Chapter XXVI: Part 26

If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor creature, and that 363the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustrates the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest passage—the scene in Hades—was fortunately for its author one in which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to oblivion.

_NOTE_

Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the 'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænads are either omitted or represented by passages in _ottava rima_. In the year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò 364printed at Venice a new version of 'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled 'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroïcus,' 'Necromanticus,' and 'Bacchanalis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the second version, first given to the press by the Padre Affò, was Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 (part of the first lyric of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:—

Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza.

This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I have, however, preferred to translate thus:—

Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive,

instead of giving:—

Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive,

because I thought that the second and faithful version would be unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers.

365

EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH

ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON

Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire!
Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies!
Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease,
That maddenest men with fears and fell desire!
O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire,
Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase!
Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease
If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire.
Founded in chaste and humble poverty,
Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn,
Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride?
Even from foul and loathed adultery,
The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return!
Not so: the felon world its fate must bide.

TO STEFANO COLONNA WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE

Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head
Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name,
Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame
The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread:
Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread;
But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill
Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill,
Where musing oft I climb by fancy led.
These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul,
While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers
Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe,
Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control;
But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours,
Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go.

366

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI ON LEAVING AVIGNON

Backward at every weary step and slow
These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear;
Then take I comfort from the fragrant air
That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go.
But when I think how joy is turned to woe,
Remembering my short life and whence I fare,
I stay my feet for anguish and despair,
And cast my tearful eyes on earth below.
At times amid the storm of misery
This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor
Can severed from their spirit hope to live.
Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory
How I to lovers this great guerdon give,
Free from all human bondage to endure?

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE

The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow
Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years,
Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears,
To see their father's tottering steps and slow.
Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe,
In these last days of life he nothing fears,
But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers,
And spent and wayworn forward still doth go;
Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire,
To gaze upon the portraiture of Him
Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see:
Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire,
Lady, to find in other features dim
The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee.

367

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE!

I am so tired beneath the ancient load
Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny,
That much I fear to fail upon the road
And yield my soul unto mine enemy.
'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed,
To save me came with matchless courtesy:
Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode,
So that I strive in vain his face to see.
Yet still his voice reverberates here below:
Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here;
Come unto me if none your going stay!
What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear
Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow,
That I may rest and raise me from the clay?

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV

The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song,
The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign,
Which severed me from what was rightly mine,
And made me sole and strange amid the throng,
The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful,
And those angelic smiles which once did shine
Imparadising earth with joy divine,
Are now a little dust—dumb, deaf, and dull.
And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail,
Left alone without the light I loved so long,
Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail.
Then let me here give o'er my amorous song;
The fountains of old inspiration fail,
And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong.

368

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV

In thought I raised me to the place where she
Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines;
There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines,
More fair I found her and less proud to me.
She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be
With me ensphered, unless desires mislead;
Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed,
Whose day ere eve was ended utterly:
My bliss no mortal heart can understand;
Thee only do I lack, and that which thou
So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil.
Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand?
For at the sound of that celestial tale
I all but stayed in paradise till now.

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV

The flower of angels and the spirits blest,
Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she
Who is my lady died, around her pressed
Fulfilled with wonder and with piety.
What light is this? What beauty manifest?
Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy
Of splendour in this age to our high rest
Hath never soared from earth's obscurity.
She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place,
Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed;
At times the while she backward turns her face
To see me follow—seems to wait and plead:
Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise,
Because I hear her praying me to speed.

VOLUME III.

FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO

Students of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translations from the early Italian poets (_Dante and his Circle_. Ellis & White, 1874) will not fail to have noticed the striking figure made among those jejune imitators of Provençal mannerism by two rhymesters, Cecco Angiolieri and Folgore da San Gemignano. Both belong to the school of Siena, and both detach themselves from the metaphysical fashion of their epoch by clearness of intention and directness of style. The sonnets of both are remarkable for what in the critical jargon of to-day might be termed realism. Cecco is even savage and brutal. He anticipates Villon from afar, and is happily described by Mr. Rossetti as the prodigal, or 'scamp' of the Dantesque circle. The case is different with Folgore. There is no poet who breathes a fresher air of gentleness. He writes in images, dealing but little with ideas. Every line presents a picture, and each picture has the charm of a miniature fancifully drawn and brightly coloured on a missal-margin. Cecco and Folgore alike have abandoned the 2 mediæval mysticism which sounds unreal on almost all Italian lips but Dante's. True Italians, they are content to live for life's sake, and to take the world as it presents itself to natural senses. But Cecco is perverse and impious. His love has nothing delicate; his hatred is a morbid passion. At his worst or best (for his best writing is his worst feeling) we find him all but rabid. If Caligula, for instance, had written poetry, he might have piqued himself upon the following sonnet; only we must do Cecco the justice of remembering that his rage is more than half ironical and humorous:—

An I were fire, I would burn up the world;
An I were wind, with tempest I'd it break;
An I were sea, I'd drown it in a lake;
An I were God, to hell I'd have it hurled;
An I were Pope, I'd see disaster whirled
O'er Christendom, deep joy thereof to take;
An I were Emperor, I'd quickly make
All heads of all folk from their necks be twirled;
An I were death, I'd to my father go;
An I were life, forthwith from him I'd fly;
And with my mother I'd deal even so;
An I were Cecco, as I am but I,
Young girls and pretty for myself I'd hold,
But let my neighbours take the plain and old.

