Chapter XI: The Drama (3)

My excuse for analyzing a comedy so indecent as the _Mandragola_, is the importance it has, not only as a product of Machiavelli's genius, but also as an illustration of contemporary modes of thought and feeling. In all points this play is worthy of the author of the _Principe_. The _Mandragola_ is a microcosm of society as Machiavelli conceived it, and as it needs must be to justify his own philosophy. It is a study of stupidity and baseness acted on by roguery. Credulity and appetite supply the fulcrum needed by unscrupulous intelligence. The lover, aided by the husband's folly, the parasite's profligacy, the mother's familiarity with sin, the confessor's avarice, the wife's want of self-respect, achieves the triumph of making Nicia lead him naked to Lucrezia's chamber. Moving in the region of his fancy, the poet adds _Quod erat demonstrandum_ to his theorem of vileness and gross folly used for selfish ends by craft. But we who read it, rise from the perusal with the certainty that it was only the corruption of the age which rendered such a libel upon human nature plausible--only the author's perverse and shallow view of life which sustained him in this reading of a problem he had failed to understand. Viewed as a critique upon life, the _Mandragola_ is feeble, because the premises are false; and these same false premises regarding the main forces of society, render the logic of the _Principe_ inconsequent. Men are not such fools as Nicia or such catspaws as Ligurio and Timoteo. Women are not such compliant instruments as Sostrata and Lucrezia. Human nature is not that tissue of disgusting meannesses and vices, by which Callimaco succeeds. Here lay Machiavelli's fallacy. He dreamed of action as the triumph of astuteness over folly. Virtue with him meant the management of immorality by bold intelligence. But while, on the one hand, he exaggerated the stupidity of dupes, on the other he underestimated the resistance which strongly-rooted moral instincts offer to audacious villainy. He left goodness out of his account. Therefore, though his reasoning, whether we examine the _Mandragola_ or the _Principe_, seems irrefragable on the premises from which he starts, it is an unconvincing chain of sophisms. The world is not wholly bad; but in order to justify Machiavelli's conclusions, we have to assume that its essential forces are corrupt.

If we turn from the _Mandragola_ to the society of which it is a study, and which complacently accepted it as an agreeable work of art, we are filled with a sense of surprise bordering on horror. What must the people among whom Machiavelli lived, have been, to justify his delineation of a ruffian so vicious as Ligurio, a confessor so lost to sense of duty as Timoteo, a mother who scruples not to prostitute her daughter to the first comer, a lover so depraved as Callimaco, a wife so devoid of womanly feeling as Lucrezia? On first reflection, we are inclined to believe that the poet in this comedy was venting Swiftian indignation on the human nature which he misconceived and loathed. The very name Lucrezia seems chosen in irony--as though to hint that Rome's first martyr would have failed, if Tarquin had but used her mother and her priest to tame her. Yet, on a second reading, the _Mandragola_ reveals no scorn or anger. It is a piece of scientific anatomy, a demonstration of disease, executed without subjective feeling. The argument is so powerfully developed, with such simplicity of language, such consistency of character, such cold analysis of motives, that we cannot doubt the verisimilitude of the picture. No one, at the date of its appearance, resented it. Florentine audiences delighted in its comic flavor. Leo X. witnessed it with approval. His hatred of the monks found satisfaction in Timoteo. Society, far from rising in revolt against the poet who exposed its infamy with a pen of poisoned steel, thanked the man of genius for rendering vice amusing. Of satire or of moral purpose there is none in the _Mandragola_. Machiavelli depicted human nature just as he had learned to know it. The sinister fruits of his studies made contemporaries laugh.

The _Mandragola_ was the work of an unhappy man. The prologue offers a curious mixture of haughtiness and fawning, only comparable to the dedication of the _Principe_ and the letter to Vettori.[204] A sense of his own intellectual greatness is combined with an uneasy feeling of failure:

Non e componitor di molta fama.

[Footnote 204: See _Age of the Despots_, pp. 315-319. Of the two strains of character so ill-blent in Machiavelli, the _Mandragola_ represents the vulgar, and the _Principe_ the noble. The one corresponds to his days at Casciano, the other to his studious evenings.]

As an apology for his application to trivialities, he pleads wretchedness and _ennui_:

E se questa materia non e degna,
Per esser piu leggieri
D'un uom che voglia parer saggio e grave,
Scusatelo con questo, che s'ingegna
Con questi vani pensieri
Fare el suo tristo tempo piu soave;
Perche altrove non ave
Dove voltare el viso;
Che gli e stato interciso
Mostrar con altre imprese altra virtue,
Non sendo premio alle fatiche sue.

These verses, indifferent as poetry, are poignant for their revelation of a disappointed life. Left without occupation, unable to display his powers upon a worthy platform, he casts the pearls of his philosophy before the pleasure-seeking swine. The sense of this degradation stings him and he turns upon society with threats. Let them not attempt to browbeat or intimidate him:

Che sa dir male anch'egli,
E come questa fu la sua prim'arte:
E come in ogni parte
Del mondo, ove il si suona,
Non istima persona,
Ancor che faccia el sergiere a colui
Che puo portar miglior mantel di lui.

