Chapter V: Popular Religious Poetry (1)

The Thirteenth Century--Outburst of Flagellant Fanaticism--The
_Battuti_, _Bianchi_, _Disciplinati_--Acquire the name of
_Laudesi_--Jacopone da Todi--His Life--His Hymns--The
_Corrotto_--Franciscan Poetry--Tresatti's Collection--Grades
of Spiritual Ecstasy--Lauds of the
Confraternities--Benivieni--Feo Belcari and the Florentine
Hymn-writers--Relation to Secular Dance-songs--Origins of the
Theater--Italy had hardly any true Miracle Plays--Umbrian
_Divozioni_--The Laud becomes Dramatic--Passion
Plays--Medieval Properties--The Stage in Church or in the
Oratory--The _Sacra Rappresentazione_--A Florentine
Species--Fraternities for Boys--Names of the _Festa_--Theory
of its Origin--Shows in Medieval Italy--Pageants of S. John's
Day at Florence--Their Machinery--Florentine
_Ingegnieri_--Forty-three Plays in D'Ancona's
Collection--Their Authors--The Prodigal Son--Elements of
Farce--Interludes and Music--Three Classes of _Sacre
Rappresentazioni_--Biblical Subjects--Legends of
Saints--Popular _Novelle_--Conversion of the
Magdalen--Analysis of Plays.

The history of popular religious poetry takes us back to the first age of Italian literature and to the discords of the thirteenth century. All Italy had been torn asunder by the internecine struggle of Frederick II. with Innocent III. and Gregory IX. The people saw the two chiefs of Christendom at open warfare, exchanging anathemas, and doing each what in him lay to render peace and amity impossible. Milan resounded to the shrieks of _paterini_, burned upon the public square by order of an intolerant pontiff. Padua echoed with the groans of Ezzelino's victims, doomed to death by hundreds and by thousands in his dungeons, or cast forth maimed and mutilated to perish in the fields. The southern provinces swarmed with Saracens, whom an infidel Emperor had summoned to his aid against a fanatical Pope. It seemed as though the age, which had witnessed the assertion of Italian independence and the growth of the free cities, was about to end in a chaos of bloodshed, fire and frantic cruelty. The climax of misery and fury was reached in the Crusade launched by Alexander IV. against the tyrants of the Trevisan Marches. When Ezzelino died like a dog in 1259, the maddened populace believed that his demon had now been loosed from chains of flesh, and sent forth to the elements to work its will in freedom. The prince of darkness was abroad and menacing. Though the monster had perished, the myth of evil that survived him had power to fascinate, and was intolerable.

The conscience of the people, crazed by the sight of such iniquity and suffering, bereft of spiritual guidance, abandoned to bad government, made itself suddenly felt in an indescribable movement of religious terror. "In the year 1260," wrote the Chronicler of Padua,[358] "when Italy was defiled by many horrible crimes, a sudden and new perturbation seized at first upon the folk of Perugia, next upon the Romans, and lastly on the population of all Italy, who, stung by the fear of God, went forth processionally, gentle and base-born, old and young, together, through the city streets and squares, naked save for a waist-band round their loins, holding a whip of leather in their hands, with tears and groans, scourging their shoulders till the blood flowed down. Not by day alone, but through the night in the intense cold of winter, with lighted torches they roamed by hundreds, by thousands, by tens of thousands, through the churches, and flung themselves down before the altars, led by priests with crosses and banners. The same happened in all villages and hamlets, so that the fields and mountains resounded with the cries of sinners calling upon God. All instruments of music and songs of love were hushed; only the dismal wail of penitents was heard in town and country."

It will be noticed that this fanaticism of the Flagellants began among the Umbrian highlands, the home of S. Francis and the center of pietistic art, where the passions of the people have ever been more quickly stirred by pathos than elsewhere in Italy. The _Battuti_, as they were called, formed no mere sect. Populations of whole cities, goaded by an irresistible impulse, which had something of the Dionysiac madness in it, went forth as though a migration of the race had been initiated. Blind instinct, the intoxication of religious frenzy, urged them restlessly and aimlessly from place to place. They had no Holy Land, no martyr's shrine, in view. Only the ineffable horror of a coming judgment, only the stings of spiritual apprehension, the fierce craving after sympathy in common acts of delirium, the allurements of an exaltation shared by thousands, drove them on, lugubrious herds, like Maenads of the wrath of God. This insurgence of all classes, swelling upward from the lowest, gaining the middle regions, and confounding the highest in the flood of one promiscuous multitude, threatened the very fabric of society.[359] Repentance and compunction, exhibited upon a scale of such colossal magnitude, attended by incidents of such impassioned frenzy, assumed the aspect of vice and of insanity. Florence shut her gates to the half-naked _Battuti_. At Milan the tyrants of the Della Torre blood raised 600 gibbets as a warning. Manfred drew a military cordon round his southern States to save them from contagion. The revival was diagnosed by cold observers as an epidemic, or as a craving akin to that which sets in motion droves of bisons on a trackless plain. It needed drastic measures of Draconian justice to curb a disease which threatened the whole nation. Gradually, the first fury of this fanatical enthusiasm subsided. It was but the symptom of moral and intellectual bewilderment, of what the French would call _ahurissement_, in a race of naturally firm and patient fiber. Yet, when it passed, durable traces of the agitation remained. Lay fraternities were formed, not only in Umbria and Tuscany, but in almost all provinces of the peninsula, who called themselves _Disciplinati di Gesu Cristo_. These societies aimed at continuing the ascetic practices of the Flagellants, and at prolonging their passion of penitence in a more sober spirit. Scourging formed an essential part of their observances, but it was used with decency and moderation. Their constitution was strictly democratic, within limits sanctioned by the clergy. They existed for the people, supplementing and not superseding the offices of the Church. From the date of their foundation they seem to have paid much attention to the recitation of hymns in the vernacular. These hymns were called _Laude_. Written for and by the people, they were distinguished from the Latin hymns of the Church by greater spontaneity and rudeness. No limit of taste or literary art was set to the expression of a fervent piety. The Lauds dwelt chiefly on the Passion of our Lord, and were used as a stimulus to compunction. In course of time this part of their system became so prominent that the _Battuti_ or _Disciplinati_ acquired the milder title of _Laudesi_.[360]