Of all this there is no trace in Folgore. The worst a moralist could say of him is that he sought out for himself a life of pure enjoyment. The famous Sonnets on the Months give particular directions for pastime in a round of pleasure suited to each season. The Sonnets on the Days are conceived in a like hedonistic spirit. But these series are specially addressed to members of the Glad Brigades and Spending Companies, which were common in the great mercantile cities of mediæval Italy. Their tone is doubtless due to the occasion of their composition, as compliments to Messer Nicholò di Nisi and Messer Guerra Cavicciuoli.

3 The mention of these names reminds me that a word need be said about the date of Folgore. Mr. Rossetti does not dispute the commonly assigned date of 1260, and takes for granted that the Messer Nicolò of the Sonnets on the Months was the Sienese gentleman referred to by Dante in a certain passage of the 'Inferno':[48]—

And to the Poet said I: 'Now was ever
So vain a people as the Sienese?
Not for a certainty the French by far.'
Whereat the other leper, who had heard me,
Replied unto my speech: 'Taking out Stricca,
Who knew the art of moderate expenses,
And Nicolò, who the luxurious use
Of cloves discovered earliest of all
Within that garden where such seed takes root.
And taking out the band, among whom squandered
Caccia d' Ascian his vineyards and vast woods,
And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered.'

Now Folgore refers in his political sonnets to events of the years 1314 and 1315; and the correct reading of a line in his last sonnet on the Months gives the name of Nicholò di Nisi to the leader of Folgore's 'blithe and lordly Fellowship.' The first of these facts leads us to the conclusion that Folgore flourished in the first quarter of the fourteenth, instead of in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. The second prevents our identifying Nicholò di Nisi with the Niccolò de' Salimbeni, who is thought to have been the founder of the Fellowship of the Carnation. Furthermore, documents have recently been brought to light which mention at San Gemignano, in the years 1305 and 1306, a certain Folgore. There is no sufficient reason to identify this Folgore with the poet; but the name, to say the least, is so peculiar that its occurrence in the records of so small a town as San Gemignano gives some confirmation to the hypothesis of the 4 poet's later date. Taking these several considerations together, I think we must abandon the old view that Folgore was one of the earliest Tuscan poets, a view which is, moreover, contradicted by his style. Those critics, at any rate, who still believe him to have been a predecessor of Dante's, are forced to reject as spurious the political sonnets referring to Monte Catini and the plunder of Lucca by Uguccione della Faggiuola. Yet these sonnets rest on the same manuscript authority as the Months and Days, and are distinguished by the same qualities.[49]

[48] _Inferno_, xxix. 121.—_Longfellow_.

[49] The above points are fully discussed by Signor Giulio Navone, in his recent edition of _Le Rime di Folgore da San Gemignano e di Cene da la Chitarra d' Arezzo_. Bologna: Romagnoli, 1880. I may further mention that in the sonnet on the Pisans, translated on p. 18, which belongs to the political series, Folgore uses his own name.

Whatever may be the date of Folgore, whether we assign his period to the middle of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, there is no doubt but that he presents us with a very lively picture of Italian manners, drawn from the point of view of the high bourgeoisie. It is on this account that I have thought it worth while to translate five of his Sonnets on Knighthood, which form the fragment that remains to us from a series of seventeen. Few poems better illustrate the temper of Italian aristocracy when the civil wars of two centuries had forced the nobles to enroll themselves among the burghers, and when what little chivalry had taken root in Italy was fast decaying in a gorgeous over-bloom of luxury. The institutions of feudal knighthood had lost their sterner meaning for our poet. He uses them for the suggestion of delicate allegories fancifully painted. Their mysterious significance is turned to gaiety, their piety to amorous delight, their grimness to refined enjoyment. Still these changes are effected with perfect good taste and in perfect good faith. Something of the perfume of true 5 chivalry still lingered in a society which was fast becoming mercantile and diplomatic. And this perfume is exhaled by the petals of Folgore's song-blossom. He has no conception that to readers of Mort Arthur, or to Founders of the Garter, to Sir Miles Stapleton, Sir Richard Fitz-Simon, or Sir James Audley, his ideal knight would have seemed but little better than a scented civet-cat. Such knights as his were all that Italy possessed, and the poet-painter was justly proud of them, since they served for finished pictures of the beautiful in life.

The Italians were not a feudal race. During the successive reigns of Lombard, Frankish, and German masters, they had passively accepted, stubbornly resisted feudalism, remaining true to the conviction that they themselves were Roman. In Roman memories they sought the traditions which give consistency to national consciousness. And when the Italian communes triumphed finally over Empire, counts, bishops, and rural aristocracy; then Roman law was speedily substituted for the 'asinine code' of the barbarians, and Roman civility gave its tone to social customs in the place of Teutonic chivalry. Yet just as the Italians borrowed, modified, and misconceived Gothic architecture, so they took a feudal tincture from the nations of the North with whom they came in contact. Their noble families, those especially who followed the Imperial party, sought the honour of knighthood; and even the free cities arrogated to themselves the right of conferring this distinction by diploma on their burghers. The chivalry thus formed in Italy was a decorative institution. It might be compared to the ornamental frontispiece which masks the structural poverty of such Gothic buildings as the Cathedral of Orvieto.

On the descent of the German Emperor into Lombardy, the great vassals who acknowledged him, made knighthood, 6 among titles of more solid import, the price of their allegiance.[50] Thus the chronicle of the Cortusi for the year 1354 tells us that when Charles IV. 'was advancing through the March, and had crossed the Oglio, and was at the borders of Cremona, in his camp upon the snow, he, sitting upon his horse, did knight the doughty and noble man, Francesco da Carrara, who had constantly attended him with a great train, and smiting him upon the neck with his palm, said: "Be thou a good knight, and loyal to the Empire." Thereupon the noble German peers dismounted, and forthwith buckled on Francesco's spurs. To them the Lord Francesco gave chargers and horses of the best he had.' Immediately afterwards Francesco dubbed several of his own retainers knights. And this was the customary fashion of these Lombard lords. For we read how in the year 1328 Can Grande della Scala, after the capture of Padua, 'returned to Verona, and for the further celebration of his victory upon the last day of October held a court, and made thirty-eight knights with his own hand of the divers districts of Lombardy.' And in 1294 Azzo d'Este 'was knighted by Gerardo da Camino, who then was Lord of Treviso, upon the piazza of Ferrara, before the gate of the Bishop's palace. And on the same day at the same hour the said Lord Marquis Azzo made fifty-two knights with his own hand, namely, the Lord Francesco, his brother, and others of Ferrara, Modena, Bologna, Florence, Padua, and Lombardy; and on this occasion was a great court held in Ferrara.' Another chronicle, referring to the same event, says that the whole expenses of the ceremony, including the rich dresses of the new knights, were at the charge of the Marquis. It was customary, when a noble house had risen to great wealth and 7 had abundance of fighting men, to increase its prestige and spread abroad its glory by a wholesale creation of knights. Thus the Chronicle of Rimini records a high court held by Pandolfo Malatesta in the May of 1324, when he and his two sons, with two of his near relatives and certain strangers from Florence, Bologna, and Perugia, received this honour. At Siena, in like manner, in the year 1284, 'thirteen of the house of Salimbeni were knighted with great pomp.'

[50] The passages used in the text are chiefly drawn from Muratori's fifty-third Dissertation.

It was not on the battlefield that the Italians sought this honour. They regarded knighthood as a part of their signorial parade. Therefore Republics, in whom perhaps, according to strict feudal notions, there was no fount of honour, presumed to appoint procurators for the special purpose of making knights. Florence, Siena, and Arezzo, after this fashion gave the golden spurs to men who were enrolled in the arts of trade or commerce. The usage was severely criticised by Germans who visited Italy in the Imperial train. Otto Frisingensis, writing the deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, speaks with bitterness thereof: 'To the end that they may not lack means of subduing their neighbours, they think it no shame to gird as knights young men of low birth, or even handicraftsmen in despised mechanic arts, the which folk other nations banish like the plague from honourable and liberal pursuits.' Such knights, amid the chivalry of Europe, were not held in much esteem; nor is it easy to see what the cities, which had formally excluded nobles from their government, thought to gain by aping institutions which had their true value only in a feudal society. We must suppose that the Italians were not firmly set enough in their own type to resist an enthusiasm which inflamed all Christendom. At the same time they were too Italian to comprehend the spirit of the thing they borrowed. The knights thus made already contained within themselves the germ of those Condottieri 8who reduced the service of arms to a commercial speculation. But they lent splendour to the Commonwealth, as may be seen in the grave line of mounted warriors, steel-clad, with open visors, who guard the commune of Siena in Ambrogio Lorenzetti's fresco. Giovanni Villani, in a passage of his Chronicle which deals with the fair state of Florence just before the outbreak of the Black and White parties, says the city at that epoch numbered 'three hundred Cavalieri di Corredo, with many clubs of knights and squires, who morning and evening went to meat with many men of the court, and gave away on high festivals many robes of vair.' It is clear that these citizen knights were leaders of society, and did their duty to the commonwealth by adding to its joyous cheer. Upon the battlefields of the civil wars, moreover, they sustained at their expense the charges of the cavalry.

Siena was a city much given to parade and devoted to the Imperial cause, in which the institution of chivalry flourished. Not only did the burghers take knighthood from their procurators, but the more influential sought it by a special dispensation from the Emperor. Thus we hear how Nino Tolomei obtained a Cæsarean diploma of knighthood for his son Giovanni, and published it with great pomp to the people in his palace. This Giovanni, when he afterwards entered religion, took the name of Bernard, and founded the Order of Monte Oliveto.

Owing to the special conditions of Italian chivalry, it followed that the new knight, having won his spurs by no feat of arms upon the battlefield, was bounden to display peculiar magnificence in the ceremonies of his investiture. His honour was held to be less the reward of courage than of liberality. And this feeling is strongly expressed in a curious passage of Matteo Villani's Chronicle. 'When the Emperor Charles had received the crown in Rome, as we have said, he 9turned towards Siena, and on the 19th day of April arrived at that city; and before he entered the same, there met him people of the commonwealth with great festivity upon the hour of vespers; in the which reception eight burghers, given to display but miserly, to the end they might avoid the charges due to knighthood, did cause themselves then and there to be made knights by him. And no sooner had he passed the gates than many ran to meet him without order in their going or provision for the ceremony, and he, being aware of the vain and light impulse of that folk, enjoined upon the Patriarch to knight them in his name. The Patriarch could not withstay from knighting as many as offered themselves; and seeing the thing so cheap, very many took the honour, who before that hour had never thought of being knighted, nor had made provision of what is required from him who seeketh knighthood, but with light impulse did cause themselves to be borne upon the arms of those who were around the Patriarch; and when they were in the path before him, these raised such an one on high, and took his customary cap off, and after he had had the cheek-blow which is used in knighting, put a gold-fringed cap upon his head, and drew him from the press, and so he was a knight. And after this wise were made four-and-thirty on that evening, of the noble and lesser folk. And when the Emperor had been attended to his lodging, night fell, and all returned home; and the new knights without preparation or expense celebrated their reception into chivalry with their families forthwith. He who reflects with a mind not subject to base avarice upon the coming of a new-crowned Emperor into so famous a city, and bethinks him how so many noble and rich burghers were promoted to the honour of knighthood in their native land, men too by nature fond of pomp, without having made any solemn festival in common or in private to the fame of chivalry, 10may judge this people little worthy of the distinction they received.'

This passage is interesting partly as an instance of Florentine spite against Siena, partly as showing that in Italy great munificence was expected from the carpet-knights who had not won their spurs with toil, and partly as proving how the German Emperors, on their parade expeditions through Italy, debased the institutions they were bound to hold in respect. Enfeebled by the extirpation of the last great German house which really reigned in Italy, the Empire was now no better than a cause of corruption and demoralisation to Italian society. The conduct of a man like Charles disgusted even the most fervent Ghibellines; and we find Fazio degli Uberti flinging scorn upon his avarice and baseness in such lines as these:—

Sappi ch' i' son Italia che ti parlo, Di Lusimburgo _ignominioso Carlo_ ... Veggendo te aver tese tue arti _A tór danari e gir con essi a casa_ ... Tu dunque, Giove, perche 'l Santo uccello Da questo Carlo quarto Imperador non togli e dalle mani _Degli altri, lurchi moderni Germani_ _Che d' aquila un allocco n' hanno fatto_?

From a passage in a Sienese chronicle we learn what ceremonies of bravery were usual in that city when the new knights understood their duty. It was the year 1326. Messer Francesco Bandinelli was about to be knighted on the morning of Christmas Day. The friends of his house sent peacocks and pheasants by the dozen, and huge pies of marchpane, and game in quantities. Wine, meat, and bread were distributed to the Franciscan and other convents, and a fair and noble court was opened to all comers. Messer Sozzo, father of the novice, went, attended by his guests, to 11hear high mass in the cathedral; and there upon the marble pulpit, which the Pisans carved, the ceremony was completed. Tommaso di Nello bore his sword and cap and spurs before him upon horseback. Messer Sozzo girded the sword upon the loins of Messer Francesco, his son aforesaid. Messer Pietro Ridolfi, of Rome, who was the first vicar that came to Siena, and the Duke of Calabria buckled on his right spur. The Captain of the People buckled on his left. The Count Simone da Battifolle then undid his sword and placed it in the hands of Messer Giovanni di Messer Bartolo de' Fibenzi da Rodi, who handed it to Messer Sozzo, the which sword had previously been girded by the father on his son. After this follows a list of the illustrious guests, and an inventory of the presents made to them by Messer Francesco. We find among these 'a robe of silken cloth and gold, skirt, and fur, and cap lined with vair, with a silken cord.' The description of the many costly dresses is minute; but I find no mention of armour. The singers received golden florins, and the players upon instruments 'good store of money.' A certain Salamone was presented with the clothes which the novice doffed before he took the ceremonial bath. The whole catalogue concludes with Messer Francesco's furniture and outfit. This, besides a large wardrobe of rich clothes and furs, contains armour and the trappings for charger and palfrey. The _Corte Bandita_, or open house held upon this occasion, lasted for eight days, and the charges on the Bandinelli estates must have been considerable.

