IMITATORS OF DANTE AND BOCCACCIO Dante and Boccaccio were not without their imitators. Fazio degli Uberti and Federigo Frezzi imitated the Diving Commedia, but only in its external form. The former wrote the Dittamondo, a long poem, in which the author supposes that he was taken by the geographer Solinus into different parts of the world, and that his guide related the history of them. Frezzi, bishop of his native town, Foligno, wrote the Quadriregio, a poem of the four king doms—Love, Satan, the Vices and the Virtues. The poet has Pallas for a companion.
Another Sienese, Giovanni Colombini, founder of the order of Jesuati, preached poverty by precept and example, going back to the religious idea of St. Francis of Assisi. His letters are among the most remarkable in the category of ascetic works in the 14th century. Passavanti, in his Specchio della very penitenza, attached instruction to narrative. Cavalca translated from the Latin the Vite dei santi padri.
Poetry in the 14th Century.—In direct antithesis to this is a kind of literature which has a strong popular element. Hu morous poetry, the poetry of laughter and jest, which as we saw was largely developed in the 13th century, was carried on in the 14th by Bindo Bonichi, Arrigo di Castruccio, Cecco Nuccoli, Andrea Orgagna, Filippo de' Bardi, Adriano de' Rossi, Antonio Pucci and other lesser writers. Antonio Pucci was superior to all of them for the variety of his production. He put into terza rims the chronicle of Giovanni Villani (Centiloquio), and wrote many historical poems called Serventesi, many comic poems, and not a few epico-popular compositions on various subjects. A little poem of his in seven cantos treats of the war between the Floren tines and the Pisans from 1362 to 1365.
Many poets of the 14th century have left us political works. Of these Fazio degli Uberti, the author of Dittamondo, who wrote a serventese to the lords and people of Italy, a poem on Rome, a fierce invective against Charles IV. of Luxemburg, deserves notice, and Francesco di Vannozzo, Frate Stoppa and Matteo Frescobaldi. From this period also dates that literary phenomenon known under the name of Petrarchism. The Petrarchists, or those who sang of love, imitating Petrarch's manner, were found already in the 14th century. But others treated the same subject with more originality, in a manner that might be called semi-popular. Such were the ballate of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, of Franco Sacchetti, of Niccolo Soldanieri, of Guido and Bindo Donati.
There cannot have been an entire absence of dramatic litera ture in Italy in the i4th century, but traces of it are scarce, although we find them again in great abundance in the 15th cen tury. The i4th century had, however, one drama unique of its kind, the Ecerinis written by Albertino Mussato of Padua in 1315. Mussato, a political man and the historian of Henry VII., aimed at strengthening the antagonism against Cangrande della Scala by describing the evils of the tyrannical government of Ezzelino da Romano in a Senecan style.
The revival of learning which Petrarch had fostered as a means to a philosophical, moral and political revolution so fascinated many of his admirers that it became for them an end in itself. Petrarch had affected to look upon his works in Italian as trifles. he called them nugellae vulgares; the scholars who took over the literary leadership after him, Coluccio Salutati and partly Luigi Marsili, still admired Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio's Italian works, but always wrote in Latin themselves, and for many decades Latin triumphantly rivalled Italian.
In the 15th century a number of men arose, all learned, labor ious, indefatigable, and all intent on one great work. Such were Niccolo Niccoli, Giannozzo Manetti, Palla Strozzi, Leonardo Bruni (L. Aretino), Francesco Filelfo, Poggio Bracciolini, Lorenzo Valla. Manetti spent his time in translating from Greek, studying He brew, and commenting on Aristotle. Palla Strozzi sent into Greece at his own expense to search for ancient books, and had Plutarch and Plato brought for him. Poggio Bracciolini went to the Council of Constance, and found in a monastery in the dust-hole Cicero's Orations. He copied Quintilian with his own hand, discovered Lucretius, Plautus, Pliny and many other Latin authors. Guarino went through the East in search of codices. Giovanni Aurispa returned to Venice with many hundreds of manuscripts. What was the passion that excited all these men? What did they search after? These Italians were but handing on the solemn tradition which, although partly latent, was the informing principle of Italian mediaeval history, and now at length came out triumphant. This tradition was that same tenacious and sacred memory of Rome, that same worship of its language and institutions, which at one time had retarded the development of Italian literature, and now grafted the old Latin branch of ancient classicism on the flourishing stock of Italian literature. Men came to have a more just idea of nature : the world was no longer cursed or despised as in the middle ages ; man was born again ; and human reason re sumed its rights. Everything, the individual and society, were changed under the influence of new facts.
