Renaissance in Italy Volume V Part 10

[Footnote 203: Act v. scs. 2 and 3.]

Meanwhile the _Mandragola_ is claiming our attention. In that comedy, Machiavelli put forth all his strength. Sinister and repulsive as it may be to modern tastes, its power is indubitable. More than any plays of which mention has. .h.i.therto been made, more even than Ariosto's _Lena_ and _Negromante_, it detaches itself from Latin precedents and offers an unsophisticated view of Florentine life from its author's terrible point of contemplation.

In order to appreciate the _Mandragola_, it is necessary to know the plot. After spending his early manhood in Paris, Callimaco returns to Florence, bent on making the beautiful Lucrezia his mistress. He has only heard of her divine charms; but the bare report inflames his imagination, disturbs his sleep, and so distracts him that he feels forced "to attempt some bold stroke, be it grave, dangerous, ruinous, dishonorable; death itself would be better than the life I lead."

Lucrezia is the faithful and obedient wife of Nicia, a doctor of laws, whose one wish in life is to get a son. The extreme gullibility of Nicia and his desire for an heir are the motives upon which Callimaco relies to work his schemes. He finds a parasite, Ligurio, ready to a.s.sist him. Ligurio is a friend of Nicia's family, well acquainted with the persons, and so utterly depraved that he would sell his soul for a good dinner. He advises Callimaco to play the part of a physician who has studied the last secrets of his art in Paris, introduces him in this capacity to Nicia, and suggests that by his help the desired result may be obtained without the disagreeable necessity of leaving Florence for the baths of San Filippo. In their first interview Callimaco explains that a potion of mandragora administered to Lucrezia will remove her sterility, but that it has fatal consequences to the husband. He must perish unless he first subst.i.tutes another man, whose death will extinguish the poison and leave Lucrezia free to be the mother of a future family. Nicia revolts against this odious project, which makes him the destroyer of his own honor and a murderer. But Callimaco a.s.sures him that royal persons and great n.o.bles of France have adopted this method with success. The argument has its due weight: "I am satisfied," says Nicia, "since you tell me that a king and princes have done the like." But the difficulty remains of persuading Lucrezia. Ligurio answers: that is simple enough; let us work upon her through her confessor and her mother. "You, I, our money, our badness, and the badness of those priests will settle the confessor; and I know that, when the matter is explained, we shall have her mother on our side." Thus we are introduced to Fra Timoteo, the chief agent of corruption. The monk, in a first interview, does not conceal his readiness to procure abortion and cover infanticide. For a consideration, he agrees to convince Lucrezia that the plot is for her good. He first demonstrates the utility of Callimaco's method to the mother Sostrata, and then by her help persuades Lucrezia that adultery and murder are not only venial, but commendable with so fair an end in view. His sophistries antic.i.p.ate the darkest casuistry of Escobar. Lucrezia, with a woman's good sense, fastens on the brutal and unnatural loathsomeness of the proposed plan: "Ma di tutte le cose che si sono tentate, questa mi pare la piu strana; avere a sottomettere il corpo mio a questo vituperio, et essere cagione che un uomo muoia per vituperarmi: che io non crederei, se io fussi sola rimasa nel mondo, e da me avesse a risurgere l'umana natura, che mi fusse simile part.i.to concesso."

Timoteo replies: "Qui e un bene certo, che voi ingraviderete, acquisterete un'anima a messer Domenedio. Il male incerto e, che colui che giacera dopo la pozione con voi, si muoia; ma e' si truova anche di quelli che non muoiono. Ma perche la cosa e dubbia, per e bene che messer Nicia non incorra in quel pericolo. Quanto all'atto che sia peccato, questo e una favola: perche la volonta e quella che pecca, non il corpo; e la cagione del peccato e dispiacere al marito: e voi gli compiacete; pigliarne piacere: e voi ne avete dispiacere," etc.