Knights so made were called in Italy _Cavalieri Addobbati_, or _di Corredo_, probably because the expense of costly furniture was borne by them—_addobbo_ having become a name for decorative trappings, and _Corredo_ for equipment. The latter is still in use for a bride's trousseau. The former has the same Teutonic root as our verb 'to dub.' But the Italians 12recognised three other kinds of knights, the _Cavalieri Bagati_, _Cavalieri di Scudo_, and _Cavalieri d'Arme_. Of the four sorts Sacchetti writes in one of his novels:—'Knights of the Bath are made with the greatest ceremonies, and it behoves them to be bathed and washed of all impurity. Knights of Equipment are those who take the order with a mantle of dark green and the gilded garland. Knights of the Shield are such as are made knights by commonwealths or princes, or go to investiture armed, and with the casque upon their head. Knights of Arms are those who in the opening of a battle, or upon a foughten field, are dubbed knights.' These distinctions, however, though concordant with feudal chivalry, were not scrupulously maintained in Italy. Messer Francesco Bandinelli, for example, was certainly a _Cavaliere di Corredo_. Yet he took the bath, as we have seen. Of a truth, the Italians selected those picturesque elements of chivalry which lent themselves to pageant and parade. The sterner intention of the institution, and the symbolic meaning of its various ceremonies, were neglected by them.

In the foregoing passages, which serve as a lengthy preamble to Folgore's five sonnets, I have endeavoured to draw illustrations from the history of Siena, because Folgore represents Sienese society at the height of mediæval culture. In the first of the series he describes the preparation made by the aspirant after knighthood. The noble youth is so bent on doing honour to the order of chivalry, that he raises money by mortgage to furnish forth the banquets and the presents due upon the occasion of his institution. He has made provision also of equipment for himself and all his train. It will be noticed that Folgore dwells only on the fair and joyous aspect of the ceremony. The religious enthusiasm of knighthood has disappeared, and already, in the first decade of the fourteenth century, we find the spirit 13of Jehan de Saintrè prevalent in Italy. The word _donzello_, derived from the Latin _domicellus_, I have translated _squire_, because the donzel was a youth of gentle birth awaiting knighthood.

This morn a young squire shall be made a knight;
hereof he fain would be right worthy found,
And therefore pledgeth lands and castles round
To furnish all that fits a man of might.
Meat, bread and wine he gives to many a wight;
Capons and pheasants on his board abound,
Where serving men and pages march around;
Choice chambers, torches, and wax candle light.
Barbed steeds, a multitude, are in his thought,
Mailed men at arms and noble company,
Spears, pennants, housing cloths, bells richly wrought.
Musicians following with great barony
And jesters through the land his state have brought,
With dames and damsels whereso rideth he.

The subject having thus been introduced, Folgore treats the ceremonies of investiture by an allegorical method, which is quite consistent with his own preference of images to ideas. Each of the four following sonnets presents a picture to the mind, admirably fitted for artistic handling. We may imagine them to ourselves wrought in arras for a sumptuous chamber. The first treats of the bath, in which, as we have seen already from Sacchetti's note, the aspirant after knighthood puts aside all vice, and consecrates himself anew. Prodezza, or Prowess, must behold him nude from head to foot, in order to assure herself that the neophyte bears no blemish; and this inspection is an allegory of internal wholeness.

Lo Prowess, who despoileth him straightway,
And saith: 'Friend, now beseems it thee to strip;
For I will see men naked, thigh and hip,
And thou my will must know and eke obey;
14 And leave what was thy wont until this day,
And for new toil, new sweat, thy strength equip;
This do, and thou shalt join my fellowship,
If of fair deeds thou tire not nor cry nay.'
And when she sees his comely body bare,
Forthwith within her arms she him doth take,
And saith: 'These limbs thou yieldest to my prayer;
I do accept thee, and this gift thee make,
So that thy deeds may shine for ever fair;
My lips shall never more thy praise forsake.'

After courage, the next virtue of the knightly character is gentleness or modesty, called by the Italians humility. It is this quality which makes a strong man pleasing to the world, and wins him favour. Folgore's sonnet enables us to understand the motto of the great Borromeo family—_Humilitas_, in Gothic letters underneath the coronet upon their princely palace fronts.

