Chapter XI: The Drama (2)

The Court which accomplished most for the resuscitation of Latin Comedy was that of the Estensi at Ferrara. Ercole I. had spent a delicate youth in humanistic studies, collecting manuscripts and encouraging his courtiers to make Italian translations of ancient authors. He took special interest in theatrical compositions, and spared no pains in putting Latin comedies with all the pomp of modern art upon the stage. Thus the Ferrarese diaries mention a representation of the _Menaechmi_ in 1486, which cost above 1000 ducats. In 1487 the courtyard of the castle was fitted up as a theater for the exhibition of Nicolo da Correggio's Pastoral of _Cefalo_.[160] Again, upon the occasion of Annibale de' Bentivogli's betrothal to a princess of the Este family, the _Amphitryon_ was performed; and in 1491, when Anna Sforza gave her hand to Alfonso d'Este, the same comedy was repeated. In 1493 Lodovico Sforza, on a visit to Ferrara, witnessed a representation of the _Menaechmi_, which so delighted him that he begged Ercole to send his company to Milan. The Duke went thither in person, attended by his son Alfonso and by gentle actors of his Court, among whom Lodovico Ariosto played a part. Later on, in 1499, we again hear of Latin comedies at Ferrara. Bembo in a letter of that year mentions the _Trinummus_, _Poenulus_ and _Eunuchus_.[161]

[Footnote 160: Nicolo was a descendant of the princely house of Correggio. He married Cassandra, daughter of Bartolommeo Colleoni. His _Cefalo_ was a mixed composition resembling the _Sacre Rappresentazioni_ in structure. In the Prologue he says:

Requiret autem nullus hic Comoediae
Leges ut observentur, aut Tragoediae;
Agenda nempe est historia, non fabula.

See D'Ancona, _op. cit._ vol. 2, pp. 143-146, 155.]

[Footnote 161: _Ep. Fam._ i. 18, quoted by Tiraboschi.]

It is probable that Latin comedies were recited at Ferrara, as at Rome, in the original. At the same time we know that both Plautus and Terence were being translated into Italian for the amusement of an audience as yet but partially acquainted with ancient languages. Tiraboschi mentions the _Anfitrione_ of Pandolfo Collenuccio, the _Cassina_ and _Mostellaria_ versified in _terza rima_ by Girolamo Berardo, and the _Menechmi_ of Duke Ercole, among the earliest of these versions. Guarini and Ariosto followed on their path with translations from the Latin made for special occasions. It was thus that Italian comedy began to disengage itself from Latin. After the presentation of the original plays, came translation; and after translation, imitation. The further transition from imitation to freedom was never perfectly effected. The comic drama, determined in its form by the circumstances of its origin remained emphatically a _commedia erudita_. Adapted to the conditions of modern life, it never lost dependence upon Latin models; and its most ingenious representations of manners were defaced by reminiscences which condemn them to a place among artistic hybrids. Ariosto, who did so much to stamp Italian comedy with the mark of his own genius, was educated, as we have already seen, in the traditions of Duke Ercole's Latin theater; and Ariosto gave the law to his most genial successor, Cecchi. The Pegasus of the Italian drama, if I may venture on a burlesque metaphor, was a mule begotten by the sturdy ass of Latin on the fleet mare of the Italian spirit; and it had the sterility of the mule.

The year 1502, when Lucrezia Borgia came as Alfonso d'Este's bride to Ferrara, marks the climax of these Latin spectacles.[162] Ercole had arranged a theater in the Palace of the Podesta (now called the Palazzo della Ragione), which was connected with the castle by a private gallery. His troupe, recruited from Ferrara, Rome, Siena, and Mantua, numbered one hundred and ten actors of both sexes. Accomplished singers, dancers, and scene-painters were summoned to add richness to the spectacle. We hear of musical interludes performed by six violins; while every comedy was diversified by morris-dances of Saracens, satyrs, gladiators, wild men, hunters, and allegorical personages.[163] The entertainment lasted over five nights, a comedy of Plautus forming the principal piece on each occasion. On the first evening the _Epidicus_ was given; on the second, the _Bacchides_; on the third, the _Miles Gloriosus_; on the fourth, the _Asinaria_; on the fifth, the _Casina_. From the reports of Cagnolo, Zambotto, and Isabella Gonzaga, we are led to believe that the unlettered audience judged the recitations of the Plautine comedies somewhat tedious. They were in the same position as unmusical people of the present day, condemned to listen to Bach's Passion Music, and afraid of expressing their dissatisfaction. Yet these more frivolous spectators found ample gratification in the ingenious ballets, accompanied with music, which relieved each act. The occasion was memorable. In those five evenings the Court of Ferrara presented to the fashionable world of Italy a carefully-studied picture of Latin comedy framed in a setting of luxuriant modern arabesques. The simplicity of Plautus, executed with the fidelity born of reverence for antique art, was thrown into relief by extravagances borrowed from medieval chivalry, tinctured with Oriental associations, enhanced by music and colored with the glowing hues of Ferrarese imagination. The city of Boiardo, of Dossi, of Bello, of Ariosto, strained her resources to devise fantastic foils for the antique. It was as though Cellini had been called to mount an onyx of Augustus in labyrinths of gold-work and enamel for the stomacher of a Grand-Duchess.

[Footnote 162: Gregorovius in his book on _Lucrezia Borgia_ (pp. 228-239) has condensed the authorities. See, too, Dennistoun, _Dukes of Urbino_, vol. i. pp. 441-448.]

[Footnote 163: The minute descriptions furnished by Sanudo of these festivals read like the prose letterpress accompanying the Masks of our Ben Jonson.]

