[1] Desperiers lived in France between 1480 and 1544. He was servant to
Marguerite de Navarre, and a writer of Rabelaisian humour. His two
principal works are called _Cymbalum Mundi_ and _Nouvelles, Recreations
et Joyeux Devis_.
[2] The Orco was a huge sea-monster, shaped like a gigantic crab. It
first appeared in Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_ (Bk. iii. Cant. 3), and
was afterwards developed by Ariosto, _Orl. Fur._ (Cant. 17).
[3] This was one of Gozzi's own comedies.
[4] These words have so much local colouring that they must be left in
the text and explained in a note. A _sotto portico_ at Venice is formed
by the projection of houses over the narrow path which skirts a small
canal or _rio_; the first floor of the houses rests on pillars at the
water-side. A _ponte storto_ is a bridge built askew across a _rio_, not
at right angles to the water, but slanting. A _riva_ is the quay of
stone which runs along the canals of Venice, here and there broken by
steps descending into the water and serving as landing-places.
[5] See above, vol. i. p. 299.
[6] The narrow foot-paths between lines of houses at Venice are so
called. They frequently have scarcely space enough for two men to walk
abreast.
[7] One of Pietro Longhi's pictures in the Museo Civico at Venice
represents exactly such a scene as this in the workroom of a tailoress.
The beau is there, and the woman prepared for flirtation.
[8] Gozzi had a distinct object in writing these chapters on his
love-affairs. Gratarol's accusation of his having been a hypocrite and
covert libertine lay before him. He wished to make a clean breast of his
frailties. To suppress this portion of his _apologia pro vita sua_ would
have been to do him grave injustice. The Memorie must always be read as
an answer to Gratarol's _Narrazione_. See Introduction, Part i.
[9] There is a good deal said about this man in Casanova's Memoirs.
[10] The translator of this narrative has taken the trouble to make this
tedious detour on foot. The quarter in which Gozzi lived, remains
exactly in the same condition as when he described it. His old palace
has not altered; and the whole of the above scene can be vividly
presented to the fancy by an inspection of the localities.
[11] The following paragraphs, to the end of the chapter, are extracted
and condensed from vol. iii. chap. v. of the _Memorie_.
[12] A magistracy composed of four patricians, who controlled the
manners of the town in matters of lawless and indecent living.
[13] Messer Grande corresponded to the Bargello at Rome, and was the
chief of catchpoles and constables.
[14] This chapter on Gozzi's contrarieties, which I have supplemented
with a few passages from the incoherent notes at the end of the
_Memorie_, has received undue attention from Paul de Musset and critics
who adopt his untrustworthy version of Gozzi's autobiography. De Musset
strove to base upon it a theory that Gozzi was the victim of his own
fabulous sprites. See Introduction, vol. i. p. 23.
[15] Gozzi alludes to the _Ragionamento Ingenuo_ prefixed to the first
volume of Colombani's edition of his works.
[16] That is, the authors of the seventeenth century, during which an
extravagant and affected style prevailed in Italy.
[17] These names require explanation. _Granelli_, _coglioni_, and
_testicoli_ are words for the same things, and have the secondary
meaning of _simpleton_. Thus _Arcigranellone_ is the Arch-big-simpleton.
The crest of the Academy carries an allusion to the same things. Apropos
of this not very edifying topic, it is worth mentioning that the canting
arms of the noble Bergamasque family of Coglioni consisted of three
_granelli_ counterchanged upon a field party per fesse gules and argent.
I cannot recall a parallel instance in heraldry.
[18] Calandrino was a famous fool and butt in the _Decameron_ of
Boccaccio.
[19] What follows in the text above might be largely illustrated. It is
curious to find Casanova, for example, agreeing with Gozzi on a point of
morality: "Une mechante philosophie," he says, "diminue trop le nombre
de ce qu'on appelle prejuges" (vol. i. p. 97). Compare the ludicrous
account of the rogue Squaldo-Nobili, who shared Casanova's prison in S.
