Part 31

“Another time messer Agostino Bevazzano said that a miser, who had been unwilling to sell his grain while it was dear, afterwards hanged himself in despair from a rafter of his bedroom when he found that the price had greatly fallen; and one of his servants ran in on hearing the noise, saw the miser hanging, and quickly cut the rope and thus rescued him from death. Then, having come to himself, the miser insisted that his servant should pay him for the rope that had been cut.

AGOSTINO BEVAZZANO Flor. 1500 ]

Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 43.161) of a part of the double portrait once owned by Bembo and now in the Doria Gallery at Rome. Although by some critics regarded as an old copy, the picture is affirmed by both Morelli and Berenson to be the work of Raphael (1483-1520), probably painted in April 1516.

“Of the same sort also seems to be what Lorenzo de’ Medici said to a dull buffoon: ‘You would not make me laugh if you tickled me.’ And in like fashion he answered another simpleton who had found him abed very late one morning, and who had reproved him for sleeping so late, saying: ‘I have already been at the New Market and the Old, then outside the San Gallo gate and around the walls for exercise, and have done a thousand things besides; and you are still asleep?’ Then Lorenzo said: ‘What I dreamed in one hour is worth more than what you accomplished in four.’

71.—“It is also fine when in a retort we censure something without apparently meaning to censure it. For instance, the Marquess Federico of Mantua, father to our lady Duchess, being at table with many gentlemen, one of them said after eating an entire bowl of stew: ‘Pardon me, my lord Marquess;’ and so saying he began to gulp down the broth that remained. Then the Marquess said quickly: ‘Ask pardon rather of the swine, for you do me no wrong at all.’

“Again, to censure a tyrant who was falsely reputed to be generous, messer Niccolò Leonico said: ‘Think what generosity rules him, for he gives away not his own things only, but other men’s as well!’

72.—“Another very pretty form of pleasantry is that which consists in a kind of innuendo, when we say one thing and tacitly imply another. Of course I do not mean another thing of a completely different kind, like calling a dwarf gigantic and a negro white or a very ugly man handsome, for the difference is too obvious,—although even these sometimes cause laughter; but I mean when with stern and serious air we humourously say something in jest which is not our real thought. For instance, when a gentleman told a palpable lie to messer Agostino Foglietta and affirmed it stoutly on seeing that he had much difficulty in believing it, messer Agostino said at last: ‘Fair sir, if I may ever hope to receive kindness from you, do me the favour to be content even if I do not believe anything you say.’ But as the other repeated, and under oath, that it was the truth, he finally said: ‘Since you will have it so, I will believe it for your sake, for indeed I would do even a greater thing than this for you.’

“Don Giovanni di Cardona said something nearly of this sort about a man who wished to leave Rome: ‘To my thinking the fellow is ill advised, for he is so great a rascal that by staying on at Rome he might in time become a cardinal.’ Of this sort also is what was said by Alfonso Santacroce, who had shortly before suffered some outrage from the Cardinal of Pavia. While strolling with several gentlemen near the place of public execution outside Bologna, he saw a man who had recently been hanged, and turning towards the body with a thoughtful air, he said loud enough for everyone to hear him: ‘Happy thou, who hast naught to do with the Cardinal of Pavia.’

73.—“And this sort of pleasantry which is tinged with irony seems very becoming to great men, because it is dignified and sharp, and can be used in jocose as well as in serious matters. Hence many ancients (and those among the most esteemed) have used it, like Cato and Scipio Africanus the Younger; but above all men, the philosopher Socrates is said to have excelled in it. And in our own times King Alfonso I of Aragon, who, being about to eat one morning, took off the many precious rings that he had on his fingers, in order not to wet them in washing his hands, and so gave them to the first person he happened on, almost without looking to see who it was. This servant supposed that the king had taken no notice who received them, and by reason of weightier cares would easily forget them altogether; and in this he was the more confirmed, seeing that the king did not ask for them again; and as he saw days, weeks and months pass without hearing a word about them, he thought he was surely safe. Accordingly, nearly a year after this had happened, he presented himself again one morning as the king was about to eat, and held out his hand to receive the rings; whereupon the king bent close to his ear and said to him: ‘Let the first ones suffice thee, because these will do for someone else.’ You see how biting, clever and dignified the sally was, and how truly worthy the exalted spirit of an Alexander.

