Part 1

=Transcriber’s Note:= Since the original book did not have headings in the text, selected page headers have been used as sidenotes to indicate the sections set out in the table of contents.

The Italian and English versions of the ‘Zinquanta Cortexie’ on pp. 16-31 were originally printed on alternating pages, which is impractical to display in an ebook, so the Italian is here presented first in full followed by the English in full. Line numbers assist with comparing the two versions.

ITALIAN COURTESY-BOOKS.

FRA BONVICINO DA RIVA’S Fifty Courtesies for the Table (ITALIAN AND ENGLISH)

WITH OTHER TRANSLATIONS AND ELUCIDATIONS

BY WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI.

TO THE ENGLISH PAINTER WHO HAS MADE CIVILIZED MANKIND HIS DEBTOR BY RECOVERING THE PORTRAIT OF Dante BY Giotto, THE TWO DII MAJORES OF ITALIAN MEDIÆVALISM, TO THE BARONE KIRKUP, MY FATHER’S HONOURED FRIEND AND MY OWN, I AM PERMITTED TO DEDICATE THIS SLIGHT ATTEMPT IN A BRANCH OF ITALIAN STUDY LONG FAMILIAR TO HIMSELF.

W. M. R.

June 1869.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

ITALY AND COURTESY 7

BRUNETTO LATINI 8 THE TESORETTO:—EXTRACT 10

FRA BONVICINO DA RIVA 14 THE ZINQUANTA CORTEXIE DA TAVOLA—ITALIAN AND ENGLISH 16 SUMMARY OF THE CORTEXIE 32

FRANCESCO DA BARBERINO 35 THE DOCUMENTI D’AMORE:—EXTRACT 38 THE REGGIMENTO E COSTUMI DELLE DONNE:—EXTRACT 45

SANDRO DI PIPPOZZO, GRAZIOLO DE’ BOMBAGLIOLI, AND UGOLINO BRUCOLA 56

AGNOLO PANDOLFINI 57 THE GOVERNO DELLA FAMIGLIA:—EXTRACT 57

MATTEO PALMIERI 58 THE VITA CIVILE:—EXTRACT 58

BALDASSAR CASTIGLIONE 60 THE CORTIGIANO:—EXTRACT 61

GIOVANNI BATTISTA POSSEVINI 65 THE DIALOGO DELL’ ONORE:—EXTRACT 66

MONSIGNOR GIOVANNI DELLA CASA 66 THE GALATEO:—EXTRACT 68 THE TRATTATO DEGLI UFFICI COMMUNI:—EXTRACT 74

In connection with the many samples of English and some French and Latin Courtesy-Books which the pains of other Editors have set before the members of the Early English Text Society, I have been asked to do something to exhibit what Italian literature has to show for itself in the same line. The request is one which I gladly close with; only cautioning the reader at starting that he must not expect to find in my brief essay any deep or exhaustive knowledge of the subject, or anything beyond specimens of the works under consideration, picked out one here and one there. Italy, it is tolerably well known, was, together with Provence, in the forefront of civilization—or ‘civility,’ as it might here be more aptly phrased—in the middle ages; and I should not be surprised to learn that, in the refinements of life and niceties of method, the Italy of the thirteenth century, as traceable in her Courtesy-Books, was quite on a par with the France or Germany of the fourteenth, or the England of the fifteenth, and so progressively on. This, however, is a matter which I must leave to be determined by more diligent and more learned researches than my own. The materials for the comparison are now, to some extent, fairly before the editing and reading members of our Society.

As regards date, at all events, Italy is greatly in advance. What is the date of the earliest French Courtesy-Book included in our series? Not far, I presume, from the close of the fourteenth century. What of the earliest English one? About 1450. Against these we can set an Italian Courtesy-Book—or rather a Courtesy section of an Italian book—dating about 1265. Of a date prior to this (the birth-year of Dante), there is little of either prose or poetry in Italian.

