Renaissance in Italy Volume IV Part 34

[527] The _Reali di Francia_ sets forth this legendary genealogy at great length, and stops short at the coronation of Charles in Rome and the discovery of Roland. Considering the dryness of its subject-matter, it is significant that this should have survived all the prose romances of the fifteenh century. We may ascribe the fact perhaps to the tenacious Italian devotion to the Imperial idea.

[528] _Orl. Inn. Rifac._ i. 18, 26. Niccol da Padova in the thirteenth century quoted Turpin as his authority for the history of Charlemagne which he composed in Northern French. This proves the antiquity of the custom. See Bartoli, _Storia della Lett. It._ vol.

ii. p. 44. To believe in Turpin was not, however, an article of faith.

Thus Bello in the _Mambriano_, c. viii.:

Ma poi che 'l non e articolo di fede, Tenete quella parte che vi piace, Che l'autor libramente vel concede.

[529] "Un Dio, uno Orlando, e una Roma." _Morg. Magg._ xxvii. 220.

Compare this with Arthur's "Flos regum Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus."

[530] See _Propugnatore_ (Anni ii., iii., iv.). _La Spagna_ was itself two popular compilations.

[531] This is only strictly true of Cantos xxiv., xxv., xxvi., xxvii.

The last Canto, in fact the whole poem after the execution of Marsilio, is a dull historical epitome, brightened by Pulci's personal explanations at the ending.

[532] It is called _Morgante Maggiore_ because the part relating to him was published separately under the t.i.tle of _Morgante_. This character Pulci derived from the MS. poem called by Signor Rajna the _Orlando_ to distinguish it. In the year 1500 we find one of the Baglioni called Morgante which proves perhaps the popularity of this giant.

[533] Canto xxv. 73-78. The locust-tree, according to the tradition of the South, served Judas when he hanged himself. Northern fancy reserved this honor for the elder, not perhaps without a poetic sense of the outcast existence of the plant and its worthlessness for any practical use. On the same locust-tree Marsilio was afterwards suspended (c. xxvii. 267). The description of the blasted pleasure-garden in the latter pa.s.sage is also very striking. For the translation of these pa.s.sages see Appendix.

[534] xxvii. 5-7 and 47. Note in particular (translated in Appendix):

Rispose Baldovin: Se il padre mio Ci ha qui condotti come traditore, S'io posso oggi campar, pel nostro Iddio, Con questa spada pa.s.sergli il core!

Ma traditore, Orlando, non son io, Ch'io t'ho seguito con perfetto amore; Non mi potresti dir maggiore ingiuria!

Poi si stracci la vesta con gran furia, E disse: Io torner nella battaglia, Poi che tu m'hai per traditore scorto; Io non son traditor, se Dio mi vaglia, Non mi vedrai piu oggi se non morto!

E inverso l'oste de' Pagan si scaglia, Dicendo sempre: Tu m'hai fatto torto!

Orlando si pentea d'aver ci detto Che disperato vide il giovinetto.

[535] Of all the Paladins only Orlando is uniformly courteous to Charlemagne. When Rinaldo dethrones the Emperor and flies to his cousin (c. xi. 114), Orlando makes him return to his obedience (_ib._ 127). See, too, c. xxv. 100:

Or oltre in Roncisvalle Orlando va, Per obbedir, com'e' fe' sempre, Carlo.

[536] xxvi. 126:

Rinaldo, quando e' fu nella battaglia, Gli parve esser in ciel tra' cherubini Tra suoni e canti.

[537] Canto xxvi. 24-39. These two touches, out of many that are n.o.ble, might be chosen:

Stasera in paradiso cenerete; Come disse quel Greco anticamente Lieto a' suoi gia, ma disse--Nello inferno:

and

La morte e da temere, o la part.i.ta, Quando l'anima e 'l corpo muore insieme; Ma se da cosa finita a infinita Si va qui in ciel fra tante diademe, Questo e cambiar la vita a miglior vita.