Mark, and who had purged himself of prejudice by reading _La Sagesse de
Charon_ (vol. iii. p. 70). While I am writing, an article by M. Emile de
Laveleye on "How bad books may destroy States" (_Pall Mall Gazette_,
June 9, 1888) falls into my hands with a pertinent passage, which I
shall here extract:--
"The following are the terms in which, in an eighteenth century romance,
Count Clitandre explains to the Marquise Cidalise all the services that
philosophy has rendered to refined and elegant society. 'Thanks to
philosophy,' he says, 'we have the happiness to have found the truth,
and what does not this entail for us? Women have never been less prudish
under pretext of duty, and there has never been so little affectation of
virtue. A man and a woman please each other and a _liaison_ is formed;
they tire of it, and separate with as little ceremony as they commenced
it; if they come again to regret the separation, their former relations
may recommence, and with the same enthusiasm as the first time. These
again cease; and all this takes place without any quarrellings or
disputes! It is true that there has been no question whatever of _love_;
but after all, what is _love_ save a mere desire that people chose to
exaggerate, a physical sentiment of which men, in their vanity, chose to
make a virtue? Nowadays the desire alone exists, and if people, in their
mutual relations, speak of love, it is not because they really believe
in it, but because it is a politer way of obtaining what they
reciprocally wish for. As there has been no question of love at the
onset, there is no hatred at parting, and from the slight liking
mutually inspired rests a mutual desire and readiness to oblige each
other. I think, all things considered, that it is wise to sacrifice to
so much pleasure a few old-fashioned prejudices which bring but little
esteem and an infinite amount of worry to those who still make them
their rule of conduct.'"
[20] This paragraph reads amusingly like a satire upon English
"aesthetes."
[21] See above, vol i. p. 367.
[22] See above, chap. xxxi.
[23] The first or Paris edition bears, however, the date 1756.
[24] I have to say that what follows in this chapter has been very
considerably abridged from Gozzi's text. Apology is owed to him by the
translator for condensing his narrative and confining it to points of
permanent interest, if indeed there is any interest at all in bygone
literary squabbles, while retaining the first person.
[25] This poem is printed in vol. viii. of Colombani's edition of Carlo
Gozzi's Works.
[26] I may remind my readers that Truffaldino was the specific form
invented for the mask of Arlecchino by Sacchi. See above, vol. i. p. 53.
Truffaldino was originally a character in Boiardo's _Orlando
Innamorato_, where he played the part of a consummate rogue, traitor,
and coward, and was killed by the paladin Rinaldo (Bk. i. Cant. 26).
[27] This passage indicates Gozzi's justice, his habit of conceding the
_suum cuique_, however grudgingly. Goldoni, as we learn from his
Memoirs, piqued himself upon the study he made of actors like Darbes,
Golinetti, and Collalto.
[28] A singular piece of self-criticism. Gozzi appeals to posterity on
points which seem to us the least noteworthy in his work. Nothing is
needed beyond the above sentences to dispel the illusion of his having
been a free romantic genius.
[29] Gozzi uses the word _squarci_ for these stock passages. The
expression is partly explained by what follows in the paragraph, and has
been further illustrated by me above: vol. i. p. 62. See Bartoli's
_Scenari_, pp. lxxv. _et seq._
[30] After the Carnival, until the following October. The theatrical
year in Venice began on the first Sunday in October, and ended with the
next Ash-Wednesday. It corresponded to the months in which masks were
allowed.
[31] Translated in chaps. xxxii., xxxiii., xxxiv.
[32] There is some inaccuracy here. See vol. i. p. 148, for the dates of
Gozzi's _Fiabe_.
[33] Page 33 in vol. ii. of Gozzi is a good specimen of an interminable
sentence broken up by me. It has thirty-nine lines of about eight words
apiece, or 312 words, without a full stop. It begins with _Un' ammasso_,
and ends on p. 34 with _commiserazione_.
[34] See above, cap. xxx.
[35] This theatre was also called S. Luca.
[36] This looks as though Gozzi had reason to believe that Mme. Manzoni
would write her autobiography. Whether she did so or not, I am unable to
say. But the remark shows how popular and common self-indited Memoirs
had become.
[37] That is, the Venetian noble Antonio Vendramini.
[38] Printed in vol. ix. of the _Opere_, ed. cit.
