Italian Literature

Origins and Development

The modern language of Italy is naturally derived from Latin, a continuation and

development of the Latin actually spoken among the inhabitants of the peninsula

after the downfall of the Roman Empire. It is still disputed how far this spoken

Latin was identical with the classical literary language of Rome, the Latinus

togatus, and how far it was a merely popular tongue, the sermo rusticus. Most

probably it was a mixture of the two — the latter, owing to the changed social

conditions, predominating. A small number of words derived from Greek are in

part relics of the epoch of Byzantine domination, in part introduced later through

the Crusades and through commerce; the Saracenic invasions have left traces in

a very few Arabic words, chiefly in Sicily; a certain number of words have come

indirectly from the Latin through French or Provençal; even the long centuries of

Teutonic conquests and inroads caused only a comparatively slight influx of

words of Germanic origin.

In the "De Vulgari Eloquentia" (i, 10-16), Dante speaks of the "many discordant

varieties of the Italian vernacular", and rejects them all in favour of the "illustrious,

cardinal, courtly, and curial vernacular in Italy", the standard and ideal national

language, "which belongs to every city of Italy, and seems to belong to none, and

by which all the municipal dialects of the Italians are measured, weighed and

compared". These dialects fall into three groups:

(1) Ligurian, Piedmontese, Lombard and Emilian, and Sardinian, which

form a Gallo-Italian group apart from the vernacular of the rest of the

peninsula;

(2) Venetian, Corsican, Sicilian, Neapolitan, Umbrian, and the dialects of

the Marches and of Rome, which, though diverging from true Italian, form

one system with it;

(3) Tuscan.

But the national and literary language, the "illustrious vernacular", is one and the

same throughout the land. This language is not an artificially formed Italian,

stripped of the accidental peculiarities of place and race; but substantially the

vernacular of Tuscany, and more particularly of Florence, as established by the

great Florentine writers of the fourteenth century, adopted by those of other

districts in the Renaissance, and formulated by the famous Accademia della

Crusca, which was founded in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

From the seventh century onwards, we begin to find traces in extant documents,

from various parts of Italy, of the use of the vernacular, in the shape of forms that

are more or less Italian inserted into the corrupt Latin of the epoch. Italian familiar

names of men and Italian names of places rapidly appear; and, in a document of

960 in the Archives of Montecassino, a whole sentence, four times repeated, is

practically Italian: Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, trenta anni le

possette parte sancti Benedicti (I know that those lands, within these boundaries

that are here contained, the party of St. Benedict has possessed them thirty

years). A confessio, or formula of confession, from an abbey near Norcia,

probably of the end of the eleventh century, shows passages still nearer to the

Italian of to-day. Fifty years later we meet literary composition in the vernacular.

The inscription formerly on the cathedral of Ferrara, of 1135, consists of two

rhyming couplets of Italian verse. Four lines, known as the "Cantilena Bellunese",

also in rhymed couplets, inserted in a fragment of a chronicle, allude to the

taking of Casteldardo by the people of Belluno in 1193. In a contrasto (a dialogue

in verse between lover and lady) by Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (c. 1190), the lady

answers in Genoese to the Provençal advances of the poet. The "Ritmo

Laurenziano", a cantilena in praise of a bishop by a Tuscan, and the "Ritmo

Cassinese", an obscure allegorical poem in the Apulian dialect, are both

probably of the end of the twelfth century. To the same epoch belongs a series of

twenty-two sermons in a northern Italian dialect mixed with French, published by

Wendelin Foerster, which are the earliest extant specimens of vernacular

preaching in Italy.

The Thirteenth Century (Il Ducento)

The Italians naturally regarded the language and traditions of Rome as their own,

and still clung to the use of Latin while a vernacular literature was already

flourishing in France and Provence. Italian literature, strictly speaking, begins

with the early years of the thirteenth century. Among the influences at work in its

formation must first be mentioned the religious revival wrought by St. Francis of

Assisi and his followers bearing lyrical fruit in the Lauda, the popular sacred

song, especially in Central Italy. St. Francis himself composed one of the

earliest Italian poems, the famous "Cantica del Sole", or "Laudes Creaturarum"

(1225), a "sublime improvisation" (as Paschal Robinson well calls it) rather than

a strictly literary production. The growing self-consciousness of the individual

states and cities later gave rise to the chronicles and local histories. Provençal

troubadours, who settled at the petty Courts of Ferrara and Monferrato, or passed

southwards into the Kingdom of Sicily, brought the conventions of their artificial

love poetry with them. Equally influential with the Franciscan movement, though

in a totally different spirit, was the impulse given to letters by the highly cultured,

but immoral and irreligious court of the Emperor Frederick II and his son Manfred,

whose Kingdom of Sicily included not only that island, but also Naples and all

the south of the peninsula.

Dante wrote: "From the fact that the royal throne was in Sicily, it came to pass

that whatever our predecessors wrote in the vulgar tongue was called Sicilian" (V.

E., i, 12). The writers of this Sicilian school were drawn from all parts of Italy.

They did not normally use the Sicilian dialect, but wrote in a vernacular

practically identical with what became the literary language of the whole nation.