First of all there was formed a human individuality, which was wanting in the middle ages. As J. Burckhardt has said, the man was changed into the individual. He began to feel and assert his own personality, which was constantly attaining a fuller realiza tion. As a consequence of this, the idea of fame and the desire for it arose. The mediaeval idea of existence was turned upside down ; men who had hitherto turned their thoughts exclusively to heavenly things, and believed exclusively in the divine right, now began to think of beautifying their earthly existence, of making it happy and gay, and returned to a belief in their human rights. This was a great advance, but one which carried with it the seeds of many dangers. The conception of morality became gradually weaker. The "fay ce que vouldras" of Rabelais became the first principle of life. Religious feeling was blunted. Besides this, a great literary danger was hanging over Italy. Humanism threat ened to submerge her youthful national literature. There were authors who labored hard to give Latin forms to Italian. Provin cial dialects tried to reassert themselves in literature. The great authors of the i4th century were by many people of the cultured class forgotten or despised.
It was Florence that saved literature by reconciling the classical models to modern feeling. At Florence celebrated humanists wrote also in the vulgar tongue, and commented on Dante and Petrarch, and defended them from their enemies. Leon Battista Alberti, the learned Greek and Latin scholar, wrote in the vernacular, and Vespasiano da Bisticci, whilst he was constantly absorbed in Greek and Latin manuscripts, wrote the Vite di uomini illustri, rivalling the best works of the 14th century in their candour and simplicity. Andrea da Barberino wrote the beautiful prose of the Reali di Francia. Belcari and Benivieni carry us back to the mystic idealism of earlier times.
Next to Lorenzo comes Politian (Angelo Ambrogini), who also united, and with greater art, the ancient and the modern, the popular and classical styles. In his Rispetti and in his Ballate the freshness of imagery and the plasticity of form are inimitable. He, a great Greek scholar, a forerunner of scientific methods in textual criticism, wrote Italian verses with polished simplicity and refinement ; the purest elegance of the Greek sources pervaded his art in all its varieties, in the Orfeo as well as the Stanza per la giostra.
As a consequence of the intellectual movement towards the Renaissance, there arose in Italy in the isth century three acade mies, those of Florence, of Naples and of Rome. The Florentine academy was founded by Cosimo I. de' Medici. Having heard the praises of Platonic philosophy sung by Gemistus Pletho, who in 1439 was at the council of Florence, he took such a liking for those opinions that he soon made a plan for a literary congress which was especially to discuss them. Marsilio Ficino has described the occupations and the entertainments of these academicians. Here, he said, the young men learnt, by way of pastime, precepts of con duct and the practice of eloquence ; here grown-up men studied the government of the republic and the family; here the aged con soled themselves with the belief in a future world. Among the members of the academy were besides the Medicis such men as Pico della Mirandola, Politian, L. B. Alberti. The Roman academy was founded by Giulio Pomponio Leto, with the object of promot ing the discovery and the investigation of ancient monuments and books. It was a sort of religion of classicism, mixed with learning and philosophy. Platina, the celebrated author of the lives of the first hundred popes, belonged to it. At Naples, the academy known as the Pontaniana was instituted. The founder of it was Antonio Beccadelli, surnamed Il Panormita, and after his death the head was Il Pontano, who gave his name to it, and whose mind ani mated it.
As the work of Boiardo originated from the popular cantari, the Sacra Rappresentazione developed from the mediaeval Mistero ("mystery-play"). Although it belonged to popular poetry, some of its authors were celebrated men of letters. It is enough to notice Lorenzo de' Medici, who wrote San Giovanni e Paolo, and Feo Belcari, author of the San Panunzio, the Abramo ed Isac, etc.