[39] It cannot be denied that Gozzi has spun out the history of his
liaison with Teodora Ricci to a tedious length, giving the episode of
Pier Antonio Gratarol an importance which it is far from deserving. I
intend therefore to abridge the chapters which he invites his readers to
skip. But, with the view of preserving unity of style, I shall not drop
the first person singular, and shall select, so far as this is possible,
nothing but phrases of Gozzi to translate.
[40] By the playwright Arneau.
[41] Printed in vol. v. of the _Opere_, ed. cit.
[42] Francesco Gritti, of the ancient patrician family, was born in 1740
and died in 1811. His translations of French plays appeared in two vols.
at Venice in 1788. Some of his poems in Venetian dialect were published
in 1815. Venezia, Alvisopoli.
[43] Gozzi is here answering Gratarol, who had called him a hypocrite in
his _Narrazione_.
[44] This and the ensuing chapters throw light upon Gozzi's intention
when he wrote chaps. xl. xli. above. The generalities of the earlier
chapters square point by point with the particularities of the later. It
looks as if he wished to prepare his readers for a special
self-apologetical statement of his case against Mme. Ricci. We need not
impute to him insincerity or false suggestion. When he wrote these
Memoirs, the manners and customs of comedians were patent to the world,
and he probably uttered no more than the truth about them. Yet the
forensic cleverness of a pleader may be detected in the account he gives
of his relations with this woman. Considering their intimacy, he does
not act quite chivalrously in the exposure of its dissolution. At this
distance of time we cannot ascertain the facts. Gozzi was perhaps
consistent and veracious in his disclaimer of more than a liaison of
friendship. The reader of the following chapters must decide for himself
whether the writer of them was carefully manipulating and colouring
circumstances he wished to attenuate.
[45] Gozzi means that he had assumed the role of Cicisbeo to Mme. Ricci.
[46] This man was called Francesco Bartoli. We owe to his pen a valuable
collection of biographical notes on Italian actors and actresses:
_Notizie Istoriche dei Comici Italiani che fiorirono intorno al MDL fino
ai giorni presenti_ (Padova, Conzatti, 1781). This work contains a life
of Teodora Ricci and the author's own autobiography. After the events of
1777 he separated from his wife, and only acknowledged the first of her
three children. Critics may pause to wonder, at this point, whether
Gozzi's relations to Mme. Ricci were as Platonic as he painted them. In
1782 Bartoli retired from the stage and lived at Rovigo. On Teodora's
leaving the profession in 1793, he took her back, and endured her
hysterical tempers until the date of his own death in 1806. She died mad
about the year 1824 in the asylum of S. Servilio at Venice.
[47] Zannuzzi was _premier amoureux_ at the Comedie Italienne in Paris.
It was he who invited Goldoni to visit that city, and offered him an
engagement for two years from the Court. See Goldoni's _Memoirs_, part
ii. chap. xliii.
[48] The Greek rogue in Pulci's _Morgante Maggiore_.
[49] Gozzi here refers directly to the Gratarol episode.
[50] Printed in vol. ix. of the _Opere_, ed. cit.
[51] _Il Salvatico_, one of the very oldest hostelries of Venice, dating
from the Middle Ages.
[52] Printed at the end of the third volume of the unique edition of the
_Memorie Inutili di Carlo Gozzi_, 1797.
[53] These will be found in Gozzi's _Opere_, ed. cit. The prefaces are
printed before the plays.
[54] From this point forward Gozzi relates the series of events which
Gratarol had already described in his _Narrazione Apologetica_. The two
accounts agree in essentials, the fundamental difference between them
being Gratarol's firm belief that Gozzi meant to satirise him in the
_Droghe d'Amore_, which Gozzi vehemently denies. It must be remembered
that Gozzi had the _Narrazione_ before him while writing these Memoirs.
[55] _Diavoloni_ is the Italian word. We hear of these comfits also from
Gratarol. They are big sugar-plums containing liqueur.
[56] That is, Council of Ten with the Inquisitori di Stato at its head.
[57] Albergati was born at Bologna in 1728. The circumstances of his
private life were curious. In 1748 he married a wife from whom he was
divorced in 1751. In 1769 he married a second wife at Venice, who
committed suicide. In 1789 he married a third wife. He lived principally
at Venice and at his country seat at Zola, where he had a famous private
theatre. He composed and translated a great many plays. His works were
collected and published in an edition of several volumes at Bologna in
1827.
