Part 16

The comparison whereby our Archbishop illustrates the condition of the napkins must perfume our page only in its native Italian—‘Che le pezze degli agiamenti sono più nette.’

This is affirmed by Xenophon of the Persians: he says in the Cyropædia that, both of old and in his own time, they did without either spitting or blowing the nose—a proof of temperance, and of energetic exercise which carried off the moisture of the body.

Stecco. ‘Toothpick’ is the only appropriate technical sense for stecco given in the dictionaries; and I suppose it is correct here, although Della Casa’s very next sentence, denouncing the carrying of this implement round the neck, designates it by the word stuzzicadenti, and it seems odd that the two terms should be thus juxta-posed or opposed. If stecco does not in this passage really mean ‘toothpick,’ I should infer that it indicates some skewer-like object, used possibly as a fork—i.e. to secure the viands on the plate, while they are severed with a spoon, and by that conveyed to the mouth (see pp. 21 and 34 as to the use of spoon instead of fork in Bonvicino’s time). This would in fact be a sort of chop-stick. Such an inference is quite compatible with the general sense of the word stecco—any stake or splint of wood.

Cecchina is a double diminutive of Francesca; corresponding to ‘Fannikin’ or ‘Fan.’

The English reader may fancy that this passage conflicts with that which immediately precedes: but such is not the case. In the earlier passage, the use of You was recommended as more civil than Thou: in the later passage, the use of Vossignoria (or other the like impersonal term, where appropriate) as more respectful than You.

This is, I think, still a national trait among Italians, and a most creditable one: the endless grades and sub-grades, shades and demi-shades, of good society, as maintained in England (with an instinct comparable to the marvellous power of a bat to wing its dark way amid any number of impediments, and to be impeded by none of them), are unintelligible to ordinary Italians—or, where intelligible, detestable. Long may they remain so!

Nobili. I presume this is to be understood literally; the household in which noblemen could be thus employed being of course one of exalted position.