The author of our specimen is a man illustrious in the literature of Italy, though comparatively little read for some centuries past—Brunetto Latini; remembered chiefly among miscellaneous readers as the preceptor of Dante, and as consigned by that affectionate but unaccommodating pupil to a very ugly circle of his Hell. There, if we may believe the ‘Poet of Rectitude,’ Ser Brunetto, with a ‘baked aspect,’ is at this moment unremittingly walking under an unremitting rain of fire: were he to pause, he would remain moveless for a century, and the torture of the flames would persecute him in aggravated proportion. On the same authority (which it is futile to fence with), I am compelled to say that Brunetto is the last person from whom one need wish to learn the practice, or as a consequence the theory, of modern or European morals.

However, Brunetto seems to have considered that he had a gift that way. Both his leading works may be termed moral-scientific treatises. The longer of the two, the Tesoro, was written in French prose, and is much of a compilation from classic authors in some sections. It had hitherto only been preserved to the public in an old Italian translation, but quite recently the French text has been printed. Sacred, profane, and natural history, geography, oratory, politics, and morals, are the main subject-matter of this encyclopædic labour; than which probably no contemporary produced anything more widely learned, according to the standard of that age. The Tesoretto is a shorter performance, written in Italian verse; shorter, yet still of substantial length, numbering, even in its extant incomplete state, 22 sections or ‘capitoli.’ This is the work upon which I shall draw for our first specimen of an Italian Courtesy-Book. Something bearing upon the like questions might also be gleaned from the Tesoro, but, as that is properly a French book, I leave it aside.

The Tesoretto sets forth that its author, being at Roncesvalles on his return from an embassy in Spain, received the bad news of the battle of Montaperti. Getting astray in a forest, he finds himself in the presence of no less a personage than Dame Nature, who proceeds to give him practical and theoretic demonstrations on all sorts of lofty subjects. She then tells him to explore the forest, where he would find Philosophy, the four Moral Virtues (Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice), Love, Fortune, and Over-reaching (Baratteria). He follows her instructions, searching out these personages from Philosophy on to Love: the four Virtues are attended by many ladies, among whom Brunetto specifies particularly Liberality, Courtesy, Good-faith, and Valour. After his interview with Love, he resolves to reconcile himself with God, and makes a full confession at Montpélier. Having received absolution, he does not return after Fortune and Over-reaching, but goes back to the forest, and thence reaches the summit of Mount Olympus. Here he sees Ptolemy, who is about to harangue him, when suddenly the Tesoretto comes to an end. Its best editor, the Abate Zannoni, supposes that the concluding portion of the poem was written, but has been lost to posterity.

A few words must be added as to the incidents of the author’s life. He was born (probably) not much later than 1220 in the Florentine state, and died in 1294. After the great defeat of the Guelphs by the Ghibellines at Montaperti in 1260, Brunetto, with others of the Guelph party, which was almost uninterruptedly uppermost in Florence, found it expedient to emigrate from that capital. He went to Paris, and there wrote both the Tesoro and Tesoretto. Towards 1265 he was again re-established in his native country, exercising with great credit his profession of a notary, and also (by or before the year 1273) holding the post of secretary to the Commune of Florence. He became, as already mentioned, the preceptor of Dante. As the pupil has damned him to all time at any rate, if not in effect to all eternity, for one offence, let us at least preserve some memory of his countervailing merits, as set forth by Giovanni and Filippo Villani. The former affirms that Brunetto ‘was the initiator and master in refining the Florentines, and cultivating their use of language; and in regulating the justice and rule of our Republic according to policy.’ And, according to Filippo, ‘Brunetto Latini was by profession a philosopher, by occupation a notary, and of great name and celebrity. He showed forth how much of rhetoric he could add to the gifts of nature: a man, if it be permitted to say so, worthy of being reckoned along with those skilled and ancient orators. He was facetious, learned, and acute, and abounded in certain pleasantries of speech; yet not without gravity, and the reserve of modesty, which bespoke a most cordial acceptance for his humour: of agreeable discourse, which often moved to laughter. He was obliging and decorous, and by nature serviceable, reserved, and grave; and most happy in the habit of all virtues, had he been wisely able to endure with a more steadfast mind the outrages of his infuriated country.’

The Tesoretto is of course a mine of curiosities of various kinds, tempting to the literary explorer. To call it distinctly a fine poem, or even the performance of a strictly poetic mind, might be the exaggeration of an enthusiast; but at all events it contains much sound matter well put, and by no means destitute of entertainment. The section that falls in best with our present purpose is the speech assigned to Lady Courtesy: I present it in its entirety.