We may without exaggeration affirm that the practice of the Ferrarese stage, culminating in the marriage shows of 1502, determined the future of Italian comedy. The fashion of the Court of Ercole was followed by all patrons of dramatic art. When a play was written, the author planned it in connection with subordinate exhibitions of dancing and music.[164] He wrote a poem in five acts upon the model of Plautus or Terence, understanding that his scenes of classical simplicity would be embedded in the grotesques of _cinque cento_ allegory. The whole performance lasted some six hours; but the comedy itself was but a portion of the entertainment. For the majority of the audience the dances and the pageants formed the chief attraction.[165] It is therefore no marvel if the drama, considered as a branch of high poetic art, was suffocated by the growth of its mere accessories. Nor was this inconsistent with the ruling tendencies of the Renaissance. We have no reason to suppose that even Ariosto or Machiavelli grudged the participation of painters like Peruzzi, musicians like Dalla Viuola, architects like San Gallo, and dancers of ephemeral distinction, in the triumph of their plays.

[Footnote 164: Il Lasca in his prologue to the _Strega_ (_ed. cit._ p. 171) says: "Questa non e fatta da principi, ne da signori, ne in palazzi ducali e signorili; e pero non avra quella pompa d'apparato, di prospettiva, e d'intermedj che ad alcune altre nei tempi nostri s'e veduto."]

[Footnote 165: A fine example of the Italian Mask is furnished by _El Sacrificio_, played with great pomp by the Intronati of Siena in 1531 and printed in 1537. _El Sacrificio de gli Intronati Celebrato ne i giuochi del Carnovale in Siena l'Anno MDXXXI._ Full particulars regarding the music, _mise en scene_, and ballets on such ceremonial occasions, will be found in two curious pamphlets, _Descrizione dell'Apparato fatto nel Tempio di S. Giov. di Fiorenza_, etc. (Giunti, 1568), and _Descrizione dell'Entrata della Serenissima Reina Giovanna d'Austria_, etc. (Giunti, 1566). They refer to a later period, but they abound in the most curious details.]

The habit of regarding scenic exhibitions as the adjunct to extravagant Court luxury, prevented the development of a theater in which the genius of poets might have shone with undimmed intellectual luster. The want of permanent buildings, devoted to acting, in any great Italian town, may again be reckoned among the causes which checked the expansion of the drama. When a play had to be acted, a stage was erected at a great expense for the occasion.[166] It is true that Alfonso I. built a theater after Ariosto's designs at Ferrara in 1528; but it was burnt down in 1532. According to Gregorovius, Leo X. fitted one up at Rome upon the Capitol in 1513,[167] capable of holding the two thousand spectators who witnessed a performance of the _Suppositi_. This does not, however, seem to have been used continuously; nor was it until the second half of the sixteenth century that theaters began to form a part of the palatial residences of princes. One precious relic of those more permanent stages remains to show the style they then assumed. This is the Teatro Farnese at Parma, erected in 1618 by Ranuzio I. after the design of Galeotti Aleotti of Ferrara. It could accommodate seven thousand spectators; and, though now in ruins, it is still a stately and harmonious monument of architectural magnificence.[168] What, however, was always wanting in Italy was a theater open to all classes and at all seasons of the year, where the people might have been the patrons of their playwrights.[169]

[Footnote 166: See the details brought together by Campori, _Notizie per la vita di Lodovico Ariosto_, p. 74, Castiglione's letter on the _Calandra_ at Urbino, the private representation of the _Rosmunda_ in the Rucellai gardens, of the _Orbecche_ in Giraldi's house, of the _Sofonisba_ at Vicenza, of Gelli's _Errore_ by the Fantastichi, etc.]

[Footnote 167: _Stadt Rom_, viii. 350.]

[Footnote 168: See the article "Fornovo" in my _Sketches and Studies in Italy_.]

[Footnote 169: At this point, in illustration of what has been already stated, I take the opportunity of transcribing a passage which fairly represents the conditions of play-going in the _cinque cento_. Doni, in the _Marmi_, gives this description of two comedies performed in the Sala del Papa of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence.[A] "By my faith, in Florence never was there anything so fine: two stages, one at each end of the Hall: two wonderful scenes, the one by Francesco Salviati, the other by Bronzino: two most amusing comedies, and of the newest coinage; the _Mandragola_ and the _Assiuola_: when the first act of the one was over, there followed the first act of the other, and so forth, each play taking up the other, without interludes, in such wise that the one comedy served as interlude for the other. The music began at the opening, and ended with the close."]

[Footnote A: Barbera's edition, 1863, vol. i. p. 67.]

The transition from Latin to Italian comedy was effected almost simultaneously by three poets, Bernardo Dovizio, Lodovico Ariosto, and Niccolo Machiavelli. Dovizio was born at Bibbiena in 1470. He attached himself to the Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, and received the scarlet from his master in 1513. We need not concern ourselves with his ecclesiastical career. It is enough to say that the _Calandra_, which raised him to a foremost place among the literary men of Italy, was composed before his elevation to the dignity of Cardinal, and was first performed at Urbino some time between the dates 1504 and 1513, possibly in 1508. The reader will already have observed that the most popular Latin play, both at Ferrara and Rome, was the _Menaechmi_ of Plautus. In Dovizio's _Calandra_ the influence of this comedy is so noticeable that we may best describe it as an accommodation of the Latin form to Italian circumstance. The intrigue depends upon the close resemblance of a brother and sister, Lidio and Santilla, whose appearance by turns in male and female costume gives rise to a variety of farcical incidents. The name is derived from Calandro, a simpleton of Calandrino's type; and the interest of the plot is that of a _Novella._ The characters are very slightly sketched; but the movement is continuous, and the dialogue is always lively. The _Calandra_ achieved immediate success by reproducing both the humor of Boccaccio and the invention of Plautus in the wittiest vernacular.[170] A famous letter of Baldassare Castiglione, describing its representation at Urbino, enlarges upon the splendor of the scenery and dresses, the masks of Jason, Venus, Love, Neptune, and Juno, accompanied by morris-dances and concerts of stringed instruments, which were introduced as interludes.[171] From Urbino the comedy passed through all the Courts of Italy, finding the highest favor at Rome, where Leo more than once decreed its representation. One of these occasions was memorable. Wishing to entertain the Marchioness Isabella of Mantua (1514), he put the _Calandra_ with great pomp upon his private stage in the Vatican. Baldassare Peruzzi designed and painted the decorations, giving a new impulse to this species of art by the beauty of his inventions.[172]

[Footnote 170: One of the chief merits of the _Calandra_ in the eyes of contemporaries was the successful adaptation of Boccaccio's style to the stage. Though Italians alone have the right to pronounce judgment on such matters, I confess to preferring the limpid ease of Ariosto and the plebeian freshness of Gelli. The former has the merit of facile lucidity, the latter of native raciness. Bibbiena's somewhat pompous phraseology sits ill upon his farcical obscenities.]