From the 15th century, some comic and profane elements found their way into the Sacra Rappresentazione. From its biblical and legendary conventionalism Politian emancipated himself in his Orfeo, which, although in its exterior form belonging to the sacred representations, yet substantially detaches itself from them in its contents and in the artistic element introduced.
The eclogues of Virgil, Nemesianus and others had enjoyed great favour during the middle ages particularly during the so called Carolingian Renaissance. Dante imitated Virgil when com posing his eclogues to Giovanni del Virgilio, Mussato followed in his steps, so did Petrarch and Boccaccio, who also wrote a pastoral novel, the Arneto. This artificial conception of a pastoral world, so far removed from rural and real life, pleased the Italians no less than it had pleased other Romance peoples. Winsome and gentle shepherdesses appear in the poems of Cavalcanti, Sacchetti and many other poets in Tuscan and other dialects down to Lorenzo de' Medici who also attempted a more definitely rural form with his Nencia da Barberino which was imitated by Luigi Pulci (Beca da Dicomano). Boiardo composed eclogues in Italian, but it was left to Jacopo Sannazaro, the author of some piscatory eclogues in Latin, finally to fix the characteristics of pastoral poetry in his immensely popular Arcadia (15o4). It is a partly allegorical story of prose mingled with verse, forming in all sections a mosaic of classical reminiscences and ever tinged with a melancholy charm. With Sannazaro the realm of shepherds and nymphs finally became something akin to the Golden Age, a dream-world whither men would fly seeking refuge from the dismal realities of an age in which the collapse of political independence, wars and violence caused more suffering than men of letters cared to describe realistically.
Lorenzo in his livelier mood had favoured masquerades and festivals for which he and his friends had composed poems such as the trionfi and the canti carnascialeschi. The moral laxity and the heathen ideals that such poems expressed, the Dominican, Girolamo Savonarola of Ferrara, 'set himself to reform from the first day of his arrival in Florence (1489). He directed his attack against Lorenzo, the promoter of classical studies, the patron of pagan literature, rather than against the political tyrant. Animated by mystic zeal, he took the line of a prophet, preaching against the reading of voluptuous works, against the tyranny of the Medici, and calling for popular government. His attempt to put himself in opposition to his time, to arrest the course of events, to bring the people back to the faith of the past, the belief that all the social evils came from a Medici and a Borgia, his not seeing the historical reality as it was, his aspiring to found a republic with Jesus Christ for its king—all these things show that Savonarola was more of a fanatic than a thinker. Nor has he any great merit as a writer. He wrote Italian sermons, hymns (laudi), ascetic and political treatises, but they are roughly executed, and only impor tant as throwing light on the history of his ideas. The religious poems of Girolamo Benivieni are better than his, and are drawn from the same inspirations. In these lyrics, sometimes sweet, always warm with religious feeling, Benivieni and with him Feo Belcari carry us back to the literature of the 14th century.
The Italian historians of the 15th century mostly wrote in Latin and were of ten readier to consider "eloquence" of style and the interests of their patrons than truthfulness ; notable exceptions were Lorenzo Bruni, who made good use of the documents to which he had access in his history of Florence, and Lorenzo Valla of Forli, who gave evidence of his pugnacious temperament in some historical tracts, among which that one disproving the legend about the donation of Constantine is the most famous. Pontano wrote the history of Naples in elegant Latin, B. Corio that of Milan in far less admirable Italian.
Leonardo da Vinci wrote a treatise on painting, Leon Bactista Alberti one on sculpture and architecture. But the names of these two men are important, not so much as authors of these treatises, but as being embodiments of a characteristic of the age of the Renaissance—versatility of genius, power of application along many and varied lines, and of being excellent in all.
The fundamental characteristic of the later Renaissance is that it perfected itself in every kind of art, in particular uniting the essentially Italian character of its language with classicism of style. This period lasted from about 1494 to about 156o.
Niccolo Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini were the chief originators of the science of history. Machiavelli's principal works are the Istorie fiorentine, the Discorsi sulla prima deca di Tito Livio, the Arte della guerra and the Principe. The peculiarity of Machiavelli's genius lay in his artistic feeling for the treatment and discussion of politics in and for themselves, without regard to an immediate end—in his power of abstracting himself from the partial appearances of the transitory present, in order more thor oughly to possess himself of the eternal and inborn kingdom, and to bring it into subjection to himself. He was the creator of the experimental science of politics.
Next to Machiavelli both as an historian and a statesman comes Francesco Guicciardini. Guicciardini was very observant, and endeavoured to reduce his observations to a science. His Storia d'Italia, which extends from the death of Lorenzo de' Medici to 1534, is full of political wisdom, is skilfully arranged in its parts, gives a lively if rather cynical picture of the character of the per sons it treats of, and is written in a grand style. He shows a pro found knowledge of the human heart, and depicts with truth the temperaments, the capabilities and the habits of the different European nations.
Other historians were Jacopo Nardi, Benedetto Varchi, Giam battista Adriani, Bernardo Segni; and, outside Tuscany, Camillo Porzio, who related the Congiura de' baroni and the history of Italy from 1547 to 1552, Angelo di Costanzo, Pietro Bembo, Paolo Paruta and others.
Meanwhile there was an attempt at the historical epic. Gian Giorgio Trissino of Vicenza composed a poem called Italia liber ata dai Goti, in which he forced himself to observe all the rules of Aristotle ; Trissino's work is poor in invention and without any poetical colouring.
Originality was entirely wanting in lyrical poetry, since it seemed as if nothing better could be done than copy Petrarch. Still, even in this style there were some vigorous poets. Mon signore Giovanni Guidiccioni of Lucca (15oo-41) showed that he had a generous heart. Giovanni della Casa (1503-56) and Pietro Bembo (147o--1547 were technically refined. Even Michelangelo Buonarroti was at times a Petrarchist, but his poems bear the stamp of his original genius. And a good many ladies are to be mentioned with these poets, such as Vittoria Colonna (Michelan gelo's friend), Veronica Gambara, Gaspara Stampa and Giulia Gonzaga, who could hold their own with some of the men.
The first to occupy the tragic stage during the i6th century was Trissino with his Sofonisba, following the "rules" of the art most scrupulously. The Oreste and the Rosmunda of Giovanni Rucellai were no better, nor Luigi Alamanni's Antigone. Sperone Speroni in his Canace and Giraldi Cintio in his Orbecche tried to ensure success by barren innovations of technique. Superior to these was the Torrismondo of Torquato Tasso.
The Italian comedy of the i6th century was almost entirely modelled on the Latin comedy. There appear to be only two writers who should be distinguished among the many who wrote comedies—Machiavelli and Ariosto. In his Mandragora Machia velli, unlike all the others, composed a comedy of character, cre ating types which seem living even now. Ariosto was far less original. The notorious Pietro Aretino might also be included in the list of the best writers of comedy.
The 15th century was not without humorous poetry; Antonio Cammelli, surnamed Pistoia, is specially deserving of notice. But it was Francesco Berni who carried this kind of literature to perfection in the 16th century. From him the style has been called "bernesque" poetry. It was art for art's sake that inspired and moved Berni to write, as well as Anton Francesco Grazzini, called Lasca, and other lesser writers. Bernesque poetry is the clear est reflection of that religious and moral scepticism which was one of the characteristics of Italian social life in the i6th century, and which showed itself more or less in all the works of that period. The Berneschi, and especially Berni himself, sometimes assumed a satirical tone. But theirs could not be called true satire. Pure satirists, on the other hand, were Antonio Vinci guerra, a Venetian, and Lodovico Alamanni. Ariosto's Satire read as chapters of a humourous autobiography.
In the i6th century there were not a few didactic works; such are the Api of Giovanni Rucellai and Baldassare Castiglione's Cortegiano, in which the author imagines a discussion in the palace of the dukes of Urbino between knights and ladies as to what are the gifts required in a perfect courtier. This book is valuable as an illustration of the intellectual and moral state of the highest Italian society in the first half of the 16th century.
Of the novelists of the i6th century, the two most important were Anton Francesco Grazzini and Matteo Bandello—the former as playful and bizarre as the latter is ponderous and solemn. During the i6th century much attention was paid to translating Latin and Greek authors. Among the very numerous translations of the time those of the Aeneid and of the Pastorals of Longus the Sophist by Annibal Caro are still famous ; as are also the translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses by Giovanni Andrea dell' Anguillara, of Apuleius's Golden Ass by Firenzuola, and of Plutarch's Lives and ill oralia by Marcello Adriani.
scruples and critical uncertainties, well symbolizes that period. He was only 18 years old when, in 1562, he tried to reconcile the Aristotelian rules with the variety of Ariosto in his Rinaldo. He afterwards wrote the Aminta, a pastoral drama of exquisite grace. But the work to which he had long turned his thoughts was an heroic poem, and that absorbed all his powers. He himself ex plains what his intention was in the three Discorsi written whilst he was composing the Gerusalemme: he would choose a great and wonderful subject, not so ancient as to have lost all interest, nor so recent as to prevent the poet from embellishing it with invented circumstances ; he meant to treat it rigorously according to the rules of the unity of action observed in Greek and Latin poems, but with a far greater variety and splendour of episodes, so that in this point it should-not fall short of the romantic poem; and finally, he would write it in a lofty and ornate style. This is what Tasso has done in the Gerusalemme liberata, the subject of which is the liberation of the sepulchre of Jesus Christ in the century by Godfrey of Bouillon. Tasso possessed an un paralleled gift for melodious verse ; power he lacked, and occa sionally, in order to bring in the element of surprise so persistently advocated by the commentators of the Poetics, he had recourse to tiresome antitheses and exaggerated metaphors.
Spanish oppression and the tyranny of the Counter-Reformation seem to have exhausted Italian creative power which was already worn out by the great output of the Renaissance. From about 1559 began a period of decadence in Italian literature. The sus picious rulers fettered all freedom of thought and word ; they tor tured Campanella, burned Bruno, made every effort to extinguish all freedom of thought. This period is known in the history of Italian literature as the Secentismo. Its writers, devoid of senti ment, resorted to exaggeration ; the utter poverty of the matter tried to cloak itself under exuberance of forms.
Filicaja, the Florentine, has a certain lyric élan, particularly in the songs about Vienna besieged by the Turks ; but even in him we see clearly the rhetorical artifice and the falseness of the conceits. In consequence of all this Italian literature fell into disrepute in other countries and was severely criticised in Italy herself.
Another symptom of revival, a sign of rebellion against the prevailing conditions, is given us in satire and in particular in that of Salvator Rosa and Alessandro Tassoni. Salvator Rosa, born in 1615, near Naples, was a painter, a musician and a poet. His exhortation to Italian poets to turn their thoughts to the miseries of their country as a subject for their song and certain passages where he deplores the effeminacy of Italian habits, make Salvator Rosa a forerunner of the i8th century. Tassoni was superior to Rosa. He showed independent judgment, and his Secchia Rapita proved that he was an eminent writer. This is mock-heroic poem, which is at the same time an epic and a per sonal satire. He was bold enough to attack the Spaniards in his Filippiche, in which he urged his patron, Carlo Emanuele of Savoy, to persist in the war against them. The work of Traiano Boccalini was also of great significance.
Having for the most part freed itself from the Spanish dominion in the 18th century, the political condition of Italy began to improve. Promoters of this improvement, which was shown in many civil reforms, were Joseph II., Leopold I. and Charles I.
Giambattista Vico was a token of the awakening of historical consciousness in Italy. In his Scienza nuova he applied himself to the investigation of the laws governing the progress of the human race, and according to which events are developed. From the psychological study of man he endeavoured to infer the "comune natura delle nazioni," i.e., the universal laws of history, or the laws by which civilizations rise, flourish and fall.
From the same scientific spirit which animated the philosophical investigation of Vico, there was born a different kind of investiga tion, that of the sources of Italian civil and literary history. Lodovico Antonio Muratori, after having collected in one entire body (Rerum Italicarum scriptores) the chronicles, the biogra phies, the letters and the diaries of Italian history from Soo to 1500, after having discussed the most obscure historical questions in the Antiquitates ltalicae medii nevi, wrote the Annali d' Italia, minutely narrating facts derived from authentic sources. Mura tori's associates in his historical researches were Scipione Maffei of Verona and Apostolo Zeno of Venice. In his Verona illustrate the former left, not only a treasure of learning, but an excellent specimen of historical monograph. The latter added much to the erudition of literary history, both in his Dissertazioni Vossiane and in his notes to the I3iblioteca dell' eloquenza italiana of Monsignore Giusto Fontanini. Girolamo Tiraboschi and Count Giovanni Maria Mazzuchelli of Brescia devoted themselves to literary history. Literary criticism also attracted great attention; Muratori, Vico, Gravina, Maffei and several others, while ad vocating the imitation of the classics as a cure of literary deca dence, well realized that such imitation must needs be cautious, and thus forecast critical standpoints that were later to come into favour during the age of Romanticism.
The new spirit of the times also led men to inquire into the mechanism of economical and social laws. Francesco Galiani wrote on currency; Gaetano Filangieri wrote a Scienza della legislazione. Cesare Beccaria, in his treatise Dei delitti e delle gene, made a contribution to the reform of the penal system and promoted the abolition of torture.
In the Odi the satirical note is already heard. But it came out more strongly in the poem Il giorno, in which he imagines him self to be teaching a young Milanese patrician all the habits and ways of gallant life ; he shows up all its ridiculous frivolities, and with delicate irony unmasks the futilities of aristocratic habits. Dividing the day into four parts, the Mattino, the Mezzogiorno, the Vespero, the Notte, by means of each of these he describes the trifles of which they were made up, and the book thus assumes a social and historical value of the highest importance. As a work of art, the Giorno is notable for the skill with which that delicate irony is constantly kept up by which he seems to praise what he effectually blames. The verse has new harmonies ; sometimes it is a little hard and broken, not by accident, but as a protest against the Arcadian monotony.
Gasparo Gozzi's satire was less elevated, but directed towards the same end as Parini's. In his Osservatore, something like Ad dison's Spectator, in his Gazzetta veneta, in the Mondo morale, by means of allegories and novelets he hit the vices with a delicate touch, and inculcated a practical moral with much good sense.
Gozzi's prose is very graceful and lively. Another satirical writer of the first half of the i8th century was Giuseppe Baretti of Turin. In a journal called the Frusta letteraria he took to lashing without mercy the works which were then being published in Italy. He had learnt much by travelling ; and especially his long stay in England and the friendship of Dr. Johnson had con tributed to give independence to his criticism.
Also the drama felt the influence of the times. Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio (the Arcadian name for Pietro Trapassi, a native of Rome) had endeavoured to make "melodrama and reason com patible." The latter in particular succeeded in giving fresh ex pression to the affections, a natural turn to the dialogue and some interest to the plot. Comedy was reformed by Carlo Goldoni, a Venetian, who created the comedy of character. No doubt Moliere's example helped him in this. Goldoni's characters are always true, but often a little superficial. He studied nature, but he did not plunge into psychological depths. In most of his crea tions, the external rather than the internal part is depicted. Gol doni wrote much (more than 15o comedies), and had no time to correct, to polish, to perfect his works, which are all rough cast. A good many of his comedies were written in Venetian dialect, and these are perhaps the best.
Patriotism and classicism then were the two principles that inspired the literature which began with Alfieri (1749-1803). He worshipped the Greek and Roman idea of popular liberty in arms against the tyrant. He took the subjects of his tragedies almost invariably from the history of these nations, made con tinual apostrophes against the despots, made his ancient char acters talk like revolutionists of his time ; he did not trouble himself with, nor think about, the truth of the characters ; it was enough for him that his hero was Roman in name, that there was a tyrant to be killed, that liberty should triumph in the end. But even this did not satisfy Alfieri. Before his time and all about him there was the Arcadian school. It was necessary to arm the patriotic muse also against this. If the Arcadians, not excluding Metastasio, diluted their poetry with languishing ten derness, if they poured themselves out in so many words, it be hoved the others to do just the contrary—to be brief, concise, strong, bitter, to aim at the sublime as opposed to the lowly and pastoral. The stern example set by Parini and Alfieri's grand manner exercised a potent influence.
Ugo Foscolo was an eager patriot, who carried into life the heat of the most unbridled passion, and into his art an occasionally rhetorical manner, but always one inspired by classical models. The Lettere di Jacopo Ortis is a love story containing a violent protest against the treaty of Campoformio. Foscolo's passions were sudden and violent ; they came to an end as abruptly as they began. To one of these passions Ortis owed its origin. The style is somewhat strained owing to an excessive sentimental tension. It is truly eloquent, on the contrary, in the lectures Dell' origine e dell' ufficio della letteratura, in which Foscolo for the first time gave evidence of his profound critical insight, and in which he may be said to have pointed the way to modern Italian criticism His poem I sepolcri had a great and well deserved success. In less than 300 lines Foscolo succeeded in giving lyrical expression to a fundamental trait of Italian history which he probably learned indirectly from Vico, for the Italians have ever sought inspiration in their past, and in this poem past glories are ex tolled as incentives to, and good omens of, a great future. Among his prose works a high place belongs to his translation of the Sentimental Journey of Sterne, a writer by whom one can easily understand how Foscolo should have been deeply affected. He went as an exile to England, and died there. He wrote for English readers some Essays on Petrarch and on the texts of the Decam erone and of Dante, which are truly remarkable pieces of con structive criticism.
If in Foscolo patriotism and classicism were united, and formed almost one passion, as much cannot be said of Vincenzo Monti, in whom the artist was absolutely predominant. Yet Monti was a patriot too, but in his own way. He had no one deep feeling that ruled him, or rather the mobility of his feelings is his char acteristic ; but each of these was a new form of patriotism, that took the place of an old one. He saw danger to his country in the French Revolution, and wrote the Pellegrino apostolico, the Bassvilliana and the Feroniade; Napoleon's victories caused him to write the Prometeo and the Musagonia; in his Fanatismo and his Superstizione he attacked the papacy; afterwards he sang the praises of the Austrians. Thus every great event made him change his mind, with a readiness which was due to his absorption in art and literature. It would be unjust to accuse Monti of baseness. If we say that nature in giving him only one faculty had made the poet rich and the man poor, we shall speak the truth. Knowing little Greek, he succeeded in making a translation of the Iliad which is remarkable for its Homeric feeling.
Monti was born in '754, Foscolo in 1778. Four years later still was born another poet of the same school, Giambattista Niccolini. In literature he was a classicist and in politics a staunch sup porter of the monarchical idea. In his tragedies he set himself free from the excessive rigidity of Alfieri, and partly approached the English and German tragic authors. He nearly always chose political subjects, striving to keep alive the love of liberty in his compatriots. Such are Nabucco, Antonio Foscarini, Giovanni da Procida, Lodovico it Moro, etc. He assailed papal Rome in Arnaldo da Brescia, a long tragic piece, not suited for acting, and lyric rather than dramatic.
The prevailing political preoccupations were not without effect on historical studies ; one passed from the purely documentary researches of the previous century to the interpretation of past ages from a modern angle. One of the most interesting historians of the earlier part of the i9th century was the Neapolitan, Carlo Troya, who investigated the events of mediaeval Italy with a view to encouraging his contemporaries by the account of the deeds of their forefathers. His Storia d' Italia nel medio evo (1839) expressed a new conception of life. The Piedmontese, Carlo Botta, also was prompted to write history by political considerations, but his work was notable for rhetorical eloquence of exposition, not, like Troya's, for penetration and originality. Botta wrote a History of Italy from 1789 to 1814; later on he continued Guic ciardini's History up to 1789, and wrote Guerra dell' indipendenza americana.
Close to Botta comes Pietro Colletta, a Neapolitan, born nine years after him. He also in his Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1734 al 1825 had the idea of defending the independence and liberty of Italy in a style borrowed from Tacitus. He has a rapid, brief, nervous style, which makes his book attractive reading.
