Wit and Wisdom of the Italian Renaissance

Wit and Wisdom of the Italian Renaissance

WIT AND

WISDOM OF

THE ITALIAN

RENAISSANCE

BY CHARLES SPERONI

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles

1964

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

Cambridge University Press • London, England

© 1964 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 64-134.75

Designed by Marion Skinner

Printed in the United States of America

To Carmela

Therefore, whatever moves to laughter cheers the spirit and gives pleasure, and for the moment keeps one from thinking of those irksome troubles of which our life is full.

Castigfione, Book of the Courtier, II, 4).

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. Poggio Bracciolini 1380-1459

II. Ludovico Carbone 1435-1482

III. Piovano Arlotto 1396-1484

IV. Angelo Polivano 1454-1494

V. Niccolò Angeli dal Bùcine

VI. Giovanni fontano 1426-1503

VII. Leonardo da Vinci

VIII. Ludovico Domcnichi

IX. Ludovico Guicciardini

X. Two Wits:

XI. Baldassare Castiglione 1478-1529

Notes

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

WAS THE Renaissance an especially witty period?

Was it a wise one? It is hazardous to state, and perhaps even more difficult to prove, that one period of high civilization was unmistakably wittier or wiser than another. There is no doubt, however, that the glorious time in Western civilization which we call the Renaissance witnessed an altogether unusual interest in witty anecdotes of all types, and in all sorts of apophthegms, maxims, proverbs, and proverbial phrases.

In that period, when artists and humanists alike looked back with awe and admiration to the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, so keen was the desire to know everything those distant ancestors of ours had thought and said that not only their great works were rediscovered and restudied with a fervor unknown before, but also their minor ones, and among these their apophthegms and sayings. At one point the interest of Renaissance man in these latter grew so great that, not surprisingly, two of the most monumental collections of classical apophthegms and adages ever assembled were published between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries: Erasmus’ Apo- phthegmatum opus and Adagia.

The apophthegm that flourished in Classical Antiquity was a brief narrative, often anecdotal, that usually extolled the deeds and the sayings of illustrious men —Socrates, Plato, Alexander the Great, and so on— but at times also those of lesser individuals; and the sayings, as they were generally wise, occasionally were also witty. If it is true that the apophthegm tended to instruct, it is also true that, according to the best didac- tic practice, it often chose to do so in an entertaining manner, and it did not hesitate to combine the useful with the agreeable. Although only few examples of Greek apophthegms have come down to us, there is ample evidence that they were very popular.

The apophthegm flourished also, and perhaps even more, among the Romans, who, judging by the fact that Cicero found the Greek apophthegms rather flat, had even a greater propensity for pungent witticism. Witty anecdotes and witticisms in general were held in high esteem by many ancient Romans: Plautus, whose comedies abound in witticisms; Caesar, who in his leisure gathered pleasantries and anecdotes; Plutarch, whose apophthegms met with great favor for many centuries; Aulus Gellius, who included many witty anecdotes in his Attic Nights; Macrobius, whose Saturnalia enclose a veritable collection of Roman pleasantries; and others. But by far the most important Roman work is Cicero’s De oratore, which not only cites many witty anecdotes, but also makes a thorough analysis of wit and humor. This work was to exert a great influence on later writers.

The moralizing and even the witty anecdote were not forgotten during the Middle Ages; indeed, the moralizing anecdote—the exemplum—was highly cultivated in patristic literature. But, needless to say, in the works of the Church Fathers as well as on the lips of preachers who illustrated their sermons with all sorts of more or less pointed exempla, wisdom and morality were the lessons to be imparted, and wit and humor were only incidental. But wit and humor were at times an important ingredient to hold the interest and the attention of the listeners, and we have an excellent example of this as late as the first decades of the fifteenth century in the sermons of the colorful Italian friar Bernardino da Siena.

It was in the Renaissance, however, when a new, open-minded contact was reestablished with the ancient classical literatures, that the witty anecdote, largely under the influence of the ancient apophthegm, entered a new phase and acquired an independent life. And it is interesting to note that this type of witty and often licentious anecdote, to which Cicero had given the name facetia (hence the Italian noun facezia, and the English adjective facetious), was once again given the same name—this time permanently—during the height of humanistic studies of Classical Antiquity. This was accomplished by one of the great Florentine humanists, Poggio Bracciolini, who gave the title Liber facetiarum (Book of Pleasantries) to a vast collection of anecdotes that he compiled around the middle of the fifteenth century.

The facetia of the Renaissance is, in general, a brief narrative that varies in length from a few lines to one or even two pages. Its main purpose is to entertain and excite laughter by relating a humorous occurrence that often finds its conclusion in a pungent, well-timed repartee. Most frequently, the shorter the anecdote, the sharper the wit. Many of the facetiae of the Renaissance are associated with a witty individual, sometimes a court buffoon. Incidentally, the facetia, or as it may be called in English the pleasantry, seems to thrive best in a highly developed culture, for a sophisticated mind sees the comical side of people, situations, and things.

Before Bracciolini’s time, the humorous tale already existed in Italy. Witty tales made a grand entrance into Italian literature first with the Novellino or Cento novelle antiche (One Hundred Old Tales—thirteenth century), with Boccaccio’s Decameron (middle of the fourteenth century), and with Franco Sacchetti’s Trecentonovelle (Three Hundred Tales—end of the fourteenth century). In the above collections we find several tales that are definitely related to the facetiae. In general, however, especially in the Decameron, but also in Sacchetti and to a lesser degree in the Novellino, we are faced with real novelle, which are too long, or too artistically elaborated and articulated, or both, to be considered facetiae. Just the same, it cannot be denied that some of Sacchetti’s novelle in particular are so rich in sparkling wit and lively dialogue, and in lightning-quick repartees, that they come very close to the general spirit of the true pleasantry, which is shorter than the Sacchettian tale and aims straight at the burst of humor that springs from the final, barbed repartee.

Whatever its antecedents, the modern facetia begins to have its own history as a separate genre in the first half of the fifteenth century, thanks mainly—if not entirely—to the collection of facetiae assembled by Poggio Bracciolini. This great discoverer of ancient manuscripts, who had traveled in various parts of Europe and had peered into the hearts of his contemporaries as well as into those of the classical authors of whom he was so fond, toward the end of his life decided to write in Latin the stories and witticisms with which he and his friends of the Roman Curia had entertained one another during what was then the equivalent of long afternoon coffee-breaks 1 This is what Poggio tells us on the last page of his collection of pleasantries:

"Before closing the series of these little stories of ours, it is my intention to mention also the locale where the majority of them were told. This was our Bugiale, a sort of workshop of lies, which was founded by the secretaries in order that they might have an occasional laugh. Since the days of Pope Martin [Martin V (1419-1431)] we had the custom of choosing an out- of-the-way place where we exchanged news, and where we would talk of various things, both in earnest, and to distract our minds. Here, we spared no one, and we spoke evil of everything that vexed us. Often the Pope himself was the subject of our criticism, and for this reason many came to that place for fear of being the first ones harassed. … Now my friends are dead, and the Bugiale no longer exists, and through the fault of the times and of men, the good fashion of jests and conversation is disappearing."

This is what Bracciolini wrote at the conclusion of his book of 272 pleasantries that he titled simply Face- tiarum liber (Book of Pleasantries). But he was wrong in his gloomy forecast that the taste for storytelling and wit was fast vanishing: his was just another nostalgic statement of an elderly man hankering for the good old times. (He was seventy-two when he penned those words.) On the contrary, the taste for pleasantries was becoming more and more widespread, and for this two things were especially responsible: the much talked-about and circulated Liber facetiarum itself, and the rising taste—of humanists and courtiers, in particular—for elegant and witty conversation, such as was later exemplified in The Book of the Courtier of Baldassare Castiglione and the Civil Conversation of Stefano Guazzo. What Bracciolini did not know was that his lively, witty, fairly bawdy collection of anecdotes was to start a regular deluge of analogous collections, many of which would be more or less heavily indebted to his own. There is no doubt that, if Cicero invented the word facetia, it was Bracciolini who gave it a new, lasting life, and wide circulation. Because the Liber facetiarum aimed to amuse, like the more urbane collection of novelle of Boccaccio’s Decameron, it was destined to be both censured for its licentiousness, and much imitated—simply because it made interesting reading and because it satisfied a universal need—the need to forget the chores and problems of daily existence and to break into a hearty, relaxing laugh.

Thus, it is not surprising to find that soon after Bracciolini’s pleasantries became known, other collections were put together, more or less independently, by other writers. In the same century in which Bracciolini was writing, of special interest are the collections of the humanist from Ferrara, Lodovico Carbone (1435—1482); of the Tuscan cleric Arlotto Mainardi, known as Piovano (The Priest) Arlotto (1396—1484); of the great Tuscan poet and humanist Angelo Poliziano (1454—1494); of the Florentine Niccolò dal Bùcine (1448—1532?); and of the Umbrian-Neapolitan humanist Giovanni Fontano (1426-1503). Although all the above authors will be given individual attention at the proper place in the text, there are two who deserve special notice: Piovano Arlotto and Giovanni Pontano.

The book of pleasantries of Arlotto Mainardi, known as Motti e facezie del Piovano Arlotto (Witticisms and Pleasantries of Priest Arlotto), has been through the centuries the most generally popular book of anecdotes in Italy. Like Bracciolini’s collection, it became popular from the very moment it was known, and its popularity never died out. Also, contrary to all other large collections of Italian pleasantries, in which the characters are legion, in Arlotto’s collection all the pleasantries revolve around the wise, witty, likeable, down-to-earth priest of the church of San Cresci at Maciuoli, a village not far from Florence.

Giovanni Pontano occupies a special place in the history of facetiae, and not alone of the fifteenth century; for, like Cicero’s De oratore, from which he derived his inspiration, his De sermone discusses the nature of wit and quotes, in the process, several illustrative anecdotes. His work became well known among the men of letters of his and the following century, and exercised a particular influence on the better-known work of Baldassare Castiglione.

As it also happened with the Boccaccian short story, the facetia, which had thrived in the fifteenth century in Italy, reached its peak of popularity in the sixteenth century, when numerous collections were amassed and published, and when countless writers made a conspicuous point of including pleasantries in their works: from Castiglione to Giovanni della Casa and Stefano Guazzo, from Pietro Aretino to Anton Francesco Doni and Angelo Firenzuola, to mention only a few. By the end of the century, with the collections of Orazio Toscanella (I motti, le facetie, argutie, burle, et altre piacevolezze, Witticisms, Pleasantries, Puns, Practical Jokes, and Other Humorous Jests, published in Venice, 1561), Poncino della Torre (Piacevoli e ridicolose Facetie …, Entertaining and Merry Pleasantries …, 1581), and Cristoforo Zabata (Ristoro de’ viandanti, Solace of Travelers, 1589), to mention the best known, the facetia had actually run its course; indeed, these works are of only passing interest, except for the specialist.

In the first half of the sixteenth century, a new impulse to the already popular facetia came from the publication of Desiderius Erasmus’ Apophthegmatum opus (1531), and also from Heinrich Bebel’s collection of pleasantries (1495), both largely diffused throughout Europe.

Among the numerous authors of the sixteenth century who were directly concerned with our genre, of special interest are the following: Baldassare Castiglione (1478—1529), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Ludovico Domenichi (1515-1564), and Ludovico Guicciardini (1521—1589). There are others, to be sure, but they do not fall within the scope of the present work. Not all the above made special collections of pleasantries. Leonardo da Vinci, for instance, made no systematic collection, but his keen, witty mind was truly attracted by apophthegmlike anecdotes, which abound in his voluminous writings.

The truly significant, systematic collector of the sixteenth century was Ludovico Domenichi, an indefatigable polygraph who wrote on many subjects. Domenichi became interested in pleasantries fairly early in his life, and in 1548 he published a collection of them with the title Facezie e motti arguti di alcuni eccellentissimi ingegni et nobilissimi signori (Pleasantries and Witticisms of Certain Most Excellent Wits and Most Noble Gentlemen). This collection, incidentally, contained many of the short, pungent anecdotes that had been written by the great Poliziano, although at the time of Domenichi it was not yet known that the protégé of Lorenzo de’ Medici had written and amassed over four hundred pleasantries and proverbs. Domenichi reworked his own collection on two additional occasions, and in 1564, just before his death, he completed the third and final edition—Facetie, motti et burle di diversi signori et persone private (Pleasantries, Witticisms and Practical Jokes of Several Gentlemen and Private Citizens)—which, although it excluded many of the anecdotes of the first edition, contained nearly one thousand items!

Needless to say, Domenichi dipped with a heavy hand in all directions, both at home and abroad: he did not hesitate, for instance, to translate many facetiae from the Latin work of Pontano and from the German collections of Bebel (Opuscula bebeliana, sive Facetiae Bebelii, second edition, 1504), and Nachtigall (Jo ci et sales mire festivi, 1524). But by Domenichi’s time facetiae were common property; and besides, in the sixteenth century plagiarism was not considered a serious infraction of an author’s rights. Further, had not the German collectors availed themselves of the Latin and Italian collections in their turn?

Domenichi’s is not only by far the largest Italian collection of pleasantries, but also the most entertaining and the wittiest of the whole sixteenth century, both in Italy and in the rest of Europe. Both because of its variety and relative urbanity, and because of its polished literary style, Domenichi’s book became very popular and was often reprinted, in toto and also in expurgated form. This had to be the case, for Domenichi had learned a great deal from his predecessors, in particular from Castiglione’s Cortegiano; in fact, his style and sense of balance were a far cry from the rough- and-ready, although very idiomatic and colorful, everyday spoken language of Arlotto’s collection.

The other work of the sixteenth century that is especially significant for a comprehension of the popularity of our genre during the Renaissance is Baldassare Castiglione’s II Cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), first published in 15 28, almost immediately translated into the important European languages, and since printed countless times in the original Italian and in translation. The Book of the Courtier is a living portrait of Renaissance Italian courtly life. Its first goal is, of course, to analyze the attributes that a perfect courtier must possess: but it is actually more than such a limited analysis, for it discusses also the attributes of the perfect lady of the Court, and it includes a thorough discussion of Platonic love and of pleasantries and practical jokes. The perfect courtier described by Castiglione must be a nobleman who is not only skilled in the use of weapons, proficient in the arts of chivalry, courageous, elegant in social intercourse, and highly educated in letters and the arts, but he must also be politely entertaining and know how and when to tell a witty anecdote or play a practical joke, and know what kind of anecdotes to tell and which practical jokes to play. Castiglione was not original in his discussion of humor, any more than he was completely original in certain other aspects of his Cortegiano: among other sources, he made good use of Cicero’s De oratore— whose purpose it was to give an idea of the qualifications of the perfect orator—and, to a lesser degree, of Pon- tano’s De sermone.

Castiglione imitated Cicero both in the general idea of his work and in several details, including the section devoted to the treatment of facetiae. But the Cortegiano is not merely an imitation: by Castiglione’s time the classics had been well assimilated, so that what we find in him is a true product of the Italian Renaissance, and the substance of his work was the fruit of his own experience, both bookish and of the contemporary world he knew so well. Because of the universal influence of The Book of the Courtier on the polite society of the various Italian courts of the sixteenth century, and later on other European courts (particularly on the Spanish Court of Emperor Charles V and his successors, on the English Court of Queen Elizabeth, and on the French Court of the seventeenth century); because of the classical presentation of wit and the wise use of it, and because of the large number of examples given by Castiglione, I have decided to include in the present anthology almost the entire section of The Book of the Courtier devoted to facetiae and burle (practical jokes).

The pleasantries and jests of the Renaissance have time and again been labeled as immoral and licentious. There is no doubt that in practically every book of pleasantries a good number of them are free, and several are plainly bawdy. But this was not true of facetiae exclusively: all one has to do is to read some of the comedies and novelle of the time! We must agree with the Italian critic Francesco de Sanctis who, in writing on Pietro Aretino (the libertine author of the sixteenth century), said that obscenity was a sauce much sought after in Italy from Boccaccio on. It is not surprising, therefore, if in the period that followed the Council of Trent (1545—1563), the editions of pleasantries—but not exclusively of pleasantries—show the more or less heavy hand of the expurgator. But it should be pointed out that obscenity—where it exists, for most pleasantries are not bawdy—lies not so much in the obscene image, as in the gross terms used in the narration. The pleasantry, particularly in the fifteenth century, lacks polish and elaboration; it is concrete, not subtle, more improper than obscene. Further, the matter of what is vulgar and what is not is a relative matter: it must be borne in mind that what we consider vulgar today was not necessarily considered so in the Renaissance, or in any other period of human history. The Renaissance was a period of great individuality, of great exuberance in the newly discovered freedom of thought and of expression, and the new man was not easily shocked: he was more amoral than immoral. In the light of what we consider immoral today, we would have to expurgate and condemn not only the collections of facetiae, but also the collections of novelle, most of the Italian comedies of the sixteenth century, some of the pastoral dramas, and much of the jocose poetry, to say nothing of many sculptures and frescoes of the time. But there is no denying that in our genre, many of the pleasantries are bawdy by whatever standards we may wish to judge them: so much so, that both Castiglione in his Cortegiano and Giovanni della Casa in his Galateo (the book of etiquette of the Italian sixteenth century) sternly warned against indulgence in obscene anecdotes.

But if, when we speak of the pleasantries of centuries gone by, it is difficult at times to judge of the relative immorality of a given pleasantry, it is even more difficult to judge today its sense of humor. There is little doubt that a collector of pleasantries did his best to include in his book what he thought were especially good, witty anecdotes that would invariably excite the laughter of the reader. And yet, we must confess that a fairly large number of anecdotes we find in most collections do not seem really humorous to us. Even in reading the sane pages of The Book of the Courtier, we are surprised at times to hear Castiglione tell the reader that a particular anecdote caused a great deal of hilarity.

Again, we are forced to conclude that the sense of humor of sixteenth-century Italy was not in complete tune with ours: and by ours I mean not only American humor, but also contemporary Italian humor. There is no doubt that what a given people consider humorous is often not thought to be so by another people; and further, that what was humorous in Renaissance Florence is not necessarily humorous today. Nevertheless much timeless comedy pervades the facetiae.

Beyond wit and morality, the facetia, like the novella of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, adds a new dimension to the overall, complex picture of the Italian Renaissance. Very often when one thinks of the Renaissance, one conjures up the great names of artists (Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Leon Battista Alberti, Raphael, Cellini, Michelangelo), of great men of letters (Poliziano, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Luigi Pulci, Niccolò Machiavelli, Baldassare Castiglione, and Ludovico Ariosto), of the great popes (Julius II, Nicholas V, Alexander VI, Leo X, Clement VII, and Paul III), of the great families (the Medici of Florence, the Este of Ferrara, the Gonzaga of Mantua, the