Chapter XIII: The Purists (2)

One whole volume of La Casa's collected works is devoted to his official and familiar correspondence, composed in choice but colorless Italian.[331] Another contains his Italian and Latin poems. No poet of the century expressed his inner self more plainly than La Casa in his verse. The spectacle is stern and grave. From the vocabulary of the Tuscan classics he seems to have chosen the gloomiest phrases, to adumbrate some unknown terror of the soul.[332] Sometimes his sonnets, in their vivid but polished grandeur, rise even to sublimity, as when he compares himself to a leafless wood in winter, beaten by fiercer storms, with days more cold and short in front, and with a longer night to follow.[333] It is a cheerless prospect of old age and death, uncomforted by hope, unvisited by human love. The same shadow, intensified by even a deeper horror of some coming doom, rests upon another sonnet in which he deplores his wasted life.[334] It drapes, as with a funeral pall, the long majestic ode describing his early errors and the vanity of worldly pomp.[335] It adds despair to his lines on jealousy, intensity to his satire on Court-life, and incommunicable sadness to the poems of his love.[336] Very judicious were the Italian critics who pronounced his style too stern for the erotic muse. We find something at once sinister and solemn in his mood. The darkness that envelops him, issues from the depth of his own heart. The world around is bright with beautiful women and goodly men; but he is alone, shut up with fear and self-reproach. Such a voice befits the age, as we learn to know it in our books of history, far better than the light effusions of contemporary rhymsters. It suits the black-robed personages painted by Moroni, whose calm pale eyes seem gazing on a world made desolate, they know not why. Its accents are all the more melancholy because La Casa yielded to no impulses of rage. He remained sober, cold, sedate; but by some fatal instinct shunned the light and sought the shade. The gloom that envelops him is only broken by the baleful fires of his _Capitoli_. That those burlesque verses, of which I shall speak in another place, were written in his early manhood, and that the _Rime_ were perhaps the composition of his age, need not prevent us from connecting them together. The dreariness of La Casa's later years may well have been engendered by the follies of his youth. It is the despondency of exhaustion following on ill-expended energy, the _taedium vitae_ which fell on Italy when she awoke from laughter.

[Footnote 331: Vol. ii. of the Venetian edition, 1752.]

[Footnote 332: Take for instance this outburst from a complimentary sonnet (No. 40, vol. i. p. 70):

O tempestosa, o torbida procella,
Che 'n mar si crudo la mia vita giri!
Donna amar, ch'Amor odia e i suoi desiri,
Che sdegno e feritate onor appella.

Or this opening of the sonnet on Court-honors (No. 26):

Mentre fra valli paludose ed ime
Ritengon me larve turbate, e mostri,
Che tra le gemme, lasso, e l'auro, e gli ostri
Copron venen, che 'l cor mi roda e lima.

Or this from a _Canzone_ on his love (No. 2):

Qual chiuso albergo in solitario bosco
Pien di sospetto suol pregar talora
Corrier di notte traviato e lasso;
Tal io per entro il tuo dubbioso, e fosco.
E duro calle, Amor, corro e trapasso.]

[Footnote 333: Sonnet 58, vol. i. 154.]

[Footnote 334: No. 52, _ib._ p. 136.]

[Footnote 335: _Canzone_ 4, _ib._ p. 102.]

[Footnote 336: Sonnets 8, 26, 40. _ib._ pp. 12, 39, 70; _Canzone_ 2, _ib._ p. 79.]

In illustration of the foregoing remarks I have translated six of La Casa's sonnets, which I shall here insert without further comment.[337] In point of form, Italian literature can show few masterpieces superior to the first and second.

[Footnote 337: They are Nos. 58, 50, 25, 26, 8. The sixth, on Jealousy, may be compared with Sannazzaro's, above, p. 200.]

Sweet woodland solitude, that art so dear
To my dark soul lost in doubt's dreadful maze,
Now that the North-wind, these short sullen days,
Wraps earth and air in winter's mantle drear,
And thy green ancient shadowy locks are sere,
White as my own, above the frosty ways,
Where summer flowers once basked beneath heaven's rays,
But rigid ice now reigns and snows austere;
Pondering upon that brief and cloudy light
That's left for me, I walk, and feel my mind
And members, like thy branches, frozen too;
Yet me, within, without, worse frost doth bind,
My winter brings a fiercer East-wind's blight,
A longer darkness, days more cold, more few.

