;iUiM!iUMiiiiimmiimmiiS!fl 3tl|aca. •New flatk BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 Date Due Ag 5 '32 FES '2 194^ & m^^^^m^Sr^ M-^^ ^ ^ ^ ' .—m^ ngytf^ MAY i-^ MR 2rAr MCF a/n/gp AAC Cornell University Library PQ 4173.K34 Italian romance writers. 3 1924 027 470 453 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027470453 Italian Romance Writers WORKS BY- JOSEPH SPENCER KENNARD Ph.D., Litt.D., D.C.L., Po«oLof the Sorbonne Some Early Printers aiid their Colophons The Fallen God and Other Essays in Literature, Music, and Art : Illustrated Italian Romance Writers La Femme dans le Roman Italian — Les Confes- sions d'un Octogenaire [Two Conferences delivered in French at the Sorbonne, Paris] Entro un Cerchio di Ferro [Romance in Italian] La Paura del Ridicolo [Romance in Italian] Romanzi e Romanzieri Italiani [in Italian : z volumes : id edition] JOSEPH SPENCER KENNARD V?^^''! ITALIAN ROMANCE WRITERS NEW YORK BRENTANO'S 1906 t-i- CopYKiGHT, 1906, BY BRENTANO'S Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England All Rights Reserved Z^ A,3?T•^3^ CONTENTS rAGE Introduction . 9 Alexander Manzoni .81 Massimo Taparelli D'Azeglio 119 Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi 135 Tommaso Grossi . 151 Ippolito Nievo 159 Edmondo De Amicis ........ 195 Antonio Fogazzaro 215 Giovanni Verga 251 Matilde Serao 273 Federigo De Roberto 305 Anna Neera 327 Grazia Deledda 351 Enrico Annibale Butti 371 Gabbriele D'Annunzio . . . . . . . .389 Index ............. 453 INTRODUCTION A Introduction An attempt to retrace modern romance through story, tale, fable, epic, ballad, and legend to its earliest origines in the dawn of civilization is outside the purpose of this work. Indeed, from the earliest imaginative narra- 'No early tive down to the tales of Daphnis and Chloe and P>'o'otyP^ of the Golden Ass, there was no real prototype ^ovel. of our novel. Doubtless the romance of the Eu- ropean Middle Ages, with its stories of chivalry and tales of love and adventure, was fore- shadowed by the Greek and Latin epics. Those stories of the wanderings of Ulysses and of ^neas, of the siege of Troy, and of the search for the Golden Fleece. Doubtless also the Mile- sian Tales, recounting chiefly love in its grosser form, were the precedents of the Italian novelle and French fabliaux and chansons de geste. The Latin Apollonius of Tyre was undoubt- edly derived from a lost Greek original of per- haps the third century, and presents one of the earliest love stories we can assign to that literature; and we know that the Mthiopica of Heliodorus of Emesa was not only widely read lo Italian Romance Writers Influence and imitated through the whole Byzantine pe- of'/^l^'^o- r\oA, but exerted an influence on the French pica and . ^ , „ "Do/>;i»u romance writers of the seventeenth century. So and Chloe." too the Daphnis and Chloe of the Greek sophist, Longus, was the model of the Diana of Monte- mayor, of the Sireine of Honore d'Urfe, and found its echo in the Paul et Virginie of Ber- nardin de Saint-Pierre. Such stories and the Golden Ass of Lucian, or that other of Apuleius, and the Satires of Petronius, and such early Christian tales as Paul and Thekla, and Cyprian and Justina, and the ascetic novel, Euphrosyne, all give in rude form that mixture of truth and fiction which is one of the ele ments,,oJ romance : but the difference be- tween these narratives and the modern novel is measureless. The Centuries nearer to our own time appeared mediaval i\^Q mediaeval romance. Here we have the 'Arthurian Cycle, with its wonderful Round Table stories, and affecting Quest of the Grail romances. And the Franco-Teutonic Charle- magne Cycle, with its Chanson de Roland, Fie- rabras, Reali di Francia, and Ogier le Danois. And the Spanish Cycle, where the deeds of the heroic Cid inspired the Amadis de Gaula, full of splendid adventures, and with many passages of beauty and tenderness, and the Palmerin de Oliva, written, perhaps, by a woman. Yet between these tales and the modern novel Introduction 1 1 there is not merely dissimilarity of technique, of language, of style, but a difference of conception. Even the contes, tales, or novelle of Rutebeuf, Chaucer, and Boccaccio, lack the characteristic trait of our modern romauj novel, or romanso. Some are occupied with rescues of maidens All early imprisoned in towers, some with fierce slaughter '■'""""'^^ on fields of battle. Many describe the cruel mar- objective. tyrdoms bravely borne by early Christians. They are all concerned with objective man : they are tales of deeds done. But no effort is made to reveal either the motives for actions or the personality of their writers. Another large category of these tales is filled with more or less gross descriptions of love. The same adventures happening to the same person- ages : the husband, wife, and lover, are repeated again and again with more or less cleverness, with more or less gaiety, but few other aspects of social life are presented, few other founts of emotion are opened. The veil that hides each heart from all others is not lifted. We know little more about Chaucer and Marguerite de Navarre after having read their tales than before. They are purposely reticent. Story-telling was the pastime of Italian Story- princes. No courtier was considered accom- ^^"'"f '^ popular plished unless, like Chaucer's Squire, he could pastime. well endite." Baldassarre da Castiglione's // Cortegiano, a handbook of the necessary accom- 12 Italian Romance Writers plishments of a gentleman of the sixteenth cen- tury, mentions this favourite art. In France a king's sister, Marguerite de Navarre, vied with her valet, Bonaventure Desperriers, in composing love stories. The gay " clerks " beyond the Alps, priests, princes, and courtiers, and the poorest of the common people, all were entertained by the merry tale. Early The Writers of the thirteenth to the fifteenth ""^^ "'* century were objective even in that most subjec- purely tvTt form of Composition, the "Memoirs." We objective, gggk in vain in Montluc, La None, or Coligny for a suggestion of the inner soul. Even Benvenuto Cellini, whp described his adventures with such charming hrio, and a precision and relief that his pen seems to have borrowed from his chisel, yet fails to reveal his heart. Although Matteo Ban- dello in Italy, and Brantome in France, added a characteristic of the modern novel, by mingling with the conventional adventures of lovers much observation, yet, both author and reader were only interested in what the hero did. Not profound but vivid is Brantome's tableau of court life ; more savoury are the novelle of the Do». it- Ti 1- T> • J J • Renaissance movement, the Italian Renaissance, succeeded in .^^^^^^^ reconciling classic models to modern feeling and no great stimulated the revival of Greek and Latin learn- "o^^'''^'- ing through all Europe; and how brilliant was its production of romantic and pastoral poetry in Italy ; and that in Machiavelli and Guicciardini it produced the two chief originators of the science of history ; it is strange that its novelists were so little worthy of mention that Grazzini and Bandello occupy first rank. Corrupted and oppressed by Spanish rule, ^t Literary latter half of the sixteenth and all of the seven- ^''f'*"" under teenth century witnessed the decadence of Italian Spanish literature into mannerism, affectation, and bom-*""'^- bast. The empty simplicity of the eighteenth century, with its "Academy of Arcadia," was not less depressing. Pretending to replace old conceits and insincerities by pastoral simplicity, the Arcadians only attained to languishing tenderness, sexless effeminacy, and wordy barrenness. 24 Italian Romance Writers Classicism But when, as in another creation, God said: 5rrarft""Let there be hght!" and there was Ught; so in and the fulness of time, the creative impulse brought preceded forth in Italy a new patriotism and a new liter- novei. ature. As the eighteenth century drew to its close, inspired by the example of Parini into re- jecting Petrarchism, Secentismo, and Arcadia, the way was opened for the epoch of the classi- cists, made illustrious by such dramatists and poets as Goldoni, Alfieri, Foscolo, and Monti, and which, when closed by Giordani, was to be succeeded by the Contemporary Period, which has been, and continues to be, the true period of the Italian novel. The political events of the nineteenth century, which turned a mere expression geographique into a great and independent nation, were so closely associated with the revival of Italian let- ters, that the evolution of Italian fiction cannot be rightly understood without considering its relation to the political movement. Importance Never in the world's history has the reciprocal *" influence of literature on political events been gf greater than during the Italian Risorgimento. Risorgi- Before it was translated into acts the Italian mento. revolution had been willed by a few superior minds; before the necessity of shaking off the foreign yoke had been realized by the mass of the nation, its poets and its novelists, a small Introduction 25 elite, had dedicated their lives to enUghtening and directing the movement. For these early ItaUan noveHsts were ardent Patriotism patriots, and their fiction was the expression of jiJ°^,^^ their patriotic purpose rather than a mere Hter- novelists. ary production. Indeed many glowing pages were written in -the intervals of campaigning, and sometimes in the dungeons of the Austrian oppressor. The fact that this fiction was at once both the child and the parent of the Italian cry for free- dom, both the product and the inspiration of the nation's revolt, cannot be too strongly emphasized. It is this interdependence of the political, social, interde- and literary movements, and the results achieved, Political and which gives to this Italian evolution its title to be uterary considered one of the world's greatest evolutions, movement. To understand the intimacy of this connection and its importance, it will be necessary to con- sider its origin and follow in its progress, this social and political transformation, and to dis- cover the parallelism of the literary and political evolution. ' The twin birth and simultaneous development of the national idea and of the novel at the dawn of 1800 are not the only evidence of their com- mon origin. There is a likeness in almost all their features, even from the very first gropings of the classical spirit, striving to give utterance in Jacopo Ortis to feelings as yet so vague and 26 Italian Romance Writers to dreams as yet so unrealizable, that nothing but poetry could translate them into words. This haziness of the classical novel, truly corresponds to the first glimmerings of a national conscience awakening into life under the lashing scourge of foreign tyranny. When the dawn of 1800 shone on the wretched peninsula, Italian nationalism had reached its lowest depth. The many petty states were cal- loused by the weight of chains and happy in their humiliation. Dante's apostrophe, Ahi! serva Italia, di dolor e ostello! had never been more sadly true, yet Italy was the gayest land in Europe, and strangers gathered to share in the perpetual carnival. This thoughtlessness was encouraged by foreign masters as well as by petty tyrants, mindful of the Juvenalian panem et circenses. SHMngpaii A Stifling pall of classic training was used to scholarship extinguish all liberal aspirations. Humanism, that inspiration of Italian genius during the Renaissance, was now frozen into a pedantic scholarship. In the schools was taught a fas- tidious taste and a strict observance of the purity of the language, thus hoping to shut out the flood of foreign philosophical and literary innovation. Neither progress nor obscurantism can always Napoleon's (^liQQgQ their weapons! overturned The storms of Napoleon's invasion overturned barriers, these barriers, French philosophers vitalized Introduction 27 long-forgotten ideas, and for a while the words "Glory" and "Liberty" rang over all the land, and awakened sleepers. The reaction after the Congress of Vienna (1815), vainly strove to stem this tide. Priests vied with petty tyrants to preserve their flocks from French liberalism, but the current of ideas continued to cross the Alps, and Italians began to realize their present abjection, their future possibilities. It is only after the first blood had been shed in Romanti- open rebellion in 1820, and after the national "f"* '^^ ^ _ _ ' literary aspiration had attained to a better defined pur- expression pose, and only when Romanticism had provided a of rebellion. mode of expression for those dimly conceived, intensely felt desires, that the Italian novel took its rank among the other activities of the Italian mind. A nation awakening into self-consciousness after centuries of oppression, would wish to know itself as others saw it. And the same phases of the national evolution that sent gal- lant hearts rushing to fields of battle, demanded prose works of fiction which would ideal- ize and reflect this new Italian world. The Italian novel of the nineteenth century neces- sarily reflects the evolution of the modern Italian mind, and is the literary expression of the social and political life and aspiration of Italy during that century. The momentous century which evolved the 28 Italian Romance Writers Three ii2\ia.n nation and the Italian romance, divides ^'^nJian ^^^^ three periods, answering to three different romance, series of events, directed by three different tendencies. During the first period (1800-1820) Italy clung to the old classic ideal. The second period (1821-1859), from the first struggles for liberty, the secret plottings, the un- premeditated outbreaks of patriotism, the blind groping after unrealizable ideals, represented the spirit of Romanticism which, blazing fiercely in the wars of 1848 and 1849, shot its last brilliant rays in the campaigns of Garibaldi, and in 1859 sank into the quiet waters of diplomacy. After unity and independence had been achieved, came the third period — that of reor- ganization: the settling of the many problems, the many social and economical questions which other nations had been slowly solving through centuries of national life. This last period was eminently influenced by scientific, rationalistic, and socialistic ideals. FIRST PERIOD Napoleon's French armies had long been fighting in clong^rf "o^thern Italy and French ideas had long been /ta/y'j crossing the Alps when, in 1800, Napoleon '*^'^'"'^' himself came thundering in victorious war- fare, bringing French revolutionary theories, sweeping away antiquated obstacles to the devel- Introduction 29 opment of thought. When, in 1805, Napoleon laid his hand on the iron crown of Theodolinda and repeated the antique formula, " Dio me I' ha data, guai a chi la tocca" (God has given it to me, woe to him who touches it), he was master of Italy. Even before the conquest of Naples, in Napoleon 1806, and before the surrender of Pius VII., he ''!"% ^.f " / ' of a United dominated all the land ; not because his soldiers Italy. watched on the walls of every town and his jur- ists dictated the law to all the tribunals, but be- cause he had perceived and partly achieved the destiny of Italy, uniting her into a vital whole, and because he divined her latent possibilities and stirred in Italy's sons the first sparks of that self-respect which makes men and nations great. Italians then knew that they could become a nation, that they could win battles, that their trades and industries could blossom and fructify, that their intellectual and political life might be lifted out of its long stagnation. Italians learned to trust each other. Had this union lasted a few more years, had the Italians truly realized what advantages Im- perialism gave them, they might have sustained either one or the other of their French kings, Murat or Beauharnais, and when, in 181 5, the empire collapsed, they might have resisted the decrees of the Congress of Vienna. But neither were there leaders, nor was there then a public 30 Italian Romance Writers spirit ripe for self-government. Everywhere was hesitation, distrust, intrigue, or open quarrel. Italy, divided and oppressed, again became the prey of her former tyrants Collapse of Victor Emanuele I. was recalled from Sar- powerin ^inia to reign over Piedmont and Genoa, and at Italy, once declared that the legislation of the last twenty years was void. French laws and insti- tutions were repealed, the clergy and nobility resumed their ancient privileges. Feudalism and clericalism replaced civil liberty. The Austrian widow of Napoleon received the States of Parma, Plaisance, and Guastalla. Francis IV. of Este ascended his throne of Modena, guarded by Austrian bayonets. Tus- cany welcomed back the Lorenese archduke. Former jj^ Naples, Murat was crushed by the most reinstated, unholy Saint e Alliance, deserted by his subjects, betrayed, and only happy in that he died a sol- dier's death. Ferdinand of Bourbon succeeded him on the throne of Naples, and when Sicily was annexed adopted the title of "King of the Two Sicilies." In Rome the Pope had returned, the rod of temporal power was once more laid on the back of a proud people, and was extended to Romagna and Ancona. Milan, now the capital of Venetian Lombardy, was the residence of an Austrian Viceroy, who enforced with severity an oppressive code of political laws. Introduction 3 1 Yet so ignorant were the lower classes, so Lower blinded by prejudice were the higher, that '^ '^f" J i: J . . welcome throughout Italy this restoration was hailed with Austrian rejoicing, though a few voices were raised in restoration. warning or lamentation. Well did the Austrian and the national tyrants understand, that their only serious danger lay in the awakening of the public intelligence, and the purpose of their policy was to quench the growing light. Yet nothing could destroy the idea^ and the thought of lib- erty was a vital seed, growing in the secret meet- ings of Carbonari, and of other associations of pa- triots. In 1820, when the King of Spain granted a charter to his people, this smouldering fire leaped into flames both in Naples and Piedmont. The Neapolitans frightened their cowardly King into granting them a constitution, but it was beyond the power of man to make him keep his oath ; and after twelve months the King's absolute power was reestablished by the intervention of Austrian soldiers. The first rising in Piedmont was more con- scious of its aim. The Federati wanted the char- ter as a means for declaring war against Austria. They had an understanding with their country- men of Lombardy, and they wished Prince Carlo Alberto to take the lead. King Victor Emanuele I., shrinking from civil Abdication war and unwilling to break his promise to the y^^fg"^ Saint e Alliance, abdicated in favour of his Emanuele. 32 Italian Romance Writers Carlo brother, Carlo Felice, then residing in Modena, Felice (;;;aj.lo Alberto being proclaimed regent during his king, absence. The liberals seized the opportunity and summoned the Prince Regent to keep his prom- ise to grant a charter. Why Carlo Alberto com- plied, and then a few days later deserted those who trusted him, is hard to understand. Santa Rosa was obliged to surrender the patriot army, 12,000 Austrian soldiers poured into Piedmont to support Carlo Felice, and a commission showered death sentences or life im- prisonment on those suspected of participation in the movement. In Austrian prisons and courts of justice Poerio, Borelli, Settembrini, Puoti, Silvio Pel- lico, Confalonieri, Maroncelli, Arese — poets, men of learning, the flower of intellectual youth, swayed by high ideals — suffered for liberty. Here were none of the practical aims that in other countries and in other times have roused a nation to rebellion. The Italian patriotism was fed on classical tradition, its leaders were scholars and poets. SECOND PERIOD Mazzini ^ romantic spirit presided over this second (ja^j-jo^^j period, and is impersonated in its two be- inspired loved leaders, Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe i'"!"