[1] As mentioned below, the first German work including something by way
of Courtesy-Book, ab. 1210 A.D., _Der Wälsche Gast_, was written by an
Italian, Tomasin von Zirclaria.
[2] Possibly this notion prompted Dante to represent himself, in the
opening of the _Commedia_, as also lost in a forest.
[3] The line here translated as one forms two in the Italian, and the
like with our sequel; Brunetto’s metre being an ungracefully short
one—thus:
‘Sie certo che Larghezza
È’l capo e la grandezza,’ &c.
Indeed the metre keeps up such a perpetual jingling as almost to reduce
to doggerel what might, in a different rhythmical form, be accepted as
very fair rhyme and reason indeed. I have thrown the several couplets
into single lines, in the translation, simply with a view to saving space.
[4] The original runs
‘Che, siccome dell’ arti,
Qualche vizio non prendi.’
This phrase is not quite clear to me; but I suppose the word ‘_arti_’
is to be understood as meaning ‘crafts, trades, or professions,’ and
that Brunetto had been sharp enough to see that people become ‘shoppy’
according to their respective shops. ‘Vous êtes orfèvre, Monsieur Josse.’
[5] ‘_Mercennaio_’—literally, mercenary or hireling.
[6] ‘_Picciolini._’ These were, I gather, coins of a particular
denomination, but I have not been able to ascertain their precise value.
[7]
‘Credesi far la croce,
Ma e’ si fa la fica.’
I have translated literally; but that of course makes something very
like nonsense in English. To ‘make the fig’ is a gesture of the thumb
and fingers, understood as gross and insulting in the highest degree.
The general sense of the passage is therefore—‘He fancies he is thus
testifying in his own honour, whereas it really does redound to his own
extreme shame.’ Readers of Dante, remembering the splendid canzone
‘Le dolci rime d’amor ch’ io solia,’
in which he refutes the false and defines the true bases of ‘nobility’
(_gentilezza_), will perceive that the illustrious pupil had been to
a great extent anticipated by the teaching of his early instructor.
Francesco da Barberino (_Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne_) adopts a
middle course, discriminating ‘_gentilezza_’ thus: ‘Nobility is twoform
in quality and in origin. The first is a state of the human soul
contented in virtue, hostile to vice, exulting in the good of others, and
pitiful in their adversity. The second is mastery over men or riches,
derived from of old, sensitive to shame when brought low.’
[8] Here, on the contrary, we come to a precept the reverse of Dantesque.
Yet, on combining this passage with that which opens the ensuing
paragraph, it would seem that Brunetto does not mean to recommend
connivance with anything that is positively evil, but only with current
habits and fashions, objectionable though they may be, in matters
essentially indifferent—as of speech and deportment.
[9] ‘_Briccon_’—the colloquial term still in daily use among Italians.
[10] ‘_Solo d’una canzone_:’ literally, ‘merely for one song.’ The Abate
Zannoni understands this to mean ‘_per aver una sola volta canzonato
femmina_.’ He admits that this sense of the phrase is not discoverable in
that fetish of the Italian pedant, the Dizionario della Crusca; but as
I have no superior authority to oppose to that of Abate Zannoni, I have
followed his interpretation.
[11] This seems strange doctrine—that love of courtesy and love of women
cannot co-exist in the same man—if we are to accept it in its amplest
sense. Perhaps, however, we are to understand that the speaker is still
confining his censures to miscellaneous and unsanctioned amours or
flirtations, especially with married women.
[12] Poesie Lombarde Inedite del Secolo 13, publicate ed illustrate
da B. Biondelli. Milano: Bernardoni. 1856. We are indebted to Signor
Biondelli’s courtesy for a copy of this curious and interesting work.
[13] Bonvexino (pronounced Bonv_es_ino) is, in modern Italian,
Bonvicino—i.e. good neighbour.
[14] ‘Afresh’ represents the Italian ‘de frescho.’ Signor Biondelli
considers that the phrase means ‘afresh,’ indicating that Fra Bonvesino
had written his Courtesies in Latin before turning them into Italian.
Signor Biondelli, however, admits that ‘de frescho’ may also mean ‘now
recently,’ ‘just now’; and, but for his contrary preference, I should
attribute that meaning to the word in the present instance.
[15] ‘Noxe.’ I _suppose_ this must represent the modern-Italian word
‘nozze,’ nuptials, though the incident of a wedding seems rather suddenly
introduced at this point, and does not re-appear afterwards.
