INTRODUCTION
in 1530; Milan fell into the latter's hands in 1535; Lombardy, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia became Spanish provinces; proud Siena was humbled to the status of a small provincial town. Plague, famine, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition followed as gleaners in the rear of the invading armies, and by the end of the century the flame of Italian liberty had been quenched—for ever, as it seemed—by the careful hands of foreign viceroys, by the Pope and the Society of Jesus.
O bella età dell'oro!
III
To the lover of lyric poetry the seventeenth century in Italy is almost destitute of interest. The extinction of political liberty under the Spaniard and the swift development of priestcraft that was the sequel of the Council of Trent combined to produce an atmosphere fatal to real poetic impulse; and the swarm of little writers who followed in the flowery path where Marini led the way with his sugared Adone found a substitute for inspiration in every possible refinement of vile taste. The gregarious instinct that is usually an attribute of feeble natures led them to form various cliques and academies—hotbeds of antitheses, strained metaphors, and mutual admiration, where might be seen grave gentlemen in full-bottomed wigs masquerading as Daphnis and Thyrsis; writing odes to Alexis and to Christina of Sweden; declaiming panegyrics on French chocolate and the General of the Jesuits. They assumed the most remarkable names—apatisti, malinconici, negletti, gelati—but they were never poets; their verses, at