[Footnote 171: See the translation in Dennistoun, vol. ii. p. 141.]

[Footnote 172: See Vasari, viii. 227.]

Leo had an insatiable appetite for scenic shows. Comedies of the new Latinizing style were his favorite recreation. But he also invited the Sienese Company of the Rozzi, who only played farces, every year to Rome; nor was he averse to even less artistic buffoonery, as may be gathered from many of the stories told about him.[173] In 1513 Leo opened a theater upon the Capitol, and here in 1519, surrounded with two thousand spectators, he witnessed an exhibition of Ariosto's _Suppositi_. We have a description of the scene from the pen of an eye-witness, who relates how the Pope sat at the entrance to the gallery leading into the theater, and admitted with his benediction those whom he thought worthy of partaking in the night's amusements.[174] When the house was full, he took his throne in the orchestra, and sat, with eye-glass in hand, to watch the play. Raphael had painted the scenery, which is said to have been, and doubtless was, extremely beautiful. Leo's behavior scandalized the foreign embassadors, who thought it indecorous that a Pope should not only listen to the equivocal jests of the Prologue but also laugh immoderately at them.[175] As usual, the inter-acts consisted of vocal and instrumental concerts, with ballets on classical and allegorical subjects.

[Footnote 173: See D'Ancona, _op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 250, for the special nature of the _Farsa_. See also _ib._ p. 211, the description by Paolucci of Leo's buffooneries in the Vatican.]

[Footnote 174: See Campori, _Notizie Inedite di Raffaello di Urbino_, Modena, 1863, quoted by D'Ancona, _op. cit._ p. 212. The entertainment cost Leo 1,000 ducats.]

[Footnote 175: No doubt Paolucci refers to the obscene play upon the word _Suppositi_, and to the ironical epithet of _Santa_ applied to _Roma_ in a passage which does no honor to Ariosto.]

Enough has now been said concerning the mode of presenting comedies in vogue throughout Italy. The mention of Leo's entertainment in 1519 introduces the subject of Ariosto's plays. The _Suppositi_, originally written in prose and afterwards versified by its author, first appeared in 1509 at Ferrara. In the preceding year Ariosto exhibited the _Cassaria_, which, like the _Suppositi_, was planned in prose and subsequently versified in _sdrucciolo_ iambics.[176]

[Footnote 176: For the dates of Ariosto's dramatic compositions, see above, Part 1, p. 499. The edition I shall refer to, is that of Giovanni Tortoli (Firenze, Barbera, 1856), which gives both the prose and verse redactions of the _Cassaria_ and _Suppositi_. It may here be incidentally remarked that there are few thoroughly good editions of Italian plays. Descriptions of the _dramatis personae_, stage directions, and illustrative notes are almost uniformly wanting. The reader is left to puzzle out an intricate action without help. All the slang, the local customs, and the passing allusions which give life to comedy and present so many difficulties to the student, are for the most part unexplained.]

In Ariosto's comedies the form of Roman art becomes a lay-figure, dressed according to various modes of the Italian Renaissance. The wire-work, so to speak, of Plautus or of Terence can be everywhere detected; but this skeleton has been incarnated with modern flesh and blood, habited in Ferrarese costume, and taught the paces of contemporary fashion. Blent with the traditions of Plautine comedy, we find in each of the four plays an Italian _Novella_. The motive is invariably trivial. In the _Cassaria_ two young men are in love with two girls kept by a slave-merchant. The intrigue turns upon the arts of their valets, who cheat the pander and procure the girls for nothing for their masters. In the _Suppositi_ a young man of good family has assumed the part of servant, in order to seduce the daughter of his master. The devices by which he contrives to secure her hand in marriage, furnish the action of the play. The _Lena_ has even a simpler plan. A young man needs a few quiet hours for corrupting his neighbor's daughter. Lena, the chief actress, will not serve as a go-between without a sum of ready money paid down by the hero. The movement of the piece depends on the expedients whereby this money is raised, and the farcical obstacles which interrupt the lovers at the point of their felicity. In the _Negromante_ a young man has been secretly married to one woman, and openly to another. Cinthio loves his real wife, Lavinia, and feigns impotence in order to explain his want of affection for Emilia, who is the recognized mistress of his home. An astrologer, Iacchelino, holds the threads of the intrigue in his hands. Possessed of Cinthio's secret, paid by the parents of Emilia to restore Cinthio's virility, paid again by a lover of Emilia to advance his own suit, and seeking in the midst of these rival interests to make money out of the follies and ambitions of his clients, Iacchelino has the whole domestic company at his discretion. The comic point lies in the various passions which betray each dupe to the astrologer--Cinthio's wish to escape from Emilia, Camillo's eagerness to win her, the old folks' anxiety to cure Cinthio. Temolo, a servant, who is hoodwinked by no personal desire, sees that Iacchelino is an impostor; and the inordinate avarice of the astrologer undoes him. Thus the _Negromante_ presents a really fine comic web of humors at cross purposes and appetites that overreach themselves.