Throughout his prologue we hear the growl of a wounded lion, helpless in his lair, yet conscious that he still has strength to rend the fools and knaves around him.

Aretino completed the disengagement of Italian from Latin comedy. Ignoring the principles established by the Plautine mannerists, he liberated the elements of satire and of realism held in bondage by their rules. His reasoning was unanswerable. Why should he attend to the unities, or be careful to send the same person no more than five times on the stage in one piece? His people shall come and go as they think fit, or as the argument requires.[205] Why should he make Romans ape he style of Athens? His Romans shall be painted from life; his servants shall talk and act like Italian varlets, not mimicking the ways of Geta or Davus.[206] Why should he shackle his style with precedents from Petrarch and Boccaccio? He will seek the fittest words, the aptest phrases, the most biting repartees from ordinary language.[207] Why condescend to imitation, when his mother wit supplies him with material, and the world of men lies open like a book before his eyes?[208] Why follow in the footsteps of the pedants, who mistake their knowledge of grammar for genius, and whose commentaries are an insult to the poets they pretend to illustrate?[209]

[Footnote 205: "Se voi vedessi uscire i personaggi piu di cinque volte in scena, non ve ne ridete, perche le catene che tengono i molini sul fiume, non terrebbeno i pazzi d'oggidi" (Prologue to the _Cortigiana_).]

[Footnote 206: "Non vi maravigliate se lo stil comico non s'osserva con l'ordine che si richiede, perche si vive d'un'altra maniera a Roma che non si vivea in Atene" (_Ibid._).]

[Footnote 207: "Io non mi son tolto dagli andari del Petrarca e del Boccaccio per ignoranza, che pur so cio che essi sono; ma per non perdere il tempo, la pazienza e il nome nella pazzia di volermi transformare in loro" (Prologue to the _Orazia_).]

[Footnote 208: "Piu pro fa il pane asciutto in casa propria che l'accompagnato con molte vivande su altrui tavola. Imita qua, imita la; tutto e fava, si puo dire alle composizioni dei piu ... di chi imita, mi faccio beffe ... posso giurare d'esser sempre me stesso, ed altri non mai" (_Ibid._).]

[Footnote 209: "Io mi rido dei pedanti, i quali si credono che la dottrina consiste nella lingua greca, dando tutta la riputatione allo in _bus_ in _bas_ della grammatica" (Prologue to _Orazia_). "I crocifissori del Petrarca, i quali gli fanno dir cose con i loro comenti, che non gliene fariano confessare diece tratti di corda. E bon per Dante che con le sue diavolerie fa star le bestie in dietro, che a questa ora saria in croce anch'egli" (Prologue to _Cortigiana_).]

Conscious of his own defective education, and judging the puristic niceties of the age at their true value, Aretino thus flung the glove of defiance in the face of a learned public. It was a bold step; but the adventurer knew what he was doing. The originality of his _Ars Poetica_ took the world by surprise. His Italian audience delighted in the sparkle of a style that gave point to their common speech. Had Aretino been a writer of genius, Italy might now have owed to his audacity and self-reliance the starting-point of national dramatic art.[210] He was on the right path, but he lacked the skill to tread it. His comedies, loosely put together, with no constructive vigor in their plots and no grasp of psychology in their characters, are a series of powerfully-written scenes, piquant dialogues, effective situations, rather than comedies in the higher sense of the word. We must not look for Ariosto's lucid order, for Machiavelli's disposition of parts, in these vagaries of a brilliant talent aiming at immediate success. We must be grateful for the filibustering bravado which made him dare to sketch contemporary manners from the life. The merit of these comedies is naturalness. Such affectation of antithesis or labored epigram as mars their style, was part of Aretino's self. It reveals the man, and is not wearisome like the conceits of the pedantic school. What he had learned, seen or heard in his experience of the world--and Aretino saw, heard and learned the worst of the society in which he lived--is presented with vigor. The power to express is never shackled by a back-thought of reserve or delicacy. Each character stands outlined with a vividness none the less convincing because the study lacks depth. What Aretino cannot supply, is the nexus between these striking passages, the linking of these lively portraits into a coherent whole. Machiavelli's logic, perverse as it may be, produces by its stringent application a more impressive aesthetical effect. The doctrine of style for style's sake, derided by Aretino, satisfies at least our sense of harmony. In the insolence of freedom he spoils the form of his plays by discussions, sometimes dull, sometimes disgusting, in which he vents his spite or airs his sycophancy without regard for the exigencies of his subject. Still, in spite of these defects, Aretino's plays are a precious mine of information for one who desires to enter into direct communication with the men of the Renaissance.

[Footnote 210: His tragedy _Orazia_ has just the same merits of boldness and dramatic movement in parts, the same defects of incoherence. It detaches itself favorably from the tragedies of the pedants.]