[16] Signor Biondelli understands this stanza in a somewhat different
sense, as applying to the _assigning_ of dishes, not the _signing_ of
the cross as a grace before meat. The reference to Christ seems to me to
create a strong presumption in favour of my interpretation.
[17] It is clear from the general context that the victuals here spoken
of as to be eaten with a spoon are solid edibles—not merely soups or the
like: the spoon corresponding to the modern fork. The word translated
‘suck’ is ‘sorbilar:’ perhaps ‘mumble’ would convey the force of the
precept more fully though less literally.
[18] I feel some doubt as to the meaning of this passage.
[19] This appears to be the general sense of the last two lines. In the
final one Signor Biondelli gives up two words as unintelligible: he
infers that they must be miscopied.
[20] This seems to contemplate the plan of the several guests helping
themselves off the dish brought to table. At any rate, so Signor
Biondelli understands it.
[21] ‘Donzello.’ This precept seems to be especially addressed to the
servitors. Uguccione Pisano, quoted by Muratori, says: ‘Donnicelli
et Domicellæ dicuntur quando pulchri juvenes magnatum sunt sicut
servientes.’ Such Donzelli were not allowed to sit at table with the
knights; or, if allowed, had to sit apart on a lower seat.
[22] ‘Drapi da pey.’ I confess to some uncertainty as to what sort of
thing these ‘foot-cloths’ may have been. Signor Biondelli terms them ‘the
cloths wherewith the feet were wrapped round and dried.’ He adds: ‘This
precept apprizes us that at that time the use of a pocket-handkerchief
was not yet introduced, and perhaps not even the use of stockings.’ One
would fain hope that the summit of Lombardic good breeding in 1290 was
not the wiping of noses on cloths actually and at the moment serving
for the feet. Possibly _drapi da pey_ is here a generic term; cloths or
napkins at hand for use, and which _might have_ served for foot-cloths.
Thus the word ‘duster’ might be employed in a similar connection, without
our being compelled to suppose that the individual duster had first been
used on the spot for dusting the tables or floors, and then for wiping
the nose. Or indeed, we moderns, who wipe our noses on _hand_-kerchiefs,
do not first use said kerchiefs for wiping our _hands_, nor yet for
_covering our heads_ (‘_couvre chef_’).—Reverting to Signor Biondelli’s
observation as to ‘the use of stockings,’ I may observe that Francesco
da Barberino, in a passage of his _Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne_,
speaks of ‘the beautiful foot shod in silk’—‘_calzato in seta_’—which
_may_ imply either a stocking or else a shoe. This poem, as we shall see
further on, is but little later than Bonvicino’s.—The reader may also
observe, at p. 68, the horror with which a much later writer, Della Casa,
contemplated the use of a dinner-napkin as a pocket-handkerchief.
[23] ‘Chi s’ asetilia.’ Signor Biondelli cannot assign the exact sense of
this verb. I should suppose it to be either a form of ‘Assettarsi,’ to
settle oneself, to keep one’s place, or a corruption of ‘Assottigliarsi,’
to subtilize, to be punctilious, to ‘look sharp.’
[24] ‘D’alchun obediente.’ This phrase, if directly connected with the
‘Jesu Xristo’ of the previous line, seems peculiar. I am not quite clear
whether the whole stanza is to be understood as an injunction to render
grace after meat, in thankfulness for what Christ has given one—or to
thank the _servants_ who have been waiting at table, and so to glorify
Christ by an act of humility.
[25] ‘Dro bon vino dra carera.’ The general sense is evidently near what
the translation gives: but Signor Biondelli is unable to assign the
_precise_ sense. No wonder therefore that I am unable.
[26] Several others must nevertheless have been written before or about
the same time; for Barberino himself, in the exordium to his _Reggimento
e Costumi delle Donne_, says—
‘There have been many who wrote books
Concerning the elegant manners of men, but not of women.’
[27] A full account of it by Mr Eugene Oswald follows the present Essay.
[28] This injunction forms stanza 4 in our extract from Barberino
beginning at p. 38.
[29] See at p. 40, the stanza beginning ‘And I think that he does amiss.’