There is considerable similarity in Ariosto's plots. In all of them, except the _Negromante_, we have a sub-plot which brings a tricksy valet into play. A sum of money is imperatively needed to effect the main scheme of the hero; and this has to be provided by the servant's ingenuity. Such direct satire as the poet thought fit to introduce, is common to them all. It concerns the costs, delays and frauds of legal procedure, favoritism at Court, the Ferrarese game-laws, and the tyranny of custom-house officials. But satire of an indirect, indulgent species--the Horatian satire of Ariosto's own epistles--adds a pleasant pungency to his pictures of contemporary manners no less than to his occasional discourses. The prologue to the _Cassaria_, on its reappearance as a versified play, might be quoted for the perfection of genial sarcasm, playing about the foibles of society without inflicting a serious wound. All the prologues, however, are not innocent. Those prefixed to the _Lena_ and the _Suppositi_ contain allusions so indecent, and veil obscenities under metaphors so flimsy, as to justify a belief in Ariosto's vulgarity of soul. Here the satirist borders too much on the sympathizer with a vice he professes to condemn.

It remains to speak of the _Scolastica_, a comedy left incomplete at Ariosto's death, and finished by his brother Gabrielle, but bearing the unmistakable stamp of his ripest genius impressed upon the style no less than on the structure of the plot.[177] The scene is laid at Ferrara, where we find ourselves among the scholars of its famous university, and are made acquainted in the liveliest manner with their habits. The heroes are two young students, Claudio and Eurialo, firm friends, who have passed some years at Pavia reading with Messer Lazzaro, a doctor of laws. The disturbance of the country having driven both professors and pupils from Pavia,[178] a variety of accidents brings all the actors of the comedy to Ferrara, where Eurialo is living with his father, Bartolo. Of course the two lads are in love--Claudio with the daughter of his former tutors, and Eurialo with a fatherless girl in the service of a noble lady at Pavia. The intrigue is rather farcical than comic. It turns upon the difficulties encountered by Claudio and Eurialo in concealing their sweethearts from their respective fathers, the absurd mistakes they make in the hurry of the moment, and the misunderstandings which ensue between themselves and the old people. Ariosto has so cleverly complicated the threads of his plot and has developed them with such lucidity of method that any analysis would fall short of the original in brevity and clearness. The _denouement_ is effected by the device of a recognition at the last moment. Eurialo's _innamorata_ is found to be the lost ward of his father, Bartolo; and Claudio is happily married to his love, Flaminia. The merit of the play lies, however, less in the argument than the characters, which are ably conceived and sustained with more than even Ariosto's usual skill. The timid and perplexed Eurialo, trembling before his terrible father, seeking advice from every counselor, despairing, resigning himself to fate, is admirably contrasted with the more passionate and impulsive Claudio, who takes rash steps with inconsiderate boldness, relies on his own address to extricate himself, and vibrates between the ecstasies of love and the suspicions of an angry jealousy.[179] Bartolo, burdened in his conscience by an ancient act of broken faith, and punished in the disobedience of his son, forms an excellent pendent to the honest but pedantic Messer Lazzaro, who cannot bear to see his daughter suffer from an unrequited passion.[180] Each of the servants, too, has a well-marked physiognomy--the witty Accursio, picking up what learning he can from his master's books, and turning all he says to epigrams; the easy-going, Bacchanalian duenna; blunt Pistone; garrulous Stanna. But the most original of all the _dramatis personae_ is Bonifazio, that excellent keeper of lodgings for Ferrarese students, who identifies himself with their interests, sympathizes in their love-affairs, takes side with them against their fathers, and puts his conscience in his pocket when required to pull them out of scrapes.[181] Each of these characters has been copied from the life. The taint of Latin comedy has been purged out of them.[182] They move, speak, act like living beings, true to themselves in every circumstance, and justifying the minutest details of the argument by the operation of their several qualities of head and heart. Viewed as a work of pure dramatic art, the _Scolastica_ is not only the most genial and sympathetic of Ariosto's comedies, but also the least fettered by his Latinizing prepossessions, and the strongest in psychological analysis. Like the _Lena_, it has the rare merit of making us at home in the Ferrara which he knew so well; but it does not, like that play, disgust us by the spectacle of abject profligacy.[183] There is a sunny, jovial freshness in this latest product of Ariosto's genius, which invigorates while it amuses and instructs.

[Footnote 177: Gabrielle added the last two scenes of the fifth act. See his prologue. But whether he introduced any modifications into the body of the play, or filled up any gaps, does not appear.]

[Footnote 178:

Poiche a Pavia levato era il salario
Alli dottor, ne piu si facea studio
Per le guerre che piu ogni di augumentano.]

[Footnote 179: Their opposite humors are admirably developed in the dialogues of act ii. sc. 5, act iii. sc. 5.]

[Footnote 180: Compare Bartolo's soliloquy in act iv. sc. 6, with Lazzaro's confidences to Bonfazio, whom he mistakes for Bartolo, in act v. sc. 3.]

[Footnote 181: His action in the comedy is admirably illustrated by the self-revelation of the following soliloquy (act iv. sc. 1):

Io vuo a ogni modo aiutar questo giovane,
E dir dieci bugie, perche ad incorrere
Non abbia con suo padre in rissa e in scandalo:
E cosi ancor quest'altro mio, che all'ultima
Disperazione e condotto da un credere
Falso e da gelosia che a torto il stimola.
Ne mi vergognero d'ordire, o tessere
Fallacie e giunti, _e far cio ch'eran soliti_
_Gli antichi servi gia nelle commedie_:
Che veramente l'aiutare un povero
Innamorato, non mi pare uffizio
Servil, ma di gentil qualsivoglia animo.]

[Footnote 182: The process is well indicated in the lines I have italicized in Bonifazio's soliloquy. He is no longer a copy of the Latin slaves, but a free agent who emulates their qualities.]

[Footnote 183: With all admiration for the _Lena_, how can we appreciate the cynicism of the situation revealed in the first scene--the crudely exposed appetites of Flavio, the infamous conduct of Fazio, who places his daughter under the tutelage of his old mistress?]