Their productions are almost exclusively love poems derived from those of

Provence. Frederick himself (died 1250) and his chancellor, Pier delle Vigne (died

1249), wrote in this fashion. Many of these poets, like Ruggiero de Amicis (died

1246), Arrigo Testa (died 1247), and Percivalle Doria (died 1264), were of high

social position, notable in the history of the epoch, dying on the scaffold or the

battlefield; but their lyrics are lacking in individuality, conventional, and artificial in

sentiment and treatment. Noteworthy poets of this school are Giacomo da

Lentino, "Il Notaro", who was one of the emperor's notaries in 1233; Rinaldo

d'Aquino, a kinsman of St. Thomas, whose lament of a girl whose lover had gone

on the Crusade was probably written in 1242; Giacomo Pugliese da Morra, in

whom we find a trace of popular realism; and Cielo dal Camo, or d'Alcamo,

whose contrasto, "Rosa fresca aulentissima", now held to have heen written after

1231, is strongly tinged with the local dialect of Sicily. A more personal note is

struck in the pathetic poem of King Enzo of Sardinia (died 1272), "S'eo trovasse",

written from his prison at Bologna, which brings the Sicilian epoch to a dramatic

close. The last poet of the Sicilian school is Guido delle Colonne (died after

1288), who also wrote the "Historia Trojana" in Latin prose, and is mentioned with

praise by both Dante and Chaucer.

The earlier Tuscan poets, such as Pannuccio dal Bagno, of Pisa, and

Folcaccluero de' Folcacchieri, of Siena (c. 1250), are closely associated with the

Sicilians. But from the outset the Tuscans did not restrict themselves to erotic

poetry, but sang of religious, satirical, and political themes as well. Guittone del

Viva (1230-94), known as Fra Guittone d'Arezzo, shows himself an imitator of the

Provençals in his love lyrics, but writes with vigour and sincerity in his religious

and political poems, especially in his canzone on the defeat of the Florentines at

Montaperti (1260). He is also the author of a collection of letters, one of the

earliest achievements of Italian prose. By the middle of the century, in addition to

the canzone, or ode (which was taken over from the Provençals), we find in

Central Italy two forms of lyrical poetry purely Italian in their origin: the ballata

and the sonnet. The overthrow of the Suabian monarchy in the South, by the

victory of Charles of Anjou (1266), shifted the centre of culture to Bologna and

Florence. A number of disciples of Guittone now appear, of whom Chiaro

Davanzati (date uncertain), of Florence, and Bonaggiunta Urbicciani, of Lucca

(died after 1296), are the most noticeable. Of a far higher order is the poet who

inaugurated the dolce stil nuovo, the "sweet new style", of which Dante speaks

— Guido Guinizelli of Bologna (died 1276). Guido wrote of the noblest love in a

spirit that anticipates the "Vita Nuova", and thereby founded a school to which

the poets of the last decade of the century belonged, even as their predecessors

had adhered to that of Guittone. The chief of these is Guido Cavalcanti (died

1300), the chosen friend of Dante. He composed an elaborate canzone on the

philosophy of love, in which poetry is smothered by metaphysics; but m his

minor lyrics, original in motive and personal in sentiment, he brought the ballata

and the sonnet to a degree of perfection previously unattained. With him and

Dante is associated another Florentine poet, Lapo Gianni (died 1323), whose

work belongs to this epoch although he outlived it. In another vein, we have the

humorous and satirical pieces of Rustico di Filippo (died circa 1270) and the

"Tesoretto" of Brunetto Latini (died 1294), an allegorical didactic poem which

influenced the external form of the "Divina Commedia". The religious poetry of

Umbria, developing under Franciscan influence, culminates in the mystical laudi

of Jacopone da Todi (died 1306), one of the most truly inspired sacred poets that

the world has seen.

In comparison with the poetry, the Italian prose literature of this century is

insignificant. The chief chronicler of the epoch, Fra Salimbene of Parma (died

1288), wrote in Latin; Brunetto Latini composed his encyclopedic work, the

"Trésor", in French. Many of the literary productions formerly assigned to this are

now known to belong to a later epoch, and it is impossible to say with certainty

whether those that are authentic should be placed at the end of the thirteenth or

at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Among these are the "Cento Novelle

Antiche", a collection of short stories drawn from various sources, and the

"Tavola Ritonda", an Italian version of the romance of Tristram. Fra Ristoro of

Arezzo, in 1282, completed an elaborate treatise on cosmography, "Della

Composizione del Mondo". Most of the prose of this epoch is simply translated

from the Latin or French. To Bono Giamboni (died after 1296), a Florentine who

italicized Brunetto Latini's" Trésor", are attributed three ethical treatises (possibly

of a later date), based upon medieval Latin models, but not mere translations; the

most important of these, the "Introduzione alle Virtù", derived in part from

Boethius and Prudentius, is a striking religious allegory in which the Soul is led

by Philosophy to the palace of Faith to witness the triumph of the Church, and

herself attain to spiritual freedom.

The Fourteenth Century (Il Trecento)

Through the triumph of the Guelphs, the chief place in Italian culture is now held

by Florence instead of Sicily. Italian literature has become mainly republican in

temper‚(even when professedly imperialist) and Tuscan in language. The

philosophical glory of St. Thomas causes even belles lettres to be deeply tinged

with scholasticism; while the growing antagonism to the political actions of the

popes, particularly during the Babylonian Captivity of Avignon, gives an

anti-clerical tone to much of the poetry and prose of the century. At the close of

the epoch the revival of classical studies begins to make itself felt. In the hands

of three great Tuscan writers — Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Francesco Petrarca

(1304-1374), and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) — the national literature and

the national language appear in full maturity and artistic perfection.