From the _Laudesi_ of the fourteenth century rose one great lyric poet, Jacopone da Todi, whose hymns embrace the whole gamut of religious passion, from tender emotions of love to somber anticipations of death and thrilling visions of judgment. Reading him, we listen to the true lyrical cry of the people's heart in its intolerance of self-restraint, blending the language of erotic ecstasy with sobs and sighs of soul-consuming devotion, aspiring to heaven on wings sped by the energy of human desire. The flight of his inebriated piety transcends and out-soars the strongest pinion of ecclesiastical hymnology. Such lines as--

Fac me plagis vulnerari,
Cruce hac inebriari
Ob amorem filii--

do but supply the theme for Jacopone's descant. Violently discordant notes clash and mingle in his chords, and are resolved in bursts of ardor bordering on delirium. He leaps from the grotesque of plebeian imagery to pictures of sublime pathos, from incoherent gaspings to sentences pregnant with shrewd knowledge of the heart, by sudden and spontaneous transitions, which reveal the religious sentiment in its simplest form, unspoiled by dogma, unstiffened by scholasticism. None, for example, but a true child of the people could have found the following expression of a desire to suffer with Christ[361]:

O Signor per cortesia
Mandame la malsania
A me la freve quartana
la contina e la terzana,
la doppia cottidiana
Colla grande ydropesia.
A me venga mal de dente
Mal de capo e mal de ventre,
a lo stomaco dolor pungente
en canna l'asquinantia.
Mal de occhi e doglia de fianco
e la postema al lato manco
tyseco me ionga enalco
e omne tempo la frenesia.
Agia el fegato rescaldato
la milza grossa el ventre enfiato,
lo polmone sia piagato
Con gran tossa e parlasia.

In order to understand Jacopone da Todi and to form any true conception of the medium from which his poems sprang, it is necessary to study the legend of his life, which, though a legend, bears upon its face the stamp of truth. It is an offshoot from the Saga of S. Francis, a vivid utterance of the times which gave it birth.[362] Jacopone was born at Todi, one of those isolated ancient cities which rear themselves upon their hill-tops between the valleys of the Nera and the Tiber, on the old post-road from Narni to Perugia. He belonged to the family of the Benedetti, who were reckoned among the noblest of the district. In his youth he followed secular studies, took the degree of Doctor of Laws, and practiced with a keen eye for gain and with not less, his biographer hints, than the customary legal indifference for justice. He married a beautiful young wife, whom he dressed splendidly and sent among his equals to all places of medieval amusement. She was, however, inwardly religious. The spirit of S. Francis had passed over her; and unknown to all the crowd around her, unknown to her husband, she practiced the extremities of ascetic piety. One day she went, at her husband's bidding, to a merry-making of the nobles of Todi; and it so happened that "while she was dancing and taking pleasure with the rest, an accident occurred, fit to move the greatest pity. For the platform whereupon the party were assembled, fell in and was broken to pieces, causing grievous injury to those who stood upon it. She was so hurt in the fall that she lost the power of speech, and in a few hours after died. Jacopo, who by God's mercy was not there, no sooner heard the sad news of his wife than he ran to the place. He found her on the point of death, and sought, as is usual in those cases, to unlace her; but she, though she could not speak, offered resistance to her husband's unlacing her. However, he used force and overcame her, and unlaced and carried her to his house. There, when she had died, he unclothed her with his own hands, and found that underneath those costly robes and next to her naked flesh she wore a hair-shirt of the roughest texture. Jacopone, who up to now had believed his wife, since she was young and beautiful, to be like other women, worldly and luxurious, stood as it were astonished and struck dumb when he beheld a thing so contrary to his opinion. Wherefore from that time forward he went among men like to one who is stunned, and appeared no longer to be a reasonable man as theretofore. The cause of this his change to outward view was not a sudden infirmity of health, or extraordinary sorrow for the cruel death of his wife, or any such-like occurrence, but an overwhelming compunction of the heart begotten in him by this ensample, and a new recognition of what he was and of his own wretchedness. Wherefore turning back to his own heart, and reckoning with bitterness the many years that had been spent so badly, and seeing the peril in which he had continued up to that time, he set himself to change the manner of his life, and even as he had lived heretofore wholly for the world, so now he resolved to live wholly for Christ."