Aretino's point of view is that of the successful adventurer. Unlike Machiavelli, he has no sourness and reveals no disappointment. He has never fallen from the high estate of an impersonal ambition. His report of human depravity is neither scientific nor indignant. He appreciates the vices of the world, by comprehending which, as means to ends, he has achieved celebrity. They are the instruments of his advance in life, the sources of his wealth, the wisdom he professes. Therefore, while he satirizes, he treats them with complacence. Evil is good for its own sake also in his eyes. Having tasted all its fruits, he revels in recalling his sensations, just as Casanova took pleasure in recording his debaucheries. His knowledge of society is that of an upstart, who has risen from the lowest ranks by the arts of the bully, flatterer and pander. We never forget that he began life as a lackey, and the most valuable quality of his comedies is that they depict the great world from the standpoint of the servants' hall. Aretino is too powerful and fashionable to be aware of this. He poses as the sage and satirist. But the revelation is none the less pungent because it is made unconsciously. The Court, idealized by Castiglione, censured by Guarini, inveighed against by La Casa, here shows its inner rottenness for our inspection, at the pleasure of a charlatan who thrives on this pollution. We hear how the valets of debauched prelates, the parasites of petty nobles, the pimps who battened on the vices of the rich, the flatterer who earned his bread by calumny and lies, viewed this world of fashion, how they discussed it among themselves, how they utilized its corruption. We shake hands with ruffians and cut-throats, enter the Roman brothels by their back-door, sit down in their kitchens, and become acquainted with the secrets of their trade. It may be suggested that the knowledge supplied by Aretino, if it concerns such details, is neither profitable nor valuable. No one, indeed, who is not specially curious to realize the manners of Renaissance Italy, should occupy his leisure with these comedies.

The _Cortigiana_ is a parody of Castiglione's _Cortegiano_. A Sienese gentleman, simple and provincial, the lineal descendant of Pulci's Messer Goro, arrives in Rome to make his fortune.[211] He is bent on assuming the fine airs of the Court, and hopes to become at least a Cardinal before he returns home. On his first arrival Messer Maco falls into the clutches of a sharper, who introduces him to disreputable society, under color of teaching him the art of courtiership. The satire of the piece consists in showing Rome to be the school of profligacy rather than of gentle customs.[212] Before he has spent more than a few days in the Eternal City, the country squire learns the slang of the _demi-monde_ and swaggers among courtesans and rufflers. Maestro Andrea, who has undertaken his education, lectures him upon the virtues of the courtier in a scene of cynical irony:[213] "La principal cosa, il cortigiano vuol sapere bestemmiare, vuole essere giuocatore, invidioso, puttaniere, eretico, adulatore, maldicente, sconoscente, ignorante, asino, vuol sapere frappare, far la ninfa, et essere agente e paziente." Some of these qualities are understood at once by Messer Maco. Concerning others he asks for further information: "Come si diventa eretico? questo e 'l caso.--Notate.--Io nuoto benissimo.--Quando alcuno vi dice che in Corte sia bonta, discrezione, amore, o conoscenza, dite no 'l credo ... in somma a chi vi dice bene de la Corte, dite: tu sei un bugiardo." Again, Messer Maco asks: "Come si dice male?" The answer is prompt and characteristic of Aretino:[214] "Dicendo il vero, dicendo il vero." What Maestro Andrea teaches theoretically, is expounded as a fact of bitter experience by Valerio and Flamminio, the gentlemen in waiting on a fool of fortune named Parabolano.[215] These men, admitted to the secrets of a noble household, know its inner sordidness, and reckon on the vanity and passions of their patron. A still lower stage in the scale of debasement is revealed by the conversations of the lackeys, Rosso and Cappa, who discuss the foibles of their master with the coarseness of the stables.[216] In so far as the _Cortigiana_ teaches any lesson, it is contained in the humiliation of Parabolano. His vices have made him the slave and creature of foul-minded serving-men, who laugh together over the disgusting details of his privacy, while they flatter him to his face in order to profit by his frivolities.[217] Aretino's own experience of life in Rome enabled him to make these pictures of the servants' hall and antechamber pungent.[218] The venom engendered by years of servitude and adulation is vented in his criticism of the Court as censured from a flunkey's point of view. Nor is he less at home in painting the pleasures of the class whom he has chosen for his critics of polite society. Cappa's soliloquy upon the paradise of the tavern, and Rosso's pranks, when he plays the gentleman in his master's fine clothes, owe the effect of humor to their realistic verve.[219] We feel them to be reminiscences of fact. These scenes constitute the salt of the comedy, supported by vivid sketches of town characters--the news-boy, the fisherman of the Tiber, and the superannuated prostitute.[220]

[Footnote 211: "Egli e uno di quegli animali di tanti colori che il vostro avolo compero in cambio d'un papagallo" (act i. sc. 1).]

[Footnote 212: Its most tedious episode is a panegyric of Venice at the expense of Rome (act iii. sc. 7).]