^ Garibaldi. period. Like an intangible force, Mazzmi's spirit Introduction 33 breathed valour into the most timid souls, and from his London garret his word ruled Italy. Despite police spies his soul-stirring messages spread over the land, appealing to ardent minds, and the flower of the nation rushed to torture and to death, for an ideal which no reflecting mind believed realizable. Reckless, noble, and pure heroes of romance, First were those first martyrs: Ciro Menotti, the^''''""* Modenese, who in 1831 paid with his life for^"^^^'^ trusting in the promise of false Francis of Este. Heroes of romance those gallant youths who, in 1834, tried to penetrate into Savoy under the command of the Mazzinian Girolamo Ramorino, and numbered in their ranks the young volunteer Giuseppe Garibaldi. Knights of the Round Table those brothers Bandiera, who with a few companions attempted to land on the shore of Calabria, were betrayed into the hands of the Bourbon soldiers, and as they stood waiting to be shot, sang a patriotic chorus. For an instant they appear on this bloody stage, then pass from view like some fair vision : these shadowy figures so closely resembling each other, so evidently the fruit of unreflecting but glorious patriotism. They always failed, but not in vain did they die. Nor fruitless was the long torment of those who went to a living death in Austrian dungeons. Each of these attempts compelled attention, stirred sympathy. Every 34 Italian Romance Writers spread of day the IDEA spread farther, and the justice of the Idea, ^j^g cause appeared more evident. With these heroes of the field of battle fought those heroes of the pen, who ran an equal risk and displayed an equal courage. Italian unity had long been the dream of philosophers, poets, and scholars, and because it was ever present as an ideal in the thought of a few superior men, ' when the hour of destiny struck they were ready ; and it became a reality. But for the efforts of this elite, Italy must have succumbed to such intolerable hardships. In 1846 came the anomaly of a liberal Pope: Pius IX., who read Gioberti's Primato degli Italiani, and who seemed inclined to accept the Neo Guelph theory of a Federation of Italian States under the presidency of the Pope. The first acts of his pontificate made every heart throb with hope. Therevoiu- In 1 848 the wind of rebellion then blowing Hon ofi 4 ■ Q^gj. g^jj Europe stirred the Milanese to revolt. On March i8th they rose in arms, and after five days' fighting they drove out the Austrian garri- son. The same day Venice shook ofif the Aus- trian dominion and proclaimed the Republic, and the Dukes of Modena and Lucca fled. King Carlo Alberto, who had granted the Costitusione, which is still extant, transforming this absolute into a constitutional monarchy, now raised the Introduction 3 5 banner of Italian independence, declared war against Austria, and called all Italians to join his standard. How brilliant was the beginning and how forlorn was the ending of this first war ! Failure was principally due to discord ; there Failure due was no leader able to grapple with and subdue '" ■ rivalry and distrust. Carlo Alberto could not command confidence ! Mazzini opposed the crea- tion of a great kingdom! Venice tried to resist alone! Naples and Sicily did worse still! These divisions were fatal to the Italian cause. When, in the following year, Carlo Alberto re- sumed the war the prospect was not bright. The Pope, who had promised to send troops under the command of General Durando, recalled them, protesting that as the "head of Christianity" he must equally love all his children and must not be a partisan. The brave volunteers from every part of Italy were no match for veteran soldiers. The short and disastrous campaign ended on the Defeat of field of Novara. This defeat was the romantic ^;;2"^"''' close of this romantic war. The sun set on a day campaign. that witnessed many deeds of valour; dismal, dark, and damp the evening fell on fields strewn with wounded and dying, and sounding with groans of pain and imprecations against the chiefs. Carlo Alberto, who had vainly sought death in battle, now sitting by the cold fireside of a deserted villa, summoning his officers and 36 Italian Romance Writers Carlo his two sons, declared that he must lay his heavy Alberto ^m-den on the younsr shoulders of Victor abdicates. Emanuele, his first-born. Thus parted in sorrow these two kings — the father to drag out his mis- erable existence, hoping only for consolation be- yond the grave ; the son to solve the most difficult problem that ever confronted a newly elected king. Once more Italy was grasped and fettered by cruel hands. Twenty thousand Austrians occu- pied the country between the Po and the Ticino. Sicily submitted once more to the yoke of Ferdi- nand of Naples, Tuscany returned under the domination of the House of Lorraine, whilst a French corps, commanded by General Oudinot, occupied Rome to protect the Pope. Venice, after Tyranny enduring a long siege, surrendered. Once more triumphant ^Y^^^^J Stretched its dark pall over all Italy, and once more Italians began to plot and prepare for deliverance. An appalling number of persons were sen- tenced to death or prison during these ten years! Yet relief was nigh! In 1850 Massimo d'Azeglio, Prime Minister of Piedmont, asked Count Camillo Cavour to enter the Cabinet. After giving liberal laws and economical re- forms to Piedmont, Cavour boldly started on that far-sighted policy which, in 1855, sent a corps under the command of La Marmora to the Introduction 37 Crimea, and in 1856 at the Congress of Paris boldly propounded the Italian question. All Italy throbbed with hopes, which the war of 1859 did not fully realize. Though it left Italy a free country, it failed to give her the limits " from the Alps to the sea " which had been promised her. A French garrison was in Rome and the Austrians remained in Venice. On the nth of March, i860, Victor Emanuele Victor was proclaimed King of Italy, and the heroic ^^"^^^1^ period of the Italian Risorgimento, the period 0/ itaiy. which inspired the literary revival, was ended. When Garibaldi's Thousand conquered the Two Sicilies, the political role that Italian writers played in the evolution of Italian society was finished, and they bravely faced the task which D' Azeglio thus resumed : " L' Italia e fatta, fac- ciamo gl'Italiani" (Italy is made, we must make the Italians). It was a social and intellectual education which was now wanted. Poetry and romance had inspired that last and purest of heroic enterprises — the Spedizione (iei"Stedizione Mille. All the poetry of mediaeval battle, i^vi^^- was last ing valour, banners streaming against the snnherok above red shirts and youthful heads, a glorious ^"'^'^^'^"'^' evocation of the irresponsible days of chivalry, disappeared before the happy reality of firmly established power. Garibaldi was never greater than when he gave a kingdom to the coming king and taught poetic valour to bend with him the 38 Italian Romance Writers knee to accepted legality. The era of romance was closed, a new era began; but it had yet to discover a new literary formula to give expres- sion to different ideals. THIRD PERIOD When, on September 20, 1870, a breach was opened in the walls of Rome and the Italian troops took possession of the Eternal City, one of the most significant events in the world's history was enacted. Significance To Italy it meant the fulfilment of cherished °'J"^J^^ dreams, the realization of unity and indepen- dence, the end of oppression represented by a foreign garrison and temporal power, the be- ginning of a new era. Though neither the re- publican nor the Mazzinian, nor the remnants of the neo-Guelph and federalist parties were satis- fied with this conclusion, they bowed to the wishes of the vast majority. Discontent After a short period of rejoicings there was a succee s j.ga^(,|.JQj^ Q-f disappointment and discontent. The rejoicings. ^'^ new nation encountered distressing economical, social, and political difficulties. The great de- preciation of paper money and of the nation's bonds, the depression of trade, led to financial panic and to gloomy forebodings. The centralization of public administration, the suppression of many courts of justice and of other local offices, consequent upon this Introduction 39 transformation of many little states into one; Lower the repeal of ancient laws and abolition of an- ^'""^-^ ^ ... Ignorant cient customs, and the institution of a govern- onrf ment on new lines, had to be achieved by Italian unpatriotic. statesmen without guidance or encouragement from the mass, who neither knew nor cared to know either their duties or their privileges as free subjects of an independent kingdom. Italians take most naturally to intrigue. And with their past experience of the benefit of secret societies in opposing the foreign invader, it was natural that this discontent should seek a remedy through secret societies. The Sicilian Mafia, the Neapolitan Camorra, as well as all the varied hues of internationalism and anarchy, are differ- ent expressions of the same feeling of revolt against unhappy circumstances. As the hand of the Austrian oppressor had Revival of been as heavy on the aspirations of Italy for ^'"■'"''^• liberty in education as for liberty of government, the achievement of liberty aroused an almost pas- sionate revival of every branch of learning. To a people so enamoured of intellectual pursuit, the scanty classical education doled out by Austrian regulations; and the deserting of university halls for fields of battle, aroused thirst of knowledge which was almost universal. How this double current of the Italian evolu- tion, the awakening of a whole people to politi- cal and social life, and the revival of a national 4° Italian Romance Writers liberal education have influenced the develop- ment of the modern Italian romance, will be better perceived after reviewing the works of these novelists. THE CLASSIC-ROMANTIC Romanticism and Mansoni Classic- Alfieri, Niccolini, Foscolo, Manzoni first sang romantic ^^^ ^^^^^ ^j u i^aly." Their voices called out in period of novel, the silence of night. They aroused their country- men to an ideal different from the enticements which in other countries and in other times have spurred people to revolt. They appealed to ab- stract emotions, they indicated poetical ideals. Hence the impracticality and the spiritual gran- deur of their apostolate. Indeed, though these poets aroused a certain sentimental emotion throughout Italy, the practical result of their pa- triotic verse was small. It required a novel by Ugo Foscolo to arouse the nation — the Last Let- ters of Jacopo Ortis, a masterpiece unique in its double character of poetic prose and classical transposition of a romantic subject. Ugo Foscolo's nature is of the purest Greek classicism in all his aptitudes, in all his charac- teristics, yet when charmed by Goethe's Werther he was tempted to imitate it; his reproduction is permeated with the passion for liberty that surged in his soul. When the Letters of Jacopo Ortis were published in 1798 the word "Roman- Introduction 4 1 ticism " had hardly been pronounced. Yet the ap- proaching wave is felt in the sentimental story of the two lovers, though the purest classical eloquence has inspired the speeches of Jacopo Ortis. It is hard for a modern Italian and impossible Struggle of for a foreigner, ,to realize how difficult was the ^i^^ against task assumed by these first apostles of a national Classicism. creed, how dangerous their undertaking, how uncertain the result. Against a bulwark of op- pressive laws, of police spies, they could wield no weapon but the pen ; only by the written or spoken word could they rouse to combat people so igno- rant, and understanding hardly anything but their local dialect; and the Austrian censura watched, ever ready to strike out the line or the passage that spoke too clearly. But the impulse of ideas is resistless — they must find expression ! And thus in every corner of the persecuted country brave men bravely ac- complished their task. Those who could wield a pen lent their assistance, and few having put their hand to the plough, were restrained by per- secution. Everywhere patriotic intellectuality struggled against tyrannical obscurantism. The first phasis of this combat, the first literary "La skirmish, was the duel between Classicism and ■^*^'!'''^^" . . nr-i 1 • Itahana Romanticism fought at Milan by two champions: and"iiCon- the periodicals La Biblioteca Italiana and // ciUatore." Conciliatore. 42 Italian Romance Writers "Romanti- It is important to remember what was then in asm j^a^iy understood by the word " Romanticism." meant ■' . -' many No definition would cover all the interpretations things, which this ideal of art, " Romanticism," had as- sumed throughout Europe, according to the cir- cumstances and the differences of intellectual advancement or political condition of the nations who adopted it. Romanticism, that newest ex- pression of Beauty, could be sentimental, bombas- tic, coarse, or mystical; it could assume every garb, wear every disguise, without losing the characteristic trait by which it attracted dissatis- fied and restless souls. Italian Ro- Romanticism meant rebellion! Rebellion *^"'*^"^^ against the yoke of classicism, rebellion against rebellion, the narrow interpretation of religious dogma, rebellion against obsolete forms of government, and also rebellion against every antiquated cus- tom, fashion, opinion, style of language, that did not answer to the new idea of Beauty. By this character of revolt Romanticism appealed to the Italian, rather than by its artistic or literary spirit. When that untiring promotor of the Roman- tique school, Madame de Stael, visited Italy in 1806, in her genial causeries she scattered broad- cast the principles of the doctrine she had already preached in Germany; and on returning to France she resumed in a Discours her opinions as to what the Italians then needed in order to Introduction 43 recover their literary supremacy. She blamed Madowe the narrowness of a purely Greek and 'L^tm'^"^"'^^ training, and suggested that, to compensate ior Romanti- that most necessary stimulant of the mind, social "■'»»• intercourse, Italians should appropriate this for- eign intellectual movement. This advice was resented by the classical writer, Pietro Giordani, but it suited the aspira- tions and the cravings of the national spirit, and was followed. Now Montesquieu, Voltaire, Di- derot, Condorcet, Rousseau, moulded the Italian mind with the authority of eloquence; Goethe, Shakespeare, Byron, and even Ossian, fired imagi- nations with the beauty of a poetry so different from the classical ideal; Chateaubriand, Alfred de Musset, Alfred de Vigny, Richardson, Walter Scott, Ann Radcliffe, translated, imitated, com- mented, discussed, were accepted pele-mele, and welcomed as the light-bearers of a new world. "Romantic" and "Foreign" soon became "Romantic" equivalent terms, and both expressed opposition !i'^^^.^„ to the Austrian government ; Romanticism being equivalent thus flaunted as a political banner by the liberal *^'">*^^- party in Milan, the Viceroy tried to conciliate the Milanese amour propre, and sent for some of the best-known men of letters, and proposed to give them financial and moral assistance in the pub- lishing of a literary periodical. The avowed program of this Biblioteca Itali- ana was to defend the purity of the Italian Ian- 44 Italian Romance Writers Program of guage and the integrity of Italian art from 'Bibliotecc Italiana.' "Bibhoteca ^^ Contamination of foreign influence — to sup- port classicism. The real intent of its viceroyal protector was to control the literary movement and to use the review as a means for bribing, threatening, or persuading the popular writers to reconcile their countrymen to their bondage. Ugo Foscolo saw the danger, and declined the directorship; Silvio Pellico, Pietro Giordani, Vincenzo Monti, Confalonieri, and several others who had at first promised to contribute critical and literary essays, perceiving the snare, with- drew from the Biblioteca and founded another periodical, // Conciliatore, with a romantic na- tional program. A twelvemonth later the Conciliatore was sup- pressed ; two years after the whole staff was sen- tenced to death or carcere duro. This anomaly of a review, paid and super- vised by the foreign master to defend classicism and purity of language, whilst a group of liber- als, devoted to the Italian cause, were trying to arouse their countrymen to the currents of for- eign thought, is typical of the political and liter- ary confusion of the time. Meaning of It is true that "Romanticism" is the term worrf i?o-^gg^ in opposition to "Classicism," but we never meet with any definition of its meaning or any declaration of the real nature of the conflict, and still less do we find that its spirit is understood by Introduction 45 its champions. That the myths and images of mythology belong to a classical art, and that the pomp and pageantry of the Roman Church (as idealized in Chateaubriand's Genie du Christia- nisme) are romantic ingredients, was taken for granted. That evocation of mediaeval uncouthness, chivalrous feelings, and mystic dreams, a dis- play of obsolete terms and of old-fashioned style are pertinent to " Romanticism " is also vaguely understood, but of the fundamental theory that CONTRAST is the essence of beauty nothing is said. Manzoni gave the masterpiece of Italian Ro- manticism and also the clearest definition of its theory. Though his Lettre sur I'unite produced no such sensation as Victor Hugo's Preface de Cromwell, it is equally a profession of faith. If it attracted little attention beyond the litterati it is owing to the unpreparedness of public opinion. It was a piece of rare good luck that a supe- riorly gifted mind, in all the humbleness of real genius, trying to tell a simple story and impart a moral lesson, has unconsciously become a faith- ful mirror of the moment. Indeed, the spirit of Mamoni's the nation is reproduced in Manzoni's / Promessi reflects the Sposi better than in the more accentuated and Italian bombastic writings of his contemporaries. It is ^^^"^' the first ripening into words of budding aspira- tions, unripe ideas, undiscussed thoughts, which 46 Italian Romance Writers no other literary performance but a work of imagination could have detected and expressed; more true, indeed, to the reality than the florid heroism or lachrymose sentimentalism of others. The passive endurance of oppression which Manzoni has interpreted was then more general than Italians nowadays like to admit. It jars with the pride of successful assertion, yet The Betrothed truly represented the national con- science of that period. Manzoni accurately reflected the popular con- ception of life's great problems and their solution. No one then expected events to follow any log- ical sequence. Don Rodrigo, dying by direct interposition of that Divine Will whose secret laws Manzoni presumes to interpret, was more "natural," than that he should meet the same awful death as the result of his debauchery. Mansoni's Alessandro Manzoni was the fixed star into *"^"^"" whose orbit other planets were attracted: the over hts _ -^ contempo- gentleness of his character, his diffidence, his raries. jgyg gf repose — falsely called timidity — made his supremacy acceptable, and many submitted to the ascendency of the writer for the love and rever- ence they bore to the man. Grossi accepted his guidance, D'Azeglio his advice, Giovanni Berchet was a daily visitor at his house; Domenico Romagnosi, the deepest sociologist of his time, Antonio Rosmini, the opponent of the Jesuits, and other poets and phi- Introduction 47 losophers, formed the Milanese group which wel- comed the first Italian romance. Manzoni's Sacred Hymns, and other poems, added to his authority, and he actively guided and directed his friends and enlightened the pub- lic conscience. Tommaso Grossi's Marco Vis- conti, D'Azeglio's Ettore Fieramosca and Niccold de' Lapi, like Rossini's, Cantu's, Carrer's, and Guerrazzi's most popular historic novels, are closely imitated from the Promessi Sposi and exaggerate its defects. Once every Italian novelist was a Manzonian Once every and sure to develop some trait of the master. ^'°''°" . . . . . novelist a Thus De Amicis inherited his debonnair objec- Manzonian. tivism, Salvatore Farina his humour, so pecul- iarly Italian ; thus Rovetta, around a simple story of private adventures, casts his ample back- ground, a picture of customs which, pj calling all of a society to act in the plot, enlarges its mean- ing and adds to its interest; and Capranica, like his master, mixes the spice of historical informa- tion with his story of sentiment. Yet, notwithstanding the number of Manzo- Romanti- nians and the value of their novels, has there""'"!",. ever been a really romantic school of fiction in Italy? The inspiration in this first period of conspiracy, of bombast, and of genuine patriotic exaltation, which has been ridiculed under the name of Quarantottate (things of forty-eight), is doubtless a romantic political spirit. And it has 48 Italian Romance Writers been fruitful of grand deeds, and produced those great men Mazzini, Garibaldi, and all the host of martyrs to the Italian cause. Their ideas, and ideals, and deeds, are proudly remembered. Romanti- But it produced no literary masterpiece other j'^"*^than Promessi Sposi. So evidently exotic, so produced ' . •' mi 'o»/ji o»g uncongenial to the classic Italian sou has moii^y/'jece. Romanticism proved, that when the circum- stances that had favoured its growth were removed, the hothouse blossom withered away, leaving no fruitful seed behind. When the heroic "Thousand" had conquered the Two Sicilies, when the romantic hero Garibaldi "had handed the conquered kingdom to the late-coming King," then romance ceased to rule over Italy. Sober diplomacy, regular armies, and a strong national government accomplished the realization of the long-cherished dream. Nievo's J^e Confessioni d'un Ottuagenario, Ippolito novel Nievo's great novel, doubtless belongs to this romantic period both in date of composition and also in character. But in the interven- ing thirty years Italian thought and national life have progressed so far, and this book so greatly differs from the work of Manzoni and his disciples, it has in it so much of modernity, that Nievo demands consideration apart from the Manzonians. This last of the romanticists went to his un- timely grave after painting, in the grandest Introduction 49 historical picture of his times, the evolution which had turned the old-fashioned, ifiuch-di- vided Italian world into a compact modern society, after fighting the last heroic and poetic campaign, the last of those enterprises which smacked enough of adventure to add attraction to their undiscussed lawfulness; and with his exit the curtain drops over Italian Romanticism ; another literary ideal, another vision of beauty, was to rise out of a new society. The similarities and the contrasts in their per- Mamoni sonality and their romances, and the fact that ""f ^''^° ■' represent they and their books are so much greater than different their contemporaries, will always tempt to com- ^^ea^s. parisons between Manzoni and Nievo, between / Promessi Sposi and Le Confessioni d'un Ottua- genario. They are the alpha and omega of the romantic period. Both Manzoni and Nievo were patriots, yet while one shunned the turmoil of life and avoided the clash of arms at every cost, the other sought a soldier's death on many a battle-field and only took up the pen when unable to wield the sword. One author lived to see his novel an abounding success, and in a good old age received the hom- age of his countrymen. The life of the other went out in the flush of youth; his novel was not published until after his death, and only now is receiving tardy recognition of its greatness. Manzoni built up his characters and arranged 5© Italian Romance Writers his events so that they should illustrate a moral thesis. Nievo allows his personages and events freely to develop with apparent incoherence, but with those strictly logical sequences which expe- rience proves to be the law of real life. Mamoni Each represented genuine but different phases preached^ religious life. In The Betrothed, the religion religion of ° . submission, which typifies submission echoed the national sentiment of the time. But later there came to Italians a patriotism which embraced many re- ligious characteristics. Contemporary docu- ments are full of it: the joyful death of the Bandieras, the mystic faith of the Mazzinians, the blind obedience, the self-denial, the close communion as of partakers of the same creed, the scrupule de conscience which allowed not one thought, not one desire, in contradiction to the sacred aim — all these are religious traits. In this spirit Nievo wrote. Here tangible causes are followed by logical results. Tempera- ment, environment, hereditary tendencies deter- mine character. The vital principle which effects the social evolution is within that society. Un- like Manzoni, Nievo does not presume to codify this law of the universe in a fixed verbal formula, though he suggests the philosophical principle. Nievo's In Nievo this seizing upon a new and philo- representl sophical conception of justice, this shifting of the immutable moral Standpoint, is especially interesting because order. j|. jg almost unconscious. He does not seem to Introduction 5 1 realize the importance of his innovation. He uses the same words as Manzoni, but their mean- ing has changed. He still speaks of Providence, of the Will of God, and all the time he is think- ing of the inseparable link between cause and effect, which will bring about the events he is narrating. Without possessing Manzoni's vast historical learning Nievo handles the facts of history with a better appreciation of their synthetic impor- tance. Without attempting to force from them an arbitrary interpretation, he is content, with patient observation, to reproduce the immutable order, in all its usable and knowable integrity. Thus the romantic novel, chiefly derived from Exit of French and English sources and held together ^"^^j"'*'^ by a newly roused patriotism, passed from the scene when that patriotic desire had been at- tained. Shadowy and fantastical, like the spirit that informed it, the Italian romantic novel real- ized the apparent paradox that it was true as a representation of a psychic moment in propor- tion as it was false as the reproduction of a national temperament. Finally from France came a new literary Realistic dogma, a new type of novel, and Italy welcomed y^^ '"""" the new model and in time passed from imita- France. tion to originality in its use. When Professor Guerrini, under the nom de plume of Lorenzo Stecchetti, published a small 52 Italian Romance Writers Excitement volume of poems, their crude realism was at- "'"^^'^ by ^acktd and defended with a verbal violence alien Guernni s realistic to Italian traditions. The disputants started poems, from false premises, both in considering this realism a new dogma and in supposing it un-Ital- ian, whilst it had been the basis of Italian art and literature for centuries. Instead of realism be- ing now for the first time faithfully represented, it was only a new aspect of reality, a new method of observation which was now practised. As the traveller, perceiving some new aspect of the landscape, forgets his former surprises and raptures, and imagines that this last view is the most beautiful, even so do new ideals of beauty, new aspects of truth, cause us to forget , the old ideals, the old aspects which may have been equally beautiful, equally true. Italian If only it comes at the right moment and is cameotpl7- presented by a clever writer, a new literary doc- choiogical trine is sure to arouse attention. Now realism moment. -^^ Jtaly Came at the moment of greatest national despondency. A period of uncertainty, of de- pression, of political dissatisfaction, of social discontent, succeeded the romantic and heroic stage of the Italian evolution, and Naturalism was welcomed as a contrast to exploded Romanticism, and was heralded by Zola's clamourous success. So dazzled were the Italian writers by . this newly proclaimed theory, that the French- man's assertion of having lighted a new lamp Introduction 53 was unquestioned. Yet acquaintance with the old masters of the pen, the brush, and the chisel would have shown that realistic observation had always been characteristic of old Italian arts. How could realism be considered a novelty in the Realism an country of Michelangelo and Leonardo da ^^^^^""^^-^ '"^' Vinci? Has the anatomy of the human body, the play of its every muscle, ever been rendered with more accuracy? Could Donatello have ex- hibited such marvelous foreshortenings, had he not been saturated with technical knowledge? And in Italian literature there has always been a tendency to direct observation and the faithful rendering of life. Who is more powerfully, more Realism modernly realist than Dante in many passages °' ■^''"''' of his Divina Commedia? In his less known Cansoni della Pietra he is as crude as any modern writer. Che nei biondi capegli Che amor per consumarmi increspa e dora Metterei man e saziere'mi allora. (In the fair hair that love for my torment has crisped and gilded I would thrust my hand' and sate my desire.) Then having thus grasped the fair prey from morn till night, he would not spare her — Ansi farei come orso quando schersa. (I would do like a bear at play.) There is realism in Boccaccio, and some pas- 54 Italian Romance Writers sages in Ariosto, such as Orlando's madness, are models of observation. Mannerism Mannerism and conventionalism is so alien to " Vtaiian ^^^ Italian mind that even during the misleading mind. periods of " Petrarchism " and "Arcadia" there was a strong reactionary current. Every genuine artist demands truth, but every genuine artist demands more than truth; hence in Italy, when the balance leaned on one side someone was sure to put it straight by a pull in the other direction. Even in Thus Berni, with crude wit, cotmterbalanced there were *^^ subtlety of some writers of the Cinquecento, "realists." whilst prose writers, like Benvenuto Cellini in his Life, traced pictures of common life and de- scribed rough manners and adventures with a poignancy and spirit which modern effort cannot surpass. Baldassarre da Castiglione, though he lived at court and dictated the law to courtiers, yet wrote with such accuracy that Herbert Spencer borrows from him the definition of "gracefulness." "Arcadia" had, in 1700, threat- ened to pervert the taste of a society distorted already by cicisbeism and rococo, but a sane con- ception of the realities of life so inspired Parini's verse and armed the Italian Addison, Gaspare Gozzi, with so sharp a whip of satire, that affec- tation soon made way for the realism of Gol- doni's plays. How with all these historical realistic prece- dents, the critics could imagine Guerrini's book to Introduction 55 be a new discovery in art, is inexplicable. Soon a host of juvenile poets, profiting by the sensa- tional violence of polemic about this new dogma, flooded the country with unripe and short-lived attempts at realistic poetry. Realism, or, as it was then termed, Naturalism, Theory of^ in prose works of fiction lived a longer life and ^asVound. brighter. Sincerity of observation and of ren- dering are such essential features of romance, that excess was scarcely a fault. The theory that scientific methods should be ap- plied to works of fiction was sound ; the difficulty was to properly combine this element of realism with that of ideality and poetic sentiment, which dififerentiated an artistic creation from a book of science. Italians possess both the delicacy and the sense of beauty that, combined with accurate investigation and representation, would have sup- plied the needed formula. But unfortunately they worshipped the idols of the stranger. Verga's stories and those of Matilde Serao and of other writers show the effect of this inconsiderate def- erence for the French pattern. For a Parisian blase public, eager for novelty, surfeited with two centuries of every sort of fic- tion, Zola's first novels answered to a demand and revived an old standard of art. Italian read- ers, however, unsurfeited with prose fiction, did not require stimulants to sharpen jaded appetites. 56 Italian Romance Writers But they did lack an appropriate expression for this new-born romance, and for the complex sentiments that a new life had not yet made familiar. "Truth for its own sake" was the vaunted formula which they borrowed from the French. But in fact their volumes exhibit only an imitation of life which, whether true or false beyond the Alps, was certainly not Italian truth. Reality is far more complex, far more beautiful and noble, than those first naturalistic novelists suspected. Early A very shallow stream of science went a long Realists ^^7 ^^*^ thcsc Frenchified realist writers, and a study only rickety scaffolding of observation upheld their sexuality, theses. Unfortunately this observation was lim- ited to one aspect of human nature. After pro- claiming themselves the apostles of a new science, the pioneers of a higher art, they circumscribed the range of their studies to the sexual appetite, which they insisted is, the instinct which controls humanity. The anatomy of man's body and soul was reduced to a single function ; the endless va- riety of human tempers was crudely summed up as diversity of temperament. All the cravings, feelings, and affections which did not directly or indirectly depend upon the organs of reproduc- tion were either ignored or forced into the single classification. The method was bad; yet, by enlarging the novelist's field of action, it prepared for the trans- Introduction 57 formation of the realistic into the psychological The realistic novel. By extending deductive reasoning to in- ^'^JJ^^^ tellectual phenomena, by grounding speculative a psy- assertion on proven premises, the realist became '^'^°'''^"'- the psychologist, and his fiction, from the crude and incomplete representation of the brute in the man, evolved into a comprehensive interpretation of his whole being and of his possibilities. If we accept Hippolyte Taine's saying that " a novel is like the confession of a society," we find that the naturalistic or realistic novel is the con- fession of a careless penitent, who has only ex- amined his conscience in reference to the Seventh Commandment, whilst the psychological novel is the enumeration of the sins committed by a self- observant and intellectual person who knows him- self, though he has not yet been graced with any desire of reforming. Naturalism lived a short and inglorious life Naturalistic in the Italian novel, but it did valuable service ""^f , , _ , ' _ evolved psy- by providing its successor, the psychological ro- chological mance, with this vivifying dogma : the necessity of ^o'^el grounding fiction on truth. All those early Ital- ian champions of naturalism have finally achieved their evolution, and are now writing psycholog- ical novels. A step at a time, the long way has been covered, and it is almost possible to know the date of an Italian novel by observing the pro- portion of realism or of psychology, of art or of science. 58 Italian Romance Writers These novelists have not recanted, but have enlarged their method of investigation ; and they have added the personal element, the character- istic trait, which realism banished when it tried to make of the artist an insensible camera. The novel Thus it happens that the novel, once consid- ^^ national ^^^^ the most insignificant form of literature, now life, occupies the foremost place in letters, and is an important factor in the national life. After hav- ing been a cause of the intellectual growth of a people, it now appears as the most complex and adequate representation of our self-observant, highly evolved modern society. It is an ample stage whereon the flitting and endlessly varied aspects of life can all be represented, it is the forum whereon every stirring question is discussed. Here the pressure of society on individual, the reciprocal influence of each mind on the mass, can be felt. The writers who try to guide the public spirit have enlarged their own perceptions in this communion, and have been rewarded by an increased power of comprehension, by a clearer • insight into the dark enigma of social problems. Thus De Amicis, after having in time of need stirred patriotic and military sentiment under the pressure of altered circumstances, now strives to promote social justice. De Roberto too, from studying individual types, has attained to the in- vestigation of great life problems. Rovetta dis- Introduction 59 covers Italian traits in characters which seem cosmopolitan and conventional. Capuana, ex- amining the relations of physiological to psychic phenomena, shows how both are to be studied. Individualism is the keynote of the Italian char- individuai- acter and of the Italian novel. There is a great ""* "\^ , ° keynote of mequality of culture between various sections of Italian the peninsula, and the Italian impulse is to en- character. courage the evolution of the individual rather than to consider the integral interest of society. This tendency is reflected in that mirror of the nation — its fiction. Among Italians there exists no common tra- dition of teaching, no levelling discipline to force varieties of temperament into a common mould. The instinct of an Italian is to assert his indi- viduality. His dream is of personality. Originality, independence, facility are the gifts that every Italian most values. In every branch of art and of letters Italians have shown origi- nality and sentiment rather than evinced the solid preparation that bespeaks patient toil and observ- ance of tradition. When Romanticism and polit- Literary ical passion inspired the novel, the revolt against ^J^gJi^^i precedent was less strong; but since quiet and preceden;. purely literary ideas prevail, it is daily growing stronger. Thus those Italian writers who once imitated Zola or Bourget, now attempt new forms of art, which are certainly more congenial be- cause freely selected. 