physician, no less famed for his wit than for his learning and
medical skill. He studied philosophy and medicine at the
University of Pisa, and was then invited to Rome by the princes of
the House of Colonna, in whose palace he lectured on rhetoric. He
was afterwards court physician to the Grand Dukes of Tuscany.
During the last years of his life he was afflicted with epilepsy,
and retired to Pisa, as being a healthier place than Florence.
Here he died suddenly on March 1st, 1698. His published works
consist of poems, scientific treatises, and a large collection of
letters which show his wide learning, his shrewd sense, and the
merry, genial spirit which could see a funny side to his own
troubles. “To judge from the praises of his countrymen,” says
Leigh Hunt, “he partook of the wit and learning of Arbuthnot, the
science of Harvey, and the poetry and generosity of Garth.” His
humour is rather broad than subtle—but always sweet and kindly;
his laughter is the mellow mirth of one who enjoys life himself
and wishes others to enjoy it also. He was passionately fond of
natural history, and an acute and patient observer; his papers on
vipers, on the generation of insects, and on some other subjects,
were important contributions to the science of his time. His
replies (usually at great length) to the patients who consulted
him by letter have been preserved, and are printed among his
works. In medicine, he had a wholesome faith in the healing
efficacy of nature, and anticipated the modern revolt against the
excessive use of drugs, or, as he himself puts it, “that
hotch-potch of physic which physicians, out of sheer perversity,
are accustomed to prescribe to others, but would never dream of
swallowing themselves.” His poems are not numerous, nor of the
most elevated kind of poetry; but the best known, the dithyrambus
of “Bacco in Toscana,” with its fiery swing and rush, leap, and
lilt of melody, is perhaps the most perfect thing of its kind ever
done. It awakened the enthusiasm of Leigh Hunt, from whose
translation we have extracted a passage, and whose critically
appreciative introduction is quoted below. “Bacco in Toscana” is
not a poem to be looked on with favour by total abstainers; but
wine of Montepulciano is not the most pernicious form of alcohol
known to the world (the wine on which the German cavalier in the
ballad drank himself to death was that of Montefiascone, on the
other side of the Roman border), and, moreover, the poem is no
proof that the poet really was in the habit of taking more than
was good for him. “The ‘Bacco in Toscana,’” says Leigh Hunt, “was
the first poem of its kind, and when a trifle is original even a
trifle becomes worth something.... That the nature of the subject
is partly a cause for its popularity, and that, for the same
reason, it is impossible to convey a proper Italian sense of it to
an Englishman is equally certain. But I hope it is not impossible
to impart something of its spirit and vivacity. At all events,
there is a novelty in it; the wine has a tune in the pouring out;
and it is hard if some of the verses do not haunt a good-humoured
reader, like a new air brought from the South.... It is observable
that among the friends of our author were Carlo Dati, Francini,
and Antonio Malatesti, three of Milton’s acquaintances when he was
in Italy. Redi was only twelve years of age when Milton visited
his country; but he may have seen him, and surely heard of him. It
is pleasant to trace any kind of link between eminent men. There
is reason to believe that our author was well known in England.
Magalotti, who travelled there with Cosmo, and who afterwards
translated Phillips’s _Cyder_, was one of his particular friends;
and I cannot help thinking, from the irregularity of numbers in
Dryden’s nobler dithyrambic, as well as from another poem of his
(‘Dialogue of a Scholar and his Mistress’), that the ‘Bacco in
Toscana’ had been seen by that great writer. Nothing is more
likely; for, besides the connection between Cosmo and Charles II.,
James II. made a special request by his ambassador, Sir William
Trumball, to have the poem sent him. When Spence was in Italy,
many years afterwards, the name of Redi was still in great repute,
both for his humorous poetry and his serious, though the wits had
begun to find out that his real talent lay only in the former.
Crudeli, a poet of that time, still in repute, told Spence that
‘Redi’s “Bacco in Toscana” was as lively and excellent as his
sonnets were low and tasteless.’ And, after all, what is this
‘Bacco in Toscana’? It is an original, an effusion of animal
spirits, a piece of Bacchanalian music. This is all; but this will
not be regarded as nothing by those who know the value of
originality, and who are thankful for any addition to our
pleasures.... I wish that, by any process not interfering with the
spirit of my original, I could make up to the English reader for
the absence of that particular interest in a poem of this kind
which arises from its being national. But this is impossible; and
if he has neither a great understanding, nor a good-nature that
supplies the want of it; if he is deficient in animal spirits, or
does not value a supply of them; and, above all, if he has no ear
for a dancing measure, and no laughing welcome for a sudden turn
or two at the end of a passage—our author’s triumph over his cups
will fall on his ear like ‘a jest unprofitable.’ I confess I have
both enough melancholy and merriment in me to be at no time proof
against a passage like—
‘Non fia già che il Cioccolatte
V’adoprassi, ovvero il Tè’—etc.
A great deal of the effect of poems of this kind consists in their
hovering between jest and earnest.... The ‘Bacco in Toscana’
partakes more or less of the mock-heroic throughout, except in the
very gravest lines of the author’s personal panegyrics. It is to
the Ode and the Dithyrambic what the ‘Rape of the Lock’ is to the
Epic, with all the inferiority which such a distinction
implies.... The great fault of the poem is undoubtedly what his
friend Ménage objected to in it—namely, that Bacchus has all the
talk to himself, and Ariadne becomes a puppet by his side. Redi,
partly in answer to this objection, and partly, perhaps, out of a
certain medical conscience (for it must not be forgotten that his
vinosity is purely poetical, and that he was always insisting to
his patients on the necessity of temperance and dilutions),
projected a sort of counter-dithyrambic in praise of water, in
which all the talk was to be confined to Ariadne.... He wrote but
a paragraph of this _hydrambic_. The inspiration was not the same.
As to his drinking so little wine and yet writing so well upon it,
it is a triumph for Bacchus instead of a dishonour. It only shows
how little wine will suffice to set a genial brain in motion. A
poet has wine in his blood. The laurel and ivy were common, of
old, both to Bacchus and Apollo; at least Apollo shared the ivy
always, and Bacchus wore laurel when he was young and innocent,
‘What time he played about the nestling woods,
Heaping his head with ivy and with bay.’”
(_Page 45._)
GIOVANNI SABADINO DEGLI ARIENTI, a Bolognese, was the author of
one of those collections of short stories so numerous in Italian
literature, which often furnished subjects to our Elizabethan
playwrights. The dates of his birth and death are uncertain, but
the former must have been before 1450, and the latter not earlier
than 1506. Besides the _Porrettane_ (so called because the stories
are supposed to be told by a holiday party at the baths of
Porretta), he wrote poems, treatises, and biographies. (_Page
19._)
FRANCO SACCHETTI was a Florentine, about contemporary with
Chaucer, being born in 1335. He was brought up to a commercial
life, but afterwards devoted himself to literature, and took a
considerable part in politics, being sent on various embassies by
the Florentine Republic. On one of them he was plundered at sea by
the Pisan war-ships; and, at a later date, the property he
possessed near Florence was laid waste in the war with Gian
Galeazzo Visconti. The date of his death is uncertain, but it
probably took place during the first few years of the fifteenth
century. He wrote sonnets, _canzoni_, madrigals, and other poems;
but his best known works are his _Novelle_ or short stories. They
were originally 300 in number, but we only possess 258, the
remainder having been lost. They are not fitted into any
framework, like that of Boccaccio’s _Decameron_. The best of them
are of a humorous character; and the style is more simple and
colloquial than Boccaccio’s. The story given as a specimen
probably exists (under one form or another) in the folk-tales of
every European nation. We possess it in the ballad of “King John
and the Abbot of Canterbury.” (_Page 10._)
ALESSANDRO TASSONI was born at Modena in 1565, and died there in
1635, after many intermediate changes of abode. He belonged to a
noble family, but was early left an orphan, and his very moderate
patrimony was further diminished by law-suits, and by the
dishonesty of his guardians. The greater part of his life was
spent at court; he began his career by entering the service of
Cardinal Ascanio Colonna at Rome, and ended it at the Ducal Court
of Modena. He was, like so many Italians of that period, a skilled
politician as well as a finished scholar, and was entrusted with
various diplomatic missions. His principal works belong to the
departments of reflective philosophy and literary criticism, and
he was engaged in an acrimonious controversy wherein the chief
bones of contention were the poetry of Petrarch and the philosophy
of Aristotle, both which idols of the age he attacked unsparingly;
but he is best known to posterity by his heroico-comic poem of “La
Secchia Rapita” (The Stolen Bucket), said to have been written in
1611. It is based on the tradition that, during a war between
Modena and Bologna, the Modenese forces (in 1325) carried off a
wooden bucket from a public well in the hostile city. The trophy
was hung up in the Cathedral at Modena, and remained there as a
witness to the truth of the story—which, as a matter of history,
is somewhat doubtful, though none the worse on that account, as
the groundwork to Tassoni’s poem. Many contemporaries of the
author’s are introduced under fictitious names; and, no doubt, the
personal element (which is not the exclusive property of the New
Journalism) contributed largely to the success of the work on its
first appearance. But apart from this, it is genuine burlesque,
and good of its kind, the absurdity being heightened by the
introduction of the deities of Olympus in comically modern guise,
to represent (and parody) the “machinery” which was considered an
indispensable ingredient in a serious epic poem—the “machinery”
which, to a certain extent, spoils the _Jerusalem_ and the
_Lusiad_. The passage describing the assembly of the gods in order
to deliberate on the fortunes of Modena and Bologna, has been
chosen for quotation. The translation is by James Atkinson, and
was published in two volumes (London, 1825). After describing “the
rape of the bucket” by the Modenese, the poem goes on to narrate
how the Bolognese tried to recover it, and challenged the Modenese
to a war of extermination. The latter, though seeing their danger,
made no efforts to put their city in a state of defence by
repairing the ruined fortifications; but contented themselves with
appealing to the Emperor for help, and making alliances with Parma
and Cremona. Fame having carried the report of what had occurred
to Olympus, the Homeric gods assembled in council (as already
mentioned), with the result that Minerva and Apollo declared for
Bologna, as being a city given to arts and learning. Bacchus and
Venus took the part of the merry and pleasure-loving town of
Modena—Mars taking the same side for the love of Venus. These
incite the various terrestrial potentates to take sides in the
feud—in which, at length, the Pope himself interferes. In
conclusion, the bucket is left in possession of the Modenese,
while the citizens of Bologna keep Enzio, King of Sardinia—son of
the German Emperor—who, in fact, ended his days in captivity
there. The poem was defined by Tassoni himself as “a monstrous
caprice,” intended to make game of modern poets; and it is
impossible to give a concise summary of it, more especially as he
wove into it all the burlesque adventures which occurred to him,
whether real or fictitious. Tassoni was, according to an Italian
writer, “of a lively and grotesque fancy, of a cheerful
disposition, and fond of jesting, insomuch that he could not
refrain from jokes even in his will.” Moreover, he was “averse
from the prejudices of literary men, and a lover of novelty”—for
which reason he advanced the monstrous proposition that Petrarch’s
_Rime_ were not the sole standard of poetry for all ages and all
countries. (_Page 39._)
ACHILLE TORELLI, dramatic author, born at Naples, 1844, is said to
be of Albanian descent. His first success was the comedy, _After
Death_, written at the age of seventeen, and acted at Naples and
then at Turin. This was succeeded by several comedies, most of
which were successful. _La Verità_, from which the scene given in
this volume is extracted, was acted at Naples, Milan, and Turin in
1865. Torelli volunteered for the Italian army in the campaign of