[58] The relation of gossip or _Compare di San Giovanni_ is reckoned
sacred at Venice.
[59] See above, p. 227.
[60] This lady was the celebrated Caterina Dolfin Tron, wife of the
Procuratore Andrea Tron. Her husband exercised such influence in the
State that he was called _Il Padrone_. A terrible portrait is drawn of
her by Gratarol in his _Narrazione_, vol. i. pp. 23 and 44. To him she
certainly behaved with cruel tyranny. But she was a woman of brilliant
talents and fascinating person, who gave tone to literary and political
society in Venice.
[61] Gozzi has not perhaps quite told the whole truth about his
relations to Mme. Tron. They were certainly more intimate at one period
than he here admits. He formed a member of the society whom she received
on Monday evenings at the Casino di San Giuliano, and dedicated his
_Marfisa Bizzarra_ to her in terms of high compliment (V.E. non e
nimica, non e ignorante, non e dispettosa, non e sospettosa, e sa essere
benefattrice volontaria anche di coloro che non le chiedono favori). At
the same time he disagreed with Mme. Tron's liberal opinions, and
disapproved of her philosophising turn of mind. It is quite possible
that before the date 1776 their former intimacy may have cooled.
Gratarol himself observes that Gozzi had not frequented her society
during the seven years prior to these events.
[62] This magistracy exercised control over the morals of Venice.
[63] Gratarol gives a vivid picture of this throng. "Many hundreds of
persons were sent away from the doors, since the vast area of the
theatre was crammed full. Boxes, which on ordinary nights were paid two
pauls, this evening brought a couple of sequins, and not a single one
was empty."--_Narrazione_, vol. i. p. 68.
[64] Gratarol asserts plainly (_Narr. Apol._, vol. i. pp. 63, 65, 66)
that Mme. Tron induced Sacchi to change the roles and to dress up
Vitalba in clothes resembling his own. Gozzi tacitly admits the truth of
this.
[65] Gratarol describes the public excitement of Venice. "In the houses,
the shops, the open squares, all sorts and conditions of folk were
chattering about the play. When I entered the Piazza di S. Marco, the
idle people who crowd the coffee-houses under the Procuratie Vecchie,
lacqueys, barbers, players, spies, pimps, and baser beings, if such
there be, came swarming out by tens and twenties to stare at me, walked
in front, lagged behind, dogged my steps, jostled me, compared notes
with each other as to my resemblance to the vile actor travestied to
mimic me."--_Narrazione_, vol. i. p. 73.
[66] Gratarol has printed his petition to the Inquisitors (_Narr.
Apol._, i. 81). It is not very injurious to Gozzi, if the document is
really what he sent. The reference to Gozzi runs thus: "Umana debolezza
scossa da circonstanze troppo puerili e indegne di riferirsi alla maesta
di questo Supremo Tribunale indusse il Sig. Co. Carlo Gozzi a sparger di
satira una sua commedia tolta dallo Spagnuolo ed intitolata Le Droghe
d'Amore, e ad innestarvi un carattere apposito unicamente per fare
scherno e ridicolo dileggio dell'umilissima persona di me," &c.
[67] This interview is related at length by Gratarol (_Narr. Apol._,
vol. i. pp. 97-110). His account differs in several minor particulars
from Gozzi's. But one can see that Gozzi had it before him while writing
what follows above.
[68] Light is thrown on this paragraph by a passage in Gratarol's _Narr.
Apol._, i. 99. He there says that Signor Maffei had reported Gozzi's
great distress at the unexpected effect of his comedy, adding that
Sacchi professed his willingness to abandon the play if Gozzi wished it
and was able to arrange matters.
[69] In the _Narr. Apol._ Gratarol gives a different turn to this
incident. He does not represent himself as refusing the prologue; and
indeed he asserts that on the night of the 17th he was extremely
disgusted at not hearing it. See vol. i. p. 114.
[70] Gratarol intimates that Gozzi acted with bad faith in this
negotiation, "operando in modo che altri consigliassero a resistere." He
calls the meeting at Mme. Tron's "l'infernal conciliabolo [che] si tenne
in ora piu tarda nelle soglie della regnante Matrona." _Loc. cit._, p.
114.