6o Italian Romance Writers Matiide When, for instance, Matilde Serao wrote her S €Y(tO S evolution. ^^^^ books, she was a Zola echo even to his man- nerisms — repetition of the same adjective affixed to the same noun, and an affected poverty of synonyms. In some of her novels she imitates Bourget. But with the growth of her powers she renounces imitation, and in Suor Giovanna della Croce shows her untrammelled originality, her natural aptitudes, her artistic temperament. We observe the same thing when D'Annunzio, after a short trespass into the field of naturalism, ob- tains a personal conception of his art. But the greatest progress was achieved when Verga's Sicilian pictures were fully understood by critics and indicated as models. End of The preponderating influence of French writers . „ '^^"'^ no longer exists. Tolstoi, with his sympathy for the humble, and profound knowledge of sources of human emotion, and of the origin and conse- quences of human deeds; Dostoievsky, with his penetrating psychology of criminals, appeal to responsive feelings. Maeterlinck and Rodenbach are admired ; Ibsen answers some of the questions which are tormenting thinkers as well as poets; Nietzsche's theories have been discussed and have exerted an undoubted influence; Rod's individual- ism ; Huysman's mysticism have found imitators. No new formula of philosophy, no new ideal of fiction has passed unnoticed ; everything has been discussed and seldom totally rejected. This ca- Introduction 6 1 pacity for assimilation has enriched the Italian mind with the spoils of the world. Another reason for diversity in the Italian ^^'i'»'"« novel is that the intellectual life is decentralized. ;,y^ ^^ ^^_ If any Italian city could arrogate that position of centralized. supreme intellectual authority that Paris exerts over France, and London over England, it must have acted as a limitation of this individualism; whilst the division of literary courts of justice, which makes appeal from one to the other so easy, is its encouragement. The novel or the play that has succeeded in Turin or Milan may fail in Florence or Rome, but the author need not de- spair of obtaining appreciation in other cities. Regionalism also produces a similar effect. Region- Though all over the peninsula there is a broaden- "^ '/"* ° _ ^ _ tnnuences ing sentiment of solidarity fostered by the com- Italian munion of interest and enforced contact, though "^^^'• the obligation of serving together in the same regiments, of mixing in the pursuits of trade and industry, in the university halls, in the state offi- ces, have smoothed many of the outward distinc- tions of language, habits, and manners between different parts of the land, yet many essential differences still distinguish the inhabitants of the several Italian regions. These characteristic diversities are reflected in Italian fiction. The square-headed, long-limbed, fair-haired descendants of Goths and Longobards in the North have, through centuries of warlike strug- 62 Italian Romance Writers gles against foreign invaders, developed the in- dustry and endurance which, under the bracing influence of mountain land and harsh climate, make the Piedmontese and Lombards the most prosperous and strongest of Italian people. Since strong natures are privileged to har- bour delicate dreams and foster high idealities. North impressive counterpart of their unimaginative ■^f'"" daily activity: we find that the most inspired naturally •' ■' . _ '^ "i?oman- poets, nearly all the Romanticists, belong to ticists." ^Q North. Manzoni and his friends, De Amicis, Fogazzaro, have the traits common to their land ; their observation is deep rather than quick, they suggest more than they express, their inner life is stronger than their artistic clever- ness. Their reticence is eloquent. The Tuscans, witty, clever, indolent, but refined by centuries of artistic training; have inherited the shrewdness and glibness of their trader princes. They possess elegance of speech, but lack that capacity for comprehending ideals which is the punishment of nations and men who have not suffered. The Tuscans can boast of few very superior minds, but their critical dis- cernment is so widely acknowledged that the sanction of Florentine critics is the hope of all writers. Neapolitan Naples and Sicily have a population of mixed °"'^,/^""" descent, inheriting from Greek ancestors acute- Hovelistsare ' _ _ ^ "Realists." ness and artistic tendency, and from Oriental Introduction 63 ancestors indolence and fatalism. These, encour- aged by the enervating climate and by bondage, have fettered activity and stifled conscience. They have not, however, impaired the love for poetry and emotion. Surrounded by most marvellous beauty, the Neapolitan has developed his capacity for the enjoyment of sensuous pleasure. His misery has made him callous to the cravings of the soul, but he finds compensation in the joy of living. His reason and his conscience are seldom aroused, but his perceptions are quick — so quick that they stifle self-criticism, and do not admit of that repliement sur soi-meme which breeds delicate scruples in daily life and searching psychology in works of art. In the representative arts these Southrons turn French and to realism ; not the gloomy, crude, pitiless realism ^'"'^J'" of the French school, but a sanguine, vivid repro- differ. duction of life, such as may be seen in Michetti's or Morelli's pictures. In works of fiction Verga best reveals this healthy disposition because he has kept free from foreign imitation. Serenely objective, yet warmly sympathizing with the things he describes, he instils life and suggests a pantheistic spirit of love. Besides these three great divisions of North- Italian ern, Central, and Southern Italy, there are sm^'*i°'\"f- ' . •" vidualisHc. lingering many peculiarities of customs that make each region divisable into quaint corners, almost 64 Italian Romance Writers unexplored by literary descripiton. From many of these out-of-the-world nooks some clever or loving artist has sprung to sketch the typical aspect, the distinctive trait of his native place. Thus Signora Grazia Deledda pens power- ful pictures of Sardinian life; thus Caterina Pi- gorini Beri has delineated the simple-minded mountaineers of the Marche, and Neri Tanfucio has reproduced the simple customs of the Tuscan peasantry. These different founts of inspiration, these widely different subjects for observation, and, above all, these divers temperaments in the No writers, have acted as impediments to the devel- "typicai " opment of any uniform type which we may label novel" ^^^ Italian comedy" or "the Italian novel"; exists, because both these sorts of composition are simply mirrors of well-understood types of society. This personal interpretation of these differ- ently civilized regions is the great attraction of Italian novels. It is all so fresh and un- expected. Besides this natural tendency, other causes tend to make Italian fiction individualistic. DiiRculty The Italian novel, though inspired by the Ita'ndin' world's thought, stimulated by the expansion of Italian the nation's social life, and enriched by the devel- novei. opment of its language, would yet have failed of its mission had it not contained a philosophy and a moral purpose. To understand this philosophy and judge of this morality is difficult for a for- Introduction 65 eigner, prejudiced by education and temperament, and largely ignorant of the soul of the race whose literature he attempts to criticize. In a different way it will be equally difficult for the Italian to accurately apportion praise and blame. He will be sanguine in his appreciation, and will lack a sense of the relative value of his native romance compared with that foreign fic- tion whose spirit he can only partially understand. Yet, since in all lands the realistic novel has Character- evolved into psychological fiction, it is necessary ]]^"^° to consider the characteristics of this Italian psychology. psychology and in what it differs from that of other countries. This word " psychology " ; how differently it is understood by persons of the same race, and how much greater the difference when used by people of dissimilar stock ! Scholars will agree as to the scientific formula, but writers and readers of novels — critics too — ^may be worlds apart in their understanding of the term. Certes if the frequent Word "psy- repetition of a word proved its popularity, then ^'^"f"^^ is " psychology " the first of all the sciences and interpreted. the most familiar. But, alas ! it is rather flaunted as a banner by both critics and novelists than deeply meditated. Thirty years ago physiology was the fad that ruled fiction. Most novels reeked with crude pathological stuff. What heterogeneous rubbish was comprised under this pretence of docu- 66 Italian Romance Writers mented observation! What coarseness, what filth, what immoraHty have been uttered in novels and called science! Surely no physiologist or psychologist would consent that his science should be judged by the application of it in such novels ! In Italy this difference between science as taught in books and its application to literature is accentuated, and for a reason peculiar to the country. Science of The science of psychology is a foreign impor- psyc w ogy j-^^-Jq^j^ ^j^^j Teutonic rather than Italian is its un-ltalian. genius. Before it is truly acclimatized, it requires to be completed by much genuine Italian obser- vation. The Italian student whose sole knowledge of psychology is derived from text-books of foreign inspiration, and who has memorized rather than assimilated the foreign argument, is expected, when he comes to psychologize in a novel purely Italian, to be judged by foreign standards, and yet to exhibit truly national qualities of observa- tion and rendering. But in Italy the aptitude of the novelist and the character and environment of his people are so different from the aptitudes, character, and environment of the people who first applied psychology to fiction that their meth- ods cannot be successful here. The very basis of all psychological investiga- tion, the physiological constitution and temper- ament, is different in Italians from the physio- Introduction 67 logical constitution and temperament of their Northern contemporaries. Since we cannot imagine a pure spirit, nor an Relation of intellectual movement apart from organic phe- ^^■"^ ° "^^ nomena, psychology cannot be considered apart physiology. from physiology. Psychic activity, soul, divine afflatus — whatever definition we may give to these words — certainly it has never been revealed apart from nervous and cerebral phenomena. An individual purely physiological or purely psychological does not exist, though for pur- pose of investigation we may abstract the one from the other. Psychical and physiological ac- tivity still keeps its secret as to the synchronism of their unquestioned affinity. All the differences between the dolichocephalic and brachistocephalic Northern and Southern races, multiplied by all the differentiating influ- ences of climate, intermixture of races, customs, conditions of life, have stamped with varying character the different races of Europe. A com- parison between the stories of nations shows us an infinite number of contrasting causes, accen- tuating through many centuries the initial di- vergence. What idiosyncrasies of temperament ! What dissimilar nervous reaction! Italians are gifted — or afflicted — with an im- Italians pulsivity which leaves no time for conscious "^^, ^'^'' ■^ •' and sensual thought, no strength for mterference of will, '—— which sometimes makes a hero and sometimes a 68 Italian Romance Writers coward or criminal. It has also produced the two 'i most objectionable traits of the Italian charac- ter: violence and sensualism. Italians are over- sexed and over-ready with their weapons. These ] two tendencies, in greater or less proportion, are among the leading motives of an Italian's actions, and often a controlling element in his feelings. Complexity f^ further understand the Italian psyche, we psychology, m^st consider how these individuals, so differ- ently constituted from their Northern neigh- bours, have been moulded by their environment. Man is the product of an infinite series of causes, a being moulded by many forces, each infinitely small atomy has left some trace of its passage — a tiny furrow, an added atomy. The number and variety of these influences is in- creased as the number of individuals increases, which, considered together, form a society or nation. The psychology of a natioji is therefore more complex than the psychology of an indi- vidual, and requires much information as to its history, biology, and economy. Religion and myth, customs and language are principal factors of social psychology — activities which control its evolution. Psycho- As language is necessary to abstract reason- 'nAuenfeof ^^S ^-ud as a social bond, language is the first language, psychological relation between human creatures. As an instrument of thought, its evolution is parallel with that of the species, and is a measure Introduction 69 of the psychic development of a nation. Doubt- less an exhaustive study of the story of the Ital- ian language, descending from its Greek and Latin originals, would assist in the reconstruc- tion of the modern Italian character. Religion and myth are factors of national Religion psychology. At first merely attempts to explain"'"'^'"''"' natural phenomena and to give them an anthro- psychology. pomorphite representation, they are at the basis of psychic activity, of our conception of the uni- verse and of man, of science and of philosophy. The evolution of the myths and religion of Italy shows the divergence between the Italian and Anglo-Saxon genius. From the hospitality granted by ancient Rome to the gods of every conquered nation to the easily accepted downfall of the temporal power of Roman Catholicism, how many examples of tolerance or of indifference! In Italy no popular movement which betrays tharac- the soul of a whole people can be traced to a '^''"'"^' . 1 T-. r • religious purely religious motive as can the Reformation indifference. in Germany. No popular leader has owed his authority wholly to religion: Francis of Assisi appealed to a poetic pantheism, and Savonarola represented an ethical ideal and a political prin- ciple. All this sceptical tolerance and this semi-pagan worship of Beauty in its many aspects comes to 70 Italian Romance Writers Superstition the modem Italian as a tendency. In the higher ..""''classes this tendency is to accept scientific posi- irrehgton . . . -^ ^ -^ Italian tivism, and, in the lowest, the tendency is to super- icndcncies. stition. The customs of the people, all the re- lations between society and its members, have also had their place in the Italian psychological evolution. When, therefore, an Anglo-Saxon critic strives to understand the Italian psychic activity, he should disabuse his own mind of all the precon- ceived ideas which a different physiological con- stitution, divergencies of race, and difference of training have raised between them. All the ele- ments which account for the peculiar character of the Italian fiction also account for the diffi- culty of an accurate alien criticism of that fiction. Since the Anglo-Saxon necessarily lacks qualities essential to the entire comprehension and appre- ciation both of the Italian character and of its reflection in Italian fiction. This diflference accounts for much of the so- called weakness of the Italian psychological novel. Charm of One of the greatest charms of the Italian novei- itahan jg^ jg ^j^^^^ j^^ neither preaches nor passes judg- novel. 1 . , TT- . ment on his characters. His arguments arise from the story itself. By reconstructing the mo- ment, the time, the ruling passion, he suggests extenuating circumstances for a crime or inspires pity for the culprit, but he never revels in auto- Introduction 71 investigation. He entirely accepts Fouillee's maxim: "C'est une question prSjiidicielle de toute morale, que de savoir s'il y a une morale." Hence the charge of immoraUty brought Are Italian against such reaUstic novels as Giacinta, by""^^'^ ,, ° _ _ _ -^ immoral? Capuana, or Giovanni Episcopo, by D'Annunzio ; and repeated against almost all psychological novels. In a certain sense the charge is justified. Man exhibited as the victim of uncontrollable causes, an organism moulded by biological, physiological, and social laws; his instincts predetermined by heredity and by the structure of his organs, his inclinations and potentialities shaped by his sur- roundings, his every act predetermined by hered- ity and environment, is, if not an immoral theory, at least bewildering, and contrary to all formally accepted traditions of good and evil. We must start anew with the pagan ideal oi Italian virtue — strength ; and we must build a new stan- ''^"' •^ dard of justice, grounded on the relations of man traditional to man, or rather of the individual to the society standards. he lives in. Rousseau, in his Contrat Social, fore- shadowed this ideal of morality, and, to the great scandal of many good people, he declared that "the only duty of each individual is to promote the advantage of the community." This first proposition in the minds of our modern social reformers implies the second : " that society must be responsible for the condition of individuals." 72 Italian Romance Writers Character- jn the relations between man and man, or, Italian rather, in the reciprocal relations and duties of morality, man and woman, the Italian moral standpoint is not that of the Anglo-Saxon or the Russian. This is shown in the Italian treatment of love in novels that assume to represent current opinion. Love and the dual emotions it rouses in the dual nature of humanity-^the cravings of the flesh and the aspirations of the spirit — affords vast opportunity for investigating man under his double aspect of a physiological and a psycho- logical subject. The pictures of customs in Italian novels im- ply a tolerance for wrong-doing, a fatalist sub- mission to the resistless passion, that rather re- sembles Greek obedience to Destiny, or of the Oriental to Allah, than a Christian interpretation of life's great problem. Centuries of religious teaching has not convinced Italians that they are free to choose between good and evil. Love in the Italian love Italian novel is the effect of physical sensation ' even with the pure and chaste, though the pleas- ure of the eye may afterwards develop into a sentiment. Sometimes this sentiment does not come at all; then we have lovers like D'Annunzio's Aurispa and Ippolita, who hate each other, though they together drink deep the cup of passion. Ippolita is "the enemy" for the man who determines to die with her. In Rovetta's Introduction 73 novel, Mater Dolorosa, Lalla loves her husband, yet accepts a lover; Matilde Serao's Ballerina is a very slave of desire for a man who has never mentioned love to her; Neera's maidens are all swayed by fleshly instincts. Almost the only modern romance that shows love conquered in the struggle against duty, Daniele Cortis, is filled with personages who ridicule this virtue — ^pro- nounce it quixotic. This sensual representation of Love is an alto- Italian gether different thing from that peculiar f orm '""^^^"'•' of French pornography which, by a mixture oi ridicule wit and semblance of gaiety, has influenced many 0^ idealize an Italian reader but almost no Italian novelist. °^"' Passionate and lustful though the Italian may be, yet, like the Oriental of to-day and the Roman of the past, he instinctively veils the deeds of his intimacy. The object of his love, or lust, is not transfigured into an ethical figure, not worshipped with mystic incense, but kept jealously hidden from public view. In works of Italian fiction, love is sometimes tragical in its consequences; its origin and development are often investigated, but it is rarely either ridiculed or idealized. Neither coarseness nor mysticism are likely to greatly influence the evolution of Italian romance. The difference between the Italian conscience Italian and that of a man of the North may also be ^J"""^'^°" measured by the conception of remorse in the "remorse." Italian psychological novel ; where it is a sort of 74 Italian Romance Writers nervous reaction, a physiological efifect, rather than the reawakening of the soul. Compare Dos- toievsky's Raskolnikoff , a complete representation of repentance in a Russian mind, and // Marchese di Roccaverdina, by Capuana, the most accurate rendering of the same feeling in an Italian. Remorse in Raskolnikoflf's soul Seeks punishment as a relief. a Russian ,-.,111. • -^ • i_ 1 r r^ novel. Gradually his spirit rises beyond care for safety, repentance aspires from his soul, it overpowers physical instincts, nullifies exterior sensation, or transforms it into a mystical call. How memora- ble the scene with the lost woman, where these two flotsams of society, these two sinners, kneel side by side and pray! In their purified souls baser instincts have been destroyed. Contrasted Capuana's murderer, a sort of feudal Sicilian ™'*'' lord, has killed the husband he had given under remorse _ , , _ ° in an Certain conditions to his mistress. He is unre- /to/tow pgntant, and allows an innocent man to be pun- tio'vcl ' ished for the crime. But slowly phantoms rise. He hates the sight of the once-loved mistress. The scene of the crime is haunted. Public re- joicings and processions, words suddenly uttered, so agitate his excited nerves that, after a pro- longed struggle with these physical weaknesses, his stubborn spirit is conquered and he dies insane. The crime committed under an impulse of the senses has been punished by the destruc- tion of the organ of sensation. Introduction "y^ The economic and social conditions of the Economic people are reflected in Italian novels. Pauper- '""^f"""' f ^ _ '^ conditions ism, brigantaggio, continued emigration, an- reAected archy, are too terribly real for one to ignore their "* ^°'"^^- existence and not look for their causes. Financial and social reforms are so imperative that the novelists are impelled to dwell on facts that should be widely known. Verga's descriptions of low life contain many pictures suggesting the neces- sity for reform; in De Amicis the preaching is undisguised, and, being mixed with sentimental episodes, appeals to the emotion rather than to the intellect; in Rovetta scenes of daily life as- sume importance when, by revealing some hidden social sore, they show the possibility of a social cataclysm; Neera's studies of woman's wrongs borrow a sadder pathos from the inference that they are but samples of hundreds of similar cases demanding relief. Though Tolstoi's influence over these romance Latent writers is unquestioned, they do not accept the^"^"""*" _, . , . , . . . p of Italian Russian s mystical acceptation of grief as a mature. heavenly decree. These Southrons are too hope- ful, these descendants of the Romans are too enamoured of the beautiful, to