[Footnote 213: Act i. sc. 22.]

[Footnote 214: He makes the same point in the prologue to _La Talenta_: "Chi brama d'acquistarsi il nome del piu scellerato uomo che viva, dica il vero."]

[Footnote 215: Act i. sc. 9; act ii. sc. 6; act ii. sc. 10; act iii. sc. 7.]

[Footnote 216: See especially act i. sc. 7.]

[Footnote 217: Act iv. sc. 6.]

[Footnote 218: Notice the extraordinary virulence of his invective against the _tinello_ or common room of servants in a noble household (act v. sc. 15).]

[Footnote 219: Act ii. sc. 1; act i. scs. 11-18.]

[Footnote 220: Act i. sc. 4; act i. sc. 11; act ii. sc. 7.]

In the _Cortigiana_ it was Aretino's object to destroy illusions about Court-life by describing it in all the vileness of reality.[221] The _Marescalco_ is a study of the same conditions of society, with less malignity and far more geniality of humor.[222] A rich fool has been recommended by his lord and master, the Duke of Mantua, to take a wife. He loathes matrimony, and shrinks from spending several thousand ducats on the dower. But the parasites, buffoons and henchmen of the prince persuade and bully him into compliance. He is finally married to a page dressed as a woman, and his relief at discovering the sex of his supposed wife forms the climax of the plot. The play is conducted with so much spirit that we may not be wrong in supposing Shakspere in _Twelfth Night_ and Ben Jonson in _Epicoene_ to have owed something to its humor. We look, however, in vain for such fine creatures of the fancy as Sir Toby Belch, or for a catastrophe so overwhelming as the _crescendo_ of noise and bustle which subdue the obstinacy of Morose. On the other hand, the two companion scenes in which Marescalco's nurse enlarges on the luxuries of married life, while Ambrogio describes its miseries, are executed with fine sense of comic contrast.[223]

[Footnote 221: Act ii. sc. 6.]

[Footnote 222: Of all Aretino's plays the _Marescalco_ is the simplest and the most artistically managed.]

[Footnote 223: Act i. sc. 6; act ii. sc. 5.]

In the _Talanta_ we return to Roman society. This comedy is a study of courtesan life, analyzed with thorough knowledge of its details. The character of Talanta, who plays her four lovers one against the other, extracting presents by various devices from each of them, displays the author's intimate acquaintance with his subject.[224] Talanta on the stage is a worthy pendant to Nanna in the _Ragionamenti_. But the intrigue is confused, tedious and improbable; and after reading the first act, we have already seen the best of Aretino's invention. The same may be said about the _Ipocrita_ and the _Filosofo_, two comedies in which Aretino attempted to portray a charlatan of Tartufe's type and a student helpless in his wife's hands. These characters are not ill conceived, but they are too superficially executed to bear the weight of the plot laid upon them. In like manner the pedant in the _Marescalco_ and the swashbuckler in the _Talanta_ are rather silhouettes than finished portraits. Though well sketched, they lack substance. They have neither the lifelike movement of Shakspere's minor persons, nor the impressive mechanism of Jonson's humors. Bobadil and Master Holofernes, though caricatures, move in a higher region of the comic art. The characters Aretino would imitate supremely well, were a page like Giannico in the _Marescalco_, a footman like Rosso in the _Cortigiana_, or a woman of the town like Talanta. His comedies are never wanting in bustle and variety of business; while the sarcasm of the author, flying at the best-established reputations, sneering at the most fashionable prejudices of society, renders them effective even now, when all the jealousies he flouted have long been buried in oblivion.[225]

[Footnote 224: Talanta's apology for her rapacity and want of heart (act i. sc. 1); the description of her by her lover Orfinio, who sees through her but cannot escape her fascination (act i. sc. 7); the critique of her by a sensible man (act i. sc. 12); her arts to bring her lover back to his allegiance and wheedle the most odious concessions (act i. sc. 13); her undisguised marauding (act i. sc. 14); these moments in the evolution of her character are set forth with the decision of a master's style.]

[Footnote 225: The Prologue to the _Cortigiana_ passes all the literary celebrities of Italy in review with a ferocity of sarcasm veiled in irony that must have been extremely piquant. And take this equivocal compliment to Molza from the _Marescalco_ (act v. sc. 3), "il Molza Mutinense, che arresta con la sua fistola i torrenti."]

Bibbiena's _Calandra_ is a farce, obscene but not malignant. Ariosto's comedies are studies of society from the standpoint of the middle class. If he is too indulgent to human frailty, too tolerant of vice, we never miss in him the wisdom of a genial observer. Machiavelli's _Mandragola_ casts the dry light of the intellect on an abyss of evil. Nothing but the brilliance of the poet's wit reconciles us to his revelation of perversity. Aretino, by the animation of his sketches, by his prurient delight in what is vile, makes us comprehend that even the _Mandragola_ was possible. Machiavelli stands outside his subject, like Lucifer, fallen but disdainful. Aretino is the Belial who acknowledges corruption for his own domain. Ariosto and Machiavelli are artists each in his kind perfect. Aretino is an _improvvisatore_, clever with the pen he uses like a burin.