Humility to him doth gently go,
And saith: 'I would in no wise weary thee;
Yet must I cleanse and wash thee thoroughly,
And I will make thee whiter than the snow.
Hear what I tell thee in few words, for so
Fain am I of thy heart to hold the key;
Now must thou sail henceforward after me;
And I will guide thee as myself do go.
But one thing would I have thee straightway leave;
Well knowest thou mine enemy is pride;
Let her no more unto thy spirit cleave:
So leal a friend with thee will I abide
That favour from all folk thou shalt receive;
This grace hath he who keepeth on my side.'

The novice has now bathed, approved himself to the searching eyes of Prowess, and been accepted by Humility. After the bath, it was customary for him to spend a night in vigil; and this among the Teutons should have taken place in church, alone before the altar. But the Italian poet, after his custom, 15gives a suave turn to the severe discipline. His donzel passes the night in bed, attended by Discretion, or the virtue of reflection. She provides fair entertainment for the hours of vigil, and leaves him at the morning with good counsel. It is not for nothing that he seeks knighthood, and it behoves him to be careful of his goings. The last three lines of the sonnet are the gravest of the series, showing that something of true chivalrous feeling survived even among the Cavalieri di Corredo of Tuscany.

Then did Discretion to the squire draw near,
And drieth him with a fair cloth and clean,
And straightway putteth him the sheets between,
Silk, linen, counterpane, and minevere.
Think now of this! Until the day was clear,
With songs and music and delight the queen,
And with new knights, fair fellows well-beseen,
To make him perfect, gave him goodly cheer.
Then saith she: 'Rise forthwith, for now 'tis due,
Thou shouldst be born into the world again;
Keep well the order thou dost take in view.'
Unfathomable thoughts with him remain
Of that great bond he may no more eschew,
Nor can he say, 'I'll hide me from this chain.'

The vigil is over. The mind of the novice is prepared for his new duties. The morning of his reception into chivalry has arrived. It is therefore fitting that grave thoughts should be abandoned; and seeing that not only prowess, humility, and discretion are the virtues of a knight, but that he should also be blithe and debonair, Gladness comes to raise him from his bed and equip him for the ceremony of institution.

Comes Blithesomeness with mirth and merriment,
All decked in flowers she seemeth a rose-tree;
Of linen, silk, cloth, fur, now beareth she
16 the new knight a rich habiliment;
Head-gear and cap and garland flower-besprent,
So brave they were May-bloom he seemed to be;
With such a rout, so many and such glee,
That the floor shook. Then to her work she went;
And stood him on his feet in hose and shoon;
And purse and gilded girdle 'neath the fur
That drapes his goodly limbs, she buckles on;
Then bids the singers and sweet music stir,
And showeth him to ladies for a boon
And all who in that following went with her.

At this point the poem is abruptly broken. The manuscript from which these sonnets are taken states they are a fragment. Had the remaining twelve been preserved to us, we should probably have possessed a series of pictures in which the procession to church would have been portrayed, the investiture with the sword, the accolade, the buckling on of the spurs, and the concluding sports and banquets. It is very much to be regretted that so interesting, so beautiful, and so unique a monument of Italian chivalry survives thus mutilated. But students of art have to arm themselves continually with patience, repressing the sad thoughts engendered in them by the spectacle of time's unconscious injuries.

It is certain that Folgore would have written at least one sonnet on the quality of courtesy, which in that age, as we have learned from Matteo Villani, identified itself in the Italian mind with liberality. This identification marks a certain degradation of the chivalrous ideal, which is characteristic of Italian manners. One of Folgore's miscellaneous sonnets shows how sorely he felt the disappearance of this quality from the midst of a society bent daily more and more upon material aims. It reminds us of the lamentable outcries uttered by the later poets of the fourteenth century, Sacchetti, Boccaccio, Uberti, and others of less fame, over the decline of their age.

17 Courtesy! Courtesy! Courtesy! I call:
But from no quarter comes there a reply.
And whoso needs her, ill must us befall.
Greed with his hook hath ta'en men one and all,
And murdered every grace that dumb doth lie:
Whence, if I grieve, I know the reason why;
From you, great men, to God I make my call:
For you my mother Courtesy have cast
So low beneath your feet she there must bleed;
Your gold remains, but you're not made to last:
Of Eve and Adam we are all the seed:
Able to give and spend, you hold wealth fast:
Ill is the nature that rears such a breed!

Folgore was not only a poet of occasion and compliment, but a political writer, who fully entertained the bitter feeling of the Guelphs against their Ghibelline opponents.

Two of his sonnets addressed to the Guelphs have been translated by Mr. Rossetti. In order to complete the list I have made free versions of two others in which he criticised the weakness of his own friends. The first is addressed, in the insolent impiety of rage, to God:—

I praise thee not, O God, nor give thee glory,
Nor yield thee any thanks, nor bow the knee,
Nor pay thee service; for this irketh me
More than the souls to stand in purgatory;
Since thou hast made us Guelphs a jest and story
Unto the Ghibellines for all to see:
And if Uguccion claimed tax of thee,
Thou'dst pay it without interrogatory.
Ah, well I wot they know thee! and have stolen
St. Martin from thee, Altopascio,
St. Michael, and the treasure thou hast lost;
And thou that rotten rabble so hast swollen
That pride now counts for tribute; even so
Thou'st made their heart stone-hard to thine own cost.