accept a doctrine that considers sorrow as a regeneration. An Italian will endure distress, and even make fun of his misery, but he does not pretend to submit willingly, he does not adore the hand that chastises him. Had Catholicism only shown that jb Italian Romance Writers face it would not have held out so long in class- ical Italy. Nor, with the exception of Fogazzaro, do Italian novelists try to persuade suffering humanity to patient endurance and saintly sub- mission. They rather appeal to the latent pagan- ism still surviving after centuries of Christian teachings, and now reviving under the influence of scientific thought and self-assertion. Italian Yet, since no literature can outlive the loss of "Cult of ^ ideality, when positivism had destroyed the Beauty." religious ideal, the unspoken craving for ideals urged Italians to discover some other object of worship, and D'Annunzio proclaimed the cult of BEAUTY. Thus from the pious Manzonian in- terpretation across the misty Romanticism of his disciples, through a period of exotic realism, to this poetic worship of sensuous Beauty, the Ital- ian romance has accomplished an evolution. Its progress has been a curved line, enclosing the circle, and returning to the Cinquecento ideal. Modem 'pj^g modern novelist is heir of Leonardo da novelist Vinci, of Boccaccio, and of all those writers, of inherits that iUustrious age when men knew how to trans- ■^D*"*" late their ideal of Beauty into definite forms. The Kenais- •' sance. very intensity of their sensation, the response of their nerves to every appeal, vetoes the appeal of unsatisfied mysticism. The beauty of the mate- rial world is too eagerly grasped, it shines too brightly before their eyes, for them to desire Introduction "jj spiritual ideals. Indeed, they ignore their exist- ence. The bright reign of justice, the triumph of beauty, must be here, in this, not in any other world created by trusting faith or by winged fantasy. So does the Italian feel, so does the Italian novelist write. This is the keynote of modern Italian literature. This profession of ethical principles is the D'Amumio cause of D'Annunzio's popularity, and is the ex- *yP^^^^^ planation of his authority over contemporary tendency. novelists and poets. He has formulated the dimly perceived but constant tendency of his race. Many a half-conscious artist, wandering amid the obsolete teachings of Romanticism or of pseudo- religious Manzonian imitation, was encouraged by D'Annunzio's example to self-examination. The craving for sensuous beauty, the glory in pagan ideals, the artist careful only for the pre- cepts of his art, is the true Italian type, whether expressed by chisel, brush, or pen. ALEXANDER MANZONI Italian Romance Writers ALEXANDER MANZONI IT was a day in May. The vast square before A day of the Cathedral of Milan was crowded with*"""™ , AT- , , , , ■ 11 "' Milan. people. Yet the hundred spires and thou- sand statues of that wondrous church were un- observed; for heads were bowed, eyes filled with tears, and hearts were mourning. The streets of the city were hung with black, the front of the cathedral was draped in black. As the great central doors unfolded, the same funereal drapery was seen extending along the magnificent nave of the church. There at the portal stood the Archbishop of Milan and his clergy — weeping. The military bands sounded their dirge, the long lines of sol- diers presented arms, a coffin passed, followed by princes, nobles, and representatives of friendly nations. And the bells of the city tolled. A stranger approaching that cathedral to learn // is the the name of the king, or royal prince, who was ^»»^''<»' of. thus mourned and thus honoured, would have 8i 82 Italian Romance Writers read these words written above the central por- tal of the church: Uo Hleian&er /IDansoni Neither prince, nor king, nor even a simple sol- dier : this Manzoni was a private citizen — ^by pro- fession a writer ! Yet Italy wept ! — and the world shared in her sorrow. Manzoni's This appreciation of Manzoni was not transi- fame is ^-gj-y^ -phe popular verdict given a generation enduring. •' r- r o za ago is maintained. Manzoni is as much studied to-day, as greatly admired, as truly appreciated as he was at the time of his death. His great romance is a text-book in his country's schools. What are the sources of this enduring fame? The story of Manzoni the man is soon told. Born in 1785, the only son of Don Pietro Man- zoni, a Lombard nobleman, and of Giulia Bec- Manzoni's caria, daughter of the author of Dei delitti e birth and ^^llg p^y^g Jig -yy^ag educated by the friars in the education. Church schools of Lugano and Modena, and per- haps also in Padua. Freed from his schoolmas- ters in 1803, in Venice, he studied the Latin and Italian classics and admired the modern poetry of Parini and Monti. Then he went to Paris, living with his mother and Carlo Imbonati, to whom Manzoni was greatly attached. In the fashionable salons of the gay French capital Manzoni passed the years of his early manhood, petted and admired. Yet the Voltairi- Alexander Manzoni 83 an influence of Cabanis, Garat, Madame Con- dorcet, Volney, and Destutt de Tracy left slight mark upon his character or his thought. In 1810 Manzoni's he married Henriette Blondel, and to please her "'"'''"'^^■ and her parents the ceremony was according to the Protestant rite ; but Manzoni's whole life testi- fies to his constant adhesion to the ideal and the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church in which he was born, and to which, with his wife, he was afterward reunited. As so often happens with men who live in- tensely the intellectual life, Manzoni was pecul- iarly helpless in practical matters. He was in- tensely nervous, and in his later years he could not cross an open square. He would walk all round it, keeping close to the walls and request- ing someone to accompany him. On being asked one day, " Why, Don Alessandro, do you get so muddled? " he wittily answered, " If I knew why, I would not become so." With advancing years this nervousness increased, and forewarned that inflammation of the brain of which he died. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between His physical such physical timidity and moral infirmity of "'"''^'f^;"'' purpose. That Manzoni was aware of his own irresolution and inaptitude for practical affairs appears in a letter he wrote to Giorgio Briano in 1848. He says: " I am entirely lacking in that sense of oppor- tunity, that power of discerning the point, in 84 Italian Romance Writers Manzonifs which, the possible and the desirable meet, and "^ITms ^^^^ sticking to it. I am bold when it is simply infirmity, a question of discussing matters with my friends and initiating proposals which are quite para- doxical. I also display a certain amount of de- cision in the support of my opinions. But when from words we may possibly pass to actions, then I grow doubtful, muddled, and perplexed. "The visionary as well as the irresolute man are useless participants in a conversation which aims at practical conclusions. Now I manage to represent both these personages. That which is possible I generally do not like ; that which I like would seem extravagant and untimely to others, and would distress me if changed from a fond dream into a concrete action, weighing by its consequences on my conscience. My part in many important conversations can be resumed thus : I object to everything, I propose nothing." These characteristics of moral and physical timidity are also revealed in Manzoni's attitude toward the political movements of his times. He was not But he was no coward, and above all he never a moral g^yg comf ort or sympathy to the enemy of his " country. When Cantu was fleeing from the Austrians and had taken refuge in Piedmont, Manzoni crossed the frontiers to greet his friend. Afterward, at the time of the Milan uprising, his sons took part in the fighting, and he signed an appeal sent to Charles Albert, King of Sar- Alexander Manzoni 85 dinia, imploring his pity and his help. As an Austrian suspect, these two acts were certainly done at the risk of Manzoni's life; In spite of seductive advances, he lived for forty-five years under Austrian rule without ever writing or uttering one word in their favor. Manzoni was peculiarly dependent on his Manzoni friends. Either in, his country-seat at Brusuglio, T^g^^^ or in his house in Milan, his peaceful home be- came the meeting-place for men of intellect and of heart. At one time, when the Emperor of Brazil was visiting him and was thanked by hi& host for the honour, the Emperor replied : " It is I who should give you thanks for having re- ceived me at your fireside. In a little while the world will have forgotten even the name of Dom Pedro d' Alcantara, while future ages, and not only in Italy, will talk of Manzoni." But Manzoni's greatest joy was to receive poor and unknown young writers and patriots, giving them material help, and by sympathy and kind words striving to revive their courage. Of his six children, death took three dangh- Death of ters in the flower of youth. After twenty-three ^^^"^"'^'"^ years of most affectionate union, his wife Hen- children. riette died in 1833. Four years later he again married, that his children might have that care and guidance which he knew he was unable to give; yet he continued to mourn for the bride of his youth, who was the core of his heart and 86 Italian Romance Writers his inspiration; and of whom in words worthy of him who depicted Hermengarde, he said: " Every day I resign her anew to God, and every day I ask her again from His hands." He lost his second wife, he lost sons and daughters and friends. Crushed by these successive blows, his health began to fail, and when, in April, 1873, his son Manzoni's 'Pietro died, it was the final blow. The next May i8t{ "^^nth his own life ended quietly. He passed over the river, and joined the wife and children and friends he so tenderly loved, and from whom he could not live apart. Created Senator of the Kingdom of Italy in i860, he rarely attended the sittings, but when he did so he was received with reverence and en- thusiasm. He was a sincere Christian; the last book he read was the Sermons of Bourdaloue. When dying he asked forgiveness from his ser- vants for any unkind words uttered in moments Manzoni's of delirium. Manzoni's writings have for com- reAeclionof ^^entary his whole life. The dignity of his soul, his life, the noble simplicity of his life, the sincerity of his faith, his originality and his modesty, his capacity for unchanging friendship have com- bined to make Manzoni le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche of Italian literature. " A travers les nuages dechires II s'eloigna . . . . et lentement La melodic sacree monta . . . . " Alexander Manzoni 87 For the influence of Manzoni continues, his Mansoni's influence continues. voice still speaks and is listened to ; his personality '"^"^"'^^ continues to have power. His immortality is as- sured. Whether he will or no a man writes him- self into his books, and the high quality in Man- zoni's work flamed from his own nature — noble, frank, pure. His genius consists in a morality founded on a religion of the heart, expansive in its charity, generous in its justice. Manzoni considered literary work the noblest of missions. On a paper discovered in his room after his death was found the following sentence, copied from an English book: "When society becomes better enlightened, no literary perform- ance which is a mere work of art will be toler- ated." This feeling restrained him from ad- mitting to his page anything unworthy of his lofty aim, even though he might thus add to its interest and popularity. Hence, the absence Why from his novel of scenes of love-making. In one '"^^-•^'^f"" ° are omitted of his posthumous papers he tells us that when from his he first wrote his novel all the love-scenes and"°^^'- tender endearments were there. But on revising his work this was left out. " Because," he says, " we ought not to write about love in such a man- ner as to awaken that passion in our reader's mind There are many other feelings, such as pity, self-denial, a desire of justice, which a writer should strive to excite, there can never be too much of them ; but as for love, there is cer- 88 Italian Romance Writers tainly more than enough for the preservation of our revered species." He continues: "If Hterature had no higher aim than the amusement of people who are Mansoni's always amusing themselves, it would be the f"**"j^ vilest, most frivolous of professions, and I towards ' ^ , ' his novels, would search for some manlier employment than this aping of the mountebank, who on the market-place entertains with a story a crowd of peasants; . . . . he at least affords pleasure to those who live in endless toil and misery." In the introduction to his novel he in like man- ner addresses his readers : " If, after reading this book, you are not conscious of having ac- quired some new ideas on the story of the pe- riod I have described, or about the evils that weigh on humankind, and suggestion as to means to lighten them : if whilst you were reading, you have never been moved by a feeling of reproba- tion for wickedness, and of reverence for piety, nobleness, humanity, and justice, the publication of this book has been useless indeed, and the writer will deeply regret the time he has caused you to lose and that which he has spent over it himself." What, then, is this remarkable book which, though published in 1826, still retains its popu- larity and power, and has been translated into almost every civilized language? In what does Alexander Manzoni 89 it dififer from the novels written by his illustrious Sir Walter contemporaries of other lands? Sir Walter •^'^""Z ■^ novels. Scott has depicted for us the Scotland of former times, with its mountains, its lakes, and its ruins. In the midst of this prospect he unfolds the many personifications of its traditions and customs. Archaeologist, antiquary, and artist, he presents to us, not the teachings of history, but its pic- tures — pictures reproduced in their very reality; the past brought to light with love and with indifference for the future. In Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo gathers Hugo's together the entire Middle Age. But, in calling "^'''''^" forth this tumultuous world, with its life so burn- ^^ paris." ing, passionate, and picturesque, with its miser- ies so profound, with all that which is violent, strange, and formidable; the author seems only to have desired the more surely to overwhelm the pitiful human personality. His object is to justify that word terrible and without hope, writ- ten on the first page of the book, and which breaks out from its last page: anafxh (fatality). / Promessi Sposi is something less ambitious, ManzonVs and inspired by a better spirit. It is the recital '^^^^' ^^ of the humble adventures of two village lovers f^g^ ff^g^^ whose union is thwarted by the cowardice of some, the violence of others, and by the compli- cations of public events. Around Renzo and Lucia, and connected with their obscure trials, all Lombardy, all the Italy of the seventeenth 90 Italian Romance Writers century, moves and unfolds its miseries, its unrest and its aspirations, at the epoch when the Spanish domination commenced to make of that country the caravansary of foreign ambitions. In / Promessi Sposi all this is traced with the power and sobriety of the historian. Without obvious allusions, the connection between acts and their consequences present in some way the premises of moral and rational conclusions. All classes of seventeenth century Italian society, all the characteristics, all the passions, are shown within its frame. So carefully has Manzoni studied even the details of that past which he is depicting, that he His book is is exact even when he is not true. His book is a a true yivid chapter of the memoirs of the people of picture of ^ _ . Lombardy. Lombardy under the Spanish dominion — a pic- ture true in its general traits and in its detailed characteristics, and in which the elements of his- tory are so fused that they become one. Every social custom, every class of people, every type, has its proper place and its due importance in the general representation. He causes to live again under our very eyes these poor people, their life tormented, unhappy, but not despairing; for goodness, bravery, religious sentiment sustain them in the midst of cruel trials, and finally bring them peace and consolation. Each character de- taches itself from the general mass and stands Alexander Manzoni 91 out in relief. It is not only a face, a name, but a type. Often it is a living individual; someone one seems to have known, and with whom one renews acquaintance. Everywhere there is can- dor, simplicity, and propriety of expression, imagination and common sense. There is emotion, tenderness, and a pity which never be- comes sentimental. The more carefully the historical iramework "I Promessi of Manzoni's novel is examined the more accu- , ^"/^ . ", histoncally rate does it appear. The few historical person- accurate. ages and events are truthfully described. There is such knowledge of the feelings and manners, customs and opinions of the times described, such intuition of the degree of development attained by the various social conditions and individual types. The difference between a purely historic study and such a romance is small, and daily grows smaller. The modern novelist is required to make his historic setting to substantially accord with the facts. The historian realizes that, be- sides a mere narration of facts, he is concerned with the story of souls and the interpretation of psychological laws. Thus history tends to be- come as interesting as fiction, and historic fiction as accurate as history. The The woof of Manzoni's story is that everything character- reposes on a providential order, and over ^^^sl^/promessi woof there is developed a tissue of events most Sposi." 92 Italian Romance Writers varied. The description is clear, the conception frank, the forms changing but always beautiful. The dialogues are usually spontaneous and life- like. The personages of the romance have be- come proverbial. The sincerest flattery and surest proof of his success was found in the host of his imitators, which finally became the Man- zonian school and served to continue its tradi- tions. The plot of After a short description of the scenery around e s ory. ^^ ^^^ ^£ Como, the story begins by showing us Don Abbondio, the curate of a small hamlet, arrested on his way home by two fierce-looking bravi, who in the name of their master, Don Rodrigo, warn him, on peril of his life, that he must not celebrate the marriage arranged for the morrow between Renzo Tramaglino and Lucia Mondella. Cowardly Don Abbondio gives the required promise, and in great distress hastens home to seek comfort from his servant, Perpetua. At an early hour next morning Renzo calls on the curate to inquire the hour for the mar- riage celebration. He is exhorted to be patient, as he will have to wait some days longer. The dissatisfied lover gets the truth from Perpetua, and tries by threats to compel Don Abbondio to do his duty. Lucia, on being told what has oc- curred, gives a clue to the situation by telling her mother Agnese and Renzo how, a few days ago, Alexander Manzoni 93 she had been accosted by Don Rodrigo and an- other gentleman, and how she heard the two making a wager, the purport of which she guessed. Fra Cristoforo has been her only confidant. Renzo is sent to Lecco to ask advice from Doctor Azzeccagarbugli, who, on learning that the adverse party is the powerful nobleman, quickly washes his hands of the matter. The mother and daughter send for Fra Cris-^''^ toforo. He sympathizes with their sorrow, ^'^'^ JpL°ar7on undertakes to beard the tyrant in his den. In the scene. Don Rodrigo's castle the friar discovers the plot to carry off Lucia, and he contrives for her es- cape. Agnese, too, has a plan; and accordingly at nightfall the betrothed steal into Don Ab- bondio's house, attended by two witnesses, and almost get through the marriage ceremony be- fore the curate recovers his wits. By an act of violence he stops them, and rouses the neighbor- hood by his cries for help. Agnese and the betrothed, who have managed to slip out of the house during the confusion, are met by a messenger from Fra Cristoforo, who bids them hasten- to the convent. From there the good friar sends Lucia and Agnese to the Convent of Monza, and Renzo goes to Milan in search of work. But misfortune follows these poor people. Renzo arrives at Milan at the moment of a bread 94 Italian Romance Writers A sequence j-iot, and SO compromises himself as to be arrested. fortune's. ^^ escapes the poHce, and flies from Milan to Bergamo, while Fra Cristoforo, having in- curred the enmity of Don Rodrigo, is sent to Rimini, and the nun who has promised to watch over Lucia betrays her into the hands of the Unknown, a friend of Don Rodrigo's. Shut up in a chamber of the castle of the Unknown, Lucia is in despair. Suddenly the heart of this violent man is changed, and he frees Lucia. But liberty brings no joy, because during that dreadful night in the castle she has vowed to renounce her lover and to consecrate herself to the Virgin Mary. Two misfortunes now fall upon Milan. The plague breaks out in the city, and an army wastes the surrounding country. Attended by Perpetua and Agnese, Don Abbondio flies from danger to the Unknown. Renzo takes advantage of the confusion created by the plague, and returns to seek Lucia in the stricken town. He encounters Fra Cristoforo, who is ministering to the sick, then sees Don Rodrigo dying of the plague, and last of all discovers Lucia, convalescent from the infection. Fra Cristoforo, having freed l/ucia from her vow of virginity, dies from the plague, and the betrothed are married by Don Abbondio, and go with Agnese to enjoy a happy home in Bergamo. Alexander Manzoni 95 The characters of this novel separate them- Mansoni's selves naturally into several groups, of which ^''"*''■^• the most interesting are its friars. In Italy the friar is still to be seen, lurking in the background. In by-streets his face some- times appears emerging from the cowl; as he crosses the gay avenues of cities his sandalled feet are in danger from prancing horses and swift automobiles. This Deus ex machina of ancient plots, this solver of puzzling intrigues, intermediary in bringing about the marriage of The friar despairing lovers and the penitence of con-^"^^"^^"" demned malefactors, is dead and gone. No one could now describe him as Manzoni did in the first pages of I Promessi Sposi. At the period of which Manzoni wrote no station was too high, none too lowly, for a Capuchin friar. He served the most miserable wretches, and was served by the most powerful lords. With fearless yet humble mien he crossed the threshold of a pal- ace; yet the dweller in the sordid hovel was his brother. In the same house he might be the amusement of the menials, and yet the counsellor and guide of the master. He took alms from all, and gave to all who came to his convent door ; for a friar was prepared for all things. It were a useless task to seek among French fabliaux and Italian novelle for the original type of Manzoni's friars, for the characteristic of all those figures is their incompleteness. Even as 96 Italian Romance Writers portrayed by the masters the friar remains an unfinished figure, a silhouette. The fabliaux show us a burlesque mannikin of broad humour and obscene jests, and the novellatori accept this model, never troubling to put a real man under the cowl. It is different with Manzoni's friars. In their ensemble they make a group which gives us a more lifelike and more accurate idea of what they were and how they were regarded than is to be found elsewhere in fiction. " Pass- ing along the street he might either meet a prince, who would reverently kiss the end of the knotted cord hanging by his side, or a party of urchins, who, under pretence of quarrelling with each other, would pelt him with mud. The name of ' friar ' was at that time uttered with the great- est respect and with the utmost contempt; of both of these feelings the Capuchin friars re- ceived the largest share." The The first friar which Manzoni presents to the pious an j.ga^(jgj. js pj-g^ Galdino. Announced by a Deo ooedient , , •' Fragratias, bowing very low, with his double bag Galdmo. slung over his left shoulder and grasping its twisted ends with both his hands, he enters the cottage where Lucia and her mother Agnese are sitting in loneliness on what should have been the wedding-day. On the subject of alms-giving Galdino is eloquent. His text is, "Give alms to the friars, because we are like the sea which receives water from everywhere and distributes Alexander Manzoni 97 it all again to the rivers." In contrast with the The simple faith and obedience of Fra Galdino, 'we^°^^^^"^_ have the diplomatic friar — the Padre Provinciate, matk Padre or head of the monastery. He is only known in a Provmctaic. single scene, yet the outline is as accurate as a portrait. He is a guest at a grand dinner given by the powerful count, Don Rodrigo's uncle. In the after-dinner tete-a-tete we have an amusing battle of wits between the Count and the Padre. Cautiously fencing, the Count refers to their " common interest in an affair that might " Then he burns a little incense under the Capu- chin's nose, and finally, coming to his real subject, he insinuates that he has some reason for be- lieving that Fra Cristoforo is quarrelsome. The wily Father guesses his purpose, and decides to sacrifice his turbulent friar rather than offend the powerful noble. Yet he must not sacrifice the dignity of his Order; the Count must feel that the favor granted merits compensation. By a few bold strokes Manzoni has also drawn Narrow- the figure of a narrow-minded and suspicious '"^^^^.ed and friar. Fra Cristoforo has asked Fra Fazio, the^"^]^^""^ sexton, to wait with him in the chapel, and to leave the door ajar for the refugees. " When the fugitives had come in. Father Cristoforo gently shut the door. The outraged sexton whispered, ' But, Father ! . . . . with women .... and the door shut .... against the rule ! ' Fra Cristo- foro considered: 'If a common robber, a mur- 98 Italian Romance Writers derer to escape pursuit, had taken refuge here, Fra Fazio would have raised no objection, yet for this poor, innocent lamb flying from the wolf . . . ' ' Omnia mundo mundis' said he aloud, turning abruptly toward Fra Fazio, and forgetting that the latter did not understand Latin. This forgetfulness, however, produced the desired effect. On hearing those words of mys- terious import, uttered with such a resolute ac- cent, Fra Fazio felt sure that they must contain an answer to all his doubts, and said: 'Very well, you know better ! ' " Fra But the immortal friar of Manzoni's work, the Cnstoforo cj-gature of his heart, whom he has traced with IS the immortal love, and into whom he has transfused the better friar of part of himself, is Fra Cristof oro. Like Shake- Manzoni's 5 t^ ■ t t- /^ • ^ r • j. ^ speare s rriar Laurence, l^ra Cnstoforo is not only an important character in the novel, but one of the best examples of the friar that is to be found in literature. The two figures have traits in common: both are Italian, both are connected with a love affair; but there the similarity ends. And in these two authors' divergent views of the friar type we have a measure of the distance be- tween two different epochs of literature ; for Man- zoni, writing in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, describes a seventeenth century scene, while Shakespeare, writing two hundred years earlier, represents fourteenth century life. In the Shakespearian fresco the friar is not Alexander Manzoni 99 meant to be fully seen ; the lights fall on one side of the figure, while some parts are left in shadow. Manzoni's friar, on the contrary, is accurately pencilled, nicely finished, and set in full sunshine ; yet, of the two, Shakespeare's friar is the more^^o^e- complete. The first words uttered by the friar of •L^^"''^'-^ ^ -' Fnar Romeo and Juliet give an idea of the man: oi Laurence. his kindliness, his admiration for nature, his sym- pathy with all that surrounds him. The gray- eyed morn smiling on the frowning night; the winsome grace that lies in herbs, plants, stones — all these he studies and loves; but neither his mind nor his heart is indifferent to the wants and the frailties of his fellow men. He knows that virtue itself changes to vice, being misapplied, and that sometimes even crime is dignified by heroic action. He knows, too, that a young man's love lies not in his heart but in his eyes. He perceives the inconstancy of Romeo's change of sweethearts in a single night. Still, he does not despair of human -nature ; and with this young love as his lever he hopes to turn rancour into sweetness, and that ultimately he may bring peace to the warring houses of Mon- tague and Capulet. Manzoni has not found for his friar so effect- ive an entree, but describes this friar with care and exactitude. Ludovico, Fra Cristoforo that is to be, was a young man of brilliant talent, but sowing his wild oats and reaping a harvest of 100 Italian Romance Writers Why Fra bitter experience. In a- street broil he kills a man. Cnstoforo pjg escapes from arrest by fleeing to a neighbour- a friar, ing convent, and there resolves to make amends for his crime. Summoning a notary, he conveys his property to the widow and children of Cristo- f oro, whom he has slain ; and, convinced that the hand of God has led him to the convent, thus saving him from his pursuers, he resolves to enter religion and become a friar. " Thus at the age of thirty Ludovico took the religious habit, and, being required, as customary, to change his name, he chose one that would continually re- mind him of the sin he had to expiate — the name of Cristoforo." Before he departs for a distant cloister, the newly made friar wishes. to supplicate the pardon of the murdered man's brother. On the appoint- ed day the friends and dependents assemble in the palace, while the Seigneur, surrounded by his nearest relatives, stands in the centre of the room, his looks downcast, his right hand crossed over his breast, his left hand grasping the hilt of his sword. He has the true Italian instinct for pose, and enjoys his role as chief actor in this drama of forgiveness and reconciliation. The pardon having been duly asked and granted, and the proffered refreshments declined, Fra Cristoforo begs a loaf of bread, "that I may partake of your charity and eat of your bread after being blessed with your forgiveness." Alexander Manzoni loi How differently do Shakespeare's and Man- Shake- zoni's friars deal with the problem of the r&- ''l''''''' ^'^ spective lovers and their desire for marriage, friars Of course, Friar Laurence will devoutly say: contrasted. " So smile the heavens upon this holy act, That after hours with sorrow chide us not." But he allows the lover's impatience to urge him on; and thovigh he knows that "violent delights have violent ends," and that "too swift arrives as tardy as too slow," still his generous heart makes short work of it, and Holy Church incor- porates these two in one. " Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed, Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her." And this, considering the circumstances, is real human charity. But is it a friar that acts and speaks so? If Shakespeare has here forgotteti to put the cowl and hood over his figure of a man, Manzoni forgets to put a man into the monastic robe. Cristoforo, for some unknown reason, does not even try to marry the lovers; but orders Renzo, in this moment of danger, to leave his betrothed, and that each should go a different way. Cristoforo is not made for action. The most important things happen while he is away some- where in the South. Here we feel the weakness of Manzoni ; it is as if in these stirring events he did not know what to do with the saintly friar; I02 Italian Romance Writers so he locks him up in a convent, and there keeps him till the time comes for him to reappear, when he is brought forward again. Toward the end we find him in the lassaretto, attending the sick with characteristic devotion for his fellow men. Here, surrounded by distress and pain, and amid the saddest spectacle that human misery can present — scenes which Manzoni describes with a power unequalled by any of his younger rivals — Cristoforo looms grand as the spirit of compassion over this ocean of sufiEering. Meeting Renzo has been wandering through the laz- Cristoforo ^(^^^^^0 in search of Lucia, dreading yet longmg and Renzo to find her there, when he espies Cristoforo. The _ «» the f j-j^j. ig partaking of his frugal repast, peering about and listening for the first call from one of the many sufferers around him. Exhausted by his heavy task, death's seal is stamped on his pallid features; but his heart is unchanged, his zeal unquenched. After the first inquiries, Renzo mutters curses against the author of all his misery. "Miserable man!" exclaims Fra Cris- toforo, in a voice full and sonorous, as in former days. " Look, miserable man ! Behold all around us who punishes! Who judges! What do you know of vengeance, what of justice? Begone! You have betrayed all my hopes ! " Bending his head, in slow, deep tones he adds : " Do you know why I wear this garb ?....! too have hated — I, who resented a hasty word of Alexander Manzoni 103 yours. I killed the man I hated. I too have hated with all my soul ; and the man I hated, that man I slew." " Yes, a tyrant; one of those " " Hush ! " interrupted the friar. " Think you that if there were any excuse I should not have found it in thirty years? Ah, if I could but instil into your heart the sentiment I have ever since had for the man I hated! But God can! Listen, Renzo . . . . " The beautiful sequel must be read in its entirety to be appreciated. Both Shakespeare and Manzoni have given Exit of both each to his friar an appropriate exit. As Shake- ^^'^''^- . . . speare s ana speare s story permits Friar Laurence to go in Mamoni's peace, and the Prince is justified in saying, "y^e friars. still have known thee for a holy man," so in Manzoni's we learn " with more sorrow than sur- prise that Fra Cristoforo died of the plague." This is the beauty and this the weakness of such a character: it is above nature. Yet a human soul has conceived it, other human souls have comprehended it, responding to this pure flame of love as to the call of some kindred spirit. Modern novelists are always ready to discover the evil lurking in our poor humanity. Thanks be to Manzoni, who shows us the possi- bilities of our ondoyante et diverse human nature ! There are also some nuns in Manzoni's novel ; but all are shadowy save Gertrude, the ill-fated wretch who assists Lucia's persecutors. We are told all the circumstances that perverted the soul I04 Italian Romance Writers The nun in of Gertrude before she entered the monastery. moni's novel. Mamoni's j^^ condemns the nun, but he more sternly con- demns her parents. Gertrude is heart-sick, and, hke many another sufferer, finds comfort in mak- ing other people unhappy. Manzoni's analysis is accurate, but it lacks warmth. The author has no "sympathy for the nun who has violated her vows, and she is dismissed as soon as pos- sible. Her fate remains as mysterious as the walls of her convent. In the story of this nun we are introduced to some of the nobility: the Prince, her father, who cleverly manoeuvres to persuade Gertrude to enter the cloister ; the Princess, whose affection is concentrated on her son and heir; the Young Prince, "as brisk as a hare, and who must not be kept: waiting"; her uncles, who glibly encourage the prospective nun; the relatives, friends, and parasites that compliment her; the servants who share their master's views — all com- plete the picture of a Milanese noble household of that time. Don Don Rodrigo is a type of those noble-born ty- a "topical '"^'^ts whom the Spaniards protected and used as tyrant, tools. He is the product of many causes, is moulded by circumstances, and is what many an- other man might have been in his place. When finally he meets with failure he tries to forget it by leading a more reckless life. If finally infected by the plague, it is merely because from this conscience. Alexander Manzoni 105 danger he could neither fly nor be preserved by his followers or his castle stronghold. The de- scription of his illness and removal to the las- saretto by the monatti, and afterward his death, is famous. The Unknown — more correctly the Un- named — ^has an important place in the novel; the change happening in his soul brings about the crisis in Lucia's fate. When we first vat&tThe him he has conquered every human foe, but^^" "^^"^ there is another combat which is only now be-6ji his ginning. He is troubled by that unconquerable adversary, his conscience. In the security of his guarded stronghold, in the glory of his estab- lished fame, he begins "to doubt whether the Divine Law he has so far ignored may not be something which has an accomplishment." He measures the difference between Lucia's helpless- ness and his own power, and, though wishing "that she might have been the daughter of his most cruel foe, it would have been so pleasant to see her weep," he utters that "to-morrow" which is the harbinger of his transformation. Cardinal Borromeo, who so tactfully directs the first steps of the penitent, well knows that the man's character is not changed, but only di- rected into another channel. The eagerness for praise, the desire to be supreme, are still there. Cardinal Borromeo, though he bears an historic name and is copied from the life of an historic io6 Italian Romance Writers personage, is one of the least lifelike characters in the novel. He is the impersonation of the ideal priest. This embodiment of all Christian virtue stands as a foil to all the petty vanities, weak- ness, fears, intrigues, that swarm around him. Contrast The Counterpart of this saintly priest is that i^toeen i^ie ^g^ popular of all Manzoni's characters — Don tdeal priest, ^ '^ Ca?-dmo/ Abbondio. All the baseness that tyranny has Borromeo, produced, all, the immorality that is born of op- base priest, pfcssion, the petty cunning, the blind submission Don to every person that can harm — all these combine Abbcndio.^^ make Don Abbondio. He is a coward, conscious of his cowardice ; and in a certain sense we approve of his .... excessive prudence. When he is accosted by the two bravi he is so frightened that he immediately obeys their com- mand. It is not Don Rodrigo whom he blames, but Renzo, "who must be raving after Lucia for want of something else to do ! " And what could not Manzoni have achieved as a playwright! There is not in all the Italian Comical theatre a more comical scene than the attempted '^marriage marriage by surprise in Don Abbondio's house. by surprise. The Curate's soliloquy over his books in the se- curity of his own room; the entrance of the two witnesses introduced by Perpetua; the money transaction between the Curate and the wit- nesses ; then the sudden apparition between them of the betrothed; Don Abbondio snatching up the table-cloth and wrapping Lucia's head and Alexander Manzoni 107 face with it, to prevent her from uttering the consecrated words; the upsetting of the lamp, with all these people groping in the dark, each intent on a different aim — all described with a brio seldom equalled in Goldoni's plays. Only in Moliere's best comedies do we find such a psychological foundation to an exhilarating scene. How amusing Don Abbondio's reflections all The mental along the road! He grumbles at "those people If ^'^ff"* who are born with a troublesome spirit and must Abbondio ever be making a fuss Is it so difficult to act an honest part all one's life, as I have done? .... No; they must go murdering, cutting to pieces, playing the devil — O me ! — and even make a rumpus when they do penance! .... Surely, one can be a penitent at home, in private, with- out such a noise .... without giving so much trouble to everybody." "When Cardinal Borromeo upbraids him for his cowardly desertion of the sheep intrusted to his care, Don Abbondio bowed low his head; he felt under the weight of these arguments like a chicken under the talons of a hawk, that holds it suspended in an unknown region, in an at- mosphere it has never breathed." He does not repent; because he makes a virtue of saving his life. "When one has to do with powerful peo- ple who will not listen to reason it is foolish to run into peril." "We cannot give ourselves io8 Italian Romance Writers courage" — and why should the Cardinal care more for the love-making of two young people than the life of one of his priests? "O, what a saintly man! But what a troublesome one!" Lucia and Lucia and Renzo are weak characters mould- jyggj^ ed by every surrounding influence. Lucia is so characters, passive that we do not pity her, though we blame the social conditions which, by fostering a Don Rodrigo and all such oppressors, make it pos- sible to so curb and crush a human creature. Renzo is less shadowy. The attempted surprise of Don Abbondio is clever, though he acts the simpleton in the hands of Azzeccagarbugli. The part he plays in the bread riots is only im- prudent. When he sees the bakery plundered he perceives the futility of the act. " If they thus serve all the bake-houses, where will they make their bread? " But after witnessing the victory of the mob he is easily persuaded that the success of any enterprise can be secured by the co-opera- tion of the rabble, and to them he appeals for help. His speech to the mob is a marvel of con- struction; its vague ideas are in accord with the speaker's and the listener's feelings. It truly por- trays the times, but the speaker remains the impersonation of a type, not an individuality. Lifelike Many of the secondary characters are life- secondary jjj^g_ -pj^g High Chancellor Ferrer driving in ch(lT(XCt£VS his coach through the infuriated mob, abusing them in Spanish to his coachman, but presenting Alexander Manzoni 109 now at one window, now at the other, a counte- nance full of humility, sweetness, and benevo- lence — ^kissing his hand, lavishing promises, and begging for a little space to get on — is life-like. The frightened Superintendent, who wanders from room to room, and commends himself to God and to his servants, while the rabble howl and thunder at his door, is also a worthless tool of a bad master. The host of the Full Moon is another. On seeing Renzo enter his tavern at- tended by a spy, he mutters to himself: "I do not know you, but since you come with such a hunter you must be either a dog or a hare." Perpetua is almost as popular a character as Perpetua's Don Abbondio. Her name has become the com- ""'"^ ^'^^ mon noun for a whole class of persons — middle- typical. aged spinsters attached to a clergyman's service. In the enforced intimacy of such small establish- ments Perpetua must either be a saint attending to the wants of a saint, or else an object of ridi- cule or contempt. She is "an affectionate and faithful servant, who knows how to command and how to obey; who can bear the grumblings of her master and make him bear hers." Her advice is always ready, and is usually sensible. An artist like Manzoni shows his discernment in the fact that, having created such successful secondary characters he has resisted the temp- tation to make them unduly prominent. There are some peaceful nooks in this Milan- 1 1 o Italian Romance Writers The ese world of Manzoni's. There is the picture of peaceful -q^^ Ferrante and Donna Prassede, whose house side of the Milanese for a short time shelters Lucia. A henpecked ■world, husband, a kind, blundering wife, " always get- ting herself and others into mischief because she only uses means which are calculated to promote the very opposite of that which she intends." There is the humble household of the tailor, where Lucia is first escorted by Don Abbondio on leav- ing the castle. The good dame, wise in her say- ings and doings, and her husband, " who was able to read and had read all the Reali di Francia, and yet modestly repelled the praises of his country- men." " When he beheld Cardinal Borromeo entering his own house he bustled his way through the crowd, crying out: 'Make room for those who have a right to enter ! ' " And when the Cardinal speaks to him, he is so "animated by his desire to show off before his Eminence that he wrinkles his brow, presses his mouth, and is so confused that he finds nothing better than a 'Si iiguri!' (Only think), and he will forever regret all the nice speeches he might have made." Manzoni But Manzoni not only ably analyzed a charac- '^'""^^^'ter and perceived the inner workings of an in- humanity dWidnal soul; he also possessed the rarer gift in the mass, of comprehending humanity in the mass. A crowd is more than a multiplication of individu- als. In the ever-varying mixture and its uncer- Alexander Manzoni 1 1 1 tain results is found the problem which puzzles Mamoni, the statesman and tempts the novelist. Few men ""^ ^ economist. have so successfully guessed the riddle as Man- zoni. The bread riots in Milan are an illustra- tion. Manzoni states causes which have brought about the scarcity: deficient harvests; the havoc of war, with the consequent devastation and scanty tillage of the land; then certain circum- stances have aggravated the disease. The mag- istrates, guided by no standard of right, only promulgated illegal measures that exaggerated the evil. These things are described with the eyes of an Mansoni, economist ; but when the spark has been set to *^^ f'°'[ the accumulated fuel, when the tumult roars in the streets and squares, when the passions of the crowd are unchained, then Manzoni has the soul of a poet to interpret the storm, the perception of a psychologist to follow the individual cur- rents of thought, and the talent of the writer that can build up this complex structure with power and beauty. Renzo's progress across the plague-stricken Ma«so«i'i city presents vivid pictures. The woman im- ^'^fcnptwn mured m the mfected house and beggmg a loai piague. of bread from Renzo ; the funeral convoy of many cars heaped high with half-naked corpses; the description of the most desolated quarters of the city and the lassaretto. Sometimes some suave apparition appears, as of the mother lay- 1 1 2 Italian Romance Writers ing her dead babe on the car and kissing it a last farewell, and our strained nerves have short respite before we proceed through still darker scenes. Law of 1^ obedience to the law of contrasts demanded demanded ^7 Romanticism, death and torment, vice and by Roman- ioWy, are indeed set as a foil to self-denial and ■'"f'*^'"' godliness, but it is only moral beauty which ■> " ■ -: ji/Ianzoni opposes to moral ugliness. He shuns the easy virtuosity of furbishing his favourites with the glamour of beauty. Lucia, recovering from her illness, has none of the delicacy or sentimental paleness of the typical romantic heroine. Renzo .... what could not a roman- tic writer have made with Renzo's face and figure ! But Manzoni will have good triumph over evil without alien help! Not because they are young and fair shall the betrothed be finally happy and united; but because they have been the victims of wrong-doing, and because they have trusted God. Boccaccio's A comparison between Boccaccio's and Man- Maiisoni's zoni's description of the plague measures the descriptions difference between the view-point of the Renais- °f ^^'^""^ sance and that of the Risors,imento. Boccaccio compared. ... - . describes vividly the sights that have impressed him. He loves life, and is dismayed by its evils. The deserted town, the sick dying solitary, the dead lying unburied, is repulsive; it nause- Alexander Manzoni 113 ates him. If friends and relatives fearfully avoid each other; if magistrates and statesmen flee from danger and duty, Boccaccio does not blame them. He is as indifferent to the law of love as were his masters — the Greek and Latin poets. His Florentine dames and cavaliers are witty and clever and gay in the security of their country villa, yet their moral evolution is that of the Roman matrons who slew gladiators with their down-turned thumbs. Diversion is their refuge from sorrow, and Boccaccio approves. Manzoni's whole work is an eloquent exposition of the law of love, and his description of the plague is a hymn to those feelings and to the duties they imply. The common trait between pagan Boccaccio Boccaccio and Christian Manzoni, the only resemblance™'^ which betrays their common Latmism, is uvcir alike sug- incapacity to suggest courageous resistance tos"'"<' r , >T-,, 1 r • • • resistance fate, i he only escape from misery is evasion — ^^ ,^^ egotistical diversion in Boccaccio, blind trust in some future compensation in Manzoni; but neither suggests courageous resistance of evils that are tangible and can be fought with tangible weapons. Some critics declare the plot of / Promessi Sposi old-fashioned. Manzoni has anticipated this criticism by one of his quaint similes : " I remem- ber a clever boy I once watched driving a herd of Indian pigs to their sty. Vainly he tried to 114 Italian Romance Writers push them all at once. When he had caught one of them, the others would run off. At last, by- dint of pushing inside, first those that were near at hand, then the others as they came closer, he finally succeeded in penning them all. Thus must I manage with my personages." Manzoni is never in a hurry. He stops to crack his joke or insert a personal reflection with that pleasant deliberateness unknown to our strenuous modern novelists. MansonVs vVe have, too, poetical apostrophes: "Fare- farewell to .., , . . . ^ , the scenes of ^^^^' ye mouutams, rismg out of the waters, his novel, upreared toward the sky ! Farewell, varied summits, as familiar as the face of a friend! Farewell, ye torrents, whose roaring sounds like friendly voices! Villas scattered over the de- clivities, like herds of grazing sheep, farewell! Whoever has lived with you and must leave you moves sadly away. Even in the soul of him who voluntarily departs, allured by golden promises, at the moment of parting from you, the dream of wealth seems tawdry ; and he wonders how he can have thus resolved and would fain remain." His Quaintly Manzoni says farewell to his read- quaintfare-^j.^_ "The reports that Bergamascans had well to his , r T • 1 r T-. ) readers, heard of Lucia and of Kenzo s great attachment to her had excited an extravagant idea of her beauty. When Lucia made her appearance they shrugged their shoulders, and said : ' Is this the girl? We expected something quite different! Alexander Manzoni 1 1 5 Women like her and fairer than she are to be met with every day!' Renzo refrained, but longed to answer : ' Did I tell you that she was fair ? Do you not like her ? . . . . You need not look at her !' " Is Lucia here meant for the book itself ? And Manzoni declares that whatever the great public might think of his book, he was satisfied with it. MASSIMO TAPARELLI D'AZEGLIO MASSIMO TAPARELLI D'AZEGLIO WHEN we have seen the picture, heard the opera, and read the novel wherein some "genius" has put the best of himself, we know all that is interesting of many a painter, musician, and novelist; for the un- usual development of one faculty often means the dwarfing of others. The "genius" is usu- Save the ally a one-sided man. But there are a privi- ^''*^''^^^'^ leged few in whom the harmonious expansions J^^^^-^ of the moral and intellectual life present a satis- usually a fying sense of completeness — men who, HiiQ one-stded Massimo Taparelli D'Azeglio, by consistent en- deavour and worthy living, have attained a place among the elect. The Taparelli belonged to the sturdy and loyal The Piedmontese nobility, worthy descendants of the '^aparelh family. " male assuetus Ligur " admired by Julius Caesar. The father, Cesare Taparelli, was a soldier, and he wished his sons to be soldiers. " It was our father's custom to take us for long walks regu- lated by special rules. We were forbidden to ask : ' How many miles have we walked ? ' ' How many more have we to do?' 'What o'clock is it?' Nor were we allowed to say that we were either thirsty, tired, cold, or hungry." When seventeen years of age D'Azeglio en- iig 120 Italian Romance Writers D'Azegho'si[^lQ(l in the city militia, and assisted the untri- ccit'lv Itf^ umphant return of King Victor Emanuel I. on May 20th. "I was on parade in Piazza Castello, and can well remember the group formed by the King and his staff. With their antiquated garments, pow- dered periwigs, and hats a la Frederic II., they T/ic >-f?Mn» certainly cut a strange figure. . . . His Majesty EmanueU ^^'^ uot cven posscss 3. coach and pair, so my father presented him a grand gala coach, which had done duty at his own marriage; a huge ma- chine all crystal and gildings, with dropsical cherubs painted on its panels. "In this chariot the King was driven through the streets of Turin all day and until midnight, amidst the cheers and rejoicings of the people. His booby face popping out of the gilded win- dows, lavishing smiles and salutations right and left, with the accompaniment of that funny little tail of his periwig sweeping his shoulders, to the great enjoyment of us all." D'AsegUo's In the following year D'Azeglio's father was first visit ggj^^ ^g Ambassador to Rome to bear the restored to Ix.o'yi'is King's greetings to the restored Pope, and our youthful warrior accompanied him as secretary. What a biting satire on this corrupt Rome when his most truthful father suggested that on their return home "it would be well to speak charita- bly of a place where they had met such kindness." The disgust excited by these first impressions of Massimo Taparelli D'Azeglio 121 Rome made D'Azeglio an anticlerical for life; his D'Asegiw disapproval of the restored sfovernment in pied-*^^°f" "" ° anticlerical mont made him a liberal. Why should he, a and liberal. mere stripling, be raised to a higher rank in the army than those veterans who had bravely bat- tled on many fields? Tuinese society was amazed when the gay young officer, the promis- ing rake, breaking from hiS" former associates, started for Rome to study painting and live on a pittance, until he could earn his own bread with his brush. His hatred of conspiracy kept him aloof from/je joins Carbonarism as long as it was a secret society, '^"^ ''^^o'* but when, in 1845, the leaders proposed an open" revolt, he enthusiastically enlisted in the move- ment. After a tour in Romagna, to understand the real disposition of the people, D'Azeglio asked and obtained an audience with the King. "The King's countenance seemed to promise a kind response to my appeal, but I had some reason to fear it would be 'ibis redihis,' and leave me no wiser than when I had come in. With his eyes steadily fixed on mine, Carlo' Alberto said: 'Let these gentlemen know that, in case of fa- vourable opportunity presenting itself, they may be sure that my life, my children, my army, treasures, weapons, my all; will I spend in the defense of the Italian cause.' " Three years later came the favourable oppor- tunity. Carlo Alberto declared war, and D'Azeg- 122 Italian Romance Writers D'Asegiio lio thrcw himsclf into the conflict. Badly in war and ^oun^ed at the battle of Monte Berico, D'Azeg- m politics. /-.I lio was carried to Florence. Gloomily he wrote to his sister : " We will have to go down to the very bottom before we recover our footing after this." This "we" was indeed personal, since D'Azeglio was Prime Minister. D'Azeglio's po- litical career was virtually ended on the day when he introduced Count Cavour into the Privy Coun- cil, and when to King Victor Emanuel's warning " that this man would never be satisfied with one portfolio, but must have them all," he answered : "Let him, sire, as it will be for the welfare of the country ! " D'Azeglio's To a noble public career, the dignity of his private pj-iyate life was a fitting counterpart. This Mar- quis, who had been Prime Minister and Governor of Provinces, in every interval of office plodded at his easel, earning his daily bread. Of his mar- riage with Giulia, daughter of Manzoni, there is little to say. If it did not prove happy, the se- cret — perhaps a royal secret — was well kept. His only daughter Alessandra married Marquis Ricci. D'Azeglio From painting an historical picture, he turned writes IS ^Q writing an historical novel. " The eagerness of writing was added to that of painting ; I rushed headlong on the new track. I scarcely had pa- tience enough to find out, in Guicciardini, the necessary passages, and immediately dashed on Massimo Taparelli D'Azeglio 123 the first scene in the Piazza of Barletta. What did I know about that part of Italy? I just took the pains of measuring on the first map the dis- tance between Barletta and Mount Gargano ; and guessing that it must be visible from the town, I set it boldly as the background of my plan. Then I proceeded to build up a Barletta, an islet of Sant' Orsola, a Rocca, out of my own fantasy, presenting to the world a whole host of useless personages." Of course in a novel thus written the plot is "Ettore Fie- improbable, the characters vague. This Ettore'''"'^'"'''" ■^ . '=' an itnita- Fieramosca is a clumsy imitation of Walter Scott twn of in his most romantic vein, yet it was hailed with Walter enthusiasm. It pointed out possibilities, gave voice to slumbering aspirations, awakened self- confidence and pride, in the disheartened descend ants of the thirteen Italian heroes whose praise D'Azeglio sung. The saintly Lady Gertrude is harshly treated p/o/ 0/^ by her husband, Count Graiano d'Asti. Cesare "^"'"''^ Borgia orders the poor woman- to be drugged ; mosca." apparently dead, she is carried into the family vault, where her lover, Ettore Fieramosca, as he prays and weeps, with joy and amaze sees the beloved one rise from her coffin. Ettore Fiera- mosca hides her from the monster Borgia and her conniving husband in the Convent of Saint Orsola, near Barletta. There she experiences the romantic adventures proper to such heroines. 1 24 Italian Romance Writers and the reader gets the usual dose of knights, wastrels, innkeepers, nuns, and pages, street broils, duels, tournaments, and shipwrecks. Fi- nally Gertrude again falls into the clutches of Cesare Borgia and dies of a broken heart, whilst Ettore is last seen alive riding to the brow of a cliff, at the foot of which his mangled corpse is afterward discovered. "The The episode which gives to the book its second of Barietta" ^^^^^> ^^^ Challenge of B arietta, is a detached an historical page of history. In the year 1503, the French episode. ^^^ ^}jg Italo-Spanish armies being in proximity near Barietta, a challenge was sent by thirteen Italian knights to as many French — Bayard and Prosper Colonna sitting as umpires. The Italians won the dav. Fanfulla One of the characters, FanfuUa da Lodi, the daLodian-j^^^^^ and witty condottiere, is the ideaHzed freebooter, type of those freebooters whose recklessness has ever been admired .... in novels. When we again meet Fanfulla, in D'Azeglio's second novel, he is twenty years older, has been present at the siege and plunder of Rome, where he has lost one eye, and has been so shocked by the wickedness and cruelty around him that he has entered the Convent of San Marco, in Florence. Here, on a cheerless, damp morning of October, 1529, with an appropriate accompaniment of roaring can- non, to a congregation of armed men, he assists in serving early mass over the corpse of Baccio, Massimo Taparelli D'Azeglio 125 Niccolo de' Lapi's son, who has fallen on the ramparts of Florence, then besieged by the Im- perial army. If treason and party division had not destroyed Piorence her, Florence might have resisted both Emperor ^ treason. and Pope. The traitor was Malatesta Baglioni, that able but unprincipled captain, called from Perugia to direct the defence of Florence. The gay Florentine noblemen swarmed round the Medicean escutcheon — six balls of azure in a field of gold, from which their name of Palles- chi — whilst the followers of Savonarola were nicknamed Piagnoni from their perpetual lamen- tations. Niccolo de' Lapi is a leader of the popular MccoW party. "His shoulders were square, his figure ^.