A patriot, a classicist and a purist all at once was Pietro Giordani, born in 1774 he was almost a compendium of the literary movement of the time. His works were few and compara tively unimportant but his position among his contemporaries was such as to single him out as the last great exponent of "Purism." The French domination in Italy had a twofold effect—it caused people to realize that the ancient and often purely senti mental aspirations towards political unity and independence were within the range of possibilities, for all divisions and little tyrants had been swept away by Napoleon, and it convinced Italians that no reliance could be placed on foreign help if such an aim was to be attained, for the French themselves, who had entered Italy as liberators, had proved oppressive masters. With the Napoleonic pre-eminence there was associated an artificial form of classicism, so that when Napoleon fell, there were released forces antagonistic to classicism. The i 8th century critics had long since denounced some of the exaggerations of the classicists; literary romanticism had won favour in France, and French romanticists, if er roneously, considered their tendencies akin to those of the Ger man romanticists. Between 1816 and 1818 a battle was fought for romanticism particularly at Milan where a romanticist period ical, Il Conciliatore, was published. G. Berchet, S. Pellico, L. di Breme, Giovita Scalvini, E. Visconti were among its principal contributors; their polemical efforts were silenced when several of their group were arrested by the Austrian police (1820) on account of their liberal opinions; among the accused was Pellico, who was later to write a famous account of his experiences (Le mie prigioni, 1832). It appears from the articles in the Conciliatore and from other essays that the new school, though advocating the study of modern works in different languages, a certain independence from classical imitation and the discarding of classical conventions, was on the whole consistent with the Italian tradition, a point that was made even clearer by the works of Manzoni, who was hailed as the chief exponent of this school. Manzoni's ideal was "a true subject, a moral purpose and a pleasing form as a means of attraction." And it is precisely realism in art that characterizes Italian literature from Manzoni onwards. The Promessi Sposi is the work that has made him im mortal. No doubt the idea of the historical novel came to him from Sir Walter Scott, but he produced something more than an historical novel in the narrow meaning of that word; he created an eminently realistic work of art. The attention is entirely fixed on the powerful objective creation of the characters. From the greatest to the least they have a wonderful verisimilitude; they are living persons standing before us, not with the qualities of one time more than another, but with the human qualities of all time. Manzoni is able to unfold a character in all particulars, to display it in all its aspects, to follow it through its different phases. As a poet too he had gleams of genius, especially in the Napoleonic ode, Il Cinque Maggio, and where he describes human affections, as in some stanzas of the Inni and in the chorus of the Adelchi.
Everything is terrible and grand in his poems, which are the most agonizing cry in modern literature, uttered with a solemn quietness that at once elevates and terrifies us. But besides being the great est poet of nature and of sorrow, he was also an admirable prose writer. In his Operette morali—dialogues and discourses marked by a cold and bitter smile at human destinies which freezes the reader—the clearness of style, the simplicity of language and the depth of conception are such that perhaps he is not only the greatest lyrical poet since Dante, but also one of the most perfect writers of prose that Italian literature has had.
As realism in art gained ground, the positive method in criticism kept pace with it. From the manner of Botta and Colletta history returned to its spirit of learned research, as is shown iri such works as the Archivio storico italiano, established at Florence by Giampietro Vieusseux, the Storia d'Italia nel medio evo by Carlo Troya, a remarkable treatise by Manzoni himself, Sopra alcuni punti della storia longobardica in Italia, and the very fine history of the Vespro siciliano by Michele Amari. But alongside of the great artists Leopardi and Manzoni, alongside of the learned scholars, there was also in the first half of the 19th century a patriotic literature. To a close observer it will appear that histori cal learning itself was inspired by the love of Italy. Giampietro Vieusseux had a distinct political object when in 182o he estab lished the monthly review Antologia. And it is equally well known that his Archivio storico italiano (1842) was, under a different form, a continuation of the Antologia, which was suppressed in 1833 owing to the action of the Russian Government. Florence was in those days the asylum of all the Italian exiles, and these exiles met and shook hands in Vieusseux's rooms, where there was more literary than political talk, but where one thought and one only animated all minds, the thought of Italy. (A. BA. C. F.)