[30] _The Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo d’Alcamo to Dante Alighieri
(1100-1200-1300), in the Original Metres: together with Dante’s Vita
Nuova. Translated by D. G. Rossetti. Smith and Elder, 1862._
[31] There is evidently something erroneous in this statement: Brunetto
died in 1294. The Editor of a collection of Italian Poets (_Lirici del
Secolo secondo, & c.—Venezia, Antonelli, 1841_) says: ‘Francesco went
through his _first_ studies under Brunetto Latini. _Hence he passed_ to
the Universities of Padua and of Bologna.’ Barberino being a Tuscan, this
seems the natural course for him to adopt, rather than to have gone to
Padua and Bologna _before_ Florence. My brother’s remark, as to the death
of Neri in 1296, and as to Francesco’s _subsequent_ sojourn in Florence,
agrees, however, with the statement made by Tiraboschi: apparently we
should understand that Francesco had been in Florence both before and
after his stay in Padua and Bologna, and that his studies under Brunetto
pertain to the earlier period.
[32] _Teachings_ or _Lessonings of Love_ might probably express the sense
more exactly to an English ear.
[33] ‘Chi vuol fare merli.’ The phrase means literally ‘he who wants to
make battlements’—or possibly ‘to make thrushes,’ I can only _guess_
at its bearing in the present passage, having searched for a distinct
explanation in vain. It seems to be one of the myriad ‘_vezzi di lingua_’
of old Italian, and especially old Tuscan, idiom.
[34] ‘Di mandar a laveggio.’ I am far from certain as to the real meaning.
[35] This precept, and especially a preceding one (p. 39) which enjoins
the host to place the guests in their appropriate seats, keeping by
himself those of less account, would seem to show that at this period the
seats at the right and left of the host (or hostess) were by no means
understood to be posts of honour. The absence of all mention, either in
Bonvicino or in Barberino, of the hostess or her especial duties, strikes
one as a singularity. That the hostess is nevertheless understood to be
present may be fairly inferred from the clearly expressed presence of
other ladies.
[36] Prettily worded in the Italian:
‘Nè abbracciar stringendo,
Se non sei ben una cosa con quello.’
[37]
Ancor c’ è molta gente
Ch’ han certi vizj in dono ed in servire,
Sì che poco gradire
Vediamo in lor quando ne fanno altrui:
Chè non pensano a cui,
Nè che nè come, nè tanto nè quanto.
Altri fanno un procanto
Di sue bisogne, e poi pur fanno il dono.
Ed altri certi sono
Che danno indugio, e credon far maggiore.
E molti che colore
Pongon a scusa, e poi pur fanno e danno.
Ed altri che, com’ hanno
Servigio ricevuto, affrettan troppo
Disobbligar lo groppo
Col qual eran legati alli serventi:
Onde sien tutti attenti
Che non è picciol vizio non volere
Obbligato manere;
Anzi par poi che sforzato sia largo.
Dicemi alcuno: ‘Io spargo
Li don, per mia libertate tenere;
Non per altrui piacere.’
Questo è gran vizio: ed è virtù maggiore,
E più porta d’onore,
Saver donar la sua persona altrui,
Ricevendo da lui,
E star apparecchiato a meritaro.
E non ti vo’ lassare
Lo vizio di colui che colla faccia
Non vuol dar sì che piaccia,
Ma turba tutto, e sta gran pezza mutto.