Jacopone's biographer goes on to tell us how, after this shock, he became an altered man. He sold all his goods and gave away his substance to the poor, retaining nothing for himself, but seeking by every device within his power to render himself vile and ridiculous in the eyes of men. At one time he stripped himself naked, and put upon his back the trappings of an ass, and so appeared among the gentles of his earlier acquaintance. On another occasion he entered a company of merry-making folk in his brother's house without clothes, smeared with turpentine and rolled in feathers like a bird.[363] By these mad pranks he acquired the reputation of one half-witted, and the people called him Jacopone instead of Messer Jacopo de' Benedetti. Yet there was a keen spirit living in the man, who had determined literally to become a fool for Christ's sake. A citizen once bought a fowl and bade Jacopone carry it to his house. Jacopone took the bird and placed it in the man's family vault, where it was found. To all remonstrances he answered with a solemnity which inspired terror, that _there_ was the citizen's real home. At the end of ten years spent in self-abasement of this sort, Jacopone entered the lowest rank of the Franciscan brotherhood. The composition of a Laud so full of spiritual fire that its inspiration seemed indubitable, won for the apparent madman this grace. There was something noble in his bearing, even though his actions and his utterance proved his brain distempered. No fear of hell nor hope of heaven, says his biographer, but God's infinite goodness and beauty impelled him to embrace the monastic life and to subject himself to the severest discipline. Meditating on the Divine perfection, he came to regard himself as "entirely hideous, vile and stinking, beyond the most abominable carrion." It was part of his religious exaltation to prove this to himself by ghastly penances, instead of seeking to render his body a fit temple for God's spirit by healthy and clean living. He had a carnal partiality for liver; and in order to mortify this vile affection he procured the liver of a beast and hung it in his cell. It became putrid, swarmed with vermin, and infected the convent with its stench. The friars discovered Jacopone rejoicing in the sight and odor of this corruption. With sound good sense they then condemned him to imprisonment in the common privies; but he rejoiced in this punishment, and composed one of his most impassioned odes in that foul place. Still, though he was clearly mad, he had the soul of a Christian and a poet. His ecstasies were not always repugnant to our sense of delicacy. Contemplating the wounds of Christ, it entered into his heart to desire all suffering which it could be possible for man to undergo--the pangs of all the souls condemned to purgatory, the torments of all the damned in hell, the infinite anguish of all the devils--if only by this bearing of the pains of others he might be made like Christ, and go at length, the last of all the world, to Paradise. Not only the passion but the love of Jesus inflamed him with indescribable raptures. He spent whole days in singing, weeping, groaning, and ejaculation. "He ran," says the biographer, "in a fury of love, and under the impression that he was embracing and clasping Jesus Christ, would fling his arms about a tree." It is not possible to imagine more potent workings of religious insanity in a distempered and at the same time nobly-gifted character. That obscene antipathy to nature which characterized medieval asceticism, becomes poetic in a lunatic of genius like Jacopone. Nor was his natural acumen blunted. He discerned how far the Papacy diverged from Christianity in practice, and assailed Boniface VIII. with bitterest invectives. Among other prophetic sayings ascribed to him, we find this, which corresponds most nearly to the truth of history: "Pope Boniface, like a fox thou didst enter on the Papacy, like a wolf thou reignest, and like a dog shalt thou depart from it." For his free speech Boniface had him sent to prison; and in his dungeon, rejoicing, Jacopone composed the finest of his Canticles.

Such was the man who struck the key-note of religious popular poetry in Italy, and whose Lauds may be regarded as the germ of a voluminous literature. Passing from his life to his writings, it will suffice to give a few specimens of those hymns which are most characteristic of his temper. We have already seen how he brought together the most repulsive details of disease, in order to express his desire to suffer with Christ.[364] Here is the beginning of a canticle in praise of the madness he embraced with a similar object[365]:

Senno me pare e cortesia
empazir per lo bel messia.
Ello me fa si gran sapere
a chi per dio vol empazire
en parige non se vidde
ancor si gran phylosofia.

These words found an echo after many years in Benivieni's even more hysterical hymn upon divine madness, which was substituted in Savonarola's Carnivals for the _Trionfi_ of Lorenzo de' Medici.

A trace of the Franciscan worship of poverty gives some interest to a hymn on the advantages of pauperism. The theme, however, is supported with solid arguments after the fashion of Juvenal's _vacuus viator_[366]:

Povertate muore en pace,
nullo testamento face,
lassa el mondo como jace
e la gente concordate.
Non a judice ne notaro
a corte non porta salaro,
ridese del omo avaro
che sta en tanta anxietate.

Truer to the inebriation of Jacopone's piety are the following stanzas, incoherent from excess of passion, which seem to be the ebullition of one of his most frenzied moments[367]:

Amore amore che si mai ferito
altro che amore non posso gridare,
amore amore teco so unito
altro non posso che te abbracciare,
amore amore forte mai rapito
lo cor sempre si spande per amore
per te voglio pasmare: Amor ch'io teco sia
amor per cortesia: Fammi morir d'amore.

Amor amor Jesu so gionto aporto
amor amor Jesu tu m'ai menato,
amor amor Jesu damme conforto
amor amor Jesu si m'ai enflammato,
amor amor Jesu pensa lo porto
fammete star amor sempre abracciato,
con teco trasformato: En vera caritate
en somma veritate: De trasformato amore.

Amor amore grida tuttol mondo
amor amore omne cosa clama,
amore amore tanto se profondo
chi piu t'abraccia sempre piu t'abrama,
amor amor tu se' cerchio rotondo
con tuttol cor chi c'entra sempre t'ama,
che tu se' stame e trama: chi t'ama per vestire
cusi dolce sentire: Che sempre grida amore.

Amor amor Jesu desideroso
amor voglio morire a te abracciando,
amor amor Jesu dolce mio sposo
amor amor la morte l'ademando,
amor amor Jesu si delectoso
tu me t'arendi en te transformando,
pensa ch'io vo pasmando: Amor non so o me sia
Jesu speranza mia: Abyssame en amore.

A still more mysterious depth is sounded in another hymn in praise of self-annihilation--the Nirvana of asceticism[368]:

Non posso esser renato
s'io en me non so morto,
anichilato en tucto
el esser conservare,
del nihil glorioso
nelom ne gusta fructo,
se Dio non fal conducto
che om non cia que fare,
o glorioso stare
en nihil quietato,
lontellecto posato
e laffecto dormire.

Ciocho veduto e pensato
tutto e feccia e bruttura
pensando de laltura
del virtuoso stato,
nel pelago chio veggio
non ce so notatura
faro somergitura
del om che anegato
sommece inarenato
nonor de smesuranza
vincto de labundanza
del dolce mio sire.

One of Jacopone's authentic poems so far detaches itself in character and composition from the rest, and is so important, as will shortly be seen, for the history of Italian dramatic art, that it demands separate consideration.[369] It assumes the form of dialogue between Mary and Christ upon the cross, followed by the lamentation of the Virgin over her dead Son. A messenger informs the Mother that Christ has been taken prisoner:

Donna del Paradiso,
Lo tuo figliolo e priso,
Jesu Cristo beato.
Accurre, donna, e vide
Che la gente l'allide;
Credo che llo s'occide,
Tanto l'on flagellato.

Attended by the Magdalen, whom she summons to her aid, Mary hurries to the judgment-seat of Pilate, and begs for mercy:

O Pilato, non fare
'L figlio mio tormentare,
Ch'io te posso mostrare
Como a torto e accusato.