Sostrata, accustomed to follow her confessor's orders, and not burdened with a conscience, clinches this reasoning: "Di che hai tu paura, moccicona? E c'e cinquanta dame in questa terra che ne alzarebbero le mani al cielo." Lucrezia gives way unwillingly: "Io son contenta; ma non credo mai esser viva domattina." Timoteo comforts her with a final touch of monkish irony: "Non dubitare, figliuola mia, io pregher Dio per te; io dir l'orazione dell'Angiolo Raffaelo che t'accompagni. Andate in buon'ora, e preparatevi a questo misterio, che si fa sera." What follows is the mere working of the plot, whereby Ligurio and Timoteo contrive to introduce Callimaco as the necessary victim into Lucrezia's bed-chamber. The silly Nicia plays the part of pander to his own shame; and when Lucrezia discovers the scheme by which her lover has attained his ends, she exclaims: "Poi che l'astuzia tua e la sciochezza del mio marito, la semplicita di mia madre e la tristizia del mio confessore, m'hanno condotta a far quello che mai per me medesima avrei fatto, io voglio giudicare che e' venga da una celeste disposizione, che abbia voluto cos. Per io ti prendo per signore, padrone e guida." It must be remarked that Lucrezia omits from her reckoning the weakness which led her to consent.

My excuse for a.n.a.lyzing a comedy so indecent as the _Mandragola_, is the importance it has, not only as a product of Machiavelli's genius, but also as an ill.u.s.tration of contemporary modes of thought and feeling. In all points this play is worthy of the author of the _Principe_. The _Mandragola_ is a microcosm of society as Machiavelli conceived it, and as it needs must be to justify his own philosophy.

It is a study of stupidity and baseness acted on by roguery. Credulity and appet.i.te supply the fulcrum needed by unscrupulous intelligence.

The lover, aided by the husband's folly, the parasite's profligacy, the mother's familiarity with sin, the confessor's avarice, the wife's want of self-respect, achieves the triumph of making Nicia lead him naked to Lucrezia's chamber. Moving in the region of his fancy, the poet adds _Quod erat demonstrandum_ to his theorem of vileness and gross folly used for selfish ends by craft. But we who read it, rise from the perusal with the certainty that it was only the corruption of the age which rendered such a libel upon human nature plausible--only the author's perverse and shallow view of life which sustained him in this reading of a problem he had failed to understand. Viewed as a critique upon life, the _Mandragola_ is feeble, because the premises are false; and these same false premises regarding the main forces of society, render the logic of the _Principe_ inconsequent. Men are not such fools as Nicia or such catspaws as Ligurio and Timoteo. Women are not such compliant instruments as Sostrata and Lucrezia. Human nature is not that tissue of disgusting meannesses and vices, by which Callimaco succeeds. Here lay Machiavelli's fallacy. He dreamed of action as the triumph of astuteness over folly. Virtue with him meant the management of immorality by bold intelligence. But while, on the one hand, he exaggerated the stupidity of dupes, on the other he underestimated the resistance which strongly-rooted moral instincts offer to audacious villainy. He left goodness out of his account.

Therefore, though his reasoning, whether we examine the _Mandragola_ or the _Principe_, seems irrefragable on the premises from which he starts, it is an unconvincing chain of sophisms. The world is not wholly bad; but in order to justify Machiavelli's conclusions, we have to a.s.sume that its essential forces are corrupt.

If we turn from the _Mandragola_ to the society of which it is a study, and which complacently accepted it as an agreeable work of art, we are filled with a sense of surprise bordering on horror. What must the people among whom Machiavelli lived, have been, to justify his delineation of a ruffian so vicious as Ligurio, a confessor so lost to sense of duty as Timoteo, a mother who scruples not to prost.i.tute her daughter to the first comer, a lover so depraved as Callimaco, a wife so devoid of womanly feeling as Lucrezia? On first reflection, we are inclined to believe that the poet in this comedy was venting Swiftian indignation on the human nature which he misconceived and loathed. The very name Lucrezia seems chosen in irony--as though to hint that Rome's first martyr would have failed, if Tarquin had but used her mother and her priest to tame her. Yet, on a second reading, the _Mandragola_ reveals no scorn or anger. It is a piece of scientific anatomy, a demonstration of disease, executed without subjective feeling. The argument is so powerfully developed, with such simplicity of language, such consistency of character, such cold a.n.a.lysis of motives, that we cannot doubt the verisimilitude of the picture. No one, at the date of its appearance, resented it. Florentine audiences delighted in its comic flavor. Leo X. witnessed it with approval. His hatred of the monks found satisfaction in Timoteo. Society, far from rising in revolt against the poet who exposed its infamy with a pen of poisoned steel, thanked the man of genius for rendering vice amusing.

Of satire or of moral purpose there is none in the _Mandragola_.

Machiavelli depicted human nature just as he had learned to know it.

The sinister fruits of his studies made contemporaries laugh.

The _Mandragola_ was the work of an unhappy man. The prologue offers a curious mixture of haughtiness and fawning, only comparable to the dedication of the _Principe_ and the letter to Vettori.[204] A sense of his own intellectual greatness is combined with an uneasy feeling of failure:

Non e componitor di molta fama.

[Footnote 204: See _Age of the Despots_, pp. 315-319. Of the two strains of character so ill-blent in Machiavelli, the _Mandragola_ represents the vulgar, and the _Principe_ the n.o.ble. The one corresponds to his days at Casciano, the other to his studious evenings.]

As an apology for his application to trivialities, he pleads wretchedness and _ennui_:

E se questa materia non e degna, Per esser piu leggieri D'un uom che voglia parer saggio e grave, Scusatelo con questo, che s'ingegna Con questi vani pensieri Fare el suo tristo tempo piu soave; Perche altrove non ave Dove voltare el viso; Che gli e stato interciso Mostrar con altre imprese altra virtue, Non sendo premio alle fatiche sue.

These verses, indifferent as poetry, are poignant for their revelation of a disappointed life. Left without occupation, unable to display his powers upon a worthy platform, he casts the pearls of his philosophy before the pleasure-seeking swine. The sense of this degradation stings him and he turns upon society with threats. Let them not attempt to browbeat or intimidate him:

Che sa dir male anch'egli, E come questa fu la sua prim'arte: E come in ogni parte Del mondo, ove il s suona, Non istima persona, Ancor che faccia el sergiere a colui Che pu portar miglior mantel di lui.

Throughout his prologue we hear the growl of a wounded lion, helpless in his lair, yet conscious that he still has strength to rend the fools and knaves around him.

Aretino completed the disengagement of Italian from Latin comedy.

Ignoring the principles established by the Plautine mannerists, he liberated the elements of satire and of realism held in bondage by their rules. His reasoning was unanswerable. Why should he attend to the unities, or be careful to send the same person no more than five times on the stage in one piece? His people shall come and go as they think fit, or as the argument requires.[205] Why should he make Romans ape he style of Athens? His Romans shall be painted from life; his servants shall talk and act like Italian varlets, not mimicking the ways of Geta or Davus.[206] Why should he shackle his style with precedents from Petrarch and Boccaccio? He will seek the fittest words, the aptest phrases, the most biting repartees from ordinary language.[207] Why condescend to imitation, when his mother wit supplies him with material, and the world of men lies open like a book before his eyes?[208] Why follow in the footsteps of the pedants, who mistake their knowledge of grammar for genius, and whose commentaries are an insult to the poets they pretend to ill.u.s.trate?[209]

[Footnote 205: "Se voi vedessi uscire i personaggi piu di cinque volte in scena, non ve ne ridete, perche le catene che tengono i molini sul fiume, non terrebbeno i pazzi d'oggid" (Prologue to the _Cortigiana_).]

[Footnote 206: "Non vi maravigliate se lo stil comico non s'osserva con l'ordine che si richiede, perche si vive d'un'altra maniera a Roma che non si vivea in Atene" (_Ibid._).]

[Footnote 207: "Io non mi son tolto dagli andari del Petrarca e del Boccaccio per ignoranza, che pur so ci che essi sono; ma per non perdere il tempo, la pazienza e il nome nella pazzia di volermi transformare in loro" (Prologue to the _Orazia_).]

[Footnote 208: "Piu pro fa il pane asciutto in casa propria che l'accompagnato con molte vivande su altrui tavola. Imita qua, imita la; tutto e fava, si pu dire alle composizioni dei piu ... di chi imita, mi faccio beffe ... posso giurare d'esser sempre me stesso, ed altri non mai" (_Ibid._).]