In his "Vita Nuova" (c. 1295), Dante still belongs to the preceding century, while

uplifting the ideals of love set forth by Guido Guinizelli to the heights of Catholic

mysticism. His "Rime", more particularly his canzoni, develop the lyrical forms of

his predecessors, while investing them with fresh passion and with philosophical

authority. With his "Convivio" (circa 1306 — unfinished, but the earliest

monumental work of Italian prose) he intended to bring down the scholastic

learning of his age to the understanding of the general reader. The "Divina

Commedia" (1314-21), the noblest expression of the Italian spirit in poetry and a

landmark in the history of man, sums up the intellectual gain and the spiritual

progress of the nine centuries since the fall of the Roman Empire, while faithfully

depicting the highest aspirations and whole moral atmosphere of the poet's own

epoch. In spiritual insight, dramatic intensity, sureness of touch, and terseness

of expression, it has never been surpassed. In it modern Europe first produced a

masterpiece to rival those of the classical world. Petrarca brings the canzone

and the sonnet to their ultimate technical perfection in his lyrical poems, the

"Canzoniere" or "Rime", a series of miniature paintings of all the varying moods

of the soul passing through earthly love and patriotic enthusiasm to find its rest in

religion. His "Trionfi", a poem in terza rima, in ten cantos, deal with the same

matter in allegorical fashion, giving a symbolical representation of his own life. In

his voluminous Latin writings — letters, treatises, and poems — he appears as

the first of the Humanists, the precursor of the Renaissance. The worshipper of

Dante and intimate friend of Petrarca, Boccaccio, in his "Filostrato" and

"Teseide", established ottava rima (previously only used in popular verse) as the

normal measure for Italian narrative poetry. In his "Ameto" he introduced the

prose pastoral and the vernacular eclogue. His grossly immoral "Fiammetta" may

be said to inaugurate the modern psychological novel. In the hundred stories of

the "Decameron", he gave perfect artistic form to the novella, or short story,

imbuing it with modern life. Written in an ornate and poetical prose, lacking in

simplicity and directness, the "Decameron" gives an unsurpassable picture of

certain aspects of fourteenth century society, but is disfigured by obscenity, and

permeated by a superficial and sensual ideal of life.

This century in Italy, as elsewhere, is the golden age of vernacular ascetical and

mystical literature, producing a rich harvest of translations from the Scriptures

and the Fathers, of spiritual letters, sermons, and religious treatises no less

remarkable for their fervour and unction than for their linguistic value. From the

earliest years of the Trecento have come down the sermons of the Dominican, B.

Giordano da Rivalto (died 1311). The exquisite "Fioretti di San Francesco", now

known to be a translation from the Latin, date from about 1328. Prominent among

the spiritual writers, who thus set themselves to open the Church's treasury to

the unlearned, are the Augustinians, B. Simone Fidati da Cascia (died 1348) and

Giovanni da Salerno (died 1388), whose works have been edited by P. Nicola

Mattioli; and the Dominicans, Domenico Cavalca, a copious translator, and

Jacopo Passavanti (died 1357), whose "Specchio della Vera Penitenza" is a

model of style and language. The admirable letters of B. Giovanni Colombini (died

1367) and the mystical lyrics of his follower, Bianco dall' Anciolina (El Bianco da

Siena), have the glowing fervour, the Divine madness, of the first Franciscans. In

a less exalted vein, the epistles of the monk of Vallombrosa, B. Giovanni dalle

Celle (died 1396), extend from the forties to the nineties of the century. Supreme

above them all, a figure worthy, from the mere literary point of view, to stand by

Dante and Petrarca, is St. Catherine of Siena (1347-80), whose "Dialogo" is the

greatest mystical work in prose in the Italian language, and whose "Letters" have

hardly been surpassed in the annals of Christianity.

Minor poets are numerous. Ceceo Angiolieri of Siena (died circa 1312), the Italian

Villon, wrote humorous and satirical sonnets of amazing vigour and originality on

subjects mainly drawn from low life. Folgore da San Gimignano (died after 1315)

pictured the fashionable existence of the young nobles of Siena with the touch of

a painter. Guittoncino de' Sinibuldi, known as Cino da Pistoia (died 1337), also

won renown as a jurist; the friend of Dante, whose "Rime" he imitated, his best

amatory and political lyrics are hardly unworthy of his master. Francesco da

Barberino (died 1348), who was influenced by French and Provençal models, is

the author of two somewhat insipid allegorical didactic poems. A higher note is

struck by the Florentine exile, Fazio degli Uberti (died after 1368), whose

"Dittamondo", a long poem in terza rima, "was intended as an earthly parallel to

Dante's Sacred Poem, doing for this world what he did for the other" (Rossetti);

he surpassed himself in splendid patriotic lyrics, which give spirited expression

to the new national Ghibellinism of Italy. Antonio Pucci of Florence (died 1374) is

the chief literary representative of the popular poetry of the age.

With the early years of the century begins the series of chronicles and diaries in

the vernacular. Dino Compagni (died 1324), to whom is also ascribed the

"Intelligenza", an allegorical poem in nona rima, describes the factions of the

Bianchi and Neri in Florence with patriotic indignation and impartiality. Giovanni

Villani (died 1348) and his brother Matteo (died 1363) wrote the whole history of

Florence from the legendary origins down to the year of the latter's death; their

work, in addition to its supreme historical value, is a monument of the purest

Tuscan prose. Minor chroniclers arose all over Italy; we will mention only the two

Sienese, Agnolo di Tura and Neri di Donato, and the Benedictine Abbot Niccolò

of Gavello, who wrote the "Libro del Polistore", a kind of universal history (still

only in part published) which ends in 1367. In fiction, the "Reali di Francia" of

Andrea da Barberino, written at the end of the century, renders the chivalrous

tales of Charlemagne and his Paladins from the French; the "Pecorone" of Ser

Giovanni Fiorentino (c. 1378) is a collection of tales in imitation of Boccaccio.

Franco Sacchetti (1335-1400), less artificial than Boccaccio, adapted the novella

to a moral purpose; he also wrote evangelical sermons, and poems, both playful

and serious, frequently of real lyrical beauty, in which the literature of the

Florentine Trecento comes to a pleasant close.

The Renaissance

There are two distinct epochs in the history of the Italian Renaissance: the

earlier, including the greater part of the fifteenth century (Il Quattrocento), from

the return of the popes from Avignon (1377) to the invasion of Charles VIII (1494);

the later, comprising the sixteenth century (Il Cinquecento), from the defeat of

the French at Fornovo (1495) to the devolution of the Duchy of Ferrara to the Holy

See (1597). Allowing for some necessary overlapping, the literature of the epoch

falls into two corresponding periods.

The Quattrocento is an intermediate period between the mainly Tuscan

movement of the fourteenth, and the general Italian literature of the sixteenth,

century. It developed under the auspices of the princes who were forming

hereditary states on the ruins of the communes, and is at first marked by the

continuance of the work (inaugurated by Petrarch) of recovering classical writers

and copying manuscripts, while the vernacular was despised, and authors

attempted to write Latin verse and prose in the manner of the ancients. Greek

scholars flocked to Italy, and the influence of Plato, translated into Latin by

Leonardo Bruni (died 1444) and Marsilio Ficino (died 1495), became paramount.

The latter, who was bent on harmonizing Plato with Christianity, and who also

translated Plotinus, was instrumental in founding the Florentine neo-Platonic

Academy. Some of these Humanists were purely pagan in spirit, like Poggio

Bracciolini (died 1459), Antonio Beccadelli, called Panormita (died 1471), and

Francesco Filelfo (died 1481). But there were others, such as the Camaldolese

monk, Ambrogio Traversari (died 1439), Palla Strozzi (died 1462), Giannozzo

Manetti (died 1459), Guarino Veronese (died 1460), Vittorino da Feltre (died

1446), and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94), who could reconcile their

worship of antiquity with their living faith in the Catholic Church. Among these

Christian Humanists were two popes, Nicholas V (died 1455) and Pius II (died

1464). A vivid picture of the literary life of the age is given in the "Vite d'uomini

illustri" of the Florentine bookseller, Vespasiano da Bisticci (1421-98). In the

earlier part of the century, vernacular literature is of minor importance. Leonardo

Giustiniani of Venice (1388-1446) wrote popular love poetry and religious laudi,

some of which have been attributed to Jacopone da Todi. The Florentine

architect, Leon Battista Alberti (1406-72), is the author of artistic treatises and

moral dialogues, especially the four books of "Della Famiglia", in a Tuscan tinged

with Latinisms. Feo Belcari (1410-84) wrote mystery plays and religious poems,

and also lives of B. Giovanni Colombini and his followers, with the devout

simplicity of an earlier age. Also in religious literature we have the ascetical

letters of B. Giovanni Dominici (died 1419), a strenuous opponent of the pagan

tendencies of the classical revival, and the vernacular sermons (1427) of St.

Bernardine of Siena.

In the latter part of the century, mainly through the influence of Lorenzo de'

Medici and the dukes of Ferrara, Italian again triumphed over Latin. Three poets

appear, almost of the first class: Lorenzo de' Medici himself (1449-92), Angelo

Poliziano (1454-94), and Matteo Maria Bolardo (1434-94). Of extraordinary

versatility as a poet, Lorenzo left the imprint of his striking personality upon all he

wrote and, especially in his subjects drawn from country life, shows a keen

feeling for nature. The ballate and canzonette of Poliziano have the true lyrical

note, while his "Stanze per la Giostra" are impregnated with the spirit of

Florentine painting, and his "Orfeo" handles a mythological subject in the style of

a religious mystery play. Bolardo 's "Canzoniere", somewhat Petrarchan in tone,

but largely original in form, is the finest collection of love poems of the century;

his unfinished " Orlando Innamorato ", a poetic romance in ottava rima, gives

fresh life to the Carlovingian legends by informing them with the spirit of the

Arthurian Cycle. Among lesser poets of the Medicean circle, Luigi Pulci

(1432-1484), in his "Morgante ", treated the adventures of Orlando with a

fantastic mingling of seriousness and japery; Girolamo Benivieni (1453-1542), a

noble mystical and patriotic spirit who outlived his age, sang of celestial love

"according to the mind and opinion of the Platonists" (1487), and became the

lyrical interpreter of the aspirations of Savonarola, At the northern courts, the

blind poet Francesco Bello followed in Boiardo's footsteps with his "Mambriano"

(1496); the Ferrarese courtier Antonio Tebaldeo (1463-1537), whose poetry all

belongs to the fifteenth century, exaggerated the defects of Petrarch and versified

the politics of his patrons; Antonio Cammelu, called "Il Pistoia" (1441-1502),

produced an extraordinarily vivid series of satirical sonnets which are historical

documents of high importance. In the South, the two chief literary figures are the

Neapolitans, Giovanni Pontormo (1426-1503) and Jacopo Sannazaro

(1458-1530). The former, who gave his name to a famous academy, wrote only in

Latin, which, alike in prose and verse, he used as though it were his own tongue.

The latter owes his fame to his Latin "Eclogæ Piscatoriæ" and his Italian

"Arcadia", in prose and verse, which influenced the literature of Elizabethan

England; his chief Latin poem, "De Partu Virginis", was not published until 1526.

The most important Italian historical work of the fifteenth century is the "Storia di

Milano" of Bernardino Corio (1459-1510), of special value for its minute and vivid

picture of the reigns of the dukes of the Sforza family. The Cinquecento

witnessed the Tuscan vernacular finally established as the literary language of

Italy, and the classical studies of the past bearing fruit no longer in pedantic

imitation, but in a national literature which is classical only in its perfection of

form. In prose, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and, in poetry Lodovico Ariosto

(1474-1533), are the master spirits of the age. Machiavelli's political and

historical works, admirable in clarity, brevity, and efficacy of expression,

penetrating in insight, and at times noble in patriotic aspiration, are open to

severe condemnation as virtually excluding moral considerations from the sphere

of public life. Next to Dante, Ariosto is the greatest poet that Italy has produced.

His "Orlando Furioso", a romantic epic continuing the matter of Boiardo's

chivalrous poem, but conforming to classical models, has all the highest qualities

of style, imagination, and humour; but, while faithfully reflecting the society of the

early Cinquecento, it is stained with the licentiousness and lack of noble ideals

that characterize the age. His "Satires", or epistles in verse, give a perfect

portrait of the poet himself, and sketch the life of the times with a master's hand.

In his "Rime", notwithstanding occasional Petrarchan imitations, we recognize a

sincerity of utterance and a genuine passion which are rare in the 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'Italia" and his political

writings, endowed with a rare power of historical portraiture, but devoid of

enthusiasm and all lofty aspirations.

A higher ideal of life and conduct is expressed in the "Cortegiano" of Baldassare

Castiglione (1478-1529), the picture of the perfect gentleman, 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 imitation of Petrarch; but his "Prose", in which he formulated 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, Francesco Maria Molza

(1489-1544), Giovanni Guidiccioni (1500-41), Giovanni della Casa (1503-56), all

noted for perfection of technic rather than for originality of thought; Vittoria

Colonna (1490-1547), whose saintly life illumines her poetry, Gaspara Stampa

(1523-54), in whose lyrics we find the faithful delineation of a profound and

unhappy passion; and the great artist, Michelangelo 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 individuality alike in

his lyrics 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 extravagant but

subtile blend of Latin and Italian, the poesia maccheronica, 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 (1478-1550), one of the chief literary critics of the age, 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 Bernardo Tasso (1493-1569), the father of Torquato, is the most

successful. In the religious poetry of Celio Magno (1536-1602), we find the

renovation of spiritual ideals caused by the Catholic reaction, and this is no less

marked in Torquato Tasso (1544-95), with whom the poetry of the Italian

Renaissance ends. Modelled upon classical rules, Tasso's "Gerusalemme

Liberata" is at once a heroic and a religious epic, stately and musical, in which

the minor charms of romance and sentiment are not lacking. He likewise won a

high place as lyrist and dramatist, and, at the end of his life, composed a

didactic poem, "Il Mondo Creato", the merits of which are theological rather than

poetical.

The Renaissance in Italy produced no great national drama. The Italian comedy

of the Cinquecento is directly imitated from Plautus and Terence, but attempts to

adapt the plots and characters of the Latin playwrights to the conditions of life in

the sixteenth century. Here, as in the romantic epic, Ariosto stands supreme.

His earlier comedies (1508-1509) 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 characterization superficial but clever; but

they are disfigured by deplorable obscenity. Between Ariosto's earlier and later

comedies come the "Calandria" of Bernardo da Bibbiena (1513) and the

"Mandragola" of Machiavelli (after 1512), both in prose; the latter is a work of real

dramatic power, but cynical and immoral to the last degree. This, unfortunately,

applies to much of the comedy of the century, and is found at its worst in the

plays of the infamous Pietro Aretino (1492-1556). The tragedies are poorer, and

have no relation with the life of the age; they are mere rhetorical imitations of the

Greek tragedians and of Seneca, the "Torrismondo" of Torquato Tasso (1587)

alone rising above mediocrity. Far more attractive are the pastoral lyrical dramas,

Tasso's "Aminta" (1573) and its worthy rival, the "Pastor Fido" of Battista Guarini

(1585), masterpieces of their kind, in which what is artificial and conventional in

sentiment is idealized and made acceptable by the melodiousness of the poetry

with which it is clothed.

Besides Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Florence produced a number of admirable

historians, especially Jacopo Nardi(1476-1555), Donato Giannotti (1492-1572),

and Benedetto Varchi (1502-65). At Venice, besides the official histories of

Bembo and Paolo Paruta (died 1598), we have the voluminous "Diarii" of Marino

Sanudo (1466-1536), which enable us to reconstruct the public and private life of

the republic day by day. Angelo di Costanzo (1507-91) wrote the history of

Naples with accuracy and simplicity. The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

(1500-71) 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 admirable monographs on the lives and times of the

first two dukes of Urbino. Two novelists, Matteo Bandello (1480-1560) and

Giambattista Giraldi (1504-75), have the merit of being less immoral than

Boccaccio. Among minor prose treatises the "Galateo" of Giovanni della Casa, a

manual of good breeding, has made its title proverbial. The translation of Tacitus

by Bernardo Davanzati (1529-1606) is a model of style. Among grammarians and

literary critics, besides Bembo, Trissino, and Varchi, should be mentioned

Leonardo Salviati, who played a leading part in the foundation of the "Accademia

della Crusca" in 1582. The spiritual element in vernacular literature is represented

by the "Vita e Transito della beata Osanna da Mantua", by Girolamo

Montolivetano (1505); the "Trattato del Purgatorio" of St. Catherine of Genoa

(died 1510); the mystical writings of her godchild, the Carmelite nun, Battista

Vernazza (died 1587); the Letters of St. Catherine de' Ricci (died 1590); and the

"Combattimento Spirituale" (circa 1585) of Lorenzo Scupoli, still so widely used

among us for purposes of devotion.

The Decadence

The creative genius of the Italians had been exhausted by the Renaissance, and

the life of the nation crushed down by the foreign yoke of Spain, imposed on the

peninsula by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). Already in the latter part of

the sixteenth century the decline had set in; it lasted through the whole of the

seventeenth (Il Seicento), and the first half of the eighteenth century (Il

Settecento), which together form the least fruitful epoch in the history of Italian

literature. Exaggeration and extravagance, with corrupted taste and frantic

straining after novelty (in part a reaction against the frigid classicism in which the

Renaissance ended), are the characteristics of earlier seventeenth-century

poetry, of which the most typical work is the "Adone" of the Neapolitan poet,

Giovanbattista Marini (1569-1625), a profoundly immoral poem with a pretended

ethical intention. Alessandro Tassoni (1565-1635) parodied the heroic poem in

his comic epic, "La Secchia Rapita", and assailed the Spanish oppressors of his

country in his prose "Filippiche". A new school of lyrical poetry was inaugurated

by Gabriello Chiabrera (1552-1637), who attempted, with only partial success, to

adopt the metres of the Greek and Roman poets for Italian verse. He was

followed, with less refined taste and more virility, by Fulvio Testi (1593-1646),

whose patriotic poems strike a higher note. Among satirical poets, natural fruit of

a corrupt age, is the Neapolitan painter, Salvator Rosa (1615-73). The inevitable

reaction against the inflated mannerisms of the Marinisti led to a movement for

reforming Italian poetry by a return to nature and simpler ideals. To this latter

school belong Vincenzo Filicaja (1642-1707), a deeply religious poet, the best of

whose sonnets are the poetic gems of his age, Benedetto Menzini (1646-1704),

a Florentine priest, who was also successful as a writer of satires; and

Alessandro Guidi (1650-1712), called "the Italian Pindar", who introduced greater

freedom into the rhythmical structure of the canzone. This movement culminated

in the famous "Accademia dell' Arcadia", inaugurated at Rome in 1690, which

soon sank into an affected pastoralism and artificial simplicity, as false to nature

and to true poetry as the mannerisms which it was intended to combat.

Although the greatest Italian of the epoch, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), belongs to

science rather than to literature, his writings are distinguished by the highest

literary excellences. Francesco Redi (1626-1698), a distinguished physician, was

also a poet and philologist. Three Jesuits are among the chief prose writers of the

century, combining devotion and learning with a literary style which, though far

less free than Galileo's from the faults of the age, is unsurpassed by any of their

contemporaries. Father Sforza Pallavicino (1607-1667) composed the official

history of the Council of Trent, in refutation of that of Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623),

and ethical and religious treatises, of which the "Arte della Perfezione Cristiana"

and the four books "Del Bene", philosophical dialogues held in the villa of

Cardinal Alessandro Orsini at Bracciano, are still read; Father Daniello Bartoli

(1608-85), a prolific and brilliant author, wrote the history of the Society of Jesus

in a style which is typical of the Seicento at its best, Father Paolo Segneri

(1624-94) reformed the art of religious oratory and freed it from the corruptions of

the times. Prominent among historians are Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio

(1579-1644), a trusted diplomatist of the Holy See, and Enrico Caterino Davila

(1576-1631), who wrote on the Civil Wars of France. A little later, the study of

history was set upon a scientific basis by Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) and

Lodovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750). Vico showed how history is illumined by

the application of jurisprudence and philosophy; Muratori, that worthy priest to

whom the student of the Middle Ages owes more than to any other man, taught

by his own example that history must be founded in documentary research, and

prepared the ground for subsequent scholars. In philology and literary criticism

must be mentioned Carlo Dati (1619-76), who is associated with the Accademia

della Crusca (of which the first Dictionary had been published in 1612);

Gianvincenzo Gravina (1664-1718), who was one of the founders of the Arcadia;

and the Sienese, Girolamo Gigli (1660-1722), the zealous editor of St. Catherine.