1866, and was laid up for several months in consequence of a fall
from his horse at Custozza. Since then he has produced a long list
of plays, both tragedies and comedies, of which perhaps the best
is _Triste Realtà_ (1871), which won the applause of the veteran
Manzoni. Angelo de Gubernatis (in the _Dizionario Biografico degli
Scrittori Contemporanei_, whence the main facts of this notice are
gathered) considers _I Mariti_ Torelli’s masterpiece. The play is
a good one, but has about as much right to be called a comedy as
George Eliot’s _Janet’s Repentance_. He leads a very retired life,
seeing only a few friends, and spends most of his time in study
and writing. (_Page 262._)
GIORGIO VASARI, born at Arezzo, 1512. Studied drawing under
Michelangelo, Andrea del Sarto, and others. Between 1527 and 1529,
driven by necessity, and having several relations in need of help,
he worked as a goldsmith at Florence, but afterwards returned to
painting. Like Ruskin in our own day, however, he was rather a
writer on art than an artist. He was the author of several works
on painting and architecture, of an autobiography, and, above all,
of the celebrated _Lives of Famous Painters_. The anecdotes quoted
in this volume were traditionally current in Vasari’s time, and
had already been recorded by Franco Sacchetti. The translation
quoted is from _Stories of the Italian Artists_, by the author of
_Belt and Spur_ (Seeley & Co., 1884). (_Page 21._)
GIOVANNI VERGA, born at Catania, Sicily, in 1840. He wrote _Storia
d’una Capinera_, _Eva_, _Nedda_, _Eros_, _Tigre Reale_,
_Primavera_. He has also written two masterly collections of
stories and sketches from Sicilian life, entitled, _Vita dei
Campi_, and _Novelle Rusticane_, and a continued story, _I
Malavoglia_, which has recently been translated under the title,
_The House of the Medlar_. A Neapolitan journal describes him as
“thin and pale ... with iron-grey hair and moustache. His lips are
thin, chin somewhat too long, the mouth retreating, the nose
straight, the forehead spacious. He is not handsome, but has a
noble face, a little like that of Dante. His appearance is that of
a man of cold temperament. Some of his speeches—some pages in his
books—are those of a sceptic. As to the coldness, I do not know
whether it would be correct to apply the old image of Etna—the
fire under the snow, But as to the scepticism, I would take my
oath that—contrary to generally received opinion—it is only
apparent. Verga is not an effusive man—certainly not. But he
feels, and he respects—rather, he venerates feeling even under its
most formal manifestations. I met him at a time when he had
recently lost, first, a sister, and then his mother. His grief was
severe and restrained, but deeply felt and lasting. He is not by
any means a sentimental man. Sentimentalism in others always
contracts his lips in that fleeting, ironical smile which has
given him the name of a sceptic.... He is a slow worker. He
observes at his leisure, reflects for a long time, and then
retires into the quiet of his own home to work; but he works not
with the fire of inspiration, but with the sure hand of an artist
who has his picture clearly traced in his mind.” Verga’s most
successfully-drawn characters are taken from the peasantry. Jeli,
the horseherd; Rosso Malpelo, the red-haired waif who had never
had any one to care for him save the father who was buried in the
sand-pits; poor Lucia in _Pane Nero_, slowly driven to throw
herself away by sheer dread of starvation; La Santa, bewitched by
the love of Gramigna the brigand,—these, and many more, are
living, breathing figures. But Verga, according to the critic
above quoted, “is ambitious of attaining a perfect knowledge of
‘high life,’ and describing it truthfully. But in this he is not
always successful. If he draws from life, he certainly does not
choose the best models.” Certainly “Il Come, il Quando, e il
Perchè,” is not a happy effort, and “Jeli il Pastore” is worth a
dozen of it. (_Page 137._)
THE WALTER SCOTT PRESS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
-----
Footnote 1:
A tolerable specimen of the humour of the “Morgante” is to be found in
Mr. J. A. Symonds’ “Renaissance in Italy” (vol. iv., _Italian
Literature_, p. 543). The passage translated contains the giant
Morgante’s confession of faith. He is a true believer (as he details
at great length) in the creed of “fat capons boiled or maybe roasted.”
Footnote 2:
_Roba di Roma_, i. pp. 202, 203, 269–279.