[38] The mention of a slave in a Florentine household of the late 13th or
early 14th century may startle some readers. I translate the note which
Signor Guglielmo Manzi, the editor of the _Reggimento_, supplies on this
subject. ‘Slavery, which abases mankind, and revolts humanity and reason,
diminished greatly when the Christian religion was introduced into the
Roman Empire—that religion being in manifest opposition to so barbarous a
system. The more the one progressed in the world, the more did the other
wane; and, as Bodino observes in his book _De Republicâ_, slavery had
ceased in Europe, to a great extent, by 1200. I shall follow this author,
who is the only one to afford us some degree of light amid so great
obscurity. In the year 1212 there were still, according to him, slaves
in Italy; as may be seen from the ordinances of William, King of Sicily,
and of the Emperor Frederick II. for the kingdom of Naples, and from the
decretals of the Popes Alexander III., Urban III., and Innocent III.,
concerning the marriages of slaves. The first of these Popes was elected
in 1158, the second in 1185, and the third in 1198; so that the principle
of liberty cannot be dated earlier than in or about 1250—Bartolo,
who lived in the year 1300, writing (_Hostes de Captivis_, I.) that
in his time there were no slaves, and that, according to the laws of
Christendom, men were no longer put up to sale. This assertion, however,
conflicts with the words of our author, who affirms that in his time—that
is, at the commencement of the 14th century—the custom existed. But, in
elucidation of Bartolo, it should be said that he implied that men were
no longer sold, on the ground that this was prohibited by the laws of
Christendom, and the edicts of sovereigns. In France it can be shown
that in 1430 Charles VII. gave their liberty to some persons of servile
condition; and even in the year 1548 King Henri II. liberated, by letters
patent, those of the Bourbonnais: and the like was done throughout
all his states by the Duke of Savoy in 1561. In the Hundred Tales of
Boccaccio we have also various instances showing that the sale of free
men was practised in Italy. These are in the 6th Tale of the 2nd Day,
the story of Madonna Beritola, whose sons remained in Genoa in serfdom;
and in the 6th of the 5th Day, the story of Frederick, King of Sicily;
and in the 7th of the same Day, the story of Theodore and Violante. It
is therefore clear, from all this evidence, that, in the time of Messer
Francesco, so execrable a practice was still prevalent; and, summing up
all we have said, it must be concluded that serfdom, in non-barbarian
Europe, was not entirely extinguished till the 16th century.’
[39] ‘Mottetti e parlari.’ Only a few specimens of these are given, and
they are all sufficiently occult. Here is one. ‘Grande a morte, o la
morte. Di molte se grava morte. [Responde Madonna] Dolci amorme, quel
camorme, dunque amorme conveniarme.’
[40] This Lady is an ideal or symbolic personage—presumably Wisdom.
[41] Matteo Palmieri (see p. 58) indicates that the state of things was
the same in his time, about 1430: he is more decided than Barberino in
condemning it.
[42] ‘Uomin di corte.’ This term was first applied to heralds,
chamberlains, and the like court-officials: subsequently to the
entertainers of a court, ‘giullari,’ jesters, and buffoons: and in
process of time it came to include courtiers of whatever class. In the
early writers—such as Barberino, Boccaccio, &c.—it is not always easy
for a translator to pitch upon the precise equivalent: the reader should
understand a personage who might be as romantic as a Troubadour, or as
quaint as a Touchstone—but tending rather towards the latter extreme.
[43] ‘Uccelli grifoni.’ This seems a daring suggestion: possibly, as a
griffin is a compound of eagle and lion, we are to understand that the
eagle is the griffin-_bird_.
[44] ‘Drappi oltramarin’—which _may_ mean foreign (from beyond sea), or
else of ultramarine colour: I rather suppose the former.
[45] ‘Lana di pesce’—literally, fish’s wool. The term is new to me, nor
do I find it explained in dictionaries: I can only therefore surmise that
it designates the silky filaments of certain sea-mollusks, such as the
pinna of the Mediterranean. This byssus is still made use of in Italy for
gloves and similar articles.
[46] !!
[47] ‘Intaglj;’ and the next line gives the word ‘Scolture.’ Giovanni
Villani notes that in 1330 a prohibition was issued against ‘dresses
cut-out or painted:’ the fashion having run into the extravagance of
‘dresses cut-out with different sorts of cloth, and made of stuffs
trimmed variously with silks.’
[48] These seem to be very obedient birds: and their position, behind
glass windows in a globe figuring the world, was rather an odd one to
modern notions. The reader will keep me company in guessing whether or
not we are to take the whole description _au pied de la lettre_.
[49] Tiraboschi says 1468; but that, as far as I can trace, is a mistake.
[50] It may be fair to state that the work, as first published, was put
in the Roman index of prohibited books; and that the reissues (including
no doubt the edition known to me) have omitted the inculpated passages.
Whether these were objected to on moral or rather on ecclesiastical
grounds I cannot affirm: the book as now printed is not only quite free
from immoralities, but is decidedly moral, whereas there remains at least
one passage of a tone such as churchmen resent _ex officio_.
[51] A noticeable proverbial phrase. It is new to me; but I suppose it
means either ‘learned in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin’ (the three languages
in which the inscription over the cross was written), or else perhaps
‘learned in languages generally.’
[52] That most capital and characteristic book, the Autobiography of the
tragedian Alfieri, contains a reference to the _Galateo_, which, longish
as it is, I am tempted to extract. ‘My worthy Paciaudi was wont to advise
me not to neglect, amid my laborious readings, works in prose, which he
learnedly termed the nurse of poetry. As regards this, I remember that
one day he brought me the _Galateo_ of Della Casa; recommending me to
ponder it well with respect to the turn of speech, which assuredly is
pure Tuscan, and the reverse of all Frenchifying. I, who in boyhood had
(as we all have) read it loosely, understood it little, and relished
it not at all, felt almost offended at this schoolboyish and pedantic
advice. Full of venom against the said _Galateo_, I opened it. And, at
the sight of that first _Conciossiacosachè_, to which is trailed-on
that long sentence so pompous and so wanting in pith, such an impulse
of rage seized me that, hurling the book out of window, I cried like a
maniac: “Surely a hard and disgusting necessity, that, in order to write
tragedies at the age of twenty-seven, I must swallow down again this
childish chatter, and relax my brain with such pedantries!” He smiled at
my uneducated poetic _furor_; and prophesied that I would yet read the
_Galateo_, and that more than once. And so it turned out; but several
years afterwards, when I had thoroughly hardened my neck and shoulders to
bear the grammatical yoke. And I read not only the _Galateo_, but almost
all our prose writers of the fourteenth century, and annotated them too:
with what profit I cannot say. But true it is that, were any one to
give them a good reading as regards their turn of phrase, and to manage
availing himself with judgment and skill of their array, rejecting the
cast clothes of their ideas, he might perhaps afterwards, in his writings
as well philosophic as poetic or historic, or of any other class, give a
richness, brevity, propriety, and force of colour, to his style, which
I have not as yet seen fully gracing any Italian writer.’ A word or two
may be spared to the formidable-looking vocable _Conciossiacosachè_
which so excited Alfieri’s bile. It might be translated literally as
‘Herewith-be-something-that;’ and corresponds in practice to the English
‘Forasmuch as’—or more briefly ‘since,’ or ‘as.’ The Italian word
_poichè_ serves all the same uses, save that of longwindedness. But
_Conciossiacosachè_ itself is not lengthy enough for some Italian lips:
and I believe that even the phrase into which it has sometimes been
prolonged—‘Con ciò sia cosa fosse massimamente che’—has been used for
other than burlesquing purposes.
[53] The comparison whereby our Archbishop illustrates the condition of
the napkins must perfume our page only in its native Italian—‘Che le
pezze degli agiamenti sono più nette.’
[54] This is affirmed by Xenophon of the Persians: he says in the
_Cyropædia_ that, both of old and in his own time, they did without
either spitting or blowing the nose—a proof of temperance, and of
energetic exercise which carried off the moisture of the body.
[55] _Stecco._ ‘Toothpick’ is the only appropriate technical sense for
stecco given in the dictionaries; and I suppose it is correct here,
although Della Casa’s very next sentence, denouncing the carrying of this
implement round the neck, designates it by the word _stuzzicadenti_, and
it seems odd that the two terms should be thus juxta-posed or opposed. If
_stecco_ does not in this passage really mean ‘toothpick,’ I should infer
that it indicates some skewer-like object, used possibly as a fork—i.e.
to secure the viands on the plate, while they are severed with a spoon,
and by that conveyed to the mouth (see pp. 21 and 34 as to the use of
spoon instead of fork in Bonvicino’s time). This would in fact be a sort
of chop-stick. Such an inference is quite compatible with the _general_
sense of the word _stecco_—any stake or splint of wood.
[56] Cecchina is a double diminutive of Francesca; corresponding to
‘Fannikin’ or ‘Fan.’
[57] The English reader may fancy that this passage conflicts with that
which immediately precedes: but such is not the case. In the earlier
passage, the use of _You_ was recommended as more civil than _Thou_: in
the later passage, the use of _Vossignoria_ (or other the like impersonal
term, where appropriate) as more respectful than _You_.
[58] This is, I think, still a national trait among Italians, and a
most creditable one: the endless grades and sub-grades, shades and
demi-shades, of good society, as maintained in England (with an instinct
comparable to the marvellous power of a bat to wing its dark way amid
any number of impediments, and to be impeded by none of them), are
unintelligible to ordinary Italians—or, where intelligible, detestable.
Long may they remain so!
[59] _Nobili._ I presume this is to be understood literally; the
household in which noblemen could be thus employed being of course one of
exalted position.