O Sleep, O tranquil son of noiseless Night,
Of humid, shadowy Night; O dear repose
For wearied men, forgetfulness of woes
Grievous enough the bloom of life to blight!
Succor this heart that hath outgrown delight,
And knows no rest; these tired limbs compose;
Fly to me, Sleep; thy dusky vans disclose
Over my languid eyes, then cease thy flight.
Where, where is Silence, that avoids the day?
Where the light dreams, that with a wavering tread
And unsubstantial footing follow thee?
Alas! in vain I call thee; and these gray,
These frigid shades flatter in vain. O bed,
How rough with thorns! O nights, how harsh to me!

It was my wont by day to seek the grove
Or grot or font, soothing my soul with song,
Weaving sweet woes in rhyme, and all night long
To watch the stars with Phoebus and with Love;
Nor, Bernard, did I fear with thee to rove
That sacred mount where now few poets throng:
Till like sea-billows, uncontrollably strong,
Me too the vulgar usage earthward drove;
And bound me down to tears and bitter life,
Where fonts are not, nor laurel boughs, nor shade,
But false and empty honor stirs vain strife.
Now, not unmixed with envious regret,
I watch thee scale yon far-off heights, where yet
No footstep on the sward was ever laid.

While mid low-lying dells and swampy vales
Those troubled ghosts and dreams my feet delay,
Which hide 'neath gems and gold and proud array
The barb of poison that my heart impales;
Thou on the heights that virtue rarely scales,
By paths untrodden and a trackless way,
Wrestling for fame with thine own soul, dost stray,
Free o'er yon hills no earth-born cloud assails.
Whence I take shame and sorrow, when I think
How with the crowd in this low net accursed
I fell, and how 'tis doomed that I shall die.
O happy thou! Thou hast assuaged thy thirst!
Not Phoebus but grief dwells with me, and I
Must wait to purge my woes on Lethe's brink.

Now pomps and purple, now clear stream or field
Seeking, I've brought my day to evensong,
Profitless, like dry fern or tares, the throng
Of luckless herbs that no fair fruitage yield.
Wherefore my heart, false guide on this vain quest,
More than a smitten flint strikes spark and flame;
So dulled a spirit must she bring with shame
To Him who placed it bright within my breast.
Poor heart! She well deserves to chafe and burn
Since her so precious and so noble freight,
Ill-governed, she to loss and woe doth turn!
Nor 'neath the North-wind do the branches quake
On yonder bristling oak-trees, as I shake
Fearing that even repentance comes too late.

Heart-ache, that drawest nutriment from fear,
And still through growing fear dost gather power;
That mingling ice with flame, confusion drear
And fell disaster on love's realm dost shower!
Forth from my breast, since all thy bitter cheer
With my life's sweet thou'st blent in one brief hour!
Hence to Cocytus! Where hell drinks each tear
Of tortured souls, self-plagued, self-loathing, cower!
There without rest thy dolorous days drag out,
Thy dark nights without slumber! Smart thy worst
No less with felt pangs than fictitious doubt!
Avaunt! Why fiercer now than at the first,
Now when thy venom runs my veins throughout,
Bring'st thou on those black wings new dreams accurst?

The vicissitudes of Italy during the first half of the sixteenth century were so tragic, and her ruin was so near at hand, that we naturally seek some echo of this anguish in the verses of her poets. Nothing, however, is rarer than to find direct allusion to the troubles of the times, or apprehension of impending danger expressed in sonnet or _canzone_. While following Petrarch to the letter, the purists neglected his odes to Rienzi and the Princes of Italy. His passionate outcry, _Italia mia_, found no response in their rhetoric. Those sublime outpourings of eloquence, palpitating with alternate hopes and fears, might have taught the poets how to write at least the threnody of Rome or Florence. Had they studied this side of their master's style, the gravity of the matter supplied them by the miseries of their country, might have immortalized their purity of style. As it was, they preferred the _Rime in Vita e Morte di Madonna Laura_, and sang of sentiments they had not felt, while Italy was dying. Only here and there, as in the somber rhymes of La Casa, the spirit of the age found utterance unconsciously. But for the mass of versifiers it was enough to escape from the real agonies of the moment into academical Arcadia, to forget the Spaniard and the Frenchman in Philiroe's lap with Ariosto, or to sigh for a past age of gold:[338]

O rivi, o fonti, o fiumi, o faggi, o querce,
Onde il mondo novello ebbe suo cibo
In quel tranquilli secoli dell'oro:
Deh come ha il folle poi cangiando l'esca,
Cangiato il gusto! e come son questi anni
Da quei diversi in povertate e 'n guerra!