It would be difficult to render an account of the comedies produced by the Italians in the sixteenth century, or to catalogue their authors. A computation has been made which reckons the plays known to students at several thousands. In spite of this extraordinary richness in comic literature, Italy cannot boast of a great comedy. No poet arose to carry the art onward from the point already reached when Aretino left the stage. The neglect that fell on those innumerable comedies, was not wholly undeserved. It is true that their scenes suggested brilliant episodes to French and English playwrights of celebrity. It is true that the historian of manners finds in them an almost inexhaustible store of matter. Still they are literary lucubrations rather than the spontaneous expression of a vivid nationality. Nor have they the subordinate merit of dealing in a scientific spirit with the cardinal vices and follies of society. We miss the original plots, the powerful modeling of character, the philosophical insight which would have reconciled us to a _Commedia erudita_.

When we examine the plays of Firenzuola, Cecchi, Ambra, Gelli, Il Lasca, Doni, Dolce, we find that a hybrid form of art had been established by the practice of the earlier playwrights. This hybrid implied Plautus and Terence as a necessary basis. It adopted the fusion of Latin arguments with Italian manners which was so ably realized by Ariosto and Machiavelli. It allowed something for the farce traditions which the Rozzi made fashionable at Rome. It assumed ingredients from the _Burle_ and _Novelle_ of the marketplace, reproduced the language of the people, and made use of current scandals to give piquancy to its conventional plots. But notwithstanding the admixture of so many modern elements, the stereotyped Latinism of its form rendered this comedy unnatural. Ingenious _contaminatio_, to use a phrase in vogue among Roman critics, was always more apparent than creative instinct.

The _Commedia erudita_ presented a framework ready-made to the playwright, and easily accepted on the strength of usage by the audience he sought to entertain. At the same time it left him free, within prescribed limits, to represent the manners of contemporary life. The main object of a great drama "to show the very age and body of the time his form and pressure," is thrust into the second rank; and the most valuable portions of these clever works of skill are their episodes--such scenes, for example, as those which in the _Aridosio_ of Lorenzino de' Medici reveal the dissoluteness of conventual customs in a scholastic _rifacimento_ of the _Adelphi_ and the _Mostellaria_.[226] Had the fusion of classical and modern elements been complete as in the _Epicoene_ of Jonson, or had the character-drawing been masterly as in Moliere's _Avare_, we should have no cause for complaint. But these are just the qualities of success missed by the Italian playwrights. Their studies from nature are comparatively slight. Having exhibited them in the presentation of the subject or introduced them here and there by way of interludes, they work the play to its conclusion on the lines of Latinistic convention.[227]

[Footnote 226: _Lorenzino de' Medici_, Daelli, Milano, 1862.]

[Footnote 227: The pseudo-classical hybrid I have attempted to describe is analogous in its fixity of outline to the conventional framework of the _Sacre Rappresentazioni_, which allowed a playwright the same subordinate liberty of action and saved him the trouble of invention to a like extent. It may here be noticed that the Italians in general adopted stereotyped forms for dramatic representation. Harlequin, Columbine, and Pantaloon, the Bolognese doctor, the Stenterello of Florence, the Meneghino of Milan, and many other dramatic types, recognized as stationary, yet admitting of infinite variety in treatment by author or actor, are notable examples. In estimating the dramatic genius of Italy this tendency to move within defined and conventional limits of art, whether popular or literary, must never be forgotten.]