Footnote 3:
From _Roba di Roma_, ii. 221. (See also the Note to the story of “The
Hermit and the Thieves” on p. 251 of the same.) “These are certainly
views of heaven, angels, and good hermits, which are rather
extraordinary; but Rosa” (the _contadina_ who related the story), “on
being asked if the story she told was founded on fact, replied, ‘_Chi
lo sa?_—who knows? I did not see it, but everybody says so. _Perchè
no?_’”
Footnote 4:
In the original, these lines are a barbarous mixture of Spanish and
Italian.
Footnote 5:
Jupiter.
Footnote 6:
See note at end of volume.
Footnote 7:
An Italian expression for the Golden Age.
Footnote 8:
_Didimo Chièrico_ is a fictitious character, upon whom Foscolo has
fathered most of his opinions and experiences, in a curious piece of
writing purporting to be a sketch of Didimo and an account of his
works. It contains numerous references to Sterne, by whom Foscolo was
greatly influenced.
Footnote 9:
“_Il cavallo di San Francesco_” is a proverbial expression for going
on foot—like “Shanks’ mare” in Ireland.
Footnote 10:
A favourite comic character at Florence. See Notes at end.
Footnote 11:
Athens.
Footnote 12:
_I.e._, the pigs, which, for some reason or other, Italians do not
think fit to mention in polite society.
Footnote 13:
This is what usually happens when there is an outbreak of cholera in
Southern Italy.
Footnote 14:
_I.e._, that he had really died of malarial fever.
Footnote 15:
See Note 4 at end.
Footnote 16:
The confusion is between Flavio Gioja, inventor of the mariner’s
compass (_c._ 1300), and Melchiorre Gioja (1767–1829), author of a
well-known manual of good breeding.
Footnote 17:
Since 1870, of course, Italian priests have, as a rule, been hostile
to the Government.
Footnote 18:
See Note 5 at end.
Footnote 19:
See Introduction.
Footnote 20:
Dumplings, sometimes made of meat.
Footnote 21:
A kind of bun, filled with pine kernels inside.
Footnote 22:
Chestnuts boiled in the shell.
Footnote 23:
A sour kind of pear or plum.
Footnote 24:
A kind of flat cake, very popular in rural Tuscany.
Footnote 25:
See Note 6 at end.
Footnote 26:
“Peaches and apples!” See remarks on oaths, adjurations, etc., in
Introduction.
Footnote 27:
See Note 7 at end.
Footnote 28:
A rustic proverb.
Footnote 29:
Vol. i., pp. 254 _et seq._
Footnote 30:
When the French army advanced against Rome, they found the road from
Civita Vecchia strewn with large placards, on which this clause of
their constitution was printed; so that they were literally obliged to
trample its provisions under foot, in making as unjustifiable an
attack upon the liberties of a people as was ever recorded in history.
Footnote 31:
Used in the same sense as by our sixteenth and seventeenth century
writers. The old medical terminology still survives to a great extent
in Italy; as does, or did till recently, the ancient practice of
medicine which consisted chiefly in blood-letting.
Footnote 32:
The meaning is, “The Cardinal is going away with the Cask (_Barile_),
but he will come back with the flask,”—the word _fiasco_ having this
sense as well as that in which it is sometimes employed by us, of
“failure,” or “disaster.” Needless to add, the above was written
before the establishment of the Regno in 1870.
Footnote 33:
_I.e._, the obelisk in the Piazza di S. Pietro.
Footnote 34:
The skin of the fig is supposed to be injurious, that of the peach
wholesome.
Footnote 35:
The original is a ludicrous mixture of Latin and Italian.
Footnote 36:
The prison and court of justice.
Footnote 37:
A town in the south of Sicily.
Footnote 38:
This (pronounced in English spelling _chew_) is the local rendering of
the owl’s _tu-whoo_, and also the Sicilian and Calabrian dialectical
form of _più_, which means _more_. The same joke is current, in a
different form, in another part of Sicily, where an old church was
haunted by owls, and a countryman, taking their lamentable cries for
those of souls in purgatory, asked how many masses were required to
set them free, and got the answer “_More_” to every number he
suggested.
Footnote 39:
The famous brigand chief.
Footnote 40:
Pp. 232, 233.
Footnote 41:
Macmillan & Co., 1882.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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