[71] This letter is reported in the _Narr. Apol._, vol. i. p. 123.
[72] It is amusing to read Gozzi's _Memorie_ and Gratarol's _Narrazione_
side by side. Gratarol exclaims: "Conte, voi dovete la vita ad un
qualche angelo tutelare che benedimmi accio potessi frenare il cieco
impeto," &c. He meditates an _aperta vendetta_, and so forth. _Op.
cit._, pp. 115-117. And yet these two swelling turkey-cocks did not
think of fighting a duel.
[73] Though this is told to his own advantage, Gozzi must have known
that he was placing a new weapon in the hands of Gratarol's worst enemy
when he consigned to Mme. Tron the letter of defiance.
[74] Gozzi here alludes, I think, to the attack on the actor Vitalba at
Milan, which will be related farther on.
[75] Why did he not call Gratarol out? This is very comedian-like.
[76] Paolo Renier was one of the most striking figures in the last years
of the Republic. A man of brilliant and versatile abilities, widely read
and profoundly instructed by experience of the world, he possessed
eloquence so weighty and persuasive that one speech from his lips had
power to sway conflicting parties in the State and bring their heated
leaders to his lure. (See Romanin, vol. viii. chap. vii., for an
extraordinary instance of his oratory.) Yet Renier's character does not
inspire respect. Before he became Doge, he had pursued a tortuous course
in politics, and had only escaped serious entanglements by his
extraordinary intellectual finesse. He married a woman off the stage,
who impaired his social credit; and when he appeared as candidate for
the ducal cap, he lavished bribes with cynical shamelessness. Gratarol
has penned two pungent pages upon Renier's character, which are worth
attention. "Talent and art," he says, "both fail me in describing this
man of hundred colours. An intellect of the highest, a heart of the
proudest, a face of the most deceptive; such are his component parts. A
more fraudulently plausible orator, a more turbulent politician, I have
never known. Whether fortune or some charm defends him, he always
escapes unhurt from the mortal perils into which he wilfully
plunges."--_Op. cit._, p. 77.
[77] Gozzi publishes a copy of his memorial to the Inquisitors of State.
Since the document is long, and repeats what is already known to the
readers of his Memoirs, I have not judged it necessary to translate it.
The text will be found on pp. 395-399 of the second volume of the
_Memorie Inutili_.
[78] Gratarol reports this letter, but expressly states that he was
obliged by Signor Zon, secretary to the Inquisitors of State, to omit
the words _dimenticando il passato_. His account of how he was compelled
to sit down and scribble off the apology, while Zon stood over him, is
very amusing. He taught his servant, on delivering the letter into
Gozzi's hands, to repeat these words: "el mio paron xe sta comanda de
scriverghe sto viglietto." In fact, Gratarol was forced by the supreme
authority in Venice to send this apology, and refusal to do so would
have involved his immediate imprisonment. According to his own
confession, Gratarol, after hearing the ultimatum of the Supreme
Tribunal, went to his writing-table and penned the above letter,
expressing at the same time his readiness to kiss Count Gozzi's ... on
the piazza, or to do anything else ridiculous which the Inquisitors
might impose upon him. The Republic of S. Mark had reached the last
stage of decrepitude, and well deserved to be swept into the lumber-room
of bygone greatnesses, when Gratarol's and Gozzi's squabble about a
woman and a play brought the machinery of state thus into action.
Venice, always an artificial power (in the same sense as the Greek
cities of antiquity were artificial), subsisting mainly upon commerce
and on the tribute levied from dependencies, had in the eighteenth
century dwindled into dotage, through lack of natural resources and
revolutions in the world-trade. The rulers of Venice, reduced to
insignificance among the powers of Europe, occupied their brains with
parochial affairs and the contests of comedians. _Op. cit._, pp.
130-134.
[79] This reads like a satire upon Renier, whose elevation to the
Dogeship was attended with a pomp and profligate expenditure, not to
mention a lavish use of bribes, pernicious to all public and private
morals. Compare Gratarol's account of an interview he had with Renier
(_op. cit._, p. 79). The man made on Gratarol exactly the same sort of
impression by his eloquence, philosophy, urbanity, and learning, mixed
with a sense of untrustworthiness, that he did on Gozzi.