The _Scolastica_ is not without an element of satire. I have said that Bartolo had a sin upon his conscience. In early manhood he promised to adopt a friend's daughter, and to marry her in due course to his own Eurialo. But he neglected this duty, lost sight of the girl, and appropriated her heritage. He has reason to think that she may still be found in Naples; and the parish priest to whom he confided his secret in confession, will not absolve him, unless he take the journey and do all he can to rectify the error of his past. Bartolo is disinclined to this long pilgrimage, with the probable loss of a fortune at the end of it. In his difficulty he has recourse to a Frate Predicatore, who professes to hold ample powers for dispensing with troublesome vows and pious obligations:[184]

Voi potete veder la bolla, e leggere
Le facultadi mie, che sono amplissime;
E come, senza che pigliate, Bartolo,
Questo pellegrinaggio, io posso assolvere
E commutar i voti; e maravigliomi,
Che essendo, com'io son, vostro amicissimo,
Non m'abbiate richiesto; perche, dandomi
Quel solamente che potreste spendere
Voi col famiglio nel viaggio, assolvere
Vi posso, e farvi schifar un grandissimo
Disconcio, all'eta vostra incomportabile:
Oltra diversi infiniti pericoli,
Che ponno a chi va per cammino occorrere.

[Footnote 184: Act iii. sc. 6.]

The irony of this speech depends upon its plain and business-like statement of a simoniacal bargain, which will prove of mutual benefit to the parties concerned. Bartolo confides his case of conscience to the Friar, previously telling him that he has confessed it to the parson:

Ma non mi sa decidere
Questo caso, che, come voi, teologo
Non e; sa un poco di ragion canonica.

At the close of the communication, which is admirable for its lucid exposition of a domestic romance adapted to the circumstances of the sixteenth century, the Friar asks his penitent once more whether he would not willingly escape this pilgrimage. Who could doubt it? answers Bartolo. Well then:

Ben si potra commutare in qualche opera
Pia. Non si trova al mondo si forte obbligo,
Che non si possa scior con l'elemosine.

Here again the sarcasm consists in the hypocritical adaptation of the old axiom that everything in this world can be got for money. On both sides the transaction is commercial. Bartolo, like a good man of business, wishes to examine the Frate's title-deeds before he engages in the purchase of his spiritual privileges. In other words he must be permitted to examine the Bull of Indulgence:[185]

Porterollavi,
E ve la lascero vedere e leggere.
Siate pur certo che la bolla e amplissima,
E che di tutti i casi, componendovi
Meco, vi posso interamente assolvere,
Non meno che potria 'l Papa medesimo.

_Bartolo._ Vi credo; nondimeno, per iscarico
Della mia conscienza, la desidero
Veder, e farla anco vedere e leggere
Al mio parrocchiano.

_Frate._ Ora sia _in nomine_
_Domini_, porterolla, e mostrerolla
A chi vi pare.

[Footnote 185: Act iv. sc. 4. In the last line but one, ought we not to read _mostreratela_ or else _mostrerollavi_?]

We may further notice how the parish priest is here meant to play the part of solicitor in the bargain. He does not deal in these spiritual commodities; but he can give advice upon the point of validity. The episode of Bartolo and the Dominican reminds us that we are on the eve of the Reformation. While Rome and Ferrara laughed at the hypocrisies, credulities, and religious frauds implied in such transactions, Northern Europe broke into flame, and Luther opened the great schism.[186]

[Footnote 186: Room must be found for a few of the sarcasms, uttered chiefly by Accursio, which enliven the _Scolastica_. Here are the humanists:

questi umanisti, che cercano
Medaglie, e di rovesci si dilettano.

Here is Rome:

Roma, dove intendono
Che 'l sangue degli Apostoli e de' Martiri
E molto dolce, e a lor spese e un bel vivere.

Here is Ferrara:

Ferrara, ove pur vedesi
Che fino alli barbieri paion nobili.

Here are the Signori of Naples:

da Napoli.
Ho ben inteso che ve n'e piu copia
Che a Ferrara di Conti; e credo ch'abbiano,
Come questi contado, quei dominio.]

The artistic merit of Ariosto's comedies consists in the perfection of their structure. However involved the intrigues may be, we experience no difficulty in following them; so masterly is their development.[187] It may be objected that he too frequently resorts to the device of anagnorisis, in order to solve a problem which cannot find its issue in the action. This mechanical solution is so obviously employed to make things easy for the author that no interest attaches to the climax of his fables. Yet the characters are drawn with that ripe insight into human nature which distinguished Ariosto. Machiavelli observed that, being a native of Ferrara, cautious in the handling of Tuscan idioms, and unwilling to use the dialect of his own city, Ariosto missed the salt of comedy.[188] There is truth in this criticism. Matched with the best Florentine dialogues, his language wants the raciness of the vernacular. The _sdrucciolo_ verse, which he preferred, fatigues the ear and adds to the impression of formality. He frequently interrupts the action with tirades, talking, as it were, in his own person to the audience, instead of making his characters speak.[189] Yet foreigners, who study his comedies side by side with Plautus, at almost the same distance of unfamiliarity, will recognize the brilliance of his transcripts from contemporary life. These studies of Italian manners are eminent for good taste, passing at no point into extravagance, and only marred by a certain banality of moral instinct. The _Lena_ has the highest value as a picture of Ferrarese society. We have good reason to believe that it was founded on an actual incident. It deserves to rank with Machiavelli's _Mandragola_ and Aretino's _Cortigiana_ for the light it throws on sixteenth-century customs. And the light is far more natural, less lurid, less partial, than that which either Machiavelli or Aretino shed upon the vices of their century.

[Footnote 187: Cecchi noticed the lucid order, easy exposition and smooth conduct of Ariosto's plots, ranking him for these qualities above the Latin poets. See the passage from _Le Pellegrine_ quoted below.]

[Footnote 188: In an essay on the Italian language, included among Machiavelli's works, but ascribed to him on no very certain ground.]

[Footnote 189: Notice the long monologue of the _Cassaria_ in which Lucramo describes the fashionable follies of Ferrara. Ariosto gradually outgrew this habit of tirade. The _Scolastica_ is freer than any of his pieces from the fault.]

Of Machiavelli we have two genuine comedies in prose, the _Mandragola_ and the _Clizia_, and two of doubtful authenticity, called respectively _Commedia in Prosa_ and _Commedia in Versi_, besides a translation of the _Andria_.[190] Judging by internal evidence alone, a cautious critic would reject the _Commedia in Versi_ from the canon of Machiavelli's works; and if the existence of a copy in his autograph has to be taken as conclusive evidence of its genuineness, we can only accept it as a crude and juvenile production. It is written in various measures, a graceless octave stanza rhyming only in the last couplet being used instead of blank verse, while many of the monologues are lyrical. The language is crabbed, uncertain, archaistic--in no point displaying the incisive brevity of Machiavelli's style. The scene is laid in ancient Rome, and the intrigue turns upon a confusion between two names, Catillo and Cammillo. The conventional parasite of antiquity and the inevitable slaves play prominent parts; while the plot is solved by a preposterous exchange of wives between the two chief characters. Thus the fabric of the comedy throughout is unnatural and false to the conditions of real life. Were it not for some piquant studies of Italian manners, scattered here and there in the descriptive passages, this _Commedia in Versi_ would scarcely deserve passing notice.[191]

[Footnote 190: _Le Commedie di N. Machiavelli, con prefazione di F. Perfetti_, Firenze, Barbera, 1863.]

[Footnote 191: Take this picture of Virginia (act i. sc. 2):

_Ap._ Dilettasi ella dar prova a filare,
O tessere, o cucire, com'e usanza?

_Mis._ No, che far lassa tal cosa a sua madre.

_Ap._ Di che piglia piacer?

_Mis._ Delle finestre,
Dove la sta dal mattino alla sera.
E vaga e di novelle, suoni e canti,
E studia in lisci, e dorme, e cuce in guanti.

Or the picture of the lovers in church described by the servant, Doria (act iii. sc. 2), or Virginia's portrait of her jealous husband (act iii. sc. 5).]

The _Commedia in Prosa_, for which we might find a title in the name of the chief personage, Fra Alberigo, displays the spirit and the style of the _Mandragola_. Critics who do not accept it for Machiavelli's own, must assume it to have been the work of a clever and obsequious imitator. It is a short piece in three acts written to expose the corruption of a Florentine household. Caterina, the heroine, is a young wife married to an old husband, Amerigo. Their maid-servant, Margherita, holds the threads of the intrigue in her hands. She has been solicited on the one side by Amerigo to help him in his amours with a neighbor's wife, and on the other by the friar, Alberigo, to win Caterina to his suit. The devices whereby Margherita brings her mistress and the monk together, cheats Amerigo of his expected enjoyment, and so contrives that the despicable but injured husband should establish Fra Alberigo in the position of a favored house-friend, constitute the argument. Short as the play is, it combines the chief points of the _Clizia_ and the _Mandragola_ in a single action, and may be regarded as the first sketch of two situations afterwards developed with more fullness by the author.[192] The language is coarse, and the picture of manners, executed with remorseless realism, would be revolting but for its strong workmanship.[193] The playwright expended his force on the servant-maid and the friar, those two instruments of domestic immorality. Fra Alberigo is a vulgar libertine, provided with pious phrases to cloak his vicious purpose, but casting off the mask when he has gained his object, well knowing from past experience that the appetites of the woman he seduces will secure his footing in her husband's home.[194] Margherita revels in the corruption she has aided. She delights in sin for its own sake, extracts handfuls of coppers from the friar, and counts on profiting by the secret of her mistress. Her speech and action display the animal appetites and gross phraseology of the proletariate, degraded by city vices and hardened to the spectacle of clerical hypocrisy.[195] One of her exclamations: "I frati, ah! son piu viziati che 'l fistolo!" taken in conjunction with her argument to Caterina: "I frati, eh? Non si trova generazione piu abile ai servigi delle donne!" points the satire intended by the playwright. Yet neither Caterina nor Amerigo yields a point of baseness to these servile agents. Plebeian coarseness is stamped alike upon their language and their desires. They have no delicacy of feeling, no redeeming passion, no self-respect. They speak of things unmentionable with a crudity that makes one shudder, and abuse each other in sarcasms borrowed from the rhetoric of the streets.[196] To a refined taste the calculations of Caterina are no less obnoxious and are far less funny than the rogueries of the friar.

[Footnote 192: The scene between Caterina and Amerigo, when the latter is caught in flagrant adultery (act iii. 5), anticipates the catastrophe of the _Clizia_. The final scene between Caterina, Amerigo, and Fra Alberigo bears a close resemblance to the climax of the _Mandragola_. On the hypothesis that this comedy is not Machiavelli's but an imitator's, the playwright must have had both the _Clizia_ and the _Mandragola_ in his mind, and have designed a pithy combination of their most striking elements.]

[Footnote 193: See especially the scenes between Caterina and Margherita (act i. 3; act ii. 1) where the advantages of taking a lover and of choosing a friar for this purpose are discussed. They abound in _gros mots_, as thus:

_Cat._ Odi, in quanto a cotesta parte tu di' la verita; ma
quello odore ch'egli hanno poi di salvaggiume, non ch'altro
mi stomaca a pensarlo.

_Marg._ Eh! eh! poveretta voi! i frati, eh? Non si trova
generazione piu abile ai servigi delle donne. Voi dovete
forse avere a pigliarvi piacere col naso? etc.]

[Footnote 194: Compare his speech to Caterina (act ii. 5) with his dialogue with Margherita (act iii. 4) and his final discourse on charity and repentance (act iii. 6). The irony of these words, "Certamente, Amerigo, che voi potete vantarvi d'aver la piu saggia e casta giovane, non vo' dir di Fiorenza ma di tutto 'l mondo," pronounced before Caterina a couple of hours after her seduction, fixes the measure of Machiavelli's cynicism.]

[Footnote 195: The quite unquotable but characteristic monologue which opens the third act is an epitome of Margherita's character.]

