Part 14

I have translated literally; but that of course makes something very like nonsense in English. To ‘make the fig’ is a gesture of the thumb and fingers, understood as gross and insulting in the highest degree. The general sense of the passage is therefore—‘He fancies he is thus testifying in his own honour, whereas it really does redound to his own extreme shame.’ Readers of Dante, remembering the splendid canzone

‘Le dolci rime d’amor ch’ io solia,’

in which he refutes the false and defines the true bases of ‘nobility’ (gentilezza), will perceive that the illustrious pupil had been to a great extent anticipated by the teaching of his early instructor. Francesco da Barberino (Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne) adopts a middle course, discriminating ‘gentilezza’ thus: ‘Nobility is twoform in quality and in origin. The first is a state of the human soul contented in virtue, hostile to vice, exulting in the good of others, and pitiful in their adversity. The second is mastery over men or riches, derived from of old, sensitive to shame when brought low.’

Here, on the contrary, we come to a precept the reverse of Dantesque. Yet, on combining this passage with that which opens the ensuing paragraph, it would seem that Brunetto does not mean to recommend connivance with anything that is positively evil, but only with current habits and fashions, objectionable though they may be, in matters essentially indifferent—as of speech and deportment.

‘Briccon’—the colloquial term still in daily use among Italians.

‘Solo d’una canzone:’ literally, ‘merely for one song.’ The Abate Zannoni understands this to mean ‘per aver una sola volta canzonato femmina.’ He admits that this sense of the phrase is not discoverable in that fetish of the Italian pedant, the Dizionario della Crusca; but as I have no superior authority to oppose to that of Abate Zannoni, I have followed his interpretation.

This seems strange doctrine—that love of courtesy and love of women cannot co-exist in the same man—if we are to accept it in its amplest sense. Perhaps, however, we are to understand that the speaker is still confining his censures to miscellaneous and unsanctioned amours or flirtations, especially with married women.

Poesie Lombarde Inedite del Secolo 13, publicate ed illustrate da B. Biondelli. Milano: Bernardoni. 1856. We are indebted to Signor Biondelli’s courtesy for a copy of this curious and interesting work.

Bonvexino (pronounced Bonvesino) is, in modern Italian, Bonvicino—i.e. good neighbour.

‘Afresh’ represents the Italian ‘de frescho.’ Signor Biondelli considers that the phrase means ‘afresh,’ indicating that Fra Bonvesino had written his Courtesies in Latin before turning them into Italian. Signor Biondelli, however, admits that ‘de frescho’ may also mean ‘now recently,’ ‘just now’; and, but for his contrary preference, I should attribute that meaning to the word in the present instance.

‘Noxe.’ I suppose this must represent the modern-Italian word ‘nozze,’ nuptials, though the incident of a wedding seems rather suddenly introduced at this point, and does not re-appear afterwards.

Signor Biondelli understands this stanza in a somewhat different sense, as applying to the assigning of dishes, not the signing of the cross as a grace before meat. The reference to Christ seems to me to create a strong presumption in favour of my interpretation.

It is clear from the general context that the victuals here spoken of as to be eaten with a spoon are solid edibles—not merely soups or the like: the spoon corresponding to the modern fork. The word translated ‘suck’ is ‘sorbilar:’ perhaps ‘mumble’ would convey the force of the precept more fully though less literally.

I feel some doubt as to the meaning of this passage.

This appears to be the general sense of the last two lines. In the final one Signor Biondelli gives up two words as unintelligible: he infers that they must be miscopied.

This seems to contemplate the plan of the several guests helping themselves off the dish brought to table. At any rate, so Signor Biondelli understands it.

‘Donzello.’ This precept seems to be especially addressed to the servitors. Uguccione Pisano, quoted by Muratori, says: ‘Donnicelli et Domicellæ dicuntur quando pulchri juvenes magnatum sunt sicut servientes.’ Such Donzelli were not allowed to sit at table with the knights; or, if allowed, had to sit apart on a lower seat.

‘Drapi da pey.’ I confess to some uncertainty as to what sort of thing these ‘foot-cloths’ may have been. Signor Biondelli terms them ‘the cloths wherewith the feet were wrapped round and dried.’ He adds: ‘This precept apprizes us that at that time the use of a pocket-handkerchief was not yet introduced, and perhaps not even the use of stockings.’ One would fain hope that the summit of Lombardic good breeding in 1290 was not the wiping of noses on cloths actually and at the moment serving for the feet. Possibly drapi da pey is here a generic term; cloths or napkins at hand for use, and which might have served for foot-cloths. Thus the word ‘duster’ might be employed in a similar connection, without our being compelled to suppose that the individual duster had first been used on the spot for dusting the tables or floors, and then for wiping the nose. Or indeed, we moderns, who wipe our noses on hand-kerchiefs, do not first use said kerchiefs for wiping our hands, nor yet for covering our heads (‘couvre chef’).—Reverting to Signor Biondelli’s observation as to ‘the use of stockings,’ I may observe that Francesco da Barberino, in a passage of his Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne, speaks of ‘the beautiful foot shod in silk’—‘calzato in seta’—which may imply either a stocking or else a shoe. This poem, as we shall see further on, is but little later than Bonvicino’s.—The reader may also observe, at p. 68, the horror with which a much later writer, Della Casa, contemplated the use of a dinner-napkin as a pocket-handkerchief.

‘Chi s’ asetilia.’ Signor Biondelli cannot assign the exact sense of this verb. I should suppose it to be either a form of ‘Assettarsi,’ to settle oneself, to keep one’s place, or a corruption of ‘Assottigliarsi,’ to subtilize, to be punctilious, to ‘look sharp.’

‘D’alchun obediente.’ This phrase, if directly connected with the ‘Jesu Xristo’ of the previous line, seems peculiar. I am not quite clear whether the whole stanza is to be understood as an injunction to render grace after meat, in thankfulness for what Christ has given one—or to thank the servants who have been waiting at table, and so to glorify Christ by an act of humility.

‘Dro bon vino dra carera.’ The general sense is evidently near what the translation gives: but Signor Biondelli is unable to assign the precise sense. No wonder therefore that I am unable.

Several others must nevertheless have been written before or about the same time; for Barberino himself, in the exordium to his Reggimento e Costumi delle Donne, says—

‘There have been many who wrote books Concerning the elegant manners of men, but not of women.’

A full account of it by Mr Eugene Oswald follows the present Essay.

This injunction forms stanza 4 in our extract from Barberino beginning at p. 38.

See at p. 40, the stanza beginning ‘And I think that he does amiss.’

The Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo d’Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300), in the Original Metres: together with Dante’s Vita Nuova. Translated by D. G. Rossetti. Smith and Elder, 1862.

There is evidently something erroneous in this statement: Brunetto died in 1294. The Editor of a collection of Italian Poets (Lirici del Secolo secondo, & c.—Venezia, Antonelli, 1841) says: ‘Francesco went through his first studies under Brunetto Latini. Hence he passed to the Universities of Padua and of Bologna.’ Barberino being a Tuscan, this seems the natural course for him to adopt, rather than to have gone to Padua and Bologna before Florence. My brother’s remark, as to the death of Neri in 1296, and as to Francesco’s subsequent sojourn in Florence, agrees, however, with the statement made by Tiraboschi: apparently we should understand that Francesco had been in Florence both before and after his stay in Padua and Bologna, and that his studies under Brunetto pertain to the earlier period.