But here the voices of the Chorus, representing the Jewish multitude, are heard:

Crucifige, crucifige!
Omo che se fa rege,
Secondo nostra lege,
Contradice al Senato.

Christ is removed to the place of suffering, and Mary cries:

O figlio, figlio, figlio,
Figlio, amoroso figlio,
Figlio, chi da consiglio
Al cor mio angustiato!
Figlio, occhi giocondi,
Figlio, co' non rispondi?
Figlio, perche t'ascondi
Dal petto o' se' lattato?

They show her the cross:

Madonna, ecco la cruce
Che la gente l'adduce,
Ove la vera luce
De' essere levato.

They tell her how Jesus is being nailed to it, sparing none of the agonizing details. Then she exclaims:

E io comencio el corrotto;
Figliolo, mio deporto,
Figlio, chi mi t'a morto,
Figlio mio delicato!
Meglio averien fatto
Che 'l cor m'avesser tratto,
Che nella croce tratto
Starci desciliato.

Jesus now breaks silence, and comforts her, pointing out that she must live for His disciples, and naming John. He dies, and she continues the _Corrotto_[370]:

Figlio, l'alma t'e uscita,
Figlio de la smarrita,
Figlio de la sparita,
Figlio [mio] attossicato!
Figlio bianco e vermiglio,
Figlio senza simiglio,
Figlio, a chi m'apiglio,
Figlio, pur m'hai lassato!
Figlio bianco e biondo,
Figlio, volto jocondo,
Figlio, perche t'a el mondo,
Figlio, cusi sprezato!
Figlio dolce e piacente,
Figlio de la dolente,
Figlio, a te la gente
Malamente trattato!
Joanne, figlio novello,
Morto e lo tuo fratello;
Sentito aggio 'l coltello
Che fo profetizzato,
Che morto a figlio e mate,
De dura morte afferrate;
Trovarsi abbracciate
Mate e figlio a un cruciato.

Upon this note of anguish the poem closes. It is conducted throughout in dialogue, and is penetrated with dramatic energy. For Passion Music of a noble and yet flowing type, such as Pergolese might have composed, it is still admirably adapted.

Each strophe of Fra Jacopone's Canticles might be likened to a seed cast into the then fertile soil of the Franciscan Order, which bore fruit a thousand-fold in its own kind of spiritual poetry. The vast collection of hymns, published by Tresatti in the seventeenth century, bears the name of Jacopone, and incorporates his genuine compositions.[371] But we must regard the main body of the work as rather belonging to Jacopone's school than to the master. Taken collectively, these poems bear upon their face the stamp of considerable age, and there is no reason to suppose that their editor doubted of their authenticity. A critical reader of the present time, however, discerns innumerable evidences of collaboration, and detects expansion and dilution of more pregnant themes in the copious outpourings of this cloistral inspiration. What the Giotteschi are to Giotto, Tresatti's collection is to Salviano's imprint of Jacopone. It forms a complete manual of devotion, framed according to the spirit of S. Francis. In its pages we read the progress of the soul from a state of worldliness and vice, through moral virtue, into the outer court of religious conviction. Thence we pass to penitence and the profound terror of sin. Having traversed the region of purgatory upon earth, we are introduced to the theory of Divine Love, which is reasoned out and developed upon themes borrowed from each previous step gained by the spirit in its heavenward journey. Here ends the soul's novitiate; and we enter on a realm of ecstasy. The poet bathes in an illimitable ocean of intoxicating love, summons the images of sense and makes them adumbrate his rapture of devotion, reproducing in a myriad modes the Oriental metaphors of the soul's marriage to Christ suggested by the Canticle of Canticles. A final grade in this ascent to spiritual perfection is attained in the closing odes, which celebrate annihilation--the fusion of the mortal in immortal personality, the bliss of beatific vision, Nirvana realized on earth in ecstasy by man. At this final point sense swoons, the tongue stammers, language refuses to perform her office, the reason finds no place, the universe is whirled in spires of flame, we float in waves of metaphor, we drown in floods of contemplation, the whole is closed with an _O Altitudo!_

It is not possible to render scantiest justice to this extraordinary monument of the Franciscan fervor by any extracts or descriptions. Its full force can only be felt by prolonged and, if possible, continuous perusal. S. Catherine and S. Teresa attend us while we read; and when the book is finished, we feel, perhaps for the first time, the might, the majesty, the overmastering attraction of that sea of faith which swept all Europe in the thirteenth century. We understand how _naufragar in questo mar fu dolce_.

Though the task is ungrateful, it behooves the historian of popular Italian poetry to extract some specimens from this immense repertory of anonymous lyrics. Omitting the satires, which are composed upon the familiar monastic rubrics of vanity, human misery, the loathsomeness of the flesh, and contempt of the world, I will select one stanza upon Chastity from among the moral songs[372]:

O Castita bel fiore,
Che ti sostiene amore.
O fior di Castitate,
Odorifero giglio,
Con gran soavitate,
Sei di color vermiglio,
Et a la Trinitate
Tu ripresenti odore.

Chastity in another place is thus described[373]:--

La Castitate pura,
Piu bella che viola,
Cotanto ha chiaro viso
Che par un paradiso.

Poverty, the Cardinal Virtues, and the Theological Virtues receive their full meed of praise in a succession of hymns. Then comes a long string of proverbs, which contain much sober wisdom, with passages of poetic feeling like the following[374]:

Li pesciarelli piccoli
Scampan la rete in mare;
Grand'ucel prende l'aquila,
Non puo 'l moscon pigliare;
Enchinasi la vergola,
L'acqua lassa passare;
Ma fa giu cader l'arbore,
Che non si puo inchinare.

Among the odes we may first choose this portion of a carol written to be sung before the manger, or _presepe_, which it was usual to set up in churches at Christmas[375]:

Veggiamo il suo Bambino
Gammettare nel fieno,
E le braccia scoperte
Porgere ad ella in seno,
Ed essa lo ricopre
El meglio che puo almeno,
Mettendoli la poppa
Entro la sua bocchina.
Cioppava lo Bambino
Con le sue labbruccia;
Sol la dolciata cioppa
Volea, non minestruccia;
Stringeala con la bocca
Che non avea dentuccia,
Il figliuolino bello,
Ne la dolce bocchina.
A la sua man manca,
Cullava lo Bambino,
E con sante carole
Nenciava il suo amor fino....
Gli Angioletti d'intorno
Se ne gian danzando,
Facendo dolci versi
E d'amor favellando.