18About the meaning of some lines in this sonnet I am not clear. But the feeling and the general drift of it are manifest. The second is a satire on the feebleness and effeminacy of the Pisans.

Ye are more silky-sleek than ermines are,
Ye Pisan counts, knights, damozels, and squires,
Who think by combing out your hair like wires
To drive the men of Florence from their car.
Ye make the Ghibellines free near and far,
Here, there, in cities, castles, huts, and byres,
Seeing how gallant in your brave attires,
How bold you look, true paladins of war.
Stout-hearted are ye as a hare in chase,
To meet the sails of Genoa on the sea;
And men of Lucca never saw your face.
Dogs with a bone for courtesy are ye:
Could Folgore but gain a special grace,
He'd have you banded 'gainst all men that be.

Among the sonnets not translated by Mr. Rossetti two by Folgore remain, which may be classified with the not least considerable contributions to Italian gnomic poetry in an age when literature easily assumed a didactic tone. The first has for its subject the importance of discernment and discrimination. It is written on the wisdom of what the ancient Greeks called Καιρός, or the right occasion in all human conduct.

Dear friend, not every herb puts forth a flower;
Nor every flower that blossoms fruit doth bear;
Nor hath each spoken word a virtue rare;
Nor every stone in earth its healing power:
This thing is good when mellow, that when sour;
One seems to grieve, within doth rest from care;
Not every torch is brave that flaunts in air;
There is what dead doth seem, yet flame doth shower.
Wherefore it ill behoveth a wise man
His truss of every grass that grows to bind,
Or pile his back with every stone he can,
19 Or counsel from each word to seek to find,
Or take his walks abroad with Dick and Dan:
Not without cause I'm moved to speak my mind.

The second condemns those men of light impulse who, as Dante put it, discoursing on the same theme, 'subject reason to inclination.'[51]

What time desire hath o'er the soul such sway
That reason finds nor place nor puissance here,
Men oft do laugh at what should claim a tear,
And over grievous dole are seeming gay.
He sure would travel far from sense astray
Who should take frigid ice for fire; and near
Unto this plight are those who make glad cheer
For what should rather cause their soul dismay.
But more at heart might he feel heavy pain
Who made his reason subject to mere will,
And followed wandering impulse without rein;
Seeing no lordship is so rich as still
One's upright self unswerving to sustain,
To follow worth, to flee things vain and ill.

The sonnets translated by me in this essay, taken together with those already published by Mr. Rossetti, put the English reader in possession of all that passes for the work of Folgore da San Gemignano.

[51] The line in Dante runs:

'Che la ragion sommettono al talento.'

In Folgore's sonnet we read:

'Chi sommette rason a volontade.'

On the supposition that Folgore wrote in the second decade of the fourteenth century, it is not impossible that he may have had knowledge of this line from the fifth canto of the _Inferno_.

Since these words were written, England has lost the poet-painter, to complete whose work upon the sonnet-writer of 20mediæval Siena I attempted the translations in this essay. One who has trodden the same path as Rossetti, at however a noticeable interval, and has attempted to present in English verse the works of great Italian singers, doing inadequately for Michelangelo and Campanella what he did supremely well for Dante, may here perhaps be allowed to lay the tribute of reverent recognition at his tomb.

21

THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS

What is the meaning of our English Christmas? What makes it seem so truly Northern, national, and homely, that we do not like to keep the feast upon a foreign shore? These questions grew upon me as I stood one Advent afternoon beneath the Dome of Florence. A priest was thundering from the pulpit against French scepticism, and exalting the miracle of the Incarnation. Through the whole dim church blazed altar candles. Crowds of men and women knelt or sat about the transepts, murmuring their prayers of preparation for the festival. At the door were pedlars selling little books, in which were printed the offices for Christmas-tide, with stories of S. Felix and S. Catherine, whose devotion to the infant Christ had wrought them weal, and promises of the remission of four purgatorial centuries to those who zealously observed the service of the Church at this most holy time. I knew that the people of Florence were preparing for Christmas in their own way. But it was not our way. It happened that outside the church the climate seemed as wintry as our own—snowstorms and ice, and wind and chilling fog, suggesting Northern cold. But as the palaces of Florence lacked our comfortable firesides, and the greetings of friends lacked our hearty handshakes and loud good wishes, so there seemed to be a want of the home feeling in those Christmas services and customs. Again I asked myself, 'What do we mean by Christmas?'