[Footnote 209: "Io mi rido dei pedanti, i quali si credono che la dottrina consiste nella lingua greca, dando tutta la riputatione allo in _bus_ in _bas_ della grammatica" (Prologue to _Orazia_). "I crocifissori del Petrarca, i quali gli fanno dir cose con i loro comenti, che non gliene fariano confessare diece tratti di corda. E bon per Dante che con le sue diavolerie fa star le bestie in dietro, che a questa ora saria in croce anch'egli" (Prologue to _Cortigiana_).]

Conscious of his own defective education, and judging the puristic niceties of the age at their true value, Aretino thus flung the glove of defiance in the face of a learned public. It was a bold step; but the adventurer knew what he was doing. The originality of his _Ars Poetica_ took the world by surprise. His Italian audience delighted in the sparkle of a style that gave point to their common speech. Had Aretino been a writer of genius, Italy might now have owed to his audacity and self-reliance the starting-point of national dramatic art.[210] He was on the right path, but he lacked the skill to tread it. His comedies, loosely put together, with no constructive vigor in their plots and no grasp of psychology in their characters, are a series of powerfully-written scenes, piquant dialogues, effective situations, rather than comedies in the higher sense of the word. We must not look for Ariosto's lucid order, for Machiavelli's disposition of parts, in these vagaries of a brilliant talent aiming at immediate success. We must be grateful for the filibustering bravado which made him dare to sketch contemporary manners from the life. The merit of these comedies is naturalness. Such affectation of ant.i.thesis or labored epigram as mars their style, was part of Aretino's self. It reveals the man, and is not wearisome like the conceits of the pedantic school. What he had learned, seen or heard in his experience of the world--and Aretino saw, heard and learned the worst of the society in which he lived--is presented with vigor. The power to express is never shackled by a back-thought of reserve or delicacy.

Each character stands outlined with a vividness none the less convincing because the study lacks depth. What Aretino cannot supply, is the nexus between these striking pa.s.sages, the linking of these lively portraits into a coherent whole. Machiavelli's logic, perverse as it may be, produces by its stringent application a more impressive aesthetical effect. The doctrine of style for style's sake, derided by Aretino, satisfies at least our sense of harmony. In the insolence of freedom he spoils the form of his plays by discussions, sometimes dull, sometimes disgusting, in which he vents his spite or airs his sycophancy without regard for the exigencies of his subject. Still, in spite of these defects, Aretino's plays are a precious mine of information for one who desires to enter into direct communication with the men of the Renaissance.

[Footnote 210: His tragedy _Orazia_ has just the same merits of boldness and dramatic movement in parts, the same defects of incoherence. It detaches itself favorably from the tragedies of the pedants.]

Aretino's point of view is that of the successful adventurer. Unlike Machiavelli, he has no sourness and reveals no disappointment. He has never fallen from the high estate of an impersonal ambition. His report of human depravity is neither scientific nor indignant. He appreciates the vices of the world, by comprehending which, as means to ends, he has achieved celebrity. They are the instruments of his advance in life, the sources of his wealth, the wisdom he professes.

Therefore, while he satirizes, he treats them with complacence. Evil is good for its own sake also in his eyes. Having tasted all its fruits, he revels in recalling his sensations, just as Casanova took pleasure in recording his debaucheries. His knowledge of society is that of an upstart, who has risen from the lowest ranks by the arts of the bully, flatterer and pander. We never forget that he began life as a lackey, and the most valuable quality of his comedies is that they depict the great world from the standpoint of the servants' hall.

Aretino is too powerful and fas.h.i.+onable to be aware of this. He poses as the sage and satirist. But the revelation is none the less pungent because it is made unconsciously. The Court, idealized by Castiglione, censured by Guarini, inveighed against by La Casa, here shows its inner rottenness for our inspection, at the pleasure of a charlatan who thrives on this pollution. We hear how the valets of debauched prelates, the parasites of petty n.o.bles, the pimps who battened on the vices of the rich, the flatterer who earned his bread by calumny and lies, viewed this world of fas.h.i.+on, how they discussed it among themselves, how they utilized its corruption. We shake hands with ruffians and cut-throats, enter the Roman brothels by their back-door, sit down in their kitchens, and become acquainted with the secrets of their trade. It may be suggested that the knowledge supplied by Aretino, if it concerns such details, is neither profitable nor valuable. No one, indeed, who is not specially curious to realize the manners of Renaissance Italy, should occupy his leisure with these comedies.

The _Cortigiana_ is a parody of Castiglione's _Cortegiano_. A Sienese gentleman, simple and provincial, the lineal descendant of Pulci's Messer Goro, arrives in Rome to make his fortune.[211] He is bent on a.s.suming the fine airs of the Court, and hopes to become at least a Cardinal before he returns home. On his first arrival Messer Maco falls into the clutches of a sharper, who introduces him to disreputable society, under color of teaching him the art of courtiers.h.i.+p. The satire of the piece consists in showing Rome to be the school of profligacy rather than of gentle customs.[212] Before he has spent more than a few days in the Eternal City, the country squire learns the slang of the _demi-monde_ and swaggers among courtesans and rufflers. Maestro Andrea, who has undertaken his education, lectures him upon the virtues of the courtier in a scene of cynical irony:[213]

"La princ.i.p.al cosa, il cortigiano vuol sapere bestemmiare, vuole essere giuocatore, invidioso, puttaniere, eretico, adulatore, maldicente, sconoscente, ignorante, asino, vuol sapere frappare, far la ninfa, et essere agente e paziente." Some of these qualities are understood at once by Messer Maco. Concerning others he asks for further information: "Come si diventa eretico? questo e 'l caso.--Notate.--Io nuoto benissimo.--Quando alcuno vi dice che in Corte sia bonta, discrezione, amore, o conoscenza, dite no 'l credo ... in somma a chi vi dice bene de la Corte, dite: tu sei un bugiardo." Again, Messer Maco asks: "Come si dice male?" The answer is prompt and characteristic of Aretino:[214] "Dicendo il vero, dicendo il vero." What Maestro Andrea teaches theoretically, is expounded as a fact of bitter experience by Valerio and Flamminio, the gentlemen in waiting on a fool of fortune named Parabolano.[215] These men, admitted to the secrets of a n.o.ble household, know its inner sordidness, and reckon on the vanity and pa.s.sions of their patron. A still lower stage in the scale of debas.e.m.e.nt is revealed by the conversations of the lackeys, Rosso and Cappa, who discuss the foibles of their master with the coa.r.s.eness of the stables.[216] In so far as the _Cortigiana_ teaches any lesson, it is contained in the humiliation of Parabolano. His vices have made him the slave and creature of foul-minded serving-men, who laugh together over the disgusting details of his privacy, while they flatter him to his face in order to profit by his frivolities.[217] Aretino's own experience of life in Rome enabled him to make these pictures of the servants'

hall and antechamber pungent.[218] The venom engendered by years of servitude and adulation is vented in his criticism of the Court as censured from a flunkey's point of view. Nor is he less at home in painting the pleasures of the cla.s.s whom he has chosen for his critics of polite society. Cappa's soliloquy upon the paradise of the tavern, and Rosso's pranks, when he plays the gentleman in his master's fine clothes, owe the effect of humor to their realistic verve.[219] We feel them to be reminiscences of fact. These scenes const.i.tute the salt of the comedy, supported by vivid sketches of town characters--the news-boy, the fisherman of the Tiber, and the superannuated prost.i.tute.[220]

[Footnote 211: "Egli e uno di quegli animali di tanti colori che il vostro avolo comper in cambio d'un papagallo" (act i. sc. 1).]

[Footnote 212: Its most tedious episode is a panegyric of Venice at the expense of Rome (act iii. sc. 7).]

[Footnote 213: Act i. sc. 22.]

[Footnote 214: He makes the same point in the prologue to _La Talenta_: "Chi brama d'acquistarsi il nome del piu scellerato uomo che viva, dica il vero."]

[Footnote 215: Act i. sc. 9; act ii. sc. 6; act ii. sc. 10; act iii.

sc. 7.]

[Footnote 216: See especially act i. sc. 7.]

[Footnote 217: Act iv. sc. 6.]

[Footnote 218: Notice the extraordinary virulence of his invective against the _tinello_ or common room of servants in a n.o.ble household (act v. sc. 15).]