Such being the form of _cinque cento_ comedy, it follows that its details are monotonous. The characters are invariably drawn from the ranks of the rich burgher classes; and if we may trust the evidence furnished by the playwrights, the morality of these classes must have been of an almost inconceivable baseness. We survey a society separated from the larger interests than elevate humanity, without public ambition or the sense of national greatness, excluded from the career of arms, dead to honor, bent upon sensual enjoyment and petty intrigues. The motive which sustains the plot, is illicit love; but in its presentation there is no romance, nothing to cloak the animalism of an unchecked instinct. The young men who play the part of _primi amorosi_, are in debt or without money. It is their object to repair their fortunes by a rich marriage, to secure a maintenance from a neighbor's wife they have seduced, to satisfy the avarice of a greedy courtesan, or to conceal the results of an intrigue which has brought their mistress into difficulties. From the innumerable scenes devoted to these elegant and witty scapegraces, it would be difficult to glean a single sentence expressive of conscience, remorse, sense of loyalty or generous feeling. They submit to the most odious bargains and disreputable subterfuges, sacrificing the honor of their families or the good fame of the women who depend upon them, to the attainment of some momentary self-indulgence.[228] Without respect for age, they expend their ingenuity in robbing their parents and exposing their fathers to ridicule.[229] Nor is it possible to feel much sympathy for the elders, who are so brutally used. The old man of these comedies is either a superannuated libertine, who makes himself ridiculous by his intrigues with a neighbor's wife, or a parsimonious tyrant, or else an indulgent rake, who acts the pander for his good-for-nothing rascal of a son.[230] Mere simpletons like Machiavelli's Nicia, or Aretino's Messer Maco, furnish another type of irreverent age, unredeemed by the comic humor of Falstaff or the gigantic lusts of Sir Epicure Mammon. Between son and father the inevitable servant plays the part of clever rogue. It is he who weaves the meshes of the intrigue that shall cut the purse-strings of the stingy parent, blind the eyes of the husband to his wife's adultery, or cheat the creditor of his dues. Our sympathy is always enlisted on the side of the schemers; and however base their tricks may be, we are invited to applaud the success which crowns them. The girls are worthy of their lovers. Corrupted by nurses; exposed to the contaminating influences of the convent; courted by grooms and servants in their father's household; tampered with by infamous duennas; betrayed by their own mothers or intrusted by their fathers to notorious prostitutes; they accept the first husband proposed to them by their parents, confident in the hope of continuing clandestine intrigues with the neighbor's son who has seduced them.[231] The wives are such as the _Novelle_ paint them, yielding to the barest impulses of wantonness, and covering their debauchery with craft that raises a laugh against the husbands they have cozened. Such are the main actors, the conventional personages, of the domestic comedy. The subordinate characters consist of parasites and flatterers; ignorant pedants and swaggering _bravi_; priests who ply the trade of pimps; astrologers who thrive upon the folly of their clients; doctors who conceal births; prostitutes and their attendant bullies; compliant go-betweens and rapacious bawds; pages, street urchins, and officers of justice. The adulterous intrigue required such minor persons as instruments; and it often happens that scenes of vivid comic humor, dialogues of the most brilliant Tuscan idiom, are suggested by the interaction of these puppets, whose wires the clever valet and the _primo amoroso_ pull.

[Footnote 228: Cinthio's conduct towards Emilia in the _Negromante_ is a good instance.]

[Footnote 229: See above, p. 163, note, for Cleandro in the _Mandragola_; and compare Alamanno's conversation with his uncle Lapo, his robbery of his mother's money-box, and his reflections on the loss he should sustain by her re-marriage, in Gelli's _La Sporta_ (act iii. 5; ii. 2). Camillo's allusions to his father's folly in Gelli's _Errore_ (act iv. 2) are no less selfish and heartless. Alamanno's plot to raise a dower by fraud (_La Sporta_, iv. 1) may be compared with Fabio's trick upon his stepmother in Cecchi's _Martello_. In the latter his father takes a hand.]

[Footnote 230: Ghirigoro in Gelli's _Sporta_, Gherardo in Gelli's _Errore_, Girolamo in Cecchi's _Martello_. It is needless to multiply examples. The analyses of Machiavelli's comedies will suffice.]

[Footnote 231: It would be easy to illustrate each of these points from the comedies of Ariosto, Cecchi, Machiavelli, Lorenzino de' Medici; to which the reader may be referred _passim_ for proof.]

The point of interest for contemporary audiences was the _burla_--the joke played off by a wife upon her husband, by rogues upon a simpleton, by a son upon his father, by a servant on his master's creditors, by a pupil on his pedantic tutor. Accepting the conditions of a comedy so constructed, and eliminating ethical considerations, we readily admit that these jokes are infinitely amusing. The scene in Gelli's _Sporta_ where Ghirigoro de' Macci receives the confidences of the youth who has seduced his daughter, under the impression that he is talking about his money-box, is not unworthy of Moliere's _Avare_. Two scenes in Gelli's _Errore_, where Gherardo Amieri, disguised as an old woman, is tormented by a street urchin whom his son has sent to teaze him, and afterwards confronted by his angry wife, might have adorned the _Merry Wives of Windsor_.[232] Cecchi's comedies in like manner abound in comical absurdities, involving exquisitely realistic pictures of Florentine manners.[233] For the student of language, no less than for the student of Renaissance life, they are invaluable. But the similarity of form which marks the comedies of the _cinque cento_, renders it impossible to do justice to their details in the present work. I must content myself with the foregoing sketch of their structure derived from the perusal of such plays as were accessible in print, and with the further observation that each eminent dramatist developed some side of the common heritage transmitted by their common predecessors. Thus Firenzuola continued the Latin tradition with singular tenacity, adapting classical arguments in his _Lucidi_ and _Trinuzia_ to modern themes with the same inimitable transparency of style he had displayed in his _rifacimento_ of the _Golden Ass_.[234] Gelli adapted the _Aulularia_ in his _Sporta_, and closely followed the _Clizia_ in his _Errore_. The devotion professed for Machiavelli by this playwright, was yielded by Cecchi to Ariosto; and thus we notice two divergent strains of tradition within the circle of Florentine art.[235] Cecchi was a voluminous dramatic writer. Besides his comedies in _sdrucciolo_ and _piano_ verse, he composed _Sacre Rappresentazioni_ and plays of a mixed kind derived from a free handling of that elder form.[236] While Gelli and Cecchi severally followed the example of Machiavelli and Ariosto, Il Lasca attempted to free the Italian drama from the fetters of erudite convention.[237] His comedies are exceedingly witty versions of _Novelle_, forming dramatic pendants to his narratives in that style. Yet though he strove to make the stage a mirror of contemporary customs, he could not wholly escape from the mannerism into which the dramatic art had fallen. Nor was it possible, now that the last gleam of liberty had expired in Italy, when even Florence accepted her fate, and the Inquisition was jealously watching every new birth of the press, to create what the earlier freedom of the Renaissance had missed. The drama was condemned to trivialities which only too faithfully reflected the political stagnation, and the literary trifling of a decadent civilization.[238]