^ ^"^J.' , tall and strong, his cheeks ruddy; both fiow'mg the people. beard and hair were snow white; while under- neath his dark eyebrows his coal-black eyes glit- tered fiercely." He is eighty years old, he kneels beside the coffin of his son (the third who has fallen), yet in his prayer, he offers to God his own and his other children's lives. As he rises from his knees he permits Bindo, his youngest son, to go and fill the place left empty by the dead brother. Niccolo was among the first disciples of Savonarola, and in his house the saint's ashes and the last robe worn by him are treasured as sacred relics in a shrine. The old man, sitting under the ever-burning lamp before the niche, is 126 Italian Romance Writers next shown presiding over this assembly of chil- dren and friends. Household "^Ye enter the household of one of these wealthy " de'^Lapl merchants who dictate the law to princes in their money transactions, who discuss state affairs, issue orders to the Commanders of armies in their pay, yet eat simple meals on rough boards, and, disregarding the silks and velvets with which they supplied the world, wear only the cloth " lucco e cappuccio" recommended by Savonarola. The family Three sons and two daughters are grouped de'Lapi i"ound Niccolo. " On the thoughf ul brow of Lau- domia, the eldest, in the slow but suave move- ments of her eyes, in the sound of her voice and in every gesture, there shone an indefinite some- thing, most maidenlike and pure, which is not the privilege of one time of life, or one social condition. A subtle something which at times will adorn the brow of a mother, and at other times will be vainly sought for on a girlish face ; that expression which is like the beauty of a soul shining through a mortal veil, an expres- sion which is not beauty, though it enhances its power tenfold, sanctifies and ennobles it so as to stand for it; and also for grandeur and majesty, as it lends dignity to the lowest fortune." Lamberto, Lisa, the second daughter, though only eight- the lover ^^^ shows On her face traces of carping- care and of Lisa i o de' Lapi. anxiety. Lamberto, a fine fellow, brought up in Niccolo's household, has two years previously Massimo Taparelli D'Azeglio 127 asked Lisa to wait for him, whilst he carved a position for her to share. "Lamberto's plan to rise rapidly in the world by adopting the military profession oflfered many chances of success, pro- vided he possessed the soldierly qualifications and that no untimely musket-ball should interfere. The condottiere system was still in full sway, and anyone had a chance of becoming a chief, if he could inspire sufficient confidence, and enjoy fame enough to induce companions to join his banner." Lamberto has been bravely fighting his way^a/^? to fame and wealth ; he has loyally repulsed, the J^^j^^ violent passion of the beautiful courtesan Sel- vaggia ; but Lisa has not kept true to her absent lover. A gay young nobleman, Troilo degli Ar- dinghelli, a friend and companion of the disso- lute Medici, has persuaded her to a secret mar- riage, and now as she sits by Laudomia's side, amidst her father's stern friends, Lisa may well look anxious as she thinks of her husband, fight- ing in the enemy's camp, and of her babe con- cealed in the room upstairs. A strange assembly of chiefs is this one sit- ting round old Niccolo de' Lapi : leaders of men, because each of them embodies one of the ideals of his countrymen. The Prior of San Marco, a saintly scholar; Francesco Ferruccio, who has discarded the yardstick to grasp the sword of command over all the Florentine forces in Tus- cany. Stern resolves are made, bitter words are 128 Italian Romance Writers uttered against the hated Palleschi, and when a messenger brings news of the beheading of one who said that Florence rightfully belonged to the Medici, these unflinching Christians are grimly content, yet before parting for the night they join in prayers "for our worst enemies." Niccolo, left alone, is surprised by the return of Ferruccio, bearing a letter from the Chan- cellor Carducci. A denunciation having reached this supreme magistrate, he sends it to his trust- ed friend that he may clear himself. The old man finds ample confirmation of the letter when he bursts into his daughter's room and finds Lisa giving breast to her babe. With curses Niccolo the mother and child are turned from the house curses us ^^^^ ^-^^ dark street in a drizzling rain. There daughter. ° she is discovered by our old acquaintance Fan- fulla, who on that very morning has left his con- vent and enlisted in the Florentine militia. Messer Troilo degli Ardinghelli is pleased with his wife's appearance in the camp under the escort of FanfuUa. It fits the plot between him- self and Malatesta Baglioni, the Pope's emissary, that he should play repentance and enter the De' Lapi's household, there to spy out every move of the besieged. But it takes all Troilo's un- blushing subtlety and all Malatesta's cunning to persuade Niccolo and FanfuUa that the wolf has become a lamb. On returning home with her husband and child, Lisa finds that her quondam Massimo Taparelli D'Azeglio 129 lover Lamberto has understood his own mind and has obtained Laudomia's hand. It is a quaint wedding, the solemn Piagnone Quaint ceremony contrasting with the half pagan prac- ■^?f.'"'"^ tices of an old servant to avert ill omens. Lau- ceremony. domia's happiness is soon ended. On the day of the wedding Lamberto is ordered to join Fer- ruccio in Empoli ; Troilo, seized by lustful desire, and the jealous Selvaggia, have combined to part the married pair. Only when the city has fallen once more in The fall of the hands of the detested Palleschi, and when two ^^"J^!"^' ana the more of his sons have fallen in efforts to defend departure it, does Niccolo resolve to leave for Genoa, as- °f ^iccold. sured of the fulfilment of Savonarola's prophecy : " Florentia post Haggella renovahitur." The sacred relics are packed in a precious box and an entry of the event made in his diary; then the " old man sat down to rest, but his eye having caught the flicker of the lamp burning before the empty shrine, he rose and blew it out. This seemingly simple action agonized his blighted heart. Since the death of the Master this lamp had never been extinguished, and Niccolo at every hour of day and night, turned to it in his prayers." Bindo, Troilo, Lamberto, and their wives ; Fan-, fulla, a German follower of Lamberto, and an aged servant ride out of Florence and reach Ga- vinana on the second day. There they all dis- 130 Italian Romance Writers mount, to pray on the spot where Ferruccio was slain. Ambuscade "While Niccolo pronounced some inspired and capture ^Qj-^jg j„ honour of the dead hero ; and his family, of Ntccolo. ' ■' ' reverently kneelmg, were mtently hstenmg to him, seven soldiers with swords in hand, followed by fifty armed peasants, rushed on them from the church; their hands were pinioned, dagger and sword points were at their throats, and a voice cried out : ' Whoever moves is a dead man ! You are all prisoners of the Pope ! ' ' Pris- oner of the Pope' meant death for Niccolo; yet the bitterest pang in this bitter hour is the sight of Troilo left free whilst they are all bound with fetters or ropes. ' He was a traitor ! ' Niccolo ex- claims, and the dying Lisa also cries out: 'He was a traitor ! ' " Lamberto and Laudomia are carried to a neighbouring castle, from which they are res- cued by Lamberto's attendant and Fanfulla. Troilo meets appropriate punishment, and is flung alive into a fathomless pit; but the peni- tent Selvaggia is forgiven by her victims. Nic- colo de' Lapi alone is brought back to Florence to a cell in the Bargello. Neither the spectacle of the block, raised in the central Cortile and dripping with his friend Carducci's blood, nor the sight of judges picked from among his ene- mies, daunt the old man's spirit. Torture only Massimo Taparelli D'Azeglio 131 stirs him to apostrophize his persecutors in pro- phetic accents. Niccolo's last hours are spent in the chapel ^»'^'^'''^'* • 1 1 1 1 1 T-. 1 11 • ■ last hours, With the hooded Brethren, whose duty it is to pray ^^^ ^g^th, and comfort the condemned. The golden light of the setting sun sends its oblique rays across the painted window-panes, the men surround Niccolo, they chant the psalms for the dying; one by one they approach him, and through the small openings of the cappuccio the old man sees the eyes of his sons and friends beaming on him with tenderness and devotion ; they whisper their resolve to liberate him or die with him. But Niccolo bids them refrain from useless blood- shed. Between his son and Lamberto he calmly walks to the block, the venerated head is severed with one sharp blow of the axe, and the bereaved sons piously lay the body in its grave. Though D'Azeglio's novels have retained D'AzegUo's much of their popularity, there is growing pref- 'l^l"^gllp^y_ erence for his unfinished autobiography, / miei Ricordi. Here indeed truth is presented to the reader with all the emotions they have ex- cited in the author. A man of D'Azeglio's re- finement never pretends to give us, a la Rous- seau, the whole truth; he even warns us that there are topics which he entirely omits, but everything that he deems fit to be said he says with sincerity. Direct observation and accurate 132 Italian Romance Writers reproduction lend to this unpretentious nar- rative of well-known facts the attraction of a familiar chat with an amiable and well-in- formed man. It suggests, too, a capacity for comprehension and penetration which are not evinced in D'Azeglio's novels. The value of D'Azeglio's Ricordi is not easily overrated, since it answers to one of the highest ideals of a book: the revelation of a lovable spirit. "On cherchait un auteur, on est tres heureux de rencontrer un homme" might have been written for him. FRANCESCO DOMENICO GUERRAZZI FRANCESCO DOMENICO GUERRAZZI. F RANCESCO DOMENICO GUERRAZZI, Giterrazzis , IT-. • 1- -L birth and the popular Romantic novelist, was born education. at Leghorn in August, 1804. His parents were so unkind to him that, when fourteen years old, he ran away from home. Within a twelve- month he was a law student at the University of Pisa. In his Memoirs he describes his uni- versity training as " no learning at all and much persecution," to which should be added extensive though random readings and such irregular at- tendance at lessons as was then deemed sufficient for the obtaining of a lawyer's degree. As a barrister Guerrazzi soon became popular. Guerrazzi Though coarse and bombastic, he was sometimes °'^ ° "'^y^''- eloquent, and was feared as an opponent, if not desired as an advocate. Guerrazzi's power and his limitations are explained by the persistence of this double personality : as writer and as law- yer. Even in his novels he seems the lawyer for the prosecution, eager to convict somebody, and not particular as to his methods. In 1828 he violently attacked the Grand-ducal Guerrazzi Government, and was sentenced to six months' "" ^^''^^ "'"^ msurrec- banishment to Montepulciano, a punishment tionist. which he bitterly resented. On returning from this first exile, Guerrazzi was acknowledged as 135 136 Italian Romance Writers the leader of the most turbulent faction. After the events of 1831 he was imprisoned, and dur- ing his enforced leisure wrote his ponderous novel, The Siege of Florence, a clamourous success. Made a When the Grand-duke of Tuscany tried to Minister P""^? ^^^ tottcring thronc with a liberal govern- then ment he gave Guerrazzi a portfolio in his cabinet, imprisoned. ^^^ j^g ^g^g ^QQXi dismissed and imprisoned. This was rather to save him from the fury of the mob than with purpose of punishment. Indeed, the sentence was immediately commuted into exile to the neighbouring island of Corsica. Upon his release he retired to his country- place near Cecina, "La Cinquantina," a broken and disappointed man, " tired at heart and soured in mind, enjoying the companionship of the sea, the windy forest, and malaria, vainly courting peace." Nor was Guerrazzi more successful in private life. He shunned the responsibihty of marriage, but neither the vulgar companion who shared his fortune, nor the nephew he adopted, gave him joy in return for his fitful but genuine at- tachment. Guerrazzi's Guerrazzi's literary production is significantly tterary gj^^pg^j ^y ^]^g same causes as his life. He cre- teristics. ated nothing, but intensified every wave of thought, every fount of emotion. A good actor, he felt his role, and rendered it with the gesture Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi 137 and intonations suggested by the presence of an interested audience. If he misses this audience he becomes dull, and is bewildered at the sudden loss of favour. Having met Lord Byron in Pisa, he expresses his unbounded admiration: "Report had spread that the most extraor- His admi- dinary man had come to Pisa. People spoke of ^IgyJs'Zgn him in a thousand different ways. He was of royal descent, powerful and wealthy, ferocious and bloodthirsty by nature, yet preeminent in every chivalrous feat; a genius of evil, and at the same time of superhuman intellect; he wan- dered like Job's Satan all over the world, to espy if anyone were bold enough to slander him in God's presence. This man was Lord Byron. I saw him; he was like the Apollo of the Vatican. 'If this man is bad,' said I, 'God is a deceiver; as I will never believe that the Creator has lodged an evil soul in such a beautiful body.' " This gushing admiration for Byron directed Gferrassi Guerrazzi's attention to the whole Romantic f^'f"'^'^ by the movement. The shadow of Manfred's gloom Romantic has darkened many of his pages, but Victor »»<'^^'"^«'- Hugo and the French Romantiques provided Guerrazzi with his model of an historical novel. The same absence of genuine feeling, the same lack of historical comprehension exhibited by Notre-Dame de Paris, is found in The Siege "The of Florence. A crowd of personages swarm £f ^^ °f ' . . , Florence." across the scene, strange figures start mto har- 138 Italian Romance Writers rowing or ludicrous attitudes, then disappear without leaving a clue to their real meaning. Guerraszi's There is Pieruccio, so evidently imitated from *"" "j^^^oy Victor Hugo ! " Who is Pieruccio ? Nobody can Hugo, tell whether he dropped down from the sky or whether the earth had erupted him as a volcano casts out a stone ; no one knew his age ; grief had anticipated the age of decrepitude, time had found no wrinkle to add, no outline to blur ; neither the inclemency of storms nor of ill health could touch him. When Savonarola preached, he would like a dog crouch under the pulpit whence now and then he uttered awful sobs, which people at first would mistake for voices calling out from the womb of earth wherein the bones of their fore- fathers stirred under the accents of the power- ful word. He prophesied the dawn and fall of Liberty in Florence. Towards sunset he would fill the town with his appalling shrieks, then dis- appear, and where he went was a mystery, as all tyrants had often and in vain striven to find ■ him." None of the usual ingredients of Romance are wanting in Guerrazzi's novels. Dead men re- turn to life, lunatics recover their wits, innocence is outraged and vice triumphant ; all the startling contrasts, all the incoherency which had glittered in its newness under the magic pen of the masters, is wearisomely rehearsed in this astounding olla podrida. Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi 139 From Shelley's drama, The Cenci, he took the ^" ""^'''^ subject of his Beatrice Cenci, and as much of^j^^"-./^ the spirit as he could appropriate, but failed to imitated^ grasp the significance of his model. A poet does (f,"?, , , . . Shelley s more than present historic facts and personages : drama. he creates characters illumined with the light of his own soul. This Shelley has done, and this Guerrazzi could not do. They both lack historic accuracy; yet this deficiency is hardly more felt in Shelley's than in Shakespeare's plays; for his personages live and breathe and speak. But though Guerrazzi has painfully read the docu- ments he failed to grasp the significance of the picture. The outline of this gloomy story is well known. The story Count Francesco Cenci, having violated his"''^ ^""' daughter Beatrice, is found murdered in his palace. A papal court of justice sentences to death all the members of his family, on suspicion of having committed or ordered the murder. The riches and lands of the Cenci are forfeited to the Holy See. To Shelley's mind the beauty of the subject lay Shelley's in the contrast between the actual guilt and ^^^ll^ntmsud moral innocence of the wretched girl. Guerrazzi with emphasizes the cruelty and rapacity of the judges '^^«^''<^^^^'^- who tormented the rriaiden into confessing a crime she had not committed. Shelley, in one short scene, delineates the powerful figure of Count Francesco Cenci, a monster in human 140 Italian Romance Writers form. The figure is appalling as a nightmare, and prepares our consent to Beatrice's action. Guerrazzi shows us, more minutely but less truly, the villain plotting his own son's ruin, and blas- pheming outrageously. Beatrice and her crippled brother Virgilio are sitting on a terrace overlooking the gardens of Palazzo Cenci. They speak of past and present misery, and find comfort in each other's affection. As she bends over the railings and points to a distant church where their mother is buried, Bea- trice drops a paper and a locket which had been concealed in her bodice. Urged by her agonized cry, the boy vaults over the railings, and, clutch- ing at some jutting ornaments, glides down into the garden and grasps the paper and portrait. "'Come here!' cries the enraged father. 'Come here with those two things! Cursed viper ! . . . . Bring me the paper .... directly ! If I get hold of thee I'll tear out thy heart with my own hands ! Nero ! ' he cries. ' Nero, there ! at him ! .... at him ! ' and with both hands he excites the bloodhound against his crippled son." The dog springs furiously. Virgilio thinks that he can feel the cruel teeth in his own flesh as he rushes up the stairs, and, panting, falls senseless at his sister's feet. The paper and portrait are hastily hidden in the girl's bosom. The bloodhound reaches the terrace; its eyes glitter like burning embers, its breath rises like Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi 141 smoke. Beatrice snatches a sword from a pan- Meiodra- oply of antique weapons in a niche close by, and f'"'*'^ ^'^^^^ cuts through the head of the horrible beast. The Cendand dog welters in blood and dies with a horrid howl. Beatrice. Count Francesco comes up, livid with passion, dagger in hand, almost speechless with rage. " . . . . Where is the evil viper? .... Damna- tion! .... Who killed Nero? .... Who?" "I have." "Well then .... Thou also .... but no ! first this viper." He bends over his son, and would stab him. Beatrice points the bloody blade at Francesco's heart, whilst in accents that can- not be rendered, she says : "... .Father!. . . .stand back!" " . . . . Make way .... stand off, you wicked girl ! " He tries \.o get at the boy. " . . . . Stand back .... Father!" "Her wide-open eyes dart living flames, her dilated nostrils are throbbing! Her lips tightly pressed, her bosom panting, her dishevelled hair streaming down her shoulders! Her left foot is firmly set ; her head lifted, her body upright ; her left hand clenched; and her right hand, armed with the sword, is resting on her hip already in action! Neither painter nor sculptor could ever represent this beautiful appearance. Language cannot render it. The maiden beams so radiant that she dazzles mortal eyes. " Francesco Cenci stood entranced, dropped his weapon, and for one short instant his soul was 142 Italian Romance Writers softened. Beatrice too had discarded her sword. The old man stretched out towards her his open arms, and exclaimed: 'How beautiful thou art ! Why can'st thou not love me ? ' . . . . ' I ! .... I do love you.' .... And she flies to his arms ! Such fatherly feelings cannot last long in the fiend's heart. He whispers in her ear a few words which make her, with a shudder, break from his disgusting embrace." Is it possible that such turgid nonsense could have been accepted in Italy as great writing? Guerrassi's The best measure of Guerrazzi's deficient f^^fg taste is found in the banquet scene. By trans- lating into high-sounding, harmonious Italian some passages of Shelley's, he has given an im- pressive picture. Cenci here appears the embodi- ment of all evil passions. In Shelley's lines Count Francesco pledges his guests to drink of the wine that .... bubbles gaily in this golden bowl Under the lamplight, as my spirits do To hear the death of my accursed sons. Could I believe thou wert their mingled blood Then would I taste thee like a sacrament. Why has Guerrazzi marred the austere sim- plicity of his model and introduced a pathetic and Contrasted Vin\{\