[80] See above, p. 267. Mme. Tron called Gasparo _Father_ and Carlo
_Bear_.
[81] The Riformatori dello Studio di Padova were three noblemen of
Venice, who controlled the university in that city and other educational
establishments belonging to the State.
[82] Gratarol indignantly denies that he had anything to do with this
attack upon Vitalba, and says he was at Vienna when it happened. _Op.
cit._, p. 178.
[83] Gozzi has, in fact, told the story of Mme. Ricci's return to
Venice, but it is without importance.
[84] Sacchi, the last great representative of the _Commedia dell'Arte_,
was a Ferrarese, born at Vienna in 1708. After leaving Venice he sank
into poverty, and died at sea in 1788 between Genoa and Marseilles. His
body was committed to the waters.
[85] Compare the pregnant phrase at the close of the _Memorie_ (vol.
iii. p. 290; translation, above, p. 329) with the tone of the
_Manifesto_ and the address _A' suoi amati concittadini_ (vol. i. pp.
3-15 and iii.-xv.), and the close of the _Ragionamento del cittadino
Carlo Gozzi_, vol. ii. p. xvii.
[86] See Masi's Essay, _Fiabe_, vol. i. p. clxxxix.; Malamanni, _Nuova
Rivista di Torino_, Nos. lviii.-x.
[87] _Memorie_, vol. iii. ch. vii.
[88] If I wished to comment on Gozzi's humour--subrisive, slightly
bitter, acid and yet genial, preserving the main points of humane
feeling intact, scoffing at revolutions in politics and fashion--I
should select the above-translated passage as combining its essential
qualities, together with something of the man's graphic power of
description.
[89] The matter is not of importance. But when Gozzi speaks of a house
at S. Benedetto, he probably means the Campo di S. Angelo. Part at least
of that Campo is in the parish of S. Benedetto.
[90] I wrote this essay on Longhi at a time when I hoped to be able to
illustrate my work on Gozzi profusely from the painter's sketch-book.
This scheme had to be abandoned owing to difficulties connected with the
proper reproduction of Longhi's drawings by photography. But should any
of my readers be interested in the details of Gozzi's life, I counsel
them to make a careful study of Longhi's works at Venice, and more
especially of the deeply-interesting sketch-book at the Museo Civico.
Those who can read between the lines of original drawings will find this
book a real assistance toward the understanding of Venetian society in
the last century. The moral purity and the moderation of the artist give
value to his transcripts from the life he saw around him.
[91] G. B. Tiepolo; b. 1692, d. 1769. Antonio Canale, or Canaletti; b.
1697, d. 1768. Pietro Longhi; b. 1702, d. about 1780. Francesco Guardi;
b. 1713, d. 1793.
[92] This is the bias of our scientific age. We do not want idealism,
however meritorious--the idealism, for example, of the Caracci--the
idealism which is supplied in academies. What we demand is a transcript
from life or a piercing arrow from the genius of an epoch. We are keen,
and rightly keen for documents of art, which hold up mirrors of an age
in its external presentment, or betray the secret of its spiritual
qualities.
[93] See V. Lazari, _Elogio di Pietro Longhi_. Venezia, 1862.
[94] I have followed Lazari above. But examination of the Pisani
pedigree (published for the _Nozze Giusti-Giustiniani_, Rovigo, Tip.
Minelliana, 1887) shows that none of the Doge's sons was Procuratore di
S. Marco, and that none of them had a son who died before marriage. The
only Procuratore Pisani of this period was Giorgio Pisani (1739-1811),
of the branch surnamed _In Procuratia_. He played a prominent part in
the political history of the last days of the Venetian Republic. But he
also had no son who can be connected with Lazari's story regarding the
foundation of the Academy. I am obliged, therefore, to suppose that
Lazari's account, though substantially correct as to the existence of
the Academy in question, was based on a confused tradition regarding
members of the Pisani family.
[95] The picture now hangs on the wall of Mme. Pisani's drawing-room in
the Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal of Venice. I may add, with regard
to the signature, that the uncontested frescoes at the Sagredo Palace
are signed _Pietro Longo_, and not _Longhi_.
[96] The eldest of these children was born in 1753, and may have been
about seven when the picture was painted.
Typographical errors corrected by the ebook transcriber: