and then
stands motionless all the rest of the day like a wooden image, showing
herself only by candle-light, like wily merchants who display their
cloths in a dark place? Again, how much more pleasing than all others is
one (I mean not ill-favoured) who is plainly seen to have nothing on her
face, although it be neither very white nor very red, but by nature a
little pale and sometimes tinged with an honest flush from shame or
other accident,—with hair artlessly unadorned and hardly confined, her
gestures simple and free, without showing care or wish to be beautiful!
This is that nonchalant simplicity most pleasing to the eyes and minds
of men, who are ever fearful of being deceived by art.
“Beautiful teeth are very charming in a woman, for since they are not so
much in view as the face is, but lie hidden most of the time, we may
believe that less care is taken to make them beautiful than with the
face. Yet if one were to laugh without cause and solely to display the
teeth, he would betray his art, and however beautiful they were, would
seem most ungraceful to all, like Catullus’s Egnatius.[110] It is the
same with the hands; which, if they are delicate and beautiful, and
occasionally left bare when there is need to use them, and not in order
to display their beauty, they leave a very great desire to see more of
them, and especially if covered with gloves again; for whoever covers
them seems to have little care or thought whether they be seen or not,
and to have them thus beautiful more by nature than by any effort or
pains.
“Have you ever noticed when a woman, in passing through the street to
church or elsewhere, thoughtlessly happens (either in frolic or from
other cause) to lift her dress high enough to show the foot and often a
little of the leg? Does this not seem to you full of grace, when you see
her tricked out with a touch of feminine daintiness in velvet shoes and
neat stockings? I for one delight in it and believe you all do, for
everyone is persuaded that elegance, in matters thus hidden and rarely
seen, is natural and instinctive to the lady rather than forced, and
that she does not think to win any praise by it.
41.—“In this way we avoid and hide affectation, and you can now see how
opposed and destructive it is to grace in every office as well of the
body as the mind: whereof we have thus far spoken little, and yet we
must not omit it, for since the mind is of far more worth than the body,
it deserves to be more cultivated and adorned. And as to what ought to
be done in the case of our Courtier, we will lay aside the precepts of
the many sage philosophers who write of this matter and define the
properties of the mind and discuss so subtly about their rank,—and
keeping to our subject, we will in a few words declare it to be enough
that he be (as we say) an honest and upright man; for in this are
included prudence, goodness, strength and temperance of mind, and all
the other qualities that are proper to a name so honoured. And I esteem
him alone to be a true moral philosopher, who wishes to be good; and in
this regard he needs few other precepts than that wish. And therefore
Socrates was right in saying that he thought his teachings bore good
fruit indeed whenever they incited anyone to understand and teach
virtue: for they who have reached the goal of desiring nothing more
ardently than to be good, easily acquire knowledge of everything needful
therefor; so we will discuss this no further.
42.—“Yet besides goodness, I think that letters are for everyone the
true and principal ornament of the mind: although the French recognize
only the nobility of arms and esteem all else as naught. Thus they not
only fail to prize but they abhor letters, and hold all men of letters
most base, and think they speak very basely of any man when they call
him a clerk.”
[Illustration:
MONSEIGNEUR D’ANGOULÊME
AFTERWARD FRANCIS I OF FRANCE
1494-1547
]
Enlarged from a negative, specially made by Alinari through the courtesy
of Professor I. B. Supino, of an anonymous medal in the National
Museum at Florence.
Then the Magnifico Giuliano replied: