Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Third series

John Addington Symonds

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• Publié par: ormo
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 16
• Langue: English

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Title: Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Vol III.
Author: John Symonds
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Language: English
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SKETCHES AND STUDIES
IN ITALY AND GREECE
BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY," "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS," ETC.
THIRD SERIES
WITH A FRONTISPIECE
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1910
First Edition (Smith, Elder & Co.) December 1898
Reprinted December 1907
Reprinted October 1910
Taken Over by John Murray January 1917

Printed in Great Britain by
Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd.
London, Colchester & Eton
INDEX Volume I. Volume II.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Folgore da San Gemignano 1
Thoughts in Italy about Christmas 21
Siena 41
Monte Oliveto 66
Montepulciano 87
Perugia 111
Orvieto 137
Lucretius 155Antinous 184
Spring Wanderings 184
Amalfi, Pæstum, Capri 250
Etna 279
Palermo 290
Syracuse and Girgenti 319
Athens 339

INDEX 365

The Ildefonso Group Frontispiece
1SKETCHES AND STUDIES
IN
ITALY AND GREECE
FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO
Students of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translations from the early Italian poets
(Dante and his Circle. Ellis & White, 1874) will not fail to have noticed the
striking figure made among those jejune imitators of Provençal mannerism by
two rhymesters, Cecco Angiolieri and Folgore da San Gemignano. Both belong
to the school of Siena, and both detach themselves from the metaphysical
fashion of their epoch by clearness of intention and directness of style. The
sonnets of both are remarkable for what in the critical jargon of to-day might be
termed realism. Cecco is even savage and brutal. He anticipates Villon from
afar, and is happily described by Mr. Rossetti as the prodigal, or 'scamp' of the
Dantesque circle. The case is different with Folgore. There is no poet who
breathes a fresher air of gentleness. He writes in images, dealing but little with
ideas. Every line presents a picture, and each picture has the charm of a
miniature fancifully drawn and brightly coloured on a missal-margin. Cecco and
2Folgore alike have abandoned the mediæval mysticism which sounds unreal
on almost all Italian lips but Dante's. True Italians, they are content to live for
life's sake, and to take the world as it presents itself to natural senses. But
Cecco is perverse and impious. His love has nothing delicate; his hatred is amorbid passion. At his worst or best (for his best writing is his worst feeling) we
find him all but rabid. If Caligula, for instance, had written poetry, he might have
piqued himself upon the following sonnet; only we must do Cecco the justice of
remembering that his rage is more than half ironical and humorous:—
An I were fire, I would burn up the world;
An I were wind, with tempest I'd it break;
An I were sea, I'd drown it in a lake;
An I were God, to hell I'd have it hurled;
An I were Pope, I'd see disaster whirled
O'er Christendom, deep joy thereof to take;
An I were Emperor, I'd quickly make
All heads of all folk from their necks be twirled;
An I were death, I'd to my father go;
An I were life, forthwith from him I'd fly;
And with my mother I'd deal even so;
An I were Cecco, as I am but I,
Young girls and pretty for myself I'd hold,
But let my neighbours take the plain and old.
Of all this there is no trace in Folgore. The worst a moralist could say of him is
that he sought out for himself a life of pure enjoyment. The famous Sonnets on
the Months give particular directions for pastime in a round of pleasure suited to
each season. The Sonnets on the Days are conceived in a like hedonistic
spirit. But these series are specially addressed to members of the Glad
Brigades and Spending Companies, which were common in the great
mercantile cities of mediæval Italy. Their tone is doubtless due to the occasion
of their composition, as compliments to Messer Nicholò di Nisi and Messer
Guerra Cavicciuoli.
3The mention of these names reminds me that a word need be said about the
date of Folgore. Mr. Rossetti does not dispute the commonly assigned date of
1260, and takes for granted that the Messer Nicolò of the Sonnets on the
Months was the Sienese gentleman referred to by Dante in a certain passage
[1]of the 'Inferno': —
And to the Poet said I: 'Now was ever
So vain a people as the Sienese?
Not for a certainty the French by far.'
Whereat the other leper, who had heard me,
Replied unto my speech: 'Taking out Stricca,
Who knew the art of moderate expenses,
And Nicolò, who the luxurious use
Of cloves discovered earliest of all
Within that garden where such seed takes root.
And taking out the band, among whom squandered
Caccia d' Ascian his vineyards and vast woods,
And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered.'
Now Folgore refers in his political sonnets to events of the years 1314 and
1315; and the correct reading of a line in his last sonnet on the Months gives
the name of Nicholò di Nisi to the leader of Folgore's 'blithe and lordly
Fellowship.' The first of these facts leads us to the conclusion that Folgore
flourished in the first quarter of the fourteenth, instead of in the third quarter of
the thirteenth century. The second prevents our identifying Nicholò di Nisi with
the Niccolò de' Salimbeni, who is thought to have been the founder of the
Fellowship of the Carnation. Furthermore, documents have recently been
brought to light which mention at San Gemignano, in the years 1305 and 1306,brought to light which mention at San Gemignano, in the years 1305 and 1306,
a certain Folgore. There is no sufficient reason to identify this Folgore with the
poet; but the name, to say the least, is so peculiar that its occurrence in the
records of so small a town as San Gemignano gives some confirmation to the
4hypothesis of the poet's later date. Taking these several considerations
together, I think we must abandon the old view that Folgore was one of the
earliest Tuscan poets, a view which is, moreover, contradicted by his style.
Those critics, at any rate, who still believe him to have been a predecessor of
Dante's, are forced to reject as spurious the political sonnets referring to Monte
Catini and the plunder of Lucca by Uguccione della Faggiuola. Yet these
sonnets rest on the same manuscript authority as the Months and Days, and
[2]are distinguished by the same qualities.
[1] Inferno, xxix. 121.—Longfellow.
[2] The above points are fully discussed by Signor Giulio Navone, in his
recent edition of Le Rime di Folgore da San Gemignano e di Cene da
la Chitarra d' Arezzo. Bologna: Romagnoli, 1880. I may further
mention that in the sonnet on the Pisans, translated on p. 18, which
belongs to the political series, Folgore uses his own name.
Whatever may be the date of Folgore, whether we assign his period to the
middle of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, there is no
doubt but that he presents us with a very lively picture of Italian manners, drawn
from the point of view of the high bourgeoisie. It is on this account that I have
thought it worth while to translate five of his Sonnets on Knighthood, which form
the fragment that remains to us from a series of seventeen. Few poems better
illustrate the temper of Italian aristocracy when the civil wars of two centuries
had forced the nobles to enroll themselves among the burghers, and when
what little chivalry had taken root in Italy was fast decaying in a gorgeous over-
bloom of luxury. The institutions of feudal knighthood had lost their sterner
meaning for our poet. He uses them for the suggestion of delicate allegories
fancifully painted. Their mysterious significance is turned to gaiety, their piety to
amorous delight, their grimness to refined enjoyment. Still these changes are
effected with perfect good taste and in perfect good faith. Something of the
5perfume of true chivalry still lingered in a society which was fast becoming
mercantile and diplomatic. And this perfume is exhaled by the petals of
Folgore's song-blossom. He has no conception that to readers of Mort Arthur, or
to Founders of the Garter, to Sir Miles Stapleton, Sir Richard Fitz-Simon, or Sir
James Audley, his ideal knight would have seemed but little better than a
scented civet-cat. Such knights as his were all that Italy possessed, and the
poet-painter was justly proud of them, since they served for finished pictures of
the beautiful in life.
The Italians were not a feudal race. During the successive reigns of Lombard,
Frankish, and German masters, they had passively accepted, stubbornly
resisted feudalism, remaining true to the co