There is a fresco by Giotto behind the altar in the Arena Chapel at Padua, which illustrates part of this hymn. A picture attributed to Botticelli in our National Gallery illustrates the rest. The spirit of the carol has been reproduced with less sincerity in a Jesuit's Latin hymn, _Dormi, fili, dormi, mater_.

Close upon the joys of Mary follow her sorrows. The following is a popular echo of the _Stabat Mater_[376]:

Or si incomincia lo duro pianto
Che fa la Madre di Christo tanto;
Or intendete l'amaro canto,
Fu crocifisso quel capo santo.
Ma quando che s'inchiodava,
Presso al figliuolo la Madre stava;
Quando a la croce gli occhi levava,
Per troppa doglia ci trangosciava.
La Madre viddelo incoronato,
Et ne la croce tutto piagato,
Per le pene e pel sangue versato
Sitibondo gridar Consummato.

Many of the odes are devoted to S. Francis. One passage recording the miracle of the Stigmata deserves to be extracted[377]:

La settima a Laverna,
Stando in orazione,
Ne la parte superna,
Con gran divozione,
Mirabil visione
Seraphin apparuto
Crucifisso e veduto,
Con sei ale mostrato:
Incorporotti stimmate
A lato piedi e mano;
Duro gia fora a credere
Se nol contiam di piano,
Staendo vivo et sano
Molti l'han mirate,
L'ha morte dichiarate,
Da molti fu palpato.
La sua carne bianchissima
Pareva puerile;
Avanti era brunissima
Per gli freddi nevili;
La fe amor si gentile,
Parea glorificata,
Da ogni gente ammirata
Del mirabil ornato.

The Penitential Hymns resound with trumpets of Judgment and groans of lost souls. There is one terrible lament of a man who repented _after death_; another of one arising from the grave, _damned_.[378] The Day of Judgment inspires stanzas heavy with lugubrious chords and a leaden fall[379]:

Tutta la terra tornera a niente,
Le pietre piangeranno duramente,
Conturbaronsi tutti i monumente,
Per la sententia di Dio onnipotente
Che tutti sentiranno.

* * * * *

Allora udrai dal ciel trombe sonare,
Et tutti morti vedrai suscitare,
Avanti al tribunal di Christo andare,
E 'l fuoco ardente per l'aria volare
Con gran velocitate.

* * * * *

Porgine aiuto, alto Signor verace,
E campane da quel foco penace,
E danne penitentia si verace
Che 'n ciel possiam venir a quella pace
Dove in eterno regni.

This is the _Dies Irae_ adapted for the people, and expanded in its motives.

The exposition and the expression of Divine Love occupy a larger space than any other section of the series. Mystical psychology, elaborated with scholastic subtlety of argument and fine analysis of all the grades of feeling, culminates in lyric raptures, only less chaotic than the stanzas already quoted from Jacopone. The poet breaks out into short ejaculations[380]:

O alta Nichilitate,
Dhe mi di dove tu stai!

He faints and swoons before the altar in the languors of emotion[381]:

Languisco per amore
Di Gesu mio Amatore.

We see before our eyes the trances of S. Catherine, so well portrayed with sensuous force by Sodoma. Then he resumes the Song of Solomon in stanzas to be counted by the hundred, celebrates the marriage of Christ and the soul, or seeks crude carnal metaphors to convey his meaning[382]:

Del tuo bacio, amore,
Degnami di baciare.
Dhe baciami, dolcezza
Di contrizione,
Et dolce soavezza
Di compunzione,
O santa allegrezza
Di devozione,
Per nulla stagione
Non m'abandonare.
Poi che 'l bacio sento,
Bevo a le mammelle
C'hanno odore d'unguento;
Pur le tue scintille
A bever non so lento
Con le mie maxille,
Piu che volte mille
Vo me inebriare.

Let this suffice. With the language of sweetness and monastic love we are soon surfeited. Were it not that the _crescendo_ of erotic exaltation ends at last in a jubilee of incomprehensible passion, blending the incoherence of delirium with fragments of theosophy which might have been imported from old Alexandrian sources or from dim regions of the East, a student of our century would shrink aghast from some of these hermaphroditic hymns, as though he had been witness of wild acts of nympholepsy in a girl he reckoned sane.

Through the two centuries which followed Jacopone's death (1306?) the Lauds of the Confraternities continued to form a special branch of popular poetry; and in the fifteenth century they were written in considerable quantities by men of polite education. Like all hymns, these spiritual songs are less remarkable for literary quality than devoutness. It is difficult to find one rising to the height of Jacopone's inspiration. Many of the later compositions even lack religious feeling, and seem to have been written as taskwork. Those, for example, by Lorenzo de' Medici bear the same relation to his _Canti Carnascialeschi_ as Pontano's odes to the Saints bear to his elegies and Baian lyrics. This was inevitable in an age saturated with the adverse ideals of the classical Revival, when Platonic theism threatened to supplant Christianity, and society was clogged with frigid cynicism. Yet even in the sixteenth century, those hymns which came directly from the people's heart, thrilling with the strong vibrations of Savonarola's preaching, are still remarkable for almost frantic piety. Among the many Florentine hymn-writers who felt that influence, Girolamo Benivieni holds the most distinguished place, both for the purity of his style and for the sincerity of his religious feeling. I will set side by side two versions from his book of Lauds, illustrating the extreme limits of devout emotion--the calmness of a meditative piety and the spasms of passionate enthusiasm. The first is a little hymn to Jesus, profoundly felt and expressed with exquisite simplicity[383]:

Jesus, whoso with Thee
Hangs not in pain and loss
Pierced on the cruel cross,
At peace shall never be.