OTTAVIANO UBALDINI Died 1498 ]

Enlarged from Braun’s photograph (no. 19.553) of the painting, “Astronomy,” by Melozzo degli Ambrosi da Forli (1438-1494). The picture, of which this head is a detail, was one of a series of panels painted to decorate Duke Federico di Montefeltro’s library in the palace of Urbino, but is now in the Royal Museum at Berlin. For iconographical identification, see Schmarzow’s Melozzo da Forli, ein Beitrag zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Italiens im XV Jahrhundert (Berlin: 1886), p. 84.

74.—“Similar to this manner (which savours of the ironical) is another method, that of describing an evil thing in polite terms. As the Great Captain said to one of his cavaliers, who, after the battle of Cerignola, when the danger was over, came forward in the richest armour possible to describe, accoutered as if for battle. And then the Great Captain turned to Don Ugo di Cardona and said: ‘Have no more fear of storm, for Saint Elmo has appeared;’ and with this polite speech he stung the man to the quick, because you know that Saint Elmo always appears to mariners after the tempest and gives token of fair weather; and thus the Great Captain meant that this cavalier’s appearance was a token that the danger was quite passed.

“Another time my lord Ottaviano Ubaldini, being at Florence in the company of some citizens of great influence, and the talk being about soldiers, one of them asked him if he knew Antonello da Forli, who had at that time fled from Florentine territory. My lord Ottaviano replied: ‘I do not know him, but have always heard him spoken of as a prompt soldier.’ Whereupon another Florentine said: ‘You see how prompt he is, when he takes his departure without asking leave.’

75.—“Those witticisms also are very clever in which we take from our interlocutor’s lips something that he does not mean. And of this kind, methinks, was my lord Duke’s reply to the castellan who lost San Leo when this duchy was taken by Pope Alexander and given to Duke Valentino; and it was this: my lord Duke being in Venice at the time I have mentioned, many of his subjects came continually to give him secret news how things were faring in his state; and among the rest came this castellan, who, after having excused himself as best he could, ascribing the blame to mischance, said: ‘Have no anxiety, my Lord, because I still have heart to take measures for the recovery of San Leo.’ Then my lord Duke replied: ‘Trouble yourself no more about the matter, for the mere loss of it was a measure that rendered its recovery possible.’

“There are certain other sayings when a man known to be clever says something that seems to proceed from foolishness. For instance, messer Camillo Paleotto said of someone the other day: ‘He was such a fool that he died as soon as he began to grow rich.’

“Of like kind with this is a spicy and keen dissimulation, where a man (discreet, as I have said) pretends not to understand something that he does understand. Like what was said by the Marquess Federico of Mantua, who,—being pestered by a tiresome fellow who complained that some of his neighbours were snaring doves out of his dovecote, and all the while held one of them in his hand, hanging dead just as he had found it with its foot caught in the snare,—replied that the matter should be looked to. The fellow repeated the story of his loss not once only but many times, always displaying the dove that had been hanged, and saying: ‘And what, my Lord, do you think ought to be done in this case?’ At last the Marquess said: ‘I think the dove ought on no account to be buried in church, for having hanged itself, it must be believed to have committed suicide.’

“Somewhat of the same fashion was the retort made by Scipio Nasica to Ennius. Once when Scipio went to Ennius’s house to speak with him and called him down from the street, one of his maids replied that he was not at home; and Scipio distinctly heard Ennius himself tell the maid to say he was not at home, and so went away. Not long afterwards Ennius came to Scipio’s house and likewise called to him from below; whereupon Scipio himself replied in a loud voice that he was not at home. Then Ennius replied: ‘How? Do I not know thy voice?’ Scipio said: ‘Thou art too rude. The other day I believed thy maid when she said thou wert not at home, and now thou wilt not believe the like from me in person.’

76.—“It is also a fine thing when a man is struck in the very same place where he first struck his fellow. As in the case of messer Alonso Carillo, who, being at the Spanish court and having committed some youthful peccadilloes of no great importance, was put in prison by the king’s order and left there overnight. The next day he was taken out, and so going to the palace in the morning, he reached the hall where there were many cavaliers and ladies. And as they were laughing at his imprisonment, my lady Boadilla said: ‘Signor Alonso, your mishap weighed on me heavily, for all your acquaintance thought the king would have you hanged.’ Then Alonso said quickly: ‘My Lady, I was much afraid of it myself; but then I had hope that you would ask me to be your husband.’ You see how sharp and clever this was, because in Spain (as in many other countries too) the custom is that when a man is led to the gallows, his life is given him if a public courtesan begs him for her husband.