[Footnote 338: La Casa, _Canzone_ 4 (_Opp._ i. 151).]

This makes the occasional treatment of political subjects the more valuable; and we hail the patriotic poems of Giovanni Guidiccioni as a relief from the limpid nonsense of the amourists. Born at Lucca in 1500, he was made Bishop of Fossombrone by Paul III., and died in 1541. Contemporaries praised him for the grandeur of his conceptions and the severity of his diction, while they censured the obscurity that veiled his unfamiliar thoughts. "In those songs," writes Lilius Giraldus, "which he composed upon the woes and miseries of Italy, he set before his readers ample proofs of his illustrious style."[339] One sonnet might be chosen from these rhymes, reproving the Italians for their slavery and shame, and pointing to the cause, now irremediable, of their downfall:[340]

From deep and slothful slumber, where till now
Entombed thou liest, waken, breathe, arise!
Look on those wounds with anger in thine eyes,
Italia, self-enslaved in folly's slough!
The diadem of freedom from thy brow
Torn through thine own misdoing, seek with sighs;
Turn to the path, that straight before thee lies,
From yonder crooked furrow thou dost plow.
Think on thine ancient memories! Thou shalt see
That those who once thy triumphs did adorn,
Have chained thee to their yoke with fetters bound.
Foe to thyself, thine own iniquity,
With fame for them, for thee fierce grief and scorn,
To this vile end hath forced thee, Queen discrowned!

[Footnote 339: _De Poetis_, Dial. ii.]

[Footnote 340: _Opere di Messer G. Guidiccioni_ (Firenze, Barbera, 1867), vol. i. p. 12.]

Such appeals were impotent. Yet they proved a consciousness of the situation, an unextinguished sense of duty, in the man who penned them.[341]

[Footnote 341: We might parallel Guidiccioni's lamentations with several passages from the Latin elegies of the period, and with some of the obscurer compositions of Italian poetasters. See, for example, the extracts from Cariteo of Naples, Tibaldeo of Ferrara, and Cammelli of Pistoja on the passage of Charles VIII. quoted by Carducci, _Delle Poesie Latine di Ludovico Ariosto_, pp. 83-86. But the most touching expression of sympathy with Italy's disaster is the sudden silence of Boiardo in the middle of a canto of _Orlando_. See above, part i. p. 463.]

The Court-life followed by professional men of letters made it difficult for them to utter their real feelings in an age of bitter political jealousies. They either held their tongues, or kept within the safer regions of compliment and fancy. The biographies of Annibale Caro and Lodovico Castelvetro illustrate the ordinary conditions as well as the exceptional vicissitudes of the literary career at this epoch. Annibale Caro was born in 1507 at Civitanuova in the March of Ancona. Being poor and of humble origin, he entered the family of Luigi Gaddi at Florence, in the quality of tutor to his children. This patron died in 1541, and Caro then took service under Pier Luigi Farnese, one of the worst princelings of the period. When the Duke was murdered in 1547, he transferred himself to Parma, still following the fortunes of the Farnesi. Employed as secretary by the Cardinal Ranuccio and afterwards by the Cardinal Alessandro of that house, he lived at ease until his death in 1566. Caro's letters, written for his patrons, and his correspondence with the famous scholars of the day, pass for models of Italian epistolography. Less rigid than La Casa's, less manneristic than Bembo's, his style is distinguished by a natural grace and elegance of diction. He formed his manner by translation from the Greek, especially by a version of _Daphnis and Chloe_, which may be compared with Firenzuola's _Asino d'Oro_ for classic beauty and facility of phrase. But the great achievement of his life was a transcription of the _AEneid_ into blank verse. Though Caro's poem exceeds the original by about 5,500 lines, and therefore cannot pass for an exact copy of Virgil's form, Italians still reckon it the standard translation of their national epic. The charm of Caro's prose was communicated to his _versi sciolti_, always easy, always flowing, with varied cadence and sustained melody of rhythm. A _Diceria de' Nasi_, or discourse on noses, and a dissertation called _Ficheide_, commenting on Molza's _Fichi_, prove that Caro lent himself with pleasure to the academical follies of his contemporaries. It seems incredible that a learned man, who had spent the best years of his maturity in diplomatic missions to the Courts of princes, should have employed the leisure of his age in polishing these trifles. Yet such was the temper of the times that this frivolity passed for a commendable exercise of ingenuity.

