ITALY
250
ITALY
stained with the licentiousness and lack of noble Renaissance ends. Modelled upon classical rules,
ideals that characterize the age. His "Satires", or Tasso's "Gerusalemme Liberata" is at once a heroic
epistles in verse, give a perfect portrait of the poet and a religious epic, stately and musical, in which
himself, and sketch the life of the times with a master's the minor charms of romance and sentiment are not
hand. In his "Rime", notwithstanding occasional lacking. He likewise won a high place as IjTist and
Petrarchan imitations, we recognize a sincerity of ut- dramatist, and, at the end of his life, composed a didac-
terance and a genuine passion which are rare in the tic poem, "II Mondo Creato", the merits of which are
<iln is ilircctlv iinitat
lyrical poetry of that day. Next to these two giants
stands Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), pitiless
investigator of men's secret motives in his "Storia
d'ltalia" and his political writings, endDwcil wit I
rare power of historical por-
traiture, but devoid of enthu-
siasm and all lofty aspirations.
A higher ideal of life and
conduct is expressed in the
"Cortegiano" of Baldas-
sare Castiglione (147S-1529),
the picture of the perfect gen-
tleman, which at the close rises
on the wings of Platonic love to
the mystical contemplation of
celestial beauty. Pietro Bembo
(1470-1547), the literary high-
priest of the century, touched
the latter theme, less nobly, in
his "Asolani"; his poetry is
little more than a servile imi-
tation of Petrarch; but his
"Prose", in which he formu-
lated the rules of the Italian
language, and the zeal with
which he set the example of
editing the vernacular classics,
were influential in creating a
standard of good taste. To the
same poetic school as Bembo
belong the Petrarchists, Fran-
cesco Maria Molza (14S9-1544),
Giovanni Guidiccioni (1500-41), Giovanni della C'asa unfortunately, applies to much of the comedy of the (1503-56), all noted for perfection of technic rather century, and is found at its worst in the plays of the than for originality of thought; Vittoria Colonna infamous Pietro Aretino (1492-1556). The trag- (1490-1547), whose saintly life illumines her poetry, edies are poorer, and have no relation with the life Gaspara Stampa (1523-54), in whose lyrics we find of the age; they are mere rhetorical imitations of the the faithful delineation of a profound and unhappy Greek tragedians and of Seneca, the " Torrismondo '"
theological rather than poetical.
The Renaissance in Italy produced no great na- tional drama. The Italian comedy of the Cinque- 1 from Plautus and Terence, 1 lut attempts to adapt the plots and characters of the Latin playwrights to the conditions of life in the sixteenth cen- tury. Here, as in the ro- mantic epic, Ariosto stands sii]ireme. His earlier comedies (150S-1509) are written in prose, his later (1520-1531) in verso sdrucciolo, blank verse ending in a dactyl, intended to reproduce the trimeter iambic of the Latin comedians. They give us vivid pictures of the times; the dialogue is natural and brilliant, the cliaracterization superficial but clever; but they are disfigured by deplorable obscenity. Be- tween Ariosto's earlier and later comedies come the "Cal- andria" of Bernardo da Bib- biena (1513) and the"Man- dragola" of Machiavelli (after 1512), both in prose; the latter is a work of real dramatic power, but cjTiical and im- moral to the last degree. This,
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passion; and the great artist, Michel-
angelo Buonarroti (1475-1564),
raised above the others by loftiness
of thought and rugged vigour of style.
A versatile Southerner, Luigi Tansillo
(1510-68), shows marked individu-
ality alike in his IjtIcs and in his
idyllic poems. Among burlesque
poets are the witty but immoral
Francesco Berni (1498-1535), and
Teofilo Folengo (1492-1544), whose
"Macaronea", or "Baldus", is a
burlesque epic written in an extra\'a-
gant but subtile blend of Latin and
Italian, the poesia macchcrdnicii, of
which he was the perfecter but not
the inventor.
Didactic poems in blank verse, in imitation of Virgil's Georgics, were composed by Giovanni Rucellai( 1475- 1526) and Luigi Alamanni (1495- 1556), while Gian Giorgio Trissino ' '
(147S-1550),oneof the chief literary critics of the aur. essayed the heroic epic in the same metre in his "Italia liberata dai Goti ". .Numerous writers .strove to tread in Ariosto's footsteps with romantic epics, of which the "Amadigi" of RcrnardoTasso (1493-1569), the father of Tor(|uato, is the most successful. In the religious poetry of CelioMagno (1536-1602), we find the renova- tion of spiritual ideals cavised by the Catholic reaction
of Torquato Tasso (1587) alone rising
above mediocrity. Far more attrac-
tive are the pastoral lyrical dramas,
Ta.sso's ".Aminta" (1573) and its
worthy rival, the "Pastor Fido" of
Battista Guarini (1585), masterpieces
of their kind, in which what is arti-
ficial and conventional in sentiment
is idealized and made acceptable by
the melodiotisne.ss of the poetry with
which it is clothe<l.
Besides Machiavelli and Guicciar- dini, Florence produced a number of admirable historians, especially Ja- copo Xardi( 1476-1555), Donate Gian- notti (1102-1572), and Benedetto X'archi ( 1 502-65). At Venice, besides the official histories of Bembo and Paolo Paruta (d. 1.598), we have the voluminous "Diarii" of Marino Sa- nudo (1466-1536), which enable us to reconstruct (he inililie and private life of the republic day by day. Angcdodi Cost anzo( 1.507- 91 ) wrote' the history of Naples with accuracy and sim- plicity. The autobiography of Benvenuto ( Vllini ( 1 500- 71) and the series of " Vite" of the painters, sculptors, and architects, by Giorgio Vasari (1531-74) bring the artistic side of the Renaissance vividly before our eyes. Bernardino Baldi (1553-1617), also an idyllic and didactic poet of an austere spirit, composed ad-
and this is no less marked in Torquato Tasso mirable monographs on the lives and times of the first
(1544-95), with whom the poetry of the Italian two dukes of Urbino. Two novelists, Matteo Ban-