RAPHAEL 1483-1520 ]

Enlarged from a part of Weinwurm’s photograph (no. 1384) of the portrait, in the National Gallery at Buda-Pest, by Sebastiano Luciani “del Piombo” (1485-1547). In the Scarpia collection at La Motta di Livenza, this picture passed for years as a portrait by Raphael of the Ferrarese courtier-poet Antonio Tebaldeo. On purely intrinsic evidence, both Morelli and Berenson identify it as a portrait of Raphael at the age of 26 or 27 years.

“In this manner also the painter Raphael replied to two cardinals with whom he was on familiar terms, and who (to make him talk) were finding fault in his presence with a picture that he had painted,—in which St. Peter and St. Paul were represented,—saying that these two figures were too red in the face. Then Raphael at once said: ‘My Lords, be not concerned; because I painted them so with full intention, since we have reason to believe that St. Peter and St. Paul are as red in Heaven as you see them here, for shame that their Church should be governed by such men as you.’

77.—“Very keen also are those witticisms that have a certain latent spice of fun in them. As where a husband was making great lament and weeping for his wife, who had hanged herself on a fig-tree, another man approached him and plucking him by the robe, said: ‘Brother, might I as a great favour have a small branch of that fig-tree to graft upon some tree in my garden?’

“Some other witticisms need an air of patience and are slowly uttered with a certain gravity. As where a rustic, who was carrying a box on his shoulders, jostled it against Cato, and then said: ‘Have a care.’ Cato replied: ‘Hast thou aught else but that chest upon thy shoulders?’

“Moreover we laugh when a man has made a blunder, and to mend it says something of set purpose that seems silly and yet tends to the object he has in view, and thus keeps himself in countenance. For instance, in the Florentine Council not long ago there were (as often happens in these republics) two enemies, and one of them, who was of the Altoviti family, fell asleep. And although his adversary, who was of the Alamanni family, was not speaking and had not spoken, yet to raise a laugh the man who sat next Altoviti woke him with a touch of the elbow, and said: ‘Do you not hear what So and So says? Make answer, as the Signors are asking for your opinion.’ Thereupon Altoviti rose to his feet all drowsy as he was, and said without stopping to think: ‘My Lords, I say just the opposite of what Alamanni said.’ Alamanni replied: ‘But I said nothing.’ ‘Then,’ said Altoviti at once, ‘the opposite of whatever you may say.’

“Of this kind also was what your Urbino physician, master Serafino, said to a rustic, who had received a hard blow in the eye so that it was forced quite out, yet decided to seek aid from master Serafino. On seeing him, although aware that it was impossible to cure him, still in order to force money from his hands (just as the blow had forced the eye from his head), the doctor readily promised to cure him, and accordingly demanded money from him every day, affirming that he would begin to recover his sight within five or six days. The poor rustic gave what little he had; then, seeing that the affair was progressing slowly, he began to complain of the physician, and to say that he felt no benefit at all and saw no more with that eye than as if he had it not in his head. At last master Serafino, seeing that he would be able to extort little more from the man, said: ‘Brother, you must have patience. You have lost your eye and there is no longer any help for it; and may God grant that you do not lose your other eye as well.’ On hearing this, the rustic began to weep and complain loudly, and said: ‘Master, you have ruined me and stolen my money. I will complain to my lord Duke;’ and he made the greatest outcry in the world. Then, to clear himself, master Serafino said angrily: ‘Ah, wretched traitor! So you would have two eyes, as city-folk and rich men have? To perdition with you!’ and accompanied these words with such fury that the poor rustic was frightened into silence and quietly went his way in peace, believing himself to be in the wrong.

78.—“It is also fine to explain or interpret a thing jocosely. As when at the court of Spain there appeared one morning in the palace a cavalier who was very ugly, and his wife who was very beautiful, both dressed in white damask (damasco),—the queen said to Alonso Carillo: ‘What think you of these two, Alonso?’ ‘My Lady,’ replied Alonso, ‘I think she is the dama (lady), and he is the asco,’ which means monster.

FRANCESCO ALIDOSI CARDINAL OF PAVIA Died 1511 ]

Reduced from Giraudon’s photograph (no. 1528) of an anonymous bas-relief in the Louvre. The features strikingly resemble those of Francesco Francia’s medal of Alidosi, but are very unlike those shown in a picture by Raphael (in the Prado Gallery at Madrid), which M. Müntz regards as a portrait of the same personage. See L’Archivio Storico dell’Arte for 1891, pp. 328-32.