Lord, unto me be kind:
Give me that peace of mind,
Which in this world so blind
And false dwells but with Thee.

Give me that strife and pain,
Apart from which 'twere vain
Thy love on earth to gain
Or seek a share in Thee.

If, Lord, with Thee alone
Heart's peace and love be known,
My heart shall be Thine own,
Ever to rest with Thee.

Here in my heart be lit
Thy fire, to feed on it,
Till burning bit by bit
It dies to live with Thee.

Jesus, whoso with Thee
Hangs not in pain or loss,
Pierced on the cruel cross,
At peace shall never be.

The second is an echo of Jacopone's eulogy of madness, prolonged and developed with amorous extravagance[384]:

Never was there so sweet a gladness,
Joy of so pure and strong a fashion,
As with zeal and love and passion
Thus to embrace Christ's holy madness.

They who are mad in Jesus, slight
All that the wise man seeks and prizes;
Wealth and place, pomp, pride, delight,
Pleasure and fame, their soul despises:
Sorrow and tears and sacrifices,
Poverty, pain, and low estate,
All that the wise men loathe and hate,
Are sought by the Christian in his madness.

They who are fools for Christ in heaven,
Should they be praised peradventure, mourn,
Seeing the praise that to them is given
Was taken from God; but hate and scorn
With joy and gladness of soul are borne:
The Christian listens and smiles for glee
When he hears the taunt of his foe, for he
Glories and triumphs in holy madness.

Many collections of Lauds were early committed to the press; and of these we have an excellent modern reprint in the _Laude spirituali di Feo Belcari e di altri_, which includes hymns by Castellano Castellani, Bernardo Giambullari, Francesco Albizzi, Lorenzo de' Medici, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, and the Pulci brothers.[385] Studying this miscellany, we perceive that between the _Laude_ and _Ballate_ of the people there is often little but a formal difference. Large numbers are parodies of amatory or obscene songs, beginning with nearly the same words and intended to be sung to the same tunes. Thus the famous ballad, _O vaghe montanine e pastorelle_ becomes _O vaghe di Gesu, o verginelle_.[386] The direction for singing _Crucifisso a capo chino_ is _Cantasi come--Una donna di fino amore_, which was a coarse street song in vogue among the common folk.[387] _Vergine, alta regina_, is modeled upon _Galantina, morosina_; _I' son quella pecorella_ upon _I' son quella villanella_; _Giu per la mala via l'anima mia ne va_ on _Giu per la villa lunga la bella se ne va_.[388] Others are imitations of carnival choruses noted for their grossness and lewd innuendoes.[389] It is clear that the _Laudesi_, long before the days of Rowland Hill, discerned the advantage of not letting the devil have all the good tunes. Other parallels between the Florentine Lauds and the revival hymns of the present century might be pointed out. Yet in proportion as the Italian religious sentiment is more sensuous and erotic than that of the Teutonic nations, so are the Lauds more unreservedly emotional than the most audacious utterances of American or English Evangelicalism. As an excellent Italian critic has recently observed, the amorous and religious poems of the people were only distinguished by the difference of their object. Expression, versification, melody, pitch of sentiment, remained unaltered. "Men sang the same _strambotti_ to the Virgin and the lady of their love, to the rose of Jericho and the red rose of the balcony."[390] No notion of impropriety seems to have been suggested by this confusion of divergent feelings. Otherwise, Savonarola would hardly have suffered his proselytes to roam the streets chanting stanzas which are little better than echoes from the brothel or travesties of Poliziano's chorus of the Maenads. The Italians have never been pious in the same sense as the Northern nations. Their popular religious poetry is the lyric of emotion, the lyric of the senses losing self-restraint in an outpouring of voluptuous ecstasy. With them "music is a love-lament or a prayer addressed to God;" and both constituents of music blend and mingle indistinguishably in their hymns. As they lack the sublime Chorales of the Reformation period in Germany, so they lack the grave and meditative psalms for which Bach made his melodies.

The origins of the Italian theater were closely connected with the services of the _Laudesi_. And here it has to be distinctly pointed out that the evolution of the Sacred Drama in Italy followed a different course from that with which we are familiar in France and England. Miracle-plays and Mysteries, properly so called, do not appear to have been common among the Italians in the early middle ages. There is, indeed, one exception to this general statement which warns us to be cautious, and which proves that the cyclical sacred play had been exhibited at least in one place at a very early date. At Cividale, in the district of Friuli, a _Ludus Christi_, embracing the principal events of Christian history from the Passion to the Second Advent, was twice acted, in 1298 and 1303. From the scanty notices concerning it, we are able to form an opinion that it lasted over three days, that it was recited by the clergy, almost certainly in Latin, and that the representation did not take place in church.[391] The Friulian _Ludi Christi_ were, in fact, a Mystery of the more primitive type, corresponding to Greban's _Mystere de la Passion_ and to our Coventry or Widkirk Miracles. But, so far as present knowledge goes, this sacred play was an isolated phenomenon, and proved unfruitful of results. We are only able to infer from it, what the close intercourse of the Italians with the French would otherwise make evident, that Mysteries were not entirely unknown in the Peninsula. Yet it seems clear, upon the other hand, that the two forms of the sacred drama specific to Italy, the Umbrian _Divozione_ and the Florentine _Sacra Rappresentazione_, were not a direct outgrowth from the Mystery. We have to trace their origin in the religious practices of the _Laudesi_, from which a species of dramatic performance was developed, and which placed the sacred drama in the hands of these lay confraternities.

At first the _Disciplinati di Gesu_ intoned their Lauds in the hall of the Company, standing before the crucifix or tabernacle of a saint, as they are represented in old wood-cuts.[392] From simple singing they passed to antiphonal chanting, and thence made a natural transition to dialogue, and lastly to dramatic action. To trace the steps of this progress is by no means easy; nor must we imagine that it was effected wholly within the meeting-places of the confraternities without external influence. Though the Italians may not have brought the Miracle-play to the perfection it attained among the Northern nations, they were, as we have seen, undoubtedly aware of its existence. Furthermore, they were familiar with ecclesiastical shows but little removed in character from that form of medieval art. Representations of the manger at Bethlehem made part of Christmas ceremonies in Umbria, as we learn from a passage in the works of S. Bonaventura referring to the year 1223.[393] Nor were occasions wanting when pageants enlivened the ritual of the Church. Among liturgical dramas, enacted by priests and choristers at service time, may be mentioned the descent of the Angel Gabriel at the feast of the Annunciation, the procession of the Magi at Epiphany, the descent of the dove at Pentecost, and the Easter representation of a sepulcher from which the body of Christ had been removed. Thus the _Laudesi_ found precedents in the Liturgy itself for introducing a dramatic element into their offices.

Having assumed a more or less dramatic form, the Laud acquired the name of _Divozione_ as early as the middle of the fourteenth century. It was written in various lyric meters, beginning with six-lined stanzas in _ottonari_, passing through hendecasyllabic _sesta rima_, and finally settling down into _ottava rima_, which became the common stanza for all forms of popular poetry in the fifteenth century.[394] The passion of our Lord formed the principal theme of the _Divozioni_; for the _Laudesi_ were bound by their original constitution to a special contemplation of His suffering upon the cross for sinners. The Perugian Chronicles refer to compositions of this type under the name of _Corrotto_, or song of mourning. In its highest form it was the passionate outpouring of Mary's anguish over her crucified Son--the counterpart in poetry to the _Pieta_ of painting, for which the Giottesque masters, the Umbrian school, Crivelli, and afterwards Mantegna, reserved the strongest exhibition of their powers as dramatists. We have already seen with what a noble and dramatic dialogue Jacopone da Todi initiated this species of composition.[395] At the same time, the _Divozioni_ and the Lauds from which they sprang, embraced a wide variety of subjects, following the passages of Scripture appointed to be read in church on festivals and Sundays. Thus the Laud for Advent dramatized the Apocalypse and introduced the episode of Antichrist. The story of the Prodigal furnished a theme for the vigil when that parable was used. It was customary to sing these compositions in the oratories after the discipline of the confraternity had been duly performed; and that they were sung, is a fact of importance which must never be forgotten. Every Company had its own collection of dramatic Lauds, forming a cycle of sacred melodramas, composed with no literary end and no theatrical effect in view, but with the simple purpose of expressing by dialogue the substance of a Scripture narrative.

An inventory of the Perugian Confraternity of S. Domenico, dated in the year 1339, includes wings and crowns for sixty-eight angels, masks for devils, a star for the Magi, a crimson robe for Christ, black veils for the Maries, two lay figures of thieves, a dove to symbolize the Holy Ghost, a coat of mail for Longinus, and other properties which prove that not Passion-plays alone but dramas suited to Epiphany, Pentecost and the Annunciation must have been enacted at that period. Yet we have no exact means of ascertaining when the _Laudesi_ left their oratories and began to recite _Divozioni_ with action in church or on the open square. The Compagnia del Gonfalone are said to have presented a play to the Roman people in the Coliseum in 1260; but though the brotherhood was founded in that year, it is more than doubtful whether their famous Passion dates from so early an epoch.[396] By the year 1375 it had become customary for _Laudesi_ to give representations in church, accompanied by a sermon from the pulpit. The audience assembled in the nave, and a scaffold was erected along the screen which divided the nave and transepts from the choir. Here the brethren played their pieces, while the preacher at appropriate intervals addressed the people, explaining what they were about to see upon the stage or commenting on what had been performed.[397] The actors were the Chorus, the preacher the Choregus. The stage was technically called _talamo_.[398] It had a large central compartment, corresponding to the "Logeion" of the Attic theater, with several smaller rooms termed _luoghi deputati_, and galleries above reserved for the celestial personages. The actors entered from a central and two side doors called _reggi_.

These Umbrian _Divozioni_ form a link between the Laud of the thirteenth and the _Sacra Rappresentazione_ of the fifteenth century. They still--in form at least, if not in sacred character--survive in the _Maggi_ of the Tuscan peasantry, which are yearly acted among the villages of the Lucchese and Pistojese highlands.[399] It is difficult to say how far we are justified in regarding them as wholly different in type from the Northern Miracle-plays. That they originated in the oratories of lay brotherhoods, and that they retained the character of Lauds to be sung after they had assumed dramatic shape, may be reckoned as established points. Moreover, they lack the cyclical extension and the copious admixture of grotesquely comic elements which mark the French and English Mysteries. Yet we have already seen that such Mysteries were not entirely unknown in Italy, and that the liturgical drama, performed by ecclesiastics, had been from early times a part of Church ceremonial on holy days. We are, therefore, justified in accepting the _Divozioni_ as the Italian species of a genus which was common to the medieval nations. The development of Gothic architecture in Central Italy might furnish an illustration. Its differentiation from the grander and more perfect type of French and English Gothic does not constitute a separate style.