22The same thought pursued me as I drove to Rome: by Siena, still and brown, uplifted, mid her russet hills and wilderness of rolling plain; by Chiusi, with its sepulchral city of a dead and unknown people; through the chestnut forests of the Apennines; by Orvieto's rock, Viterbo's fountains, and the oak-grown solitudes of the Ciminian heights, from which one looks across the broad lake of Bolsena and the Roman plain. Brilliant sunlight, like that of a day in late September, shone upon the landscape, and I thought—Can this be Christmas? Are they bringing mistletoe and holly on the country carts into the towns in far-off England? Is it clear and frosty there, with the tramp of heels upon the flag, or snowing silently, or foggy with a round red sun and cries of warning at the corners of the streets?

I reached Rome on Christmas Eve, in time to hear midnight services in the Sistine Chapel and S. John Lateran, to breathe the dust of decayed shrines, to wonder at doting cardinals begrimed with snuff, and to resent the open-mouthed bad taste of my countrymen who made a mockery of these palsy-stricken ceremonies. Nine cardinals going to sleep, nine train-bearers talking scandal, twenty huge, handsome Switzers in the dress devised by Michelangelo, some ushers, a choir caged off by gilded railings, the insolence and eagerness of polyglot tourists, plenty of wax candles dripping on people's heads, and a continual nasal drone proceeding from the gilded cage, out of which were caught at intervals these words, and these only,—'Sæcula sæculorum, amen.' Such was the celebrated Sistine service. The chapel blazed with light, and very strange did Michelangelo's Last Judgment, his Sibyls, and his Prophets, appear upon the roof and wall above this motley and unmeaning crowd.

Next morning I put on my dress-clothes and white tie, and repaired, with groups of Englishmen similarly attired, and of Englishwomen in black crape—the regulation costume —to 23S. Peter's. It was a glorious and cloudless morning; sunbeams streamed in columns from the southern windows, falling on the vast space full of soldiers and a mingled mass of every kind of people. Up the nave stood double files of the Pontifical guard. Monks and nuns mixed with the Swiss cuirassiers and halberds. Contadini crowded round the sacred images, and especially round the toe of S. Peter. I saw many mothers lift their swaddled babies up to kiss it. Valets of cardinals, with the invariable red umbrellas, hung about side chapels and sacristies. Purple-mantled monsignori, like emperor butterflies, floated down the aisles from sunlight into shadow. Movement, colour, and the stir of expectation, made the church alive. We showed our dress-clothes to the guard, were admitted within their ranks, and solemnly walked up toward the dome. There under its broad canopy stood the altar, glittering with gold and candles. The choir was carpeted and hung with scarlet. Two magnificent thrones rose ready for the Pope: guards of honour, soldiers, attachés, and the élite of the residents and visitors in Rome, were scattered in groups picturesquely varied by ecclesiastics of all orders and degrees. At ten a stirring took place near the great west door. It opened, and we saw the procession of the Pope and his cardinals. Before him marched the singers and the blowers of the silver trumpets, making the most liquid melody. Then came his Cap of Maintenance, and three tiaras; then a company of mitred priests; next the cardinals in scarlet; and last, aloft beneath a canopy, upon the shoulders of men, and flanked by the mystic fans, advanced the Pope himself, swaying to and fro like a Lama, or an Aztec king. Still the trumpets blew most silverly, and still the people knelt; and as he came, we knelt and had his blessing. Then he took his state and received homage. After this the choir began to sing a mass of Palestrina's, and the 24deacons robed the Pope. Marvellous putting on and taking off of robes and tiaras and mitres ensued, during which there was much bowing and praying and burning of incense. At last, when he had reached the highest stage of sacrificial sanctity, he proceeded to the altar, waited on by cardinals and bishops. Having censed it carefully, he took a higher throne and divested himself of part of his robes. Then the mass went on in earnest, till the moment of consecration, when it paused, the Pope descended from his throne, passed down the choir, and reached the altar. Every one knelt; the shrill bell tinkled; the silver trumpets blew; the air became sick and heavy with incense, so that sun and candle light swooned in an atmosphere of odorous cloud-wreaths. The whole church trembled, hearing the strange subtle music vibrate in the dome, and seeing the Pope with his own hands lift Christ's body from the altar and present it to the people. An old parish priest, pilgrim from some valley of the Apennines, who knelt beside me, cried and quivered with excess of adoration. The great tombs around, the sculptured saints and angels, the dome, the volumes of light and incense and unfamiliar melody, the hierarchy ministrant, the white and central figure of the Pope, the multitude—made up an overpowering scene. What followed was comparatively tedious. My mind again went back to England, and I thought of Christmas services beginning in all village churches and all cathedrals throughout the land—their old familiar hymn, their anthem of Handel, their trite and sleepy sermons. How different the two feasts are—Christmas in Rome, Christmas in England—Italy and the North—the spirit of Latin and the spirit of Teutonic Christianity.