[Footnote 196: Act iii. 5.]

This comedy of Fra Alberigo is a literal transcript from a cynical _Novella_, dramatized and put upon the stage to amuse an audience familiar with such arguments by their perusal of Sacchetti and Boccaccio. Its freedom from Latinizing conventionality renders it a striking example of the influence exercised by the _Novellieri_ over the theater. The same may be said about both the _Clizia_ and the _Mandragola_, though the former owes a portion of its structure to the _Casina_ of Plautus.[197] The _Clizia_ is a finished picture of Florentine home-life. Nicomaco and Sofronia are an elderly couple, who have educated a beautiful girl, Clizia, from childhood in their house. At the moment when the play opens, both Nicomaco and his son, Cleandro, are in love with Clizia. Nicomaco as determined to marry her to one of his servants, Pirro, having previously ascertained that the dissolute groom will not object to sharing his wife with his master. Sofronia's family pride opposes the marriage of her son and heir with Clizia; but she is aware of her husband's schemes, and seeks to frustrate them by giving the girl to an honest bailiff, Eustachio. In the contest that ensues, Nicomaco gains the victory. It is settled that Clizia is to be wedded to Pirro, and on the night of the marriage Nicomaco makes his way into the bridal chamber. But here Sofronia proves more than a match for her lord and master. Helped by Cleandro, she substitutes for Clizia a young man-servant disguised as a woman, who gives Nicomaco a warm reception, beats him within an inch of his life, and exposes him to the ridicule of the household.[198] Sofronia triumphs over her ashamed and miserable husband, who now consents to Clizia's marriage with Eustachio. But at this juncture the long-lost father of the heroine appears like a _deus ex machina_. He turns out to be a rich Neapolitan gentleman. There remains no obstacle to Cleandro's happiness, and the curtain falls upon a marriage in prospect between the hero and the heroine. The weakness of the play, considered as a work of art, is the mechanical solution of the plot. Its strength and beauty are the masterly delineation of a family interior. The _dramatis personae_ are vigorously sketched and act throughout consistently. Nothing can be finer than the portrait of a sober Florentine merchant, regular in his pursuits, punctual in the performance of his duties, exact in household discipline and watchful over his son's education, whose dignified severity of conduct has yielded to the lunacies of an immoderate passion.[199] For the time being Nicomaco forgets his old associates, abandons his business, and consorts with youthful libertines in taverns. His appetite so blinds him that he devises the odious scheme I have described, in order to gratify a senile whim.[200] The lifelong fabric of honesty and honor breaks down in him; and it is only when lessoned by the punishment inflicted on him by his wife and son, that he returns to his old self and sees the vileness of the situation his folly has created. Sofronia is a notable housewife, rude but respectable. The good understanding between her and her handsome son, Cleandro, whom she loves affectionately, but whom she will not indulge in his caprice for Clizia, is one of the best traits furnished by Italian comedy. Cleandro himself has less than usual of the selfishness and sensuality which degrade the Florentine _primo amoroso_. There is even something of enthusiasm in his passion for Clizia--a germ of sentiment which would have blossomed into romance under the more genial treatment of our drama.[201] Morally speaking, what is odious in this comedy is the willingness of every one to sacrifice Clizia. Even Cleandro says of her: "Io per me la torrei per moglie, per amica, e in tutti quei modi, che io la potessi avere." Nicomaco, when he has failed in his plot to secure the girl, thinks only of his own shame, and takes no account of the risk to which he has exposed her. Sofronia is merely anxious to get her decently established beyond her husband's reach.

[Footnote 197: From an allusion in act ii. sc. 3, it is clear that the _Clizia_ was composed after the _Mandragola_. If we assign the latter comedy to a date later than 1512, the year of Machiavelli's disgrace, which seems implied in its prologue, the _Clizia_ must be reckoned among the ripest products of his leisure. The author hints that both of these comedies were suggested to him by facts that had come under his notice in Florentine society.]

[Footnote 198: The _Clizia_ furnished Dolce with the motive of his _Ragazzo_ ("Il Ragazzo, comedia di M. Lodovico Dolce. Per Curtio de Navo e fratelli al Leone, MDXLI."). An old man and his son love the same girl. A parasite promises to get the girl for the old man, but substitutes a page dressed up like a woman, while the son sleeps with the real girl. Readers of Ben Jonson will be reminded of _Epicoene_. But in Dolce's _Ragazzo_ the situation is made to suggest impurity and lacks rare Ben's gigantic humor.]

[Footnote 199: See Sofronia's soliloquy, act. ii. sc. 4.]

[Footnote 200: Cleandro understands the faint shadow of scruple that suggested this scheme: "perche tentare d'averla prima che maritata, gli debbe parere cosa impia e brutta" (act i. sc. 1). This sentence is extremely characteristic of Italian feeling.]

[Footnote 201: His observations on his father, are, however, marked by more than ordinary coarseness. "Come non ti vergogni tu ad avere ordinato, che si delicato viso sia da si fetida bocca scombavato, si delicate carni da si tremanti mani, da si grinze e puzzolenti membra tocche?" Then he mingles fears about Nicomaco's property with a lover's lamentations. "Tu non mi potevi far la maggiore ingiuria, avendomi con questo colpo tolto ad un tratto e l'amata e la roba; perche Nicomaco, se questo amor dura, e per lasciare delle sue sustanze piu a Pirro che a me" (act iv. sc. 1).]

Only long extracts could do justice to the sarcasm and irony with which the dialogue is seasoned. Still a few points may be selected.[202] Sofronia is rating Nicomaco for his unseasonable dissipation. He answers: "Ah, moglie mia, non mi dire tanti mali a un tratto! Serba qualche cosa a domane." Eustachio, in view of taking Clizia for his wife, reflects: "In questa terra chi ha bella moglie non puo essere povero, e del fuoco e della moglie si puo essere liberale con ognuno, perche quanto piu ne dai, piu te ne rimane." When Pirro demurs to Nicomaco's proposals, on the score that he will make enemies of Sofronia and Cleandro, his master answers: "Che importa a te? Sta' ben con Cristo e fatti beffe de' santi." A little lower down Nicomaco trusts the decision of Clizia's husband to lot:

_Pirro._ Se la sorte me venisse contro?