[Footnote 232: _Opere di Gio. Battista Gelli_ (Milano, 1807), vol. iii.]

[Footnote 233: _Commedie di Giovan Maria Cecchi_, 2 vols., Lemonnier.]

[Footnote 234: _Opere di Messer Agnolo Firenzuola_ (Milano, 1802), vol. v.]

[Footnote 235:

E 'l divino Ariosto anco, a chi cedono
Greci, Latini e Toscan, tutti i comici.

Prologue to _I Rivali_.

Ma che diro di te, spirito illustre,
Ariosto gentil, qual lode fia
Uguale al tuo gran merto, al tuo valore?
Cede a te nella comica palestra
Ogni Greco e Latin, perche tu solo
Hai veramente dimostrato come
Esser deve il principio, il mezzo e 'l fine
Delle comedie, etc.

_Le Pellegrine_, Intermedio Sesto, published by Barbera, 1855.]

[Footnote 236: See the "Esaltazione della Croce," _Sacre Rappresentazioni_, Lemonnier, vol. iii. Compare those curious hybrid plays, _Il Figliuolo Prodigo_, _La Morte del Re Acab_, _La Conversione della Scozia_, in his collected plays (Lemonnier, 1856). _Lo Sviato_ may be mentioned as another of his comedies derived from the _Sacre Rappr._ with a distinctly didactic and moral purpose.]

[Footnote 237: See Prologue to _La Strega_, and above, p. 124.]

[Footnote 238: I reserve for another chapter the treatment of the Pastoral, which eventually proved the most original and perfect product of the Italian stage.]

It is worthy of notice, as a final remark upon the history of the comic stage, that at this very moment of its ultimate frustration there existed the germ of a drama analogous to that of England, only waiting to be developed by some master spirit. That was the _Farsa_, which Cecchi, the most prolific, original and popular of Florentine playwrights, deigned to cultivate.[239] He describes it thus: "The _Farsa_ is a new third species between tragedy and comedy. It enjoys the liberties of both, and shuns their limitations; for it receives into its ample boundaries great lords and princes, which comedy does not, and, like a hospital or inn, welcomes the vilest and most plebeian of the people, to whom Dame Tragedy has never stooped. It is not restricted to certain motives; for it accepts all subjects--grave and gay, profane and sacred, urbane and rude, sad and pleasant. It does not care for time or place. The scene may be laid in a church, or a public square, or where you will; and if one day is not long enough, two or three may be employed. What, indeed, does it matter to the _Farsa_? In a word, this modern mistress of the stage is the most amusing, the most convenient, the sweetest, prettiest country-lass that can be found upon our earth."[240] He then goes on to describe the liberty of language allowed in the _Farsa_, rounding off a picture which exactly applies to our Elizabethan drama. The _Farsa_, in the form it had assumed when Cecchi used it, was, in fact, the survival of an ancient, obscure species of dramatic art, which had descended from the period of classical antiquity, and which recently had blent with the traditions of the _Sacre Rappresentazioni_. Had circumstances been favorable to the development of a national drama in Italy, the popular elements of the Pagan farce and the medieval Mystery would have naturally issued through the _Farsa_ in a modern form of art analogous to that produced in England. But the Italians had, as we have seen, no public to demand the rehabilitation of the _Farsa_; nor was Cecchi a Shakspere, or even a Marlowe, to prove, in the face of Latinizing playwrights, that the national stage lay in its cradle here. It remained for the poets of a far-off island, who disdained Italian _jigs_ and owed nothing to the _Farse_ of either Florentine or Neapolitan contemporaries, acting by instinct and in concert with the sympathies of a great nation, to take this "sweetest, prettiest country-lass" by the hand and place her side by side with Attic Tragedy and Comedy upon the supreme throne of art.

[Footnote 239: The titles of his _Farse_ given by D'Ancona are _I Malandrini_, _Pittura_, _Andazzo_, _Sciotta_, _Romanesca_.]

[Footnote 240: Prologue to the _Romanesca_, Firenze, Cenniniana, 1874.]

