LYRICS, TRAGEDY, COMEDY, IMPROMPTU, FARCE.
This Cinquecento, so intellectual and learned, gay and witty, betrays its emptiness in a flood of insipid lyrics, produced in imitation of Pe trarch and Sannazzaro. Brightest exception is Michelangelo, who whether voicing his wrath at political corruptions or singing his passion ate friendship for the widow, Vittoria Colonna, has always strength and nobility of utterance. That same Vittoria Colonna herself wrote praiseworthy sonnets, full of feeling. Tragedy went limping in a moral atmosphere that neither inspired nor could appreciate tragic feeling. The of Pistoia is a clumsy adaptation of Seneca and is typical. Giraldi's (1504-73) is more original and shows good intention. Aretino's cOrazia' lacks genuine merit and would have passed without honor in a less barren moment.
There arrives in the development of every race, as well as of every individual, a certain period characterized by great curiosity to be hold itself as in a mirror; an inordinate desire for self-knowledge. The Cinquecento led the Italian people up to that stage of self-conscious ness, hence the popularity of comedy, a form of composition that vividly pictures society, and presents its manners and spirit in the idio matic language of familiar conversation. Lewd ness characterizes all these plays, because cyn ical and unconcealed debauch was characteristic of the age. In the palaces of princes, in the halls of academies, in the Parlatorio of every worldly convent, the occasional stage was pre pared, and famous artists assisted in the crea tion of gorgeous scenes and costumes; while the common people delighted in the popular dia logues (ghommeri) of the Jugglers. Out of this varied material finally evolved two sorts of composition, each having its own audience. If the dulled palate of the intellectual blase in princely halls preferred the idyls of the Pas toral drama, the larger audiences of the com mon people delighted in the rude wit and im promptu dialogues of the a Sog getto,' spoken in the local dialect. Satire is also a mirror in which the complacent society of Cinquecento delighted to observe its own reflection. Francesco Berni (1497-1535) held up just the reflection to please his contempo raries. The correctness of his style, the elegance
of his verse, made the dainty frame. Berth wrote for the enlightened bourgeoisie of whom he was a part, in that style known from him as Bernesco, a parody of Petrarchism, a mixture of classicism, mannerism and realism; appar ently rude, really fine art. In his Capitoli tercets he laughs at the rudeness or obscenity he records and without bitterness satirizes the immorality of all dthrehmen, from Pope Clem ent to the poor parish priest, the comfortless hospitality of whose parish house is wittily described in
The prose writings of Cinquecento may be briefly summarized in the unassuming com position of story tellers, biographers and essay ists. Giorgio Vasari's (1511-74)