_Nicom._ Io ho speranza in Dio, che la non verra.

_Pirro._ O vecchio impazzato! Vuole che Dio tenga le mani a
queste sue disonesta.

[Footnote 202: Act iii. scs. 4, 5, 6.]

Nor can criticism express the comic humor of the scenes, especially of those in which Nicomaco describes the hours of agony he spent in Siro's bed, and afterwards capitulates at discretion to Sofronia.[203] In spite of what is disagreeable in the argument and obscene in the catastrophe, the _Clizia_ leaves a wholesomer impression on the mind than is common with Florentine comedies. It has something of Ariosto's _bonhomie_, elsewhere unknown in Machiavelli.

[Footnote 203: Act v. scs. 2 and 3.]

Meanwhile the _Mandragola_ is claiming our attention. In that comedy, Machiavelli put forth all his strength. Sinister and repulsive as it may be to modern tastes, its power is indubitable. More than any plays of which mention has hitherto been made, more even than Ariosto's _Lena_ and _Negromante_, it detaches itself from Latin precedents and offers an unsophisticated view of Florentine life from its author's terrible point of contemplation.

In order to appreciate the _Mandragola_, it is necessary to know the plot. After spending his early manhood in Paris, Callimaco returns to Florence, bent on making the beautiful Lucrezia his mistress. He has only heard of her divine charms; but the bare report inflames his imagination, disturbs his sleep, and so distracts him that he feels forced "to attempt some bold stroke, be it grave, dangerous, ruinous, dishonorable; death itself would be better than the life I lead." Lucrezia is the faithful and obedient wife of Nicia, a doctor of laws, whose one wish in life is to get a son. The extreme gullibility of Nicia and his desire for an heir are the motives upon which Callimaco relies to work his schemes. He finds a parasite, Ligurio, ready to assist him. Ligurio is a friend of Nicia's family, well acquainted with the persons, and so utterly depraved that he would sell his soul for a good dinner. He advises Callimaco to play the part of a physician who has studied the last secrets of his art in Paris, introduces him in this capacity to Nicia, and suggests that by his help the desired result may be obtained without the disagreeable necessity of leaving Florence for the baths of San Filippo. In their first interview Callimaco explains that a potion of mandragora administered to Lucrezia will remove her sterility, but that it has fatal consequences to the husband. He must perish unless he first substitutes another man, whose death will extinguish the poison and leave Lucrezia free to be the mother of a future family. Nicia revolts against this odious project, which makes him the destroyer of his own honor and a murderer. But Callimaco assures him that royal persons and great nobles of France have adopted this method with success. The argument has its due weight: "I am satisfied," says Nicia, "since you tell me that a king and princes have done the like." But the difficulty remains of persuading Lucrezia. Ligurio answers: that is simple enough; let us work upon her through her confessor and her mother. "You, I, our money, our badness, and the badness of those priests will settle the confessor; and I know that, when the matter is explained, we shall have her mother on our side." Thus we are introduced to Fra Timoteo, the chief agent of corruption. The monk, in a first interview, does not conceal his readiness to procure abortion and cover infanticide. For a consideration, he agrees to convince Lucrezia that the plot is for her good. He first demonstrates the utility of Callimaco's method to the mother Sostrata, and then by her help persuades Lucrezia that adultery and murder are not only venial, but commendable with so fair an end in view. His sophistries anticipate the darkest casuistry of Escobar. Lucrezia, with a woman's good sense, fastens on the brutal and unnatural loathsomeness of the proposed plan: "Ma di tutte le cose che si sono tentate, questa mi pare la piu strana; avere a sottomettere il corpo mio a questo vituperio, et essere cagione che un uomo muoia per vituperarmi: che io non crederei, se io fussi sola rimasa nel mondo, e da me avesse a risurgere l'umana natura, che mi fusse simile partito concesso." Timoteo replies: "Qui e un bene certo, che voi ingraviderete, acquisterete un'anima a messer Domenedio. Il male incerto e, che colui che giacera dopo la pozione con voi, si muoia; ma e' si truova anche di quelli che non muoiono. Ma perche la cosa e dubbia, pero e bene che messer Nicia non incorra in quel pericolo. Quanto all'atto che sia peccato, questo e una favola: perche la volonta e quella che pecca, non il corpo; e la cagione del peccato e dispiacere al marito: e voi gli compiacete; pigliarne piacere: e voi ne avete dispiacere," etc. Sostrata, accustomed to follow her confessor's orders, and not burdened with a conscience, clinches this reasoning: "Di che hai tu paura, moccicona? E c'e cinquanta dame in questa terra che ne alzarebbero le mani al cielo." Lucrezia gives way unwillingly: "Io son contenta; ma non credo mai esser viva domattina." Timoteo comforts her with a final touch of monkish irony: "Non dubitare, figliuola mia, io preghero Dio per te; io diro l'orazione dell'Angiolo Raffaelo che t'accompagni. Andate in buon'ora, e preparatevi a questo misterio, che si fa sera." What follows is the mere working of the plot, whereby Ligurio and Timoteo contrive to introduce Callimaco as the necessary victim into Lucrezia's bed-chamber. The silly Nicia plays the part of pander to his own shame; and when Lucrezia discovers the scheme by which her lover has attained his ends, she exclaims: "Poi che l'astuzia tua e la sciochezza del mio marito, la semplicita di mia madre e la tristizia del mio confessore, m'hanno condotta a far quello che mai per me medesima avrei fatto, io voglio giudicare che e' venga da una celeste disposizione, che abbia voluto cosi. Pero io ti prendo per signore, padrone e guida." It must be remarked that Lucrezia omits from her reckoning the weakness which led her to consent.