The Italian comedies offer an even more startling picture of social vice than the _Novelle_.[241] To estimate how far they represent a general truth, is difficult; especially when we remember that they were written in a conventional style, to amuse princes, academicians, and prelates.[242] Comparing their testimony with that of private letters and biographical literature (the correspondence, for example, of Alessandra degli Strozzi, Alberti's treatise on the Family, and statements gleaned from memoirs and _Ricordi_), we are justified in believing that a considerable difference existed at the commencement of this epoch between public and domestic manners in Italy; between the Court and the home, the piazza and the fireside, the diversions of fashionable coteries and the conversation of friends and kinsmen. The family still retained some of its antique simplicity. And it was not as yet vitiated by the institution of Cicisbeism. But the great world was incredibly corrupt. Each Court formed a nucleus of dissolute living. Rome, stigmatized successively by men so different as Lorenzo de' Medici, Pietro Aretino, Gian-Giorgio Trissino, and Messer Guidiccioni, poisoned the whole Italian nation. Venice entertained a multitude of prostitutes, and called them _benemeritae_ in public acts. Since, therefore, these centers of aristocratic and literary life drew recruits from the burgher and rural classes, the strongholds of patriarchal purity were continually being sapped by contact with fashionable uncleanliness. And thus in the sixteenth century a common standard of immorality had been substituted for earlier severity of manners. The convulsions of that disastrous epoch, following upon a period of tranquillity, during which the people had become accustomed to luxury, submerged whole families in vice. "Wars, famines, and the badness of the times," wrote Aretino, "inclining men to give themselves amusement, have so debauched all Italy (_imputtanita tutta Italia_), that cousins and kinsfolk of both sexes, brothers and sisters, mingle together without shame, without a shadow of conscience."[243] Though it is preposterous to see Aretino posing as a censor of morals, his acuteness was indubitable; nor need we suppose that his acquaintance with the disease rendered him less sagacious in detecting its causes. What Corio tells us about Lodovico Sforza's capital, what we read about the excess of luxury into which the nobles of Vicenza and Milan plunged, amid the horrors of the French and Spanish occupation, confirms his testimony.[244] After the Black Death, described by Matteo Villani, the Florentines consoled themselves for previous sufferings by an outburst of profligate and reckless living. So now they sought distraction in unbridled sensuality. Society was in dissolution, and men lived for the moment, careless of consequences. The immorality of the theater was at once a sign and a source of this corruption. "O times! O manners!" exclaims Lilius Giraldus:[245] "the obscenities of the stage return in all their foulness. Plays are acted in every city, which the common consent of Christendom had banned because of their depravity. Now the very prelates of the faith, our nobles, our princes, bring them back again among us, and cause them to be publicly presented. Nay, priests themselves are eagerly ambitious of the infamous title of actors, in order to bring themselves into notoriety, and to enrich themselves with benefices."

[Footnote 241: Dolce in the Prologue to his _Ragazzo_ says that, immodest as a comedy may be, it would be impossible for any play to reproduce the actual depravity of manners.]

[Footnote 242: What I have already observed with regard to the _Novelle_--namely, that Italy lacked the purifying and ennobling influences of a real public, embracing all classes, and stimulating the production of a largely designed, broadly executed literature of human nature--is emphatically true also of her stage. The people demand greatness from their authors--simplicity, truth, nobleness. They do not shrink from grossness; they tolerate what is coarse. But these elements must be kept in proper subordination. Princes, petty coteries, academies, drawing-room patrons, the audience of the antechamber and the boudoir, delight in subtleties, _doubles entendre_, scandalous tales, Divorce Court arguments. The people evokes Shakspere; the provincial Court breeds Bibbiena.]

[Footnote 243: _Cortigiana_, act ii. sc. 10.]

[Footnote 244: See Corio, quoted in _Age of the Despots_, p. 548, note 1. For Milanese luxury, Bandello, vol. i. pp. 219 _et seq._; vol. iv. p. 115 (Milan edition, 1814). For Vicenza, Morsolin's _Trissino_, p. 291.]

[Footnote 245: _De Poet. Hist._ Dial. 8. Giraldi may have had men like Inghirami, surnamed "Phaedra," and Cardinal Bibbiena in view.]

It must not be supposed that the immorality of the comic stage consists in the license of language, incident or plot. Had this been all, we should hardly be justified in drawing a distinction between the Italians of the Renaissance and our own Elizabethan playwrights. It lies far deeper, in the vicious philosophy of life paraded by the authors, in the absence of any didactic or satirical aim. Moliere, while exposing evil, teaches by example. A canon of goodness is implied, from which the deformities of sin and folly are deflections. But Machiavelli and Aretino paint humanity as simply bad. The palm of success is awarded to unscrupulous villainy. An incapacity for understanding the immutable power of moral beauty was the main disease of Italy. If we seek the cause of this internal cancer, we must trace the history of Italian thought and feeling back to the age of Boccaccio; and we shall probably form an opinion that misdirected humanism, blending with the impieties of a secularized Papacy, the self-indulgence of the despots, and the coarse tastes of the _bourgeoisie_, had sapped the conscience of society.