[Footnote 219: Act ii. sc. 1; act i. scs. 11-18.]

[Footnote 220: Act i. sc. 4; act i. sc. 11; act ii. sc. 7.]

In the _Cortigiana_ it was Aretino's object to destroy illusions about Court-life by describing it in all the vileness of reality.[221] The _Marescalco_ is a study of the same conditions of society, with less malignity and far more geniality of humor.[222] A rich fool has been recommended by his lord and master, the Duke of Mantua, to take a wife. He loathes matrimony, and shrinks from spending several thousand ducats on the dower. But the parasites, buffoons and henchmen of the prince persuade and bully him into compliance. He is finally married to a page dressed as a woman, and his relief at discovering the s.e.x of his supposed wife forms the climax of the plot. The play is conducted with so much spirit that we may not be wrong in supposing Shakspere in _Twelfth Night_ and Ben Jonson in _Epicoene_ to have owed something to its humor. We look, however, in vain for such fine creatures of the fancy as Sir Toby Belch, or for a catastrophe so overwhelming as the _crescendo_ of noise and bustle which subdue the obstinacy of Morose.

On the other hand, the two companion scenes in which Marescalco's nurse enlarges on the luxuries of married life, while Ambrogio describes its miseries, are executed with fine sense of comic contrast.[223]

[Footnote 221: Act ii. sc. 6.]

[Footnote 222: Of all Aretino's plays the _Marescalco_ is the simplest and the most artistically managed.]

[Footnote 223: Act i. sc. 6; act ii. sc. 5.]

In the _Talanta_ we return to Roman society. This comedy is a study of courtesan life, a.n.a.lyzed with thorough knowledge of its details. The character of Talanta, who plays her four lovers one against the other, extracting presents by various devices from each of them, displays the author's intimate acquaintance with his subject.[224] Talanta on the stage is a worthy pendant to Nanna in the _Ragionamenti_. But the intrigue is confused, tedious and improbable; and after reading the first act, we have already seen the best of Aretino's invention. The same may be said about the _Ipocrita_ and the _Filosofo_, two comedies in which Aretino attempted to portray a charlatan of Tartufe's type and a student helpless in his wife's hands. These characters are not ill conceived, but they are too superficially executed to bear the weight of the plot laid upon them. In like manner the pedant in the _Marescalco_ and the swashbuckler in the _Talanta_ are rather silhouettes than finished portraits. Though well sketched, they lack substance. They have neither the lifelike movement of Shakspere's minor persons, nor the impressive mechanism of Jonson's humors.

Bobadil and Master Holofernes, though caricatures, move in a higher region of the comic art. The characters Aretino would imitate supremely well, were a page like Giannico in the _Marescalco_, a footman like Rosso in the _Cortigiana_, or a woman of the town like Talanta. His comedies are never wanting in bustle and variety of business; while the sarcasm of the author, flying at the best-established reputations, sneering at the most fas.h.i.+onable prejudices of society, renders them effective even now, when all the jealousies he flouted have long been buried in oblivion.[225]

[Footnote 224: Talanta's apology for her rapacity and want of heart (act i. sc. 1); the description of her by her lover Orfinio, who sees through her but cannot escape her fascination (act i. sc. 7); the critique of her by a sensible man (act i. sc. 12); her arts to bring her lover back to his allegiance and wheedle the most odious concessions (act i. sc. 13); her undisguised marauding (act i. sc.

14); these moments in the evolution of her character are set forth with the decision of a master's style.]

[Footnote 225: The Prologue to the _Cortigiana_ pa.s.ses all the literary celebrities of Italy in review with a ferocity of sarcasm veiled in irony that must have been extremely piquant. And take this equivocal compliment to Molza from the _Marescalco_ (act v. sc. 3), "il Molza Mutinense, che arresta con la sua fistola i torrenti."]

Bibbiena's _Calandra_ is a farce, obscene but not malignant. Ariosto's comedies are studies of society from the standpoint of the middle cla.s.s. If he is too indulgent to human frailty, too tolerant of vice, we never miss in him the wisdom of a genial observer. Machiavelli's _Mandragola_ casts the dry light of the intellect on an abyss of evil.