Caro's original poems have not much to recommend them beyond limpidity of language. The sonnets to an imaginary mistress repeat conventional antitheses and complimentary _concetti_.[342] The adulatory odes are stiff and labored, as, indeed, they might be, when we consider that they were made to order upon Charles V., the Casa Farnese, and the lilies of France, by a plebeian scholar from Ancona.[343] The last-named of these flatteries, "Venite all'ombra de' gran gigli d'oro," is a masterpiece of prize poetry, produced with labor, filed to superficial smoothness, and overloaded with conceits. On its appearance it was hailed with acclamation as the final triumph of Italian writing. The Farnesi, who had recently placed themselves under the protection of France, and who bore her lilies on their scutcheon, used all their influence to get their servant's work applauded. The Academies were delighted with a display of consummate artifice and mechanical ability. One only voice was raised in criticism. Aurelio Bellincini, a gentleman of Modena, had sent a copy of the ode to Lodovico Castelvetro, with a request that he should pronounce upon its merits. Castelvetro, who was wayward and independent beyond the usual prudence of his class, replied with a free censure of the "plebeian diction, empty phrases, strange digressions, purple patches, poverty of argument, and absence of sentiment or inspiration," he detected in its stanzas. At the same time he begged his friend to keep this criticism to himself. Bellincini was indiscreet, and the letter found its way to Caro. Then arose a literary quarrel, which held all Italy in suspense, and equaled in ferocity the combats of the humanists.

[Footnote 342: See, for example, "Donna, qual mi foss'io," and "In voi mi trasformai," or "Eran l'aer tranquillo e l'onde chiare."]

[Footnote 343: See "Carlo il Quinto fu questi"; "Nell'apparir del giorno"; and "Venite all'ombra de' gran gigli d'oro."]

Lodovico Castelvetro was born in 1505 at Modena. He studied successively at Bologna, Ferrara, Padua, and Siena. Thence he passed to Rome, where strong pressure was put upon him to enter orders. His uncle, Giovanni Maria della Porta, promised, if he did so, to procure for him the bishopric of Gubbio. But Castelvetro had no mind to become a priest. He escaped clandestinely from Rome, and, after a brief sojourn at Siena, returned to Modena. Here in 1542 he subscribed the Formulary of Faith dictated by Cardinal Contarini, and thereby fell under suspicion of heresy. Though he escaped inquisitorial censure at the moment, the charges of Lutheranism were revived in 1554, when Caro declared open war against him. Invectives, apologies, censures, and replies were briskly interchanged between the principals, while half the scholars of Italy allowed themselves to be drawn into the fray--Varchi and Molza siding with Caro, Gian Maria Barbieri and other friends of Castelvetro taking up the cudgels for the opposite champion.[344] The bitterness of the contending parties may be gathered from the fact that Castelvetro was accused of having murdered a friend of Caro's, and Caro of having hired assassins to take Castelvetro's life.[345] It seems tolerably certain that either Caro or one of his supporters denounced their enemy to the Inquisition. He was summoned to Rome, and in 1560 was confined in the convent of S. Maria in Via to await his trial. After undergoing some preliminary examinations, Castelvetro became persuaded that his life was in peril. He contrived to escape by night from Rome, and, after a journey of much anxiety and danger, took refuge in Chiavenna, at that time a city of the Grisons. The Holy Office condemned him as a contumacious heretic in his absence. Wandering from Chiavenna to Lyons and Geneva, and back again to Chiavenna, he spent the rest of his life in exile, and died at the last place in 1571.

[Footnote 344: Among the liveliest missiles used in this squabble are Bronzino's _Sattarelli_, recently reprinted by Romagnoli, Bologna, 1863.]

[Footnote 345: Alberigo Longo was in fact murdered in 1555, and a servant of Castelvetro's was tried for the offense. But he was acquitted. Caro, on his side, gave occasion to the worst reports by writing in May 1560 to Varchi: "E credo che all'ultimo saro sforzato a finirla, per ogni altra via, e vengane cio che vuole." See Tiraboschi,