The Jesuit Girolamo Tiraboschi (1731-94) compiled the voluminous history of

Italian literature which is still indispensable.

By the middle of the eighteenth century dynastic changes had swept away most

of the old decadent reigning houses, and by the Peace of Aachen (1748) the

reactionary yoke of Spain was forever lifted from Italy. The latter half of the

century shows a moral and intellectual awakening, but at the same time the

growth of a sceptical and irreligious spirit, due in part to French influence. It is an

epoch of scientists and political economists, among the latter Cesare Beccaria

(1738-94) winning the most permanent fame. In poetry, Pietro Trapassi

(1698-1782), better known as Metastasio, brought the melodrama to the ultimate

perfection of which it is capable, investing it with tragic dignity and lyrical beauty.

Carlo Goldoni (1707-93) reformed Italian comedy, withdrawing it from pedantry

and buffoonery to the representation of real life and character. With Giuseppe

Baretti (1718-89), the critic who lashed literary affectations and pleaded for virile

sincerity in letters, Piedmont made a significant entry into Italian literature.

Finally, two great poets arose, a Lombard priest and a Piedmontese nobleman,

who anticipated the new age and used poetry as an instrument for social

progress: Giuseppe Parmi (1729-99) and Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803). Parini's chief

poem, "Il Giorno", satirizes the corrupt and effeminate life of the aristocracy, and

protests against the injustice of class; his "Odi", no less admirable in style, bring

the same virile note into lyrical poetry. Alfieri, besides composing robust sonnets

and satires, produced a long series of austere and powerful tragedies which are

in the main a protest against every kind of tyranny and oppression, and a

trumpet-call to the nation to put on the armour of manliness and endurance.

Modern Literature

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the ideals of the French Revolution

had penetrated into Italy, while the establishment first of the Cisalpine Republic

and then of the short-lived Napoleonic Italian kingdom inspired national feeling

and gave hope of ultimate independence. These events had naturally a profound

influence upon Italian literature, which, for the next fifty years, is divided between

the Classic and the Romantic schools; the former attempting to accomplish the

work of renovation by adapting classical models to the new conditions, the latter

appealing less to form than to the picturesque aspects of history (particularly of

the Middle Ages), to popular sentiment, and to nature.

Vincenzo Monti (1754-1828) is the head of the Classical school in poetry, though

his earlier works belong to the preceding century. With no great originality, no

stability of thought or constancy of ideals, he has inexhaustible fertility and a

vigour of style that is frequently impressive. Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827) is, like

Monti, a literary critic as well as poet, but a consistent patriot. His masterpiece,

"I Sepolcri", is a poetical epistle in blank verse, classical in thought, lofty in

style, and rich in imagery; the "Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis", his best known

prose work, is an unwholesome and morbid production. Among minor writers of

the Classical school are the poet Ippolito Pindemonte (1753-1828), the translator

of the Odyssey, who answered Foscolo's "Sepolcri" from the religious

standpoint; Antonio Cesan (1760-1828), a priest of Verona, whose aim was to

purify the language by the standard of the Tuscan writers of the Trecento; Giulio

Perticari (1779-1822), the son-in-law of Monti, with whose linguistic labours in

connexion with the revision of the "Vocabolario della Crusca" he was closely

associated; Carlo Botta (1766-1837), who attempted to follow in the footsteps of

the Latin historians and the great Florentines of the sixteenth century. Belonging

more to the Classic than the Romantic school, Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) is

a solitary and tragic figure. Domestic unhappiness, physical health early

shattered by excessive application to study, unrequited love, combined with loss

of the Catholic Faith in which he had been reared, drove him into crude

pessimism. No Italian since Petrarch had reached the lyrical beauty of his

"Canti", in which the contrast between the past and present of his country, the

worship of antiquity, political disillusion, hopeless love, and, at length, even the

contemplation of nature find utterance in sheer despair.

The founder of the Romantic school is Giovanni Berchet (1783-1851), of Milan,

who in 1816 characterized the Classical school as "poetry of the dead", and the

Romantic school as "poetry of the living"; his own patriotic lyrics, a little later,

won him the title of "the Italian Tyrtæus". To the Romanticists belongs the

noblest figure in Italian literature of the nineteenth century, the great Catholic

writer, Alessandro Manzoni (1785 1873), whose life was ruled and his art

inspired, by religion and patriotism alone. In his "Inni Sacri" (1815-22), he gives

lyrical expression to the chief mysteries of the Faith; in his ode on the death of

Napoleon, "Il Cinque Maggio", he passes judgment on the mighty conqueror's

Career in the light of religion. His lyrical dramas, "Il Conte di Carmagnola" (1820)

and "L'Adelchi" (1822), are deficient in true dramatic qualities, but notable for the

choral interludes, patriotic no less than religious in their aim. The same ideals

inform his masterpiece, "I Promessi Sposi" (1827), a realistic romance with a

historical background, as admirable in characterization and description, in pathos

and in humour, as it is lofty in its idealism. To the school of Manzoni, similarly

combining fervent Catholicism with nationalistic enthusiasm, belong Tommaso

Grossi (1790-1853), poet and novelist; Silvio Pellico (1789-1854), whose "Le Mie

Prigioni" describes with pathetic detail and Christian resignation his cruel

imprisonment at the hands of the Austrians; and Cesare Cantù (1804-95), better

known for his later voluminous works on history. Political considerations colour

most of the literature of the middle of the century, whether it be the historical

writings of Cesare Balbo (1789-1853), the satirical and patriotic poems of

Giuseppe Giusti (1809-50), the revolutionary lyrics of Gabriele Rossetti

(1783-1854), the tragedies of Giovanbattista Niccolini (1782-1861), or the once

admired romances of Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi (1804-73). The "Storia

d'Italia nel Medio Evo" of Carlo Troya (1784-1858), the "Storia della Repubblica di

Firenze" of Gino Capponi (1792-1876), and the "Storia dei Mussulmani di Sicilia"

of Michele Amari (1806-89) are works of more permanent value. Niccolò

Tommaseo (1802-74), poet and patriot, who united the study of philology with

that of philosophy, made his name dear to students of Dante and St. Catherine.

Midway between this epoch and our own, belonging by the character of his art to

the old rather than to the new era, stands a true, though not a great, poet,

Giacomo Zanella (1820-89), a learned professor and devout Catholic priest. In

Zanella's work the cult of science, the love of nature, an ardent patriotism, and

profound religious convictions are nobly blended. He is at his best in his lyrics;

and in the last of these, an ode to Leo XIII, he pleads for a reconciliation between

Church and State, the wedding of the Cross of Christ with the Savoyard cross on

the national banner. Since the unification of Italy, more has been accomplished

in economics and in social science than in pure literature. One modern Italian,

indeed, takes his place among the foremost European poets of the nineteenth

century — Giosuè Carducci (1836-1906). A bitter opponent of the Christian ideal

and a strenuous democrat, Carducci has given poetic form to the anti-clerical

side of the Revolution that has made Italy one, and has expressed the paganism

that is latent in the Italian genius. In his masterpiece, the "Odi Barbare", he

casts his essentially modern matter into new rhythmical forms modelled upon

the lyrical metres of the classical poets of Greece and Rome. His prose writings

and professorial teaching have been influential in creating a high standard of

literary criticism and scholarship in Italy. In this latter field much, too, is due to

the veteran historian Pasquale Villan (born 1827). Of living poets (in 1909) the

place of honour belongs to Giovanni Pascoli (born 1855), whom the

contemplation of nature and the life of the peasants in the fields inspire to short

poems that are classical in their beauty. Alike in verse and in prose, Gabriele

d'Annunzio (born 1864) has perverted extraordinary talents to the basest literary

uses; it is impossible to believe that his gorgeous rhetoric, with its elaboration of

sensual passion and its gross obscenity, can win any permanence. The mantle

of Manzoni has fallen upon the pupil of Zanella. Antonio Fogazzaro (born 1842), a

Catholic and an idealist, whose romances tower above the rest of modern Italian

fiction, and of which the keynote is found in the author's conviction that the one

mission of art is to strengthen the Divine element in man.

Archivio Glottologico Italiano (Rome, quarterly); MORANDI, Origine della lingua italiana (Città di

Castello, 1892); CAIX, Le origini della lingua poetica italiana (Florence, 1880); MONACI,

Crestomazia italiana dei primi secoli (Città di Castello, 1889-97); TIRABOSCHI, Storia della

letteratura italiana; TORRACA, Studi sulla lirica italiana del Ducento (Bologna, 1902); BANTOLI,

Storia della letteratura italiana (Florence, 1878-84); GASPARY, Geschichte der italienischen

Literatur (Berlin, 1885-88); tr. into Italian, with additions, by ZINGARELLI AND ROSSI (Turin,

1887-1901); OELSNER, Gaspary's History of Early Italian Literature to the Death of Dante (London,

1901); D'ANCONA AND BACCI, Manuale della letteratura italiana (Florence, 1892-94);

FORNACIARI, Disegno storico della letteratura italiana (Florence, 1898); D'ANCONA, Origini del

teatro italiano (Turin, 1891); BURCKHARDT, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien (new ed.,

Leipzig, 1901); VOIGT, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums (Berlin, 1859); Italian tr.,

enlarged, by VALBUSA (Florence, 1888-97); SYMONDS, The Renaissance in Italy: Italian literature

(London, 1881); DORNIS, La poésie italienne contemporaine (Paris, 1898); GARNETT, History of

Italian Literature (London, 1898); KING AND OKEY, Italy To-day (London, 1901); GREENE, Italian

Lyrists of To-day (London, 1893).

A comprehensive literary history, by various hands, is now in course of publication at Milan:

NOVATI, Origini della lingua; ZINGARELLI, Dante; VOLPI, Il Trecento; ROSSI, Il Quattrocento;

FLAMINI, Il Cinquecento; BELLONI, Il Seicento; CONCARI, Il Settecento; MAZZONI, L'Ottocento.

The quarterly Giornale Storico della letteratura italiana, edited by NOVATI AND RENIER (Turin), is

indispensable to students.

EDMUND G. GARDNER.

Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter

Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI

Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org