[538] This pervasive doubt finds its n.o.blest and deepest expression in some lines spoken by Orlando just before engaging in the fight at Roncesvalles (xxvi. 31):

Tutte cose mortal vanno ad un segno; Mentre l'una sormonta, un'altra cade: Cos fia forse di Cristianitade.

This is said not from the hero's but the author's point of view.

Pomponazzi afterwards gave philosophical utterance to the same disbelief in the permanence of Christianity.

[539] Canto xxvii. 172.

[540] _Ibid._ 196.

[541] _Ibid._ 198.

[542] Canto xxvi. 91.

[543] Canto xxvi. 89.

[544] Canto xxv. 217, 218.

[545] Canto xviii. 114, _et seq._

[546] I have placed in the Appendix a rough plaster cast rather than a true copy of Margutte's admirable comic autobiography. My stanzas cannot pretend to exact.i.tude of rendering or interpretation. The _Morgante_ has. .h.i.therto been very imperfectly edited; and there are many pa.s.sages in this speech which would, I believe, puzzle a good Florentine scholar, and which, it is probable, I have misread.

[547] Canto xix. 148.

[548] Cantos xxv. xxvi.

[549] xxv. 119. This distinction between the fallen angels and the _spiriti folletti_ deserves to be noticed. The latter were light and tricksy spirits, on whom not even a magician could depend. Marsilio sent two of them in a magic mirror to Charlemagne (xxv. 92), and Astarotte warned Malagigi expressly against their vanity (xxv. 160, 161). Fairies, _feux follets_, and the lying spirits of modern spiritualists seem to be of this family. Translations from Astarotte's dialogue will be found in the Appendix.

[550] xxv. 159, 208.

[551] xxv. 161; xxvi. 83.

[552] Canto xxv. 141-158; translation in Appendix.

[553] _Ibid._ 233.

[554] _Ibid._ 284.

[555] _Doctor Faustus_, act i. Scene with Mephistophilis in a Franciscan's habit.

[556] The scene in the banquet-hall at Saragossa (xxv. 292-305) is very similar to some of the burlesque scenes in _Doctor Faustus_.

[557] xxv. 228-231. Astarotte's discourses upon theology and physical geography are so learned that this part of the _Morgante_ was by Ta.s.so ascribed to Ficino. It is not improbable that Pulci derived some of the ideas from Ficino, but the style is entirely his own. The sonnets he exchanged with Franco prove, moreover, that he was familiar with the treatment of grave themes in a burlesque style. In acknowledging the help of Poliziano he is quite frank (xxv. 115-117, 169; xxviii.

138-149). What that help exactly was, we do not know. But there is nothing whatever to justify the tradition that Poliziano was the real author of the _Morgante_. Probably he directed Pulci's reading; and I think it not impossible, judging by one line in Canto xxv. (stanza 115, line 4), that he directed Pulci's attention to the second of the two poems out of which the narrative was wrought. If we were to ascribe all the pa.s.sages in the _Morgante_ that display curious knowledge to Pulci's friends, we might claim the discourse on the antipodes for Toscanelli and the debates on the angelic nature for Palmieri. Such criticism is, however, far-fetched and laboriously hypothetical. Pulci lived in an intellectual atmosphere highly charged with speculation of all kinds, and his poem reflected the opinion of his age. His own methods of composition and the relation in which he stood to other poets of the age are explained in two pa.s.sages of the _Morgante_ (xxv. 117, xxviii. 138-149), where he disclaims all share of humanistic erudition, and expresses his indifference to the solemn academies of the learned. See translation in Appendix.

[558] xxvi. 82-88. We may specially note these phrases:

Astarotte, e' mi duole Il tuo partir, quanto fussi fratello; E nell'inferno ti credo che sia Gentilezza, amicizia e cortesia.

Che di servirti non mi fia fatica; E basta solo Astarotte tu dica, Ed io ti sentir sin dello inferno.

[559] Book II. canto viii. 1. All references will be made to Panizzi's edition of the _Orlando Innamorato_, London, Pickering, 1830.