To bridge the interval between the _Divozione_, used in Umbria, and the _Sacra Rappresentazione_, as it appeared at Florence, is rendered impossible by the present lack of documents. Still there seems sufficient reason to believe that the latter was evolved from the former within the precincts of the confraternities. In the _Sacra Rappresentazione_ the religious drama of Italy reached its highest point of development, and produced a form of art peculiar to Florence and the Tuscan cities. Though it betrays certain affinities to the Northern Miracle-play, which prove familiarity with the French _Mysteres_ on the part at least of some among the playwrights, it is clearly a distinct kind. As in the case of the Umbrian _Divozioni_, so here the absence of grotesque episodes is striking; nor do we find connected series of _Sacre Rappresentazioni_, embracing the Christian history in a cyclical dramatic work. This species flourished for about fifty years, from 1470 to 1520. These dates are given approximately; for though we know that the Sacred Drama of Florence did not long survive the second decade of the sixteenth century, we cannot ascertain the period of its origin. The _Sacre Rappresentazioni_ we possess in print, almost all written within the last thirty years of the fifteenth century, present so marked a similarity of style and structure that they must have been preceded by a series of experiments which fixed and conventionalized their form. Like the _Divozioni_, they were in the hands of confraternities, who caused them to be acted at their own expense. Since these Companies were wealthy, and included members of the best Florentine families, their plays were put upon the stage with pomp. The actors were boys belonging to the brotherhoods, directed by a Chorodidascalus called _Festajuolo_. S. Antonino, the good archbishop, promoted the custom of enrolling youths of all classes in religious Companies, seeking by such influences to encourage sound morality and sober living. The most fashionable brotherhoods were those of San Bastiano or Del Freccione, Del Vangelista or Dell'Aquila, Dell'Arcangelo Raffaello or Della Scala--the name of the saint or his ensign being indifferently used. Representations took place either in the oratory of the Company, or in the refectory of a convent. Meadows at Fiesole and public squares were also chosen for open-air performances.[400] The _libretti_ were composed in octave stanzas, with passages of _terza rima_, and were sung to a recitative air. Interludes of part-songs, with accompaniment of lute and viol, enlivened the simple _cantilena_; and there is no doubt, from contemporary notices, that this music was of the best. The time selected was usually after vespers. The audience were admitted free of cost, but probably by invitation only to the friends and relatives of the young actors. _Sacra Rappresentazione_ was the generic name of the show; but we meet with these subordinate titles, _Festa_, _Mistero_, _Storia_, _Vangelo_, _Figura_, _Esemplo_, _Passione_, _Martirio_, _Miracolo_, according to the special subject-matter of the play in question.

D'Ancona, in his book on the Origins of the Italian Drama, suggests that the _Sacre Rappresentazioni_ were developed by a blending of the Umbrian _Divozioni_ with the civic pageants of S. John's day at Florence. This theory is plausible enough to deserve investigation; especially as many points relating to the nature of the performances will be elucidated in the course of the inquiry. We must, however, be cautious not to take for granted that D'Ancona's conclusions have been proved. The researches of that eminent literary antiquarian, in combination with those made by Professor Monaci, are but just beginning to throw light on this hitherto neglected topic.

From the Chroniclers of the fifteenth century we have abundant testimony that in all parts of Italy sacred and profane shows formed a prominent feature of municipal festivals, and were exhibited by the burghers of the cities when they wished to welcome a distinguished foreigner, or to celebrate the election of their chief magistrates.[401] Thus Sigismund, King of the Romans, was greeted at Lucca in 1432 by a solemn triumph. Perugia gratified Eugenius IV. in 1444 with the story of the Minotaur, the tragedy of Iphigenia, the Nativity and the Ascension.[402] The popular respect for S. Bernardino found expression at Siena in a pageant, when the Papal Curia, in 1450, issued letters for his canonization.[403] Frederick III. was received in 1452 at Naples with the spectacle of the Passion. Leonora of Aragon, on her way through Rome in 1473 to Ferrara, witnessed a series of pantomimes, profane and sacred, splendidly provided by Pietro Riario, the Cardinal of San Sisto.[404] The triumphs of the Popes on entering office filled the streets of Rome with dramatic exhibitions, indifferently borrowed from Biblical and classic history. At Parma in 1414 the students celebrated the election of Andrea di Sicilia to a chair in their university by a procession of the Magi.[405] When the head of S. Andrew entered Rome in 1462, the citizens and prelates testified their joy with figurative pomps.[406] Viterbo in the same year enjoyed a variety of splendid exhibitions, Cardinal vying with Cardinal in magnificence, upon the festival of Corpus Domini.[407]

The pageants above-mentioned formed but prolusions to the yearly feast of S. John at Florence.[408] Florence had, as it were, the monopoly of such shows; and we know from many sources that Florentine artists were employed in distant cities for the preparation of spectacles which they had brought to perfection in their own town. An extract from Matteo Palmieri's Chronicle, referring to the year 1454, brings this Midsummer rejoicing vividly before the reader's mind.[409] It is an accurate description of the order followed at that period in the exhibition of pantomimic pageants by the guilds and merchants of the town. "On the 22d day of June the Cross of S. Maria del Fiore moved first, with all the clergy and children, and behind them seven singing men. Then the Companies of James the wool-shearer and Nofri the shoe-maker, with some thirty boys in white and angels. Thirdly, the Tower (_edifizio_) of S. Michael, whereupon stood God the Father in a cloud (_nuvola_); and on the Piazza, before the Signoria, they gave the show (_rappresentazione_) of the Battle of the Angels, when Lucifer was cast out of heaven. Fourthly, the Company of Ser Antonio and Piero di Mariano, with some thirty boys clothed in white and angels. Fifthly, the Tower of Adam, the which on the Piazza gave the show of how God created Adam and Eve, with the Temptation by the serpent and all thereto pertaining. Sixthly, a Moses upon horseback, attended by many mounted men of the chiefs in Israel and others. Seventhly, the Tower of Moses, which upon the Piazza gave the show of the Delivery of the Law. Eighthly, many Prophets and Sibyls, including Hermes Trismegistus and others who foretold the Incarnation of our Lord." With this list Palmieri proceeds at great length, reckoning in all twenty-two Towers. The procession, it seems, stopped upon its passage to exhibit tableaux; and these were so arranged that the whole Scripture history was set forth in dumb show, down to the Last Day. The representation of each tableau and the moving of the pageant through the streets and squares of Florence lasted sixteen hours. It will be observed that, here at least, a cyclical exposition of Christian doctrine, corresponding to the comprehensive Mysteries of the North, was attempted in pantomime. The Towers, we may remark in passing, were wooden cars, surmounted with appropriate machinery, on which the actors sat and grouped themselves according to their subject. They differed in no essentials from the Triumphal Chariots of carnival time, as described by Vasari in his Lives of Piero di Cosimo and Pontormo. From an anonymous Greek writer who visited Florence in the train of John Palaeologus, we gather some notion of the effect produced upon a stranger by these pageants.[410] He describes the concourse of the Florentines, and gives the measure of his own astonishment by saying: "They work prodigies in this feast, and miracles, or at least the representation of miracles."